Penny PressNevada, USA Volume 14 Number 8 OCTOBER 27, 2016

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Credits:Publisher and Editor: Contributing Editors:Fred Weinberg Floyd Brown Al Thomas Doug French Robert Ringer John Getter Pat Choate Ron Knecht Byron Bergeron

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THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 2

By ROBERT FELLNERSpecial to the Penny Press

There’s an easy way for any state to solve its teacher shortage: stop forcing them to pay for other people’s retirement, and use those

savings to provide an across-the-board pay raise instead.

Take the case of Nevada, for example, where a state emergency was declared after the Clark County School District (CCSD) — the nation’s fifth largest — found itself short several hundred teachers earlier this year.

The main culprit was almost certainly the unappealing salaries,

like the only $34,684 offered to new teachers.

After cutting several planned maintenance and upgrade projects, CCSD was able to boost that number to $40,900 last month. But depleting funds from an already strained budget is not a viable long-term solution.

Instead, CCSD could boost teacher pay, at no extra cost, if lawmakers allowed it to modernize its retirement system — the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada (PERS).

While CCSD pays PERS directly, teachers pay their share through salary reductions.

Consequently, as PERS costs skyrocketed — up over 36 percent since 2007 — to today’s all-time highs, CCSD was unable to raise salaries as much as they, and

teachers, would like.What’s most frustrating about

this rate hike, however, is that it provides no additional benefit to the current teacher paying it. Instead, almost all is spent on paying down PERS debt — a function of a system which was designed to transfer the cost for the previous generation onto present-day teachers and taxpayers.

In other words, current teachers are receiving lower wages to pay for PERS past funding failures.

Unfortunately, a similar narrative is playing out in teachers’ retirement systems nationwide, which “may exacerbate [the] problems of teacher recruitment and retention,” according to a just-published study by scholars at the American Institutes for Research, the University of Missouri and the

University of Washington. Nationally, schools are

spending an amount equal to nearly 11 percent of teacher earnings just on pension debt, which benefits neither the teacher nor employer paying it.

Beyond draining resources that could otherwise be used to increase teacher pay, this “pension tax” is so substantial that the total cost spent on an employee’s future pension surpasses its value, regardless of how long an employee works. Consequently, any new hire “would always be a net loser in the pension system” — meaning they will receive a retirement benefit worth less than its total cost.

Nevada provides a clear example of why this is, as over 40 percent of what today’s teachers may think they are paying for their

Penny PressNEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 14 NUMBER 8 OCTOBER 27, 2016

Penny WisdomI got the chance to meet the people who are working so hard to get her elected. There they are — the heads of NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC — there’s the New York Times, right over there, and the Washington Post. —Donald Trump

The Conservative Weekly Voice Of NevadaInside:Dems Not Only PolsLeading Us Astray

See Editorial Page 6

RON KNECHT PAGE 5FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6RICK MANNING PAGE 7LARRY HAUSNER PAGE 9DAVID WILLIAMS PAGE 10MATT BARBER PAGE 11CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14

Current Teachers Paying For Past Pension Failures

Commentary

Continued on page4

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 4

own, future pension goes towards PERS multi-billion dollar deficit, instead.

Making that profitable would be like an investor showing a positive return after losing 40 cents of every dollar before making a single trade, which is essentially what is happening to the retirement contributions of all Nevada teachers.

The status quo isn’t just unfair; it’s also a terrible way to attract prospective talent.

In fact, when the left-leaning Urban Institute graded all 50 states’ teacher retirement systems, 27 received an “F” for “rewarding younger workers,” while only 2 states earned an “A” —Alaska and Rhode Island — both of which had previously enacted significant pension reforms.

Scholars with the Brookings Institution concurred, declaring that “it is obvious that the current situation is…undesirable in terms of recruiting and retaining the best public employees.”

Obviously, this has to end. Teachers deserve to be fairly compensated, not penalized to bail out lawmakers’ past mistakes.

Even more troubling than that inequity, however, is the potential harm to students.

Experts universally cite teacher-quality as the single greatest determinant on student learning and, subsequently, that child’s long term well-being.

Yet, it is simply not possible to produce a high-quality teaching workforce with today’s inefficient and counterproductive compensation system.

Often discussed in abstract terms of long-run financial costs, these findings illustrate that the public pension crisis is doing real damage, and it’s doing it right now.

Thankfully, there are a variety of viable pension reform solutions available, with Utah and Arizona’s recent experiences providing some of the best roadmaps.

Sensible pension reform of this type would not only allow Nevada to pay its teachers fairly but, most importantly, ensure that all students are greeted by the highly skilled educator they deserve, not an empty chair.

Robert Fellner is the director of transparency research at the Nevada Policy Research Institute. This commentary was originally published in the Washington Examiner.

Reforming Teacher CompensationContinued from page 3

All Huff and PuffNevadans will vote in coming

days on legalizing the recreational use of marijuana here, as four other states have already done.

Both advocates and opponents have made strident cases to support their views. However, the two camps cite data that appears to conflict. We have mixed views on this initiative, but we are interested in informational clarity.

So, we were delighted recently to read an analysis of the objective trends by Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron and his co-authors. They use recent data from Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska to dispel many myths propagated by both sides.

They examine how drug use patterns have changed in states

following legalization of marijuana. For data, they rely on the federally funded National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It shows the proportion of respondents who report having used marijuana in the past year has remained basically stable since 2002, at 55 to 60 percent in each state. Although there are few data points since the first legalizations in 2012, there has been no observable increase in use.

In their words: “The data do not show dramatic changes in use rates corresponding to either the expansion of medical marijuana or legalization. Similarly, cocaine exhibits a mild downward trend over the time period but shows no obvious change after marijuana policy changes. Alcohol use shows a pattern similar to marijuana: a gradual upward trend but no obvious evidence of a response to

marijuana policy.”Miron and company suggest that

a long-running trend of increasing exposure to marijuana among the adult population has reduced its stigma and generated the cultural acceptance that leads to legalization in the first place. “In essence,” they say, “rising marijuana use may not be a consequence of legalization, but a cause of it.”

They also address the impact of legalization on measures of public health, crime, road safety, educational outcomes, the economy, and state fiscal health.

In each area, the claims of proponents and critics are wildly contradictory. Proponents argue that marijuana can treat or prevent many diseases and that legalization will lead to improved public health. Opponents believe marijuana causes depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and other disorders. But the data shows no observable trends in public health following legalization.

Critics believe legalization would cause a spike in crime while proponents believe that black markets are the true cause of drug-related crime and that legalization makes everyone safer. But records from the Denver police department show no change in overall crime rates following legalization. In Seattle, crime “has neither soared nor plummeted in the wake of legalization.”

A particular concern of critics is that children could face greater exposure to marijuana through a legal and regulated market than a black market. As parents, we’re sensitive to this concern, but Miron’s team finds no discernable changes in teen use or academic performance following legalization.

Proponents tell us that

legalization would create a whole new industry, boost economic growth, and create a huge source of tax revenues for state and local coffers. These claims are overblown, too. “Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show little evidence of significant Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increases after legalization in any state.”

In all, Miron and company conclude, “state marijuana legalizations have had minimal effect on marijuana use and related outcomes. We cannot rule out small effects of legalization, and insufficient time has elapsed since the four initial legalizations to allow strong inference. On the basis of available data, however, we find little support for the stronger claims made by either opponents or advocates of legalization.”

Ultimately, legalization has many complex, mixed and uncertain effects, and which side the balance favors depends also on people’s values.

But the choice also greatly depends on details of an initiative. And initiatives don’t present the pure question as it might be discussed in a Saturday night college dorm bull session. Instead, because major economic interests are involved on both sides, such measures are always freighted with particulars that favor the hidden interests of proponents. And many opponents have hidden special interests too.

So, folks should make their own reasoned decisions knowing that many claims they hear from both sides are all huff and puff with no empirical support.

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 5

The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:Both the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs who made it to the World Series. This, accord-ing to history is the most unlikely combination playing for the world championship and easily the most entertaining. The sound you hear is Harry Caray rising from the grave to call the series along with Harry Doyle (Bob Eucher). If it were only so. It’s truly hard to see one of these teams lose.

Longtime Las Vegas attorney Bret Whipple who has agreed to defend rancher Cliven Bundy in the Bunkerville standoff case. Whipple filed notice late Monday that Bundy has retained him in the high-profile case, which is set for trial on Feb. 6 before Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro. Earlier this month, the veteran defense lawyer estimated that his legal services would cost Bundy $150,000 but said the fee was negotiable. Good for you, Bret. This is why you go to law school.

The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer And A Bouquet of Weeds To:The United States Air Force for literally trying to steal land and patented mining claims from the Sheahan family which owns the Groom mine in Lincoln County overlooking Area 51. They offered the Sheahans a little over $5-million for the land. When the offer was refused, they seized the land and offered them $333,000 in a condemnation proceed-ing. Appraisers say the land is worth between $44 and $116-million. Your tax dollars at work against you.

www.pennypressnv.com

Tips Of Our Capand

Bronx Cheers

Commentary: Ron Knecht & Geoffrey Lawrence

RON KNECHT and GEOFFREY LAWRENCE

I have not been a registered Republican for a few years, now.

My initial discomfort with the Grand Old Party came when the Nevada state party elected as its chair a former Las Vegas City Councilman whose main qualification was a Hillaryesque “I’ve never been indicted” although he should have been.

I’m almost willing to accept him, in view of the actions of this year’s crop of RINOs who don’t want to accept Donald Trump, who, in turn, got more primary votes than any other Presidential candidate in the history of the Party.

I don’t know if Trump will win, although, based on the past year I also don’t see a lot of smart money betting against him.

The most telling poll numbers out there are not those trying to predict the Trump/Clinton horse race.

It is the right track/wrong track number which currently averages 64.3% that the country is headed down the wrong track.

My guess is that the people who feel this way will NOT vote for Hillary.

That being the case, why are so many alleged Republicans opposed to their party’s nominee?

Because Donald Trump represents change. And the truth is that most incumbent office holders want the exact opposite. They hate change—no matter what they tell you.

Back when I owned radio stations in Oklahoma, we had a regular caller who never tired of telling our talk show hosts that when somebody gets elected to the county commission, the school board or the city council, they go on down to the courthouse, the school district or city hall, see the receptionist, the 10 button phone, take a whiff of the pink gas and they’re never the same.

The state capital has much stronger gas and Washington DC is a veritable gas chamber.

The main ingredient of the gas these guys and gals inhale is hubris. Some of them carry little canisters to keep them

high on hubris when they’re on the plane home.

Our former caller was right.

And anything most incumbents perceive to be a threat to their continued political career—including what their constituents actually want and are asking for—is simply not to be tolerated.

The public has, in the past, grudgingly accepted this.

It would appear that the loss of middle class jobs to Mexico and China, a $20-Trillion (with a T) national debt, one percent economic growth and a level of disdain for those who “get bitter, . . .cling to guns or religion or antipathy ... or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” is no longer working for the left or the right.

If you think that Barack Obama is the only elected official who believes that to be true, spend some quality private time with some well known Republican Senators.

Back in 1994, we were friendly with Steve Largent in Tulsa and our radio stations endorsed his candidacy for Congress.

He asked why.

I told him that his pledge to only serve three terms was part of it.

He asked if I believed him.

My answer was that I did because, having retired from the Seahawks, he had already been in a stadium with 50,000 people screaming his name and had a $3,000,000 no cut contract (when that was a lot of money) there wasn’t much Washington could throw at him which would turn his head.

Turns out I was right.

The problem is that as time goes on, the Steve Largents of the world are few and far between.

The public now knows it and it is my firm hope that they do something about it. The best way to encourage more Steve Largents in politics is to discourage what we have now.

FRED WEINBERG

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 6

OPINIONFrom The Publisher...

Dems Not Only Pols Leading Us Down Wrong Track

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 7

Trump should sue states to purge ineligible non-citizens, dead people and multi-state registrations from voter rolls

Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) need to immediately file federal lawsuits to compel states to remove all ineligible voters from voter rolls across the country. All non-citizens, dead people and multi-state registrations need to be purged, and they need to be purged now.

If, as Democrats purport, there are no ineligible voters or any possibility to engage in voter fraud, they will agree to the process without any contest. If they refuse and challenge the suit, then where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why would Democrats refuse to purge ineligible voters from voter rolls?

Emails reveal Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta clear as day saying that when folks show up to vote, as long as they present a driver’s license and simply attest they are citizens, it’s okay if they vote. As if that settles the matter. That is shameful, but the truth is, we’re relying on an honor system to keep non-citizens from voting.

Non-citizens need to clearly understand that it is a violation of federal law for them to vote, and if caught it will harm any hope they have of attaining citizenship.

Sadly, the current honor system is anything but secure, instead it is a system that is ripe to be rigged as Democrat Party operatives openly admitted their intent to subvert the one person, one vote basis of American elections, a clear violation of equal protection. States need to be legally required to clean up the voter rolls, and where they refuse or local and state officials simply look the other way while ineligible voters cast ballots, they should receive the equivalent of a post-election colonoscopy to ensure that foreign powers and illegal voters did not influence the outcome.

In a world where everyone looks the other way, and smart political operatives like Podesta openly discuss exploiting the vulnerability to free and fair elections. An honor system cannot work when one of the parties simply has no honor.

Nobody knows how many non-citizens are on the voter rolls. The fact is, neither states nor the Federal Election Commission are required by law to verify citizenship when non-citizens register to vote, even though it is illegal for non-citizens to register. And states do not verify citizenship when non-citizens show up to vote, even though it is illegal for non-citizens to vote.

That, even though states are required to maintain digital voter lists and purge ineligible voters, including the dead, felons and those who move out of state, from the rolls. But not non-citizens. They are somehow exempt from being purged from voter rolls. What a joke. Can you say rigged?

As for dead voters, there’s 1.8 million on the rolls according to Pew Charitable Trust, and 2.75 million registered in more than one state. They’re supposed to be purged. What’s the hold-up? As for non-citizens, the Public Interest Legal Foundation has discovered in just 8 Virginia counties more

than 1,000 ineligible non-citizens on voter rolls, highlighting that the problem is likely systemic and nationwide. Something must be done.

Investigative video shows Clinton operatives like Scott Foval openly discussing an interstate voting fraud plot where out-of-state fake voters are brought into states like Wisconsin to vote via same-day registration, claiming it’s been done for fifty years. This is a part of the secret history of Democrats stealing elections. What’s news is James O’Keefe managed to get an influential Democratic operative to admit how it’s done on camera. Groups feign outrage, and so Foval was fired from Americans United for Change, but he’s just an example of the win-no-matter-what mindset on the left.

All of which proves why same-day registration needs to be banned and voter ID and citizenship verification required nationwide. Enough is enough.

It is the actions of these Democratic operatives that threaten the legitimacy of the electoral process, and for the left to try to cast Donald Trump as the villain because he is demanding clean, honest elections is an affront to every American who votes once and expects their vote to count the same as everyone else’s. Women and blacks have fought for the right to vote, against discriminatory poll taxes and other impediments, it must be a shock to their system to realize the level of corruption which effectively turns them into a fractional person by partially negating the impact of their vote.

Donald Trump and the RNC should sue in court to compel states to remove all ineligible voters from voter databases to protect this one person, one vote law and end the Democrats’ perversion and distortion of the law in a craven desire for power. It is time to force Democrats to defend the indefensible.

This election is too important for the outcome to be in doubt. RICK MANNINGRick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Commentary: Rick Manning

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 8

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Commentary: Larry HausnerAmericans are Right to Worry about Insurance Quality

Of all their concerns about healthcare, Americans are most worried about whether they can afford their insurance. That’s the key finding from a new Morning Consult survey of over 20,000 people.

It’s easy to see why Americans are so anxious. Premiums are set to rise sharply next year. And insurers are shifting more of the cost of procedures and medicines onto patients. In short, people are paying more but getting less coverage. In many cases, patients appear to be skipping needed treatments because they can’t afford their copays or co-insurance.

Unaffordable insurance is a problem for the nation, not just for individual households. If people don’t have quality coverage, they’ll be stuck with ineffective treatments. Their conditions can worsen — causing their healthcare costs to balloon.

Rising premiums are crushing family budgets across the nation. More than four out of ten Americans said that their monthly health insurance premiums increased in the past year. Come 2017, insurers will increase premiums for employer-sponsored plans about 5 percent. For Americans who buy coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, premiums will skyrocket 25 percent, on average. Consumers in many states could see their premiums increase 60 percent or more.

Insurers are making patients shoulder a larger share of treatment costs. Four out of ten Americans say that their out of pocket costs have spiked in the past few years, according to the survey. As of 2014, Americans were spending more than triple on their deductibles than they had a decade prior, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In exchange for the added costs, Americans are receiving less coverage.Insurers increasingly exclude some providers from networks to squeeze big

discounts out of the remaining in-network doctors and hospitals. As a result, four in ten consumers had trouble, or knew somebody who had trouble, finding an in-network doctor or clinic.

Recently I had a medical issue that required surgery. The cost of the out-of-network surgeon was $18,000. The insurance company refused to pay the doctor’s charge for the surgery. After three long and tedious rounds of appeals, an outside arbitrator deemed that the surgery should be covered since it was an emergency

situation. The insurance company paid the surgeon its previously negotiated in-network fee of $179.47. The number of in-network doctors, and thus patient’s choices, is shrinking.

Firms are also dragging their feet or flat out refusing to pay for certain therapies. Nearly 30 percent of Americans report that their doctor prescribed them a treatment that wasn’t covered by insurers. A similar percentage experienced difficulty getting an insurer to cover a needed treatment.

The thinning coverage and bulked up costs mean that healthcare is, in practice, inaccessible for many people, even though they technically have insurance coverage. A majority of Americans either couldn’t fill a prescription, or know someone who couldn’t, because the cost-sharing requirement was too high.

Consider the story one doctor recently shared about his patient suffering from ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease that causes inflammation in the large intestine. The doctor had prescribed the 28-year-old woman two medications that got her colitis under control.

But a year later, the woman returned to his office, crying. She was sicker than before. The doctor asked if the medicines had stopped working. She then revealed that she had quit taking them because her insurance company stopped covering the drugs, and she couldn’t afford the out of pocket costs.

Going without treatment is bad for patients — and for the nation’s healthcare budget. Nearly 60 percent of the population suffers from at least one chronic disease. Preventing and managing these diseases is vastly cheaper than letting them spiral out of control.

Chronic diseases are already projected to cost us $42 trillion from now until 2030. If insurance quality continues to decline and more patients can’t adhere to their treatments, the bill could grow even larger.

Reforms to lower insurance costs and ensure quality coverage would enable patients to better manage their chronic diseases. That would spare them from needless suffering — and the nation from needless healthcare expenditures.

In the current political climate, it is difficult to see quick resolution to this not insurmountable problem. However, amending Obamacare — as was always anticipated by the administration — could resolve the issues.

For millions of Americans, good insurance is a prerequisite for good health. No wonder people are so concerned about their worsening coverage. LARRY HAUSNERLarry Hausner is chief patient advocate of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 10

New Federal Smog Rule Is Based on Cloudy Judgment

The House of Representatives just beat back an energy regulation that could devastate the American economy.

Members voted to delay by eight years the implementation of a new ozone emissions rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This rule is ludicrously strict. And it would smother business growth and compromise funding for crucial infrastructure projects. The Senate should support the House’s bill and pass this delay along to the President.

Back in October, the EPA announced it would lower the ceiling for ground-level ozone emissions from 75 to 70 parts per billion. Commonly called smog, ground-level ozone is generated from the chemical reactions caused by industrial facilities, electrical utilities, and fossil fuel-run automobiles. Inhaling smog can lead to severe health issues, including lung infections and airway inflammation.

But Americans can breathe easy. Between 2000 and 2013, smog levels in the United States plummeted 18 percent — and, according to the EPA’s own data, they’re continuing to drop. Indeed, America is a world leader in ozone emissions reduction. Earlier this year, the American Lung Association specifically cited “progress nationwide” in reducing ozone pollution.

So this new, stricter EPA rule is unnecessary. But its enforcement would do profound damage to the economy and potentially cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Many businesses won’t be able to meet this new strict standard and will be hit with heavy fines. Those new costs will, in turn, force many to cut jobs. For instance, Chicago could lose up to 35,000 jobs — and $9 billion in growth. About 26,000 manufacturing jobs in Virginia would also

be put in jeopardy.Even the EPA can’t deny the outrageous expense of compliance. By

the agency’s own calculations, the total annual cost of meeting this new standard will be about $1.4 billion. That’s a huge price tag for a pointless policy.

American voters are rightfully skeptical. One in three are more concerned about overregulation than air pollution. And nearly 80 percent would rather leave air quality control up to local policymakers.

The public is right to question an ozone standard so strict that not even national parks can comply. That’s right, this standard is so stringent that 26 of America’s national parks are noncompliant. The Grand Canyon itself is just barely grand enough for the EPA, coming in just 1 ppb under the new cap.

This rule tightening could also hurt public infrastructure. More than 240 counties nationwide exceed the new level. Once it’s implemented, the EPA will have the power to punish noncompliant counties by, among other things, suspending federal funding for transportation projects.

Major municipalities that are already struggling to maintain their infrastructure could get hit with huge cuts to public financing. The Dallas-Fort Worth area, for instance, is non-compliant, but it also needs about $95 billion to deal with its severe congestion issues. New cuts would make its infrastructure problems even worse.

Allowing this ludicrously strict new standard to go into effect would crush businesses and spur traffic jams all across the country. The Senate and the President need to realize that Americans aren’t getting sick from polluted air, they’re getting sick of bending over backwards to meet excessive government regulations. This standard should be delayed — and then, eventually, scrapped entirely. DAVID WILLIAMSDavid Williams is the president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

Commentary: David Williams

The Crucifixion of Judge Roy Moore Under the “progressive” leadership of Barack Obama and his like-

minded “social justice” warriors throughout all levels of government, we have entered an era of lawlessness unprecedented in American history. This is no more apparent than in Alabama where Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court has been unlawfully removed from the bench at the hands of liberal activists on Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary (COJ).

The case is under appeal.This miscarriage of justice was carried out at the behest of the left-

wing extremist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an anti-Christian activist organization that seeks to undermine, if not extinguish altogether, the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

To add insult to injury, Judge Moore’s law clerks were likewise terminated without warning or explanation late last week. The Chief quickly issued a statement in response: “My appeal is still pending but Justice Stuart [interim chief] is acting like she has already decided the appeal against me. I have asked Justices Stuart, Bolin, Main and Shaw to be recused from hearing my case. Justice Stuart’s action against me personally and the subsequent firing of the staff attorneys I hired is troublesome and such actions prejudge the case. Instead of acting as though my appeal has already been decided, I call upon these justices to recuse. None of them should have any role in appointing successor justices to hear my appeal.”

Chief Justice Moore further remarked, “I have been targeted for my belief in marriage, a belief shared by the majority of Americans. No one can point to any illegal, unlawful or unethical aspect of my four-page Administrative Order. That order was a status report on the case. A justice should not be removed from office because of a political agenda.”

The facts of the case are clear and beyond dispute. Chief Justice Moore was arbitrarily removed from the bench for a “2016 Administrative Order [that] was merely a status report of a pending case before the Alabama Supreme Court,” notes Mat Staver, chairman and founder of Liberty Counsel. “The order did not change the status quo. It did not create any new obligation or duty. To suspend Chief Justice Moore for the duration of his term is a miscarriage of justice and we will appeal this case to the Alabama Supreme Court. This case is far from over,” he added.

On September, 30 the COJ issued a decision on the trumped-up charges against Chief Moore. The Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) requested that he be removed from the bench. Under the COJ rules, removal requires a unanimous 9-0 vote by the members of the COJ, which is made up of judges, a lawyer and laypeople. Absent a 9-0 unanimous vote, the COJ cannot remove a judge from the bench. But, in an unbelievable violation of the law, the COJ suspended without pay Chief Justice Moore for the remainder of his term, which runs through January 2019. When his term expires, he will be ineligible to run for election as judge again because of his age. So the suspension until the end of his term is a de facto removal from the bench. This is both an unethical and illegal circumvention of the letter of the law.

“To suspend Chief Justice Moore for the rest of his term is the same as removal. The COJ lacked the unanimous votes to remove the Chief, so the

majority instead chose to ignore the law and the rules,” concludes Staver.The COJ’s disgraceful actions have resulted in a tremendous backlash

among both the majority of Alabama voters, as well as legislators on both sides of the aisle. This has put both the SPLC and the COJ on the defensive. In a rambling screed written for Al.com, SPLC president Richard Cohen betrays his personal vendetta against Chief Justice Moore, his lack of knowledge about the U.S. Constitution and the laws of Alabama, as well as an astounding level of anti-Christian bigotry.

“Moore attempted to put his personal religious beliefs above the rule of law,” writes Cohen. “The United States has always been defined by a fundamental belief in the rule of law,” he adds, evidently oblivious to the jaw-dropping level of irony and hypocrisy found within his words.

Cohen goes on to slander Chief Moore, smearing him as “intoxicated with his own self-righteousness” and maligning him as having “disgraced his office.”

In fact, Cohen gets only one thing right, noting: “The court heard the case against Moore and rendered a decision it likely knew would be deeply unpopular across the state.”

Indeed, it’s little wonder the COJ knew its decision would be deeply unpopular. Most politically-motivated hit jobs are. Especially when they’re illegal.

Still, the blowback has begun and legislators are moving to undo the damage to the rule of law committed by the SPLC and its COJ cohorts. “This group of individuals are not accountable to the voters of Alabama,” observed Alabama GOP Chairman Terry Lathan in a statement. “Their charge as a body is to address and make decisions on corruption cases involving judges in Alabama. At no time has this case been about corruption,” he added.

“Judge Moore was elected, twice, by the citizens of our state. In light of this, two groups who are unaccountable to the voters have overstepped boundaries in suspending a statewide elected judge. On May 21, 2016, the Alabama Republican Party passed a resolution strongly opposing the removal of Chief Justice Moore.”

“On August 27, 2016, the Alabama Republican Party passed a resolution calling for the Alabama executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to enact and implement a law for the election of all members of the Judicial Inquiry Commission by vote of the people of Alabama.”

“We stand by our resolution of support for Judge Moore and our resolution to call for a vote of the people regarding the election of all members to the Judicial Inquiry Commission,” concluded Lathan.

With both potential legislation and the appeal pending, the Roy Moore saga continues. Will the rule of law be reestablished in Alabama, or will politically-motivated witch hunts such as this represent the future in the heart of Dixie?

If Alabama voters have any say, I expect to see justice done and this corrupt decision reversed. MATT BARBERMatt Barber is founder and editor-in chief of BarbWire.com. He is author of “Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity,” a columnist, a cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. (Follow Matt on Twitter: @jmattbarber).

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 11

www.pennypressnv.com

Commentary: Matt Barber

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 12

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 13

Get Off Trump’s Back about “Rigged” Elections

Despite his obvious and overwhelming win in the third and final debate between Donald Trump and Crooked Hillary, the mainstream media opted to ignore the victory and instead focus on Trump’s refusal to say, in advance, if he’d accept the election outcome if he loses.

Demonstrating once again for the gazillionth time that the deck is stacked against the GOP nominee. You might even say “rigged.”

It’s so bad and so blatant that the media should be required to declare their support for Madame Hillary as an in-kind donation to her campaign.

Now here’s the question everyone SHOULD be asking: Why should Donald Trump declare that he will support the results of the election BEFORE he knows whether or not the election was stolen from him?

Indeed, has everyone already forgotten that Al Gore and Joe Liebermanrefused to accept the election results back in 2000, earning them the nickname “Sore Loserman”? It was only after Gore’s court challenges were rejected that he finally conceded the race a month later.

And for anyone who doesn’t think an election can be rigged, hearken back to the 1960 race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Even David Greenberg, writing for the liberal publication Slate back in 2000, acknowledged the election was very possibly stolen from Nixon.

“Even before Election Day,” Greenberg wrote, “rumors circulated about fraud, especially in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley’s machine was known for delivering whopping Democratic tallies by fair means and foul.”

“(S)ome fraud clearly occurred in Cook County,” Greenberg continued. “At least three people were sent to jail for election-related crimes, and 677 others were indicted before being acquitted by Judge John M. Karns, a Daley crony. Many of the allegations involved practices that wouldn’t be detected by a recount, leading the conservative Chicago Tribune, among others, to conclude that ‘once an election has been stolen in Cook County, it stays stolen.’”

And what about the 2008 U.S. Senate race between Al Franken and then-Sen. Norm Coleman. Franken “won” by the razor-thin margin of 312 votes. However, a post-election investigation, as reported by Ed Barnes of FOX News, “found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally.”

Sadly, though, this is nothing new. “Accusations of rigged and stolen elections have been a commonplace

of U.S. history,” Stephen L. Carter wrote this week in Bloomberg News. “In the hotly contested race of 1800, supporters of Aaron Burr insisted that Thomas Jefferson had cheated him out of the presidency. Allegations of fraud similarly plagued the 1824 contest between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.”

So get off Trump’s back about not conceding this race before the votes are tallied. His concerns are legitimate. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for how the mainstream press has covered this race. CHUCK MUTH

THE PENNY PRESS,OCTOBER 27, 2016 PAGE 14

Commentary: Chuck Muth Every week in Nevada, someone is trying to screw us.

Most of the time, we elected that someone.

That's why we conserva-tives NEED a WEEKLY voice.

That's why the Penny Press has made sticking up for us little guys a whole new Nevada tradition.

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