Barbwire by Barbano: Electing Judas Iscariot

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WHEN PLUCKY PINK PREVAILED. The last basically wall-to-wall union win in northern Nevada history happened 30 years ago this year at the downtown Reno Flamingo Hilton (now the Montage condos at W. 2nd and Sierra).

Culinary Union Local 86 was a shadow of its former self after fighting and winning an exhausting and expensive 20-year legal battle with a John Ascuaga-led regional consortium of union-busting hotels and restaurants starting in 1972.

By 1994, most of those businesses no longer existed. Ascuaga's Sparks Nugget was one of the few survivors.

Ascuaga tried to keep quiet that he long had a union contract with the Carpenters Union for his in-house staff.

Ironically, it was the carpenters that jumped into the breach when hotel-casino workers started calling unions. After a hard-fought campaign, we won. I was honored to have performed media and communications services.

Hilton pulled an Ascuaga and fought signing a contract with all of its corporate money and power. Then, they pulled a Wal-Mart and closed the hotel, in part, I'm sure, to avoid a ground-breaking and ego-eroding union contract.

Hilton had also acquired what is today the Grand Sierra, so downtown didn't much matter to them at that point.

Alas, loves labours lost.

ADIOS, BRO. My only sibling, my younger brother Larry, died a year ago next week. A memorial with friends and family happens in the Bay Area next weekend. My traveling days are over. Anyone in these parts who knew him may contact me for details.

Requiescas in pace aeternam, frater mei.

WHERE WOKE GOES TO DIE. The legendary Barbwire investigative reporting team has, as usual, spared every expense spiking a story from Florida.

We found absolutely no truth to the rumor that Gov. Ron DeSatanist has ordered the printing of an emergency supplement to all public school textbooks blaming woke Democrats as very probably to blame for Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Maybe this got started when madcap Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Green, D-Georgia, actually said this week that Democrats control the weather. Again with those Jewish death lasers from Mars perhaps, Congresswoman?

Get the latest booster jabs, stay safe and continue to pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡Sí se puede

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)
_________________________

Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 55-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US, ConsumerCoalitionv.org, ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MIssissippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since August 12, 1988.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

[1] Redistricting in the 1971 Session of the Nevada Legislature was characterized by greater acceptance of population-based apportionment and the establishment of single-member districts in the Assembly. The primary advocate of single-member districts was Frank Young — a three-term Republican Assemblyman from Clark County — who is credited with accomplishing this change through careful preparation, energetic campaigning among his colleagues, and parliamentary skill.

The Senate resisted this change and retained multiple-member districts largely because that system protected incumbents in both Las Vegas and Reno who lived in close proximity to each other. Incumbent protection was another major characteristic of the 1971 redistricting effort. Under the new single-member district system in the Assembly, this factor resulted in some odd boundaries that were more reminiscent of the more traditional partisan gerrymander.

(Political History of Nevada, 12th Edition, 2006; issued by Barbara K. Cegavske, R, Nevada Secretary of State; published jointly with the Research Division of the State of Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau; pages 401-402) [Emphases added.]

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

The Barbwire never forgets
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-2-2024 / Updated 10-3-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

There languorously lounged I last Sunday, snuggling with the gray lady I've long lived with (aka The New York Times), marginally interested in the only early football game on my television sets.

My pallid interest had been slightly piqued by former 49er backup quarterback Sam Darnold who had taken the Minnesota Vikings to a 3-0 season start. The Norsemen were playing their neighbors in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Not even a Red State vs. Blue State battle to spice things up.

The latter day Purple People Eaters from Jesse Ventura Land led 28-0 at halftime.

I went hunting for more coffee, did a little reading and the next time I glanced at the screen, the third quarter was over and the score was 28-22 Vikes.

Yikes! I missed an inspired comeback.

The Minnesotans managed what would become their only score in the second half, a field goal, to make it 31-22 by the two-minute warning.

I stopped vegging out.

The Packers had the ball at their own 30-yard line with an eternity to play, in football time.

I had been bothered by a pesky blue billboard that kept appearing at the top of the screen about a less than two-minute warning.

Due to "contractual obligations," CBS would be cutting to the start of the Cleveland Browns-Raiders game in Gomorrah South.

And they did — after three minutes of local commercials. When they got to RaiderLand, teams were warming up.

I write this as apparently the only person in the United States of Google who remembers the infamous Heidi Game.

It was Sunday, November 17, 1968. My bro was in Vietnam, my mom was fixing an Italian dinner, my dad and I were watching the Oakland Raiders (them again!) play Joe Namath's New York Jets.

Promptly at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, NBC announced they were cutting off the end of the game to go to the network premiere of "Heidi."

I've been yodeling ever since.

Oakland, behind 32-29 with 65 seconds left, scored two touchdowns in NINE — count 'em —> 9 freakin' seconds — to beat the Jets 43-32.

And the nation missed it for the cute little Swiss Miss with the pigtails.

Switchboards at NBC New York and stations across the country had jammed phone lines. The Times ran the story on the front page. Remember, back then there were three TV networks and no cable.

The NFL promptly instituted the Heidi Rule that would forevermore be written into broadcast contracts that games would be run in their entirety.

But maybe only in teams' home markets, according to the Sporting News. Ooops. Fresno in 1968 was a Raiders home market. Reno 2024 apparently doesn't count for much.

Perhaps that explains last Sunday's CBS "contractual" dilemma.

Us peons in Nevada, a backwater with a debilitated school system caused in large part by endemic and epidemic corporate welfare, suffered the additional indignity of a Heidi Rule breach.

At the hands of Nevada's NFL corporate welfare queen, no less.

Apparently, nobody bitched to Channel 2 except me. (Websearch at will.) I'm awaiting a response from CBS.

As to the Raiders, who cares? I don't watch their games.

They are subsidized with billions in Nevada taxes and I don't like having salt poured into open wounds.

Meanwhile, little Silver State school kids have trouble getting enough to eat.

UPDATE: A SEARCH OF NFL.COM FOR "HEIDI RULE" PRODUCED ZERO RETURNS. GO FIGGER.

¡VIVA! ¡PRIMERA PRESIDENTA! What does it say about the self-anointed land of the free and home of the brave that Mexico got a woman president before us?

Claudia Sheinbaum took office in Mexico City this week.

Countries worldwide have had female elected leaders for decades. Remember Boudicca, legendary warrior queen of the British Isles 2,000 years ago?

It took another two millennia for the Brits to elect one, but they remain way ahead of us.

Latin nations, from Italy (Giorgia Meloni) and throughout South America, are replete with female leaders. Throw in Israel (Golda Meir), Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto), India (Indira Gandhi), Myanmar (AKA Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi) and the UK (Margaret Thatcher), and this land of liberty and justice for whites pales by comparison.

In 1980, the year of Reagan, Iceland's Vigdis Finnbogadottir became the first democratically-elected president (as opposed to election by a parliamentary majority) of any nation.

She was followed by The Philippines' Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In 2018, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern became the second elected head of state in a century (after Bhutto) to give birth while in office.

Alas and alack, Tsar T-Rump is correct, Kamala Harris is handicapped. Female and non-alabaster.

Take heart. She's going to win while approaching landslide (60 percent) territory.

As a prelude to gunfire, the Moonhowlers are filing a plague of lawsuits in swing states, include here, to enhance their phony claims about the integrity of the process.

The filings share a common trait: Lack of evidence that the system is rigged.

Should the Orange Crusher win, God help us all, King Donaldov the First will nonetheless protest that he has been robbed of millions of votes, poor sweet baby.

Either way, there will be blood.

Polls are snapshots, frames in a long movie. Us old campaign junkies know to watch trends.

The arc of justice is bending toward the Harris-Walz ticket.

I place complete faith where hope always resides: With the women of America.

Keep on truckin'.

ST. VINCENT'S NEW SONG "FLEA" is an impressive piece of poetry even without music. I'm hard to impress. I was impressed by her performance a few days ago.

Get the latest booster jabs, stay safe and continue to pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡Sí se puede

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Seethe along with me
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-25-20
Updated 9-26 & 9-30-2024 / Expansions in blue

I waxed whimsical after watching last Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes."

It was a symphony of disappointing déjà vu all over again. Intrepid reporter Leslie Stahl interviewed Lina Kahn, the young legal prodigy now heading the Federal Trade Commission.

Apparently, she has even earned a bit of praise from the likes of Sen. JD Vance (R-Haiti).

Kahn is "surprisingly popular with other MAGA Republicans," Stahl noted, so much so that some have nicknamed themselves "Kahn-servatives."

All have witnessed the inexorable consolidation of corporate power to the great detriment of the nation.

To which I add "what the hell took you so long?"

Sen. Ted Kennedy crusaded against monopoly power in the 70s. Teddy Roosevelt got the Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed more than a century ago.

Alas and alack, corporations are immortal but nonetheless persons under the law.

We thus have a prescient preview of what's going to happen when Artificial Intelligence decides that us dirty, inefficient carbon-based life forms are obsolete.

Kahn is currently fighting the merger of grocery giants Albertsons-Safeway with Kroger-Smiths. Between them, they own dozens of retailers.

"The FTC's mission is breaking illegal monopolies, blocking mergers that stifle competition, and protecting consumers from a system Lina Khan says is rigged against them. But she's so aggressive that she's feared and loathed in boardrooms — seen as a zealot and a bully," Stahl noted.

My kinda gal.

"Too often, fewer and fewer companies are controlling more and more of the market. And what that means is companies can start ripping you off, hiking prices, stealing from you," Kahn said Sunday.

What else is new? I have been screaming about corporate CONcentration ever since world class economist David S. Schwartz educated me c. 1980.

Witness the Barbwire Oilogopoly Archives and others at NevadaLabor.com consumer war rooms.

Dr. Schwartz told me of a colleague who researched how far down the Fortune 500 one needed to go to find how many biggies controlled 50 percent of corporate assets.

Half a century ago, it was about 250. I did my own calculation in an early Barbwire c. 1989, finding that the number had shrunk to about 128.

Today, Wall Street behemoths "BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street...hold the largest shareholder positions in 40 percent of all listed U.S. corporations and 88% of S&P 500 firms," according to techstartups.com/

In 2021, President Biden said "We are now 40 years into the experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power, and what have we gotten from it? Less growth, weakened investment, fewer small businesses."

Which goes a long to explain the anger T-Rump seized upon to make himself a demigod. Who will fire Kahn if he wins in November.

"In the technology markets, we went through a couple of decades where we saw over 800 acquisitions by the five big players, not a single one of which was blocked. And some of those, we realize, ended up leading to significant harm," Kahn stated.

American consumers — homeowners and renters, moms and dads — are understandably possessed of righteous rage.

Now is the time to rise up and do something about it. Half a century of Reaganomics is enough.

SEAN CONNERY, CALL YOUR OFFICE. I've received rave reviews about the Rachel Maddow-produced documentary "From Russia with Lev." Lev Parnas, a convicted T-Rump crony, went to prison on six counts related to illegal campaign donations to the Orange Crusher's failed 2020 re-election.

T-Rump sent the small-time New York hustler to Ukraine to gather dirt on Hunter Biden.

What? Take the word of a convicted criminal? I am shocked, shocked that you think me so thick that I would attribute any credibility to someone found guilty of felonies in a U.S. court of law. Stream anytime at msnbc.com/

HITTING THE BRICKS. Nevada unions are sponsoring a Harris-Walz statewide super walk this Saturday, Sept. 28.

Locally, show up at the Reno HQ of Operating Engineers Local 3 (the union of many Sparks city employees), 1290 Corporate Blvd. Training and launch at 9:00 a.m., debrief and lunch at noon. Sign up by contacting my old friend Liz Sorenson <president@nvaflcio.org>

Send me any interesting tidbits you hear from voters.

A MATTER OF DEGREES. Graduate student assistants have long been abused by colleges nationwide, forced to provide free labor substituting for professors often too busy writing books or applying for fat research grants. Many assistants teach entire undergraduate semesters while the professor supposedly professing is actually living large without showing up.

At 10:00 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 30, in front of the UNR Library, graduate "teaching assistants" will rally for unionization under the auspices of the United Auto Workers.

What, you thought the UNR Library had been nuked in favor of fancier digs? Sorta. The new build is called a "knowledge center."

I know what a library is but WTF is the "Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center"? My longtime Tribune colleague in columny, journalism Prof. Jake Highton, was killer about unclear English.

My nomination of Jake (1931-2017) to the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame was successful this year.

Were he still in this form, I imagine Jake would be out there with the students.

POSTAL WORKERS DEMONSTRATE OCTOBER 1. This coming Tuesday, postal workers picket will demonstrate from 4:00-6:00p.m. in front of the Reno Main post office on Vassar Street between Kietzke Lane and Terminal Way. Info: Cory Myers <coryapwureno@outlook.com>

SOLIDARITY FOREVER. Nevada Teamsters, among many locals nationwide, have endorsed Kamala Harris for president despite their international union's fence sitting. Can't blame them too much.

Teamsters International President Sean O'Brien said he could not obtain satisfactory answers from either T-Rump or VP Harris.

The most critically needed labor law reform, card check union recognition, has long languished after being promised as a priority by Clinton, Obama and Biden.

U.S. labor laws are the most repressive among modern nations. Private sector unionization has understandably shrunk from about one in three workers after WW2 to less than one in eight (about 6 percent) today.

Another reason your groceries and gasoline cost so much.

Get the latest booster jabs, stay safe and continue to pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.

¡Sí se puede

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

The Used Car Presidential Campaign
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-18-2024 / Expansions in blue

Countless forests have been mulched and endless gigawatts of electricity frittered by the legions attempting to explain the unshakeable affection of MAGA moonhowlers for their godhead.

My dear precious snowflakes, the answer is so simple that I am surprised that the well-paid talking heads of the fake news media have not discovered it.

Perhaps that's because few of them have had to stoop to the level of buying a used car.

A major auto dealership was one of my first advertising accounts when I moved to these parts from Gomorrah South in 1971.

One lazy afternoon, I got to talking sales psychology with some of their hotshot salesmen.

I asked about how much markup constituted the rock-bottom price that sales managers would accept. After all, if we were advertising low, low prices, should it not be backed up in actuality?

And then the awful truth: Not only "no," but "HELL NO!"

A red-haired young salesman informed me that "the people we bury the worst are the ones who brag the most about the great deals they got and send their friends to us."

Grinders, people for whom there is no low-enough price, are never satisfied. Exploited marks love the car, the deal, the salesperson and the dealership.

It's a four-wheeled version of co-dependency: "If I leave my true love who beats me and takes my money, he wouldn't have anyone to slap around."

Couple co-dependent MAGA victims with those who suffer buyer's remorse (and refuse to admit they got screwed) and you've gone a long way toward explaining the bedrock of the MAGA mindset.

My late wife Betty once wrote a country song about such misplaced affection: "Hurt me, beat me, make me write bad checks."

This also explains why T-Rump's biggest detractors are allowed to beg forgiveness and then kiss their pope's...ring.

Hillbilly veep nominee JD Clampett is a perfect example: "Hurt me, JD, then tell me you love me. Now bend over."

This also rationalizes the curiously rekindled love of two House speakers and the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, among so many other former T-Rump trashers.

The people who've been "buried" the worst love the used car undertaker the most.

FUZZY THINKING, PART DEUX. After two attempts to off Donald Trump, we should remember the 1963 words of an expert after the Kennedy shooting: Popularity combined with availability are lethal.

Trump's desire for public affirmation has almost caused his undoing. Twice.

He played sitting duck on a golf course after the first nut missed.

Remember when he wanted to rip open his shirt in front of the White House to reveal a Superman logo after surviving a virulent COVID infection? (Courtesy of medication unavailable to the great unwashed.)

ADDING TO THE CACOPHONY. Why the low profile of the $10 million that the dictator of Egypt laundered into T-Rump's 2016 campaign?

His attorney general, Bill Barr, apparently quashed any inquiry just as he watered down the Mueller Report. We are just on overload, I guess.

OLD BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Barr accompanied Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch to court in Reno this week.

Lord Murdoch is in a squabble with his heirs over who gets to run the empire after the patriarch's demise.

Years ago, Murdoch stated "Americans are retarded," then proceeded to prove it with the mega-profitable Fox "News" channel.

REQUIRED VIEWING: In 2020, PBS network travel guru Rick Steves produced a half-hour special about the rise of fascism in Europe which spawned WW2.

The parallels between Hitler and T-Rump are even more glaring today.

No less that JD Vance agreed — before he bent over. Look up the show at PBS.org/

REQUIRED READING: Lessons from local labor leaders about how the Donkeyites must sell the benefits of the billions in federal infrastructure dollars now raining down on this market.

Rob Benner, executive secretary-treasurer of the Sparks-based Building & Construction Trades Council of Northern Nevada, said "This region is on fire. Everybody’s busy, everybody’s working overtime," he told the LA-based website CapitalAndMain.com/ (mirar en Español.)

"Over the past year, there was a nearly 12 percent increase in (Nevada) construction jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Leisure and hospitality employment rose 2.4 percent," according to the NYTimes this week.

AMMOTEXTUALS FLOCKING TOGETHER. The Guardian of London/UK just reported that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' soul brother, Justice Samuel Alito, has been caught taking freebies from a gorgeous wealthy furriner who has also played footsie with Justice Brett "I like beer" Kavanaugh.

So what else is new?

TWO SCRATCHEROOS. The Chamber of Commerce forum on ranked-choice voting ballot Question 3 has been canceled.

Two Reno City Council candidates were due to address the issue this Friday but both scratched.

Oh, well, voters don't need to know where they stand, right?

I'll get into detail later, but Question 3 and its evil twin, voter i.d. Question 7, may sound compelling but are in reality the latest hustles by big bucks big boys to enable minority rule by the upper classes. (See below.)

Nevada Republican operatives funded a term limits initiative years ago and it got the desired results: Experienced public officials became scarce and the public purse has been vacuumed by corporate welfare bandits.

The Nevada Legislature will never again see the likes of Sens. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, and Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

PARTING SHOTS: The fake news NYTimes just printed an analysis of Project 2025's impact if T-Rump prevails. Among the eight worst results, another huge tax cut for the MAGArich and tax hikes for all us peons.

What else is new?

Another well-funded scam, "Citizens for Affordable Responsible Energy", is running a vague TV spot warning that Democrats will turn Nevada into a high-gas price wasteland like California.

Over many years, I have developed an entire website documenting how BigOil has rigged retail gas prices for half a century.

Government hasn't stopped them because, as one of Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" characters once observed, "don't screw with the oil companies."