Las Vegas Gleaner

Wuss

Both Las Vegas papers ran stories Saturday about how Dawn Gibbons has emasculated her cowardly husband by kicking his sorry ass out of the governor's mansion while she still lives there, even though he's the one who is supposed to be the governor. (Sun, RJ)

Perhaps after Willard's speech on jihad (he's for some of them; against others) and before the mid-afternoon animal sacrifice and incantation ceremonies, the attendees at Saturday's Nevada Republican Convention might ask Gov. Wimpy McPantywaste why somebody who claims to be such a flaming conservative fuckwit is standing around with his finger up his butt while his cash-strapped state spends to provide lavish government-subsidized public housing to his estranged wife.

But it being the "War Party" and all, what might be of even more concern to the thoughtless militarists, gun nuts, churchy zealots keen on the End o' Times and other assorted paranoid basketcases and ideological extremists at the convention is what all this means in our Glorious War on Terror.

It has generally been assumed that history would remember Jim Gibbons mostly, if at all, for slamming a woman up against a parking garage and telling her to put out or else — exactly the sort of decisiveness that Republicans want and expect from a chief executive.

But for the governor to let his wife run roughshod over him raises serious questions about whether the governor is in fact a "strong leader" with the courage to put his nation's interest first — if he can't stand up to his batshit crazy wife, why should he be expected to stand up to the evildoers?

By beating a path of defeat and retreat from territory that every legal authority recognizes as his and letting his wife make a fool and an ass of him, publicly and at public expense, no less, the sad sack of a governor is showing weakness, a lack of resolve and a willingness to surrender. And that is not the message that we need to be sending either to our Islamofascist enemies who want to destroy our freedoms or to our troops in the field.

Another liberal attack on the American Way of Life

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, clearly an America-hating ultra-lefty super-liberal, is touting this video, which is nothing less than blatant class warfare propaganda aimed at rallying American workers to empower themselves so they can turn their backs on their employers who really, totally don't give a shit about them but who are holding them hostage with increasingly expensive yet worsening health care plans.

Hmm, liberating American workers so that they are no longer chained to a soul-crushing thankless job but instead can pursue personal and professional dreams — and still have health care — may sound like a perfectly nice idea. But that is most assuredly not the America envisioned by Sheldon Adelson, John McCain or Jon Porter.

Creepy weirdo continues to find new ways to disturb everyone

If Jim Gibbons was some unknown schmo on the street instead of the nation's worst governor with a public resumé, he almost assuredly would be going around telling people, single mothers half his age, perhaps, about that one time his plane was shot down over enemy territory and he ended up sneaking up on a nest of Iraqis who had pinned down U.S. troops, only to learn after single-handedly killing all the enemy that the troops who had been pinned down were none other than members of a super-elite special forces unit, all of whom effusively praised Gibbons for heroically saving their lives, acknowledged his superior manhood and declared him one of their own forevermore, but of course they could never tell anyone because the mission was so secret and that's why Gibbons didn't get the Medal of Honor.

Everyone more or less agree?

Such aspects of the asshat — his stunted emotional development, the obvious sense of insecurity, all the lying —  bestow an even creepier vibe on this bidness of some firearms trainer, also apparently a minor Gibbons crony, signing off on concealed weapons permits without first requiring that the nation's most unbalanced governor demonstrate proficiency with the weaponry. (RGJ, RGJ, 'Monger 'toon)

On the other hand, the freak's underlying venality, as evidenced by his rampant corruption, cronyism and again, all the lying, also lends an even ranker stench to this bidness of heavy Gibbons campaign contributor Boyd Gaming getting treated with kid gloves by state regulators in the investigation of workplace deaths — after personal intervention in the case by a high-ranking Gibbons administration official. (Sun)

The first story, intrepidly dogged by the Reno paper, is not unlike the corpse of a dead ungulate on the side of the road in that it is hard for one not to look. Guns, Gibbons, lies — these things appeal to curiosity's more morbid side.

However, the latter story, exposed by the Sun's reporters, seems likely to do more to promote the most pressing and crucial priority facing Nevada citizens and the future of the state, i.e., inflicting severe, additional and tangible damage on Gov. Pervus A. McSkanktard.

Miniglean

• Don't you hate it when Democrats fail to stand up and fight War Party word games head-on, and instead cave in to loaded War Party jargon in an act of rhetorical surrender that "reinforces the Republican spin while at the same time undermining a progressive agenda," all in an effort to "soothe Republican voters"? No? You think that's fine so long as it works? Well, a) it almost never does, and b) you probably won't like the Gleaner's latest column in CityLife.
• Frank Farhenkopf of the American Gambling, er, Gaming Association sure didn't like the last one.
• As you may have seen and for what it's worth (zip, mostly),  Rasmussen has McCant' beating Obama in Nevada 48 to 43, and McCan't beating Clinton 49 to 38. That's a big improvement for McCan't over Rasmussen's poll a month ago — a reflection of the nobility and intelligence of the Democratic campaign and the media's treatment thereof in recent weeks, most likely.
• Nevada gets less federal money per person than all the real states — again — the Census Bureau says (RJ, AP). It's gonna get worse before it gets better, because when you cut funding for stuff like health care for poor people that means less federal matching money.
• Women make 77 cents for every dollar that men make, and from Sen. Hairdo McWedgeshot's point of view, that's about all the equality this country can stand, thank you very much (Desert Beacon). Trophy spouse Dean Heller and cad/hack/dork Jon Porter, Nevada's good little go-along get-along War Party drones in the House, have always agreed.
• "Hello, I'm Terry Lanni. Can you believe that the public relations professionals here at MGM Mirage think putting my shining chrome dome of a bald noggin' on a video would be a good way to persuade employees who probably hate me to do what I say? Anyway, look away from the screen for a moment or put on some sunglasses to block the glare or whatever and listen up. Now, clearly is no time to raise the gaming tax. It never is." Ralston's Flash
• The assessment rendered near the end of this comment thread by KidfromVegas on how the Obama-Clinton battle will be resolved probably can't be topped, amusement-wise: "Reid will see that’s it done in June." Um, you are joking, aren't you Kid? Anyway, Harry's says he might write a letter someday. Politico

Power company posts pretty profit: Let's look back in resigned disgust

Gas prices are impoverishing people and the last thing everybody needs is to get screwed by electricity bills. So of course that's happening too. And first quarter profits for the area electricity monopoly were 54 percent higher than last year, largely because lax state regulators let the power company raise rates on consumers. (AP)

A longish look at how Nevada shuts up and puts out for Sierra Pacific Resources and its subsidiary, Nevada Power, was published on the Gleaner several months ago, following a prior announcement of the company's investor-pleasing but consumer-robbing financial performance. (A piece of that rant was quoted in the Sun just the other day in the context of the point, inasmuch as there seems to be one, of Catherine Cortez Masto's tenure as Nevada attorney general.)

Indulge, please, a quick excerpt from that earlier Gleaner post:

Sierra Pacific is in the news of late for wanting to build coal-fired power plants ... Given the track record of Nevada's energy/regulatory infrastructure, customers should fully expect two things if those plants are built:

1. Sierra Pacific will spend much more than necessary on construction, try to put a huge mark-up on an already bloated price and pass all the costs to customers in even higher power bills.
2. The Nevada PUC will let 'em do it.

One or two other observations were rendered as well, including but not limited to a review of some (only some!) of the regulatory and industry incompetence and political negligence that has led to energy prices that are among the highest in the country. Interested parties, both of you, are invited to read the whole thing here.

One point that wasn't made in that piece is the pathetic role of the nation's worst governor. As it happens, however, the lowly Gleaner has explored the scuzball's responsibility for your higher power bills on another website:

Inasmuch as the electric company is a monopoly, its practices, plans and prices are regulated by the state, which a) ... just agreed to let the bumbling stumbling monopoly raise your power bills so that the company can pass the cost of its mistakes on to you, and b) is, at last check, currently being governed by one James Arthur Gibbons.

Gibbons appoints the regulators who approve utility rates. Is he completely satisfied with the rigor that those regulators bring to bear on power company requests? Does Gibbons feel that power rates needed to go up 80 percent over the last seven years? Where was his legislative agenda to beef up the state consumer advocate's office, or toughen up the burden of proof on regulated monopolies, making it harder for them to raise rates on people who can't afford it so as to "send the right messages" to investors who can?

..."I will save you money," Gibbons said, over and over (and over and over and over and over and ...) on his way to the governor's office. Yet he has said nary a word about the one action a branch of state government has taken since his dead-o'-night inaugural that will actually cost us money.

One could go on and on. Oh look, one has. Repeatedly. Okeydokey, one last point (for now, anyway) ...

The great and powerful Harry Reid has grabbed the attention of the power company (and the coal industry) with his impressive noises in opposition to new coal-fired plants. So yes that's nice and good for Harry etc.

But there's something that scares Sierra Pacific Resources even more than seeing its power plant plans go poof: The prospect that politicians at the state and local level might wake up someday and demand that the corporation gets subjected to aggressive and pro-active regulatory oversight driven by a commitment to protecting consumers and the public interest, which is to say oversight of the sort that has been wanting in Nevada, but that a monopoly with captive customers so very richly deserves.

Hey, that almost sounded serious for a second there.

But you've got to at least admit that the prospect of genuine regulation would scare the bejeebus out o' the monopoly, if there was a teensy weensy indication that it might, you know, happen someday. 

Having forgotten long ago how to save money, War Party breaks law trying

Remember how the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a complaint against our local bitchy little megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson — or his propaganda arm, to be accurate — claiming that federal election laws were being violated since the National Republican Congressional Committee and Adelson's wingnut factory are indistinguishable?

There's a video for that:

Not bad, though it seems to be missing a little something, say, oh, mention of a Las Vegas gambling kingpin who is building a Chinese casino empire and who in his spare time runs the United States of America's Republican Party.

Still, it's hard not to be impressed — even if it is illegal as hell, the NRCC and Freedom's Watch sharing basically the exact same ad must be easily the most fiscally responsible thing any Republicans have done since Reagan raised taxes.

Yet another thing Las Vegas does really, really well

Jon Porter mentor Tom DeLay says that Jon Porter sugardaddy Sheldon Adelson did not custom order the destruction of U.S. legislation aimed at nixing China's Olympic bid, thereby ingratiating Adelson with Chinese decision-makers and paving the way for Adelson to make billions by underpaying Chinese labor to assist in the fleecing of Chinese peasants in Adelson's Chinese casinos.

Did so, Adelson says (though he curiously left out the bits about underpaid labor and fleecing the peasants and such).

Sebelius sensibly suggests that both Adelson and DeLay could be right — or at least both think they are. Even if the bill was dead without Adelson's meddling, as a DeLay gremlin contends, it's perfectly understandable that a megalomaniac like Adelson would assume that he single-handedly killed legislation in Congress. Why, it's just the sort of thing he could do, all in a day's work, etc.

But for the Gleaner anyway, the evocative portion of the fine Molly Ball story on Adelson's latest bit of newsworthy megalomania was this sentence: "Adelson's chief lieutenant, Sands President Bill Weidner, testified Monday that on the basis of Adelson's conversation with DeLay, the company took credit for helping China get the Olympics."

Whether Adelson is as powerful as he thinks he is (surely that must be an impossibility) or not, this whole issue of Las Vegas bidness types fairly or unfairly taking credit for stuff prompts a smallish observation just, you know, as an aside:

Yes, falsely claiming credit for something, no matter how unwarranted or specious or flatly dishonest the claim, is to be sure a common and tawdry behavioral pattern of human units the world over. But the practice is pursued with singular vigor, shamelessness and deliberation in Southern Nevada business and professional circles. So there's that.

Apologies and atonement

That's the problem with secularism in America today — non-believers, or non-carers, are too quick to just tune out all the churchy talk.

"Under god" in the pledge? Oh please. It’s just another icky culture war being fought by carnival barkers on cable talk shows blahbity blah blah blah and what could possibly induce a sentient being of average intelligence to waste time on such pointless rambling?

It's perfectly understandable that a rational person would prefer not to engage the senseless rants of churched-up media whores. But the thing is, the churchy set fully and knowingly takes advantage of the secularist tendency to steer clear of icky culture wars. And the next thing you know crazy shit is going on like, for instance, the mandate that fully one-third of all American funding for global AIDS/HIV prevention is earmarked for useless abstinence programs. As a result not only of dumbass preaching against family planning, but also secular silence, contraception is unnecessarily limited even for married women with HIV. Instead, your tax dollars are spent on a "faith-based" program whereby some Klistian is flown to Africa, stands in front of a group of young people and tells them it's not nice to fuck.

So against that backdrop, the Gleaner hereby apologizes for falling into the trap and ignoring the pope and all the fawning adoration Official America and its media lavished on him while he was in the U.S. last week. Making mean-spirited fun of His Holy Wingnutness would have been the more responsible and patriotic course of action.

Fortunately, others were not so remiss, and by way of atonement the Gleaner humbly invites everyone to please enjoy this wonderful opening paragraph taken from what the socialists were saying:

It is a measure of the profound decay of American democracy that when the president of the United States welcomed the Roman Catholic pontiff to Washington last week, a major concern was that the representative of a 2,000-year-old religious institution, steeped in reaction and hostility to science and human progress, might seem to criticize the US government from the left.

As it happens, the pope's identification with Bush's own scary-assed churchy zealotry overcame any papist impulse, assuming there was one, to bitch about Our Hyperpower's extreme warring and wealth-polarizing ways, the socialists went on to explain (more or less). 

Clintons forge ahead with hopeful march-to-the-sea strategy

A special shout out to the aging white women, churchy gun nuts and other assorted yokels who constitute the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. Now you've gone and made everyone else bitter, too.

The punditocracy looks poised to spend at least a goodly portion of time this week arguing over whether they have convinced each other and hence, the nation, that Clinton's Pennsylvania margin of victory was 10 percent even though it wasn't, so be sure to tune in for that.

But mostly it's on to Indiana (if not so much to North Carolina because it's full of black people and Bill says they don't count). In the coming days, perhaps everyone can talk about the evil Bill Ayres some more, if only to acknowledge that, well, yes, admittedly he is not as close to Obama as the evil Rev. Wright. But come this fall, Sean Hannity will say Ayres is an issue, so clearly the Democrats have to treat it as such. That's the important thing.

What with all the words on the internets following the miserable results of the Pennsylvania primary, it's easy to forget that the former first lady's chances of winning her party's nomination remain both slim and fat. And so for a cold, dark moment a lingering but suppressed-of-late thought reared its head: Of all the people currently and formerly running for president in 2008, in both parties, a roster that includes not only McCan't but Dolph JulieAnnie and Willard and Vigo, the former first lady still seems the one most likely to recklessly invade Iran whether it needs it or not in a calculated political move to prove how tough she is.

But goodness what a silly thought. Why, even if they got the nomination, the Clintons have proven conclusively that there's only one way they can win the White House. And as every superdelegate knows (because they're all supersmart, no?), in 2008 there are no indications whatsoever that Ross Perot will be on the ballot.

Diminutive megalomaniac makes a purchase

Assuming he's got any money left after donating handsomely to the likes of Democratic County Commissioners Tom Collins (wait, he's a Democrat?) and Chris Giunchigliani, will bitchy little area megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson and his wingnut independent expenditure group be buying ads to run against Robert Daskas in Nevada's third congressional district?

If so, the attacks would in all likelihood look very much like this ad that Freedom's Watch, Adelson's propaganda arm, has bought to beat up on some Louisiana Democrat who is running for Congress in a May 3 special election.

The ad slams the candidate, Don Cazayoux, for standing "with Barack Obama for a big government scheme" on health care and refers to "their plan." The tired, kneejerk rhetoric ("big government scheme") notwithstanding, a quick glimpse at Cazayoux's website suggests his positions on health care don't look much like Obama's at all and are actually of the rather timid variety that would be more in line with, oh, that wing of the party inhabited by the aforementioned Tom Collins. But that's really neither here nor there.

Freedom's Watch is reportedly not going to be much of a player for the McCan't campaign this year. The consultants, pikers and hangers-on who have tricked Adelson into funding their retirements will instead apparently focus on tight congressional races.

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee responds.

One suggestion: Saturating airwaves with ads showing Adelson's horrifying mug and asking something along the lines of "What does the world's 12th richest man, a Las Vegas gambling kingpin who is building a casino empire in China, expect to get in return for helping elect (insert War Party candidate) to Congress? Will (insert War Party candidate) be good for (insert state), or good for Chinese casinos?"

Of course, them being Democrats and all, the DCCC instead will probably buy mealy-mouthed ads explaining that their candidates are "for" health care for poor children.