Turns Out The Crazy Chicken Lady In Nevada Is Also A Crook-- Fox TV Wonders Aloud Whether Lowden Will Wind Up "Behind Bars"

As Fox News tried explaining, "Individual campaign donations are limited to $2,400 per candidate per election. Accepting a gift like a bus is a felony and could result in fines or time behind bars." Lowden, who hasn't proven herself to be the sharpest tool in the draw, can't seem to understand that "donated" isn't an excuse for accepting a $100,000 campaign contribution.

Danny Tarkanian, one of the lunatic fringe right-wing Republicans battling it out with the Chicken Lady has accused her of violating campaign ethics laws. Lowden is a gambling executive and she's been depending on Mafia characters for ideas about getting around campaign fundraising limits. An ex-casino owner who goes by the name Carl Giudici bought the luxury bus one year ago from a Montana dealer. Since she's an adament-- hysterical-- defender of bartering goods and services for various things (like chickens) wonderers are wondering what Mr. Giudici was promised in return for the fancy bus.

A campaign contributor is “leasing” to Lowden the RV she is using as her campaign bus, according to her campaign. But Lowden’s name is on the title along with the name of the supporter, Carl Giudici, seemingly indicating they co-own the bus.

Campaign finance rules allow in-kind contributions of $2,400-- equal to the cash limit. The contribution of a luxury RV, which commonly costs more than $100,000, would be a violation of the law.

Danny Tarkanian, who narrowly trails Lowden according to polling of the Republican U.S. Senate primary field, has called into question whether Lowden is breaking the law.

“Like a typical insider, Sue Lowden doesn’t think the rules apply to her,” said Brian Seitchik, a Tarkanian spokesman, who referred to the bus as a “free ride.”

Meanwhile, yesterday's Washington Post points out that Lowden seems to have laid a rotten egg that stinks to high heaven-- and now, despite videos, trying to even deny she ever said anything about chickens and healthcare. Nevada voters are certainly getting some scary insight into what it would be to have the most idiotic member of the Senate representing their state.

Exactly 42 days after Sue Lowden first committed the original chickens-for-checkups gaffe, she's still struggling to put it behind her-- and now she's explicitly denying originally making chicken-related assertions she plainly did make.

Lowden got into a testy exchange over chickens-for-checkups with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston at yesterday's GOP Senate primary debate, and Harry Reid's campaign has now posted the video:



Lowden rebukes her host, insisting that he go out and see for themselves that people are bartering for health care. But the best part comes towards the end.

Ralston directly confronts Lowden with her own words, and she denies ever saying them.

Ralston points out that Lowden talked about how people used to barter chickens for checkups in the old days, and he quotes her saying: "I'm not backing down from that system."

"No, I never said `from that system,'" Lowden shot back. "I never said, `from that system.'"

In reality, Lowden originally said: "Before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor... I'm not backing down from that system."

Notice in the video she's taking about getting into "my RV," referring to the illegal donation she's driving around Nevada. Sometimes I think Nevada Republicans put her up just to make John Ensign looks less embarrassing to them!

I May Be The Only Person In America To Feel Some Sympathy For Thomas Mitchell

Not many Americans know who Thomas Mitchell is. But in Las Vegas they do. He's the powerful, somewhat deranged publisher of Nevada's biggest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The New York Times it's not, but Mitchell's own blog on the paper's website is crackpot central. Last week he made a jackass out of himself advocating repealing the 19th Amendment, the one giving women the vote. (Conservatives have been gung-ho lately on repealing the 16th and 17th Amendments, but Mitchell is the first loon I've heard publicly call for taking away the right of suffrage from women.)

[W]e must repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes, the one granting suffrage to women. Because? Well, women are biased.

Just look at the poll results in today’s newspaper.

Men favored the attractive former beauty queen Sue Lowden over the graying Harry Reid by 22 points, while women shunned their gender mate, choosing Reid by a 2-point margin. Which proves women favor Democrats... Men are consistent. Women are fickle and biased.

His right-wing paper has no women on its editorial board, and it's a paper that had to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit with a former female editor who was passed over for a promotion. All major news decisions are made by men. The female city editor and news editor report to Mitchell. So why do I feel sympathy for this somewhat malevolent nut-case?

I'm thinking that he might not actually know any intelligent women. (7.4% of Nevadans are Mormans-- more than other state other than Utah, Idaho and Wyoming.) Maybe all the women he knows are like Sue Lowden, who he holds up as an icon of femaleness, or at least political femaleness. Lowden is something of a national laughingstock because-- as the primary GOP opponent to Harry Reid-- her healthcare plan has been, basically, to try to barter with your doctors and hospitals. She thinks people with cancer should bring some chickens to the doctor in return for their treatment. She's clearly delusional-- as you can see in the video below-- but this is what conservative Republican men in Nevada think women are all about. In fact, yesterday Lowden's campaign sent Mitchell's paper a letter from a Republican doctor, which of course Mitchell duly published, which claims that he has "bartered with patients-- for alfalfa hay, a bathtub, yard work and horse shoeing in exchange for my care."

Let's hope the former beauty queen turned gambling executive isn't suggesting that women pay for their care Chicken Ranch-style. It could be some GOP scam, though, which gives doctors a way to evade paying taxes, especially if the chickens are pregnant or there's no accurate way to weigh the hay. In any case, this is surely not a serious plan-- although it probably works better than what Boehner and Ryan and Blunt came up with (nothing)-- that the GOP wants to present as an alternative to a health care reform plan... is it?

This is the degree of seriousness with which conservatives take the healthcare crisis for ordinary American working families. Harry Reid may have some shortcomings, but he combines the best traits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt compared with Sue Lowden. And Thomas Mitchell... he needs to get out more. (And, yes, I know, Reid is a Morman too. That wasn't the point.)