A dodgy police-themed PAC is back illegally soliciting in Las Vegas

Posted on by May 11, 2023
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dodgy police-themed PACI suppose this sounds like a broken record. Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC is one of the dumbest police-themed advocacy organizations in the country. Maybe the world. Using the front name of Police Officers Support Association, LEFSA has regularly called the New To Las Vegas world headquarters over the years requesting donations. This even though I several times have written up the really dreadful financial efficiencies and even suggested the outreach to me violates Nevada law. I’ve actually called this operation a faux charity–a political action committee that wants you to think it is doing substantial good for society like Salvation Army, but isn’t.

This is why LEFSA and its doing-business-as name are listed nearby as candidates for my list of America’s Stupidest Charities. Calling a known critic to seek money: Really, in the world of fundraising can it get any more moronic than that?

But when you’re largely a fake, I suppose hope springs eternal. Ergo the recent call I received from “Charles Davis.” I’m using quotes because it’s a fake name. This is not surprising since “Charles Davis” is a fake persona, a voice generated by a computer oversee by a human operator using what is known as soundboard technology. But I recognized the quivering voice, which in previous outreaches identified itself to me as “Eddie,” “Andrew” and “Andy Bautista” (perhaps the last two are the same computer).

“Charles” said he was calling for Police Officers Support Association and in an emotional timbre–the computers are getting better from a theatrical standpoint!–made the usual pitch about the desperate need to help law enforcement by supporting friendly politicians. I asked where Police Officers Support Association was headquartered. “Charles” then rattled off a Washington, D.C., address for what he called “Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC.”

OK, I said, you said you were calling on behalf of the Police Officers Support Association. What does Law Enforcement for a Safer America PAC have to do with that?

His brusque reply: I would be put on the Do Not Call list. Followed by the click of a hang-up.

Certainly sounds legit, doesn’t it? Continue reading →

Las Vegas odds: Joe Biden more likely to reach age 86 than Nikki Haley–or Donald Trump

Posted on by May 1, 2023
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Joe Biden life expectancy

Nikki Haley (via Wikipedia)

It was a stunning comment. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador running to be President, actually envisioned the death of the current officeholder for personal gain. Last week, she told Fox News this:

I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President [Kamala] Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely.

From the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, in the land of odds and bookmakers, I beg to disagree on that probability–but, unlike Haley, with no self-interest and by using hard statistical data. According to standard life expectancy tables used by actuaries, the 80-year-old Biden indeed is likely to make it to age 86. Believe it or not–and this may be the real stunner–he is more likely to do so than the 51-year-old Haley, or for that matter the soon-to-turn-77 Donald J. Trump. Continue reading →

Las Vegas killer gives Nevada Supreme Court second chance to make world history exactly a century later

Posted on by April 14, 2023
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Las Vegas killer

Zane Floyd (courtesy Nevada Department of Corrections)

Once again, the Nevada Supreme Court is deciding whether the State of Nevada may execute a convicted killer in a way never precisely used anywhere in the world. Exactly a century ago, the very same court decided the very same issue and held–no problem. Except that the resulting execution by the planet’s first use of lethal gas for capital punishment was botched and drew wide scorn.

Will history repeat itself?

Earlier this week the court heard oral arguments in Las Vegas on a lawsuit by Zane Floyd, 47. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection more than two decades ago for killing four persons in a Las Vegas supermarket in 1999. It took jurors barely two hours to convict him of all counts, which included a prior sexual assault. The quick decision was attributable to Floyd’s recorded confession played in open court along with store video of the killings.

In 2002 the Nevada Supreme Court upheld Floyd’s conviction and death sentence. But subsequent lawsuits and appeals on the state and federal level have blocked imposition of the sentence.

His lawyers now seek to bar the lethal injection of a precise mixture of chemicals never before used in a execution anywhere. They claim the process will create prolonged suffering that violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eight Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The lawyers instead have suggested a firing squad, saying death would be instantaneous.

The specific point before the court is whether the Nevada legislature properly delegated to the head of the prison system complete authority to determine the lethal injection execution protocol, including what kind of drugs to use. Prison officials have had to scramble developing their deadly brew because of difficulty in legally obtaining a supply of all the needed drugs before their expiration dates. Continue reading →

It isn’t news Las Vegas COVID-19 death rate was so high

Posted on by March 25, 2023
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Las Vegas COVID-19 death rate

Las Vegas Review-Journal front page, March 24, 2023

There it was, stripped yesterday across the top of the print-edition Las Vegas Review-Journal front page. “State had high virus deaths,” the headline said, citing a new study published in the esteemed British weekly medical journal The Lancet. The study reckoned that over two years Nevada had the eighth highest per-capita death rate from COVID-19 among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

At the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, I am trying to figure out why this suddenly is such big stop-the-presses news in Nevada’s leading newspaper. Maybe because it doesn’t matter as much anymore?

More than two years ago, in the throes of the pandemic, I started writing in this space about how Clark County–home to Las Vegas and more than 70% of Nevada’s population–was continually experiencing higher COVID-19 death rates than the national average. The Las Vegas media dutifully reported the official local data. But I saw little effort to put the numbers in any kind of national context or draw meaningful conclusions–or contrast and compare, as my New Jersey high school teachers used to command. (With so much of the state’s population, Clark County seems like a good representative proxy for all of Nevada, and anyway, this blog isn’t called New To Nevada.)

I’m thinking the other locals didn’t want to scare off the tourists, the only real economic engine here despite years of claimed business diversification. But visitors ended up being scared off for awhile, anyway, perhaps after being officially informed, as I wrote in late 2020, that being out-and-about along the Strip was okay for them but not for Vegans.  Continue reading →