BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

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Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

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. — Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016 By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson © 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

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

Fatherly advice from the Holy See of Me
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-8-2023 / Updated 3-10-2023 / Expansions in blue

Greatest Hits Dept. 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 Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame Support Don Dondero and Jake Highton and David Toll and Foster Church and Norman Cardoza next. Send endorsements Eee-yo-leven! Barbwire wins 11th Nevada Press Association award GOLD 2017-18 2018 First-Place Winners From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies "Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read." — NPA contest judge/9-29-2018 The Grasshopper and the Dragonfly 9-6-2017 Kicked off the Ledge 4-18-2017 NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK Back to the Future in Mississippi West Nevada 10-18-2017 Gold 2017 Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo 10-4-2016 We Don't Need No Education Toxic turf threat ignored 12-13-2016 Kate Smith & Lady Gaga 2-14-2017 Bronze 6-pack In the Uber-Nevada legislature, words can kill 4-28-2015 On artificial turf, don't breathe unless absolutely necessary (above) 11-24-2015 Leading questions, lead-headed leaders 1-19-2016 Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake 4-18-2013 2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon 5-30-2013 The politics of media ga-ga boosterism 3-20-2014 More statewide and national award winners We Don't Need No Education—> Neverending Barbwire Series 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries Barbwire.TV: 15-year overnight success Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008 The Barbwire's Greatest Hits BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: Highlights from radio days mp3 file The Dean's List    The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites. RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential TOP SECRET— HushHush!

PUBLIC RELATIONS ADVICE FROM MAYOR QUARANTINO: Don't play dumb when public documents are requested.

Veteran KOLO TV-8 journalist Ed Pearce has been reporting on abuse of public workers injured on the job who have no recourse at law when governments won't pay.

Washoe County's Olivia Benson, former Sheriff's Detective Kim Frankel, was severely injured on duty by a drunk driver. She suffered whiplash, a concussion, and developed dystonia, brain damage causing involuntary spastic contractions of arms, hands and feet.

SMOKING GUN: Washoe County's 552-page taxpayer-funded appeal of Detective Frankel's victories. How many lawyers logged $500-$1,000 per hour composing this abusive embarrassment? Perhaps their Caribbean law school professors graded by weight.

If Washoe County had paid for early care, she'd be back on the job investigating sex crimes. Washoe reneged. Sheriff Darin Balaam wouldn't even make a phone call. She and her family lost their house and moved to Oregon to live with relatives. She's finally getting treatment there, paying for it herself, but the bodily convulsions are permanent. She is working to change the abusive law.

She said that if the county had paid for her care instead of fighting and losing in court, taxpayers would be money ahead. I asked for an accounting.

Indeed, the $73,436.00 in legal costs to date is almost half of everything.

The state has also fined the county for the abuse in her case. How much? Officials play dumb.

"Washoe County is not in possession of responsive public record to the request. If there were responsive public records they would be subject to confidentially rules under (various state laws)," stated the county comptroller's apparatchiks.

Translation: Taxpayers have taken another hit and we don't gotta tell you nothin'.

"Uh oh, you must have hit a nerve," Ms. Frankel responded.

"They‘re too busy continuing to try and intimidate, harass and bully me by sending their 552-page appeal (<—at left) directly to me instead of my association or my attorney. Maybe you will hit less of a nerve asking them why they continue to tax injured deputies' non-taxable income, forcing deputies to overpay taxes when they’ve been asked repeatedly to fix the issue," she added.

Sen. Skip Daly, D-Sparks, is introducing legislation to fix the legal loophole which has caused thousands of public workers to be thrown away like litter on the roadside.

READ MORE ABOUT IT: Law & Order Special Victims — Nevada's Disposable Cops (Barbwire 12-14-2022)

LEGAL ADVICE FROM FATHER QUARANTINO. May the wonderful Rebecca Gasca score $250,000 from the City of

Reno's insurance fund this week. She sued after being shot three times by Reno Police during the May 2020 George Floyd riot in front of city hall. She was wearing clearly-marked attire as an ACLU observer and put her hands up when she saw rifles trained in her direction. Didn't matter.

Don't kid yourself about the danger of rubber bullets. Hard rubber buckshot hits your face and you're blind. That's happening all over the world as a prelude to live ammo. Aren't we supposed to be better than that?

Fortunately, she got hit lower. If Rebecca's trauma causes city policing to change, it's worth a $250k slap on the risk and kick in the balls to this retro town. City Attorney Karl Hall has wisely recommended the settlement. The new lady chief has her work cut out for her.

SPIRITUAL ADVICE FROM FATHER QUARANTINO. Separation of church and state is well on the way to the dustbin of American history. There have been many harbingers including the deadly case of the Dayton, Nevada, church that successfully sued to keep holding packed worship services despite the pre-vaccine 2020 COVID-19 shutdown.

Like the lawless Washoe County bus system, the church became a Coronavirus superspreader.

Several other recent cases have used religious dogma to allow discrimination against those of alternative procreative proclivity.

Corrupt Clarence and the Catholic Supremes are now poised to hammer the last nail into the coffin of the establishment clause. The hallowed First Amendment to U.S. Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The whole point was to keep government from imposing state-sanctioned religious beliefs. Freedom FROM religion.

James Madison et al. saw the chaos and wars started because the state said somebody's god was better than somebody else's metaphysical concept. The world's major religions all offer simple moral admonition which can be oversimplified in two words: be kind.

Alas and alack, marketing departments always took over and began selling their product as better than another. Untold millions lie dead and we make more every day. (The current worldwide war count stands at 63, up from 53 a year ago.)

Those much wiser than me predict that the Catholic majority on the U.S. high court will mandate government by religious dogma this year. The moonhowlers will reverse longstanding precedent that a zealot cannot impose his will on his co-workers by pleading religious freedom. (Linda Greenhouse NY Times 2-5-2023)

In the current instance, a small town postal worker quit after refusing to work on Sunday during December, the busiest time of the year. That's perhaps no problem in a major metro, but in a small town, it leads to serious delays for medicines as well as Christmas cards.

A conservative think tank sued on the worker's behalf. As with Roe v. Wade, the current Catholic majority has already telegraphed its punch. So Justice Samuel Alito need not fear leakage of this draft.

I can make money off this travesty. Padre Barbano could register the Divine Church of What's Happenin' Now, sell a buncha memberships, and my parishioners could plead religious exemptions at any workplace. All while I get tax-free rich.

Don't wanna wear pants to work? Don't wanna be bound by blasphemous rules like showing up on time? Don't wanna get canned if you pinch your co-worker's can. Not to worry. Pope Andrew will write you an excuse for religious exemptions, especially during football season.

Don't wanna work Sunday so you can see how your NFL bets are doing? No problemo. Football is America's most popular religion and Sunday is sacrosanct. I'll sell introductory memberships for only $79.95 a year while supplies last. Guaranteed gluten-free. I bet I could get Donald Trump's endorsement if I cut him in on the action. He loves avoiding taxes.

Clarence and the Supremes, the gods of the new business paradigm. Call your broker and tell them to watch for my IPO.

RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FROM DR. QUARANTINO. Do you know the difference between a lie and diplomacy? Two examples will suffice.

When Czar Putin the Terrible tells a mediator he will not kill Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that's a lie. When Vlad the Butcher said so to the former prime minister of Israel last March right after Russia invaded, he had in fact already dispatched a hit squad to kill Zelenskyy. Fortunately, the murder squad was intercepted.

Putin's statement was unimpeachably, verifiably a lie.

In contrast, when a husband replies to his wife that her lovely new dress does not make her ass look big, when it actually does (God bless her), that's not a lie. That's diplomacy!

HEALTH ADVICE FROM DR. QUARANTINO. A new strain of bird flu is coming and it's more deadly than anything we've seen during the current plague. Are the government and its drug profiteers working the problem? Yes. Will it be enough? Not likely. Short-attention span America only reacts to crises. Instead of building a better ship, we wait until the Titanic is within sight of the iceberg. (Zeynep Tufecki, NY Times 2-5-2023 and 3-10-2023) Be very afraid. Get all your current jabs. They provide some defense against the ugly new cousin.

Stay safe and pray for Ukraine and other currently war-torn lands, now up to 63.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

The east coast owners of KRNV TV-4 (NBC) and KRXI TV-11 (FOX) continue to pervert and pollute the public sphere. Sinclair Broadcasting operates more than 200 stations across the country which makes it by far the biggest telecaster. They control at least a dozen signals in northern Nevada and have put into practice their profit-envy of the Aussie Murdoch family's Fox Noise Network.
Sinclair been justly criticized for forcing their local reporting departments to run right-wing moonhowler propaganda on news programs. Their DC bureau produces segments devoting most of the time to conservatives. They often don't even throw a five-second bone to mainstreamers or (gasp!) liberals.
Instance in point: Last week, a story on lawsuits against mask-wearing in schools carried no point of view from someone in favor of that very sound public health practice.
No matter what newbie Nevada Gov. Giuseppe Lumbago thinks, the pandemic is NOT behind us. Five hundred Americans a day die from COVID-19.
All this is doubly shameful because in these parts, Sinclair employs a crew of good journalists who do responsible work -- when the boss isn't running things from the east coast.
Sinclair also produces its own syndicated "news-ish" shows to air on their stations.
They hired the very telegenic Sharyl Atkisson from CNN to host a half-hour weekly program called "Full Measure." Last week's was outrageous by any measure and truly a full measure of something that rhymes with "full."
Ms. Atkisson interviewed a half-dozen former doctors and staffers from Houston Methodist Hospital. They were among 153 fired or forced to resign for refusing to be vaccinated. The segment I saw on TV4 contained no one advocating in favor of vaccines. I was unable to find the full program online.
Medical professionals going anti-science constitutes mass malpractice. Kinda like Sinclair's Washington bureau.
The Houston staffers sued and lost. Not so that moonhowler church out in Dayton that violated the statewide shutdown order from Gov. Sisolak in the pre-vaxx days of the pandemic. They successfully hid behind freedom of religion. I wonder how many died for showing up on Sundays.
The same logic and legal precedent apply to snake worshipers. Yes, there are actually some U.S. religions that deify poisonous snakes. One preacher liked to conclude his service by kissing a rattler on the mouth. One Sunday a few years back, said reptile, apparently desiring dinner and dancing before such a rude gesture, bit the holy man who died immediately. Parishioners believed it God's will.
Everybody knows that God micromanages everything including snakes. Just ask Adam and Eve.
AS CALIFORNIA GOES, so goes the nation. Two lawsuits have been filed in the Golden State fighting a new law "allowing regulators to punish doctors for spreading false or misleading information about Covid-19 vaccinations and treatments to their patients." (NYTimes 1-27-2023) Looks like that one will head to Clarence and the Supremes, speaking of whom...
SAY WHAT? "The Police Cannot Be a Law Unto Themselves," read a recent headline in the NYTimes. Just like the Supreme Court, eh wot?

QUACK QUACK, PART DEUX. I have been reliably informed that a doctor at the University of Nevada Medical School has been advising patients against vaccination unless they are past 70 years of age.
I guess if the Terminator gets you, it's God's will. Wonder what church that doctor attends.

Smoking Gun—> Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

KUDOS TO CHANNEL 4 NEWS. Last week, veteran reporter Ben Margiott reported on the demand by Midtown Reno merchants to get rid of concrete medians on that strip of S. Virginia Street. There exist only two places to turn around. Enterprises complain of lost revenue.
Regional Transportation Commission staff says that the dividers are for pedestrian safety.
Merchants should have opposed the concrete medians before tons of public money were expended changing the configuration of the two-mile arterial.
McDonald's on Kietzke just north of Vassar got the center median removed about 20 years ago. It was installed because of the serious danger of cars zipping thru a corner shopping center to avoid the Kietzke/Vassar stoplight.
When the median went in, McD sales went down. So the median now ends just before McDonald's on the east side of Kietzke heading south toward Vassar. People turning left to get their cholesterol fix fittingly clog traffic. I've often had to drive around the McD's lefties to get to the Vassar light.
Of course, with the median, it had been an easy right-hander into Burger King.
"B" Street in Sparks became Victorian Square and for awhile the city council (c. 1975-85) put in what was sarcastically nicknamed "the Berlin Wall," three-foot high sloping concrete planters all along the median -- which cut foot traffic to casinos on both sides of the street, especially to the Nugget from the movie theaters. The Berlin Wall came down.
UNION BLOWS AND BLUES. "According to a 2022 poll conducted by Gallup, support for labor unions has reached its highest point since 1965, with 71 percent of Americans approving of unions. Petitions filed for union elections increased by 53 percent in fiscal year 2022, resulting in the largest number filed since fiscal year 2016." So reported the Guardian of London this week.
But only about 11 percent of the US workforce enjoys the pay and benefits of union contracts. In the private sector, union density is down to six percent. Why? Because corporate managers are taught at birth that all unions are bad. Period.
I had to take a year of labor/management relations to get my business administration degree from Fresno State. Such classes have largely disappeared in universities nationwide, including UNR.
Human nature impels us to be apprehensive of what we don't understand.
Among industrialized nations, the U.S. has been at the bottom of union percentage for decades and middle class incomes show it. Penalties for abusing and firing workers who dare to organize are so weak that corporations just consider the rare fines as costs of doing business.
As with so many other facets of American life, the deck is stacked against the individual. So organize.
Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for Ukraine and other currently war-torn lands, now up to 63.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

"I think I've just seen a one-termer so keep your powder dry" -- Paul Laxalt
Thus advised the former Nevada governor and then-U.S. Senator to Ronald Reagan after President Jimmy Carter's first state of the union address in 1977.
Monday night's state of the state speech by newbie Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo showed signs of instant replay. The precedent lies much closer to home.
Lombardo's maiden voyage reminded me of Gov. Jim "The Dim" Gibbons (2007-2011) who governed with his penis rather than his head. I need not remind Nevadans of the nightmare of Dimbulb's peckerdilloes but Lombardo does indeed resemble Gibbons in one important respect: He serves up cold Reaganomics leftovers.
He started his speech by advocating personal responsibility, Reagan code for "if you need help, you're on your own."
Lombardo inherits a fat treasury from his Democratic predecessor Steve Sisolak.
First crack out of the box upon swearing in came Lombardo's demand for all Nevada agencies to give him their top 10 regulations to cut. He would do well to take the advice of author Jeff Greenfield. In analyzing Carter's worst mistakes, time- and money-wasting government reorganization topped the list.
Like Gibbons, Lombardo offers warmed-over, recycled and discredited Reaganomics. You know the drill: tax cuts stimulate the economy.
He said he's suspending the state's gasoline tax when he most probably has no power to do so. The gas tax is onerous and regressive and it hasn't been raised in many years. Without massive federal deficit funding, Nevada's roads would be in worse shape than they are.
But it sounded good on TV.
Perhaps most egregious were Giuseppe's sins of omission. Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizaro, D-Gomorrah South, rightly noted that he did not call for teacher raises. He did advocate state employee hikes of eight and four percent over the next two years, respectively. That's below inflation and does not come close to fixing the penurious levels state workers have suffered for decades.
This has resulted in one in four state jobs going unfilled. That may sound fiscally great but not if you need the highway patrol or you work in a Nevada prison.
Like all former cops, Giuseppe pandered to tough-on-crime kneejerkers, calling for increased penalties for various stuff but not for guns. That will further pack Nevada prisons in a state with an incarceration rate always worthy of the Confederate south.
We can't get enough prison guards because of state pay levels. Dozens of Ely prisoners went on a hunger strike last month.
Lumbago said his proposed raises will mitigate state government being a training ground for local governments which pay much better. Good luck with that.
Lombardo even damned Harry Reid with faint praise, mentioning the former US Senate majority leader at the end of a list of recently deceased former state lawmakers. Yes, guv, Harry served only one term in the Assembly. But Joe ignored his four years presiding over the State Senate as lieutenant governor. Amazing.
Lombardo's only elective office has been two terms as Gomorrah South sheriff where he cut officers. Sheriffs are often CEO's who have a "my way or the highway" mindset. That doesn't work herding government cats.
Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn (1999-2007) came to elected office with a similar blustery mindset. Dudley Do-Right quickly learned that no matter how angry you get with subordinates, your fellow elected officials don't have to do what you say.
Lombardo said that for the first time, he will be an advocate for school choice in state government. If Kenny Guinn were alive, he'd be turning over in his grave. And is longtime former Assemblymember Pat Hickey, R-Reno, chopped liver? He sponsored Nevada's first charter school bill years ago.
Lombardo and staff have additional memory problems. Witness his praise of "the inaugural Las Vegas GrandPrix" Formula One race later this year. Guv, you were a cop in Vegas during many F-1 races a quarter century ago. Caesar's Palace built a course on its parking lot.
Lombardo's worst sin of omission lay in the source of much of the money he wants to spread around: that nasty deficit-spending federal government.
He bragged about Nevada having the second smallest per-capita number of state employees. (We've been number one for decades and I can't find anything to the contrary but who am I to contradict the guv?)
After he said "we won't rely on federal bailouts," he called for eliminating public option health insurance passed by previous Democratic legislatures. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval (2011-2019) bucked Republican spite by expanding Nevada Medicaid with federal money.
And Giuseppe wants to finish removing COVID-19 safety measures. He's already wiped out all of Sisolak's executive orders and wants to repeal the law mandating safeguards in hotels and casinos.
"It already has a built-in sunset when COVID rates go down," stated Culinary Union 226 spokesperson Bethany Kahn. The union spearheaded the 2020 law.

Smoking Gun—> Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

The guv said "the pandemic is behind us." Bull. Look how many are infected and dying not only here but worldwide. But hey, facts are bad for tourism and twisting them never hurt Donald Trump.
Lombardo and staff have tiptoed around repealing Sisolak's order not to assist states like Texas in prosecuting Nevada abortion facilitators or patients. Women nationwide have been fleeing the Confederacy to seek health care in less Neanderthal states. Governor, abortion tourism is a growing market for your biggest supporters on the Strip.
I was a bit embarrassed for the man when he had to beg for applause a few times. Perhaps he needed to have a TV studio-style audience applause sign installed which would cue attendees when to clap. To his credit, he did show a sense of humor, rare in governors, when he made a mistake. Like when he advocated for "partisanship" instead of "partnership" on critical water supplies.
He admitted that "Nevada government has more money than we can responsibly spend." He didn't say we should send the surplus back from whence it came, that despicable federal government. Which happens to be Nevada's second-largest employer after the gambling industry.
Send money back? Surely you jest. Why not devote a huge chunk to corporate welfare as usual? If he can get sprung from testifying in a California court, the guv announced that Elon Musk will venture here to accept huge new subsidies for an expansion of his Nevada holdings to support electric semi truck manufacturing.
Lombardo did offer vague recognition that local governments should get a chunk of the benefits of corporate welfare subsidies but made no mention of how that can be done. Tax breaks drain humongous sums of money from schools, parks, roads and first responders.
Stay safe, get vaxxed and pray for Ukraine and 63 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
__________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
BRWR AA1/25 Lumbago/brwr/opsn23
-30-

"The federal government is basically an insurance company with an army" -- old economics zinger

Rep. Mark Amodei has a target on his back. In a good way.
The longtime northern Nevada Republican congresscritter is potentially one of five or so GOP lawmakers who can save the republic and perhaps the global economy.
Mark and his Carson High classmate Dean Heller were good public servants back when they did time in the Nevada Legislature. Alas and alack, both had to drink the Kool-Aid and become moonhowlers when they reached DC.
Fealty to the controllers is necessary for longevity and influence on the banks of the Potomac. It's gotten to the point that blood oaths are now required and soon, your firstborn. (Perhaps today's GOP can get some pointers on baby-sacrifices from that mythological Washington pizza joint where Hillary and her followers swear allegiance to Satan hisself.)
Newbie House Speaker Kevin McCarthyism has violated the first rule of Chicago-style politics: Never sign nuttin'.
They actually put their plan to destroy America in writing.
According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in the fake news New York Times via fake news CNN, "a screenshot of a slide presented to a closed-door Republican meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 10)...calls for balancing the budget within 10 years, which is mathematically impossible without deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. (It further) calls for reforms to 'mandatory spending' -- which is budget speak for those same programs. And the final point calls for refusing to raise the debt limit unless these demands are met."
Zounds.
The United States is due to run out of money this Thursday. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin told Congress last week that she could only keep the country afloat until June without further congressional action. If the US defaults on its debt, welcome to worldwide Great Depression II.
I see only two ways out of this Republican werewolfian horror movie. Biden must use the National Security Act to declare a national emergency and co-opt the moonhowler majority. Would Clarence and the Supremes go for it? You never know. If the government is out of money, supreme court justices don't get paid.
The other gambit avoids a constitutional crisis and financial meltdown: Amodei and a few others like Rep. Eli Crane, R-Arizona, must move for removal of the speaker. Under the new rules McCarthy allowed to win his job, it only takes one to move for a no-confidence vote and replace the gavel-wielder who controls what issues come up for a vote.
Crane was the only Republican to vote against McCarthy's ascension.
"I might wind up in the broom closet," he quipped.
The Fab Five can oust McCarthy and elect Democrat Hakeem Jeffies, D-NY, or a GOP-Democratic coalition choice. And save the nation and the world.
And Social Security. And Medicare. And Medicaid. And all those wondrous federal funds currently being dispensed by newbie Gov. Jose Lumbago, R-Clark County Jail.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. As I noted last week, former Republican White House official and author Kevin Phillips predicted in 2000 that the restoration of the Bush family dynasty would result in the end of the Republican Party. He based his analysis on what happened after restorations in England and France.
When Dubya got re-elected after Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., committed suicide, Bush the Lesser considered it his mandate to privatize Social Security, the last big pot of federal money that Wall Street does not control. It was quickly slapped down.
Most Republican voters favor liberal social programs. I chuckled at one hillbilly woman who showed up at a 2010 Tea Party demonstration against Obamacare with a sign that read "Keep Government's Hands Off My Medicare."
That ship had already sailed. The US government became the biggest user of medical services the year before when it surpassed the 50 percent mark according to the Nevada State Medical Association.
HISTORICAL REALITY CHECK: The Boston Tea Party was a protest against a tax cut.
GIVE RITCHIE A CALL. After a sojourn at St. Mary's hospital, Nevada union stalwart Ritchie Haber currently resides at Alta Care. The Brooklyn native and longtime New York union transit operator is ailing and could use a friendly call or card from friends.
Ritchie and his union brothers in the local Industrial Workers of the World showed up on a freezing day when no one else would to protest non-union work at the heavily taxpayer subsidized downtown Reno movie theaters. They marched from UNR to the riverfront and generated a ton of media on a morning fit neither man nor beast. I"m serious. I was the only other union member there and I was covering it for the news in my car.
Ritchie drove for the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority for 27 years before moving to Nevada 21 years ago.
"My mama was a socialist," he proudly notes. If he can, he'll show up to picket the downtown Reno bus station if striking Virginia drivers demonstrate here.
Write Ritchie care of Alta, 555 Hamill, Reno 89511 or call (775) You can e him via <jpom222@yahoo.com> or call (775) 828-5600.
He's in room 604 but go thru the switchboard during office hours as the voicemail hell system is not dependable.
SPEAKING OF STRIKES. The last union supporter at Sparks City Hall was the late councilman and Regional Transportation Commission member John Mayer over 20 years ago.
I have thus been pleasantly surprised that Sparks Mayor and current RTC Chair Ed Lawson has become the best worker advocate since John Mayer.
Hizzoner not only favors ending expensive subcontracting of management to for-profit foreign companies but also told ThisIsReno.com last week that he supports the right of workers to picket.
The Teamsters Union's current contract allows workers to honor picket lines if current contractor Keolis-19 is struck anywhere in the U.S. That's happening now in Virginia.
Stay tuned. And Ritchie, keep your picket sign handy.
THE TERMINATOR is still out there. Get vaxxed, dammit! Two of my senior citizen neighbors who, unlike me, don't avoid rooms containing people, got hit with the plague for the second time. Gregariousness has its price. Although the wife got a stay in the most expensive hotel in town, they both survived. Get vaxxed, dammit!
Stay safe and pray for Ukraine and 53 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
__________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
BRWR AA1/18 RIP SSAmed/brwr/opsn23
-30-

In 2000, Kevin Phillips published a prescient piece in Harper's Magazine. I've quoted him several times over the years as the Republican Party has repeatedly attempted suicide.

For the third session in a row, the hidebAnother Kevin is now speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Herewith, déjà vu all over again from "Dismal democracy under Dubya the Dumber," the Barbwire of January 21, 2001:

Those searching for portents at the coronation of Bush the Lesser need look no further than the dismal DC weather which greeted the 5-4 Supreme Court landslide crown prince.

The February 2000 edition of Harper's Magazine published the year's most in-depth yet compact compendium about the shady side of Dubya. Maverick Republican historian Kevin Phillips contributed a fascinating analysis of replays gone bad.

"The essence of political restoration is neither republican nor monarchical. It depends upon the delusionary psychology of a political class willing to let its memory grow more and more clouded until it sees fit to reinstate something second-rate, after that something's replacement has become even less acceptable. This is why restorations contain an element of farce.

"Both Charles I (of England) and Louis XVI (of France), whose kingly failures began the two previous restoration cycles, were as widely disdained as the senior Bush. And the interlopers who came along to revolutionize their countries' respective governments — Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard ('Tumble-down Dick') in England in the 1650s, and Maximilien Robespierre and then Napolean in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century France — also made themselves unwelcome," Phillips wrote.

"In both countries, the political elites came to prefer the return of an inexperienced heir. Charles II was called back to England in 1660; Louis XVIII to a re-established throne in 1815...Bush the Younger is classic restoration material...Not a few observers have described him as cocky, lazy and arrogant (like Charles II), and intellectually undistinguished (a perfect late Bourbon).

"These comparisons are not yet proven, of course, but for the first time in U.S. history, the qualifications of a frontrunner for the presidency are converging with those of the Prince of Wales: heredity and birth," Phillips noted.

He recounted how the new president's "own mother once made him sit at the opposite end of the table from the Queen of England, for fear of what he might say, when he was 44 years old."

Rejoicing at the U.S. royal family's return to power may prove short-lived.

"When the restored James II fell in 1688, that was the end of the Stuart kings. When the restored Bourbons followed suit in 1830, that was the end of their house. Should a Bush Restoration implode on its own whir of cocky inadequacy, that could be a similar last hurrah not simply for the family's power but for the Republican Party," Phillips stated. (See his 1999 book, The Cousins' Wars.)

It doesn't take much to predict that George II will soon risk American lives in some foolish war. Dick and Colin are back fouling the bowels of government. Few seem to remember that the Gulf War, which continues to kill and sicken so many both here and abroad, was fought to protect the Bush family's Persian Gulf drilling rights, perhaps the most rotten of all Dubya's dastardly deals.

On the bright side, perhaps his appointment of the racist John Ashcroft as attorney general will revive states' rights. After all, Ashcroft publicly praised the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, a Klan-fan rag which celebrates Lincoln's assassination!

In his Harper's cover article preceding Phillips' sidebar, author Joe Conason concluded "the vast agglomeration of monied influence is what has made George W. Bush both a rich man and a potential president. Knowing how he became what he is, it's difficult to imagine Bush cleansing the soiled hem of democracy, as his advertising promises he will do. He professes compassionate conservatism, but his true ideology, the record suggests, is crony capitalism."

Indeed, Dubya offers a single cure for all ills. At any bad moon on the rise, he howls for a huge tax cut for rich campaign contributors.

German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that we become that which we despise.

To anyone who criticized Bill Clinton for breaking his promise to clean up government, remember the words of the Gipper: you ain't seen nothin' yet.

When the FBI was sending up red flags about 9/11 a few months later, Dubya's dingbat attorney general, defrocked Missouri Sen. Ashcroft, told his staff he didn't want to hear another word about terrorism. He and Dubya were too busy cutting taxes for their rich friends.

The rest is history.

A LITTLE GIANT HAS FALLEN: Don Cox, 76, died in Sparks on January 2 after a long battle with cancer. He was a fair guy and groundbreaking reporter. Along with Reno Gazette-Journal sports editor Steve Sneddon, he won a Nevada/California Associated Press sportswriting contest about concussions in football — in 19-freakin'- 85!

I dealt with him on many occasions. For some reason, I never forgot the wry advice he once gave me when he called about a story, saying he hoped he hadn't interrupted anything. I said I had been watching Clarence Thomas on C-SPAN.

"You've been watching Clarence Thomas on C-SPAN? Andy, you've got to get out more," he advised in his distinctive growl which bordered on a hiss.

I've remembered Don's words many times since, especially last week as C-SPAN carried the Kevin McCarthy congressional fisticuffs and I continued my self-quarantine at home.

Yeah, I gotta get out more, Don, but being naturally anti-social, I'm in my element.

Rest in peace, brother. You done good.

MODERN MCCARTHYISM: "It got so out of control, I thought I was watching the Oscars." — Jimmy Kimmel.

SIN OF OMISSION. Don Cox is not in the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame. I will work to remedy that oversight. Years ago, successful Barbwire nominee and former Sparks Tribune writer Dennis Myers noted that nomination soon after demise works best. That's exactly what happened in recent years with Dennis and LV Review-Journal reporter Jeff German.

¡Sí se puede!

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
___________________
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 54-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

The word "hope" starts with an "F" in Nevada.

For the third session in a row, the hidebound Silver State legislature will open next month with a female majority.

I've carped that the initial installments of the history-making hat trick accomplished not much major.

This year, 13 of 21 senators and 25 of 41 in the assembly are women. One seat in the lower house remains vacant as Assemblymember Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas, resigned on Dec. 21 to fill a vacancy in the senate.

As always, partisanship will play a role. I know that some reluctantly support nutso conservative positions or risk ousting at the next election.

Nonetheless, I remain guardedly hopeful. The saving grace may come with leftover federal funds.

Like the incumbent he defeated, Gov. Joe Lombardo promised no tax hikes. He even misleadingly asserted that he had cut taxes. As Clark County sheriff?

He ran a TV spot in October wherein the voiceover announcer stated Lombardo "would" cut taxes. But the accompanying big bold graphic boasted "Lombardo cut taxes."

Visual always trumps audible on television.

I would not have opened 2023 as a guardedly hopeful cynic had I not noticed a rare accolade for Nevada in last Friday's New York Times.

A commentary by journalist Bryce Covert was headlined "How Could Congress Take Away Food From Kids?"

Well, for starters, because they could. The plague forced Congress to do unthinkable things like making sure school kids got enough to eat. A hungry student is not ready to learn.

The stigma of being a poor kid on a federal free lunch program "melted away after Congress passed legislation in early 2020 allowing the Agriculture Department to issue waivers for schools to give free meals to all students, regardless of income. Suddenly, nearly all children in America could get free breakfast and lunch, no matter their family's income," Covert wrote.

"Being on free school lunch was 'another thing for them to torment' her son with," Covert quoted a mother from Maine.

"It was a burden on her son, (forced) to hand paperwork proving his family qualified to his teacher in front of all his classmates," Covert noted.

Alas, last June "at the behest of Republican lawmakers who believed that they were no longer necessary, Congress terminated" the program. Combined with snuffing the child tax credit, child poverty, which had fallen 30 percent, predictably shot up 41 percent.

There were rays of light.

"California and Maine made universal free school meals permanent, and in November, Colorado voters passed a ballot measure doing the same."

Probably using federal funds, "Massachusetts, Vermont and (DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!) Nevada extended them for a year. When Congress is ready to listen, these states will help make the case that all children deserve free meals at school," Covert concluded.

"I can't imagine who would think it's OK to take food away from kids," said the mom from Maine.

I hope a majority of Nevada legislators and the new guv listen. Based on long experience, some perpetrators of the unimaginable will emerge this year in Carson City.

PUPPETMASTERS DEPT. Last Sunday, I rooted for the 49ers against the corporate welfare Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders. The Al Davis dynasty is accomplished at pirating public funds. The Raiders are now the number one corporate welfare addicts in Nevada, eclipsing Tesla in their new Gomorrah South Strip cathedral.

The 49ers play in the only NFL stadium not built with taxpayer money. The likes of Tesla and the pirates drain money from Nevada parks, schools, roads and first responders.

Two decades ago, the list of corporate tax breaks filled a dozen or so legal-sized pages. Recently, state government has had to publish a thick bound book categorizing the freebies.

The jocks remain pikers compared to the all time corporate welfare champs, the gambling and mining industries. The foreign-owned mineral exploiters have had a free ride since 1872.

Nevada gambling was legalized in 1931 with the understanding that the business would be taxed according to the needs of a state impoverished when the mining boom went bust.

By the 1950s, that deal was broken. Angry parents, incensed by underfunded overcrowded schools with the post-war Baby Boom in full swing, circulated a ballot initiative enacting a two percent sales tax for education.

The low-income punishing sales tax, now pushing 10 percent in many places, has been exploited to become the biggest funder of state government. Meanwhile, the state's largest most profitable casinos enjoy the lowest gross tax in the world. And it's all deductible from corporate federal income tax. (Only a few California tribal casinos pay lower state taxes and some are now investing in Nevada properties.)

Worldwide, gambling is taxed much higher, some at 50 percent or more. The Silver State gross gambling tax has not been raised since 2003 and Sen. Joe Neal is dead.

Alas and alack, Nevada remains a small company town sprawled over a huge geography. Which is why nothing major will pass this year's legislature.

But hope springs eternal.

ZOMBIES R US. Last week, some MAGA moonhowler gave a twisted retrospective on conservative success, pointing to trickle-down Reaganomics of the 1980s.

Remember Ronald the Vague's made-for-TV line "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"?

The late Soviet president allowed it and in came University of Chicago-trained economists who convinced Mikhail Gorbachev to take the Russian economy cold turkey into free market capitalism. The result was instant depression as state-owned industries hemorrhaged jobs.

An out-of-work KGB spy named Vladimir Putin took advantage, weaseling his way to the top of the regime of Gorbachev's corrupt and drunken successor, Boris Yeltsin.
The rest, as wise wags say, is history.

So if you want to place blame for the rise of Czar Vlad, blame Reaganomics. Which never worked in the first place.

Nonetheless, moonhowlers are still selling the idea that you can have your cake and eat it, too. Just cut taxes for the corporately wealthy and the world will become heaven on earth.

But don't feed school kids in the process.

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$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later
How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

	Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?
From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.	The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)	The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem "The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24 By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

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Copyright © 1982-2023 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is the executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and a longtime member 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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