Category: random

From: Tom
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 10:44 PM
To: John
Cc: Dan
Subject: Questions about Reid and Judgeship

Dan — Noticed that this was on our KKOH website, but never made air. It was originally posted 6am Sunday to the web and never made our news file. I updated the story this evening to our website. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it in any of the newscast from Sunday morning until I aired it a 7pm Monday. I think this would have been a great rap, but I don’t know if it is NOW old news.

“She’s being backed by Senator Harry Reid for a federal judgeship. However two senior partners at the Las Vegas law firm attorney Jennifer Dorsey works for made $150,000 in contributions to a political action committee associated with the senator last year. Records show Will Kemp made a $100,000 contribution while J. Randall Jones made a $50,000 contribution. Dorsey’s nomination is still pending.”

—–

From: John
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 7:08 AM
To: Tom
Cc: Dan
Subject: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

Tom,

I must say that’s a startling statement as I just reviewed all the Monday newscasts & found the story in the Morning News at 6a & 8a. I ran it in my news at 10a & 11a, then Jim aired it in his 2pm newscast…?

John S.

—–

From: John
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 8:25 AM
To: Tom
Cc: Dan
Subject: Questions About Reid and Judgeship, again

Tom,

Just so you know, I had placed the story on the web site Monday morning under the headline “Is It Legal?”, & now, looking back thru the web site stories, I find neither mine nor yours for your Sunday, six a.m. posting. Have no idea what happened to them.

John

—–

From: Kelly
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 10:30 AM
To: Tom
Subject: RE: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

Tom… John says Reid WAS aired several times on Monday and WAS in the story file… did you miss it? Check with him. I wonder why it was written on Sunday tho and never aired? Horrifically slow weekend. Hmmm.

Kelly
Social Media Mistress
(Unofficial Fire Starter & Cheerleader)

—–

From: Dan
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 4:06 PM
To: Tom
Subject: RE: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

I don’t think it was in the file on Sunday. It wasn’t in Matt’s Sunday morning newscasts. I’m wondering if maybe Kelly put it on the web site…I don’t know. It doesn’t appear Matt had it, so it wasn’t on the air. Neil did place it in Monday’s story file at 12:25am. It was just a short reader and was slugged Reid contributions. Would have been nice to have it on the air Sunday…there wasn’t a lot of fresh news that made it on the air or on the web site during the day Sunday.

Dan
Program Director/Talk Host
News Talk 780 KKOH/Reno

—–

From: Tom
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 6:54 PM
To: John
Cc: Dan
Subject: RE: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

I looked in both Sunday’s or Monday’s news file and it isn’t there. I didn’t look in the Monday morning newscasts for this very reason. So what was it labeled?

—–

From: Tom
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 7:45 PM
To: Dan
Subject: RE: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

Okay, I’m gonna keep my mouth shut from now on, so no point in belaboring the issue. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be communicating here anymore. To tired to worry about it. My point is ‘big story’ — not in file, no rap, no FB — even if it was in a newscast at some point. Oh, well. Sorry to have wasted your time on this.

—–

From: Dan
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 6:09 AM
To: Tom
Subject: RE: Questions About Reid and Judgeship

I’m not sure what you’re upset about Tom, and I don’t think I deserve that kind of response. I don’t see anything in my email critical of you, but if you like, I will point out the story WAS in the story file, and it WAS on the air when John said it was. You were wrong when you suggested it wasn’t. And Facebook isn’t my primary concern, which is why everyone was told NOT to post news to Facebook until we get the on-air and the web site news squared away (which is proving to be quite a challenge). Here’s a tip: If you’re serious about possibly replacing Neil if he gets promoted, lose the attitude. I’m getting real tired of people with shitty attitudes. I’m busting my ass trying to get everybody on the same page and all I seem to get are rude responses from my employees. You all seem to think you’re are smarter than me. Walk a mile in my shoes pal.

Dan
Program Director/Talk Host
News Talk 780 KKOH/Reno

Senator Harry Reid has nominated Las Vegas attorney Jennifer Dorsey to become a federal judge, however two senior partners at the law firm where Dorsey works made large contributions to the political action committee ‘Majority PAC’ founded by Reid to electing Democratic Senate candidates.

Records show Will Kemp made a $100,000 contribution, while J. Randall Jones made a $50,000 contribution. Critics are now questioning whether Reid’s support was “bought” with the law partners’ donations.

In 2006, when the Jack Abramoff scandal broke, Reid took the lead in attacking Republicans for fostering a “culture of corruption.” But shortly after making these comments, it was found Reid took almost $68,000 from Abramoff’s firm, its PAC and its Indian casino clients.

Reid then tried to distance himself from Abramoff as MSNBC reported him stating, “…don’t lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal. Don’t try to give any of it to me.”

Meanwhile, Reid also intervened on government matters at least five times in ways helpful to Abramoff’s tribal clients, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action.

Twelve years later, a federal grand jury indicted a Nevada developer with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on criminal charges related to campaign contributions.

The indictment accuses Harvey Whittemore of devising a scheme to solicit campaign contributions from family members and employees in 2007 and skirt federal election law limits by reimbursing them.

Federal Election Commission records show Whittemore, family members and employees of his former company, Wingfield Nevada Group Holding Co., contributing more than $100,000 in a single day to Reid in March 2007. Reid’s office claims that money has been given to charity.

As for Dorsey, she also donated $2,500 to Reid’s PAC in March 2012 after mentioning her interest in becoming a judge. That donation was also reportedly returned by Reid and his office took her name into consideration, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal:

“Reid declined comment on the firm’s contributions to the political action committee. His spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, emphasized that Dorsey’s personal contribution to Reid’s campaign was returned as the senator weighed her possible nomination and wanted to avoid an appearance of conflict.”

A Nevada Sheriff’s and Chief’s Association official told lawmakers the chances of rear-end collisions would be “significantly less” with the passage of a bill to allow a motorcyclist to drive between lanes in traffic jams.  Bob Roshak of the association says he believes it would be safe as the bill is written.

The Nevada Senate transportation committee took up the measure on Friday that would allow the motorcyclist to drive up to 10 mph faster than slow-moving traffic, and up to a maximum of 30 mph. Lane splitting would only be allowed when there are at least two lanes going the same direction.

The Assembly passed the measure last week. Committee chair Democratic Senator Mark Manendo of Las Vegas said the bill will be brought for a vote before the next deadline.

Currently, the law only allows on-duty law enforcement staff to split lanes.

The oldest Nevada legislator paid lawmakers a visit to the Senate on Thursday, which passed a resolution commemorating him.  Wilbur Faiss is 101 years old and served two terms in the Senate from 1976 to 1984.

Faiss came to Nevada in 1944 and was a small business owner in what was then an unincorporated area of Clark County.  Faiss was also a volunteer firefighter and one of the first workers at the Nevada Test Site.

He said he’s especially proud to have voted for the federal Equal Rights Amendment in 1977.  Faiss helped the measure clear the senate, but it would die in the assembly, however he said it helped pave the way for many laws intended to prevent discrimination.

In addition to being a statesman, Faiss is known for having one of the longest marriages in America.  He and his wife, Theresa, were married for seventy-nine years, until she passed away in 2012 at 97.

Faiss said he hopes to pay the Nevada State Legislature another visit during the next session — he will be 103.

Assembly Republicans are renewing their opposition to a plan being pushed by some Senate colleagues to seek a 10 percent tax on Nevada’s gold and silver mine operators. Members of the Assembly GOP caucus say singling out the mining industry for more money would hurt rural economies and stifle job growth when the state is still recovering from the recession.

Six senators led by Republican Minority Leader Michael Roberson of Henderson are proposing a mining tax increase as an alternative to a 2 percent business tax that will be on the 2014 ballot. Senate Republicans said the plan would raise $600 million during the two-year budget cycle to be used to fund education.

Meanwhile, Nevada sales rose 4.2 percent in February, compared with the same month last year. The Department of Taxation claims, merchants sold nearly $3.4 billion in goods during the month, of which the state collected $265,000 in gross sales and use taxes.  Statewide, 13 of Nevada’s 17 counties reported increased taxable sales.

Allan Wood spend nearly five decades as a technical artist and public information officer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, before passing away April 18th at his Sierra Madre home from congestive heart failure.

Born in Pasadena on May 3, 1922, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history at UC Berkeley and was a talented watercolorist, who studied at the Art Center in Pasadena before joining JPL in 1958. Wood, however played a critical role in one of World War II’s most important events.

It was on Iwo Jima, February 23rd, 1945, that five Marines and a Corpsman planted an American flag on Mt. Suribachi.  Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured a picture of that moment which would inspire monuments and made the flag-raisers instantly famous.

Although the 22-year-old Navy officer, wasn’t among them, it was Wood who provided the flag.

“The fact that there were men among us who were able to face a situation like Iwo where human life is so cheap, is something to make humble those of us who were so very fortunate not to be called upon to endure any such hell,” he wrote in a 1945 letter to a Marine general who asked for details about the flag.

A squad of Marine’s scaled the 500-foot peak and hoisted the flag from a length of blasted water pipe.  This was actually the second raising of a U.S. flag on the mountain, as Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who was witnessing the battle, asked for the first one as a memento.

Wood was in charge of communications on LST-779, a landing ship that moved tanks and heavy equipment onto Iwo Jima.  Beached near the base of Suribachi, his ship was boarded by a Marine looking for the biggest flag he could find and Wood handed over a 37-square-foot flag he had procured in a Pearl Harbor Navy depot months before.

Sixty-eight-thousand Americans died taking the eight square miles island.  Japanese losses included 21,844 dead.

“The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years,” Forrestal would tell Marine commander, Lt. General Holland P. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith as Wood’s flag rose into sight.

Nevada lawmakers are working to update candidate residency laws after a judge ruled a candidate for the Assembly didn’t live in the district he was running to represent. Assembly Minority Leader Pat Hickey of Reno presented AB 407 to the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee Thursday.

The bill aims to clarify that simply owning a residence in a district does not alone qualify someone to run for that district’s seat.  It would mandate that candidates live in the district they seek to represent.

Lawmakers promised this bill after a judge ruled Assemblyman Andrew Martin of Las Vegas did not live in Assembly District 9. The judge said Martin owned a condominium in the district, but actually lived elsewhere.

It has already been approved by the Assembly.

Nevada’s Governor Brian Sandoval met with California’s Governor Jerry Brown to talk about Lake Tahoe and renewable energy, Thursday. The meeting comes under the cloud of Nevada’s threat to leave the decades-old Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a bipartisan group that governs environmental controls and development in the scenic basin that straddles the two states.

A bill pending in the Nevada Legislature seeks to repeal the law passed two years ago. But officials in the Sandoval administration say keeping the threat alive to exit TRPA will make sure both states coöperate on Tahoe issues. Details of the meeting have not been released.

State lawmakers are considering expanding an annual scholarship meant to help future Nevada teachers finance their senior year of college from one recipient to two. Republican Senator Ben Kieckhefer of Reno presented SB 102 to members of the Assembly Education Committee Wednesday.

Currently, the Kenny C. Guinn Memorial Scholarship provides up to $4,500 to one Nevada college senior majoring in education. The bill allows a second Memorial Scholarship annually, with awards going to students from northern and southern Nevada schools that offer a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Education.

The scholarship is in honor of former Governor Kenny Guinn . It’s funded by donations received following Guinn’s death in 2010.

Guinn established the state’s Millennium Scholarship program that provides qualifying Nevada high school students with money to attend college.

Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are sifting through debris in the Texas town of West, following a deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant. Fourteen people died and more than 200 injured in a blast that devastated a four to five-block radius.

It brings back the memory of another blast nearly 15-years earlier. I was pulling out of the drive way of the Sierra Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross, heading for the Sierra Chemical Company to teach a CPR and first aid class to their employees.

It was jus’ before eight that morning when an explosion rocked the chemical plant that manufactures dynamite, killing four people. About a dozen people were inside the plant at the time, in the hills above Lockwood, about 10 miles east of Reno.

In addition to the four deaths, six people received injuries that Wednesday morning, January 7th, 1998. Had the class been scheduled at eight like usual, I could have been among those numbers.

Barbara Bradley, who lived across from the plant said the first blast knocked her out of bed. She went to see what happened, and the second explosion threw her to the floor.

“It really shook the whole house,” Bradley added. “Pictures moved back and forth across the walls. It scared me half to death.”

Investigators believe the first explosion occurred in Booster Room 2, where workers were mixing explosives. Less than four seconds later a second explosion in the Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) Building that housed chemicals used in the mixtures happened.

That first explosion was likely triggered when a worker started a blade in a mixing bowl unaware that an explosive mixture had been left there the night before. Evidence suggests a worker left 50-100 pounds of base mixture in a large mixing pot and it stratified and hardened overnight.

The next morning, when the same worker turned the mixer’s motor on, the mixing blade embedded in the mixture detonated the explosives. The blast left a crater 40 feet wide, scattering debris over a 2,000-yard radius, breaking windows over a mile away, shaking seismic needles at the University of Nevada, Reno and could be felt as far away as Fernley, 20 miles to the east.

The shock wave also detonated thousands of pounds of explosives, destroying the Booster Room, sending burning and flying debris that triggered a second explosion 3.5 seconds later at the building storing the PETN . One survivor, Gustavo Alcala said he and other workers found themselves trapped  after the second blast.

“I yelled for help from my co-workers,” Alcala told investigators, “but they couldn’t hear me.”

Alcala said he and some of the trapped workers found a hole in the side of the building and crawled out carrying their severely burned co-worker, Benigno Orozco.

This was backed-up by Storey County Sheriff’s Sergeant Bill Petty, who was the first witness to arrive at the scene.

“There were four men staggering out of the area, and they were dragging a fifth,” Petty said.

The plant is about a mile from Interstate 80, where motorists could see the black smoke well after the blasts. The plant itself is in a canyon and couldn’t be seen from the freeway.