Today’s the last work day of the year, and that means we at Various Things & Stuff are wrapping it up until next week, which also happens to be next year. Although we’ve only been doing the blog for a few months, we feel a special connection to our readers, mostly because we know all of them personally.

We look forward to 2006, when our mailing list will get into full swing and you can fritter away literally hours of otherwise productive time reading our cyberrantings, following our links and generally sharing in our twisted, cynical view of Las Vegas, politics and the world we live in.

We’ve got a lot coming up: In 2006, Nevada will elect a new governor, and a new slate of constitutional officers. All three congressional seats are up, as is freshman U.S. Sen. John Ensign. We’ll elect assembly members, state senators and county commissioners, too.

We’ll get to witness the Operation G-sting trial, involving ex-Clark County Commissioners Erin Kenny, Dario Herrera, Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Lance Malone. We’ll get to witness the Ethics Commission hearing for Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald. We’ll get to see political powerhouses like Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams and Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani do battle — against each other!

We may even find out what the hell is going on with that whack island in ABC’s Lost.

In short, it’s going to be a fun year.

We at Various Things & Stuff will continue to bring you the best in political commentary, or at the very least the best of our own stuff. And we’ll continue to accept all the news tips, story suggestions and gentle criticism that all 12 of our readers have to offer.

So until the New Year, we wish everybody safe and happy holidays, and thanks for reading.

Let’s get this straight: President George W. Bush breaks the law by ordering the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens’ overseas calls. The New York Times, after keeping the matter quiet for a year at the request of the Bush administration, finally publishes the story.

And as a result … we begin impeachment proceedings against Bush? We order all NSA staffers who complied with an obviously illegal order to be fired and prosecuted, for violation of the 14th Amendment? We have congressional hearings in how such an appalling abuse of Americans could be allowed to occur?

Nope. The Department of Justice announced it was opening an investigation into who leaked the material to the Times in the first place.

Are we dreaming?

Instead of calling off his Justice Department, to say nothing of apologizing for breaking the law and resigning in shame, Bush seems to be OK with the probe. “The leaking of classified information is a serious issue. The fact is that al Qaida’s playbook is not printed on Page One when America’s is, it has serious ramifications,” said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Not so serious, of course, as a president who has violated his oath of office and committed one of the most serious constitutional violations in American history. But still, serious.

The Times declined to comment on the investigation, but the question we have is, what took the paper so long to reveal what it knew? The official line is publication was delayed because of the administration’s request and to verify sources, but waiting for a year? Who knows if the story could have swung the 2004 election to U.S. Sen. John Kerry?

Either way, the Times belatedly did its journalistic duty. Now it should stand by its principles, refuse to identify any leakers and lead the nation’s newspapers in calling for Bush to resign or be impeached for high crimes.

A few notes from the world of media…

• The Review-Journal today had a story so good, it ran twice: An Associated Press story on ex-Devo frontman David Casale’s decision to release new music exclusively online. A photo of Casale, clad in purple turban in front of the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, appears with both versions of the story, in the Living section as well as the Business section.

Hey, it happens at newspapers sometimes. For our part, we like the Business section headline better: “Now you hear it — but it may only be online.”

And we’d rather have seen the Living section run a second AP story in the place of writer John Przybys’ piece on the popularity of retro video games like Pacman. Nobody can spot a trend months or years after it’s begun like Przybys.

• Speaking of the R-J, somebody needs to check the coding on certain features. That is, unless the paper wants its editorials to be freely mixing with its news stories.

On today’s headlines page — linked above — the paper’s editorials appear in the section set aside for news, and then again in the section set aside for opinion.

Now, some R-J critics, including us at Various Things & Stuff, have argued that the paper’s conservative bias occasionally creeps into its news reporting, but nobody has suggested the two sections are literally crossing over.

And while we’re talking about editorials, we’d like to congratulate our former colleagues on the page for their restraint when addressing gadfly Tony Dane’s ill-considered, doomed-to-failure proposal to raise the top tier of the state’s gambling tax to 18.25 percent.

“Proposal not well thought out” is the nicest thing they could say about Dane’s idea.

• We at Various Things & Stuff don’t hesitate to admit that we like to leaf through Liberty Watch The Magazine now and again. We’ve got to keep up on what the right-wingers are doing, right? And this issue is extra special to us, since we’re quoted in an article by Editor Mike Zigler. (We can’t say we care for the photo, but that can certainly not be Zigler’s fault. And we finally found an issue where the editors and readers of Liberty Watch and we can agree: Letting people smoke if they damn well want to.)

Anyway, we laughed out loud when we read the table of contents, where we saw magazine’s publisher, George Harris, was described as “Nevada’s biggest political activist” for his interview with Iran-Contra figure Oliver North.

Now, was that a reference to Harris’ status in the political community, or his girth?

Now, before you readers jump on us for being mean to Harris, we at Various Things & Stuff are also members of the Hefto-American Community, and thus we’re fully authorized by law to make fat jokes. So settle down.

As for the North interview, it was pretty standard stuff: If you’re critical of the troops, North implied, you’re hurting the war effort. Therefore, we must all support the war effort in order to support the troops. It’s a tautology that even a child could unravel, and we’ll leave you to that two-minute task now.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid is the king of pork. Or so we’re supposed to think, despite a report showing Nevada dead last in the nation when it comes to getting federal dollars from Washington, D.C.

We at Various Things & Stuff wrote Tuesday about the irony of the state represented by the minority leader in the Senate lagging when it comes to per capita spending, a lowly $5,467.20 per person in Nevada in 2004. Alaska, the No. 1 state in per capita spending last year, saw $12,885.17, according to the report.

But Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen wrote to say that the figures don’t tell the whole story. Consider this, Hafen said:

• Citizens Against Government Waste ranks Nevada No. 11 when it comes to per capita “earmark” dollars, which translates to pork. Then again, one man’s pork is another man’s extra freeway lane, bridge or interchange. And even vegetarian drivers like that kind of pork in rush-hour traffic.

• Reid has worked to get the federal government to change the formula for spending homeland security dollars to reflect the actual population of a city, including visitors. That helps Las Vegas, where just less than 2 million people live, but which sees a huge influx of tourists and thus becomes a higher-profile terrorist target.

(We personally think that anti-terror dollars should be allocated based on risk assessments; Wyoming is a pretty low profile target compared with Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, or Chicago, wouldn’t you say?)

• Reid has worked to keep the Bush administration from stealing billions in proceeds from the sale of federal lands under the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. (The administration earlier sought to use the lion’s share of the money to pay down the federal budget deficit, while the act says the money should be used for recreation, environmental protection, schools and water projects in Nevada.)

• The report, while ranking Nevada last in per capita federal spending, also showed the state was 38th in retirement and disability benefits, including Social Security and Veterans Administration benefits. The state was 31st in procurement of federal contracts, and 35th in federal salaries and wages. The state was lowest in programs like Medicaid, unemployment and community development block grants, which state and local agencies apply to the government to receive. (See, it’s the state and local people’s fault!)

Anyway, that’s the word from the Reid camp. And speaking of Reid, it seems he’s going to spend his winter break going to Republican states to tell residents just how corrupt Republicans are.

No, seriously, according to the Review-Journal, Reid will head next month to Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Pocatello, Idaho, and Omaha, Neb. on his Republicans Are Bad Tour 2006. Talk about your easy targets: More Republicans are under indictment, investigation and suspicion this year than any since perhaps Watergate.

“He [Reid] wants to take his message to some of these red states that the Democrats want to clean up Washington,” Hafen said. “He will be talking on the theme that America can do better and just letting these red states know who the Democrats are.”

Yes, by all means, let’s introduce the red states to Washington-cleaning Democrats like … U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.! No, no, that’s not right. How about former U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, D-Texas! He wants to clean up Washington, right? Oh, wait, no, that’s not right, either. How about ex-President Bill Clinton? Washington was sure clean under him, right? OK, no, forget that. Let’s go with ex-U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill. He’s out of the big house by now, right? Too bad former President Lyndon Johnson has passed on. How he was one clean guy!

Now, to be fair, most of the unethical Democrats are out of office, while most of the investigated/indicted Republicans are currently serving. But do you really think a change of party leadership in Congress and the White House will bring moral uprightness to the Capitol?

Hardly. The most we can hope for is to end a string of lies about the Iraq war, the illegal spying on American citizens, the obscene corporate welfare for energy and drug companies, the coddling of the rich and the continual assaults against Social Security. Democrats might not have sterling ethics records themselves, but they’re a damn sight better when it comes to getting the government’s priorities in order.

Plus, despite their unfortunate choice of “American can do better,” the Democrats are slightly better at coming up with sound bites. Don’t believe me? Check out the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s response to Reid’s visit: “Pack warm clothes because you may get a chilly reception.”

See what we mean? Republicans should go back to doing what they do best: Insider trading, money laundering, conspiracy, accepting bribes in exchange for official action, and privatizing Social Security.

We at Various Things & Stuff are not lawyers. In fact, we don’t even play lawyers on TV. But even we are suspicious of Attorney General George Chanos’ legal opinion that the importation of prescription drugs from Canada is illegal.

It seems to us that Chanos relies on a highly technical interpretation of the law, known as Senate Bill 5, which stipulates that the state can maintain a website that shows Nevadans how to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

According to the Chanos opinion, that means the drugs “for which application has been properly made and which have successfully passed the FDA review process and have been awarded approval by the FDA.” Clear so far? Because here’s where it gets messy:

Chanos, relying apparently upon a legal interpretation sought from the FDA by pharmaceutical companies, maintains that FDA approval extends even to the packaging and labeling of the drugs, not just to the chemical compounds that make up the drugs. Since Canadian drugs may differ in packaging, they’re no longer “FDA-approved” drugs, or so the line of Chanos reasoning goes.

Objection, your honor! That appears to be bullshit to us! (We know, that’s not a formal legal objection, but still.)

And we at Various Things & Stuff can produce witnesses — courtesy of the Review-Journal, who agree with us: One’s a doctor. One’s a lawyer. And both are lawmakers who helped pass the bill.

“This does a great disservice to people on fixed incomes and low to moderate incomes to get the drugs they need for basic survival,” says state Sen. (and Dr.) Joe Heck, a Las Vegas Republican. “It truly takes the drugs out of the people’s possession out of a technicality and not because it is in the best interests of public health.”

“My opinion is that ultimately common sense is going to prevail over special interests. There is not reason why this program should not go forward,” says Assembly Majority Leader (and attorney) Barbara Buckley, a Las Vegas Democrat.

Want more? Staff lawyers also agree that “FDA approved” should refer only to the chemical compound of the drug, and not necessarily the packaging. (Disclaimers: First, staff lawyers to the Legislature are often wrong, since they pretty much say whatever lawmakers want them to say. Second, just because the FDA approves a drug doesn’t make it safe anyway, as users of Vioxx would attest, if they were still alive and not dead due to heart problems allegedly caused by the drug.)

But Chanos, channeling pharmaceutical companies, is steadfast in his views: “I am absolutely convinced there is no question that we have arrived at the correct conclusion. I am fully comfortable with our legal analysis,” he said.

Oh, c’mon, Mr. Attorney General: There’s certainly a question about whether you’re right or not, and we highly suspect that you’re not.

In any case, as Buckley notes (in not so many words) an AG opinion and $4 will get you a nice venti latte at Starbucks. That’s why she’s going to encourage the state Pharmacy Board to ignore Chanos’ view, adopt her view and authorize the program anyway.

But isn’t this the same board that struggled with whether pharmacists should be able to say no to needy patients who were asking for birth control, morning-after or other controversial medications, right here in Nevada? Will that board really have the temerity to stand up and ignore the AG on a matter of international concern?

We hope so: Because not only do we have a Republican doctor, a Democratic lawyer and staff legal opinions on our side, we also have the weight of common sense. Now, in Legal World, where gravity is always in flux, common sense often has a molecular weight of zero. But in the real world, it sometimes makes all the difference.

And speaking of the real world, we sure wonder how much Chanos — appointed by Gov. Kenny Guinn to fill the term of former AG Brian Sandoval, who’s now a federal judge — has taken in from pharmaceutical companies for his 2006 bid for office? Can’t wait until next month when those reports come out.

Not that contributions would influence an elected official or anything. No, those donations are given simply to ensure good government. Hey, maybe we really are lawyers!

The question of whether to raise the gambling tax on casinos — and by how much — is a legitimate one. At 6.75 percent, the top tier of Nevada’s gambling tax is the lowest in the world, even after getting a slight half-point boost in the 2003 Legislature.

But a legitimate debate will most definitely not flow from the efforts of Republican phone-banker Tony Dane, who tried to file an initiative to raise the top tier of the tax to 18.25 percent on Tuesday. (True to form, Dane failed to read the instructions, and was turned away since the first legal day to file petitions isn’t until Jan. 3.)

Dane, up to this point a tax-fighter, wants the proceeds of the higher tax to pay the property taxes of every single-family homeowner in Nevada. He estimates his measure will raise $800 million, although on this, like so many other things, Dane is probably wrong.

Of course, gambling industry folks object: Higher taxes will prompt casinos to cancel new projects, they say, also noting that casinos already pay a big share of the state budget via the gambling, payroll, property, sales, alcohol, cigarette and entertainment taxes. All very true.

Also true is the argument that casinos made in 2003, when advocating for the gross receipts tax on business: Nevada’s non-gambling businesses pay nothing in the way of a revenue tax, which allows them to shirk their fair share of the state’s taxation burden.

Alas, none of these issues matter to Dane, who in our view is concerned primarily with getting his name and picture in the paper. (You don’t think the Review-Journal just bumped into Dane down at the county Government Center, do you?) Dane complains that casino companies are investing outside Nevada, automating functions and laying people off, and he’s mad at casinos for advocating for taxes in 2003.

Memo to Dane: The gross receipts tax proposal the casinos advocated in 2003 lasted about 17 minutes in the Legislature before it was rejected, in favor of a proposal cobbled together at the last minute that centered on the payroll tax. Casinos didn’t want that beast any more than the rest of us. And they got their own taxes raised in the process.

There is a legitimate debate to be had over the fairness of the current tax scheme, whether the gambling industry should pay a little more, whether non-gambling businesses should pay a lot more and the like. But it won’t come from Dane’s latest, clownish attempt at publicity.

So, the casino industry can rest easy. Don’t forget that Dane is one of the super-geniuses behind the 45-minute, unlamented tenure of ex-Las Vegas Councilwoman Janet Moncrief. He’s the guy who found a loser by the name of “David Parks” to challenge the real Assemblyman David Parks, until the fake Parks got tossed from the ballot on residency grounds. He made a point to get arrested while circulating petitions in 2004 on behalf of Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, more to get in the paper than to stand for the First Amendment. And Dane, who objects to gay people, was behind one of the ugliest political mailers in state history, too.

Heck, we can’t think of a single thing he’s done successfully. In fact, if casinos could accept bets on Dane’s inevitable failure, we’d take that action, and contribute a little tax money to Nevada in the process.

So, the latest stupid, racist idea from a Republican? Deny American citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in America. And the latest stupid, unconstitutional vehicle to accomplish the latest stupid, racist idea: A federal law, which, for those who never really paid attention in civics, cannot trump the U.S. Constitution.

How stupid and how racist is this idea? Even the House Republican leadership won’t bring a bill by U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., to a vote. Don’t think they’re getting all principled or anything; they’re really just afraid of people noticing how stupid and racist Deal’s bill really is.

It’s too bad, too, since there’s constitutional grounds for rejecting the idea. The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

And that means you can pass all the laws you want, but all persons born in the United States are citizens, and if you want to change that, you’ll need a little thing we like to call a “constitutional amendment.” And that’s true even if a majority of Americans disagree with the notion that any child born on U.S. soil is a citizen.

“Most Americans feel it doesn’t make any sense for people to come into the country illegally, give birth and have a new U.S. citizen,” says Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for Immigration Reform. “But the advocates for illegal immigrants will make a fuss; they’ll claim you’re punishing the children and I suspect the [congressional] leadership doesn’t want to deal with that.”

Didn’t you hear us, Ira? It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to you, it’s a matter of constitutional law. It doesn’t make sense to us that there’s a big-ass school zone in the middle of Sahara Avenue at Valley View Boulevard, either, but we still slow down for it. (Sometimes.)

Plus, we’re not advocates for illegal immigration. We have the same security worries that other good, non-racist Americans have about our borders. But we also think the Constitution means what it says, and we don’t think abandoning it every time a thorny problem rears its ugly head is a workable solution. So, it’s not in order to avoid “punishing the children” that we oppose Deal’s bill; it’s in order to avoid punishing the Constitution.

Oh, and also the bill is stupid and racist. Did we mention that?

Now that the fake “centennial” is over, the city of Las Vegas will still be getting money from the sale of those popular but historically inaccurate license plates, money that will be used to fund “historical preservation” into the future.

Although we disagree with commemorating fake dates pulled right from air, we totally support historical preservation, especially in a town that likes to blow up its past to build shiny new monuments to its present. Preserving the downtown post office, neon signs from casinos long closed, and other historical artifacts around town is a great idea.

And here’s another one: Perhaps the City Council could set aside just a few dollars (after the aggrieved Clear Channel is paid off for its extra costs in staging that Red Hot Chili Peppers concert during the Red Hot Las Vegas Summer) for a special project.

The project: Celebrating the real 100th birthday of Las Vegas, six years from now in 2011, which is precisely 100 years from when the city was formally incorporated in 1911. You don’t have to have the world’s largest birthday cake, the world’s largest New Year’s toast, more than $200,000 in taxpayer money spent on city employees to “manage” the celebration or anything like that. Maybe just a few balloons and a little party outside City Hall. That’d be nice.

Well, this is a pickle: U.S. Sen. Harry Reid gets reelected to the Senate in 1998 and 2004 on the promise of bringing home the bacon to Nevada; he gets elected minority leader of the Democrats and still Nevada ranks dead last in per capita federal spending ($5,467.20 per person in 2004), despite Las Vegas being the fastest-growing state in the nation?

Now that’s got to be just a tad embarrassing. Good thing he’s not up for reelection until the end of the decade.

It turns out Alaska, home of nepotist Gov. Frank Murkowski, who appointed his daughter Lisa Murkowski to the Senate, and the creepy, angry U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens is No. 1 in per capita federal spending, at $12,885.17 per resident, according to the Census report. (Maybe there are more bridges to more nowheres than we know about?) Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico and Hawaii all ranked in the Top 5.

Oh, and the figures don’t include money spent on foreign aid, to pay interest on the ever-growing national debt or money for the CIA, DIA and NSA, which was potentially used to eavesdrop on your overseas phone calls.

So, what gives? The Review-Journal couldn’t reach Reid, but it did reach Assemblyman Mo Denis, who’s the next best thing, and who promised to look into this matter forthwith.

Still, we can’t forget the reams of news releases from Reid, U.S. Sen. John Ensign and the rest of our congressional delegation boasting about how much money they’re always bringing home. Do they count spending on congressional news release writers and faxes in the per capita state spending? If so, we’re sure Nevada would rank higher, just on the efforts of U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons alone. (Dude sends out a ton of news releases.)

Anyway, Reid promised to bring home the bacon, which is why we voted for him — twice. (OK, we really voted for him because we liked him better than Ensign or 2004 challenger, Richard Ziser.) But still: We want our money, Harry! Preferably in small, unmarked, non sequential bills delivered in a brown canvas bag. You know where our office is, right?

Somewhere, in their Olympian halls, the gods of journalism have turned their backs to weep…

…at this.

It’s Friday, there are only two shopping days left before Christmas and we are about to wing our way south for a little California holiday time. But there’s always time for blogging, so let’s do a few quick hits before we close out the week:

• Does somebody at the Review-Journal’s copy desk work part-time for Boyd Gaming? We only ask because of the ridiculous headline that appeared above the R-J’s story about the opening of the South Coast casino in today’s paper.

It seems fireworks set off to commemorate the casino’s opening (a full 5 1/2 weeks ahead of schedule) set fire to some building materials atop the hotel’s tower. The fire was put out quickly and no one was hurt, although the fire alarms did go off for about 45 minutes and some smoke was pumped into the hotel’s top floors via a ventilation system.

So how did the R-J headline the story? Like this: “South Coast opens with flair,” followed by a subhead: “Fireworks ignite fire, add to excitement.”

Huh?

Sure, the opening a new casino is exciting. Sure, it’s always packed with gamblers, hoping rumors of loose slots and legendary Megabucks payouts are true. And, as a native of Southern California, we applaud any casino that carries the SoCal theme. But let’s be honest, folks: A fire ignited by your own fireworks is a bit of a mistake, not a bit of “flair.” (To their credit, Boyd officials acknowledged this. Too bad the R-J headlined the story like it was to appear in the company’s newsletter. And, for the record, let us say that the story itself, by business reporter Chris Jones was fair, accurate and complete.)

But we can’t help but wonder how that same editor might have handled some other events in local and world history. Hmmmm….

“Nixon resigns with a flourish/Looks forward to exciting post-White House career as commentator, writer”

“Titanic sinks like a pro/Survivors marvel at ship’s classy demise”

“Corruption queen Kenny pleads ‘guilty’/Sassy ex-commish still stylish in prison orange”

“Allies take Berlin!/Nazi leader Hitler goes out with a bang!”

“Global warming all the rage/Rising water levels mean more ocean fun for everyone”

“Hurricane Katrina blows New Orleans/Residents thrilled with new sport of ‘street surfing’”

We’ll leave it there, in the spirit of Christmas. But in the spirit of journalism, maybe somebody should have a little talk with whoever wrote that steamy pile of a headline?

• Our friend, colleague and now, successor at the R-J, Erin Neff, did a great job in today’s newspaper analyzing the use and abuse of free parking for elected officials, bureaucrats and even some in the private sector.

We won’t regale you with the whole tale, but suffice to say, there’s a whole lot of people parking for free at McCarran while folks like us at Various Things & Stuff hunt for a space in the garage for which we’ll have to pay a whopping $12 per day.

A couple things we noticed about this story.

Thing No. 1: Both state Treasurer Brian Krolicki and state Controller Kathy Augustine keep cars in the garage at McCarran for free, and simply use them whenever they’re in town. (To make matters worse, Augustine, who lives in Las Vegas, racked up almost as much in parking fees as did Krolicki, who doesn’t. Was she here to campaign?)

Both say what everybody else says: If they had to pay, they’d just apply for reimbursement. So, the free-parking program is there to make things easier for them? Maybe if they had to apply for reimbursement, and the charge were to show up on required forms, they’d be less cavalier about taking up a space that could otherwise be used by a member of the public. You remember the public: They’re the saps who voted Krolicki and Augustine into office, who pay their salaries and whose fees go to pay for the garage at McCarran.

Thing No. 2: The award of the parking privilege is apparently 100 percent arbitrary and capricious. Witness the sad saga of Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce President Kara Kelley, who enjoyed free parking until the airport grew disenchanted with her organization’s capitalist-enabling stances at the state Legislature. The airport pulled out of the chamber (what the hell was the airport doing as a chamber member in the first damn place?) and canceled Kelley’s free parking, says Rosemary Vassiliadis, the airport’s deputy director.

Well, that will show Kelley. The only thing is, the cancellation order didn’t get recorded until early this month, and that meant Kelley got more free parking than the airport overlords thought she should get.

Don’t get us wrong: We haven’t agreed with a single Chamber of Commerce lobbying stance in our lives, mostly because “screw the public … and all of our small-business members, too!” seems to be the guiding philosophy. But yanking the free-parking privilege seems to us to indicate that there are no rules governing who gets parking, who doesn’t and whose parking can be pulled at any moment. That’s bad.

• University Regent Howard Rosenberg, a UNR art professor, serves in total violation of common sense, the doctrine of separation of powers and laws governing conflicts of interest. And now, board Chairman Bret Whipple has created yet another conflict: Appointing Rosenberg to the search committee that will chose the next president of UNR. You know, Rosenberg’s new boss.

What does the Most Conflicted Member of the Worst Public Body in America have to say about it? He simply chooses not to acknowledge the problem. “I don’t consider the president of the university to be anybody’s boss. What he is is a leader of an institution. I don’t believe in the old plantation routine, never have.”

Well, there you go: Proof that President George W. Bush’s philosophy of sticking one’s head up one’s ass — because if you can’t see trouble, it can’t see you! — is gaining ground. We can’t wait until Rosenberg decides there’s no such thing as gravity —why, he’ll be able to fly then!

Or not. Because whether Rosenberg believes it or not, UNR’s president is the boss of him, except, of course, when Rosenberg is sitting as a regent, when Rosenberg becomes the boss of the UNR president.

This is why Rosenberg has to be removed from office forthwith. No matter how much he abstains from votes (who wants a representative, after all, who cannot represent?) he’s still got an untenable, uncurable conflict. And, like reality, that exists whether Rosenberg chooses to admit it or not.

That’s it for us for this week, folks. Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Boxing Day, Pleasant Winter Solstice or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate. We’ll be back on Tuesday for the final week of 2005, and a look ahead at 2006.

We at Various Things & Stuff have been listening intently to President George W. Bush try to justify his order to the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of American citizens suspected of having ties to terrorism — all without the bother of a warrant.

Bush has insisted on two main points of law to justify his decision: Article II of the United States Constitution, and the December 2001 resolution authorizing him to use force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Perhaps, we thought, Bush has a point. After all, it’s been a long time since we’ve read Article II. So we decided to go back and check things out.

As you no doubt know, Article II outlines presidential elections, power and impeachment. Section 2 of Article II stipulates “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States….”

(Of course, he’s also commander in chief of the Marine Corps, which is considered a department of the Navy and the U.S. Air Force, which was established in 1947.)

Now, the National Security Agency is directed by a military officer (currently, it’s Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, United States Army). And the NSA is a department of the federal government. Both these things put the NSA under the president, in his role as head of the executive branch and commander in chief of U.S. armed forces.

However, Section 2 of Article II doesn’t specify the limits on presidential power. That’s elsewhere in the Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights. And as you alert readers know, the Constitution is a document that limits government power to some strictly enumerated things.

In the Bill of Rights we find one such limit, in the Fourth Amendment, which reads as follows: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”

So, even in his role as commander in chief of U.S. armed forces and head of the executive branch, the president his limited by the Fourth Amendment, and so are all the other government agencies in the United States.

Therefore, by personally ordering the eavesdropping without getting a warrant, and admitting the same, the president has committed two crimes that we can see: One, he’s violated the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects. Two, he’s failed to get the required warrant to conduct searches, and thus failed to demonstrate probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.

Bad! That’s a bad president!

The other justification Bush cites for his authority to conduct the eavesdropping is the congressional resolution, authorizing the use of force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. That resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 23, reads, in pertinent part, as follows:

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such organizations or persons.”

First, you’ll notice the resolution nowhere authorizes the warantless wiretapping of Americans’ overseas phone calls or e-mails. It authorizes the use of force, which means military actions. (How many of the representatives voting for this resolution believed they were voting for wiretapping? Very few. In fact, this resolution is directed at foreign powers, not American citizens.)

Second, you’ll notice that, in order to use force, the president must first determine that the people against whom he’s using the force “…planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” or “…harbored such organizations or persons.” So, if we are to read “necessary and appropriate force” so broadly as to include warantless wiretapping of Americans’ overseas phone calls (for the sake of argument) then we must also conclude that Bush would have to be chasing people actually involved in the September 11 plot, not any and all unspecified terrorists planning future attacks against the United States. (The resolution’s mention of future attacks is only a justification for the resolution, not part of the scope of it.)

Therefore, assuming again a broad reading of the resolution to include warrantless searches — which we reject as absurd, by the way — Bush could only tap a phone if somebody called, say, Osama bin Laden. But if that person called Muhammad al-Dickweed, suspected of not liking the United States but who was in no way involved in Sept. 11, the tapping would be illegal. Is the president prepared to tell us that everyone whose calls were tapped has a Sept. 11 connection? If so, and that can be proven, what the hell are they doing out on the streets making phone calls? Shouldn’t they be in jail down at Gitmo?

The final absurdity is this: Even with Senate Joint Resolution 23, the president is still bound by the Fourth Amendment, which, to our memory, has not yet been repealed. Therefore, even given the authority of Article II, Section 2 and SJR 23, warantless wiretapping of American citizens’ overseas calls is still illegal.

That brings us to what’s become our most favorite part of Article II these days, the infamous Section 4. That one reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Ask yourself: Does lying to American people to start a war count? How about personally subverting the Fourth Amendment, which the president swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend”? Granted, it’s no White House blow job, but we still think it’s pretty serious. But that’s just us.

Wiretapgate isn’t getting any better for the administration of President George W. Bush, as more members of Congress have begun calling for hearings. The only supporter of the president quoted in papers seems to be U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who’s filling in for indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as majority leader and thus inherits DeLay’s obligation to be an asshole.

“I am personally comfortable with what I know about it,” Blunt said. Well, so long as we have the Republican acting majority leader, the Republican-appointed attorney general and the Republican White House counsel giving their blessing to a Republican president’s subversion of the Constitution, everything is fine.

Who’s not personally comfortable with Bush’s order allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants? U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson, who sat on the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and who resigned his lifetime appointment, reportedly in protest of the Bush program.

Robertson knows what we all know by now: The law gives authorities the ability to act quickly in emergencies, tapping phones for up to three days before finally sending a lawyer before the secret court to get a retroactive warrant. And most every request for a warrant that comes before that court is granted. To not want to even bother with that procedure tells us that the administration and the NSA were up to a whole lot of no good.

Oh, and another thing, from the Los Angeles Times. It seems that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said the administration had talked with members of Congress about reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but decided against it because there weren’t enough votes.

“We were advised that … that was not something we could likely get,” Gonzalez said in the Times.

So, if you can’t get permission to change the law, why not just go ahead and do it anyway? It’s reasoning that only a moral relativist like Bush and other members of his administration could love. (Don’t forget that seeking to amend the law is a de facto admission that it currently bars, or could be seen to bar, the conduct at issue.)

And speaking of moral relativism, here’s a little gem for all you people who think that Bush didn’t really lie, but was simply snookered by bad intelligence. Author James Bamford, writing in the Dec. 1 issue of Rolling Stone, reports about the curious practices of John Rendon, a self-described “perception manager” who uses public relations skills to help topple governments and start wars.

Bamford traces the story of one Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, an Iraqi defector who told some tall tales about weapons of mass destruction buried all over Iraq. His story was used to sell the war, most specifically in a news story written in the New York Times by the now-discredited Judith Miller. The report was cited by the administration, and even placed on the White House website.

The only problem? A CIA polygraph expert had determined on Dec. 17, 2001, that al-Haideri was lying.

And the administration knew it.

Before Miller’s story was engineered by Rendon. Before the administration cited him as a credible source for pre-war justification of an invasion of Iraq.

Why? Because this war could not possibly be sold on any rational basis, and so, in the absence of reason, one must turn to lies, elaborately concocted by PR experts like Rendon, whose firm has made millions on Defense Department contracts connected to wars from Panama to the Persian Gulf.

Oh, Bush lied all right. And the lies continue to this day.

Intelligence design is a “breathtaking inanity”? So says Pennsylvania-based U.S. District Court Judge John Jones III, in his ruling in a December 2004 lawsuit brought against the Dover Area Unified School District, which inserted a mention of intelligent design into science curriculum.

Well, we have just two words for you, Judge Jones: Vanessa Marcil.

Do you really expect us to believe that Marcil, who starred in shows like General Hospital, Beverly Hills 90210 and the current NBC hit Las Vegas was just some kind of cosmic accident? Can you really sit there in your black robes and tell us that the woman whom Prince selected to star in the video of his song “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” is the product of a chain of evolution?

Please. That’s just ridiculous.

Oh, and we’ve got more. Cindy Crawford, for example. She’d clearly make Charles Darwin rethink his The Origin of Species in a heartbeat.

And the list goes on. How about Jessica Alba? Or Eliza Dushku? Sure, Tru Calling was cancelled, but we never argued that intelligent design applied to network programming decisions. (Besides, it was probably Jason Priestly who dragged that show down anyway.)

We don’t care how long you took to craft your 139-page decision, Judge Jones, we are not going to believe, for even a minute, that Diane Lane, Eva Longoria or Uma Thurman simply evolved. Sorry, but, like Hall & Oates, we can’t go for that. No. No can do.

What’s that you say? What about Carrot Top?

OK, well you’ve got us there.

But still, all you’ve really proven is deevolution. You still haven’t proven evolution.

And we’ve got Vanessa on our side on this one.

President George W. Bush is still defending that obviously unconstitutional decision to have the National Security Agency eavesdrop on American citizens’ overseas calls and e-mails without a warrant. (For more on that, see our column in this week’s CityLife.)

“This is a different era, a different war,” Bush said at a news conference, according to the Review-Journal. “People are changing phone numbers and phone calls and they’re moving quick. And we’ve got to be able to detect and prevent. I keep saying that, but this … requires quick action.”

Of course, we understand, Mr. President. After all, the Constitution was written a long time ago, by farmer types who could never have foreseen the technological challenges we face today. Besides, it’s well-established that we as Americans have to change our principles and values with changing circumstances. Anything less would be a total abdication of the moral relativism that swept you into office in 2000 that was reaffirmed in 2004. So carry on, sir!

Also in the news conference, Bush took issue with a reporter who asked him if he’s presiding over the expansion of unchecked power. “To say ‘unchecked power’ basically is ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president, which I strongly reject,” Bush said. Don’t look now, but they’re using a tank to topple the president’s bronze statute outside. To the spider hole, Mr. President!

…

Our own U.S. Rep. Jon Porter weighed in on his vote for a defense bill that happens to contain a provision allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling “allows for environmentally safe oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a major step toward lessening our dependence on foreign oil,” Porter said.

While we think it’s cute that he can memorize so many Republican leadership sound bites, we think it’s frightening that he might actually believe so many … let’s see, one, two, three … big lies in the space of a single sentence. You get the idea that Porter could smile and explain in nice, calm terms just why we need to club those baby seals. “No, really, it’s a humane way to lessen our dependence on foreign animal cuteness! Seriously! It’s true.”

…

Impeached/Disgraced State Controller Kathy Augustine told reporters in Carson City Monday that she was on tap to be treasurer of the United States (thanks to a nomination by U.S. Sen. John Ensign) when “the nightmare began.”

What was that nightmare? Getting caught using her office staff and equipment to run her 2002 re-election campaign.

After Augustine pled guilty to three violations of ethics laws before the state Ethics Commission (later being impeached and ultimately convicted by the state Senate on one of three charges) the Bush administration decided to go with somebody else for the treasurer’s job. (We can’t fathom why. With much of the national Republican leadership in total ethical meltdown, Augustine almost looks good by comparison. Almost.)

For her part, Augustine says she only pled guilty before the Ethics Commission because the attorney general was prepared to indict her, which means she would have had to leave her public office. Yet, a constitutional officer pleading guilty to a willful violation of ethics laws triggers an automatic impeachment, so it looks like Augustine rolled the dice and lost.

“I did not do anything wrong,” said a still-delusional Augustine, who not only admitted she did something wrong but was convicted and censured by the state Senate for doing something wrong.

Augustine said she still might run for lieutenant governor or treasurer, since she has polls that show she’s still got some supporters out there. Unfortunately, her Republican Party isn’t one of them; state Chairman Paul Adams has urged her not to run. Seems that whole first-impeachment-in-state-history thing is a real resume-killer in politics.

Speaking for the media, however, we strongly urge Augustine to run for any office, to give the voters the change to bounce her from office before term limits kick in.