sean cary

I didn’t have enough money at the market the other day.

It wasn’t a planned trip; I just needed to grab a few things to plug some holes in the pantry and perhaps something fresh for dinner that night.

As the checker scanned I watched the total grow to $57.09. I didn’t even blink as I reached for my wallet, gave her $40 cash and then it hit me—my debit card was still in yesterday’s sport coat. I couldn’t pay the balance.

My face burned as I sheepishly pointed at items to remove from the ticket.  The clerk mouthed the words “don’t worry” and reached into her apron, discreetly producing a $10.00 off store coupon.

$39.70.

I was a bit bewildered as I loaded my groceries into the car. This was an aberration for me; a minor embarrassment in the scheme of things but for far too many, not having enough is their reality. Every day, more than one in five Nevadans do not know where their next meal is going to come from.  

The stereotypical perspective on poverty in America is that it is a determination problem. People suffer in poverty in this country because they don’t work hard enough. If they truly cared about their family and weren’t lazy, good-for-nothing leeches then they would go out, get a job and quit bitching already.  Look at all the free stuff they get! Can’t we get a little gratitude up in here?

50 million Americans currently live in the throes of either situational or generational poverty, an alarming level not seen in this country since the mid 1960s. Not only that, 20% of our children go to bed hungry. It’s easy to gloss over in the face of statistics, but every one of those children has a name. Their families love them as fiercely as you love your children, except they spend every day of their lives doing without. When they look in their wallet, it becomes a choice between eating and heating.

For those living in the culture of poverty, the day-to-day challenges are debilitating. It’s never about getting ahead; it’s only about trying to survive. When they do find the strength to stand up for themselves, landlords, employers, and social service providers punish them for it. What’s worse, society punishes them as well. We judge them for their poor purchases at the grocery store; we ostracize them for their habits. We complain because they have the nerve to spend “our” hard earned tax dollars on frivolities like a microwave or god forbid, a television.

It’s “the makers versus the takers,” some say. “How dare they be allowed the basic comforts we take for granted! Don’t they know WE are supporting their very existence? Get a job stocking shelves at WalMart, for Chrissakes!”

A novel idea, to be sure, but WalMart employee wages are so low that over 80% of their employees are eligible for public assistance, and they get it! To the tune of $420,000 per year, per store. Reagan’s fabled “Welfare Queen” has been found! She resides in Bentonville, Arkansas.

As a community, we must begin to assess what’s truly important. Should we develop a community that has opportunity and growth for everyone, or just those with the social capital necessary to nurture their own opportunity for growth? Will we plan for a future for all our residents or just those that society deems worthy?

The mental and emotional separation between “the poor” and “us” is a delusion.  The reality of poverty and hunger in America is that far too many of us are only one paycheck away from homelessness, hunger, and despair.

Look in the mirror—How long could you survive without your current situation? How many paychecks away are you? 

This column appears in the May issue of the Reno Tahoe Tonight Magazine. Find this, and more, at http://www.renotahoetonightmagazine.com 

Wild mustangs, an enduring symbol of the American west, have roamed our lands since Spanish conquistadors brought them over in the 1500s. These majestic creatures hold an extraordinary place in our colorful history. They grace our monuments, our local artwork, and the reverse of Nevada’s state quarter. Yet, the mustang is disappearing from the west, and something must be done.

This debate is a heated one, and tireless advocates on both sides grow louder and louder with each passing day.  Many of those who make their living off the land, the ranchers, farmers and miners view the wild mustangs as feral pests who should be removed from the range because they interfere with commerce and consume too many resources while the horse advocates see the horses as victims of persecution, beholden to shoddy science, political posturing and rudderless leadership from the Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM claims that since they have no natural predators, the wild horse population doubles every four to five years causing undue stress on fragile western ecosystems. Advocates dispute this claim, stating that the rate is inflated or exacerbated because when senior males in the herd are removed, more hormonal young stallions mate with immature fillies who otherwise wouldn’t breed so young.

Many advocates believe there is plenty of land suitable for the horses to roam freely, and claim that the there is too much of a focus on rounding them up and trapping them, and not enough effort is focused toward responsible management in the wild. They allege that the BLM capitulates because the agriculture industry exerts tremendous pressure on federal and state lawmakers because the presence of the herds along with prolonged drought have made it difficult for livestock to graze on federal lands, negatively impacting Agribusiness’s bottom line.

Most advocates also acknowledge that the herds must be properly managed, and should not be allowed to reproduce unchecked. Their solution is to open more federal lands to the herds, rather than expending the tremendous resources it takes to round them up, transport them and corral them in overcrowded pens to live indefinitely, or worse, be sent to auction and potentially end up on foreign restaurant menus. Reasoned, responsible herd management is essential to ecological harmony, without a doubt.

The fiscal argument here is a real one. The BLM indeed has limited resources and the costs of this program grow with each and every roundup, but, as the advocates consistently point out, if the horses weren’t removed to begin with they wouldn’t cost that much to maintain. They believe the BLM should finally stand up to the industries they are supposed to regulate.

It is true that when food becomes scarce these horses sometimes travel toward civilization, but here is where personal responsibility comes in—If you don’t like the horses in your yard, build a fence, seek professional assistance, and above all, don’t feed them. They are an American icon, but they are still wild animals.

The truly horrifying piece to this story is the ultimate fate some of these horses suffer. The BLM claims that none of these horses are sold directly for human consumption, but advocates have evidence to the contrary. Although not popular or societally accepted in the United States, horsemeat, including foal meat, is a delicacy in many parts of the world.

Fillet of foal.  Mustang sashimi. They exist, folks.

There is a flourishing black market for horsemeat out there, and the BLM cannot ensure the horses’ safety once they are out of government control. Cruel, merciless slaughter is a sad and ignominious end for these beautiful creatures.

This great country was built on the backs of the horse. They helped to plow our fields, pull our wagons and they deserve all the dignity and respect afforded other American icons. The horse helped us craft this nation we know and revere today.

America is the land of the free.  Let ‘em run! 

This column originally appeared in the Reno Tahoe Tonight Magazine.

http://www.renotahoetonightmagazine.com 

2008 was a transformative year in American politics. Barack Obama, riding a wave of idealism captivated our nation with broad-brush slogans and platitudes. “Hope” and “change” defined our conversation as Americans yearned for an end to the George W Bush way of life.

Obama’s message back then was one of optimism—a post partisan America where our leaders would work together and compromise on the issues facing our country, and the bitter, divisive vitriol that defined the end of the Bush years would disappear.

Fast forward to campaign 2012. The relentlessly negative, scorched earth campaigning so looked down upon by Obama 2008 has become standard operating procedure for Obama 2012, and it is taking a toll on his support.

President Obama still commands an impressive audience, but the crowds are smaller and considerably more subdued. Obama is older, greyer, and the lines in his face betray his movie star smile. The sparkly optimistic mood from 2008 is gone, as are the people weeping and fainting at the very sight of Mr. Obama in the flesh. The enthusiastic cheers still drown out the commander in chief, but mostly when he is lobbing attacks at his opponent, rather than when he speaks to his own strengths, or his rather vague plans for a second term.

Obama 2008 rarely spoke of John McCain by name; Obama 2012 mentions Romney and Ryan by name at every turn. The mere utterance elicits a chorus of boos from the audience, which Obama does very little to quell.

Obama packed the auditorium up at Truckee Meadows Community College last week when he spoke on education, but the mood was a bit flat. The crowd didn’t hush as Obama gave his remarks, and many didn’t look up from the screens of their smart phones as he took the podium. Things didn’t improve much on stage either. Obama has always had a challenge with eye contact and this time he seemed to speak not to the crowd, but to his ever-present Teleprompters.

Events like this one offer a window into what the campaign is thinking. Gone are the sports stadiums filled with supporters in Democratic strongholds and invitation-only speeches, in their place are smaller venues in states Obama must win as he tries to limp across the 270 vote mark. Expectations, lowered. Victory, anything but assured.

Hope and change, indeed.

Obama won Nevada by 12 points in 2008. Today, he’s within the margin of error. In 2008 he was well above the magic 50% mark for most of the campaign. Today, he’s in the upper 40’s.

Obama has a path to reelection, but it’s going to be threading the needle. This will mean lots of attention for us here in Nevada, for our six electoral votes are crucial to his strategy. Same goes for states like New Hampshire, with four votes and Iowa with six up for grabs.

I find it interesting that Obama for America has adopted “Forward” as a campaign slogan, for it really makes very little sense. Sure, it looks good emblazoned across a tee shirt, but it starts to get a bit shaky when every speech the President gives blames others for our problems.

The greatest candidate the world has ever known is now merely the President of the United States, and as November grows ever closer, Americans will once again ask themselves “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” when they step into the ballot box.

Yes, our nation is indeed moving forward, but the question is whether or not Obama is leading, following, or simply along for the ride.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune:http://dailysparkstribune.com/pages/full_story/push?article-President+Obama’s+enthusiasm+gap%20&id=19932158

I don’t quite know what to make of the Nevada Republican Party anymore. Infighting, backbiting, internecine warfare, and that’s on a good day.

The Washoe County GOP at least somewhat recognizes that there is an election in less than three months, and they have filed the necessary paperwork to separate themselves from the Loony Toons who have hijacked the Nevada Republican Party and the Clark County Republican party.

This didn’t make others in the state very happy, and so began the civil war. The Clark County GOP, now hopelessly and completely controlled by militant Ron Paul fanatics is demanding Washoe Chairman David Buell’s resignation after they filed to become their own PAC.

From their release:

“The CCRP Executive Board has also called upon Chairman Buell to immediately resign as WCRP Chairman for his actions that have endangered the Nevada Republican Party and all of its county affiliates.

The CCRP sympathizes with those Republicans in Washoe County who have been caught in this situation by the decrees of autocratic party leadership, and hopes that if the WCRP is disaffiliated from the NRP, those Republicans in Washoe who truly seek to elect conservatives will help to rebuild and form what can become a new, efficient NRP affiliate in Washoe County.”

One has to love the rhetoric used by the new regime over at the CCRP Headquarters. The “decrees of autocratic party leadership?” My goodness! So Washoe County Chairman David Buell is some sort of ruthless, wild eyed tyrant simply because he wants to do the job he was elected to do, which is to help the Republican ticket get elected?

According to CCRP Chair Cindy Lake and Vice Chair Carl Bunce, yes.

Oh, and notice that this release said “those who truly seek to elect conservatives” rather than “those who truly seek to elect Republicans.” The CCRP leadership has no desire to elect Republicans; they have only one goal—disrupt the Republican national convention in Tampa and hand Nevada’s delegates to Ron Paul.

This goes to show how serious this problem is. Washoe County will be critical to the upcoming election. Washoe is a swing county in a swing state and the polls are very close here. Senator Dean Heller is only a few points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Rep. Shelley Berkley, and President Barack Obama’s lead in Nevada over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney is also rather thin. Romney actually has a chance, but the Republican Party in Nevada is a disaster. Part of it is shackled because of leadership; the rest is focused solely on their false prophet, Ron Paul.
The RNC has tried to blunt the impact of the Ron Paul wingnuts by beefing up support to Romney’s Team Nevada operation, but those resources can only be stretched so far. They know that Heller is vulnerable, but they also know Romney has a chance here. Nevada is a hotly contested prize this year, and control of the Senate and the White House may rest on our shoulders.
Cindy Lake and her tinfoil hat contingent can huff and puff all they want, but it isn’t going to matter. David Buell will not be ousted at her hand. The Nevada GOP has been taken over by an ideological fringe that has a tenuous grasp on reality at best, and the RNC is not going to watch Nevada go blue (again) because the local party is a circus sideshow.
I yearn for the day when rationality once again becomes reality, and we can return to a normal brand of politics. This idiocy needs to cease and until that happens, Nevada is only going to get bluer.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune: http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19857686/article-NV-GOP–figure-it-out?instance=news_opinion_page

The political ad wars have officially begun. Muddy pictures, salacious allegations and half-truths set to menacing music are all over our televisions, our computers and our Facebook pages. Short of hibernation, there really isn’t a way to escape them. The best we can do is wade through the lies and try to extrapolate what few facts and truths are actually present.

I tend to regard many of these advertisements with little more than a passing glance, for you can’t learn much about someone who wants to be the leader of the free world in a 60-second commercial bought and paid for by someone who is intent on getting the other guy elected. Americans roundly criticize negative political advertisements every election cycle, but the worst kept secret is that campaigns run negative ads for one reason—they work. The right attack ad dropped at the right time can spell disaster the opposition in a close race, and when winning at all costs is the only game in town, it’s no wonder ad spending is in the hundreds of millions.

The Priorities USA Action PAC recently released what is, without a doubt, the worst political attack ad of the season, if not in history. The pro-Obama TV spot, starring a man named Joe Soptic, says his wife contracted cancer and died “a short time after” Mitt Romney closed GS Industries, the steel plant where he worked and left “my family” without health coverage. Soptic goes on to say, “I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned” about what “he’s done.”

As Soptic narrates this ad, the words “Mitt Romney and Bain Capital made millions for themselves and then closed this steel plant” are emblazoned across the screen.


Sounds pretty serious! Big mean Mitt rode into town like Mister Burns, shut down the steel plant personally, fired this guy himself, and then killed his wife just for funsies.

Bill Burton, an Obama crony and the head of Priorities USA Action, denies that the ad blames Romney for the woman’s death from cancer, but this is flat out stupid. The ad is quite clear in its message. It begins with the plant closing at the hands of Mitt Romney and ends with a woman’s death. Sounds pretty clear to me and to the various fact-checking sites that have widely panned it.

I feel it important to clear up a few things about the claims made in this commercial. Firstly, the ad misleads when Soptic says that after he was laid off “my family lost their health care” and “a short time after that my wife became ill.” Soptic’s wife, Ranae Soptic, died in 2006, five years after the steel plant where Soptic was formerly employed, closed down. Well, did Mrs. Soptic indeed lose her healthcare as a result? Not exactly. Ranae Soptic had her own insurance plan through her own job at a thrift store, which she kept for two years after her husband lost his job at the steel plant. Mrs. Soptic lost her insurance when a shoulder injury forced her to leave her job, not when her husband lost his. As for the claim that Romney had something directly to do with this tragedy, that too is a fantasy. GS Industries closed in 2001, during the time Romney was working on the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, and not for Bain Capital.

Although Bain Capital had a hand in the plant’s closing, it is debatable whether Bain’s involvement for eight years directly lead to the company’s eventual demise. One might possibly be able to make the case that if Romney and Bain hadn’t saddled the company with so much debt, they may have survived, but it’s also possible to make the case that if Bain hadn’t stepped in when they did, the company might have closed even sooner and that Soptic would have lost his job well before 2001.

Yet another fact being glossed over by Priorities USA Action is the state of the American steel industry itself and the role it may have played in GS Industries’ fate. A 1999 Securities and Exchange Commission filing by GS Industries stated “Distressed economic conditions in other countries, particularly Asia, have resulted in record levels of imported steel products into the domestic market causing dramatic declines in selling prices industry-wide.”

Wait a minute. A poor economy and cheap foreign steel may have had a hand in GS Industries’ failure? Say it ain’t so! I thought Mitt Romney did this on purpose.

The claim that Ranae Soptic’s death is Romney’s, oops, I meant Bain Capital’s, fault is ridiculous and a prime example of everything that’s wrong with politics in America today. We must endeavor to rise above this nonsense. If there is truly something amiss in the corporate practices of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital then by all means bring them to light, but stop with the blatant dishonesty. It’s classless, it’s obnoxious, and it’s dangerous.

I am sorry for Mr. Soptic’s loss, but he is disgracing the memory of his wife by lying. Americans deserve better than this sort of hateful garbage and they deserve better than Bill Burton and Priorities USA Action.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune: http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19779169/article-Lying-liars-and-the-lies-they-feed-you?instance=news_opinion_page

Wow. So what about that Chick-fil-A, huh? It startles me that so many people choose to revel in their bigotry, and it’s ridiculous that the human rights debate of our time has been brought to life in the form of a fast food restaurant, but we are where we are. This whole issue is very sad and misunderstood by many out there who choose ignorance.

For starters, the controversy surrounding Chick-fil-A is not about the first amendment. This is not a free speech argument. Nobody is saying that Dan Cathy should be censored by the government or put in jail for speaking his mind with his money and his foundation. Regardless of what happens to his business in the long run, he will still be completely free to fund hate groups all he wants, but let’s get serious here—Chick-fil-A is not the innocent company some people think it is. For all the talk about how this is just one man who made a statement on a radio show, that’s simply not the case.

Chick-fil-A and its WinShape foundation have donated at least $5 million to hate groups who have supported the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda, groups who have worked to reinstate sodomy laws here in the U.S. and backed groups who believe that homosexuals should be “exported” from America. Unfortunately, facts like these have been lost in the fracas because Chick-fil-A supporters want people to believe that this whole thing is about same sex marriage. Guess what, it isn’t. Gay marriage is an intensely divisive issue here in this country, and elections all over have been won and lost on this issue. This is about human rights and the incontrovertible fact they should be granted to everyone.

As for the Cathy family and their comments that ignited this firestorm, Dan Cathy didn’t merely say he supports traditional marriage. He said explicitly that if you support gay marriage, you “are inviting God’s judgment on our nation.”

Paging Reverend Phelps.

This debate reaches further than just supporting same sex marriage. Even if you don’t support the rights for all Americans to get married, do you believe that gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation”? Do you agree that America’s acceptance of homosexuality has brought about things like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina? Shootings in movie theaters? Dead American soldiers?

The owners and supporters of Chick-fil-A do, and they are saying so with their dollars and their employment practices. Chick-fil-A has been sued over a dozen times for employment discrimination, and Forbes Magazine reported in 2007 that CEO Truett Cathy said he wanted to hire married people because they are more industrious and productive. He also said he would probably fire someone who “has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members.”

This is the face of “traditional family values?” This is upholding America’s moral fabric? This is what makes America the greatest nation in the world?

Hardly.

These issues at the core of America’s problems. Bigotry. Hatred towards what is different. Persecution of Americans because they are not like you. This type of thinking is wrong, and it must stop. Some people say that we should agree to disagree, but at the end of the day LGBT Americans remain second-class citizens in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of bigoted hate mongers like Dan Cathy. They don’t want to “live and let live” they are spending millions to make sure LGBT Americans cannot live their lives in peace and be afforded the rights they deserve. It’s time for change in America and it is coming. Chick-fil-A will soon find itself on the wrong side of history.

Although Chick-fil-A may have experienced a temporary bump in sales from those who supported the fast-food chain on Mike Huckabee’s “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” it is impossible to gauge the numbers of those who will never support them ever again. Of course there will be some supporters who will blindly eat their fast food with a perverse sense of satisfaction, but I predict there will be more who will stand up to the hate.

Let Chick-fil-A have its views and let them conduct business but remember, there are plenty of restaurants out there that are happy to provide you with good food. Don’t support a company whose agenda is to deny Americans their rights.

Eat mor chikin is right. Eat it somewhere else, or better yet, eat it at home with your family.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune: http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19689672/article-Chick-fil-A-had-it-coming–Part-II?instance=opinion_secondary_story#comment_reply_19693875

Georgia-based fast food chain Chick-fil-A is in a bit of a pickle following comments made by the company’s president, Dan Cathy, who said the company was “guilty as charged” in its stance against gay marriage.
Cathy’s comments sparked a political firestorm across the country, but Chick-fil-A’s political activities and beliefs are no secret to anyone. It was only a matter of time before they erupted, and now they are embroiled in a controversy that shows no signs of ebbing.
The controversy began when Cathy expanded on prior comments about the fast food chain’s prominent social beliefs in a recent interview on an Atlanta radio program.
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”
Yikes.
Whether or not you agree with their stance, the fast food chain has brought this controversy on itself. Chick-fil-A has had a longstanding opposition to LGBT rights, and over the years the Cathy family, their WinShape Foundation, and other associates have donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups such as Exodus International, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. Yes, that’s right, Exodus International, which is “Proclaiming Freedom from Homosexuality since 1976.”

Isn’t it nice to know that a portion of the money you’re spending on waffle fries is going to fund efforts to “pray the gay away.”

Emotions are running high in this ongoing story of bigotry, homophobia and regressive thinking, but here’s where the story gets sticky. I applaud the Jim Henson Company for severing its ties with the fast food giant complete with a healthy dose of embarrassment, and I support those who are actively protesting and boycotting Chick-fil-A. But when city officials in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco attempt to actively bar the chain from opening stores, I can’t agree.

From foxnews.com:
“The government can regulate discrimination in employment or against customers, but what the government cannot do is to punish someone for their words,” said Adam Schwartz, senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “When an alderman refuses to allow a business to open because its owner has expressed a viewpoint the government disagrees with, the government is practicing viewpoint discrimination. What the government cannot do is to punish someone for their words.”

Chick-fil-A may be a deep fried hate group disguised as a restaurant financed by the dollars of unsuspecting lunch-goers, but the ACLU is correct. It’s not the government’s place to intervene in this manner.

It’s improper, and if anything, it lessens the impact of Chick-fil-A’s opponents. Let the free market do its job. If you feel that strongly about the restaurant chain’s actions and beliefs, then get up, get organized and get active. Organize protests, pass out fliers. Should you really be eating fast food anyway? Forget the chicken sandwiches and French fries, go to the market and buy this weird thing called a fresh vegetable.

Once upon a time dinner came on a plate and not in a bag. Do you truly want to strengthen the family unit here in America? Shut off the television, put away the iPad and actually cook dinner with your children. Bring them into the kitchen and interact with them. Sit across the table and have a conversation with your spouse and your loved ones and stop worrying about the lesbians who live two streets over. I can almost guarantee you they are spending less time worrying about your marriage then you are about theirs.

Chick-fil-A deserves to be maligned, and I hope it doesn’t stop until they stop funding hate. Yes, they have the same freedom of speech we all enjoy, and their supporters are right when they point this out. But, I suspect if Chick-fil-A was giving money to the American Socialist Party or the Earth Liberation Front, windbags like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee wouldn’t be championing their constitutional right to freedom of expression.

Chick-fil-A may work to deny the LGBT community the rights they deserve, but do not sink to their trans-fatty level. No matter how repellant, the Cathy family has the right to be bigoted hatemongers, but they also have the right to operate restaurants. What they don’t have the right to, is success at the expense of others’ freedom. It’s time to start voting with your dollars, folks. They won’t listen to anything else.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune: http://dailysparkstribune.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Chick-fil-A+had+it+coming%20&id=19613694

Summer in Reno means a lot of things to a lot of people. Cookouts, family vacations, cool dips in Lake Tahoe and of course, lots of special events. People from all over flock to Reno and they bring their classic cars, their motorcycles and their bowling balls with them. The streets fill up with tourists, spectators and locals alike, all eager to experience the festivities.

Reno depends on special events such as Hot August Nights and Street Vibrations to fill our hotel rooms and our gaming tables, but unfortunately these various events bring more than just car buffs and camera-laden tourists to our town.

At night after the action has closed up for the evening, some of the visitors seek out more than just drinks at our bars or action at the slot machines. They want sex, and there are pimps out there who are more than happy to oblige. Every year hundreds of girls are brought to the area to solicit sex from event participants, and although the police inevitably capture some of them, most slip in and slip out, unnoticed.

Human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms trade as the second largest criminal industry in the world today. It is also the fastest growing. By 2017, it is estimated to become the largest. The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of $32 billion a year.

When most people think of human trafficking, they think of women and children being smuggled across foreign borders from Third World countries and forced into sex rings or slave labor somewhere in some country America never thinks about. The sad truth is the sex trafficking of juveniles and young men and women is happening right here in our community, and it’s happening to our children.

Pimps target girls in schools and shopping malls, preying on the weak and those with low self-esteem. They shower them with gifts, or they offer them a “job” that requires no experience and pays a very strong wage. What they are really doing is coercing or tricking them into prostitution.

Once the pimps get these girls sucked into the sex trade, they use whatever it takes to keep them under control – drugs, beatings and death threats. Some force girls to work in strip clubs and escort services.

Sex trafficking is a serious and growing threat. Not only is it vastly underreported, it is misunderstood. It isn’t limited to the wrong side of the tracks; pimps are infiltrating the affluent suburbs where the girls are more naïve and unsuspecting. Unfortunately many suffer from the delusion that it would never happen to our loved ones because “they come from a good family” or “they were raised properly.” Not so. Human trafficking affects every strata of society, and we must do something about it.

Thankfully, we have concerned citizens like Assemblyman John Hambrick who have worked to address this issue with legislation that go after the pimps financially. I applaud Hambrick for taking on this horrific crime, and it’s encouraging to know he will be working even more to strengthen Nevada’s laws in the next legislative session.

On the ground we have groups like Awaken INC, a Christian human rights organization that seeks to combat sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children throughout Nevada. I interviewed the group’s founder, Melissa Holland, on a recent episode of my Nevada Matters radio show, and it was all I could do to keep my composure. This problem is real folks, and it’s right under our noses.

An estimated 400 women and children are trafficked each night here in Nevada, and we all must come together to stop this. Human trafficking can no longer be ignored. People like Holland and Hambrick are angels for doing what they do, but they can’t do it without our help.

For more information visit http://www.awakenreno.org

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune:

http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19509063/article-Human-trafficking–a-hot-August-reality?instance=secondary_story_left_column

In a development that surprises nobody, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has emerged as a front-runner for Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nomination. 



The story broke this last Thursday by the Drudge Report, a prominent news aggregator, the same day as the Romney for President campaign confirmed in an email that the Vice Presidential nominee would be selected prior to the Republican National Convention to be held in Tampa, FL next month.

Rice has always been considered a frontrunner for the nod, just like she was in 2008. The buzz intensified after she gave a well-received speech at a Romney event last month. She did little to quell speculation in a subsequent interview when she stated: “I talked about the need for American leadership; I talked about the importance of the United States to a more peaceful world, a world that has been quite turbulent in recent years and needs a strong American anchor.”

Whether or not it’s Rice, one thing is for sure. Romney’s announcement may still be a few weeks away, he will not make the same mistakes McCain made with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Prior to entering the national stage, this person will be groomed for the position, very well prepared and ready to hit the road in stride with the rest of the campaign.

What this little blurb also tells us is that Romney has figured out that his running mate is going to be integral the dynamics of his campaign. The 2012 election is rather unusual, and the circumstances defy history. This is very much a transformational year, much like 1980 was. The country is unsettled, the sitting president has lackluster approval numbers and Americans know how important the choice will be. Typically these elections bring about a lot of hoopla, with supporters flooding the streets weeping and singing the praises of their savior, but not this year. We saw a bit of this in 2008 when then candidate Obama’s supporters fainted at the very sight of him and breathlessly thanked him for his presence.

Those days are basically over now. President Obama still commands an impressive crowd, but nothing like 2008 when we saw football stadiums full of people all holding pre-printed DNC approved rally signs swaying back in forth in unison to his lofty rhetoric. Obama today tends to come across with kind of a thud, his legislative victories reminiscent of that one awkward guy who showed up late to the party with just a few too many drinks on his breath. Disruptive but not necessarily loud, and after a few minutes, roundly ignored.

Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has the same problem. I’ve been in the same room as Romney many times, and I can count on one hand the times Romney has elicited anything more than a smile or an eyebrow raise from those around him. He may be an accomplished businessman and seasoned politician, but when I think of inspiring world leaders who will mold a generation with their words and actions, neither Romney nor Obama come immediately to mind.

This is where the Republican vice presidential nominee comes in. Romney has an enthusiasm gap, and where Sarah Palin delighted and awakened the Republican base in 2008, the rest of the country wrote her off as a nincompoop. Vice President Biden is living proof that you can indeed be the vice president and the court jester at the same time, but Romney isn’t going to take that chance.

Romney could do worse than Condoleezza Rice as his running mate. She’s experienced, accomplished, and a westerner. She’s been on the national stage for much of her career. She isn’t a firebrand like Chris Christie, a Romney clone like Rob Portman, a meathead like Paul Ryan or a lady-in-waiting like Tim Pawlenty, but she may just be the jolt of interestingness the campaign desperately needs. Television debates between her and Joe Biden would be a hoot and, with a little work, Tina Fey could probably play her on SNL.

The countdown to Romney’s announcement has begun, and I’m looking forward to it. The announcement is imminent, so let’s cross our fingers that Romney will select a game changer like Rice, and not just another wrinkly old white guy.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune:

http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19324060/article-Condi-Rice-for-veep–Maybe-?instance=secondary_story_left_column

Nevada Geothermal Power, a Nevada-based geothermal energy company who received a $98.5 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration for an alternative energy project here in Nevada is headed toward collapse, and now the company’s leadership is starting to question whether they can stay in business.

The Washington Times reports that a recent audit of Nevada Geothermal Power shows that they have racked up a staggering $98 million in net losses over the past several years, they cannot produce enough cash from current operations after debt service payments, and they are carrying a significant amount of debt.

Does this story sound familiar? It should, because it’s not all that different than the debacle surrounding Solyndra LLC, a California company that received $535 million federal loan guarantee and then proceeded to declare bankruptcy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, has his fingerprints all over this. From the Times:
“Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat who led passage of the $814 billion stimulus bill and worked to include the loan guarantee program to help finance clean-energy projects, predicted in 2010 that NGP would ‘put Nevadans to work’ and declared that Nevada was the ‘Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.’”

Maybe the Obama Administration should have looked a little closer at Nevada Geothermal Power and their financial health before issuing the loan guarantee in the first place. They were on poor financial footing to begin with, and at the time they had an average credit rating of BB+, which is considered speculative or junk, and a step below investment grade.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been quite vocal about this loan, loudly asking why “the Energy Department was investing significant taxpayer resources in a company with well-established financial problems,” and the committee’s report said the loan “did not help to create a single job.”

If only the problems stopped there. Although Nevada Geothermal Power insists they are current on the federally supported loan, they have reluctantly admitted to not being current on a different, privately held $88.4 million loan. Since this second loan is not backed by the federal government and is subordinate to the government supported one, the feds have first claim to any remaining assets in the event of default, which leaves the Washington firm who holds the second note in a pretty bad position.

This is a spectacular failure for the Obama administration. There are times that government subsidies can be used effectively, but Washington should not simply endeavor to pick winners and losers or wager huge amounts of taxpayer monies on previously untested industries or companies that can’t even demonstrate the ability to pay their existing bills. It’s one thing to inspire research, it’s completely different to try and buy a PR victory with the taxpayers’ money.

I am a supporter of alternative energy and I look forward to a future where America and the rest of the planet are less dependent on petroleum, but this isn’t the way to do it. Our government must stop throwing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at failing companies and find a better way. Solyndra LLC has failed. Nevada Geothermal Power is well on the way to failing, and a French company, Soitec Solar, who received a $25 million grant is also losing $2.44 for every dollar in sales in their solar division. Someone, somewhere is going to have to accept the dim reality—the Obama administration’s loan guarantee program, a big part of his stimulus plan, has failed and the taxpayers have lost a ton of money as a result.

Nevada can still become the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy, but it’s going to take innovation and entrepreneurship, not by gambling our future on flawed decision making and shoddy business.

This column originally appeared in the Daily Sparks Tribune: http://dailysparkstribune.com/view/full_story/19231581/article-Sun-also-sets-for-Nev–Geothermal-Power?instance=secondary_story_left_column