A test of character
There are 12 days to go before a national election which the enitre liberal media insist is already a “done deal —
Republicans might as well pack their bags to head home.”
To which I say: “Dewey Beats Truman!”
Some personal observations based on having spent a good deal of the past month interviewing local Nevada political candidates:
When Treasury Secretary Henry “Shifty” Paulson presented his $700 billion bailout package to the Congress the first time, both Nevada First District Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Second District Congressman Dean Heller voted against it.
Congresswoman Berkley explains: “Paulson came in with his $700 billion bill and said ‘You cannot ask me any questions; I get to do anything I want’ with that money. Well, I wasn’t going to go for that.”
Four days later, on Oct. 3, the bill had grown from 2 pages to 106 pages, according to Ms. Berkley (some report it reached more than 300 pages), “but they still hadn’t changed the basic thing I objected to.”
Rep. Berkley voted for it anyway, that second time, arguing enough “sweeteners” had been added — extensions of tax breaks for Nevadans, including a two-year “patch” allowing Nevadans to again deduct state sales tax payments, etc. — to justify OK’ing a bailout of which she disapproved in principle.
That, she explains, plus all kinds of constituents, including her own rabbi, asking “What were you thinking?” when she cast that first vote of “No.”
What about repealing the underlying problem that launched the whole crisis, the Democrats’ Community Redevelopment Act of 1977, which required banks to make unsafe loans to people — mostly in “minority communities” — who can’t afford to pay them back?
“Those things were all under discussion when I left Washington,” Rep. Berkley told us on Oct. 8.
Oh. Yeah. Sure.
Second District Congressman Dean Heller also voted against the Big Banker Bailout — which will help devalue our greenbacks to the level of Monopoly money — the first time. It “could lead to more corruption,” he says. Plus, Rep. Heller says, he found the answer was “No” to all three of his key questions: “One: Would it punish the individuals or companies who put us here? Two: Did it assist innocent individuals” caught up in the bubble collapse? And “Three, Did it do anything to prevent it from happening again?”
Rep. Heller then voted against it the second time, too. For the same reasons. Despite the fact that, as he put it, “You’re isolated in Washington. You’re surrounded by all these special interests telling you this is the only thing to do.”
Rep. Heller thus showed qualities of character and leadership. Congresswoman Berkley, taking the easier path, failed that test.
Meantime, over in the third congressional district, while Republican incumbent Jon Porter is a nice guy who has certainly grown more comfortable and articulate in office, the only candidate on the Nov. 4 ballot who’d consistently vote for lower taxes, smaller government, and more freedom is Libertarian Joe Silvestri. The fact that Mr. Silvestri has been shut out of any TV “debates” and other Mainstream Media coverage demonstrates to what an extent the media — the brethren of my own profession — are now “part of the problem.”
If you wonder where the readers are going, guys, think about offering serious coverage to candidates and parties with fresh ideas, regardless of who “doesn’t have enough money to win.” And consider hiring a few reporters and columnists with the simple curiosity to go ask the other side to explain why precisely they’re in favor of gun rights and opposed to socialized medicine and socialized schooling and illegal immigration — instead of just regurgitating the current fevered talking points of the Democratic Party.
I grew up in the Democratic Party. Salvation is always possible.
Let’s be frank. Many Libertarian and other third party candidates would likely be clueless embarrassments — and as surprised as anyone — if they actually got elected.
But that does not describe articulate local high school teacher Joe Silvestri, a young man any Nevadan should be proud to call their congressman — though I’m sure the establishment, finding him reluctant to go along with their theivery, would quickly brand him “ineffective.” Would that we had 280 such “ineffectives.”
THE YOUTH PROPAGANDA CAMPS
Other races? In Clark County School Board District E, when incumbent Terri Janison learned her kids had been told at school that they “didn’t need to learn their times tables,” she got busy and taught her kids “their times tables,” at home. Rather than march down to district headquarters and insist that every one of the tens of thousands of inmates currently incarcerated in the Clark County government schools be taught THEIR times tables — that being her JOB — Ms. Jamison simply solved the problem for her OWN kids, and now smilingly explains that this shows “the importance of parental involvement.”
But if, under Ms. Janison’s watch, parents now have to teach their own kids the multiplication tables — after being alert enough to ask enough questions to determine the counterintuitive truth that the schools no longer performs this most basic function — why are we still paying school taxes?
Ms. Janison, who generally votes in a bloc with her fellow board members to rubber-stamp everything the district administration has done to set us on the current Road to Illiteracy, who believes “the union can be part of the solution,” is part of the problem. Challenger John Scutt, a Metro bicycle officer, favors vouchers and tax credits to promote school choice and would break up the massive school district into three parts. Work it out.
Finally — for today — in Family Court District R, candidate Bill Henderson understands you can’t put someone in jail if they flunk a drug test to which they agreed only in hopes of winning custody of their own children. His opponent disagrees.