In fact, Reid didn’t do that. The bill in question was not a bill at all. It was an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in an effort to trip up health care reform. The Oklahoma Republican introduced the most politically palatable, non-objectionable piece of legislation in hopes that Democrats would relent, pass it, and change the content of the health care law they were hoping to pass through reconciliation. If Democrats didn’t bite, the GOP would have ammo for the type of attack ad that Angle has now aired. Only the Nevada Republican got the details wrong. Coburn’s amendment didn’t provide taxpayer funds for Viagra; it prevented sexual predators from being able to use government subsidies or money to buy the drug (and other ED pills).
So, when Sharron Angle says Harry Reid voted to give taxpayer funds to sexual predators she is deliberately misrepresenting his vote. Her assertion is a flat out lie. Voting against a bill that contains a language that prohibits such a thing is not the same as voting for a bill that endorses it.
In fact, lying about Harry Reid is about all that Sharron Angle can do. As I wrote the other day, “She’s quite adept at flinging lies, much like a gorilla flings poo (her commercials are merely video versions of the wildest-eyed conspiracy-laden emails that I’ve received from rightwing nutcases over the last several years). . .”
Every single Sharron Angle ad bashes Harry Reid. Not a single one of her ads talks about her record or what she would do when she gets to the Senate.* Perhaps that is because she has no plan and because her record is exactly what Bill Raggio (R), Minority Leader of the Nevada Senate says it is.
“What is difficult to overlook is her record of being totally ineffective as a four-term assemblywomen, her inability or unwillingness to work with others, even within her own party, and her extreme positions on issues such as Medicare, social security, education, veterans affairs and many others . . . ”
There is absolutely nothing in Sharron Angle’s record or stance on issues that I find appealing or redeeming. Sharron Angle is the antithesis of everything I stand for and believe in.
Ya know, Sweetie is husband number two. When I was married to husband number one, I was not a happy camper. My answer was to try to make things better and when it became clear that I couldn’t, I ended the marriage and made a life for myself and my daughter. What I didn’t do was dump him for someone far more abusive and irresponsible. Unlike a divorce, when it comes to the U.S. Senate, rejecting Reid at the polls doesn’t give us a breather. Rejecting Harry Reid automatically gets us Sharron Angle. Choosing None Of These Candidates doesn’t give us a do-over, nor does it leave the seat vacant until we can find a more palatable choice. So, no. I’m not going to jump from the frying pan into the fire. And the race is too close to sit this one out. As much as he has disappointed me in the past, Harry will get my tepid support when I go to cast my ballot.
I realize that by my vote I am contributing to the problem of Ignore-The-Base Democrats, and that these same Democrats will likely misread the results of this election, but Angle is a bridge too far. I just can’t do anything that would contribute to her victory.
*Brian Sandoval has basically adopted this same tactic in his race against Rory Reid. What’s your plan, Brian? In the debate last Thursday night, Brian Sandoval consistently bashed Rory’s budget plan but to date has not yet put out one of his own, leaving every single Nevada voter guessing a week before early vote starts. I’ll be voting for Rory Reid for a variety of reasons and while I do still have misgivings/questions about portions of his education plan, I cannot ignore his attention to the issues, nor his courage in putting forth detailed plans for getting our state’s economy back on track, tackling our rock-bottom education system, harnessing our state’s plethora of natural energy sources, and fixing our budget woes.
That’s about all I can muster right now. I’m lurking around the blogosphere, but mostly still just catching my breath and tying up loose ends from the past weeks.
I’ll be watching the Rory Reid/Brian Sandoval debate tomorrow night, and then of course, next week there will be the one and only Harry Reid/Sharron Angle debate a scant two days before Early Vote starts. She’s quite adept at flinging lies, much like a gorilla flings poo (her commercials are merely video versions of the wildest-eyed conspiracy-laden emails that I’ve received from rightwing nutcases over the last several years), but how will she handle a face-to-face debate? I just hope the moderators call her on her shit. We shall see. Yeah, Harry has pissed me off plenty, but there is nothing Sharron Angle offers Nevada. Nothing.
I’m wearing purple on the 20th. Spread the message, won’t you?
Oh, and we’ve gotten some news, family-wise, that’s set us a bit back on our heels. So there’s that.
Sweetie, The Kids and I watched the Rory Reid / Brian Sandoval debate tonight. It was agreed by all that Rory owned the debate and pretty much kicked Sandoval’s butt. The best part was when Rory made the point that Sandoval’s “school choice” plan was merely sending taxpayer dollars to people who already have the means to send their children to private school and that a $6000 voucher used to subsidize a private education does not offer any kind of choice to a poor family who can’t cover the rest of the cost of the private tuition. Although the audience had, up to that point, abided by the no applause rule and had remained quiet during the debate, Rory’s answer was met with thunderous applause. Truth has a way of making one stand up and applaud.
THAT’s the Rory I want to see in his campaign ads.
I got this press release from the Rory Reid campaign yesterday. Snippet:
In a shocking new report, Education Week shows Nevada has fallen to the absolute rock bottom of national education rankings, sitting in 51st place out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
According to the report, Nevada graduates less than 42 percent of its students, compared to 69 percent nationwide.
Nevada’s 41.8 percent graduation rate was so bad that it was more than 12 percentage points worse than second-to-last-ranked New Mexico’s 54.9 percent graduation rate. In short, Nevada isn’t only last in education. It is dead last and by a huge margin.
“This is a educational crisis, an economic crisis, and a moral crisis,” Rory Reid said. “The system, the state, and the governors who got us here have utterly failed our children. The time has come to totally transform our system.”
Since 1997 – a 10 year period overseen by Republican governors – the graduation rate in Nevada has fallen 36 percent, from 65.7 percent to an all-time low of less than 42 percent.
I searched for and found the original report. Each link provides state by state data within each category.
Check out the Chance-for-Success Index. It will make you weep.
Here’s a shocker, Nevada has no course or subject-specific standards for our high schools. None. Not English, Math, Science or Social Studies. Perhaps we could start addressing the drop out rate there? Worse, Nevada has no course-specific standards for Science at all, at any grade level.
Rory, does your plan address this? It doesn’t appear so, not when I read this part of his plan.
Research shows one key to a successful school is an effective principal. That’s why, in EDGE schools, principals will have:
Control over grade-level staffing, and the ability to hire and release teachers in order to best meet their students’ needs.
A per-student budget with discretion to spend it on the best programs and services for students.
The freedom to structure curriculum to best meet students’ needs
Ability to change the schedules for both students and faculty, and adjust work rules to help staff meet the school mission.
This part of the plan has always concerned me. Right now we have 17 school districts within the state (one in each county), and now Rory appears to want to remove even school district control over curriculum? Shouldn’t he be going in the other direction? Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten to directly question him, and today won’t be any better. He’s holding a Round Table today in Reno at 10:30 a.m. at Swope Middle School. Since I will actually be at work, if any of you decide to attend (and if they actually take questions this time – they didn’t at the last “Town Hall” I attended), please ask for me and let me know what he says.
I want to like the plan, but for me, it’s still too “tests results” oriented and not enough actually learning.
Anyone from the campaign, feel free to stop by and answer. But I’d really like to hear from Rory himself.
Aside from my little rant at the end of this post about Rand Paul the other day and a few other mentions here and there, the Tea Party hasn’t gotten much attention on this blog. Why? Because I’ve been surrounded by this type of crazy-ass conservative in Nevada for quite some time. Note, I said “conservative” – not Republican. Because you will find the same sort of sentiments expressed by many Democrats, especially out in the wild and wooly rurals. It’s a fact. These people are nothing new to me. But they do scare me, because they would just as soon cut off their noses to spite their faces. They’ve bought the whole “No Taxes” mantra and it’s killing us. Our state is in deep doo-doo economically and we currently have a jackass of the highest order in the governor’s mansion whose slogan on his re-election signs is “He kept his promise.” As far as I can tell, he is refering to his no taxes ”promise” that seems to go something like this:
No matter what happens, no matter how in-the-hole our state budget is, no matter how many programs I have to slash or trash, or how many police or firefighters I have to fire, or how many school children I have to short-change, I will not in any way, shape, or form, consider the possibility that we might need to ask our citizens to step up to the plate and prevent our state from going down the drain.
I guess my only consolation is that it looks pretty likely that he’s going to lose the primary. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we are going to get a sane replacement. Because taxes are the third rail in Nevada politics. No one will publicly admit what they all will in private.
Harry Reid’s son, Rory, will be the Democratic nominee and will likely face off against Brian Sandoval, who is trying to out-conservative the conservatives, and who is also the target of some friends of Rory (though you’ll never know that from looking at the website) by running ads and astroturfing liberal bloggers (yours truly included) with crap that is so stunningly right-wingish that I thought I’d gotten on some crazy-ass winger email list by mistake. Maven’s got the skinny on all of that (see also: here), and I’ve written to the campaign asking them to publicly distance themselves from these yahoos, but that ain’t happening. In the meantime, Sandoval’s striking back at both Jim Gibbons (he does have a primary, after all) and Rory Reid.
Here’s the deal. I want to support Rory, if for no other reason than he was Hillary’s state chair. I believe Rory is a good man, and he’s got some good ideas (though I am leery about his education plan). However, I am concerned by the people running his campaign. They are the same people I worked side-by-side with during my time as an Dem activist, and it’s all tribal to them. It’s all about making the other side look bad and doing very little to make your guy look good. It is disappointing beyond belief.
I’m done with voting LOTE*.
I can’t vote Republican, but that doesn’t mean I will automatically vote Democrat, because, really, what are the quote-unquote real Democrats offering? Nothing I couldn’t get from a Republican. That is also a fact. Madamab synthesizes it nicely today:
The oligarchy/patriarchy, aka the Ruling Class, presents two Parties to us. One Party appears to share the values of mainstream America, with a platform that promotes social and economic justice for all. This would be the Democratic Party; the party of educated, intelligent, urban, ethnically diverse, soup-kitchen-volunteering, non-racist GOOD people. The narrative of the Democratic Party is that it’s trying and trying to push for the values shared by most Americans – a strong social safety net, the government staying out of our personal lives, and a good standard of living for them and their families – and it would succeed, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist – it is all like a cartoon to me now.) Ahem. It would succeed, too, if it weren’t for the other Party! (Insert vaudeville-like hisses and boos here.)
[...]
If the Democratic Party is really on our side, then why is it doing exactly the same things Bush and the Republicans did when they were in power – the things we all hated so much? This is a very long list, including (but not limited to): continuing current wars and adding “mini-wars” to them (like Pock-ee-ston and Yemen and possibly Iran, Jesu Christe), pushing epically failed Reaganomics down our throats, legislatively punishing women and LGBT, hemorrhaging jobs, allowing a massive environmental disaster and terrorist attacks to occur on their watch while they have their thumbs up their asses and they trot the clueless Dear Leader out for photo ops, grabbing an unprecedented amount of executive power…etc. etc. etc. ad freaking infinitum. Is Rand Paul REALLY the problem here, folks? Who’s in charge? Isn’t it the Democrats?
Or is it? Seems to me the oligarchy/patriarchy is getting its own way no matter which Party is in charge. Doesn’t it seem that way to you? Doesn’t it seem that whenever Obama or the Dems do something particularly egregious slapped with a “reform” label (The Dems keep using that word, “reform.” I don’t think it means what they think it means.), along comes a woman like Sarah Palin, or a guy like Rand Paul, to wave their shiny extremism in front of our eyes, hypnotizing all of us – and the oligarchical/patriarchal media forces the mass hypnosis as much as they possibly can. (Yes, this includes the “access” bloggers, which is why I don’t let their pernicious bullshit into my life any more.) OMG! they burble, using the word “racist” about 40 million times, Rand Paul wants to overturn the Civil Rights Act! Doesn’t that trump the fact that Obama has removed reproductive rights from millions of women with the Health Whatever Bill? Doesn’t that mean we (the Democrats) are STILL so much better than the Republicans?
Ah yes, the Two Minutes Hate without which our lives would have no meaning! No matter which side you are on, each tribe has its own Designated Hate Receptacles (thank you, Violet, for such a descriptive term). On the “left” we can direct our venom at Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, the state of Arizona, Wall Street, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and, failing all else, blame all evils of society on the “Conservatives.” And the right gets to hate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Labor Unions, Big Government, ”Socialism”, and, failing all else, blame all evils of society on the “Liberals.”
See how that works?
Both sides use their receptacle du jour stoke the rage, to rally the troops, to raise money, and to scare us into the voting booth to vote for their oligarch of choice. Witness the flurry of emails I am receiving in the wake of Rand Paul’s stunning display of ignorance. Just days before that it was Arizona! And before that it was Sarah! All designated as threats to the very fabric of democracy, by the very same people who felt free to kick democracy in the teeth themselves, when it suited their agenda. And goes equally for the Rebublicans and the Tea Party as well, a well-organized, well-funded *cough* grassroots movement *cough* that may very well get away from its founders.
But unlike madamab, I can’t not care. There are days when I am so overwhelmed I want to say that I just don’t care, but I can’t. I do care. For my family, for my friends, for people like my co-worker, I still care. And I’m not going down without a fight.
Something is happening, and I tremble when I think of the road this may take us down. I just don’t know what it is, exactly, but in conversations I’ve had with people not usually prone to opening up about political matters, there is more than unease. There is a fear that is rising up in them and it is choking them. During a discussion of current events the other day a co-worker paused, and then she said, “Honestly? I’m really starting to wonder if I did the right thing bringing kids into this world.” This from a woman who is no wild-eyed political junkie. This from a woman who, when she speaks in a meeting, has a well-modulated, calm voice that soothes. A woman who is going to work every day, trying to play by the rules, and wondering what the hell has happened to the country she thought she knew, and how it can be that our “leaders” seem so abysmally out of touch.
Throwing the bums out sounds so attractive, but not if you don’t have a vision for what kind of person you want to replace them. This Statement of Priniciples is be a good start. And so is the Justice Party.
Ken McKenna - A man with a lot of words, but no plan. In fact, his website is a joke and his billboards embarass me. His billboards consist of a picture of McKenna and his wife with the nonsensical statement: “Say NO to taxes.” What the … ? He is supposedly running as a Democrat for NV-02, a formidable task, most assuredly. But dude, the idea is to differentiate yourself from the Republican, not sound just like him.
And yeah, I’ll be re-registering as a Democrat in time for the primary.
And, not for nothing, but we think it’s totally ass (as the young people say) for the guy in charge of electing Democrats to governors mansions nationwide to come out and favor one candidate over another more than a year before the primary election is even held. It smacks of intimidation, of good old boy, backroom politics. And we’re not sure how they do things up in Montana, but here in Nevada, voters tend not to like that kind of thing. Especially Democratic primary voters. Just ask U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who enjoyed their generous support in 2006.
So, Gov. Schweitzer, with all due respect, drop your money on the tables and then fly back to Montana. We’ll call you next year, once we’ve decided who best to defeat the Republican nominee, OK? And then we expect you to make with the campaign cash — regardless of who we pick, even if it’s not the candidate you like — because, well, that’s your job.
Spot on. I like Brian Schweitzer. I think he’s doing a bang-up job in Montana, but like Sebelius, I’m shocked that the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association would publicly support one Democratic gubernatorial candidate over another, even though he is mandated to remain neutral. Go read Molly Ball’s article. It’s stunning what he admits to. If this is the road he wants to go down, then he needs to step down from the chairmanship. As in: right now.
On another note, further into Molly’s article linked above we find this little gem:
Jack Schofield, a member of the university system Board of Regents, has a Web site touting him as a 2010 congressional candidate.
The site, http://www.jack2010.com, touts a lifetime of experience for Schofield, 86, who was a fighter pilot in World War II. But it doesn’t say what seat in Congress he’s interested in.
Reached for comment, Schofield said the campaign is in the “making preparations” stage. A Democrat, he said he would run for the only Nevada congressional seat currently held by a Republican, the 2nd District, represented by Dean Heller.
Schofield doesn’t live in the 2nd District — he lives in Democrat Shelley Berkley’s 1st District — but that’s not a requirement. Another Democrat, Douglas County School Board President Cindy Trigg, has already announced a challenge to Heller.
It may not be a requirement, but we voters in CD-2 prefer to have our representative actually live in our district. We’re funny that way.
