February Mailbag! 2/28/2010
Posted by Michael Zahara on Feb 28, 2010
The President’s visit was enjoyable despite doing absolutely nothing for Harry Reid but reminding 2.7 million Nevadans how weak and powerless he is that he is celebrating today a lousy 15 billion dollar bill that the House is balking at!
Now your Unemployment extensions will be added on to that beginning Monday, but it will take a couple of weeks to get that done!
Listening to Harry and Rochelle-y bitch and moan about the GOP filibuster is insulting to recipients and a clever way to change the subject that they waited until 5 days before expiration before beginning anything when we told you this had to start moving 4-6 ago!
Oh, and the proposal Harry put forward was for only 15 days so he could work on a longer extension he should have started 4-6 weeks ago!
Harry Reid is politically retarded and deserves to lose if he can’t manage his own legislation and is so tone-deaf to his own constituents!
I caught Obama at the Aria where the Prez demonstrated that the public still has affection for him, but at both Green Valley HS and the Aria, the strained applause for Harry Reid was like kissing your sister, and reminded me of the bureaucrats applauding Chairman Mao or Fidel Castro—required, but no warmth and certainly not sexy!
The biz community all know Harry Reid’s going to lose and that’s all everyone was chatting about at the Aria; hence MGM-Mirage’s James Murren prostituting himself publicly again for Reid’s bailout of the badly failed CityCenter project.
This while the President and the Senator aren’t doing a damn thing to help the dealers get a contract at Caesar’s which I’m sure resulted in some one finger salutes to Obama’s suite at the Bellagio.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is mysteriously silent on the impasse at Caesar’s and we’ll have a Harry piece on how weak our unions really are here coming soon!
And yes, I did think it was ungracious, if not rude, for the President to be calling members of Congress by their first names at his ‘summit’.
No one called him Barack, did they? It was exceptionally bad form of him because protocol and good manners are that one is always addressed by his or her highest title in public.
Even Nixon was ‘Mr President’ until the day he died.
Sidebar: Politicians are never profiles in courage so I don’t believe they’ll risk losing the White House and Congress for 20+ years by Harry pushing through healthcare reform through reconciliation given how lousy a bill it is and how packed with industry protections it is too!
It’s lousy because it still leaves millions uninsured—it’s now gone from 18 million left out to 21 million under the President’s latest proposal!— and doesn’t reform a damn thing!
Sidebar II: That the Cook Political Report is now agreeing with my assertion from December that the US House is already gone, may green-light Dina Titus supporting whatever healthcare bill may emerge because she knows she’s going to lose—and she is a heroine for supporting ending anti-trust exemption for the insurers—but she, like most others with a brain, would rather pass smaller issues individually and incrementally.
The public hates these gargantuan bills they can’t understand.
Under all of that gear is Dr & Colonel Joe Heck serving our country; of course with those two titles he is going beat Dina Titus–and she knows it!
Sidebar III Dr Joe Heck hasn’t been heard from on this or other current issues because he is back east doing his military duty and training, but will be back in campaign mode soon!
The US Military forbids political candidate activities while on their nickel so Heck has to stand back until his duties are completed.
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Thank you! To everyone involved who finally convinced NVDEMS of the folly of ignoring our non-anointed primary candidates. You may all submit your photos and websites for inclusion!
It was always the right thing to do too! It just took them a while!
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Caucus Schmaucus: Yes, NVDEMS held their super-secretive caucuses Saturday and kept things on the QT because they feared a repeat of the ClarkGOP’s meltdown. I will never participate in a caucus again but went to Bonanza High School to observe about 100 participants for my entire Clark County Commission District and 14,629 Dem party operatives running the thing.
I still think caucuses are a huge waste of time and money; just send everyone to the state convention and hash out the stuff there.
I was most impressed listening to Louis DeSalvio for AD13 who owned the place with his speech but who didn’t work the room enough and go table-to-table to thank the volunteers.
Jessica Sferrazza-Ralston swept in with a big team of her father’s ex-wives, I think, and spoke well! She gets my vote for head pom-pon girl! You get the impression with her that Jon Ralston is sitting in his boxers and wife-beater, cigar in his mouth with a 40 ouncer of malt liquor between his legs, coaching (yelling stage directions at her really) her every move from their bed, though Jim Ferrence is running the show and spending all of her money.
I also finally met Titus’ Dem challenger, John Beard, and his lovely wife and adult sons at Bonanza. Mr Beard caught my attention with his horse sense and will peel many traditional Dems away from Dina.
More on him soon!
The smartest guy in the room was Gary Fisher for AD04 who brought along some bagels and shmears for his guests! Wow, a candidate who actually thought about his guests! Folks, at stuff like this where you have all your stuff out and a table…a little ‘nosh is always welcomed…so is chocolate!
< Grandma, my ass!
And finally, rising very rapidly in my book is Patricia ‘Trish’ Palm who is running for judge in Department 30. She lied to me however, telling me that she was a grandma and I think she had rented a small kid to play her grandson.
If she were a grandma that would make me about 119 years old!
http://www.patriciapalm.com/pages/index.php
I also met and spoke with Benny Yerushalmi–which is not a deli sandwich choice–but a new Dem candidate for SD09 who is quite aware that the party is trying to separate him from his money! Smart kid, impeccable good manners and a Jewish Jeweler by trade ladies!
< Thankfully, psychotic ClarkDems Sergeant-at-Arms, Jonathan Abbinett, seen here moments before his swearing in—and who went off the cliff on the R-J’s Shermy last week on the only blog that hasn’t yet barred him—wasn’t actually armed!
< This is Jonathan Abbinett just a few minutes after his swearing in and after he went completely mad with power!
I saw Erin Bilbray and Sister Mary Catherine Cortez-Masto when they came in and after we were done chatting, I forewarned both that ‘Abbinett is in there’…and I swear to God that he was following them out to their car on their way out–yapping and yapping and yapping!
I think I may have seen Bilbray pull out a pistol to get him to back off near her car…it was foggy though so it may have been her can of mace. Erin may not look tough, but she’ll cut a bitch if you get in her way!
Always heed my advice at all times; he’ll shout at you into the ladies room if you let him!
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Good question: No, I won’t endorse per se, but I will write about how I am touching the screen and why, and what I would do in those races I can’t vote in too!
I have four definite votes so far and I think a 5th earned my vote at the caucus!
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Federal Building Shootout: Very good questions all! Yes, the shootout was a tragedy, but it was domestic terrorism just like Austin TX…and not a ‘man caused disaster’.
We also have to investigate why the gunman was able to ride the bus and walked from the Downtown Transportation Center with 12-gauge a shotgun and no one said or did a thing about it!
How did the federal building gunman ride the bus and walk the streets of downtown with a gun this damn big?
Where were Oscar’s vaunted mob-owned City Marshals who do nothing but sit around and waste time in the Fremont street/DTC areas?
It also goes to US Marshal retraining issues that a total of 85 shots were fired by officers and only 14 hit the gunman who fired only 5 shots!
The issue is the 71 shots fired by officers that missed the gunman and placed in grave jeopardy, passersby, tourists, and occupants of buildings nearby!
Nevada US Marshal nominee, Metro’s Lt Christopher Hoye, will have his hands full completing the full investigation after he’s confirmed.
Sorry, no honeymoon for Hoye and given the advanced ages of the officers involved and who are still serving the building today, he’ll have to determine if aging reflexes and responses require them to keep up with regular firearms training.
71 missed shots is alarming by any measure!
http://www.lvrj.com/news/coroner_s-inquest-reveals-courthouse-shooting-details-84798432.html
Sidebar: Our upcoming series on how it’s still ‘September 10th on the Las Vegas Strip’ will touch on issues like the Lloyd George federal building which was constructed after OKC with supposedly state-of-the-art measures to secure the building, but which left the whole east side of the building on 6th Street between Bridger and Clark completely exposed to a truck bomb that could bring the structure down; you can pull up an Oklahoma City-sized truck to within about 12ft of the east side of the building.
The east side of the structure is almost all glass too!
6th Street should be a single-lane northbound one-way street with that single lane as far to the east and away from the building as possible and the rest of the west side of the street and sidewalk truck-proof barricaded—the problem is engineering around the current entrance for trucks to service the building which should be reconstructed to the south of the building which is much further from the street to the south side of the structure
Today, there aren’t even concrete/steel impediments to driving up on the sidewalk and next to the east side of the building!
Sidebar: The easiest public building to bring down with a truck bomb in Las Vegas is the Regional Justice Center whose construction was shoddy at a ¾ of a billion price tag and left all four sides of the structure completely exposed to any truck bomber.
Its hollowed interior design would crumble in seconds with no impediments at curbside to prevent anyone from driving a truck right up to any of its sides!
Are you listening Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Parraguirre?
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No I don’t: I generally don’t support these mortgage relief schemes because you can’t save a home without having a job, can you? I do support making exotic mortgages unlawful, balloon payments unlawful and requiring no less than 5% out of your own pocket before even getting a mortgage and nothing but fixed rate mortgages for the entire market.
The problems we’re starting to see is that these investors are grabbing up the foreclosed homes using these programs and skewering the market and also driving up the number of rental units on the market, thus driving apartment complex owners closer to their own bankruptcies.
For all the chaos in the housing market here, they’re still issuing building permits when a moratorium would help shrink the supply, wouldn’t it?
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Yes, the worst kept secret of the highly corrupted Nevada Assembly Caucus effort is now public in the announcement of the fundraiser for Assembly 15 candidate, Cherina Kleven, the former $115,492.61 per year Assistant Fire Chief in Las Vegas.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/employee/74513/cherina-kleven/
God Bless these people at TransparentNevada, huh?
Ms Kleven never did a damn thing for the Democratic Party and has only been a registered Dem for less than a year! But, she’s having a fundraiser on March 4th at Satay: Call her buddy Robert if you want details and if you want to give this non-Dem your money: 702.253.5900.
The whole east valley is the belly-button of the Democratic Party here and it’s nice to see some action out there because it’s kind of dull out my way!
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Yes, I do think Brian Sandoval is making a major mistake by not running introductory radio and TV ads down here in Clark County. The entire state just itching to fire Harry Reid could give Rory Reid the sympathy vote consolation prize and frankly, that’s what Rory’s campaign is hoping and praying for!
We know Rory down here; most don’t know Brian except John Hunt who is still pouting over his ass whuppin’ from Sandoval!
In that same vein for the lower offices, if you’re not up with a website already and going door-to-door with your handouts, it’s pretty much over for you.
Half your vote will be cast in Early Voting and that’s just 83 days away!
Mike Zahara
02282010
www.WatchDogWag.com
