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Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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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

Nevada consumers consumed again
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 6-6-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 6-8 and 6-14-2017 / Expansions in blue.

The infamous Koch Brothers have perverted the system of non-profit charity to accomplish something liberals have failed to implement for decades: taxpayer financing of political campaigns, albeit for their twisted royalist vision of plutocracy.

Likewise, the healthcare system fattens the few to the jeopardy of the many.

I can't blame people for losing hope. Encouraging signs are hard to find. As you are besieged by cyberbabble, remember this: automatic acrimony abrogates power to those who would arrogate all to themselves.

The rapacious Kochtopus remains the best example. The power elite know that they win when the great unwashed fight among themselves.

Don't say that's not you. If you don't make a million-plus a year before taxes (remember them?), welcome to the streets.

Back in my talk radio days when I was whipping Lush Rambo's ass (see right), I labored under the conceit that the American people had smartened up after Vietnam. God, was I wrong. It took just a few months of self-righteous propaganda for Bush the Elder to gin up support for war.

In January of 1991, just before he pulled the trigger in Kuwait, his approval rating hit a stunning 91 percent. Thinking he was doing his patriotic duty against the fellow travelers of Hanoi Jane, a twisted old man actually assaulted me at a peace rally at Plumb Lane and S. Virginia. I didn't respond to his bump-and-run.

A couple of years ago, the biased liberal media exposed the Pentagon spending millions of taxpayer dollars paying pro sports teams for flag-waving demonstrations at games. War is the easiest but by no means the only product best sold when wrapped in a flag.

Very legitimate anger seethes throughout this huge, rich country, but it's mostly misplaced. Authors write detailed exposés and make the media rounds but I wonder who's listening, let alone reading.

Today, the only words worth attention appear to be only those which fit in the postage-stamp size window of an iPhone. Those so benighted can thus disregard the rest of this column and repair to latter day Pong and Pac-Man while adults return to harsh reality.

What Jane Mayer's Dark Money is to the Kochtopus and follytix, Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal's new An American Sickness is to the health care debacle.

Dr. Rosenthal brings you inside dark machinations of greed and price fixing, some legal and some not, but who cares? It's other people's money, right?

Subtitled "how healthcare became a business and how you can take it back," the book is loaded with outrageous inside baseball about how the rich get richer by gaming the system and exploiting human misery for fun and profit.

For instance, the feds allow an American Medical Association committee to fix prices of services. The committee "is actually asking (doctors) whether or not they want to be paid more," she writes.

One former member termed it "26 sharks in a tank with nothing to eat but each other."

NevadaLabor.com is the sole source of the Washoe grand jury report on how Washoe's county hospital was stolen through political corruption in 1985, birthing the rapacious Renown conglomerate.

The most recent local scam came last month when for-profit St. Mary's sold its adjacent "health care and fitness" complex for $66 million to a real estate investment trust. The crusading news media failed to note that REITs pay no income tax.

St. Mary's will now launder your health care dollars into a tax-free corporate front.

Bucking hard for a Trump cabinet appointment, Gov. Veto El Obtúsè just killed Senate Bill 265, an attempt to dampen price gouging for insulin. What a guy.

I strongly suggest that you read all about it. The research is available cheap at locally-owned Grassroots Books.

GREAT SCOTT. Rev. William C. Webb will come out of retirement to conduct the memorial service for Nevada civil rights legend Eddie Scott. the 2015 University of Nevada Distinguished Nevadan honoree.

It's scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Friday, June 30, at Reno's Second Baptist Church, 1265 Montello Street. Arrive early.

Nevada's best journalist, former Tribunite Dennis Myers, published an outstanding and touching obituary of my friend Eddie in the current Reno News & Review.

Please read the very hopeful story of the grand accomplishments of a very humble man.

WONDER WHERE THE YELLOW WENT? Years ago, Ma Bell made the phone book almost useless without a magnifying glass. As of 2017, phone books are no longer delivered in these parts. To get business white and yellow pages, you have to call India or the Philippines. Residential numbers are no longer available except on the internet. That eliminates roughly one in four Washoe County residents without web access.

COW COUNTIES BEWARE. Nevada made international news last week in a BBC story about AT&T phasing out dependable landlines. Ma Bell got a law passed in the 2013 Nevada Legislature opening the door to dropping service altogether in many communities. (Barbwire 31 May 2016).

JUNE 6, 1944. When will they ever learn?

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

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.

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.