Nevada opened for business this week in full swagger and strut. CLINGING TO THE LEDGE: On Monday evening, Gomorrah South Assemblymember Venicia Considine, D-Clark, hosted a preview showing of “Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty.” Silver State civil rights legend Ruby Duncan, now 90, twice organized thousands to march down the Las … [Read more...]
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
The Nevada Legislature has started its retro-19th Century, every-other-year scramble to adjourn with minimal damage to the body politick. This year, the lineup is stocked with starry-eyed newbies proposing windmills of laws worthy of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. It’s all a hangover of President Ronald the Vague’s fabled and fatuous pronouncement that “government is the … [Read more...]
Moonhowlers: Fix Social Security. Please die.
Life imitates art. The dystopian, polluted world of the Charlton Heston/Edward G. Robinson film “Soylent Green” (1973) is coming true. That’s the net effect of what’s being proposed both here and abroad. In Japan, a place where elders are supposed to be respected, some yayhoos have suggested that the elderly should off themselves. Said yayhoos are not outliers and this is … [Read more...]
Fatherly advice from the Holy See of Me
PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVICE FROM MAYOR QUARANTINO: Don’t play dumb when public documents are requested. Veteran KOLO TV-8 journalist Ed Pearce has been reporting on abuse of public workers injured on the job who have no recourse at law when governments won’t pay. Washoe County’s Olivia Benson, former Sheriff’s Detective Kim Frankel, was severely injured on duty by a drunk … [Read more...]
Snake oil, snake worship and quack news
The east coast owners of KRNV TV-4 (NBC) and KRXI TV-11 (FOX) continue to pervert and pollute the public sphere. Sinclair Broadcasting operates more than 200 stations across the country which makes it by far the biggest telecaster. They control at least a dozen signals in northern Nevada and have put into practice their profit-envy of the Aussie Murdoch family’s Fox Noise … [Read more...]
Gov. Giuseppe Lumbago: Pie in the Sky
“I think I’ve just seen a one-termer so keep your powder dry” -- Paul Laxalt Thus advised the former Nevada governor and then-U.S. Senator to Ronald Reagan after President Jimmy Carter’s first state of the union address in 1977. Monday night’s state of the state speech by newbie Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo showed signs of instant replay. The precedent lies much closer to … [Read more...]
RIP Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid
“The federal government is basically an insurance company with an army” -- old economics zinger Rep. Mark Amodei has a target on his back. In a good way. The longtime northern Nevada Republican congresscritter is potentially one of five or so GOP lawmakers who can save the republic and perhaps the global economy. Mark and his Carson High classmate Dean Heller were good … [Read more...]
RIP GOP: 2000 prediction coming true
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” -- George Santayana, 1905 In 2000, author Kevin Phillips published a prescient piece I’ve since quoted many times as the Republican Party repeatedly attempted suicide. Herewith, déjà vu all over again from “Dismal democracy under Dubya the Dumber,” the Barbwire of January 21, 2001: Those searching for … [Read more...]