We spent the morning doing the monthly mini-tax return that is our corporate credit card statement, so we had to wait until now to bring you some Quick Hits. But better late than never. Here we go!

• The saga of Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald continued today, with her calling the Review-Journal “sleazy” for reporting a story earlier this week based in part on her divorce records.

But today’s story reported that the Metro Police Protective Association and the Culinary Union Local 226 have filed a complaint alleging Boggs McDonald had paid her former nanny, Kelly Macleod, out of her campaign funds, which is … what’s the word? … against the law!

Later in the day, reported consummate story-breaker Jon Ralston in his FLASH newsletter, Boggs McDonald reimbursed her campaign for the spent funds. She didn’t admit any guilt, but said she wanted to remove the “distraction” from the debate.

(PROGRAM NOTE: All 23 fans of Political Insiders, our show on KTNV Channel 13, will be pleased to learn that Boggs McDonald is scheduled to be a guest on this week’s episode, which airs at 11:30 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday.)

Boggs McDonald also lashed out in a story in the Las Vegas Sun, saying her children have been terrorized since they learned they were under surveillance by a private investigator. (The Culinary and the police union hired the P.I. to investigate allegations that Boggs McDonald lives at a home outside her district. He captured video that appears to show her living at a home in adjacent District C.)

“I’m fair game. But when you terrorize my children, that’s another story,” Boggs McDonald told the Sun. After admitting she used harsh language with her chief tormentor on the county commission, Democrat Tom Collins, she added, “I had to let Tom Collins know it’s not OK to go after my kids, and there will be hell to pay when he does. I didn’t mean it as a threat. I don’t threaten people. I tell people what will be.”

And trust us, you don’t want Boggs McDonald to tell you what will be.

Still, at the risk of being told what will be, we have to say this: Neither the unions nor Collins have “go[ne] after” Boggs McDonald’s kids. Her children were captured on videotape at the District C home as part of the union-ordered investigation, but certainly, they were not targets of it. And, had the investigator found Boggs McDonald to be living in the home she claimed as her primary address — within the boundaries of her District F — it’s doubtful we’d have even seen the video.

Still, Boggs McDonald is going through a nasty divorce, if the brief look at court papers that the R-J gave us was any indication. And keeping her kids close to her is no doubt a normal reaction at a stressful time like that.

Again, we’re not making excuses for the commissioner. If she really is living outside her district, she has committed both perjury as well as an offense that could see her kicked off the ballot. And the campaign finance allegations, along with her quick repayment of her campaign account, do suggest wrongdoing. But we’re not qualified to make that determination; only a judge and jury can.

• Quotable: “I do believe that perception [that I'm unfit for office] is out there, but the people who do know me know I’m none of those things, and it doesn’t take very long in conversation with me to make a determination that I’m highly intelligent, not cuckoo, crazy or nuts. I don’t believe I was unfit for office and I don’t believe the voters of Clark County thought I was unfit for office, or they wouldn’t have elected me.” — Ousted Clark County Recorder Frances Deane, on Face to Face with Jon Ralston

Hey, here’s a handy rule of thumb: If you have to tell people you’re not cuckoo, crazy or nuts, you just might be cuckoo, crazy or nuts. It’s like being cool. If you tell people you are, then you aren’t.

• Quotable: “Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.” — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking about President George W. Bush to the United Nations General Assembly.

Listen, Hugo, we don’t know you think you are, but why don’t you leave the Bush-is-the-devil jokes to us professionals, OK? We invented “it still smells like sulfur,” mister! Just because you’re a president of a foreign country doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow U.S. copyright laws. He’s our devil, OK, not yours.

• Chavez did give a ringing endorsement to linguist Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Domination. It wasn’t exactly a bestseller before, but now, we expect it to really take off. You simply can’t buy publicity like that: A socialist president comes to the United States, bashes President Bush and then goes all Oprah Book Club on your tome. Man, you can almost smell the royalties rolling in, can’t you?

• One more? Well, OK. “The world is waking up. I have the feeling, dear world dictator [we think he's still talking about Bush here] that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are rising up against American imperialism,” Chavez said. His remarks prompted British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to marvel: “Even the Democrats wouldn’t say that.”

Yes, Ms. Beckett. And that’s the problem.

But residents of South and Central America, rising up against American imperialism? That is a Bush nightmare!