Ron Kent, Candidate for DA of Nye County

Last Monday, former Chief Civil Deputy District Attorney Ron Kent, having been terminated from his former job, is running for election to replace to replace current District Attorney Bob Beckett.

Kent kicked off his campaign last Monday at Wulfy’s Sports Lounge in Pahrump. Over 200 people showed up to hear Kent speak.

The question was “Why are you running for District Attorney?”

Kent explained “After agonizing over this for quite some time, I determined to run for the district attorney’s office. I’ve been asked several times ‘why are you gunning for the D.A.’s office?’ Really, after thinking about it, what came to mind was the expression, ‘what you see is what you get.’” He was referring to Beckett’s performance Pahrump Mirror reporter, Paul Jones, wrote. [Pahrump Mirror, Thursday, March 11, 1010, page 3]

Kent added,

For the past 15 years under the administration of the incumbent ‘what you see is what you get’ and this is what you will receive as the citizens and the voters of Nye County into the future.

Kent said he believed a vote for Beckett would be a vote for “maintaining the status quo.”

[T]he time is long overdue that we raise the bar for the district attorney’s office, that we bring the D.A.’s office into the new millennium. I believe that we need to increase the level of service and the quality of service to the citizens because, as I said before, you all deserve better.

It was reported that Mr. Kent was born in Nevada and has been practicing law in Nevada the past 27 years. He took the Chief Deputy District Attorney position 12 years ago.

He said the thought his experience within the DA’s office and knowledge of the community and government uniquely qualifies him to assume the position of District Attorney.

I know what works in the D.A.’s office, but even more so I know what does not work in the D.A.’s office. I believe that with the 27 years of experience in the broad filed of civil and criminal law that I have, my proven leadership skills, as well as the fact that I am intimately aware of all the problems confronting government, your leadership. All of these components, coupled together, uniquely equip me to act as your district attorney and build the D.A.’s office into a law firm, a real law firm, something that every citizen in this county should be proud of.

He went on to indicate he has plans to implement and improve the current systems in place in the office with programs he had been working on for years.

If I’m elected district attorney, I have plans in place to take administrative measures to improve the efficiency of the office, the productivity of the office, but once again, and most importantly, to increase the quality of the legal deliverables that ultimately are for the benefit for all of you in this room, your neighbors, your families and your businesses.

Kent is a graduate of Las Vegas High School. He holds a BA degree in Philosophyand Psychology from UNLV. He earned his degree in law from Southern Western University of Law in California.

The federal appeals court in California has ruled that both references to God on US bank notes and “One nation under God” in the pledge of allegiance to the US flag are constitutional and not religious in nature.

It was a 2-1 ruling.

[Raw Story]

Wall Street Greed

Yesterday I watched Capitalism: A Love Story again. It is the production of Michael Moore, the acclaimed conservative film maker. (Yes, I know he is not really an “acclaimed conservative film maker.”) I had watched the movie/documentary when it first came out at a movie theater in Las Vegas. (We don’t have a movie theater here in Pahrump.) I got the DVD of it from NetFlix.

Capitalism: A Love Story is a 2009 American documentary film directed, written by and starring Michael Moore. The film centers on the financial crisis of 2007–2010 and the recovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and capitalism in general.

Topics covered include Wall Street‘s “casino mentality”, for-profit prisons, Goldman Sachs‘ influence in Washington, DC, the poverty-level wages of many airline pilots, the large wave of home foreclosures, and the consequences of “runaway greed”.^[2] The film also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is a sin and if Jesus would be a capitalist.^[3] The film was widely released to the public in the United States and Canada on October 2, 2009. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 9th, 2010. [Wikipedia]

The Moore documentary is two hours and seven minutes long. It is fast moving. Funny in places, heart rendering in others.

Some “nuggets” in the film keep sticking in my mind:

• The top 1% of the population controls more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined.
• The financial meltdown began with Ronald Reagan and the policies of Don Regan which “turned the bull loose” for free enterprises, corporations gained more political power, unions were weakened and socioeconomic gaps widened.
• Exposing “dead peasant insurance” life insurance policies used by corporations such as Wal-Mart to profit upon the death of their employees.
• “Plutonomy” where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.

Overall Moore characterizes the capitalistic economic system as greed gone berserk. Even Catholic priests denounces it as “evil.”

Then this morning The Dailey Beast has the following:

A new report offers new insight into how Lehman Brothers fell into mortal peril at the start of the financial crisis, and the details aren’t pretty. The 2,200 page report by a court-appointed examiner describes an accounting trick known as “Repo 105″ that the company used to hide some $50 billion in assets from its balance sheet for two quarters. According to the examiner, the creative accounting could open up Lehman’s executives to lawsuits as shareholders can use them to show they were deceived by the company. Lehman’s collapse is widely credited with helping trigger the financial meltdown in the Fall of 2008 when it declared for bankruptcy.

See Marketwatch for more detail. You might want to read about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers here. Even so, Richard Fuld, head of Lehman Brothers, said that he had in fact taken about $300 million in pay and bonuses over the past eight years. Lehman Brothers executive pay was reported to have increased significantly before filing for bankruptcy.

Greed.