The Asian Journal reports that Nevada Republican Sen. John “Pants on the Ground” Ensign told the audience at a forum in Korea Town in Las Vegas last week that “A cut in taxes and a decrease in government regulation will result in a quick recovery in the nation financial system and the economy of Nevada.” He added that “Cutting taxes, decreasing regulation, and decreasing litigation will see the economy recover on its own.”

How, oh how, could Nevada ever afford to lose having such a deep-thinker represent us in Washington? I’m fairly certain that no other Republican in the Silver State, especially one not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, could possibly state the obvious and articulate the fiscal conservative message as well as Sen. Ensign.

(Yes, kids, that was Grade-A sarcasm)

The Hill reports today that “a recent Obama administration rule would expand medical benefits for Vietnam veterans and cost $42 billion over the next decade. The rule calls for disability awards for veterans exposed to Agent Orange and suffering from heart disease.”

OK, fine. Now enter former Sen. Alan Simpson, a member of the White House’s “Fiscal Commission,” who suggested yesterday that America’s veterans were adding to the country’s debt problem. “The irony [is] that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.”

Them’s fightin’ words….and a left-leaning veterans organization, VoteVets.org, has called for President Obama to fire Simpson. And we heartily agree. Simpson is a Republican, but he’s a liberal Republican who thinks we need to raise taxes in order to pay down the debt.

In the immortal words of the Queen of Hearts: “Off with his head!”

“The Murkowski dynasty came to an end in Alaska (Tuesday) night as Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded she had lost her GOP primary” to Joe Miller, reports John Fund of Political Diary. But it’s what possibly drove the final nail into the coffin that constitutional conservatives should be absolutely thrilled about.

“In their only debate last week,” Mr. Fund writes. “Mr. Miller pounded home his view that Senator Murkowski had voted for bills that lacked any Constitutional justification. She lamely responded that it would be a far different country if she only voted for things explicitly authorized by the Constitution.”

Hoo-hah!!! If the notion that Congress should only pass legislation that is constitutionally permissible has taken hold in a state that is bathed in federal pork, imagine what that could portend for the rest of the nation. Why, a true Second American Revolution might truly be under way without a single shot being fired.

We can only hope.

Popping skank-ho Paris Hilton’s boyfriend for driving under the influence in Las Vegas – whether it was booze or pot – is one thing; but to bust the 29-year-old has-been heiress simply for possession of a small amount of blow, whether it was hers or not, is the latest example of the absurdity of our ongoing war on drugs. How much is this court trial/circus going to cost the taxpayers of Nevada?

In response to our robo-calls to Elko County Commissioner and GOP assembly candidate John Ellison yesterday, the guy is having a veritable cow. He called a local reporter and is threatening to sue us for daring to make it easy for people to contact him and ask about his position on Minority Leader Pete “Tax-My-Meat” Goicoechea’s grocery tax.

I’ve also heard he’s contacted the police, the FBI, the CIA, the FDA, the FCC, the FEC, the IRS, Homeland Security, the Consumer Protection Agency, Hawaii Five-O and Scotland Yard to file a complaint. Reportedly the guy is throwing a hissy fit because our calls yesterday allegedly shut his business down and cost him money.

And just how many calls from voters of his district was this public official “flooded” with? Well, according to the reporter who contacted me following up on Mr. Ellison’s ranting and raving….

Eight.

Eight short calls from concerned voters he wants to vote for him….and this guy has his tights in a twist? And he wants to go to Carson City? Talk about not ready for prime time.

So Jimmy Carter went to North Korea on a “humanitarian” mission to win the release of a Boston man held by the regime. If the North Koreans truly wanted to demonstrate their humanitarian side, they’d have kept Carter and send the Boston man home.

Folks close to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who apparently lost her bid for another term to a conservative Republican in last week’s primary, have tossed about the idea of the liberal senator jumping ship and running in the general election as a Libertarian if the LP would agree to substitute her for the candidate currently on the ballot.

To their credit, the LP told Murkowski to take a flying leap off that bridge to nowhere.

“Sen. Murkowski voted for TARP,” the Alaska Liberatarian party explained in an official statement today. “She voted to bailout Fannie and Freddie. Although no one from her campaign had approached us about her running as a Libertarian, the speculation had reached the point where we felt we had to take a clear stand. We did the hard work to get a Libertarian candidate on the ballot. We didn’t do that hard work to then nominate someone with Sen. Murkowski’s record.”

If only Republicans were so principled.

Back in days of Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, Bret Schundler was the poster boy for GOP success. He was the Republican mayor of the overwhelmingly Democratic Jersey City, New Jersey, and was routinely feted at GOPAC event after GOPAC event explaining how Republicans could win over Democratic voters.

Then he ran for governor in 2001…and lost.

Eventually Schundler ended up serving as New Jersey’s Education Commissioner and was responsible for preparing and submitting the state’s application for federal Race to the Top funds earlier this year.

But as the Associated Press reports, Schundler cut a deal with the state’s teachers’ union on the merit pay components of the proposal. Gov. Chris Christie, not one to cozy up with the very people responsible for why our public schools stink so badly, rejected the compromises and submitted the proposal without them.

In the end, New Jersey was rejected for Race to the Top money; not because of the merit pay component, but because Schundler reportedly provided “budget figures for the wrong years in one section of the application.” So Gov. Christie fired him last Friday.

Sleep with dogs, you get fleas. Sleep with the teachers union, you get fired. And that’s the moral of this story, children.

About 200 Las Vegas union crybabies waged a protest Tuesday because the federal government is saving taxpayers a bundle of money by paying non-union market wages for construction projects at McCarran Airport instead of the wildly inflated wages demanded by local out-of-work union construction workers.

“This is union busting,” wailed out-of-work plumber John Beeby at the protest. “A lot of guys come running here because they’ll work cheap and they know we can’t compete.”

Wahhh!!

Hey, Johnny, it’s called the free market. It’s also called supply and demand. It’s not that you “can’t” compete; it’s that you choose not to. As Warren Hardy of the non-union Associated Builders & Contractors points out, you guys “decided to price themselves out of the market” by demanding above-market wages. So instead, you get nothing.

Brilliant strategy, boneheads.

“Existing-home sales plunged to their lowest level in 15 years in July as inventories soared, painting a grim picture for the housing market absent government support in a stubbornly sluggish economy,” reports the Wall Street Journal this morning. “Home resales dropped a record 27.2% — nearly twice as much as analysts had expected — to an annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said.”

Yes, all those bank bailouts and stimulus money have sure worked wonders, haven’t they? Nice work Harry Pelosi-Obama.

According to a Washington Post story last week, Barack Obama’s Justice Department has “issued a rare threat to sue (Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio) if he does not cooperate with their investigation of whether he discriminates against Hispanics.”

Sheriff Joe presently has eleven suspects in jail who are accused of murdering law enforcement officers. Does any bonehead actually think Sheriff Joe gives a rat’s butt whether those cop-killers are Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, African, Russian, Canadian, French, Australian, Vietnamese or Egyptian? I’m betting he makes every one of them wear pink underwear and eat green baloney regardless of ethnic origin….just as it should be.

News & Views subscriber Durk Pearson weighed in on the so-called “Terror Mosque” brouhaha in New York this morning with a rather colorful perspective:

“They have a First Amendment right to build a mosque on their own property. I have a First Amendment right to draw a disrespectful picture of Mohammed. They say, ‘You must be sensitive to our feelings!’ But the would-be mosque builders have no concern for the feelings of most Americans. For them, sensitivity is a strictly one way street. If I lived in that area, I’d be feeding the pigeons bacon bits every day.”

Nice visual.

In a similar vein, our friend and Toledo, Ohio, talk-show host Brian Wilson sent us the following:

“There is a move afoot to counter the mosque that might be built a hundred yards from Ground Zero by opening a homosexual bar next to it. One act of tolerance deserves another, right? In fact, I’m looking at setting up the bar, a brothel, a dog boarding facility, a Southern-style BBQ and a donkey petting zoo….all within 100 yards of this so-called ‘mosque.’”

Potential names for the new gay bar being contemplated include: Turban Cowboys, Outfidels, Très Sheik, Infidelicious, JiHot!, Al-Gay-Da, Homohammed’s, The Ba’ath House, You Mecca Me Hot, Talibuns, and Ground Queero.

Vintage American response.

Frankly, I personally could go either way on this mosque mess. The Muslims have freedom of religion and property rights on their side; the Americans have the rights of free speech and association on theirs. As long as both sides are exercising their rights without violence or property damage (as is often the case involving labor union protests; but I digress), this will work itself out one way or the other in the end.

But then this came out Sunday in the Wall Street Journal:

“A leader of a planned Muslim community center near Manhattan’s Ground Zero compared opposition to the project to the persecution of Jews, in comments that could add to the controversy over the center’s proposed site. ‘We are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized antisemitism,’ said Daisy Khan, who is spearheading the project with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. ‘It’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.’”

Playing the “Jew card”? An American citizens can’t object to the proposed location of this project unless they “hate Muslims”? Screw these people. Move your damn mosque.

For years I’ve been training GOP candidates to NOT let the Democrats get away with claiming THEY have the support of teachers, firefighters and cops when in reality all they have is the support of the teachers, firefighters and cops UNIONS.

To counter the Democrats’ misleading claims to own these important demographic groups, I have urged GOP candidates to identify individual teachers, firefighters and cops and form informal but legitimate groups dedicated to supporting the GOP candidate. “Teachers for Joe Republican.” “Firefighters for Shirley Republican.” “Police Officers for Rob Republican.” Etc.

Most don’t.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that in addition to asking for money in a direct mail fundraising appeal I received from Nevada Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Sandoval today, the return card also asks recipients to “Check here to be included in one or more of these Sandoval for Governor coalitions.”

The options include: Firefighters, Veterans, Kids, Sportsmen, Labor, Seniors, Farmers, Small Business and Women.

I’m surprised that the list doesn’t give options for Teachers or Law Enforcement, but still, this is the first pro-active effort in this regard I’ve seen this campaign cycle and will give the Sandoval campaign the ability to counter Democrat claims to owning such interest groups in mail, radio, newspaper and TV ads later this fall. Well done.

As for the rest of you candidates out there….what are you waiting for? Start putting your coalitions together NOW.

- Prof. Chuck Muth, Doctor of Psephology (home educated)

In all of the universe, it’s hard to image a more despicable group of nutjobs than the “God Hates Fags” folks at the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. These lowlife human wretches regularly protest at military funerals, contending “that soldiers’ deaths are God’s punishment for the United States tolerating homosexuality.”

Yes, these sh*t-for-brains queer-haters really know how to hit a raw nerve.

In response, Missouri legislators passed a pair of laws in 2006 banning such protests. But on Monday a federal judge, Fernando Gaitan, declared the laws an unconstitutional infringement on the right of free speech.

As reprehensible as the Westboro wackos are, the judge made the right call. As Tony Rothert of the ACLU put it, “Just not liking speech isn’t enough reason” to ban it.

The better remedy would be for God to send a swarm of locusts down their underpants and up their wazoos.

Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t this story from CNS News sound like something you’d expect to from “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung in North Korea:

“Federal contractors receiving money for projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act )—the $862 billion economic stimulus law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009—have been encouraged and, in some cases, required by the administration to post signs that say their work is funded by that specific act, a measure some congressional Republicans are calling propaganda for the administration.”

Once again, and not surprising (though terribly disappointing), all too many Americans, especially President Barack Obama, have this whole mosque brouhaha all discombobulated.

Obama says opposition to a mosque being proposed for a couple blocks away from Ground Zero would be an affront to our constitutional principles surrounding freedom of religion.

First, he and others always seem to miss the part in the Constitution that says “Congress shall make no law…” In this case, Congress isn’t contemplating or proposing any law banning the construction of the mosque so there’s no violation of the Constitution. Secondly, subject to zoning laws, the folks building this mosque on private property should have every right to do so.

On the other hand, Americans who find such a prospect outrageous and highly offensive are simply exercising their own constitutional rights – those of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom to petition the government – in an effort to stop it. They are perfectly within their constitutional rights, as well, and may ultimately be successful in persuading the developers to move the mosque without the involvement of Congress or the courts.

In other words, as messy as it is the system is working exactly as the Founders intended.

From the Los Angeles Times on Monday: “Despite thousands of layoffs and shrinking budgets, California schools — as well as the state’s largest school system, Los Angeles Unified — posted gains in scores on annual standardized tests released Monday.”

So now we know the secret to improving public education: Fewer employees and less money. So let it be written; so let it be done!

From the Department of Who’d a Thunk It, the Associated Press reports today that illegal aliens in Arizona are leaving the state thanks to passage of a get-tough law cracking down on illegal immigration there. And where are many of those folks going? Back to their native countries?

Don’t be silly. No, AP reports that three states which allow illegal aliens to get state drivers licenses “have seen a surge in immigrants seeking IDs in recent months.” Go figure.

The 31-year-old illegal alien featured in the AP story, Carlos Hernandez, said he knows “that it’s not OK for people who come here to cross the border,” but he did it anyway and now complains that “it’s difficult being undocumented and not having an identification.” Awwww. Poor baby.

So he loaded up the family and moved to Washington state, one of three states that allow illegal aliens to get drivers licenses because “he and his wife were spooked by the Arizona law that requires officers to check a person’s immigration status when enforcing other laws.”

In other words, the Arizona law that Obama is trying to nullify through the courts…works.

“The Citizenship Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment provides that a person born in the United States is automatically a citizen,” writes Rep. Charles Djou, Hawaii Republican. “America needs comprehensive immigration reform; it is critical to our nation’s future. But it is simply unrealistic to believe that we can fix the problem by amending the Constitution.”

All due respect to our 39-year-old rookie congressman from the Land of Don Ho, but this problem was created by an amendment to the Constitution; therefore, the fix HAS to be an amendment to the Constitution undoing the mistake made by the original amendment to the Constitution. Like we did when we repealed the Prohibition amendment.

The Founding Fathers didn’t give us “birthright citizenship.” That “right” was bestowed under questionable circumstances following the Civil War as a way to extend citizenship rights to newly-freed slaves. No one, at the time, foresaw the problem of millions of people coming to America, not for freedom, but to collect “free” welfare benefits, a “free” education and “free” health care – all at the expense of real American citizens.

Let the process ending birthright citizenship that Sen. Harry Reid began in 1993 continue.

The SEIU is boycotting the new movie “The Expendables” because it includes a cameo appearance by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who, the Wall Street Journal reports, “has had the gall to order unpaid furloughs three days each month for union workers refusing to make even modest contributions to their retirement plans.”

If the greedy, stinkin’ government employee union is boycotting, I guess I’m BUYcotting. Pass the popcorn!

Speaking of the SEIU, the government employee union has teamed up with Bill Gates Sr. up on Washington to fund a ballot initiative this November to create the state’s first income tax. It would start at 5 percent and climb to 9 percent for the “super-rich” earning over $500,000 a year.

“No state has introduced an income tax since Connecticut nearly 20 years ago, and that state’s experience has not been happy,” notes the Wall Street Journal. “The top rate in Hartford began at 4.5% but has since climbed to 6.5%. Washington wants to leap over that and achieve California and New Jersey heights in one giant step. Washington would move overnight from one of the nine states with no income tax to having the eighth highest rate in the country.”

We have met the enemy….and it’s the SEIU.

Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today highlighted a pork project contained in the agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010. This week’s egregious earmark: $994,000 for endophyte research in Booneville, Arkansas. “If we keep wasting money like this, we’ll never hear the endophyte,” said Flake.

And finally, according to a new Rasmussen poll in the Connecticut U.S. Senate race, Republican candidate and former professional wrestling CEO Linda McMahon has now closed the gap with her Democrat opponent and Vietnam vet poser Dick Blumenthal to seven points. As recently as May, McMahon trailed Blumey by 30 points. And that’s the bottom line, ‘cause Stone Cold sez so.

I received an email solicitation yesterday from some group I’d never heard of before: Nevada Voters Project. The email asks for money “to register 10,000 Republicans to defeat Harry Reid.”

A noble sentiment. However, the appeal was signed by “The Nevada Voters Project,” not by an individual. So I clicked on the link and went to the website to see who was behind the effort. Alas, the “About Us” page was all about how bad Harry Reid is without a word about who they were.

Sorry, Charlie. Unless I know who is behind this project, I have no idea if it’s being run by somebody who actually knows what they’re doing, or by Bob Ruckman, or by the Democrat Party, or by some other scam artist.

My advice, readers, is that unless the people behind this operation come forward and identify themselves….DON’T GIVE THEM A DIME.