A couple of years ago I received a news release from the University of Nevada, Reno about the activities of a group of students who called themselves Team Nevada. They were working on genetically altered rice to provide nutrients to the malnourished.
In 2010, because the views of Republican Sharron Angle on church/state relations had become an issue in Nevada’s U.S. senate campaign, I wrote a cover story about the issue as it affected her race against Democrat Harry Reid, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Proverbs 29:18: Where there is no vision, the people perish.
In 2007, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons was taking a lot of heat for trying to remove a state gambling regulator who had been appointed by the previous governor. To make the case, a Gibbons spokesperson said the governor “feels that moving forward with Keith Munro’s politically motivated appointment would be undermining the tradition of the Gaming Control Board being apolitical. That would be moving back to the dark ages when politics and personal interests ruled the Gaming Control Board. This administration is not for sale.”
About a year ago, I interviewed political scientist Fred Lokken about Nevada’s changing politics. Among other things, he said that Nevada’s demographics were falling the Democratic Party’s way, essentially making the state blue.
In the 1980s a new disease arrived in the United States. Journalism basically ignored it because here it initially affected mostly gays. When there was news coverage of it at all, it was described with terms like “gay cancer” or “gay plague,” which indicated how ignorant most reporters were. The disease did not affect only gays, nor did it originate with them.
Ballot Question 1 in this year’s election is a rerun. It seeks to amend the Nevada Constitution to create a state court of appeals, which was previously defeated by voters in 1972, 1980, 1992, and 2010.
With Gov. Brian Sandoval declaring triumph in his deal with Tesla and his facing an all-but-unopposed re-election, several national news outlets have taken notice. Fox News Latino, Daily Beast, and Red State have all mentioned him as a U.S. Senate candidate and possible a Republican vice presidential nominee.
Since his ignominious departure from the U.S. Senate, the name of Nevada’s John Ensign has seldom appeared in political news coverage. Republicans wanted to forget him. And he didn’t cut enough of a figure in Congress for Democrats to keep his memory alive for their own propaganda purposes.
On April 6, 2010, Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sue Lowden suggested that patients might barter for health care.
A few days ago, I spotted a worrisome subject line while checking my email. It read, “final notice.” All my bills are paid up, so it was difficult to imagine what it was.
In 1993 Mercedes set off a competition for a new U.S. auto plant and several states — Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina — ended up pitted against each other in a bidding war. Alabama won it with a $250 million to $300 million incentive package, the equivalent of $397 million to $476 million in 2013 dollars.
Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in various campaign finance cases that money is speech (Buckley vs. Valeo 1976), that corporations are persons entitled to First Amendment protection in political expression (Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission 2010), and that aggregate limits on campaign contributions are a violation of the First Amendment (McCutcheon v. FEC 2014).
Over the years during debates about whether the press is liberal or conservative, I’ve always maintained that the question is irrelevant because neither answer is correct. The press is establishment, oriented to centrism and authority, whoever happens to be holding office.
Fads come and go in government. Reorganization has happened half a dozen times in Nevada government in the past 40 years or so.
