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 →

How Las Vegas is different: Exit now for what?

Posted on by May 19, 2024
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destroying marriages since 2012

Large billboard faces northbound drivers along the heavily traveled U.S. 93/U.S. 95/I-11 freeway in Las Vegas

Not far from the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, this billboard for Minks Las Vegas stands along a major freeway. There isn’t much I can add to the photo, since it is easily worth a thousand words.

But I would note this. The Las Vegas economy was jump-started from nothing to something when Nevada legalized quickie divorce (and gambling) in the memorable year of 1931. The Las Vegas area population in the 1930 census was all of 8,532. It’s now 2,250,611.

Sin sells.

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Stormy, Trump, the thwack heard ’round the world–and me in Las Vegas

Posted on by May 8, 2024
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thwack heard 'round the world

The magazine cover wielded by Stormy Daniels in 2006

The thwack is back. And I remain no richer for it.

At the sensational Donald J. Trump hush money trial in New York yesterday, Stormy Daniels repeated her claim that her 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in his Lake Tahoe, Nevada, hotel room came after she hit him on the rear end with a rolled-up magazine bearing his countenance on the cover.

In court she apparently didn’t specify the specific magazine. But I know which one it is, and for this reason. When word of the slap heard ’round the world first surfaced in 2018, I thought I had an original copy of the issue, which I hoped to turn into big bucks via the auction magic of Ebay.

Turned out I had the wrong magazine. But it’s still a terrific tale. Continue reading →

Story about Las Vegas written by far-away reporters wins Pulitzer Prize

Posted on by May 7, 2024
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story about Las Vegas

Elon Musk as depicted by Reuters

See update at end of story

A story about Las Vegas won a Pulitzer Prize today–but not written by any locals.

A team of reporters at Reuters shared the National Reporting prize for writing about nefarious business activities of Elon Musk. One of those stories, published on July 23, 2023, focused on a Las Vegas-area office of Tesla devoted to talking Tesla drivers out of demanding better battery performance for their electric vehicles.To read the story, click here. That story, along with the series, has caused all kinds of hell for Musk.

I had the pleasure of having dinner with reporters Steve Stecklow, a long-ago colleague long before I became New To Las Vegas on the Philadelphia Bulletin, and Norihiko Shirouzu last year while they were gum-shoeing around town on that story for a few days. Stecklow is based at the Reuters home office in London, U.K., while Shirouzu works out of Austin, Tex.

The story is yet another example of the falsity of that old Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketing slogan, What Happens Here, Stays Here. I’m adding Musk as a candidate to my counter-list, It Didn’t Stay Here. It’s a roster of folks in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas. Musk joins such luminaries as Donald J. Trump (twice) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. You can see the full list nearby.

Sometimes, things about Las Vegas come into focus only from a distance.

UPDATE ON MAY 7, 2024

Neither the Las Vegas Review-Journal nor the Las Vegas Sun made mention today in their print editions of the Pulitzer Prize reported out under their very noses. Nor did I see any coverage in the rest of what passes for the Sin City media.   

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