 Due to high demand, you must pre-order your pre-order to get an Apple iPhone 13. We placed our order for an Apple iPhone 13 today. It is a pre-order only. We will be able to place the order on 9.17
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In 2018, the Jedi were the first bloggers on YouTube and Twitter in Las Vegas to begin photo documenting and video blogging the construction of the new Las Vegas Raiders stadium. Early on, someone started calling the Las Vegas stadium the Death Star on our YouTube channel. That made sense. We were the Jedi, the stadium was the Death Star. It was funny. Eventually, it caught on. Then one day, we heard the owner of the Raiders, Mark Davis, refer to the stadium as the Death Star. We knew the Jedi had succeeded in renaming the the Stadium! Of course, no one gave the Jedi credit.
Check out our Allegiant Stadium construction videos here. We made over 135 construction videos. This is an example of one of our construction videos after a major snow storm shut down Las Vegas for about a week in 2019.
The energy in New York City is buzzing as things begin to go back to normal.
Kids went back to school today in New York City for the first time since March 2020. The energy in New York is buzzing today. People are beginning to feel like things are returning to "normal" again.
Last night, Justin Bieber, Dojo Cat, Ed Sheeran and a plethora of other pop, rap and rock stars were in Brooklyn for the MTV Video Music Awards. Broadway shows begin opening later this month.
Liberty Park Memorial Closed today because President Biden, Former President Barack Obama and Former President Bill Clinton were at the ceremony. We heard three presidential helicopter fly overhead. Then, we heard some bagpipes up the street. We followed the music to Woodrow's Bar, named after Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was a Democratic President who defeated Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. You can thank Woodrow Wilson for the invention of the Federal income tax.
Owner of Woodrow's Bar graciously thanks the member of the NYPD Bags and Pipes.
20 years in retroflection.
Jedi Rich and Jedi Joy at the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan.
I was moving to Manhattan. Here's what happenedafter 9/11/2001.
Michelle and Barack Obama initiated a campaign in 2008 called Let's Move. Let's Move was a public health program with the goal to reduce obesity rates from 33.7% in 2008 to 5% by 2030. In 2018, obesity rates skyrocketed from 33.7% when the program started to 42.4%. By any metric, this would indicate an epic fail. Instead of lowering rates, Michelle Obama's public health plan to make people lose weight resulted in Americans becoming more obese than ever before. What's worse is that African-American women are leading the nation in obesity. Should Michelle Obama admit that her program was a fail before the nation reaches 100% obesity?  As people exercise more, they are getting fatter. In 2008, only 36.7% of Americans were obese. by 2018 42.4% Here's what they did:
The damage has been done. People are now eating more carbohydrates, fruits, grains and vegetables than ever before. As a result, nearly 73.4% of all Americans are overweight or obese in 2018. There is not much room to go higher. Anyone who is overweight today will be obese tomorrow.  People have been getting fatter ever since the Government started giving nutrition recommendations. Telling fat people to move more resulted in fat people getting fatter. This is because when you over-exercise you get hungry. When you're hungry you eat. If you eat bread, fruits and vegetables then you will get fat, not thin. The more you work out, the more food you will want to eat. And that's not my opinion, look at the obesity charts! It's time for the Biden Administration to correct the errors of the Obama administration. The White House needs to undue what was done to promote eating more fruits, grains and vegetables before the entire nation reaches 100% obesity.  Left photo: Jedi Rich followed their nutrition advice. Right photo: He did his own thing. It really does not matter to this author if people learn about nutrition. I'm 53 and married. You are the ones left who will have to live in a society full of fat ass gluttons.
Background:
When a loan is forgiven (or written off) it's the same thing as if someone gave you the money. In this case, the loan was for $200 million. When Alameda County wrote off the loan because the Raiders did not pay them back, the Raiders needed to record to $200 million as income. You cannot have it both ways: either pay back the $200 million plus interest or pay the government taxes on $200 million.
Araxie Grant attended UNLV. She was working for the MOB Museum before she got hired by the Raiders in December 2019. She says that she would never do participate in anything illegal or unethical. The CFO, Ed Villanueva, has been at the Raiders for 18 years. He must have known about the bad debt. It looks as if Villanueva deliberately withheld valuable financial information from his own controller whom they hired and fired from Las Vegas.
Mick Ackers goes out of his way to try to discredit Las Vegas Locally
Las Vegas Locally has a huge following on Twitter. People look to her to share the scuttlebutt of what's happening in Las Vegas. She Tweets very positive reports about concerts, new projects, restaurants, weed dispensaries and casinos. But once in awhile she Tweets something controversial about a scandal. Last week was one of those scandals when 4 Raiders execs suddenly got fired. The President, the CFO, the Comptroller and the SVP of Strategic Development were let go when the company discovered the Raiders failed to report $200 million of income to the I.R.S.. That's a BIG EFFING "NO-NO".
These were the only two tweets from Mick Akers at the Las Vegas Review Journal regarding the departures or the accusations of unethical business practices. Mick uses his verified blue check mark on Twitter to squash any negative news about the Allegiant Stadium or the Las Vegas Raiders. This time, he literally called out Las Vegas Locally, Mike Ozakian from Forbes. MSN, Mike Fiorio, NBC Sports and Yahoo! Sports of spreading false information. Mick did not follow up to write a story for the reason for the departures. We can assume he's waiting for the Raiders' PR team to tell him what to publish in the Review Journal.
Here are the facts:
The Las Vegas Raiders attempted to hide $200 million worth of income from the I.R.S. They took out a loan from City of Oakland for $200M in 1995. They never paid it back. The City of Oakland filed suit but lost. In 2013, Alameda County declared the Raiders loan as an "unrecoverable debt" and wrote off the $200 million. The Raiders tried to hide that debt/income $200 million from the I.R.S. and presumably the Bank of America because they did not have enough money to build a stadium. They got a loan from BofA. Clark County (Las Vegas) had to loan the Raiders $750 million to build the stadium. In order to pay back the loan, Las Vegas locals voted to tax the tourists who stay in hotels on the strip or anywhere on Clark County. As a side note, the Jedi have paid more towards the Allegiant Stadium than Mick Akers or any other blogger, journalist, anchor or TV reporter in Las Vegas. They all voted to tax the tourists.
The story broke from Front Office Sports and Forbes. No journalist or news station in Las Vegas has covered the story as of yet.
The C.F.O. has been the Raiders CFO for nearly 19 years. Araxie Grant resigned last month as the Raiders' comptroller. Ms. Grant stated, "I am someone who lives by high standards of ethics and integrity,” she said. “As a CPA, I have never, and would never, participate in unethical accounting practices, or compromise my professional responsibilities in any way."
My father was a C.P.A. He taught me the same thing. You cannot do anything unethical, especially in business. But a President and a VP of Strategic Development do not operate under those same principles. And the C.F.O., Ed Villanueva should have known better. This is basic tax stuff. Ed could have been a whistleblower but he chose to accept a paycheck from Mark Davis instead. Now, Mark Davis made Ed the fall guy.
Las Vegas has a media machine to lure investors, tourists and home buyers to Las Vegas. Here's how it works:
The Jedi first learned the viciousness of this ,machine when they tried to hide a $200 mistake that was made at Allegiant Stadium. The original budget for the stadium was $1.8 billion. But when 1/2 the trusses were mounted with parts built upside down, they had to bring in another million dollar crane while they figured out a solution. They worked overtime to catch up. But instead of reporting that a roof truss had to be unmounted, the Review-Journal said the Raiders were adding new luxury suites. Casino.org picks up the story and the public forgets about the $200 million in overruns. The new budget was suddenly $2 billion with NO EXPLANATION from the Review Journal.
Here's how the Raiders tried to hide $200 million from the I.R.S.
In 1995, the Raiders took out a loan for $200 million from the City of Oakland / Alameda County. They stiffed them. After nearly 20 years, Alameda County wrote off the loan as an "unrecoverable debt" in 2013. Then, Mark Davis starts talking to Steve Sisolak about moving to Las Vegas. Steve said, "If the Raiders move to Vegas, then you won't have to pay that high California income tax anymore plus we will give you contraction loan of $750,000,000!".
Like a casino, Steve didn't do a thorough credit check otherwise he would have found out that the Oakland Raiders stiffed the City of Oakland and Alameda County for $200 million. They got the $750 million from the tax payers and they built the stadium,.
That's must have been the deal Steve Sisolak made with Mark Davis. Davis thought hey- if we move to Vegas, we won't have to pay back the City of Oakland and we can get the City of Las Vegas (Clark County) to loan us $750 million for a new stadium.
How did Steve Sisolak get the voters to approve of $750 million tax on the casinos?
Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Venetian, also bought the Review Journal. Instead of using the Review-Journal to investigate the Raiders, the Review-Journal convinced the taxpayers to add a .88% tax to every hotel guest
The reason investors constantly lose their ass in Las Vegas is because one casino owns the local newspaper; the Las Vegas Sands. The Review-Journal is a tool that has been used by the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce (now called the Vegas Chamber) since the 1930s. Anything favorable about Las Vegas is sent through the wire to be published by Yahoo! News and retweeted by the local bloggers. Anything unfavorable is squashed. In 2015, Las Vegas took it one step further. The Nevada AG allowed Sheldon Adelson to purchase the Review-Journal . But he had to do it secretly. So his son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, travelled to Conneticut to set up a shell company under a fictitious name. No one knew who really owned the Las Vegas Review-Journal until the investigative reporters from the Review-Journal spent 6 months uncovering the owner’s true identity: The Las Vegas Sands, which was owned by Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon responded by having all 3 reporters fired. Google it. It should be a movie.
The reason you cannot get real numbers out of Las Vegas is because everyone, and I mean everyone, is in on the scam. This is because Las Vegas is a single industry town; tourism. Sure, Las Vegas has a core industry of being a rail road stop, however, Las Vegans have become comfortable living beyond their cities means. Las Vegas has always had the worst education system in the nation. The public transit system is essentially useless, unless you live on Flamingo or Tropicana and you work at a casino. Las Vegas has broken mental health system. Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas has been investigated by federal investigators for the mistreatment of psychiatric patients. It got so bad, the feds actually closed one of their clinic in 2014. The way it works in Las Vegas is there is no health care for mental patients. That's why there are so many homeless people roaming the streets. It got so bad, that the Las Vegas City Council voted to approve a law that would ban homelessness. To circumvent the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment, the city council constructed a bill that would make an exception if there are no beds in the shelters available. The shelters in Las Vegas will not house anyone who is visibly intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. Therefore, when the mentally ill get kicked onto the streets by the the hospitals they almost immediately get arrested, unless they can get into a shelter. The problem is that 99% of the mentally ill in Las Vegas also suffer from substance abuse, This impossible contingency was constructed by Mayor Goodman and passed but by city council in 2019. Clark County is on the hook for $750,000,000 stadium is the casinos cannot pay the minimum hotel tax. Anyone working for the government in Clark County; cops, teachers, fire fighters, DMV employees, road workers, DOT, etc; will be affected by the casinos not meeting the minimum reserve payments of $16 million every six months for 25 years or so. The last two times, the County needed to dip into the Allegiant stadium reserves. Those are just three items of infrastructure off the top of my head that no one in the county is concerned about. The metrics the local use to determine is their city is thriving are:
I mention Ikea and Dave & Busters because Las Vegas did not have those when the Jedi first moved to Las Vegas in 2013. I remember seeing John Heck on Fox-5 Las Vegas doing report after report on the new Dave & Busters before the Dave & Busters was built. He said. "Now that Las Vegas has exceeding 2 million people, we can get our very Dave & Busters and maybe even an Ikea next." Sure enough, in 2016, Las Vegas got their first Ikea. Oh, the new locals were so pleased. About the locals... There Are Two Types of Locals: Las Vegas locals and California Transplants.There are two type
Las Vegas was where everyone would go to party. When we say party, we mean get laid. That's what most people mean when they say they want to "party". It's usually sex or cocaine, or both. The theme in 2014 was "What happens here, stays here." The ads suggested that women (and men) could travel to Las Vegas and transform into someone else for a weekend. She could have random sexual encounters with a variety of men (and women) and then go back home where no-one would ever know. They basically played on the Suzy Favor Hamilton story where a former olympian travelled to Las Vegas and was secretly a hooker without her family knowing. Times have changed since 2014. MGM, Caesars, and the LV Sands is no more. The MGM Grand is now owned by VICI. VICI now ownsthe majority of Las Vegas resorts and casinos. They lease their space to gaming companies, hotels and restaurants. It's several layers of ownership. Jon Gray is the Chief Operating Officer at Blackstone in New York City*. Jon is an operational man. They refer to Jon as the Gordon Gecko of REIT’s. Jon Gray buys troubled properties, reduces overhead, turns a profit then dumps the property. Blackstone & VICI own the majority of properties in Las Vegas and most people do not even know the transaction occurred. Unless you watch the new ads The new ad has no people. In 2021, Vegas casinos started replacing their dealer table games with computer automated table games. They started replacing bartenders with service bars robots. The ad suggests sports and electronic computer gaming are the theme instead parties, concerts and gambling. The 2014 ad was mostly white people. The 2021 ad has an urban vibe to it. They use an African-American as the lead instead of a skinny white female. The new ad focuses on sports. Sports & families are a very different demographic than the party demographic. Families are cost conscious; the party demographic will spend anything to party. They released a couple other ads before the summer. These ads showed single when coming to Las Vegas to party. I do not know any woman who has ever traveled to Las Vegas by themselves just for fun, except Suzy Favor Hamilton. Maybe it's not that Las Vegas has changed their theme but rather, the World has changed it's values. *Jon Gray is no relation to Jon Gray, the former GM of the Palms.
Why did I wait so long to cure my depression? Because the the TV told me marijuana was bad for me when it was really good for me.
I started smoking marijuana when Nevada legalized medical use in 2016. Then plan was to get high, but I inadvertently cured my depression, anxiety and PTSD. And as an added benefit, I lost 175 pounds.
After 9/11, I became very anxious. Then, I became very depressed. I was suffering from PTSD, but I did not know it yet. I was seeing 2 doctors, 4 times a week in Manhattan. My behavior started becoming erratic. My friends cut me off. My girlfriend left me. My family judged me. Everything everyone did was contributing to my nightmare. I felt like I was on a sinking ship and instead of sending me a life boat, my friends & family handed me concrete bricks.
I left New York and moved back home, to Oregon. That is where I got in trouble with the law. The law said "we can help you, but you gotta do what we say". I complied. They made me go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, therapy, and counselors. Nothing worked. I could have told them that. I had already seen the best doctors in New York and been to best rehab facility in Connecticut. These doctors and counselors in Clackamas County, Oregon were subpar to the Manhattan doctors I had seen, but I was legally obliged to comply. I obeyed their orders and I escaped drug court without a citation.
However, I can stay sober for years, but that does not mean my depression has been cured. I still needed something to fill the void. I dated an employee. That was my first bonehead move as boss (in a long line a mishaps). Not only was it inappropriate, Anna was a thief, a liar, and only interested in money; imagine the Real Housewives of New York moved to a shitty town in Oregon. That's Anna.
Anna was a distraction for my PTSD, depression and anxiety. Work was also a distraction. We worked together, played together and partied together. But I could not be alone. I was severely depressed, anxious and suffering from PTSD due to the events on 9/11 that had happened 10 years earlier. It was 2011.
When Anna left me, I became suicidal again. I immediately got arrested within a few days of her leaving. The folks in Alcoholics Anonymous would say it was "divine intervention". Perhaps I would have died that week if I was left alone. Instead, I got to have cell mates.
I met my wife in 2012. We took off to Panama. She was also depressed. Her mom committed suicide in 2005 and her step-brother had just died in a motorcycle accident in 2008. It made my life problems seem petty. We bonded. She understood my depression. She forgave me for lashing out at her. She must have known it was misdirected anger. We got married in Las Vegas in January 1st, 2014.
But I was still depressed. We stopped drinking alcohol and stopped doing cocaine. We went to the gym everyday. I lost a few pounds. I felt pretty good. But I was still depressed. I learned that just losing weight, going to the gym, and having a nice car will not cure anything. To cure depression, one must go to the root. What's the root? How should I know? But I do know that when we started smoking medical marijuana in 2016, then we started getting better.
To lose weight, you must work on you head game first.
To cure my depression, I tired everything. I had two doctors that I saw 4 times a week. I had to stop working. Eventually, my insurance ran out. I resorted to street drugs. I did anything to keep me from thinking about suicide. I was on several pharmaceuticals. Nothing worked until I started smoking medical marijuana in 2016. Now I feel better and maybe I can help you, too.
Marc Badain resigned from the Raiders after serving as the organization's president for 6 years. CFO Ed Villanueva, Controller Araxie Grant, and Brandon Doll, vice president of strategy and business development, have also left the organization since June. Marc Badain has been with he Raiders since 1991. He joined shortly after graduating from U.C. Berkley Hass School of Business. He's a loyal player. There would never be a reason for a man like Marc to leave unless he's getting fired.
 Marc Badain moved to Las Vegas in 2020. He Abruptly. over back to California in June of 2021.
There is little to no information online as to why any of these executives suddenly quit. None of them had any other job offers. It's hard to believe they all made the decision to relocate their families to Las Vegas for 6 months and then move back to California for no reason. No, it's more likely that the 4 of them conspired and are now implicated in something big and Mark Davis gave them the opportunity to resign before getting fired. The Raiders have even hired an outside law firm to handle the situation. But what do I know... mums the word while the lawyers jockey for position.
But the Jedi have an insider who knows Mark Davis personally. Our source told us that Mark Badain had the CFO and comptroller book sizable debt and ignore it for over 10 years. Now, whether they agree to not, the Raiders now owe this debt. We do not know the amount but estimations are between $600 million and $1.5 billion. How much they owe and when stye have to be paid back will be determined buy the investigation conducted but the Raider's outside lawfirm. 
Marc Badain under fire January 2020 when the press finally found out about the unreported roof delay at Allegiant Stadium.
There had to be a reason why a 30 year veteran of the Las Vegas Raiders would suddenly pack up and quit, especially the President of the organization Marc Badain so we made a call to our contact at the Raider Nation in Oakland.
Apparently, Marc Badain (and others) booked an extremely large tax debt back in 2008/09. They ignored the debt because either they felt they did not have to pay it or did not know about it or did not owe it. Whatever the reason, it was enough to make Marc Badain abruptly quit the Raiders last month and moved back to California. A private outside lawfrim has been hired to investigate the matter.
Lee's Discount Liquor is a family run business.
Rumors were circulating that several arrests were made today at Lee's Liquor in Las Vegas. Scott Roeben at Vital Vegas tweeted that 15 year employee veterans were stealing millions of dollars from Lee's liquors. Scott went on to report that the parties involved ranged from personal assistants to warehouse managers and others.
Stephanie denied any claims made by Scott Roeben. She says it was one employee who had some issues. She says it's public record. But she strongly denies a massive embezzlement ring, as describe by Scott Roeben,
Scott doesn't just make stuff up. He has nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter. He hears things. People message him the inside dope daily. What happened was some employee at Lee's must have contacted Scott with some info. The source was not revealed, but from Stephanie's tone, it appears she was covering something up. We will have to wait and see whether it's a massive milling dollar embezzlement ring or just a secretary stealing some pens but it's probably somewhere in between.
One World Trade Center rises into the clouds and sits behind the Liberty Park Memorial.
The Jedi took a trip down to the Liberty Park Memorial in Manhattan.
Jedi Joy joined the U.S. Air Force at age 17 in response to the attacks on 9/11. Jedi Rich quit banking and left Manhattan in response to 9/11. Two completely different responses to the same tragedy. However, their vastly different life experiences led them to their eventual meeting in 2009 in Portland, Oregon. In 2021, Jedi Joy and Jedi Rich return to New York City and the story continues.
The World Trade Center One in Manhattan.
Only Fans built it's business on allowing amateurs to post their porn. They have made $5 billion. However, now they want to raise $1 billion more. The big banks like to play conservative when it comes lending money to the sex industry. However, most people know that bankers are the biggest purveyors of internet porn. Besides being hypocritical, banning porn on a porn website is going backwards. Post pandemic, people realize that porn is part of the normal way of life since there are not enough hot, sexually active women to meet the demand for all the equally sexually active men & women. Porn makes sense.
 Blackstone Real Estate Trust Inc. purchased the Vdara and Aria from MGM earlier this year.
A leak surfaced that Blackstone Realty Investment Trust, Inc. will be selling the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas by the end of 2021. If true, this would make the 19th casino that has closed or sold since 2017. Other casinos that sold or closed since 2017 are:
Next month will be the 20 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. More than 3,000 died that day. If you were alive during 9/11, it is important for you to visit the 9/11 memorial in your lifetime to get closure. Since 9/11, the whole world has been slowly getting more depressed. We can change that this year.
Jedi Joy I was getting in conversation with somebody about nutrition. She was explaining that she discovered that sugar and caffeine causes cancer.
Jamie Spears will step down as Britney Spears conservator. He is stepping down without admitting any fault or wrong doing. He will hand over the conservatorship to Jodie Montgomery. Britney's new attorney is Mathew Rosengart. Mr. Rosengart will appoint Jason Rubin to handle Britney's finances.
Jamie stepped down because in order to fight the case, he would have to prove to a judge how crazy Britney really is. That would destroy Britney's public image. Instead, he agreed to hand over the reigns. But Britney is not free of a conservatorship. The conservatorship will be headed up by Jodi Montgomery. She will also handle her medical evaluations.
Britney is not in the right state of mind to have a child.
Britney wanted to end the conservatorship without being evaluated. She already lost custody of her first 2 children in 2007 because she was deemed unfit to be a mother. That's how this whole conservatorship thing started. It was revealed between 2004 and 2008 that Britney was mentally unstable and most likely schizophrenic. She spontaneously married her high school boyfriend in Las Vegas. Then, she married a backup dancer. They had two kids then got divorced. She lost custody of those kids. Now, she wants to have another baby with a 27-year old playboy? Any sane person should be able to see that Britney is not in the right state of mind to have a child. She is being manipulated
Britney’s attorney, Matthew Rosengart, who was appointed to her case last month, filed a petition asking the court to remove Jamie as conservator and replace him with Jason Rubin, a professional accountant. The court is expected to decide at a hearing next month.
Jedi Joy and Nick Ottomanelli.
The Jedi are always on the hunt for the best 100% grass fed beef, weed and mineral water we can find. Buying beef is a daily function of the Jedi. We do not have a freezer. Everyday is another adventure where we must buy the beef we need for the next 24 hours.
The Original Ottomanelli Bros. Butcher was established in 1900. This family knows beef. And they know New York. We met the CEO, Nick Ottomanelli. He gave us a tour of the office and told us the history of how the butcher shop came to America.
CEO Nick Ottomanelli gave the Jedi a grand tour of the family owned butcher shop in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The implications of this purchase are significant.
The Governor of New York resigned today amid a sex scandal that didn’t have any sex. The man touched a woman on the shoulder. He maybe touched a breast that was in a bra. After 40 years, that’s not bad. That’s exceptional. The guy had the ultimate power in the Empire State and the only thing they could find is some touching?
Society has become so anti sex that the slightest mention of anything sexual will sound the alarm. This is a result of women becoming too fat. Women lead the nation in obesity. Four out of five women over the age of 20 are overweight or obese. Women do not feel sexual when they feel fat. They do not want to get naked. And they certainly do not want anyone touching them.
The solution? At some point, women (and men) need to start losing weight. We cannot go much higher than 80% of the nation being fatsos.
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