Ethics, honor, and loyalty: Where have those qualities gone?
In our editorial of March 26, 2017 the Las Vegas Tribune wrote about the despicable behavior of Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod after it was exposed by other members of the local media.
“It has always been our contention that those who cannot be loyal to the country they claim to love, cannot be loyal to anyone else and do not deserve the opportunity to represent anyone in any elected position or political office” we wrote in this very same space.
We also ask for Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod to resign her position in the Nevada Legislature after it’s been proven that she was working with a consulting company with ties to terrorist Saudi Arabia.
In the same editorial we wrote: “Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, who was elected to Nevada Assembly while doubling as an agent for Saudi Arabia, does not deserve to be given the opportunity to represent her constituents and should be considered persona non grata in our political circles.”
Unfortunately, as it very commonly happens in our state, people get all fired up after learning of an issue in the local media, and perhaps in the social media also, but by the end of the day the majority of them go back to their daily routine and forget about the issue that was in the spotlight for a day or two.
Because we are the Las Vegas Tribune and are different than anyone else, we do not forget that easily; let the record show what we did with former Family Court Judge Fran Fine when we constantly wrote about her until she was forced off the bench, and with the out-of-control bailiff (the new designation is “marshall”) of former District Court Judge Donald Moseley; Tom Knickmeyer’s name was in our newspaper for three consecutive years after he was seen abusing, beating and mistreating handcuffed inmates on several occasions.
We, at the Las Vegas Tribune, keep reminding our readers of the misconduct of District Court Judge Douglas Smith and the racist and defamatory comments he made toward minority defendants and how he sentenced a young Cuban man to triple the time mandated by the law because he did not know if ten years later the defendant was going to commit the same crime.
It has been several years since we saw Judge Stefany Miley laugh with a few attorneys in her courtroom after she sentenced a woman to jail to please a campaign contributor, and kept laughing while the woman cried as she was being led to the Clark County Detention Center by a marshall; we witnessed the sad incident and always remind our readers of it.
Retired District Court Judge Jessie Walsh was at one time a dear friend of this newspaper, but when she crossed the line and became a puppet of corrupted campaign manager David Thomas and his clan, we ended the friendship and remind our readers every time we have the opportunity of what we believe was her betrayal to the community.
People who run for office should learn about the office they choose to run for and if they cannot live with the amount of money the job pays, they should not run for that office because once elected or appointed to a government office, their behavior and their conduct should be above reproach.
We are well aware that the salary at the Nevada Legislature is shamefully small, but most people who run for these positions are aware of the petty salary; regardless of that, some of them spend more money to win the position than what they are going to earn as their salary; and unless they work for a company that offers the flexibility to take time off during the sessions, they should not aspire to “give back to the community” by serving in the Legislature.
Being part of the American government on any level should be an honor and that job should be held honorable because the country and the people of this nation deserve that professionalism and loyalty from those who are elected to any office that serve the people and the country.
Perhaps the people of Las Vegas have other interests to occupy their time, but we do not; we will keep asking Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod to resign and if she does not want to resign, we may have to find another Democrat to run against her in the next election — a Democrat that has no ties to a terrorist country like Saudi Arabia.
According to media accounts, Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod already resigned from her job with a local Democrat political consultant group, but we believe she should give her constituents and the whole state of Nevada the same respect and resign from her Assembly position, elected or not.