At a debate among Repubican candidates for governor last week, Gov. Jim Gibbons switched his stance on nuclear waste storage twice in as many minutes. After the candidates were asked their positions on the proposed federal waste dump at Yucca Mountain, candidate Brian Sandoval said [...]]]> This from Reno News and Reviews:

I am pro-nuclear but I have to be against Yucca Mountain and it’s not because it’s politically motivated. I’m a scientist, remember. I know you can store nuclear waste safely. I [...]]]> Speaking to the Mount Rose Republican Women the other day, my candidate for the Republican gubernatorial primary, one James Tiberius Gibbons, spouted the following:

I am pro-nuclear but I have to be against Yucca Mountain and it’s not because it’s politically motivated. I’m a scientist, remember. I know you can store nuclear waste safely. I am anti Yucca Mountain because it was designed in 1970 for the shutdown of the nuclear energy industry. It was designed to tear it (nuclear power plants) all down, put it in this hole, cover it up, walk away and never again would America be involved again with nuclear energy. (NN?&V)

Now lots of folks were no doubt stunned by the intellectual subtlety of that I have to be against Yucca statement, which seems to connote that if’n he had his druthers and didn’t have to pander to fickle Nevada voters, the Guv would go full-out List-shit FOR the Yucca Mountain Nuke Waste Pit and Splatter Shield Dump.

No, wait, it’s his Masters of Science degree that’s holding him back. And why? Not because his MS in rocks  says Yucca Mountain is based on bad science, which it may or may not be, but because he knows the super-secret truth behind Yucca Mountain:

It was created to shut done the nuclear industry.

Gee, where to start?

• Gibbons super-secret truth is a political one, by the way, not having anything to do with geology or nuclear physics. So, it must not be coming from his spider-sense scientisty side.
• Gibbons super-secret truth isn’t a truth. You’re invited to dig through the project’s document database for a shred of evidence supporting it.
• Forty years later, the nuke industry is hardly dead, what with 104 commercial nuclear fires burning away making the U.S. the leading producer of commercial nuclear power.

But wait, here comes the best part:

There are no new nuclear power plants being constructed. There’s a lot being talked about, but I guarantee you when G.W. Bush left office the opportunity to even talk about new nuclear power plants went out the door. (NN?&V)

Now granted the dear ladies at the Mount Rose Republicans Club were probably enthralled with this last trinket of wisdom, that is, until they turned on the T.V. to watch a non-G.W.Bush president give his state of the union and say how much he loves nuclear power. (ABC)

Now, you would think that such an obvious misstatement of the president’s views might sour the dear ladies of Mount Rose on the Gube. Not to worry. Like real Nevada Republicans, the dear ladies wouldn’t watch the prez on TV even if you threatened to burn the Nixon was Misunderstood framed embroidery sampler over the fireplace or melt down the Franklin Mint Sliver-plated Norquist Bathtub displayed proudly in the hutch.

Finally, to add insult to Gibbons’ injury, if that’s possible, the Obama administration looks like it will finally kill the Yucca Mountain project. (Sun) Surely that’s grossly unfair to steal another issue from the Guv just when he’d reached perhaps the most tangled stance ever seen on the subject.

Still, the crack governor’s staff/re-elect the Gøøber committee is no doubt on the case, seeking some way to bend the Guv’s pretzel-logic once again to try to reanimate the Guv’s campaign. It’s about the 4,392nd attempt.

Elsewhere: Norm! reports that Dawn Gibbons has moved into a rental near the Las Vegaas Golf Club:

“I’m renting until I get a little check from up north,” she said, referring to her pending divorce settlement with Gov. Jim Gibbons. (Norm!)

Oddly, this is one case were a correction in the RJ requires an actual erasure of [...]]]> Ooops. Looks like Ed Vogel misreported the Gube’s recent vote on the State Board of Examiners vis-a-vis Yucca Mountain Funding. The Gube didn’t vote against additional funding–he merely argued it was a bad idea to vote for it–before voting for it.

Oddly, this is one case were a correction in the RJ requires an actual erasure of 90% of the story. (RJ) Sorta like in that book called “1984″ where guys had jobs rewriting historical documents and old newspaper stories.

You know, like Dick Cheney.

Anyways, I went off on a tirade based on that now mostly erased story, natch. (VGO)

So, I guess I owe the Gube an apology. He’s not two-faced because he voted against the fight against Yucca that he has fought so uselessly in the past. He’s only two-faced for voting for funding he seems to have thought was wasteful and dumb.

I apologize for calling the Gøøber two-faced for the wrong reason.

Elsewhere: how tiresome is it to read Sebelius go on and on about how the continued cat fight over the stimulus czar is good for the Gube when Sebelius apparently hasn’t considered arguments for it’s illegality? Geez, read a paper guys.

More elsewhere: traffic infrastructure in the state continues to crumble, and the RJ provides a little history as to why:

The state Energy, Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee had recommended that an eight-person
advisory group be formed to study and recommend long-term
transportation funding solutions for the 2011 Legislature. Gov. Jim
Gibbons, however, vetoed its formation. He had also previously rejected
recommendations made by a Blue Ribbon Task Force appointed by his
predecessor, Guinn, that called for indexing the gasoline tax to
reflect the rate of inflation and exploring public-private
partnerships, toll roads, and higher motor vehicle registration and
driver’s license fees. Since last increased, TRIP reports, the buying
power of Nevada’s 17.65 cents-per-gallon motor fuel tax dedicated to
state highway repairs has decreased by 43 percent. (RJ)

And in the midst of a story about the apparently imminent re-elect-Gibbons Special Session, we learn:

Gibbons said he has been meeting
with gaming executives to find out how he can promote more tourism. He
said he did interviews Monday with California TV stations to induce
companies to relocate to the Silver State. (RJ)

No doubt the primary purpose of those meeting with gambling house sharpies was for the Gube to ask for PR tips–not to ask for campaign contributions, which are probably harder to come by this time around for the lame duck. No, surely the Gube wasn’t asking for money, and his campaign finance reports won’t have lists of checks signed on or near this date. No, not at all.

But that last line of that quote is even more scary. Those commercial spots would surely make any entrepreneur with half a brain head for Montana.

Perhaps nothing provides a better example of why Jim Gibbons is such an epic fail as a governor more than the recent 'tarnedness about Yucca Mountain oozing from the Gube office.

First we see the governor having his blather about how Harry Reid should just kill the Yucca licensing process by [...]]]> [UPDATE: Please read this important correction!]

Perhaps nothing provides a better example of why Jim Gibbons is such an epic fail as a governor more than the recent 'tarnedness about Yucca Mountain oozing from the Gube office.

First we see the governor having his blather about how Harry Reid should just kill the Yucca licensing process by waving some kind of magic wand to convince the House and Senate to reverse their vote to build it–a vote Mr. Gibbons in all his backbenching ineffectiveness wasn't able to stop when he was in Congress.

The bill, of course, was signed into law by George Bush, whom Mr. Gibbons supported unquestioningly.

Given that, how believable is this?

As a 10-year member of Congress, Gibbons consistently opposed moves to make Yucca Mountain the waste repository. (RJ)

Except, of course, to try to keep the man out of office who signed Yucca into law.

But, I digress. Today we learn that the guv wanted to cut funding to the legal fight against Yucca–just a few days after going after Reid for not doing enough to kill the dump.

So, getting a headache trying to keep up with the policy shifts? Well, that's because Gibbons doesn't have policy shifts. He has political shifts of a remarkably shifty nature, but not policy shifts.

When have we ever seen the gube take an honest to God policy stand and then work professionally to accomplish that goal? Never–and "no new taxes" doesn't count. If anything 'no new taxes" is an anti-policy, an empty phrase thrown to 14-percenters in Incline Village and the Sands like a piece of rotten meat to the jackals.

Oh, we all know the motivation for the first tirade. The Reid swipe was a back-handed way to go after a half-baked proposal from some gube-wannabe from the gube's own party. Today's decision by the gube against more Yucca funding had something to do with allowing him to make another Reid-swipe while yammering "no new taxes." Again, the gube sets out to make cheap political points at the expense of his 10-year "consistent" opposition to Yucca.

Everything is a political game for the guv, especially now as he desperately claws for some kind of hail Mary miracle to save his faltering career.

Too late for that. He should have set aside the ham-handed political machinations which flit about him like flies on a carcass back at the beginning of the gøøbership and attempted a policy or two.

Oh, well, at least his staff can offer us some wet-tongued amusement during these dog days. To which I'm sure the state would like to respond: "Hey, guys, screw the stamp! You can lick our…."

Just look at what's going on:

At a recent panel on the environment where spokesters for prez wannabes gave there opinions on, among other things, nuclear power, the hyphenated McLame stand-in had this to say:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, policy director for Sen. McCain, said [...]]]>
Hurray for John McLame, who’s out to save the day for the Yucca Mounatain Nuclear Waste Project as Yuuca Boy!!

At a recent panel on the environment where spokesters for prez wannabes gave there opinions on, among other things, nuclear power, the hyphenated McLame stand-in had this to say:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, policy director for Sen. McCain, said nukes can’t
be left out. ‘The Senate Majority leader is the problem—we have Yucca
Mountain [storage facility], we have the technology. I can’t see why we
don’t take advantage of that,” he said. (WSJ).

So, jot this down all you Repugs and execs who plan to support the McLame candidacy: A vote for McCain is a vote for Yucca Mountain.

Yes, that should be embarrassing to the Senate Majority Leader, and yes, that makes his attacks on Gibbons in recent weeks for [...]]]> Jon Ralston tells us today, after catching Harry Reid with his pants around his ankles, that Reid accepted campaign contributions from a rabidly pro-Yucca Mountain Political Action Committee for the Nuke industry called "General Atomics."

Yes, that should be embarrassing to the Senate Majority Leader, and yes, that makes his attacks on Gibbons in recent weeks for letting the Department of Energy use state water for the Yucca Mountain project a tad two-faced.

But, wouldn’t it be incredibly two-faced if it turned out that the Governor was taking money from the PAC as well? Unthinkable, you say?

Well, think no more! Back in his backbenching days in Congress, the Gube took a couple of grand from General Atomics: $1,000 in 2004 and $1,000 in 2001 and $1,000 in 2000.

You see, nobody ever beats the Napkin Head in Chief in duplicity.

And why did Ralston look up Reid, Porter, and Ensign, who all took General Atomics money, but not Gibbons, thus painting Gibbons as Reid’s poor wittle abused punching bag? Well, only Ralston knows the answer to that one.

The Nevada Democrats have notched up the attack on Gibbons’ decision to give water to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Suppository. The most interesting bit is the stuff they dug up on Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley (on the left), whom Gibbons appointed to the Nevada Nuclear Projects Division: [...]]]> I’m not kidding. Go look for yourself.

The Nevada Democrats have notched up the attack on Gibbons’ decision to give water to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Suppository. The most interesting bit is the stuff they dug up on Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley (on the left), whom Gibbons appointed to the Nevada Nuclear Projects Division:

Eastley is arguably one of the state’s most vocal SUPPORTERS of Yucca Mountain:

Eastley told the Review-Journal in 2002 that she “sees a bright
future for Tonopah, a future that includes Yucca Mountain. For Eastley,
the benefits for Tonopah far outweigh its risks. ‘The people in this
community are very patriotic and they’re proud of the fact that they
had something to do with developing the storage facility for this
waste,’ she said as she sipped iced tea at a cafe on U.S. Highway 95,
one of the possible routes for high-level waste through Nevada. ‘Nye
County wants people to recognize that Yucca Mountain is not located in
Las Vegas,’ she said. ‘This is not located in Clark County. This is
located in our home.’ [“Yucca Mountain: Towns mixed on repository,” Las
Vegas Review Journal, July 14, 2002]

“When Nye County Commissioners passed a resolution on Yucca Mountain
in 2002, Eastley suggested the radioactive waste not be called waste
but ‘a potential resource.’” [“County wants special consideration in
Yucca Mountain issue,” Las Vegas View Neighborhood Newspapers, May 3,
2002]

Former Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn publicly contradicted Eastley in
2004 after she traveled to Reno and appeared on the “Nevada Newsmakers”
TV program “to argue that Nevada can’t stop storage of high-level
nuclear waste at the proposed Yucca Mountain dump. They (Eastley and
Nye/Esmeralda Economic Development Authority member Trish Rippie) said
Nye County has received large sums of money from the U.S. Department of
Energy, which administers the dump project, convincing the county to
drop its ‘aggressive neutrality’ toward the dump. [“Nye officials
discuss YMP on Reno station,” Pahrump Valley Times, Jan. 9, 2004]

Ah, good old Fibbins. He’s either caving into Bill Bob List and his Yucca buddies to try to hold onto his crumbling Gubeship, or he read Eastley’s personnel file with as much attention and care as he did Kenny Guinn’s budget when he passed that on to the Legislature in January. Jim Gibbons, sellout or incompetent boob. Take your pick. Heck. Pick both.

[UPDATE: the Gube claims he'll "rescind the appointment" of Eastley if learns she's a Yucca supporter. Well, now he knows. (AP)]