For years now, we’ve been hearing the rich baritone carnival bark of Steve Wynn, who never misses an opportunity to attack President Barack Obama for his economic policies. His passion on the subject is a little obscure.
Tuesday was a disaster for the national Republican Party, as President Barack Obama won an election that secured a new governing majority and the Senate remained in Harry Reid’s hands. Elizabeth Warren, pot and gay marriage were just salt in the wounds. In Nevada, however, it wasn’t so bad.
I recently railed against the election of judges as farcical. The timing was perfect, as District Judge Steven Jones faces federal charges this week in an alleged investment scam. A reader sent me another good example of how dumb judicial elections can be.
The election of judges is an utter farce. Perhaps my favorite piece of data in support of this assertion is that in the 2010 election, 466,000 voters in Clark County cast their vote for a candidate in the U.S. Senate race, while about 360,000 voters made a choice in the countywide judicial races. So, 100,000 people took a pass in the judicial races.
More people are in favor of legalization, and like voters in Washington and Colorado may do this election, the state should end the prohibition
Friday, Oct. 26, 2012
Let’s talk pot. Perhaps the most consequential decision faced by voters in three Western states, other than control of the White House, are voter initiatives that would legalize marijuana.
Nevada's future depends on residents taking matters into their own hands
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012
Mitt Romney should have learned his lesson from President Barack Obama and not made any promises about unemployment. During a visit to Henderson on Tuesday, Romney said, “How about four years where at the end we get Nevada unemployment down to 6 percent or lower?” Republicans have been hammering Obama for years because his economists forecast that unemployment would peak nationally at 8 percent even though it eventually reached 10 percent.
To prevent payday loan abuse, House bill promoting deregulation must be stopped
Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012
According to the results of a recent survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Nevada leads the nation in the percentage of residents who are “underbanked” — meaning they have some sort of bank account but also resort to high-interest loans from nontraditional lenders to make ends meet.
Last week I wrote about Danny Tarkanian, the son of the legendary UNLV coach and Republican candidate for Congress in the 4th District. Let’s take a look at his opponent, state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford.
If the voters of Nevada’s newly created Congressional District 4 aren’t careful, they could wind up with a congressman who is in bankruptcy. But that’s just the start of the weirdness.
Some quick thoughts on Thursday’s debate between Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Shelley Berkley. Overall, a weak display. But I was most disappointed in Berkley, who failed to make an affirmative case for the Democratic position.
Mitt Romney is gracing us with his presence in Las Vegas today. In case you missed it, Mother Jones magazine showed video on its website of Romney telling a group of wealthy donors that people who vote for President Barack Obama “believe they are victims.”
When I was in school, gym class was a bit of a joke, and I’m sure the same is true for you. The kids who were athletic and competitive would play flag football or basketball while everyone else stood around.
With President Barack Obama in town this week, I thought it useful to explore a commonly held belief about his foreign policy, namely, that Obama has apologized for America and doesn’t believe in “American exceptionalism.”
Competition is healthy, so if city council wants to level the playing field, it should find other ways
Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012
An attempt by brick-and-mortar restaurants to stifle competition from mobile food trucks stalled at the Las Vegas City Council Wednesday, though only thanks to the council’s fecklessness. ...
Along with a lot of misery, the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession have produced excellent films, both dramatic and documentary. ...
As I watched President Barack Obama on Wednesday at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas, I thought about four years ago. Because I was so busy covering the campaign, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the fact that the world was collapsing.
Last time Mitt Romney was in town, I had six questions for him and promised I’d do the same for President Barack Obama, who will be in North Las Vegas today. So, here goes.
If Nevada doesn’t expand its Medicaid program, one result is that people will die. That’s the stark conclusion we can draw from a New England Journal of Medicine study, which found that in states that expanded their Medicaid programs, mortality rates declined 6.1 percent, with the largest declines among minorities and older adults.
Desert Land LLC and Desert Oasis Investments LLC are building the SkyVue Las Vegas Super Wheel on the south Strip, and Caesars Entertainment is building the High Roller as part of the new LINQ project. But don’t call them Ferris wheels. Caesars is particularly adamant about this. That is why I’m calling them Ferris wheels.
Clark County says the state of Nevada owes it $102.5 million and has sued to get its money. But state government, which took the money from county property taxes and sales taxes to solve its budget crisis, has all the leverage in this fight.
Off-duty North Las Vegas firefighters walked precincts this week, telling residents to pressure the city to reverse cuts in emergency services. The firefighters can’t rely on their own votes in upcoming elections. Very few of them live in North Las Vegas.
I doubt I’m alone as a journalist in confessing that I’ve often read the blockbuster news in the newspaper and what was pertinent to my beat, but I let many other stories slide.
It’s Monday morning at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas, the start of summer football practice. At 6 a.m. sharp, Coach Hunkie Cooper tells an assistant to close the gate, because responsible men are prompt. “We took over this program three years ago. Had been 1-30. Last year, we won the division title, beat Vegas in the playoffs. But the most important numbers are our GPAs, our SATs.”
Tony Hsieh's dreams seem lofty, but they are worth pursuing
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
As a journalist, my job is to be skeptical, and given the incessant flimflammery in Las Vegas, I think I was entitled to be extra wary of the Tony Hsieh-Zappos-downtown craze. My outlook is deeply influenced by the “Simpsons” episode when the charismatic charlatan Lyle Lanley sells Springfield a rickety monorail (sound familiar?), so I always try to question what’s in that delicious Kool-Aid. For years I’ve been reading glowing profiles of Hsieh, the prodigy founder of an Internet company he sold to Microsoft for millions before becoming CEO of online retailer Zappos.
Every upstanding law firm needs framed diplomas from the finest law schools, crystal decanters for single malt scotch and a nice solid oak conference table. And in Nevada, it seems, they require one other amenity: Their very own legislator.
Nancy Menzel, a professor of nursing at UNLV, is leaving the Southern Nevada District Board of Health in frustration after just one term. Menzel describes a dysfunctional board burdened by conflict with Clark County while public health problems fester. Menzel is supportive of the district but was scathing in her critique of its board.
Until they can score a fake ID, there’s not much for kids to do in this town. Las Vegas is like most American communities that way, but gambling and alcohol are central to life here, making the problem even worse.
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like we live in a ridiculous town. In the latest example, Clark County has put the squeeze on a Montessori school — a Montessori school! — to appease unhappy neighbors, so the school has decided to pack up and leave.
While development remains fairly moribund in the rest of the Las Vegas Valley, there’s suddenly a diverse array of projects in various states of planning and completion downtown.
My colleague recently moved into a cool place in Soho Lofts in the Arts District—would someone please change the name of this otherwise worthy building?—and is mostly happy with downtown living. But he’s also discovering its frustrations
Regina Burns got in line for Thursday’s grand opening of the 99¢ Only Store on Wednesday at 2:30 a.m. She spent 30 hours securing a spot as one of the first nine customers, each of whom had the chance to buy a 22-inch flat-screen TV for, yes, 99 cents.
As Cantor Mariana Gindlin sang “Eili, Eili,” the packed ballroom at UNLV hushed. Just moments before, they were boisterous and cheerful, singing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Now, though, the solemnity of the Hebrew song hit the crowd fiercely, and I felt a bit of a chill.
To many in the Las Vegas Valley, she's a bodybuilding icon; to the women she trains, she's family
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
High above Las Vegas, in a suite at the Palms, Denise Dinger is acting as matriarch of a trippy family whose obsession isn’t spelling bees or stringed instruments or dance. It’s human muscle and the display of it. Her charges — “my girls,” she calls them — are nervous and a little giggly, butterflies before they take the stage at the Palms for the Jay Cutler Desert Classic, an amateur bodybuilding event.
During Shaun Clark’s time in the U.S. Army, he was deployed as airborne infantry to Afghanistan, Iraq and to Haiti after the earthquake. He’s experienced more in three years than most of us will in a lifetime. At 21, he’s back home and asking: Now what?
Majority Leader Harry Reid reversed himself last week and came out in favor of reforming the Senate filibuster. Better late than never. It might seem obvious that Reid would back changes to the filibuster, but Reid, like many in the world’s most exclusive club, is an institutionalist and traditionalist.
Someone had to be first. Some guy in a hut had to have the courage to drink the juice of fermented grapes, and good things followed. Likewise, the north end of the Strip needed someone to have the courage to invest. Now that SBE Entertainment of Los Angeles and private equity group Stockbridge Real Estate are putting money into the shuttered Sahara, perhaps the 20-teens will eventually be known as the era when the action moved north on the Strip.
Icalynn Gamble had quit going to school last fall, overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being an 18-year-old mother and dejected about her chances of graduating. That’s when a parade of dignitaries — including Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones, state Sen. Steven Horsford and new Chaparral High School Principal Dave Wilson — knocked on her door on a Saturday morning and persuaded her to return.
I strolled around Build a Greener Block, which sought to dress up a somewhat neglected stretch of Main Street and turn it into a vibrant urban experience for a weekend, when I heard a new friend scoff that the raw food store was also selling tofu, which, of course, is processed.
A conundrum: Polls show that teachers are some of the most admired people in America. Yet nearly half of the respondents in a 2011 Gallup poll said teachers unions hurt the quality of education, while just 26 percent said they helped.
I received a press release recently that read, “A team of approximately 40 community volunteers and downtown supporters will ‘invade’ downtown Las Vegas on Friday, April 20 to perform a Random Act of Happiness.”
Imagine NFL commissioner Roger Goodell tweeting out that the Saints are 10-1 to win the Super Bowl next year. Yeah, probably not. But here’s Dana White, president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, on Twitter earlier today: “TUF Live tonight on FX the MGM has Sicilia -350 vs Saunders +290.”
The Redfield name can be seen all over campus at UNR. The Nell J. Redfield Foundation has given about $40 million during the past three decades for gems such as the auditorium in the math and science building, a student health clinic and the Redfield Theatre.
There’s no point hiding from it, especially in Nevada: The clean energy movement, despite rapid gains in recent years, faces a potential crisis as government support withers. I can hear the cheering from many conservatives, whose latest foray into identity politics is contempt for clean energy (more on that later) while either ignorantly or willfully ignoring decades of massive government support for fossil fuels and hydroelectric power such as the Hoover Dam.
The 9-1-1 call is chilling: A woman, who has locked herself in a room after enduring a severe beating, screams. Then she screams again and again. If there are words, they are unintelligible, but terror can be conveyed without words.
Imagine if the guy who owned the house next door tore it down and started building a cool new palace. Then imagine that a third of the way into construction, he stopped building, leaving a half-finished shell for you to see from your window.
The Clark County Commission has seemed lately like the Committee of “Get Off My Lawn!” It recently banned pets on the Strip. And it’s thrown some big fines at homeowners for violating the so-called “Party House Ordinance.”
After an ugly spate of homicides on the Las Vegas Strip last summer, major hotel companies now pay to have Metro Police conduct extra patrols of our most important commercial district.