Free Republic

Policymaking: If the stimulus isn't working, perhaps it's because it was largely written by a collection of leftist interest groups called the Apollo Alliance that counts among its directors a co-founder of the Weather Underground.The Labor Department reported Friday that 42 states lost more jobs than they gained in August, and that 14 plus Washington, D.C., reported unemployment rates of 10% or more. Michigan's rate rose to 15.2%, highest in the nation. Nevada, represented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is second with 13.2%. California, home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is tied for fourth with Oregon at 12.2%. Clearly,...

Here is a video report on the re-election trouble Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is facing in Nevada in 2010. Two Republicans are vying to be able to run against Reid next year, where it appears from polls he is very vulnerable. There is a sense he has neglected the needs of Nevada while he has been busy pushing for Obama's agenda in Washington - an agenda many in Nevada do not support. . . . (VIDEO)

Per Drudge

Has anyone noticed how quiet Harry Reid has been on pushing ObamaCare? Reid has let Max Baucus (D-MT) take the public lead in pushing for health-care reform and has limited himself mostly to general statements of support for industry reform. Rasmussen’s new polling in Nevada shows why. Reid trails both of his potential Republican challengers, and has gone under water on favorability in his state: In what is currently a difficult political climate for Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trails two potential Republican challengers seeking to unseat him as he faces reelection next year in Nevada. The first Rasmussen...

This editorial from Investor's Business Daily is worth the read.And, this part is worth a fleeting note: Part of it has to do with Reid's rise to Senate minority leader and then majority leader in 2006. His constituents increasingly feel left behind. Sherman Frederick, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wrote in 2006: " 'Sen. Reid;s undoing came early in his last term when he became a big shot in the Democratic Party and quickly morphed into someone Nevada voters did not recognize - his political girlfreind in the House, uber-liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.' "

Here is video from The O'Reilly Factor where O'Reilly showed video of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid being confronted by "Factor" Producer, Dan Bank. Bank tried to question Reid about his falling poll numbers in Nevada, but Reid would not respond, and someone with Reid actually grabbed the arm of the producer to try and keep him from following Reid. O'Reilly said Reid has never agreed to come on the Factor, and urged him once again to come on and discuss the issues. O'Reilly showed the video of Reid as a "Reality Check." . . . . (VIDEO)

This letter is in regard to the small article hidden in the back pages of the Friday, Aug. 21 (PVT) issue reporting how town manager, Bill Kohbarger, has threatened any town employee or board member with "disciplinary action," should they reveal any town business without his approval. This stemming from the information "leaked" that Harry Reid was coming to Pahrump. His reasoning behind this action is "protestors showed up" and it was embarrassing. Our right to speak out against government was the first thing the Founding Fathers sought to protect. Our right to assemble to voice those grievances was included....

It was surreal to step onto the stage and to feel the unity, energy, and absolute commitment to this nation on the National Mall yesterday in Washington DC. It was even more surreal to know that all who were there had come from every different corner of life imaginable in the United States. Nonetheless, we were honored to join Parcbench, the National Tea Parties, and every patriot who stood up on 9.12 for the future of America:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently credited Apollo with helping write the stimulus bill and getting it passed. Yet the stimulus' "green jobs" provisions funnel federal tax dollars to unions, green groups and community organizers -- that is, the organizations that make up Apollo. Jones was a fugitive from justice for 11 years. His own account at his Web site says: "As a leader of the Weather Underground, Jeff evaded an intense FBI manhunt for more than a decade. In 1981, they finally got him. Twenty special agents battered down the door of the Bronx apartment where he was living...

Looks like Harry is trying to dig himself out of a hole he dug with his own mouth. Last week, just before a speech to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Reid told an advertising executive at the conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal, "I hope you go out of business." Well, that didn't go over well back at the newsroom. The editors went ballistic and are gunning for Reid. Apparently the blowback is hurting Dingy Harry and everybody on the left now (desperately) wants to laugh the whole thing off as a joke. Ol' Harry, he's such a card.

Harry Reid’s power is the stuff of legend in Nevada. But as the Senate majority leader prepares for his 2010 reelection run, voters back home are beginning to ask what’s in it for them. Nevada’s unemployment rate is 12.7 percent, 3 percentage points higher than the national average. Las Vegas has the highest foreclosure rate of any big city in the country. And economic forecasters are sounding the alarm about an impending crash in the state’s commercial real estate market. It’s all taking a toll on Reid. While Reid may be at the peak of his power in Washington, a...

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: After emerging from a nearly hour meeting with the President, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that there is now 90% agreement on the way forward for health care reform. “Even before the August recess, 80 percent of health care is already done,” Reid said, “In our conversations today, we think we're up to 90 percent of things there are agreed upon. We have 10 percent that we need to work on, and we can do that.” Pelosi and Reid sat down with the President and the Vice...

While White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today refrained from telling reporters whether President Obama in his speech Wednesday night will set a deadline for passing health care reform, sources tell ABC News that in his private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this afternoon the key word was urgency. The president told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that it is important for them to pass health care reform bills soon, the sources said. Both leaders told the president that despite the difficult rough and tumble of the legislative process in the last few weeks,...

When I was growing up in Utah, Calvin Rampton and Scott Matheson were our Governors, Frank Moss was one of our Senators, and Gunn McKay was our Congressman. All were Mormon Democrats. My father was a steelworker who believed that the Democrats were the party that ended the Depression, won the War, and fought for the rights of working people. Evidently many Utah Mormons agreed with him. It was not until the mid- to late-1970s that the Democratic party fell out of favor among Utah Mormon voters. That shift resulted, I believe, because the public debate about morality became more...

“This legislation is the first step in building a clean energy economy that creates jobs and moves us closer to solving our enormous energy and environmental challenges,” said Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate Majority Leader. “We’ve talked about moving forward on these ideas for decades. The Apollo Alliance has been an important factor in helping us develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them.”

In Washington DC Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is one of the nation's most powerful Democrats. In Nevada Harry Reid is in danger of being out of a job. The Nevada lawmaker, who will be seeking a fifth term in office November 2010, is trailing Republican challenger Danny Tarkanian, son of the legendary Jerry Tarkanian, former basketball coach at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, by 11 percent points, according to a poll taken in mid-August by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. Reid also would lose by five points to Sue Lowden, the Nevada Republican Party chairwoman and a...

LAS VEGAS – Sue Lowden plans to step down from her position running Nevada’s Republican Party, a sign that she’s preparing to challenge Majority Leader Harry Reid in next year’s Senate race. According to two people familiar with the matter, Lowden is expected to inform state GOP activists on a conference call Wednesday night that she plans to quit the chairmanship effective Sept. 30. Doing so would allow her to jump into what could be a contested GOP primary against several other Republican candidates. A poll released by the Las Vegas Review-Journal last month said that if she escapes the...

A fund-raiser for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who was charged last week with defrauding Citigroup also defrauded other banks, U.S. prosecutors said. The allegations against fund-raiser Hassan Nemazee—arrested last week on a bank fraud charge and released on $25 million bail—were not formal charges but were in a letter dated Tuesday from prosecutors to a Manhattan federal court magistrate judge handling the case. Nemazee, 59, head of a private equity firm, was accused on Aug. 25 of one count of bank fraud for seeking a fraudulent $74 million loan from Citigroup's banking unit. He said after his...

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzdVnqTrP58&feature=channel_page "Paltalk News - Harry Reid Sends Aide To Videotape Tea Party Express" Video Description - Quote: reportergary September 01, 2009 The Tea Party Express, the bus tour that began in California and is winding it's way to a September 12 rally in Washington D.C. has apparently captured the attention of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Organizers of the anti-health reform and anti-tax increase movement allege that Reid has dispatched an aide to follow and film the tea party tour as it traverses through Nevada. Tour organizers first noticed a videographer who they refer to as a "Reid...

Can any Nevada FReepers shed any light on Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian? Tarkanian seems to be stronger in the polls (both lead Reid in head-to-heads), but he doesn't have a very good track record in elections. I would assume Lowden has more political connections, fundraising connections, and has held elective office in Nevada before. Who is the more conservative candidate between Tarkanian and Lowden? Thanks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is too spineless to face his constituents at a normal town hall. So, he held a "no questions allowed" rally with invited union members and supporters of Obamacare at UNLV. Other citizens were turned away at the door. Earlier this month, Harry Reid waved a piece of Astroturf and said, "I just want to show you what Astroturf really is." Senator Reid, you have shown the citizens of Nevada you know exactly what "Astroturfing" really means.

Yeah, I’m sure he joking. He just happened to joke about a paper going out of business shortly after an editorial by that paper’s publisher, Sherman Frederick, outlined why he left the Democrat Party, and rumors started that Frederick might throw his hat in to oppose Reid.

Turns out Harry Reid was only joking when he told a media exec last week that he hoped the biggest paper in his state would “go out of business.” Over the weekend, Sherman Frederick, a columnist with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reported that Reid made the comment to another higher-up at the 175,000-circulation daily during a Chamber of Commerce event last Wednesday. “Such behavior cannot go unchallenged,” wrote Frederick, CEO of the paper’s parent company. After 24 hours of silence on the comment, a Reid spokesman got back to POLITICO on Monday to say it was all a misunderstanding blown...

The Reno Gazette Journal has a sit-down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who addresses the Ted Kennedy question in, um, an interesting way. Q: How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy's death affect things? A: I think it's going to help us. He hasn't been around for some time. We're going to have a new chairman of that committee, it'll be, I don't know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd, (D-Conn.). He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, (D-Iowa), whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy)...

Here is video of Las Vegas Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick on Fox News this morning, where he said it is clear Democrat Sen. Harry Reid was trying to "bully" them when he told an executive from the paper, "I hope you go out of business." Reid's office is trying to say it was only "a joke," but Frederick said, "We were there." He is convinced Reid was serious and they are taking it seriously. . . . . (Watch Video)

No love for Harry Reid on the Tea Party Express Posted: September 1st, 2009 09:49 AM ET From CNN All Platform Journalist Jim Spellman Las Vegas, NEVADA (CNN) — As the Tea Party Express rolls out of Las Vegas, there is at least one person who may be glad to see it go: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "There's been kind of an underground gathering of opponents of Harry Reid," said Mark Williams, one of the organizers of the cross country conservative caravan that is making its way towards Washington. Williams says that dislike of the Nevada Democrat is one...

Here is a video report on a Town Hall Meeting held by Sen. Harry Reid at UNLV that was "by invitation only" - and the only people invited were supporters of ObamaCare, with a heavy union presence. When one man tried to get in who was against ObamaCare, he was told to get out. That confrontation is on this report. The man told those keeping him out, that Reid was supposed to be representing him, but he was told that he was not invited and that he should get out. . . . . (Watch Video)

Before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) openly wished for the Las Vegas Review-Journal to “go out of business” … a newspaper which has held opposing political viewpoints with the Senator. The comment came when Bob Brown, the Journal’s Director of Advertising met with Reid during the simple process of handshaking. Reid exclaimed to Brown: “I hope you go out of business.” Harry Reid Threatened Las Vegas Newspaper

Aug. 30, 2009 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal SHERMAN FREDERICK: Enough is enough, Harry Stop the childish bullying This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we...

Enough is enough, Harry Stop the childish bullying This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So,...

Harry Reid Worried About the Tea Party Express! PROGRESS! At Winnemucca today there appeared a guy with a video camera and tripod. Not unusual, but this guy was alone and didn’t talk with anybody, he just set up his gear and quietly began to roll. Turns out he was from Senator Harry Reid’s office and he is attending our events through Nevada and taping them for the Senator’s office. Our press guy (Levi) invited him to join us on one of the buses to go along with us and have the same full access that we are giving the Fox,...

This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn't stand scrutiny, much less criticism. We're still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So, let me assure you, if we weathered all...

Harry Reid is having a bad year. As "leader" of the Democratic party in Senate he has taken the hit for many of the Democratic party plans that are putting a foot on the neck of the civil liberties of America. Harry Reid is up for re-election 2010, and the way things look now he may be in for the fight of his political life. Reid has always been more liberal than his home state of Nevada, and some of his more recent stances. such as trying to prevent off shore drilling, have not exactly endeared himself to the voting...

Until recently, few Republicans had wanted to challenge Harry Reid for his Senate seat in Nevada, as Reid had built a huge warchest and had expected to use it to coast to victory. New polling, however, shows that Reid is quite vulnerable even with his campaign coffers stuffed to the brim. Danny Tarkanian, a relative newcomer to Nevada politics, has an eleven-point lead on Reid in the latest Mason-Dixon polling in Nevada, and the state GOP chairwoman also leads Reid:

I should preface this by saying all Republican candidates with name recognition beat Reid. There are others in the race. The only big name candidate to officially announce is Danny Tarkanian. The Sue Lowden thing is still up in the air, and seems to be more of a push by insiders to get their person in the race. I’m not sure why the Republican establishment seems to be challenging Danny Tarkanian. Especially since he has polled higher than Reid and Lowden in all of the polls, and has really hit the ground running.

Signs of real Hope and Change from Nevada! Via the Las Vegas Review-Journal: It’s the highest stakes ever for a Nevada election, and former boxer Sen. Harry Reid is on the ropes early. Either Republican Danny Tarkanian or Sue Lowden would knock out Reid in a general election, according to a recent poll of Nevada voters. The results suggest the Democratic Senate majority leader will have to punch hard and often in order to retain his position as the most accomplished politician in state history, in terms of job status. Nevadans favored Tarkanian over Reid 49 percent to 38 percent...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trailing a top Republican challenger by 11 points ahead of next year's election, according to a new poll. The Mason-Dixon Polling and Research survey, reported Sunday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, showed GOP candidate Danny Tarkanian leading Reid by 49 percent to 38 percent in Nevada. Tarkanian is a former basketball player for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and recently announced his candidacy. The new poll also showed Sue Lowden, chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party and a possible candidate, leading Reid by 45 percent to 40 percent.

LAS VEGAS -- A newspaper poll says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces formidable opposition next year when he seeks a fifth term. A survey of 400 registered voters for the Las Vegas Review-Journal released Sunday paints the Democratic incumbent as an underdog when matched against either of two possible Republicans rivals in the election. The poll, taken last week by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., shows Reid lagging by as many as 11 percentage points against Danny Tarkanian. He had 49 percent to Reid's 38 percent. Tarkanian is a real estate professional and former UNLV basketball player.

It's the highest stakes ever for a Nevada election, and former boxer Sen. Harry Reid is on the ropes early. Either Republican Danny Tarkanian or Sue Lowden would knock out Reid in a general election, according to a recent poll of Nevada voters. The results suggest the Democratic Senate majority leader will have to punch hard and often in order to retain his position as the most accomplished politician in state history, in terms of job status. Nevadans favored Tarkanian over Reid 49 percent to 38 percent and Lowden over Reid 45 percent to 40 percent, according to the poll....

Nevada's unemployment rose to 12.5 percent in July, while joblessness in especially hard-hit Las Vegas surged to 13.1 percent. It’s the highest jobless rate both statewide and locally since the state began tracking data in 1976. No “green shoots” for Nevada. As economists and policymakers nationwide hover over the tender little economic tendrils that herald recovery from recession, Nevada’s economy looks as barren as the Mojave Desert. As a trickle of data points to the national downturn’s end, Nevada’s economy continues its descent. Joblessness in the Silver State jumped to 12.5 percent in July, while unemployment in hard-hit Las Vegas...

Not sure if I'm posting correctly, but this is just a little graphic I whipped up tonight. I have a decent idea about once a year or so! Feel free to grab it and reuse it! Click for much larger version.

In the late 1970s, as the federal government arranged to bail out Chrysler, not-yet-famous economist Alan Greenspan warned the problem “was not that it would fail, but that it would succeed.” And it did, thus paving the way for more bailouts, including (again) Chrysler. But the first Chrysler bailout was just one company, one time. The rolling series of financial bailouts over the past year -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG and Citibank, General Motors and Chrysler, etc. -- have not yet succeeded or failed. But they’ve raised a new moral hazard. These days, having invested so much in...

Reid my lips: Know new taxes, eventually, if Harry has his way. Ditto for knowing bureaucratic health care hell, cap and trade costs galore, pork for all—but how much money for Nevada?—and federal deficit spending piling on debt for our heirs. But Sen. Harry Reid must face the voters next year, so the Senate majority leader is right where conservatives want him. Say what? Read on. Fastidious Harry is in conservatives’ crosshairs … if Republicans field a good candidate, raise moola and work their tails off. Rep. Dean Heller, Nevada’s lone GOP House member, won’t take the senator on despite...

Because he's unwilling to face his constituents, Sen. Harry Reid is hosting a telephone town hall on the government-run health care plan on August 28. Go here to sign up. You'll have to provide your name, e-mail address and, of course, a telephone number. While Sen. Reid's website claims this telephone town hall is open to all Nevadans, it's not. Nevada Senator Harry Reid will host a tele-town hall on August 28th with small business owners, health care providers, seniors and any other Nevadans interested in voicing their opinions and asking questions about health insurance reform.First, I just talked with...

Nevada Senator Harry Reid will host a town hall meeting this month, but it won't be the traditional variety. Senator Reid's office has confirmed plans for a "tele-town hall" on August 28th. Thousands of Nevada homes will be dialed at random in the days before the event, and given a chance to participate. Reid's office says people will also have the opportunity to add their number to the telephone list on his web site before the event. Senator Reid said the telephone format will "allow us to reach far more people all over the state," and "provides a respectful environment...

Harry Reid, Democratic Senate Majority Leader, has put his two cents into the name-calling frenzy directed at Americans protesting Obamacare. Apparently it’s not enough to call them mobs, extreme right-wingers or fascists. Reid has come up with a creative epithet all his own: He says that “evil-mongers” are using “lies, innuendo and rumor,” to drown out rational debate. Well, Reid would have done himself and his constituents in Nevada a favor if he had tuned in to Sean Hannity’s program on Fox News last night, where he would have heard a panel of ordinary Americans — half of whom had...

Cap-And-Trade: The administration likes to defend bad policies with analogies to the post office. New studies from a business group and the administration itself confirm that cap-and-trade belongs in the dead-letter bin.Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey likens the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap-and trade bill to "about a postage stamp a day," based on estimates made by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA. But as we and others have shown, they arrive at this magical number in part by ignoring the hit on gross domestic product and employment that will occur. As Garret Vaughan, economist...

President Obama claims he wants to transform America's energy economy away from the fossil fuels that presently provide the lion's share of our energy. He talks about investing tens of billions of dollars for renewable energy technology research and development and to create a "smart" electricity grid. He pushes for a costly cap-and-trade system, while promising the creation of millions of new green jobs. All of this is designed to curb the greenhouse gas emissions he claims imperil the planet. So why does his administration show hostility to the one technology that can provide reliable, industrial-size amounts of energy while...

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that a poll sponsored by supporters of Nevada Republican party chairwoman Sue Lowden shows that she leads Harry Reid 48 to 42 in a matchup: Pollster Todd Vitale said the most telling numbers might be the ones related to Reid. In three Reid-related categories -- image, approval and whether they would vote to re-elect -- respondents gave the senator a thumbs down. Just 39 percent viewed Reid favorably, and 34 percent said they would vote to re-elect him. "All of those are very, very telling pieces of information," said Vitale, who has been a pollster...

You be the judge. (Click on the image to watch)You can read more about Sen. Reid attacking health care protests as being as "phony" as Astroturf at Politics Daily. No word yet if Sen. Reid will condemn any of the ralliers outside of his Clean Energy Summit. Or is it only "Astroturfing" if you disagree with Sen. Reid? If I hear anything from the Senator or his office, I'll be sure to let you know. Now you might ask, what's wrong with being organized and having signs and water at a rally? Nothing, I think that just indicates good planning....