Politics
Politics
A Model of Integrity
January 17th, 2013
Gene Segerblom, a lifelong teacher and longtime legislator, died on January 4 at age 94. She lived well, traveled widely and did everything she wanted to do, except stay around longer. Her husband Cliff was an artist, and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith described her Boulder City home as “one part poem, one part art museum.” You can be a politician and still be interested in other things. Read more »
Politics
The Year in Preview
January 3rd, 2013
After a year of rhetorical warfare in Nevada politics, the state will have to actually get down to business this year. The 2013 Legislature has a lot on its plate—especially the perennially kicked-down-the-road issues of revenue, education and legislative efficiency. Here are my fearless—maybe even reckless—predictions for the year ahead. Read more »
Politics
Three Stories and the Soul of Nevada
December 13th, 2012
If you woke up on Tuesday, Dec. 4, and opened the Las Vegas Review-Journal, you saw two pieces side-by-side. One was a news story: “Strip club mogul Jack Galardi dies at 81: Entrepreneur built empire, survived scrapes with law.” Beside it was an obituary—the kind for which families have to pay—for Shannon West-Redwine. Later that day, the U.S. Senate rejected the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The three stories speak volumes about politics and priorities in Nevada. Read more »
Politics
Harry Reid, Filibuster Buster?
November 29th, 2012
The president is a Democrat, the Senate’s Democratic and the House is Republican. Nevada has a Republican governor and Democratic Legislature. But we all agree on the need to end partisan gridlock. Read more »
Politics
Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud
November 15th, 2012
Clark County voted Democratic, but it didn’t really think Democratic. “Clark County faces a rough road ahead as taxpayers refuse to pay for educational infrastructure,” says Dahn Shaulis, a sociologist who earned his Ph.D. at UNLV. “This has been a long-term trend, as anti-intellectual Southern Nevadans choose to invest more in the symptoms (jails, prisons and police) than in the causes (inequality, gambling, a regressive tax structure and a poorly funded educational system).” Read more »
Politics
Election Food for Thought: A Six-Course Meal
November 1st, 2012
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney could help candidates up and down the ticket, but the guess here is that while neither will have long coattails, Obama will help Democrats more than Romney will help Republicans. Read more »
Just a Number
November 1st, 2012
Before it’s too late, please stop using your brilliant equations to categorize and subcategorize the subtleties of our humanity. If you don’t, I’m afraid your strings of zeros and ones will mutate into a media virus causing innocent consumers to absorb and embody your predictions before they even know what’s hit them. Read more »
Running Rebel
In taking one last shot at public office, Danny Tarkanian can draw inspiration from his famous parent. Hint: It’s not Dad.
October 31st, 2012
The patriarch, the legend—still recuperating from a heart attack suffered seven months ago—sits in his recliner, a blanket draped over his lap. His famously droopy eyes are fixed on the television. So, too, are the eyes of several guests. It’s not a highlight reel of the legend’s basketball coaching career that they’re focused on, but rather a one-on-one battle between vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Read more »
18 Things You Need to Know Before You Go to the Ballot Box
Your Seven-Minute Election Primer
October 25th, 2012
On Nov. 6, everything will change—meaning that you will once again be able to turn on your television set without being assaulted by extreme close-ups of Shelley Berkley. Other than that, the notion of “change” is up for grabs ... Read more »
What Should You Ask Yourself Before You Vote?
October 25th, 2012
The biggest—and longest-running—marketing scam going in American society? Politics, of course. From the sixth-grader running for student-body president who promises longer recesses to the U.S. presidential hopeful who promises not to raise taxes, candidates will say anything to win your vote. Your job is to sift through the ideological bullshit—to say nothing of the nonsensical mudslinging—and figure out the answer to this question: Who’s more likely to put “getting the job done” higher on the to-do list than “furthering my ideology”? Read more »
