(Chuck Muth) – When Republicans last were handed the keys to the government in the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the key issues was the matter or subjecting members of Congress to the same rules and laws that Congress subjects the American people to….only using better grammar.
So it should bother those of us “regular” citizens that on Friday, incoming House Speaker John Boehner “was guided past the metal detectors and hand inspections given to other passengers on his flight home to Ohio.” Boehner’s spokesman said the special treatment, which eliminates any chance that some over-sexed TSA agent would touch the Speaker’s “junk,” was approved by Capitol Police and the Transportation Security Administration.
That’s just plain wrong. Speaker Boehner should lead by example. It was his party when it was in the majority that foisted the TSA on us. If we have to live with being groped and fondled to assure that no 86-year-old grannies in wheelchairs blow us out of the sky then so should Mr. Boehner. He should voluntarily subject himself to the same indignities as the rest of us until he gets such indignities repealed.
The Nevada Republican Central Committee yesterday voted to make the 2012 presidential caucus here “binding,” which means contestants will actually win delegates, but opted not to make it a winner-take-all election – which makes Nevada less attractive as a campaign stop, especially when we’re so far out west and away from the other early primary/caucus states.
Instead, delegates to the national convention will be awarded on a proportional basis. So if Mitt Romney gets half of the caucus vote, he’ll get half of Nevada’s 25 delegates. If Haley Barbour gets 25 percent of the vote, he’ll get a quarter of the 25 delegates. And if Ron Paul gets 10 percent of the vote, he’ll get two-and-a-half delegates.
Left unresolved for now is exactly when to hold the Nevada caucus with relation to South Carolina, one of the other three approved early voting states. Should Nevada go before South Carolina or after, that is the question? And will Nevada Republicans decide that before or after the South Carolina caucus is actually held? Inquiring minds wanna know.
If Sen. John Ensign’s parents gave Ensign’s mistress and husband $96,000 as a form or severance pay after Doug and Cindy Hampton were let go after Ensign’s affair with Cindy Hampton was discovered, it would be a serious violation of Federal Election Commission (FEC) laws.
However, the FEC opted not to even bother interviewing the Hamptons and cleared Ensign after speaking with Ensign’s mommy and daddy who swear the unusual amount paid was a “gift,” and not intended as “severance pay” for, ahem, services rendered. Did the FEC really think Ensign’s folks would describe their “intent” as anything other than what would clear their son?
The “serious” investigations of this matter by the Senate Ethics Committee and the Department of Justice is still ongoing, so it’s still possible that John Ensign will get what’s coming to him. What goes around, comes around. Or at least, it should.
Ryan Erwin, GOP “Consultant to the Rising Stars,” explains how Republican legislative candidates Elizabeth Halseth, Michael Roberson, Scott Hammond and Mark Sherwood pulled out improbable victories against better-funded Democrat opponents in an interview with LVRJ columnist Glenn Cook on Sunday.
“They really checked their egos at the door and accepted help from allies and the party,” Erwin explains. “That doesn't always happen.”
Ryan is too darned polite to say so publicly, but that is clearly a description of Sharron Angle, who should have won but didn’t. Like how she should have won in 2008 against Bill Raggio, but didn’t. And how she should have won against Dean Heller and Dawn Gibbons in 2006, but didn’t.
Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?
An anonymous email from a government employee to Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston complains that requests for state department heads to submit budgets with 20 percent spending reductions would result in “thousands” of layoffs of government employees which would add “to the State's existing unemployment rate.”
This kind of scare tactic drives me nuts. First, a 20 percent cut in spending does NOT have to result in “thousands” of layoffs. We could reduce government employee pay to a rate similar to what is paid in the private sector instead. That would make a huge difference.
But even if it did result in layoffs of non-essential personnel, so what? Why should taxpayer-funded government employees be immune to the same hardships workers in the private sector have been suffering for the last three years?
Seriously, if 20 percent budget reductions mean only four people are leaning on their shovels staring at a pothole instead of five….well, we’ll just have to find a way to live with that.
Believing strongly in the axiom that “Personnel is Policy,” I’ve been somewhat concerned with Gov.-elect Sandoval’s decision to retain budget czar Andrew Clinger, the man who gave us the false “$3 billion budget deficit” scare, as well as Mike Wilden at HHS and Susan Martinovich at Transportation. These are not folks known for their staunch fiscal conservatism.
But I don’t know much about Larry Mosley, also retained by Sandoval as director of the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR). However, blogger Mike Zahara of WatchdogWag.com has some thoughts about him which raises some not-unexpected red flags. Zahara’s bottom line: “Larry Mosley is the very worst unemployment director of all the 50 states and is grossly incompetent to boot!”
Combined with the appointment of Heidi Gansert as chief-of-staff and former R&R Partners executive Dale Erquiaga as a senior adviser, the GOP establishment and the mainstream media are doing cartwheels and back-flips over these early appointments. While these folks are absolutely competent, they are certainly not known for strong beliefs in strictly limited government.
The transition ride is smooth right now, but trust me, conservatives….we’re heading for white-water.
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