Monthly archive
TONIGHT'S RALSTON REPORTS: Student loans.
DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY 2014: 481
DAYS UNTIL THE TEEN CAN AFFECT THE POLITICAL WORLD: 1
Good morning, everyone. Set your DVRs: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will make a rare Sunday show appearance Reid on “Meet the Press" (hat tip to Steve Tetreault). As we all know – and as Mark Leibovich shows in his new book – when Prince Harry speaks, anything can happen. And when he goes on TV programs...
TONIGHT'S RALSTON REPORTS: Third anniversary of Erik Scott shooting, and there's a new book.
DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY 2014: 482
DAYS UNTIL THE TEEN CAN AFFECT THE POLITICAL WORLD: 2
Good morning, everyone. The Harry Reid hits just keep on coming from Mark Leibovich’s new book, “The Town,” which will officially be released next week. The latest, via Salon, contains this gem:
“On Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer’s reactions to the news that...
Good morning, everyone. Am I the only one in the country not obsessed with the Zimmerman trial? How are all of these cable TV stations making the decision to have this wall-to-wall coverage? Whoops. I spoke too soon. I have just received the memo: Tonight’s “Ralston Reports” is on local reaction to the trial so far: Guilty or not guilty? YOU be the judge!
Speaking of soap operas, I am eagerly awaiting my copy of “This Town,” which is Timesman Mark Leibovich’s apparently scorching takedown of...
Good morning, everyone. Did you miss me? OK, don’t answer that. I can’t handle the truth. I see I didn’t miss much beyond newly minted CD3 hopeful Erin Bilbray morphing immediately into Dean Heller (it’s US vs. DC!). Ah, the summer doldrums. But fear not, dear Flashees: I am back to make sure something happens or make stuff up----
Of course there are no doldrums in New York City, with a Weiner-Spitzer ticket now a real possibility. Which gets me to thinking: The Republicans have no obvious...
Good morning, everyone. Yes, history was made Thursday when the U.S. Senate, with more than two-thirds voting aye, passed comprehensive immigration reform. But whither goes it now? Looks like best-case scenario is that some pieces of it will pass out of the House, although that sort of defeats the whole “comprehensive purpose, no? My favorite post-vote news release was from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, gushing about Dean Heller’s support. No mention from the progressives of...
Good morning, everyone. I suppose I should be flattered. After all, it’s not every day that a U.S. senator attacks you on the floor of the world’s greatest deliberative body – even obliquely. But that’s just what Sen. Dean Heller did during his predictable yet awkward embrace of immigration reform on Wednesday. I wasn’t flattered, however, by the junior senator’s petulance. I was more stunned, then saddened.
So I offered this restrained response.
What’s below: Nevada and SJR 13, “newspaper”...
Good morning, everyone. The “newspaper” “news flash” popped up in my inbox at 11:17 PM, headlined, “Texas Senate GOP passes restrictive abortion bill.” Then, at 1:11 AM, a new one came in, with this headline: “Texas abortion bill falls after challenge” No correction. No explanation. Indeed, both links now go to the the real story, which is that the bill failed after a spectacular filibuster (I watched part of the livestream as did tens of thousands of others). The AP got it wrong, and many news...
Good morning, everyone. I’m not sure why the president isn’t in Las Vegas today to announce his climate change measures that have no chance in Congress. It’s going to be 115 this weekend, I hear, and if that’s not because of global warming, then what is causing it? (I am just auditioning to be an editorial writer at the “newspaper,” you see.) By the way, I bet Warren Buffett is salivating even more about NV Energy when he sees what the bills the next three months look like here.
On an...
Good morning, everyone. More good news early this AM for the Sandoval Re-Election Campaign as the state’s unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent. It’s now 9.3 percent in Las Vegas and 9.2 percent in Reno. “I am pleased that May’s 9.5 percent unemployment rate marks the lowest rate in Nevada since 2008,” began the ever-sunny, rote quote from Gov. Brian Sandoval in the state’s release. So the economy is improving, his popularity is soaring, his war chest will be teeming. Game. Over.
Quite a...
Good morning, everyone. Like many, I was shocked and saddened to learn of James Gandolfini’s death in Italy on Wednesday. For those of you who were not fans of “The Sopranos,” I urge you to go appreciate it now. Gandolfini was an excellent character actor (See him in “Get Shorty”) before he ever got the role of his lifetime. But no one has ever inhabited a role in a series quite as Gandolfini did Tony Soprano. He was the center of a series that had a tremendous ensemble cast and got the...