Friday Fish Wrap: April 23, 2010

Gawd, what a week. Turmoil at work and really lousy weather. I’m happy that it’s over. I can have a relaxing weekend, kickback and thank my lucky stars that I’m not on the 11 Worst Governors List.

Need I have worried that Nevada’s own Governor Jim ‘Creepy’ Gibbons was on there? Nah. I’m still waiting for Nevada to on a list that I can be proud of.

That should happen about the same time that hell freezes over - and Sarah Palin becomes a labor union leader and Democrat icon.

The list features the usual suspects - Gov. Haley Barbour, R-MS, Gov. Rick Sanford, R-SC, Gov. Rick Perry, R-TX. The list has a lot of those ‘R’ folks. Unfortunately, there are a couple surprises.

Actually, Gov. David Patterson, D-NY, isn’t much of a surprise. There’s been too much circulating through the media lately to ignore. But, the one that surprised me was Gov. Bill Richardson, D-NM.

I was an early Richardson supporter during the 2008 campaign, and actually met the Governor in a quiet moment out at the airport’s executive terminal quite by accident one afternoon as he was waiting to board his airplane for the next campaign stop.

We got a few minutes to chat, and the topic was campaign finance reform. He said what so many Americans need to hear - that without real campaign finance reform, the country will continue to be run by and for the special interests, and that nothing will ever be done right, and for the right reasons.

The sad thing is that Bill Richardson gets it. Unfortunately, he’s thoroughly part of a sick and broken system of payola for politics.

Sigh.

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Friday Fish Wrap: March 20, 2009

Conservative prepares to ‘swiftboat’ healthcare reform:

Start circling the wagons to protect Obama’s efforts to reform healthcare - so badly needed to advance the economic recovery, as well as just being…well, the right and civilized thing to do. Rich guy, Rick Scott of Conservatives for Patients Rights ( now there’s a hoot! ) is, according to Politico.com ready to spend $20 million of his own considerable wealth to defeat anything that might come out of the White House. This group is tied directly into the Heritage Foundation, well known for opposing anything that doesn’t agree with their narrowly focused agenda.

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Nevada budget crisis: comment from the rank and file

I am writing this email today not to tell you about our next meeting, but to urge you to take action by writing your legislators andtalking witha friend, family member, or coworker about the budget proposed by Governor Gibbons.

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Don't pee on my shoes and tell me it's raining: No new taxes?

For once the Reno Gazette-Journal got it right in todays’ op-ed page piece “Don’t believe the anti-tax talk”. The money has to come from somewhere, taxes or fees or something. Like my late boss and advertising man, Chris Demaris, used to say, “you can’t sell from an empty cart.”

According to the Gazette-Journal: ” No one should accept the governor’s rhetoric about not raising taxes on Nevadans, however. There may be no increase in sales or property taxes in Gibbons’ budget; there may be no new business taxes either. But Nevadans will be taxed.”

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