Free Republic

CARSON CITY — Perhaps nobody at the Legislature this year has been more insistent than Nevada Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis that the state must immediately put more money into Nevada’s education system. And Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval could hardly have been more clear when he said he opposes and would veto Denis’ bill to increase payroll taxes for education. But Denis will make the case today that his payroll tax hike proposal is the best way to help Nevada’s schools next school year. Noting that Nevada consistently ranks near the bottom of state-by-state education comparisons, the Las Vegas Democrat...

Well, Harry Reid is resorting to desperate measures in order to try and regain some power in the Senate. Reports say that he is getting ready to use the so-called “nuclear option” to change the senate rules so that 60 votes are no longer needed to block a filibuster. And it looks like President Obama will support Reid’s efforts if the Republicans try to block upcoming nominations. “If Senator Reid decides to do something on nominations, the president has said he’ll be there to support him,” a Democratic aide told the Post. "This would take away the right to...

The lawyer who O.J. Simpson is claiming falsely represented him in a 2008 trial testified on Friday morning and contradicted much of what Simpson had already sworn. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine- to 33-year prison sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping charges, alleged that his lawyer, Yale Galanter, provided faulty counsel and is consequently seeking a new trial. Galanter disputed that notion in a Las Vegas courtroom Friday. According to Galanter, Simpson had divulged a plan, along with five other men, to retrieve various pieces of sports memorabilia from two industry dealers. Simpson believed some of the pieces...

CARSON, NV - Thelma Kessler is 86, her husband Stanley, 87. They've been married for 36 years, but now in the sunset of their lives they are allowed to see each other for just one hour a week and a court order gives others the power to file for their divorce. Thelma no longer has control of her husband's life. That's responsibility now rests with Carson City Public Guardian Debi Marzoline. After a series of court hearings, Stanley was removed from their home and put in a nursing home. There was an allegation Thelma was starving him and she was...

Funding Will Research How To Make Solar Panels More Efficient & Minimize Water UseNSF Grant Expected To Employ 100 Technicians, Scientists and StudentsWashington, D.C.- Nevada Senator Harry Reid today joined Chancellor Dan Klaich and officials with the National Science Foundation  in announcing a grant for $20,000,000 which will be awarded to the Nevada System of Higher Education to improve the effectiveness of large-scale solar installations in arid desert lands. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the project, called  “The Solar Energy-Water-Environment Nexus in Nevada,” will be a collaborative effort between the University of Nevada, Reno, the...

The Mini-Golf Tax. The “Iron Man” Tax. The Burning Man Tax. I’m pretty sure most Nevadans enjoy one or more of those activities, which means if Democrats in the Legislature pass their new Nevada Entertainment and Admissions Tax, every Nevadan will curse them when they try to enjoy themselves on the weekend after a long workweek. Wow, this is stupid. So, instead of imposing a corporate tax on Wal-Mart like nearly every other state in the country, you’re going to tax me when I go to the movie theater? So I’ll pay $11.88 instead of $11? I love carrying 12...

The Legislature’s attempt to craft an entertainment tax in 2003 read a little bit like the children’s story of the hen who couldn’t persuade her barnyard animal friends to help her gather and grow grain for the winter. Lawmakers then considered a proposal by the Nevada Taxpayers Association to tax admissions to nearly every form of entertainment and recreation. But when it came time to write the bill, a common refrain was sounded by many targeted for the tax. “Not I!” said the movie theaters. “Not I!” said the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “Not I!” said the baseball parks, bowling...

State and university employees may see a temporary 2.5 percent salary reduction solidified into a permanent pay cut. Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget director Jeff Mohlenkamp told a legislative committee Saturday that the administration may amend a bill to make those salary reductions permanent. As written now, Senate Bill 483 extends current 2.5 percent salary reductions until June 30, 2015, at which time they’d go away and employees would get 2.5 percent of their salaries back. “We would seek to modify that bill to make the pay cut permanent, and then we would make the affirmative decision to restore the pay...

CARSON CITY — Freshman Assemblyman Jim Wheeler’s favorite thing to do at the Legislature: Argue with liberals. From where he hails — the rural ranching town of Gardnerville — there aren’t many of those for the cowboy hat-wearing, retired businessman with a deep, gravely voice to argue with. “It’s so much fun,” the exuberant lawmaker said from his fourth-floor office at the Legislative Building last week. “Where else can you argue with a liberal every day? You argue with one, you can turn around and, look! There’s another!” This session, Wheeler appears to be one of a dwindling breed in...

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has essentially agreed with Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul that the Senate should address weaknesses in the U.S. immigration system in light of last month’s attack in Boston. U.S. Senator Rand Paul had sent a letter to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid after the Boston bombing expressing concern over the refugee program. That program allowed two individuals to move to Bowling Green where they were planning a terrorist attack. “I am not for saying no to an immigration bill, I think the immigration system is broken and we do need immigration reform and I am...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday equated the Tea Party to a non-violent “anarchist” group because, in his mind, Tea Partiers don’t believe in any form of government. He was speaking about the sequester and other financial issues on the Senate floor. “We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years,” Reid said. “When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent. But they were anarchists because they did not...

"I'm black. I'm gay," Atkinson told the assembly, according to the Las Vegas Sun. "I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male." Atkinson, a young single father and Chicago-native, has served as a Democratic member of the state's legislature for more than a decade.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) mocked Second Amendment rights activists while announcing his support for a ban on assault weapons and limits to high-capacity magazine clips on the Senate floor today. REID: In the 1920s, organized crime was committing murders with machine guns. So Congress dramatically limited the sale and transfer of machine guns. As a result, machine guns all but disappeared from the streets. We can and should take the same common-sense approach to safeguard Americans from modern weapons of war. That is why I will vote for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban – because we must strike...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he would support a new ban on assault weapons as an amendment to pending gun control legislation. ""I will vote for Dianne Feinstein's assault weapons ban," Reid said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. "I will vote for assault weapons ban because maintaining law and order and saving lives is more important than preventing imagined tyranny." "Today I choose to vote my conscience, not only as Harry Reid, a United States Senator, but also as a husband, a father, a grandfather, and — I hope — a friend to lots...

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) issued the following statement in opposition to the Manchin-Toomey amendment to S. 649. “When it comes to national policy choices on issues such as Constitutional liberties, gun violence and public safety, the stakes could not be higher. The enormity of this issue has weighed heavily on me. While I was home this past weekend, my family and I ate at the Carson IHOP where four people lost their lives and several were injured. The survivors of that senseless shooting in the morning hours of September 6, 2011, deserve this debate. “I...

The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are shy of the 60 votes they need to move the bipartisan compromise bill on background checks for gun sales. Vice President Joe Biden has been personally calling senators to urge them to support the measure, Democratic aides say. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) began a whip count on Monday, Democratic aides said, and Biden has been pressuring his fellow Democrats to fall in line. Biden’s office did not return an email seeking comment. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are co-sponsoring the proposal that would expand background checks...

RENO, Nev. -- Shots rang out in a Stead neighborhood early Sunday afternoon after two pit bulls attacked a jogger and his dog. It happened on Rising Sun Drive. Police say the man lives in the area and was jogging in a residential area when the pit bulls attacked. "Two loose, unrestrained pit bulls attacked his dog and when he tried to separate the pit bulls and his dog, the pit bulls attacked him," said Sgt. Joe Lever of the Reno Police Department. "He was jogging with a concealed firearm which he has a permit for. He discharged the firearm...

The Republican plan to block debate on Senate Bill 649, which requires background checks on almost all gun purchases and transfers, failed spectacularly Thursday morning when sixteen Republican Senators joined almost all of the Democrats to vote in favor opening debate on the bill. Among those voting to defeat the filibuster were 9 Democrats with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association, and 12 A-rated Republicans (out of 16 Republican “ayes”). Two Democrats, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), joined the majority of Republican Senators who tried to prevent debate, much less a vote, on the bill....

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters on a conference call moments ago that his compromise bill with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on gun background checks “doesn’t change in any way” his “conservative record or views.” The former Club for Growth president acknowledged he was out of his usual legislative area on the issue, but “it became clear to me a bill of some sort was very likely to reach the floor” that would be “badly flawed,” so he reached out to his friend and neighboring state senator Manchin to sit down and talk. “You’re probably used to hearing me talk...

(CNN) – A key player in negotiations over potential gun control legislation said on Tuesday a planned GOP filibuster of the bill won’t occur if Democrats allow Republicans to bring amendments up for a vote. Sen. Tom Coburn, speaking on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront,” said a filibuster that’s been promised by more than a dozen fellow Republicans would prevent Americans from seeing where their elected officials stand on the issue. “It’s not going to be filibustered,” Coburn said, adding that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to offer "an open amendment process" in order for Republicans to agree to...

A little known pro-gun lobby that’s well to the right of the National Rifle Association has complicated efforts to reach a solution on gun control legislation, top Democrats have said in recent days. The Gun Owners of America has been around for decades, operating mostly in obscurity, dwarfed by the lobbying and fundraising prowess of the NRA. The group’s big gripe is that the NRA is too squishy and willing to compromise, and its recent efforts to scuttle gun control legislation appear to be scaring away Republicans amenable to background checks. The results have frustrated Democrats trying to strike a...

A body believed to be that of Nevada's chief insurance examiner was found wrapped in a blanket and bound with duct tape Saturday in a river in Carson City, and four suspects were arrested in the case, authorities said. Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said that while a positive identification and cause of death have not been officially established, investigators believe the body found by searchers in the Carson River is that of William McCune, who disappeared earlier this week. Authorities suspected foul play after finding evidence Thursday of a bloody, violent struggle in McCune's apartment in Carson City....

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s threat to filibuster any new gun restrictions is gathering steam, as a dozen of his Republican colleagues have now signed onto his plan. The Kentucky Republican and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) first wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid late last month to warn him of their intention to try to tie up the Senate if, as planned, Reid moved forward with legislation that would expand background checks and attempt to crack down on interstate gun trafficking. Reid is expected to bring a gun-control bill to the floor as early as next...

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) must know, Americans who own firearms have a special sensitivity to a “Big Brother” federal government that wants to keep centralized records on who owns what guns and where in America. Loose language in his gun control bill (S. 649) could start America down that slippery slope. Since the Second Amendment guarantees to the people the right to keep and bear arms, many Americans look askance at efforts to create centralized records that might some day, in some distant future neither wanted nor expected, facilitate a despotic government’s efforts to disarm the populace...

State employees will no longer have to take unpaid furlough days, starting in July 2014, Gov. Brian Sandoval said. The governor’s original budget had provided for decreasing furlough days from six to three per year for the next two years. An amended plan calls for three furlough days between July 1 and June 30, 2014, and no furlough days between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015. That means state employees will work and collect pay for nine more days than they worked under the current, two-year state budget.

"...and the county's conservative lawmakers have been passing silly-season unconstitutionalities, like a law prohibiting a man from being naked in the presence of a child..."

MESQUITE, Nev. – Five members of a Southern California family were killed Saturday when their van was rear-ended by an 18-year-old driver who was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, authorities said. The dead were among seven family members who were in the van, authorities said. The other two -- the 40-year-old female driver and a 15-year-old boy -- were hospitalized in critical condition. Hixson said only two of the seven people in the van were wearing seatbelts. The five who were not buckled in were ejected, but one survived.

<p>LAS VEGAS – Former Nevada Assemblyman Steven Brooks was arrested near Barstow after a high-speed chase, hours after being expelled from the Legislature because he was “potentially dangerous.”</p> <p>Brooks, 41, was arrested about 7 p.m. Thursday on Interstate 15 at Stoddard Wells Road, officials said. He was being held in the San Bernardino County Jail in Rancho Cucamonga on $100,000 bail, jail officials told the Los Angeles Times.</p>

IN 12th grade, my friend Ryan and I were finalists for the Silver State Scholars, a competition to identify the “Top 100” seniors in Nevada. The finalists were flown to Lake Tahoe for two days of interviews. On the plane, Ryan and I met a boy from Las Vegas. Looking to size up the competition, we asked what high school he went to. He said a name we didn’t recognize and added, “It’s a magnet school.” Ryan asked what a magnet school was, and spent the remaining hour incredulously demanding a detailed account of the young man’s educational history: his...

LAS VEGAS—Former Nevada Assemblyman Steven Brooks has been arrested in California on charges including resisting arrest and throwing objects, just hours after he became the first lawmaker ever expelled from the Nevada Legislature. Jail records show Barstow police arrested Brooks, 41, at about 7 p.m. Thursday on Interstate 15 at Stoddard Wells. "We had started to discuss possible next steps," Mitchell Posin, Brooks' attorney, told The Associated Press Friday. "Next thing I know, I heard about this." Posin said he had no details about the arrest, or about why Brooks was on the interstate in Barstow. Records show the North...

A bipartisan committee of lawmakers voted Tuesday to recommend troubled Assemblyman Steven Brooks, D-North Las Vegas, be expelled from the Legislature. After meeting for nearly three hours behind closed doors, the somber committee members voted 6-to-1 to recommend expulsion. Assemblywoman Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, voted against the expulsion recommendation, saying she believes Brooks should be suspended, rather than expelled. The committee’s recommendation will go to the full Assembly for a vote as early as Wednesday. A two-thirds majority is needed to expel a member.

Each year, Burning Man draws 60,000 people to the Black Rock Desert north of Reno to participate in a weeklong counterculture art festival. Admittance to the bohemia isn’t free, though. You need to buy a $380 ticket. Now, some Democratic legislative leaders are looking at the ticket proceeds and wondering why the state doesn’t get a cut. “It’s how many people and they pay how much?” Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said. “I definitely think we ought to look at that.” Here’s some quick math: 60,000 tickets sold at $380 a pop equals $22.8 million. Apply the state’s...

Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore had some harsh words for Sen. Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats after they decided not to include an assault weapons ban in gun-control legislation. Moore ranted against the Senate majority leader after Reid removed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to prohibit military-style weapons from the bill because they wouldn’t have the votes. The director behind “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11” said people need to “rise up” against the Nevada senator. “There will be an Aurora next month and there will be a Sandy Hook the month after that,” Moore told CNN.....

Soon after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced an assault weapons ban would not be part of a gun control bill, a new CBS News poll shows support for stricter gun control laws overall has dropped since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Currently, support for stricter gun control laws stands at 47 percent today, down from a high of 57 percent just after the shootings. Thirty-nine percent want those laws kept as they are, and another 11 percent want them made less strict. Pared-down Senate gun bill focuses on background checksWH says it doesn't support national gun...

A lawmaker who has been arrested twice in two months, hospitalized for a mental evaluation and accused of threatening to harm a Democratic Party leader could this week become the first person in Nevada history to be kicked out of the Legislature. A select committee plans to convene Tuesday evening to recommend whether Assemblyman Steven Brooks, D-Las Vegas, should be allowed to return to his seat in the Legislature, be expelled, censured or otherwise reprimanded.

Loosen his bow tie and snuggle up, you two,” says Las Vegas photographer Linda Quackenboss, directing a camera-shy couple sitting for portraits in her studio. Reaching out, Phil Pineda does as he’s told and loosens Mel Cole’s bow tie. “There’s my GQ smile!” the petite 53-year-old tells the couple, who will be celebrating their fifth anniversary this fall. “Maybe I can shoot your wedding soon.” For Quackenboss, who estimates that 30 percent of her clientele are members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the suggestion is more than friendly conversation. It’s marketing.

CARSON CITY — Gov. Brian Sandoval has said his administration has two top priorities: education and economic development. When it comes to education, Sandoval has used both the bully pulpit of his office and his budget to call for school choice, ending social promotion, expanding full-day kindergarten and improving funding for programs targeting English-language learners. But Sandoval and his administration have been largely silent on one key issue important to education advocates, school districts and Democrats: reining in class sizes. That’s not to say he’s ignoring it completely.

CARSON CITY -- Mining should pay its fair share, say critics who want to remove the industry’s separate and special constitutional tax rate. Gold prices are high, but the state’s mining industry pays a constitutionally capped tax rate, and the state allows the industry billions of dollars in tax deductions before paying a 5 percent rate. No matter the price of gold and no matter how much of it mining companies take out of Nevada, its tax rate remains the same because of that exemption in the constitution. Lawmakers who would like to collect more from the industry say their...

GLENDALE, Ariz. — There may be very few times that six elected officials surround themselves with pounds of marijuana and invite in photographers, television stations and newspaper reporters. But the cameras were rolling as six Nevada state legislators huddled Friday around a lit display case at Arizona Organix. They peered at an array of green cannabis buds with names like Gucci, Blue Elephant, Purple Kush and Platinum Dream.

A parade of educators told legislative budget committees Saturday that more money must be poured into reducing class sizes in the elementary grades to help students advance. “We have to restore class size,” said Pat Skorkowsky, interim superintendent of the Clark County School District. “Our teachers are asked to do more and more with less.” An overflow crowd in Las Vegas attended the hearing, which was televised from Carson City. Jeremy Christensen, a high school teacher in Clark County, called it child abuse when children are packed into a classroom

Harry Reid will reverse course and allow a tough gun bill to be introduced in the Senate.The Huffington Post reports, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will introduce gun control legislation Thursday night that includes a proposal for universal background checks, a high-ranking source told The Huffington Post."  The liberal website adds:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein emerged from a closed-door meeting with Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday — but her ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines didn’t. Mr. Reid turned down her attempt to bring her ban on 157 different weapons and ammunition clips aboard the Democratic Party’s comprehensive gun bill, Politico reported. “My understanding is it will not be [part of the base bill],” said Mrs. Feinstein, California Democrat. “I would like to [see it moved], but the leader has decided not to do it. … You will have to ask him [why].” Her bill instead will have to...

An explosion at a military ammunition storage facility in Nevada during a Marine Corps training exercise killed seven U.S. Marines and wounded several others, military officials said. The North Carolina-based Marines with the 2nd Marine Division were killed late Monday when a 60-millimeter mortar exploded during a live-fire training exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot as they were preparing to fire it. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was not immediately clear whether the mortar exploded prematurely inside its firing tube or whether more than a single round exploded. The official was not authorized to speak about the...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Las Vegas high school teacher who recently won his job back in arbitration after he was fired several years ago has been suspended. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports 54-year-old John Mannion was sent home from Bonanza High School on Friday after officials learned he faces felony drug trafficking charges. He was arrested last July on suspicion of selling the prescription painkiller Oxycontin to an undercover detective.

Richard Street, for nearly three decades a member of The Temptations, has died. He is the second former member of the fabled Motown group to pass away in two weeks; last week former Tempations tenor Damon Harris died. Both singers can be heard on the 1972 hit "Papa Was A Rolling Stone." Street and Harris joined the band at the tail end of its heyday. Harris was only with the group for four years. Street was being treated for blood clots at Saint Rose Dominican Hospital in Las Vegas, where he died Wednesday morning. He was 70 years old.

As of March 18th, “AM with I.Q., 1230 KJFK” will no longer be on-the air. KJFK recently passed the mark of 8 years as Northern Nevada’s only voice of the Progressive viewpoint. A lone voice apart from other radio stations in Reno airing views, information and attitudes from those who hold a Conservative ideology, and by the way, in competition with us for the ears of people interested the issues so vital to our country. Given the volume of rhetoric dispensed on-air from “the other side”, we felt it vital to remain on-the-air through the 2012 General Election, despite the...

In the 14 months since Stanley Gibson was shot and killed by Metro Police officers, Gibson’s family has struggled with unanswered questions. What was Gibson, a 43-year-old Gulf War veteran allegedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, doing out of the house that fateful December night when police approached him, his older brother Rudy asks. Why did a plan to remove Gibson from his vehicle with beanbag rounds and pepper spray end with him being shot seven times by police officer Jesus Arevalo? And why were police in such a hurry to end the standoff with the unarmed Gibson, whose vehicle...

Las Vegas Township Constable John Bonaventura will not face criminal charges related to his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said. In a statement, Wolfson said that although Bonaventura’s preliminary breath test showed he was over the legal blood-alcohol limit when he was pulled over Feb. 12, that test is not admissible in court. An arrest report indicates he registered a level of 0.099 on that test. A second, admissible breath test showed Bonaventura’s blood-alcohol level at 0.069, below the legal limit of 0.08. That test was administered at the...

Researcher Claims to Have Shot and Killed a Sasquatch Nevada - (Ammoland.com) - Our regular readers will know that I love the story or idea that Bigfoots (or is it Bigfeets, as in more than one) could exist. So regular readers on AmmoLand never mind when we detour and take a break from all the serious news coverage to speculate on the idea that we have a giant man sized, wood booger, hunting the same woods as me and you. The recent gossip is, a controversial big foot researcher, named Rick Dyer, has shot a large bigfoot while filming a...