Las Vegas ‘Wizard of Oz’ remake is an anti-Trump allegory–by a big supporter

Posted on by August 31, 2025
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Outside the world premiere of “The Wizard of Oz’ at Sphere” in Las Vegas

Last night, I attended the world premiere of “‘The Wizard of Oz’ at Sphere.” That’s the much-ballyhooed remastering of the classic 1939 movie starring Judy Garland. It’s gussied up using all kinds of AI and other electronic and even physical tricks, like shaking sets, blowing wind and even monkey drones, before a gigantic screen dwarfing the audience on a number of sides. The production was made for the state-of-the-art Sphere performance venue just off the Las Vegas Strip. Technologically, it is a show to behold.

But equally interesting and even delicious is what I see as the underlying political messaging. It’s not hard to see the timing of this new production, which uses much-enhanced footage from the original film, as a biting allegory against the administration of President Donald J. Trump. What makes that so appetizing to me is that the moving force behind the production (and the Sphere) is James L. Dolan. The 70-year-old New Yorker, who also controls Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, has been routinely described for years as a supporter of and significant financial donor to Trump.

I couldn’t stop marveling (and laughing) at all the anti-Trump symbolism. While closely following the 1939 movie, the remake touches so many issues that now make the Trump regime so controversial.

Let me list a few: Continue reading →

In Las Vegas and Nevada, a non-injury parking lot hit-and-run ain’t a crime

Posted on by June 19, 2025
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With a background both in journalism and law, I especially relish reading about local legal matters. But this has gotten to be a problem at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters as the media continue to wither away in Nevada. Some good stuff just doesn’t get covered.

Take the Nevada Supreme Court, based in the geographically remote, named-for-a-war-criminal capital of Carson City. The tribunal generally issues opinions only on Thursdays, and rarely more than five. But as far as I can tell, no reporters cover the court on an urgent regular basis, even though that should be easy, since opinions are immediately posted online and there aren’t all that many of them.

‘Tis a pity. The Nevada Supreme Court is not what I would call an influential state tribunal, like the top courts in California, New York and my native New Jersey, whose decisions are closely read and even heeded around the country. But the seven-member court has a moderately liberal perspective and an interesting jurisprudence that is still evolving. A surprising number of cases concern matters of first impression, in that they involve legal issues that haven’t been decided in Nevada, which for most of its history has been thinly populated with a correspondingly lesser amount of litigation. Laments a online-posted study guide issued by the library of the state’s only law school, at UNLV, “Nevada case research is limited by the fact that there is very little case law available to research.” I find Nevada Supreme Court opinions well-written and reasoned as they sort their way through often-uncharted terrain, and worth reading.

That brings me to a unanimous Nevada Supreme Court decision issued more than a month ago, which from what I can tell has gotten no real attention either in the news media or in legal circles but holds the promise of incredibly wide applicability. It is now the law in the Battle Born State that a hit-and-run accident in a private parking lot where no one is injured is no crime.

Residents and especially tourists, beware. Continue reading →

Signs of hope for that medical desert called Las Vegas?

Posted on by May 19, 2025
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Las Vegas medical desert

First page of Joe Lombardo’s health care bill

It was sometime in the middle of the last century when Norman Biltz, a Reno tycoon and land baron also known as the “Duke of Nevada” for his considerable statewide political influence, talked about the proper way to conduct economic development in Nevada. “Nevada must be kept small,” he was quoted as saying in The Green Felt Jungle, the seminal 1963 book by Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris about corrupt influences in Las Vegas. “Let industry go elsewhere. Large industrial payrolls bring in large families, which cost more money in taxes for public services.” In other words, stick to gambling and hospitality.

The Silver State is small no more. Since then, Nevada’s population has jumped 11-fold (and that of the Las Vegas area, 18-fold) such that 19 other states are now less populous. But Biltz’s philosophy of minimal government and minimal public spending has persisted to this day. It is a major reason why Nevada sits at or near the very bottom of national rankings when it comes to key quality-of-life metrics touching on health care. Every day the state dearly pays the price.

So to me, New To Las Vegas, it was terribly interesting when Governor Joe Lombardo last week finally unveiled a bill for the Legislature to consider that would try to deal with a plethora of serious health care issues. A conservative Republican like Biltz, Lombardo is no big spender (except maybe, as an ex-Clark County sheriff, on law enforcement). So most of the proposals are of the free-market variety, removing barriers and regulation.

Still, it’s a start. Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: Detroit nonprofit CFO spent stolen funds on Las Vegas

Posted on by April 24, 2025
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It Didn't Stay Here

William A. Smith (courtesy Detroit Riverfront Conservancy)

See update at end of story

In 2021, William A. Smith, a nonprofit chief financial officer from Detroit, blew more than $100,000 on a personal two-day trip to Las Vegas. The private jet alone cost $94,000. In that short period Smith charged nearly $14,000 at Drai’s Beach Club and Night Club on the roof of the luxury Cromwell Las Vegas hotel-casino, where he stayed.

How do I even know these numbers, and why do I care? Detailed court filings, my friends. Smith pleaded guilty last year to embezzling an astonishing $44 million over 12 years from the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.The agency has been redeveloping the 5½-mile-long Detroit River waterfront facing Canada with public and private money. Smith is to be sentenced April 24 in Detroit federal court on wire fraud and money laundering counts. The feds are asking District Judge Susan DeClercq for a sentence of 18 years in prison and restitution of $44.3 million, mostly to the nonprofit.

So Smith, 52, becomes the newest candidate for my long-running 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 (here, the spending of funds stolen from someplace else). The list is a pointed refutation of “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” the famous marketing slogan the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority used for many years. You can see a list of the nominees nearby.

In Smith’s case the Sin City piece, entirely funded from that stash, is pretty small beer. But it’s a concoction far-away prosecutors historically have been powerless to resist in drafting such criminal court filings for public, ah, consumption.
Continue reading →