BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

Barbwire
Archives

Site map
SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

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

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Andrew Barbano Editor/Publisher
Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

 


   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...
Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.


I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island.
— Leon Russell, 1942-2016


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.


Greatest Hits Dept.

NPA Hall of Fame

WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame

BREAKING NEWS—>
New Barbwire Winners!

Jake Highton & Guy Louis Rocha 2024 honorees BUENO!
4 down, 4 to go

Support Don Dondero
and David Toll and
Foster Church and
Norman Cardoza next.
Send endorsements

Eee-yo-leven!
Barbwire wins 11th Nevada Press Association award

GOLD 2017-18

2018 First-Place Winners
From the depths of despair to the den of iniquity & holy of holies

"Excellent work. These are some of the most moving columns I've read."
— NPA contest judge/9-29-2018

The Grasshopper and
the Dragonfly
9-6-2017

Kicked off the Ledge
4-18-2017

NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK
Back to the Future in
Mississippi West Nevada
10-18-2017

Gold 2017
Don't ask Renown Med for marijuana to help your chemo
10-4-2016
We Don't Need No Education
Toxic turf threat ignored
12-13-2016
Kate Smith & Lady Gaga
2-14-2017

Bronze 6-pack
In the Uber-Nevada legislature, words can kill
4-28-2015
On artificial turf, don't breathe unless absolutely necessary (above)
11-24-2015
Leading questions, lead-headed leaders
1-19-2016

Hopelessly trying to win an earthquake
4-18-2013
2013 Loony Tunes Legislative Lexicon
5-30-2013
The politics of media ga-ga boosterism
3-20-2014

More statewide and national award winners

We Don't Need No Education—>
Neverending Barbwire Series

1997 Pulitzer Prize entries

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
BEATING LUSH RAMBO AT HIS OWN GAME: Highlights from radio days
mp3 file

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

Tomorrow's news today —> Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential
TOP SECRET— HushHush!

 

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."

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.

 

 

 

 

Smoking Guns—> Project 2025 under T-Rump NYTimes.com posting

Author Steven Rattner's website version

 


Ain't we a pair?
Dennis Myers & Andrew Barbano inducted into César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-10-2024

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005
 Remember her laughter

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023
To Die For
My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday. Alas, their youth was cut in twain.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024
 

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now, subscribe to BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL—>Cheap. (HushHush!) Hie thee to BallotBoxing.US/


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

For 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!)

Barbwire dark foreshadowings unfortunately have a way of becoming reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment. Thank you kindly for your support.



$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later
How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?
From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.
The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)
 The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem
"The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24
By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

Wasting workers where everybody knows your name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-18-2023

SITE NAVIGATION TIPS: When all else fails, read the instructions (A favorite John Hanks aphorism I've been using for decades)

NevadaLabor.com | U-News | Bulletins + Almanac
Casinos Out of Politics (COP) | Sen. Joe Neal
Guinn Watch | Deciding Factors | BallotBoxing.US
DoctorLawyerWatch.com | Barbwire Oilogopoly Archive
Barbwire Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames
Annual César Chávez Celebration
War Rooms: Banks, Cabbies, Cabela's/cabellyup, Cable TV, Cancer Kids/Mining, Energy, Food, Health Care, Resurge.TV/consumers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart
We Don't Need No Education
In Search Of...


Barbwire
Archives


Copyright © 1982-2024 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 55-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He was the longtime executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and has been a quarter-century member and 10-year officer of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

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

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.

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
1947-2023

Get ahead of corporate-influenced news—>Subscribe to Barbwire Confidential

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins