By Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review

THROUGHOUT the 2008 campaign, Barack Hussein Obama claimed it was a “smear” to refer to him as “Barack Hussein Obama.” The candidate had initially rhapsodized over how his middle name, the name of the prophet Mohammed’s grandson, would signal a new beginning in American relations with the Muslim world. But when the nomination fight intensified, Obama decided that Islamic heritage was a net negative. So, with a media reliably uncurious about political biographies outside metropolitan Wasilla, Obama did what Obama always does: He airbrushed his personal history on the fly.

Suddenly, it was “just making stuff up,” as Obama put it, for questioners “to say that, you know, maybe he’s got Muslim connections.” “The only connection I’ve had to Islam,” the candidate insisted, “is that my grandfather on my father’s side came from [Kenya]. But I’ve never practiced Islam.” Forget about “Hussein”; the mere mention of Obama’s middle initial — “H” — riled the famously thin-skinned senator. Supporters charged that “shadowy attackers” were “lying about Barack’s religion, claiming he is a Muslim.” The Obamedia division at USA Today, in a report subtly titled “Obama’s grandma slams ‘untruths,’” went so far as to claim that Obama’s Kenyan grandmother is a Christian — even though a year earlier, when Obama’s “flaunt Muslim ties” script was still operative, the New York Times had described the same woman, 85-year-old Sara Hussein Obama, as a “lifelong Muslim” who proclaimed, “I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith.” [continued]

NPRI
LVCVA 'bigs' duck questions

Millions in public's
cash channeled to 
political juice man William Vassiliadis

MAY 19  — Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority Vice Chairman Keith Smith is refusing to answer questions about the authority's long-standing policy of advancing millions of dollars in interest-free operating funds to Airwave Productions, an affiliate of the authority's advertising firm, R&R Partners. [continued]

New York Times Blog: Obama presidency already marked by big-time screw-ups From giving contradictory statements on the economy to making gaffes about the Special Olympics, team Obama has lost the communications magic that propelled it to the White House. [read analysis] Consensus: Obama prone to lying Breaking all his pledges of honesty --- Michael Gerson  Washington Post 'Obama is a great pretender' --- Robert Samuelson  Newsweek Lies about current health care costs --- Greg Scandlen Heartland Institute, EBRI Research Institute 'Extraordinary contradiction between what Obama says and what he does' --- Peter Wehner  Commentary Magazine Deception at core of Obama plans --- Charles Krauthammer  Washington Post Regularly denies what he's doing --- Mona Charen Creators Syndicate Imposing higher taxes on poor, but denies it to them --- Jonah Goldberg Tribune Media Services Speaks words that are pretty but untrue --- Editorial UnionLeader.com Talks 'recovery' but consciously seeks to deepen depression --- Dick Morris New York Post Breaks promise on 2nd amendment --- Susan Jones Cyber News Service Obama account of ties to terrorist dishonest --- Anderson Cooper CNN Misrepresented his Illinois vote to kill new-borns --- Joel Mowbray Real Clear Politics Lied to steelworkers on NAFTA plans --- Byron York National Review Lied to voters about history with ACORN The Cleveland Reader The Los Angeles Times Obama sought to conceal long-term relationship with domestic terrorist Senator for years worked closely with unrepentant 1960s 'Weatherman'  terrorist William Ayres, but now is viciously defaming a respected scholar who has researched those ties. by the Editors National Review August 28 -- While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism. Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Harvard-educated social anthropologist and frequent contributor to National Review, among other publications. [continued]

Harry and the
Whoremaster

Two different reports say U. S. Senate Majority Leader Reid received grocery bags of cash, ballot-stuffing from infamous pimp Joe Conforte

By W. W. Anderson

LAS VEGAS – A long-time political consultant and former campaign manager for U.S. Senator Harry Reid has gone public with allegations that Reid had a secret and corrupt relationship with the notorious pimp Joe Conforte, of the famed Mustang Ranch brothel that for decades sat outside of Reno.

The account quoting Don Williams -- manager of several Reid campaigns, including the 1970 race for Nevada Lieutenant Governor -- is in Harry: Money, Mob and Influence in Harry Reid's Nevada, by Daxton Brown. [continued]

AG again flouts law

CARSON CITY – Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto had to ignore Nevada law when she rejected the request of Gov. Jim Gibbons to join other states challenging the constitutionality of the controversial health reform bill pushed through the Senate by Harry Reid, signed by President Obama and opposed by most Americans.

Nevada statutes specifically require the Office of the Attorney General to accede to the direction of the governor of the state in such matters. NRS 228.170, which deals with legal actions to protect the interest of the State of Nevada states:

      "1.  Whenever the Governor directs or when, in the opinion of the Attorney General, to protect and secure the interest of the State it is necessary that a suit be commenced or defended in any federal or state court, the Attorney General shall commence the action or make the defense." (Emphasis added.)

[For more background: March 30
Las Vegas Sun story by Cy Ryan]

High court: State continues in ‘dereliction’ of duties, hosing home and property owners

By John Dougherty

Greenspun Media admits it
pimps out Sun editorial staff
Rob Curley boasts about it to marketing conventioneers

Confessions of a retired newsman
Journalists as organisms

By W.W. Anderson

LAS VEGAS — When I myself was a young and smug reporter on the East Coast, I couldn’t see it. Years later, however, I noticed it regularly.

It very much resembled the old Saturday Night Live routine where Chevy Chase would pause, look out at the audience, and then arrogantly observe, “I’M Chevy Chase, and YOU’RE not!” [continued]

Obama poll numbers already collapsing
Americans don't support
president's radical agenda

By Douglas E. Schoen, Scott Rasmussen
Wall Street Journal

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date. [continued]

It's a Nastygram from Bill Raggio

By Glenn Cook
Las Vegas Review-Journal

In the high-stakes poker game that is the 2009 Legislature, Republican Bill Raggio has laid down his cards. No raise. No call. Not that anyone's surprised. The easiest mark of the session has been showing his tax-hiking tells since Election Day. With state revenues falling alongside the fortunes of this state's tourism industry, the sympathies of the state Senate minority leader indisputably lie with those of big-spending majority Democrats. [continued]

Hydrologist: Vegas water authority planning another Owens Valley

By Emily Green
Las Vegas Sun

The raw glory of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts is difficult to imagine from the paved fantasyland of Las Vegas. As the road wends north of the city, past sun-soaked bluffs into Pahranagat Valley, there is what looks like a river but are in fact four spring-fed lakes running for some 40 miles. Audubon himself would weep at the birdlife working this watering spot on the Pacific flyway. Bald eagles ride the breezes. Herons skid across the water. [continue]

Earlier in the same series:
Reid names his legacy: 'the
rape of White Pine County'

To save his family’s livelihood from a Las Vegas water scheme that could reduce his land to dust, a White Pine County rancher joins forces with Utah

By Emily Green, Las Vegas Sun

When Southern Nevada Water Authority Manager Pat Mulroy appealed to Congress in 2004 to provide right of way for a pipeline to deliver ground water from the heart of Nevada to Las Vegas, Utah stirred.

One of the two sweetest valleys targeted by Las Vegas sat bang on the state line between Nevada and Utah. And not just Utah, but Brigham Young’s chosen seat for the original Utah Territory. Utah quickly attached a condition to the bill: Before Nevada could draw from any shared water system, both states had to negotiate the amount. Or, as an incandescent Mulroy described it, Utah gained a “veto” on her pipeline project. [continue]