Right on the button

I don't wish to overstate my powers, but it must be said -- and I'm just the guy to do it! -- that my last two Sunday columns have been, well, downright ouija-like.

First came the prediction of a financial storm facing state and local governments in Nevada. For decades politicians have allowed the costs of our public employee union contracts to get away from the taxpayers' ability to pay for them. It reached a breaking point when times were good. Now, in a down economy, these failures spell big trouble. I think my exact admonition to our elected officials was: "Stop burning taxpayer money."

Since that column, the stock market has swooned a couple thousand points, worldwide banking is broken and California, along with other states and cities, is begging for short-term money to make payroll.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Pay attention, state legislators, mayors, school board members, regents and county commissioners: This is serious. If you don't want to preside over the largest layoff of government workers in state history, get control of employee contracts and watch every penny of citizen money you spend. You're going to need efficiency like never before.

Then last week I penned a little ditty headlined "Voter fraud in Las Vegas?" Again, I don't want to overplay my role in the cosmic scale of things. It was just a question sparked by a reader who noticed peculiar things with voter materials addressed to his children, who had left Nevada years ago.

Within days of the column, Nevada officials raided the local office of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Supposedly, the ACORN people were doing all kinds of bad things (illegal voter registration) in the name of a good thing (getting people registered).

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of suspicious "voters" were registered by ACORNians, including the attempted registration of members of the Dallas Cowboys football team, featuring quarterback Tony Romo.

ACORNians say they're just doing the Lord's work (who they swear is a Democrat, by the way). They say they tried to warn officials about the potentially fake registrations they were turning in ... but nobody -- nobody! -- would listen.

Let me tell you, that defense is stuffed fuller than a Christmas turkey.

Everywhere ACORN goes, suspicious registrations increase. It's time to start calling this behavior what it is: organized crime. It is, after all, organized. And it's criminal.

But because registering voters is supposed to be a positive endeavor, no one calls them on it when they break the law.

Look, ladies and gents, voting is a wonderful thing. Everyone who wants to, regardless of political bent, should vote. But ACORN is out to game the system. They know full well what they are doing. And what makes this criminal behavior even worse: Taxpayer money is given to ACORN. Presidential candidate Barack Obama (likely our next president) was once ACORN's lawyer, and as a community organizer he even trained ACORNians to do what they do.

That's ugly from every angle.

ACORNians who engage in illegal voter registration activity ought to go to jail for a long, long time.

You no doubt marvel at my predicting the global economic crisis and its effect on state and local government budgets, as well as sensing systematic voter fraud right here in Las Vegas.

But I must confess: I hate it when I'm scary right.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.