Tag: Nevada

“Measurable”

 

“Teri says call her,” my wife relayed to me deplaning the aircraft in Reno. It was 9:30 p.m. “Oh no, he’s gone,” I thought as I dialed the phone. My dad was on final and I was vigorously trying to get to Carson City Nevada before he passed. This trip from Virginia had been a series of stressful legs as each time I hit the ground I would check my phone to see his status. In Reno, it turned out they were sending Daniel, my nephew and Carson City Sheriff, for me so he could whisk me to Carson quickly. My wife would stay, gather the luggage, and follow on with my sister’s husband. My dad was hanging on.

I linked up with Daniel and made the 25-minute drive in 12 minutes.  Arriving at my dad’s apartment I gave Daniel a hug and moved to the back room where my dad was in a hospice-supplied medical bed. He was not conscious. We had been giving him morphine in decreasing time intervals for a day now and he now was at 15-minute intervals. I hugged my sister Teri and my niece Meliah and sat on the edge of my dad’s bed. Holding his hand, I told him I loved him, that I forgave him for his shortcomings as a dad, and asked for forgiveness for my shortcomings as a son.  It was settling. My wife arrived about 30 minutes after me and joined the fray. We then all sat in this room for the next 40 minutes. It is as if he was satisfied that we were all there and everything was OK. His breathing intervals slowed then around 11 p.m. Tuesday, 6 December, he passed.

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Many of us saw it coming after surprising results from “Election Day.” At this writing, another Republican lost after a painfully slow recount in an all-mail ballot election, several days after “Election Day,” a now-quaint notion. Thanks to all manner of early voting schemes, in person and via mail, we now have “Election Season.” No […]

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Join Jim and Greg as they break down the latest polling on the Senate race in Nevada which has Republican Adam Laxalt ahead of incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. They also shake their heads in response to news that Frank James, the suspect in the subway shooting in Brooklyn, was on the FBI’s radar as recently as 2019. This incident is only the latest in a string of cases where the perpetrator was known to the agency before they committed violent actions. And after two weeks, it is obvious that CNN+, CNN’s new premium streaming service, is a pathetic failure with an average viewership of only 10,000 viewers a day.

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Two disclaimers; first of all, I am not a lawyer. Second is that I have learned to never assume that any politician is some super-genius executing a plan above my capacity to discern or comprehend. I watched too many people fool themselves with the idea that George W. Bush’s politically disastrous silences were part of […]

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Start your week with the Three Martini Lunch as we dissect the good, the bad, and the crazy concerning the Nevada Democratic Caucuses. Join Jim and Greg as they experience more than a little bit of schadenfreude as Democrats thoroughly freak out over Bernie Sanders dominating the vote on Saturday. But they get more serious as ’60 Minutes’ and even CNN remind everyone how radical Sanders is and how he praised Fidel Castro and Marxists in Nicaragua and the Soviet Union. And they unload on Nevada Democrats for running terrible caucuses plagued by having too few officials to run some precincts effectively and still not finishing the vote totals by Monday morning.

Bernie Hits Jackpot in Nevada

 

The Nevada Caucus precinct results are coming in, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to win big.

“In Nevada, and in New Hampshire and in Iowa — what we showed is that our volunteers are prepared to knock on hundreds and hundreds of thousands of doors,” Sanders said at his victory speech in San Antonio. “That no campaign has a grassroots movement like we do, which is another reason why we’re going to win this election.”

Here’s where the official count stands (updated on Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET, 50% of precincts in):

Your Friday treat is three crazy martinis, but only after basking in the glow of the 40th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice and the national morale boost a bunch of unheralded college kids gave us by defeating the supposedly unbeatable Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics.  Then, join Jim and Greg and as they bang their heads against the table after Nevada Democrats say they can’t promise results of Saturday’s caucuses on the same day they’re held. They also weigh in on Michael Bloomberg’s video of crickets chirping and his fellow Democrats shifting uncomfortably when he asked if any of them had ever started a business – was it deception or just a candidate making a point? And as California Gov. Gavin Newsom says doctors should be able to prescribe housing just like they prescribe insulin and antibiotics, Jim offers Newsom a devastating reminder of which party led California into the homelessness crisis and many other problems.

Democrat Debate Recap: Crabs in a Bucket

 

When you’re shucking a bucket of crabs, the smart ones try like hell to escape. But as soon as one gets to the edge of freedom, the rest of the crabs yank him back down. That was the Democratic debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas.

Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner but would lose if the so-called moderate lane unified behind a single candidate. Instead, the other five Democrats spent two hours pulling each other down, leaving the Brooklyn Bolshevik free to yell about whatever it is he yells about.

Mike Bloomberg got quite the hazing in this, his first debate. Elizabeth Warren opened with a savage attack.

Counting the Cards in Nevada

 

President Trump is putting Nevada in play for the 2020 election. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project has always been a political hot potato and a hole in the ground into which Congress pours money. Senator Dean Heller, like Senator Reid before him, is opposed to the Yucca Mountain project, and there are likely not the votes to force the issue. Now the story in important Las Vegas news outlets is President Trump is on Nevada’s side.

This is very savvy. Presidents, Congress, and bureaucrats have been talking but never actually acting to use Yucca Mountain. Over decades, surely smarter answers have emerged than transporting and concentrating high-level nuclear waste in one location.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America break down the news of Maine and Nevada refusing to join the popular vote pact to change presidential elections. Michael Avenatti is on his way to losing his license to practice law. And Baltimore’s Mayor wants criminals to swap bullets for boxing gloves.

Do Nevada Kids Belong to the State or to Their Parents?

 

Spend more than five minutes with a teenager and you’ll likely notice a fairly obvious observation: teenagers don’t always make the best decisions. There’s a reason God gave kids parents. We know, without a doubt, from study after study and personal experience that an adolescent’s brain is actively developing on the daily. According to a 2013 study, referring specifically to adolescence, the researcher notes, “Particularly significant changes occur in the limbic system, which may impact self-control, decision making, emotions, and risk-taking behaviors.” Yep. That sounds like a teenager to me.

Nevada Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel seems to agree with these findings considering she recently introduced AB 187 into the current legislative session. The bill requires bicycle helmets for any child under the age of 18. When questioned why she chose 18 (many states that have similar helmet laws limit the age to 16 or 15 and under), her response essentially was that 18 is when a child becomes an adult. The implication is that minors are not capable of making good decisions about their safety.

But apparently, parents aren’t capable of making good decisions about the safety of their children either. Hence the $15 fine for parents who don’t abide by the government’s edict.

[Member Post]

 

A 19 year old illegal alien scumbag killed 4 people in Northern Nevada. Wilbur Ernesti Martinez-Guzman started his killing spree on Jan. 9th or 10th, when he killed his first victim in Gardnerville Ranchos, an upscale residential neighborhood in Gardnerville, Nevada and victim 2 on Dresslerville Road near by — only a few miles from where I work. […]

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America get a laugh out of Nevada Sen. Dean Heller’s attack ad, in which he exposes Democratic Senate challenger Jacky Rosen for lying about owning a business that never existed. They also call for Senate Republicans to act on hundreds of bills that the House of Representatives has passed but lie dormant in the upper chamber. And they think it’s time for a widespread rebuke of Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy show where he impersonates a disabled veteran.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America offer all crazy martinis, starting with the fire that caused a power outage and snarled all air traffic at America’s busiest airport but officials say their emergency plans worked swimmingly.  They also react to Sen. Joe Manchin blasting his fellow Democrats and urging Sen. Al Franken to withdraw his resignation.  And they sigh over the revelation that Harry Reid and two other senators sneaked $22 million in UFO research dollars into the budget back in 2007.  Way to go, Nevada.  Way to go.

Carpe Diem: Fix the Nevada ESA Funding Issue

 

In 2015, Nevada lawmakers passed the most ambitious educational choice law in the nation: a nearly universal education savings account (ESA) program. The program was scheduled to launch this year, but it immediately drew two separate lawsuits from opponents of educational choice. As I reported last week, the Supreme Court of Nevada upheld the constitutionality of the ESAs, but ruled that the program was improperly funded. Choice opponents were quick to declare that the ESA program is dead, but as Tim Keller of the Institute for Justice noted, the program is only mostly dead, which means it is slightly alive.

Whether the program is fully revived depends entirely on the lawmakers who won plaudits for enacting it in the first place. On Monday, the legislature will meet in a special session to consider whether to subsidize the construction of a football stadium for the Raiders. Fixing the ESA funding would be a much more productive and beneficial use of their time. Sadly, Governor Brian Sandoval announced this week that ESAs would not be on the agenda:

[Member Post]

 

I’m running for the Illinois General Assembly and one of my main issues is changing the way Illinois pays for education. I’ve been looking around for programs that give a bigger role to parents and am drawn to Nevada’s Educational Savings Account. I’d like to hear from any Ricochetti who are Nevada residents to get […]

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Do Guns and Medical Marijuana Mix? A Ninth Circuit Decision Says No.

 

gunweedWednesday, in Wilson v. Lynch, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed down a decision holding that the federal government was within its rights when it decreed, via an open letter to all gun dealers, that any person who held a state license to use marijuana for medical purposes was banned from purchasing a weapon. The ruling applied even though it was in a collision course with the Second Amendment guarantee of the right “to keep and bear arms.”

To people not versed in the law, the decision reads like a bundle of technicalities. Come to think of it, for those who are versed in the law, the same conclusion holds.

The alleged conflict arises because of an uneasy truce between Nevada and federal law. Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug, which means that it is deemed “no currently accepted medical use in treatment” and further that “[t]here is a lack of accepted safety for use of the . . . substance under medical supervision.” At the same time many states, including Nevada, have passed laws that allow for the use of medical marijuana by people whose dire health conditions warrant its use.

A Victory for Religious Liberty and Educational Choice in Nevada

 

School ChoiceDismissing a challenge from the ACLU, yesterday Las Vegas District Court Judge Eric Johnson ruled that Nevada’s education savings account (ESA) program is constitutional. Nevada parents who opt out of the public school system can receive ESAs into which the state deposits a portion of the funding that the state would have provided had their child attended a public school. Parents can then use the ESA funds on a wide variety of approved educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, text books, homeschool curricula, online learning, educational therapy, or even college courses.

The ESA program was set to go into effect this year, however, it is still on hold due to a second lawsuit in which a judge issued an injunction halting administration of the program. That case is currently pending before the Nevada Supreme Court, and it is possible that the two legal challenges will be merged.

The ACLU challenged the ESA law on two central grounds, claiming that it violated the Nevada Constitution’s “uniformity” clause and the state’s historically anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment. Siding with the state of Nevada and the Institute for Justice, the court rejected these claims.