In a move that could boost economies along the East Coast, the Obama administration approved the use of underwater sound blasts to pinpoint the locations of oil and gas deposits beneath Atlantic Ocean waters. Environmentalists are less than pleased with the decision, but President Barack Obama deserves praise for it.
Government isn’t structured to run efficiently. It’s a rare moment when the private sector doesn’t outperform the bureaucrats who would purport to be our betters, even in areas dominated by government hype. Like being eco-friendly.
In case you’re keeping score at home, the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly ignored and hid warnings from whistleblowers about a pattern of negligent practices resulting in delays in care, shoddy treatment and needless patient deaths at its medical centers. According to a report by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., VA negligence cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in malpractice settlements over the past decade and may have killed up to 1,000 veterans.
When President Barack Obama unveiled the Affordable Care Act, it was quickly and mockingly renamed “Obamacare” by Republicans and others. The name stuck, and the president eventually embraced it.
It’s rare that we advocate for public-sector raises in the best of times, and even more unlikely under the current conditions. Generally speaking, private-sector workers aren’t reaping any benefits from the still-sluggish recovery following the Great Recession, and here in Clark County, the taxpaying public also faces a never-ending push to increase taxes on several fronts.
The Clark County School District is getting a tough lesson in math as it deals with surging enrollment and aging campuses, amid numbers that come nowhere near adding up. As the Review-Journal’s Trevon Milliard reported last week, the district plans to spend $301 million in the next five years on capital projects, including replacing one school entirely, renovating and replacing equipment at older schools, and adding portable classrooms to alleviate student crowding.
The Koch brothers have donated considerable sums of money to various philanthropic efforts in recent years. They’ve also donated considerable amounts of money to advance conservative political causes. Those who can’t separate the two actions — among them Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — have run an incessant campaign to demonize the Kochs, and that effort has now led to young black students losing college scholarships.
Nevada gaming regulators have remarkable oversight powers that allow them to strip the licenses of casino operators who bring “discredit upon the state” or fail to protect Nevadans’ “morals.” These tools were essential in ridding Nevada’s casinos of organized crime and paving the way for corporate ownership and investment along the Strip.
This newspaper has long advocated a single, simple bill to greatly expand personal and economic freedom in Nevada: For every bill passed by lawmakers and signed into law by the governor, two laws must be repealed.
When it comes to basketball and Las Vegas, the first thing that often comes to mind is the UNLV men’s program, which was a juggernaut in its heyday under Jerry Tarkanian and has had varying degrees of success the past two decades. The city isn’t necessarily considered an NBA town.
