Posts on Nevada

The Associated Press reports that Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ken Blackwell, Jerome Corsi, and others all make an appearance in a new anti-Obama DVD produced by Citizens United that is set to be included with newspapers in swing states just before the election:

Readers of Ohio's three largest newspapers, along with papers in Florida and Nevada, are finding an anti-Barack Obama DVD in editions this week.

Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington, plans to release a 95-minute film in the five swing-state publications to highlight Obama's record on abortion rights, foreign policy and his past associations, including his relationship with former pastor Rev. Jermiah Wright. The group said it planned to spend more than $1 million to distribute about 1.25 million copies of "Hype: The Obama Effect."

"We think it's a truthful attack. People can take it anyway they want," said David Bossie, Citizens United's president.

Readers of The Columbus Dispatch received their copy Tuesday. The Cincinnati Enquirer, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and the Las Vegas Review-Journal are scheduled to receive them in coming days.

The film raises questions about Obama's political base in Chicago and questions the media's reporting on Obama.

Among those interviewed are conservative columnist Robert Novak, former Clinton strategist-turned-pundit Dick Morris and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and discredited Obama critic Jerome Corsi also give interviews.

A Reno, Nevada man who heard on talk radio that a bar was flying a Mexican flag above a U.S. flag decided to take matters into his own hands, marching up to the business with a 7-inch knife and cutting down both flags. “I'm a veteran; I'm not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag," Jim Broussard declared before stalking off with the U.S. flag. KRNV TV happened to be there to record the episode:

While the local TV anchor asserted that positioning the U.S. flag below the Mexican flag “is, in fact, illegal,” that is not the case. The federal code includes protocol for display and treatment of the national flag by civilians, but as the courts have made clear, these rules are not mandatory and cannot be enforced, as they would violate the First Amendment. The city of Reno issued a statement reiterating this. PFAW has more resources on “flag desecration” and the effort to amend the Constitution to ban it.

Cutting down and taking someone else’s flag, on the other hand, does not seem to be a constitutionally protected activity, but rather destruction of property.

Broussard later appeared on a talk radio show to clarify that the fundamental issue for him was what host Mike Gallagher called “the Hispanification of the United States.” Said Broussard:

I feel there’s a lot of this turning our heads on things in concern to the Hispanic community and the things they do. They seem impervious to our laws in a lot of situations. …

[Illegal immigrants] are renegades. All they seem to be interested in is to disrupt the tempo, make as many babies as possible, anchor babies, disrupt our financial situation in this country by abusing our medical systems and abusing their rights, or lack thereof, for our monies in many different situations.

Citizen Outreach and Americans for Tax Reform plan Conservative Leadership Conference for October in Nevada. Gingrich, Thompson, Tancredo, Giuliani, McCain, Romney invited.

Ward Connerly – who ten years ago spearheaded California’s successful ballot initiative to end affirmative action in education, two years later worked to end it in Washington state, and this year joined the effort in Michigan, where a ban on affirmative action also passed – announced today that he is exploring nine more states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. “Three down and 20 to go,” he said in a conference call this morning, referring to the number of states that have ballot initiative procedures.

Connerly was joined by Jennifer Gratz, a white student who sued the University of Michigan after being rejected for admission and who later led the ballot initiative to ban affirmative action outright. Gratz will join Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute to work on the expansion of these bans. “We've always felt that if we could win in Michigan, we could win anywhere,” she said.

Despite the name of Connerly’s group, efforts like the Michigan ban have been opposed by major civil rights organizations. Connerly did pick up support from one major group: “If the Ku Klux Klan thinks equality is right, God bless them,” he said.

Following Michigan referendum; next target could be Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Missouri or South Dakota.

For 43 states.

To defeat Sen. Chafee in today’s Republican primary. In Nevada, a Club-backed primary loser is suing for a revote.

Last week disparate Right Wing groups converged on a GOP primary in Michigan and defeated an incumbent congressman who had been endorsed by Bush. Leading the charge against Rep. Joe Schwarz was the anti-government Club for Growth PAC, which sent over $1 million to the race. Along with another primary victory in Colorado, the Club crowed that they were 8 for 2 in their strategy of sending massive amounts of cash to primary races to drive the Republican Party further to the Right.

But this week the Club tasted the “agony of defeat” when Sharron Angle narrowly lost the GOP primary in Nevada’s second district. The Club for Growth’s 527 group spent $1 million on independent expenditures on the race, including this ad, typical of their style, which concludes “DEAN HELLER = BIG LIBERAL.”

Similarly, the anti-immigrant Minuteman PAC had also actively opposed Schwarz in Michigan and had then turned its sights on supporting Angle, running a TV ad saying Angle would “stop coddling illegals.”