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posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 at 4:42 PM
Apparently, somebody up in a place called Reno that lies somewhere north of Las Vegas has been distributing a flier encouraging non-Democrats to become a "Democrat for a day" and go to the caucus to support Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. The campaign of Obama rival U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton just held a conference call in which supporters denounced the flier.
"It’s junior high school stuff," said former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. She also called it "misguided," "off-base," "not helpful" and "hella-lame." (Actually, we threw that last one in there, you know, because we, too, often revert to junior high when covering politics.)
Some of the grown-up press corps asked why this was such a big deal, since the Democrats were the ones who created an "open caucus," which is like an "open marriage" in that Democrats are totally easy. Wait, no, that’s not right. Oh, yeah, it means that anybody can sign up and vote in a caucus on the very day of that caucus.
And that’s ironic, too, since it’s the Republicans who always bitch that same-day registration leads to voter fraud. And now here it is, the Democrats apparently fearing they will be victimized by same-day voter fraud. Oh, sweet irony, how your clenched teeth hurt when they sink in to our tender ass!
Anyway, Del Papa insisted that nobody should enter a caucus lightly. And Adriana Martinez, another Clinton supporter who denounced the flier, declared that Democrats were taking the caucus process seriously, so everybody should.
Wait, they are? Lawsuits over at-large precincts on the Strip? Lawsuits over who gets to be in a TV debate? Desperate endorsement, counter-endorsement, and counter-counter endorsement shenanigans? This is taking the caucus seriously? We’d hate to see what would happen if they thought the damn think was a big fat joke.
Speaking of, we now go live to Chris Matthews on Hardball…
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Things are moving very fast this week as Nevada counts down to another presidential debate (Tuesday) and its most important caucus ever (Saturday). So we’ll put the "quick" in "quick hits" today. Here we go!
- So, everybody is all pissed off about voter fraud. Especially Republicans. So what happens when a Republican dude actually pleads guilty to voter fraud? Does he go to jail? No. He gets probation. Please. When you get serious about voter fraud, call us.
- Credit Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith with keeping the aforementioned voter fraud in the public eye, by the way.
- So the Las Vegas Monorail had to dip into its curiously large cash reserves to make a bond payment, eh? This doesn’t look good for the troubled Mormon Money Train.
- "This was expected. Though it’s the first time we’ve utilized our debt service reserve fund, the budget we prepared last year anticipated this," said monorail Vice President Ingrid Reisman. Oh really? It’s the first we’ve heard of that. In fact, up until now the only thing Reisman said she anticipated was astounding success based on new "marketing" plans.
- The Review-Journal’s editorial page — which never fails to mention the Nevada Supreme Court’s infamously bad Guinn v. Legislature decision — tries to let retiring Justice Bill Maupin off the hook for the ruling by noting he was the only dissenter.
- Hey, R-J: Need we remind you that Maupin was just as willing as the rest of the high court to lay aside the voter-approved two-thirds-vote tax requirement; he just though the court was being too hasty?
- Allow us to quote: "I would decline the governor’s invitation to intervene in the legislative budgetary process … at this time." (emphasis in original) And again: "Accordingly, I would defer the relief afforded by today’s majority until it becomes evident that the constitutional mandate to fund education will not be satisfied in time for complaince with the statutory requirements for distribution of state funds to local school districts." (emphasis added)
- This Las Vegas Sun story only makes us long for the days of previous Nevada governors, you know, the ones who weren’t total dicks. Our current governor could learn a lot by reading this piece.
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 at 3:24 PM
You know, prosecutors will tell you that a timeline is sometimes the very best tool to use when you’re investigating a crime. What happened when is often key to figuring out motive.
Such is the case with the Nevada State Education Association’s lawsuit against the Democratic Party’s plan to have so-called "at large" caucus sites on the Strip, to allow hotel workers to easily support their favorite candidate for president.
Now, the NSEA (and pretty much everybody else) has known about the at-large precincts for a long time. They’ve long been a part of the Democratic Party’s plan to get people involved, and by people, we of course mean members of the Culinary Union Local 226.
But it was not until after the Culinary Union endorsed Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday that the NSEA decided to sue, claiming the sites are illegal for a variety of reasons. Could it be that the NSEA (which has many ties to the campaign of Obama rival U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton) would have been cool with the at-large sites had the Culinary gone for Clinton?
This is what Obama clearly thinks. Consider what he said in the Review-Journal today: "The rules were OK as long as you did what they [Democratic power structure aligned with Clinton?] wanted you do do. But as soon as you said ‘I’m going to support the outsider. I’m going to support the new guy,’ all of a sudden they decided they want to change the rules."
Now, we don’t necessarily agree with Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor, who’s been ramping up the rhetoric all weekend since news of the lawsuit broke on Friday. (Taylor told the Las Vegas Sun on Sunday that "If the lawsuit goes through, it will completely discredit the legitimacy of the caucus." Not really, Mr. Taylor. Now if Mike Gravel won, that would completely discredit the legitimacy of the caucus!)
But we do agree with what Taylor said earlier in the weekend: The lawsuit is an attempt to disenfranchise Culinary workers, who if they follow their union’s recommendation will be going for Obama. And disenfranchisement is wrong.
So, NSEA: Let the Culinary workers vote!
posted by Steve Sebelius
Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 at 3:09 PM
We got a phone call from U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich this weekend. He called us on our iPhone to let us know that he was being excluded from the MSNBC-sponsored debate scheduled for tomorrow night at Cashman Field Center. We didn’t get a chance to ask him any questions (to be honest, the guy talked non-stop and we couldn’t get a word in edgewise!) before he hung up, but we really feel for him.
After all, he’s a legitimate Democratic candidate for the White House. Why wouldn’t NBC let him participate?
Well, according to Kucinich, it works like this: NBC is owned by General Electric. And General Electric owns nuclear power plants. And Kucinich is against nuclear power, saying it needs to be phased out. So, the nuke lovers (who just happen to want to dump waste at Yucca Mountain just up the road, which Kucinich has always opposed) try to silence the man.
Sounds like bullshit to us!
We e-mailed the Democratic Party earlier today to ask about us, but they never replied. Must be busy doing caucus stuff or whatever.
Anyway, we just got word (via our colleague Jon Ralston’s FLASH) that a Clark County District Court judge has ruled that Kucinich must be allowed to participate in the debate. Then again, according to the Review-Journal’s e-mail news flash, NBC is represented by Don Campbell, who is a great lawyer who has represented CityLife on occasion. So, nothing is certain just yet.
See, here’s the thing: While we think it is bullshit that Kucinich was excluded from the debate, we also believe that NBC (and its evil corporate parent, GE) is a private company and should be allowed to make decisions about its news and debate coverage. We know we wouldn’t like it if a judge told us here at Various Things & Stuff that we had to blog about, oh, say, that one dude Duncan Hunter who somebody once said was also running for president. So we can see why NBC wouldn’t like to be told it must include Kucinich.
No, better to let people like your humble correspondent handle this, by heaping scorn and derision on NBC. (By the way, thanks for canceling Bionic Woman and Journeyman, NBC. Assholes.)
UPDATE: According to TVGuide.com, Bionic Woman has not been canceled, just interrupted by the writer’s strike. An NBC spokeswoman says finishing the initial run of 13 episodes will be the first order of business once the strike is over.
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