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

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Breaking Bad Part Deux: Ira blames the Tribune
Barbwire by Barbano / Submitted for publication 11-21-2014 / Expanded from the 11-25-2014 Sparks Tribune
On 11-24-1874, barbed wire was patented. Stick with the barb.
Nevada Lawmaker Ira Hansen Is Forced From Leadership Post Over Remarks on Minorities
By KIMBERLEY McGEE and ADAM NAGOURNEY / The New York Times / 11-24-2014
BREAKING BAD 11-23-2014—>Hansen resigns as Nevada State Assembly Speaker

"Yes, get him out!!! How did he ever get elected!!"

BREAKING BAD Walter White and some other white guy

Who's,,, ...Who?

So asked a reader after last week's Barbwire (Follytix '15: From Topless Campaign to Breaking Bad / Nov. 18) which started the offensive against the offensive Ira Hansen.

On Nov. 15, the Nevada Assembly Republican Caucus elected former Tribune columnist Hansen, R-Sparks, as 2015 lower house speaker.

Last Tuesday, I published my Ira files which paled by comparison to Tribune alumnus Dennis Myers' magnum opus in Thursday's Reno News & Review.

Dennis suffered through 13 years of Ira columns on microfiche and probably had to burn his clothes afterward.

Prof. Jake Highton has called him the best reporter in Nevada.

With all due respect to KOLO's Ed Pearce and the Las Vegas Sun's Cy Ryan, I agree.

After I uploaded an NAACP press release on Nov. 20 calling for the GOP to elect someone else, the issue went viral: New York Magazine, Washington Post, Huffington Post, MSNBC. From the Maui News to The New York Times. Google at will.

Longtime Tribunites know Ira hates queers, blacks, browns, Jews, women and apparently the little animals he leaves bleeding in his gruesome traps for days.

Last week, I compared him to Walter White, actor Bryan Cranston's award-winning Breaking Bad TV series character who goes from average guy to gruesome ogre. They even look alike.

Ira was born into a Sparks family the patriarch of which was notoriously bigoted. I used to call them The Addams Family in my talk radio days when I took dark pleasure in whipping Lush Rambo in the ratings every morning. As Rogers & Hammerstein wrote "You've got to be taught to hate and fear."

The Hansens got involved with the American Independent Party when segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace ran for president in 1968.

Renamed the "Independent American Party," IAP has prospered, often because naive voters desiring non-partisan status say "I want to register independent."

Ira, Janine and their ilk are very bright people who have run for office many times. As a Democrat (I'm not making this up) in the 1980 primary election, Janine Hansen led longtime Assemblyman Don Mello, D-Sparks, until I stepped in at the last minute. She lost by a cat's whisker.

In issuing non-apologetic apologies for past sins, Ira blamed the Tribune for his damning words, saying he was encouraged to go so low. If he can't plead that the devil made him do it, he's apparently saying the paper made him do it.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant and this newspaper let Ira get sunburned.

He was elected in 2010 to a gerrymandered-safe Republican district sprawling east from Spanish Springs to Battle Mountain. Nobody paid much attention since he lurked in a backwater.

Now, he's in the sun as an international embarrassment and Nevada stands to get torched.

Ira should step down.

If he remains speaker and some of his questionable committee chair appointments remain, the new GOP assembly and senate majorities go into 2015 crippled.

Everything will be second-guessed in light of the retrogressive prejudice some have so proudly displayed. Coalitions between more reasonable Republicans and Democrats may be possible despite Ira's attitude of destroying the village in order to save it.

Fasten your seatbelts. We're in for a bumpy ride.

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

ONLINE EXTRAS...

Barbano statement to the Associated Press 11-21-2014

The NAACP would certainly be happy to sit down with Speaker Hansen anytime. I publicly asked him for a meeting in 1996 and I'm still waiting.
(Mississippi West trouble, right here in River City / Barbwire by Barbano 2-25-1996)

I did not hear from him then as I have not heard from him now. Same for Reno-Sparks NAACP President Jeff Blanck or anyone else, as far as I know.

If he can't plead that the devil made him do it, he's apparently saying the paper made him do it.

His non-apologetic apology betrays a "never-give-a-inch" mindset. I don't know about him, but I have never been instructed by any Tribune editor in 26+ years to act like Ira.

As I noted when I launched this offensive against the offender last Tuesday, the Tribune has distinguished itself since 1988 by offering the most diverse set of columniators:

Take a mugshot of incoming Nevada Assembly Speaker Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, place it next to actor Brian Cranston in character from the monster series "Breaking Bad" and you'll have a hard time telling them apart. A perfect "separated at birth" juxtaposition. In his highly honored role, Cranston played Walter White, a mild-mannered New Mexico high school chemistry teacher desperate for money whose life was falling apart. He got into the lucrative business of drug production and became a ruthless overlord. Critics have rated the series a cut above "The Sopranos" as greatest of all time. ("All in the Family" retains my vote.)

Former Tribune columnist Ira isn't as toxic as his fictional relative, but he's been working on it.

Ira is a good writer and very bright man. I liked being on the same Sunday editorial page with him, Jake Highton and the late great Travus T. Hipp. Hard right, hard left and maverick, they made me look flat-out reasonable.

Alas and alack, Ira is an overt bigot, racist and homophobe who also tortures little animals for days in his animal traps. These are not exaggerations. The Barbwire never forgets and I've got the evidence in Ira's own words which I will be publishing as the legislative session approaches.

Can achieving high office and political power change the leopard's spots? I hope so and I'm willing to talk. But those close to Ira say he remains the very definition of conservatism, opposed to any change, including in himself.

Pray for salvation and stay tuned.

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Gov. Veto El Obtúsè, R, have done the predictable thing but unfortunately neither has called for Ira to step down. Looks like a "hope it blows over quickly" version of Ronald Reagan's fabled 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."

This isn't going away. We will see to that.

Perhaps their soft treatment is a good thing. If Ira remains speaker and some of his questionable committee chair appointments stay in place, the new GOP legislative majorities go into the session crippled. Everything they do will be second-guessed in the light of the retrogressive prejudice some have so openly and proudly displayed. In that context, coalitions between more reasonable GOP elements and Democrats are possible despite Ira's attitude of destroying the village in order to save it.

Mr. Slavery Jim Wheeler, another misunderstood soul consistently quoted "out of context" (the context of the 17th Century, perhaps?) has said "they can't go after our policies so they go after us personally and there is no room for that."

There is apparently plenty of room for Ira and Jim in the new retro GOP.

Ira announced his legislative priorities in Cy Ryan's Nov. 15 piece: "school choice, health care and collective bargaining."

Looks like a major threat to three major institutions to me, and that's both personal and policy, Jim.

I hope you will do all you can to get the Republican Party to repudiate this bigoted legislator. He is a disgrace to Nevada and a disgrace to democracy. The onus here needs to be placed on the Republican Party. Are they going to continue to harbor this man and treat him as a responsible human being or expose him as the scoundrel he really is? Can he continue in this position of responsibility or should he be made to step down? Make them choose! — Julian Bond, NAACP Chairman Emeritus, 11-20-2014

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) 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)

[UPDATE: THE NEVADA FIRE MARSHALL'S INVESTIGATION concluded "don't worry, be happy." I'm still worried and will continue fondling NVE's precious equipment.]

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 already responded and keep sending show suggestions.

  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 46-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 JoeNeal.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... Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential Follytix '15: From Topless Campaign to Breaking Bad Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-28 and 11-18-2014 Sparks Tribune BREAKING BAD 11-23-2014—>Hansen resigns as Nevada State Assembly Speaker Voting, gloating, loathing and scapegoating Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 11-11-2014 Sparks Tribune If you voted early, this will make you regret it Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 11-4-2014 Sparks Tribune Virginia City's next scary sexy Hollywood movie Virginia City 911: Sexy Sheriffing in Old ConforteLand Barbwire by Barbano / Special Nevada Day Edition 10-31-2014, Updated 11-1 and 11-3-2014 Follytix '14: Year of the Topless Campaign Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-28-2014 Sparks Tribune, Updated 10-31-2014 Words from God on Nevada ballots and Ebola Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-21-2014 Sparks Tribune Happy 150th Birthday, Ms. Nevada Nevada Day Required Reading The Lady in the Red Dress The Barbwire's classic Nevada Day column written in 1983 The compleat history of the Silver State in 500 words SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Sparks Tribune 10-31-2013 and previously The Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on display in Reno thru Nov. 2 GAO Study: Voter ID laws cut turnout by blacks, young By Alan Fram / Associated Press 10-8-2014 Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Cheap thrills: Sex banned in Gomorrah South Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-14-2014 Sparks Tribune / Updated 10-15-2014 True confessions from the back of the bus Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-7-2014 Sparks Tribune We don't need no education: Leaks R Us Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-30-2014 Sparks Tribune Taxpayers taken for Teslacide demo ride Heavy demands for services & infrastructure but no money for them: Los Angeles Times debunks booster claims Can megaresorts scam Tesla-style freebies? Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-23-2014 Sparks Tribune St. Elon, Lord Pedro and Gov. Veto El Obtúsè Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-16-2014 Sparks Tribune 9-23 CRYSTAL BALL UPDATE: The above column accurately predicted Martinez's departure one week in advance Tinkle-down economics: testing Tesla's testes Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-9-2014 Sparks Tribune Labor Day 2014: Red, white and screwed Silver State Lining: Nevada union membership 10th-highest in the nation Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune / 8-28-2014 Union decline and rising inequality in two charts by Colin Gordon Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012 Labor Day: State of the Unions By Mark Robison / Reno Gazette-Journal / Sunday 9-1-2013 The above graph was used in journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES The Barbwire Labor Day column Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012 ...and more ammo... The hardest and fairest questions yet asked of proponents of the teachers gross profits tax initiative Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 7-10-2014 We Don't Need No Education The continuing Barbwire series Barbwire: Nevada not really a state No, we were not Battle Born in Kenya Top 10 reasons Nevada lives in the 19th Century Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 10-17-2013 Sparks Tribune Low-income penalty: Nevada socks it to the working poor BARBANO: Nevada is one big company town Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 State of Health National health care comes up against a very sick state. WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 10-10-2013 ...and more ammo yet IMF Head Says Inequality Threatens Democracy. Here Are 7 Charts Proving She’s Right. By Erika Eichelberger / Mother Jones/BillMoyers.com 5-30-2014 “The behavior of the financial sector has not changed fundamentally…since the crisis. The industry still prizes short-term profit.” The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune The Post-dated Recession By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011 Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest 2013-14: BARBWIRE SCORES SIXTH NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION AWARD 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 2012: WE WON —> BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION GOMORRAH SOUTH CONFAB—> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO NPA HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT Support legendary photographer Don Dondero next 2010 GOLD HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row. The winning entries Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune RED flags flying low over Sparks Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune The wrath of self-righteous racism Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune Government contacts Nev. congressional delegation Nevada Legislature State of Nevada Secretary of State Carson City Clark County City of Las Vegas Douglas County Reno City Council Sparks City Council Washoe County Commission Washoe Registrar of Voters The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?   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 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 The life and times of Travus T. Hipp The best who ever was   Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

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Copyright © 1982-2014 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 46-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 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.

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