Las Vegas Gleaner

Someone needs to liberate their anus

Official Nevada State Homophobe Richard Ziser is outraged, ostensibly because the university system is poised to join the late 20th century and extend health benefits to domestic partners, all Disney-like (LVRJ).

The true source of Ziser's outrage, of course, is much more complex, rooted, perhaps, in Ziser's unusually high susceptibility to adhere to what he sees as powerful external social conventions, possibly triggered by a traumatic experience, and now aggravated by an insatiable hunger to see his name in the paper.

Then again his homophobia could be a manifestation of his fear of feelings and urges with which he is in constant struggle and forever striving to suppress.

Whatever the cause, the first thing Ziser needs to do is realize that his opinions do not constitute a political agenda but a treatable disorder. The counseling profession is always making advances, and currently claims a tremendous success rate when it comes to treating phobias, including homophobia. Why, one firm even holds out promise that Ziser could vanquish his homophobia in total privacy, with a home study CD program. While the Gleaner does not endorse any particular counselor or counseling method, suffice it to say that help is out there.

Meantime, by reporting the exasperated bellowing of a sick man as if his disorder-driven positions on public policy warrant a story of more than 1,000 words, the Las Vegas Review-Journal is simply reinforcing Ziser's fears, thus making it all the more unlikely that Ziser will seek the help he so obviously needs. Ziser may think that by publishing his accusations and alarmist rhetoric as if they are credible and newsworthy, the R-J is helping his cause. In fact, the R-J is hindering Ziser's ability to move on to a more productive, happier life, a life free of the dark and constant burden of a powerful yet wholly irrational fear.

Imagine what that life would be like, Richard. Have the courage to take that first step and seek some help. You can do it.

Daily Glean: Sun revives dead Wyoming politician, sort of

• Even Bill Richardson, Nevada's pet presidential candidate, tells the Post that NV is not all that and a bag of chips in the '08 prez selection process. In addition to explaining how all the real candidates have much, much better things to do than campaign in NV, the big beltway newspaper's obituary on story about the Nevada prez wannabe sweepstakes barely mentions the War Party caucus at all, which is appropriate. The story also includes asinine comments from Oscar Goodman, for reasons that are not readily apparent.
• "Democratic state Sen. Maggie Carlton is a carpetbagger who only moved to Nevada to take a cushy job as a waitress. While she has been a state senator, customers have repeatedly paid Carlton more money, in cash, than the actual cost of their breakfast -- customers that weren't even from Nevada. Does Nevada really need a member of Congress who takes money from out-of-state fat cats? Maggie Carlton. Wrong on breakfast. Wrong for Nevada." We just wanted to give everybody a taste of the "substantive debate on the issues" Darth Slanker will run on teevee if Carlton challenges musician/congressman/playa Jon Porter in CD3 — assuming, that is, that Porter can afford Darth in '08. (LVRJ).
• Nevada's lobbyists mostly drunk, shameless, well-dressed (Sun); just another example where Nevada isn't different from everyplace else so much as it is the same.
• Bean counter in chief at Arkansas company's flagship advertising vehicle candidly reveals that his newspaper's editorial positions are only partly driven by politically correct anti-government pop ideology; publisher's jealously of people who are richer than him is also at play. LVRJ
• Speaking of Sherm, the scientific community will be fascinated to see that Sherm's opinion section — admittedly an unlikely venue for publication of groundbreaking research — has presented provocative insights that challenge virtually the entirety of current medical knowledge with regard to HIV-AIDS. Taking one for the team, as it were, by actually reading the print version of the R-J so you don't have to, integrated multimedia entity Steve Friess explains.
• Just as a reminder: The latest shot at liberal defeatist scientists is far from the first time the local "newspaper" has bravely challenged a consensus reached by the international scientific community.  It wasn't that long ago that the "newspaper," in the course of exposing the "global warming" hoax, declared that the possibility of deriving any benefit from curbing pollution "seems unlikely."
• In yet another Sherm-related item, he apparently has decided to gut the bidness weekly he bought a few years ago, and is axing any writers/editors that might have committed the unforgivable offense of earning a living wage — a clear violation of Stephens Media company policy. More on that later, maybe. Meantime, one of the aforementioned writers, David McKee, apparently still has bills to pay or something and made a beeline for some freelancing work. He's got the cover story at CityLife (which Sherm also owns but hasn't gutted. Yet.) on Steve Wynn's managerial perfidy vis-a-vis dealers and their tips. And McKee wrote a couple pieces at NVToday on last week's prez wannabe campaign doings 'round here: Michelle Obama on being married to a "movement,"  and Bill Richardson's courtship of area gay Democrats.
• Congressman and trophy husband Dean Heller is a cheap whore for the extraction industry. The surprising part is that somebody noticed. Sun
• Big tent bragging rights: Both union and management give money to Democrats. Only management gives money to the War Party. LVRJ
• Craig Thomas of Wyoming is dead. Larry Craig of Idaho isn't. At least not technically. Still, their shared obscurity and track record of cookie-cutter Western War Party kookery, coupled with their mutual Craigness, continues to confuse and confound reporters, even those who work in Washington. "Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Wyoming" tries to analyze Harry Reid's motives on the Mexican bill, reports the Sun's Washington D.C. correspondent. Just as an aside, figuring out what Harry Reid is conniving at now, or thinks he's conniving at now, is always a most difficult and mostly fruitless exercise, and frankly quite beyond the political acumen of either Craig, dead or alive.

Michael Savage is still alive?

You know who hates America? Besides Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Democrats, environmentalists, the media, Mexicans, Hollywood, gays, academia, Jimmy Carter, unions, government employees, animal rights activists, Unitarians, feminists, the ACLU, liberals, progressives, rappers, bloggers, teachers, vegetarians and Al Gore?

Brian Lamb, that's who.

Be that as it may, if there's a better and more genuinely amusing way to wind up a week than watching a video (via ThinkProgress) of the venerable C-SPAN founder reading messages from Michael Savage fans calling Lamb a "dickhead" and "ass loser communist" we're quite certain we don't know what it would be.

Although the news that Harrah's and the Culinary have reached a tentative agreement over contract negotiations is nice, too. Hopefully, MGM Mirage will snap out of it and likewise settle with the union. After all, MGM Mirage CEO Terry Lanni's compensation is 700 or 800 times bigger than the salary of a mere human on the MGM Mirage payroll. He can't be a complete moron.

Daily Glean: 'DO NOT ENGAGE LIBERAL BLOGS DIRECTLY'

• The Hair Do, or more likely Darth Slanker masquerading as the Hair Do, has developed a handy-dandy National Republican Senatorial Committee "internet guide" for all those War Party candidates who won't even be able to buy a Senate seat next year. Our favorite bit of advice: Liberal bloggers are stinky poopheads so don't talk to them (page 4). Also, there's lots of emphasis on the importance or reaching out to celebrated skanktard (and Slanker's BFF) Michelle Malkin. Now, when Harry Reid associates with bloggers from the left, the beltway grown-ups accuse Reid of genuflecting to extremists. But nobody raises that as a concern in connection with Ensign or the War Party, because for them to cave to extremism would be redundant. We secured this gleanette, by the way, from a trail that started with the Drudge Spin-Offico, which was picked up by Nevada Up North, and ultimately dissected by D'Beacon, whose advice to likely candidates on using/abusing blogs, by the way, is not surprisingly far more thoughtful and intelligent than that offered by Ensign/Slanker. But then, big schmig; Ensign's probably not going to be able to find any serious candidates to run for Senate next year anyway.
• Dina Titus won't run against Jon Porter, Oscar Goodman is drunk again and other news. Ralston/Sun
• A sure sign of summer doldrums: both newspapers resort to quoting the lowly Gleaner on the same day. Sun, LVRJ
• "How about a textbook surge?" Teachers are such smart-asses. LVRJ
• It's always the cute blonds that marry wealth. LVRJ
• Yay, enlightened Senate discourse over Mexicans to resume. Post, NYTimes

Bored and surly, pro-fiasco forces take shots at Harry Reid

When the Harry Reid Democratic War Room and Media Message Development Center, Schedules Conference Calls With The Super Secret Cabal of Liberal Bloggers Division, invited us to participate in a call with Harry Tuesday, we were of two minds. On the one hand, we were told that the call was private, not for writing up, and we can't imagine that Harry is any more forthcoming about his wheels within wheels of Machiavellian political machinations when he's one step removed from being on the record than he is when he's on the record. On the contrary, there seems a real risk that a person could come away knowing even less than they knew before.

On the other hand, there's no way the thing would last more than 30 minutes, so what the hell.

That conference call, and in particular the Politico's claim that Reid called the outgoing joint chiefs chairman "incompetent" while on the line, is now getting ballyhooed in the mainstream conservative media, as well as bandied about in the mainstream mainstream media (as evidenced by our being contacted by local specimens thereof for comment). And we'd like to clear something up.

Alas, if only we could.

See, we can categorically say with total certainty that we are unable to confirm whether Reid called Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace "incompetent" or not.

We didn't record the call. And after a few minutes of listening to Harry blather on about how it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate so don't be hating on him so much and similar "insider" observations of the sort that might be found in, oh, a typical comment thread to a Gleaner posting on any given day, frankly we started checking e-mail and such toward the end of the call and failed to render Harry our undivided attention. (UPDATE: Bob Geiger has "exactly what Reid said," fyi).

Not that hearing the word "incompetent" in the course of a discussion about Iraq policy would have caught our attention in any case, any more than hearing the words "Bush" or "war" or "the." There's plenty of incompetence to go around, and if Reid called Pace incompetent, well, whoopti-fricking-do. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said just the other day that he wouldn't bother trying to get Pace reappointed as chair of the joint chiefs.

For that matter, if we did hear the word "incompetent," we might have just assumed that Reid was talking about the congressional Democratic performance on the Iraq supplemental bill, where the Democrats passed the bill, Bush vetoed it, and yet it's the Democrats who astonishingly allowed themselves to be accused of cutting off funding for the troops. Staggering incompetence, yes, but also old news.

In any case, others who were on Tuesday's call don't remember hearing Reid call Pace incompetent, either.

The lowly Gleaner, however, does feel on a little more solid ground with regard to another claim in the Politico story — that "Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq."

According to our notes (apparently we were paying attention during this part of the call), Reid said that when Patraeus comes a calling in D.C. in the Magic September that everyone is looking forward to, the general is bound to present a mixed bag that will serve as "a front for the president," and give War Party members of Congress the chance to drag their feet some more; "they'll want a couple more months" and "they'll have excuses" for giving Bush and his policies yet more time, Reid said.

Ooh, stop the presses. That the Patraeus report in September will be a mixed bag at best is of course conventional wisdom among everyone save perhaps a handful of War Party dead enders, who, when asked about Iraq policy now, avoid the questions by suggesting that Patraeus might say something really positive then. Reid didn't say anything that hasn't been muttered already by every network news anchor in the country. And if by "similar disparaging remarks," the Politico is suggesting that Reid called Patraeus incompetent, we are very confident that that did not happen.

In fact, Reid's statement for public consumption to the MSM Thursday — that Patraeus "gives you a feeling that he's not in touch with what is really going on in Iraq or just trying to make the president feel good" — was tougher than anything we heard Reid say during a conference call Tuesday.

Not that any of this matters. War Party officials, emboldened by former celebrity Dennis Miller's assault on Reid on, hmm, YouTube, apparently, are quick to jump on any statement, true or not, uttered by Reid, in the hope that they can spend a news cycle or two accusing Reid of undermining troop morale, surrendering to evildoers, or forcing good little American Christian children to convert to Islam.

As long as pro-fiasco politicians can get the media excited about Reid, then there's less of a chance that the aforementioned media might ask those pro-fiasco politicians what they're going to do when the so-called "surge" thing doesn't work.

Judging from the questions asked of us by MSM types Thursday, there's a lot of interest in playing with this storyline about Reid always saying something that riles up the right.

Whatever. Causing Rush, Sean, the R-J editorial page writers, War Party politicians or other angry elements of the wingnut infrastructure to go all apoplectic and wring their hands in breathless exasperation might be emerging as Harry's most endearing characteristic (it's always been Hillary's, by the way).

Sure, there's good reason for the reality-based community to unload on Harry, too. But that has more to do with his latent tendency, borne of years of practice, to cave to the War Party, not his perhaps increasing penchant for badmouthing them.

Daily Glean: Sick? Tough.

• Yet another study confirms that Nevada is about as piss-poor as anywhere in the country when it comes to access to affordable quality health care (RGJ). But at least the savvy Democrats in the state Legislature refrained from proposing a meaningful legislative agenda that would have challenged a dead-in-the-water flop of a governor's no-new-taxes religion, thereby avoiding any risk of political embarrassment if the agenda had failed. And that's the important thing.
• Talking about immigration (and lots of other stuff) in Las Vegas Wednesday, Bill Richardson says "I've been doing this issue for 20 years, and there's no votes in it, so just do the right thing" (LVRJ, AP, KNPR). No votes in it? Perhaps Gov. Richardson would care to explain, then, the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Tom Tancredo campaign.
• Meantime, David Broder, still sporting a woody for Harry Reid, has declared that immigration is the most supercalifragilistic issue in the whole wide world! Post
• By the way, if you haven't had your hair tousled, knee slapped or shoulder caressed by Richardson yet, it's your own damned fault; he's been in Nevada 22 times this year, or so the Post says.
• Michelle and Barack Obama are but simple folk (LVRJ). The Sophisticated Political Messaging Analysis Team is currently away on leave here at Gleaner HQ, so we're pretty much winging it, but we'll go ahead and idly speculate that what the Obama campaign is trying to do with Michelle is say that she and Barack have a family-friendly sitcom marriage, the implication being that Hillary and Bill Clinton have more of a House of Borgia thing.
• You think faithful War Party drones like Jon Porter and Dean Heller would turn against Bush's Iraq policy if asked nicely?  Us neither. Sun
• Widely mixed impacts on narrowly limited measures of student performance may or may not be attributed to slight deviations in funding methodology within a tiny four-school sample, thus proving conclusively that Jim Gibbons is the greatest governor in the history of this or any other state, according to The Gibbons Apologist Daily.
• Prez wannabes don't bother to talk about stupid boring local issues in California, either. LATimes
• Oddly for a group of people who have been known to claim some familiarity with Adam Smith, the brain trust at an Arkansas company's flagship publication argues that ownership does not come with responsibility. LVRJ
• The U.S. must drill its way to energy independence even if it doesn't have enough oil to do so, explains our prettiest senator, logic at full sputter. LVRJ

Wannabe gleanettes: Vigo in '08

• You know how the War Party and its media apologists are always saying that Democrats are too touchy-feely and disconnected from traditional heartland values? They couldn't be more wrong. Barack Obama makes his wife take care of the toilet when it overflows. AP
• Crazy Old Man McCain says Mitt the Magical Mormon was prepared to let women control their own bodies even after Mitt told the churchy people that he wanted Antonin Scalia to control all the women's bodies. And McCain's got the video to prove it. "No, the Crazy Old Man is twisting my words," Mitt whines, saying that he really, really does want Scalia to control women's bodies, so everybody should totally ignore everything else that Mitt ever said on the subject (USAToday). Sigh, a case of a War Party prez wannabe taking an opponent's words out of context to attack him? Or an example of a War Party prez wannabe flippity-flopping around like one of D'Beacon's famous deck bass? So hard to decide -- let's be generous and say both are true.
• The window of opportunity in which Fred Thompson will be taken seriously as a presidential candidate is, of course very, very small. It's only a matter of time before rank and file War Party voters reject him, too, for being a) insufficiently committed to forcing women to bear the children of rapists, b) vaguely tolerating homosexuals and/or c) suggesting that the basics of evolution should be taught in public schools.

So while Thompson still enjoys double digit support in some polls, and before the political-industrial complex utters its inevitable and collective "Fred Who?", we just want to say that for the life of us we can't understand why no one has pointed out that Thompson is a dead ringer for Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II.

If you're like us, then in addition to being broke and weary but mostly optimistic, you're thinking, oh, well, Fred Thompson must have actually played Vigo in that movie. And like us, you'd be wrong. Which stands to reason when it is remembered that Fred Thompson's range as an actor is limited primarily to roles in which he is asked to portray Fred Thompson.

Odd? A little. Ugly? That doesn't seem very fair to Vigo. Spooky? Eh, not so much.

Fred smiling, with that dead-monkey-skull-look he gets going on is, on the other hand, terrifying as hell.

Daily Glean: Short but brief

• Harry Reid vows that Senate Democrats will spend the summer continuing to not stop the war. AP, Sun, MYDD
• Simply everyone is goo-goo ga-ga over Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and her ginormous brainiac skills. Ralston/Sun
• She should move to Ely. Green/NVT
• Clark County got hosed by Gibbons, so naturally Reno is suing. RGJ
• Part two of nationally broadcast series on Southern Nevada's inevitable ecological collapse features casino spokester's fancy-schmancy toilet. NPR
• Startling admission: Brain trust at Arkansas company's flagship publication concedes that the rich have successfully shifted the tax burden away from them and on to the less fortunate. LVRJ
• Steven Spielberg endorses Clinton. AP
• In other news about film and TV celebrities whose political opinions heartland Americans always say they don't care about, Fred Thompson, known primarily for playing Fred Thompson, is more popular now, at this brief moment in time, than he will be for the rest of his life. AP

Dolph's 12-step plan

Dolph Julie-Annie, perhaps partially alarmed yet curiously aroused by the sensation of N. Leroy Gingrich breathing down his neck, opted for contract-on-America style gimmickry Tuesday (AP). We were too busy to conduct a comprehensive survey of the interwebnets Tuesday afternoon, so we'll just assume that every writer in the nation has already referred to Dolph's "12 Commitments" by using the phrase "12-step plan," yet we stubbornly insist on doing it anyway.

We noticed, btw, that commitment No. 1 to keep blowing stuff up is contradictory to the claim in commitment No. 12 to "strengthen our reputation around the world." Those seeking consistency, however, can find comfort that Dolph vows to "decrease abortions" in commitment No. 8 by "appoint(ing) strict constructionist judges" in commitment No. 9. And to think there are still people who say his pro-life-but-pro-choice position is confusing.

Having said that, in what history will consider a strategic oversight, Julie-Annie failed to include commitment No.13, "I will stay out of lavendar dresses and pumps" as well as No. 14, "I will stay with my current wife, whoever that may be on the day I'm inaugurated." So that might come back to hurt him.

Team Title

Hillary Clinton's goal to find an official campaign title for every Democrat in the country who ever got their name in a newspaper continued apace Tuesday, as state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus endorsed the early frontrunner and was named co-chair of the Clinton "Women of the West" program.

An endorsement from Titus, who narrowly lost to a man who would become the nation's worst governor because she inexplicably failed to deliver the televised evisceration that the ass-clown so richly deserved, has been thought in some quarters to Mean Something.

There is, after all, Team Titus to consider -- the group of core activists, volunteers and organizers who worked on behalf of Titus' race for governor.

Whether that organization still exists in a meaningful way, or will continue to exist in a way that can deliver, oh, voters to a caucus, may be debatable. But not in County Commissioner Rory Reid's head. During a conference call announcing the Titus endorsement Tuesday, Rory Son of Harry (and the first Nevadan to nab a cool title for officially boarding Clinton's Nevada bandwagon -- chairman of the Clinton Council of Senatorial Offspring or somesuch) said the Clinton campaign "will be aided tremendously when Team Titus becomes Team Hillary."

That statement is startlingly unappreciative of the original alliterative intent for someone named Rory Reid, don't you agree?

Anyway, reminded of that remark in an interview later in the day, Titus (perhaps remembering prior unwelcome statements from people named Reid), was quick to quip "I didn't say that." She noted that some Team Titus folks signed on with the Clinton campaign before she did, her supporters will be making their own determinations and "I would never presume" to speak for all of them when it comes to their presidential preferences.

Arguably as much as anything else in mainstream Nevada politics in the last ten years, the Titus campaign for governor lit up Democratic true believers, people who wanted their party to stand for something other than Republican Lite. Inasmuch as things in Nevada might be termed progressive — apart from the payout tables on slot machines, of course — the Titus campaign was one of those things, at least in spirit.

Which sort of begs the question ... um ... Hillary Clinton?

Whether voting to give Bush a blank check to invade Iraq, being basically the last Democrat in the solar system to call for Rumsfeld to resign, or even playing quiet mouse until the very last minute on the Iraq supplemental vote, Clinton hasn't exactly endeared herself to people who are sick and tired of wimpy D.C. Democrats. More likely, Clinton is viewed skeptically as a card-carrying member of the consultant-addled beltway Dems constantly trying to triangulate positions calculated to offend the fewest number of imaginary swing voters -- only to find their sophisticated political craftsmanship does naught but enable more War Party-sponsored death, destruction and criminality.

So, Team Titus down with all that?

"If you look at the members of Team Titus, you found a wide array of people," Titus said during Tuesday's conference call...

"You found some extreme liberals. You found supporters of Wesley Clark, who would be more conservative, and I think I was the one who brought them together in that race and I think Senator Clinton will be the person who brings them together in the next race. I won't speak for all my supporters. Some people said they were a rabid group. But I can tell you this. They're activists. They want to be involved. They're looking for somebody that gives a message that's clear and uplifting, and is optimistic, and so I think that they'll get behind this campaign."

Titus also praised Clinton's "unique experience," and said "She's got a plan, and it's a plan that's not just platitudes, but real policy directives."

Well, everybody's got a plan. Take universal health care for instance. John Edwards has a plan. Dennis Kucinich, of course, has the plan. Bill Richardson has a plan. Barack Obama also has Bill Richardson's plan. Yup, everybody's got a universal health care plan. What's that? We left out Clinton? Oh, that's because she doesn't have a plan.

*   *    *

Plan schman. Much better to have ... momentum!

Here's Rory Son of Harry at the very top of Tuesday's conference call with what has emerged thus far as undeniably the key, central and overriding message of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign:

"I wanted to start off by saying I think any objective observer would recognize that Senator Clinton's campaign here in Nevada has significant momentum. Evidence for our momentum includes the 3,250 people that were at Canyon Springs two weeks ago to have a conversation with Senator Clinton. The hundreds of people who were at the Culinary union event that same day. Those events were rivaled only in Nevada by the 3,500 people that were at Hug High School in Reno a little over a month ago to hear Senator Clinton. We have hundreds of volunteers that have contacted thousands of Nevadans in the last few weeks to tell them about Senator Clinton and how the country's ready for change and how she's ready to lead it. We have strong community support. We've talked to you already about our Hispanic Leadership Council, our African American Leadership Council, the other recent endorsements that we've had. And our polling numbers are very strong..."

Endorsements ... crowds ... buzz ... "significant momentum" ... "polling numbers are very strong" ... an air of inevitability. Hmm, where have we heard this before, seems like someone who appeared in a gleanette not long ago ...

Oh yeah. Howie Dean.