New To Las Vegas | Page 3 of 8 | Occasional observations, musings and commentary from William P. Barrett, a well-traveled newcomer

Trump, Stormy, Las Vegas–and me

Posted on March 28, 2018 by William P. BarrettMay 25, 2018

Trump Magazine cover March 2006 (via Wikipedia)

Stormy Daniels and Anderson Cooper may have cost me big time in that “60 Minutes” interview on March 25.

Why? From my New To Las Vegas headquarters, I had been trying to sell on Ebay an original edition of a 2006 issue of Forbes magazine with now-U.S. President Donald J. Trump on the cover. That was since Mother Jones magazine reported in January that Daniels had spanked Trump with an issue of Forbes bearing his cover image during a tryst at a Nevada hotel during a golf tournament in 2006. That Mother Jones reported she used an issue of big-money chronicler Forbes–with which I have been associated going back more than three decades–helped make this a more-talked-about incident than if it had been, say, Reader’s Digest.

I happened to own a copy of the only Forbes issue with Trump on the cover that year, the 2006 edition of the annual list of the 400 richest Americans. Putting two and two together and hoping it added up to a cool thou or even more, I ran to Ebay aiming to make America great again for me.

To a “60 Minutes” audience of 22 million viewers undoubtedly hanging on every word, adult-film actress Daniels confirmed her spanking of Trump. But she said it was with a copy of what Trump called “my new magazine,” which just happened to be lying around in his hotel room.

Damn! Those of us who long have written about Trump’s business career know that he had been involved over the years with a number of publications bearing his name (not unlike Oprah Winfrey and her O, The Oprah Magazine). Trump’s title, not Forbes, is what got applied to his derriere. The image of the cover is nearby. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

From Las Vegas: Second Amendment defenders are defending slavery

Posted on March 23, 2018 by William P. BarrettMarch 23, 2018

Every time there’s a mass shooting–like the one just a few miles from my New to Las Vegas home in October that claimed 58 lives, or the Valentine Day incident last month in a Parkland, Fla., school that killed 17–a national debate breaks out over gun rights and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The powerful National Rifle Association claims folks have a largely unfettered right under that amendment to pack heat. Majority public opinion seems to be something else, but most politicians up to and including President Trump are too afraid of the NRA’s campaign contribution money to do anything substantive.

So allow me to throw another log onto this fire. As I read our country’s history, people who defend the Second Amendment are actually defending a provision attached to the U.S. Constitution that was worded to make it easier for Southern states to preserve slavery. That’s right, slavery. The “well-regulated militia” phrase so famously found in the amendment, just before the equally famous “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” was a reference to officially organized whites-only posses in the South created for the purpose of keeping in line black slaves, who in many places outnumbered the whites.

Southern politicians were afraid of the nascent Federal Government, soon to be dominated by Northern anti-slavery interests. They specifically were worried southern states would be prohibited by federal authorities from continuing to have militias that could rummage through slave quarters without warrants and, I suppose, shoot black folks who got out of line. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Another iffy cancer charity solicits in Las Vegas

Posted on February 27, 2018 by William P. BarrettFebruary 27, 2018

New To Las Vegas world headquarters. Ringing phone. “Alice” on the line. Urgent request.

United Breast Cancer Foundation. “Alice” tells me it helps women with financial assistance for things like mammograms. She needs a donation.

So many cancer charities out there with similar names. I ask “Alice” for the organization’s tax identification number to do some research. “Alice” doesn’t have it. She refers me to her “manager,” who does.

By now you’re probably thinking, what with all the damn quote marks? Here’s what’s with all the damn quote marks. “Alice” is not a real person but rather an interactive computer that can recognize some questions and respond. Her “supervisor” is the real human monitoring and directing the computer.

More to the point, from my perspective it also wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to put quote marks around “United Breast Cancer Foundation.” From my reading of its latest available financial filings, the Huntington, N.Y. organization, which also uses the name United Women’s Health Alliance, spent almost none of the cash raised from telemarketing calls such as the one to me on anything I would regard as the financial assistance “Alice” told me about. The rest went to a farrago of fundraising costs and other expenses, including printing, marketing, overhead and, of course, executive compensation.

As a result, various charity watchdog groups hold a rather dim view of UBCF. The Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance flunks the charity on multiple standards, including one requiring financial statements be put on the charity’s website. Charity Navigator gives UBCF just two stars. Indeed, a few years ago the charity ranked No. 38 on the Tampa Bay Times’ list of America’s Worst Charities, which highlighted tax-exempts that spent very little of the money donated on good deeds. There are more than 1 million nonprofits in the U.S., so UBCF was in rather rarefied company.

And since we all now live in the Age of Trump, there’s even a tangential connection to the extended First Family. Interested? Read on. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

It Didn’t Stay Here: Jail for embezzling Scot who partied in Las Vegas

Posted on February 16, 2018 by William P. BarrettFebruary 23, 2018

Las Vegas Strip (by Stefan Wagener via Wikipedia)

Alicia Moran probably looked like just another happy international traveler as she partied along the Las Vegas Strip in 2015. But the Scottish woman had a wee bit of a problem. She was spending money she had embezzled from Thomas Cook, the giant European travel agency where she worked as a foreign exchange sales assistant.

Indeed, it was while she was living it up in Sin City that U.K. authorities back home made the decision to charge her. Moran was arrested at Glasgow Airport returning from her 10-day trip to the colonies–Vegas and New York. A mother of two, she is now in a Scottish jail serving an 18-month sentence that started last month after admitting she stole about $200,000 in just a six-month period.

Moran, 34, becomes the newest person nominated to my list, It Didn’t Stay Here. The roster consists of folks in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in that bug light of mischief called Las Vegas. My list is a pointed refutation of “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” the famous marketing slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. You can see previous nominees elsewhere on this New To Las Vegas page. After the terrible October 1 massacre at an outdoor concert on the Strip, the agency stopped advertising the seemingly powerful pitch but resumed its use last month.

And so do I. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Las Vegas news media scene remains weak

Posted on February 8, 2018 by William P. BarrettApril 16, 2018

See update at end of story

I’ll give the Las Vegas Review-Journal credit for a big mea culpa. On Monday, it published a stunning story essentially admitting that 20 years ago it deep-sixed a story written by its court reporter that casino tycoon Steve Wynn faced allegations from employees of sex misconduct. The paper protected Wynn even though the 1998 claims were public record at the courthouse for anyone to see and thus immune from a valid defamation lawsuit by Wynn. On Tuesday, thanks to that coverage, which followed a blockbuster expose last month by The Wall Street Journal about many other alleged incidents of sexual misconduct by Wynn, he resigned his CEO and chairman posts at Wynn Resorts, all the while professing his complete innocence.

But who knows how many women could have escaped Wynn’s purported clutches had the Review-Journal properly done its job in 1998, or even at any point before this week? The reporter who dug up that story, and who kept her notes, is still on the paper; she’s an editor now. There also have been corporate ownership changes. But it still took the Review-Journal 10 days after the big Wall Street Journal scoop and months after the birth of the #MeToo movement to summon up the strength to do the right thing.

And it underscores what I have observed since becoming New To Las Vegas in 2016: The Las Vegas news media remains pretty weak when it comes to covering the news. A mile wide and a quarter-inch deep. From what I understand, this has been a problem in Las Vegas for a looooong time.

Indeed, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Review-Journal story about Wynn is the admission by then-publisher Sherman Frederick that he doesn’t remember killing the story about the Strip’s most prominent figure. To me, this suggests the paper routinely axed so many valid stories about important folks that this was journalistic business as usual in Las Vegas. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Las Vegas dog on dog crime rate may mirror humans

Posted on February 3, 2018 by William P. BarrettSeptember 3, 2018

See update at end of story

Dog Fancier’s Park, Las Vegas

For all of its appeal to tourists, the Las Vegas area has a big problem. The serious crime rate is very high. The latest official FBI crime statistics, which can lag by up to two years, puts it at 849 incidents for every 100,000 residents. The national average is 373, so the Las Vegas rate is more than double.

Homicides are one component of serious crime (others include rape, robbery and aggravated assault). In 2017, the Las Vegas area had 199 homicides. That includes the 58 persons killed in the October 1 massacre along the Las Vegas Strip. By my rough reckoning, that works out to a local homicide rate of 10.0 for every 100,000 residents. The latest national average is 5.3, so the murder rate is almost double.

So far, this is all about humans. But I’m here to write about murders among dogs. Dog on dog crime, to be specific. At Dog Fancier’s Park, the off-leash dog park in East Las Vegas I visit regularly with my New To Las Vegas Basset Hound, I’m aware of at least two dogs in recent months who were murdered–yes, killed–by other dogs. Owners of victim and perp supposedly were nearby. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Las Vegas folks treated poorly by government

Posted on December 27, 2017 by William P. BarrettDecember 27, 2017

It happened again. A lengthy article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal tells how the state government of Nevada has long failed to enforce its own law requiring review of emergency response plans filed by big places like casino hotels. This is no small matter especially given the October 1 massacre by a gunman firing from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino across the Strip to an outdoor performance venue that killed 58 and wounded more than 500 (just voted the year’s biggest crime story by CNN).

Earlier this year, I wrote a long piece for The Nevada Independent about how the state Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t comply with a 2013 state law requiring that full financial statements or IRS Form 990s be posted on its website of charities soliciting for contributions in the state. This makes it a lot easier for sketchy charities that spend as much as 90% of the money raised on fundraising and overhead to hide their scandalous financial efficiencies from my now-fellow Nevadans.

Several state officials, including Republicans Gov. Brian Sandoval and Attorney General Adam Laxalt (who is campaigning to replace Sandoval when his term ends next year), have refused to enforce a law calling for background checks on private-party gun sales that was actually passed statewide by voters in 2016. They say the law is flawed.

As someone still New To Las Vegas, I find only one conclusion to draw from this and other governmental actions–or inactions. Nevada is a state whose governmental entities and agencies do not take very good care of its citizens. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Pitch from dodgy cancer charity graces holiday time in Las Vegas

Posted on December 22, 2017 by William P. BarrettDecember 22, 2017

Holiday season. The time of giving. The phone rang at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters. Molly–or rather, an interactive computer programmed to say it was Molly–was on the line. After telling a lame joke, she/it cut to the chase. Sh/it said she/it was soliciting donations to the Women’s Cancer Fund, and hoped I could be counted to make a financial pledge.

I had not heard of the Women’s Cancer Fund (not all that surprising since there are thousands of charities in the country with the word “cancer” in their names). Where is Women’s Cancer Fund located, I asked. “Harrisburg, Pa,” she/it replied cheerily.

I asked for the organization’s federal tax ID number. “You know, I don’t have that,” she/it said, adding that her/its supervisor could help. Indeed, a real live human–who likely was monitoring the back and forth between “Molly” and me–quickly came on the line and gave me a nine-digit number.

Except that after looking it up online, I discovered the number wasn’t in the name of Women’s Center Fund. It was in the name of something called Cancer Recovery Foundation International. Women’s Cancer Fund is one of several cancer-themed trade names that CRFI uses as it asks an unsuspecting public for funds. Other d/b/a’s include Nevada Cancer Research Fund and Pink Diamond Women’s Cancer Fund.

And do I mean unsuspecting. In its latest fiscal period, according to my reckoning, only a sliver of the cash donations CRFI received went directly for anything that I would call good works. The rest was spent on fundraising, marketing and overhead. CRFI does business with several sketchy outfits–several of which I have written about–while using an accounting ploy to make its financial efficiencies and largess seem better than they really are. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Around Las Vegas, Veterans of America is elusive

Posted on November 17, 2017 by William P. BarrettNovember 17, 2017

In the past week or so I’ve received several calls at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters asking if I would like to donate my car–or real estate or even time share–to an outfit called Veterans of America and take a tax deduction. The calls consisted of a tape-recorded message inviting me to either call an 800 number or hit a button on my phone to speak with someone.

Since I never had heard of that organization, I did call or hit the button, several times. But when I asked whoever came on the line for the specific office address or the tax ID number–which would be needed for a valid tax deduction–that person abruptly hung up.

A legitimate nonprofit concerned about its reputation likely would not do that. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook

Far from Las Vegas, an amusing Trump hack of Google Maps

Posted on October 30, 2017 by William P. BarrettOctober 30, 2017

The federal indictment released today in Washington, D.C., against against ex-Trump campaign manager Paul J. Manafort Jr. alleges among other things he used laundered untaxed money presumably generated by his pro-Russian activities to buy a nice brownstone house in the trendy Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Now, decades before becoming New To Las Vegas, I lived in Park Slope, the very next neighborhood to the east of Carroll Gardens. I know the area well but wanted to see exactly how far away that was from my former abode. So I went to Google Maps and punched in the address listed in the indictment, 377 Union Street. Here’s the screenshot I got:

That’s right, folks. Someone today hacked Google Maps to insert a picture of President Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office in the spot where an image of Manafort’s house normally would appear.

If you take a very close look at the map. you’ll see there’s marker for “Persons of Interest” on the same block as the property. I think that is the name of a barber shop. But what a coincidence.

While I don’t especially approve of computer hacking, this is tooooooooo funny. Continue reading →

Share on Facebook