Give this to Republican Assemblyman Scott Hammond (Las Vegas), he’s got stones.

In a mailer for his campaign to move up to the state Senate that hit doorsteps last week, Hammond, a government employee/public school teacher (union member?) who voted in the last session to water down the state’s graduation standards, wrote the following:

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My best-old-ex-friend Jon Ralston is in high dudgeon over a story by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Steve Sebelius about a letter I recently sent to Secretary of State Ross Miller inquiring about a possible recall of Nevada State Sen. Michael Roberson (R-Henderson).

My letter of inquiry was, in fact, sent to the SoS on behalf of a client who wishes to remain anonymous despite Ralston’s insinuation – “if there is one” – to the contrary. You can read the letter by clicking here.

Now, let me be clear here: THERE IS NO RECALL EFFORT UNDERWAY AT THIS TIME AGAINST SEN. ROBERSON. NONE. NADA. ZIP.

That said,

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The “previous commitment” excuse put forward by Gov. Brian Sandoval for blowing off the Nevada Republican Party’s once-every-other-year state convention doesn’t pass the laugh test, let alone the smell test. The date, time and location for this singularly most important GOP event had been known for many, many, MANY months.

There is no excuse for the governor flipping the party regulars the bird – other than he wanted the avoid the possible embarrassment of being booed for his serial tax hikes despite his campaign promises to the contrary and despite the party’s stated platform opposition to such tax hikes.

Titular GOP head, indeed. How do you lead by hiding from your troops?

In case you somehow missed it, here’s the latest on former state Sen. Elizabeth Halseth – who connived to file a BS “lewdness” charge against her husband last fall hoping to get sole custody of the couple’s children in a divorce so she could move to Alaska with her “significant other.”

She did a professional bikini photo shoot for a layout in Maxim magazine. Click here

When you see this saucy photo, remember that Halseth attacked the wife of her Democrat opponent in 2010 in a mailer featuring a picture of the opponent’s wife in a low-cut evening gown. Halseth claimed the photo showed her opponent didn’t share “our values.” What a world-class hypocrite.

By the way, the May 1 criminal trial for Elizabeth’s falsely accused husband was postponed.

The Nevada Republican Party convention this month was pretty much like every other GOP convention: Floor arguments over obscure Robert’s Rules of Order, bylaws and credentials. Lots of proverbial sound and fury signifying nothing. Only this year, on steroids.

The convention was fairly evenly split between Mitt Romney supporters and party loyalists vs. Ron Paul supporters and many tea party activists – with the insurgents enjoying a sufficient majority to not only elect 22 out of 25 of their own to go to the GOP national convention in Tampa, but to oust the party’s sitting National Committeeman and Committeewoman, as well.

The rabble’s success has many establishment Republicans gnashing their teeth, with one sour grapes GOP blogger referring to the Paul supporters as a bunch of “liars, cheats and thieves.”

But the reality is,

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I know revolutions can be ugly, but the theater of the absurd on display yesterday at the Nevada Republican Party convention in beautiful, downtown Sparks, Nevada took banal inanity to the extreme. Indeed, even a poor, innocent hotdog vendor became a casualty of the Russell Crowe Convention…where the Ron Paul-aligned delegates insisted on fighting over EVERYTHING.

Loudly. Often angrily.

Indeed, one of the first orders of business was forcing a vote on removing the convention chairman who they had already voted to elect to oversee the scrum. Somehow the motion failed…perhaps some of the Ron Paul folks realized that if they got rid of this convention chair, no one else would be insane enough to agree to replace him.

Seriously, even the most innocuous, meaningless, inane matters were challenged by pointless “points of order,” points of inquiry” and even some newly-discovered “points of interests.” It was Mike Weber on steroids.

Longtime convention attendees know Mr. Weber for his insufferable soapbox grandstanding over arcane Robert’s Rules and absurd interpretations of the party’s bylaws.

Wanna know just how bad things were yesterday?

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A lot of people have written asking about this “deal” that Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval cut recently with Amazon.com in which the e-tail giant will begin collecting taxes on your Internet purchases and remitting them to the state.

First, to be clear, technically this is not a “new” tax or a tax “increase” – though Nevadans absolutely will be paying higher taxes after the deal takes effect than they were paying before Sandoval was elected.

You see, without the support (or, really, knowledge) of the people of the state of Nevada, the Legislature long ago passed what is called a “use” tax that you are supposed to voluntarily pay on your out-of-state purchases – online, mail order and even in person under certain circumstances.

As such, whether you drive to California and buy a t-shirt or order that same t-shirt online, you are supposed to calculate the Nevada “use” tax on that t-shirt – which, not coincidentally, is the same rate as your local/county/state “sales” tax – and send a check to the government.

So if the t-shirt cost you $20 and the “sales” tax rate in your county is 8.1%, you’re supposed to remit a check to the Nevada state government for $1.62 if you buy the shirt online. But again, it’s not called a “sales” tax because charging a sales tax on that purchase is prohibited by Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution which reads:

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Unlike Assemblyboob Mark Sherwood (R-Uranus), Reno Republican blogger Orrin Johnson isn’t a complete idiot. On the other hand, he is a complete hypocrite. A literarily skilled hypocrite; but a hypocrite nonetheless.

In a blog post last September, OJ referred to me as “the decidedly non-Republican Chuck Muth, who so often undermines whatever good work he does for the conservative movement by periodically encouraging and promoting fratricide within the Republican Party to the glee of liberals everywhere.”

You see, in OJ’s mind, at least back in the “old days” (last fall), to be a good conservative apparently meant not criticizing bad Republicans or bad Republican decisions. Well, that was then; this is now. And now OJ is slashing out at a whole host of his fellow Republicans with a vengeance.

At least when I criticize certain Republicans, it’s as a “decidedly non-Republican.” But OJ is a GOP frat brother who apparently believes Reagan’s anti-fratricide 11th Commandment only applies to thee, not to he.

Indeed, take a look at this excerpt from an OJ blog post this week – titled, “Lie, Cheat, and Steal – It’s the Ron Paul Way!” – targeted at fellow Republicans who support Republican presidential candidate/Republican Congressman Ron Paul:

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As regular readers know, I’ve been a longtime supporter of Newt Gingrich – dating back to my days as the Nevada GOP’s executive director shortly after the Republican take-over of the House in 1994 – and worked for the Super-PAC supporting his presidential bid this year.

But with Newt apparently about to suspend his campaign in the coming days, I’ll be switching over to where my philosophical heart lies: Ron Paul.

At least until Mitt Romney does, in fact and officially, get the GOP nomination. At which point we’ll have to have a serious conversation about Gary Johnson.

Some in the mainstream media, the Left and Orrin Johnson just don’t understand how the members of the Nevada Republican Party, consisting of a lot of tea party activists, could elect Michael McDonald by a whopping 2-1 margin with all his “baggage.”

Actually, it’s quite simple. The members of the GOP Central Committee couldn’t care less what the mainstream media, the Left or Orrin Johnson think. In fact, the very fact that the mainstream media, the Left and Orrin Johnson are attacking Michael McDonald endears McDonald to many members all the more.

One of the prime rules of politics is to communicate with and take care of your constituents. And McDonald – unlike most current and former elected officials – has been actively involved with the party and its Central Committee members since I was the Clark County Republican Party chairman and he was running for the Las Vegas City Council way back in 1995.

Say whatever else you want about Chairman McDonald, but he’s paid his party dues and then some…unlike many of his critics.