It took a while for our part of the country to defrost, but, once it did, it did so with gusto. Now the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the grass has gone straight from green to brown. That means it's time to turn our thoughts from fancies of seasonal vacations and start taking a serious look at where our cities, our county, our state, and our country are headed.

 

Reno's broke. Not just a little broke, mind you - we're talking seriously, catastrophically broke. The Reno Redevelopment Agency's bond rating, for example, is now 'junk' status.

 

Reno would have had difficulties paying for the expensive downtown railroad trench, which was envisioned under the strategically brilliant idea that we must destroy downtown in order to save it. Unfortunately, Reno didn't stop there - it also had to build the Reno Events Center, a competing convention space against the pre-existing Reno Convention Center. Once done with that, Reno noticed that people were still willing to loan the city money, so it took the opportunity to build a minor league baseball stadium and a larger, state-of-the-art bus depot to replace the old bus depot that absolutely had to be replaced, being positively underwhelmed with potential riders and all.

 

Meanwhile, the Nevada Supreme Court has spoken - it's time for Washoe County to return the money it illegally confiscated from the people of North Lake Tahoe.

 

Of course, Washoe County doesn't actually have the $40 million it stole by doctoring property value assessments to its own advantage, and nobody can think of a single thing to cut that might free up the money from the general fund (that would require the sort of creativity, ingenuity, and out of the box thinking that led to this mess in the first place), so the county's just going to have to raise taxes. Luckily, at least for the county, rich people's cars depreciate far less rapidly these days in these parts than rich people's houses and beachfront homes along Lake Tahoe, so a simple 1% hike on registration taxes should set things straight.

 

Meanwhile, at the state level, Governor Sandoval stayed true to his word, allowed all taxes that were due to sunset to do so and cut expenditures to a level our state could support. Oh wait, no... actually, he and his Republican cohorts tried to steal $481 million in county and local funds so they could take their "principled" stand to "not raise taxes" without actually cutting spending at all, got called on it by the Nevada Supreme Court, then promptly raised taxes to cover their asses. Thank goodness we have a governor and a political party that's willing to stand up for small, limited government as long as it's convenient to do so!

 

At the national level, Congress and the Senate are wrestling over whether they should freeze the debt limit where it's at or raise it. To the best of anyone's knowledge, the idea of lowering the debt limit, paying down our debt, and releasing future generations of Americans from the responsibility of paying back today's whimsical excesses never crossed anybody's mind.

 

So what do we plan on doing about it? The answer is simple. We will organize. To that end, here's a list of upcoming events - feel free to e-mail me if you wish to add to it:

 

Sam Adams Night - Thursday, July 21: Stop on by Comma Coffee on yet another third Thursday of the month at 7ish and visit!

 

Freedom Fair - Sunday, September 11: We're going to be a political exhibitor at Freedom Fair in the Smithridge Shopping Center across the street from the Atlantis. If you want to learn more, click here: http://freedomfairnv.com/

 

Liberty Political Action Conference - September 15-18: I just got off the phone with Mark Hinkle, Chairman of the Libertarian Party, and he confirmed that the national LP will have a booth at LPAC and he's looking for volunteers. Better yet, I received word from the State Treasurer that the LPNV has submitted their check for an exhibitor booth at LPAC. This means the Libertarian Party will have two booths at one of the largest liberty-oriented events in the state! Of course, someone has to staff them, so guess what we need? If you're going to be near the Grand Sierra Resort and you're willing to commit, let me know and I'll work to arrange some wrist bands. More details can be found here: http://www.lpac2011.com/

 

Obviously this doesn't even come close to a full calendar, but it's a start. If you have something to add for August, October, November, December, January... you get the idea, let us know.

 

The only we're going to claim this country and make it what it should be is if we organize, evangelize, and radicalize!