Las Vegas Gleaner

Yet another ranting churchy guy enchants the viewing public

Some might be tempted to assume that if the cable news nets cancel their regularly scheduled programming for a few days and replace it with a video loop of the Christian Rev. Jeremiah Wright being an angry black man, the viewing audience could be confused.

What about all those e-mails and reports from Fox News proving once and for all that Barack Obama is radical Muslim who was raised in a madrassa? Just about the time a vast swath of America's most informed and enlightened citizenry is successfully convinced that Obama hates America because he's an al Qaeda sympathizer, along comes the (old) news, accompanied by video evidence, no less, that Obama (via his pastor and the media's immutable laws of transference) actually hates America because he's a Jesus freak. Oy vey.

Fortunately, American cable news consumers needn't burden themselves too much with the nuances of exactly why Obama hates America. People — especially those who always knew in their hearts that there was just something not quite right about that African American man with the funny foreign name — can simply rest assured that whatever his motivation, Obama is not a good American like, say, George W. Bush.

War Party Rep. Steve King has summed it up over and over — and over and over and over as he smartly capitalizes on his maiden appearances in non-Iowa media — the terrorists will be "dancing in the streets" if Obama is elected president.

Talk about belaboring the obvious. Any fool can see the terrorists want nothing more than for the United States to be led by a multi-cultural, multi-racial president whose very election in and of itself would not only  signal a dramatic break from American policies of the past and assure nations on every continent and in every corner of the world that the U.S. isn't batshit crazy anymore, but also shatter some of the core assumptions about America that inspire hatred among entire generations of Arabs and Muslims.

If John McCain is elected to continue the Bush administration's policies, by contrast, then the evildoers would most definitely not be dancing in the streets. Well, except for the initial demonstration heralding the continuation of Bush administration policies and hence a perpetuation of the glorious ongoing struggle against the great satan or whatever they're calling us that day. That'll probably involve some dancing. And continued Bush-McCainism will make it easier for evildoer movers and shakers, on a going-forward basis, to attract recruits and rally popular support for killing Americans and attacking people or institutions perceived to be America sympathizers. So that should guarantee the occasional street dance during the course of a McCain administration. And a McCain victory in November will prompt evildoer leaders to dance, cheer and squeal in delight in the certainty that McCain, like Bush, will continue to puff up their image as global historical players to an exalted degree that is far out of proportion to their actual significance. Nothing boosts a fundraising campaign, after all, like press clippings of the president of the United States saying over and over again that your cause is nothing less than "the transcendent challenge of the 21st century."

But yeah, other than that, the evildoers would much rather have Obama as president.

Anyway, back to the madcap hijinx of Pastor Wright ... it's perhaps neither here nor there, but for the nonce: If Obama was a nonbeliever, he would not be in this position.

(UPDATE: Desert Beacon has crafted an outstanding post Wright and the right).

Hairdo admits to being magnificent farce, impotent failure

Sen. John Ensign is the worst chairman of the National Republian Senatorial Committee ever, Ensign has confirmed to the Hill newspaper.

In a lengthy obituary of the War Party's chances to gain Senate seats this year, Ensign — or Sen. Hairdo McWedgeshot, as he is widely known in Nevada — notes that in state after state across the country, he has shown himself to be utterly ineffective at attracting candidates to run for the U.S. Senate.

"There is no question that getting back in the majority now, because of some of the recruiting – some of these just terrific candidates that we wanted ended up not running – would be a very long stretch," Ensign said.

Ensign reiterated that still, after more than a year of trying, he has a credible War Party recruit in only one state, Louisiana.

Ensign has repeatedly declared how magnficently lucky it is for him and his joined-at-the-hip beltway insider consultant Little Mikey Slanker that the Christain god who loves Republicans best sent Katrina to sink New Orleans. True, the hurricane and accompanying War Party crony-assisted incompetence nearly obliterated an entire city, took (at a minimum) more than 1,800 lives and plummetted tens of thousands of people into agonizing personal misery and despair. But more importantly, black people with a history of voting for Democrats left the state, so now the voting demographics are better for the War Party.

The devastation from Katrina, however, is but one lonely bright spot for Ensign and Slanker. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has twice as much money on hand as the Ensign/Slanker War Party fundraising effort. And in the Hill obituary, Ensign placed blame squarely where it belongs: on others — specifically his fellow War Party senators. Ensign also confessed that he is fantastically impotent and wields no influence whatsoever on his colleagues.

"We’ve tried fear, we’ve tried positive reward, positive reinforcement, we’ve tried being a little harder on them, we use different things at different times – begging, we begged a lot."

Asked about members’ excuses, he added half-jokingly: "I think they’re all pathetic excuses, but that’s just my own take on it."

As it happens, Ensign has a track record of rather spectacularly failing to inspire and rally his colleagues on behalf of an Ensign-backed cause. Most notably, Ensign was first elected to the Senate on the promise that as a Republican, he could woo other Republicans to support Nevada's fight against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. But when George W. Bush, launching one of the early salvos in the administration's perpetual war on science, officially designated Yucca as the dump site, Ensign could not deliver even one solitary single additional GOP senator to Nevada's side.

Ensign's futility has raised questions in some quarters as to why he would have been selected to head the War Party's Senate campaign effort in the first place. One possible explanation favored by insider wags is that War Party Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of what's left of the party's leadership had completely and totally forgotten about Hairdo's ineffective attempt to influence colleagues on Yucca Mountain, in a reflection of just how lame, half-hearted and forgettable Ensign's effort was.

Most observers agree, however, that by far the main reason Hairdo got the job was because absolutely nobody else wanted anything to do with it. And now the 'Do doesn't want it either:

Q: Have you ruled out for running for NRSC chairman next cycle?
A: That’s correct. … The job’s very important, and I think it is good that it is only a two-year cycle. I can’t believe [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman] Chuck Schumer [N.Y.] is doing this for four years.

Meantime, in the hustle and bustle of beltway gamesmanship and the media's wall-to-wall handicapping of candidates, campaigns and political influence, it is easy to forget that Hairdo McWedgeshot is a human being, a man who cares, and man who loves, a deeply churchy man who appreciates how crucial it is to never lose sight of the things that really and truly matter in life:

Q: How has this job affected your personal life?
A: I have played 18 holes of golf this year: two nine-hole matches with my son. So the golf game is definitely suffering.

Touching, no? Considered in that light, overwhelming tragedy and devastation visited on mostly poor black people seems but a small price to pay if it provides the 'Do a silver lining — Louisiana — in his otherwise heavily cloud-darkened tenure as a farcical and failed beltway wannabe.

Tyranny of the minority — the only fair solution for Nevada

As part of his tireless campaign to make life miserable in Nevada and for Nevadans, bitchy little area megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson is bankrolling a ballot initiative that basically says any initiative to raise taxes, like those targeting the gambling industry, must pass by at least a two-thirds majority.

Clever, clever bitchy little area megalomaniac. But what if the crazed bloodthirsty warmonger is correct to assert the right of a mere one third of the people to rule over the majority? Or, as the question is posed in the Gleaner's latest CityLife column: 

"...if Nevada is going to abandon the concept of majority rule and embrace the tyranny of the minority, why limit the minoritarian impulse to mere tax policy?"

By way of answer (and after a bit of background and crucial color commentary), the column provides a short list of other things that, in the interest of fairness, should not be allowed unless approved by a supermajority of voters and/or legislators.

Some are no-brainers, like, say, the ability of Pervus McSkanktard to single-handedly and on his own cut the education budget.

But some less obvious examples are not without merit. For instance, "if all tax hikes require a supermajority" from two-thirds of the voters, "the same should apply to all tax breaks."

Miniglean: Everyone say hello to Ashley Alexandra Dupre

• The whore! The whore! Look everyone, the intrepid media has uncovered the identity of Elliot Spitzer's fabulous whore! She seems like a nice girl and her book should should be a bestseller even if her musical stylings won't be, so it looks like this story is going to have a happy ending. Still, it's hard not to feel sorry for David Vitter's whores. Where are their book deals, their upcoming guest shots on Ellen, their newfound celebrity that, managed properly, could provide them and their families financial security? The world can be so unfair.
• Hillary Clinton apologized Wednesday for her campaign's systematic, methodical and deliberate attempts to marginalize Barack Obama as merely a black candidate. "I am sorry if anyone was offended," Clinton said (AP).
• UPDATE: A must-read exposing the links between the Spitzer and Ferraro stories. TPM
• Those who are appalled at how the trigger-happy Henderson Police killed that unarmed mom in front of her kids should take heart; the Hooterville cops also like to rough up federal agents (LVRJ). Thank you, Henderson Police Chief Richard Perkins, for instilling the force with a culture of equal opportunity violence.

Everyone say hello to Ben Kieckhefer!

Who? The new press secretary for Gov. Pervus A. McSkantard, that's who.

To paraphrase the illustrious attorney general of Utah, apologies to all the Kieckhefers in the audience, but even his name sounds pervy (Hickfucker? Fuckheifer?) — but in a nice Republican sort of way, so no offense, m'kay Ben?

Anyway, the can-do spirit of public relations enthusiasm in the accompanying photograph leaves little doubt that Ben, a former reporter, is a real go-getter, a self-starter but a team player, the sort of employee who can juggle multiple deadlines while working well with others. And all that is pretty much confirmed by the biographical blurb touting Ben's talents for the advertising/PR outfit from which he was plucked:

Ink is in Ben's blood. When Ben took a job for United Press International while still in college, he became a third generation journalist. Perhaps what Ben liked most about reporting was that it gave him the chance to write, learn, meet new people and follow politics, things he gladly would do just for the love of it.

Ink? Funny, he doesn't look old enough to have been gainfully employed back when words used to be printed on paper with ink. Oh well, as much as Ben was drawn to journalism "just for the love of it," he apparently would come to love advertising and public relations even more. But all that journalism stuff wasn't a total loss:

His experience covering government honed his ability to think critically, communicate clearly and wade through the clutter to get to the heart of any issue.

Clutter? What possible clutter would there be to wade through as McScurvy's press secretary?

While his decision to take the job casts doubt on "his ability to think critically," Ben's appointment is probably a grand slam of honorable propriety and uncharacteristic (for this administration) competence for which McSkankus should thank his jack Mormon gawd(s) — that is, by comparison to McScurve's inept yet corrupt appointment of a pharmaceutical industry salesperson to the state Pharmacy Board ('Monger, KLAS).

Perhaps when Ben officially starts the job next week, as one of his first official duties he can "wade through the clutter" and "communicate clearly" how someone can sit on a board when the board's attorney has told her to abstain from pretty much all of the board's bidness.

Ferraro: It's all black Barack Obama's fault that he's a lucky black man

Geraldine Ferraro resigned Thursday from her position as a senior fundraiser/racebaiter for the Hillary Clinton campaign because Barack Obama hates white women:

"I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign," Ferraro wrote in a letter to Clinton. "The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen." CNN

See! This whole dust-up is all Barack Obama's fault. Finally, an explanation for why Ferraro offended every hard-working accomplished African American in the country who has to hear white people complain that the only reason they got their jobs was because they were black: the mean Obama campaign forced Ferraro to say it!

And let's face it: If Barack Obama was a white man, he would not be in a position to force Ferraro to say say stupid offensive things about black people.

Again, and as usual, it's all that black Barack Obama's fault.

Ferraro's resignation followed an interview Tuesday in which the one-time Democratic vice-presidential nominee said "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

How's that? Responses that come to mind include but are not limited to: Limbaughesque, Hannityish, Rovian, anachronistic (charitable view) and fucking whack (less charitable view).

Meantime, even before Ferraro left the Clinton campaign in a blaze of stepped-up batshit crazy talk, Obama was attempting to tone down the whole sordid turn of events:

"The notion that it is a great advantage to me, an African American named Barack Obama, in pursuit of the presidency I think is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public...

"Divisions of race, gender, of region are precisely what has inhibited us from moving effectively forward to solve big problems like health care, energy, the war on terror." 

Obama stopped short of observing that if Hillary Clinton's husband was not a white man, she would not be in this position.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of the Clinton campaign's ongoing production "That Black Barack Obama — Is He Black or What?" when a mid-level campaign surrogate will inadvertently and without the campaign's approval (of course) publicly wonder how many times Obama dated white women.

Out-of-control big government recklessly protects public health and safety

In a sharp challenge to policy as articulated by the governor of Nevada, state regulators have shut down a business in the name of public health on the basis of nothing more than repeated violations of state regulations as determined after a series of inspections by government officials.

The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection announced Wednesday that it was effectively shutting down Queenstake's Resources Jerritt Canyon gold mine north of Elko following a year-long investigation and the company's failure to comply with two previous orders demanding more efficient control of dangerous mercury emissions. (NDEP, AP)

The unusual circumstances, wherein regulators took state statutes seriously, actually followed through on a monitoring program and then, incredibly, enforced the law caused jaws to drop among Nevada political insiders.

"The people of Nevada should give thanks that this sort of regulatory 'overkill,' as the governor so wisely calls it, is not being inflicted on the state's medical facilities," said Nevada Mining Association president Mark Amodei in a quote that the Gleaner just totally made up out of thin air — a practice that normally should be eschewed but Amodei simultaneously serves as both a well-paid industry shill and a state senator so fuck him.

The governor, who thinks regulations are icky, declined to comment, except to say that if his wife was a white man, he would not be in this position.

Miniglean

• Gilligan, always quick to light up a big fat one, continues to exert his evil influence on his few surviving fellow castaways even from the grave. But please, for the love of all that America holds dear, free Mary Ann. AP
• From here on out, presidential candidates and for that matter the president himself won't even have to undergo a medical procedure to be putting their lives in danger if they visit Nevada. RGJ
• More secrecy from Nevada War Party's elected officials: Dean Heller (oh, he's a congressman) refuses to reveal his golf handicap (Oregonian). We can't imagine why.
• Spitzer resigns (NYT); David Vitter, meantime, does not, because everybody has always known that the Louisiana senator was a lying sack and flaming hypocrite (the "R" after his name is customarily a dead giveaway) and so it's not fair to hold him to the same standard as Spitzer. Besides, Nevada's John Ensign and the rest of the War Party senators were — and remain — simply relieved that Vitter adhered to traditional Republican family values by having sex with whores of the female variety, unlike Ensign's long-time and much-valued ally in the culture wars, Larry Craig.

Obama wins another state that Clinton hates

...this time it's Mississippi.

"If Obama was Geraldine Ferraro, he would not be in this position," observed Clinton spokesman Ari Fleischer Howard Wolfson. Or words to that effect.

McCan't's grammar runs afoul of War Party base

John McCan't (pictured, at right) sent an email to the Gleaner. No, it wasn't to apologize for Utah's racist paranoid ass-clown excuse of an attorney general coming to Las Vegas last week to explain how McCan't fears everyone of African and/or Indonesian heritage ... still waiting for that e-mail.

Instead, it was just another letter commanding recipients to send money to the War Party's grudgingly accepted default nominee unless of course they hate America and want the terrorists to win blahbity blahblahblah Democrats suck The End.

Anyway, you know how all the wingnuts in the War Party say that McCan't isn't flavorfully wingnutty enough?

Yeah, he likes more wars, my friends, other wars, so of course that's mostly bullshit. And now Bush has cleared the personnel decks to make way for the long-anticipated, Sheldon Adelson-sponsored invasion of Iran, which should whip the War Party base right into shape. In fact, pundits who say that nothing will unite the War Party voters like Hillary Clinton are forgetting that those voters belong to the War Party. Expanding America's naked and unwarranted military aggression into yet another hopeless fiasco doomed to be even more costly and catastrophic than the last ill-conceived military adventure should completely supplant any concerns the War Party base might have over McCan't's minor deviations from conservative orthodoxy on the margins. McCan't's plenty wingnutty.

Having said that, one line in McCan't's letter jumped out:

"The Democratic nominee will increase the size of the federal government, raise your taxes, and withdraw our armed forces from Iraq's front lines based on an arbitrary timetable."

Everybody catch McCan't's liberal slip showing? That's right. His letter refers to the "Democratic" nominee.

Goodness it's been some time since a member in good standing of the War Party was heard to mutter the word "Democratic." The "Democrat" nominee, that's what they always say, ostensibly because some pollster told them it was derogatory or some damned thing but mostly because War Party drones have about as much respect for proper usage as they do for the idea of having a credible reason before catastrophically launching optional invasions and occupations.

So, since he uses the word "Democratic," does that make McCan't a moderate?

Nah. It's just habit ... he's just using the language commonly used by him and all his fellow then-middle-aged peers back when Hollywood started making the Talkies.