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President Barack Obama flew into Las Vegas for another quick campaign stop focusing on his economic policies. Air Force One touched down at McCarran International Airport for the president’s eighth appearance this year in Nevada.

Obama spoke before a Democratic campaign audience at a convention hall just north of downtown Las Vegas before departing for Denver. His visit comes after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed a National Guard Association convention in Reno.

During that convention Romney told guard members September 11th is a time to renew the resolve of protecting Americans against “evil” attacks. Romney added that the events of that day remain seared in the memory of Americans.

Meanwhile, a watchdog group gives Nevada Senate candidate Shelley Berkley a “dishonorable mention” in its report on corrupt members of Congress. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington cited a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations she used her position to help her family’s financial interests.

The Nevada Republican Party filed a complaint last year saying Berkley’s efforts to keep a kidney transplant program open in Las Vegas constituted a conflict of interest. Her husband is a managing partner of a company that contracted with the hospital to offer kidney care.

Also, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller is in the Middle East to learn about military and overseas voting issues. He and other secretaries of state are traveling with U.S. Department of Defense officials, and so far have visited Kuwait and Qatar where they met with U.S. embassy and military officials.

Discussions have focused on voter outreach efforts for U.S. citizens living abroad and absentee voting for military personnel stationed overseas. A Nevada bill passed by the 2009 Legislature allows Nevada voters overseas to register to vote, as well as request and send absentee ballots electronically.

Nevada also adopted the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which requires  absentee ballots be mailed to voters who ask for them at least 45 days before an election to make sure their ballots are counted.  In 2009 Congress passed the MOVE Act to help military voters obtain absentee ballots, wherever they are stationed.

Finally, the Military Voter Protection Project reports a significant declines in absentee-ballot requests by service members across the nation. Compiling data from Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada, the organization found military families have requested 55,510 absentee ballots so far this year.

That’s a sharp decline from the 166,252 sought in those states in 2008.

Did you hear the one about the unemployed Henderson, Nevada couple who went to the Democratic National Convention to cast their vote for President Obama’s reelection nomination?

Bob and Linda Cavazos traveled to Charlotte as delegates, putting away money from his $396 weekly unemployment checks so they could afford the trip. She’s a devoted Obama for America volunteer, while he’s an experienced telecommunications manager.

While at the convention they heard from such notables as Democratic advisor Donna Brazile, who told the crowd, “You bet we’re better off!” And senior Obama advisor Pete Rouse who claimed, “We are trying to create jobs in Nevada.”

When done, the Cavazos returned to Nevada with it’s 12.5-percent unemployment rate so he could continue looking for a job. Now, Bob has to show why he was not looking for work during that time period and it could affect his benefits.

What? No laughter?

There’s some confusion about the origin of the name Gabbs, in the valley by the same name, in Nye County. One claim is the valley, mountain range and city is name after engineer and Professor E.S. Gabbs. However its more likely named after William More Gabb, a paleontologist and member of a survey team under professor Josiah Dwight Whitney from 1862 to 1867.

Several of his colleagues surveyed and mapped the area now called Gabbs Valley. While never seeing the valley that bears his name, Gabb described fossils collected there.

The first-known use of the name Gabbs Valley appears on a map from 1871. Seven years later, the 39-year-old Gabb, a Philadelphia native died at his home.

Gabbs is also the home of Melvin Dummar, who came to fame because of the so-called, “Mormon Will.”  Dummar says his inclusion in Howard Hughes’ will came after he found Hughes, half-dead and laying in the road near Lida Junction, then drove the disoriented billionaire to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Dummar has never been able to prove his claim on the Hughes’ fortune as the courts have ruled the “Mormon Will” a forgery.

Gabbs owes its existence to the discovery of major brucite deposits in Gabbs Valley in the late 1920s.  Brucite’s importance wasn’t realized until World War II and the need for magnesium in weapon production.

By the end of 1942, hundreds of workers and their families lived in new town sites named North Gabbs and South Gabbs. The first post office in the Gabbs Valley opened December 3rd, 1942. Initially, named the Toiyabe Post Office; the name changed to Gabbs, June 1st, 1943.

Gabbs gained city status March 29th, 1955, when the area mines were still operating at full capacity. The Nevada State Legislature disincorporated the county’s only city, May 8th, 2001, because Gabbs tax base could no longer sustain its municipal government.

Whether Gabbs becomes a ghost town like so many other mining towns in Nevada’s history, only time will tell.

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval is the newly appointed vice chair of the National Governors Association Health and Homeland Security Committee. This is a reward for his performance a the Republican National Convention

“Like Republican governors all across this nation,” Sandoval said. “I chose to make the tough decisions.”

Does he mean decisions like voiding battling both the state’s employee and teachers unions, unlike Ohio, New Jersey and Wisconsin’s Governor or continuing to lay the ground work for ObamaCare, something neither governor in Florida or Texas are doing?

Then there was this from the former federal judge, “So I stepped down from a lifetime appointment to make a difference.”

Not really.

Sandoval told the Reno Gazette-Journal, as he announced his 2009 candidacy for Nevada governor, that he had become increasingly concerned about how the state was being run and he “decided to act on my concern.”

That’s a big difference.

The year 1881 is generally declared the beginning of technological change in the logging industry. Up until then, men, oxen and horses carried the load.

In that year, in Eureka, California, John Dolbeer applied for a patent for the steam donkey engine. Early loggers gave it that humble name because the original model looked too puny to be rated in horsepower.

Back in 1864, Dolbeer, a very successful mill worker, became a partner with logger William Carson in Humboldt County. Together they built a logging empire called Dolbeer & Carson.

Dolbeer’s donkey was actually patented in 1882. It evolved through even more labor-saving changes including a “haul back line” through a pulley attached to a stump that eventually put the horse out of business.

His donkey engine sat on heavy wooden skids. It was an upright wood-burning boiler with a stovepipe on top that was attached to a one-cylinder engine, which drove a revolving horizontal drive-shaft with capstan spools at each end for winding rope.

Operating an early Dolbeer donkey required three men, a boy and a horse.

One man, the “choker-setter,” attached the line to a log; an engineer or “donkey puncher,” tended the steam engine; and a “spool tender” guided the whirring line over the spool with a short stick. The boy, called a whistle punk, manned a communicating wire running from the choker setter’s position out among the logs to a steam whistle on the donkey engine.

Occasionally a novice Spool Tender would try using his foot instead of a stick. When he returned from the hospital, he would use his new wooden leg instead.

When the Choker Setter had secured the line running from the spool, the Whistle Punk tugged his whistle wire as a signal to the engineer that the log was ready to be hauled in. As soon as one log was in, or “yarded,” it was detached from the line; then the horse hauled the line back from the donkey engine to the waiting Choker Setter and the next log.

By the turn of the century, donkeys were mounted on barges to herd raft of logs and “bull donkeys” lowered entire trains of log cars down steep inclines, all with the help of iron and then steel wire cable that replaced the original ropes.

During his National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Senator Harry Reid demanded NV Energy close the Reid Gardner plant near Moapa Valley.  Without the slightest bit of evidence, he says the plant is killing nearby residents.

Again, for Reid — the truth tends to be a tricky thing.

For one thing, Reid Gardner is one of the cleanest coal-fueled power plants in the U.S., with the number of visible emissions incidences dropping from 825 in 2005 to only 7 in 2011. Electricity produced by the plant is also  up to 4 times less expensive than “green” energy sources.

Meanwhile, Reid Gardner doesn’t operate for the first five months of the year. It’s usually only in service during peak usage periods which is in summer.

It has the ability to generate 557 megawatts of electricity, all-day,  all-night, everyday of the year. Compare that to Reid’s solar project at Nellis Air Force Base — with an output of only 14 megawatts.

The plant can produce enough electricity to serve about 335,000 Nevada households. Plus NV Energy provides around $34 million in annual tax revenue from the plants operation for Clark County.

Finally, by closing Reid Gardner, another 150 jobs will be lost. This, on top of an already nation-leading 12-percent unemployment, is something Nevada cannot afford.

It’s obvious Reid doesn’t have Nevada’s interest at heart.

Yet another friend has passed away…

Debbie Raborn was born September 29, 1954, in Olla and entered into rest September 2, 2012, in Bossier City, Louisiana. She was the general manager of KBUL Radio in Reno, Nevada for a number of years, where I worked for her.

Many times after I’d completed my air shift at midnight, we’d meet up at the Peppermill for a couple of beers. Even after I was fired and working at the cross-town competitor, KROW, we’d find time to sit and visit after shift.

She was a woman who harbored a lot of sadness in her heart but could laugh at almost any situation life threw at her. And you know — I’ll miss Debbie’s striking ‘gator-green’ eyes.

While he says he supports a federal land transfer for Yerington, Senator Harry Reid also wants it to include creating a new wilderness area in the region. The bill has already passed the Republican controlled House and allows the small town to buy 19 square miles of Bureau of Land Management property to be developed by Nevada Copper.

The mining operation will employ between 400 and 800 workers, each making an average yearly salary of $80,000. The surrounding land is to be used by businesses serving the mine, with plans that include a BMX track, outdoor amphitheater, a solar farm and a light-manufacturing district.

As for the proposed wilderness area, its land located between Smith Valley, Nevada and Bridgeport, California. It covers about 80,000 acres or nearly eight times the size of Yerington’s proposed land purchase.

So in exchange for cash, jobs and economic growth, a federal government that already controls 86-percent of Nevada’s land,  would get even more acreage. Meanwhile Nevada continues suffering through the nation’s worst unemployment rate at 12-percent.

Yet, if Senate Republicans say no to Reid’s proposed wilderness area, the Senate Majority Leader will prevent the land transfer bill from reaching the floor. Then he’ll waste no time in accusing the GOP of being at fault for the lack of jobs creation.

But we know the truth.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attacked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about his tax returns once again. This time during the opening day of the Democratic National Convention for refusing to release several years of tax returns, where he also contends no other presidential candidate in history has been as secretive.

“Never in modern American history has a presidential candidate tried so hard to hide himself from the people he hopes to serve,” Reid said. “When you look at the one tax return he has released, it’s obvious why there’s been only one.”

Reid added about Romney, “We learned that he pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families.”

For Reid, a fact is a bothersome thing — so he does his best to avoid them. However, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler called him on his ill-stated quest.

“For all the rhetoric about high taxes in the United States,  most Americans pay a relatively small percentage of their income in taxes.  Romney had an effective rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011.  That gives him a higher rate than 80 percent of taxpayers if only taxes on a tax  return are counted and puts him just about in the middle of all taxpayers if  payroll taxes paid by employers are included,” writes Kessler.

Once again Reid shows the nation that he is completely without a moral compass. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reminded many long-time residents of Nevada about Reid’s history of making false accusations.

“In the Democrat’s first bid for the U.S. Senate, Reid threw out all sorts of unsubstantiated charges against Paul Laxalt, the former Republican governor of Nevada who went on to defeat Reid by 611 votes in a recount,” wrote Laura Myers.

It was during the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974, when Reid questioning the former Nevada Governor about his financial connection to Billionaire Howard Hughes.  Reid challenged Laxalt to show his own and his family’s finances and to explain how he paid $7.5 million for the Ormsby House in Carson City.

Reid, then Nevada’s Lt. Governor claimed he wanted to clear up the “Ormsby House mystery.”

In October he handed out financial statements and tax returns for himself and his three brothers. He then challenged Laxalt to do the same. Reid continued by stating Laxalt hadn’t paid income taxes for several years.

In the end Reid claimed his financial worth was $305,292. On the other hand, Laxalt was worth only $200,000, excluding his interest in the Ormsby House.

Laxalt also showed he had not profited as governor. His returns showed that in December 1961, he was worth about $167,000 and, when he left the governor’s office in 1970, he worth less-than $102,000.

Kind of sounds familiar, huh?

Senator Harry Reid publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after several 2003 news reports showed Nevada’s industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid’s sons or son-in-law for representation. Now, questions surrounding those family ties are coming up again about the Senate majority leader’s influence.

Reid and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in southern Nevada. The Chinese company hopes it will be the largest solar energy complex in the U.S.

Solar panel prices have plunged globally, leading to the bankruptcy of equipment maker’s like Solyndra, with $535 million in U.S. government loan guarantees, and job cuts at other solar manufacturers. Pressured to curb Chinese trade practices, the Obama administration imposed duties as high as 4.73 percent on solar equipment imported from China.

This prompted more Chinese companies to move their manufacturing facilities to the U.S. It also helped Harry and son’s in their quest to secure the Chinese company for Nevada.

Senator Reid recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China and has been quietly applying his political muscle on behalf of the project ever since. Headed by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, who took Reid and nine other U.S. senators on a tour of the ENN’s operations.

Reid reciprocated by introducing Wang as a speaker at his 4th annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. Then ENN retained the state’s largest  law firm, Lionel Sawyer & Collins, where Rory works.

From there, Rory helped ENN find a 9,000-acre desert site in Laughlin, Nevada, buying it well below the appraised value made by Clark County, where Rory formerly chaired the commission. Public records show Harry owns some “fairly worthless” land near Laughlin as well as Bullhead City in Arizona.

Then there’s the fact Lionel Sawyer & Collins gave $40,650 individually and through its political action committee to Senator Reid over the past three election cycles. Its political action committee also contributed $2,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2008 to the Searchlight Leadership Fund, a political action committee that lists Reid as an affiliate.

After the controversy over the number of lawmaker relatives engaged in lobbying, in 2007 Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, sharply restricting the lobbying activities of close relatives of members of Congress. The law only applies to registered lobbyists and Rory Reid is not registered as a federal lobbyist in Washington or a state lobbyist in Nevada.

Whether the business is successful or fails, it’s the taxpayer who’ll end up taking the loss where the sun-doesn’t-shine.