Nevada’s Governor didn’t disappoint Progressives across the Silver State as he urged lawmakers to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes over the next couple of years. Brian Sandoval proposed a two-year budget totaling about $7.3 billion in his recent ‘State-of-the State’ address.

It includes about $1.14 billion in additional revenue, mostly in the form of business taxes so he can give $881 million to the Nevada State Education Association. The proposal also calls for restructuring the flat, $200-a-year business license fee into a fee that varies based on a company’s gross receipts and industry type.

Sandoval also wants to make temporary “sunset” taxes permanent, while increasing cigarette taxes from 80 cents to $1.20 a pack. But that’s not the only smoke being blown as he set media tongues wagging, burying his proposed tax increases by announcing the appointment of failed Washoe County school superintendent Pedro Martinez to a statewide “Achievement School District.”

Last year the Washoe County School Board fired Martinez, proving again that in Progressive politics — failure equals success. Also missed: Sandoval’s call for members of local school boards to be appointed, saying school boards have become “disconnected from their communities.”

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is due to make a stop in downtown Reno, Saturday. He is one of a number of Republicans testing the political waters, and Nevada’s first-in-the-West Republican caucus is a little more than a year away.

Unfortunately, I can’t find myself getting excited about him or his possible run for the presidency.

He favors allowing so-called DREAMERs, whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children, to stay in the country, and to provide more work visas so immigrants can legally hold jobs. Paul adds, though, that any reform effort must also include securing the borders.

Paul plans to attend private fundraisers in Reno for his “victory committee,” and a mid-day “meet-and-greet,” at the Atlantis Casino Resort.  He’ll then headline a private dinner at the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Saturday evening, where tickets start at $500 and go up to $2,600.

His father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, had strong support from Nevada Conservative’s during his presidential bids in 2008 and 2012. The Silver State was only one in seven swing states and ultimately gave President Obama six electoral votes.

Few listened then — fewer are listening now.

The Great White Fleet is the nickname for the U.S. Naval fleet that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from December 16, 1907 to February 22, 1909. President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to demonstrate growing American military power and blue-water navy capability.

The fleet consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various escorts. The hulls of these ships were painted a stark white, giving the armada its nickname.

The second leg of the voyage was from San Francisco to Puget Sound and back. And as the fleet headed up the north coast of California, they passed Trinidad Lighthouse, jus’ north of Eureka, as shown in a rare photo postcard by J. A. Meiser of San Francisco.

It was mailed on May 29, 1908 to a Miss Alene Fay Seight of Martinez. The text while faint, reads, “Dear Aly Fay, This is for John and Mama at home Trinidad Light house.  Love to all, Granma.”

Canceled policies, dropped doctors, higher premiums and deductibles and enrollment nightmares, and  now 3.4 million people who signed up for Obamacare in 2014 are about to get large tax bills.  These tax bills could be as high as $2,500 for families at the upper end of the subsidy eligibility range.

Furthermore low-income earners will face a complicated process while trying to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, a process that will force them to pay extra to have their returns professionally prepared. Worse yet, many will have to reimburse the system for overpayments.

Supposedly, these are the people who can least able to afford insurance. And it’s another reason for Conservative’s put an end to it.

Spent my entire day out and about taking photographs. It was bright, sunny and slightly chilled — perfect for picture-taking.

These are parallel fences that eventually met at the far end. I’ve no idea why anyone would waste their time stringing barbed wire in such a way.

While exploring an old barn, I found what remains of an old airplane wing. It was the only thing left inside the structure.

Being out well after sundown is how I came up with this shot. The jet aircraft’s contrails add a little something-something to the fading daylight.

I’m looking forward to something to eat and a little sleep after such a long but enjoyable day.

London’s Daily Mail isn’t shy about criticizing the Obama Administration with headlines reading, “America snubs historic Paris rally: Holder was there but skipped out early, Kerry was in India, Obama and Biden just stayed home.”

This comes after Obama failed to attend the Paris Unity March against Islamic terrorism, instead to spending his afternoon watching the NFL playoff game.  He didn’t even send Vice President Joe Biden, who was at home in Delaware for the weekend with nothing scheduled.

At least, U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley was in the march, as was assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

And while Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State John Kerry plans to visit Paris later this week, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder was already in there for security meetings. He didn’t attend the march — but had time for news interviews.

In two separate instances, Holder refused to say that the U.S. is at war with radical Islam. Instead, Holder, who spoke to both NBC’s Chuck Todd and ABC’s George Stephanopolous with the same question, said that the U.S is at war with “terrorists” who “corrupt the Islamic faith” or use a “corrupted version of Islam.”

The Obama administration is completely blind when it comes to so-call ‘optics,’ or they jus’ don’t care.

The media keeps touting how California Governor Jerry Brown has created a surplus while also balancing his state’s budget. But if one digs a little deeper, it becomes obvious that he’s simply “kicking the can down the road.”

A portions of that so-called extra money will automatically come off the top for public schools, and California’s new rainy day fund, leaving only about $2 billion or so to cover all sorts of needs, most of which will have to be put off until next year.

A third of the state’s spending’s earmarked for the poor, In order to maintain this safety net, the state will have to raise grants to disabled individuals beyond $881 per month or $1,483 for couples.

To avoid tuition increases for University of California students, it’ll cost the state upwards of another $100 million. And by raising Medi-Cal reimbursements to doctors so they stay in the system, it will cost around $300 million.

Enrollment in the state’s healthcare program for the poor, known as Medi-Cal, has exploded by 50% since Obamacare took effect. Over the next year, Medi-Cal enrollment will reach 12.2 million — about a third of the state’s population.

Obama’s new immigration policy will also increase healthcare costs as more than a million people who are in the country illegally, will qualify for Medi-Cal. Those costs have not been calculated by Brown’s administration.

Then there are the state roads which need tens of billions of dollars in overdue maintenance. Brown’s proposed budget lacks funding for them or other infrastructure needs.

There’s also CalPERS, which administers a $260 billion investment portfolio for 1.7 million past and present public-sector workers and CalSTRS, a $166 billion fund that caters to teachers. CalPERS can unilaterally raise the contributions of public agencies, but CalSTRS can’t do that.

And if the fund runs out of money, which could happen as early as the mid-2020s, school districts will be on the hook.

Brown has also lengthened the peak-salary period from one year to three for calculating pensions, capping salaries at which new recruits can earn pensions to $110,000 and reducing the payout formula to two-percent at age 62. But the rules only apply to new hires.

Currently California’s public pension funds underwater by $754 billion. Unfortunately paying for all the health benefits promised to current state employees when they retire will cost almost $72 billion, taking a larger chunk from the state budget than is now spent on retirees’ coverage.

As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee writes: “Add it all up, and California is ignoring at least $10 billion a year in debt payments that current politicians are avoiding but that their successors and taxpayers will have to shoulder at some point.”

UPDATE 01/14/2015: A former CalPERS board member under investigation for corruption killed himself inside the gun store, ‘Big Shot’ on Double R. Blvd, in south Reno. Police say they found 71-year-old Alfred Villalobos with a single gunshot wound to his head, and a 9mm semi automatic handgun near him.

Villalobos had been accused of bribing Frederico Buenrostro Jr., a former chief executive of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, in exchange for Buenrostro’s help in getting CalPERS to make investment decisions that benefited Villalobos’ clients. Villalobos faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

 

Using the most recent data available, the online tax research organization, Tax Foundation finds nearly a third of all state revenue is still provided by the federal government in 2012. That’s about a dollar in ever three in state coffers.

The lowest recipient is Alaska at 20.0 percent, followed by North Dakota (20.5 percent), Virginia (23.5 percent), Hawaii (23.5 percent), and Connecticut (23.6 percent). Mississippi got 45.3 percent of its total state general revenues from the federal government (the largest in the country), followed by Louisiana (44.0 percent), Tennessee (41.0 percent), South Dakota (40.8 percent), and Missouri (39.4 percent).

Meanwhile Nevada placed 44th, accepting nearly 26-percent of its revenue from Washington D.C. The Tax Foundation also ranks the Silver State at 3rd place in their ‘State Business Tax Climate Index,’ based on corporate, individual income, sales, unemployment insurance and property taxes.

Unfortunately, Nevada still has a projected $162 million budget shortfall for this year. Expect Governor Brian Sandoval to propose a tax restructuring plan to boost state spending by hundreds of millions of dollars during his ‘State of the State’ speech, January 15.

This isn’t about abortion per se; it’s about how the U.S. media and the legal system use certain words to frame their agendas.

News agencies report: “Police say three adults, two children and an unborn child were killed in the crash,” or “Authorities investigating the discovery of two fetuses found dumped along the side the road.” Yet according to Merriam-Webster, a fetus is a human being in the later stages of development before it’s born.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies from coast-to-coast will charge a person with murder in the death of an unborn child: “The trial for a man charged in the 2012 deaths of his girlfriend and an unborn child…”  or “Woman  charged with the feticide and fetal murder of her unborn child.  After all, they never charge anyone with a crime following the lawful termination of a pregnancy.

It would seem that neither has considered the dichotomy between a ‘fetus’ and ‘unborn child,’ other than one sounds cold and clinical — while the other is cause an emotional response.