We at Various Things & Stuff just love to read the news releases that issue forth from Gov. Jim Gibbons‘ office. You just never know when you’re going to go from the ridiculous (a midnight swearing in was necessary to head off terrorists!) to the sublime (first lady Dawn Gibbons will visit a drug treatment center in Las Vegas on Friday).

Then there are the downright weird. Like the one we got late this afternoon, headlined "Governor Gibbons appoints two to Gaming Policy Committee." The release was reporting the appointments of Bill Brady of Las Vegas (wasn’t that guy running for state Senate for about 20 minutes four years ago?) and Stan Wilmoth of Sparks to the committee.

"These appointments fulfill [sic] two vacant seats on the full committee, which has not met since the Gov. Richard Bryan administration. At this time, Gov. Gibbons has no plans to call the committee to order. The Gaming Policy Committee serves as an advisory committee for the purposes of discussing matters related to gaming policy and the performance of its duties and functions.

"’Both Bill and Stan will bring leadership to this committee and I am pleased that they have agreed to come on board. Sound gaming policy is critical for the continued success of Nevada’s No. 1 industry,’ said Gov. Jim Gibbons."

Now, if you’re like us, you’re probably wondering a couple things. First, why the hell would Gibbons bother to appoint anybody to a committee that hasn’t meet since before his predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor was in office? And second, if the policy committee "…is critical for the continued success of Nevada’s No. 1 industry," then why the hell hasn’t it met in so long? And third, if it really is that important, why does Gibbons have no plans to call the committee to order?

Of course, the release is written in such a way as to leave a false impression. While the full Gaming Policy Committee might not have met in ages, a review panel of the committee has met more recently that the Bryan administration. In fact, it met during the relatively recent heyday of the Gov. Kenny Guinn administration, and it had a very high-profile role in a decision that’s come up even more recently in the corruption trial of developer Don Davidson, going on right now in federal court.

Remember that casino that Triple 5 Development wanted to build in Spring Valley? The one that former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny pushed so hard to get? The one that her former colleague, Lance Malone, did his infamous flip-flop on? The one that Triple 5’s Eskander Ghermezian allegedly told Kenny he owed her a "life debt" over, which he allegedly paid in $3,000 monthly installments?

Well, after that casino was approved by the Clark County Commission, residents who thought they’d been screwed appealed to a review panel of the Gaming Policy Committee, which overturned the commission in 2000. The casino was never built. And that same panel also rejected a Station Casinos property, proposed for the old Craig Ranch Golf Course in North Las Vegas.

The panel got its check-and-balance authority from the state Legislature in 1997, when then-state Sen. Mark James passed Senate Bill 208, which specified a few locations where neighborhood casinos could be built, but put everything else off limits and subject to the panel’s final vote.

So, at least some members of the Gaming Policy Committee can have a role in what goes on in the valley.

» Readers, we have covered politics now for 18 years, in California and Nevada. We can recall being bemused, elated, disappointed, angered, outraged and even shocked at different times. But we can scarce recall being as sickened as we were today when we followed a link from our colleague Hugh Jackson’s Las Vegas Gleaner, to an awful video found on the Nevada Today website.

There, we see a Pulte Homes water tanker truck hosing down Hispanic protesters who are striking at what’s described as a homebuilding site in Phoenix. After a brief, largely inaudible conversation with what appears to be a Pulte supervisor, the truck drives slowly by, opening its hose on the small gathering.

Any attempt to say this was for "dust control" is negated by the fact that the tanker largely ignores a vacant dirt lot nearby so it can stop, back up, and come by to hose the pickets down a second time. Allusions to the civil rights movement in the South are impossible to ignore, with Pulte in the role of bigoted sheriffs turning fire hoses on protesters marching for their civil rights.

We’re sure the people on the job site, whether employees of Pulte or a subcontractor, thought this little prank would be funny, or at least pay back the pickets for being so uppity. Well, as far as we’re concerned, the sons of bitches responsible for this egregious and historically ugly display should be fired, unless Pulte wants to be associated with tactics that spring directly from one of the ugliest eras in American history.

Thank you, Kate Marshall! Nevada’s state treasurer has succeeded in recovering about $95,000 that the state was overbilled during the term of then-Treasurer (and now Lt. Gov.) Brian Krolicki. (The audit concerns Krolicki’s stewardship of the state’s College Savings Program, and it concluded he broke state laws regarding handling of money.)

Although a contract specified that the Sacramento, Calif.-based law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP would be paid at a rate of $225 per hour, the firm was actually allowed to charge $428.64 per hour, according to an audit conducted by the Legislative Counsel Bureau. (The bureau also found that the firm billed the state on a very irregular schedule; instead of a monthly invoice, the average billing covered a period of more than one year. And auditors also found that the College Savings Program’s board of trustees didn’t approve the contract with Orrick, Herrington.)

But, thanks to Marshall — who called for the audit when she found that documents were missing and grew suspicious — the nearly $96,000 that Orrick, Herrington overbilled was returned to the state, although the law firm said it disagreed with the audit’s conclusions.

In fact, in a letter, the firm wrote that "The only reasonable conclusion is that Orrick and the treasurer agreed to a blended rate of $500 [per hour] for services performed and billed to other state agencies under the 2002 and 2006 contracts."

Wait, the defense is that the law firm and the treasurer (Krolicki) agreed to exceed the fees specified in the contract, which by the way auditors said was never properly approved by the program’s board of trustees anyway? With an argument like that, we sure hope Orrick, Herrington doesn’t do any criminal defense work!

Marshall is still seeking about $300,000 that was allegedly overpaid to a Georgia firm connected to Krolicki’s mentor, ex-state Treasurer Bob Seale. And we’re all waiting and wondering what action Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is going to take. (A copy of the audit was referred to her office in May for possible charges against Krolicki.)

» We’re taking an in-depth look at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency for one of our famous in-depth legal analysis posts, but at first glance, we have one simple question. (Recall that the 6th Circuit panel ruled that the ACLU and a bevy of other plaintiffs — including academics and journalists — don’t have standing to sue the government over the NSA’s warantless wiretapping program because they cannot prove that they were affected by the program.)

By the secret government program.

Well, no shit. It’s a secret government program. That’s just the point, 6th Circuit. How would the plaintiff’s prove they were affected?

More, no doubt, once we plumb the depths of yet another court ruling that looks to have gotten things totally wrong. Our legal work here at Various Things & Stuff is never, ever done.

» So the management over at MGM Mirage doesn’t like the Culinary Union’s chief negotiator, D. Taylor huh? Dude must be doing something right. (And no, we don’t think the "D" stands for "dude.")

» Gov. Jim Gibbons may get his super-secret command bunker after all. Why are we humoring this guy?

» Quotable: "We lose the intellectual argument because we allow the other side to say ‘We’re the ones who care’ … not realizing they’re sowing the seeds of destruction for the liberty they pretend to cherish." — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who serves as a GOP congressman from Texas. If the Republicans had any smarts, or principles, they’d nominate Paul in a heartbeat. Luckily, however….

» We’re not much for internectine political party positions, but we couldn’t help but chuckle when we read that Danny Tarkanian, who lost his bid for secretary of state after a campaign in which he talked mostly about his own foibles and how much he didn’t like illegal immigrants, is going to be coaching Assembly and Senate candidates!

That’s right: The head of the state’s Republican Party, Sue Lowden, appointed Tarkanian, the guy who lost a statewide race by 8 points, to teach future candidates for office how to win.

Lesson 1, everybody: Whatever he tells you, do the opposite.

» And finally today, regular readers know that we wrote a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun last week, after the newspaper penned a story about CityLife columnist Gustavo Arellano (aka "Ask a Mexican") but failed to mention that readers could catch the column in CityLife.

Surely, we reasoned, this must have been an oversight. After all, we at Various Things & Stuff always give credit to the Sun (either by name, or by a link) when we comment on a story that appears in that newspaper. Heck, we’ve even stood up for the Sun on occasion when the big, bad Review-Journal doesn’t give the paper its proper due.

And, we figured, if the Sun was ethical enough to correct a mistake that appeared in the Arellano story, it would be ethical enough to print our nice, brief, to-the-point letter, which noted the curious omission of CityLife in the original story. Right?

But so far, no letter. We sent it July 3, the very day the story was originally published, which means today is Day Six without the Sun setting the record straight. You don’t think this might be deliberate, do you? Say it isn’t so!

(Full disclosure: We at Various Things & Stuff worked for the Sun from 1993 to 1997. This blog, as well as CityLife, are owned by Stephens Media LLC, which also owns the Review-Journal.)