Wingnuts call on the 'Hair Do' to resign/ Can we trust FOX news?/ DC statehood makes hay of scandal

The Junior U.S. Senator from Nevada, who on has been a bit of a morally superior sumbitch over the years (calling on former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and former President Bill Clinton to step down in the advent of sexual affairs), is being called on to resign by some of the wingnuts in his own party

Nevada conservative activist Chuck Muth told the Las Vegas SUN that Ensign should resign “for the good of the state, the good of the Republican Party.”

Similar suggestions have come from wingnuts from the national level a la Sean Hannity of FOX News.

If you are so inclined to call for the douchebag's resignation, then visit this facebook page that has been set up just for this purpose.

And speaking about that fair and imbalanced network, questions are now looming over how FOX News handled the information it received from Ensign's former staffer, Doug Hampton, who alerted the news organization about the affair the senator was having with his wife.

Meanwhile, one "news organization" has not held back on its coverage of the "Ensign Affair," giving us a glimpse of the other woman, who appears to be a high school friend of Ensign's wife Darlene.


Proponents for D.C. statehood, who were miffed at Ensign earlier this year for meddling in the national's capitol gun laws to score some points with gun nuts, have come up with a great new fund raising idea for their cause: A tee-shirt in a variety of colors with the following phrase: "Senator Ensign Screwed Me Too"

A toast to Nevada's state employees

On the eve of "Nevada State Employees Recognition Week," the nation's worst governor, flanked by his legislative brain trust (Assembly Republicans Ty Cobb of Reno, Don Gustavson of Sparks and Ed Goedhart of Amargosa Valley, John Hambrick and Richard McArthur, both of Las Vegas), announced salary reductions of state workers and teachers by 6 percent as well as reducing health insurance subsidies and eliminating coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees.

The Democratic legislative alternative calls for 12 furlough days a year, a slight reduction in health insurance subsidies and longer eligibility for benefits.

Let's all join "Governor Assclown" and his above-mentioned Republican Assembly legislative brain trust, better known as the Nevada Republican Study Committee, in a toast to the employees of the Great State of Nevada!

Because that's the way Pinky wants it and that's the way it is

"...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."

-Steve Sebelius
LV CityLife Blog: "Various Things and Stuff" 5/4/09

Mr. Sebelius could not express the sentiment more eloquently about how much it stinks that the fix is already in with respect to the Democratic Primary in next year's Nevada gubernatorial race.

Despite the fact that neither Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley or Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid have not formally announced their candidacy, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, has already declared a favorite.

And what would cause a this organization's chairman who is supposed to impartial until a candidate is chosen by Nevada Democratic Primary voters to publicly state "Full disclosure: I met with Rory; I am not meeting with the other candidate?"

The Las Vegas Review-Journal answered that question with the notion that Rory's dad, Pinky, "has been a political mentor to Schweitzer for more than a decade."

One wonders if that infamous painful neutral stance Pinky took during last year's Democratic Presidential Primary Race despite the fact Rory chaired Hillary Clinton's campaign in Nevada will be the same when his son is on the ballot. What is interesting is Pinky is taking his share of the credit encouraging the candidacy of President Barack Obama.

Perhaps Nevada and Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters will feel a certain kinship, when it becomes apparent, despite who they support, their state's party leaders think they know what's best for them. Congressman Joe Sestak, D-PA, who is mulling a U.S. Senate bid despite his state's party leaders have already thrown their support to the defecting former Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, now a Democrat, put it the way Nevadans would probably say themselves, "I think this just comes down to what’s best for Pennsylvanians, and boy are we independent."

Disclosure: The author of this blog was a precinct captain for Hillary Clinton in last year's Nevada Democratic Presidential Caucus and prefers Barbara Buckley as next year's Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

The curious case of 'Harry Ensign' and why it tortures Nevada partisans, nation

Nevada political pundit Jon Ralston coined a term over eight years ago that would come to describe the relationship that Nevada's two U.S. Senators from opposite political parties that has emerged.

The term, "Harry Ensign," would describe what was lauded as a "productive partnership" that Democrat Sen. Harry “Pinky” Reid and Republican John “The Hairdo” Ensign working issues important to all Nevadans, such as opposing a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, land bills and various pork projects.
Most cynics would agree that the "productive partnership" was really a marriage of convenience to ensure each of them would not face the resources of the other guy's respective party or their respective campaign fundraising committees (DSCC & NRSC), in which both men wield a lot of influence, and as the 2004 and 2006 U.S. Senate campaigns would prove.

Well, a funny thing happened on the road that Harry Ensign were walking on in 2003, when both men sponsored the appointment of former UNLV law professor Jay Bybee to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Bybee also served as a senior U.S. Justice Department attorney who drafted a year before the infamous “torture memo” giving CIA interrogators who wished to use harsh tactics on an uncooperative detainee that “did not rise to the legal definition of torture.” These tactics included "slams against a wall, face slaps, sleep deprivation, cramped confinement in boxes and water boarding to simulate drowning.

While the useful idiot that is “The Hairdo” has been all over the airwaves defending Bybee and his memo, “Pinky” is in a bit of a pickle. Some Democrats are clamoring for an independent counsel investigation, but Pinky and top Senate Dems want to control the direction of the torture probe.

Assuming that Pinky does navigate around his sponsorship of Bybee to the federal bench, he stands to face a tough GOP competitor next year. Maybe.

Some local Democrats will soon figure out why Pinky supported Republican Reno Mayor Bob Cashell in his last mayoral campaign in 2006, who recently just returned the favor and will wonder what deal was made for Nevada’s premier GOP political consultant Sig Rogich to recently endorse him.

While the "Harry Ensign" relationship may be torture to state's Democratic and Republican partisans, that relationship really tortures the nation's image when the U.S. Senate's top Democrat can not allow a proper investigation of conduct that is unbecoming of the moral and humanitarian nation we aspire to be.

RTC, Reno subsidize construction, developers while the rest of us have to pay

The Regional Transportation Commission has broken ground on a news bus station in downtown Reno, to be built on the other side of the National Bowling Stadium.

The City of Reno, not content enough with subsidizing the baseball stadium developers, plans to buy the bus station's current location for $6.6 million and has agreed to resell it to back to them (undoubtedly, for far less than its worth) for eventual construction of a hotel and shops.

The estimated $20 million project comes at a time when the RTC transit system is struggling financially and is resorting to significant bus service cuts.

If screwing the community's poor and working class wasn't enough, the RTC has asked state lawmakers to screw the rest of us with a gas tax to offset a projected $4.8 billion shortfall over the next 40 years, while local construction companies selfishly suck up all of the stimulus money, and never offering to pay their fair share in the form of impact fees.

And of course, the City of Reno is only happy to place the burden its revenue shortfalls upon the rest of us as well with its recent vote to raise power, water and sewer fees.

Hey douchebag! Do you really think we're that stupid?

The nation's worst governor actually believes that he is "the victim" in the divorce case between Nevada's first couple.

His estranged wife, Dawn, claims that governor assclown had affairs with two women, which he dismisses as "a stupid little allegation."

Does he really believe that people will buy that he was "just friends" with his numerous public appearances with Leslie Durant and 867 text messages on his state cell phone to Kathy Karrasch?

Thanks to NBC's Today Show via the Las Vegas Gleaner, now the whole nation knows how much of a douchebag the governor of Nevada is!

And now the fun begins...

Washoe County Family Court Judge Frances Doherty played the part of Santa Claus to the media and those of us enjoying the schadenfreude of it all in ordering the release of unsealed documents in the divorce case of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons and his estranged wife Dawn. (RGJ, LVRJ)

The documents reveal the infidelity accusations of nation's worst governor, which he did his best to spin as "humanitarian work."

These latest revelations, brings to back to mind a past blog entry most Nevadans are wondering, how much longer can we take this?

However, the one of his spinmeisters seems to think the short-sighted outlook on solving the state's budget crisis keeps getting him elected. Is he fucking kidding?

*Photo Collage taken from the Las Vegas Gleaner