More CLC After-Action Reports
As I noted in yesterday’s e-newsletter, we took some extraordinary precautions to assure the safety of everyone involved with this past weekend’s Conservative Leadership Conference – especially for the Awards Dinner where Sheriff Joe Arpaio received our “Courage Under Fire” award and delivered the keynote address.
First, we didn’t tell anyone, not even our attendees and speakers – despite tremendous pressure from various media outlets – whether or not Sheriff Joe would attend in person. That alone went a long way towards discouraging the crazy alt-left protestors from showing up in front of the Tropicana.
In fact, the group of malcontents and black-masked agitators on Saturday night numbered only about two dozen instead of the originally planned 400+.
Losers.
In addition, we kept the venue for the dinner under tight wraps until just two hours before the event and arranged for unmarked busses to transport folks to the new location from a secluded back entrance at the Tropicana to keep the crazies from following us.
And when we booked the event at the LVCC, my friend George Harris – who arranged for the event to be held there – and I only told one person in the catering department what the event was really all about.
We even went so far as to list it as the “Harris Wedding Reception” in case anyone called around trying to find out in advance where the dinner was being held.
No need to send us wedding presents. I annulled the marriage the next day after George went home with a woman on our honeymoon night! LOL
I also want to give a big shout-out to the Tropicana Hotel and the Metropolitan Police Department…
Although we didn’t anticipate any disruptions at the conference itself, the hotel provided additional security at the entrance of the conference center and Metro provided two officers who regularly patrolled the area.
Very happy it wasn’t necessary and very grateful that the Trop and Metro played it better safe than sorry.
Why I’ve Now “Blacklisted” the Ralston Rag
We all know that Jon Ralston, Nevada’s #2 liberal blogger, is a jerk. He can’t help it; it’s his nature.
And after being bounced off taxpayer-subsidized TV and dropped as a columnist from every major newspaper in the state, he weaseled his way into the Nevada News Bureau (re-named the Nevada Indpendent) – which I founded in 2009 and spun off a few years ago – as its editor/copy boy last January and “blacklisted” me.
Only one early story in the online Ralston Rag mentioned me by name, and that story was actually about Citizen Outreach’s CEO, Dan Burdish, who was hired to work for the GOP Senate Minority Leader for the 2017 session.
Which is fine. That’s his right. And who cares? Almost nobody reads his fake news and anti-conservative rants anyway.
But one of his new, young reporters, Jackie Valley, ran into me at this month’s Republican Men’s Club meeting and I agreed to do a recorded interview on the DACA decision and Dan Schwartz’s gubernatorial campaign announcement.
For over 20 years now, I’ve always been open and forthcoming with the press. I’ve only “blacklisted” one reporter in all that time over a story he got wrong a few years ago and refused to correct. Months later, he finally did…and we’ve had an open line of communication ever since.
Anyway, I gave Ms. Valley a head’s up that her horse’s ass editor had blacklisted me – and sure enough, when the story came out, not a single quote I gave her made it into the story. Go figure.
Two weeks later, amid all the additional security concerns we were addressing related to the Conservative Leadership Conference, Ms. Valley requested press credentials to cover the event.
Having been trashed by Ralston for years, and treated like Lord “He Who Shall Not Be Named” Voldemort in the Ralston Rag all this year, I was not exactly inclined to extend the privilege.
But after a series of email exchanges – in which Ms. Valley assured me that she’d talked to Ralston and Ralston told her there was no blacklist – I went against my better judgment and decided not to visit the sins of the jackass editor upon his reporters.
So I not only issued press credentials to cover the conference itself, but invited Ms. Valley to join us at the “secret” Arpaio dinner and sit at the head table with me, my family and Sheriff Joe.
Of course, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, no good deed goes unpunished…