WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters’ notebook
State Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, showed last Tuesday he can poke fun at himself and prominent members of his family.
Denis opened a news conference by picking up a bottle of water and pretending to drink from it repeatedly.
That was the same picture millions of Americans saw earlier this month when they watched U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., get dry mouth while delivering the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
If case you didn’t know, Rubio is Denis’ first cousin.
Rubio is being eyed as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016.
Denis’ attempt at parody drew laughter from the media and his fellow Democrats.
“I wonder if Sen. Denis is going to sell water to raise money for a future governor campaign,” state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, said teasingly.
ED VOGEL
During a recent hearing on a case where a mom was charged with shooting her son, prosecutor Michael Staudaher described the son’s angst upon speaking with his mother while he recovered at a local hospital.
“This victim was actually hooked up to monitors. You could tell his respiration, his heart rate, his blood pressure. All of those things were so discombobulated that um. ...”
Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez jumped in: “That’s a medical term right,” she quipped.
“It is not,” replied Staudaher with a sheepish grin. And he would know. Staudaher once made a living as a physician’s assistant on a surgical team before going to law school.
FRANCIS McCABE
Drone strikes seem as common as they are controversial these days, but last week marked the 12th anniversary of the first laser-guided missile strike from an unmanned aircraft.
On that date in 2001, an RQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile at a tank from a ground station at what then was Indian Springs Auxiliary Field.
The precision strike that erupted in a fireball was broadcast live on closed-circuit television to an audience of military officials and members of Congress at the Pentagon.
KEITH ROGERS
