NoisyRoom.net

By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

• U.S. troops battle both Taliban and their own Rules of Engagement – “We have to follow the Karzai 12 rules. But the Taliban has no rules. Our soldiers have to juggle all these rules and regulations and they do it without hesitation despite everything. It’s not easy for anyone out here.”
• Keystone Corporation Announces Endorsements (Monte Miller) – Today, the Keystone Corporation, Nevada’s leading political voice for free market business development, private sector job creation and fiscal conservatism, announced endorsements in key state senate races for the upcoming 2010 election cycle.
• Without Stupak Amendment, Government Will Fund and Subsidize Abortion (Don Nelson – Does Harry Reid support the Stupak Amendment which passed the House 240-194 to keep government funding out of health care reform?
• The politics of government usurpation, post-Kelo (Paul Jacob) – Strong-arm, power politics — how long does it take self-proclaimed “caring” folks to learn that such tactics cannot lead to their promised peaceful, loving utopia?

Click here to read these stories at the Nevada News & Views site!

SURVEY SAYS!

Do you support President Obama’s decision to move the 9-11 terrorists to New York for a civilian, rather than military trial?

• Yes
• No
• HELL NO!!
• Can’t we all just get along?
• What was the question again?

To cast your vote in today’s online survey, click here!

DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS

All in the Family – Without doubt, one of my favorite elected officials in all of Nevada is Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley of Tonopah. She not only knows her issues and is on the “right” side of them, but she’s politically savvy as well…and a darned nice person to boot. You don’t hit that triple crown in politics very often.

And it appears the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree.

Joni’s son, Philip, won his first campaign last week in Amherst, Ohio. There was a four-way race for three at-large city council seats. He was the top vote-getter, beating out three incumbents – two Democrats and one Republican.

The Republican candidate had previously been appointed to the seat when the incumbent resigned to take a position in the state capitol. Philip expressed an interest in being appointed at the time, but the party pooh-bahs wouldn’t support him – probably the same type of clods who thought picking DeDe Scuzzyfavabeans or whatever her name was, was a good idea in NY 23. Instead they chose someone who had run for the seat three times previously and lost.

So Phil did it the hard way. When the seat came up for an election by the people and not an anointment by the GOP party brass, he threw his hat in the ring. The party elders still wouldn’t support him. He won anyway. Revenge: A dish best served cold. Congratulations, Phil.

And you, too, Joni!

What About Joe? – As you’ll find on the Nevada News & Views headline page today, the conservative business organization Keystone Corporation announced its state Senate endorsements today. But perhaps the biggest news of the announcement was who DIDN’T get endorsed: Joe Hardy.

Assemblyman Hardy….who is running for the Senate District 12 seat being vacated by state Sen. Warren Hardy…who has already been endorsed by the incumbent….who has the support of most of the “establishment” lobbying community…as well Sen. Bill Raggio’s senate caucus.

Hardy, by the way, was about as liberal as they came in the 2009 legislative session, chalking up an embarrassing Conservative Rating of just 34 percent. He’s also the last remaining Republican member of the state Assembly who voted for the Mother of All Nevada Tax Hikes in 2003.

In other words, Joe Hardy is a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Indeed, he might even be considered the poster child for RINOs in the Nevada Legislature.

Hardy is being opposed in the GOP primary by Las Vegas businessman Patrick McNaught – who, by the way, is hosting his first fundraiser at the M tonight.

Not necessarily surprising that Keystone didn’t endorse McNaught considering the odds against him vs. a good, old-fashioned establishment anointment. But that the organization didn’t fall in line and throw its support behind Hardy despite that being the easy and painless thing to do speaks well for the folks at Keystone – though I would have preferred it if they had endorsed the pro-business conservative Mr. McNaught outright.

But it’s still a significant slap in the face to Joe Hardy.

The New GOP Team: Here’s the list of officers elected to head the Nevada GOP for 2010 at Saturday’s meeting in Hawthorne:

Chairman – Chris Comfort
Vice Chairman – Sherry Dilley
Treasurer – Dave Buell
Secretary – Carol Del Carlo

TUBE TIPS

State Sen. David Parks goes Face to Face with Jon Ralston tonight. The program airs on Las Vegas ONE on Cox Channel 19 at 5:30 pm, 6:30 pm and 8:00 pm.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

• “(The decision to move the 9/11) terrorists to New York City to be tried in an American civilian court…had everything to do with President Obama attempting to burnish his credentials as President of All the World and nothing to do with what is best for America.” – Rich Galen of Mullings.com
• “So, dangerous foreign terrorists who seek to destroy the United States now get the same constitutional protections afforded American citizens? . . . Since when have we ever tried prisoners of war, enemy combatants or whatever you want to call Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his ilk in a civilian court under protection of the Bill of Rights? What will we do with Osama bin Laden if we find him? Read him his Miranda rights?” – Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial, 11/16/09
• “(I)n what is perhaps the worst possible affect of the rules of engagement (in Afghanistan), troop morale is beginning to suffer. A campaign whose troops are merely looking for an end to the deployment is doomed to failure. The lamentable fact is that U.S. troops are battling the rules under which they operate as much or more as the enemy himself – and we are doing this to ourselves.” – Herschel Smith, Captains Journal, 11/16/09