The Old Blog in the Desert

The numbers are a lie–and I don’t care who printed them. Seven thousand people outside the Nevada State Capitol? That’s not just wrong—it’s delusional.

Try 1,000 if you count the dog walkers and lost tourists. But the media machine needs its dopamine fix, and nothing gets clicks like an army of progressives with picket signs and portable megaphones.

Let’s call this what it was: Hands Off, a pre-fab, plug-and-play protest with all the subtlety of a roadside fireworks stand–organized, promoted, and attended by the usual suspects. At least 92 percent of the folks were serial attendees, the kind of people loitering around Harris/Walz rallies during the last election cycles.

You could pick them out by their professionally laminated signs and matching Patagonia vests. So much for grassroots—this thing smelled of diesel and charter buses.

Four local organizations supposedly spent two weeks cooking the stew, which begs the question, what do they do the other 51 weeks of the year? Folding flyers? Arguing over the font? Either way, the result was a long afternoon of recycled slogans shouted at indifferent buildings and traffic cones.

Kimberly Carden of Indivisible Northern Nevada rattled off a list of grievances like a cranky pharmacist reading the side effects from a pill bottle: “Hands off Social Security, the Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid, VA hospitals…”

She stopped short of “hands off my vodka bottle.”

Darcie Smith gave it the old “middle-class unity” line–bless her optimism.

“If we work to regrow our middle class, we can solve all the problems we have today.”

Sure. And if I flap my arms hard enough, maybe I’ll fly to Barstow.

Then there was Veronica Frenkel, laying out the immigrant rights argument like a law professor who accidentally wandered into a Denny’s at 3 a.m. “Due process,” “constitutional rights,” “inhumane and illegal”—all very compelling, but I doubt the guy holding the “Trump = Satan” sign understood half of it.

The most honest moment of the day came from Caty Burkett, who admitted she had no personal stakes. “I’m privileged enough…I have insurance, I’m not transgender, I’m not gay,” she said, acknowledging she was there out upper-middle-class noblesse oblige.

She could’ve stayed home and crocheted a protest scarf, but no—she showed up. Points for effort, I suppose.

As for opposition? Sparse.

A few passing cars honked and flipped birds, but no organized counter-protest. Probably because it’s hard to counter a tantrum when you don’t know what it’s about. Medicare? Trans rights? Immigration? Middle-class rebirth? Maybe all of it. Maybe none. That’s the problem with a protest buffet—you get heartburn, and no one remembers the entrée.

The streets lined, signs waved, and everyone went home feeling very righteous in the end. But if this is the shape of revolution, it’s looking familiar and tired.

Stay tuned. There’ll be another one next week, same signs, same chants, same damn faces.

Tom Burns isn’t panning with a pickaxe and a whiskey flask, but give the man a wide-brimmed hat and a time machine, and he’d fit right in with the rest of the silver-mad bastards who lit up Virginia City like a Roman candle in 1864.

Only this time, it’s not silver. It’s lithium — the light, white messiah of the clean energy revolution. And Burns is howling from the stage to keep history from repeating itself.

“We were a territory,” Burns said, thumping the table at a ZETA Education Fund event as if it owed him money.

“We get a pass for losing the Comstock riches to San Francisco the first time. But not this time.”

In other words: Nevada was young, dumb, and broke once before, and it damn well better not be again. It is the Lithium Rush, baby, same madness, different century.

Except now it’s clean, renewable, and comes with federal tax credits instead of whiskey rations and syphilis. Welcome to the 21st-century gold mine — except this one powers Teslas instead of saloon lanterns.

FOLLOW THE MONEY — IF YOU CAN FIND IT

Nevada is currently the belle of the clean energy ball — with one lonely operating lithium mine in the whole godforsaken country and enough federal love to make Iowa jealous. Ioneer and Lithium Americas got government loans fat enough to make Wall Street blush. Redwood Materials in Carson City is doing some alchemy with dead batteries, and even Panasonic is begging for local lithium so they can stop buying it from Korea and Japan.

But before you get giddy picturing American-made batteries flying off assembly lines like hotcakes, there’s a catch: The whole damn thing could come undone faster than a casino marriage if Republicans torch the tax credits that keep this Frankenstein dream alive.

Enter the Inflation Reduction Act — a dull name made up by a bean counter on Ambien. But under that sleepy label lies a bazooka of federal investment for building a domestic supply chain.

The two big lifelines? The 45X production credit and the 30D electric vehicle credit. One helps make the batteries. The other helps buy the damn car.

45X gives producers a sweet little 10 percent rebate on their costs. For Panasonic, that means $1.4 billion a year — a number that smells like lobbyist bait from six states away. The 30D gives buyers up to $7,500 in tax relief for purchasing EVs, as long as those EVs don’t come with components cooked up in a Chinese backroom.

Sounds simple. It’s not. It is government sausage-making at its finest — tangled in national security, climate goals, and the industrial equivalent of high-stakes poker.

REPUBLICANS: KILL THE BILL OR BANK THE BENEFITS?

Now, Republicans are in the majority, holding a giant red marker and looking for $1.5 trillion to slash. The tax credits are expensive. They’re popular. And they make the GOP base foam at the mouth with rage about “coastal elites” and battery-powered Marxism. The math doesn’t add up, but rage doesn’t have to.

Still, there are cracks in the wall. Take Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada — a Republican who voted against the IRA but is now scrambling to keep the benefits flowing into his district like beer at a rodeo. His turf has seen $6.6 billion in clean investments, with another $11 billion allegedly inbound. That’s reason enough to break ranks with your party — and he might — again or still.

Asked if losing the credits was a dealbreaker, Amodei said, “It’s the floor.” In other words: he’s not looking to die on this hill, but he’ll at least light a campfire and bitch about it.

Meanwhile, auto lobbyists, battery execs, and energy wonks are flooding Washington with white papers, spreadsheets, and half-sincere pleas for American competitiveness. The irony? Their biggest enemy isn’t Chinese imports or federal bureaucracy — it’s the cultural death match around electric cars. The EV has become a political Rorschach test: is it progress, or is it a liberal conspiracy on wheels?

EVERYONE WANTS A PIECE — BUT NO ONE WANTS TO BLEED FOR IT

Everyone wants the credits. No one agrees on the rules.

Miners want to make sure foreign lithium doesn’t undercut their domestic rocks. Manufacturers desire flexibility so they can keep importing.

Automakers want loopholes to keep prices low. The whole thing is like a Thanksgiving dinner where everyone brought a fork, and nobody brought food.

Redwood Materials, for example, says the 30D credit is “the hot topic” and that they’d like to close the so-called leasing loophole that lets EV makers source batteries overseas and still claim the money. It would force companies to buy American — and give Redwood a bigger slice.

But guess what? None of these companies want to fight in public. They’re terrified of drawing fire from the Trump machine, which may or may not decide that lithium is patriotic one day and communist the next. So they whisper in corridors, send quiet letters, and pray to the gods of favorable committee assignments.

THE CHINA CARD

The ultimate Trump card — pardon the pun — is China. Nearly two-thirds of all EV battery components are from there. Even the most frothing America-first types on Capitol Hill can’t ignore that math. If we want to compete, the argument goes, we’ve got to build a domestic supply chain. And that means paying for it, one credit at a time.

ZETA’s Albert Gore III — yes, that Gore — says the combo of production and deployment credits is the only way to wean ourselves off the Chinese lithium drip. And he might be right. But good luck getting that through a Congress that can’t agree on what day it is.

FINAL THOUGHTS FROM THE DESERT FRONTIER

Here in Nevada, the mood is cautiously caffeinated as the lithium loop is humming–or now. The money is flowing. The factories are rising. But everyone knows it could all fall apart with one bad vote, one presidential tantrum, or one more TV hit where EVs are called socialist golf carts.

For now, Nevada’s holding its breath and building like hell. Because this time, they want to keep the gold.

Or the lithium. Whatever.

And if they blow it again?

Well, they’ll tell ghost stories to the next generation of miners.

Three mutant wolf pups — engineered in a lab with the precision you’d usually reserve for nuclear weapons or Michelin-starred sushi — are now roaming around some undisclosed corner of the United States like hairy, muscle-bound secrets. The company behind this Frankensteinian frolic is Colossal Biosciences, a startup hell-bent on turning extinction into a minor inconvenience.

These pups, aged three to six months and already tipping the scales at 80 pounds, are allegedly designed to resemble dire wolves — the beefed-up, saber-faced nightmares that once ruled Pleistocene America but missed the memo about Ice Ages being bad for business. Should everything go according to plan, they’ll max out at 140 pounds and look like they just wandered off the set of a prehistoric Western.

Colossal released a photo of the little darlings — Romulus and Remus — presumably not suckling from a mythical she-wolf but instead from domestic dogs who carried the gene-spliced embryos like glorified Uber drivers for the future. The science behind it? A little CRISPR here, some gray wolf blood cells there, a dash of ancient DNA from a fossilized tooth, and boom — out pop the ghost-hounds of yesteryear, reanimated via biotech voodoo.

Now, before you grab your bug-out bag and start Googling “silver bullets,” let’s pump the brakes. Independent scientists say these aren’t dire wolves — not really. They’re more like convincing cosplay.

“All you can do now is make something look superficially like something else,” said Vincent Lynch, a biologist who probably knows just enough to ruin your Jurassic Park dreams.

In other words, this is more dog than dire wolf 2.0.

And don’t expect them to run down elk with coordinated pack tactics like their extinct cousins.

“They’re never going to learn the finishing move,” said Colossal’s top animal wrangler, Matt James — confirming once again that science can build a wolf but can’t teach it to kill like its great-grandpa.

Still, Colossal’s not just playing prehistoric dress-up. They’ve also cloned four red wolves — the scrappy, endangered cousins of the southeast — using blood drawn from wild ones. It’s a stab at injecting new genes into a tired pool of inbred survivors, which sounds noble until you consider that step one is still: sedate a wild wolf.

Good luck with that.

CEO Ben Lamm, who might be part genius, part madman, met with the U.S. Interior Department last month, pitching all this as a “thrilling new era of scientific wonder.” Meanwhile, more grounded minds reminded us that the world has changed since dire wolves ate ice-age leftovers.

“Whatever ecological function the dire wolf performed… it can’t perform those functions” today, Lynch added, sounding like the designated adult in the room.

So, is this conservation? Genetic art? Or expensive science fiction with teeth? Probably all three. But make no mistake: the wolves are back, sort of, and they’re shaggy, shiny, and straddling the blurry line between resurrection and revisionist biology.

Welcome to the future, folks. It has fur.

The Marines went into the jungle to keep order. Days later, our camp stood empty. Gear untouched. No tracks. No blood.

It began with a routine trip outside the wire. The chopper’s blades beat hard over the green sea of Central America that swallowed the horizon.

I sat at the edge of the open door. In my early 20s, broad and cocky, my hair was short, sweat on my brow. My hands gripped my rifle, chest rig heavy with ammo.

“Five minutes,” the pilot yelled.

Captain John Harrow nodded and turned to the squad packed tight in the chopper. “Gear up. No picnic.”

Harrow, 36, had a tight jaw under stubble and gray eyes carrying too many fights.

“Scared of jungle rot, Captain?” I said. “I’ve hunted worse. We’re good.”

Harrow shot back, “Keep your mouth shut, Riggs. No bars here. No backup.” I grinned.

Corporal Sam Tate, 23, young but hard, was the medic. Pack strapped tight, brown eyes sharp. He watched the squad like a doctor.

Adjusting his helmet, dark hair damp, he said, “Save the talk for the ground, Riggs.”

I replied, “Always a charmer, Tate.”

Private Eddie Voss, 19, thin and pale, had brown hair matted under his helmet. His hands shook on his rifle sling.

“How long we staying?” he asked, voice cracked.

Harrow said, “Long enough. Eyes up, Voss. You’re not in Kansas.”

Private Luis Caldera, mid-20s, wiry, dark skin like burnt coffee, was born in Honduras and raised in the States. Spoke Spanish. Quiet by the door, dark eyes on the jungle, fingers on a cross tucked in his vest.

The chopper banked to a clearing by a dead village. Huts sagged under vines, roofs broken by time or shells.

It landed hard, and Harrow jumped out, boots sinking into the wet earth. “Form up. Check the perimeter.”

We moved fast, rifles ready. The air was thick, hot, wet. No birds sang. No bugs hummed while leaves rustled and water dripped from somewhere deep.

“Quiet,” Caldera said, looking at the trees.

“Too quiet,” Tate said, slinging his medic bag, eyes on the huts. “Where’s everyone?”

“Rebels,” I said, kicking a rusted machete in the dirt. “Or they ran.”

Harrow led us to a rise above the clearing. We pitched tents and built a small fire by dusk.

Voss fumbled with the last stake as I said, “Move out.”

Caldera knelt by the flames and muttered in Spanish, a prayer maybe. Night came quickly, the jungle eating the light.

Harrow stood watch, stiff against the fire’s glow. I leaned back, rifle close. The squad settled, rations out, voices low.

Caldera froze, head tilted. “You hear that?”

“What?” Voss asked, eyes big.

“A whisper,” Caldera said. “My name.”

Harrow listened. The wind moaned through the trees. It could be anything.

“Jungle tricks,” he said. “Rest. We move at dawn.”

I watched the dark, Caldera’s words sticking. A whisper here could be nothing. Or everything.

Dawn came gray, slow, mist curling like smoke. Harrow woke us sharp. “Up. Out.”

We ate fast—C-rats and instant coffee—and geared for a patrol five miles north to watch the truce line. The jungle closed in, green and thick.
I took point, my rifle low, steps sure.

“Tracks,” I said and crouched by mud. Prints human-sized, wrong, long toes, splayed, clawed gouges. “What walks like this?”

“Animal,” Tate said, looking over, hand on his pistol.

“No animal,” I said. “Not with thumbs.”

Voss stepped close, rifle shaking. “Thought I saw something last night. Tall. Fast.”

Harrow’s eyes narrowed. “Saw it or thought you did?”

“Don’t know,” Voss said, red-faced. “Too dark.”

“Nerves,” Harrow said, but he looked at the trees. “Let’s move.”

We pushed through vines and roots, sweat soaking us. Caldera lagged, eyes up.

“This place is wrong,” he said to Tate. “It watches.”

“You’re from here,” Tate said. “What’s it like?”

“Stories,” Caldera said. “Things that mimic. Takes.”

I cursed low, my boot in a puddle, muttering about rot and traps. Harrow kept us on track, the map wet in his hands. By noon, we looped back, unease growing.

Night fell heavy, the fire-spitting embers. Watching in pairs, Voss and Caldera first.

I lay half-awake when Voss’s voice cut through. “You hear that?”

Harrow grabbed his rifle and stepped out. Voss stood by the fire and pointed at the trees. Caldera was up, listening.

“What?” Harrow asked.

“Like me,” Voss said, voice shaking. “My laugh, but wrong.”

I came out, rifle up. “You’re cracking, kid.”

“I heard it,” Voss said. “Out there.”

Harrow raised a hand. The jungle went still. Then it came—a low chuckle, warped, Voss’s laugh from the chopper, stretched, circling from the dark.
“What the hell?” I said, hands tight on my weapon.

Caldera gripped his cross. “Not human,” he whispered.

“Animal,” Harrow said, voice steady. “Echoes.” It came again, closer, moving through the trees.

Tate stepped out, his calm breaking. “No animal mimics.”

“Rebels,” I said, scanning shadows.

“With Voss’s laugh?” Tate said, eyes sharp.

Harrow set extra watches—him and me, then Tate and Caldera. No one slept well.

Voss sat by the fire, muttering. Caldera watched the trees.

I heard it again in my head—not rebels, not animals. Something was out there, learning us.

By the second night, the fire was embers. Harrow set staggered shifts, two up, three down, rifles close.

Air thick with rot. Voss paced, boots scuffing, helmet crooked.

“Stop it,” Caldera said, low and firm, rifle on his lap, cross in his fingers. “You’re loud.”

Voss froze and gripped his rifle. “Sorry. That laugh. You heard it.”

Caldera nodded. “I did. Don’t know what.”

“You’re from here,” Voss said. “What stories?”

Caldera paused and touched the cross. “Things like men, but not. Mimic voices. Take shapes. Abuela called them ladrón de almas. Soul thieves. They take, not kill.”

Voss paled. “That’s out there?”

“We’re not alone,” Caldera said and stood, eyes on the dark.

No crickets. No frogs. Just branches creaking.

Then a scream, sharp, warped, Voss’s voice. “Help, Captain!”

Harrow was up with his rifle in hand. I spilled out with Tate, armed.

The fire cast shadows. The watch post was empty.

Voss’s rifle leaned on a log, polished by nervous hands. Caldera’s gear beside it—vest, ammo, cross coiled.

No blood. No tracks.

“What the hell?” I said, voice tight.

“They were here,” Tate said, low, kneeling by Voss’s rifle. “No one’s that quiet.”

Harrow’s gut twisted. “Spread out. Search. They didn’t walk off.”

The scream came again, faint, Voss’s voice gurgling, bouncing west to east.

“Captain,” Tate called–his flashlight on a scrap of Voss’s uniform in thorns, no tears, no blood.

I ran back, face hard. “Nothing north. No tracks. That’s not them.”

“It was Voss,” Tate said, calm breaking.

“Something,” I snapped.

Caldera’s voice came, soft, pleading. “John, help.” Then silence.

“Not him,” Tate whispered, light shaking.

Harrow’s mind raced—ambush, silent takedown. “Regroup,” he said. “Fire. Hold till dawn.”

We sat by the embers, eyes out. The jungle watched, alive. Voss and Caldera were gone.

Dawn crept in, gray, thin. Harrow, Tate, and I sat tight, backs to the fire pit, rifles ready.

Harrow’s hands tapped his rifle, stress showing. I crouched, anger burning.

Tate held his medic kit, breath short, eyes darting. “We need a plan,” he said.

Harrow replied, “Can’t stay.”

“Plan?” I spat. “Two gone, and you want a plan? Should’ve moved yesterday.”

“Panic kills,” Harrow said.

“You lost them,” I said and stood tall. “Put Voss and Caldera out there.”

Tate looked up. “Enough, Riggs. Blaming won’t fix it.”

“Won’t it?” I turned. “You’re supposed to lead.”

Harrow stood. “Take command or soldier.”

I backed off, cursing.

Tate rubbed his face. “Search again. Daylight might show.”

Harrow nodded, doubt heavy. “Perimeter, then west.”

We moved, jungle tight, vines on boots, leaves like fingers. A hum buzzed deep in our bones.

Caldera’s voice came soft. “Sam, help me.”

Tate froze, light shaking. “That’s him.”

“No,” Harrow said and grabbed him. “Move.”

The voice grew from the right. “John, please.” Then left.

I fired into the trees, shots swallowed.

“Stop,” Harrow said. “Wasting ammo.”

“It’s everywhere,” I said, breathing hard.

Tate stumbled. “What is it? Not rebels. Not animals.”

Harrow pointed. It stood in the mist—tall and thin, limbs bent wrong, skin like oil, yellow eyes unblinking. It jerked away, gone.

“Christ,” I whispered, aiming.

Harrow’s heart hit his ribs. “Fall back,” he said, hands steady. “Camp.”

We ran, jungle snapping behind us. Caldera’s voice taunted. “John, you can’t run.”

Then Voss’s laugh warped.

At camp, the radio hissed, whispers in the static.

“Base isn’t hearing,” Tate said, hands fumbling. “Jammed.”

“It took two, quiet,” I said, eyes hunted.

“My orders,” Harrow said. “Stay together.”

Tate strung tripwire, hands shaking but sure. I reloaded, jaw tight.

Harrow watched, jungle mocking us. It knew us—our voices and fears.

Midday sun barely broke the canopy. We sat sleepless, eyes hollow. Tripwire sagged, useless.

“We’re dead here,” I said. “It’s picking us off. Jeep’s five miles. Radio base. Out.”

“Five miles through that,” Tate said, nodding at the trees, hands on his kit. “No cover.”

“Open here, too,” I said and kicked a log.

Harrow wiped his face, fearing a second pulse. “Riggs is right. Jeep’s our shot. Fast. Riggs point, Tate center, me rear.”

We broke camp and took rifles, ammo, and radio. Jungle fought—vines grabbed, branches clawed.

I hacked, machete flashing, sap dark and thick. “Place is alive,” I said.

“Eyes up,” Harrow called, watching back.

Tate’s light danced. “It’s watching,” he said, low. “Knows we’re running.”

“Let it try,” I said, still slashing.

The ravine came, narrow, roots choking it. The jeep glinted ahead, half a mile off.

Then the ground shook—a pulse underfoot. “Feel that?” Harrow stopped, rifle up.

“Yeah,” I said, machete still.

A snap came left, bone breaking, close. Tate’s light caught a dark ooze on a branch, iridescent, stinking.

“Move,” Harrow said and pushed.

The ravine closed in, cold, breath fogging. I hacked, grunting. Tate faltered.

Voss’s voice came, warped. “Tom, don’t leave me,” gurgling.

I spun with my rifle up. “Not him.”

“Move,” Harrow said.

Caldera’s whisper followed. “Sam, help,” from above.

Tate dropped his light. “Can’t leave them,” he said, voice breaking.

A shadow darted—sinew, claws, fast, gone. Tate screamed, cut off.

His kit hit the mud, light rolling dead. He was gone.

“Tate!” I roared and fired wild.

“Stop,” Harrow said and grabbed me.

The ground growled, roots shaking. Harrow yelled as something pulled him into the ravine wall, boots digging, rifle falling. Then silence.

I ran, alone, jeep ahead. Voices swelled—Voss, Caldera, Tate, Harrow—a chorus chasing.

Claws scraped behind. I reached the jeep, hands shaking. Key in. Turned. Dead.

Voices screamed. “Tom, Tom.”

I hit the dash, anger burning. It stood in the mist—tall, bent, skin rippling, yellow eyes. Then gone. Ooze pulsed on the hood, alive. My curse died in my throat.

I stumbled from the jeep, dead, mocking me. The ravine stretched, wet, dark.

My rifle was heavy, and five miles from nowhere, it closed in. I was dead and knew it.

Jungle-pressed vines tight, thorns cutting. Air choked me.

Voss’s laugh came. “Tom, why?” like a faint memory.

I pushed into the ravine, ground pulsing, roots alive. The jungle air was cold, sour, and metallic.

Caldera’s voice pulled. “Tom, help me.”

I fought it but moved. A log lay ahead, claw marks fresh, oozing.

It crouched there—tall, sinewy, skin like oil, eyes yellow, unblinking. It hissed, sharp.

I fired, rounds splitting the log, sap spraying. It blurred—left, right, above, fast.

“Face me,” I yelled, throat raw.

The ground tilted, roots grabbed, and I fell, hitting a tree. The jungle was alive, branches cold, touching me. I ran, blind, flare gun out, fired. Red light arcing then died. No help.

It blocked me—taller, claws glinting. The voices came—Voss’s whimper, Caldera’s chant, Tate’s scream, Harrow’s call. “You failed.”

I fired my pistol—nine, eight, seven—missing. It lunged, claw on my leg, fire up my thigh.

I rolled, knife unsheathed, slashed the air, and hit the clearing. By the jeep, blood soaking me, pistol shaking, three shots.

Voices rang. “Tom, Tom, Tom.”

It stepped out, slow, eyes fixed. I fired—two, one, zero. I threw the pistol.

“Take me,” I yelled, up, fists clenched.

Silence hit, heavy. It stopped, head cocked, eyes burning.

The claw mark on the jeep oozed, pulsing. It melted back, shadows taking it.

The hum stayed, mocking. Voss’s laugh faded, then was gone.

I fell to my knees, dawn cold, gray. Jeep stood, a tombstone.

Jungle, twisting and wrapping me to the waist. Alone, alive, but not spared.

My body struggled helplessly to get free, and then I woke, sweat-soaked, sheets of a tangled mess knotted about my body. Still, my squad was gone.

Not being one to shy away from calling a spade a spade, nor a skunk, a skunk, if a man’s got a bucket labeled “truth,” he best not go to the online news site, Nevada Independent for a refill, lest he likes it full of holes and lies slicker than a greased politician at election time.

The tale begins with Democrats caterwaulin’ about Sigal Chattah, Interim U.S. Attorney for Nevada. The site claimed, with dramatic swoons and trembling lips, that she was cavorting with the Republican Party after her appointment, thereby violating all manner of Department of Justice codes and spells and sacred bureaucratic oaths.

They leaned hard on the claim that Miss Chattah attended a Nevada Republican meeting virtually and introduced like a homecoming queen to thunderous applause.

“Scandal!” they cried.

“Illegality!” they gasped.

And then—lo and behold—it turns out none of it happened. Not some of it. Not a detail or two. None of it.

Miss Chattah never called in. She was not a part of the meeting.

What was peddled by the Nevada Independent wasn’t inaccurate—it was pure political fiction, a bedtime story for angry leftists who can’t stomach the idea of a Republican doing anything besides getting tarred and feathered in their morning headlines. You might ask yourself, “How could such a lie go to print?”

That’s a fair question for an honest man. But we’re not dealing with honest folks here—we’re dealing with media lapdogs who’ll bark and yip at their master’s command, especially when that master wears a blue tie and talks about equity over breakfast.

And then there’s the reporters, bless their peeping little hearts, who weren’t even inside the meeting room. They claim they glimpsed an iPhone, a flash of light, a name mentioned, and then—poof!—a scandal conjured from the smoke like a rabbit from a cheap magician’s hat.

That ain’t journalism, friend. That’s theater. Bad theater, at that.

They say Miss Chattah’s continued presence as RNC committeewoman breaks DOJ rules. Maybe it does, maybe it don’t.

But if you’re going to accuse a woman of breaking the law, you’d best get your facts in a row before galloping off like Paul Revere with a lantern. Otherwise, what you’ve got ain’t news—it’s libel in ink-stained britches.

The media ought to retract the story. Not just quietly, like a mouse sneakin’ out the pantry, but loud and proud with a mea culpa as big as the lie itself.

Anything less is cowardice with a press pass.

And let’s be plain–if this is how the Nevada Independent means to practice journalism—pushing rumor like gospel—they might find themselves in court someday, lookin’ sheepish and sweaty in front of a judge who don’t take kindly to political hit jobs dressed up in borrowed virtue. It’s why the left and their lapdog media are losing credibility faster than a card cheat at a church picnic.

When the truth finally floats to the surface, liars tend to sink with the weight of their nonsense.

Belles, Bustles, and Bodacious Beauty

The fifth annual National Miss Curvy pageant unfolded in the City of Sin and Sequins, Las Vegas, like a Sunday picnic in a thunderstorm—loud, proud, and full of surprise.

The pageant, held in March—just as spring was beginning to flirt with the desert—saw curvy queens arrive from as far off as Guam, Texas, Colorado, and Washington. As the host state and not one to get outdone in hospitality or hip-swinging glory–Nevada sent its best and boldest, and by thunder, it paid off.

Two Nevada roses took the highest crowns this year–Neftali Cruz Nicolas, named National Miss Curvy 2025, while the effervescent and ever-eloquent Francisca “Franny” Ramos strutted away with the title of National Ms. Curvy Elite 2025.

If you’ve never seen a woman beam like a sunrise over the Sierra, then you ought to’ve been in that room.

There were gowns like waterfalls, sass by the bucketload, and enough confidence to float a steamboat down the Truckee. And don’t let the rhinestones fool you—these women had wit, charm, and a stage presence that would make Cleopatra drop her eyeliner.

The Miss Curvy Organization, which started as a whisper and is now a joyful shout, announced the next national competition will happen in Carson City come Spring 2026. It’s a good place for it—as the city has a tenderness for pageantry, politics, and other forms of well-dressed drama.

Wishing to keep up with the crowning glories, flirtations, and festivities of the Miss Curvy Organization? Follow them on Facebook.

But don’t say you ain’t warned if you find yourself smitten.

Why Laws Don’t Plug Leaks

Now, it’s a strange thing about water—man can harness it, hoard it, fight over it, and even try to legislate it, but he sure can’t make it.

And for all the bills and acts and official declarations made from the marble benches of Carson City, not one of them ever crawled down a pipe and fixed a leak. It’s known that you can’t patch a dry well with a committee vote.

Back in 2014, when the sun had its fist around Nevada’s throat tighter than usual, the farmers in Mason and Smith valleys found their wells sucking air. The good folks in Diamond Valley got told to either hatch a plan to manage their vanishing groundwater or kiss what’s left of it goodbye. That’s a hundred miles apart and two valleys in the same leaky boat—both having drawn more from the earth than Mother Nature ever deposited back.

The business of overdrawing the water account ain’t new. Nevada’s been writing water checks that it couldn’t cash for decades. You see, the state handed out more water rights than there is water to back’em—like giving out tickets to a sold-out show and then wondering why there’s a riot at the door.

In 2023, some enterprising lawmakers got the idea to buy back water rights—pay folks not to use the water they were legally allowed to use– called it “retirement,” as if those acre-feet of water had earned a pension. Senate Bill 36 and Assembly Bill 104 are the latest shots at this, giving willing water holders a chance to sell their rights and take a seat on the porch while the land dries up without them.

The state gave the retirement idea a trial run with a $25 million federal fund. Nevada’s politicians called it a pilot program—though the only thing flying was money out the door.

Folks signed up faster than expected because nothing says “dry,” like a check for $850 per acre-foot. Waterholders sold off their paper rights, which is a fancy way of saying they weren’t using the water anyway.

Paid for nothing, in some cases. That’s government efficiency for you—two men digging a hole, three writing about it, and four passing laws saying to fill it.

Meanwhile, lawmakers now wrangle over whether they should make the buyback system permanent or at least let it stagger along until 2035 before they pull the plug again. Ten years to fix what took a century to break?

That’s mighty optimistic—like putting a patch on a barrel of gunpowder and calling it a safe room.

There’s one thing all the hydrologists, ranchers, conservationists, and bureaucrats agree on–the problem ain’t going away with good intentions or recycled bill numbers. Nevada gets nine inches of rain yearly–if the clouds feel generous.

And of that, just a sliver finds its way back underground. The rest gets swept away by sunshine and wind like loose change on a gambling table.

And yet, half the state’s freshwater now comes from groundwater—water that used to sit beneath our feet before we got the notion to suck it up and sell it like soda. Experts say the basins are draining faster than a bottle in a bar fight.

And we know about experts–they’re the ones good a breakin’ everything and callin’ it fixed.

While legislation can frame a picture, it can’t paint the water back in. We can retire rights, redefine standards, and rewrite laws till pens run dry—and they still can’t make it rain.

And a law has never yet stood at the edge of a cracked basin, looked into the dust, and known the feel of drought. So, as long as we believe that paper promises can wet the roots, they’re liable to keep passing bills and watching wells go dry.

Truth be, you can’t fix a water crisis with a fountain pen, and that’s the kind of plain-spoken arithmetic any farmer could tell you—if he hasn’t already packed up and moved east.

Well now, it seems Senator Jacky Rosen—bless her ambitions and damn her judgment—has taken it upon herself to rescue the Republic from the clutches of Citizens United, that Supreme Court decision which, in her mind, turned every corporation into a cigar-chomping robber baron and every political donor into a demon with gold teeth and bottomless pockets.

The good Senator has introduced what she calls the “Democracy for All Amendment,” which sounds like something a schoolchild would scribble on a protest sign while standing outside a coumty courthouse with a juice box and a vague sense of injustice. The amendment, in theory, would overturn Citizens United and, for good measure, throw a lasso around any other judicial ruling that dared let folks spend their money telling other folks what to think.

Rosen assures that it’s all in the service of The People—those poor, plain souls she’s fond of when it’s time to campaign but somewhat forgetful of come budget season. She says, “billionaires like Elon Musk have been pouring unlimited amounts of dark money in an effort to influence elections.”

It’s reckoned that if Musk bought a coffee in Washington, she’d accuse the beans of being politically compromised.

But let us pause and examine the machinery here. Anything Rosen touches generally turns to fertilizer—and not the good kind, mind you.

It isn’t some high-minded crusade against corruption; it’s a knee-jerk reaction to Musk, plain and simple. The man sneezes, and half of Washington runs for cover while the other half writes legislation.

Her proposal won’t pass, of course. Constitutional amendments are about as easy to push through Congress as a greased pig through a keyhole.

But that ain’t the point. The point is to appear noble while doing nothing, to shout “Democracy!” while changing the subject from anything that actually might require effort or cost Rosen a donor.

So here we are–another show, another curtain call, another speech on the evils of money delivered by a politician who never once ran a campaign with a bake sale and some good intentions. If it weren’t so transparently cynical, it might be funny.

And if it weren’t so common, it might even be news.

Never wish to go meddlin’ in a man’s business unless he’s gone and made it the people’s business—like gettin’ hisself arrested and carted off to the Washoe County lock-up, which is precisely what happened to a pair of gents with names longer than a preacher’s sermon.

First up was a fellow by the name of Felix Nunez-Nevarez, who found himself acquainted with the long arm of the law in the wee hours of Friday, April 4th, at precisely 1:43 a.m.—a time when most honest men are either asleep or out chasin’ a mule they shouldn’t have let wander off. It does appear that Mr. Nunez-Nevarez had been driving with more spirits in hisself than a haunted house and tipped the scales over the legal limit. For his trouble, he earned himself a first-time DUI charge and a little note from the good folks at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who asked the jailhouse to keep him warm on their behalf.

Not to be outdone in the department of poor judgment, another gent, Francisco Alvarado-Galicia, was booked the day prior—Thursday, April 3rd, at 2:19 p.m.—under an ICE hold. Now, just so we’re square on the facts–entering the United States illegally is a crime. Period.

That’s not opinion or poetry. It’s law.

Now, both men are still sittin’ in the Washoe County Detention Facility, likely ponderin’ their missteps and wishin’ they’d taken a different fork in the road. The moral of the story? Don’t drink and drive, and don’t sneak across borders like a game of hide-and-seek.

Uncle Sam might be slow to rouse, but when he does, he don’t miss.

But the Big One Still Waits to Show Off

It appears the earth beneath northern Nevada, like an old mule with a burr under its saddle, has taken to kicking now and again—not hard enough to bust up the barn, mind you, but just enough to remind you that it’s still there, sulking and waiting for its day in the sun.

Beginning early Sunday, a gaggle of earthquakes—some no bigger than a hiccup in a teacup—took to dancing their minuet beneath the sagebrush and sand. The most boisterous of the bunch hit at 2:22 a.m. when most respectable folks were asleep, and the rest were wishing they were.

That shaker measured a 3.4 on the seismograph scale, which, for the uninitiated, is about the geological equivalent of your Aunt Martha dropping a pumpkin pie in the kitchen and hollering about it.

The quake took place 14.5 miles southwest of Fernley and dug in about 30,183 feet beneath the crust, where it no doubt stews with its comrades like mischief-prone schoolboys in a cellar. A little while later—5:02 a.m.—a tremor, clocking in at 2.4, happened the same distance northeast of Virginia City as a retort.

Now, these weren’t lone wolves. A whole family reunion of miniature tremors, ranging between 1.1 and 1.6 in magnitude, came ambling through the same countryside over the next 24 hours, quiet enough that even the coyotes didn’t pause their howling–or whatever less cliché sound you fancy they make these days.

Farther afield, a modest 1.5 magnitude tremor tapped the earth’s shoulder 9.1 miles east-northeast of Yerington just before lunch on Sunday. It was polite enough to come and go without causing a stir, a trait many politicians could learn from.

According to the learned folk at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory—a fine bunch, though I suspect some of them could use a good shave and a vacation—more than two dozen tremors have visited the area within a 35-mile radius over the past 60 days. It’s a warning sign from Mother Earth as she practices her steps before the real cotillion.

Now, lest you grow nervous and wrap your fine china in bubble wrap, let me assure you: DOGE, bless its pixelated heart, will not prevent an earthquake from giving its best performance. When the Big One decides it’s time to take center stage, no cryptocurrency nor canary in the coal mine will hold it back.

Until then, sleep well and keep your boots near the bed. The earth may be old, but she still knows how to tap her foot when the mood strikes.