Governor Jim Gibbons is having his portrait painted. Paid for by taxpayers.

The Nevada Arts Council has chosen three finalists to paint the official portrait of the Governor. Forty-four artists competed for the honor. The three chosen are: Ned Bettinger of New Mexico, John Ennis of Pennsylvania and Michele Rushworth of Washington state.

Guess nobody in Nevada paints portraits.

Gibbons gets to make the final choice of which of the three get to paint him. The chore has to be completed by December 17.

The person chosen will be paid $17,500 for the painting, frame and hanging materials and also will receive up to $2,500 in travel expenses.

Governor Gibbons’ portrait will hang in the hallway of the state’s capitol.

You know what, the Governor’s portrait could be digitally painted for just a few bucks. Corel Painter software will do the trick. Costs $49.99. Works just fine. The picture you see above is of my oldest son when he was five years old. What you see is a painting from his picture was done by Corel Painter Essentials by me this morning. And I live in Pahrump, Nevada.

All the Nevada Arts Council had to do was send me a photograph of the Governor, or I could have found one myself with a Google image search, then run it through Corel Painter Essentials and voila it would be done. I’d been happy to do have done it for $20. And that $20 would have been spent by me here in Pahrump, not New Mexico, Pennsylvania or Washington state. And I’m not gainfully employed either.

Source: Nevada Appeal

Gov. Jim Gibbons

Nevada Republican Governor Jim Gibbons isn’t sure whether he will accept $162 million in federal money to hire school teachers and supply funds to the Medicaid program.

A couple of days ago I wrote about this asking the question whether or not Nye County would reject the money from the federal government. It hadn’t occurred to me that the Governor of Nevada would relieve Nye County of having to make any decision at all. He may make the decision for all counties in the state.

Gibbons has nothing to lose, politically, because he’s a lame duck and we’ll be rid of him come January.

He first wants to see the strings attached to the law signed this week by President Obama. It would protect an estimated 1,400 teacher jobs in Nevada.

The governor has to approve accepting the money pushed through Congress by Democrats..

Gibbons complained the federal government is making decisions on Nevada’s school system. For instance, he said the Eureka County School District might need books or computers but will be required to use the funds for teachers.

No mention by Gibbons that he’s making the decisions on Nye County’s school system. Lord, considering the dismal state the education system is in how can it be any kind of improvement for Gibbons to be the “decider?” Seems to me the local school districts should be making the decision. Local school boards would seem to be in far better position to know what they need than Gibbons, or even the federal government.

"We have to study the requirements for taking that money," Gibbons said. "The requirements by the federal government oftentimes put us in a more difficult position."

He said the state might get the $82 million for education "but in some ways you have to continue to spend state money to keep getting that money and oftentimes we don’t have the matching dollars."

"I’m prepared to say ‘Thank you’ and I’m prepared to say ‘Thank you, but no thank you,’" Gibbons said.

The state, under the federal legislation, would get $79 million for the Medicaid program, which provides medical care for the needy.

Gibbons will decide whether Nevada’s Medicaid beneficiaries get their medical treatments or not. Of course the “needy” are needy due to their own fault. Or at least that seems to be the Republican viewpoint.

Gibbons press secretary Daniel Burns said it was disappointing for the federal government to offer money to states and not let states decide how to spend it.

"Rhode Island, Florida, Mississippi and Nevada have different educational needs and to say that all this money can only be spent on teachers when a school district may need books or buses or supplies for the classroom … That’s part of the strings attached," he said.

Republicans Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Dean Heller opposed the congressional bill, saying it wouldn’t create jobs in private business or spur the economy.

These two guys aren’t much help to Nevadans either. They’re locked into their “just say no” mode.

School teachers, children and the medically needy can simply go pound sand.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

The headline on MSNBC is “Republicans kill Senate Jobless aid measure.”

The lead paragraph reads:

Republicans on Thursday defeated Democrats’ showcase election-year jobs bill, including an extension of weekly unemployment benefits for millions of people out of work more than six months.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

Eugene Turner has a word or two for U.S. senators who voted Thursday against a $109 billion bill that would have extended emergency unemployment benefits for job seekers like himself.

The photo above is of Eugene Turner. He says:

“They have no heart for the public — the working man,” Turner said Friday at the Nevada JobConnect office on Maryland Parkway near Desert Inn Road, where people were waiting to use computers.

Turner, who moved here from Los Angeles six weeks ago looking for work, said he’s scared about how he’s going to pay rent when his government assistance runs out.

“My bills ain’t going to stop in 10 weeks,” he said, shaking his head.

[Read more →]

Nevada’s Governor, Republican Jim Gibbons, thinks the political pundits are wrong and will be surprised June 8. [Nevada News Bureau]

He currently trails Brian Sandoval by double-digits. Gibbons said if he loses re-election he will not seek public office again.

To that I say great—go on to retirement and stay there.

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has released its list of 11 most incompetent and unethical governors in the nation. They produce an in-depth analysis of those that have “pushed their states’ best interests aside in favor of their supporters, families, political parties and bank accounts.”

CREW has put up a website for the worst governors.

CREW reviewed the job performance of all 50 of our nation’s governors to determine which are the worst. We considered whether governors had violated ethics, campaign finance and personal financial disclosure rules as well as whether they had complied with state transparency laws. It is nearly impossible to compare governors’ adherence to the laws because state rules and laws vary so widely. Each state has its own ethical rules and standards. Requirements regarding disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures and personal finances differ significantly as do state open records laws. Some states make much more information publicly available than others.

Despite these difficulties, CREW was been able to reach some general conclusions about which governors violated agreed upon notions of competence, transparency and integrity.

Here is their list:

• Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS)
• Governor Donald Carcieri (R-RI)
• Governor Jim Gibbons (R-NV)
• Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA)
• Governor David Paterson (D-NY)
• Governor Sonny Perdue (R-GA)
• Governor Rick Perry (R-TX)
• Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM)
• Governor Mike Rounds (R-SD)
• Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC)
• Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA)

CREW summarizes the transgressions of Gibbons as:

Charges:

• Violated campaign finance law by accepting illegal corporate donations
• Allegedly assaulted a waitress
• Overlooked ethical lapses of his appointee
• Misused state resources in pursuit of an extra-marital affair
• Endangered his state’s economy by threatening to reject federal stimulus funds
• Has been investigated for his conduct as a member of Congress

Those charges against Gibbons are analyzed and set forth in-depth here.

Nevada’s GOP trio—working together to stave off prosperity in the silver state.

Nevada is knee deep in candidates running for election this year according to the Las Vegas Sun.

U.S. Senate:

There are 13 Republicans on the ballot seeking to be the one the Republican Party will pick to run against Senator Harry Reid. Senator Reid has four challengers within the Democratic Party. Not likely he won’t be nominated by the Democrats in the primary election. Even Dawn Gibbons, former first lady of Nevada and wife of Governor Jim Gibbons, has stated she supports Senator Reid.

Nevada Governor:

Governor Jim Gibbons is challenged by fellow Republicans, primarily former federal judge Brian Sandoval and former North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon.

Rory Reid is the leading Democrat determined to unseat Governor Gibbons. I haven’t seen anything, yet, indicating Dawn Gibbons is supporting Rory Reid. Who knows?

Other statewide offices:

Democrats now fill the seats of Nevada’s secretary of state (Ross Miller), treasurer (Kate Marshall), controller (Kim Wallin) and attorney general (Catherine Cortez-Masto).

The Sun doesn’t see any of those as being in imminent danger of losing their seats to a Republican. The only major Republican challenger is former controller Steve Martin (I don’t think it is the comedian) who is mounting a run against Treasurer Kate Marshall.

Here in Nye County there is no shortage of candidates either. It will be a long ballot. I suspect the races that will capture most of the attention is that for Nye County District Attorney which might eclipse the contest for Sheriff of Nye County. For political junkies spring has sprung.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

The following is a letter to the editor that appeared in today’s Las Vegas Sun. It was written by a school teacher, Jeremy Christensen of Las Vegas. I’m running it here because I agree with what Mr. Christensen writes:

“It’s time to stop whining that education in Nevada doesn’t work because of a lack of funding,” Gov. Jim Gibbons said in his State of the State address last week. “We need to quit throwing money at programs that haven’t worked and don’t work for our children.”

What hasn’t worked and doesn’t work for our children is throwing clichés and ideology at problems.

This question is not as complicated as it seems. What is a reasonable cost to educate a child? Most of the other states in our nation believe that it costs more than what we spend in Nevada. How do these other states pay for the generous investments they make to educate their children?

Forty-five states in our country have an effective state-level corporate tax rate of at least 5 percent. How long have zealous ideologues proclaimed that businesses would flee if we even considered any taxes on corporations? These corporations pay taxes almost everywhere else in the United States. How long have our children suffered some of the largest class sizes in the nation and parades of long-term substitutes in vital courses such as mathematics because of this outrageous lie?

The state of Nevada is not making a good-faith effort to provide quality education for its children. Apparently our children have no voice or heroes to stand up for them and say enough is enough. The greatest sins in Sin City are committed against its children.

Governor “No New Taxes” Gibbons has a duty to those school children to see that their education proceeds with quality and unabated. It is his duty as elected governor whether he wants to raise taxes or not. I personally don’t care whether he gets re-elected or not. I didn’t vote for him to start with. I do care about the education of Nevada’s children.

All my kids are now grown with kids of their own. All still in California, which has its own financial problems. My grand daughter, Joan, will graduate from the University of California-Chico in June. She plans to then attend law school. She works and attends college now, has she has done since she started. One of my grand sons, Aaron, is attending college in California with the objective of obtaining a degree for his future as an accountant. He also works to pay for and attend school. But the financial burden of college tuition and expenses for law school are mammoth to a 22 year old.

Cutting the education budget, again, as proposed by Governor Gibbons, may be expedient to him, but not to those kids trying to get a college education.

Nevada maintains one of the lowest commitments in the nation for education. California is slipping fast, losing it’s once high education status.

I read that Nevada’s mining industry has enjoyed a low rate of taxation for 150 years. The implication being that that industry does not pay its fair share of taxes—a tax status that is unfair to ordinary taxpayers in Nevada.

I, frankly, think it is time that Governor Gibbons begin to realize that his obligation to Nevada taxpayers is higher than his adherence to his “no new taxes” creed. It is time to fairly and evenly raise taxes in Nevada, even if it requires applying a fair tax on the mining industry.

The Nye County Republican Party held a precinct meeting on Valentine’s day at Rosemary Clarke Middle School in Pahrump. 80 members showed up.

A straw vote was taken to ascertain which candidate the Nye County Republicans wanted to run against Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader in Congress.

[Read more →]

2010 Election

A Mason-Dixon Polling & Research poll conducted October 6-8 of Nevada voters found that 44 percent of registered Republicans were undecided about whom they would vote for in the party’s primary.

Twenty-three percent said they would support former state party Chairwoman Sue Lowden.

Twenty-one percent said they backed Las Vegas real estate developer Danny Tarkanian.

Sharron Angle came in at 9 percent.

Bill Parson, Robin Titus, Mike Wiley, Chuck Kozak, Mark Amodei, John Chachas all register at 1 percent or below among the primary electorate.

The margin of error was plus or minus 6 percentage points.

Tarkanian and Lowden both lead Democratic Senator Harry Reid in a hypothetical general election contest. Tarkanian by 5 percent and Lowden by 10 percent among registered voters surveyed.

The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Half of the voters polled said they held a negative opinion of Reid, compared with 38 percent who view him favorably.

I predict the Republican primary will be between Lowden and Tarkanian and that Lowden will win it.

Mason-Dixon also polled registered voters on Republican Senator John Ensign. Nevada voters who want to replace him now outnumber those who want to re-elect him by a 2-to-1 margin. But no Republican has announced to run against Ensign.

I predict Ensign will decide not to run for re-election.

Republican Brian Sandoval would defeat expected Democratic nominee Rory Reid 50 percent to 33 percent.

GOP incumbent Jim Gibbons trails Reid by 12 percentage points, 37 percent to 49 percent.

Sandoval leads Gibbons in a Republican primary, 41 percent to 20 percent, with 4 percent for former North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, says he is “seriously considering running” for governor.

In a three-way race with Sandoval as the GOP nominee, Goodman and Sandoval are in a dead heat at 33 percent each while Reid comes in at 25 percent. If Gibbons is the nominee, Goodman earns 36 percent of the vote compared to 27 percent for Reid and 24 percent for the GOP incumbent.

So that’s the way it stacks up at the moment. Don’t have a prediction except that Gibbons won’t win.

[Source: CQ Politics]