BARBWIRE
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ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream


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Je Suis Charlie

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

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¡Viva Chávez!
César Chávez Celebration XVI / Celebración de César Chávez XVI
Saturday 31 March 2018
/ Sabado 31 de Marzo 2018

Highlights from the record-breaking 2017 event at Circus Circus Reno

All the news you never knew you needed to know—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential


   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
   Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
   Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
   That's how it goes.
Everybody knows...
Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes.
Everybody knows.


I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island.
Leon Russell, 1942-2016


Drafting the Donkeyite Dream Team
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-23-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 5-25 and 5-26-2017 / Expansions in blue.

Nevada Democrats need to issue draft cards. It's wartime for democracy.


WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Support Don Dondero next
Note: Alas and alack, Dondero did not make it in 2015 or 2016.
Make this the year!

7-COME-11!
Barbwire wins 7th Nevada Press Association award

BRONZE 2016
4-28-2015
11-24-2015
1-19-2016

6-pack: BRONZE 2014
Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake / 4-18-2013

The 2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon / 5-30-2013

The politics of media ga-ga boosterism / 3-20-2014

We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series

Barbwire.TV
Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times.
Help us get the word out.

Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate

SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves

The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.

The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.

Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.

Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.

You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

Your contribution will help fund the distribution as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.

You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.

Thanks.

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew


Click here for selected on-demand re-runs from the Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file


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The party should print draft cards (at union shops, of course), which their members can send to HQ or post at a new website.

Those patriots can volunteer to be drafted in support of Clark County Commissioner Christine Giunchigliani for governor, Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-CD4: LV, part of Clark County & south central Nevada), for U.S. Senate, and Assemblymember Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, for Congress.

Congressman Kihuen spoke at last Wednesday's DC press conference alongside Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Being groomed to run against U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., next year, perhaps? As I noted to Barbwire Confidential subscribers (subscribe at BallotBoxing.US/), at a lunch for die-hards last month before his address to a joint session of the legislature, Kihuen said he's keeping all 2018 options open.

He's not even a member of the Intelligence Committee but was nonetheless given facetime at a national press conference.

"Look, enough is enough," he said on the May 17 PBS Newshour, adding that "President Trump's unchecked and reckless behavior is impacting the national security of the United States of America."

CHRIS G. STANDS FOR GUV. If Chris Giunchigliani becomes the Democratic nominee for governor next year, those two at the top of the ticket will super-charge the most highly motivated liberal constituencies in the age of Tsar Donaldov Vladimirovitch Trumpsky.

MOTHER TERESA FOR CONGRESS. Current Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson's profession is counseling the sick and dying. Wow. As third runnerup in 2003, she did better than any Nevadan ever in the Miss America pageant. (Wonder if she met El Presidénte?)

The northwest Reno Democrat has four gorgeous little kids and is married to popular KOLO TV-8 Chief Meteorologist Jeff Thompson.

The Congressionial District 2 seat has been gerrymandered Republican since fabrication by the 1981 legislature. The Donkeyites had three good chances, actually trending toward big wins twice. Late, great State Sen. Mary Gojack, D-Reno, and Reno Mayor Pete Sferrazza had Republican Rep. Barbara Vucanovich soundly beaten in 1982 and 1992, respectively. Last-minute campaign management mistakes reversed their trends.

Former University of Nevada Regent Jill Derby had a shot in 2006 when Rep. Jim the Dim ran for governor. Alas, she campaigned like a conservative Republican and was trounced by now-Sen. Dean Heller.

Nine in 10 CD2 voters live in the Reno-Sparks-Washoe-Carson strip, which went super-blue last year. Since I move to these parts in 1971, Washoe has always been Nevada's hotbed of liberalism. Look at who we elect to the ledge vs. some of the hardcore Democratic religious conservatives from LV.

Those elements combined with the Trump backlash pre-dispose a Donkeyite sweep next year. Alas, the old cliché still applies: Democrats don't win elections, Republicans lose them. Next year is D for the taking if the Dems don't again commit suicide.

PRONUNCIATION KEY: "June-chill-yawn-ee" and "Key-when." When? Now, dammit!

DOWN AMNESIA LANE. Eminent Nevada author David Toll hearkens back to the history of his legendary Gold Hill News this Thursday (5-25-2017) evening at Carson City's Nevada State Museum. Details with the expanded Internet edition of this column.


TRAVUS T. HIPP, 1937-2012. Toll's event comes a day before the fifth anniversary of the 5-26-2012 Comstock wingding following the burial of Tribune columnist, Gold Hill News charter icon and legendary west coast talk radio host Chandler Atchison Laughlin, Jr., aka Travus T. Hipp. He is a member of the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame and the Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames. The latter is extremely exclusive with only seven members. His impact on this region when he ruled local airwaves in the early 1980s has never been equaled. He was my friend.

Travus died 18 May 2012, 84 years to the day after legendary Industrial Workers of the World (aka The Wobblies) leader Big Bill Haywood. Travus was a proud card-carrying IWW member for many years.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
______________
Andrew Barbano is a 48-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and first vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his comments are his own. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

ONLINE EXTRAS —>

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless predictions for 2017 by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service.

Last year's dark foreshadowings unfortunately became reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment

Subscribe today to get the exclusive End of Times Retrogression, a Procession for Progression, an Obsession to relieve Depression, Proselytizing Prayer for Divine Intercession at the Legislative Session. Don't wait— procrastination is the devil's dislocation. Hie thee hence to BallotBoxing.US/

THE GOOD DON. Nominations are afoot for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.
Time to ramp up for world-famous Tribune photographer Don Dondero. Here's the compelling case for his induction.

TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY: FEEL UP YOUR FIRE METER. The Reno Gazette-Journal did big spreads on three consecutive Sundays (Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28, 2014) on NV Energy smart meter fires. Welcome aboard. Barbwire readers were two years ahead on the fire meter issue. (Touch a Smart Meter, Go to Jail — 11 October 2012)

FIRE METER UPDATES: THE NEVADA FIRE MARSHALL'S INVESTIGATION concluded "don't worry, be happy." I'm still worried and will continue fondling NVE's precious equipment —> If your smart meter feels very hot, not just from sunshine, call 911. In its Sunday 21 Dec. 2014 front page headline major story, the Reno Gazette-Journal published results of the NVEnergy-commissioned "don't worry, be happy" echo study. On 1-27-2015, the RGJ published an analysis based on veteran reporter Anjeanette Damon's review of more than 1,000 pages of documents.

Barbwire
bottom line: NVE handles this like auto manufacturers handle defects —> It's cheaper to pay legal settlements after people are injured or killed than to fix the problem.

Don'tcha worry 'bout a thing! If you can't trust your power company, whom can you trust?

Smoking guns: Rooftop solar assassination
NevadaLabor.com Energy War Room

DIDN'T THEY MAKE A MOVIE CALLED "THE INCREDIBLES"? On 2-6-2015, the RGJ reported that the Public Utilities Commission has ordered NVE to hire an independent laboratory to review the material.

UPDATE: The report said all is well. I still recommend feeling up your fire meter on a regular basis.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is. A thousand thanks to those who keep sending show suggestions.

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
— Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

  Stay tuned.

  I encourage you to donate to the cause at Barbwire.TV/ The medium that shapes public opinion needs at least one refuge where it is not filtered through the distorted green eye shades of prissy corporate accountants for whom profit is the only priority; where self-censorship is the journalist's normal work environment and where all sins of omission are tacitly encouraged and forgiven with the wave of a balance sheet. This is important. We've got a lot of work to do.

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)


Andrew Barbano
is a 48-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org and DoctorLawyerWatch.com/ As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

 

 

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SMOKING GUNS —>Trumping Reagan's television rules
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-16-2017 Sparks Tribune
Bench warrants and G-forces
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-9-2017 Sparks Tribune
May Day for Labor Day
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-2-2017 Sparks Tribune
Trump'll shake 'em up

Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-25-2017 Sparks Tribune
Busted at the Legislature
Fear & Loathing @ the Ledge
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-18-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 4-20, 4-21, 4-22, 4-23 and 4-25-2017 GMT.
60 Revenging Rakkasans
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 4-11-2017 Sparks Tribune
Halls of Fame and Glory
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno
/ Expanded from the 4-4-2017 Sparks Tribune
In search of César Chávez
Barbwire by Andres Luis Barbáno / Expanded from the 3-28-2017 Sparks Tribune

Regressions, Transitions and Predictions
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-3-2017 Sparks Tribune

Barbwire Archives

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Copyright © 1982-2017 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 48-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

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