The number of people flying into Vegas took its 11th consecutive monthly dive. From the Review-Journal:

The number of people flying to and from Las Vegas fell 13.2 percent in September to 3.37 million, the largest year-over-year decline since the months following Sept. 11, 2001, and the 11th consecutive monthly dip.

Quelle bummer. But let’s hope this doesn’t make snooze-prone Transportation Security Administration factotums any more depressingly soporific in their jobs. ‘Cause according to a new story in the Atlantic, it’s as easy as ever to BRING TERROR as a carry-on. Writer Jeffrey Goldberg not only snuck on a laundry list of prohibited items, but — perhaps worse yet — fake boarding passes and even terror-lovin’ accessories like a Hezbollah flag — which drew nary a double-take from the security screener:

On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads Then surely the party of God are they who will be triumphant. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, “That’s a Hezbollah flag.” She said, “Uh-huh.” Not “Uh-huh, I’ve been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley-trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system,” but “Uh-huh, I’m going on break, why are you talking to me?”

You mean all these years when people were talking about the “crazy old man of the Senate,” they were talking about this guy? And not John McCain?

Wow. Color us embarrassed.

It’s nearly the end of the election, and that means some candidates are going to be twisting themselves into pretezels to justify some of their earlier statements. It looks like Allison Copening may have to take some extra yoga classes for her latest campaign trail flap.

Although the Nevada State Democratic Party — acting as as campaign surrogate for Copening — has hit state Sen. Bob Beers repeatedly in ads for his bill that would authorize trained teachers to carry concealed weapons on elementary school campuses, it seems that Copening took a remarkably similar stance when it came to guns on college campuses. So why would anybody connected with Copening slam Beers for his position on grammar-school guns?

“It’s one thing to allow protection of adults attending public colleges or universities, and it is clearly another to allow kindergarten teachers to carry concealed weapons into a classroom of 5-year-olds,” Copening said in a statement. “Bob Beers authored a bill that would have placed all of our children and teachers in danger. This is about Bob Beers’s extreme policies being out of step with the families of [state] Senate District 6.”

Let’s pause for a second to ask, what’s the difference? Kids are kids, right? If guns are dangerous in and of themselves, they shouldn’t be in either place, should they?

Moreover, if one believes that having trained civilians with concealed firearms makes people safer, as Beers clearly does, then couldn’t you argue that elementary students are even more vulnerable than college kids? After all, college students may be smart enough to get away from a gunman, barricade themselves inside classrooms, call 9-1-1 on their cell phones to summon police or devise other methods of self-defense. Kindergartners, to use Copening’s example, would be unable to do most of those things. Thus, an armed adult charged with their protection would come in even more handy at naptime than Professor Glock in the college chemistry lab, no?

“I am not going to be bullied on this issue, by any special interest, even one I respect. I respect members of the [National Rifle Association], but at the core of my being, I do not believe there should be guns in our public elementary school classrooms. Bob Beers does and that is not right for the children of our state,” Copening added in her statement.

The real question is, do armed civilians make things safer? We at Various Things & Stuff are gun nuts, as regular readers know, but we’re not so sure lightly trained civilians are the best method to protect students — whether 1st grade or at the university. We think well-trained, uniformed school police are probably the best way to go in both situations. (It could be the state Senate agrees with us; Beers’s bill didn’t make it out of the Transportation and Homeland Security Committee.)

Beers, on the other hand, disagrees, and supports more armed people in both elementary and college, on the theory that the best answer to a crazed Virginia Tech-type gunman is a level-headed professor or staff member who is also armed. You could argue that position consistently and with intellectual honesty.

But Copening’s stance? OK for college, but not OK for even-more-vulnerable elementary schools? That one is a head scratcher. Maybe we should mull this one over with a nice big bowl of pretezels.

Tonight at UNLV: Five political scientists dispense insight on the impending presidential election. The Q&A will cover topics such as polling, voting trends, Nevada’s battleground role and how the next administration will impact the state. Bring all your burning questions to the panel, which includes:

David Damore, regular contributor to PolitickerNV.com

Kenneth Fernandez, public policy and opinion

Ted Jelen, the intersection of religion and politics

Dennis Pirages, globalization and pandemics

Rebecca Wood, public law and the judiciary

The free event starts at 7 p.m. in the Marjorie Barrick Auditorium. And remember to mark your calendar for Nov. 10, when another poli-sci panel conducts an election postmortem.

Wary of starting another war with Islamists who might actually shoot back, cooler heads in Washington are backing off plans for more armed troop incursions into Pakistan — at least publicly.

Since CityBlog first told you about President George W. Bush’s push to find Bin Laden before Election Day (thereby helping John Sidney McCain III to keep the White House in Republican hands), Pakistanis have been raising holy hell about American commandos prowling around their country and shooting up their villagers.

Bush and his neocons, who’ve been quick to wilt in the face of viable foreign opposition these past few years, are now using unmanned hunter/killer drones to try to break Al Qaeda’s grip in mountainous regions of Pakistan. (However, talk to any special operator in our armed forces and they’ll tell you Bush’s latest scheme won’t work. You’ve got to have boots on the ground if you want to control Pakistan.)

This move to hunt Al Qaeda remotely makes it increasingly unlikely that Osama Bin Laden will be killed before Election Day, thereby robbing John Sidney McCain III of his golden ticket to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (you know, by appearing strong on terrorism, and all).

Still, whether it’s a Bush or an Obama administration that eventually smokes out Bin Laden (probably the only 6-foot-6-inch Arab in the region who’s lugging a kidney dialysis machine) is beside the point. We should have nabbed this guy seven years ago, when we had the chance (and the sympathy of most other nations, who would have looked the other way as we bulldozed Southwest Asia in our hunt for this monster).

Is there any sane person out there who doesn’t believe Bush has deliberately delayed going after Bin Laden until now? Whether Dubya is desperate to leave a legacy that doesn’t begin with “The worst American president since Herbert Hoover” or to make amends for fucking over McCain in 2000, his reluctance to get Bin Laden is criminal. And he’s sure as hell not motivated by any professed desire to win the “War on Terror.”

Couldn’t our years spent flailing in Iraq have been much better spent going after the real masterminds of Islamic terrorism and not Saddam Hussein the show pony (who was on our payroll as long as he kept fighting the ayatollahs in Iran and who had no viable ties to Al Qaeda)?

Try to keep all of this in mind the next time any politician (whether Obama, McCain or anyone else) starts howling about the “greatest threat to the United States.”

Watching John McCain call Barack Obama a socialist and then dodge questions about how McCain himself voted to partially nationalize U.S. banks has fast become our favorite 2008 political game. He dodges! He weaves! He says the word “crisis” a lot! But at the end of the day, he can’t convince anybody.

It happened again on Meet the Press Sunday, where McCain dismissed polls that show everybody thinks he sucks by saying “I don’t agree with that.” Hell, we bet if McCain didn’t “agree” with the laws of gravity, he could probably fly! But that’s beside the point.

Host Tom Brokaw started things off by bringing up the socialist question yet again, by pulling out an old clip from Hardball with Chris Matthews from 2000. You guessed it. McCain was talking all socialist: “Here’s what I really believe, that when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more” in taxes, McCain said.

Oh, snap! Progressive taxation, a key tenet of socialism, since you are taking from each according to his ability and redistributing that revenue to each according to his needs.

Oh, but that was the McCain of 2000. The McCain of 2008 is a very different fellow. Why? Circumstances, baby!

“These are different times, my friend,” McCain told Brokaw. “These are times of the biggest financial crisis we’ve faced in America.”

Really? Tell us more!

“Because we are in a financial crisis of monumental proportions,” McCain said. “The role of government is to intervene when a nation is in crisis.”

That’s John McCain: He’s an “oh, shit!” socialist. They believe that capitalism is all fine and good until you get into trouble, and then it’s time to bust out some down-home socialism to fix things up. Gee, wonder if they ever ask themselves, “if socialism is good enough to help us out of a big crisis, why shouldn’t we use it all the time”?

Yeah, we don’t think so, either.

Yes, we’re too lazy to write long and complicated joke for each and every story. That’s why we prefer some Quick Hits. Here we go!

• The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism did a study that found most of the coverage of John McCain’s presidential campaign has been negative. According to the study, 57 percent of the McCain coverage has been negative, with just 14 percent positive. In a related story, a new study suggests that 76 percent of the coverage of the Ebola virus has been negative, with just 2 percent positive.
• Call us crazy radical anarchists, but we think a judge telling a guy he can’t say something — even if the dude is wrong or crazy — tends to violate a little thing we remember from school called the First Amendment. We’re just saying.
• Everybody agrees: George W. Bush sucks!
• Judge to Gov. Jim Gibbons: You are not above the law, dickhead. (Slightly paraphrased from Latin legal phrases.)
• Another Pew Research Center study finds Republicans are happier than Democrats. Reminds us of Ecclesiastes: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
• “Comedian” Jerry Lewis is in trouble — again — for using the anti-gay slur “fag” in conversation. Some say Lewis is simply old and doesn’t know better, while we say Lewis is simply a fucking asshole. But the debate goes on.

We’re compelled to ask after reading this weekend that Terry Lanni, chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage, has been one of the biggest donors in the casino industry to U.S. Sen. John McCain. According to OpenSecrets.org, and quoted by veteran Review-Journal business reporter Howard Stutz, Lanni alone is responsible for about $500,000 in contributions to the Republican nominee.

Sure, plenty of other high-ranking casino types have steered plenty of cash to McCain, including Steve Wynn (between $250,000 and $500,000); Sheldon Adelson (between $100,000 and $250,000); and Bill Weidner (ditto). Republican consultant Sig Rogich has harnassed between $250,000 and $500,000, too.

Wait a second. Lanni and Rogich, collecting money for a Republican while spurning a Democrat? Now, where have we heard of that before?

Oh, that’s right: In 2006, when Lanni donated exclusively to the Republican candidate for governor, and encourged others to do so as well. The candidate managed by, not coincidentally, Rogich.

That candidate? Jim Gibbons.

As in Jim The Worst Governor in the History of America Gibbons.

So now, we’re supposed to trust Lanni and Rogich — teaming up once more for a Republican candidate — are going to get it right? Yes, we know that John McCain is no Jim Gibbons. And yes, we know at least this time Lanni isn’t legally allowed to throw corporate funds down the rathole that was Gibbons’s campaign.

But let’s just say the Lanni/Rogich track record isn’t exactly pristine. And while McCain might be good for people who make lots and lots of money (and thus have lots to give to political campaigns, as opposed to the plentiful small donors who are helping Barack Obama to victory), it’s just as clear that McCain wouldn’t be so good for everybody else.

Lanni is very obviously not a stupid man. You don’t get to be chairman and CEO of a company as large as that by being stupid. He’s also not a callous man: He’s called for a more fair tax system in Nevada to fully fund things including education in the past. He’s further not a cowardly man: He’s gone into the belly of the beasts that are the Chamber of Commerce’s Preview event and the Nevada Development Authority’s Capitalist Worship Luncheon to tell the truth. So it seems like he might be the kind of dude that would have a fairly open mind on politics.

So what gives? Why does Lanni hate America enough to back both Gibbons and McCain for high office?

We’ve been wondering about something: Suppose that the incompetent ministrations of U.S. Sen. John Ensign (and his well-paid but cash-strapped campaign team) actually allow the Democrats to seize a cloture-class majority in the U.S. Senate? (That’s 60 votes, enough to end debate on any issue.)

In that event, not only would Democrats control the House of Representatives, but also the Senate. If Barack Obama wins the White House, Democrats would control at least two branches of government, and have free reign to pass their legislative agenda.

OK, so here’s what we’re wondering: What excuse with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid give then for failing to get a progressive agenda enacted?

See, up until now, Reid has pointed out — whenever he’s asked about why we’re still in a war with Iraq, why the rich are still getting tax cuts, why Big Oil is still getting tax credits or why we still torture, eavesdrop on our own citizens and maintain an illegal gulag — that he doesn’t have enough votes to do anything about it.

First, the Democrats were in the closely divided minority. Then, Reid convinced then-U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords to leave the Republican Party and become an independent, throwing the majority to his party and making Reid majority whip. But Democrats still couldn’t get much done, because they didn’t have enough votes to end debate. The same thing was true after the 2006 elections, when Democrats maintained just a slim majority.

End the war? We can’t, not without more votes, Reid said.

But now, it looks like Democrats may actually get there. (Ensign himself confessed it was a possibility, apparently not realizing that admitting that is akin to admitting he’s failed completely in his role as the guy assigned to elect more Republicans to the upper house, and that he should probably resign in disgrace rather than muse publicly about a promotion.)

So then what? What will Reid say then when even the most mild elements of the progressive agenda aren’t passed?

We think we have a clue, courtesy of Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, quoted in the Las Vegas Sun reminding us that senators are often independent and buck the system. “My line is, 60 seats doesn’t mean 60 votes,” she said.

Oh, so that’s going to be the new excuse. It’s not 60 seats. It’s 60 senators who can get things done. Got it.

(Note: We are assuming, for the purposes of this blog, that the progressive agenda will be as neglected under a 60-seat Democratic majority Senate as it was under an evenly divided Senate. If we turn out to be wrong, we’ll be glad to publicly blog-pologize to Reid, Senate Democrats and you readers. And that blogpology will be that much sweeter if we can say that U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont was appointed to chair the Senate Finance Committee. We’re just saying.)

Review-Journal Publisher (and our corporate overlord) Sherm Frederick asks in Sunday’s column if Barack Obama is up to being tested by the international forces of darkness, as predicted by Joe Biden. And, in the spirit of dialogue, here’s our answer: Hell, yeah!

But don’t just take our word for it. Look at history.

See, Obama has been campaigning for the presidency for more than two years now, against some really tough and committed opponents. You think Kim Jong Il is tough, what with his little nuclear warheads? You think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is menacing? Vladimir Putin rearing his head over Alaska? May we remind you that Obama ran against Hillary Clinton, who makes those other two world leaders look like total pussies by comparison! Sure, some of them may have nuclear weapons. But Hillary Clinton would actually use them. And did. On Obama.

Dude survived, cool as a cucumber.

Then, after the Republicans imploded and John McCain was the last one standing, Obama has had to endure weeks of bullshit attacks, everything from the allegation that he’s a socialist to the allegation that he “pals around with terrorists.” Hell, Frederick himself actually alleged that Obama could be receiving money from Osama bin Laden!

Dude survived, cool as a cucumber.

When the economy tanked, thrusting us into the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama didn’t panic and careen wildly from idea to idea, finally yelling about his opponent’s 20-year-old associations with known terrorists (people such as, say, G. Gordon Liddy). He met with experts, calmly devised a solution and put his plan out in a thoughtful, intelligent way. He behaved, you know, like a president.

McCain? Well, it’s no surprise that a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found people thinking Obama would be better on the economy (by a margin of 21 points!), or on health care (by a margin of 39 points!), or on the housing crisis (21 points again!) or on taxes (14 points). No matter what seems to happen, Obama is able to handle it with calm grace. McCain, not so much.

Frederick recalls the Cuban Missile Crisis that struck early in John F. Kennedy’s term, which he said gave him nightmares for years. But the modern-day Frederick has no problem whatsoever with an erratic McCain taking over as commander-in-chief, a McCain who has promised “more wars, my friends, more wars”? To us, that’s far more frightening than Obama, who if nothing else has demonstrated he’s got the temperament to endure tough times, make tough decisions and make it look easy.

Back in 2004, when we were still writing a column for the R-J, we penned a piece that disagreed with the R-J’s endorsement of George W. Bush. We said then that”The Review-Journal has never been more wrong, and heeding its advice has never been more dangerous.”

Voters disagreed, and what did they get? More illegal wiretapping of American citizens (including eavesdropping on private calls clearly unconnected to any government security interest). More stonewalling of people who have the temerity to demand to know what their government officials are doing. More years of unlawful detentions in an American gulag. More defense of torture as a legitimate tactic of war. More tax cuts for rich people and big corporations. A mad dash to deregulate so polluters can prosper. An America tarnished at home and abroad. And, of course, the end of the financial world as we knew it.

We’re not one to say “told you so.” But we would like to remind people that Frederick’s newspaper has once again endorsed the Republican candidate for president. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

Obama can handle the job. Of that, there can be no doubt.