Irony is one of our stocks-in-trade over here at Various Things & Stuff, and we never can seem to get enough of it when it comes to the business community. Read this story in the Las Vegas Sun from Friday, and you’ll learn that regulated businesses such as hospitals and nursing homes complain about high fees that are used to pay for inspectors, but bitch equally about not having speedy inspections because Gov. Jim Gibbons refuses to allow fee increases and thus there aren’t enough inspectors.
How did they think things should be done? With the general fund, of course! (That means you taxpayers should pay.)
Remember this lesson well, readers: Businesses always want to socialize the costs of programs while privatizing profits. They want you to pay for all the regulation necessary for their operations, while they reap all the profits from those same operations. And if they don’t get it, they complain like little girls with skinned knees.
» Speaking of privatizing profits, to what did Army Col. Peter Garibaldi attribute the deteriorating conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in a September memo? That’s right: Too few staffers due to the fact that support personnel had been privatized by the Army in a bid to save money. And the Review-Journal today tried to claim it was creeping "socialized medicine" that was to blame! Those wacky libertarians will say anything in order to bash socialized medicine!
» Whoops. Gibbons Chief of Staff Mike Dayton says he "misspoke" when he said the White House was pushing Nevada Republicans to move up their caucus to be more competitive with the January-caucusing Democrats. "It has come from the White House that we should look at this and not let the Democrats have the party all to themselves," Dayton said in late February. It turns out there were "informal conversations" in Washington, D.C.
Yeah, we hate when we have an informal conversation in Washington, D.C., say with a cab driver, and then mistakenly think it came from the White House. You know what helps that? Tin-foil hats! Totally blocks out the fake messages.
» And speaking of Republican misspeaking, is GOP consultant Steve Wark angry! For a while, there was a rumor going around that he was going to hold a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the home of a brothel owner.
Well, totally not true, people! It turns out, the estranged dad of the guy who owns the house where the party will be held does business with a guy who owns a brothel. So, move along, people! Nothing to see here.
"This has nothing to do with the presidential level," Wark fumed in the Review-Journal Las Vegas Sun. "This has to do with a small group of small-minded people clawing for some type of political legitimacy." ME-ow, Wark! It’s catfighting time.
Republican consultant Pete Ernaut ended things quickly with a classic political bitch-slap: "It all comes down to good staff work. It’s very important for these presidential candidates to have good political professionals on the ground who do solid research, and that’s more important than having marquee names," said Ernaut. Ouch, baby! That one’s gonna leave a mark.
(By the way, if you need a good political professional who does solid research, Rudy, you can reach Ernaut via R&R Partners at 702-228-0222.)
If you ask us, this whole incident could have been avoided. See, Wark is usually the guy who supports the religious right Republican candidate. (He was Pat Robertson’s guy in Nevada back in the day before Robertson went totally bat-shit crazy.) By agreeing to help Giuliani (who is on the liberal wing of the GOP when it comes to social issues) Wark has clearly incurred God’s wrath. Repent, dude! And get on Mitt Romney’s team!
» You know, we honestly didn’t think any less of the New Frontier hotel-casino when we read the comments of longtime casino worker Bruce Schowers, who told the Review-Journal NBA All-Star weekend guests were rude and bad tippers. But we do think a hell of a lot less of the casino because it fired Schowers after the story appeared.
Yes, we know it’s an at-will state, and you can be fired for almost anything. Yes, we know Schowers violated New Frontier policy by speaking about guests. But we tend to think that firings like this one make it a hell of a lot harder for us ink-stained wretches to do our job and get sources to speak to us on the record, and thus we tend to look down on places that retaliate against workers for telling the truth.
Let’s hope the R-J gets on the bandwagon, too. They did help to get the guy canned, after all.
» Speaking of the R-J, how lame was that parting shot at the late Hal Rothman in the Reporter’s Notebook Sunday? Rothman was oft-quoted in the R-J, the piece says, and "That total [number of quotes] might be even higher had Rothman not gone to work as a regular columnist for the competition, the Las Vegas Sun, a career move that sent many Review-Journal reporters scrambling to find a new expert."
First, it’s not like Rothman regretted his move or needed the ink. He was getting quoted in the New York Times and Newsweek; did he really need the R-J? Second, why were the reporters scrambling to find a new source? Because the pettiness that unfortunately plagues both newspapers could simply not stand quoting a Sun employee, despite the fact that he was obviously a knowledgeable source who gave good quotes. Third, what does it matter to anybody now? Or was the paper sending a subtle message: Write for the other guys and you’re finished with us?
How pathetic.
» And finally today, do you want to know how a grown-up state with transportation problems fixes things? Check out this story in a grown-up newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. Seriously, Gibbons administration. Check it out.
Can Sheldon Adelson be serious?
Because if the owner of The Venetian — and the third-richest man in America, according to Forbes — was properly quoted in an Associated Press story that ran in Friday’s Review-Journal business section, he’s got some major issues.
The Chinese are living a good life, and the United States shouldn’t try to police the entire world, Adelson reportedly said.
"People seem to be living a good life in China," he was quoted as saying. "Look at the incredible progress China has made. How can someone say they’re doing the wrong thing?"
If people don’t like the way China is being ruled, just don’t go to China, Adelson reportedly advised.
Lots of people like to criticize China, but he likes the way they were running their country.
What the hell?
Surely, Adelson wasn’t serious. China is a brutal, repressive dictatorship where oppression of dissidents is common, religious persecution occurs all the time and where artists, writers and free thinkers are routinely jailed. (Perhaps Adelson forgot that our own community has played host to an exiled Chinese writer persecuted for his ideas?)
Surely, Adelson can’t not know about China’s growing underclass, which is bearing the brunt of that country’s so-called economic miracle, according to Amnesty International? And that the "just don’t go to China" thing doesn’t really work if you’re born there and forced to labor for the state?
Surely, he’s heard of a little thing called Tiananmen Square? It was in a couple papers. If not, he ought to read up on his new best friends on the websites of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or even Reporters Without Borders. All document the travesty that is the treatment of real people in China.
Adelson admitted to the Associated Press writer, William Foreman, that he hadn’t spent much time in the rural areas of the country. The accompanying photo showed him — nicely dressed as usual, complete with walking stick — getting out of what appeared to be a Mercedes Benz sedan and moving to check on the progress of the second hotel he’s building in Macau.
That $2.3 billion new resort — similar to The Venetian here in Las Vegas — will have 6,000 slots, 700 gambling tables and 3,000 suites. It should do well; Adelson’s first hotel — the Sands Macau — paid off it’s $240 million construction costs in just one year.
We may not approve of doing business in China (we’re not capitalist running dogs here at Various Things & Stuff), but we can understand Las Vegas casino companies moving to take advantage of the market. It’s all about the green, no matter the language. We get that. But is making sweet love to the Chinese communist oppressors part of the package? If so, it’s a pretty damn unsavory deal.
By giving rhetorical cover to the oppressive Chinese government, Adelson may have put himself in good with the ChiComms, but he’s turned his back on human suffering on a massive scale, and showed the world that he’s no better than the wealthy businessmen who have, throughout history, turned their back while evil prospered.
Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, this is the same Adelson who has vigorously opposed union organization of The Venetian. This is the guy who claimed (until the U.S. Supreme Court told him otherwise) that the sidewalks out in front of his casino were his to use in whatever Tiananmen-style, anti-union crackdown he wished. (Thank God that, here in America, the local constabulary refused to act as his thugs. So he sued them!) And this is the guy who has supported plenty of anti-human rights politicians over the years. (Good old Tom DeLay springs to mind. DeLay once worked hard so Jack Abramoff’s clients in the Northern Mariana Islands wouldn’t have to be paid minimum wage. After all, capitalism works so much better when the labor doesn’t get any power, right?)
Adelson should be ashamed of himself, if he said what the AP says he said. (We put in a call to The Venetian to get a confirmation, but it wasn’t immediately returned. We’ll let you know what they have to say.) But the more frightening thought is that he meant every word.
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