Las Vegas Review-Journal - Steve Sebelius Slash Politics

Some said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid was just fanning political flames when he called out Republicans for wanting to shut down the government, but House Speaker John Boehner's hard line on government spending makes the prospect more a reality, Politico reports.

It turns out that having an extramarital affair when preaching family values to everybody else, then having your parents pay off your mistress's family and finding yourself under investigation for allegedly violating federal laws in the wake of said affair can make a person really unpopular, according to a

Libertarian conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference booed when ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, presented his protege, former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, with the Defender of the Constitution award. It was one of several signs of conservative disunity at the conference. (The linked story misidentifies the award

Before she decides whether to challenge him in a primary and potentially end his political career, failed U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle says she'll sit down and talk to incumbent Sen. John Ensign.

Sharron Angle appeared to support the participation of a gay Republican group in the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington, D.C., according to the Huffington Post. At one time, Angle was a member of Nevada's Independent American Party, which boasted a strong anti-gay platform.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign has replaced his legislative director, who left to work for a freshman senator last month.

Potential 2012 presidential contender Mitt Romney is scheduled to address the Republican Jewish Coalition's winter meeting in Las Vegas, which runs March 31-April 3. Romney won Nevada's GOP caucus in 2008, and is the first high-profile candidate to touch down in Sin City in advance of the 2012 caucus,

U.S. Rep. Joe Heck says interpreting the 14th Amendment to say that all children born in the United States are automatically citizens needs to be reconsidered.

Sharron Angle, who became the subject of speculation when she attended the premier of the Christian film The Genesis Code in first-in-the-nation-presidential-primary state Iowa, will headline a showing of the film in South Carolina, another early primary state. This will no doubt fuel rumors than Angle is mounting a

Gov. Brian Sandoval is mentioned by Politico as a potential vice presidential candidate for 2012, a post that may hinge on how he handles the 2011 Legislature's endgame.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- who enjoys a reputation as an education reformer in GOP circles -- and former Washington D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee will testify in support of Gov. Brian Sandoval's education reform agenda.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute announced it's legislative agenda today. Three guesses? Controlling spending, reforming the budget process and making Nevada's schools more like Florida's.

State Sen. Mike Schneider invokes the late former Gov. Kenny Guinn's name in criticism of Gov. Brian Sandoval's budget, implying that Guinn would have persuaded Sandoval not to submit such a parsimonious spending plan.

It's not a trend yet, but it's interesting to note that Pam Thiessen, former legislative director for U.S. Sen. John Ensign, left the senator's employ to join the staff of newly elected Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. After Ensign announced in 2009 that he'd had an affair with a staffer, he

That's what former Review-Journal scribe Molly Ball writes of the 2012 Republican caucus in Politico, since Nevada hasn't seen much attention from the GOP field as of yet.