By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

  • Tea Partiers Claim Success in Capturing Nevada GOP (JB Williams) – Nevada has become the proving ground for the precinct committeemen initiative and the success in Nevada is very likely to transform the GOP and RNC in the coming election cycle.
  • Whole Foods Republicans: GOP needs voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics (Michael J. Petrilli) – The Republican Party is resurgent—or so goes the conventional wisdom. With its gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey, an energized “tea party” base, and an administration overreaching on health care, climate change and spending, 2010 could shape up to be 1994 all over again.
  • Krolicki’s Vindication (Jim Clark) – “Something’s rotten in Denmark” – Hamlet. I have researched the filing of and dismissal of the criminal case against Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki and have concluded that Hamlet would say the same thing about Nevada.
  • Reid Makes His Case (Mike Chamberlain) – Senator Harry Reid takes to the pages of the Review-Journal to defend his health care, I mean, health insurance reform bill. He claims “[t]his bill will save lives, save money and save Medicare.” But this bill will definitely not do the first two and is unlikely to accomplish the third.
  • Universal Healthcare: The Great Bait and Switch Con Job (Wayne Allyn Root) –For months I’ve predicted on TV and radio appearances exactly how universal healthcare would be proposed, debated, negotiated and passed – against the wishes of the American people.

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

SURVEY SAYS!

Is global warming a real threat, normal atmospheric change, or an environmentalist hoax?

  • The sky really is falling!
  • Don’t worry. Be happy.
  • Martians have landed on Earth!

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

MUTHS TRUTHS

  • Emily Richmond of the Las Vegas Sun reports today that the Clark County school district has reduced overtime costs for its employees from $13 million in 2008 to around $5 million through November of this year, which again buttresses the no-new-taxes position. If you FORCE the government to cut costs by drying up its money, it will. However, if you DON’T force the government to cut costs, it won’t. Starving the beast works.
  • A Department of Energy memo surfaced last month which clearly and unambiguously stated that “All license defense activities (for Yucca Mountain) will be terminated in December 2009.” Ding-dong, Yucca’s dead, right? Wrong. The LVRJ reports today that “Department of Energy lawyers are forging ahead with their defense of a license application to build the nation’s nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.” Um, Harry?
  • A story in the Las Vegas Sun this morning highlights an old friend of ours, Bob Bailey, who has a new book out. As reporter Steven Kanigher reports, the soft-spoken Bailey is a “longtime jazz singer, television and radio personality, civil rights leader and advocate for minority-owned businesses.” But what Mr. Kanigher failed to mention is that Bob is also a longtime GOP activist and supporter. Interesting that Bob being a black Republican somehow didn’t make it into the story, huh?

AS THE TARKANIAN TURNS

Following up on yesterday’s story about that deceptive fundraising email distributed by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian’s campaign on Saturday, everyone should understand that it wasn’t that the campaign sent out the misleading email that led to yesterday’s story. It was the campaign’s belligerent response and effort to cover-up and rationalize what the campaign did that was the real transgression.

Indeed, a few hours after publication of our story yesterday morning, Tarkanian Media sent out another press release complaining that I had attacked “Danny Tarkanian’s email because it included the Human Events article that sourced it.”

Bull. That’s another deception.

I didn’t criticize the Tarkanian fundraising email because it included excerpts from the Human Events article; I criticized the Tarkanian fundraising email for not properly crediting the article to columnist John Gizzi, whose name was NEVER mentioned in the email, which led some readers to think the column was actually written by Danny Tarkanian.

The fact is, Tark’s communications staffers did NOT properly source the article. Period.

In addition, some of the details from the GIZZI article which were critical of Tarkanian opponent Sue Lowden, originally published last October, have since been denied and refuted by both Lowden and Gizzi. Yet the Tarkanian campaign continues to use the old article for fundraising purposes over a week after the clarifications.

While I guess all is fair in love and politics, the tactic of using old and partial information from a third-party source, without even crediting the third-party source, is still deceptive and not very ethical.

I mean, it’s almost like being falsely accused of “setting up telemarketing companies that were later found to be running scams” and “turning ‘state’s evidence’ against the telemarketers to avoid being prosecuted.” And no one would want that done to them, would they?

In an email yesterday afternoon, Danny advised me that he was unaware of the dust-up between me and his campaign team over the deceptive email fundraising appeal and will take it up with his “peeps” when he gets back to Las Vegas tomorrow.

Let’s hope he takes the bull by the horns, takes those campaign staffers to the woodshed, and raises his campaign against fellow Republican Sue Lowden back up to street level.

TUBE TIPS

  • Dr. William “Bob” Bailey 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. http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/face-face/
  • Sam Shad’s guest today on the Nevada Newsmakers program: Marybel Batjer, Vice President, Harrah’s Entertainment. The program airs on KRNV-TV Channel 4 at 12:30 pm in Reno and on Cox Cable Channel 123 at 4:30 pm and 11:35 pm in Las Vegas. http://www.nevadanewsmakers.com/

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

  • “I have no problems with Northland GOPers aiming to recall 2,253 year old State Sen Bill Raggio for not doing what they elected him to do. I wish my Dems would recall a few of our dead weight!” – Nevada Democrat blogger Mike Zahara
  • “Senator Reid’s earmark-filled spending bill this year represents a 10 percent INCREASE over last year’s spending levels. This, while Nevada’s unemployment has increased by nearly 40 percent since (the) nearly trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ bill earlier this year.” – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden
  • “As the Nevada Democrat struggles to persuade voters in his home state to give him a fifth term next year, his reelection fight has become a dominant theme in the Capitol and throughout the federal government. To borrow a Reid metaphor, you might even say it’s enslaving the Democrats.” – Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank
  • “Finally, I am struck how much Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) ballot test numbers resemble those of former Sens. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and John Sununu (R-N.H.), as well as soon-to-be-former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D). All three, of course, lost re-election bids.” – Stuart Rothenberg in Roll Call today