By an Old-Fashioned Observer of Common Sense and Uncommon Nonsense It has been my lifelong observation—born of long years loafing along muddy riverbanks, dusty roads, and under canopies of Redwood trees—that when a fellow calls himself a Republican but starts acting like a Democrat in church clothes, the only suitable word for him is RINO,…

By a Humble Chronicler of Political and Societal follies while scribblin’ in the margins of modern America Now, I ain’t one to go around insultin’ folks outright — but there’s a peculiar and persistent sickness creepin’ through the grand halls of our federal judiciary, and pardon the expression, it smells suspiciously like self-importance, fermented in…

The wind cut sharp across the valley, rattling the bare limbs of the cottonwoods and driving the cold deep into the bones. Helen Dyer stood in the doorway of her cabin, a Henry rifle resting easy in her hands. She was a slight woman, but there was steel in her spine, and her eyes—blue as…

Now, I’ve seen some sorry behavior in my time—seen men cheat at poker, lie in church, and run for office with less honesty than a rattlesnake in a rabbit warren—but what befell that free-range horse named Frost out in Stagecoach last year belongs in the catalog of the damned. It was a bitter thing, that…

The law is like a shotgun—it works best when handled by someone with both aim and decency, but what happens when the one holdin’ the gun forgets which end goes bang? Take Miss Shana Bachman, for instance. Once upon a time, she fancied herself fit to don the robe of a Justice Court Judge in…

Now, friends, let me tell you about a grand mess cooked up in the sagebrush state—a tale of boards, commissions, committees, councils, and more red tape than a Christmas morning at the Post Office. Nevada, bless her bureaucratic heart, has over 300 state boards and commissions. Yup, three hundred! That’s more boards than a lumber…

Now, I’ve seen a great many things in my time—buildings blowin’ sky-high, politicians makin’ promises they got no earthly intention of keepin’, and Christmas toys turning sensible folk into violent lunatics—but I don’t reckon I’ve seen anything quite as damning to a so-called civilized place as a regular epidemic of folks killin’ the ones they…

In a yarn spun with precision–NDOT Director Tracy Larkin faced the music before the Board of Directors–addressing a state audit that sniffed out $25 million in record-keeping discrepancies as if the department’s books were penned by a sleepwalking clerk. With a twinkle of resolve, Larkin declared no hoard of treasure—nay, not $25 million in goods—had…

Here’s a tale as worn as an old saddle and just as creaky–Jose Ricardo Lopez Munoz, a man who’s treated the U.S. border like a swinging saloon door, has found himself once again on the wrong side of the law—and right where the Department of Justice expected he’d be. Mr. Munoz, a Mexican national who…

If you ever wanted to watch a man try to juggle porcupines while balancing on a washtub in a windstorm, you could do worse than a front-row seat to Nevada’s legislative deadline week. Out of a thousand bright ideas scribbled down by ambitious minds, 300 went to their rest—no hymns, fanfare, just a bureaucratic shrug.…