UPDATED OVER AND OVER: In Las Vegas, how about a perp pool on when the first Trump pardonee gets re-arrested?

Posted on by June 6, 2026
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perp pool

Jimmy Hoffa (via Wikipedia)

SEE UPDATES ON ALL 23 PERPS AT END OF POST

Originally published January 21, 2025
Updated January 22, 2025
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Updated, June 6, 2026

A half-century ago, I was part of a ghoulish office pool started in the Philadelphia bureau of the Associated Press, where I worked at the time. On what day of the week would Jimmy Hoffa’s body be found? He was the convicted, mobbed-up ex-Teamsters Union president who suddenly vanished after leaving a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. His disappearance quickly became a national sensation. It was widely believed–then and now–Hoffa was done in at the behest of one of his supposed organized crime cronies.

Six of us hacks each pitched in $5.00 (about $30 in today’s dollars). I chose Saturday.

As it turned out, Hoffa’s remains were never found. He’s still missing. So no one won the office pool (except my supervisor, who didn’t return the wagers even though there was no “winner”). Hoffa was legally declared dead in 1982, although the case officially is still open.

The Hoffa bet popped into my mind amid the big news last night that newly re-inaugurated President Donald J. Trump pardoned or commuted nearly 1,600 rioters who had a hand in storming the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Those receiving his grace included several convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Since I’m now New to Las Vegas, let’s start a new pool. In what month going forward will the first of these releasees be re-arrested on charges of committing another criminal act of some kind? In my view, with such a large universe of suddenly emboldened suspected hooligans for whom law and order has proven to be an elusive concept, it’s certain to happen. Just a matter of when.
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In Las Vegas, an eye-catching political ad shot on a cellphone

Posted on by June 2, 2026
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As a registered independent at the New to Las Vegas world headquarters, I don’t vote in party primaries. And as a journalist I don’t make political endorsements. But I get to critique, like a movie critic. I did this two years ago about an antisemitic campaign mailing put out by the Nevada Central Republican Committee against U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen.

Now, at a time when the two top-grossing Hollywood films were made by YouTube creators, I have to admire the utter image cleverness and seeming cost-efficiency of the nearby ad shot on a cell phone for Joe Dalia. He’s one of three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in next week’s primary to be Nevada state treasurer.

Since the incumbent is term-limited, this is an open position and hotly contested. All the candidates–including Dalia–are complete nobodies statewide. So an ad like this, if it catches on, can make the difference in candidate name recognition, and therefore success.

Now, for all of his aw-shucks, I’m-just-cheap persona, Dalia is a lawyer who used to work for Meta. He found the scratch to air this ad during expensive breaks on CNN. And I imagine it wasn’t edited on his cellphone. For all of its charm, it’s clearly not a complete selfie; you can see both of Dalia’s hands. Someone else was operating his cellphone camera.

In the 30-second ad, Dahia says, “Do you know Nevada’s holding a billion dollars in unclaimed funds? I’ll do more to get that back to you.” What he doesn’t say is that he’s on record stating that money from that fund should go to state education programs and perhaps a state development fund schools, rather than directly to taxpayers, as a viewer might surmise.

But I digress. It’s a helluva pitch.

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Hey, someone tell the Las Vegas newspaper the airport name was changed in 2021

Posted on by May 23, 2026
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In 2021–on December 14 to be precise–the name of the major airport in Las Vegas was officially changed to Harry Reid International Airport. The idea was to honor the longtime U.S. senator from Nevada through 2017, who died just two weeks later at age 82. The old name had memorialized another long-time Nevada senator, Pat McCarran. He was a proponent of aviation whose political persona in later life before his 1954 death at age 78–racist, antisemitic, anti-free press and maybe corrupt–had not weathered well.

So it was a little surprising at the New To Las Vegas world headquarters today to open the Las Vegas Review-Journal (yes, I still get the paper, along with others, thrown to the door) and see the map displayed nearby. It shows the route of a new water pipeline to be built across the Las Vegas area. Toward the upper left-hand corner is labeled … “McCarran International Airport.”

In this new age of AI, of course, one never knows where the underlying information is really coming from. But maybe this helps explain why the RJ, which editorially was never much of a fan of Reid, is now the second largest daily newspaper in the country never to have won nor be a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

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From Las Vegas: boom, bubble, bust–250 years of American history in just three words (Part 1)

Posted on by May 23, 2026
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boom bubble bust

Declaration of Independence

With the semiquincentennial of the United States hard at hand, everyone, it seems, is opining on the history of the United States over the past 250 years. Much of the commentary touches on race and inequality, which certainly is fair enough.

So why not me? I’m a long-time financial journalist and a serious student of history since my days at dear old Rutgers. Accordingly, I offer my two cents explaining the course of American events since our official founding with the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Here’s the Cliffs Notes version: Boom, bubble and bust. To me, New To Las Vegas, a place where for many gamblers it’s BB&B every day, it’s that simple.

Since John Hancock penned his famous signature on that famous parchment, the U.S. has experienced dozens of boom-bubble-and-bust cycles. They have been of various durations and intensities, lasting on average about five years. Some now are more famous than others. Indeed, the U.S. has rarely gone more than a half-decade without being caught up in a BB&B. Their patterns are remarkably similar. In my view, we’re clearly in yet another bubble right now.

Not every downturn has been caused by a bubble. Over time, the booms and bubbles have been more than the busts. So the net result of all the completed cycles have benefited the overall American economy. But not everyone in it, and not equally. It’s often been the Federal Governmental response–essentially encouraging the booms and bubbles, then trying to deal with the fallout from the busts in a way that protects the rich far more than the poor–that has helped create the great political and economic divide we now have in our country.

It’s the same old story.The history of BB&Bs explains most everything and provides lessons for today. So let’s start a loooong walk down Forgotten Memory Lane. Continue reading →