Now that’s what we’re talking about.

Just a day after we criticized U.S. Sen. Harry Reid for being too timid to advance a real Democratic agenda in Congress, The Associated Press’ John Solomon weighed in with a long story about Reid accepting free boxing tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission.

And, in a twist that must have brought broad smiles to the faces of editors at the Review-Journal, the newspaper dug up a nice AP photo of a saintly looking Reid in front of a podium labeled “Honest Leadership. Open Government” to accompany the AP story, which they put on Page One.

Nice.

It seems Reid accepted tickets on three occasions, and that they were worth between “several hundred and several thousand dollars each” at the very same time Nevada boxing commissioners were trying to beat back a piece of federal legislation co-sponsored by Reid that would, among other things, create a federal boxing commission.

The bill, which was also co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. John McCain, ultimately failed. But McCain, who attended one fight with Reid, insisted on picking up the cost of his $1,400 ticket. U.S. Sen. John Ensign also accepted free tickets, but had recused himself from the issue since his dad worked at Mandalay Resort Group, and that company hosted prize fights.

We know what you’re thinking. Does the AP story contain embarrassing quotes? Oh, you know the AP story contains embarrassing quotes. Let’s take a look:

* “Anyone from Nevada would say I’m glad he is there taking care of the state’s No. 1 businesses,” Reid said. Well, senator, we at Various Things & Stuff aren’t from Nevada, but we’ve lived here for 12 years and we think taking free tickets from a state agency — or anybody for that matter — who is trying to influence legislation is unethical and wrong. Plus, how the hell are you “taking care” of the state’s business by sitting and watching a prize fight? Unless the business you’re “taking care of” is saving a few Benjamins, that is.

* “I love the fights anyways, so it wasn’t like being punished,” Reid added. No, the punishment should come from the Senate Ethics Committee, where ringside seats are free.

* “People who deal with me and have over the years know that I am an advocate for what I believe in. I always try to do it fair, never take advantage of people or purpose,” Reid said. But in this case, Reid did take advantage, at least of an athletic commission desperate for face time with him on an issue its members were concerned about. Add to that the fact that Reid is well-off enough to have paid for the tickets out of his own pocket, or that his PAC is well-heeled enough to have paid for the tickets, and you have one hell of a bad situation that could easily have been avoided. (That goes for Ensign, too. It’s still unethical to take free stuff, even if you’re not voting. Your constituents don’t get free stuff; neither should you.)

* Reid’s only concern is “…the willingness of the press … to take these instances and try to make a big deal out of them.” Oh, so it’s John Solomon’s fault? The AP’s fault? It’s not the fact that Reid has made ethics a key avenue of attack against Republicans, and has shown rank hypocrisy himself on those issues, right?

Here’s a clue: You can’t slam Republicans for being whores for lobbyist Jack Abramoff when you yourself have taken money from him while writing letters in support of his clients. You can’t complain about a Republican “culture of corruption” while at the same time taking free prize fight tickets from a state agency that wants to lobby you on legislation. You can’t jump on the bandwagon when the press unearths Republican scandals and then bitch when it turns its searchlight toward your own ethical foibles.

Why? Because there really is a Republican culture of corruption, a coziness and influence over the party from corporate America that is insidious to our democracy. And we need somebody to stand up to it, somebody who has clean hands and a passionate understanding that the way the system presently works is broken, and that it needs fixing.

With today’s story, and other revelations in the past, we know that Harry Reid is not that person.

If only he knew it.

UPDATE: We at Various Things & Stuff have learned — by reading the Las Vegas Gleaner — that Reid’s office has deployed a lengthy response to Solomon’s AP story. To read it, as well as the Gleaner’s take on the piece, which differs from ours, check out this link.

It’s the clash of the journalistic titans!

After our Corporate Overlord-in-Chief Sherm Frederick penned a column last week criticizing U.S. Sen. Harry Reid for being a liberal in Washington, D.C. and a conservative here in Nevada, Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun got into the act, accusing Frederick of being wrong, and perhaps being a cross-dresser, too.

Back to your corners, gentlemen, while we at Various Things & Stuff provide much-needed referee services.

First, at peril of our very employment, we must disagree with our Corporate Overlord. Harry Reid is no liberal. We wish he was a liberal. We wish he’d take a single liberal stand, and dig in his heels. But just because you oppose President George W. Bush doesn’t make you a liberal.

We’d be happy to provide examples of real, live liberals for comparison’s sake. (Take U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, the junior senator from Wisconsin, for example. When he introduced the most gentle of resolutions — to censure President Bush for ignoring the Constitution in his National Security Agency wiretapping — Harry Reid was harder to find than FEMA trailers in New Orleans.)

Second, at no peril whatsoever, we must point out that Greenspun’s reflexive defense of Reid is the apex of a long history of worshipping at the senator’s very groin. And what, pray tell, is Greenspun’s defense? Reid is a man who stands by his religious and moral beliefs, is tough on crime and terrorism and … oh, yeah … has been around so long, he’s now in a position to give us stuff.

Very inspiring. But not untrue, as even the Review-Journal noted in a story on Saturday about Reid brokering a deal that will see the Bush administration end its constant efforts to pilfer money generated by federal land sales in Clark County. Indeed, Reid can get stuff for us.

So Reid’s a good guy after all, then?

Not quite. There’s still the little matter of him being part of a fractured, disjoined and ineffective Democratic leadership that can’t get its act together even as Republicans are self-immolating in the fires of corruption, bad war news and harsh treatment of illegal immigrants.

Take, for example, Reid’s lengthy statement that presaged his vote in favor of Gen. Michael Hayden, United States Air Force, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Gen. Hayden has impeccable credentials and a career in intelligence matters that is as impressive as it is long. Anyone can read the public record and quickly see that this man is more than qualified for this job,” Reid’s statement says.

Oh, really? Consider:

* Hayden was the director of the National Security Agency when it embarked on the unconstitutional, Fourth Amendment-violating practice of eavesdropping on international telephone calls and e-mails of American citizens. This was done without bothering to get a warrant, even though the process of getting that warrant could have been secret, quick and very easy.

That fact alone should disqualify Hayden from holding the job of CIA director, at least to anyone who has ever heard of the Church Commission. Instead, Reid voted for Hayden.

* Hayden declined suggestions to retire from the Air Force before taking a job that has gone to civilians for the last 25 years. Since Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is technically Hayden’s boss, and since Rumsfeld still controls the majority of the nation’s intelligence spending, and since Rumsfeld has sought to bring more intelligence services under his influence (even creating his very own mini-CIA at the Pentagon), Hayden’s independence must be questioned.

Reid let that one go by saying “Gen. Hayden needs to speak truth to power.” No, senator, that’s actually the job of an opposition party, assuming America still had one.

But don’t just listen to us at Various Things & Stuff. Listen to the editors of GQ magazine, who in the June 2006 issue take the Democrats, including Reid, to task for being so feckless. Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson says Reid has presided over a “pussycat rule.” And if you see how Nelson is dressed in his column photo, that’s saying something!

In a four-page spread, Reid is only mentioned by name twice, and not in the space where the magazine talks about Democratic leaders (ouch!). Instead, he turns up in a feature headlined “Spineless in the Senate.”

“Last December, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declared, ‘We killed the Patriot Act’ — even though all he’d really done was broker a momentary union between his party and four Libertarian-leaning Republicans to weakly filibuster the act’s renewal,” GQ says. “Three months later, Reid and his colleagues renewed the act with what the bill’s major opponent, Russ Feingold … called ‘minor changes.’ Fourteen of the original act’s sixteen expiring provisions are now permanent.”

Oh, and what the magazine forgot to mention was that Reid voted for the first Patriot Act, too.

Does that sound like a conservative to anybody? Or a man who stands toughly by his principles (assuming those principles extend beyond staying in office)?

It doesn’t to us.

We’re hard on Reid, to be sure, but only because we expect much from him. He has the platform to unite a party against a Republican hegemony that has proved dishonorable, bloodthirsty, and willing to shade or even kill the truth.

And while he does some amazing things (engineer the hopeless nomination of Harriet Meyers to the U.S. Supreme Court; make filibustering judges sound like patriotic duty; get funding for a maglev train between Las Vegas and Anaheim — which appalled GQ, by the way) he also does some terrible things (the Patriot Act vote, the use-of-force-against-Iraq vote, the lack of support for Feingold’s censure resolution, the Hayden nomination and, of course, his outrageous non-aggression pact with U.S. Sen. John Ensign.)

Reid prides himself on clinging to the center, in the mistaken belief that that is where the American people — and his Nevada constituents — want him. But these are perilous times, and we rely on the Democrats — God help us — to make sure Republicans don’t do too much damage to the Constitution, the national debt and the American military before true adult supervision can be restored at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead of standing before the tank and refusing to move, Reid is inside the damn thing, sometimes-successfully making minor course corrections.

In this day and age, we need more.

And that’s a legitimate criticism of Harry Reid.

Yes, we know it’s Memorial Day, and that most of you loyal readers won’t be reading this until Tuesday in a post-barbecue haze, but that shall not keep us from our appointed rounds! It’s time for a Weber full of Quick Hits, with our extra-special Various Things & Stuff secret sauce! Here we go!

• President George W. Bush actually apologized for something, which qualifies not just as news, but the story of the year. Bush, in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said his “tough talk” — i.e. asking terror groups to “bring ‘em on” in Iraq — “sent the wrong signal to people.”

What signal was that: America elected an idiot as president? Actually, that’s the right signal. The wrong signal is inviting the enemy to come kill the soldiers of which you are commander-in-chief, which is precisely what Bush did. Even if he didn’t skip out on some of his National Guard service, that kind of “tough talk” is clearly the empty boasts of a man who’s never been under fire.

But Iraq has turned a corner now, and it’s still worth the sacrifice, Bush and Blair maintained. Is it possible to get these guys into some kind of therapy?

• If it wasn’t bad enough that television stations were airing Bush administration propaganda in the form of “video news releases,” now we learn that dozens of stations may have done the same thing for giant corporations like GM, Intel and Pfizer. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating allegations from the Center for Media and Democracy that stations aired the corporate video news releases without the required disclosure that they were generated by corporations, not real news reporters.

Then again, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference, even when the corporate propaganda is generated by real news reporters, isn’t it? Reminds us of a bumper sticker we own: “The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them.”

• Mayor Oscar Goodman wants to get “help” for homeless people who he says are “service resistant,” whether they want help or not, eh? “We want the ability to help those who don’t want to help themselves, without being sued for unlawful arrest,” he said in the Review-Journal.

Amen. We need that kind of program, especially for chronic inebriates who have steadfastly refused to give up drinking, and even joke about their consumption of huge amounts of booze at every turn. Mayor, would you come with us please? Don’t make us use the restraints!

• Speaking of the R-J, the newspaper raised a legitimate question on Sunday with reporter Adrienne Packer’s story about the myriad other people that strip club mogul Mike Galardi says he bribed. Why, the paper wonders, have no other prosecutions been initiated?

It’s more than just idle theory: If prosecutors believe Galardi, there are plenty of unindicted bribe-takers running around Las Vegas, and law enforcement officials are obligated to follow up. In some cases, federal authorities didn’t even bother to ask alleged bribe recipients about Galardi’s allegations.

If, however, they don’t believe Galardi, then why did they move forward with any prosecutions at all? Why just Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey? Don’t get us wrong: We think those two were guilty. But this particular witness said a lot of other things on the stand, things that even a federal prosecutor cautioned jurors to regard with skepticism. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for your case.

• And, still speaking of the R-J, the newspaper actually ran a long story on how to pack a suitcase. Nope, we’re not kidding.

Here’s a sample. Don’t worry; it’s not enough to hurt you:

“When it comes to packing for a trip, travelers are like barroom karaoke singers at 2 in the morning.

“Some turn out to be pretty good at it. Others, not so much.

“What separates travelers who can fit their supplies for a 14-day voyage to Europe in a gym bag from those of us who couldn’t do a weekend in Laughlin with anything less than three suitcases and a shopping bag?

“In a word, organization, a skill that’s important as summer travel season approaches, airlines continue their crackdown on overweight checked baggage and airports keep a close eye on security.”

Wow. Trees died for that. We have just a little more carbon dioxide and a little less oxygen because of that.

But just for kicks, we tried to adopt the style for a story we at Various Things & Stuff have been working on. Here goes:

“When it comes to terminating employees who churn out shoddy work day after day, bosses are like barroom karaoke singers at 2 a.m.

“Some turn out to be pretty good at it. Others, not so much.

“What defines bosses who can tell an employee has simply given up on ever doing a good, creative or interesting piece of work ever again, and are simply coasting on institutional inertia with the sure and certain knowledge that, if they don’t actually steal money from the company, they won’t get fired?

“In a word, balls.”

Not a bad template, eh? Maybe we’ll use it for all our stories!

• Far be it from us to criticize a writer who actually does turn out interesting copy on a regular basis, but we just couldn’t swallow a line in political reporter Molly Ball’s profile of Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who’s now running for governor.

Don’t get us wrong: Ball covered all the bases in her piece, and raised the most persistent question on the campaign trail: While Hunt says she was a key player in the administration of Gov. Kenny Guinn, what did she actually do? And if her cliche-ridden stump speech at a recent forum was any indication, she’s suffering from a woeful lack of specifics because there are a woeful lack of specifics.

But then Ball penned this: “Hunt might be well-liked, but it’s hard to find anyone influential who wants her to be governor.

“[U.S. Rep. Jim] Gibbons has the support of power brokers such as Sig Rogich, and [state Sen. Bob] Beers has the backing of conservatives such as activist George Harris. But not one of the state’s political movers and shakers is publicly onboard with Hunt.”

Um, isn’t that implying that Harris is somebody influential?

This is, after all, a guy with a record of losing so impressive, he serves primarily as a political Flying Dutchman: See him anywhere near a campaign, and you know it’s doomed. In fact, we credit the backing of Beers by Harris as a key indicator that Beers is going to lose, despite his obvious good looks.

So if by “influential,” she means “a terribly bad, and perhaps fatal influence,” then yes, he’s influential. But if by influential she means “having the ability to persuade others or alter the course of events,” then not only no, but hell no.

• And finally today, credit Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with saying the right thing, finally. (No, it’s not “I resign.” What is this, a West Wing fantasy?)

Frist did take to Sunday TV to say that an FBI raid on the office of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was not a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers or free speech and debate provisions. In fact, it was a legitimate law-enforcement exercise.

Since the FBI staged the raid, taking documents and a computer in a bribery investigation, Republican and Democratic leaders have been fulminating that the executive branch, in the form of the Justice Department and the FBI, crossed a constitutional line with the search. The more outrageous suggestions include one that says this is the administration intimidating Congress.

Bull. The agents in question conducted the raid only after getting a search warrant from a federal judge, which is the proper procedure in these matters, even if they were searching a sitting congressman’s Capitol Hill office for the first time in history. (When agents searched Jefferson’s apartment, they found $90,000 in cash in a freezer, allegedly part of a $100,000 bribe. That’s got to tell them that a little look-see in the big guy’s office is worth the time, no?)

If they hadn’t had a warrant, or tried to do a search using only the nefarious “national security letters,” or Jefferson wasn’t actually suspected of a crime, there would be a problem, but not a separation-of-powers problem. Credit Frist with seeing that, when partisan hacks from both sides of the aisle can’t.

Now, about that resignation, Sen. Frist…

The American Institute of Architects may have wanted to know about sustainable communities, but they got to hear gubernatorial stump speeches instead, at a forum the group sponsored Thursday evening.

We at Various Things & Stuff love you readers far too much to regale you with all the gritty details. So we’ll just do a tour de force of highlights in our special wrap-up today. Here we go!

• We like Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, but she speaks entirely in cliches. In fact, during several points of the forum, we thought she was simply reading pages off her Lorraine Hunt Cliche-A-Day 2006 calendar. Here’s a few notable samplings:

* “We don’t want growth for growth’s sake.”

* “I truly believe in a market-driven economy.”

* A sustainable community is “a place where people can live, work and play in a high-quality environment.”

* “We are a 24/7 state.”

* “One size does not fit all.”

* “Grace under pressure.”

* “When people panic, terrible things happen.”

* “We need to have the best and the brightest scientists” working on Yucca Mountain.

* “I believe that Nevada has tremendous opportunities in the area of renewable or alternative energies.”

That’s enough to get you through Memorial Day — now get down to Barnes & Noble and buy the calendar. There are 356 exciting cliches left, and Hunt has a campaign to finance.

• State Sen. Bob Beers really is a caveman. We once portrayed Beers as a caveman in a little Third House skit during the 2003 Legislature, but Beers’ constant harping against taxes and government programs puts him in a special class of conservative.

Our favorite part came when Beers again suggested cutting the state’s share of the gasoline tax, using general fund revenues to fund roads and warned against aggressive renewable energy requirements placed on power companies. That costs a lot more, he said.

You know, Beers should use all the money he saves to buy a nice boat. His great-great grandchildren are going to need it, as glaciers melt, sea levels rise and land along the beltway becomes waterfront property. Personally, we at Various Things & Stuff are investing in all kinds of post-Bush environmental apocalypse aquatic equipment. Of course, we’ve christened our submarine Nautilus. (There are two reasons for this. Can anyone guess them?)

• Having said that, however, we must say Beers is not stupid. Not by a long stretch. And he identified two very real looming dangers in the state budget: $4 billion in unfunded liabilities for state workers retirement, and $6 billion in unfunded liabilities for a subsidy program for older state workers’ health-care premiums.

The Legislature has done little but talk about those problems, and Beers warnings of future gloom are not just anti-tax bromides. They’re serious problems that need to be addressed. Some say we should start putting tax money away now to make up the difference, but, Beers says “the temptation is too great to start that one new program that will save the wretchedness of humanity.”

Hey, could Beers be slamming our idea to create the Nevada Department to Save the Wretchedness of Humanity?

• Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson got off a genuinely good idea at the forum, which nobody appeared to pick up on. When discussing energy, Gibson said the state could use its borrowing power to build, own and maintain its own power plants, perhaps managed under private contracts.

We like the idea of nationalizing power in Nevada. Think of it: The plants would cost less to build, so rates could reflect that savings. Power could be sold for cost, without the need for profits for big companies like Nevada Power. (Gibson, who has done a bit of legal work for Nevada Power back in the day, knows how much they make; he took half a mil off those guys and they didn’t even blink!) And as long as the operating contract was reasonable, somebody else bears the labor costs for actually running the plant.

Seriously, let’s look into this idea. It’s got potential.

• State Sen. Dina Titus was clearly the darling of the crowd, if applause was any indication. Then again, Titus’ feisty mom was in the crowd, too, so that might have accounted for at least some of the clapping.

She got more applause than anyone, followed by Independent American Party candidate Chris Hansen, who wasn’t invited to participate even though his name and party affiliation had been published in the Review-Journal and appears on the state’s website. (Ironically, the Green Party’s standard bearer was invited. Hmmm…)

Anyway, Titus has a talent for driving home every campaign point she wants to make, regardless of the question put to her. And Thursday was no exception. After she slammed people in league with big power companies and developers, forum host Dave Berns tried to put her in a corner by asking who she was referring to; “Jim Gibbons,” was Titus’ deft parry, although everybody knew she was really talking about Gibson. (Gibbons, the front-runner on the GOP side, was absent from the forum.)

“We need real mass transit, not just toy mass transit like the monorail,” Titus said, knowing full well Gibson was once on the board of the train, and served as its president and CEO. And, Titus added, she’s not one of the good old boys “so I will not have [Republican consultant] Sig [Rogich] whispering in my ear on the golf course.”

Then again, neither will Gibson. While Rogich might have tried to recruit him to the GOP long ago, these days Rogich is backing Gibbons and doesn’t have much nice to say about the Henderson mayor.

Seriously, though, if Titus doesn’t want Sig whispering in her ear, can he spare a minute to whisper in ours? We seriously need help on our driving, and we understand he knows his way around a tee box.

After Beers uttered the politically incorrect thought that, if Yucca Mountain is inevitable, Nevada should get benefits, Titus again got the crowd going by saying she’ll be one of the people chained across the road to prevent it. And then she took another slam at Gibbons: “You can’t say ‘I’m opposed to Yucca’ — wink, wink — and support a president who supports Yucca. You’ve got to put Nevada first,” she said. Beers was left to gamely ask if Titus was talking about ex-President Bill Clinton, but since Clinton actually vetoed two bills that would have made Yucca a lot easier, we’re guessing no.

Anyway there were other subjects totally unrelated to sustainable communities, like G-sting, bird flu and personal decisionmaking. But we’re guessing you’ve had enough, so we’ll wrap here.

Former Las Vegas Councilman Steve Miller helped put out a political mailer, and then lied to reporters about doing it?

Man, you just can’t trust that Miller. Did you know that cocaine was once found in a car Miller was driving?

Actually, that’s not true. But that was an allegation in a creatively edited flier put out by the Jan Jones for mayor campaign, which defeated Miller’s bid for the top job in 1991.

Miller sued over the flier, and pursued Jones through the halls of justice for more than a decade, ultimately losing his lawsuit. But he blamed the flier for the end of his political career.

But that’s not why Miller’s political career is over.

It’s over because he lies.

The Las Vegas Sun reported today that Miller authored a flier for one Priscilla Flores, who’s running for Clark County Commission against incumbent Myrna Williams and challenger Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani. Flores lives with her parents in the tony Red Rock Country Club tony Las Vegas Country Club.

The flier accuses Williams of being “asleep at the switch,” literally, with an unflattering photo of the commissioner appearing to doze at a county commission meeting. The flier quotes Flores as saying she can’t believe Williams didn’t have a clue that four fellow commissioners were involved in the G-sting scandal.

And Giunchigliani, who has backed lessening Nevada’s draconian penalties for marijuana possession, is alleged to be promoting marijuana. (There’s a photo of her in front of a sign with a quote saying “We have the right to use marijuana.” We do, but that’s another story.)

Initially, Miller denied to Sun reporters Tony Cook and J. Patrick Coolican that he was the author, even after they found an electronic file linking him to the mailer. Later, however, he admitted it.

“I didn’t want people to know I was doing that. The reason I say that is because I have political enemies.”

That’s putting it mildly.

What Cook and Coolican didn’t report is that Miller has lied before, under strikingly similar circumstances. When political neophyte Janet Moncrief was preparing to cast her very first vote ever — for herself in the race against then-Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald — Miller was helping out on the campaign. One of his duties: Literature.

But when reporters asked him about it, Miller lied. He said he didn’t have a damn thing to do with the campaign.

But after Moncrief got elected and forgot who Miller was, he confessed, and alleged he’d been paid off the books for his work. Eventually, Moncrief was indicted and recalled from office, later settling felony charges of filing false documents with the state (i.e. inaccurate campaign reports). At the time, Miller said he regretted very much misleading reporters, realizing it had severely damaged whatever credibility he might have had when he finally stood up to tell the truth.

These days, he’s not so apologetic.

“It may offend some power brokers, but extraordinary methods must be used to overcome the million-dollar campaign war chests of incumbent politicians like Michael McDonald and Myrna Williams,” Miller wrote. “Otherwise, anointed candidates always prevail.”

Bullshit.

McDonald, for example, was beaten by Moncrief because voters had been treated to a years-long skein of negative publicity about ethics. And Moncrief was taken out by voters in a recall once they learned she was the most ineffective council member ever elected. And let’s not forget that former Councilman Frank Hawkins was unseated by McDonald because of ethics problems, too., And all four G-sting commissioners — Dario Herrera, Erin Kenny, Lance Malone and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey were all bounced from office or denied bids for higher office because voters thought of them as unethical.

No, the voters can be trusted to fairly adjudge a politicians’ honesty, if politicians and their consults deign to be honest with the voters in the first place.

Instead, Miller lies and helps candidates in secret, claiming some higher justification for covering his tracks. It’s bush-league and it’s wrong. And of anybody in Las Vegas, Miller should know what it’s like to be stung by an unfair, out-of-context flier.

Each day, Miller sends out e-mails documenting sins great and small in Las Vegas, usually connected to strip club owner (and now confessed tax cheat) Rick Rizzolo. Although we at Various Things & Stuff are wary of his facts, his moral outrage is in the right place. We enjoy reading the missives, if nothing else.

But a man who lies so regularly and so easily, who fails to learn his lessons about lying and who claims — ridiculously — that he’s justified in lying because he’s up against the big money machine? That kind of a man just can’t be trusted.

And the thing is, Miller should know better.

• What’s that pipeline in the living room? Oh, don’t worry there’s nothing to fear. It’s just the lame-duck administration of President George W. Bush laying down thousands of miles of power lines and pipelines across the west to get energy from far-flung places like Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to the Southwest.

Congress, as part of its energy policy plan adopted in 2005, decided that we needed more lines criss-crossing the country, whether that “country” be military bases, national parks and forests, or other federally owned land. Two great things: There will only be one environmental report to cover all the lines (we’re sure that will be comprehensive) and any objections from states and counties are automatically overruled, since this is in the “national interest.”

Of course, environmentalists are joining with their natural allies in the military to object, but we doubt anybody’s listening. The Bush people see what’s coming — a Democratic wave gaining seats in Congress and maybe the White House. They’ve got to give these energy companies a happy ending, and quick!

• Back the badge? House Speaker Dennis Hastert took the bold step of complaining to President Bush about the FBI’s weekend search of the congressional offices of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. (Jefferson is under investigation in connection with a bribery scandal.) Hastert and others believe the raid compromised the separation of powers, as it was one branch of government (the executive) intruding upon the sacred soil of another (the legislative.)

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, went so far as to call the search an “invasion of the legislative branch.” And since Boehner only likes invasions that he’s given the president unchecked authority to conduct, and then only when they’re based on intelligence he likes, he’s obviously against it.

We say: Relax everybody. The FBI followed procedures, and got a warrant from that other branch of government, the judicial. Under Hastert’s and Boehner’s philosophy, congressmen could take bribes left and right, but as long as they hid the money in their sacrosanct offices, separation of powers would save the miscreants.

That’s not what it’s for. If somebody has broken the law, they need to be held accountable, whether they have an office in Congress, or in the White House. Which leads us to ask: When is the FBI, investigating the violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, going to get a warrant to search the Oval Office? We understand that obeying the supreme law of the land is important to those guys.

• Speed up, you’re going the speed limit! We weren’t surprised by the news in the Review-Journal today that Las Vegas drivers are bad. We’ve witnessed that since moving here in 1993.

But we’ve been doing a little experiment lately, having recently gotten nailed on the way home from California. We’ve been trying to drive the speed limit, or, at most, 5 mph above it. And let us tell you, it’s something.

The hardest part was doing it on Interstate 15 on the the way to and from Mesquite, where we went Saturday to cover the state Republican convention. We got passed constantly, and while we were trying to be good and yield to faster traffic, sometimes it came up on us so quickly, we didn’t even have time to change lanes. We’ve become more familiar with the front grill configurations of a lot of SUVs, which tend to tailgate. And we’ve found the urge to speed almost irresistible. And whether you’re doing the speed limit or not, the favorite move of Vegas drivers seems to be pulling out in front of other drivers regardless of how fast they’re going or how close they are. After all, they’ll stop right?

We still think that going the speed of traffic — whatever that happens to be on the particular road you’re traveling — is the best policy. But we have been driving without the nagging fear we usually have of a police car waiting for us somewhere, radar gun at the ready. Trust us: If you obey the speed laws in Las Vegas, cops will have thousands of other targets to ticket.

We’re planning a California run in sometime next month, which will be the acid test. If we can travel those empty, desolate roads at no more than 75 mph (the speed limit is 70 mph) we’ll know we’ve reformed.

• On the same page. And finally today, our congratulations and thanks to the Greenspun family for its generous donation to the Freedom Forum’s Newseum in Washington, D.C. The family that owns the Las Vegas Sun donated $7 million for a new seven-story, 250,000-square-foot building at Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the role the media plays in a free society. (The Sun carried a story on the donation today. (It was the largest gift after $10 million each from the New York Times Co. and News Corp.)

In an age where journalists are increasingly coming under attack for ferreting out the truth, where the attorney general of the United States threatens to eavesdrop on their calls and put them in jail for doing their jobs, where their readers don’t even understand the importance of what they do and why essential freedoms like free speech and press are so important, we need all the help we can get. And that’s precisely what the Newseum was set up to do.

You can find more information about the more information Newseum here.

Oh, blogosphere, how we’ve missed you! And have we so much to tell! (We’re saving our Republican state convention coverage for this week’s CityLife, but we’ll toss in one Quick Hit now to whet your appetite for the Thursday paper. Thus we begin with…

• The most offensive piece of jewelry ever. Glimpsed on a table at the GOP’s Mesquite confab, amongst American flag lapel pins and broaches, was a Christian cross sporting red, white and blue diamonds in the center in the pattern of the American flag.

That’s right: The American flag, emblazoned upon the cross of Christ.

And they say we shouldn’t be worried about Republicans wanting to mix church and state? Color us worried.

• Told you so. Before we even saw the American flag cross, the Senate Judiciary Committee was voting to pass a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. But that’s not a legislation of biblical morality. You know how you can tell? They haven’t passed the companion measure that would enshrine in the Constitution the penalty of death by stoning for adulterers.

Yet.

• Mystery committee. Mayor Oscar Goodman told members of the [Foregone Conclusion] Special Events Center Task Force that he’s going to work on a “parallel course,” by negotiating with the would-be builders of a NHL hockey arena. They’re “serious, serious people,” Goodman said.

If it’s not bad enough that top government officials and other bigwigs have to be used as human fig leaves to justify a decision that’s clearly already been made, and not bad enough still that they’re going to spend $200,000 of your tax dollars on a consultant to justify that justification, now Goodman is going to undermine their foregone conclusion before it’s reached?

What a joke.

• Not even the “B” word?

Congress has passed bills that would allow the Federal Communications Commission to impose much bigger fines for profane or indecent material broadcast between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when kids may be watching. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has apparently solved the war in Iraq, Social Security, Katrina relief and bird flu and thus has time for the little things, applauded the move.

“Families should be able to turn on the television during that period of time and trust the broadcasters to abide by the law,” he said.

Silly Frist! Except for Lost, all the regular-season shows have wrapped up their new shows for this season. (The bill wouldn’t apply to cable TV or satellite broadcasts.) That means there’s nothing on TV for families to watch! They may as well read a book, unless you’ve banned bad words in them, too.

But next season, and every season thereafter, nobody on TV or radio will be able to say things like fuck the FCC; or call censorious people like Frist assholes or tell government TV monitors to eat shit. No, it’s all after-school specials all the time, because this is America, where we have to make rules for everybody based on what might happen if a child accidentally hears a bad word.

What a country!

• Scoundrels scramble to obscure their own scoundrelhood.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, and their telephone calls can be tracked to determine their sources. And now you know why the government is trying to collect that giant database of calls: To keep tabs, not on terrorists, but on American reporters investigating government wrongdoing.

“We have an obligation to enforce those [national security] laws. We have an obligation to ensure our national security is protected,” says the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Then again, he has an obligation to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, which oath he’s violated by endorsing the wholesale scrapping of the Fourth Amendment (not to mention torture, but that’s more a crimes-against-humanity thing). But instead of doing the honorable thing and resigning in much-deserved shame, Gonzales and the rest of the administration seek to use national-security laws to find out who told America they were engaged in the wholesale scrapping of the Fourth Amendment.

Yeah, that makes sense.

• Quotable: “He has always been and continues to be a good friend. I just think Tessa [Hafen] would be a stronger representative for [Congressional District] 3.” — Maureen Peckman, on her “good friend” U.S. Rep. Jon Porter.

We like this quote because it’s so totally false. Peckman hasn’t much cared for Porter since she left his employ, reportedly at the hands of Mike Slanker, Porter’s public face and take-no-prisoners campaign guru.

In fact, we’re not even sure Porter’s still alive. It’s been so long since we’ve actually seen or heard from him. Does anybody think he’s in some kind of cryro-storage facility while Slanker runs the district here in Nevada and House Majority Leader John Boehner tends to things in Washington, D.C.?

Peckman’s right about one thing, though: Hafen would be a stronger rep. At least we’d know she was alive.

• Final justice. Despite attorney/Las Vegas Councilman Steve Wolfson’s protests to the contrary, we always knew Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Joshua Corcran was guilty of reckless driving in the Feb. 19 accident that killed four.

And now, Corcran has admitted it. He waived a preliminary hearing, with the intention of pleading guilty to five felony counts of reckless driving. (His patrol car was doing 113 mph when he hit a car on Interstate 15, knocking it off the road. There was only one survivor.)

At first, Corcran and Wolfson rebuffed requests from police to come in for an interview. That told us he had something to hide, which was the fact that four people died because Corcran was late for dinner. The trooper finally did the right thing. Do you think maybe it was Wolfson’s high fees that prompted his plea?

• Christians under attack? Oh, wait. And finally today, our friend and colleague Erin Neff over at the Review-Journal has apparently ruffled some feathers over at the Nevada Concerned Citizens. Her well reasoned column on Concerned Citizen-in-Chief Richard Ziser’s gay-marriage banning efforts prompted him to send an e-mail alert urging letters to the editor condemning Neff.

We’re not sure if the letters have been pouring in, but Ziser did go to the trouble of reprinting some of Neff’s best lines. And who could ask for more than that? Personally, we loved the column, so we at Various Things & Stuff urge you to write to the Review-Journal and tell them how swell you think Neff’s work is. The address is letters@reviewjournal.com.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman can talk. This we know.

But when it came time to put up or shut up in the race for governor recently, Goodman did what we’d predicted he do for months: Shut up.

We distinctly remember, since it’s the only time in recent memory we can think of in which Goodman didn’t have a clever one-liner to drop.

But his silence didn’t last long. My friend and colleague Anjeanette Damon interviewed Goodman to get his thoughts on the candidates who did have the courage to file.

Why do we care, you ask? Good question. But heck, Goodman was probably just standing around, and the silence was probably awkward. Especially after the conversation turned to ethics, and Goodman boasted about lecturing on the subject at the Kennedy School of Government.

(Side note: Anjeanette, doesn’t that somehow cheapen your upcoming Harvard experience?)

“Ethics and morals are two different things,” Goodman finally opined. “No one has ever accused me of being immoral.”

Oh, really? Nobody has ever said it’s immoral to suggest putting homeless people in prison? To harass homeless people and jail them for petty crimes like jaywalking or loitering? Nobody has ever suggested that wasting taxpayer money on sweetheart deals for people like Bill Walters is immoral? Or using your position in government to help your family members? Or defending murderers outside the courtroom, long after you’ve ceased to be their lawyer?

Maybe Goodman has just never heard anybody say that. Just in case, we’d like to say, for the record, that all of the things we’ve listed herein are immoral. And unethical. And wrong.

That pretty much covers all the bases.

• Don’t sign! Don’t sign! When it comes to naming groups, the folks over at Nevadans for Nevada didn’t waste much time being clever. But that’s because they’ve only got a month to persuade people not to sign the Tax and Spending Control Initiative before it winds up on the ballot.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson heads the effort, and other unions have joined in. TASC master (and state Sen.) Bob Beers says it’s because they want to keep government union salaries high, but we think it’s because union members know they’ll be on the front lines of doom should TASC pass. (C’mon, people, even the Las Vegas Chamber of Friggin’ Commerce is against this one!)

Plus, Beers says stupid stuff like this in the Review-Journal: “This shows the lengths they’ll [unions] go to. I don’t think they’ve ever faced such a well-crafted initiative.”

Holy, Ford Pinto, Batman! How can he say something like that, when it was the AFL-CIO’s lawsuit that revealed TASC won’t even cover county governments or school boards in its spending controls, just state expenditures and spending in cities chartered by the state. It’s “well-crafted” in the same way that Velveeta is cheese, which is to say, it’s not.

• Jim Rogers, who viewers of KVBC Channel 3 will be surprised to learn is chancellor of the university and community college system of Nevada, demanded that regents appoint someone, anyone to the job of UNLV. And sure enough, they did.

Although anchors on Channel 3 sometimes don’t say so, Rogers owns that station as well as the hearts, minds and blind obedience of the regents.

• The Republican Congress passed a budget resolution today that retains tax cuts for rich people, fulfilling one part of the party’s agenda, but that also overspends, abandoning another part of the party’s agenda. The result: Less money in the treasury for important things, a higher deficit (start saving now to pay it off, kids!) and a bigger national debt.

Of course, hometown U.S. Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter voted “aye.” If only there was something we could do, say on or about Nov. 7, to tell them we don’t appreciate that kind of thing.

How about some Quick Hits, cooked up by 100 percent American labor, in a kitchen outfitted with 100 percent American equipment, and made with ingredients that were grown 100 percent in America! Delicious, and patriotic, too!

• We at Various Things & Stuff hate Mallard Fillmore, Bruce Tinsley’s right-wing cartoon. But, we’re one of the people who slog through the Review-Journal’s classified section everyday, looking for it, along with one of our favorites, Doonsbury.