MUTH: ‘Lyin’ Ted’ isn’t the only whopper teller on the campaign trail this year

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has spouted so many demonstrable falsehoods about Donald Trump that Trump has been referring to him on the campaign trail as “Lyin’ Ted.” But Cruz is far from alone in this department.

Indeed, the Queen of Prevarication, Hillary Clinton, is the subject of a new video that’s gone viral showing her “lying for 13 minutes straight.” To be fair, though, she’s been at it a heckuva lot longer than Cruz!

But telling whoppers isn’t an offense committed only by presidential candidates. Indeed, we have world-class whopper-tellers right here in Nevada, as well. For example: Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto-Reid.

In her new TV commercial, Cortez Masto claims she “took on the big banks when they preyed on homeowners and forced them to pay $1.9 billion to Nevadans.” But reporter Mark Robison investigated the claim and concluded that “Cortez Masto did not force multiple banks to pay Nevadans $1.9 billion, as her ad claims.”

If only there were truth-in-labeling laws for political ads.

Then take Republican Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson (please!). On Tax Day in 2010, Roberson “pledged to the taxpayers of Senate District 5, and to all Nevadans, that if elected, I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase your taxes.”

Last year he LED the effort to pass the largest tax hike in Nevada history!

Roberson was joined in saying one thing on the campaign trail and doing another in the Legislature by tax-hiking Senate GOP colleagues Ben Kieckhefer, Greg Brower, Patricia Farley, Scott Hammond, Joe Hardy, Becky Harris and Mark Lipparelli.

Then there’s freshman Assemblyman P.K. O’Neill of Carson City. When he ran two years ago, his campaign mailer stated in bold, unmistakable lettering: “No New Taxes For Nevadans.”

P.K. went even further, describing the proposed new “margins tax” that appeared on the ballot as “A JOB KILLER.” In addition, he declared that “Nevada should grow, and not tax, our way out of the recession.”

Six short months later P.K. shamefully voted for the $1.4 billion tax hike, the largest in state history, which included a new margins tax very similar to the one that 80 percent of his constituents rejected at the polls.

P.K. was far from alone in back-handing Nevada’s taxpayers by running on a “no new taxes” platform and then voting for the Mother of All Tax Hikes.

He was joined in the Assembly by tax-hikers John Hambrick, Paul Anderson, Derek Armstrong-Anderson, Pat Hickey, Randy Kirner, Stephen Silberkraus, David Gardner, James Oscarson, Erv Nelson, Glen Trowbridge, Lynn Stewart, Melissa Woodbury and Chris Edwards – who enjoys the unique, two-faced, fork-tongued, John Kerry-like distinction of voting for the tax hike before voting against it.

And some still wonder why a non-politician outsider like Donald Trump is doing so well?

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. You can reach him at ChuckMuth.com.