Category: Nevada

Crazy Professors Are Dangerous

Posted on Comments

UNLV gunman Anthony Polito

My office TV is tuned to CNN (I watch, so you don’t have to) and the network went wall-to-wall Wednesday with coverage of a shooting on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV).

THREE PEOPLE KILLED! Yeah, and 541 people have been shot to death in Chicago so far this year. What’s your point? Why saturation coverage of this one incident in Vegas, when the weekly death toll in Chicago (Baltimore, Memphis, Philadelphia, etc.) is so much higher?

Media bias being what it is, I suspected CNN might have some sort of ulterior motive for devoting so much attention to the UNLV shooting. Was it a hate crime? Turns out, it was a disgruntled academic:

A business studies professor who wrote a 15-page theory on the Zodiac serial killer and posted about ‘powerful organizations bent on global domination’ shot-and-killed three people at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, police said.
The suspect, Anthony Polito, opened fire on the fourth floor of the Lee Business School at 11:45am, prompting a massive response from law enforcement. Around 20 minutes after their arrival, officers located the gunman, shooting him dead.
Officials say that Polito, 67, was armed with a pistol during the attack which began after his application for a professorship was rejected. Polito was on staff at East Carolina University in North Carolina between 2001 and 2017.
None of those who were killed were students. In addition to the three deceased people, another person was wounded and remains in critical condition. . . .
For years, the killer maintained a website about his life, he posted, among other things, about having decoded cryptic messages sent by the killer in the unsolved Zodiac murder case. . . .
In his favorite movie section, Polito’s argues that each ‘argues a truth with powerful eloquence.’
Some of his favorite movies include Michael Moore’s Roger & Me, Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-laden JFK and the film version of Ayn Rand’s conservative epic, The Fountainhead.
Polito lists among the ‘Great Minds of the Twentieth Century,’ Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein and George Soros.
There is another section titled: ‘Powerful Organizations Bent on Global Domination!’
Among the organizations listed are the Rothchild family, Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund and Economics Department of MIT.
In that section, Polito posted a link to a website created by far-right wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Elsewhere on the page, Polito lists his own personal theories on various mysteries including, the Zodiac killer, the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the true meaning of the 2010 Leonardo DiCaprio movie Inception.

Here’s my theory: Crazy People Are Dangerous. 



 

A Tale of Two Conventions

Posted on Comments

— by Wombat-socho


Or, Taking Back SF One Convention At A Time.

Our mascot, Fission-chan.

Every year in June, there’s a science fiction convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that is so popular, memberships sell out in a matter of hours when they become available. Part of this is because (thanks to some arcane rules I don’t pretend to understand that don’t have anything to do with fire marshal regulations) Libertycon limits its membership to around 750 people. The other part is that unlike most SF conventions, the people who run Libertycon are adamant about maintaining a convention free of the ridiculous woke crap that has made a lot of SF conventions, big and small, places where conservative and libertarian authors and fans aren’t welcome. So Libertycon memberships are very much in demand, despite the facts that 1) Chattanooga is damned hard to get to unless you live in driving distance, and B, every year the hotel that hosts it seems to change hands and forget how to do room reservations.

Well, I think there ought to be more conventions like Libertycon, and having some experience at starting & running these sorts of conventions, I decided to do something about it. Thus: Son of Silvercon. I’m starting small this first year, aiming for a membership of 100+ people, and hoping in subsequent years to grow to 1000 or more, which would allow us to move from a Best Western to one of the larger hotels in downtown Las Vegas – the Plaza, say, or one of the Station hotel/casinos, which have the kind of function space I’m used to from running Anime Detour in Minnesota. My intention is not to compete with Libertycon, which has been around quite a while and has a rich tradition -not to mention a couple of anthologies- but to supplement it, provide a place for people who can’t make it to Libertycon because Chattanooga is too far/too big a pain to fly to or because they just couldn’t score a membership. We have a guest of honor (M.C.A. Hogarth) and a couple of special guests (Sarah* & Daniel Hoyt, and Jon Del Arroz) who are most definitely not part of the Pink Wave that wants to make SF as dull and intersectional and hateful as mainstream literature, and who I expect will have interesting things to say about ignoring what traditional SF/comics publishers want and going your own way. We’re going to have a con suite where you can hang out, drink sodas of various types, nibble on snacks, and talk to your fellow fans as well as our guests and other pros who wandered in from the desert. We even have a blog to keep you posted on how things are coming along.

So if you happen to live in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, or Utah (or someplace else with cheap airfares to/from Vegas), think about coming down to Son of Silvercon the weekend of October 13. Hop in the car, book a flight or a bus ride, and come on down! If you can’t make it for some reason, consider a supporting membership to help make it happen (It’s only $20) and mention us to someone who might be interested. If you’re a veteran or an N3F member, we offer a $5 discount off the attending membership price. We also have a limited number of vendor tables available, if you’re interested in flogging some books or games to the masses. Do your part for the culture war! Buy stuff from authors and artists who don’t hate you! Come to Son of Silvercon!

*Some of you may recognize Sarah as the occasional overnight blogger at Instapundit, as well as mistress of her own blog, According To Hoyt.


Amazon Warehouse Deals




Las Vegas: Criminal Starts Gunfight; Wounded Female Officer Finishes It

Posted on

Say hello to 27-year-old Gabriel Charles and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because this criminal scumbag ceased to be a threat to public safety just a few seconds after he shot a Las Vegas cop.

It was shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday when Officer Tierney Tomburo and her partner pulled over a vehicle for a traffic violation. Three males were in the vehicle, including Charles, the front-seat passenger. Officer Tomburo asked all three of the men to exit the vehicle while she investigated and, just after she asked if any of them had any weapons on them, Charles took off running. Officer Tomburo pursued on foot when suddenly, without warning, Charles turned around and fired one shot from a 9-mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol. Officer Tomburo was struck in the pelvis and knocked down, but she was able to grab her own pistol and return fire. She fired four shots, and Charles was fatally wounded. It turned out that, although Charles’ pistol had 14 rounds in the magazine, the gun jammed after he fired the first shot at Officer Tomburo. Assistant Sheriff John McGrath “called the jam a ‘stovepipe’ where the bullet casing doesn’t eject clear from the handgun’s slide”:

“The gun will not fire when it’s like that, but there were 14 additional rounds in the magazine,” he said.

Bodycam shows Charles shooting Officer Tomburo.

A typical amateur error. We may surmise that, after his gun jammed, Charles tried to clear the “stovepipe” — with the intent to shoot Officer Tomburo again — instead of running away. That meant he was standing stock-still right next to the wounded cop, who had a clear target at close range: Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! R.I.P., criminal scumbag.

Assistant Sheriff McGrath said that “if Charles had survived, he would have been facing several charges including attempted murder with a deadly weapon on a protected person, battery with a deadly weapon, resisting with a firearm, and prohibited person in possession of a firearm.” Oh, wait — a “prohibited person”? So what he’s really telling us is, the deceased Gabriel Charles was already a convicted felon. Officially, however, “Investigators are not releasing details on Charles’ criminal history, and leaving that responsibility to the District Attorney’s Office.” Just gonna guess he had a very lengthy record, and should not have been out on the streets to begin with. The whole scene was captured on bodycam video and Officer Tomburo’s voice after she was shot doesn’t sound very heroic, but the results speak for themselves.

Did I mention that Officer Tomburo is only 24? That she had only been a member of the Las Vegas police force for two years?

Basically the whole Las Vegas police force turned out to applaud Officer Tomburo when she was released from the hospital on Monday.




 

‘Fake News’ Media: Lying by Omission

Posted on

A national disgrace:

The arrest of a Democratic public official in Las Vegas for allegedly murdering a journalist shocked the nation, but news networks went out of their way to bury his party affiliation.
Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the death of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, who was fatally stabbed in front of his home on [Sept. 3].
German’s reporting had exposed scandals that plagued Telles, including a hostile work environment and an extramarital affair with a staffer, which was followed by his re-election defeat during a Democratic primary held in June. . . .
While the liberal networks covered German’s horrific murder, they strangely omitted to tell viewers that Telles is a Democrat during Wednesday and Thursday’s coverage.While the liberal networks covered German’s horrific murder, they strangely omitted to tell viewers that Telles is a Democrat during Wednesday and Thursday’s coverage.
ABC’s “Good Morning America” introduced Telles as a “local politician” and later described him as a “Las Vegas county official.”
“CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil teased about the “elected official” who was swept up in the murder investigation.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann went on to describe Clark County’s public administrator as “a man named Robert Telles” and said police executed a search warrant “at the elected official’s home.” . . .
Similarly, NBC News correspondent Erin McLaughlin referred to Telles as simply a “local government official” who “lost a primary race in June” during an on-air report on “Today.” . . .
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Willie Geist reported on the “public official” and how police “arrested a man named Robert Telles.”

Try to imagine what the media would be saying if a Republican had murdered a journalist. Do you think the national media would blandly describe him as just a “local official” without any mention of his party affiliation? As bad as this is, however, it got even worse when the local sheriff — Joe Lombardo, a Republican who is running for governor of Nevada — held a press conference to discuss the arrest of Telles:

A Democrat politician in Nevada is accused of fatally stabbing an investigative journalist last week over a series of stories on official misconduct that likely sank the incumbent-turned-defendant’s summer bid for re-election. The local press, however, found a way to pin the blame on former President Donald Trump. . . .
“Sheriff, you said the murder of a journalist is especially troubling. Now is probably not the time to talk politics,” the unnamed female reporter began.
“So why are we talking politics?” Lombardo interrupted.
The reporter continued with her political question.
“Do you condemn former President Trump’s normalization of violence against journalists?” she asked.
“No, I think this [is] probably inappropriate to speculate on that or opine on that,” Lombardo said. “It needs to be stated and noted that it is troublesome because it is a journalist… When people take it upon themselves to create harm associated with that profession, I think it’s very important that we put all eyes on and address the case appropriately.”

By the way, the “unnamed female reporter” has been identified as Dana Gentry, who works for Nevada Current, a website that is part of States Newsroom, funded by a “liberal dark-money group.” (Hint, hint.)




 

Armed and Dangerous

Posted on Comments

 

Say hello to Antonio Davis. In September 2017, he was a fugitive when he was shot by police in Spokane, Washington:

Police have identified and arrested a man who fled from a car early Monday after the car’s driver was shot and wounded by law enforcement.
Jake Torlone, 29, was wanted on a warrant from Reno, Nevada. He was located and booked into the Spokane County Jail on Tuesday.
Driver Antonio Davis, 25, was wanted on warrants from Reno for felony possession of a firearm, discharging a firearm into a vehicle and assault with bodily harm. The Washington State Patrol said Wednesday that Davis is also a suspect in a Reno homicide.
Spokane police had received a notification from Reno police indicating that Davis may be living or visiting the Spokane area and warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous, according to the WSP.
Officers Chris McMurtrey and Tucker Seitz spotted Davis driving in north Spokane around 2:30 a.m. Monday and attempted to pull him over. Davis fled, but crashed his car on Sinto Avenue just west of Monroe. Court documents released Tuesday indicate that one of the two officers fired at Davis after he turned toward them after trying and failing to climb over a fence. The documents do not indicate which officer fired.
Davis was wounded in the arm and was treated at a local hospital before being booked into jail on suspicion of unlawful possession of a firearm and attempting to elude police. His bond has been set at $75,000.
Investigators found a handgun and ammunition inside a driver’s side door pocket in Davis’ car and another handgun was found in a nearby alley where Torlone had been last seen.

Here is the video of that shooting incident:

 

One might think that Davis, having skipped out of Reno and then fled police as a fugitive in Spokane, would have spent some time in the Washington State prison system, but it seems that officials there instead returned him to Nevada, where he was arrested in June 2018:

A man sought after skipping a court hearing Tuesday has surrendered after a brief standoff in Reno.
25-year-old Antonio Davis was seen the afternoon of June 6, 2018, in the area of Oddie and Montello by a Washoe County Sheriff’s deputy. Davis was in a car with another man, Terrell Lopp, who then led the deputy on a short car chase through town, according to investigators.
The chase ended near an apartment at 6th and Spokane in Reno, where the car stalled. Lopp was arrested shortly after that, but Davis, who was armed, broke into the apartment, leading Reno Police and Sheriff’s deputies to negotiate for his surrender. He walked out and was taken into custody about an hour after the standoff began. He does not live in that apartment; nor does anyone he knows. It’s not clear whether anyone was home in the apartment when he broke in, but there were no hostages.
The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office says Davis had run from deputies after failing a mandatory drug test before a scheduled court appearance June 5, and had been on the run since.
Davis was already facing a Reno charge of battery with a deadly weapon; he is now charged with battery by prisoner, resisting a public officer, escape by felony prisoner, driver disobeying a peace officer and parole violation. Lopp is charged with disobeying a peace officer and driving on a revoked license.

Simple question: What does it take to get somebody locked up? A murder suspect flees the state, “armed and dangerous,” runs from the cops, gets shot and arrested, then for some unknown reason is turned loose, so that he can perpetrate still more felonies? Everybody keeps telling me that we’ve got a “mass incarceration” problem in America, but if that is so, why was it so difficult to keep Antonio Davis behind bars?

Well, it’s been more than two years since Antonio Davis made headlines, so I’m assuming he finally went to prison. God knows, if he was still out on the streets, he’d be perpetrating more mayhem.




 

Tonopah And/Or Bust

Posted on Comments

— by Wombat-socho


I was originally going to just remark that there might not be any posting from Yr. Ob’t Servant this weekend and let it go at that, but you loyal readers and members of the Commentariat deserve more, so here it is.

After months of banging the paperwork together (it’s mostly electronic, but still) I have been approved to move into a subsidized apartment up in Tonopah, which is almost exactly halfway between Reno and Las Vegas on US-95. It’s a small rural town (pop. ~2600) so that’ll be a new experience for me as I’ve only lived in cities or their suburbs before this. I intend to enjoy the experience, as well as the cooler weather, and may wind up buying a house there with my unused VA loan. Or I might move back to Las Vegas. We’ll see how things go. Anyhow, despite the fact that I originally applied for the apartment in April, I didn’t get approved until a couple of weeks ago, which means I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to arrange for internet service, setting up electric billing, etc. so that when I move up there tomorrow everything will be good to go. I already know it won’t be, because I had to reschedule the installation of my Frontier internet to Monday since the movers aren’t going to show up at my storage locker until 1 PM, which is when the Frontier guy was originally going to show up.

In other Nevada news, a lot of people here are PO’d at Governor Sisolak, who has been dutifully following the Democrat party line on dealing with Corona-chan. The net result is that a lot of the people laid off because the governor closed the casinos, bars, restaurants, etc. had to wait literally months to get unemployment because the state wasn’t ready to deal with a quarter-million unemployed people at once. There are still people out there waiting to hear back on applications they filed in April, and others in bad shape now that the additional $600 Federal assistance has ended. Despite the lockdown not having improved matters, and quite possibly made them worse, Sisolak is sticking to his guns and refusing to open up the most populous counties in the state. Whether people remember this next year when the Assembly and Senate are up for election remains to be seen.

As usual, we are enjoying triple digit temperatures here, which is probably one of the factors keeping rioters and other scum off the streets. The other factor is that the Metro police here in Clark County have been present in overwhelming force during the handful of protests, so the violence has been minimal and I expect it’ll stay that way, since our Democrats are somewhat saner than those in New York and understand quite well that if they allow Antifa and #BLM to burn down the Strip or Fremont Street, that’s going to be the end of the city, because Las Vegas is still heavily reliant on tourism and the economy here is bad enough already with the lockdown just beginning to loosen up to the point where most of the major Strip casinos are open. All of the major conferences and national meetings that usually fill the Convention Center, the Sands Expo Center, and every hotel room in town have been cancelled, and there’s talk that even the National Finals Rodeo is going to cancel. Millions, maybe billions of dollars not coming to Las Vegas. It’s not pretty.

And that’s the news from Las Vegas.


Amazon Warehouse Deals




Early Release

Posted on

— by Wombat-socho

Well, I caught some lucky breaks yesterday, and I’m out of the homeless veterans’ shelter. Planning to stay out, too; the VA has put me up at the Candlewood Suites down the street from the Convention Center, and I’m going to abuse their wifi to catch up on lost blogging time over the next few days. In fact, I intend to stay holed up in my room all weekend, for I have a lot to post about. Much thanks to those of you who hit the tip jar in response to Stacy’s kind words the other day, and to those of you who bought things through my Amazon links in April.

For what it is worth, Gauleiter Sisolak has graciously decreed that some businesses may open but others may not, and the decision on which is which appears to have been made with the same careful attention lavished on the rest of the state’s response to Corona-chan, which is to say none. For example, this skin care salon is barred from opening, while barber shops and beauty salons are allowed to open for business. The casinos on the Strip are not yet open, with MGM looking to reopen its properties by “early June” and others as early as Friday. Restaurants are gradually reopening as well. This is a Good Thing, since unemployment in the state is currently sitting at 25%, mostly here in Clark County, and the state’s unemployment system is completely FUBAR, so much so that the state is considering waiving civil service rules in order to hire temporaries. The phone system is completely overloaded and the online web portal is scarcely better, so there’s a lot of pissed-off unemployed people around with time on their hands, and Sisolak may find himself staring down the barrel of a hostile legislature after this fall’s elections.

That having been said, while the local economy is struggling to get back on its feet, you can get some pretty amazing deals on hotel rooms and airline tickets if you want to come down here. Rooms at the Stratosphere and some of the downtown casinos are going for rates on Priceline not usually seen until the December doldrums, and Southwest is offering double frequent flyer miles on top of $49 fares for those who book now. (Unsolicited plug.) Stop by and say hi, why don’t you?

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Bernie Sanders Wins Nevada Caucus; MSNBC, #NeverTrump Hardest Hit

Posted on Comments

 

First of all, the Nevada caucus still had only half their precincts reporting as of 8 o’clock Sunday morning, so it’s another Iowa-style clusterfark. The party that can’t even count caucus votes wants to run your healthcare. The numbers with 60% reporting:

Bernie Sanders ………… 46.0%
Joe Biden ……………….. 19.6%
Pete Buttigieg ………….. 15.3%
Elizabeth Warren ……… 10.1%
Amy Klobuchar …………. 4.8%
Tom Steyer ………………. 4.1%

This is a decisive victory for Sanders, who more than doubled Biden’s total, and a major setback for Warren and Klobuchar, both of whom needed to show some kind of momentum to keep their campaigns viable. While it is possible that Biden could still bounce back with a win next Saturday in the South Carolina primary, even the most enthusiastic supporters of Warren and Klobuchar must see they now have no path to the nomination. Their money is running out, whereas Buttigieg (who at least got a narrow win in Iowa) could continue if he does well on Super Tuesday. Unless two or three of the non-Sanders candidates drops out before Super Tuesday, however, there will still be multiple candidates splitting the “Anybody But Bernie” vote with billionaire Mike Bloomberg, and that means Sanders could emerge with an insurmountable delegate lead after March 3. And this means . . . panic time!

“I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940 and the General Renault calls up Churchill and says ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘how can it be? You got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said ‘It’s over.’ So I had that suppressed feeling. I can’t be as wild as Carville but he is damn smart and I think he’s damn right on this one.”
Responding to James Carville, “‘You’re describing what sounds a lot like political suicide,’ said ‘Deadline: White House’ host Nicolle Wallace. ‘I think we need a psychologist to understand that.’”

 

 

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) The Daily Caller provides even more highlights of the MSNBC meltdown:

Matthews also wondered on air if it would be better for moderate Democrats if Sanders didn’t win in the general election.
“I’m wondering whether the Democratic moderates want Bernie Sanders to be president. That’s maybe too exciting a question to raise. They don’t like Trump at all. Do they want Bernie Sanders to take over the Democratic Party in perpetuity?” he said.
“I mean, he takes it over, he sets the direction of the future of the party — maybe they’d rather wait four years and put in a Democrat that they like.”
In another viral clip, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace compared President Donald Trump and Sanders, accused them of using “dark arts” on the media, and called supporters a “squeaky, angry minority.”

Why are the MSNBC talking heads so despondent? Because they are convinced that if Democrats nominate Sanders, they’ll alienate middle-class moderate voters and thereby guarantee Trump’s re-election. I wish I believed this as much as they do, but can we trust the conventional wisdom dispensed by cable-news “experts”? These are the same people who thought Trump could never win the GOP nomination, and then believed Hillary Clinton could easily defeat Trump, so when they start predicting future political events, my hunch is they’re wrong again.

Glenn Reynolds seems to share my concern: “You can assume that Trump would crush Bernie, and you’re probably right. But any major-party nominee, however lame, has a nonzero chance of becoming President, and that’s bad when we’re talking about a commie.”

As much as I want to believe Trump would score a slam-dunk victory over Sanders in November, I’m disturbed by the fact that MSNBC talking-heads have the same opinion. Maybe I’m just being a worry-wart about this, though. In an all-out battle between a socialist Democrat and a capitalist Republican, Trump wins — if the American people are still the American people. If Bernie were to win, we might as well call ourselves “Southern Canada.” Meanwhile, Bill Kristol and the cruise-ship contingent of #NeverTrump ex-Republicans have reached a fatal reckoning; having committed to 100% opposition to Trump, they must now find a way to make the “principled conservative” argument for Bernie Sanders. They didn’t have much credibility left to lose, but once you sell your soul to Pierre Omidyar, you must pay that debt in full.

If you don’t get that joke, “The Lincoln Project” is an anti-Trump super PAC whose principals include George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson. There is so far zero evidence that they have influenced anyone’s opinion about anything. Least of all have they been able to convince Democrats to support the kind of “moderate” candidates they believe can beat Trump. So now, like the MSNBC pundits aghast at Bernie’s victory in Nevada, the #NeverTrump crowd is in a panic at the prospect of another four years in the wilderness. They are a spectacle of frustrated impotence. And let’s hope their fears are fully realized.