Las Vegas Trips Should Be Required

By Obama For Bailed Out Corporations

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 13, 2009

The companies getting bailout money from taxpayers should be required by President Obama to hold all of their business meetings in Las Vegas, the city which is the most economical and the most conducive to holding efficient business meetings and conventions, with 130,000 hotel rooms and thousands of restaurants within a few miles of dozens of huge convention facilities and hundreds of meeting rooms. With reduced room rates because of the economy, and because Las Vegas hotels can afford to offer lower room rates because of casino revenues, Las Vegas is a bargain, and Las Vegas is the only city where all corporations should be allowed to plan their meetings and conventions. President Obama should prohibit any company getting bailout money from taxpayers from having business meetings or conventions anywhere else besides Las Vegas.

Should executives being paid tens of millions a year while their corporations are losing money be able to give themselves hundreds of millions in bonuses while taking taxpayer money? I think not. But that has nothing to do with rewarding sales reps and putting on the Ritz for profitable customers in Las Vegas. Should the big companies in the United States that sell their products to big companies around the world have meetings at McDonalds? That would be received well and end up profitably, wouldn't it?

So much for helping out the union members in Las Vegas that rallied behind Obama. Instead of creating jobs in Nevada, Obama is undermining decades of Las Vegas establishing itself as the convention and business meeting capitol of the world.

When I was delivering newspapers 35 years ago, the newspaper company had a party every year for delivery carriers and gave them free pizza and soda pop. The carriers who sold the most newspaper subscriptions were awarded prizes. The top prize was a trip to Disneyland. As a result the newspaper increased their circulation and were able to charge more for advertising. When I was an outside sales rep selling plumbing supplies to wholesalers 25 years ago, the owner of the small manufacturer rep firm that employed me, required me to take customers out to lunch every day, and we also payed for lunch meetings for engineers that did plumbing specs. That was how we made our products known to buyers at wholesalers, and that was the lifeblood of the company, and we sold a lot of products.

When I haul conventioneers around Las Vegas, they work 8+ hours at their convention, then followed by hours of dinners and cocktails and meetings with venders and clients. This is the way that sales deals are done, and contacts are made in capitalist America. It is important for people to be at these meetings and conventions to wine and dine their customers and employees, because if they don't, their competition will. The corporations that have been helped with taxpayer money should be encouraged to do more wining and dining and promoting than their competitors in order to make money so they can pay back the money. 
Many of the employees in this country have jobs because their executives and sales people and public relations people go to meetings and conventions and events and keep getting additional business for the companies that employ workers. The reason government employees have their jobs because these companies and their employees pay taxes. Being against this capitalist system of companies competing with each other by advertising and promoting and meeting and wining and dining is being against the United States.

When Lee Iacocca and the Chrysler Corporation borrowed money from U.S. Government they launched more advertisements in order to sell the public on buying their cars. Chrysler paid the loan back ahead of time and Iacocca was a real American hero. Now General Motors didn't even advertise during the Superbowl because it would have been perceived in this anti-capitalist environment as wasteful spending. Back then the money loaned to Chrysler was used for American jobs held by legal workers. Now the President of the United States does not support buying American because we have to help out other nations, hands out taxpayer money to fund projects that favor hiring illegal workers over white males, and it is now un-American to have meetings and conventions and dinners to promote business, and we are loaning taxpayer money to American corporations so they can lay off American workers and open more factories in other countries.

The fact that is popular in the United States to criticize corporations for spending money to do the things it takes to get business disturbs me. I remember in the 80's when some grocery stores had rows of generic products with white and black labels because it was perceived that it would save consumers money if companies could cut out the costs of advertising and attractive labeling. It did not work then, and it won't work now. If taxpayer money is being used to get these bailed out companies on their feet, we better hope that these companies are doing the kinds of things that increase sales and attract customers and reward productive employees, or all of these companies will fail and the taxpayer money will be gone.

President Obama and Democrats having lavish meetings at expensive resorts and flying jets around the country in order to criticize corporations for spending money on trips to Las Vegas for business is insane, even if it is just rewarding good producers and encouraging them to make more money for the company, so the company can pay us back instead of failing. Is the United States still a capitalist country, or are we now part of Communist Cuba?

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/us/15vegas.html?_r=1&ref=business
"Las Vegas Sags as Conventions Cancel"
By STEVE FRIESS
Published: February 14, 2009
...Anxiety over the matter escalated last week after President Obama told an audience in Elkhart, Ind., that companies “can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.” The remark was taken by many here as an attack.
“The mayor heard the words ‘Las Vegas’ — he didn’t hear any other city — and people are telling me that they’re not coming to Las Vegas because the president doesn’t want them to,” said Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, who at first demanded a White House apology but later in the week said he just wanted a clarification.
“There’s an impression out there,” Mr. Goodman said, “that somehow if you come to Las Vegas, it’s going to reflect on your business culture, and that’s a bunch of hooey.”
The White House has not commented directly on the matter... 
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/15/business-travel-boosters-go-offensive/
"Business travel boosters go on the offensive"
By Michael Mishak
Sun, Feb 15, 2009 (2 a.m.)
...Although Obama’s comments were clearly directed at companies receiving federal bailout money, tourism officials say the president’s words nevertheless created the perception in some people’s minds that corporate travel planners should eschew Las Vegas. Not taking any chances, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will launch a six-figure ad campaign this month aimed at correcting any misperceptions.
The ads, which will run in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and various business publications, will feature testimonials from companies that have held meetings in Las Vegas...
http://industry.bnet.com/travel/1000810/obamas-las-vegas-remark-inflames-industry/
"Obama’s Las Vegas Remark Inflames Industry"
By Barbara E. Hernandez
February 15th, 2009 10:04 am
It was only a five-second soundbyte, meant for Wall Street fat cats asking for government bailouts.
“You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime, ” President Barack Obama said to a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind. last week.
But the remark caused a hailstorm of anger from Las Vegas officials, members of the travel industry and even residents...

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Las Vegas Cabbies Attacked By Barack Obama

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 16, 2009

The conventions that happen in Las Vegas don't stay in Las Vegas if the President of the United States says that is a bad idea. Thanks a lot PREZ!

Taxi drivers in Las Vegas got together and honked their horns and tied up traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard and did not pick people up at the airport a few years ago, because the Governor of Nevada was going to sign a bill that would hurt taxi drivers' incomes, but that bill did not have near as much potential to kill business and incomes of Las Vegas taxi drivers as much as the negative comments made by President Obama recently. But if anyone says a negative word about Barack Obama to the cab drivers in Las Vegas who voted for him, they put their hands on their ears and walk away because they can't handle the truth. They want to believe that their hero is perfect. But when the President of the United States is saying things that take food off of your table, you better say something. 

Las Vegas taxi drivers should unite and protest and do what they can until Barack Obama rights the wrong and apologizes for his damaging remarks. I hope that the Obama supporters are not so loyal and blind that they can't criticize him even if it means starving to death. Barack Obama is harming taxi drivers in Las Vegas. Every day that goes by that Barack Obama does not make a bold statement saying that he is in favor of businesses spending money in Las Vegas, is another day that companies and convention planners are deciding to not plan events and meetings in Las Vegas, because it is perceived as not being the politically correct thing to do right now, and they are scheduling their meetings during the next two years anywhere besides Las Vegas, thanks to Barack Obama.

President Obama continues to not say a word about the fact that he viciously attacked the union members and hard working citizens and taxi drivers in Las Vegas who gave him the election in Nevada, by implying that businesses who spend money in Las Vegas are acting irresponsible and are being frivolous, which is just the opposite of the truth. On February 8, 2009, while trying to gain support for his grandiose economic recovery stimulus spending and tax-cut package, Barack Obama said in Elkhart, Indiana, that companies “can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.” His trip to Indiana was also on the taxpayers' dime. 

I guess there is no place in our new President's socialist agenda for businesses to spend money on productive meetings and conventions in the most cost effective place in the world to hold those meetings. Las Vegas has built itself up for decades as the best place in the world to do business for companies that hold meetings and conventions to network with other companies, but Barack Obama said it is bad for businesses to spend money in Las Vegas, and now it has been heard all over the world: Barack Obama does not think that it is good business for businesses to do business in Las Vegas.

Now, less than one month since he took office, we get to find out what Barack Obama is made of. Is Obama just like George W. Bush and unable to admit that he made a huge mistake? Is President Obama above apologizing to the two million residents of Las Vegas? Or is Barack Obama an enemy of the workers and people who work in the convention industry that Las Vegas depends on? Will the real Barack Obama please stand up, or did Obama already make his stand, and the people in Las Vegas who voted for Barack Obama are getting shafted? If Barack Obama was against businesses holding meetings in Las Vegas, why didn't he say so while he was campaigning? After all those trips to Las Vegas that Barack Obama spent money on during his campaign, Barack Obama should be a huge advocate of businesses spending money on meetings and conventions and dinners and cab rides and limo rides in Las Vegas. But no, what does he do? Barack Obama attacks Las Vegas taxi drivers and the hard workers who take care of the business that comes to Las Vegas.

I realize that Barack Obama is not an Islamic extremist, and everyone knows that Islamic extremists hate Las Vegas, so do not think that I agree with people who insinuate that the reason that Barack Obama is attacking Las Vegas has anything to do with what people say about his ties to Islamic extremists, and I do not think that is why Obama is hurting the Las Vegas taxi drivers and Las Vegas residences and making the Las Vegas economy worse than it is. But maybe the reason that Barack Obama won't go back on his statement telling businesses not to spend money in Las Vegas is because he is so tolerant and does not want to offend the Islamic community. But that would not make sense because there are lots of Muslim business people who come to Las Vegas for trade shows and conventions, there are lots of taxi drivers in Las Vegas who are Muslim, and the biggest construction project under way in Las Vegas is the City Center project, which is a joint venture with MGM-Mirage and Dubai World.

Conservative talk show hosts and die-hard Republicans have suggested that Barack Obama has Communist viewpoints because of his socialist tendencies, but I certainly do not think that the fact that the first thing that Fidel Castro did went he came to power in Cuba was to get rid of casinos and outlaw gambling has anything to do with Barack Obama launching his assault on Las Vegas.

According to a New York Times article published yesterday:

"In the last month, 30,000 hotel room nights booked for conferences have been canceled at an estimated loss of $20 million to the city, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Some of those rooms were reserved for a Goldman Sachs technology conference, which was moved to San Francisco this month. And the figures do not include 17,000 people who were expected to attend a State Farm agents’ convention this October. That conference was canceled Wednesday."

Las Vegas taxi drivers and all service workers in Las Vegas cannot afford to just let this statement by Obama just be forgotten. Instead of chanting "Yes We Can" they should be chanting "Yes He Can" and keep on chanting until Obama makes a full apology and makes it perfectly clear that he does not think that businesses spending money in Las Vegas is a bad thing - PERIOD!!!

Maybe Barack Obama has watched too many movies about Las Vegas and his perception of Las Vegas is nothing more than a party place, and that Las Vegas is a waste of money and not a good place to do business. Las Vegas voters should have been told about that when he was campaigning. Maybe he is getting paid off by his buddies in Chicago that want to do damage to the convention business in Las Vegas in order to sway conventions their way, and that way they can pay higher prices than having conventions in Las Vegas. Maybe President Obama wants to spread the wealth around and Las Vegas is getting too much convention business and Las Vegas cabbies are getting too many rides. Maybe Barack Obama has been sheltered from understanding what good business is, and what is good for businesses, because he has no business experience at all.

And where is Harry Reid on this? He is making excuses for Barack Obama and he is hem-hawing around saying "he didn't mean it". Why isn't Harry Reid demanding a retraction from Obama? These are his constituents who are being harpooned and left out to die. Why is Mayor Goodman backing down on demanding a full apology from President Obama? The workers in Las Vegas should be all over Oscar Goodman until he gets Obama to change his tune and make a 180 degree turn around. The people who were voted into office to help the State of Nevada and the City of Las Vegas should be defending the voters and not the President.

When George W. Bush won the election twice in the State of Nevada, I thought it was strange that Nevada would vote for a man who stated as Governor of Texas that he is morally opposed to gambling, and wanted to see gambling outlawed. But at least he did not try to ruin and destroy the non-gambling business in Las Vegas, which is what Barack Obama is doing. Las Vegas is going through the worst economic crisis in its history, and Las Vegas does not need to have the President of the United States drop a bomb on the good productive convention industry in Las Vegas, by telling corporations and small businesses that if they hold business meetings or employee training meetings or trade shows or banquets or conventions in Las Vegas that they are being irresponsible, and that they should do those things in another place where it costs much more. Las Vegas is a steal of a deal, and it makes good business sense to use Las Vegas for business. Howard Clark was on CNN showing off a car he rented for $8 a day in Las Vegas, and he would agree that businesses can get really good deals in Las Vegas. Maybe Obama can use his Blackberry to look at room rates in Las Vegas, and then he can see for himself that having meetings and conventions in Las Vegas is not a waste of money.

Is it fair to compare a business get away for employees in Las Vegas to going to the Superbowl? Should they reward their employees by taking them to McDonald's to have meetings and seminars? What country am I in?

McCarran International Airport is the fourth busiest airport in the country and the seventh busiest in the world. McCarran is the number one destination airport in the world. That was not the case before Las Vegas built up and promoted business conventions. McCarran has more taxicab pickups than any other taxicab stand in the world because of the 22,000 meetings and trade shows per year that are scheduled in Las Vegas. In 2006 there were an average of 8600 taxicab pickups per day at McCarran International Airport. Las Vegas is able to handle conventions of over 150,000 people at a time, and there are over 20 conventions a year that have over 50,000 attendees. That is one reason why Las Vegas is the best place for businesses to have meetings and trade shows and conventions.

Las Vegas has attracted many conventions and trade shows during the past two decades because their attendance is better in Las Vegas than in other cities, because people like being in Las Vegas because there is plenty of good dining and shows and entertainment. It makes good sense for people to show off their products and services in Las Vegas, because buyers and prospective buyers will actually go to the convention, because it is in Las Vegas. Businesses who exhibit at conventions in Las Vegas get more bang for their buck because people who would not attend a convention or trade show or seminar in other places will go to Las Vegas because they like Las Vegas. That is a good reason for businesses to spend money in Las Vegas.

Last week the World Market Center hosted its biannual international furniture convention that attracts 50,000 business people who come to Las Vegas to network and get informed and buy products and make deals and make money. They come to Las Vegas to work and to do business. Less than two miles away in downtown Las Vegas there are thousands of hotel rooms that offered rooms as low as $29 a night during the convention last week, and a few miles away on the Las Vegas strip there were rooms in some of the newest and most beautiful resorts in the world available for $49 to $170 a night. Does Barack Obama think that all those businesses were being irresponsible? If it is good for those businesses, why wouldn't be good for businesses that have received taxpayer money? Doesn't Obama want those businesses to be as successful and profitable as possible so that they can pay back the money they received?

The Las Vegas Convention Center is the busiest convention center in the world, and has the capacity to handle the biggest conventions in the world. Las Vegas has 15 of the 20 largest hotels in the world. Las Vegas has thousands of restaurants of all kinds, and has an abundance of 24 hour dining. The huge hotel resorts on the Las Vegas strip and downtown Las Vegas and in the outskirts of Las Vegas can offer super deals on hotel rooms and dining because they have casinos, and all of the large resorts and hotels in Las Vegas have meeting rooms. That makes business in Las Vegas economical and smart and very responsible.

Will Obama allow business people to ride on the new $8 billion dollar train between L.A. and Las Vegas that is included in the new stimulus package that Obama okayed? Or will Obama stipulate that anybody who works for a corporation that has ever received anything from the government will be not allowed on board?

I have been blogging and ranting for years about cab companies and local politicians and law enforcement and government agencies and things that make it difficult for Las Vegas taxi drivers to make a living and survive, and never at any time did I imagine that I would be sitting down to write a blog article about taxi drivers being attacked and assaulted and hurt by the President of the United States. Taxicab drivers in Las Vegas have enough enemies like the Nevada Taxicab Authority and run-outs and break-downs and grid locked traffic and motorcycle cops and non-tipping customers and thieves working as door-persons for hotels. Las Vegas cabbies in Las Vegas do not need the President of the United States to make verbal assaults against us and tell businesses to not have business meetings in Las Vegas. Taxi drivers in Las Vegas are struggling to survive during these difficult global economic times, and having Barack Obama tell businesses not to do business in Las Vegas is not helping the plight of Las Vegas cab drivers and Las Vegas cab companies. Between McCain and Obama, I honestly thought that Obama would be the better of the two for Las Vegas business and for the Las Vegas economy, at least in the short run, but so far it has been just the opposite.

I am not an activist. I am just a writer with opinions. You won't see me standing on the side of the street with a picket sign or passing out flyers, but I certainly hope that Las Vegas citizens who are activists and have the capability to do those kinds of things will go whole hog and do everything that can be done until Barack Obama and his buddies in Washington send a message to the world that Las Vegas is a good place to do business, and tells American companies that it is not irresponsible or bad for businesses to spend money doing business in Las Vegas. But I am afraid that activists may not stand up for themselves because they worry about talking bad about Obama, their hero, even though Obama doesn't care if he cripples them or devastates their incomes. I hope that the sheep that followed him on Election Day are not going to follow him to the slaughter. Las Vegas taxi drivers and service workers deserve much better than that.

People who did not support Obama should tell John Ensign, the Republican Senator for Nevada, to keep on demanding that Obama get the story straight. Obama supporters need to get on the bandwagon and insist that Barack Obama fixes this mistake so we can move on.

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 16, 2009

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Prohibiting Las Vegas Business Meetings???

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 17, 2009

I did not agree with people who were bashing Obama by saying that he was a communist before he was elected, and I do not think that socialized medicine is communism. I have not voted for any Republicans in decades, especially not G.W. Bush. There are lots of socialist components in our society that do not prohibit free market enterprise, such as fire departments and police protection and roads and Social Security. But when the government tells companies not to have meetings in Las Vegas, that is blatant anti-capitalism, and Americans need to be afraid that this country is on a fast track to communism.

In his article, "Stimulus bill amendment could hurt Las Vegas" in the Las Vegas Review Journal, February 14, 2009, Benjamin Spillman states that:

...The amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., calls for the secretary of the Treasury to write rules that would define "excessive expenditures" on behalf of companies that will or have already accepted taxpayer money, referred to as TARP funds...
When asked whether the definition of luxury the amendment calls for would include resorts such as Wynn Las Vegas, Palazzo, Bellagio or others on the Strip, Summers responded: "That's up to the secretary, who has oversight of the TARP funds."

This is not about executives making tens of millions of dollars a year and then pocketing millions of dollars in bonuses for themselves, instead the government is going to step in and decide how businesses should operate and spend money on all levels, which can be very bad for these companies, and may cause these companies to either go out of business or have to get more money from the government.

Welcome to the United States of Communist Cuba. Factory workers and service workers better hope that the companies they work for are allowed by Obama and and the government to let their sales reps and public relations reps have meetings with their prospective customers at the Bellagio instead of the Motel 6, because if the sales-persons and executives of the company you work for are taking clients out to McDonalds for lunch instead of taking them out to nice restaurants, you are screwed, and you won't have a job very long. 

Obama and Geithner deciding what companies should spend money on and how much, is like me telling pilots how to fly jets, and I do no know how to fly, but I do know how to drive, and I did stay at a Holiday Express. Should the government be putting a lid on outrageous bonuses of millions of dollars per executive while they are receiving bailout money from the government? Of course. Executives getting hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses is not the same thing as companies having business meetings and conventions and training seminars that promote business and cause companies to be more profitable. But they are using that as a way to turn America into a Communist, or at least an anti-capitalist, country. It is outrageous and for Obama to say that if companies hold those meetings in Las Vegas, the convention capitol of the world and the most cost effective city in the world to conduct business meetings, that they are being frivolous or excessive. 

Democrats keep saying that is not what Obama meant, but Obama has not said a word to make it clear what he means, specifically why he singled out one city, which is the city has the most business meetings. I am sure that Obama and Geithner think it is okay for businesses to have meetings and conventions in Chicago or San Francisco, because that is where Obama and Pelosi are from, but Harry Reid is too busy kissing Obama's hand in order to stand up for Las Vegas. Every day that goes by that Obama does not stick up for workers in Las Vegas is another day that meeting planners are diverting business away from Las Vegas.

Democrat bloggers, Las Vegas taxi drivers, and even the lady working at my grocery store in Las Vegas, are siding with President Obama, even though he is hurting the incomes of hard working service employees in Las Vegas. Are Democrats suddenly against Sin City? I thought it was the moral right that was against Las Vegas? But now Democrats in Las Vegas are going to get in line and stand up for their hero while he leads them to their slaughter.

If President Obama said it is excessive for companies to advertise on CNN and NBC, and companies should do radio advertising instead because it is cheaper, then you would see the reporters on CNN and NBC covering the story differently, and more accurately.

Talking about excess, tell Obama to trade in that limo for a Prius, and trade in Air Force One for a bus, because that is taxpayer money, too.

by Vegas Taxi Driver
February 17, 2009

http://www.lvrj.com/news/39483752.html
By BENJAMIN SPILLMAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL 
Feb. 12, 2009 
"Obama swipe at corporate trips to LV draws response" Officials, politicians say incentive trips are important to city..."You can't take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime," Obama said...They say figures show that in 2008, in Las Vegas alone there were more than 22,000 meetings that directly sustained about 43,000 jobs and generated an estimated $8.5 billion for the local economy...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,491504,00.html
"Las Vegas Mayor Wants Presidential Apology"
Thursday, February 12, 2009
GOODMAN: ... paying — paying large sums of money to get out of those contracts, and then going to other cities, paying more for rooms and for food, because, right now, Vegas is bargain-basement...

http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9823695
"Another financial avoids a Vegas conference"
Feb 10, 2009
More reservations are being cancelled in Las Vegas...A spokesman for the company said he's not certain if Goldman Sachs is saving any money in the move, but the company has to operate according to the new landscape of their industry...Sources inside Mandalay Bay report that the company did have to pay a $600,000 cancellation fee...

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/02/62704125/1
"Las Vegas mayor wants Obama to apologize"
Feb 11, 2009
It was "outrageous" for President Obama to say that corporate executives from companies getting federal bailout funds shouldn't be going on corporate trips to Las Vegas...Cities such as Las Vegas depend on the travel and tourism industry, and the president could be driving business away...KLAS writes that: Some high profile companies like Wells Fargo, Citibank and Goldman Sachs recently pulled out of meetings in Las Vegas. The businesses as well as the people who attend the meetings all spend money here. Canceling impacts the casinos and contractors who set up the sound systems and do other production work for the meetings...

http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9833464
"Oscar vs. Obama: The war of the words"
Feb 12, 2009
Yet another big company has cancelled its convention in Las Vegas. This time, insurance giant State Farm is the one shying away from Sin City. Mayor Oscar Goodman says a comment from President Obama is only making matters worse..."All they heard was don't go to Las Vegas," says Mayor Goodman, referring to a comment from President Obama criticizing companies for using taxpayers' money for junkets to Las Vegas...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/las-vegas-mayor.html
Political Punch
"Las Vegas Mayor to Obama: 'Your Comments are Harmful' to the City"
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman backed off statements made Tuesday that he would like an apology for comments made by the president earlier in the week about Las Vegas...Obama complained that companies that received bailout money should not take trips to Las Vegas...Goodman writes. “I also understand the need for accountability, but your comments are harmful to the meetings and convention industry as a whole and Las Vegas specifically."...

http://blogs.courant.com/stan_simpson/2009/02/vegas-mayor-demands-obama-apol.html
By Stan Simpson on February 11, 2009 1:30 PM
"Vegas Mayor to Obama: Apologize"
Tourism business is already down in Vegas and officials there are concerned that the president's message will do nothing to improve it...Tough. President Obama didn't suggest that all businesses forego travel to Vegas, just those who will be benefiting from some of the $800 billion in bailout money.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9827585&nav=168Y
"Mayor Goodman Sends Letter to President Obama"
Feb 11, 2009 05:54 PM
LAS VEGAS, Nv. — Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says his office has been flooded with phone calls after he demanded an apology from President Obama...Goodman is sending a letter to the president. In it he writes, "Your comments are harmful to the meetings and convention industry as a whole and Las Vegas specifically."...

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