Barbwire by Barbano: White-wigged white guys

Last gasp of white-wigged white guys
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 9-4-2024 / Updated 9-4-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

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!

I know all the stories about the compromises our sainted Founding Fathers had to make in order to get the US Constitution ratified.

But thus were defective genes spliced into the seeds of our republic. We reap bitter fruit of that regressive DNA to this very day.

"Liberty and justice for all" remains reduced to a slogan targeted for extinction this November.

The framers were property-owning, wig-wearing white guys. The system remains biased in favor of that minority. Witness the highly unrepresentative U.S. Senate. The only real difference is that wigs have been replaced by Bosley and the Hair Club for Men.

I will concede one thing to the ascendant charlatans. They have made the flaws in our founding document as glaringly apparent as a full moon.

Emboldened MAGA moonhowlers openly conspire to exploit the chinks in democracy's armor and destroy 248 years of aspiration toward something better. (See below.)

DEJOYLESS DEPARTS. Postaxman General Louis the Clueless DeJoy gave no media interviews before leaving town last week. Ben Deach at KOLO TV-8 did get a clip of him entering the Reno Main Post Office.

Thus far, no one has reported on the text of his address to a national convention of rural letter carriers.

At least he's nuked his much reviled plan to move regional mail sorting from Reno to W. Sacramento starting in balmy January.

The Barbwire broke the story of his slithering into town but the legit media largely ignored his visit, save for Channel 8. Too busy reporting on football, I guess.

At least Tribune readers and Barbwire Confidential subscribers got the full story.

Cold comfort may come if T-Rump's governmental rap show wins in November.

DeJoyless could resign before he gets terminated, well-rewarded with a cabinet post for showing real potential in wrecking much of the postal service. And blunting mail-in voting, something his patroon detests.

MISSING MARSY. Blame T-Rump, too. Longtime Sparks senior housing advocate Marsy Kupfersmith will not appear on the November ballot against appointed Washoe County Commissioner Clara Andriola. She thus gets a free ride to a four-year term.

Mrs. Kupfersmith and her nominating petition circulators encountered so much fear among voters that they found getting people to sign a difficult and sometimes insurmountable task.

The poison which the Orange Crusher injected into the electorate has now fully seeped down to the grass roots.

Non-partisan Marsy needed 100 signatures to make the ballot. She submitted 124. Alas, many were disqualified, some for valid reasons like residing outside Commission District 4, which covers part of Hidden Valley through eastern Sparks to the north valleys.

Some disqualifications were borderline non-sensical. In one case, a well known Sparks woman was zapped for not being registered to vote.

Which she has been for decades.

Ms. Andriola cast the deciding vote to scuttle certification of the primary election, sending a commission chamber filled with MAGA moonhowlers into ecstasy.

That was a dress rehearsal for what the Trumpistas are planning nationwide.

They want to replay the 1824 election of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives. T-Rump's favorite president, law-breaking slave owner Andrew Jackson scored more electoral votes than his competitors with Adams second.

None had a majority, kicking the can to the House which made the Adams Family the first father-son presidential dynasty.

Before and after President Biden's meltdown on national TV, I consistently projected that this November will produce a presidential Democrat.

Most American women simply know what T-Rump is.

The House is a tossup right now. Amazingly, the key races for the Donkeyites are in California and New York.

Anybody who watches follytix knows that T-Rump will accept nothing short of coronation as king, so violence is on the menu for November.

The plans are public record, as is the blueprint for the Second Coming of the T-Rump Reich aka Project 2025.

How deep goes the infection? MAGA cultists in tiny Esmeralda County tried to recall their 20-year county clerk because they believe their guru about 2020.

T-Rump carried Goldfield and environs with 82 percent.

But true believers insist it had to be more down there in the burning bush leagues. (Barbwire June 12 and July 31)

DONNIE AND THE GRABEES is not a new rock band. Last week in DC, His Wonderfulness spoke before the Joyful Warriors Summit, a convention of an outfit called Moms for Liberty.

All you need to know about them is that they agree with every boogeyman the Internet can spawn to "prove" children are in danger.

Alas and alack, they are blind to the threat to women and their kids from MAGAworld. One thing was more apparent than their spoonfed follytix: The chirpy groupies were having a helluva party while posturing for virtue on a high profile girls night out.

"There were squadrons of helicopter moms buzzed off white wine," New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh observed. (That single line of scene-setting is so good it makes me jealous.)

Apparently, having a fun conclave in the presence of their godhead is more important to them than their daughters who are now more endangered than ever because of his conduct.

Time and again, the Orange Crusher has demonstrated that the law is a paper tiger which can be grabbed by the fur and shredded at whim.

As long as the wine lasts.

MAGA MOMS HATE VACCINE MANDATES. The infectious results of their efforts are now apparent: School vaccine exemption applications have risen by 20 percent.

New COVID strains are running wild along with RSV, M-Pox, West Nile, encephalitis and garden variety flu.

An autumn superspreader to remember looms, with unfortunate little kids playing Typhoid Mary.

Get the latest boosters, 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.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

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

Joyfulness replaces Dejoylessness
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-28-2024
Updated 8-28-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

The hit man assigned to destroy the US Postal Service is skulking around northern Nevada this week.

Betwixt now and Friday, Aug. 30, US Postmaster General Louis the Clueless DeJoyless will address a rural letter carriers national convention at the Peppermill Hotel-Casino.

Media and public attendance blackouts have been announced. Only NevadaLabor.com and Barbwire e-list readers even knew that the lowlife was going to be in town.

I learned from a tip early Monday morning, spread the word and the legit media bit with full incisors.

Monday evening, a large crowd of postal workers and other union members rallied in front of Reno City Hall. Curiously, TV coverage did not mention Dejoyless coming to town.

Probably because he's dodging the public in general and his own postal workers in particular. Ben Franklin, he ain't.

"Melissa Ray with the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association confirmed DeJoy would be speaking but said the proceedings at their convention are not open to the public or media. It is unclear what day DeJoy will speak," KRNV TV-4 reported after I notified them.

Moving regional mail sorting from Reno to W. Sacramento would accelerate erosion of northwestern Nevada and eastern California delivery.

Dejoyless is perpetrating similar dastardly deeds all across the country. His first task when appointed in 2020 was ordering destruction of countless millions of dollars worth of mail sorting equipment, claiming that it was no longer needed.

All just in time for the 2020 election with huge swaths of the nation using mail-in ballots for the first time, much of it necessitated by Czar T-Rump's dereliction of duty on the COVID-19 plague.

Hmmm...in whose interest was it to suppress voting?

Dejoyless' appointment by the Postal Board of Governors was heavily criticized but it didn't matter. He had donated more than $1.2 million to Trump's campaign "and millions more to Republican Party organizations and candidates. He was also in charge of fundraising for the (2020) Republican National Convention," National Public Radio reported. (NPR 5-7-2020)

President Bush the Lesser appointed his wife as U.S. ambassador to Estonia and Czar Donaldov nominated her to be ambassador to Canada.

Dejoy got the USPS coming and going. His companies did billions in business with the postal service repairing equipment before he ordered mass destruction. It's no secret that he favors privatization, a guaranteed way of making a rich man into a filthy and obscenely wealthy oligarch. Witness T-Rump's idol, Russia's Vlad the Impaler and his buds.

Just as privatization of the Nevada injured workers insurance system and the theft of Reno's Washoe Medical Center (now the Renown octopus) made a few guys filthy rich, Dejoy has dreams of sugar-coated packages dancing in his hairless head.

Once upon a time, a letter mailed from me to a next-door neighbor would take just a day. (I tested it.)

Now, just getting something from Sparks to Reno takes two days and sometimes more. The national standard was once two days to anywhere in the continental U.S. Not no more, bro.

The legit media have long reported that the postal service loses money every year.

Untrue. Congress passed a poison pill requiring the semi-private USPS to shunt billions every year into a retirement plan for workers who have not yet been born — 75 years into the future. No other organization public or private labors under such a financial burden.

And who suffers? Us peons.

STOP THE PRESSES. Today's column is a perfect example of why I have driven so many Tribune editors to drink. Getting a piece done early means it might be stale by the time it hits doorsteps.

So, sorry boss. On Tuesday morning, the Reno Gazette-Journal broke the story that the postal service has announced scuttling of the plan to move mail sorting to California. Alleluia.

RGJ.com made no mention of Dejoyless at the convention.

He was appointed to make the service so bad that nationwide privatization for profit would look undeniable.

The Postal Board of Governors needs to fire this yayhoo NOW!

WELL DESERVED AND STILL WAITING. As I reported last week, Tribune alumni Guy Louis Rocha and Jake Highton are now successful 2024 Barbwire nominees to the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame. They will be honored at the NPA state convention in Reno next month.

Jake and Guy were the third and fourth Barbwire candidates. RGJ columnist Guy Richardson and Trib alum Dennis Myers preceded them.

Nevada historian and author Guy was honored at a private luncheon this month and may or may not attend the September awards presentation, depending on his health.

UNR Journalism Emeritus Professor Jake passed away a couple of years ago.

Four in, four to go. (See right—>) I have campaigned for legendary photographer and Trib contributor Donald Dondero for many years. The late Gold Hill News publisher, author David Toll, recently joined the list.

Then there are two great journalists who have been shamefully ignored for decades, the late Foster Church and Reno resident Norman Cardoza.

Those gentlemen shared Nevada's first Pulitzer Prize in 1977 and have been ignored by the NPA.

I will continue my campaign while I draw breath. Hope springs eternal, Norm.

I REPEAT: Vaxx up, dammit! COVID is running wild and will get worse as fall approaches. The Democratic National Convention turned into a superspreader because so many think the plague is over. Hundreds of Americans are dying each week.

Get the latest booster, 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.

Across the Universe
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-21-2024

Prophets and Profits
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."— Groucho Marx
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 8-14-2024