It does not make U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama a racist that he was heard many years ago quipping that he thought the Ku Klux Klan was all right until he found out there was pot-smoking in the membership.
Since the invasion of Iraq six years ago, more than 4,000 American servicemen and women have died in the line of duty. Every day, the mainstream media reminded the American people of the mounting casualties. During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama sharply criticized the policies of the Bush administration. Such places as Ramadi and Fallujah became synonymous with anarchy, mayhem and death. Each passing month, tens and in the worst months hundreds of U.S. war-related deaths were recorded.
Word on the street is that it’s not moderate Republican senators who are pushing aggressively for tax hikes in legislative negotiations right now, but a conservative Republican state senator who has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and works for a construction association when not in session.
American gun owners, en masse, are “casting their ballots” on how much they believe Barack Obama’s campaign-trail promise to “not take away your guns.”
Lawmakers now have less than two weeks to pass a budget that includes tax increases if they want an opportunity to override Gov. Jim Gibbons’ promised veto. And whatever taxes are hiked, whatever services are cut, whatever compromise legislation is attached to the spending plan, the result will answer one of Nevada’s most consequential political questions: Just how powerful are the state’s public employee unions, anyway?
President Barack Obama asked Congress Thursday to eliminate or trim 121 federal programs for a “savings” of $17 billion in the coming budget year — while crossing his fingers behind his back and failing to mention that he actually plans to shift that money into programs he likes better.
While the derelict Moulin Rouge was, again, going up in thick, white smoke on Wednesday afternoon — quite a visual spectacle, but hardly an all-hands-on-deck, women-and-children-first kind of event in the larger realm of breaking news — my phone rang and a caller suggested I look out the window and across the street.
The Legislature appears to have settled on the state’s public schools budget for 2009-11, and county districts have some tough choices to make.
Banking pioneer, casino developer reflect on their relationship in “Quiet Kingmaker” by Jack Sheehan
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of two excerpts from Jack Sheehan’s “Quiet Kingmaker of Las Vegas” about E. Parry Thomas. Sheehan interviewed Thomas as well as casino industry executives for this book about the life of a Las Vegas pioneer.
The passport, once the calling card of the well-traveled and the globe-trotting, is about to become as commonplace as a driver’s license or library card.
A chance discovery of ore rich in silver in 1900 by Central Nevada rancher Jim Butler sparked a mining boom to rival the fabulous days of the Comstock Lode decades earlier in Virginia City. When word of Butler’s find got out, a boom started that drew Nevada out of a deep depression. Soon, a camp called Butler grew near the site of Jim Butler’s original strike near Tonopah Spring.
Though she had a major hand in shaping the education of the valley’s children for 12 years, a role she valued and respected, Mary Beth Scow does not consider her time as a school board trustee to be her most important role.
The College of Southern Nevada Foundation had its award gala on April 25 at the M Resort.
Here are a few things in news, entertainment and popular culture that we’ve been talking about lately.
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” released May 1, is a decent start to the summer movie season. A prequel to the other “X-Men” movies, it provides audiences with a nearly perfect explosion-to-emotion ratio.
She has guilt. She ended her marriage, and now she has guilt.
Here is a listing of events designed for book lovers. Information is subject to change or cancellation without notice. Additions or changes to this listing must be submitted at least 10 days in advance of Sunday publication to Bookmark, Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125. For more information, call 383-0306.
“Dude, Aaron, mind if I use your computer?”
Vegetable problems seemed to be on gardener’s minds this week.
The first rule of “The Real Housewives of Las Vegas” is you do not talk about “The Real Housewives of Las Vegas.”
For many comedians, where there is laughter, there is pain. But, few comedians have experienced as many highs and lows as Shecky Greene, who started performing in the 1940s while in high school and continues today, with shows this weekend at the Suncoast.
Some years back, I became a rock critic, in addition working as a video game critic. (It’s a hard-knock life.) Suddenly, I felt professionally justified to sing in the car along to tunes I was reviewing. Other drivers would look at me funny, but I’d think, “Check it out, sucker, I get paid to do this.”
Kimberly Wright, above, is a very busy mother of four. The Oklahoma native and Las Vegas resident was recently chosen as national Young Mother of the Year. She has three sons and one daughter.
Another Las Vegas mother, Mary Beth Scow, was recently selected as Nevada’s Mother of the Year. She was picked in the over-45 age group. She has nine children and 21 grandchildren.
It’s a long way from selling business forms in New York to building homes in Las Vegas, but it’s a journey Guy Amato spent his career making.