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Opinion
‘A World Within a State Apart’
Nevada’s new official slogan “A World Within a State Apart” has generated a lot of comment both for and against.
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Sandoval: favorite political pet tricks
Gov. Brian Sandoval chose to pay homage to NRA PAC money rather than protect Nevada’s children from possible massacres on our streets, on the playground and in our schools.
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Googling for liquid Romanian castanets
Other than doing our laundry, what should we do about Big Brother peeking into our collective lace undies?
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Tennessee congressman wins 2013 chutzpah trophy
Rep. Stephen Fincher of Tennessee has already won the 2013 chutzpah award.
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Obama Circling the Wagons
News last week that President Obama had elevated the controversial Susan Rice to be his new National Security Advisor was further proof that the chief executive has reinvented the old Western defense of “Circling the Wagons” when under attack. Rice is best known for promulgating the false “anti-Muslim video” story about the cause of the Benghazi disaster. In her defense, many democratic leaders have said numerous times that she was only repea...
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Ester Williams: More than just a pretty face
Another movie legend bit the dust. Last week, Ester Williams left us at the age of 91. Not bad for a girl who started out as a championship swimmer and finished as an accomplished movie star, social celebrity and political activist. Williams' epitaph printed in USA Today was only half right. It said that Williams was one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers because she appeared in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her “wholesome...
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Congress, taxes and ‘dark’ money in politics
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, recently charmed Senate panelists so sweetly that his corporation’s tax avoidance became a wonderful thing rather than the outrage it is. Here was the fiery Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, bowing and scraping before the huge tax evader while holding aloft an Apple ‘app’ like a happy consumer. “We love the iPhone and iPad,” chairman Levin exulted at a hearing held by the investigations committee. As the New York Times reporte...
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Enron II: Nevada's Battle-Born Toxic Event
You just bought the best investment advice in the world for which Warren Buffet will make you pay for the rest of your life. Last week came word that the legendary billionaire investor is buying NVEnergy for about $10 billion. Thanks to last-minute legislative skulduggery, he will get the closest thing to a deregulated monopoly outside of major league baseball and insurance. NVE's hit men did a braggy half-hour with TV commentator Jon Ralsto...
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AG Holder Moves to the Forefront
With major scandals continuing to swirl about the Obama White House, a new figure has taken the spotlight in the form of Attorney General Eric Holder. The embattled AG’s latest ploy in the ongoing attack on media was to call a Press Conference which all media could attend. Unfortunately, they could only show up if they agreed to keep the discussion OFF the record. Fortunately, many of the majors decided to boycott the closed-door session. ...
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Whittemore conviction: What did Sen. Reid know?
The recent conviction of political operative, corporate stooge and real estate developer Harvey Whittemore, who at one time was called "one of Nevada's most powerful men"is proof that lobbyists should not be fundraisers for any political candidate.  In general, it demonstrates how corrupt government is from the top down and it confirms that all branches of political power are influenced by lobbyists and money. Specifically, it makes you wonder...
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Sexual assaults, global dominance besmirch military
The Pentagon recently revealed a double case of foxes guarding its chicken coops. In one case an Army sergeant serving as sexual assault coordinator at Fort Hood in Texas is under investigation for sexual assault. In the other, an Air Force lieutenant colonel in charge of preventing sexual assault has been arrested for feeling a woman’s breasts and buttocks in a parking lot in Arlington, Va. The cases illustrate the terrible problem the milit...
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The 2013 Nevada student legislative glossary
We elected them, so you know this is gonna hurt. The Nevada Legislature will shut down next week, perpetuating our penny-pinching, pettifogging production of ever-expanding percentages of poorly prepared post-pubescent misfits, misanthropes and dropouts. As usual, the Tribune investigative team spared every expense to obtain student answers to the 2013 legislative civics quiz. Herewith, the brazen, bizarre and bizarrely astute. WARREN BUFF...
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Malice in Wonderland: DC politics mimics classic tale
When the fictional Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole, she encountered a world where everything seemed backward to normal. One can almost take that same journey today if he or she is a constant observer of the world as seen by Washington D.C. The hearings last week best illustrated this point when the IRS woman, Lori Lerner, took the stand in front of a Congressional committee. After taking the oath to tell the truth, she immediately opened...
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Tribune's readers respond to food stamp discussion
Last week’s column on possible budgetary cuts reducing food stamps for one out of every seven poor, needy, homeless and hungry working poor Americans — cuts I was opposed to —  generated some interesting feedback from the faithful readers of the Sparks Tribune web-site. Republicans cited their Christianity as a basis to justify their reduction of assistance to the needy, saying “we should be doing this as individuals, helping the poor.” In o...
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Longing for the wisdom of the grateful dead
Mr. Wynnderfull and the Ghost Rider have served notice that the peons shall again grovel for crumbs falling from the feast of the fat. The Nevada Legislature is performing as ordered, subsidizing the businesses of Steve Wynn and Nicolas Cage at the expense of their lessers without lobbyists: little kids who can't vote or shoot back as supposedly wise elders play cowboys and Indians in three-piece suits. BALLOT BOXING. Local citywide voting w...
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Obama plunges down corporate rabbit hole
Whatever hope many of us had in 2008 for electing Barack Obama president is rendered ridiculous by his recent naming of Penny Pritzker as secretary of commerce.   “The despicable appointment boosts corporate power and shafts the public,” social critic Norman Solomon writes. “Obama’s frequent boast of standing up for working people against special interests tumbles, his integrity becomes laughable.” Pritzker was Obama’s heavyweight fundraiser ...
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Scandals reach critical mass
Certainly last week was the worst period in the short second-term Obama administration. The long-running Benghazi scandal was surpassed by two new revelations. One concerned the DOJ confiscating the phone records of the Associated Press. The other was the IRS mishandling of conservative groups’ requests for tax-exempt status. As usual a flustered President Obama said he was unaware of the two matters and had only learned about them through...
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The wealthy Christian Republican
The Republicans are at it again: Now they’re demanding cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. The food stamp program feeds one out of every seven poor Americans including undernourished children, the working poor and the starving elderly. Last week, the House and Senate Agriculture Committee began deliberations on reducing the almost $80billion annual budget by three percent over a five year period. Republicans cited t...
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Clichés and clutter spoil art of writing
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon. — William Zinsser in “On Writing Well” Monkey see, monkey do. Writers and headline editors are like that. They see words and phrases in print and republish them so often they become clichés. We have President Obama’s “signature” health care legislation and a basketball team’s “signature”...
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Star-stuck: Dirty deals for dirty movies
"My opponent supported shunting school money to porno films." I guarantee such words will surface in 2014 campaign attack ads. Blame Nicholas (Coppola) Cage, the Oscar-winning actor who slummed in Carson City last week to demand corporate welfare for Hollywood. Senate Bill 165 was introduced by a bi-partisan pack of lawmakers who view it as a good idea even if it takes money from schools, roads, parks, police and fire protection. Those publ...
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