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Reno, Nevada’s NBC affiliate, KRNV and their parent company gave a total of $40,000 to Ross Miller, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general in Nevada, but failed to mention this during their coverage of the race. KRNV general manager Amie Chapman told CNS News, “This event has nothing to do with Sinclair Broadcast Group. The activity occurred under previous ownership.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Sinclair Broadcasting Group “bought Reno’s KRNV-TV last fall for $26 million.” The company had been owned by multi-millionaire Jim Rogers until his death in June.

An expense report — filed with Miller’s office a day before the November 4 election — shows Miller received a $10,000 donation from KRNV, as well as Sinclair’s KRNV, KENV in Elko, and KSNV in Las Vegas between October 11 and October 30, a day before Nevada began early voting. The say report adds, “KRNV-TV Sierra Communications Company,’ also made a $10,000 contribution on October 10 to Kate Marshall’s campaign for Nevada’s Secretary of State.

The Democrat failed in her bid against Republican Barbara Cegavske.

Meanwhile, Miller lost to Republican Adam Laxalt by a one-point margin. Laxalt, for his part, overcame a 17-point deficit to hold on to a 46-to-45 victory.

Sinclair is one of the largest broadcasting companies in the U.S., operating 164 television stations in 79 markets. Sinclair also owns KVCW and KVMY in Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, the Laxalt-bashing continued with KSVN’s Jon Ralston attacking the Attorney General-elect’s military service the day before Veterans Day.

“Let me be clear – we asked straight forward questions about Laxalt’s service, that were never answered,” Ralston said in his opening commentary. “This came after we saw his original Nevada resume that said nothing about prosecuting terrorists. We researched where Laxalt was in Iraq and found no evidence he prosecuted, or in his words, ‘put away’ anyone. He was in a huge detention facility that housed thousands of prisoners.”

And still no disclosure of Ralston’s relationship with Ross Miller’s father, former Governor Bob Miller. In his autobiography, “Son of a Gambling Man,” the former governor thanked Ralston for his writing help:

“Importantly, I also thank my friend Jon Ralston… I am so honored that Jon agreed to help me in this endeavor. He provided immense help in shaping my unrefined vision of the parallels between my life’s progression and that of Nevada. He played an invaluable role in transforming a very raw draft into my life story. I deeply appreciate his help… I certainly owe him thanks for his instrumental assistance in the pages that follow…”

This is a nightmare I had in 1996:

Adam and I were in the same lab class in college. The professor turned out to be a mad scientist who was drugging students.

He had drugged Adam and was trying to drug me. Adam realized what was happening but I remained confused.

Adam followed the professor out into the hallway where I could hear them struggling. I came out into the hall and saw that the professor was bleeding and yelling at Adam about his ‘experiment.’

Adam was walking down the hall. As he moved farther and farther away from us, I took the pencil in my hand and stabbed the professor in the neck.

This is where I woke up.

They keep calling it the “Forgotten War,” or the “Korean Conflict,” but to my father, it was anything but. He was a teenager when he found himself in Korea, serving with the 67th Air Police Squadron.

The Korean War was fought from June 25, 1950 until July 27, 1953. It remains unresolved today, as South and North Korea continue to square off at the 38th parallel.

It was in Korea, while driving a Jeep, he struck a land mine – what is known today as an IED — that blew it up, causing it to tumble several times. Of the four men in the Jeep, two died, one instantly.

Though he received a Purple Heart, Dad never got over the feeling of responsibility for their deaths, even having night-terrors decades after the incident. But this isn’t why I’m sharing this tale.

My dad was a died-in-the-wool Democrat, a believer in a large government and a champion of the ‘little man,’ who, by his own words saw ‘how the Republican party was always taking from the little man and giving to the big companies.” He and I rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything political.

However, one day in 1981, I remember him pointing out how the Korean War was not a war but rather a ‘police action,’ which he didn’t like. While I knew this fact, I had never heard him speak so plainly of it before, so I was a bit taken aback.

He surprised me even further when he stated as if it were a fact: “And mark my words – by 2020 this nation will be a police-state and it’ll be everybody’s fault.”

Where did this come from, I don’t know and he wouldn’t say when I quizzed him on it. But isn’t it odd that we are but four-years from that date and our nations and local law enforcement agencies are so ‘militarized?”

As Mother Russia grows stronger, the U.S. appears to be getting weaker. Reports say tanks and other military vehicles are pouring over the border from Russia into eastern Ukraine, while the former Soviet Union’s long-range bomber patrols will now include the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico along with California and Alaska.

And the Obama Administration continues to stay mum on the ‘implied threats,’ from the ‘former’ super-power.

Now, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is ordering major changes to America’s nuclear arsenal. As he did so, he described how three air bases had to share a critical wrench needed for attaching nuclear warheads to missiles by express-shipping it from base to base across North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

That’s akin to ‘telegraphing’ a punch.

A number of problem came to light for the Air Force in the last year and a half, after reports revealed that an independent assessment for the Air Force found signs of “burnout” and higher levels of personal misconduct among missile launch crews and missile security forces, an exam-cheating ring at one missile bases and drug-related investigations implicating missile crew members.

Hagel says he plans to boost Defense Department spending on nuclear forces about 10 percent a year over the next five years — an increase of nearly $10 billion. And while, throwing money after problems will fix some technical issues; it’s unlikely to resolve the lack of morale that comes from sitting in a hole in the ground waiting for the world to go to hell.

And the base in Wyoming — that would be F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, my permanent assignment in the late 70s and early 80s.

We had driven to Fortuna for the day to visit family. On our way back to Klamath, my folks decided to treat the six of us to dinner at the Sizzler in Eureka, California.

This was special as we generally ate whatever snacks Mom made for us in the car. It was less expensive this way.

While eating, I saw a face I recognized; a local news anchor. While I do not recall if he worked for KVIQ or KIEM, I jus’ knew he was a face invited into our living room each evening.

“Look,” I excitedly whispered, “Don Michaels.”

The look that shot between Mom and Dad was one of shock. To this day I don’t know if it was because I didn’t stutter through the sentence or if it was because at nine-years-old, I knew who this man was.

“C-c-can,” I stammered, “I go get h-h-h-his auto-toe-toe-graph?”

Jus’ the thought of doing this made me so nervous I could hardly speak. Dad said I should wait for he and his wife to finish their dinner.

“But, th-th-th-they’re a-a-almost d-d-done,” I insisted, growing more afraid I’d miss my chance to meet someone I thought as famous.

Mom craned her neck to look and agreed with me. That’s when Dad handed me the notepad and pen he always had on himself, giving me his permission.

Before I lost my courage, I jumped up and rushed across the restaurant and approached his table. His wife saw me as I walked up to him.

He turned and said, “Hi, young man.”

I nearly turned and ran because of my bashfulness of the moment.

Instead, I swallowed hard and asked, “C-C-Can I g-g-get y-y-your auto-g-g-graph?”

Without hesitating, he took the pad and pen and wrote out his name. I wanted to tell him that one day I wanted to be like him, but I was fearful my stuttering would take to long to get the sentence out.

So I smiled, “Thank-k-k you,” hurrying back to my family’s table.

Somewhere over the years, I lost that autograph and I forgot about Don Michaels. He eventually left broadcasting and I think he may have gone into politics.

It would be great to know.

Here are two news stories that could easily be confused:

“The normally bland face of Uranus has become increasingly stormy, with enormous cloud systems so bright that for the first time ever, amateur astronomers are able to see details in the planet’s hazy blue-green atmosphere.”

“Reality TV star Kim Kardashian is the cover girl for Paper Magazine, where she’s photographed from the back, showing the world her bare behind.”

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency has landed a robot or something on a comet with a long-ass name. We need NASA back to make sense of these ‘star sightings.’

There is a secret organization that was formed in 1913 by presidential fiat. It will eventually take control of the U.S. economy because most citizens believe it to be part of the federal government – however it isn’t.

Instead, it is a privatized organization that only pretends to be what it isn’t. Furthermore, it is on the cusp of letting it’s power be known by damaging our currency to the point that this nation will be pushed to the brink of total collapse.

This same organization has instructed other groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, to create a centralized system based on the same design. Lastly, the U.S. rejected this ‘centralized system’ twice after two separate attempts.

Today, we know this secret organization as the ‘Federal Reserve.’

Recently President Obama urged the FCC to adopt tighter regulations on broadband service in an effort to preserve “a free and open Internet.” This means treating the Internet as a utility, so IPS’s would be unable “to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas.”

Breaking it down, this means a government regulated Internet.

And there are reasons why Obama and his Ilk are so in favor of such regulatory activities – to protect Progressives from the fall out from videos that appear on services like YouTube. This time it’s Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who helped Democrats write the Obamacare law in 2009 that stepped on his tongue in October 2013:

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says Gruber. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

It’s nice to know what Progressive elites really think about you and me.

From first grade through the fifth at Margaret Keating School, in Klamath, California, the boys in my class (and I suspect other classes too) had a strange ritual about the stand-up urinals, in what was called the ‘little kids’ bathroom. They were called that because they were located in the east end of the building as opposed to the north-wing, where the ‘big kids’ bathroom could be found.

The same thing could be said of the school’s playground.

Anytime we were released from class to use that bathroom, someone would remind us about the formal order of urinal usage. This reminder came in the form of a sing-song-like ‘nursery rhyme,’ that went, “Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Baby.”

It was generally accentuated by a finger wag, pointing out each stall as its name was called.

There were only four stand-up urinals in the bathroom and one had to be quick to get any of the other three stand-ups, before ‘Baby’ was all that was left to use. In fact, unless one of us really, really, really needed to pee, that final stall was rarely used.

Looking back, I am well aware that we were a bunch of weirdos – but such is the silliness of children.

2011

I didn’t like the casserole,
And I didn’t like her cake.
Her biscuits were too hard,
Not like my mother used to bake.

She didn’t make the coffee right,
I didn’t like her stew.
She couldn’t fold my pants,
Not like mother used to do.

She pondered for an answer,
She was searching for a clue.
Then she slapped the shit out of me,
Like my mother used to do.