Dallas: I heard from Hugh Jackson the other day.  Hugh is one of my Wyoming club, a small collection of us from the great state, who were born or raised or whatever there and really know that it is a special place and that Dick Cheney is nothing more than an abomination and embarrassment to us all!  I digress, so let’s get back to Hugh.

  Hugh has the Wyoming round heeled problem.  We first met him when he helped us when Local 100 SEIU and ACORN were fighting against water privatization in New Orleans.  He was a crack researcher for Public Citizen  sent in to give us a hand and an enormous and diligent contributor to the cause and the final victory there (as was Green Corps who detailed a batch of staff whom we loved!).  Anyway now Hugh is in Las Vegas, which to tell the truth is where he was when he parachuted into New Orleans to help us.  Recently I heard he had left Public Citizen and was off on his own in some venture.  I had reached out to him to try and ensure that he didn’t starve or something, which can happen easier than you can imagine with us cowboys who just spit the bit and suddenly turn and ride for the sun or something.

  Hugh it turns out has joined the blogosphere.  He’s trying to make a go of something called the Las Vegas Gleaner (hey, he’s at least hoping to make a living!), and it turns out his persistence and persnicketyness is driving some of the powers that be in Vegas stark raving mad.  And, doing a great job of it.

  From what I can tell he single handedly broke a story about a Republican zillionaire candidate, named James Rogers, and forced the guy to withdraw from the race — one of those situations where the local paper even had to interview Hugh and give he and his blog credit for uncovering and unmasking the mess. 

 Let me stop and just let Hugh tell it in his own words, which will give you a better sense of why his blog is worth a look…

I’m having fun, and getting some good local press–I single-handedly forced a billionaire to leave the GOP, a guy the Republican governor was hoping would succeed him, when I reported that most of the billionaire’s contributions to federal candidates went to Democrats. The papers were forced to acknowledge that I broke the story on my lowly little blog. Now the billionaire has officially left the GOP, and is talking about running as an independent, which everybody thinks will ultimately help the Democratic nominee. If the Democrats win the governor’s mansion, hey, I helped.

I’ve also carved out a niche as the leading local authority, or at least the leading local complainer, with regard to the great and powerful Harry Reid shamefully protecting useless GOPbot John Ensign. I was interviewed by an AP reporter out of D.C. the other day, and I’m just crossing fingers and hoping the story runs–widely–and that I’m still in it.

So it’s all been a blast and a noble experiment and I’ve certainly no regrets. I expect to be wiped out financially early next month.

  I hope he makes it, but even if he is only able to be a clear voice in the desert, there is something about the best of this blog thing that reminds us that the freedom — and power! — of speech still is important, and that some things that happen in Vegas, should not just stay there!