After much sound and fury, threats of derailing the election of Mark Amodei as the new Nevada GOP chairman signified nothing. The Nevada News Bureau reports that Amodei was overwhelmingly elected 218 to 54, surviving a last-minute floor challenge by our friend and Ron Paul supporter, David Isbell. Best of luck to Chairman Amodei.
Want to really understand just how ridiculous it is to take seriously the whining, complaining and kvetching about Arizona’s new anti-ILLEGAL immigration law and the worry about “racial profiling”? Get this:
According to a LVRJ story today, a Hispanic man was shot by cops on Thursday, and two witnesses are screaming racial profiling over it. Here are the details of the incident.
“Police said they arrived at the apartment complex after a man was shot in the face with a BB gun at a nearby bus stop. When officers arrived, they saw a vehicle matching the description of the one involved in the shooting with Trujillo standing next to it, police said. (The two witnesses) said they believed the shooting (of the suspect) was a result of racial profiling because Trujillo is Hispanic, and the suspect in the bus stop shooting was as well.”
Did you get that? The suspect in the shooting was Hispanic. Police ran into a Hispanic man standing next to a car matching the description of the one involved in the bus stop shooting. That man ran from the cops. The cops shot that man. And THAT’S considered “racial profiling” by the two witnesses?!! Can it be any more absurd?
Lest ye think the Nevada Legislature’s Committee to Study the Governance and Oversight of the System of Public Education is a colossal waste of time as far as, you know, actually improving public education in Nevada, the LVRJ reports that the committee “recommended Thursday that the state Board of Education be renamed the Commission on Public Education.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket! Why haven’t education reformers thought of that before?
As reported a couple weeks ago, the FEC has inquired about some inconsistencies in Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s last campaign finance report. “In a May 9 response letter to federal authorities,” notes Laura Myers in the Political Eye blog yesterday, “Angle’s campaign treasurer, Alan Mills, blamed computer software problems for some missing information.”
Actually, the fact that a computer software program is needed to complete the excessively complicated campaign finance rules is the real problem. “It’s a steep learning curve for me dealing with these federal campaign reports,” the exasperated Mr. Mills said.
Indeed, even experienced candidates and treasurers can get tripped up by the ridiculously burdensome and trivial campaign finance rules we’ve established for congressional races. The rules themselves are an impediment to attracting more quality candidates to run for federal office. Those rules should be streamlined in a way to make running for office less complicated though more transparent. It’s the American thing to do.
In a story about the influence of outside organizations in the Nevada U.S. Senate race, LVRJ reporter Laura Myers references the brutal attacks on Sue Lowden and characterizes the former Nevada GOP chieftess as Harry Reid’s “toughest Republican foe,” noting that the “Democrats and Reid appear most afraid of Lowden.”
Again, the big question GOP primary voters should consider on June 8th isn’t which candidate is the most conservative (they’re all conservative enough) or which candidate has the more famous last name (thanks to his parents), but which candidate will square up best against Harry Reid in November. And Reid isn’t “most afraid” of Lowden for nothing.
The big question about Angle has nothing to do with her conservative bona fides. It has to do with her general election electability. If she was unable to win a Republican primary in a Republican district in 2006, and a Republican primary in a Republican district in 2008, why should we believe she can win a general election against the Senate Majority Leader in a Democrat state in 2010?
Some will, of course, note that polls have thus far shown Angle defeating Reid in November. However, that’s before Reid’s “Vaporizer” machine is deployed against her the way it has been in recent weeks against Lowden. What’s to make us think Angle would fare any better once similarly attacked? THAT’S the unanswered question about the Angle campaign.
For those who believe libertarians are unapologetic enthusiasts for unregulated and uncontrolled open borders, you ought to read LVRJ columnist Vin Suprynowicz – an unapologetic libertarian – for his views on the immigration issue. A sample from today’s column:
“Imagine five ‘undocumented visitors’ breaking down your front door, pitching tents in your living room and then voting on how to divvy up the food in the refrigerator. That’s illegal immigration ‘with a path to citizenship,’ which has flooded the West with hostile and self-righteous aliens….”
Yup.
By the way, why are illegal aliens supposed to get a free pass for breaking into our country in an effort to provide a better life for their families, but, according to a Las Vegas Sun story yesterday, out-of-work house painters and handymen – legal Nevada citizens – who are just trying to survive and provide for their families in this recession are being hounded, entrapped and fined by government agents for not having a government-approved “license” to paint houses if the painter and the homeowner come to mutually agreeable terms?
And finally, John Graham, a Duke finance professor, conducted a survey and observed that companies who didn’t want to lay off workers but were forced to because of The Great Recession have since come to the realization that they can get by without the laid off workers. To retain earnings, the companies simply “found ways to produce the same level of goods or services with fewer workers” (LVRJ, 5/14/10)
That, of course, is the same realization we’ll have about government workers – if/when we ever get serious about laying off serious numbers of them.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“As a proud member of what the Las Vegas Sun referred to in its Thursday editorial as the ‘vitriolic anti-government, anti-tax crowd,’ please allow me to address a couple of points, sans vitriol.
“One, we fiscal conservatives are not anti-government; we’re pro-limited government. Two, we fiscal conservatives are not anti-tax; we’re anti-tax hike. We believe it’s not just time for government to do more with less, but to do less with less. That said, the Sun’s editorial also suggested that we oppose adjusting Nevada’s tax system to provide fairness. That’s also not exactly accurate.
“We are open to, though highly skeptical of, proposals to ‘broaden’ Nevada’s tax base — provided such proposals are considered in a revenue-neutral fashion. Unfortunately, many on the big-government side of the equation continue to use tax reform as a fig leaf for tax hikes. We’re not going to fall for that one.
“If those who think Nevada’s tax structure needs to be adjusted to make it more fair and stable would separate tax reform efforts from tax hike efforts, they just might find more fiscal conservatives willing to, as the Carson City saying goes, come to the table for a serious, open-minded discussion.”
– Chuck Muth, president of Citizen Outreach, in a letter to the editor published in the Sun yesterday
