Say one thing for now-former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.: He thought big.

While many politicians are willing to sell their souls and their offices cheap — think ex-Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny on her knees begging for a mere five figures — Cunningham amassed bribes that total $2.4 million.

Now that’s officer thinking, probably learned back in the day when he was a Navy ace during the Vietnam War, simpler times before he became a disgrace to America, his constituents, his state, the Navy and those wings of gold that adorned his suit jackets. (Cunningham spent 21 years in the Navy, from 1966 to 1987, before winning his seat in 1990.)

Cunningham, who at first lied and denied wrongdoing, used his seat on the House Appropriations Committee to steer defense contracts to favored bidders. In return, those companies gave him cash, cars, rugs, vacations and a 42-foot yacht to live on when he was in Washington, D.C.

Outside the San Diego federal courthouse (the same one in which our own former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone was tried, found guilty and sentenced for bribing San Diego City Council members) Cunningham came clean, or so we’re to believe.

“The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office,” he said, according to the New York Times. “I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.”

Whoa, hold on a second there, Duke. You’re still missing the point.

Yes, Cunningham did break the law and conceal his conduct. Yes, he disgraced his office. Yes, he will forfeit his freedom and worldly possessions, as he should.

But who gives a rat’s ass about his now-worthless reputation? Or whether his friends and family trust him or not?

Cunningham has delivered a much more severe injury to the republic by his actions: He’s given every cynic more evidence to believe the government is bought and paid for by big corporations, with elected officials simply the middlemen in the transaction. He’s discouraged people from voting, since only a fool will think it’s worthwhile to vote in elections that are clearly staged so the corptacracy can get its bribe-taking friends into office. He’s discouraged small businessmen from wanting to compete for government contracts, since the system is clearly rigged for favored contractors. And he’s sullied the reputation of every lawmaker who does his or her job without taking bribes, honest men and women who put the public interest before his own.

U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said it best after Cunningham finally admitted his guilt: “He did the worst thing an elected official can do. He enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there.”

Yes, he did. We hope U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns gives Cunningham the better portion of a potential 10-year sentence. Maybe after that time, he’ll figure out the real damage he’s done.

Run, Oscar, run!

That was our reaction after reading — in our friend and colleague Jon Ralston’s Flashpoint in today’s Las Vegas Sun, that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is thinking of running not for governor, but for United States Senate.

And just who is up for re-election to the U.S. Senate? Our very own John Ensign! Why, it seems like just yesterday that Ensign was walking away with ex-Sen. Richard Bryan’s seat, with nary so much as a peep from our own U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. And now, the man insiders call “Johnny Casino” is prepared to do it again.

Goodman, according to Zogby, would be competitive against Ensign, although we still have our doubts about how he’d do in the rural parts of Nevada where Democrats and Las Vegas mayors generally fare poorly. But we’ve learned never to underestimate the Goodman personality, or the Goodman popularity, regardless of its gossamer basis in reality.

The knock against the mayor’s would-be gubernatorial run is that the governor’s job is real work, chief-executive style. You’ve got to be a master of details, like the state budget. People actually take you seriously when you speak, which should give a freewheeling Goodman pause.

But the Senate? Totally different. You can still pop off, have a good time and enjoy the sense of history. (Goodman may very well inherit a desk into which a famous person has carved his name!)

Why, look no farther than Ensign for proof: What has Ensign done during the past six years? He didn’t use his position as a Republican to influence a single person to vote against Yucca Mountain, as he said he could in 2000.

He did have one really sensible idea, requiring all states to use electronic voting machines with a voter-verified paper receipt to be used in the event of a recount. That one’s still not law, but he’s working on it.

But he’s had a few frivolous ideas, too, like requiring moviemakers to warn viewers if people smoke in the film. That one is just a bad idea at the moment. And he did introduce a bill to ban the interstate transportation of roosters for the purposes of cockfighting.

Let’s not forget the hundreds of softball games, basketball games, marathons and other athletic achievements he’s racked up during the past six years. He was even named best hair. Or was that best tan? Anyway, best something.

The point is, there’s not a whole lot of ways to screw it up, which is perfect for Oscar. And, although we haven’t looked, we’re pretty sure that Senate ethics rules would allow him to have a party for his son’s business — using his “senator” title to invite guests. What’s not to like?

Anyway, to sum, here are the reasons we think Goodman should run for Senate and not governor:

• He could continue his freewheeling ways. After all, have you seen Ted Kennedy lately? We’re betting Goodman could drink the Liberal Lion under the table!

• He could probably wage a pretty good statewide campaign, even in the north, for the job.

• The job isn’t really that hard.

• Ensign is otherwise set to get a free ride.

• Goodman doesn’t need Reid’s help. In fact, Reid should actually campaign for Ensign, since Goodman’s personality would so outshine Reid’s, Goodman would be minority leader within about six months.

• We in the media are always looking for news, and the red-hot governor’s race just isn’t enough for our poor, ADD-afflicted minds.

So run, Oscar. Run like the wind. Run silent, run deep, but above all else, run!

As students the Vegas Way of politics, we are naturally interested in the sub-study of Bill Walters. He’s a one-man juice machine the likes of which we’ve rarely seen. To that end, the Review-Journal had a couple of must-reads this weekend that we commend to anyone who fell behind in their newspaper reading.

First, Adrienne Packer’s story, unfortunately buried in Saturday’s paper. It’s a comprehensive look at some of the deals that have given Walters his reputation as a “lucky” or “savvy” businessman, able to leverage an estimated $130,000 in campaign contributions into millions in profits.

Some things that struck us in this story:

• Walters prefers to first get his foot in the door, with a long lease and big promises to build golf courses at which Las Vegans can get discounted play. Then, he returns and asks for other favors, which his friends and partners in government seem only too willing to give.

• There’s a hilarious quote from ex-Commissioner Dario Herrera that Packer, a longtime county government reporter, pulled from the mists of history. After Herrera was accused of impropriety in granting Walters a favor, he lashed out at a member of the public. “In my six years of public service, i have never heard a more ignorant, more callous, more disrespectful statement of a public official’s integrity,” he fumed.

If federal investigators are to be believed, Herrera was, at or around that time, taking bribes to perform official actions. He was later indicted by a federal grand jury, and will go to trial later this year. Now that’s a statement about a public official’s integrity!

• Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury thinks its the help that makes Walters so successful, citing attorneys like Richard Wright and former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, now with the firm Lionel, Sawyer & Collins.

“They know their way around the political process and government bureaucracy enough to know you need to get expert help to put your own project in the most favorable light,” Woodbury says in the piece. Let’s just say that we don’t fully subscribe to the esteemed commissioner’s explanation.

• Las Vegas Councilman Gary Reese loves Walters, who built a golf course in the heart of Reese’s district that has spurred other development.

“I think he’s a very shrewd businessman. As far as I’m concerned, whatever he does, he does it with flair and he does it right,” Reese said.

So why is he under suspicion (and law-enforcement investigation) so much?

“I really don’t know. Are other people jealous of a successful person? I don’t know. I’m not that successful. I’m still cutting hair,” Reese replied.

We’ll grant you the flair part. Very few others would have the panache to pull off what Walters has. But being shrewd is only part of it; Walters has gotten favorable treatment from local governments all over the valley, to the detriment of taxpayers nearly every time. And that, regardless of what Reese says, is definitely not right. Are we jealous of Walters? Hardly. We’re more often outraged by him.

Next up in the R-J was David McGrath Schwartz’s Sunday story on the issue of building homes close to a sewage treatment plant, and the potential costs for taxpayers. (It starts at $13.3 million, and rises to $70 million, all so Walters can make money. See what we mean about the outrage?)

It turns out, Schwartz reports, that Clark County approved homes close to the plant without regard for what city taxpayers would have to pay in odor-control upgrades, and nobody at the city said anything, although the zone change was controversial and in the news. That is, to say the least, curious.

From this story, we also learn:

• Robert Fielden, president of the Las Vegas chamber of the American Institute of Architects, thinks building homes next door to the sewage treatment facility is nuts.

“In a normal, rational way of thinking, where planning is given any credence, you have areas of transition from one zoning to another,” he said.

And, up until recently, they did: The sewage treatment plant was buffered by “open space,” i.e. Walters golf courses at Stallion Mountain and Royal Links. It’s only recently — with Walters wanting to capitalize on the outrageous market for homes — that rationality and regard for proper planning has gone out the window.

• Homebuyers in what we’ve come to call Sweetheart Heights will have to sign a statement indicating they are aware of the sewage plant and that it could cause “headaches, bronchial spasms, nausea, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, mental anguish, distress, anxiety, shock, grief and mortification.” Sort of like the way taxpayers feel when they see their City Council rubber-stamping Walters every whim!

We at Various Things & Stuff will be taking Thanksgiving off to eat various things and stuffing, so you’ll be blogless for the holiday. Have a great holiday, and we’ll see you on Monday.

Just more than a week after appointed Attorney General George Chanos decided to go where no other lawman dared to go — into the middle of the city’s sweetheart deal with Bill Walters over the Royal Links golf course — he’s announced he’s going to recuse himself and hire a San Francisco-based law firm as special counsel at a cost of more than $250,000.

The reason? Chanos is part-owner of some downtown property that is being sold to a developer with high-rise ambitions, but who needs city permission to vacate a street near his project.

Thus, goes the reasoning: Chanos would be investigating the city at a time when he needs something from the city, a clear and obvious conflict.

Two immediate observations:

One, Chanos undoubtedly knew about his project when he lept with both feet into the Walters matter, in which land Walters acquired back in 1999 under some highly suspicious circumstances is now being targeted for homebuilding, in one of the sweetest of sweetheart deals. Why didn’t he disclose that conflict and get special counsel from the outset? He answers in the Review-Journal today:

“I’m only thinking in terms of being the attorney general. I’m not thinking about any of that, how it might impact me personally, how it might impact me politically,” Chanos said.

Chanos is new, so he probably doesn’t know that part of being attorney general is considering potential conflicts of interest.

Two, it’s manifest that — at least in part — Chanos’ entry into this case was political. Other law-enforcement agencies, including Clark County District Attorney David Roger and a deputy U.S. attorney had said that any alleged investigated by Metro Police were too old to prosecute. And, although the current deal with Walters was not in the best interests of taxpayers and a violation of the City Council’s fiduciary duty to Las Vegas residents, it’s not illegal. And Chanos desperately needs to raise his name recognition and profile in advance of his election next year against Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.

But Chanos has promised an open-ended, comprehensive investigation, possibly beyond the charges that Metro originally probed, which were rejected by other agencies. And we’re glad he’s done that, because if the memos written by deputy city attorneys John Redlein and Bill Henry are accurate, crimes did take place between 1997-1999 with regard to Walters’ land. And perhaps a comprehensive inquiry can find a way to being those alleged wrongdoers to justice.

R-J columnist John L. Smith wrote today that Chanos did the right thing in recusing himself even though he was likely to be criticized for it. We couldn’t agree more; weathering the criticism is a small price to pay for an investigation with integrity, and by stepping aside, Chanos has demonstrated — regardless of the politics of the matter — that he has integrity.

With Walters employing such eagle-eyed powerhouses as attorney Richard Wright, any prosecution will have to be as close to perfect as it can possibly be. “What good are my findings if they could be undermined?” Chanos asks. It’s an excellent question, and he’s answered as best he can.

At long last, the G-sting investigation that’s seen the indictments of four now-former Clark County Commissioners has branched out to the development community.

We’ve heard rumors of the same for a long time, but on Wednesday, the feds indicted Don Davidson, a former vice president of Triple Five Nevada, and his son, Lawrence Davidson, an unethical ex-attorney currently serving federal time for forging the signature of a federal judge. More on them in a second.

At the center of the controversy: Former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny, who was a lot more unethical than we at Various Things & Stuff ever really thought.

We’ll confess that, before Kenny was snared by the feds, we admired her drive and passion. We disagreed with her frequently (especially on her plans to require cell phone users to use hands-free earpieces and her attempts to ban smoking in the county). But we admired her commitment to building a free-standing children’s hospital at University Medical Center, the need for which has since become manifest. She lost that fight, unfortunately.

But we had no idea at the time Kenny was taking unreported money from at least one developer to commit official acts, something to which she’s now obviously confessed. So, to the extent that we were too gullible and not suspicious enough, we take full responsibility and apologize to our readers. It’s doubtful that we could have uncovered this scandal on our own, without the resources of the FBI, but we should have looked at it much more closely than we did. We promise not to make that mistake again.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly says it best in today’s Review-Journal. “It [the indictments] makes you question everything she’s [Kenny] done. From staff’s perspective, it makes you question all her motives on a variety of issues. You don’t know what her motives were. Is it because she really believed in something? Was it self-serving? Was it greed?”

Indeed, we’ve found ourselves mentally reviewing some of Kenny’s initiatives, looking for a bribery connection. And now, every single controversial vote at any level of government will raise the same question in the minds of the losing side: Did the commissioners who voted against me take bribes? This is especially true of neighbors who are fighting big development projects that can afford to hire top-notch attorneys to argue their cases.

This, at last, is Kenny’s legacy: Suspicion and distrust of government, the elevation of personal interests above the commonweal, and the moral degradation of public office. Prison hardly seems a sufficient punishment for the injury she’s inflicted on democracy itself.

The details in a federal indictment are fairly simple: Davidson allegedly gave Kenny $200,000 (in checks allegedly routed through his son to an LLC run by Kenny’s father) in exchange for Kenny helping to get land at Buffalo Drive and Desert Inn Road re-zoned for a CVS pharmacy. (Conversations about that money were reportedly recorded by FBI agents.)

But plenty of other questions are raised, but not answered, in the indictment. We pose them here:

1.) The indictment says Kenny’s unnamed accountant was engaged to help hide the money. Why has he or she not been indicted as part of the conspiracy, too? (Or has he or she agreed to testify about the scheme?)

2.) The indictment says Kenny and Davidson had a relationship dating to 2000, and that they met socially once per month so he could give her $3,000 from “a developer” grateful for her assistance on a controversial vote. Who was this developer?

(Is it perhaps Triple 5? In 2000, there was a controversial vote on a Spring Valley casino in Kenny’s district, for which she lobbied the commission. The casino vote went Triple 5’s way — it cost ex-Commissioner Lance Malone his seat and sent him into the willing arms of strip club mogul Mike Galardi, with felonious results. But the project was later torpedoed by the Gaming Policy Board. And don’t forget that Davidson was a vice-president of Triple 5 at the time all this occurred.)

3.) If it was Triple 5, why hasn’t anyone from that company been indicted for providing cash payments to Kenny? If it wasn’t Triple 5, why hasn’t the developer who provided those cash payments been indicted? Or is that still to come?

One irony, revealed by the R-J, that we cannot resist noting because we’re weak: Commissioner Chip Maxfield, who came to represent the Buffalo/Desert Inn parcel in a redistricting (done at Kenny’s behest to eliminate potential political opponents), suggested at the November 2001 meeting on the zone change that Kenny “…worked with developers and whatever.” Clearly, he was saying what neighbors were thinking — Kenny’s been paid off.

But Commissioner Myrna Williams rose to Kenny’s defense, saying it was a “pejorative remark.” Yes, it was, commissioner, but it was also true, if you believe the contents of the federal indictment. Looks like Williams owes Maxfield an apology.

Oh, and one final irony, that we also can’t resist: According to the R-J, the final votes for passage on the re-zoning matter were Kenny, Williams, Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey.

Officials currently under federal indictment: Kenny, Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey.

Now that’s not the kind of company Williams wants showing up on a flier in her 2006 election, especially running against a strong opponent like Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani.

Who knew Vice President Dick Cheney had a soft side?

Apparently, the whole trash-anyone-who-disagrees-with-us strategy isn’t working, especially after the White House trashed U.S. Rep. John Murtha, who served three tours in Vietnam (while Cheney was getting five deferments from Vietnam).

The administration’s new line seems to be that it’s perfectly OK to criticize the decision to go to war, the conduct of the war or the timetable for getting out of the war. That’s part of a healthy society. (Now, that’s mighty white of them, isn’t it?)

But lest you think they’re going too soft, Cheney added that it’s “dishonest and irresponsible” to say President George W. Bush exaggerated, lied or otherwise misled the nation into war.

“The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight but any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false,” Cheney said.

Now that’s an interesting choice of phrase, as it leaves wide open the possibility that prewar information might have been distorted, hyped or fabricated by somebody other than the leader of the nation. Say, the deputy leader of the nation, Cheney himself!

Don’t call us traitors until you’ve considered the following:

• Cheney insisted before the invasion that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted a nuclear weapons program. (That claim was based, in part, on Iraq’s use of aluminum tubes that the administration knew, or should have known, could not possibly have been used in a nuclear program, according to the New York Times.)

• Cheney has claimed that an Iraqi intelligence agent met with an al Qaida operative in Prague, Czech Republic, a meeting that never occurred. When asked about his statement — made on NBC’s Meet the Press — Cheney lied, insisting he’d never said any such thing.

• Cheney opined that American forces would be “greeted as liberators” when they occupied Iraq.

• Cheney opined this summer that the Iraqi insurgency is “in its last throes.” Insurgent activity continues.

• Cheney paid numerous, personal visits to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., to “review” the agency’s intelligence on Iraq. (The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report maintains, however, that Cheney put no pressure on analysts to come up with damning intelligence.)

• Cheney is tangentially connected to a Pentagon inspector general investigation into whether former Defense Department Undersecretary for Planning Douglas Feith’s secret intelligence operation provided Cheney and others with information that alleged a connection between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida. (The Sept. 11 Commission concluded definitively that no such connection ever existed.)

So, you’ll excuse us if we decide that we don’t think Cheney should be the guy who gets to set the terms of the debate. There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest Bush and Cheney did exaggerate, use information they knew to be bad and, yes, lie about Iraq before the U.S. invasion. And in our healthy society, we are not only free to say such things, we are obligated as citizens to pursue them. No legitimate government lies to its citizens, and when one of the chief agents of that government tells us we can’t talk about its lies, forgive us if we want a second opinion.

So the university system’s Board of Regents will shortly consider whether or not to offer domestic partner benefits to the unmarried significant others of both gay and straight couples. No big deal, right? After all, it’s done in corporate America all the time.

Oh, that’s right, this is Nevada. And we do things differently here.

Richard Ziser, the man who successfully championed Question 2, the initiative that amended the state constitution to make gay marriage illegal in Nevada, is opposed. (Ziser is now head of the group Nevada Concerned Citizens.)

Ziser, speaking in the Review-Journal, says the state has an interest in giving benefits to straight couples, as it protects the family unit. And since we all know those gay people can’t have families, screw ‘em! (Metaphorically speaking, of course! Don’t actually screw them. That would be a sin.)

Of course, Ziser’s historical knowledge is a bit off. Let’s see if we can correct the record: Benefits originated during an era of wage controls during the New Deal. Companies couldn’t pay employees more, but they could offer other incentives, like paying for health care. Since then, benefits have become part of most company’s standard package, except at Wal-Mart.

So, offering benefits is a way to induce employees to work at a given place, especially in days of rising health care costs. And offering domestic partner benefits is a way to induce gay or unmarried straight employees to work at, say, Disney, rather than a company that doesn’t offer such benefits, like Focus on the Family.

And, to use Ziser’s own reasoning for a moment, if a gay couple have health benefits, is there not an overall benefit to society, in terms of productivity and savings on publicly financed health care? We tend to think so, but then again, we don’t believe the Book of Leviticus and the United States Code should read the same, either.

So, to summarize:

• Ziser doesn’t think domestic partners — gay or straight — should be able to get benefits at the state’s universities.

• Ziser doesn’t think gay domestic partners should be able to marry, and thus qualify for the health benefits that the university system ordinarily offers to spouses.

It’s it a Catch-22? Or is it just that Ziser wishes there were no gay people in the first place?

A few thoughts about a few things that were in the weekend paper(s):

• A group of 32 attorneys general have signed a letter urging Hollywood filmmakers to add anti-smoking messages to the DVDs of movies that depict smoking. “We’re urging [studios] to do more. The industry’s leaders are responsible Americans, and I’m sure they’re just as concerned about the health of their children as the doctors are,” reads the letter, from Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr..

Well, if they’re so damn responsible, why do they need to be nagged by 32 top law-enforcers from around the country, Mr. Attorney General? And is that another racketeering lawsuit we smell brewing?

We were glad to see Kori Bernards give the AGs the proverbial Hollywood brush-off. “We in the industry recognize that this is a serious health problem. Filmmakers have to have some creative rights to depict human behaviors because that’s what movies are about,” she said.

Damn straight. And while we’re on the subject of human behaviors, don’t the AGs have anything better to do than to harass Hollywood? Is there no crime in those 32 states?

Apparently not: Back in 2003, some attorneys general sent a similar letter. They must have decided to re-send it once a Dartmouth Medical School study showed teens tend to take up smoking when they see it in movies. (That study motivated our own U.S. Sen. John Ensign — apparently available for lawmaking work after being hobbled by a basketball injury — to call for curtailing smoking in movies, too.)

We’re still wondering why Hollywood — with all its power to control teen behavior — doesn’t make films where good triumphs over evil, where bad guys generally lose in the end (and often die horrible deaths) and where everybody turns out generally happy.

Oh, wait, they do. That’s why they call it a “Hollywood ending.”

• We’ve come to respect university Chancellor Jim Rogers a bit more than when he stampeded his way into the top higher-education job in the state, but we’re still concerned about some of the things he says about education.

Rogers, a businessman, big education donor and media mogul, keeps referring to education’s need to operate more like a business, with streamlined decision making. He’s even gone so far as to call students “customers” and degrees “products,” according to the Las Vegas Sun.

We tend to agree more with Regent Doug Hill, who asked, “What is the profit value in poetry? … We need to make certain that an education enhances the soul as well as enhances the pocketbook.”

We see education, the acquisition of knowledge, as an end in itself, not a four-year, high-priced vocational training program designed to ferry students to where they best fit in our clunky capitalist machine. Some people are destined to be casino executives, lawyers, and media moguls. Some are destined to be poets. And it’s a crime to turn a poet into an executive, even if the poet is embracing a life where he’ll never make nearly as much as his counterpart in the gray suit.

Sure, students deserve to get what they pay for. Sure, decisions can be made more efficiently. But at the end of the day, education is most decidedly not a business, at least not one like a casino, a law firm or a TV station. And we must keep that firmly in mind, even as Rogers pursues some worthwhile efforts to get private dollars invested in public schools and boost the effectiveness of Nevada’s system of higher learning.

• It’s almost routine now: A government agency is investigating whether a Republican political appointee rigged the case for war. This time, it’s Douglas Feith’s turn. The former undersecretary of defense for plans is accused of setting up an independent intelligence operation in the Pentagon — dubbed the Office of Special Plans — to ferry reports directly to Vice President Dick Cheney.

And what did those reports say? It seems they suggested a since-disproved link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida, which even the president has been forced to admit didn’t exist. (Both Bush and Cheney constantly make the implication, however, another in the long list of lies surrounding the Iraq war.)

We can’t wait for this inspector general report.

As a big fan of comedian Jon Stewart and his fake-news program, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, we at Various Things & Stuff were really looking forward to Stewart’s appearance at this weekend’s Comedy Festival.

And we were not disappointed.

Stewart rocked with a standup routine that hit everybody from President George W. Bush to Pope Benedict XVI to the peculiar eating habits of dogs. And in the process, he showed that the comic genius behind most of the Daily Show material belongs to him.

A colleague who attended the event called it the funniest show he’s ever seen, not to mention “…the most sane, coherent political point of view in the country.” It’s high praise, sure, but not undeserved: Stewart’s habit of sparing no sacred cows and confronting dogma and hypocrisy with equal vigor are refreshing to a whole lot of people.

Not long ago, a study came out that revealed many young people got their news from Saturday Night Live, which people still watch for reasons we can’t fathom, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We’re not at all offended by that notion, given that we agree with most of what Stewart says. But also, there’s this: Young people are not getting their news from traditional media, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change. So why not get it from Stewart?

The trick is this: Old media (like newspapers and even TV news) is boring it strives for a false notion of “objectivity” and it takes itself way too seriously. Stewart is funny, doesn’t care about showing a bias and doesn’t take himself seriously at all. Younger people can identify with that, especially at a time when their government is lying to them with disturbing frequency.

We’re not saying you can watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and emerge as educated as you would be after sitting down and reading The New York Times cover-to-cover. In fact, it would be best if you’d do both. But something is better than nothing when it comes to civic knowledge, and we’d venture a guess that there were more people in the Coliseum at Caesars on Saturday night to hear Stewart than there were rushing to their driveways the next day to pick up the Review-Journal.

They say there’s no honor among thieves, but criminals may look like saints compared to some Republicans in Washington, D.C.

And no, we’re not just talking about the House budget bill that cuts programs for the poorest, most needy Americans, and a companion bill that cuts taxes for the richest, most well-off Americans. That’s simply an obscenity.

“Name just one religion in the world that preaches the value of asking the most of those who have the least and asking nothing of those who have the most,” said U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat.

Edwards must know how much the Republicans say they love religion and those who practice it.

What he may not know is that the GOP version of the Bible omits certain passages (”And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”) and highlights certain others (”If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”).

Then again, religion doesn’t have much to do with Republican tax policy. When the GOP gets around to helping its real constituents — i.e., those with the means to keep them in office — the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule go right out the window. That’s something truly religious, Bible-believing voters might want to keep in mind the next time their Christian Coalition voter guide says Republicans are the party most hospitable to their faith.

Another thing to keep in mind is the dishonorable way the administration of President George W. Bush, who never found time to fight in a war, much less show up for a portion of his National Guard duty, mistreats some of those honorable soldiers who did fight, but happen to disagree with his initiatives.

The latest victim is U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam war veteran. Murtha is well-known as a hawk on Capitol Hill, and voted to give the president the ability to send our troops to Iraq.

But on Thursday, Murtha reversed that stance, saying its time to end our occupation of Iraq.

“Our military’s done everything that has been asked of them. The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It’s time to bring the troops home.”

Now, consider for a moment that Murtha might know what he’s talking about. He was awarded the Bronze Star and two Purple Heart medals in Vietnam, so he knows what a quagmire looks like from the front lines as well as from Congress. And, as a man who’s killed for his country and who supported the initial invasion of Iraq, he cannot be tarred with the “soft on terrorism” label.

Or can he?

After the requisite line of praise for Murtha’s veteran status, the White House proceeded to say this: “So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party. The eve of a historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists.”

Forget the Michael Moore reference or the standard “extreme liberal wing” line. Accusing a respected vet of wanting to “surrender to terrorists”? That proves that Samual Johnson was right when he said patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

And it’s not the first time that Bush or his minions have attacked veterans. Just ask former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland or current U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

What the White House said is simply wrong, and ample evidence of the desperation that has gripped the administration under the weight of scandal. The fact that Murtha has a very legitimate point — U.S. soldiers have become the targets of Iraq’s insurgency, and progress toward turning the country over to its people has moved at a glacial pace — makes the Bush reaction all the more despicable.

No one in the nation — regardless of how noble, or how devoted to the service of their country — is safe from the attacks of this administration, which considers simple dissent tantamount to treason. The irony is, the traitors are the ones inside the administration itself.

Editor’s note: This blog posting has been changed from its original version. The original version included an incorrect attribution for the paraphrased quotation that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

How hard is it to write an entire column about the controversy over golf course developer Bill Walters’ sweetheart deal with the city of Las Vegas and not mention Mayor Oscar Goodman?

Ask Goodman’s biographer, Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith.

Smith, in his column today writes that the city is getting taken by Walters, mostly because of the fecklessness of “city officials.”

In that, he’s absolutely right (although it should be noted that Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian has resisted the taxpayer giveaway to Walters).

But Smith makes nary a mention of Goodman, who led the council Nov. 2 in lifting a deed restriction on the Walters-owned Royal Links golf course, adjacent to the city’s sewer treatment plant. The city gave Walters clear title to the land for $7.2 million, a fraction of its assessed value, and Goodman was later quoted by my friend and colleague Jon Ralston as saying, “I don’t see any sweetheart deal.”

But apparently something was wrong, because shortly after Attorney General George Chanos announced an investigation of the matter, Goodman led the council in re-imposing the deed restriction at the course and canceling a tell-all public hearing into the history of Walters’ dealings with the city on Royal Links.

So writing about the controversy without mentioning Goodman takes some degree of skill, to say nothing of a willingness to avoid a key element of the tale.

But as we’ve noted before, Smith is hardly a critic of the mayor, even when he should be.

Is there anybody out there who doubts — if brand-new Attorney General George Chanos hadn’t announced an investigation, the Las Vegas City Council would have rammed and jammed the Bill Walters matter through on Wednesday?

We didn’t think so.

Instead, the council decided to re-impose the deed restriction that limits the land’s use to a golf course, and nixed a planned hashing-out of the issues surrounding the controversial sweetheart deal. But that, we’re confident, would never had happened had Chanos not decided to investigate.

After all, this is the same council that on Nov. 2 approved the idea of letting Walters put homes within 20 feet of the city’s sewage treatment plant, thus incurring taxpayer costs of at least $5 million and perhaps as much as $30 million. Anybody who thinks that’s a good deal for taxpayers is either chemically deluded or has a commitment in a political capacity to the interests of Walters. (Not to mention that the vote violates years of city policy — dating to 1987-1990, when the land was first acquired to be a buffer between any future homes and the sewage treatment plant.)

And, to make matters worse, some members of the council — including Mayor Oscar Goodman — voted for the Walters deal despite knowing that he may have won a bid to build a golf course on the land back in 1997-1998 thanks to the allegedly felonious acts of former city Public Works Director Richard Goecke.

But Chanos helpfully sent a letter to City Attorney Brad Jerbic, announcing his office would begin investigating the entire saga, from the lease of the property to Walters to build the Royal Links golf course to Walters’ 1999 purchase of the land to this year’s wrangling over lifting a deed restriction to allow him to pave the course and build houses on the 160-acre parcel.

Now, some may wonder why Chanos is launching an investigation after Clark County District Attorney David Roger has already said the statute of limitations on any criminal acts has already lapsed. Is it a desperate political act by a Republican appointee who needs to raise his profile quickly in advance of the 2006 elections, when he’ll face stiff competition from Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.

Trust us: That is definitely part of the calculus. And trust us further: Anybody who thinks that this couldn’t backfire on Chanos if he fails to come up with a prosecutable crime is either naive or woefully wrong. The public, the cops, and pretty much everybody else in town but Walters and his good friends at 400 E. Stewart Ave. thinks this deal stinks. If the AG rolls snake eyes, his stock will not go up in the public mind.

On the other hand, we at Various Things & Stuff are cheered to see that somebody is looking out for taxpayers, since the City Council — with the exception of Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian sure as hell isn’t doing the job. “We’re doing this to ensure openness and integrity in local government,” Chanos told the Review-Journal. And, with reports secreted out of public view and a series of giveaways to Walters over the course of two different administrations at City Hall, it’s long past time for openness and integrity.

But let’s wake up from our daydream for a second: We fully believe that, had Chanos not written his letter (and showed up in person to watch the meeting and chat with reporters) the Walters deal would have been ratified.

Sure, old allegations against Goecke would have been aired. Sure, city officials like City Manager Doug Selby would have defended their conduct (keeping council members in the dark is a curious way to “manage” the city). And sure, there would have been plenty of sound and fury as Goodman blamed the administration of his predecessor, Jan Jones, for any crimes that may have occurred.

But in the end, Goodman would have argued — as he already has — that what happened in the past has not effect on the present. And if he voted for the deal once before, he’d have voted for it once again, absent any current criminal charges. Ditto for several other members of the council.

How do we know? Goodman said in the R-J that, once Chanos’ investigation is complete, the Walters proposal will be brought back. Anybody want to bet how that one’s going to come out?

Didn’t think so.

Another day, another part falling off the Las Vegas Monorail.

According to the Review-Journal, which keeps track of these things fairly well, a four-foot, 10-pound Fiberglas wheel skirt fell off a monorail train on Sunday morning. Another train then ran that part over. As a result, the system was shut down until early afternoon.

Sure, it’s not a major shutdown. Sure, nobody has been injured or killed by falling monorail parts (yet). But when are we going to start holding people accountable for the shoddy, tax-dodging system?

It was the late former Clark County Aviation Director Bob Broadbent and his sidekick, Cam Walker who chose monorail technology over the more highly recommended light rail. Broadbent and Walker chose Bombardier to design the route and build the monorail, too. And hotel-casinos, including MGM Grand, Bally’s and the Las Vegas Hilton, empowered that dynamic duo.

Since the system was built, it’s been shut down for mechanical and computer glitches, consistently underperformed its optimistic ridership estimates and failed to generate the money necessary to pay its operating costs and debts.

Why should we care? Because this allegedly “private” system has dodged sales and property taxes from Day One and was built using state-issued tax-exempt bonds. And let’s not forget that Broadbent said — more than once — that it was his intention that the taxpayers eventually take over the system. So the public clearly has an interest in how this train works out.

How much have Las Vegas city fathers and mothers given away to golf course developer Bill Walters over the past decade on just the 160-acre Royal Links golf course parcel? Perhaps as much as $80 million when it’s all said and done. More on how we arrived at that figure in a moment.

First, let us invite your kind attention to today’s Review-Journal, where City Hall reporter David McGrath Schwartz discovered the city’s environmental officer, Lori Wohletz, is sick and tired of the city giving Walters special treatment.

What special treatment, you ask? Well, if you haven’t been following along, let’s bring you up to speed:

• Former city Public Works Director Richard Goecke reportedly gave Walters a copy of a soil sample report before he bid to build a course on the land Vegas Valley Drive and Desert Inn Road, adjacent to the city’s sewage treatment plant. (No other bidder got this favor.) When city officials discovered that fact, they simply put the course out to bid again. Goecke was not punished.

• Walters built on an additional 29 acres that wasn’t included in the original bid. When city officials discovered that fact, they simply amended the lease agreement, rather than sue Walters for trespass. Goecke allegedly approved the construction.

• In 1999, the city sold Walters the land under the course for $854,000, far less than its value. (A deed restriction stipulated the land would be used only for a golf course, thus limiting the land’s value.)

• Early this year, Walters asked the city to lift the deed restriction, in exchange for $7.2 million, a fraction of the land’s present value. The city agreed, even after an environmental report on the subject was altered, prompting a police investigation.

• The city, by the way, is on the hook for at least $5 million to control odors from plant, and complaints are likely to increase as homes are built within 20 feet of the plant’s border. (Yes, yes, we know: Walters thinks his shit don’t stink. Good one.)

• The council is meeting as this is posted to reconsider its decision lifting the deed restriction, since Councilman Steve Wolfson was irked that he didn’t know all of the above when he and five colleagues voted to give Walters a huge gift of public funds. (Only Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian voted no, because she thought $7.2 million was too low an offer.)

OK, you’re up to speed. But wait until you read Wohletz’s blockbuster allegations from Schwartz’s story today.

• Blockbuster Allegation No. 1: Allowing Walters to build homes on the golf course land — which was originally intended to serve as a buffer between homes and the sewage treatment plant — will cause the city in incur costs of about $30 million in upgrades to the plant.

“To jeopardize that facility’s compliance to make one person richer, who’s already rich, makes no sense to me,” Wohletz told the R-J. “There’s no benefit to the city and there’s a large potential to harm the wastewater treatment plant.”

• Blockbuster Allegation No. 2: An independent report recommended against building homes on the land, and, in fact, buying more nearly land to increase the buffer between the plant and residences. This was the staff’s recommendation to City Manager Doug Selby, who demurred to the City Council.

Well, not so much demurred as heartily recommended the deal, a stance Selby says he now regrets, but also doesn’t regret, since the city is getting money from Walters. (What the hell is going on with this guy?)

• Blockbuster Allegation No. 3: Wohletz accused Selby in an e-mail to Mayor Pro Tem Gary Reese of manipulating an independent study of the proposal by slanting questions so as to get positive answers. The questions were so slanted, she says, that the consultant doing the study asked if the Walters plan was a “done deal.”

Selby says in the R-J story that “no draft [of the report] was edited or reviewed.” But he knows that’s not true: One version highlighted plenty of problems with developing homes on the land, and a second version — with those concerns toned down — was circulated as well. It was the dual reports that prompted Mayor Oscar Goodman to call for a Metro Police investigation, which found no criminal wrongdoing with the dueling documents.

Wohletz, who says city staffers have been “expressing outrage” over Walters’ sweetheart deals for years, told Reese in her e-mail she’s prepared to quit over her concerns. “I am fully prepared to resign immediately if necessary. My last boss, Michael Naylor, once told me that if my ethics were bothering me then it was time to find another job. I always thought that was some of the best advice that I was ever given.”

Thank God that ethics aren’t totally dead at City Hall. But Wohletz remarks raise another important question:

Why the hell isn’t it the City Council asking these questions? Why isn’t it the City Council — with the exception of Tarkanian — outraged about the taxpayers being taken for a ride, about their assets being sold to benefit Walters, a prime contributor to local campaigns? Why is it that at least two City Councils have — what’s that phrase — bent all the way over for Walters from 1997 to the present day? And why do we taxpayers continually re-elect these people when they’re letting a campaign contributor rob us blind?

And that brings us back to Walters, The Up-To-$80-Million-Man. “This thing has been studied every which way they can study it. Nothing has changed except for misinformation and innuendo,” Walters told the R-J.

Well, it hasn’t been studied every way there, Bill. Let’s do the Various Things & Stuff Total Taxpayer Screwing Analysis, shall we? The subtotals are cumulative, so watch the numbers really take off.

• The city bought the land near the sewage treatment plant for $2.65 million between 1987 and 1990. It sold the land to Walters — admittedly with a value-limiting deed restriction — for $854,000 in 1999.

Taxpayer Screwing Subtotal: $1,796,000.

• The city accepted Walters offer of $7.2 million to lift the deed restriction just this month, despite two appraisals that showed the land was worth between $35.6 million and $55.7 million.

Taxpayer Screwing Subtotal: Between $30,196,000 and $50,296,000.

• The city will likely have to pay $5 million right away for odor control to accommodate the new homes.

Taxpayer Screwing Subtotal: Between $35,196,000 and $55,296,000.

• And, according to Wohletz, the city may have to pay an additional $30 million for odor control over the long term, because of nearby homes.

Taxpayer Screwing Grand Total: Between $60,196,000 and $80,296,000.

Now that’s outrageous, especially because it’s simply unnecessary. Consider this final thought:

Forget for a moment the sneaky way Walters got the golf course lease in the first place, Goecke’s alleged illegal acts and all the covering up that was done by the council in 1998 (when former Mayor Jan Jones was in office, by the way). This land was intended to serve as a buffer between homes and the sewage treatment plant, not another subdivision. Allowing homes nearby makes no sense from a policy perspective, and incurs extra costs for taxpayers. From a financial standpoint, it makes no sense, unless Walters agrees to pay full price for the land and for every upgrade necessary to the sewage treatment plant to deal with all future odor complaints from his planned Sweetheart Heights development.

What are the odds that he’ll agree to that?

What are the odds that the council would even ask for that?

Probably about the same as landing a hole-in-one on one of Walters long, ill-gotten par-4s.