NEWS THAT AIN'T NEWS. YET. Here's a roundup of big stuff that will break after I send this to the Trib on Monday, past deadline as always. (Sorry, boss, as always.)

PIZEN SWITCH SWATTED. If there was ever any doubt that Terri Keyser-Cooper has long been and remains the best civil rights lawyer in Nevada, last Thursday's shutout at the Reno federal courthouse sealed the deal.

Granting a preliminary injunction, U.S. Dist. Judge Larry Hicks ruled on all counts in favor of Keyser-Cooper's clients, an African-American family from Yerington which has been subjected to brutal, overt racism and death threats. I broke the story more than a month ahead of all other media. (Barbwire 10-18-2017 and followups)

Jayla Tolliver, one of the victims, was suspended from Yerington High School. That has been "expunged" with a court order to back it up. However, as I noted last week ("Marked for life for making a phone call"), once something's on the Internet, it's there forever.

I got a voicemail from the ACLU after the April 4 Barbwire in response to my questions about the "expunged" suspension of McQueen High School teen Noah Christiansen. He was busted by Congresscritter Mark Amodei, R-Nev., for using a dirty word often employed by Mr. Amodei. Mr. Christiansen uttered the unspeakable in a phone call demanding that Amodei move on gun control.

The ACLU apparently wants to talk student confidentiality issues. I don't. I want to know how Noah and Jayla can escape the scarlet letters which are permanent anchors dragging down their futures.

Taylissa Marriott, left, and Jayla Tolliver

Jan 4, 2018 Federal Court Complaint Jan. 4, 2018 Request for Preliminary Injunction Both .pdf files

Judge Hicks also lifted the no-trespassing order against Jayla's father who dared to raise his voice to the Yerington High principal when the principal refused to acknowledge complaints of racial harassment. Keyser-Cooper also won retention of a diversity panel to perform a study on YHS and its racial — ahem — "climate." (Is a forest fire a climate?)

Literal smoking gun photos — with knives and guns — featuring a Lyon County deputy sheriff's kid displaying worship of "the redneck god of all gods we bout to go nigger huntin" at Yerington HS, will be linked to the greatly expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/

A Yerington cop defended the "nigger huntin" photos as First Amendment-protected free speech. In more enlightened legal circles, that's called assault. Yerington Police Chief Darren Wagner illegally ordered the police reports shredded. [UPDATE: The two girls were almost run down by a truck in a Yerington restaurant parking lot.]

Judge Hicks also ordered a full year of weekly therapy sessions for Jayla and her sister, Taylissa Marriott, to be paid for by the Lyon County School District. Keyser-Cooper and her associates will also have access to the discipline records of their 23 student harassers. Sworn depositions of the dirty double dozen will be taken later this week.

To a now-retired longtime rural Nevada teacher, this came as no surprise.

"I blame the parents who made their kids that way," said the voice of experience.
 
Lyon County's Democratic mayor reportedly said that's just how people are out here.

That mindset is chillingly familiar to a quote included in a recent letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions from a mixed-race Douglas County couple. They assert that the Douglas DA told them that "it's no big deal, the word nigger is used frequently."

GUBERNATORIAL LEGERDEMAIN. The Reno-Sparks NAACP filed a complaint with Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt about the Yerington police chief illegally ordering the complaints of the oppressed family shredded. The AG's report is not only very late but the Barbwire has been informed that one of the investigators Laxalt dispatched is a former Yerington cop. Bad form.

It will be interesting to see how long Laxalt takes to respond to a letter I got at deadline replete with allegations against Tesla County Sheriff Gerald Cook-Antinoro. Many of the items therein have been published on the Barbwire starting in 2014.

Given the lateness of the Yerington response, it appears Mr. Laxalt prefers doing the smart thing politically: delay past election day.

ACROSS-THE-BOARD VICTORY: Yerington racism case settled (6-25-2018) — The school district and City of Yerington settled on all counts along the lines of the preliminary injunction. Attorney General Laxalt has still not responded to the charges filed by the Reno-Sparks NAACP against the Yerington Police Dept. for illegally shredding complaint documents. Stay tuned.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN. My old boss Bob Brown, now a member of the Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Fame, once editorialized that it's time to disband the US Air Force Thunderbirds. He wrote that as editor/publisher of The Valley Times in Gomorrah South just after the entire team had flown into the ground while practicing near Nellis AFB in 1982. Last week, we only lost one plus a humongously expensive aeroplane.

A couple of years back, a story broke that the Taiwanese military was having trouble meeting its recruiting goals because Formosan politicians don't glorify the military. We've since seen revelations that millions in taxpayer money has been paid to fat pro sports operators for flag-waving demonstrations at games. They serve the same function as the Thunderbirds: propaganda supporting enrichment of the military-industrial complex.

How out-of-control is our empire? Read Dennis Myers' latest tour de force "Bloat," the cover story in the January 11 Reno News & Review. And remember, last week came the news that within a decade or so, our ever-expanding national debt will be bigger than the annual value of the entire U.S. economy. Social Security and Medicare are thus endangered species.

So what the heck? Let's have a military parade in Washington with a flyover by the Thunderbirds who survived last week's fatality.

We're number one!

QUOTE OF THE CENTURY: "Facebook is a surveillance machine." — University of North Carolina Prof. Zeynep Tufekci.

Web Extras —> IMPORTANT DATES: April TBA: Washoe County sheriff candidates forum sponsored by the Reno-Sparks NAACP, ACTIONN and other community organizations. Watch this space.

ANTE INTO THE GAME: Support the new season of Barbwire.TV by putting your money where my mouth is.

Metastatical Statisticals Trump FCC chair investigated for Sinclair ties TheVerge.com / 2-15-2018 Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary and “classic propaganda” could soon reach 3/4 of the US. By Andy Kroll/Mother Jones Oct.-Nov. 2017 How Sinclair Broadcasting puts a partisan tilt on trusted local news By William Brangham/ PBS NewsHour 10-10-2017 Top-down Democrats haven't learned By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-10-2017 More Faux than Fox? Corporate octopus Sinclair moves to dominate Nevada and U.S. television By Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review 8-3-2017

  A thousand thanks to those who 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.

 

END OF TIMES SURVIVAL KIT. Defend yourself with humorous or humorless but always-peerless pontification by subscribing to the Barbwire Confidential News Service. Scandalous bonuses for new subscribers.

Hush Hush!

 

 

"Media is the plural of mediocre." — Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

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. I suggest coming aboard now. Subscription prices go up soon. Thank you kindly for your support.

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

 

Andrew Barbano is a 49-year Nevadan, executive 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 BallotBoxing.US and SenJoeNeal.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 and received its 8th Nevada Press Association award and 5th first-place at the 30 Sept. 2017 NPA annual convention in Carson City. (That trophy and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.)

 

Peruse the Underbelly of the News —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

All the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)