Category: random

Wikipedia reads: “The Mugwumps were Republican political activists who bolted from the United States Republican Party by supporting Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the United States presidential election of 1884.”

It’s fitting.

The newest exhibit at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City explores the early years of Nevada’s longest-serving State Senator, William J. Raggio. He spent 38 years in the State Senate, 18 years in the District Attorney’s Office and supported Senator Harry Reid in 2010 before dying two-years later at the age of 85.

There are hundreds of pieces that will eventually join the collection but the first part of the exhibit focuses on Raggio’s early life, especially his time as a Boy Scout. The museum is also in the process of cataloging the rest of his collection.

Meanwhile, other pieces of Nevada’s history are falling into disrepair. Some of them are to be found within the Department of Transportation building, where the roof leaks, birds defecate and mice chewed on others, leaving their droppings and bodies in and around historical items.

The state agency’s seen its budget cut nearly in half in recent years and a request for funding to find a permanent home for items not now on display was left out of the budget Governor Brian Sandoval presented to the legislature earlier this year. Sad to think that a horse-drawn buggy from the 1880’s that travelled Nevada’s old dirt tracks is less important than item’s displayed to deify a modern-day Progressive politician.

“Yucca Mountain is dead,” Senator Harry Reid said in a radio interview the day he announced his retirement.

For more than a decade, Reid used his leadership position to block Yucca Mountain, which Congress designated as the nation’s permanent disposal site for high-level nuclear waste in 1987.  This despite more than 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel being stored near reactors in 33 states, an amount expected to double in 30 years.

Since there is no permanent disposal facility, spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors, ‘enough to fill a football field 17 meters deep’ will double to 140,000 by 2055 when all the current operating reactors are to be ‘retired.’

A National Law Journal reports adds that the Department of Energy (DOE) spent $929 million in 2014 that “to settle breach-of-contract claims involving the storage of spent nuclear fuel.”  The federal Judgment Fund, described as a “permanent, indefinite appropriation, exempt from annual congressional approval,” covers the cost of this litigation.

All of this goes back to Reid, who ‘handpicked’ Gregory Jaczko to be the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009. Jaczko has done everything to block Yucca Mountain and as a result the federal government has continually been in breach of contract.

The DOE paid more than $4 billion over the past four years for these contract breaches . And until recently has collected about $759 million a year from companies to fund the repository, until a federal appellate court halted the collections because there wasn’t a waste repository being built.

Jaczko eventually resigned after withholding information to keep plans for Yucca Mountain from advancing.

Reid also helped convince President Obama to drop the Bush administration’s defense of the application for Yucca, and create a policy that any nuclear waste site needs the consent of the local and state governments. This decision not only kept 72,000 tons of highly radioactive waste spread across the U.S. at a stand still, the closure of the site cost $12 billion by the time of its shutdown.

The Reid-Obama deal forced nuclear power plants to build temporary (40 years) on-site spent-fuel storage structures to keep operating. These ‘temporary’ facilities cost ratepayers millions of dollars since they have to be guarded for as long as used nuclear fuel is present.

In return, Reid blocked nearly all amendments to legislation to shield Obama from having to veto bills. Because of this, Reid also effectively nullified the Senate’s constitutional function.

“The band broke, and it catapulted me backwards onto one side,” explained Senator Harry Reid. “I crashed into a series of cabinets we have and, fortunately, it missed my temple by just a little tiny bit and it hit me on my right eye and it broke a number of bones around my eye and broke four ribs.”

But does anybody really believe the story about what happened between him and his exercise equipment? After all, Harry Reid is an admitted liar with no shame.

That’s because Harry Reid’s bathroom in his Henderson home has glass shower panels from floor to ceiling and aren’t sturdy enough to be used as an anchor for an exercise band. Furthermore, the distance between the shower door and cabinets isn’t wide enough to do the kind of resistance band exercises Reid claims he was doing.

There is, however another possibility and this one involves Harry’s younger brother Larry.

Witnesses say Larry came to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting between 10:00 and 11:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2014) in Henderson, Nevada.  He had blood on his clothes, a swollen left hand and told fellow AA members that he’d been in a fight with a family member and was afraid the Secret Service was going to arrest him.

Though Larry was later arrested by the Nevada Highway Patrol on February 4, 2015 for DUI, he’s has yet to be asked what happened between him and his older brother on New Years Eve.  Meanwhile, Harry insists his security detail was with him New Year’s Day at his home when he injured himself and they took him to St. Rose Dominican Hospital.

However, his security detail has yet to verify the events, including the date and time of the incident and the date and time they took him to the hospital. More specifically, these three questions need to be answered:

• Was Harry Reid assaulted?
• Why isn’t the FBI investigating?
• Who’s obstructing justice?

Reid says he’s now permanently blind in his right eye. Meanwhile, his office continues to decline answering any further questions about the accident.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General says the deputy secretary of the DHS pushed through visas for foreigners investing in Las Vegas’ SLS Hotel and Casino project (formerly known as the Sahara Casino) at the request of Senator Harry Reid, whose son Rory Reid was, at the time, a partner in Nevada’s largest law firm, Lawson, Sawyer, and Collins.

The younger Reid represented Stockbridge/SBE Holdings as it readied to convert the old Sahara it purchased in 2007 into the new SLS Hotel and Casino. The timing of Rory’s legal representation in 2012 and into 2013 coincides with the dates of his father’s efforts to have DHS to speed up the EB-5 visas critical to SLS.

Over a dozen people stepped forward to say Harry Reid pressured then-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas in January 2013 into pushing through visas to for Stockbridge/SBE Holdings Chinese investors even though the department advised against it.

Reid claimed it’s his job to press the federal government to speed up decisions on his constituents’ needs. However, an executive for one of the main companies involved in the hotel project donated more than $127,000 to Democratic political causes over the last three election cycles.

Reid also brushed aside reports saying he exerted political influence to win visas for investors who would have otherwise been turned down.

“The Homeland Security report came from a bunch of whiners at the Department of Homeland Security,” Reid told Nevada’s KNPR radio.

Created by Congress in 1990, the EB-5 program’s designed to attract investors willing to risk capital in ventures to create jobs in the U.S. Would-be investors who have at least $500,000 bankrolled in a new U.S. business can apply.

The USCIS is the agency within the DHS responsible for reviewing all EB-5 visa applications. The USCIS approves private companies, like American Dream Fund, hired by Stockbridge/SBE Holdings in 2007, to serve as Regional Centers, authorized to present EB-5 visa petition requests.

American Dream Fund, which focuses on Chinese EB-5 investors, is an investment associate of The Harris Group, a unit of the Marcus & Millichap Real Estate company. Marcus & Millichap CEO George Marcus has contributed to Reid’s campaigns and is a major contributor to Reid’s Senate Majority PAC.

Marcus contributed $5,000 to the Senate Majority PAC, according to FEC records on August 12, 2012. A month later, on September 11, 2012, Marcus contributed an additional $200,000.

Then in late 2013 and early January 2014, Marcus contributed an additional $1,250,000 to the Senate Majority PAC and by February 2014, with all the EB-5 visas approved, the $115 million of low-cost junior debt raised, construction on the SLS Hotel and Casino began. The hotel and casino opened its doors seven months later in August 2014.

On a related note, in August 2012, Reid arranged a meeting between then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.  During that meeting, Menendez pleaded for leniency on behalf Dr. Salomon Melgen, whose accused of overbilling Medicare by nearly $9 million.

Interestingly, Reid arranged the meeting right after Melgen donated $300,000 to Reid’s Senate Majority PAC. By the end of 2012, Melgen’s donations to the Senate Majority PAC totaled $700,000.

Menendez has since been indicted on charges of accepting nearly a million dollars in gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen in exchange for political favors. The public interest group Cause of Action is now calling on the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into Reid’s intervention in the DHS EB-5 visa program.

Oddly enough, last year Menendez interceded for an Ecuadorian woman banned from traveling to the U.S. because of visa fraud.

Estafania Isaias’ relatives gave $11,000 to Menendez’s campaign, more than $125,000 to the Obama Victory Fund and another $105,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Shortly afterwards, Menendez contacted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who recommended the DHS approve the visa waiver — which it did.

Senator Harry Reid’s former staffers and a current campaign operative received billions of dollars in federal ‘green energy’ stimulus money as a result of Reid’s advocacy. Reid’s top political strategist, Rebecca Lambe founded the Clean Energy Project (CEP) in 2008 and served as its executive director and is now an adviser to CEP.

Meanwhile, his former chief of staff Susan McCue served as CEP’s president and is a member of its board. Both McCue and Lambe also run Senate Majority PAC, a Super Pac with close ties to Reid that spent $67 million to elect Senate Democrats last year.

Reid also helped ‘green energy’ companies like Nevada’s Ormat Technologies secure $350 million in loan guarantees. This ties into another former Reid aide and CEP executive director, Lydia Ball.

While on Reid’s staff, Ball was in charge of advising Nevada companies on how to get financing through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. She helped organize Reid’s annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, also cosponsored by CEP.

California biofuel company Fulcrum Bioenergy attended last year’s summit, where Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a $105 million grant for the company. Fulcrum Bioenergy contributed to CEP in 2013 and 2014.

The Defense Department awarded it another $70 million two weeks later and Reid took credit.

“Senator Reid wrote Secretary Hagel in support of Fulcrum’s grant application earlier this year,” his office said.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has also sponsored the summit since its creation in 2008. CAP’s founder and former chairman John Podesta was a CEP board member until September 2013 and the 2014 summit’s keynote speaker.

The Podesta Group, the lobbying firm founded by Podesta and his brother Tony, began representing Fulcrum in April 2014, five months before that year’s CEP summit. The $175 million in federal grants soon followed.

Ormat donated to CEP while the company’s chairman Yoram Bronicki donated to Reid. CEP listed Ormat as a donor in 2012, a year after Reid helped it get a $350 million loan guarantee and nearly $100 million in federal financing for Nevada Geothermal, which claims Ormat as a contractor.

Also working on behalf of Ormat is Cassidy and Associates, a lobbying firm and CEP donor who has former Reid staffer Lambe as a senior adviser. Meanwhile, Cassidy lobbyist Kai Anderson, Reid’s former deputy chief of staff, has continued to represent the company since April 2009.

Another former Reid aide working to secure financing was Paul Thomsen, then Ormat’s in-house lobbyist. He’s a former lobbyist for Lionel Sawyer & Collins where all four of Reid’s sons have worked along with CEP board member and former Reid staffer Brent Heberlee.

Two years ago, two former Ormat Technologies employees filed a lawsuit claiming the company lied to the Treasury Department to get more than $130 million in federal grants. The focus of the lawsuit is the federal help provided to Ormat through Treasury’s section 1603 which provided grants to owners of commercial solar property.

Former Ormat asset manager Tina Calilung and former business development administrator, Jamie Kell, say the company falsified documentation to get and keep the financing. Ormat obtained nearly $123 million for its California-based North Brawley geothermal plant even though it had already “began producing, selling, and delivering electricity in 2008, before the grant application window.”

Kell also says she had to withdraw a Freedom of Information Act request in November 2012 after Ormat threatened to take away her health insurance while undergoing breast cancer treatment. Her FOIA request dealt with the Puna geothermal plant in Hawaii, where Ormat’s accused of submitting a false application for funds.

Another CEP donor, SolarReserve is among the companies that took advantage of Reid’s aid in securing financing. Reid pushed the Department of Energy in 2010 to speed approval of a $737 million loan guarantee for the company’s Nevada manufacturing facility.

Nevada’s largest utility and a CEP donor, NV Energy got a $138 million stimulus package through Reid, who also helped extend solar power tax credits to another CEP donor, SolarCity. Recently, SolarCity opened a second operations center in Vegas.

Amonix, a solar company and CEP donor, received almost $6 million in tax credits federal backing after Reid intervened on its behalf of the company’s Las Vegas production plant in 2010. The company closed the plant in 2012.

Reid also helped McKinney James client Bombard Renewable Energy, which includes CEP donor, Valley Electric Association. McKinney James sits on the board of MGM Resorts International, a 2014 sponsor of Reid’s ‘green energy’ summit.

Let me see if I have this straight –

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, does business in Saudi Arabia and is working over time to strike a business deal with Iran, countries that execute people for being homosexual.  Mind you, Cook, a homosexual himself, literally wouldn’t be allowed to live in the countries listed above.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon does business with China, where homosexuality is handled by so-called “conversion” shock treatment.  Other companies boycotting Indiana include Smallbox, Salesforce, and Angie’s List.

All these businesses have one thing in common — they work with businesses that have outlets in places like Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Seattle is also boycotting Indiana despite the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle holding a planned event April 22 celebrating doing business in Iran. That’s a country where homosexuals are routinely hanged publicly from cranes.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, with its myriad of Saudi holdings, including the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel, they are boycotting Indiana. Also to be noted is the fact that the San Francisco Global Trade Council routinely performs ‘missions to China’ and works with the “Mayor’s Office of International Trade and Commerce.”

And the state of Connecticut which already has its own ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act,’ is boycotting Indiana, too. Then again so do 17 other states around the U.S. and Progressives have yet too call for their boycott as well.

Finally, Progressives used to be the one’s crying about the doomed world that nuclear energy and arms are creating for ‘our children.’ Yet, nary-a-word from them as the Obama Administration inks a deal with Iran to allow that regime to proliferate enriched weapons grade uranium for purposes of peace.

And to think — these hypocrites believe states passing laws protecting religious freedom are discriminatory. Someone ought to ask the man swinging by his neck in Iran what he thinks about all this boycotting.

As a kid in Klamath, California – many of my summer days were spent sneaking off to the river to go swimming, fishing and if I could find a boat unattended, I’d steal it and take a quick zip up and down the water way. I hadn’t thought about my juvenile delinquent activities in years, until I found some outboard motor advertisements from 1975.

The original Johnson Outboards were made by the Johnson Brothers Motor Company of Terre Haute, Indiana. The company was destroyed by a tornado in March 1913 and relocated to South Bend, Indiana and then Waukegan, Illinois.

Evinrude Outboard Motors was created by Ole Evinrude in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1907. Evinrude was born in Gjøvik, Norway on April 19, 1877; five years later, his family emigrated to the U.S. settling near Cambridge, Wisconsin.

Founded in 1939, Mercury is a division of Brunswick of Lake Forest, Illinois. The company began when engineer Carl Kiekhaefer purchased a small outboard motor company in Cedarburg, Wisconsin with the intention of making magnetic separators for the dairy industry.

First, I never knew of any other brands back in the mid-70’s and secondly, I can’t believe I used to do shit like that.

It’s been nearly 11-years since preschool teacher Kyla Annan was found dead in her home in Reno. Francisco Merino-Ojeda has been on open murder, sexual assault and burglary in the first degree, followed a three-month investigation.

Twenty-one at the time of the murder, he was arrested in Santa Ana, California after a DNA sample obtained from local police matched DNA found at Kyla home. Earlier this year, someone reached out through Secret Witness, claiming to have information on a possible suspect.

Since January, police have worked with the FBI and detectives in Southern California to collected Merino-Ojeda’s DNA. It matched the samples collected from the autopsy and the clothing and he was arrested on March 11.

After writing an article updating the case on February 6, 2015, I was contacted by Kyla’s father, Steve. He told me that some one had been arrest after confessing to the crime, but didn’t give me any further details. I spoke to the RPD, who refused to confirm Steve’s claim and I even forwarded a message to Secret Witness, encouraging them to update their website about Kyla, if indeed an arrest had been made.

Now, I understand.

It was Thursday, April 2 that I heard an arrest had been made in a 10-year-old cold case and that the man was sitting in the Washoe County Jail. I made the connection at that time, because as far as I know there was only one decade old unsolved murder in the area.

It was September 13, 2004, when Kyla reported to police that an intruder broke into her home while she and her boyfriend slept. The burglar and taken off his clothing, placed his hand over the mouth of Annan’s boyfriend and fled after the boyfriend chased him.

Ten-days later, Kyla was found dead in her home by her boyfriend. She was last seen three days prior working in her garden.

During the course of the investigation over 150 DNA samples were voluntarily collected from men in the area and from known associates of Kyla’s. None of the samples matched the FBI’s records.

I’m glad they caught the bastard responsible and I pray Kyla’s parents and other family members can now move on with their lives.

Now that Nevada’s Senator Harry Reid has announced his retirement, he’s giving interviews about his so-called career. Recently he admitted that he lied from the Senate floor about former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Back in 2012, Reid accused Romney, without any evidence, of not paying any taxes. Reid even said that Romney’s father “must be so embarrassed about his son” Mitt because George Romney turned over 12-years of tax returns ahead of his 1968 presidential run.

Reid then told the Huff-Po that an unnamed, unverifiable Bain investor claimed that Romney was a “tax evader.”

“Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look? … You guys have said his wealth is $250 million. Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

Then from the Senate floor, he raved:

“So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a Swiss banking account. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more.”

When reporters demanded Reid provide a source for this allegation, he refused to elaborate further, saying that “a number of people” told him Romney didn’t pay taxes and, “I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn’t he release his tax returns?”

Reid defended his lies on CNN, responding, “Romney didn’t win, did he?”

He honestly doesn’t care that what he said wasn’t true as he has the law on his side. Even though Reid made slanderous statements about Romney he cannot be sued for them.

Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution states that members of Congress shall “be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.” The only exceptions to this rule are for treason, felonies and “breach of the peace.”

The 75-year-old Reid’s admission feels like junior high school logic, therefore wouldn’t it be so adolescent if his pants really did catch fire?

Boston Police Officer John Moynihan, who was honored by President Obama in May 2014, pulled over a group of suspected gang members. He didn’t have his service weapon drawn, but Angelo West shot him in the face anyway.

West, in return was shot and killed by six other officers.

But of course, some people are fomenting trouble because West was a Black man. And apparently, the fact that he shot an officer in the face without provocation, doesn’t matter.

In fact, using #BlackLivesMatter, some people believe the other officers should have considered West’s skin color before retaliating.  Still others complained about how long West’s body lay in the street after the shooting.

Shortly following the shootings, the Boston chapter of Black Lives Matter held a “People of Color ONLY” meeting about West’s death. One activist, Joao DePina said he left the meeting after being confronted for pointing out how the discussion focused too much on the shooting and not on how to improve police and community relations.

Daunasia Yancey of Black Lives Matter Boston dismissed DePina’s complaint, claiming he was only in the meeting briefly. She added that the group has not yet formed a position on the shooting, but that one will be released in the days to come, along with any protest plans.

It doesn’t matter to them that West is a career criminal who tried to kill police officers during a 2001 shootout. He only survived the incident because officers refused to shoot the armed man as he tried to goad officers into doing so.

On the other hand, community leaders, including Black ministers and politicians praised Boston police for sharing the video of the shooting with them — the footage they say exonerates officers. Meanwhile they called for such cooperation to become routine in police-involved shootings.

Moynihan is recovering from what doctors consider to be a “successful” surgery to remove a bullet from his neck. He’s now in stable condition and expected to fully recover.

The 34-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger and Iraq war vet was honored by the White House as one of ‘America’s Top Cops’ for his role in saving the life of a transit officer during a gunfight with the Boston Marathon bombers in April 2013. He received the departments Medal of Honor for his actions.

It takes a very special person like Officer John Moynihan to be willing to risk so much for people who care so little.