For those of you who called and contributed money to our successful effort to change Sen. Dean Rhoads mind on the “necessity” of tax and fee hikes this session, you should know that your efforts also helped result in a new letter signed by ALL TEN Republicans in the state Senate, including Sen. Rhoads, who “reject calls for new taxes” while promising Gov. Brian Sandoval “unwavering support for (his) plan to balance the budget while fighting job-killing taxes.”
More in my Nevada Appeal column tomorrow, but thanks to all of you who made calls, sent emails and contributed a few bucks for our radio ads in Elko. Mission accomplished!
The Republican Governor’s Association has started a campaign to support Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to control out-of-control union government employees and their ridiculously high salaries and benefits. Go to www.StandwithScott.com and check it out.
As if you needed another reason to love Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), get a load of how he shut down and shut up a CAIR activist at a recent town hall meeting. It’s no wonder the Left fears this man while many of us on the Right see him as a future presidential candidate. Click here
If Republicans want to lose Sen. John Ensign’s seat next year, all they have to do is nominate Ensign again for re-election. Here’s the latest evidence from Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post:
“Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) is holding a fundraiser at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters on Thursday, March 3. . . . Ensign himself used to be chairman of the committee, but national Republicans have done little to help the senator since he admitted to having an affair with a former aide. His fundraising has been anemic and he faces a looming Senate ethics investigation.”
Had Rep. Heller run last year, he would have defeated Harry Reid. If he doesn’t run next year, we could easily end up with “Senator” Shelley Berkley. If you agree that that’s not a desired outcome, please click here to sign a new online petition urging Dean to make the run.
Oh, and just in case you weren’t sure what kind of fiscally conservative Republican Rep. Heller is, the Heritage Foundation just announced that Dean was one of only 47 Members in the House who voted to cut spending each and every time they had the opportunity last week during the Continuing Resolution debate.
“The bill was considered under an open amendment process,” Heritage reports, “and there were hundreds of amendments offered and over a hundred votes cast over the span of a week.” And Rep. Heller showed “a rock-solid willingness to cut spending by voting for every spending cut.”
John Ensign who?
For folks who are trotting into the Legislature whining about budget cuts to what they consider vitally essential programs, Republicans should ALWAYS end up asking this one, simple question: “Yes, Mr. Snivel, your program does sound like it has some merits, so tell me, what other program which isn’t as important should we cut instead?”
And of course, if Mr. Snivel responds that we should increase “revenue” instead of cutting some other vitally non-essential government program, a similar follow-up question should ensure: “OK, Mr. Snivel, please tell the committee whose taxes you believe should be raised and by how much?”
Enough of letting these people get away with their sob stories with no alternative. Why aren’t Republican legislators fighting back?
One very astute reader weighs in on the issue of whether or not legislators should make a pledge to oppose and vote against any and all tax hikes. For those who argue against making such a pledge and taking tax hikes off the table, our reader says that’d be like getting married but not taking the marriage vow to forsake all other because “you never know when someone or something better will come along.”
Not sure about your spouse, but mine wouldn’t buy that in a hundred years.
If you believe in something strongly enough and make a commitment, what’s wrong with that? The Mistress of Spending Other People’s Money is a powerful temptation, which is why a formal, written Pledge to forsake such enticements from the Dark Side is so important.
I mean, if I had a dollar for every time some hot chick hit on me and I had to say, “Sorry, I’m married,”….well, OK, I wouldn’t have any money, but you get the point.
When I heard yesterday that liberals were throwing a big Rally for Choice this Saturday in Las Vegas, I was pretty stoked that the Left was finally embracing Gov. Sandoval’s call for serious school reforms. Alas, the libs aren’t rallying to allow mothers the right to choose which school to send their kids to, but the right to terminate those kids in the womb at taxpayer expense.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Left argues so passionately for a “woman’s right to choose” when it comes to a literal life-or-death decision, yet believes that same women, should they choose to bear their children instead of aborting them, shouldn’t have the right and means to choose for themselves which school is best for them. Supreme hypocrisy.
In a parting shot at his conservative antagonizers, former Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio (R-Reno) recommended that ALEC, a national organization of conservative state legislators, appoint his moderate protégé, Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, a freshman Republican, to replace former state Sen. Dennis Nolan as Nevada’s state chairman to the organization over Nolan’s recommendation of 14-year conservative ALEC member Sen. Barbara Cegavske.
As a longtime senior member of the organization, Raggio’s move put the ALEC folks in a pickle. They know Cegavske has earned and deserves the slot and Kieckhefer, who has yet to even complete his first month as a state legislator, does not. But nobody was willing to cross Sen. Raggio. So the only way to let ALEC off the hook in this situation was for Sen. Kieckhefer to do the right and honorable thing and withdraw his name from consideration.
Indeed, that’s exactly what Kieckhefer reportedly told some colleagues he was going to do. However, sources told me yesterday that the decision has been made to appoint Kieckhefer – who obviously never followed through on his promise to withdraw his name.
Now, to be fair, maybe he did just forget to contact ALEC and withdraw. And if that’s the case, it’s not too late for him to decline the appointment. But if he doesn’t, Sen. Kieckhefer will have ticked off a good number of his Senate colleagues in seeking and accepting this undeserved appointment, not to mention conservative activists throughout the state who know the brilliant and conservative Sen. Cegavske got the shaft and young Ben was the one who gave it to her.
Any candidate running for any office anywhere in the country absolutely, positively will be asked the #1 question asked of all candidates: Why are you running? And so it was tonight when Jon Ralston asked just that question of Republican Las Vegas mayoral candidate Victor Chaltiel on his Face to Face program.
Alas, Mr. Chaltiel responded with the worst and most predictable and most oft-repeated answer: I want to give something back to the community. Aaacckkkk!
And as if that tired, cliché of an answer wasn’t bad enough, he followed up with perhaps the second worst political cliché in all of politics; that he’s not a politician….despite the fact that the fact that he’s running for political office makes him, by definition, a politician.
I think somebody needs a political communications specialist who specializing in politicians. Hmm, I wonder if I know anybody like that…
