The Old Blog in the Desert

The Nevada Senate, with all the pomp and certainty of a person selling snake oil, unveiled Senate Bill 460, dressed up in the high-sounding title of the “Education through Accountability, Transparency and Efficiency Act”—or, more quaintly, the “EDUCATE Act.”

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who believes herself to be the Moses of modern schooling, led the charge. She declared the bill a remedy brewed over a year’s worth of chin-wagging with experts and advocates—though one suspects more talking than listening took place.

Now, the EDUCATE Act is said to be “divided” into five great categories, each as vague and thunderous as a politician’s promise. There’s talk of staffing every classroom with “qualified” teachers and filling every school like a Christmas stocking.

There’s a noble push to improve student outcomes–as if that weren’t the stated goal of every flailing reform from here to Kalamazoo. A Pre-K expansion makes an appearance, too—because nothing says progress like enrolling toddlers into the machinery earlier.

Then comes the bit about “accountability,” which in the language of bureaucrats means more spreadsheets, more meetings, and not one whit more learning. Lastly, the bill ponders the “future of public education,” though if its present state is any clue, the future looks about as bright as a blown-out lantern.

Strangely—one might say tellingly—not once in all this mighty stack of words does the bill see fit to mention the act of teaching. Not the teacher’s burden, not the classroom’s labor, not the miracle that happens when one soul tries to enlighten another. Nope, the bill, like a raft with no oars, floats entirely on governance, staffing, and statistical mumbo-jumbo.

In short, the EDUCATE Act appears to be a legislative stew boiled down from buzzwords, stirred with intention, and served with the promise of everything—except education.

It seems the folks in Congress have finally taken a break from hollerin’ at one another and passed a bill that even a Missouri mule might call sensible. Senator Jacky Rosen hitched her name to a fresh piece of law aimed at the worst kind of mischief the modern world’s cooked up–false and lewd images conjured by clever mechanical brains they call “AI.”

The new law, stamped with the name “TAKE IT DOWN Act”—as direct as a barkeep’s warning—declares it a criminal offense to go spreading around intimate images, especially those cooked up without consent by some oily digital sorcery. It includes the kind where the subject’s never even posed, but the picture makes a lie look like the gospel.

Don’t think it’s just another law to get filed away like an old hat. This one’s got teeth. Social media outfits—the same that let your aunt post twelve blurry photos of her meatloaf—are now bound by law to remove such offending material within 48 hours of being told by the poor soul whose likeness got robbed.

Senator Rosen put it plain, “The lack of protections for victims of online abuse has put far too many people at risk, and it’s past time we took action to stop bad actors, protect victims, and hold social media sites accountable.”

Now, I reckon most decent folk would agree—when a person’s image can be stolen, twisted, and passed around faster than a bottle at a campfire, it’s high time the law caught up. And for once, it seems it has.

Now, what to do with a bad politician?

Now, I don’t pretend to be a lawyer, a sheriff, or a Texas man with an unspellable first name, but I do know the smell of cow pies when the wind shifts–and friends, something peculiar’s driftin’ over from Storey County. They’d rather eat their badges than speak plainly when the subject’s has a darker shade than a sand-blasted sagebrush.

One Shyncere Jefferson, all of eighteen years and hailing from the land of brisket and big hats–Abilene, Texas–got sentenced to fifteen years in a federal pokey for producing child pornography. A grim and vile business, no doubt, and justice, at least on that score, had its boots laced up tight.

But what catches the ear isn’t just the crime–it’s the molasses-slow and mutter-mouthed way the Storey County Sheriff’s Office–which has all the transparency of a coffin lid–chose to say so. You’d think a case involving two underage local girls and a man from out of state would provoke a mighty bellow of righteous fury.

Instead, the SCSO stayed so tight-lipped it made a bullfrog look chatty. Why, you ask?

It’s no secret that Storey County’s got a bad hand at the poker table from social media that makes a cursed prospector look charmed. A past fracas that involved race left the office tiptoeing like a chicken on a hot skillet, and the sheriff and his deputies fearin’ their legal shadows like superstitious gamblers in a haunted saloon.

It all began on August 26, 2024, when the Sheriff’s Office cracked open an investigation into a man sending nasty messages to two girls–just 12 and 13. The girls’ phones got a forensic download–a term that here means “we poked around until we turned pale,” and what they found would make a grizzly lose its appetite–filthy texts, videos, and photos, all tied back to young Mr. Jefferson.

Now, here’s where the SCSO pulled one of its favorite moves–passing the ball. They joined with the FBI faster than you can say “not it,” and let the feds do the heavy lifting. By October 28, the FBI in Abilene slapped the cuffs on Jefferson and hauled him off like yesterday’s trash.

But Storey County, ever the shy debutante at the truth-telling cotillion, waited till the whole matter got tied up in a neat federal bow before mumbling the outcome. One can almost imagine the press release being scribbled with one hand while the other clutched a rosary, praying nobody noticed the suspect was Black.

Look–justice ain’t about hiding behind hedges when the going gets racial. It’s about stepping into the sunlight, telling folks what happened, and trusting that truth, however rough around the edges, will stand on its own two boots. But that sort of plain talk seems to spook the SCSO worse than a ghost in a courthouse.

Maybe, one day, they’ll speak up before the FBI sends the wedding invitations, or maybe not. After all, in Storey County, silence is golden–and sometimes, cowardly.

Well now, gather ‘round and let me spin you a yarn that smells more of brimstone than frankincense—a cautionary tale from the great American desert where salvation was for sale, and the Devil took debit.

It appears one Pastor Regina Brice, a woman of the cloth—or at least a woman frequently seen near cloth—was sentenced not to prison but to probation for her role in a healthcare fraud scheme that would make even the slickest riverboat gambler tip his hat. Her transgression? Pilferin’ over a million dollars meant for the impoverished through Nevada Medicaid. For her efforts, she got four years of supervised liberty and a bill for $1.1 million in restitution—a debt, I daresay, she’ll be paying until the Rapture or the next federal shutdown, whichever comes first.

You may think defrauding the sick and impoverished would guarantee a stay in the Graybar Hotel, but nope. You see, Ms. Brice’s attorney, a fella named Gary Reeves, painted her not as a criminal mastermind but a minor accomplice, groomed like a show pony and trotted out by the real schemers.

Mr. Reeves spun a tale thick with remorse, religious fervor, and bodily ailments—reminding Judge Boulware that Ms. Brice was very spiritual and suffered from some accident-related ailments to boot. The good judge obliged, and she walked without a shackle or scolding.

Her husband, Joe Brice, was not so fortunate. For his participation in this gospel-tinged grift, he got ten months in prison and a tidy restitution of $392,000. He also pleaded guilty to moving money of dubious origin and, much like his wife, had conveniently forgotten to mention his rather storied criminal past when applying to be a Medicaid provider.

His resume omitted burglary, drug charges, and a concealed weapon offense—minor hiccups, no doubt, on the road to sainthood. As the layers of the holy onion got peeled back, more names appeared—Gregory and Carol Kirby, once united in wedlock, now bound only by mutual misdeeds.

Gregory, who now fancies himself “Apostle Kirby,” a title easier to earn than a bus pass–confessed to raking in fraudulently claimed Medicaid funds and converting them into real estate from Decatur to Laughlin. He and Carol walked free from prison but got ordered to cough up nearly $373,000 in restitution.

But wait, there’s more!

For Carol Kirby, one scheme wasn’t enough. Arizona’s got her in their sights too, charging her with 20 felonies for bilking another health care program in a new enterprise—”A Better You Wellness Center,” which, based on the indictment, made its patients poorer and the operators richer.

The cast of this ministerial melodrama includes at least 15 players, some of them still unidentified, and a total estimated fraud of $30 million. That’s thirty million taxpayer dollars for Nevada’s needy, rerouted into trucks, properties, and sanctimonious sermons.

Now, you may ask, where’s the moral in this mess? Well, friend, it’s buried under the parking lot of a church with no congregation and six LLCs.

Being no stranger to human folly, having seen men trade gold for gravel and trust a painted sign more than their mother—but even I must tip my hat to the gall of one Miss Barbara Trickle, aged eighty, of Las Vegas. The venerable fraudstress, who should’ve been enjoying her dotage sipping tea and scolding squirrels, spent her golden years fleecing the gullible with more letters than a lovesick poet.

According to the ever-serious Department of Justice, Miss Trickle led a merry little band from 2012 to 2018, peddling fraudulent prize notices to the masses. These weren’t just a few postcards promising riches if you kissed a frog—they mailed out millions of these things, each promising the moon and charging a tidy fee of twenty to fifty dollars to get it.

Folks thought they’d won a cash prize–but got a paper report on sweepstakes or a bauble barely worth the stamp that carried it.

Miss Trickle, it seems, was no idle hand in this racket. She ran the operation soup to nuts—lasering, printing, licking envelopes, and counting the loot while her victims, many of them elderly, dreamed of riches that never arrived. After the first hook, she and her co-conspirators would send more bait, like a fisherman who knows the trout’s already hungry.

Once the law caught wind of the con and the Postal Inspection Service kicked in some doors, the tally stood at over $15 million siphoned from the hopeful and the lonely. That’s quite a sum for a business that traded in fairy dust and fine print.

Said Inspector Eric Shen, “The defendant and her co-conspirators used the promise of sweepstakes winnings to defraud the most vulnerable members in our communities.”

That’s a polite way of saying they sold snake oil to Grandma and told her it was champagne.

So now, having pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, Miss Trickle must face the music—whether that’s a prison tune or a quiet retirement with a dented reputation and a confiscated printing press, only time will tell.

So, if someone tells you you’ve won a fortune and all you’ve got to do is send ‘em twenty bucks—keep your twenty, friend. You’ve already lost the prize.

Here’s an example of two bureaucracies shaking hands across a barbed wire fence as Governor Joe Lombardo and the Bureau of Land Management work like two old mules who finally agreed on what direction to plow.

It appears the Governor, a gentleman with a keen eye on Nevada’s dusty horizon, has gone and inked what the city folks call a “Data Sharing Agreement” with the BLM—a long-winded term meanin’ they’re fixin’ to swap notes on what bits of God’s forsaken scrubland might one-day suburbs, strip malls, or parking lots. It’s the sort of arrangement that gets men in suits mighty excited–but for the average sagebrush philosopher, it just sounds like the government talkin’ to itself a little louder than usual.

“I’m pleased to announce the State’s joint agreement,” quoth the Governor, with a straight face and manicured nails.

He claims this paper pact will “improve our ability to share critical data,” which is politician-speak for passin’ maps and numbers back and forth while trying not to trip over each other’s ambitions. The man’s heart seems in the right place, though, bless it.

Over yonder, BLM Nevada’s acting chief, Kim Prill, chimed in like a Sunday school teacher with a fresh lesson plan. She says they’re eager to pass along data “as efficiently as possible,” which is quite the hopeful statement from an outfit known for takin’ three weeks to answer a telegraph.

The agreement itself, drafted in the language of fine print and finer intentions, outlines four noble goals–first, to figure out which parcels of windblown wasteland might be up for grabs–the second, to save a penny or two in the process–thirdly, to keep from doubling up on the same map twice–and fourth, to ensure that whatever information does get passed around is more accurate than a prospector’s guess.

It’s like a dance between the State and the Feds, each hoping not to step on the other’s toes while they waltz across Nevada’s sun-baked terrain. One can only hope the information flows faster than the Humboldt River in August and that the whole endeavor results in more homes, fewer headaches, and enough red tape to keep the bureaucrats happy without binding the rest of us in knots.

There’s always one in every class—the fella who fusses when the teacher tries to bring a little order to the room. In this case, the class clown is none other than Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron Ford, who, instead of thanking the Trump administration for finally putting reins on runaway ideological programs in our schools, decided to holler, stomp, and run off to court–again.

The Department of Education had the gall to say that if state and local agencies wanted federal dollars, they had to follow the law. Specifically, they had to drop so-called DEI programs that divide children by race and teach folks to see each other through the warped lens of grievance politics. The administration made it clear–either uphold the Civil Rights Act–equal treatment for all–or find another sugar daddy.

But Ford, bless his bureaucratic-dogmatic soul, wasn’t about to miss a chance to posture. He and 19 other like-minded attorneys general filed suit, bellyaching about “vague interpretations” and “legal incoherence,” as if asking states not to use public funds to peddle discrimination disguised as inclusion was a cryptic puzzle.

And, of course, Ford played the victim card like it was the last ace in the deck, claiming Nevada would be “forced” into lawsuits or have to abandon programs designed to “protect children.” Funny—many Nevadans voted precisely to end those programs, believing their children should learn reading and arithmetic, not grievance and groupthink.

Despite the left’s political concerns, the Trump administration is fulfilling its promises—restoring common sense to government, defending civil rights, and ensuring taxpayer money isn’t going to ideologues.

As for Ford, maybe someone needs to tie his hands with more red tape of his own making—just enough to keep him from signing any more lawsuits written in political theater and wrapped in moral panic. Because in the end, this ain’t about civil rights, but about whether the federal government gets to say, “If we’re footing the bill, we expect the rules to be followed.”

And that, as any farmer, blacksmith, or barber will tell you, is just plain fair.

Now, friends, I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen six grown men grin so wide for a photograph that wound up aging worse than a milk jug on a July windowsill. Back in the frost-bitten days of December 2020, six Republican gentlepersons from Nevada put on their Sunday best, marched themselves in like they’s starring in a school play, and cast electoral votes for Donald Trump–votes that, mind you, were about as official as a poker game in a church basement.

They mailed the votes to Washington like it was Christmas and the Capitol was Santa Claus. Trouble was, Washington already had all the votes it needed–and these six had no invite to the party. Thus, they earned themselves the moniker “fake electors,” the political equivalent of being called a counterfeit penny.

Enter Senator Skip Daly, who saw the spectacle and figured something needed to get done lest the great Silver State become a stage for political playacting. So he cooked up a bill to outlaw the showboatin’. The bill made it to the governor’s desk in 2023 — where it got vetoed by Governor Joe Lombardo, who said the whole thing smelled too much like government overreach and handed it back like an unwanted fruitcake.

“In his veto message, he said it was a terrible crime, it was a scheme,” Daly remarked–recalling it with all the warmth of a porcupine in a bedroll. But the governor also said the punishment was steeper than the one given to somebody peddling fentanyl, and that, folks, is a comparison that’ll knock the starch out of any argument.

So Daly returned to the kitchen, stirred the pot again, and out came Senate Bill 102, a slimmer, softer version of the original. No more 10-year sentences–now it’s just one to four years, with the possibility of probation if you pinky-promise to behave.

And while it won’t ban you from working for the city entirely, don’t expect to be running for mayor’s office if you’ve been playacting with the people’s votes. Daly says if you want to trim hedges for the Parks Department, be his guest–but don’t expect a crown.

The bill slid through the Senate 13 to eight, right down the usual party lines like a greasy biscuit. It now sits before the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee–a name that sounds more complicated than the work. Daly’s optimistic–but says the real nail-biter is whether Governor Lombardo’ll sign the thing in 2025–or toss it back again like a hot horseshoe.

Before anyone hollers about censorship or tyranny, let me be as crystal-clear as Lake Bigler–the Right to Free Speech still exists. You can say you believe in Sasquatch, space lizards, or landslides in Nevada elections–nobody’s stopping you. But when you start signing your name to things that ain’t official and mailing them to Congress like you’re a founding father, don’t be surprised when the law taps you on the shoulder.

It’s a story about the line between talking politics and doing politics — and Nevada, bless her silver heart, is still trying to sort out the difference between itself and the federal government.

Let me start by saying that I am, by most measurable standards, a relatively stable individual. I sort my recycling. I pay my taxes early–because fear is a powerful motivator–and I have never once licked a streetlamp in winter–despite several compelling dares.

But I also have PTSD, severe depression, manic depression.

It’s not loud—the sort that explodes into rooms like an action hero. Mine is sneakier. It waits until I’m asleep, comfortable, vulnerable, and then, wham—a night terror with all the subtlety of a heavy metal band playing the Hell March.

So, I’ve turned to microdosing.

A little pinch of psilocybin—nothing serious, just a chemically mediated truce with my subconscious. Think of it as diplomacy for the dreams. Just enough to keep the demons politely seated and sipping tea.

Only last night–well, I may have gotten the decimal point in the wrong place. Not by much. Just enough to go from “lucid dreamer exploring the inner landscape of his psyche” to “giant monkey hallucination stomping across the skyline with a woman in his palm.”

Yes. I dreamt I was King King. Not a typo. Not King Kong. That gorilla’s union. I was King King. Bigger. Hairier. Existentially more confused.

As dreams often do, the dream began with a foghorn and a growing suspicion that I had too hairy knuckles. I looked down and realized I was immense. Titanically, cosmically, impractically, a big making Godzilla look like a garden gnome.

And in my enormous, leathery paw?

A woman.

Beautiful. Dainty. In a dress that sparkled like someone had thrown glitter into a wind tunnel. And despite the precarious circumstances of being carried up a skyscraper by a primate with unresolved trauma, looking surprisingly calm.

She smiled up at me. “Oh, King King…you smell like observational apprehension and banana liqueur.”

I blinked. Or possibly, I thundered. It’s hard to tell with dream physics.

“I must climb the Empire State Building,” I declared because it seemed like the sort of thing one had to do. Gravity be damned. Therapy be damned. It was a narrative necessity.

And so up I went, Darla–of course her name was Darla; all dream blondes are–perched delicately in my hand, humming something that may have been Sinatra or possibly just the sound of the universe mocking me.

Then came the planes.

Tiny buzzing things with wings and flashing lights and—this is important—a distinct attitude. Like I’d parked in their space. I roared. Not out of anger but more out of sheer stress. I was still me, somewhere in there. A guy with a day job and a fear of uncontrolled anger who was now getting strafed by biplanes while holding a Barbie-sized blonde and wearing absolutely nothing.

At least, not in the dream.

Because when I fell—when the dream reached its inevitable cinematic climax, and I plummeted from the top of the world in slow-motion tragedy—I woke up.

On the grass. My front yard.

I was lying there, damp and dewy, in nothing but my briefs.

And in my hand?

A Barbie doll.

Not just any Barbie. This one had attitude, with that early-era judgmental Barbie expression, like she knew I hadn’t flossed. Her hair was matted.

But her dress sparkled, just like Darla’s.

For one heart-freezing moment, I wondered if I’d sleepwalked and reenacted King King using lawn chairs as buildings. There was a garden gnome nearby that looked slightly traumatized.

Then came the voice.

“Tom?”

It was Katie. My neighbor. The one with an unnerving amount of calm, well, because she has three teen boys.

I sat up slowly. “Morning.”

She sipped her coffee. “Dream again?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Bit more…cinematic this time.”

“You okay,” she said. “That was pretty dramatic fall you took.”

I looked at the edge of my roof.

“You’re holding Barbie.”

“I think she was Darla.”

Katie nodded like this made perfect sense. “You’re lucky. Last month the Wilson boy thought he was a velociraptor and tried to mate with my rose bush.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m thinking of switching to whiskey,” I said, brushing grass off my butt.

“Wise,” she said and went inside.

That evening, I put Barbie on my bookshelf next to ‘The Psychonaut Field Manual’ and a mug that says ‘World’s Okayest Dream Warrior.’ I brewed coffee. No mushrooms. No unquantified potatoes, peppers, or legumes.

I sat on my back porch that evening, watching the sun set behind mountains, half expecting to see a silhouette of myself—enormous and tragic—climbing the outline of a radio tower.

“Never again,” I whispered.

Barbie didn’t reply. But I swear, she looked a little smug about it.

Now, I’m no stranger to schemes dressed up as progress, nor am I blind to the kind of arithmetic that makes a man pay twice for the same stretch of dirt. Come May 7th at six o’clock sharp, over at the Spanish Springs Library, a gathering of fine folk—Washoe County officials and the Spanish Springs Citizens Advisory Board—will be hosting what they call a “meeting.”

That’s polite speak for giving the public a whiff of what’s already cooking behind the curtain.

Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson, a man of well-pressed shirts and well-rehearsed answers, will stand alongside the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) to sing the praises of a proposed toll road stretching eastward to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. Now, they’ll tell you it’s for convenience, progress, and the ever-noble cause of reducing congestion.

But mark my words: this ain’t no charitable cause.

The fine print—and there’s always fine print—reveals that this ribbon of pavement won’t be cheap. Drivers will pay to pass, not just once but thrice, as they’ll also have to pay the price tag and taxes.

Over time, what trickles from your pocket will amount to a gusher—far more than the cost of the asphalt itself. The toll road is less a thoroughfare and more a siphon, dressed in high-visibility vests and bureaucratic grins.

Ever eager to dazzle with maps and models, the RTC will trot out timelines, project charts, and plans so sweeping it’ll need a separate zip code. They’ll talk of “prioritization” and “next steps,” as if the future were a paint-by-numbers kit.

So, if you’ve a mind to keep your wallet from developing a permanent limp, best saddle up and ride down to the meeting. Progress may be inevitable—but paying more than a road is worth ought not to be.