By Dr. Larry Moses
No one asked me but…I have been on vacation for two weeks.
When you are retired it is hard to tell when you are on vacation, but I was definitely on vacation. I wrote three columns before I left and sent them to the editor of the Moapa Valley Progress and I put away the novel I have been working on, so I was on vacation. I know I was on vacation as I did not read any newspapers and watched a very minimum of news on television.
After we crossed the Sardine Canyon in northern Utah and dropped into Cache Valley where we picked up our friends, we were in beautiful mountain country for the next two weeks. We slept with the windows open and under blankets and quilts.
As we traveled from Richmond, Utah, to Cardston, Canada, we were on the Interstate for less than 100 of the 2000 miles we traveled. For the most part of the trip, we were on mountain roads in Montana and Idaho.
The roads were lined with farms and ranches and nearly all of them displayed the American Flag. As I spoke with the local Montana people I got the feeling they really weren’t uptight as to who was president, what the unemployment rate was, or even knew who Nancy Pelosi was.
Interestingly enough, when they realized I was from Nevada, more than one asked whether Nevada was going to dump Harry Reid. When I explained that had they asked me that before the Republican Primary I would have said Harry was a dead man walking. However, after the primary and selection of the worst possible Republican candidate, I am not now so sure. It now depends, not on how much they like the Republican candidate, for there is not much to like, but how much they dislike Harry.
The locals were sorry they mentioned it for they were really much more interested in talking about the elk they took last year.
No one asked me but…Nevada was screened from the possibility of receiving 160 million federal dollars for its education programs. The State’s application for funds was turned down.
Actually Republicans, who oppose both federal interference in local education and the runaway spending of the Obama administration, should be grateful for the denial. However, my feeling is someone is going to get the money, they ain’t giving it back, so why not Nevada?
Seventeen States are still in contention to share the $3 billion the Department of Education has set aside for the new savior of education, the “Race to the Top” program; but not Nevada.
So much for having the most powerful man in the Senate representing us. Harry couldn’t even deliver on a share of this program for his state, while he is in a fight for his political life. Even though the State sold its soul in a special legislative session to meet the demands of the left wing State Department of Education and changed state law to conform to the demands of the Washington elite, the State’s application was cast aside.
Harry said this was not a political decision, for an “independent” three member panel decided who qualified and who did not.
Come on Harry, everyone knows there is no such thing as a non-political decision in Washington these days.
Harry may want to begin to watch his back. His people are hurting him worse than his Republican opponent. His President tells people not to come to Nevada to spend their money. While leading the nation in housing foreclosures, the State failed to receive stimulus money set aside for community development and foreclosures. There was no Obama-care deal for Nevada and now no federal money to improve the schools.
Tell me again the advantage of having the Majority Leader in the Senate coming from Nevada. Could a first year Senator do worse? Maybe, but not likely.
No one asked me but…Coming off vacation and getting caught up on the news is an interesting endeavor. Reading two week’s worth of newspapers in one setting is unique. You read stories in one sitting that when read days apart don’t really register, but when read at the same time you begin to wonder if you fell down the rabbit hole with Alice.
Apparently the federal government owes black farmers a little over $1 billion in payments that they deserved under the Department of Agriculture but were denied over the years due to racial discrimination. These were payments that should have been made and were made to white farmers under the same circumstances.
Apparently the federal government owes various Native American tribes over $3 billion in back payments for agreed upon provisions of past treaties. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has for years failed to make this money available to the tribes as agreed upon by the federal government. A federal court has ruled that the government must pay up.
Congress readily admits the merit of the court cases. However, Congress has decided that it needs to be fiscally responsible and has told both groups they cannot pay the debt because the country is broke.
To this Congress, fiscal responsibility is a novel idea. But before you begin to cheer and think this administration is serious about fiscal responsibility, keep in mind that during this same time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton awarded Pakistan another $7.2 billion in that great worldwide lottery called American foreign aid. She just up and told the President of Pakistan the U.S. was good for another $7.2 billion on top of the $9 billion already awarded to his country that supports the Taliban warriors in Afghanistan that are killing American soldiers.
The government cannot come up with the $5 billion it owes American citizens who would spend the money here and help stimulate the economy, but we can flippantly hand out over $7 billion to a country that spends its money with our enemy.
Hillary justified this by saying it would go to build the infrastructure of Pakistan. It would build roads, support agriculture, rebuild cities and improve schools. This sounds like a great program for America.
Let’s invite Hillary to Nevada and maybe then we could get aid. Surely we could get something since we have the most powerful man in the Senate representing the State.
Thoughts of the week… Montana is everything Colorado thinks it is.” “Montana seems to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans talk.”
Norman Fitzroy Maclean
