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There never will be another Pat Mulroy. No one will ever possess the unique combination of toughness, knowledge and indomitability, not to mention longevity, that Mulroy brought to her job as the water overseer of Southern Nevada. I almost started that previous sentence with “no woman” but then I checked myself because that would diminish how important Mulroy has been, a truly historic figure who could have been a credible candidate for governor (she thought about it a decade and a half ago)...
That and other gems come from the neverending clown show headed by Michael McDonald. Permit me to reprint his latest missive to the faithful, with helpful annotations: Dear State Central Committee Member,   There have been quite a few rumors circulating in the media and the blogosphere about the endorsing process that the Central Committee directed the nominating committee to develop. Today the Nominating Committee issued a release to address some of the errors, such as:   The Nominating...
Sheldon Adelson, the most successful gambling entrepreneur in history, is terrified. If web gaming is legalized, the self-made multibillionaire and mega-donor insists, big-name Silicon Valley companies will invest heavily in the business, eventually coming to dominate the market with their superior technology and global reach. States will smell money and levy taxes. And then it will happen: the apocalypse, sayeth the Cassandra of gaming soothsayers, who is putting his fortune where his crystal...
Sen. Dean Heller was on CNN's "Crossfire" on Tuesday and was asked about Ted Cruz filibustering the debt limit, which the Nevadan said he was wrong to do. And today, Heller voted to....filibuster the debt limit. I kid you not. Here's the CNN exchange in full:   VAN JONES, CROSSFIRE HOST:  Well, listen, we're excited because we actually have the threat to America's full faith and credit removed.  We can move forward, except your colleague, Ted Cruz, has now announced he is going to filibuster. ...
The Big Lie that those criticizing the Nevada Republican Party endorsement process are the Establishment types is over. Thus endeth the attempt to hornswoggle by Chairman Michael McDonald and his puppet masters at Citizen Outreach, the faux nonpartisan group full of sound and fury and accomplishing nothing. The Tea Party has arrived in the form of a group that has much more credibility to be anti-Establishment than anyone in this debate. Roger Stockton, the co-founder with his son of the...
Yes, I get that all of Nevada's business leaders want to kill The Education Initiative (I bet they love how that sounds). And I get that the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, the southern chapter of the margin tax killing machine, would love to change the subject to the archaic statewide education funding formula known as The Nevada Plan. But this is not just apples and oranges; it is millions and billions. And on Tuesday, after Clark County School Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky spoke to the...
UPDATE: Want to know how easy it was for me to find one of these groups that hates gambling in general, not just web gaming, and believes it causes addictions and social ills?  This easy. "The Louisiana Family Forum has a long history of opposing gambling..." The religious right does not like gambling, unless, of course, it's Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff pitting one interest against the other. Trust me, folks: This Louisiana group is just the tip of the iceberg. The religious right hates...
The proposed margin tax will bring in between $650 million and $750 million a year, bringing business revenue in the state to more than $1 billion annually. Those are the findings of numbers maven Jeremy Aguero, who is preparing a report for the coalition opposing "The Education Initiative." The actual gross revenue from the margin tax is about $1 billion, according to Aguero's calculations, with the net estimate arrived at from credits to businesses paying the payroll tax. But they still pay...
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney will be the lead speaker at a March meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, with embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also expected to attend, I've learned. The event will be chock full of potential 2016 hopefuls, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer also are scheduled at the March 28-30 conference. The meeting will take...

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