Monthly archive

Welcome to The Weekly Report. This week, you get two exclusive documents -- one that details the massive property tax breaks for properties in Clark County while also showing who is losing money, and another is a White Pine County analysis of the impact of the mining tax; also. The Weekly Insiders weigh in on: 1. The latest Roberson gambit 2. The patient-dumping scandal and the governor's handling of it and whethere it has any political impact 3. Crystal balls on SJR 13 and SJR 15 As always, I...
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid solicited money from a donor who gave $100,000 to a SuperPAC linked to the senator, which dances very close to a legal prohibition. Will Kemp was a prime player in this fascinating story by the Review-Journal's excellent capital reporter, Steve Tetreault,  about the timing of the contribution to the Senate Majority PAC in proximity to the majority leader pushing one of his law partners for a federal judgeship. When I talked to Kemp on Saturday, he told me Reid...
UPDATED: I'm also told Steve Wynn has decided to get engaged in the tax discussion and has called lawmakers, even going so far as to say he might come to Carson City next week. The gist of his pitch: Tax mining, not gaming! It's 1989 all over again. Please come to Carson in the springtime, Mr. Wynn. ---- I chatted with Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis and some other sources, Democratic and Republican, after a teachers union town hall Saturday morning and learned that the Democrats actually do...
During a time when state lawmakers are looking for more money, major gaming companies are enjoying the benefits of an anachronistic state law that grants $100 million in property tax breaks in Clark County. Public records show those benefiting are led by Wynn Las Vegas, which enjoys a $6.3 million tax break, easily outdistancing the $3.8 million abatement given to the second luckiest taxpayer, The Fontainebleau, which, by the way, is not open. The rest of the top 15, listed below, are all...
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has agreed to participate in an immigration march in downtown Las Vegas next week with organized labor and other groups. Reps. Steven Horsford and Dina Titus also are expected to participate in the Las Vegas May Day Rally. The federal types are expected to give brief remarks as well. It is expected to start about 5 PM on Wednesday -- good timing for live television coverage.... The march will move from the federal buidling to St. Louis Square and seems likely...
One day before the Manchin-Toomey gun bill was introduced and one week before he announced he would oppose it, Sen. Dean Heller told a consitutent in writing that "we can take reasonable steps to ensure that we do not infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens while also keeping guns out of the hands of those who are potentially violent or mentally ill." So what's the big deal? Maybe there isn't one, but the letter, attached here, indicates that either: 1. Heller was...
The Ron Paul forces will not go gently into the good night as the Establishment tries to take over the Republican Party. That's the message of an email that went out in advance of next month's Clark County GOP elections from a prominent Paul supporter and national convention delegate. Richard Bunce, who helped Cindy Lake, another Paulite, become chairman, and whose brother, Carl, ran the Nevada Paul campaign, this week wrote the email I have reproduced below and sent it far and wide. This...
Four U.S. senators released their draft this morning of a new nuclear waste strategy, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski summing up the frustratiuon of some: "While I continue to support Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository site, I also recognize the current realities that make that outcome unlikely at this time." I have attached a summary of the measure, which would create a new federal agency outside of DOE to manage nuclear waste, and would ask for states to volunteer to store the waste, as...
I wanted to believe this session was going to be different. It isn’t. I wanted to believe Democrats, who talked about talking, had a plan. They don’t. I wanted to believe we might really get what we were promised – tax reform, a broad-based business tax. We won’t. I feel like I am watching a rerun of a rerun of a rerun of a rerun. It’s déjà vu all over again, but of the worst kind. As the Democrats have declared everything is on the tax table, they have not drawn up chairs and now have (again)...

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