Nevada speaks, Congress sits

The constitutional conservative cause to repeal the Sandoval commerce tax is off to a shaky start. State Treasurer Ron Knecht’s “RIP Commerce Tax” referendum was abandoned because the Nevada Supreme Court in its infinite pettifogging wisdom ruled the ballot summary wording failed to clearly state a tax repeal might involve some spending cuts. Their legalistic ruling trumped the will of the 77,000 signatures already gathered from angry Nevadans.

The June 9 Republican primary featured some conservative victories, but quite a few liberty warriors failed on their first assault up the statist beaches. Jennifer Terhune, radio talk show co-host, lost her first bid for office in Assembly district 25. She will be heard from again.

In Assembly district 40, Al Kramer beat two other conservatives and Sandoval candidate Philip “PK” O’Neill. Constitutional conservative Victoria Seaman easily defeated Sandoval centrist Erv Nelson in Senate district 6. In Assembly 26, conservative constitutional educator Lisa Krasner defeated Sandoval lite Jason Guinasso.

Cue Snidely Whiplash entrance: Assembly district 36 commerce tax villain James Oscarson hog tied constitutional conservative Tina Trenner to the railroad tracks. The only one who can save her from the evil Whiplash and keep Nye County taxpayers from being swindled out of their tax dollars is Dudley Do-Right—er, Libertarian Party candidate and brothel magnate Dennis Hof. This race looks like fun!

Danny Tarkanian used name recognition and a conservative platform to defeat Sandoval favorite James Roberson in U.S. House district 3.

For U.S. Senate, what the Heck, it’s Joe. Sharron Angle is a dedicated tax foe but just couldn’t muster support against Dr. Heck. Heck is OK, but his opponent is awful. Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is, in my view, despicable for exploiting the discredited “human trafficking” moral panic. Cortez Masto wants to use “sex trafficking”—in practice, all commercial sex—to expand federal sex crime databases and enhance sentencing for the imaginary “traffickers.” Do-gooders like Cortez Masto rank among the lowest of political power seekers. Her plan to “help” sex workers involves arrests, and then a specialty court procedure to reform the soiled doves who were “trafficked” into sex work. “Traffickers” turn out in real life to be mainly friends, family and clients who are accused of “trafficking” because they drove a sex worker to work (god forbid across a state line), rented them a room, or paid for sex with a “trafficked” 15-year-old carrying a phony ID. The “traffickers” will likely not get the diversion treatment, but rather a fat mandatory minimum sentence. The sex workers are degraded and put in more danger.

The only thing worse than a moral crusader is a gaggle of jaded old millionaires who try to relive their glory days cloaked in a shroud of ignorance. The crackling sound of bending arthritic joints heard in the House of Representatives was caused by the millionaire boomers comprising the House Democrats thudding clumsily to the floor in a sit-in just like they did in the ’60s, only now much heavier and with a lot less hair. Those sit-ins were to protest the Vietnam War or Jim Crow segregation, but now they were to authorize the use of secret government watch lists to deprive innocent people of their right to self-defense. Taking away constitutional rights without due process now takes “courage.” Real courage would have been to sit in to protest Hillary and Barack’s global sales of real weapons of war to irresponsible allies that inflamed foreign civil wars and killed hundreds of thousands. Left liberalism has failed to reign in the warfare state or protect civil liberties.