Author: Tom Darby

The Nevada Legislature has taken up one of those questions that folks tend to tiptoe around like a sleeping dog with a known temper. Assembly Bill 346, a proposal that would allow terminally ill Nevadans to seek medical assistance in ending their lives, made its way to committee this week with all the gravity such a subject deserves.

Governor Joe Lombardo, a man not much given to dancing around the issue, made his position plain as a mule’s tail in a dust storm–he won’t be signing it.

In a statement posted online—where every statement now seems to go, like a bottle bobbing down the river—he wrote, “Expansions in palliative care services and continued improvements in advanced pain management make the end-of-life provisions in AB 346 unnecessary.”

In other words, the Governor says that modern medicine has grown so skilled at keeping folks comfortable near the end that there’s no need to offer a quicker exit.

Whether that comforts or confounds depends on who’s reading.

The bill’s supporters, for their part, argue that dignity is a personal matter, not something from a hospital chart. They say Nevadans facing terminal illness ought to have the right to choose how their story ends—whether with a whisper, a prayer, or a doctor’s careful hand. To them, AB 346 isn’t about giving up—it’s deciding when enough is enough.

Opponents, on the other hand, see the matter through a different lens. Some cite moral reservations, others raise concerns about potential misuse, and others agree with the Governor’s view that medical science has already paved a gentler path.

For now, the bill remains just that—a bill. Whether it gathers steam or stalls in the dry heat of Carson City remains to be seen. But when it comes to questions of life and death, folks tend to bring their whole hearts to the table—and leave with no shortage of opinions.

And as with most matters of state, the Legislature will argue, the public will watch, and time—patient and impartial—will have the final word.

The American Battery Technology Company, a firm with more ironclad phrases in its title than a steamboat has bolts–has gone and sold off one of its dusty old parcels in Fernley—a chunk of land that, by all modern reckoning, had sat more idle than a dog on a hot porch. The patch, a full 12 acres on Logan Lane, has fetched the tidy sum of $6.75 million, with the papers expected to be signed, sealed, and swapped in July.

For most folks, selling a bit of unworked land might not seem like a tale worth telling, but to hear the ABTC brass tell it, this sale is about as strategic as General Grant’s advance on Vicksburg. You see, the company, which fancies itself a pioneer in the world of lithium-ion battery recycling—a trade as full of smoke and steam as any Lake Taho sidewheeler—aims to pour those proceeds straight into its glittering operation over at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center.

Nestled in McCarran, the facility hums with all the elegant mystery of a clockmaker’s shop. It’s there they’re engaged in what the company swears is a one-of-a-kind system that can tear down batteries of every ilk and extract the precious metals therein, like a prospector pans gold from a mountain stream.

They reckon their methods, which involve “selective hydrometallurgy,” a phrasing that makes some scratch their head, are the golden ticket to building a homegrown supply of battery materials and loosening our dependence on faraway mines and monopolies.

ABTC’s top man, a fellow Ryan Melsert, spoke like a man pleased with the smell of success wafting from his stovepipe hat. He declared that selling the Fernley property wasn’t just a matter of ridding themselves of extra baggage—it was about fueling the future.

With a few million dollars now headed toward the second phase of their technical wizardry, Mr. Melsert seems intent on seeing his company carve out one of North America’s first fully closed-loop battery material supply chains, a fancy way of saying they intend to use up, clean up, and start again without much waste—which is a mighty fine idea.

The company hasn’t yet decided what to do with another tract of land they own just down the lane, nor with the water rights they hold like a gambler clutching a half-decent hand. But if the past is any clue, they’ll soon find a way to turn those into something shiny and green.

And so it goes. A patch of desert dirt trades hands, and a company dealing in the alchemy of electrified refuse marches onward, talking of sulfates, hydroxides, and black mass as if they were ingredients in some sorcerer’s brew.

“Busy?” Sam inquired, tipping the beer into the glass with a practiced hand, the foam rising like a little cloud on a lazy river.

Death let loose a sigh so long and weary it might’ve blown the dust off a pharaoh’s tomb. “I’m always busy,” says he, his voice rattling like a loose shutter in a storm.

Sam cocked an eyebrow, setting the pint down with a clink. “How do you reckon to find the time for it all, then?”

Death leaned back, his bony fingers drumming a tune on the table that’d make a coffin-maker jealous. “Time’s relative, you see. Fact is, he’s my cousin. Owes me a fistful of dollars, too, the slippery cuss. Never bet against a fella who’s got eternity in his pocket.”

Sam wiped the bar. “Time travel, is it?”

Death chuckled, dry as a desert wind. “Ain’t time travel, not in the way you’re thinkin’. It’s more like I’m standin’ in all the moments at once, simultaneous-like. Or somethin’ of the sort. Truth be told, I wasn’t mindin’ the details when they explained it. Quantum physics, they call it—cobbled together on a Friday afternoon, when the Almighty’s crew was half-drunk and itchin’ for the weekend. That’s why you folks’ll never unravel it. Some of the parts got slapped on backwards, and the rest ain’t even screwed in proper.”

Sam leaned in, intrigued despite himself. “So, you’re saying the whole universe is a bit of a… well, screw-up?”

Death nodded gravely. “Yeah. A cosmic patch job. They don’t tell you that in the brochures, do they?”

Sam chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, if it’s all a mess, why don’t you fix it?”

“Fix it?” Death nearly spat out the word. “Son, if I fixed it, I’d be out of a job. And then where would I be? Probably workin’ in a diner, servin’ up meatloaf to ghosts who complain the mashed potatoes are too lumpy.”

Sam snorted. “That’s a hell of a career path.”

Death grinned, his smile somehow making the shadows feel colder. “I figure I’ll stick with the whole ‘grim reaper’ gig. At least the tips are good.”

Capitol Riot Resolution Stirring in Carson City

Some folks just can’t let the dust settle on a road once ridden.

Here we are in the year of our Lord 2025, and yet Carson City’s decided to hitch up the wagons and head back—back—to the fateful winter of 2021. A time when a motley crew gathered at the U.S. Capitol like it was a saloon with no bouncer, all fired up over ballots and bluster.

Assemblyman Steve Yeager, with the determined air of a man swatting at bees long after the hive’s hauled away, is fixin’ to introduce Assembly Joint Resolution 14. The piece of paper not only condemns the January 6 affair—it takes a fresh jab at the old lion himself, President Donald J. Trump, for what it calls the “reckless use” of his pardon and commutation powers.

In plainer words, they don’t much cotton to him lettin’ some of those Capitol ruffians off the hook.

It’s worth noting that this ain’t exactly a new headline. January 6 was four years ago, a thousand Sundays gone in political time. Most folks have since returned to work, raised kids, planted gardens, and tried to forget the sight of grown men in fur hats bellowing in marble halls.

But not the Nevada Legislature. They’ve decided now’s the hour to shake the bones.

Mr. Yeager’s bringing in Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer, to testify. Dunn was there when the kerfuffle kicked off, and one imagines he’ll speak with the weary clarity of a man who’s seen too many angry faces up close, most of his making. The resolution already has 30 Democrats behind it, waving their support like handkerchiefs on a steamboat rail.

Should it pass, it’ll land square on the desk of Governor Joe Lombardo. Lombardo was the Clark County sheriff before he took over the Governor’s seat, and he’s been quieter than a church mouse on Trump’s pardons. Whether that’s out of caution, calculation, or plain disinterest is anybody’s guess.

Of course, there’s a bit of a clock ticking as bills must scoot out of committee or go the way of forgotten promises by April 11. So we’ll see whether AJR 14 makes it through the gates or dies of old age in the chamber.

But if you ask an old river rat, there’s more to governing than reliving yesterday’s headline. Folks want roads paved, schools funded, and prices that don’t make your eyes water at the store. If the Nevada Legislature keeps looking backward, they’re liable to trip over the present—and land face-first in the future.

Let the past be the past. The country’s already got enough ghosts without digging up fresh ones every spring.

Clark County Schools at Odds with Washington

There’s a ruckus in Clark County, and it’s got the flavor of one of those old-timey soap operas, only with fewer swoons and more memos.

With the thunder of an old Marine Corps D.I. laying down the law, the Trump administration has told the Clark County School District that if it don’t toss its diversity and equity programs into the nearest dustbin, it might just lose a goodly pile of federal money.

It ain’t some light threat passed over supper. It is in line with a formal executive order President Donald J. Trump penned back in February, wherein he declared that such Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (or DEI, abbreviated to save breath and ink) programs have no rightful business in public schools. The Department of Education backed that up with a memo so stiff it could stand up on its own, warning that Title 1 funds will get yanked from any district that won’t toe the line.

It’s a particularly sore subject for Clark County, where about seven in every ten schools are Title 1—that is, they depend on those funds like a desert dog depends on a water dish. The schools serve low-income students, and the money’s meant to level the field a bit, but it seems the same money might get held back owing to the very existence of a district department tasked with minding diversity and equity.

Records, wrangled free, show that the district’s Equity and Diversity Department’s been chugging along at a cost of about two million dollars a year, give or take a few buffalo nickels. Nine folks are officially in that department, with another fourteen in the equity and diversity pot.

Five make six-figure salaries while seeing their pay climb faster than a coyote chasing a rabbit. One such fella, Andrew O’Reilly, started at $99,000 in 2022 and draws $122,168. Assistant Superintendent Samuel Scavella’s pay jumped from $132,552 to $150,812. And wouldn’t you know, they even added two new folks to the department just this February—one pulling in a handsome $114,432.

As to what CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education plan to do about the President’s order? Well, they’re keeping mum. No answer came from their end of the street when asked whether they’d comply or stand their ground.

So here we are, in a good old-fashioned standoff—Washington wagging its finger, the school district counting its beans, and parents of every opinion peering on from the sidelines, wondering which way the winds blow. And if history’s any guide, there’s sure to be more fireworks before this tale’s told in full.

While not a learned legislator nor a prophet of petroleum, when the Nevada Legislature starts tinkering with gas taxes, a body can’t help but reach for its spectacles and squint suspiciously at the fine print.

As it happens, there’s a fresh bill — Assembly Bill 530, they call it — ambling through Carson City like a mule without a purpose. Bless its bureaucratic heart, the bill aims to keep the Clark County Fuel Revenue Indexing program alive and kickin’.

The good folk of Nevada already voted it in back in 2016, and unless this bill passes, they’ll get to vote on it again in 2026. Meanwhile, if Clark County commissioners can wrangle up a two-thirds majority, they might skip the whole messy business of democracy and extend it themselves.

Fuel Revenue Indexing — or FRI, for them fond of acronyms — is a clever little contraption that adjusts your gas taxes with the rise of inflation. That means every time your loaf of bread costs more, so does a gallon of gas.

Currently, there’s about $1.11 in tax per gallon. That’s right—for every gallon, 23 cents to the state, 18.4 cents to the feds, and a whoppin’ 70 cents to Clark County.

If gas were a cow, it’d be milked dry.

Presently, your average Nevadan is paying $3.99 a gallon, up 20 cents since last week, and if that ain’t enough to curdle your coffee, the industry folks say it’s due to a “seasonal blend shift,” which is Latin for “we can charge more, so we do.”

At the bill’s hearing, Democratic Assemblymember Howard Watts tried to sweeten the deal by pointing out all the good FRI has done—702 road projects, 20,400 jobs, and over 78 small businesses who owe their existence to this tax tweakin’ program.

If true, that’s more productivity than seen from the Legislature in two decades. But not everyone’s sold.

Jenine Hansen, representing Nevada State Families for Freedom, asked the room a question most politicians pretend not to hear, “Are we afraid of a vote by the people?” she asked.

It’s a dangerous question to ask a room full of folks whose job depends on occasionally ignoring just such votes.

If AB530 fails to pass, the matter returns to the hands of voters in 2026. Governor Joe Lombardo vetoed a similar attempt in 2023, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, voters ought to have a say in these things.

So here sits the average Nevadan wedged between the gas pump and the ballot box, wondering if the roads to progress are because of honest taxes or political shortcuts. Suggestion–take the train if it ever comes back.

The Administration to Reclaim Idle Funds

There’s a great commotion in Nevada, and it ain’t due to a silver strike nor a sagebrush rebellion–but over Uncle Sam deciding to clean out the attic and reclaim a sack of dollars that had been gathering dust. It is the $29 million in pandemic relief funds that the Trump administration, under the steady hand of Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, has rightfully pulled back from the Nevada Department of Education.

The funds were not gifts from the clouds nor tokens from the government’s wishing well. They were tax dollars — yours, mine, and the grocer’s down the road — handed out in the darkest hours of a pandemic to help schools patch holes, build bridges, and get the young ones learning again.

The intention was clear–spend it intelligently–and do it soon.

And yet, here we sit in the year of our Lord 2025, and Nevada still has $29 million of those same dollars sitting around like fenceposts waiting for a barbed wire. The state’s top education official, Superintendent Jhone Ebert, laments the loss and calls the funds “definitely needed for student achievement.”

No doubt, she believes that, but one must ask — what of the past four years? If a man sets aside a pot of stew to feed his guests and brings it to the table, it ain’t the host’s fault when the guests don’t eat.

Secretary McMahon, no stranger to hard decisions, issued a clear letter on March 28, stating that the deadline for using these pandemic funds had come and gone, and so too must the funds. She reasoned — with more sense than poetry — that dragging out the deadline for years after the pandemic is inconsistent with the department’s priorities.

The federal government is not a barn filled with forgotten tools and half-used supplies. It is a place of sudden accountability, something missed during the Biden years.

The Clark County School District received a towering sum of $1.2 billion, and the state had $2.1 billion to work with. That is not pin money.

They used some of it to buy computers, staff mental health positions, and roll out curriculum. All good and necessary things — yet still they found themselves with millions unspent.

The money was for immediate relief, not a retirement plan for future projects.

Some folks are up in arms, claiming the move is illegal, heartless, or some other political epithet. But the administration is not pulling the rug—it’s merely folding up the one no one stepped on, meaning they’re not taking funds from the mouths of children—they’re retrieving leftovers from a table that’s already cleared.

So, if projects got started late or delayed by red tape, that is unfortunate, but it is not Washington’s fault. The bell rang, the funds offered, deadlines known, and extensions granted already. Indeed, Nevada had until March 2026—but plans delayed until the eleventh hour carry risk.

It ain’t a surprise quiz–it’s on the syllabus.

McMahon has left a door open as extensions may still be granted case by case. But even that is a courtesy, not a promise, as the business of government cannot forever run on what-ifs and maybes.

The lesson here is not of villainy but of vigilance. Funds, like time, must be used or lost. Nevada, and every other state, would do well to learn it.

So let the papers holler, and the officials wring their hands. The rest of us will tip our hats to the administration for putting a little backbone in bureaucracy, reminding the nation that money from the people needs respectful treatment, not delay.

And that is gospel enough for one day.

But Mind That Other Boot

It’s curious when a politician does something kind-hearted and helpful right after an election year.

Senator Jacky Rosen, a woman of considerable smile and careful diction, has hitched her name to a bill that would make military retirement pay tax-free. And bless her for it, as they could surely use a little relief.

The bill is called the Tax Cuts for Veterans Act, and it aims to unshackle U.S. veterans from the cold iron grip of the taxman. Speaking in tones that’d warm the heart of a marble statue, Rosen said, “Veterans in Nevada and across our nation have made huge sacrifices to keep our nation safe, and the least we can do is ensure they can keep all of their retirement pay.”

That’s mighty fine, and for once, Washington might look like it’s got some common sense brewing in the pot. But here’s the part where voters should keep one eye on the lady’s smile and the other square on her boots—both of them.

Because while one foot may be gently nudging the noble bill forward, the other is liable to swing up when you’re least expecting and catch you right in the nether region, if you understand. Politics, after all, is a game of gestures with one hand and schemes with the other.

Whether Rosen’s sincerity is pure as mountain spring water or just cleverly bottled and sold at election-time prices, it’s learned that every gift from the government comes wrapped in fine print and often with a string or two tied to the tail.

So, hats off to the Senator for stepping in the right direction. Just mind the other boot, as it could swing the other way.

Nevada’s Old Bomb Hands Offered a Lifeline

Many people have spent their youth dodging debts, their middle age dodging matrimony, and later years dodging responsibility. But the stout-hearted souls who toiled in dusty Nye County did none of the above.

No sir—they walked headlong into danger, wrapped in government-issue coveralls and carrying the kind of lunch pails that clanged like liberty bells in the Nevada breeze. They worked at what was then called the Nevada Test Site—now rechristened the Nevada National Security Site–for no reason other than to lend some refinement to a place built for turning the desert into a stovetop.

From Pahrump to Beatty to Amargosa, these were plain folks—dirt on their boots, grit in their smiles—who spent their days poking and prodding the atom as if it owed them money. And the atom, being a spiteful little rascal, took its revenge.

The good men and women who clocked in under mushroom clouds and clocked out with radioactive dust in their boots now find themselves years later eligible for something called the Workers Health Protection Program, or WHPP—pronounced like a surprised hiccup. Don’t let the bureaucratic name fool you.

The WHPP’s Early Lung Cancer Detection Program, which has been scanning chests and saving lives since 2000, is a godsend cloaked in government jargon. Using low-dose CT scans—a marvelous contraption that lets doctors peek inside you without the indignity of being carved like a Christmas goose—the program has found over 230 cases of lung cancer.

And get this–most were caught early before the cancer could pack up and go sightseeing through the lymph nodes. And lest you think it’s all lungs and no love, WHPP also checks for bladder and bowel troubles, liver and kidney woes, hearing loss, and just about anything else you might pick up from shaking hands with plutonium for thirty years.

They say lung cancer is the deadliest of the bunch—it kills more folks than breast and colon cancer put together, and that’s no mean feat. But if you catch it early, before it’s taken root like a stubborn mesquite bush, your odds improve faster than a card shark’s grin when the dealer’s green.

The program’s no fly-by-night outfit either. It started at just three DOE plants, and now it covers 15 sites across eight states—each one a little monument to humankind’s hubris and our infinite capacity to clean up after it.

A woman who once drew a paycheck from the Test Site and now helps run the program, Sandie Medina, said it best–this service saves lives and gives peace of mind. And that, dear reader, is no small thing—especially for folks who once measured their risk in Roentgens and trusted Uncle Sam wouldn’t forget them when the clouds cleared.

So if you, or someone you know, once labored under the great, white blossoms of atomic ambition in Nye County, you might do well to give this program a look. It may just give you another year, another breath, another shot at watching your grandkid’s baseball game without wheezing like a busted accordion.

To learn more, visit Worker-Health.org or schedule an appointment call 888-241-1199 or 702-485-6724.

A Strange Notion of Liberty

Having lived long enough to witness people try every trick in the book—legal and otherwise—to get their way, the antics of Nevada have all the makings of a traveling medicine show, with just about the same amount of sincerity.

Attorney General Aaron Ford, a man who’s made a regular hobby of suing folks—particularly a president—is back at it again, linking arms with Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and about 18 of their most like-minded chums across the Union. Their complaint?

Trump has taken it upon himself to fix elections by issuing an executive decree that says voters need to prove they’re citizens, mail-in ballots should arrive on time, and if the states don’t like it, Uncle Sam will keep their supper money.

The good Mr. Ford and his fellow legal riders call this a “federal overreach.” That’s a term politicians use when they’re not doing the reaching.

“Irreparable harm!” they cry, waving their briefs in court like preachers at a tent revival.

The suit alleges all manner of sins: targeting military voters, curbing mail-in ballots, seizing state control of elections—though I reckon if you asked ten folks on the street, half of ’em wouldn’t even know when Election Day falls, let alone how the ballots get counted. Puffed up like a rooster in a henhouse, Mr. Ford declared, “I will not stand for it.”

It’s a bold statement since all he ever seems to do is stand in front of microphones, telling us he won’t stand for something.

He praised Aguilar for guarding the electoral henhouse while accusing Trump of trying to swipe the eggs. California’s Rob Bonta stood beside him as if the two of ’em were casting for a Broadway revival of Hamilton, only with fewer lyrics and more litigation.

The President’s men, for their part, call this all common sense.

“Insane!” said his press feller, Harrison Fields, which I admit is the first time someone from the White House said something plainly.

Mr. Trump says it’s about protecting elections, keeping illegal votes out, and making sure only good, wholesome, American-born folks get a say in who runs the country.

The echoing media says no one has found all these legions of foreign impostors sneaking into the polls—but then who took the time to look?

As for the Constitution, it’s getting passed around like a church collection plate, each side grabbing hold of whichever line suits their purpose.

“The President has no power to do any of this,” the lawsuit says.

New York’s Letitia James calls the order “authoritarian,” as Rhode Island’s Peter Neronha says Trump’s holding the states hostage like a two-bit outlaw in a dime novel, “He’s trying to undermine elections!” they cry.

And so the lawsuit lands in Massachusetts, where the judge must now sift through all the declarations, motions, and footnotes in search of something resembling justice—or at least a precedent.

Meanwhile, the rest of us watch, mouths half-open, wondering if our vote counts or if it’s just a leaf on the wind, subject to whichever side has the fancier lawyer.

In conclusion–whether it’s Ford’s lawfare or Trump’s ink-stained proclamations, the whole affair smells suspiciously like politics—a stew of ambition, indignation, and just a pinch of self-interest.