Like Las Vegas and the mob, Vienna still profits from the Cold War

Posted on by June 3, 2026
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Las Vegas and Vienna

Vienna skyline

With a monument devoted to a mobster, eateries named for their luminaries and even a museum to their m.o., Las Vegas brings in good coin from the legacy of its organized crime past. It’s a topic of continuing interest. I regularly get asked about this heritage, both by visitors to Sin City and by folks I encounter elsewhere once they realize I am New to Las Vegas.

So I’ve had a sense of déjà vu recently spending a little time around Vienna, the capital of Austria. This is a town still  profiting from its geography literally just a few miles from the old Iron Curtain separating the democratic West from the vassal states of the former Soviet Union. Continue reading →

Is ex-Las Vegas sheriff–now Governor–Joe Lombardo “Donor A” in alleged fallen-cop fundraising scam?

Posted on by April 24, 2025
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alleged fallen-cop fundraising scam

Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo

SEE UPDATES AT END OF STORY

A federal criminal indictment released today in Las Vegas concerns a pet peeve of mine–dodgy fundraising for law enforcement causes. Ex-Las Vegas councilwoman Michele Fiore, 53, stands accused of siphoning off more than $70,000 ostensibly raised to build a fallen-officer memorial, for, among purposes, personal rent and her daughter’s wedding.

From the New To Las Vegas world headquarters I’ve been writing for years documenting such fundraising abuses. Substantially all the money raised from ignorant donors goes nowhere near the stated cause.

But this case, which dates back to activities a half-decade ago, has an interesting twist. If I am reading correctly the indictment and public online campaign contribution records, one of the marks, who coughed up $5,000, was the then-sitting Clark County Sheriff, Joe Lombardo.

He’s now the governor, having gotten elected in 2022 on a platform including law and order.

No criminal activity is alleged on his part, but maybe a little embarrassing if true?  I emailed the governor’s press office hours ago asking for comment, and will update this post if I hear back. Meanwhile, let me lay out how I see this now.
Continue reading →

How extreme heat made Las Vegas, again

Posted on by July 21, 2024
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LAS VEGAS SHATTERS ALL-TIME HEAT RECORD!

See update at end of post

This material is drawn from a post during a similar Las Vegas hot spell in the summer of 2023.

On this 248th birthday of American independence the apprehension is palpable. Will Las Vegas soon break its all-time any-day-of-the year high temperature of 117 degrees Fahrenheit? That’s the prediction by early next week from the National Weather Service. This mark has been touched five times in recorded history, twice since I became New To Las Vegas in 2016. Yesterday’s official high at Harry Reid International Airport was 113.

Accompanying this is lots of moaning and groaning and swearing by locals about how unbearable it is to be hereabouts during the day and even at night, when the lows still hover around 90. All this is absolutely true. But there are plenty of other places around the country–like Death Valley barely two hours away by car (if it doesn’t overheat on the ride) and even the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles–and throughout the world that are frequently hotter.

However, for some reason Las Vegas during the summer seems to have become a national proxy for hot weather. Perhaps it’s the phenomenon I previously have described in which bad stuff that happens in Las Vegas gets insane publicity even though the same things happen elsewhere. In the case of hot weather maybe it has something to do with the satisfying notion to some of Sin City burning in hell. I even confess to playing that game a bit with a running box at the top of this blog listing the current temperature, automatically updated hourly. (My data comes from private OpenWeatherMap.com and sometimes varies a bit from the National Weather Service, the official record-keeper.)

Now I don’t want to make light of genuine suffering and deaths caused by heat, which certainly happen around Las Vegas, a place that has been called the country’s fastest-warming city. But having lived in a few other toasty climates–Houston, Albuquerque, the hot Santa Clarita Valley near Los Angeles and even Cairo, Egypt–me thinks many of the locals here doth protest a little too much.

Indeed, as I see it, it is the extreme heat–getting all the more extreme thanks to global warming–that helped give Las Vegas a viable economy in the first place. Hear me out on this. Continue reading →

Corporately, Las Vegas and Nevada again seek a race to the bottom

Posted on by July 3, 2024
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race to the bottom

Ad by a firm soliciting incorporation business

In many ways the economic well-being of Las Vegas and Nevada is based on a race to the bottom of human decency. Nearly a century ago, it was the enactment of laws allowing open gambling, quick divorces and even quicker marriages that jump-started what had been a dying 19th century financial model based on little more than mining and ranching. Suddenly, folks had a reason to come here and cough up some of their money with little in the way of inhibition.

The addition 50 years ago of legal houses of prostitution in a number of Nevada counties (not containing Las Vegas or Reno) added to that perception. The lack of a state income or corporation tax insured that the public education system would remain underfunded and dreadful, a scenario welcomed generations ago by political leaders (although efforts are being made to fix that now). This tax structure is much to the benefit of well-heeled retirees or even moderate retirees with grown kids fleeing states with good school systems–paid by state income taxes, be they high or low.

Here at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters I’m watching the latest phase of Nevada’s ability to profit from the foibles of others. Over the past several decades the Silver State has been changing its corporation laws to make it easier for officers and board directors of public corporations to avoid accountability by shareholders (perhaps you with a retirement account) for many of their actions. Continue reading →