BARBWIRE by ANDREW BARBANO

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Nevada's 11 most powerful in 2011
Expanded from the 11-20-2011 Daily Sparks Tribune
Updated 11-24, 11-27-2011
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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.

— Leonard Cohen

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Who are the most powerful people in Nevada? Here are my picks to click, some of whom may be strangers to you.

About 1983, the Reno Gazette-Journal polled a lot of Nevada political junkies to compile a list of the top 25. I think they called me, but I may be wrong.

U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., led the pack. Freshman Congressman Harry Reid, D-Las Vegas, came in about sixteenth.

A couple of heavy hitters were conspicuous due to their absence: For instance, banker Jerry Mack, for whom the Thomas and Mack Center at UNLV is named (along with his colleague E. Parry Thomas, who made it). In a fit of rose-colored amnesia, Mafia fellow traveler Moe Dalitz didn't survive the cut.

I recall that my old friend and GOP operative Sig Rogich made the list, as did the late lobbyist Jim Joyce, predecessor to Harvey Whittemore (see below) as the most influential juiceman in the state.

I don't remember if I saved a copy of the list. If so, I'll post it with the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com. (UPDATE: No luck so far. Anybody got it?)

Now, drum roll please. Herewith, the rogues gallery of Nevada's most powerful as judged by me and hung on The Barbwire for all to see.

1. HARRY REID, D-Searchlight. The U.S. Senate Majority Leader is the most powerful politician since Sen. Patrick McCarran, D-Nev. Reid is doing the job the way it's supposed to be done: staying in office and perhaps expiring there, as did McCarran. Small-state senators are supposed to die with their seniority on and not before. No one since McCarran has lived up to the Irishman's standard and Reid has eclipsed his power.

2. STEVE WYNN, megalomanical Macau and Las Vegas casino overlord. He just lost a major court ruling but it remains to be seen if he stops stealing his dealers' tips. He thinks nothing of intimidating and muzzling media and has bankrupted good people who dared to remotely criticize his wonderfulness. Ruthless and repulsive. (See the story of his infamous "Show Me the Monet" art collection tax break at JoeNeal.org.) I stopped being a Clint Eastwood fan after Dirty Harry served as Wynn's best man in his most recent marriage.

3. SAM McMULLEN, lawyer-lobbyist and successor to Whittemore as the most powerful lobbyist in the state. Working for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, he stopped Gov. Kenny Guinn's 2003 tax plan which would have let the gambling industry off almost scot-free. At least the law that passed hit the gamblers, causing then-MGM-Mirage boss Terrence Lanni to drop out of the Nevada Resort Association, complaining that his outfit's taxes had been raised by $30 million a year.

He did not mention that the law also facilitated federal income tax hikes on top gambling execs like him.

Working for the tobacco industry, McMullen stymied a move to make Nevada casinos protect the health of smoke-exposed workers. The recently published book Casino Women: Courage in Unexpected Places revealed the sordid story.

Joyce, Whittemore and McMullen were/are personally nice guys and liberal Democrats. McMullen is neither ruthless nor vindictive like his predecessors. Kind of a velvet hammer.

4. INFERNARO, the two-headed dragon. Juice GOP lobbyists Greg Ferraro and Peter Ernaut (aka Snidely Whiplash when he served as chief of staff to Gov. Dudley Do-Right Guinn). These guys talked current Gov. El Bruté Obtusé Sandoval into leaving a lifetime federal judgeship to run against Gov. Jim the Dim last year.

5. JIM MURREN, CEO of MGM Resorts International, successor to the late Terry Lanni. This huge casino company, like its dark brethren, knows how to scare hell out of its workers and tell them how to vote.

6. BRIAN GREENSPUN, boss of the Greenspun family's Gomorrah South empire. The successor to his dad, Hank (a charter member of the Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Nevada Columniators Hall of Fame), Greenspun the younger refocused the Las Vegas Sun into a Pulitzer Prize winner and bought Jon Ralston away from the competitive Review-Journal for a rumored $1 million. (Good for Jon!)

7. RANDOLPH TOWNSEND, longtime Reno Republican state senator who lived in Green Valley near Henderson for most of his senate career and got away with it. Limp Democrats. After being term-limited, he was appointed to the Nevada Gaming Commission.

8. JIM ROGERS, owner of Las Vegas, Reno and Elko TV stations, which do more public interest programming than all competitors.

9. DANNY THOMPSON, head of the Nevada State AFL-CIO. He told Rogers on a recent TV interview that organized labor will circulate an initiative petition for a broad-based business tax because the legislature is impotent. Amen.

10. ROSS MILLER, namesake of his Mafioso casino-managing grandfather, son of a conservative Democratic governor and delightful mother with a wicked sense of humor. Anointed to be a governor someday soon.

11. PATRICIA MULROY, boss of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and only woman on the list. She will get more water for Clark County even if it means turning several rural counties into Death Valley.

DISHONORABLE MENTION: Tim Crowley, head of the Nevada Mining Association, who hired so many juice lobbyists that he kept Titanic tax loopholes open for his corporate welfare outfit.

LOL: The Nevada Supreme Court which allowed a lower court to take over redistricting from the legislature, which had the constitutional duty to do the job but failed.

WTF: Gov. Sandoval, who vetoed two redistricting bills pushed by Democrats and ended up with the court imposing pretty much the same thing. He is irrelevance on steroids.

OMG:. Sig Rogich, still powerful after all these years. As is his successor at R&R Advertising, Billy Vassiliadis, aka Billy Vaseline to those who know and love him.

MIA: The governor and the legislature, who are now reduced to sprinkling a dwindling bag of crumbs on a collapsing state.

I will thus support, sign and circulate Mr. Thompson's petitions.

And so should you.

ROLL YOUR OWN. Add to, subtract or detract from the above. All comments and suggestions most welcome.

U-TUBE. Check the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com for the latest statewide Barbwire.TV schedule, viewable 24/7 online.

Support the return of community radio and television in these parts. Go to ReSurge.TV to volunteer your time or treasure or both.

It's now more important than ever — > unless you think corporate-controlled media are all you need. Stay tuned for updates.

Be well. Raise hell.
______

Andrew Barbano is a 43-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. 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 Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.

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RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006 The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL Barbwire / 11-30-2008 Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry Barbwire / 8-3-2008 Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here? Barbwire / 6-15-2008 The 2008 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners The price of a piece / 6-17-2007 Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007 The Lady in the Red Dress 10-28-2007 1997 Pulitzer Prize entries ...and more ammo Fact-free nation: Inside the lie machine Mother Jones Magazine May-June 2011 / Cover story and in-depth analysis Bill Moyers: Welcome to the Plutocracy Money fights hard and it fights dirty Speech delivered at Boston University on 29 Oct. 2010 Part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive Cabellyup.com From clear-cut forests to dirty Gulfstream waters, this land belongs to old BP TOLJASO LONG TIME AGO BP/ARCO: The greasy root of our evils Barbwire / Daily Sparks Tribune 9-10-2006 The awful truth — Read it and weep, fellow suckers Labor Day 2009: Rise of the Vampire Corpobots Expanded from the 9-6-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Angry Americans and Freudian fraud Using war to market cigarettes Expanded from the 8-23-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing Barbwire 8-14-2005 Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43 Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008. NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today. Alternet 5-20-2007 Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune. Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate. Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Propaganda in the US and Australia The Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey Excerpted from the book available below ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty By Alex Carey Edited by Andrew Lohrey Foreword by Noam Chomsky University of Illinois Press      SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.      By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)      Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars. Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups. New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.       BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94 Chilling forecasts from Alex Carey       BARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97 A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchy The sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby Barbwire 9-10-2006       Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966

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Copyright © 1982-2011 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 43-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.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 premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.

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