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.