A lot of people in Las Vegas lament the local media. They say Las Vegans deserve a better quality of media, and that the newspapers and television stations that serve the valley — including CityLife, which we at Various Things & Stuff edit — are simply not as sophisticated as their counterparts in other places.

While we don’t entirely agree, we simply cannot dismiss that argument out of hand. And a good example developed this week. Here’s the headline, subhead and first couple of paragraphs of a Thursday Review-Journal story about Republican presidential candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Headline: Giuliani has front-runner aura

Subhead: GOP presidential candidate draws crowds of admirers in Las Vegas

Story: "People live love Rudy Giuliani.

"That was obvious Wednesday as the former New York City mayor and current Republican presidential front-runner struggled to maneuver through a throng of people and cameras at a Las Vegas Target store where he was making a brief shoppnig trip and campaign stop.

"They held out things for him to sign: Political fliers. Books. A baseball. Yankees hats. NYPD hats. FDNY hats. A girl’s crayon drawing of an American flag on looseleaf paper. One woman even held out her checkbook."

OK, you get the idea. It was a pretty nice story that didn’t really go into much detail about anything negative about the former mayor, aside from his three marriages and the fact that he doesn’t really have a firm stance against Yucca Mountain. Oh, and that he can’t pronounce the last name of Elie Wiesel.

Now, for comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at a story from an elite liberal newspaper in New York City, called the New York Times. Just by coincidence, it’s also about Giuliani and is from today’s paper:

Headline: Testimony by Giuliani Indicates He Was Briefed on Kerik in ‘00

Subhead: None

Story: "Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

"Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

"Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary."

You know, we really do see a difference in elite liberal media and the media of the heartland!

Now before anybody starts objecting, we will fully admit that it’s not fair to compare the two stories head-to-head. The Review-Journal didn’t have the information that the Times uncovered for today’s editions when it wrote its piece. But the Times seems somehow less inclined to — oh, how would one say it? — lionize, worship, be enthralled by, embrace or perhaps make sweet love to Giuliani down by the fire. Yes, that’s how we’d say it.

Then again, the Times is an elite lefty rag that knows a lot more about Giuliani, having covered him for years up to and including on Sept. 11, 2001. When their reporters come to our town, they tend to write nice pieces about our mayor, like its March 5 piece about Oscar Goodman’s how-to-make-a-martini class at the Community College of Southern Nevada. (Oh, but then again, so did the R-J. OK, bad example.)

Anyway, if you’re one of those people who just can’t abide the differences between heartland and elite media, we may have the solution for you.

We knew that, eventually, Las Vegas would strike out on its own when it came to a sports arena. And the reason is one person: Mayor Oscar Goodman.

See, Goodman has worked tirelessly on downtown revitalization, and he’s had some big successes. But a key component of Goodman’s vision for the downtown area was always a major-league sports venue of some kind.

Sure, there are a lot of things going against it, most notably the fact that traffic sucks getting into and out of downtown. Freeway access is limited, and the idea of 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 people all trying to drive and go home at the same time is enough to give us nightmares.

But Goodman has never wavered from the idea of downtown sports. So we’re not surprised to see the city preparing to issue a request for proposals to build an arena downtown, either where Cashman Field sits now, or perhaps on the site of the existing City Hall, and property across the street from City Hall that the city bought when it was thinking of expanding its headquarters. (Don’t fear that the city is going to move to the ‘burbs, however; a new City Hall site is planned adjacent to the Union Park property.)

"It’s a city project. I want it in the city. I want it in the city’s core," Goodman told the Review-Journal. He’s said that even as a consultant studied whether Las Vegas needed a new arena at all (a totally foregone conclusion) and, if so, where it should be built. Most suggestions were for somewhere in Clark County, areas that are, frankly, probably better suited to an arena.

But two things about this that are encouraging: One, Goodman says that if another group builds an arena elsewhere that doesn’t require taxpayer funds, he’ll support it. That’s a patriotic stance for the mayor to take, even though he clearly wants to see something built downtown. But it’s the right stance: The last thing Las Vegas needs is competing arenas all over the place.

And two, Goodman isn’t forgetting his promise to build without taxpayer dollars, even if he does it downtown. "I made a promise we’re not going to tax constituents. I’m not going to break that promise," he said. That’s a principled stance for the mayor to take, since most of these arenas require sometimes-heavy taxpayer subsidies.

Now, the city did admit that it’s thinking of using things like tax-increment financing, offers of land or bonds offered against the increase in sales tax revenue, all of which are forms of tax financing. The increase in property taxes, for example, from before and after a project is built in a redevelopment area would otherwise flow into the redevelopment agency’s coffers, to be used on other projects. The city could otherwise sell the land underneath City Hall, say to a private condo developer, and make money for taxpayers.

But if a direct taxpayer subsidy is out, that’s a strong statement, not only that Las Vegans will support a pro sports team, but also that developers and teams shouldn’t be looking for a handout from the city of Las Vegas. And that’s a good place to start this debate, we think.

» Speaking of Goodman and outlays of taxpayer money, the mayor was right when he said that city marshals could have avoided a $45,000 taxpayer settlement had they been better briefed on the state of the law before they arrested a trio of homeless men sleeping near a "deposit of feces."

"I think it’s wrong that they weren’t briefed on this," Goodman said. "I’m not pointing at any specific individual. But people who are expected to enforce laws are fully advised what they can and cannot do."

We agree. The marshals were apparently unaware that the ordinance in question had passed "accidentally" and that City Attorney Brad Jerbic had said it would not be enforced, and that it was repealed shortly thereafter. (Apparently, the R-J is not a popular periodical with city marshals, either.)

As a result, each homeless man got $10,000 in a settlement with the city.

Now, far be it from us to say something cynical, but might we gently suggest that, had the city not engaged in a legal crackdown on the homeless, such a ridiculous ordinance would never have "accidentally" passed in the first place? Now, $45,000 isn’t a lot in the scope of things (the city’s overall budget is more than $1.5 billion for the current year, according to the city’s website). But it’s $45,000 that didn’t need to be spent, if only the city would adopt a more progressive attitude toward dealing with the problem of homelessness.

We’re just saying.

» The R-J falls in love with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And apparently, there’s something up with the interim chairman of the state’s Republican Party? We remember reading about that somewhere.

» Whether Gov. Jim Gibbons has known software entrepreneur Warren Trepp for four years, 10 years or forever, Gibbons sure went to bat for his good friend back in Washington, D.C., the Sun reports.

» And finally today, a peek at a potential item that may be printed on a future Page A3 of a future edition of the Review-Journal: "The name of U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s spokesman, Tory Mazzola, was misspelled (again) Thursday in a correction, which was published to correct the misspelling of his name in a news story Wednesday about the Senate’s vote on drawing down troop levels in Iraq."

UPDATE: An alert reader of our acquaintance e-mailed to notify us that, should somebody wish to notify the R-J that it had, once more, misspelled poor Tory Mazzola’s name, it would take some effort. To wit:

The Review-Journal corrects mistakes. Bring errors to our attention by calling 383-026.

Well, you’ve got nine possible numbers, people. Better get dialing.

We think the wording of NRS 608.160 is pretty clear: "It is unlawful for any person to take all or part of any tips or gratuities bestowed upon his employees." To us at least, that means that the practice at the Wynn Las Vegas of tip pooling — in which tips are "taken" from individual card dealers and placed into a "pool" from which dealers and their supervisors are paid — is totally illegal.

But the state’s labor commissioner and at least one District Court judge disagree with us, which we find totally unsurprising.

That’s the impetus behind Assemblyman Bob Beers‘ AB 357, which would overrule the opinion of those courts and make it clear that when a customer tips a dealer, that dealer should get 100 percent of that tip. And Beers did a clever thing this week, bringing in the author of the original 1971 law, former state Sen. Don Mello, who also said that what was going on at Wynn was improper.

Well, not exactly.

See, the chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, got all fascist on people and demanded that they not mention the Wynn by name. That’s odd, you might think. It was the Wynn who started the whole tip pooling idea and has vigorously defended it ever since. Why wouldn’t you be able to mention the hotel, in a country where you presumably still have the right to free speech? Plus, isn’t Anderson the guy known for letting committee members prattle on for hours?

Yes, indeed, he is. But not where casino mogul Steve Wynn is concerned apparently, which puts poor Anderson in the running for Tool of the Week.

"A certain Nevada corporation [hint: It’s Wynn Las Vegas, people!] believes that, regardless of the source of the tip, the monies belong to the corporation and therefore those tips have been confiscated in spite of Nevada law. The law, as written, is quite clear. Taking is taking," Beers said.

We never thought we’d say it, but we agree 100 percent with Bob Beers. His bill should pass.

» You’ve got to appreciate interim Republican Party Chairman Paul Willis‘ sense of consistency. He always changes his mind!

You’ve already read about his many and varied stances on moving the Republican caucus forward. But do you recall that Willis was part of that Pahrump Town Board that passed the ignorant and ultimately repealed English-only, American-flag-only ordinance?

Not only did Willis vote for the ordinance, he defended it and talked over citizens who’d turned out to protest the matter. But then, Willis later made the motion to repeal the ordinance, saying he didn’t want the ordinance to overshadow his other work on the board.

We don’t know what that other work was, but if Willis was taking both sides of every issue, we’re sure it was exhausting.

» Quotable: "I look forward to working with Congress. I believe in truth and accountability. Everything I’ve done in connection with this matter supports that principle." — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on the U.S. attorney firing scandal.

If you look closely, dear readers, you will discover that each sentence of the above is a lie.

» And finally today, if a reporter for a Dallas newspaper had witnessed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and returned to the newsroom to file a report that said the president used an Italian mail-order sniper rifle to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald and at least two other men on a grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza, do you think his newspaper would have run a correction the next day saying the reporter had "misidentified the parties involved in the shooting"?

Perhaps, if that newspaper was the Review-Journal.

That’s what happened with columnist Jane Ann Morrison’s piece about a car accident she allegedly witnessed recently. Check out the opening of her Saturday effort:

The driver of the SUV whizzing north on Rampart Boulevard blew the red light, broadsiding the VW Jetta coming westbound off Summerlin Parkway. That’s right, the SUV hit the Jetta, which clearly had the green light. Yeah, the Jetta driven by the pregnant woman.

The SUV driver, after hitting the pregnant woman’s side, spun in a half circle and came to a stop facing the wrong direction but able to see the damage.

I couldn’t see the SUV driver clearly, couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. However, that stupid, careless person wasn’t hurt. I only hope that driver’s life flashed before his or her eyes and that person felt stark terror while the SUV whirled out of control.

The sound of the vehicles smashing and tires screeching last Saturday is still vivid, and I carry a sense of fury toward the SUV driver who endangered a pregnant woman, who was treated at the scene. It’s the driver’s arrogance that makes me wild, the sense of entitlement that red light runners have that their time is more precious than someone else’s life.

Yeah, funny thing about all this. It turns out that it was the Jetta that ran the red light and hit the SUV, which the pregnant woman was driving. A bit less dramatic, and probably an argument for all pregnant woman to consider investing in SUVs that insulate them from rogue Jettas.

So how did the correction read? An eyewitness account of a traffic accident in the Review-Journal was totally wrong? The repeated assertions of a columnist who says she saw firsthand a car accident were somehow totally confused? Nope.

Two cars were misidentified in Jane Ann Morrison’s Saturday column about traffic cameras. The pregnant woman coming off Summerlin Parkway was driving an SUV and the woman who ran a stop light going north on Rampart Boulevard was driving a Volkswagen Jetta. The pregnant woman was treated at the scene. The other driver was not injured.

That’s right. The cars were "misidentified," which, technically, is false. Morrison correctly identified the vehicles — one was an SUV, one was a Jetta. What she got wrong was the rest of the story. And why the R-J didn’t say that is something every reader should wonder about. And, by the way, this isn’t the first time a correction has been more about coverup than setting the record straight.

It seems that while Nevada Republican Party Chairman Paul Willis is out of touch with his own peeps, he’s very much in touch with Pahrump brothel owner (and recent winner of the federally sponsored game show Who Wants to Get Indicted For Wire Fraud for Allegedly Trying To Bribe a County Commissioner in Order to Build Another Whorehouse in Pahrump?) Joe Richards.

The Review-Journal’s John L. Smith tracks all the things that Willis has done to help Richards, and, like us at Various Things & Stuff, urges him to stay on in his job as interim chairman of the party. Somebody like chairwoman-in-waiting Sue Lowden would be so … so damn boring and moral and competent compared to Richards, don’t you think?

Now while my colleague Hugh Jackson over at the Las Vegas Gleaner has come up with what we think should be an enduring name for the Republican Party — namely the "War Party" — we think Willis’ travails could suggest a whole bunch of other possibilities, too. "The Whorehouse Party." "The American Values Party (now with 20 percent more whores!)." Perhaps "The Indictee Party — If You’ve Got the Scandal, We’ve Got the Officeholder Who Committed the Scandal"?

Nah. We’ll stick with the War Party. Simple, short, easy to remember and oh, so very, very true.

» Speaking of Republicans, there’s apparently more infighting, with right-wingers saying Gov. Jim Gibbons is a big spender. (They mean the $6.8 billion state budget, not his once-secret legal defense fund, we assume.)

It turns out young Bob Adney, president of the group Taking Back Nevada, commissioned a study that found Gibbons’ budget is $268 million more than would have been allowed had the Tax and Spending Control initiative made the ballot. (It didn’t, of course, so this is a totally academic exercise akin to wondering about how much money in payroll taxes would be generated by those angels dancing on the head of a pin.)

"People in Carson City have forgotten about the taxpayers. They see it [tax revenue] as just money that’s theirs to spend," Adney said.

Actually, tax revenue is money that the "people in Carson City," who some of us call "lawmakers," are charged with spending, in accordance with the state constitution. And who do you think they’re spending that money on, anyway? That’s right: Taxpayers.

Anyway, Adney gave the study to Gibbons’ chief of staff Mike Dayton, who promptly declared that Everybody Loves Gibbons. "The governor said he did not support TASC. He’s consistent. He feels that we are living within our means. He’s being criticized both from the left and from the right for the amount of spending. I think that probably means he’s doing a pretty good job of governing from the middle," Dayton said.

Yes, or it could mean that he’s doing a really bad job and the distaste for him unites even bitter political enemies. Right? That’s a possibility, too, isn’t it?

» And still speaking of Republicans, apparently U.S. Sen. John Ensign believes his party lost power because … well, let’s let him explain, using a quote lifted from a story in the Washington Times.

"I think Republicans have lost their way in that we worried about holding power instead of why we were in power," he said.

Got that? Republicans got trounced not because officials lied us into a deadly civil war in Iraq that has cost the lives of 3,200 Americans and countless more Iraqis. Not because the Bush administration has demonstrated incompetence on a scale that boggles even the most cynical mind. Not because they fling assaults against the patriotism of their critics while at the same time committing indecent acts like the outing of a CIA spy. Not because they have been wrong on almost every damn thing related to the war. Not because they give tax relief to rich people and oil companies while at the same time trying to cut welfare and student loans.

No, because they forgot their noble purpose. And you know what? So did we! What was the Republicans noble purpose in the first place?

Now we know why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t beat up on Ensign any more. It’s not friendship, or bipartisanship, or even naked political pragmatism. It’s pity.

(Side note: Ensign also said in the Washington Times story that he’s turned to Karl Rove, the president’s political adviser, for help with the thankless task of getting Republicans elected and re-elected to the Senate next year. "I think Karl is one of the most brilliant political minds in the country. To not use his political advice would be foolish," Ensign said. Well, what ever happened to Mike Slanker, the Republican campaign guru from Nevada who moved back East to take over as political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee? What is he, chopped liver?)

» And finally today, that rascal Sheldon Adelson, owner of The Venetian and the world’s sixth richest man, apparently didn’t get rich by quitting. After a defamation lawsuit against Las Vegas Sun Business Editor Jeff Simpson was tossed, Adelson’s lawyers were at it again. 

In the first lawsuit,  Adelson sued Simpson for saying his company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., had a "sorry regulatory record."  (Simpson simply leaped to that conclusion after reporting on Sands’ $1 million in fines for gambling  industry violations.)  In the second lawsuit, Adelson said Simpson defamed him by omission because he didn’t report on the sorry regulatory record of all the other companies trying to land casinos in Asia.

Now if you’re thinking that’s the most absurd thing you ever heard, well, you’re just like District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt, who dismissed Adelson’s second lawsuit, too. An appeal is under consideration.

Now, we don’t want to be sued, so we’ll try to be as broad as possible here: That lawsuit, like many other similarly situated lawsuits of which we’ve heard, is among the stupidest wastes of court time in human history, with the stipulation that many other lawsuits are stupid wastes of time, too, including many lawsuits filed by and against Las Vegas gambling figures, not excluding Adelson, but nothing in this post should be taken to construe that we are singling out, targeting, focusing upon, or otherwise limiting our comments to Las Vegas Sands Corp., its attorneys, agents, servants, employees, contractors, officers, or chairman. Thank you very much. And good night.

It’s time once again to start things off with our Political Pop Quiz. Today’s question: Where did New York U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton appear at a fundraiser hosted by Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun at the tail end of last week?

a. Greenspun’s Green Valley home

b. Playboy Club at The Palms

c. The Four Seasons

d. Culinary Union Local 226’s headquarters.

Remember when answering that you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspaper! The correct answer is below. No peeking!

» You know, we’ve read a lot about how U.S. Sen. John Ensign is all mad and stuff about the firing of Daniel Bogden, the now-former U.S. attorney for Nevada. But despite a growing body of evidence that top officials in the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, lied their asses off, Ensign still supports them. (Some of those lies were told to Ensign’s well-tanned face, in fact.) In fact, Ensign even says that some of the other U.S. attorneys were fired for the right reasons.

Really? It seems the other U.S. attorneys were fired while they either refused to comply with political demands for investigations or after they’d engaged in investigations of political figures — who were Republicans. So what the hell does Ensign mean when …

…oh, that’s right. We forgot. Ensign is a tool, and thus dismissing a U.S. attorney who had the temerity to investigate and convict a Republican (or who refused to launch or speed up inquiries against Democrats) could very well be a good reason for a political firing.

Ensign is working feverishly to get the Justice Department to "restore" Bogden’s reputation. It seems to us he should be more concerned about his own.

» When will they learn? It wasn’t enough that capitalist enabler Tim Cashman found out too late that endorsing Gov. Jim Gibbons was bad for business, now minority community capitalist enablers have to learn the same lesson? The Latin Chamber of Commerce, which also endorsed Gibbons during his 2006 race with state Sen. Dina Titus, now seems to be regretting its stance.

It seems members of the Latin chamber want more money to go to education, especially helping students whose first language is not English. Members also want full-day kindergarten and look favorably upon that $1 billion iNVest program the school chiefs have whipped up.

While we can fault Gibbons for many things — and we do — this one is not his fault.

Gibbons was very clear on the campaign trail that he was against taxes and fees. That was, in fact, virtually the only issue Gibbons took a stance on in his battle with Titus. Everybody knew that.

So now, after endorsing the guy and finding out he’s not doing what you want, don’t come whining to the newspapers that mean ‘ol Governor Slush Fund won’t pass taxes (or even allocate much in the way of existing revenue) to things that would help your business (like roads) or your community (like better schools). The better candidate on those issues — hell, on most all issues — was Titus. But she wasn’t pro-business enough, was she? What do you think she’d be doing on education and roads right now?

The business groups wanted a seat at the big boys table, a chance for their voices to be heard. They just didn’t count on the fact that they’d also have to listen to the voice at the head of that table, a voice that’s saying — in unmistakable terms — "screw you."

But it’s not Gibbons’ fault, people. He was honest about his views. Now the various chambers have to live with them, for four more years or until the grand jury hands up the indictments, whichever comes first. Try to use the time to think about what you’ve done, and don’t make the same mistake again, OK?

» What the hell is up with Paul Willis?

What’s that? Oh, right. Paul Willis is the interim chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and apparently a good buddy of a guy who runs brothels but is under indictment.

Anyway, way back when, Willis railed against a Republican plan to move up the presidential caucus, saying it was "a gimmick and a scheme and a sham," and that it was "a lot of hype" and that "I don’t think myself that the Republicans should stoop to the gimmickry that the Democrats are doing."

Oddly, on the very same day as he said that, he also said the opposite to the Reno Gazette Journal. "Before today, I was skeptical and wasn’t too sold on the idea because I thought the Democratic caucus was more of a scheme and a gimmick," he said. "But it is becoming more and more apparent that this [caucus] would be positive for Nevada."

Now while it may appear that Willis suffers from a really nasty case of cognitive dissonance (leader of the "morality" party who’s friends with brothel owners; a "sham" and a "gimmick" that’s going to be "positive for Nevada") this is actually easily explained. He simply got out ahead of himself and spoke out of turn, until a senior person got his mind right. Happens all the time.

But this weekend, there was Willis, saying that a plan to move the Republican caucus up even further — to Jan. 19, when the Democrats will go to the polls — wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

(As our friend Chuck Muth has noted, Feb. 7 is a loser date. The nominee will no doubt be decided on Feb. 5, when a bunch of populous states will hold their elections, so even moving it to Feb. 5 simply guarantees Nevada will get lost in the shuffle. It was either move it to Jan. 19, and suffer the consequences, including the loss of delegates to the GOP convention, or leave things well enough alone and let the Democrats do their thing.)

Of course, Willis once again held the short straw, as it appears the Republicans are moving their caucus to Jan. 19, too.

OK, so maybe Willis just can’t read the rank-and-file that well. Happens all the time.

But then dude drops this one on us, in an Associated Press story by Capitol vet Brenden Riley: "We’re solidly in favor of moving the date again," Willis said. "The reality is that we are being compelled to do this by the Democrats. It is what it is. The objective is to do what’s best for the state and for the party."

Um, yeah, so what about it not being worth the sacrifice? Hello? Which Paul Willis are we talking to here?

The crazy one, as demonstrated by this final Willis remark from Riley’s piece. "Willis also said he had been unfairly criticized as an opponent of the early caucus, but that wasn’t the case. He said he only wanted to make sure that the proper process was followed."

Wow. Now that’s a heaping load of bullshit.

Where in the midst of "gimmick" and "scheme" and "sham" and "hype" and not thinking the Republicans should stoop to be with the Democrats has Willis said he was worried about the "proper procedure"? Nowhere, of course, since — like another great Republican leader, Dick Cheney — Willis is trying to invent his own personal version of history. And even though he’s taken both sides of the issue — twice — he still can’t manage to craft a consistent narrative.

We know the GOP has a plan to install some adult supervision, but we think party bigwigs should let Willis stay on, perhaps as spokesman. If we media types didn’t like the answer we got at 10 a.m., we could always call back at 2 p.m. for a diametrically opposed quote. Plus, with the Republicans’ national leadership bogged down in an unnecessary war and the state’s top two GOP officials facing no fewer than five scandals, competence would seem so out of place.

» And finally today, the answer to our Political Pop Quiz. Clinton raked in the cash at The Four Seasons hotel on the Strip. Half-credit if you said Greenspun’s home. There was a private dinner there, but that event was not a fundraiser.

Thanks for playing!

A trio of things right off the top about the presidential candidates forum Saturday sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund:

1.) New York Sen. Hillary Clinton can wow a crowd, and is probably going to win the Nevada Democratic caucus on Jan. 19.

2.) Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards is a close second.

3.) U.S. Sen. Barack Obama showed up to a health care forum … without a health care plan?

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, a quick look at a field of candidates who all agreed that America needs universal health care.

Edwards started things off with his plan, what he called a "big, bold" change. It would require employers to provide health care or pay into a fund, create health-care markets set up by the government, in which a government-financed plan would compete with private plans, and require all Americans by law to be covered. He’d pay for it, he said, by rolling back President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

"We don’t get universal health care for free," he said.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson touted his record at increasing people covered by health care in his state, and he endorsed lowering the Medicare eligiblity age to 55. Veterans, he said, should be able to seek health care anywhere with a "hero’s" health card. And the rest of America should be eligible for the same kind of health care plan enjoyed by members of Congress. He said he’d pay for his plan by ending the Iraq war and diverting those funds to care.

Asked about health care for illegal immigrants, the only Latino candidate in the Democratic field replied: "They’re children. We should cover children. As long as they pay their fair share like everybody else."

Obama said he’d announce his plan in the next couple of months, but did give a quick peek behind the curtain: It would cover everybody, it would focus on prevention, it would use technology to reduce paperwork and it would use the savings from those efficiencies to allow poorer people to buy into the program.

"By the end of the next president’s first term, by the end of my first term, we will have universal health coverage for every single American," he said. The line got some knowing laughs, since Clinton has declared universal health care won’t be in place until the end of her second term.

Speaking of Clinton, she got the most cheers of any candidate, and the Cox Pavilion started to empty quickly after her remarks. She began by reminding the crowd of her efforts to reform health care in the early 1990s. "Now people are saying, ‘Boy, we wish we had done that back then," she said.

Clinton spoke out against insurance discrimination, denying benefits to cover preexisting conditions. (Why else do we need insurance but to cover those conditions? she asked.) Insurance companies may not do as well under her plan, which would also force businesses to pay for insurance and individuals to buy it, either at the workplace, or in markets.

But, her plan wouldn’t erase anyone’s current coverage; if you like what you have, you can stick with it, she said.

And, like the others, Clinton said her plan would focus on prevention. "People are going to start taking better care of themselves. We can’t afford some of the things that people are bringing on themselves," she said.

(As a side note, why do we see Clinton coming to rip the In-N-Out Double Double out of our cheese-stained fingers? Leave us and our greasy friend alone, senator!)

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, author of the Family and Medical Leave Act, says he’s working to make sure your leave is with pay in a new bill. (That got a good crowd response.) He said he’d eliminate the president’s tax cuts to pay for health care, start by covering all children with things like school-based clinics and a Head Start program that includes nutrition, but but ultimately cover everybody.

It was about this time that we were wondering, gee, aren’t all these nice, well-intentioned people talking about ways to simply funnel more money to a health-care industrial complex made up of insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and health care administrators? And aren’t they the reason we have some of the highest costs in the world?

Enter U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Although most people had left by this point, the ones who stayed got a big reward.

"Today, at this forum, the subliminal message is you can’t break the hold of the insurance companies," he said. "We’re being told here today to buy into a view that says we’ll work with the insurance companies, and we’ll subsidize the insurance companies."

Well, the hell with that, Kucinich said. (We’re paraphrasing.) Why not a national, not-for-profit health care system that would cover everybody in the country the exact way Medicare covers seniors now, including an infrastructure rebuilding corps that would erect hospitals in underserved, rural areas?

Wouldn’t that lead to rationing, moderator Karen Tumulty of Time magazine gamely asked. "Um, what do we have now?" Kucinich replied.

"Think about it. Candidates are up here advocating that we subsidize the insurance companies. What’s up with that? Health care is not a privilege, it is a right. It is a human right," he finished. And the crowd goes wild. Those who were left, that is.

Finally former Alaska U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel introduced an idea for health care vouchers, based upon your medical history. You’d sign up every year, have a modest co-pay and deductible, and use your vouchers to pay for whatever care you needed that year.

Two depressing things about Gravel’s segment: He said that it was President Harry S. Truman who originally took on the health care issue, and that not much progress has been made since. (And Truman ended a world war!) And Gravel revealed that he’d filed for bankruptcy because of high health-care bills.

As with everything political, we’re torn between Edwards’ and Clinton’s realistic, pragmatic plans, which seem to have a chance of success depending on the political dynamics in 2008, and Kucinich’s dare-to-dream purity that will probably never happen. Is it because we don’t have enough faith in the Kuciniches of the world that they don’t succeed? And if we had more faith, could that really change things?

We’ll be thinking about that over our next Double-Double. If that’s all right with the Democrats.

Usually we have to wait for shadowy forces in the state Senate to kill a proposal to amend the state constitution and establish a state lottery, but today, it looks like Gov. Jim Gibbons has done that himself, releasing a short statement opposing a lottery. Here’s the text, with our helpful comments in italics for your reading pleasure:

"Carson City – Governor Jim Gibbons today released this statement outlining his opposition to amending the Nevada Constitution to allow for a state lottery:

 

"’I respect recent efforts by some legislators to explore options for new revenue to the state; however, I do not believe it is a proper function of Nevada government to operate a lottery, nor do I think that the state should be in competition with its largest industry.

You know, the industry that gives people like me hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions — to say nothing of secret, legally questionable legal defense fund donations — in order to achieve our high and lofty offices. It is those noble businesses, the engine of our state’s economy — that actually run Nevada. And while I may have called repeatedly for "creative" solutions to solving state funding problems, I didn’t mean something that the dark lords of gambling would not approve.

"’Notwithstanding my philosophical concerns, the fact is that the state is not likely to generate additional revenues with a lottery. Instead, it would simply shift the tax burden from one source to another. Furthermore, as the National Gambling Impact Study Commission stated in its recommendation to state, local and tribal governments, "lotteries…do not create a concentration of good quality jobs and do not generate significant economic development."’

Now he’s just making shit up. The state wouldn’t generate additional revenue with a lottery? Please. That’s like Gibbons saying he can breathe underwater and talk to fishes — simply unbelievable.

Furthermore, Gibbons has been extremely squishy as to his definitions of "tax" and "fee" during his short administration, but he’s taken a quantum leap with this one: The voluntary purchase of a lottery ticket as a "tax"? It takes someone with an extremely flexible intellect to embrace that definition. In any case, a tax is something the government forces you to pay, regardless of whether you want to pay or not. A lottery ticket is something you buy because you can’t do complex math and realize that the odds of winning are about the same as Gibbons avoiding some kind of trouble in the next two-week period, which is to say, not that good. The fact is, a lottery would generate millions of dollars without the need for a tax increase, all on a voluntary basis.

"Elsewhere, lotteries have proven to be costly and bureaucratic, something I do not believe our citizens want more of in Nevada. I will not, therefore, support any legislation that includes the establishment of a lottery in Nevada."

Elsewhere, lotteries have proven to make millions for state governments, and none of them are in danger of running out of money to pay the "costly and bureaucratic" staffs that run them. We’re not saying that a lottery for Nevada is a good idea. We are saying that nothing in this statement gives a single honest reason why a lottery shouldn’t at least be fully and fairly debated, a prospect that Gibbons intended to destroy with this statement. In that respect, it’s mission accomplished.

 

If nothing else, a panel discussion sponsored by the Black Mountain Institute on Wednesday night proved one thing: There’s a whole hell of a lot to be depressed about.

Speaker after speaker told the same tale: The war in Iraq started bad, got worse and is descending even more rapidly from there.

We at Various Things & Stuff were left with one overriding thought: What in the hell can we do to fix this mess, other than a double impeachment? Because we sure don’t see much progress from the allegedly "progressive" party seeking the presidency in a couple years.

But first, a quick rundown of the speakers, and the highlights of what each said:

Professor George C. Herring

We went into Iraq without knowing (or even much caring) about the history, complex culture, language or even religious divisions within the country, a country we sought to remake in our own image.

But instead of looking at Iraq as a new war, consider that some in the pro-war movement see it as a continuation of the first Gulf War in 1991, an unfinished conflict.

Author (and O. Henry Prize winner) Vu Tran

In Vietnam, the government worried aloud that if communism were allowed to take hold, it would spread to other countries, and eventually, we’d be fighting it on our own soil. In Iraq, the government currently says that if terrorism is allowed to take hold, it will spread throughout the Middle East and eventually, we’ll be fighting it on our own soil.

But in Vietnam, the real rationale behind the fighting was nationalism: The people wanted to throw of the yoke of all oppressors, whether Chinese, Japanese, French or, yes, American. But many Vietnamese looked at Americans differently: They at least wanted to bring something to the country, and not only take from it.

Years later in Iraq, however, Americans are seen as doing just that: Invading, occupying and taking.

Osama bin Laden himself confessed that the Sept. 11 attacks was a way of goading the United States into an extended war, thus forcing Muslims around the world to pick sides. And it seems to have worked.

Author Robert Stone

The United States had a "simple but monstrous" theory, that we would easily defeat Saddam Hussein’s army, install neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi, and leave that country a newly minted democracy. By example, the democratic ideals would spread throughout the Middle East. But in the process, we destroyed the natural enemies of Iran, namely the Taliban (in Afghanistan) and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, not to mention any goodwill we had around the world.

"And it makes me think sometimes if we will ever come back from this," Stone said.

Chalabi, he said, promised his American friends the moon: The country would be remade, it would recognize Israel and a political "Americanization" would take place, all because of American military power. "These people were ideologues. They are ideologues," he said.

While some speakers said Vietnam was a more "innocent" mistake (since the American public had yet to learn of the lies and questionable rationale for the war, or see a president resign in disgrace), Stone said American innocence died long ago. The Iraq war was based on "guile, intrigue and ignorance," and "the combination is loathsome."

Author (and former soldier) Tim O’Brien

"It is difficult as a solider to be in a situation and not know whom to kill," O’Brien began. "If I don’t know who to shoot at, I’ll shoot at them all." And again:

"A bullet can not only kill the enemy. A bullet can create the enemy. It can manufacture enemies."

But in Vietnam, there was a war to go to, just as their was in World War I and World War II. In Iraq, we made the war. "Our war in Iraq was born out of a sense of incredible peril," he said. (In Vietnam, there was no such worry.) But the administration used fear — they actually spoke of "mushroom clouds" — to create a sense of danger.

"9/11 not happening, I don’t think the war would have happened," he said.

Answering a question about the draft, O’Brien (who was drafted himself to Vietnam) reminded the audience that not everybody gets drafted. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Vice President Dick Cheney had several deferments from Vietnam service. The disjunction between the political leadership and the people who are sent to fight wars is a "monstrous and hideous disjunction."

"The draft does bring the wolf to the door," he said. "It’s puts your body where your rhetoric is." And he brought down the house when he suggested a new law: "You can vote for a war, but you have to go."

Former U.S. Marine (and conscientious objector) Jimmy Castellanos

Unlike in Vietnam, soldiers today can learn instantly what’s going on at home, via e-mail or phone calls. Whereas vets in Vietnam had to wait weeks for letters to arrive, vets today can be distracted by problems on the home front immediately.

While in Iraq, Castellanos said, local Iraqis were hired to help do work on the base. Not surprisingly, some were spies and saboteurs, planting explosives and calling in coordinates for mortar strikes.

UNLV English Professor John Irsfeld

Great presidents, like George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower (former commanding generals both) warned after their terms in the White House against having a standing army, and against the "military-industrial" complex that is built around the same. Although he never deployed to Vietnam, Irsfeld is a former member of the 7th Calvary Cavalry (the unit depicted in the film We Were Soliders). He quoted his former battalion commander, years after the conflict, saying "it was a tragic mistake."

Perhaps there was no exit strategy for Iraq, Irsfeld suggested, because there were no plans to exit at all?

Conclusion

Depressed yet? So were we. But we were also encouraged by the nearly full Beam music building recital hall. If the audience’s reaction — and recent polls showing support for the war flagging all the more — are any indication, perhaps there’s yet reason for hope.

Now all we need is a candidate for president to denounce the lies, manipulated information and continuing disingenuous campaign of rhetoric and pledge to end the war, not at some distant time in the future, but now. If the 2006 election really was a referendum on the war — and if even half of the the things said at Wednesday’s forum were right — the public is waiting for that candidate as well.

Any takers? This Saturday’s presidential candidate’s forum would be a perfect chance to announce.

Bored? Looking for something to do? We at Various Things & Stuff have a couple action-packed events over the next couple of nights, just for you.

At 7 p.m. tonight, the Black Mountain Institute will be putting on the first of two events titled "The Vietnam War in Light of Iraq." A panel consisting of authors Robert Stone and Tim O’Brien, historian George Herring, author and professor John Irsfeld, Iraq war vet Jimmy Castellanos and writer Vu Tran will speak on a panel moderated by UNLV Distinguished Professor of History Joseph "Andy" Fry.

The panel will meet in the Beam Music Center recital hall on the UNLV campus at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway.

Then at 7 p.m. Thursday, Stone and O’Brien will read from and sign copies of their books about Vietnam. That event will take place in the Marjorie Barrick Museum auditorium.

Finally, and also at 7 p.m. Thursday, you can hear yours truly — along with Stephens Media LLC General Counsel Mark Hinueber and a special guest to be announced later — talk about the shield law. (That’s the one that says reporters and editors don’t have to tell the authorities who their sources are, no matter how badly those authorities want to know. It’s also the one that’s been under assault these days by state and federal authorities.)

That delightful exchange will take place in the theater of the Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. Feel free to pepper us with questions!

If you ask us, the mock funeral should be held for the career and administration of current Gov. Jim Gibbons, not former Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren. After all, Hammargren seems to have a political future, while 29-percent-approval-rating Gibbons is treading water.

But Gibbons caught a little bit of driftwood on Tuesday, as Secretary of State Ross Miller closed his nascent investigation into the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund. Why? Well, it turns out that checks were made out to the "Gibbons Legal Defense Fund." Seriously.

"As per my request, we are in receipt of copies of the checks made payable to the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund, verifying that the gifts were contributed to the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund, and, therefore, are separate and distinct from contributions made to your campaign fund," Miller wrote in a nice letter to Gibbons. "Based upon your responses to our inquiries and the checks you provided, we find no apparent violations of the campaign finance laws outlined in NRS Chapter 294A."

Of course, this ignores the fact that Gibbons didn’t disclose even the existence of the fund, much less the contributors and amounts contributed, until my colleague Jon Ralston started poking around. (Gibbons had to amend his financial disclosure form filed with Miller’s office to declare the legal defense fund donations as gifts.) And Miller is apparently buying the argument that, by calling it the "Gibbons Legal Defense Fund," it’s not simply a thinly disguised political slush fund. Which of course it is.

So let’s review: According to the Miller Doctrine, it’s perfectly OK to create a bank account separate from your political account, accept huge donations well in excess of existing campaign finance limits, and, so long as checks are made out to the "Big-Ass Loophole Slush Fund" and not a political account, it’s cool.

How do we know? Well, he said as much when he wrote his last paragraph: "Therefore, I will be proposing legislation requiring additional disclosures of any funds, including legal defense funds, established for the direct or indirect benefit of a public official." And if we need a new law to outlaw something, it’s a tacit admission that the current laws don’t apply. Right?

Hogwash. But what do we know? Glad you asked. We know this: Gibbons is a serial dissembler, which is a nice journalistic way of saying he fibs. Don’t believe us? Well, let us show you an example, in the form of a bit of dialogue from today’s Review-Journal. We were hard on poor political reporter Molly Ball in Tuesday’s blog, so let’s throw her some props today for giving us this little delight:

"Although the FBI continues to investigate his involvement in the latter matter [allegations he used his congressional office to help longtime friend Warren Trepp get federal contracts], Gibbons said Tuesday that he would no longer use the legal defense fund and would pay for his further counsel out of his own pocket.

"’Those are my personal funds,’ he said when asked who was paying his high-profile Washington, D.C., attorney, Abbe Lowell. ‘We’re closing down this legal defense fund because its purpose was these two [the alleged assault of Chrissy Mazzeo and the keeping of an illegal immigrant nanny] issues.’

"As for the fact that the fund’s establishing documents mentioned the third [Trepp] issue, Gibbons said, ‘Whatever. We plan to close it down.’"

"Whatever"? He actually said "whatever," like a teenaged girl confronted with some uncomfortable bit of contrary information before homeroom? It would be funny if not for the fact that this is yet another in a skein of Gibbons half-truths, excuses and lies.

Oh, and by the way, why didn’t Gibbons pay for his legal defense out of his own pocket from the start? Or perhaps use his campaign fund? (An attorney general’s opinion holds that it’s legal to use campaign donations to hire a lawyer to appear before the ethics committee, so why not before the FBI? After all, nobody could say the Trepp allegations are unconnected to Gibbons’ official duties.)

At the very, very least, we think Gibbons may be guilty of filing a false instrument under NRS 239.030, which is a category C felony. First, he knew there was a legal defense fund. Second, he knew there were contributors to the fund. Third, he knew there we payments made from the fund. Fourth, he knew all of those things prior to filing a financial disclosure report in January with the secretary of state’s office, which report contained not a single reference to the fund. Fifth, he filed an amended disclosure form this month, which is tantamount to an admission that the donations to his legal defense fund are subject to disclosure. Therefore, the instrument filed in January was false.

Do you think either Miller or Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto — to whom Miller could easily have referred the inquiry — will move forward on that charge? No, neither do we. But at least we’ll get a new law out of the whole mess. Why don’t be call it Jimmy’s Law, in honor of the guy who’s apparently such a super-genius, he found an unexploited loophole in state statue that turned Carson City on its ear?!

Anybody need to cleanse their palate? Here’s a couple Quick Hits for that very purpose:

» We’d heard that things were hard in the retirement years, but damn, we had no idea that seniors were having to resort to things like this to make ends meet. Can’t we do something to fix Social Security?

» We think it’s so cute how the Assembly passes lottery legalization session after session, and how the state Senate plays with the bill like a kitty with a ball of yarn until boredom ensues and the bill is killed. Still, kudos to the 29 members — including three Republicans! — who stood up to the likes of the gambling industry and said that Nevadans should have the right to do even more gambling, but outside of the walls of casinos.

We do have to say, however, that we think Assembly Majority Leader Dr. Garn Mabey should have abstained on this one, due to a conflict of interest. (He voted no.) Mabey has said in the past that his views on gambling are controlled by his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And since all members of the Assembly swear this oath, pledging loyalty to the state constitution, not to a particular religion, it’s pretty clear he should have sat this one out.

» And finally today, how much did the state spend to publish that nifty tabloid-size guide to unclaimed property in the Review-Journal? A tidy $54,720. Another $20,000 for a smaller version up north in the Reno Gazette-Journal. Don’t get us wrong; we like when our company makes money. But the question occurs: Why can’t they do that on the Internet? Well, they are! But there’s a state statute that also requires it to be published in the paper, a law that newspaper publishers have fought to keep on the books.

We at Various Things & Stuff watch a lot of TV, but because we’re super busy, we often make use of the Cox Communications digital video recorder. If you don’t have one, you should check it out. From what we hear, it’s even better than TiVo.

Anyway, we only last night got around to watching one of our favorite shows, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. He’s a great comedian who we’ve been following for years, and his latest show is among the best stuff he’s ever done. (Friday’s episode featured a hilarious interview with Chris Rock, as well as a panel that included Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander and former CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather.)

But it was at the end of the show when Maher does his usual editorial comments, dubbed "New Rules," that we wanted to stand up and cheer at the TV. His final commentary was both funny and poignant, and something that badly needs to be said.

So, as a public service, we reprint it here. Enjoy, and realize that — as Maher’s panel concluded — comedians with news shows today speak as much truth to power as journalists used to, and should again.

"And finally, New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous. Our civil rights.

"Now, when I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did: George Bush can read?! Yes, he can. And this administration has read your phone records, credit card statements, mail, Internet logs. I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of Cheaters. I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.

"So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself. You have given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment. Here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.

"You know, in previous wars on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds, and in the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Right, like you laughed at him.

"Okay, women, donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes. Can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Bad example.

"But, look, George Bush has never been too bright about understanding ‘fereigners.’ But he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we would not miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a ‘Big Brother’ country that has now tortured a lot of random people.

"And yet no one asks the tough questions like, ‘Is torture necessary?’ ‘Who will watch the watchers?’ ‘And when does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?’ I mean, it’s been five years. Is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?

"In conclusion, after 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn’t hide. But, then he ran and hid. So, Bush went to Plan B: pissing on the Constitution and torturing random people.

"Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Well, do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head underwater and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that.

"They say evil happens when good men do nothing. Well, the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing."

We were tied up with other stuff last week, and didn’t have much time to blog. But there were a few things that we just couldn’t let go without comment. Here we go!

» Quotable: "What we are encountering in Clark County with these holdouts that are showing complete resistance to the law is open anarchy." — Buffy Martin Tarbox, government relations director for the American Cancer Society, on bars that are continuing to allow smoking despite the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act.

Can’t you just picture an antebellum Buffy Martin Tarbox stamping her little feet and raging about the Underground Railroad, resisting the law in open anarchy by ferrying slaves to freedom? How dare those holdouts disobey The Law!

» Quotable: "You have to send a very clear signal that the law is real and is going to be enforced. You can’t allow some businesses to send the signal that they are going to do whatever they want." — Danny McGoldrick of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Yes, if you allow businesses to do whatever they want, soon there will be anarchy! But one question, Dan-O: If kids aren’t allowed in bars in the first place, and your campaign is to keep kids tobacco free, then what the hell do you care if bars allow smoking?! Just asking.

» Quotable: "You have people governing the hospital who are not health care experts." — State Sen. Maurice Washington, on removing UMC from the purview of the Clark County Commission. Washington, of course, has plenty of health care experience, having tried to defraud the state for health care benefits for himself and having denied health care benefits to employees at his church (he’s a minister) and the charter school affiliated with the church.

Come to think of it, maybe he should be on the Judiciary Committee instead…

» We at Various Things & Stuff don’t begrudge public employees their salaries. We know a lot of public employees, and most are hardworking, dedicated and honest people who earn their money doing sometimes-dangerous jobs for too little appreciation. But when we hear that top employees of the Regional Transportation Commission are making big bucks, despite the fact that pretty much everybody agrees our roads suck, well, we get a little steamed.

Hey, RTC: When you fix it so it doesn’t take 15 minutes to go a quarter mile on Sunset Road at rush hour, then come asking for a raise. Until then, we ought to be strictly on a pay-for-performance schedule.

» Poor Tim Cashman. The capitalist-enabler, who serves on the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s government affairs committee, is all worked up over the fact that Gov. Jim Gibbons doesn’t seem to want to raise taxes to pay for roads. And as a dealer of Harley Davidson motorcycles, Cashman knows that roads are key to enjoying the biking experience. He also knows that without good roads, fewer people can get to town, and moving around once they get here is harder.

"It’s called leadership," Cashman sniffed to the Las Vegas Sun. "The Legislature and the governor need to put this together, and put this together this session. Because the longer we wait, the more difficult it’s going to be. There’s a lot of conversation and talk about taking the solution to the voters, but if we do that, the vote is two years away."

Well, cry us a river, Cashman. You should have thought about that before endorsing Gibbons for office last year, citing his "pro-business values." Certainly, Gibbons didn’t hide his views from you. In fact, that was virtually the only thing of substance he said the whole campaign, that he would not raise taxes.

Although Cashman has latched on to the indexing the gas tax to inflation idea, we think that a gross receipts tax on business would be a good way to raise money. The chamber campaigned against that back in 2003, as we recall, which leads us to draw two conclusions: One, the chamber is almost always wrong, and two, it is sublime to watch the business class bitch about a plight brought about by its own short-sighted actions.

» Speaking of Gibbons, he gave a four-minute speech to the state board of regents last week. After the oratory, Chairman Bret Whipple reportedly leapt to his feet and clapped like a trained seal. Other regents followed suit. If you’re looking for the joke in this item, you just read it.

» Another day, another unconstitutional, legally unsound Clark County handbilling ordinance declared unconstitutional, legally unsound. Anybody want to take odds on the chance the county will wise up and start living under the Constitution that all its commissioners swore an oath to uphold? We didn’t think so. It’s a sucker’s bet anyway.

» Quotable: "It’s not courageous to make a simple statement about personal beliefs. What is courageous is to stand up in Congress and say, ‘Let’s tax the rich and give the money to poor kids.’" — U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, brushing aside praise for his "courage" when he declared he was an atheist.

» When is standing up for your beliefs a betrayal of your constituents? When the Review-Journal editorial page gets involved, of course! The paper slammed freshman Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani for voting against the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s $43.5 million purchase of a couple of White Pine County ranches. (The authority is buying property in rural areas in advance of a multi-billion plan to pump rural groundwater down to thirsty Las Vegas.)

Now, we at Various Things & Stuff have no love lost for the rurals. The people who live there have saddled us with the likes of George W. Bush, Jim Gibbons and Brian Krolicki. So as far as we’re concerned, it’s war, and they started it.

But the R-J seems to be outraged that Giunchigliani would dare stand in the way of Clark County’s manifest destiny of keeping the growth machine humming with rural water. Without water, by God, there could be a slowing of growth and development here! The horror, the horror.

And, in the R-J’s view, Giunchigliani isn’t allowed to represent her own views while sitting on the water authority board. She’s got to represent the will of everybody in Clark County.

That’s pure hokum. Giunchigliani stood by the same principles that she espoused when she got elected, and her colleagues on the commission knew she would when they appointed her to the authority’s board. If they don’t like her uppity attitude, they can replace her, the way they did Commissioner Tom Collins when he refused to vote against a police union-favored contract.

Far from betraying anything, Giunchigliani stood up for representative democracy, which, like rural counties and unions, the R-J hates.

» Gibbons Chief of Staff Mike Dayton sure has an odd definition of "tax increase." Granted, the Gibbons camp has been all over the map on whether it considers increasing fees to be a tax hike or not. But this is a new one by us. Let’s take a look at his quote in the Las Vegas Sun today: "Dayton said if the Legislature does not approve Gibbons’ plan [to reduce business taxes] it would effectively mean a tax increase on business."

Now where have we heard that bullshit before? Oh, that’s right: From President George W. Bush, who said that if Congress didn’t extend or make permanent a temporary tax cut for the rich, they’d be increasing taxes. But at least Bush had an existing tax cut he was working with. Gibbons and his administration just have a proposal that’s not even been enacted yet!

But we think we can make use of this reasoning: Back in 2003, former Gov. Kenny Guinn (God, we miss him!) proposed a gross receipts tax on business. It didn’t pass. But according to the Dayton Doctrine, the mere fact that it was proposed and then rejected means business got a huge tax break that year. And since business got that huge tax break, they don’t need another.

» And finally today, for a person who says her strong suit is "Being Right About Everything," Review-Journal political reporter Molly Ball sure seems to make a lot of mistakes, only some of which are corrected by the newspaper.

Sure, she flubbed the fact that U.S. Rep. Dean Heller was ranked below even non-voting delegates to the House of Representatives in a survey conducted by Congress.org. (Then again, the paper flubbed it’s correction: Ball’s offending article appeared on Monday, not Sunday, and does not as of this writing carry the usual correction at the top.)

It wouldn’t have been hard to fact-check this one: All you have to do is go to Congress.org. Or, like us, you could have learned of Heller’s sorry clout on a local blog, which got the story right from the outset.

And yes, Ball apparently forgot that Time magazine political writer Karen Tumulty would be hosting Saturday’s presidential candidate’s forum at UNLV. We say she forgot because while she got it flat-assed wrong in her story of March 13, she actually had it right two weeks earlier in a story published Feb. 23.

Those are more obvious mistakes. There are minor ones, too, like Ball’s misspelling of the name of attorney Alisa Nave, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Southern Nevada political director. Or the fact that she flubbed the date of the first-in-the-nation Iowa primary caucus. (Ball said it was on Jan. 21, which would actually make Nevada’s Jan. 19 caucus first. Iowa voters really go to the polls Jan. 14.) Neither of those errors have been corrected.

And then there’s just the bizarre stuff, like this paragraph from a Ball piece on Saturday: "[Dennis] Montgomery maintains that the raid had nothing to do with crimes he allegedly committed but rather was conducted on behalf of [Warren]Trepp by those on whom he had undue influence, including then-U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden."

Crimes that Montgomery allegedly committed? He’s never been accused of committing crimes, at least by law enforcement. (Montgomery and Trepp — founder of eTreppid Technologies and a big donor to Gov. Jim Gibbons — are suing each other over the authorship of software codes.)

Perhaps Ball was trying to say that the FBI raid wasn’t to investigate a crime, but rather conducted for political reasons because of Trepp’s influence? We’re just guessing, which is something you shouldn’t have to do when reading the newspaper.

Although Ball had a rough start when she took over the Review-Journal’s political beat with a string of corrections, she’d gotten better. But if the last few weeks is any sign, she’s slipping. Everybody in journalism (hell, everybody who writes) will make mistakes, typos, and spelling errors. (We at Various Things & Stuff are the king of typos, in fact.) But too many mistakes, especially in a short period of time, is always a bad thing.

Although we’ve dished out approximately 75 maritime tons of abuse to Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, it seems that we at Various Things & Stuff were actually going light on the guy. (By the way, we didn’t blog much last week because we were deep in the vault at Marvel Studios in Beverly Hills, Calif., learning that Krolicki’s closely held secret identity is … Weaselman! He’s an arch-villain in an abortive series of comics call The Obsequious Bunch, which also featured another Nevada name, one Regent Bret Whipple.)