{"id":46599,"date":"2023-08-10T16:19:56","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T23:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=46599"},"modified":"2023-08-12T12:23:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T19:23:34","slug":"nevada-democrats-refuse-to-release-human-shield-hostages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/nevada-democrats-refuse-to-release-human-shield-hostages\/","title":{"rendered":"Nevada Democrats Refuse to Release Human Shield Hostages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

(Chuck Muth)<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Years ago, my friend, retired lieutenant colonel, and former congressman Allen West\u00a0was stationed in Afghanistan. \u00a0We had a \u201cpen pal\u201d email relationship going at the time, and I asked him about negotiating with the Taliban.
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Allen explained there was no way to reason with terrorists. They just don\u2019t care.
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I was reminded of that conversation last night after the Democrat majority on the Interim Finance Committee (IFC) voted to kill Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo\u2019s emergency proposal to save Opportunity Scholarships for hundreds of low-income, mostly minority, students after Democrats cut their funding during the 2023 session.
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Yesterday\u2019s hearing opened with dozens of Nevada students and parents testifying, sometimes tearfully, for almost three hours during the public comment period in support of the governor\u2019s proposal to use unspent COVID relief funds to restore the cuts so kids wouldn\u2019t be kicked out of the schools of their choice and be forced back into a failing public school.
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Some nine hours later Democrats pulled the rug out from under those kids, voting 15-7 to scuttle Lombardo\u2019s proposal.
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And the teachers\u2019 union immediately did the Snoopy Dance.<\/strong>
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\u201cIFC has voted to reject Gov. Lombardo\u2019s proposal to direct $3.2M in ARP dollars to vouchers for unaccountable private schools,\u201d the Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) wrote in a tweet after the vote. \u201cGood.\u201d
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One day voters will wake up and realize the teachers\u2019 unions don\u2019t give a damn about kids.\u00a0 They only care about protecting their own political power and near-monopoly over education.
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By the way, twelve of the fifteen Democrats who told these kids to pound sand are women.\u00a0 So much for the idea that simply electing more women would better benefit children.\u00a0
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We don\u2019t need more women in the Legislature.\u00a0 We need more\u00a0CONSERVATIVES<\/u>, regardless of chromosomes.\u00a0 But I digress.
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These Democrats are using these kids as human shields to protect the teachers\u2019 unions from competition from safer, better-quality private schools.\u00a0 But it\u2019s even sicker than that.
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During debate over the proposal, Sen. Rochelle Nguyen actually claimed the threat of hundreds of kids being kicked out of their schools was a \u201cmanufactured crisis.\u201d
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Yeah, manufactured by the Democrats.<\/strong>
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In his budget released back in February, Gov. Lombardo called for additional funding for the scholarship program.\u00a0 And Republican State Sen. Heidi Gansert introduced a bill to do just that.\u00a0 But Democrats refused to give either even a public hearing, let alone a vote.
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\u201cWe should have had this debate on fixing Opportunity Scholarships during the regular session,\u201d noted Republican Assemblywoman Jill Dickman after the vote, \u201cbut legislative Democrats were too blinded by ideology to give any of our bills on this subject a hearing.\u201d
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Indeed, the Democrats cut the funding for Opportunity Scholarships during the session from around $11.4 million for the last school year to $6.6 million for the upcoming school year.\u00a0
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Yet one after another of these \u201cGeorge Wallace\u201d Democrats took to the mic yesterday to claim they were shocked \u2013 SHOCKED! \u2013 to discover that kids would be kicked out of the school of their choice thanks to the cuts.
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You\u2019d have to be a moron to make such a claim.\u00a0 The Democrats knew damned well what they were doing.\u00a0 They just didn\u2019t care.\u00a0
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Instead, they spent the afternoon and evening grilling and water-boarding the six Scholarship Grant Organizations (SGO) over their\u2026bookkeeping.
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\u201cI don\u2019t understand why you\u2019re coming to the state and asking our taxpayers to fund your greed,\u201d Democrat Assemblywoman Michelle Gorelow lectured one of the SGOs. \u201cBecause that\u2019s what this is.\u201d
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Yes, you read that right.\u00a0 According to Gorelow, these non-profit organizations that are just trying to help low-income minority families are \u201cgreedy.\u201d\u00a0 Not like the public school system which got over $2\u00a0BILLION<\/u>\u00a0in additional funding this year\u2026
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\u2026and already want\u00a0MORE<\/u>!
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\u201cThere was so much searching for a villain in IFC today, someone to blame for the Opportunity Scholarship issues,\u201d Dickman wrote in a tweet. \u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t care who was to blame, we had the means and opportunity to fix this, to make sure these hundreds of children weren\u2019t devastated this school year. Failed again!\u201d
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\u201cInstead of working to compromise and fix things for our most vulnerable families, the hearing turned into a partisan blame game,\u201d added Assemblywoman Danielle Gallant in a statement this morning.
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\u201cDemocrats never supported the (Opportunity Scholarship) program,\u201d she continued, \u201crefused to hear any bills during the session, and have been attacking the program every session since its inception.\u201d
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Indeed, the IFC hearing was nothing but dog-and-pony-show theatrics designed to manufacture excuses for rejecting the governor\u2019s proposal and screwing these dark-skinned kids.
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\u201cI am saddened by tonight\u2019s vote,\u201d wrote Republican IFC member Assemblyman Greg Hafen on Twitter.\u00a0 \u201cThere was a problem.\u00a0 We had a solution.\u201d
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The reality is, Democrats are hellbent on killing any and all school choice programs because that\u2019s what the Nevada teachers\u2019 union wants.\u00a0 Democrats are more worried about losing their campaign cash cow than they are about low-income minority children losing their scholarships.
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Whether or not they knew the cuts would get kids kicked out of their chosen schools \u2013 they did \u2013 Gov. Lombardo\u2019s proposed Band-Aid should have been a no-brainer.
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In fact, the money Gov. Lombardo wanted to use to save the scholarships for these kids is just sitting there, unused.\u00a0 No money would have come out of the general fund budget.\u00a0 No money would have come out of the public-school budget.
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\u201cThis plan was put forward after Democrats defunded the program earlier this year, putting hundreds of children’s scholarships in peril,\u201d noted John Burke of Better Nevada PAC. \u00a0
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\u201cAfter a 12-hour hearing that devolved into ludicrous political theatre,\u201d Burke continued, \u201cthe Democrats chose to leave these children high and dry, offering no solution to protect their scholarships and leaving them without funding.\u201d
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Indeed, the COVID dollars would have been a one-shot injection into the program so no kids would be harmed this school year. And the debate over the future of the program could continue.\u00a0 Totally reasonable.\u00a0
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But you can\u2019t negotiate with terrorists.<\/strong>
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Gov. Lombardo has tried accommodation.\u00a0 He\u2019s tried reason.\u00a0 He\u2019s tried compromise. But legislative Democrats continue to just spit in his eye and shout \u201cNSEA Akbar!\u201d
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It\u2019s time to recall the diplomats, bring in a \u201cwartime consigliere,\u201d take off the gloves, and call in the drones (politically-speaking, of course).
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The only way these kids \u2013 and others \u2013 are going to have a fighting chance at getting a better education is if enough of these Democrat hostage-takers lose in next year\u2019s elections.\u00a0
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And for the record, here are the names of the Democrats on the IFC who told some 600 low-income, mostly minority, children to drop dead\u2026<\/p>\n