The Nevada Appeal is out with article about their non-denial denial:

Gov. Jim Gibbons was unavailable Thursday to comment on growing rumors his marriage is on the rocks. But he and his wife Dawn were reportedly planning to decide what to do about the situation this weekend.

Yes, let's see, the whole state is talking about the Gibbons' getting a divorce, and they decide to spend the weekend planning what to do about it. Did they really think that anyone was going to buy this?

According to a reporter who talked to the governor's press person, they have nothing to release on whether the Gibbons' are getting divorced or not.

The classic non-denial denial.

If the rumor wasn't true, there would certainly be some release denying it outright, and likely blasting us press people for being rumor mongers.

With no word from the Gov's office, it's still just a rumor, but the kind that keeps growing with time. How long before this thing picks up so much speed that they will have to say something?

The rumors are flying that Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is getting divorced from wife Dawn. Wonkette says Gibbons was served with divorce papers, while the Las Vegas Gleaner says it's Jim who is doing the serving.

I've also now heard from several sources that Dawn Gibbons a couple of weeks ago barged into Jim's office and started screaming at him, so loud his whole staff heard it. That could be the root of the rumors.

We've got some folks working on digging out the truth.

George W. Bush and Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons both sport lofty job approval ratings of 28 percent. Guess Gibbons could brag that it took him only four months to achieve such low ratings, while it took Bush six years.

Ever hear about the old LBJ trick where he spreads a rumor about someone having carnal knowledge of barnyard animals. "I don't care if anyone believes it, I just want the SOB to deny it."

Well, Jim Gibbons is no LBJ. First he tells the press he "heard" a rumor that the Democrats paid a Wall Street Journal reporter to dig up dirt on him. The next day, he claims he doesn't believe the rumors. But we got two days of stories where his opponent for governor Dina Titus has to deny she had anything to do with it, like any poor small-state Democrat could get the conservative WSJ to trash a Republican.

But Gibbons can't pull this trick off very well, because he can't shut his mouth. Take a look at this part of the story:

(Gibbons) said he did find it strange that the Wall Street Journal would travel to Elko to cover a debate between him and Democratic contender Dina Titus during last year's gubernatorial campaign. He said he is pretty sure one of his staff members told him about the rumors.

Why would Gibbons think that the WSJ reporter was covering the debate? This debate was 10 days before the first WSJ story about Gibbons helping his buddy Warren Trepp snag defense contracts. Why was that reporter in Elko? Could it be he was asking Gibbons about his relationship with Trepp, quotes that were used in the later story?

Sorry, but Gibbons had to know that the reporter was there to grill him about the Trepp story, not about the debate.

Some follow-up questions for Gibbons would be when he heard about the rumor, and what did that WSJ ask him about in Elko?

Jim Gibbons claims the scandals swirling around his administration are not distracting him from his job. But they seem to be distracting him from his sanity:

"I have heard that the Democrats have paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written," Gibbons said. The Journal has reported that Gibbons is under investigation by the FBI for allegedly accepting unreported gifts or payments from a Reno company that was awarded secret military contracts when Gibbons was in the U.S. House.

Yes, Nevada Democrats are paying off reporters from the country's leading CONSERVATIVE newspaper to write stories about dear ol' Jim. Makes perfect sense. Did the Democrats also pay off the Alberto Gonzales-led Justice Department to open an investigation, too?

Gibbons has officially gone around the bend. His spokesperson tried valiantly to throw him a lifeline:

Gibbons spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin, asked whether the governor put any stock in the rumors, said, "I don't believe he has formulated an opinion on whether or not there's any merit to those comments or not."

"The governor was simply commenting on the fact that he has heard those rumors," Subbotin said.

But the following comment by Gibbons is a little hard to brush over that easily:

"When I met this guy, (WSJ reporter John R. Wilke), he was brought to Elko by the Dina Titus campaign and that is where I met him. So I don't know what his agenda is, but there is nothing there with any of these allegations."

Gibbons isn't saying this is a rumor. He's making a statement of fact. Seems like he buys into these outrageous rumors. Maybe he made them up himself.

There is an article in the Las Vegas Sun about how Gov. Jim Gibbons and Secretary of State Ross Miller are heading for a constitutional clash over the governor's refusal to turn over details of his legal defense fund.

The biggest problem for Miller is that defense funds are not covered in the campaign reporting statutes, the primary area of jurisdiction for the secretary of state.

That allowed Michael Pagni, the Reno lawyer who helped set up the defense fund for Gibbons, to make a case in a letter to Miller last week that the governor is not obligated to make any further disclosures.

There is an "absence of any clear controlling Nevada law addressing the administration or treatment of these types of funds," Pagni said.

If there is no law governing these kinds of accounts, then why isn't this treated as an unlawful bribe? The fund is probably not in his name, but Gibbons is receiving services from it, and that is something that state campaign finance law does cover.

Also remember, there is no accusation that the governor committed any crime while in state office, so you can't make the excuse that this is somehow a part of his current job. The accusations are all centered around his congressional service. The governor is subject to state law, and that law doesn't seem to permit legal defense funds separate from campaign finance law, according to Gibbons' own lawyer. And, Gibbons chose not to declare the fund under federal laws governing contributions to members of Congress, so he can't fall back on that now.

What is the difference between this defense fund and an elected official having a supporter pay his bills for him? If a state senator came into office with a big medical services debt, would it be permissible for a supporter to pay that bill? I don't think so.

And let me ask again, what is so special about this information that the governor would force a showdown?

Usually you have to go out of state to find scandals this hilarious. Gov. Jim Gibbons has finally lost it. He released a statement yesterday to fire back at Secretary of State Ross Miller, who wants The Gibster to tell him more about the quasi-legal defense fund used to pay the high-priced lawyers trying to keep the new guv out of jail.

If you look at what Miller is asking for, it doesn't seem like anything big. He wants some records to show when the money was donated to the fund and verification that the fund is separate from campaign funds. He also wants an explanation on why this fund wasn't disclosed in January when Gibbons took office.

Instead of answering the pertinent questions, Gibbons went on a rant about how the whole thing is a political hit job. Let's go through the statement one rant at a time:

Over the past two weeks, certain individuals in the media and certain political opponents have created an uproar about my use of a "legal defense fund." That fund was created to help defray the costs of responding to allegations by Chrissy Mazzeo and Patricia Sandoval that have been shown to be untrue.

He can't get through the first paragraph without telling a whopping lie. The allegations by Mazzeo and Sandoval were not shown to be untrue. The Mazzeo case was dropped for lack of evidence, but only after Gibbons completely revised his story to make it sound more believable, believe it or not.

The case of the Gibbons' hiring illegal alien Patricia Sandoval were not proven untrue at all. No charges were filed because it happened back in the 80s and early 90s. In this case, we don't have to depend on the word of a drunken cocktail waitress. There is documentation, signed by Dawn Gibbons under penalty of perjury, that Sandoval was in fact employed full time in the Gibbons' home. Yes, the Gibbons' held a press conference during the campaign to deny it, and diverted everyones' attention by saying their maid blackmailed them. But proven wrong? Hardly. They admitted that she worked for them, and that she was illegal.

Here in Nevada, we have a new governor who seems to have a scandal haunting him from his old job. Just before the November election, a story came out about Jim Gibbons receiving illegal gifts for helping local billionaire Warren Trepp snag some government contracts for one of his companies, eTreppid.

the Wall Street Journal reports the FBI may have found a smoking gun email:

The Journal reported new evidence had emerged in a federal court lawsuit in Reno, including e-mails to Trepp discussing a payment or gifts to then-Rep. Gibbons. The e-mails also show Gibbons using his congressional office to help the firm seek classified military and civilian contracts.

"Please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn," Trepp's wife, Jale Trepp, said in a March 22, 2005, e-mail days before Trepp and his wife embarked on the Caribbean cruise with Jim Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, a former Nevada state assemblywoman.

Minutes later, Mr. Trepp responds, "Don't you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!"

Guess Mrs. Trepp didn't get that bribing congressmen is a crime that Mr. Trepp didn't want documented in emails.

Looks like the reasons given for Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons' midnight inaguration are based on a lie.

Gibbons mysteriously had the oath of office administered to him just after midnight on Jan. 1. His excuse at the time was that he needed to get his appointments for Public Safety Director and Homeland Security Director in place, just in case a terrorist attack tokk place in the next 10 hours before his official inaguration.

The story didn't make sense to anyone, even Republicans. That's because it was all BS. It was an attempt to scuttle former Gov. Kenny Guinn's appointments to the Gaming Control Board:

(Gibbons chief of staff Mike) Dayton said Gibbons believes he has the power to make the appointments because he took office at midnight on New Year's Eve, at the point that the Control Board positions officially became vacant.

Yes, now it makes more sense. His press secretary denied the move was due to the Gaming Control Board appointments, of course. But if you have any doubts, pay attention to the details of that night:

An antsy Gibbons was watching the clock so closely that he prodded his wife, Dawn, to hurry up and join him in their living room where Chief Justice Bill Maupin delivered Gibbons' oath of office, saying, "Any time, Dawn."

Gibbons began stating his oath about a minute before midnight. Dayton said Gibbons completed the oath at 12 seconds after midnight. Dayton came up with the time by checking a clock placed on a coffee table in the room.

Critics of Guinn's appointments say that a 2005 opinion by then-Attorney General George Chanos supports the argument that Gibbons and not Guinn had the authority to decide who gets the Control Board posts because Gibbons became governor at the same time the posts became vacant.

This account destroys his first excuse. After all, if he was only worried about having his Public Safety and Homeland Security directors in place, what's a couple of minutes? Why the rush? And starting the oath before midnight? Isn't that jumping the gun?