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Dennis Myers

Centrist model gets scrutiny

Russ Nielsen, a great Nevada wire service reporter, once told me that if a journalist is being attacked by both sides, it’s a sign the journalist is doing the job right.

Being against now ranks as a political value

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic floor leader, last week got some attention for praising his colleague Rand Paul of Kentucky, a symbol of libertarian conservatism.

Convention poses tough choices for GOP

The Nevada Republican Party is preparing a bid to bring the 2016 Republican National Convention to Las Vegas, and some party figures are concerned that the — how do I put this? — unconventional or non­traditional lifestyle of Nevada’s largest city could steer national GOP officials to a safer venue.

Gambling with gambling

Twenty-­four years ago, conservative columnist George Will wrote, “One state’s welfare is uniquely woven into gambling, but Nevada has an excuse: The silver was gone, the soil was lousy, and the would-­be divorcees were bored. After the Comstock Lode petered out, Nevada eventually discovered divorce as a way of making money. Nevada crushed the competition of a few other states in setting the shortest residency requirement, and then looked around for a new way to mine money from the law and found gambling. Now, one Nevada is kind of nice. But there is something sinister about more and more governments becoming more and more addicted to money from what was until recently considered a vice.”

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Nevada court allows anti-Mormon effort

A few days ago, the Nevada Supreme Court refused to intervene in a court case to correct a case of religious bigotry.

Remember this number

When some deputy district attorney wants to taint the jury pool against someone suspected of defrauding worker’s injury insurance and so he invites a television station to come along to shoot footage when they are observing the suspect loading some furniture into a truck, it can be very easy to believe that such fraud is rampant.

Intuition vs. information

When I was small I did not think there should be homework. Actually, I still feel that way. I analogized it to adults — when they came home from work, they read the paper and watched television. A dry cleaner didn’t spend evenings at home dry cleaning.

Perils of propaganda and presidents

During the Cold War, the U.S. government assembled a huge propaganda structure in its messianic efforts to combat communism behind the “iron curtain.” Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were the best known of these tools.

Escalating from mistake to blunder

Last week a reporter for KLAS News in Las Vegas reported, “Vaccines have been debated for years in the medical field. While some doctors believe they are vital to a child’s health, other doctors believe in a more natural approach to disease prevention.”

A lesson on how to cripple economic development

Recently one of my colleagues at our newspaper wrote a piece about the efforts of some Nevada beekeepers who are attempting to deal with neonicotinoid insecticides as a possible cause of honey bee colony collapse. The article had nothing to do with the University of Nevada, Reno, but one reader took the opportunity to post a comment about the campus:

Issue education vs. political advertising

Keeping the lines straight on free expression is a constant battle. Government always strains to regulate it. Civil libertarians get nervous when it does. But there are no clear-cut lines. These groups sometimes take stances that can appear inconsistent.

Better than ever, but worse than before

When I was a boy, one of my favorite fruits was the tangerine. In those days, there was only one tangerine. I think it was called the Dancy. The fruit was loose inside the skin, which made it easy to peel, and the sections came apart easily so it wasn’t messy like an orange. And it tasted better, less bitter, than an orange.

There’s less to secrets than meets the eye

During the various battles over Wiki Leaks and Edward Snowden, there have been frequent references to a previous dispute involving the Pentagon Papers. Since it has been more than 40 years since those papers were disclosed, I thought it might be useful for those born after 1971 to know what came out of the Pentagon Papers fight.

Arranging second place

Gov. Brian Sandoval has thrown his support behind Sen. Mark Hutchison of Las Vegas for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. If any other Republicans were considering running, Sandoval has effectively told them to rule themselves out.

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