McCarran Gets Largest Chunk Of Airport Grants

Posted in News Clips | 08/05/10 | FAA Grants $3.8M To Nevada Airports McCarran Airport in Las Vegas will get the largest share of nearly $4 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants for four major Nevada airports. The money will be split among McCarran, North Las Vegas Airport, Boulder City Municipal Airport and Elko Regional Airport in northern Nevada. McCarran’s share, more than $1 million, will allow officials to acquire new land for aircraft approaching the airport. In North Las Vegas, about $919,000 will pay to install…

Progress in the Senate

Posted in News Clips | 08/05/10 | Las Vegas Sun Editorial Senate on verge of saving teachers’ jobs and bolstering Medicaid Good things can happen when Democrats break through Republican logjams in the Senate. We wish this would happen more often, but the current group of Republican senators has been impossible to deal with because they have shown no interest in lending a hand to turn around the nation’s battered economy. Republicans have consistently voted against legislation to create jobs and give small businesses the relief they need to survive and…

Obama admin skewers GOP attack on stimulus cocaine monkeys

Posted in News Clips | 08/05/10 | By Greg Sargent Are your stimulus dollars really being wasted on getting monkeys high on crack and cocaine? In recent days, select Republicans and conservatives have taken to bashing the Obama administration over this claim. Sharron Angle has blasted Dems for giving money to "coked-up stimulus monkeys," and many others on the right have taken a similar tack. Turns out, however, that this money is actually being spent on research into how to treat drug addiction in humans. And the Obama administration is…

Big win for Reid on teacher money

Posted in News Clips | 08/04/10 | By David Rogers With key support from Maine Republicans, a $26.1 billion fiscal aid package for states and local governments advanced in the Senate Wednesday after Democrats agreed to offset the spending with major cuts from their own priorities — including food stamps for the poor. The back-to-back 61-38 roll calls are a major triumph for Democrats after months of partisan stalemate and breathe new life into hopes that Congress will intercede to avert threatened public school teachers this fall. This has been…

Sharron Angle avoids paying taxes on campaign staff payroll

Posted in News Clips | 08/04/10 | By Anjeanette Damon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s campaign has accused his Republican rival, Sharron Angle, of attempting to skirt tax law by paying her staff as independent contractors instead of employees subject to payroll taxes. Since she filed to run, Angle has paid her staff as consultants and as such has made no payments to the Internal Revenue Service. Although not uncommon for political candidates, the practice could raise legal issues with the IRS if she doesn’t carefully follow the rules dictating…

Angle: The Press Should ‘Ask The Questions We Want To Answer’

Posted in News Clips | 08/03/10 | Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle's understanding of the political press appears to have even conservative outlets scratching their heads. The Tea Party favorite made another peculiar remark during an interview with Fox News on Monday evening, explaining that she wanted "to have the press be our friend," and "ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported." This may seem like a candid admission from a candidate…

Preventing more spills

Posted in News Clips | 08/03/10 | Senate should follow House by tightening offshore oil drilling regulations It is unfortunate that it often takes a tragedy before Congress acts on needed legislation, whether the subject is Wall Street reform, product safety or homeland security. The debacle of the past four months caused by the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a mishap caused by an oil rig explosion in April that killed 11 workers, is the latest example of a tragedy that cries for…

Nevada Public Utilities Commission OKs NV Energy plan

Posted in News Clips | 08/02/10 | Nevada utility regulators have approved a sweeping 20-year development plan for Nevada's main electric utility that includes a $510 million transmission line, $301 million in "smart" meters and more than 400 megawatts of renewable-power purchases. State Public Utilities Commission approval Wednesday for the NV Energy integrated resource plan gave the go-ahead for building a 235-mile transmission line from Ely to the Las Vegas area. It will for the first time connect northern and southern parts of the state. NV Energy…

Treasury: 5.6M Hires Qualify for New Tax Break

Posted in News Clips | 08/02/10 | Businesses have hired 5.6 million workers under a new program that provides tax breaks for hiring unemployed workers, the Treasury Department said Monday. The report, however, does not estimate how many of those jobs would have been added without the tax break. President Barack Obama signed a law in March that exempts businesses hiring people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through December. Employers get an additional $1,000…

Sharron Angle Senate Campaign: How To Lose An 11-Point Lead In 7 Weeks

Posted in News Clips | 07/30/10 | By Elyse Siegel Following Tea Party-backed candidate Sharron Angle's come-from-nowhere win in Nevada's Republican primary, the conservative hopeful has found herself trekking along a rocky road in her quest to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the state of the race as it stood just seven weeks ago:     Nevadans were down on their senior senator, according to the polls. The "tea party" movement was zeroing in on him as representative of all that's wrong with big-government…