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Je Suis Charlie

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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

May Day for Labor Day
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 5-2-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 5-3 and 5-4-2017 GMT / Expansions in blue.

In case you didn't notice, Monday was Labor Day — everywhere but the United States.

Bowing to the wealthy, political leaders more than century ago grudgingly established a day for workers as far as possible from the rest of the world's rabble. So September it remains stateside.

The USA today has the most repressive labor laws among first-world countries. That's why Australians and Swedes live longer despite far lower health care costs. Here, every day brings a new May Day distress signal.

Nevadans are continually bombarded by glowing PR about living in a paradise of economic diversification. Valhalla, this ain't.

The City of Reno remains in default over hundreds of millions of debt incurred by copious orgies of corporate welfare. (See below.)

Former Tribune columnist Bill Hanlon hoisted Gov. Veto El Obtúsè in Sunday's Reno Gazette-Journal.

"The governor raised taxes last session supposedly for education," Hanlon stated, "but if you follow the dollars, we see it went to his 'signature' programs at the expense of the very students in need of assistance."

In other words, to his cronies, Hanlon asserted.

"The result, a ranking of dead last!" he concluded.

The 2015 $1.4 billion tax hike, passed by a Republican majority legislature (with substantial Democratic support), was actually a re-packaging of the gambling industry's 2003 gross receipts tax, reviled by conservatives. Like the 2003 proposal, it imposed new taxes everywhere but gambling.

Former Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, and LV Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Sam McMullen, with the help of bi-partisan enlightened souls, saw the 2003 shuck for what it was. Gambling industry Gov. Kenny Guinn, who proposed the tax, had no choice but signing the legislative alternative. It took until 2015 for the juice lobbyists who own Gov. Sandoval to finally deliver their gambling clients' fondest desire.

The Barbwire was the first of few to disclose that education funding remained flat despite the 2015 tax increase.

Construction at Tesla, the University of Nevada and many jobs created by Nevada corporate welfare programs pay substandard area wages. The boomtown publicity effect has expanded the population resulting in skyrocketing rents but not commensurate income for workers.

Most of the bumpy streets damaging your vehicle's suspension will only get worse because there's no money to fix them. Schools will increasingly resemble sardine cans.

So when you hear about worker demonstrations, show up. Every day is labor day here, the neverending fight for fair pay for a fair day's work.

TOLD YA DEPT. In 2014, the Barbwire warned of the questionable qualifications of Washoe County Sheriff Chuck Allen. Sometimes I hate it when I'm right. Like President Bush the Lesser with Hurricane Katrina and California Gov. Jerry Brown and the medfly, when confronted by crisis, Allen folded when his jail inmates started dying.

MINIMAL MASTO. Despite her campaign rhetoric, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto has not joined fellow Democrats supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders' bill for a $15 minimum wage. Barbwire spies were told that "as long as there is no current senate bill, Cortez-Masto would not make any statements. (We) encouraged her to support it anyway, for whatever that means. (The aide) said that she would probably be in support of it if it becomes a bill."

Or maybe when Halley's Comet returns.

OFFTRACK. Union Pacific busted Reno with train trench debt. Adding insult to injury, Senate Bill 427 now before the Nevada legislature mandates two operators for each train because UP wants to go to single-driver locomotives.

Zounds. For more, go to Railroad Workers United, then contact your Nevada legislators.

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.

SMOKING GUNS —> 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.
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
Not necessarily news
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-21-2017 Sparks Tribune
Death Panels 2.0
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-14-2017 Sparks Tribune
Positively negative
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 3-7-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 3-9 and 3-12-2017
Equal Rights Betrayal
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-28-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 3-1, 3-3 and 3-6-2017
Reidless and Rudderless?
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-21-2017 Sparks Tribune
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-14-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 2-16, 2-17 and 2-21-2017
"By the 1920s, pseudo-scientists and polemicists in the 1920s popularized the notion that Italians were a separate race from Anglo- Americans. 'There’s no doubt those ideas were still around in 1942.' "
The Gorsuch Nonesuch: Poison Annie's Revenge
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 2-7-2017 Sparks Tribune
Smoot, smut and stash
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-31-2017 Sparks Tribune
The last question
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-24-2017 Sparks Tribune
Patient Zero Plagues
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-17-2017 Sparks Tribune
Democrats in Margaritaville
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-10-2017 Sparks Tribune
Regressions, Transitions and Predictions
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 1-3-2017 Sparks Tribune