Nevada newspapermen and their senators: No love fest

“There are many Senators whom I hold in a certain respect and would not think of declining to meet socially, if I believed it was the will of God. We have lately sent a United States Senator to the penitentiary, but I am quite well aware that of those who have escaped this promotion there are several who are in some regards guiltless of crime — not guiltless of all crimes, for that cannot be said of any United States Senator, I think, but guiltless of some kinds of crime.”
— Mark Twain in “Eruption”

Nevada newspaper folks have always had a certain affection for our elected delegates in Washington. We’ve dined with them, invited them to editorial boards, endorsed them on occasion when they were running for re-election. But we’ve never really been awed by them.

From the comments apprended to R-J Publisher Sherman Frederick’s column today — there were more than 1,000 by mid-morning, thanks to a link posted on the Drudge Report, I suspect — I’d say that feeling is rather widely shared, not just in Nevada but all over the nation.

I thought his remark at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon a bit revealing. I’m not sure whether it is our polling or our editorials that he’d rather do without.

Merely dumping the UNLV diversity czar is not enough

UNLV President Neal Smatresk has dumped the head of the university’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion — who brought us that head-spinning, 14-page, free speech killing Policy on Bias Incidents and Hate Crimes that fortunately was scrapped — back to classroom duties.

Fine.

But he plans to ask the ousted one, Christine Clark, to help him search for a new vice president for Diversity and Inclusion.

There is absolutely no need to waste one dime of tax and tuition money on superfluous office. On campus so rife with political corrections there is greater need for someone to challenge reverse discrimination.

R-J columnist Glenn Cook, who was among the first to blow the whistle on Clark’s outrageous behavior, recently predicted, apparently mistakenly, that the whole office would be blown up along with the $160,000-a-year job of veep.

One can hope Smatresk will rethink this and spend the money on something worthwhile.

Meanwhile, Clark will keep her outrageous salary while serving as a full professor in the College of Education, where she will be Senior Scholar in Multicultural Education.

Would you want your children being taught by teachers who were indoctrinated by someone who wrote this, including the items in parens?:

“A.  ‘Bias Incidents’ refers to verbal, written, or physical acts of intimidation, coercion, interference, frivolous claims, discrimination, and sexual or other harassment motivated, in whole or in part, by bias based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, color, religion, creed, sex (including gender identity or expression, or a pregnancy related condition), sexual orientation, national origin, military status or military obligations, disability (including veterans with service-connected disabilities), age, marital status, physical appearance, political affiliation, or on the basis of exercise of rights secured by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The First Amendment does not need to be rewritten by some diversity czar. If this is kind of people running our education colleges, we are in deep trouble.

Christine Clark

Neal Smatresk

In his own words: Obama’s rationer-in-chief

Another article is addressing the age old question being raised by the underlying philosophy of ObamaCare: Are we sovereign individuals or drones in a teeming anthill of humanity?

Betsy McCaughey,  chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and former New York lieutenant governor, writes on the op-ed page of Thursday’s Wall Street Journal about the opinions of Obama adviser Ezekiel Emanuel under the headline: “Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief: White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the ‘overuse’ of medical care.”

She uses extensive quotes from Emanuel’s writings to unravel a rather clear picture of the future of heath care under the likes of him.

McCaughey writes: “In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, Dr. Emanuel and co-authors presented a ‘complete lives system’ for the allocation of very scarce resources, such as kidneys, vaccines, dialysis machines, intensive care beds, and others. ‘One maximizing strategy involves saving the most individual lives, and it has motivated policies on allocation of influenza vaccines and responses to bioterrorism. . . . Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one.

“’However, other things are rarely equal — whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each — is unclear. When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated.’”

She also describes Emanuel’s Chicago-style effort to achieve this health care “reform,” again in his own words, this time from a blog posting: “Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

The Reaper Curve: Ezekiel Emanuel used the above chart in a Lancet article to illustrate the ages on which health spending should be focused.

Ads wars a futile gesture or all about the proper timing?

Methinks they doth protest too much.

A column in the L.A. Times today politely explains to the rubes in Nevada that businesses don’t pack up and leave over something as trivial as taxes and crumbling infrastructure and excessive government red tape. No, all those ads by the Nevada Development Authority trying to convince California businesses to heave ho and drop anchor in Nevada are a waste of money. Nay, they are good for the economy of California.

If that is so, why is a California assemblyman countering with television ads that portray Nevada as barren desert populated by cows?

“But the real significance of the spat is that it furthers a dangerous and phony economic myth — that hordes of nomadic businesses are roaming the country, plopping down for a year or two in a tax haven and then packing up and moving on the minute a neighboring state bats an alluring low-tax eye,” writes Ethan Rarick.

“The fact is the come-hither look is useless: Relatively few businesses, once they’re formed, pick up and move across state lines.”

There’s always a tipping point. Might California have reached that point?

Here is one Nevada’s ads:

Here is California’s feeble response:

You don’t want balance! You can’t handle balance!

From the don’t-confuse-me-with-facts department comes a Monday afternoon missive from Kent, who is hopping mad that this newspaper doesn’t exclusively parrot the so-called progressive talking points for ObamaCare.

Here is his letter in its fullness and fulmination:

“How do you expect your readers to have an informed discussion regarding healthcare legislation when you continue to print only neoconservative columnists on your opinion page and provide no counterpoint to the debate? I understand that your paper has a conservative stance, but your failure to provide space for Democratic/Progressive arguments shows that you are simply acting as a mouthpiece for conservative ideology and Republican talking points. What fear do you have in presenting both sides of the issue?

“The first thing I do when I receive my Sunday paper is to throw away the opinion section, because who can take the sycophantic ramblings of people like Charles Krauthammer, who still shamelessly advocates torture and now continues to push the “death panel” canard as if it were reality, when it has been widely proven to be merely Palin-induced right-wing hysteria with no basis in reality with regard to the actual content of the healthcare bill?

“You should be embarrassed that you are unwilling to provide a balanced discussion of the issues, instead providing the fringe elements of Republican Party with an uncontested forum to spread their lies and bankrupt morality. Who will be in the opinion section next Sunday? Dr. Orly Taitz, Queen of the Birthers? Grow a spine, sir or madam.”

Take a breath, Kent.

Never mind the self-contradictory assertion that he throws away the opinion section rather than sully his made-up mind with contrary points of view, lets review the very Sunday Viewpoints section that contained the offensive Krauthammer screed.

The cover piece is by Steve Chapman, dismissing fears that gay marriage is the road to social catastrophe. Below that is Krauthammer on end-of-life counseling and how all the living wills in the world are meaningless when push comes to plug.

The editorial page is a given. There is my column on the good things the ACLU has done and a retelling of surveys showing more people consider themselves conservative than liberal, despite party preferences. Then there are two editorials, one bemoaning lack of accountability for public employees, the other talking about two congressmen extorting the insurance industry.

The third page featured our resident libertarian Vin Suprynowicz, conservative Thomas Sowell and our Arkansas-based columnist John Brummett, who I’m sure considers himself progressive.

The next page was letters from our readers. Two letters took opposite stances from our editorials on the water pipeline into eastern Nevada. Then there were two letters talking about health care reform, one for and one against.

Then we come to the fifth page where two out of three are fifth columnists, so to speak. Above and to the left of conservative Jonah Goldberg are Ellen Goodman, a Washington Post liberal, and three environmentalists opposed to use of coal-fired power plants.

Our back page contains excerpts from editorials in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, know bastions of neo-cons, along with five editorial cartoons, only one of which, Michael Ramirez, could be labeled as remotely conservative.

Put that on the scales and see how it balances. Throw in the columns, editorials and so-called news stories in the Sun insert, and Sunday’s Las Vegas newspaper opinion offering lists dangerously to port.

Irresistible force of the press slams into immovable object of public employee union jobs

Over my many years in the newspaper business, I’ve often compared what we do to turning on the lights and watching the cockroaches skitter.

You’d think by now someone would’ve called the exterminator.

Today we published yet another story about the inability of the taxpayers to hold the bureaucrats responsible. After a series of Review-Journal articles by Joan Whitely in 2007 highlighting dozens of hotel renovations that took place without county permits or inspections, the sum total of one person was fired by the county for failing properly carry out his duties.

Rick Maddox

It turns out, he was off the job 11 months and then was quietly returned, following an arbitration ruling, to his same job, at same pay, plus back pay, even the same phone number.

In a bizarrely worded ruling, arbitrator Peter Maydanis wrote: “In reaching this decision, the Arbitrator has considered and found that (Rick) Maddox failed to properly devote the time and attention necessary for the County to properly discharge its obligation to ensure the safety of the public using public places of accommodation within its jurisdiction. Maddox’s sins of omission or commission were serious ones, when one considers them in hindsight.”

But then he went to dismiss all this by saying Maddox had never been properly trained to uncover concealed renovations, never mind that an untrained reporter was able to do so. Maydanis also wrote that “no questions of Maddox’s honesty or integrity have been raised.”

But you might get a different picture if you go back and read the Kessler report, an independent audit conducted by the county. It was once posted on Clark County’s Web site, but it was since quietly disappeared. So I had it posted on our Web site today.

In the 97-page report consultant Michael Kessler wrote:

“Kessler also reviewed the GPS records for Supervising Inspector 2’s vehicle (that is Rick Maddox’s) and determined that on February 16, 2007 at 9:02AM the vehicle was reported at West Viking Road and South Valley View Boulevard (the is the Rio hotel). The log indicates that the vehicle was only at the location for 38 minutes. There were no logs available for the first undocumented inspection. …”

Kessler tried to find out who Maddox contacted but was stonewalled.

So he concluded “the Building Inspectors handling these complaints were derelict in their duties by failing to properly inspect the property in question, and by falsifying the official documents indicating that the complaints were actually investigated. All indications suggest that no inspections were ever conducted.”

No questions of honesty and integrity raised?

An isolated incident, you say?

Consider the fact two Clark County employees who are also state legislators were fired following another Review-Journal report, this one by Frank Geary in 2003 that found they were drawing county pay while also being paid by the state. Yes, they were reinstated to their jobs following arbitration.

Kelvin Atkinson

Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, was cleared of any wrongdoing and awarded back pay. Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas, was awarded her job back but did not receive back pay.

Kathy McClain

Atkinson defended drawing county sick pay on July 17 and 18, 2003, while in Carson City. He told the Review Journal, “I was so sick, literally all I could do was get out of bed to vote.”

At a county human resources hearing Atkinson said, “I made a serious error in judgment when I requested sick time rather than vacation time during the legislative session. I wish I could go back and change that, but of course, I cannot.”

To the arbitrator, he insisted he was ill, though he was well enough to have lunch on July 17 at a Chinese restaurant with two other public employees also serving in the Legislature.

Who are going to believe? The public employee or your lying eyes?

Health care debate: A new corollary for the new media

We’ve all heard the old saw: If it bleeds, it leads.

Well, it is time to add its corollary: If it screams, it streams.

When it comes to the debate on health reform legislation, the only thing you will see on YouTube and most cable networks is the angry screamers. In fact, it might be argued that the cable and Internet obsession with the overheated and overwrought is a catalyst for more of the same.

The folks at Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism crunched the numbers.

This past week, Pew found 32 percent of the so-called newshole was devoted to health care debate. But cable coverage was 62 percent of airtime and on radio it was 44 percent.

Pew’s Mark Jurkowitz observed, “Last week’s coverage (Aug. 10-16) of the proposed health care legislation was overwhelmingly focused on the two p’s—politics and protests. Those two storylines accounted for about three-quarters of the overall coverage of the subject. That is similar to the pattern from the previous week (Aug. 3-9), when much of the discussion focused on whether the town hall protestors represented genuine grassroots sentiment or were part of an orchestrated campaign by special interests. Last week, that aspect of the debate seemed to recede as the sound and fury of the confrontations themselves took center stage.”

It is a struggle for the salvation of a nation

The Founders believed government/society exists to secure for the individual his rights to life, liberty and property.

Today, many believe the individual exists to contribute to the collective good of government/society.

It is the later philosophy that has given us the stimulus package, taking the earnings of individuals via taxation to redistribute in an effort to boost the collective economy for all. It is at the core of ObamaCare. It was the thinking that gave us Kelo v. New London.

The city fathers of New London believed that the greater good of the community was served by taking the homes of individuals and deeding it over to developers who would build businesses that would pay higher taxes; therefore, achieving a greater good for government/society. The U.S. Supreme Court said this comported with the letter of the Fifth Amendment. It surely did not comply with its basic spirit.

The concept of collective good being superior to individual ambition was voiced by then-candidate Barack Obama in his 2008 commencement address to the graduating class of Wesleyan University:

“It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role that you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in the American story.”

There appears to be a fundamental struggle for the character of the nation: Man or insect?

Hear the above Obama quote at about 9:20 into the speech.

It is simply unsustainable and must be reined in by proper rationing

The growth in spending is simply unsustainable. It has doubled in 15 years. We spend 40 percent more than other countries spend and get a poorer outcome, ranking 28^th in the world in some areas. Millions are not properly covered.

Our politicians are right to say it is time to rein in this runaway expense that is delivering inequitable service to the nation’s poorest, an obvious act of discrimination. In Nevada alone it takes up half of the state’s budget.

We must accept the fact that the best way to control escalating expenses is to take control of excessive costs and to ration services using a proper cost-benefit model so that those with the highest quality-life-years are given the highest level of care.

Some of the CEO level executives at these institutions are being paid in excess of $400,000 a year. That money could be better used to deliver basic services.

Many of the people being served at our current level of care simply are not providing an adequate return of public good — return on investment, if you will — proportionate to the expenses incurred. We need end of service counseling, so that these people and their families can evaluate whether they should continue to be hooked in the system or provided a palliative alternative.

Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer has written, “President Obama has said plainly that America’s … system is broken. It is, he has said, by far the most significant driver of America’s long-term debt and deficits. It is hard to see how the nation as a whole can remain competitive if in 26 years we are spending nearly a third of what we earn on (this), while other industrialized nations are spending far less but achieving … outcomes as good as, or better than, ours.”

It is time to fix our socialized system of education (Did you really think I was talking about health care?) before it breaks our banks us and dumbs us down in competitive world. No Child Left Behind concentrates on those who cannot achieve at an adequate level. We’d get a better return on our investment if we concentrated on those who can excel and give them a boost, instead of ignoring them and letting them fend for themselves.

So, why is all the debate about health care? No one is questioning the runaway costs of education, of government programs, of unfunded government pension liabilities, of Social Security and other entitlements. Nope, we are hell bent on creating another one.

Purple prose from the purple-shirted thugs

Columnist Michelle Malkin, writing in Investor’s Business Daily, brings us this week’s phrase that pays, motto of the moment, words to heed, prose that pops.

In reporting on the union goons beating up a guy passing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, Malkin dredged up a quote from Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern.

Stern reportedly has boasted, “(W)e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we use the persuasion of power.”

Past performance of stocks may not be indicative of future performance, but with people, it is pretty much all we have to go on.

As Malkin notes, the Democrats may call those disrupting town hall meetings on so-called heath care reform legislation “Brown Shirts,” but they have nothing on the purple-shirted thugs from SEIU.

It seems the debate has turned into to rumble.