Commentary
Once again, Biden makes the best of an impossible situation
In a perfect world – or even a really good one – there’s no doubt that the debt ceiling agreement President Biden struck with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the weekend would be a frustration and a disappointment. The agreement will inflict all manner of painful cuts to core public structures and services that are […]
How crosses and mementos help some Marines remember fallen comrades
Many members of the public don’t have a clear understanding of what service means to people in the military. How do they honor their own? What kind of spaces and activities help them reflect and remember – beyond Veterans Day and Memorial Day? We are cultural geographers who study how people’s emotions and connections with […]
BLM rulemaking is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape conservation policy
While it may not receive the national headlines other federal agencies do, the Bureau of Land Management is one of the most consequential agencies in the federal government. Very soon, it could be one of our biggest sources of action to take on climate change. Altogether, BLM oversees 48 million acres in Nevada and nearly […]
The Republican base is driving Lombardo, but ARPA built the session
Two factors underlying a bread and circuses legislative session have little if anything to do with decisions made by state lawmakers: The March 2021 enactment of the American Rescue Plan Act, and Gov. Joe Lombardo’s fear of the Republican base. Since it’s orders of magnitude more important, let’s start with ARPA. When sworn in as […]
Is the governor’s threat much ado about nothing?
This past Friday, just as Clark County lawmakers were boarding planes heading back to see their families for the weekend, Gov. Joe Lombardo laid down a gauntlet. He threatened to veto a school safety bill that was heard the day before in the Senate Committee on Education unless HIS school safety bill was also heard. […]
Unionized bodies in topless bar! Strippers join servers and baristas in new labor movement
Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in Los Angeles have voted to become the only unionized strippers in the U.S. – joining a growing trend of young employees seeking workplace protection though labor mobilization. On May 18, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board announced that balloted employees at the topless bar had voted […]
The biggest government giveaway in Nevada history will also be the silliest
Poor Elon Musk. Count all the tax breaks, cash and other prizes Nevada has given him, and they’ll total less than $2 billion. The film tax credit scheme currently whizzing through the Nevada Legislature is estimated to total just shy of $5 billion. Under the original 2014 deal, the vast majority of benefits the state […]
CCSD Board does not need appointed trustees. It needs oversight.
One of the most contentious bills in Carson City right now, some 20 days from the end of session, is AB175 – appointing four members to the Clark County School District Board of Trustees. Those four members would be chosen by the Clark County Commission and the three largest cities in the county – which […]
A bread and circuses legislative session
Nevada has a lot of long-neglected needs that cry out for urgent policy responses. A movie studio isn’t one of them. A legislative hearing is scheduled Tuesday on a bill to give nearly $200 million a year in tax credits for 20 years to Sony and another film production company to be named later. Tax credits, of […]
We can’t solve the climate crisis by causing extinction
Tiehm’s buckwheat, the rare wildflower at the center of controversy for supposedly “standing in the way” of a lithium mine, is teetering on the edge of extinction. Dubious conservation programs, touted loudly by a mining company and its boosters, not only will fail to prevent the plant’s extinction in its natural range, but they do […]
Nevadans are offered ‘100% certainty’ that billionaires need ‘incentives,’ and 0% proof
“I can tell you with 100% certainty that the Tesla truck factory in the latest expansion was set for Texas and would not have been here in Northern Nevada but for the abatements,” Tom Burns, the executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development told state lawmakers last week. Burns made that statement during […]
Armed and afraid: The high price of fear
A teenage boy rings the wrong doorbell and is shot in the face. A 20-year-old woman is fatally shot when she and her friends pull into the wrong driveway. Two cheerleaders are shot when one accidentally gets into the wrong car. And a 6-year-old is shot when kids chase a basketball into a neighbor’s yard. These tragic events seem incomprehensible. But we got […]