From Citizen Outreach:

By: Chuck Muth

NEVADA AG FULL OF YUCK

“The United States Department of Energy submitted its license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 3,” writes Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto in a guest op/ed appearing in Sunday’s Nevada Appeal. “Nevada’s experts reviewed the application and quickly concluded that it is neither viable nor complete.”

Interesting that the AG didn’t specify exactly who these “Nevada experts” were. For all we know, the “experts” are former high school history teachers.

Additionally, as the Associated Press described it, “The application itself covers 17 volumes and 8,600 pages and is supported by more than 200 other documents and studies.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to take anywhere from three to four YEARS to go through all that information before reaching a decision on whether or not to license the repository.

So how, pray tell, did Cortez-Masto’s “experts” go “quickly” through 8,600 pages in just three to four DAYS to reach their conclusions, hmmm?

The problem with the knee-jerk opposition of Nevada’s elected officials over Yucca Mountain these days is that they now have even less credibility than they accuse the Department of Energy of having. And that’s saying something.

JON PORTER FULL OF YUCK

Joseph Cooper of Politicker Nevada posed ten questions to embattled Rep. Jon Porter who is facing a serious challenge to his seat by former Democrat Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus. One of those questions was this:

“Conservative activist Chuck Muth issued an analysis last week that found that Titus voted more conservatively in the state senate than many Republican senators last year. Will this make it harder to label her as too liberal in your race?”

Porter’s answer: “From what I understand, she raised taxes twenty-six times.”

Jon Porter needs some new understanding.

As much as I hate defending Dina Titus – after all, I ran against her in 1996 – Porter is just dead wrong on this and shouldn’t be claiming it in an interview. The fact is there were only five bills to come forward in the state Senate last year to raise taxes and Citizen Outreach included each of them in our ratings project. There weren’t 26 votes to raise taxes; there were five. And Sen. Titus voted against four of them.

That being said, maybe Rep. Porter’s “understanding” is that Sen. Titus has voted to raise taxes 26 times in her career. If so, he’s dead wrong there, as well.

In fact, way back in 1996 we researched Sen. Titus’ tax-hiking record for my campaign. And back then, some 12 years ago, we were able to document that she’d voted to raise taxes and fees a whooping 176 times! We even did a mail piece to that effect. Lord knows how many times she’s voted to raise taxes or fees since then, but I can guarantee that it’s far more than 26 times. She didn’t get the nickname “Dina Taxus” for nuthin’.

Dina’s tax-hike record is bad enough in reality that Rep. Porter shouldn’t be using our 2007 Ratings of the Nevada Legislature to misrepresent it.

SETTING SPENDING PRIORITIES

All manner of public education apologists are coming out of the woodwork bemoaning proposed cuts in education, maintaining that any cuts will irreparably harm the public schools. What they consistently fail to acknowledge; however, is that we’ve been increasing the amount of money going into public education exponentially in every legislative session since the dawn of time and yet our public schools overall still – how to put this gently – suck.

So if increasing spending on education hasn’t helped, doesn’t that mean that money isn’t the answer and that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to try something else; something, like, maybe…school vouchers?

That being said and suggested, let me sorta concede one point in this discussion to the other side. The fact is, all government spending isn’t created equal…and simple across the board cuts to every department is the wrong way to go. Unless, of course, as suggested by Budget Czar Andrew Clinger a couple months ago, the law REQUIRES that all such cuts by the governor be across-the-board cuts.

Otherwise, it’s time to acknowledge that things such as education are more important than the Nevada Arts Council, the Onion Growers Board and the Equal Rights Commission.

Rather than cutting everything across the board, it’s long past time to look at everything the government is doing and decide what is truly legitimate and necessary and start chopping from the bottom up. Once and only once all non-priority, non-essential, non-legitimate spending has been eliminated completely can or should the state even remotely consider tax hikes or using the tobacco settlement money to plug holes in the budget.

If only we had a commission whose mission was to set government spending priorities and make recommendations as to what to cut rather than just ways to make government more efficient…

WHY THE PAULTARD CONFAB AIN’T KOSHER

A small band of wacko, “newbie” Ron Paul supporters, led by some guy in Reno named Wayne Terhune, is attempting to reconvene the Nevada Republican Convention on their own later this month. Nevada GOP Chieftess Sue Lowden posted a full explanation as to why this gig won’t fly – legally or otherwise – on her blog today, citing chapter and verse. THIS ought to drive the Paultards over the edge and have them chugging the Kool-Aid by dinner. Catch it HERE

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“First lady Dawn Gibbons’ lawyer Cal Dunlap has filed a factual affidavit to support the scathing brief he released last week that accused Gov. Jim Gibbons of abandoning his marriage because of an infatuation with another woman. Ironically, Dunlap is refusing to release the document. . . . Dunlap said he’s not releasing the factual affidavit because he doesn’t want to throw more fuel on the media frenzy that erupted last week when he released the first brief.”

- Anjeanette Damon, Inside Nevada Politics, 6/6/08