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Dick Cheney may have accidentally shot a man in the face while he was vice president, but that didn't stop Fox News from flying to Nevada to get his advice on recently-proposed gun control laws.

Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins caught up with Cheney over the week at the Safari Club International convention for gun owners and manufacturers, where the former vice president and his daughter, Liz, participated in a discussion about gun rights and the realism of torture in the film "Zero Dark Thirty."

Cheney told Jenkins he was "worried" about President Barack Obama's efforts to increase gun safety.

"We may end up in a situation where you get a proposal or a proposition that does, in fact, threaten the rights of law-abiding Americans, and at the same time, doesn't do anything with respect to the problem everybody's concerned about, such as the shooting that happened in Connecticut," the Wyoming Republican said.

"I find especially in groups like the group here and an awful lot of my folks in Wyoming who supported me all those years in Congress are very, very concerned that there isn't adequate regard for the rights of law-abiding citizens," he added. "We understand that there's clearly an effort underway, but one of the things we've done in Wyoming -- with respect to Jackson Hole, where I live, with respect to safety of schools -- we have a deputy sheriff, armed deputy sheriff at the schools in the city. And that's probably a more effective deterrent than anything that Congress seems to be debating at the present time."

"How worried are you the President Obama's gun control plan threatens the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding American?" Jenkins asked.

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A man registering voters in Nevada may have implicated the Republican Party in a felony when was caught on video recently telling potential voters to register "non-partisan" because "I don't get credit for Democrats."

Nevada television station KOLO obtained cell phone video of a man, who claimed he worked for the Republican Party, revealing that he was paid by the number of voters he registers, but only if they were not Democrats.

"Could you do me a favor?" the man asked a potential voter. "Mark non-partisan on there. I'll get credit for it. I don't get credit for Democrats."

"I am a Democrat," he added. "So I still do Democrats if I have to, but I'm working for the Republican Party. I have to get two an hour and I don't get credit for Democrats."

According to the Nevada Revised Statutes, "It is unlawful for a person to provide compensation for registering voters that is based upon: (a) The total number of voters a person registers; or (b) The total number of voters a person registers in a particular political party."

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, told KOLO that he prosecuted ACORN in 2008 for paying bonuses based on the number of registrations, but enforcing the law might not be possible in this case because there was no clear violation.

"It is alarming that he was making some suggestion that he wouldn't be credited for a registration if it came under a particular party affiliation, but there's no explanation what that meant," Miller said.

A spokesperson for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that he was not aware of any paid workers registering voters on behalf of the campaign when that video was recorded last Friday, the station reported.

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A former inmate is suing the Nevada Department of Correction because she says she was forced to wear shackles while in labor.

Valerie Nabors told KTNV that officials at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas violated state law when they put her in shackles while she was being transported to University Medical Center to give birth.

"They go by their own rules, they do their own thing and the reason why, is because they always get away with it," she explained.

Nabors said that prison guards ignored the advice of an emergency medical technician who cautioned them not to bind her ankles with the shackles.

"She [an ambulance EMT] explained to him, you can't do this because I still have to check her and he just said 'oh well' and proceeded to put the leg shackles on and went back into the facility," the former inmate recalled.

Nabors is being represented by American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada attorney Staci Pratt.

"When you shackle a woman at her ankles, making it difficult for medical personnel to check her, you're sending a message that our primary obligation in society is not taking care of women, but to punish them needlessly and I think it's cruel and sadistic," Pratt said.

"This is not a time when a woman is thinking about escape. This is not a time when a woman is thinking about injuring anyone. This is a time when a woman is trying to get through the process of child birth with dignity and with respect for her health and the health of her child."

After giving birth the shackles were again placed on Nabors, who was serving a 12 to 30 month sentence for stealing about $250 in casino chips.

"I understand that I did break the law, I understand that," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean I should get treated unfairly. Women have babies everyday and there's certain procedures for that."

Nabors's lawsuit also alleges that prison officials confiscated her prescribed breast pump after being returned to the facility.

"My hope is that Valerie's strength and courage will be a vehicle for making sure this does not happen to any other women in Nevada or anywhere else in the United States," Pratt said.

Via the inimitable Jon Ralston:

The Social Security spot at right was produced by some folks in the Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate campaign but never aired, as some of the "DC handlers" managed to kill it. I can't imagine why.

I also wonder why there is no laugh track....

Or as one person put it at Politico in one of the better lines I've seen lately:

It's like Night of the Living Dead crossed with Sponge Bob.

As always, Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun has the sordid details:

As more of the video surfaces from GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle's meeting last week with Rancho High School's Hispanic kids, the more bizarre it gets. Elsewhere on this blog, I have posted the video of her claiming an infamous still she and Louisiana Sen. David Vitter used in an ad, an incendiary image of Hispanic thugs, may not have been an image of Hispanics. That was nutty enough. But at the same meeting, according to video I have obtained and taken by one of the Hispanic students, she said some of the kids looked more Asian.

Strange? You be the judge.

SHARRON ANGLE: "So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it's the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.] What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly."

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Nothing like more fearmongering from Republicans and pushing the myth that we need to turn the Social Security trust fund over to Wall Street in order to "save it", but that's what we heard from Sharron Angle during her debate in Las Vegas with Harry Reid.

The moderator asks Reid about the Social Security trust fund and Angle’s claim that Reid helped to raid the fund to offset the deficit. Reid defended his position on Social Security and talked about fighting against George Bush’s attempt to privatize it and also pointed out that the fund is solvent for the next thirty five or forty years and after that even if they don’t do something to fix it, the short fall would be about fifteen or twenty percent.

Reid asked to stop the fear mongering over Social Security and whether those T-bills would be paid back or not. Here was Angle's response.

Man up Harry Reid. You need to understand that we have a problem with Social Security. That problem was created because of government taking that money out of the Social Security trust fund. In 1990 you said it was stealing to use Social Security for anything but Social Security and then you voted to take that Social Security money into the general fund where it leads to general use for generally anything.

When you did that you left IOUs there, the special Treasury bonds that are kept in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg West Virginia. What we need to do is keep our promises to our senior citizens by putting the money back in the trust fund and going forward allowing our workers to have the option of a personalized Social Security retirement plan that becomes an asset plan to them just like your THRIFT savings plan is an asset to you. If it’s good enough for you, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I'm still trying to figure out what "vote" she's talking about, because the money does not go into the general fund whether they've borrowed against it or not as noted in the link below, and as FDR's grandson pointed out back in August. Angle appeared to be reading straight from the writings of Dr. Allen Smith who claims that the trust fund has been "embezzled" because the politicians have allowed the funds to be borrowed against. While I agree that they should not have borrowed against those funds, and I think they should be paid back, Sharron Angle's "solution" of privatization is utterly ridiculous. You notice that she also says that the money need to be "put back" into the fund to take care of seniors, but doesn't say where that money should come from.

Listening to the doublespeak out of this woman is enough to give a person whiplash, but she's not the only one doing this. She was simply reading straight out of the Republican playbook. They all hate Social Security and always have and want to dismantle it. They'd get rid of it for seniors and everyone else who is collecting those benefits now except they know they'd be run out of town on a rail if they tried.

From the Social Security government web site and their myths and misinformation about Social Security.

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"To address the tragic shortage in stock photos of scary minorities, Stephen [Colbert] starts his own fear-based photo licensing service." Features campaign ads by Sharron Angle in Nevada and David Vitter in Lousiana using the same scary illegal aliens.

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Nevada scribe Jon Ralston captured these rather explicit comments made by senate candidate Sharron Angle from an interview back in April with TruNews Christian Radio's Rick Wiles. The audio and transcript is from that link.

Angle tends to be even less-guarded when she does interviews with Christian media (if that's possible), especialy about her faith and the role it plays in her politics. As she makes plain here, her faith is her politics. Government is a false idol to be resisted. Democrats are against the First Commandment.

"And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that's really what's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."

As Ralston writes: "This mindset will further reinforce to some that religion infuses everything Angle believes but also might explain her hostility to government programs, believing essentially they are produced by a false God."

"And I knew that all along when I started praying over a year ago over it. And this just seemed to be the battle that I needed to go to war with. And I need warriors to stand beside me. You know, this is a war of ideology, a war of thoughts and of faith. And we need people to really stand for faith and trust, not hope and change."

Timothy Karr has a nice summation of Sen. Al Franken's keynote speech at Netroots Nation this year.

Sen. Franken to the Netroots: Only You Can Stop the Corporate Takeover of Free Speech:

Over the weekend, Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.) made the corporate takeover of our media, and the government's acquiescence to these corporations, frighteningly clear. Franken told more than 2,000 bloggers and organizers attending the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas that our media system is at risk everywhere we turn - from our free speech online to the growing power of companies who own a massive number of media outlets. Read on...

Al did a fantastic job. Part one is above. Parts two, three and four are below the fold.

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Sharron Angle is at it again, running away from reporters and still not ready for prime time.

Run, Sharron, run! How is this woman going to survive a debate if she can't handle taking reporters' questions at her own press conference?

GOP Senate candidate Angle avoids press at own event:

U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle invited local media to attend a press event in Reno Wednesday morning, but when members of the media tried to ask the candidate questions she didn't answer.

At the event this morning Angle signed a pledge to repeal the estate tax-or "death tax"- if she's elected, made a few brief statements and walked away with several members of the local media in tow.

News 4 Reporter Karen Griffin was one of the reporters trying to ask Angle questions and she actually ignored the questions, looked straight ahead and kept walking.

News 4 arrived at this morning's event early to make sure we could talk with Angle. News 4 listened to the press conference and when it ended, Angle simply walked away.

One of the questions was a request for a response to Rep. Dean Heller's, R-Nev., comment that he made the night before on a political talk show about her comments about the unemployed.

Following this morning's event, Reporter Karen Griffin contacted University of Nevada, Reno Political Science Professor Eric Herzik to see if there's any benefit for a candidate avoiding the media as Sharron Angle has. Here's what he had to say:

"This is part of the skill of the candidate. If you're given a question you don't like, answer the question you want to answer. Turn the question around. And she's not doing that. Turning her back and walking away from a camera is a pretty damning visual image for a candidate."

To be fair News 4 emailed Angle's campaign following the press event to see if she would answer the question we asked, and to see where she had to be after the event. News 4 has not heard from the Angle campaign.

News 4 received some negative feedback on this story; people asking why we were late to this event, and why we didn't ask our questions during the press event, and why this is a news story.

There were no opportunities for questions during the event, that's why we asked for Angle to answer questions as soon as the event ended.

Read on...