Gas prices are doin’ a waltz—one step forward, two steps back, and a little twirl to keep folks dizzy.
The learned scholars at GasBuddy tell us the national average has settled at a respectable $3.02, while the distinguished minds at AAA insist it’s $3.078—though on this point, a man might flip a coin and be just as well-informed. Meanwhile, Nevada, that land of sagebrush and slot machines, has seen its prices tumble a whole eight cents in the last week to $3.65—hardly enough to make a man whistle, but at least it’s movement in the right direction.
Yet, while the Silver State begrudgingly inches toward affordability, the fine citizens of Reno and Sparks remain hogtied and helpless at the mercy of highwaymen disguised as gas station proprietors, still forking over $4.09 per gallon. One could forgive another for wondering if these oil barons are filling our tanks with liquid gold or some French perfume.
But no, it remains the same old gasoline, now seasoned with an extra dash of daylight robbery and no police report.
It was one of those short, pointed conversations you can only have in a saloon in Virginia City—where the whiskey is old, the walls are older, and the stories older still.
I had just settled into a deep and meaningful relationship with my Old Fashioned when she strolled in like she owned the place and took the stool beside me. The other three stools were as empty as a politician’s promise, but she picked the one next to me for reasons known only to herself and the Almighty.
“What’cha drinking?” she inquired, in that manner folks have when they fully intend to order the same thing no matter what you say.
I told her.
“Think I’ll have one too,” she decided, which saved her the burden of making a second decision the same day.
The bartender set to work, and silence settled in like an old dog at a warm hearth.
Now, I can’t say why I said what I said—perhaps it was the whiskey talking, or maybe it was just me listening to bad advice from my brain—but out it came, plain as day:
“So, wanna have the night of your life?”
She smiled the kind of smile that suggests amusement and replied, “No.”
I took a measured sip of my drink, nodded sagely, and returned, “Oh, good. That makes two of us.”
And just like that, the ice cracked, the dam broke –and for the next couple of hours–we talked like two old souls who had forgotten to meet sooner.
The Churchill County Sheriff’s Office is seeking the public’s help to find Nancy Griffiths. Her family reported her missing on January 10.
Investigators believe she may be in the Reno/Sparks area and possibly in the company of an unidentified male. Her vehicle, a gray 2016 Toyota Corolla with Nevada license plate 042H66, was discovered in Fernley and returned to her family.
Anyone with information about Griffiths should contact the Churchill County Sheriff’s Office at (775) 423-3116.
In Nevada, if a man commits a crime and happens to be in the country illegally, the authorities believe his identity needs guarding with the same zeal as a treasure map.
The Nevada Department of Corrections and the Metropolitan Police Department are blacking out names like a gambler hiding his last nickel, all in the name of “privacy.” Yet the public, the taxpayers who foot the bill for these misdeeds, might have a different notion of what should be in the dark.
While the Department of Corrections had no trouble providing this information back in 2019—revealing a score of illegal repeat offenders—they’ve now developed a peculiar sensitivity, handing over a list of nearly 700 prisoners with all names redacted. It’s as if the ink ran dry on every name but not on the crime, and even more curiously, at least 137 of the inmates had prior felonies before their latest incarceration.
Las Vegas police, on the other hand, took the high road of bureaucratic doublespeak, denying the request outright and claiming they don’t have “a responsive record.”
The Department of Corrections justified its new approach to secrecy by citing two Nevada Supreme Court cases. They claim these rulings support personal privacy rights extending to convicted criminals.
For them keeping score, the Nevada taxpayer is now shelling out about $35,000 per inmate per year—amounting to roughly $24 million annually for these particular prisoners with immigration holds. It’s an expensive tab for folks whose identities we’re not allowed to know.
With the Trump administration emphasizing the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, people need to know whether Nevada officials are cooperating with ICE or working against it. But those questions, it seems, are inconvenient for some.
Henderson and North Las Vegas have no trouble releasing information on inmates handed over to ICE. Meanwhile, Las Vegas police continued to claim they don’t track such things, leaning on a federal law that allegedly protects the confidentiality of deportable aliens.
It is like admitting that something is amiss in the grand machinery of Nevada’s justice system. And as history shows, those invested in a broken system often prefer the public stay blissfully unaware.
If lawsuits got outlawed tomorrow, the legal profession would go the way of the dodo, and the news industry would have to do honest work. Alas, that day has not yet arrived, so the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found itself knee-deep in a dispute over Nevada’s latest election law—a law meant to keep election workers from being harassed but now accused of muzzling the good, honest citizens who merely wish to glare at them in a particular tone.
Las Vegas attorney Sigal Chattah, speaking for a handful of plaintiffs, asked the court to scrap the law, citing fears that election observers could get prosecuted for crimes they had not yet committed. The lower court had already ruled that this was a problem left to the imagination, but pressing on, arguing that the law was so worded that a poll watcher could get tossed in the hoosegow for raising an eyebrow too forcefully.
To make her case, she pointed to a 2020 tweet by Attorney General Aaron Ford, wherein he warned that anyone engaging in voter intimidation would face prosecution. Chattah claimed it was proof that Ford desired to lock up those who asked an election worker any question, questioning anything.
The judges were skeptical.
Judge Eric Miller, perhaps hoping for a tale of wrongful imprisonment over a stern look, asked for an example of what conduct might get an observer into trouble. Chattah suggested that election workers, being delicate creatures, might misinterpret a “tone.”
Judge Roopali Desai, seemingly unimpressed with the specter of wrongful arrests over vocal inflections and errantly raised eyebrows, asked for something more concrete. Once again, Chattah brought up Ford’s tweet, the legal equivalent of a lucky rabbit’s foot.
The judges then turned their attention to Governor Joe Lombardo’s presence in the case, questioning with the exasperation of schoolmasters forced to correct a particularly enthusiastic student. Drawing on nearly two decades of prosecutorial experience, Judge Johnnie Rawlinson
pointed out that a governor cannot command district attorneys like a general ordering a charge.
Judge Miller took it a step further—if Lombardo lacks the power to enforce the law, the plaintiffs may have about as much business suing him as they do suing the mailman. Chattah conceded that this was “possibly” a valid point.
The state’s attorney, Laena St-Jules, representing Lombardo and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, also received her share of grilling. Judge Desai, eager to test the bounds of the law, asked if an election observer who so much as mentioned filing a lawsuit could be charged with intimidation.
St-Jules assured the court that Nevada had not yet reached the point where thoughts were criminal. But Desai pressed on—since the law lacks a definition of intimidation, how could anyone be sure where the line was?
St-Jules insisted that the long-settled meaning of intimidation did not include threats of litigation, though it seemed clear that if there were a legal argument, someone would be willing to have it.
With all arguments aired and no fists thrown—though perhaps a few eyebrows raised—the judges declared the matter submitted for their wisdom. Now, the state of Nevada waits.
If the court upholds the law, election workers will remain safe from aggressive tones. If the plaintiffs win, the case will head back to the district court, where it will get examined again, proving once more that if lawsuits were to vanish, lawyers would have to do honest work.
Nevada, ever a pioneer in getting the short end of the stick, has found itself awash in a mighty heap of cash—some $870 million, to be precise—courtesy of the opioid reckoning. The windfall–wrung from the trembling hands of big drug companies after their enthusiastic peddling of despair, was meant to mend the broken, patch the wounded, and, one supposes, buy a mountain or two of Narcan.
But if history has taught us anything, it’s that when politicians get their paws on a pile of money, their sense of direction becomes as reliable as a drunkard in a dust storm. With its unerring instincts, the legacy media is pounding the governor’s door with accusations of fiscal mischief as Attorney General Aaron Ford’s handling of the money remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma and stashed in a government office somewhere.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that great oracle of doom and statistics, has reported that while opioid deaths fell nationally by nearly 24 percent between 2023 and 2024, Nevada boldly bucked the trend with an 11.3 percent increase. That makes it one of only five states determined to prove that misery loves company, as nearly 1,500 souls perished from overdoses in the 12 months leading up to October, and a solid 969 of them were due to opioids.
Despite this bleak landscape, the state’s two-year budget proposal has raised the hackles of opioid advocates, who claim that $10 million of the settlement funds are getting used in a way that defies the very agreements designed to keep the money from being frittered away on the general slush of government spending. It’s not the first time a financial windfall got into the darkened depths of government.
One need only look back at the tobacco settlement funds, which, rather than fighting the very industry that sickened millions, found their way into a college scholarship program and a grab bag of general healthcare spending. Lessons learned? Perhaps not.
Under the 2021 law governing Nevada’s opioid funds, the money is supposed to be strictly devoted to abating the opioid crisis—no exceptions, no diversions, no cleverly worded budgetary sleight-of-hand. Yet, advocates have flagged some eyebrow-raising expenditures: $5 million tucked into Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), $2.5 million for extended foster care, and even $85,000 for minority health office staffing. Worthy causes, no doubt, but precisely how these expenditures abate an opioid crisis remains a riddle for the ages.
However, the bespoken $10 million could buy about 700,000 doses of Narcan, the life-saving drug that reverses overdoses. Instead, some of that money is going to upgrade a maximum-security youth facility–because nothing says opioid relief quite like sturdier prison walls.
During a recent budget committee hearing, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager grilled officials on how moving the opioid money into TANF squares with the spirit of the law. The answer, given with the usual bureaucratic aplomb, boiled down to a vague assertion that the funds would support families affected by substance abuse—how, exactly, was left to the imagination.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Mark Krueger, tasked with ensuring these funds get properly used, did his best to assuage fears but acknowledged that if the money strays too far afield, there could be repercussions. And yet, if history is any indication, consequences for misappropriating such windfalls tend to be as rare as a politician declining a campaign donation.
As lawmakers trudge forward, poring over budget sheets and legal agreements, one thing remains certain: the $870 million meant to heal a wounded state is slipping through the cracks. Whether it will be spent on addiction recovery or swallowed whole by the endless hunger of government bureaucracy remains to be seen.
If the past is any guide, we may look back on the settlement, wondering not where the money went but why we even expected it to get properly used.
It has long been the custom of the civilized, when faced with a difficulty, to find a way to make it someone else’s problem. That is how Nevada made a name for itself in the divorce trades. Now, in a stroke of pure legislative genius, the esteemed members of Congress have devised a method by which a husband, should he find his matrimonial bonds growing tiresome, might rid himself of a wife with all the ease of misplacing an old hat.
The newly minted Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act proposes to protect our most cherished institution—voting—by ensuring that no unqualified person wields the power of the ballot. To accomplish this noble goal, the Act would require that all voters produce documentary proof of citizenship, a task about as simple as finding a hen’s tooth for millions of Americans.
Consider, for example, the plight of the married woman. For reasons beyond all comprehension, many have changed their names over the years, typically after entering into that peculiar arrangement known as wedlock.
This small matter of name-changing, long thought to be the harmless folly of love-struck maidens, has now been exposed as a dire threat to democracy. For how–one must ask, can a woman prove she is the same person she was before she had the good sense, or misfortune—to marry?
Voting rights groups, always eager to stir up trouble where none exists, claim that this legislation will disenfranchise millions of Americans, especially those unfortunate enough to have been born under one name but now answer to another. They point to the outrageous inconvenience of acquiring proper documentation that involves navigating the labyrinthine corridors of government bureaucracy—a feat akin to hunting a wild goose in a snowstorm.
The honorable Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a man of little sound judgment but unparalleled confidence, assures the public that this law will not, under any circumstance, exclude any citizen from voting. It merely asks them to engage in a harmless bit of administrative sport—tracking down original birth certificates, marriage licenses, and various other parchments that may or may not have gotten devoured by time, fire, or an overzealous spring cleaning. If a few good citizens get lost along the way, that is a small price to pay for the grand assurance that something already illegal will remain illegal.
Naturally, critics remain unmoved. They lament the hardship this will impose upon women, rural folk, and other unfortunate souls who lack a fireproof file cabinet containing every document issued since their first breath. Some, with their usual taste for hyperbole, even suggest that the bill’s most delightful feature is its unintended (or, some whisper, entirely intended) effect of making it exceedingly difficult for a married woman to vote–at all.
In all fairness, the Act does provide for those who find themselves in such a predicament. States will get the solemn duty of establishing a process to remedy discrepancies–a task they will undertake with the speed and efficiency for which government offices are universally known. Those who fail to comply must accept their fate: no proof, no vote. A woman’s right to democracy, it seems, extends only as far as her ability to outwit bureaucracy.
Thus, those longing for the carefree days of bachelorhood may soon discover an unexpected benefit of this legislation. If a wife, once so devoted and lovely, has become a shade too chatty, a touch too opinionated, or, heaven forbid, a persistent advocate for her rights, then perhaps the easy course of action is to encourage her to exercise her civic duty.
Send her down to the courthouse, instruct her to register to vote, and let the fine men of government do the rest. Should she return triumphant, documents in hand, at least you will know you married a woman of remarkable perseverance.
But should she vanish into the void of rejected paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense, there are worse fates than being legally bound to one who no longer exists on paper.
It is a well-established fact, known to all students of the human species– that expecting legislators to agree on anything is much like expecting a cat to take to water–or a lawyer to refuse a fee—contrary to nature itself. And yet, in the grand and baffling spectacle–the Nevada Legislature, a marvel has appeared–a bipartisan bill on the ever-divisive topic of mail ballots.
This curiosity, known as Assembly Bill 148, proposes that sample ballots get sent out before the state’s infamous mail ballots make their rounds. One might think such a notion was simply a matter of common sense, but common sense is an unwelcome guest in political chambers, so it’s treated as a legislative breakthrough.
Assembly Minority Leader Gregory Hafen, a Republican, has taken the lead, and—miracle of miracles—Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, a Democrat, has joined him in this rarefied air of agreement. Even Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar has nodded in approval, proving that anything is possible in the Silver State, even reason.
The bill sets new deadlines for mailing ballots, ensuring that the sample ballots, meant to educate voters, do not arrive as an afterthought. Receiving their mail ballots, some citizens assumed them to be sample ballots, staring at the lack of indication that the paper before them was for practice, not participation.
Once again, government efficiency achieved the remarkable feat of confusing the people it meant to serve.
Naturally, this singular moment of cooperation does not signal a new era of legislative harmony. Republicans remain determined to rein in the wild and woolly practice of counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, as Democrats stand guard over the laws they put in place during the pandemic.
Governor Joe Lombardo, a man known for surrender, has even suggested taking the fight to the people should his efforts to reform mail voting be thwarted by the Democratic majority.
Still, for now, AB148 stands as a monument to that rarest of political occurrences–an agreement and a thing so uncommon, so utterly unheard of, that one suspects it will soon be put on display at the Nevada State Museum alongside the bones of prehistoric creatures. And like those ancient relics, it may soon be a thing of the past.
It was one of those tranquil evenings where a man can sit in his favorite chair, digesting his supper in peace, when suddenly, from down the hall, came the voice of my beloved wife—shrill as a tea kettle and twice as alarming.
“Do you ever get a sharp pain that shoots across your body, like someone’s got a voodoo doll of you and they’re stabbing it?” she inquired, as though she were conducting a scientific survey on the matter.
I pondered for a moment, then replied with the honesty and brevity of a man who wishes to avoid further interrogation. “No,” I said.
There was a pause, a dreadful pause. The kind that makes a man wonder if he has miscalculated something vital.
Then, with the speed and precision of a thunderclap, came her follow-up, “How about now?”
And, let me tell you, I have never been more convinced that some unseen hand had driven a pin straight through my very soul.
Nevada’s esteemed legislators have once again saddled up their noble steeds, donned their finest spurs, and galloped headlong into the grand enterprise of making more laws to fix laws that aren’t fixing anything. Two new bills, SB304 and SB309, have been introduced with much fanfare, promising to cure the scourge of drunken and drugged driving by—what else?—tinkering with the lawbooks.
Now, SB304 is a model of simplicity. It suggests that if a person in a drunken stupor kills someone with a vehicle, they might—just might—be charged with vehicular homicide, even if they haven’t been three times convicted. Such a novel concept, to be sure, as one might think that killing someone with a car while intoxicated would already be viewed dimly by the courts. But up to now, the law has been reluctant to call a spade a spade unless the driver’s thrice blessed by the criminal justice system.
SB309, however, is the true masterpiece of legal embroidery, weaving in all manner of new restrictions, definitions, and fine adjustments. It adds fentanyl and “Molly” to the forbidden elixirs of the road, jacks up fines from a mere $1,000 to a more respectable $3,000, and lowers the highest DUI threshold from 0.18 percent blood alcohol level to 0.16 percent—a change sure to be as effective as tightening the buckle on a broken belt. Meanwhile, the threshold for vehicular homicide goes from 0.08 percent to 0.10 percent, an adjustment reached by some esoteric arithmetic known only to legislators and their consultants.
The bill’s proud sponsor, Republican Sen. John Steinbeck–presumably, no relation to the famous author–has issued the usual solemn proclamations. He has seen too many tragic scenes in his long career as a firefighter and that Nevada’s DUI laws are deficient—though whether more laws will plug those holes or create new ones remains an open question.
One might wonder, dear reader, if the problem lies not in the quantity of laws but in their court enforcement. But such a notion would be too practical for a legislative body that must do something—whether it accomplishes anything.
And so, there will be a watch with bated breath as our lawmakers add yet another layer of legal varnish onto a system that is already as polished as a well-handled campaign donation.
The Old Blog in the Desert 