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 →

SCOTUS to Las Vegas: Drop Dead

Posted on by June 14, 2024
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drop dead Las Vegas

U.S. Supreme Court photographed in a secured building

No further comment is required from me beyond my headline above on today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the manufacture of bump stocks that led directly to the massacre of 60 folks on October 1, 2017. That tragedy was along the Las Vegas Strip, seven miles from the New To Las Vegas world headquarters.

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In Las Vegas, a faux firefighter charity mails an illegal solicitation–to a dog

Posted on by June 11, 2024
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faux firefighter charity

Illegal request for payment addressed to a Las Vegas dog

I’ve written it before, and I’m writing it again. National Committee for Volunteers Firefighters PAC is one dumb organization. Why? The outfit, which says it is based in Boston, keeps calling me at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters asking for money even though I’ve blistered it several times in this space (click here and here).

NCVF-PAC presents like a charity–it’s not–and has spent virtually none of the money raised nationally during its entire existence on its stated mission of, well, helping volunteer firefighters politically. (PAC stands for political action committee.) In the world of fundraising, making follow-up calls to a possible donor under these circumstances can’t get any more moronic. That’s why NCVF-PAC, which I call a faux charity, long has been a candidate for my running list of America’s Stupidest Charities, which you can see nearby on this page.

On top of this, the recent outreach to me violated a 2021 Nevada law prohibiting all fundraising for, among other topics, firefighting personnel within the state without first registering with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office and making filings, on pain of incurring civil penalties. I checked, and there’s no registration in Nevada for NCVF-PAC. Never has been. Yet the presenting NCVF-PAC caller–not an actual human but rather a computer-generated voice using the bland name “Tom Evans” secretly monitored by a real person with soundboard technology–falsely told me when I asked point-blank that the organization was indeed registered to solicit in the Silver State. That strikes me as a possible separate violation of Nevada’s deceptive trade practices law.

NCVC-PAC and other faux charities make tens of thousands of illegal calls a year to my fellow Nevadans, some of whom, alas, fork over some hard-earned funds. Yet it’s my perception that the Nevada state government, which runs without a state income tax, is not exactly overstaffed with investigators or lawyers tasked with regulating these kinds of matters to protect the public.

So I decided to play along, with an appropriate twist, to see what kind of documentary evidence I could generate to prove beyond my own words that NCVF-PAC was illegally operating in Nevada. A few minutes later, I told a different computer-controlled NCVF-PAC voice, “Emma Thompson” (I’m guessing at the spelling) that a pledge card could be mailed. A name and an address were provided. Days later, the pledge card asking for payment arrived in the mail.

Addressed to my dog.

Yes! You can see part of the invoice letter nearby, with some identifying detail redacted. Carrizozo, my nearly 10-year-old basset hound, is being billed for $30 by NCVF-PAC’s cynically named “Fundraising Committee.”
Continue reading →

Las Vegas sends out multiple mail ballots to some folks–including me

Posted on by May 29, 2024
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multiple mail-in ballots

Mail ballot No. 2

Here at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, I’m not one of those folks who thinks voter fraud is a significant problem, either here or around the country. I see efforts talking up the issue more as a campaign ploy by Republican- and conservative-leaning interests to suppress voting by Democratic- and liberal-leaning interests. It’s a sad commentary of what we’ve become.

Still, it’s not a good thing that for the upcoming June 11 primary elections in Nevada I was mailed two identical ballots a few days apart by the Clark County Election Department, each with a postage prepaid envelope for return. A little more worse, I now suspect election officials, who work for the Democrats who control the county government, covered up their incompetence. I think this is lest they give fuel to rival Republicans who have focused on absentee voting, nationally but especially in Nevada.
Continue reading →

Far from Las Vegas: Satirical deletions before new SCOTUS ethics code (updated)

Posted on by May 26, 2024
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SCOTUS ethics code

The honorable members of the Supreme Court of the United States

Originally published last year, this post has been updated, revised and expanded in light of recent revelations

The New to Las Vegas world headquarters has obtained earlier drafts of the new U.S. Supreme Court ethics code announced in November 2023. To avoid bias, the court in conference had asked that the first version be written by AI “in the style of John Marshall Harlan.” He was the conscience of the Supreme Court more than a century ago with his dissents favoring civil liberties and equal rights.

But since unanimity was required in the court for the new code, the objection of any one justice required a provision to be struck. As the draft went through the review process, a large amount of extremely specific material was cut, leaving behind blander generalities.

Here is a leaked list of deleted passages and the justice or justices who vetoed them. Only Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest justice, objected to nothing. It should be noted that the Supreme Court itself declared unanimously in Hustler v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), that political satire is protected speech under the First Amendment.

CANON 3(A): “A justice shall not display for public view, or allow to be displayed for public view, a flag or other other emblem on property reasonably under the control of the justice if that flag or emblem could be construed by others as an opinion on a matter before the Court or likely to come before it.” SAMUEL A. ALITO Jr. Continue reading →

Another faux charity cop outfit solicits illegally in Las Vegas

Posted on by May 22, 2024
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faux charity cop outfitAt the New To Las Vegas world headquarters recently, I was on the phone with “Vincent Wayne.” The object was to extract a contribution from me for American Police Officers Coalition PAC, which lists a Fairfax, Va., address. It was a standard pitch: thousands of injured cops nationally, the need to elect sympathetic politicians, etc., etc. etc. You can hear the general spiel by clicking on this link, which goes to a recording made by someone else and posted online.

OK, I said. I live in Nevada, where an unusual 2021 state law prohibits fundraising for law enforcement-themed causes without prior registration and the filing of financial statements. I explained this and asked, “Are you registered in Nevada?”

Click.

I think that is Latin for no.

“Wayne” wasn’t a real person (why I’m using quote marks), but rather a computer-generated voice monitored by a real person using what is known as soundboard technology. It’s all the rage among faux charities, political action committees, or PACs, that present as charities but essentially swindle clueless donors across the country by spending nothing on the stated cause. They get away with this mainly because state and federal regulators with only a few exceptions are asleep on the job.

After the abrupt termination of the call, I did a little research. Whadayaknow? Turns out the organization and its parent, the grammatically challenged American Coalition for Police and Sheriff’s PAC, aren’t registered in Nevada, aren’t very old, haven’t ever spent a dime raised on its professed mission to help law enforcement and also filled out a key federal filing incorrectly. Moreover, the paperwork lists as its sole responsible officer someone I’ve written about before in this space, and not very favorably.

Here we go again. Continue reading →