by Dennis Myers
race run from nevada
On Oct. 4, Donald Trump visited Natalie Vanderstay of Santa Clara at University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Vanderstay is one of the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting. Trump does not have cordial relations with all Nevada patients.
Former Massey Energy Company Chair and CEO Don Blankenship has filed his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia, but he must run from Nevada. The former coal exec, who retired with a $27.2 million golden parachute, was indicted for conspiracy to violate federal mine safety and health standards over an incident in which 30 workers died. He was convicted on a minor charge and served a year in prison. Blankenship is currently prohibited from leaving Nevada. The Charleston Gazette Mail reports, “Since his indictment, Nov. 14, 2014, Blankenship and his criminal justice lawyers repeatedly said he had moved to Las Vegas ... and that the Nevada city was his home. ... More recently, Blankenship sought and received court approval to have his supervised release transferred to federal officials in Las Vegas because that is where he lives.”
WHITE HOUSE PHOTO/SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD
reno citizen of the year Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Sports Illustrated: “I have never been prouder to be an American. … Since Colin first declined to stand for the national anthem on Aug. 14, 2016, to call attention to the astounding number of unarmed African-Americans killed by police, the citizens have responded with both praise and condemnation, just as they always have whenever anyone exercises their right to free speech on a contentious topic. This is the same treatment bold Americans of conscience have always received. People rarely want to hear the truth when that truth reveals problems they don’t want to face. It’s easier to blame the messenger and ignore the message. He is forcing the country to continue to have a meaningful conversation about racial inequality when many want to pretend there is no problem. That’s why Colin has been vilified and glorified, ostracized and memorialized, demonized and idolized. “Though supporters have come and gone, Colin has never wavered in his commitment. This selfless courage has inspired other athletes—from high school to professional ranks—across all sports, races and genders to make their voices heard. He is forcing the country to continue to have a meaningful conversation about racial inequality when many want to pretend there is no problem. Sports Illustrated’s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award was created to honor individuals whose career in athletics has directly or indirectly impacted the world. On Nov. 30, it was reported that a group of about 40 NFL players and league officials had reached an agreement for the league to provide approximately $90 million between now and 2023 for activism endeavors important to African-American communities. Clearly, this is the result of Colin’s one-knee revolution and of the many players and coaches he inspired to join him. That is some serious impact. Upon hearing about the establishment of the award in his honor, Ali said, ‘I know there will be a great tradition of champions to receive this award in the future, and I look forward to celebrating their spirit and accomplishments.’ Were my old friend still alive, I know he would be proud that Colin Kaepernick is continuing Ali’s tradition of being a selfless warrior for social justice.”
—Dennis Myers
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12.14.17
Now you see it New devices create new court tests of public records on Sept. 20, donald trump sent out a tweet signaling his support for the latest version of a Republican health care plan, this one called the Graham-Cassidy bill. “I hope Republican Senators will vote for Graham-Cassidy and fulfill their promise to Repeal & Replace ObamaCare. Money direct to States!” he wrote. But before Trump posted that message, his account blocked Nevadan Laura Packard, a patient with stage four cancer. When she tried to go to his Twitter feed, she read, “@realDonaldTrump blocked you.” She posted her own tweet: “Omg. The President of the United States just personally blocked me.” It wasn’t all that surprising that the volatile Trump would take such action. Packard had written a June 27 article for U.S. News & World Report, “Save Obamacare, Save My Life,” that read in part, “The kind of cancer I have, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, can be cured— even in stage four, which is the worst of
the worst. My oncologist says there’s a 90 percent cure rate. Obamacare is going to help save me—if I can keep my health insurance.” She had also been tweeting at Trump for months, usually on health care. And last week, Packard was ejected from a Libre Forum with U.S. Sen. Dean Heller at Palace Station in Las Vegas. (Heller’s office said it was Palace Station security who removed Packard and nine other participants, but Heller saw it happen and did not intervene.) And her own tweets were headed “Laura Packard (P.S. Pls ban the nazis already).” Nevertheless, Trump had no business blocking unclassified public records from U.S. citizens, whatever he may think of their opinions. “The president is the president of the United States, so they’re considered official statements by the president of the United States,” said former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer on June
6, describing Trump’s tweets. In one lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Justice Department took the same position, that Trump’s tweets are official documents. “We don’t think the president should block any American citizen on social media—period,” said Alex Howard of the Sunlight Foundation of the Packard case. The foundation works for transparency in government. Nevertheless, many officials at various levels of government follow Trump’s example—doing things with public records until someone, usually a court, tells them they can’t. And new forms of communicating records give them the opportunity to try new ways of putting up obstacles to access. A few days ago, ProPublica reported that after making public records requests to all governors and 22 federal agencies for their lists of blocked citizens, they found that at least 1,298 accounts are being blocked by various governors and agencies. Nevada’s governor was not mentioned as a problem. In Missouri, the Kansas City Star last week reported that Gov. Eric Greitens and his personal staffers are using an app—Confide—that erases messages after they’re read. In Nevada, the blocking government Twitter feeds is not usually a problem. Nevada’s governor, Brian Sandoval, is not usually the kind of figure who attracts much in the way of harsh attacks. His own tweets tend to be on fairly safe subjects. As this is written, his latest tweet reads, “The timeless words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the day following the #PearlHarbor attacks have been etched into our nation’s collective memory, when he declared December 7, 1941 as a ‘date which will live in infamy.’” As a result, there is seldom reason for blocking. “I wouldn’t know how to do that,” Sandoval’s chief of staff Mike Willden told us. But the use of email does cause some disputes. There have been some Nevada Supreme Court rulings that have been generally supportive of public access to emails by public officials. Indeed, he thinks the court has more or less settled the issue of new forms of communication and their place in the public records law—but officials keep bringing such issues to the court. “The court has been good and fairly consistent, but in each of those cases
