Las Vegas Gleaner

Time for media to cover Gibbons fairly, objectively

The Legislature moved some deck chairs around so now Nevada can resume sinking into infrastructural, educational and economic oblivion quietly without all the headlines.

In a particularly odious element of the proceedings, the gambling industry, led apparently by one of bitchy little area megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson's minions (no, not the governor but another one; Adelson wanted results) made sure to cover its own ass. Again. Whatever.

But the truly startling developments out of Carson City and environs of late involve first, the notion that Jim  Gibbons has something to say about policy, and second, the confirmation that the two top staffers for the philandering imbecile are the latest to abandon ship and retire from the "Gibbons administration."

No, there's nothing startling or frankly even interesting about those things in and of themselves. The startling thing is how the media reports policy statements Gibbons makes or movement among his staff as if there is actually a cohesive entity called the "Gibbons administration" and that the aforementioned fiction is motivated or even influenced by rational thought either for good or ill. What's up with that? The only thing of any consequence where Jim Gibbons is concerned is his many hilarious and humiliating scandals. All the rest of is just a bunch of noise.

At times like these -- which is to say on a Saturday morning with errands to run and chores to do -- the Gleaner likes to save time by self-plagiarism:

In the course of reading newspaper stories about the antics of the nation's worst governor, it is disappointing and frankly tiresome to see reporters repeatedly seeking color commentary from consultants of one party or another or analysis from political science professors. If one had a broken leg, after all, one would not seek a diagnosis from a political scientist or a campaign industry consultant. One would see a doctor. Similarly, if any truly useful insight into the administration of Nevada's current governor is going to be rendered by external observers, that expertise would most likely reside within the psychoanalytical community.

That was published seven months ago and the eleven people who saw it perhaps thought it was a joke. No, that'd be Gibbons.

Gibbons helps another woman find her truck

Oh look, it's Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons doing one of his favorite things -- being chivalrous to a woman who isn't his wife in a parking lot.

The Carson City paper ran this and other photos of the nation's worst governor and September 1989 playmate Leslie Durant hanging and kanoodling at the rodeo the other day. The photos were taken by Brad Horn, who gets a Gleaner shout-out for having the good sense to realize that stalking the nation's creepiest governor was a much better use of his time and photographic talent than getting shots of grown men forcing terrified baby cows into bondage while Republican voters looked on approvingly.

The paper's photos of course are not the first of Gibbons and Durant together -- those were published in the lowly Gleaner a few weeks back. But whereas imagery of the couple provided by a Gleaner operative merely showed the governor looking like an idiot in the IHOP, the new photos show him exhibiting public demonstrations of affection.

And all on the up-and-up, or at least that's what the nation's oddest governor told the Carson City paper:

“She was upset, crying,” he said during a quick hallway interview with our reporter, who’d been trying to get a comment from the governor or his staff for two days. “She couldn’t get her breath. I put my arms around her.”

Such gallantry. But then, as Gibbons told Nevadans after helping Chrissy Mazzeo in a parking lot, "my reputation means everything to me."

And to all you cynics and Gibbons haters out there, well, if you stop and think for a minute, you'll realize that the description of a distraught woman in need of comfort is perhaps the most credible thing that the philandering imbecile Gibbons has said in months. If you had agreed to voluntarily see Jim Gibbons socially and repeatedly, and then held hands with him and let him hug on you and stuff in public, wouldn't you be "upset, crying" too?

It is in that light that Sig Rogich, currently a beloved and trusted adviser to both Jim Gibbons and John McCain, is all the more admirable. Has Rogich been photographed upset and crying and in need of hugs? On the contrary. He was photographed working feverishly to divert the state and it's media's attention away from his client's hilarious personal life through a needless sham of a special legislative session. Which started Friday, by the way, in the event that anyone has fallen for the Rogich sleight-of-hand and actually cares.

To recap...

Gov. Jim Gibbons: No new taxes blahblahblah mangled syntax cough excuse me flippity-floppity flippity floppity again and again like the flibberdigibbet I am but no new taxes and everybody please forget that I'm a philandering imbecile.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley: Asshat, ain't he? Meantime, Raggio and I will work it out.

Philandering imbecile governor drives his constituents to drink

Several readers, which is to say at least two, have made inquiries with regard to some "drinking game" that might be created to go along with the speech scheduled to be delivered by Jim Gibbons, the nation's worst governor, on statewide television 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

The Gleaner knows nothing of drinking games and has never participated in them, not even during the late middle half of the last century while pretending to go to college. The Gleaner has never viewed drinking as a game. An illness? Can be. A way of life? Once. An art demanding dedication and concentration like any other? Eh, probably not. Still, to treat drinking as a mere "game" is the stuff of amateurs, not unlike "partying" with willful abandonment on New Year's Eve or Halloween.

But if you insist...

Yes, whenever the nation's worst governor vows that there will be no new taxes, take a shot. By all means, whenever he suggests that he has shown "leadership" or congratulates himself for making "tough choices," take two shots.

And if by chance he decides to use his special televised moment to reiterate that he most definitely did not have sex with that woman, and not with that other one, either, take your alcohol to the rodeo or the farmers market, get photographed playing grab-ass with women who aren't your wife and be disappointed when the coverage of an asinine distraction of a special legislative session isn't the most interesting thing in the newspapers over the next few days.

McCain, in an obvious lie that should offend Nevadans but probably won't, pretends Rogich never told him about kindred spirit Jim Gibbons

Sen. John Sidney McCain III tells the Reno paper that he has never heard of Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons:

In a telephone interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal during his campaign stop in Las Vegas, McCain said he didn't know enough about Gibbons' political ills to comment on whether they will hurt his own efforts to woo Nevada Republicans this fall, as some political observers have speculated.

"To be honest with you, I don't know enough about his situation to make a judgment," McCain said. "I just haven't kept up with it except the barest info. I know that the governor is going through a divorce or is divorced or something like that, but honestly I don't know much more about it."

McCain added that while both he and Gibbons served as Western Republican members of Congress together for a decade, "I just didn't know him that well."

Though they would be photographed together in 2007 at a fundraiser hosted by their shared master, bitchy little area megalomaniac Sheldon Adelson, it's perfectly understandable that while they were in Washington together McCain wouldn't have known Gibbons if he ran over him with one of Cindy's beer distributor trucks. Gibbons' congressional career, after all, was characterized chiefly by profound back-benching obscurity, occasionally rising to the level of moderately entertaining buffoonery.

Of course, bending over on command for Adelson isn't the only thing Gibbons and McCain have in common. They also share a key adviser, Sig Rogich promoter Sig Rogich.

So perhaps McCain can ask Sig to regale him with the madcap tale of how Sig got Gibbons drunk and then Gibbons slammed a single mother half his age up against a wall and told her to put out or else. Then, after Sig called in some markers and got it all covered up, Gibbons got elected governor and damned if he didn't start having an affair with a woman who looks exactly like the single mom that Gibbons/Rogich worked so hard to destroy in the court of public opinion. And Gibbons, well, he's a fucking liar through and through, Sig will continue, so of course Gibbons is lying his ass off to his constituents about his sexcapades, which is pretty damn rich when you remember that Gibbons voted to impeach Clinton. And look, Sig will conclude with a proud flourish, the imbecile is still the governor and (thanks to Sig, of course) he's even managed to distract the media from his lying cheating ways by calling a completely pointless special session of the Legislature.

It is a tale that McCain will no doubt appreciate. For one thing, he must be delighted to have unparalleled talent like Sig on board. And secondly, being a womanizing skeezer himself back before he became all old and shriveled and started lashing out at his fabulously wealthy trophy wife for pancaking on the make-up like a trollop, the cu ... oh never mind.

Anyway, what with Nevada being a highly prized swing state and all, and Sig being not only McCain's chief Nevada guy but also so very closely involved in all things Gibbons, it's sort of surprising that Sig hasn't told him all about the nation's worst governor already, no?

Area man breaks silence for no good reason

With Nevada's lying governor suffering publicly from neuroses and dementia, Sen. John Sidney McCain III turned elsewhere for a reliably docile Nevada Republican who would snap to attention, say Sidney the III is right about everything and introduce the presidential candidate at public functions when necessary (unless of course the function is something that's actually important, like a fundraiser, in which case the candidate would be introduced by Sig Rogich promoter Sig Rogich).

Accordingly, when Sidney the III showed up to scare everybody with his bitter-teleprompter face at UNLV Wednesday, he was introduced by Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki. (For the record, Krolicki muttered some utterly forgettable words of praise for McCain about as serviceably as might be expected from a man who holds a totally useless job with no responsibilities.)

And Krolicki himself was introduced by UNLV President David Ashley. That's moderately intriguing on at least a couple fronts.

First, Ashley sightings in and of themselves have become a rather rare commodity since he assumed the presidency two years ago. While his predecessor, Carol Harter, was undeniably the face of the university, always out front and trying to champion her cause, Ashley has largely ceded that role to Jim Rogers, the Lord High Chancellor of Nevada's higher education system. Rogers, in turn, has joined the battle of the budget with the nation's worst governor, arguably in as vigorous and energetic a manner as anyone in the state, which just goes to show jillionaires can be useful on occasion.

But curiously, as Rogers has fired ammo against the governor in the form of memos and letters, he has drawn on expertise or assistance not from UNLV's president, but from a UNLV provost or a UNLV dean. Indeed, Ashley's silence as an imbecile of a governor plots the economic hollowing out of his institution is nothing short of unseemly -- unless of course Ashley is feverishly working behind the scenes to protect his university from the governor's simplistic cut-and-run solutions to the budget crisis. But if that's the case, it's difficult to see any evidence that such a strategy is working.

Anyway, so there's Ashley Wednesday morning, suited up and in front of McCain's Nevada faithful explaining how delighted he is that UNLV is at the center of the national policy debate blahblahblah. And then he introduces Krolicki, referring to him as "a great champion of higher education."

As the Gleaner has said on more than one occasion, the single greatest piece of legislation enacted in the state of Nevada in the last quarter century if not more is the Millennium Scholarship program that makes college affordable for Nevada students. That program was started in 1999 with money owed Nevada through the tobacco lawsuit settlement, and annual tobacco settlement payments have continued to help fund the scholarships ever since. Krolicki has proposed that the state basically borrow against future years of the settlement, in a fiscally irresponsible scheme to spend the money now to tide the state through its budget crunch.

As CityLife's Steve Sebelius has taken the bother and the trouble to helpfully explain, Krolicki may be a political opportunist willing to use public money, even unlawfully, to advance his own career, a crony capitalist, an ethically challenged hack ...

Krolicki may be many things. "A great champion of higher education" is not one of them.

Ashley should know that. If he doesn't, someone should tell him. And someone should also tell him that he might want to think about, you know, getting in the game.

Placing licenses in jeopardy, TV stations will cede airwaves to deranged madman

Jim Gibbons, the nation's worst governor, announced Wednesday that he will indeed read some words in front of a camera Thursday evening so that the images of his incompetence and ineptitude can be transmitted into households throughout the entire state of Nevada. Which is to say that as of Wednesday afternoon, the mercurial changeling still seemed inclined to actually call the Nevada Legislature into a special session Friday even though he still hasn't explained, and for that matter may not know, exactly why.

But enough about Nevada's Official State Neurotic and the latest brands of duct tape and bailing wire that have caught the eyes of state legislators. The release from the office of the nation's creepiest governor also features some fine and civic-spirited words from your friends in Nevada's television industry:

Nevada Broadcasters Association CEO Bob Fisher said it's important for television and radio outlets to participate in this public discussion as the state prepares to address one of the worst fiscal crises in Nevada history.

"During his inaugural address, the Governor talked about One Nevada," Fisher said. "Broadcasters have the ability to help keep this state unified, and I'm glad they're stepping up to the plate to play their part."

Hooray for Nevada's broadcast industry! Sure, broadcasters pay no significant state taxes whatsoever. They make jillions by charging politicians to run ads on airwaves that the public (and not the broadcasters) own. And their news programs are, on a good night, a dull regurgitation of stuff that everyone already knows, and more often than not, wholly unwatchable drivel.

But they'll fork over some free teevee time to a guy who thinks the most important thing in the universe is making sure broadcasters don't have to pay taxes -- and then they'll pat themselves on the back for doing it in an official state release. There are probably some malcontents somewhere who think that's irony or a paradox or some damned thing. But here in Nevada it's just called "stepping up to the plate."

 

In symbolic show of conservation ethic, McCain uses EnergyStar teleprompter

America can achieve something called "strategic independence" from stinky poopheads like Arab oil sheiks and Hugo Chavez by the year 2025, Sen. John Sidney McCain III said in Las Vegas Wednesday.

How ambitious is that goal? To put it into perspective, consider this: By 2025, McCain will only be 89 years old.

Energy policy is too important for politicians to rely on the "familiar routine of stale soundbites, staged rallies, and over-managed messages," McCain said, reading awkwardly from a teleprompter before leaving the staged and over-managed event without taking any questions.

McCain's address in Las Vegas also featured that now-familiar staple of his campaign appearances, the long depressing list. McCain spoke of "the same agenda of inaction -- that long recitation of things we cannot do, energy we cannot produce, refineries we cannot build, plants we cannot approve, coal we cannot use, technologies we cannot master. The timid litany of limitations goes on and on."

McCain seemed to be attempting to make some point or other, but it may have been lost on an audience sunk into deep depression by the candidate's profound pessimism.

The Nevadans awakened and applauded, however, when McCain promised to build 45 new nuclear power plants by the year 2030, when McCain will only be 94. No. Seriously. Nevadans applauded -- and that was before McCain offered his detailed explanation of how the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would fit into his nuclear power plant dreams.

Inasmuch as McCain's position on nuclear waste is particularly important to Nevadans, it is appropriate to publish his prepared remarks on Yucca Mountain in their entirety and word-for-word:

"As Nevadans are well aware, we will need to solve complex problems of moving and storing materials that will always need safeguarding. We will need to do all of these things, and do them right, as we have done great things before."

Straight talk, indeed. (By the way, the Gleaner could not confirm that Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who is McCain's default honorary campaign chairman, applauded McCain's call for the creation of more nuclear waste at 45 new nuclear power plants. Having said that, the Gleaner would be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Krolicki didn't applaud, Krolicki being an obvious political mercenary and spineless sycophant. Still, if anyone who was at the McCain event and who had a better vantage point than the Gleaner can shed light on Krolicki's reaction to his man's call for more, more, more nuclear waste, by all means, hit the comment button).

McCain also promised to "purge" the oil market "of the reckless speculation, unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, that has inflated the price of gasoline," i.e., the reckless speculation that exists largely thanks to the crony capitalism practiced by McCain's most trusted and cherished economic adviser, former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Enron.

Concluding his remarks by co-opting a message that rival Barack Obama has been using to connect with voters, McCain echoed Obama's observation that McCain's energy plan generally and the emphasis on more oil drilling specifically will not help anyone at all any time soon, if ever.

Military draft, energy price gouging touted as highlights of Sidney The III's administration

According to Reuters, John Sidney McCain III sez:

"I don't know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III."

In what surely must be a coincidence, The III was scheduled to spend part of his visit to Las Vegas Wednesday collecting money at a fundraiser hosted by (among others) bitchy little area megalomaniac and fabulously wealthy warmonger Sheldon Adelson in exchange for promising that, if elected, he would start World War III.

McCain was also expected to attend a public forum and tell Nevadans that they should vote for him even though his key economic adviser, former Sen. Phil Gramm, was the Washington politician who more than any other was responsible for deregulating energy trading markets, an exercise in crony capitalism that not only allowed Enron to manipulate the Western electricity market back in the day (for which Nevadans are still paying out the yazoo) but has also paved the way for the rampant oil market speculation of today (for which Nevadans are currently paying out the yazoo).

Miniglean: Assorted leftover items from the sad twisted world of the nation's most unhinged governor

• The nation's creepiest governor emerged Tuesday from his undisclosed location long enough to perform some uncharacteristically quasi-work-related activities, namely, going on a "no holds barred" Reno teevee show and saying that even though he's the governor and even though he's the one who is calling a special legislative session it just really gets his panties (playfully provided by the married girlfriend that he's not having sexual relations with) in a bunch that other people aren't solving all his problems for him. All of which stands to reason when you consider that the nation's worst governor, in addition to being a moron and an asshole, is also a disturbing sleep-deprived bundle of neuroses. Oh, by the way, the nation's sickest governor's vision for Nevada is all about exporting energy. So there. In case anyone was wondering. What. Fucking. Ever. NNM, INP
• It's really too bad that the nation's worst governor is a philandering imbecile. And it's a bit of a shame, s'pose, that he's been such an indecisive mercurial fop during a fiscal crunch. Because if not for stuff like that, maybe people would pay attention to the fact that he prefers to cozy up to construction company cronies rather than protect the health and safety of Nevada working people. Sun
• Perry Rogers, son of His Lordship, goes on the family teevee station, says the nation's worst governor is "an empty husk of a leader" who "lacks curiosity, information, judgment and insight," calls on the asshat to resign. The inventory of Gibbonsian shortcomings is obviously incomplete but still it's not bad for Rogers the Younger's first go at the nation's most absurd excuse for a governor.