By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

WAHOO! SUPREMES STRIKE DON’T SPEECH LIMITATIONS

From this morning’s Wall Street Journal:

“The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

“By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

“The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.”

Here’s the most important part of what the Court said:

“Political speech is so ingrained in this country’s culture that speakers find ways around campaign finance laws. Rapid changes in technology—and the creative dynamic inherent in the concept of free expression—counsel against upholding a law that restricts political speech in certain media or by certain speakers. In addition, no serious reliance issues are at stake.

“Thus, due consideration leads to the conclusion that Austin should be overruled. The Court returns to the principle established in Buckley and Bellotti that the Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations. Pp. 47–50.”

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

  • The Citizen Revolution Has Begun! (Wayne Allyn Root) – A few thoughts and predictions on winners and losers after the historic upset in Massachusetts Tuesday night:
  • Nevada GOP Calls Scott Brown Victory Sign of Trouble for Reid, Obama (Sean Whaley/Nevada News Bureau) – Nevada State Republican Party Chairman Chris Comfort said today that the upset GOP victory in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts on Tuesday is a sign of a Renaissance for Republican candidates around the country and in Nevada.
  • SEIU Wastes $1 Million on Coakley, Blames GOP (Warner Todd Huston) – Michelle Malkin has a post that reports about the hilarious episode of union whining that is being laid out by the President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Andy Stern. He wasted $1 million of his member’s dues money trying to shore up Massachusetts loser “Marcia” Coakley but is he blaming the Democrats for this debacle? Nope, he’s mad at Republicans!
  • Brown Wins, Obama Defeated, Harry Reid’s Next (Angle for Senate Campaign) – “Let’s Make a Deal” Harry Reid, the Democrat U.S. Senate majority leader, is the author of the biggest political bribe in American history – his “manager’s amendment” that replaced the Senate’s 2100-page ObamaCare bill. He accomplished this by buying off, according to Reid, every Democrat senator, thereby benefiting them, while leaving the American taxpayers holding a bag of empty promises.
  • Tarkanian: Sue Lowden is Wrong on Bailouts (Danny Tarkanian) – Sue Lowden continues to defend Harry Reid’s vote for the financial bailouts. She doesn’t seem to understand that the bailouts were wrong because they lacked transparency, they failed to address the underlying policies that got us in the financial mess, and perhaps worst of all, they triggered a series of bailouts and government industry takeovers that left conservatives having to bet on a Republican victory in Massachusetts to stop the madness.

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

SURVEY SAYS!

Do you agree with the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations and unions to contribute money to political campaigns?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Not sure

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

MUTHS TRUTHS

  • The Las Vegas Review-Journal headline reads this morning: “No job growth foreseen for LV Valley in 2010.” Now maybe I missed it, but has anyone seen even one substantial and immediately doable proposal to actually help employers and budding entrepreneurs actually create new jobs in Nevada by any of the gubernatorial candidates from any party?
  • Republican U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian reportedly raised $377,290 for the fourth quarter of 2009, and amount which Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report characterized as OK but not stellar. “He is going to need to do better.
  • Meanwhile, fellow GOP U.S. Senate candidate John Chachas reportedly raised $251,523 during the same period. Not bad for a candidate almost no one has heard of yet and who hasn’t registered in any polls to this point. On the other hand, Chachas has also pumped $1.3 million of his own money into the race and is expected to start spending a lot of it in the next few weeks….which means his name ID is about to soar.
  • According to the Fresno Bee, former California Gov. George Deukmejian endorsed Danny Tarkanian for the Nevada U.S. Senate race on Thursday. Added to the fact that Tark’s campaign team also is based in California, one would almost think Danny would be better off running against Barbara Boxer in the Golden State than against Harry Reid here in the Silver State.
  • Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki says John McCain and other Washington establishment figures are urging him to jump into the already crowded U.S. Senate race. Personally, I think he ought to just run for re-election and then keep his options open for 2012, but if he makes the plunge….what the hey; the more the merrier.
  • According to the Sun report, Krolicki is being wooed because the current field is judged to be “second tier” candidates. OK, maybe so. Problem is, so is Krolicki. He’s not going to scare anyone out of the race or cause Nevada Republicans to suddenly say, “He’s the one!” The only person who could possibly pull that off now, this late in the game, is Congressman Dean Heller.
  • Or former Gov. Kenny Guinn.
  • Former Nevada state senator and conservative icon Ann O’Connell endorsed fellow Republican Mark Amodei for U.S. Senate on Thursday; interesting since it was O’Connell’s endorsement of Amodei’s billion dollar-plus tax hike in 2003 that most people believe cost O’Connell her seat in the 2004 GOP primary race against former Sen. Joe Heck.
  • “More than 50% of voters in Rhode Island are independents,” notes Brendan Miniter in Political Diary. “Voters in Connecticut, Maine and Vermont have all elected an independent as either governor or U.S. senator in the past decade. In Massachusetts, 51% of the state’s voters are not affiliated with a political party, and a lopsided number of those independents voted for Republican Scott Brown.” I wonder if Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman thinks Nevada is similarly fertile ground for an independent run?
  • Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Montandon won a straw poll of Republican insiders in Clark County Tuesday night. The straw poll results showed Montandon with 34%, Gov. Jim Gibbons with 29%, and Brian Sandoval with 26%. ‘Twould seem the favorite candidate of the establishment still has some work cut out for him among the party’s rank-and-file, while reports of Gov. Gibbons’ political demise may still be a bit pre-mature.
  • “Ron Knecht to chair Gibbons campaign in capital,” read the headline on the RalstonFlash email last evening. “OK. Now he’s really dead,” Ralston deadpanned, referring to Gov. Jim Gibbons re-election campaign. “The one-term assemblyman, now a regent and presumably still a Bob Beers sycophant to chair Gov. Jim Gibbons’ campaign in Carson City? First the pathetic, almost nonexistent fundraising. And now the man nicknamed Dis-Knecht. So sad. I feel…sympathy.”
  • According to a story in Wednesday’s Mohave Daily News, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden “asked for a show of hands, and everyone agreed that anyone with a pre-existing (medical) condition should be able to obtain health insurance. It’s not a partisan issue, Lowden said, and it could be voted on as a stand-alone bill.”
  • That calls for some clarification. Is Sue suggesting that the government should require private insurance companies to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions – which would be akin to requiring insurance companies to provide home owners with fire insurance after their house was already on fire? Or is she suggesting a taxpayer-funded government option for individuals with pre-existing conditions? Or something else entirely? Inquiring minds wanna know.
  • And finally: An awful lot of conservatives would LOVE to see the author of McCain-Feingold and the architect of the GOP’s disastrous presidential election of 2008 retire from his Senate seat in Arizona. But John McCain simply refuses to go off into that good night voluntarily. So many conservatives have been encouraging former conservative Rep. J.D. Hayworth to challenge McCain in the GOP primary this year…..and J.D. is considering it.
  • Is J.D. serious? McCain seems to think so, as he launched a pre-emptive attack ad this week on the very radio station where J.D. currently works as a conservative talk-show host. Game on? Not yet. But don’t be surprised. BTW: Hayworth will be the featured keynote speaker at this month’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Reno.

OTHER NEWS & VIEWS

Republican Reno News & Review columnist John Barrette defends Harry Reid, applauds Mark Amodei and takes Sue Lowden, Danny Tarkanian and Sharron Angle to the woodshed HERE

TUBE TIPS

  • Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Amodei goes Face to Face with Jon Ralston tonight. The program airs at 4:00 pm Monday through Friday on KVBC Channel 3 in Las Vegas, as well as NBC affiliates in Reno and Elko. http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/face-face/
  • Sam Shad’s guests today on the Nevada Newsmakers program will be Barbara Buckley, Speaker of the Nevada Assembly. 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

  • “It’s hard to believe President Obama’s now been in office for a year. And you know, it’s incredible. He took something that was in terrible, terrible shape and he brought it back from the brink of disaster: The Republican Party.” – comedian Jay Leno
  • “With one piece of (health care) legislation, Obama and his congressional allies have done in one year what it took President Lyndon Johnson and his allies two years to do in 1965 and 1966 – revive conservatism. Today conservatism is rising on the steppingstones of liberal excesses.” – Columnist George Will
  • “President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by the country’s biggest banks, marking the administration’s latest assault on Wall Street in what could mark a return — at least in spirit — to some of the curbs on finance put in place during the Great Depression.” – Wall Street Journal, 1/20/10
  • “That Sue Lowden donated to Harry Reid twenty years ago is inconsequential. That Danny Tarkanian donated to Congresswoman Shelley Berkley is inconsequential. These are non-issues that shouldn’t be on the table.” – Blogger Mark Anderson
  • “The way to jump-start hiring is to cut payroll taxes—especially on new hires—across the board. This is how we’ve gotten out of every recession, but the progressive extremists are loath to cut any taxes.” – Democrat blogger Mike Zahara