From Citizen Outreach:

By: Chuck Muth

EXCITING DOUBLE ISSUE!

For reasons explained better below, I’ve been away from my computer for much of the past week. Will try to make up for the deficiency with this “fun-filled, star-studded, action-packed” special Saturday double-issue of Nevada News & Views…

DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

This Internet thingy Al Gore invented still has some bugs in it. For reasons I neither understand nor can explain, all emails sent to me yesterday from around 9 a.m. to about 6 p.m. disappeared into cyber-space. So if you sent me something important during those hours, please resend.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

Way back in 2002, the Muth clan loaded up the truck and moved from Las Vegas to Washington, DC. But living in and around the nation’s capital wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So we moved back to Nevada in the fall of 2005, but opted to try out northern Nevada. So we set up camp in Carson City.

And while living in our state capital has been an absolutely wonderful experience, my business interests now primarily lie in Las Vegas. In addition to moving the annual Conservative Leadership Conference to there this fall, I recently signed on to do political commentary/analysis for Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV-Channel 13 for the duration of the 2008 election season.

Plus…I just don’t like cold weather.

So this past week Gia, the kids and I drove down to Las Vegas and bought a house in Henderson. With any luck at all, we should close and be back “home” by the end of July. I can’t wait to invite Francis Allen and Garn Mabey over for margaritas!

TUBE TIP

Jon Ralston, Dean of Nevada Political Punditry, discussed the Gibbons vs. Gibbons divorce battle this week on his “Face-to-Face” television program with former Nevada GOP executive director Ryan Erwin and liberal blogger Hugh Jackson.

Erwin turned in a masterful performance, refusing to “spin” and leveling some candid and legitimate criticisms of Gov. Gibbons for how the matter has been handled to date. This is the kind of frank and honest commentary which often gets me in trouble with Republican Party pooh-bahs, but if you’re going to have any credibility with the media you have to call it straight even when it involves political allies. And to his credit, Erwin did exactly that.

If you missed it, catch it HERE on the web.

ABOUT THE GUV’S POLL NUMBERS

A Las Vegas Review-Journal poll this week showed that only 3 percent of those surveyed in Nevada think Gov. Jim Gibbons is doing a “great” job. However, if you drop Gibbons’ co-chiefs-of-staff Diane Cornwall and Mike Dayton from the survey group, that number drops to…well, um…zero. But look on the bright side. Things can only get better from here. I think.

ABOUT THE BUDGET SHORTFALL

Media reports on the special session of the Legislature which Gov. Gibbons has called to address the growing revenue shortfall may be confusing a number of Nevadans.

It’s often reported that there is a $1 billion hole to plug, but that’s a little misleading. While the overall shortfall is approaching $1 billion when compared to the budget the Legislature passed in 2007, we’re really only looking at about $60 million now. That’s because the governor has already filled about $914 million of that shortfall – and as his press secretary has pointed out, “without firing an employee, raising taxes or providing any truly large cuts into state services.”

The special session called for June 23rd won’t be trying to make up a $1 billion revenue shortfall. It’ll be trying to make up a $60 million revenue shortfall. That’s a BIG difference.

COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS

By the way, Lorne Malkiewich of the Legislative Counsel Bureau estimates that the cost of convening a special five-day session of the Legislature will be about $300,000. Newly-minted Senate Minority Leader Steven Horsford says this is a “waste (of) taxpayer dollars.”

Sen. Horsford must be using public school math. You see, it will cost taxpayers $300,000 to call a special session in which AT LEAST $60 million will be cut from what taxpayers are currently being forced to spend. So rather than “costing” taxpayers $300 thousand to hold the special session, the special session will actually result in a net SAVINGS to taxpayer of AT LEAST $59.7 million.

With a return on investment like that, maybe we should have special sessions every month!

THE TWO FACES OF BARBARA BUCKLEY

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley (D-ACLU), had a veritable conniption over Gov. Jim Gibbons calling for a special session to address the ongoing budget challenges.

“So, the governor is saying he believes we have a budget crisis, but is proposing no solutions to deal with the budget crisis,” Buckley whined yesterday afternoon. “I find that ludicrous. To now just abdicate his responsibility to come up with suggestions to ensure a balanced budget just defies logic. It shows an incredible lack of leadership not to have identified a problem, proposed a solution and reached out to all legislators to get buy in for that solution.”

Folks, that’s pure, unadulterated political bullspit, with more than a pinch of hypocrisy thrown in for seasoning. This is a potential future gubernatorial candidate trying to have her cake and eat it, too.

When the state’s budget problems first hit radar screens last December, Gov. Gibbons proposed a number of measures to address the problem, including instructions to government department heads to prepare recommendations for across-the-board reductions in spending increases of 4 percent. Upon taking that bull by the horns and exhibiting leadership on the problem, Barbara Buckley and a number of Democrats howled like scalded dogs over not being involved in the decisions. And they’ve been yelping at the governor’s heels ever since.

But now that the governor has called the Legislature back into session, Barbara Buckley suddenly wants to have no part of the process. Apparently she would rather continue sitting up in the peanut gallery throwing spitballs. She doesn’t want to be part of finding a solution to a serious problem. She just wants to lay blame. THAT is irresponsible. THAT is a lack of leadership. THAT is Barbara Buckley.

CHEAP SHOT ARTISTS

A little reality check here. This budget problem in Nevada has been ongoing for several months now. It’s nothing new. We’ve all seen the possibility of a special session coming for weeks. And if delaying cost-of-living increases for state workers is to be considered as a means of addressing the problem, it (a) has to be done by the Legislature and (b) has to be done before the raises are scheduled to take effect on July 1st.

So calling a five-day special session to begin on June 23rd is exactly what has to be done and when it needs to be done. But that didn’t stop Speaker Barbara Buckley (D) and her “mini-me” from Reno, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie (D), from using the special session to take some cheap, personal and undignified partisan shots at Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons.

“I’m convinced the only reason the special session is being called is to change the subject,” Buckley is quoted today as saying to the Nevada Appeal’s Geoff Dornan. “He’s tired of stories about his text-life.”

My, how clever. ROTFLMAO. How long did it take you to come up with that one, Madame Speaker?

“Clearly (calling the special session is) an attempt to change the conversation from his disastrous personal life,” bawk, bawk, bawked Leslie to Anjeanette Damon of the Reno Gazette-Journal. “He’s almost acting like one of our bipolar clients. He swings from being rational and reasonable to completely erratic behavior.”

Nice. Denigrating folks suffering from bipolar disease for political purposes. What a class act.

Buckley and Leslie should be ashamed of themselves for sinking to this level of political dialogue. This is the kind of childish, unhinged, cheap-shot rhetoric one would expect from the likes of Hugh Jackson over at the Las Vegas Gleaner, not the Speaker of the Assembly or the Chairwoman of the Committee on Health and Human Services.

Actually, no. It is EXACTLY the kind of behavior I’ve come to expect from this pair of very partisan, very liberal legislators. Democrats should be so proud.

SPEAKING OF BEING FULL OF CRAP

It didn’t take long for the teachers union to weigh in on the upcoming special session and the possibility that an expected 4 percent pay hike for teachers may be delayed to ease the budget crunch. Claudia Briggs, Director of Communications & Special Projects for the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) released a statement late yesterday afternoon which included this asinine accusation:

“(Gov. Jim Gibbons is) trying to solve the problem he has created on the backs of educators.”

Considering how divorced from reality these union people are, combined with their willingness to say absolutely anything without regard for truthfulness, is it any wonder public education in this state is in such dismal shape?

First, Gov. Gibbons didn’t create the revenue shortfall problem. He had no control over the rising price of gasoline nationally. He had no control over the national problem of bank foreclosures. He had no control over the fact that fewer people can afford to take a Vegas vacation and spend as much money at the blackjack tables as before. To suggest that Jim Gibbons “created” this problem is patently absurd.

Secondly, Gov. Gibbons has already “cut” $914 million dollars to fill the budget shortfall. But now it might be necessary to delay a pay increase for all government employees to make up an additional $60 million. And this equates to solving the problem “on the back of educators”? How do these people sleep at night?

SPEAKING OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Nevada Board of Education has determined that answering 36 out of 60 multiple-guess general science questions correctly constitutes “passing” for the new science proficiency test. So getting a score of 60 – which in the old days was considered a failing grade – is now considered passing by the Nevada Board of Education. So much for vigorous standards.

Nevertheless, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports today that 41 percent of high school sophomores STILL flunked the test…and this was reported as “good” news! Richard Vineyard, an education department bureaucrat, actually had the stones to tell the paper that the results “were much better than I hoped.”

His expectations must not have reached curb level.

TIME TO PULL PLUG ON PAULTARD CONVENTION

As you already know, Ron Paul “officially” pulled the plug on his presidential campaign this week. In a prepared statement, the Republican congressman from Texas wrote:

“Now what about the Republican Convention in St. Paul? Our delegates will attend, of course, and I expect our contingent to have a visible presence there. Without disruption, we will do whatever we can to influence the party and its platform, and return the GOP to its limited-government roots.”

Sure hope Wayne Terhune and the small band of fringe Paul supporters trying to conduct their own rogue convention in Nevada got the memo. The key words in Paul’s letter, of course, are “Without disruption.” That means attending the official Nevada Republican Convention in Reno on July 26th and participating “to influence the party and its platform,” not conducting a separate and unauthorized “convention” of their own in an effort to…well, disrupt things.

Any bets on whether or not the Nevada Paultards heed their leader’s words and pull the plug on their rogue confab?

THE CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY

“Amid reports that (Ron) Paul would formally end his presidential campaign, the iconoclastic Texas Republican congressman instead told supporters Thursday night that he intended to lead a ‘Campaign for Liberty’ movement to give libertarians a bigger say within the GOP. . . . Chuck Muth, a libertarian Republican activist in Carson City, Nev., welcomed Paul’s move. He said the Republican Party needed to find ideological room for libertarians or lose them to the independent Libertarian Party, whose presidential candidate is Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia.”

- Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times, 6/13/08

(Correction: I’m a FORMER Republican; I’m now registered independent, like Nevada)

EMBRACE THE WASTE

“Nevada’s lawmakers continue to blast a plan for a waste repository – not dump – in our state. I think it should be (Sen. Harry) Reid and (Sen. John) Ensign panting for air, not this project. It is not a project whose time has passed; rather it has become a fear-mongering issue for Reid and Ensign. As much as this project has been scrutinized, they have not proven to me it is not a valuable resource for Nevada. Perhaps our elected officials need as much scrutiny. Wake up, Nevada. This valuable commodity is here. Let it work for this great state.”

- Bill Strickland of Elko, Reno Gazette-Journal, 6/12/08

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“Most public employees get a step increase of 4-1/2 % already. The 4% COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) is in addition to that. Again, the 4% COLA is on top of the 4-1/2%.”

- Republican Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert in a memo to GOP caucus members yesterday

Sphere It