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Posted by on Apr 14, 2016 in Blog, Las Vegas, Politics | 0 comments

Harry Reid Stoops to New Lows

 

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Harry Reid is a political lowlife.  He’s an old-fashioned party boss and shakedown artist who thwarts the democratic process.  For honest progressives who have been forced to bear witness to his excruciating representation in the U.S. Senate under the false fleece of being a “liberal,” this dirty rascal can’t retire soon enough.

 

Earlier today, someone called me asking political questions.  Within 30 seconds, I realized this was yet another push poll, which is a dirty and despicably misleading campaign tactic innocently disguised as a telephone survey, but which in reality is entirely intended to do one thing — sway voter opinion based on a series of loaded questions.

In other words, there’s no poll.  They lie about who they’re representing.  They lie about what their true intent is.  Perhaps most aggravating — they play you for a sucker.

Naturally, I went along with this bogus charade because I thought something interesting might come of it.  I was right.  Here once again, I came ear to ear with grassroots democracy in action, in its most disreputable form.

I live in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district, which includes a large section of Las Vegas and Henderson.  This is an open seat right now in the upcoming 2016 election, which means both major parties have a shot at winning the race.  For many years, this district has flip-flopped back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.

Up to this point, I’d been uncertain about who I’ll be voting for.  I leaned toward Alex Singer because he’s a self-avowed progressive and I share most of his political views.  I also know Alex via social media and was looking forward to helping him get out his message.  But I also like another Democratic candidate in the race named Jesse Sbiah, who has become a controversial political figure here in Las Vegas because he’s made an enemy out of Sen. Harry Reid.

Generally speaking, given his long history of shady backroom deals and embarrassingly ineffective leadership, any enemy of Harry Reid is a friend of mine.  What I was about to learn about Harry Reid’s meddling in the 3rd congressional district does nothing to change that unfavorable view.  In fact, it reinforces it.

Harry Reid is a political lowlife.  He’s an old-fashioned party boss and shakedown artist who thwarts the democratic process.  For honest progressives who have been forced to bear witness to his excruciating representation in the U.S. Senate under the false fleece of being a “liberal,” this dirty rascal can’t retire soon enough.  Fortunately, his political career will end at the conclusion of this session at the end of 2016.  I’ve already written repeatedly about how and why Sen Reid was the worst Senate Majority Leader in history.  He continues to be a bastion of discomfiture.

READ:  IS  HARRY REID THE WORST SENATE MAJORITY LEADER IN HISTORY?

As I was saying, the caller began extolling the virtues of Jacky Rosen.  That was a name I recognized but honestly knew little about.  I knew that she’d entered what was already a crowded Democratic primary and given some of her credentials, she now even appeared to be the front runner.  I had no particular reason to dislike Rosen, nor vote against her — at least not until the “poll questions” started and made it obvious she was now playing dirty, and apparently puppeted to the powerful strings of Harry Reid.

I informed the caller I was leaning towards voting for Alex Singer.  Yet, for some reason, the caller kept on forcing me to answer questions between two other candidates — Rosen and Sbiah.  I obliged him, even though I didn’t know either candidate that well.

One of the questions was disturbing.  It seemed, quite unnecessarily, to stress with added emphasis that Sbiah was born in Jordan.  That would make him of Palestinian heritage.  Fact is, Sbiah immigrated to the United States at the age of 11 and built a good life for himself in America.  In short, he’s the ideal immigrant from that part of the world and appears to be every bit as patriotic as the rest of us.  But you know how things are in politics.  Push polling a “question” with a phrase reminding the listener Sbiah is a “Jordanian immigrant” was akin to tossing loaded political dice across the political felt of the typically jaundiced 3rd congressional district, which based on results of other races still apparently has trouble voting for candidates with Polish and Italian surnames.  The caller might as well have blasted out an image of Sbiah wearing a suicide bomber’s vest.

Upon doing some additional research, I was surprised to learn that there are no Middle Eastern-born Muslims serving in Congress right now.  None.  Not even one, out of 535 elected representatives in the House and Senate.  Yes, there are two Muslims who were elected to congress, but both were born in Africa.  Hence, if Sbiah were he to be elected by Nevadans, he would be a first in this nation, which supposedly embraces its diversity.  However, from the freewheeling parade of hate coming out of the Republican Party right now, combined with the actual data confirming our biases, the political climate is predisposed to exclude people of Middle Eastern heritage, no matter how aligned they are with so-called American values.

I was offended that Sbiah’s Jordanian roots were brought into the questioning and seemed tinged with suspicion, while the rival candidate Jacky Rosen’s close affinity with a local synagogue was repeated a number of times during the exchange.  There’s no doubt, this kind of subtle suggestive comparison was intended to be inflammatory.  It was intended to inflame passions, and perhaps even scare people.

Here, I have a much better question for the Rosen campaign:  What does the fact that Sbiah spent the first ten years of his life living in Jordan have to do with representing us in congress?  If anything, this candidate has proven his ability to overcome lots of obstacles and misconceptions.  I view someone who wants to be part of our government and process and work towards making things better, and who also supports progressive values, to be worthy of my admiration.  He might also win my vote.  I also seem to remember something about everyone in society having a voice in a democracy, but everyone knows that’s basically bullshit under the current system.

The caller went to considerable effort to repeat Harry Reid’s strong support of Jacky Rosen.  I suppose the caller, who stayed on script throughout our 15-minute “survey,” must not have heard me speaking when I pointed out that political endorsement was toxic.  Anything connected to Reid’s backing was far more likely to dissuade me than persuade me.  That didn’t matter.  The clueless “pollster” just assumed that any self-identified Democrat would snap to attention to support the candidate backed by the dirty political machine oiled by Harry Reid.  If anything, the caller lost at least one vote (perhaps two, if I can persuade my wife).  Who knows how many other readers now might be better informed about the disturbing Harry Reid-Jacky Rosen connection?

Come to find out, Harry Reid’s continuing role in Nevada local and state politics, and his meddling in this campaign in particular, is even more disturbing than we initially feared.  Several months ago, Sbiah was just about to announce his candidacy for the race.  He requested a sit-down meeting with Harry Reid.  After a somewhat contentious initial exchange with a staffer, Reid finally agreed and the two men sat down together at the Paris casino in Las Vegas.  In a fateful meeting described by Dean Obeidallah, a reporter from The Daily Beast as “conjur(ing) up images of The Godfather II,” Harry Reid allegedly dropped a bombshell.  He flat out told Sbiah to “drop out of the race” — not because of any of his stands on the issues, but — because he’s Muslim.  Wow.  Even for Harry Reid, that’s a new low.

READ:  HARRY REID TELLS MUSLIM CANDIDATE:  GET OUT OF THE RACE

Here’s a comment from the article:  “As I told Senator Reid at that meeting, the people of America have embraced myself and my family,” Sbaih stated.  “I believe in the goodness of the American people and I especially don’t believe my fellow Democrats would be biased against a person based on religion, ethnicity, or skin color.”

The Daily Beast made it clear that Harry Reid remains convinced he waves a political wand in Las Vegas.  He thinks he can make frogs into princes.  Harry Reid not only personally insulted Sbiah, but just as many like me suspected, he’s a complete fraud on progressive issues and representative democracy.  Consider his alleged “offer” to Sbiah, which was as follows:

“Weeks after the meeting with Reid, Sbaih was again contacted by (a staffer) and informed that if he dropped out of the race for Congress, Reid would ensure that Sbaih could have the Democratic nomination for a state assembly race and a likely appointment to another unnamed position.”

Let’s be quite clear here.  It’s Harry Reid, a lame-duck politician, rather than the voters of the district, who can ensure that Sbiah would have the party nomination for a seat in the state assembly if he simply agreed to go along with the farce.

That’s a disgrace.

Of course, Harry Reid denied the incident happened.  Yeah, right.

At least one thing is certain according to multiple news reports.  At some point after the meetings and discussions followed by Sbiah’s repudiation of the alleged ultimatum, Harry Reid next approached Jacky Rosen.  He asked her to run for congress in the 3rd.  She agreed and announced her candidacy in January 2016.

If that’s not reason enough to vote against Jacky Rosen, well then, I don’t know what is.  As they say, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep.

Thanks to whoever called me today under the guise of taking a “poll,” and for lying to me and trying to persuade me to vote for Jacky Rosen.

No, that won’t happen.  That’s the congressional candidate I will not support.  Moreover, I urge everyone who is disgusted by the dirty politics of the establishment to join me and not support Jacky Rosen.  We’re sick of this shit and we’re not taking it anymore.

Vote for someone else.

MORE ABOUT NEVADA’S 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 

READ:  GOODBYE DIRTY HARRY

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  1. Who is the Face of Las Vegas? | Nolan Dalla - […] why Harry Reid was a horrible political leader in my previous articles — HERE, HERE, HERE, and […]

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