"Connections to the Old Comstock Lode Remain Strong"

"'Mining was hard, dirty, and repetitive, like digging an endless ditch,' he writes.
"Mining also bred competition, hatred and violence. In 1870, 'a white mob attacked Chinese laborers' in Empire City, Nev., and 'destroyed their huts and property.' No one was arrested or prosecuted.
"And mining wrought terrible environmental degradation and the pollution of San Francisco Bay that continues to this day."

Jonah Raskin at the San Francisco Chronicle reviews Gregory Crouch's The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West.

"His Real Message Seems to Be Make America Hate Again"

"My friends, this is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump. It's a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.
"Twenty years ago when Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination, he pointed to the exits in the convention hall, and told any racist in the party to get out. The week after 9/11 George W. Bush went to a mosque and declared for everyone to hear that Muslims love America just as much as I do.
"In 2008, John McCain told his own supporters that they were wrong about the man he was trying to defeat. Senator McCain made sure they knew Barrack Obama, he said, was an American citizen and a decent person.
"We need that kind of leadership again."

Time magazine publishes a transcript of Hillary Clinton's speech in Reno about Donald Trump's racism.

At Slate, Jamelle Bouie, Isaac Chotiner, Michelle Goldberg, William Saletan, and Josh Voorhees react to the speech.

As does Brian Beutler at The New Republic.

"A Contrived Place"

"Assigned here two years ago, Gill was depressed over his fate until he looked out from one of the hotel rooms and saw headlights and taillights stretching for miles in both directions.
"That's when the gambler in him surfaced. That's when Gill saw opportunity.
"'I saw all those car lights and realized that my job was to devise more ways to get people off that interstate,' he said. 'I try to get 'em both ways—to stop in on their way to the Strip or serve as the last stop in Nevada to get your gambling fix and place that football bet.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, John M. Glionna visits Primm, Nevada.