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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

Authentic fakes, blonde flaks & grumpy old men
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 7-19-2017 Sparks Tribune / Updated 7-20 and 7-26-2017 / Expansions in blue

Trump spinstress Kellyanne Conway's alternative facts virus has gone viral. I just got a solicitation offering (oxymoron alert!) an "Extensive Range of Authentic Fake Documents."
Huh?
     "If you have lost or damaged your precious degrees or vital documents and lost every hope in life, we at Superior Fake Degrees can do something for you. We think that you’ll find something in our catalog of services that can cater to your lost hope. Our array of fake diplomas, college degrees and passports are created by our expert team of printers and designers holding wide experience to ensure that these certificates are created to the highest level of quality."
    Looks can kill. An authentic fake appeared an attractive alternative to Hillary the Librarian.
    Corporate moonhowlers know that gruesome messages are best delivered by cute blonde babes. Copying Big Tobacco, conservatives hired Kellyanne, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter. Last Sunday morning, the Koch-infested American Enterprise Institute fielded Danielle Pletka, a frosted blonde with an English accent. (Americans always think Brit-talkers are intelligent. She's Aussie but sassy.)
    Cosmetics decided the 2014 Reno mayoral race. Freshman Councilmember Hillary Schieve topped a 17-candidate primary over runnerup Ray Pezonella. Had third-place Idora Silver bought a TV schedule, things might have been quite different.
    Reno voters chose between a bubbly blonde businessperson and term-limited Mayor Bob Cashell's anointed successor. After Nuke-the-Mapes Jeff Griffin and Corporate Welfare Cashell, voters rejected a third straight grumpy old man.
    Ms. Silver would have been formidable and may be again because she touches all bases. Blonde and telegenic but capable of providing adult supervision, she's acceptable to the downtown establishment. Because of her longtime business connections, they won't hold her Democratic registration against her.
    Mademoiselle Mayor got 20 lashes with a wet noodle in last Sunday's Reno Gazette-Journal which devoted well over a full page to a shell game funneling tax money to the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada to plant puff PR in national publications. Reno City Hall and the Regional Transportation Commission each coughed up $10,000 of a $110,000 budget to retain the media firm which also runs Mlle. Mayor's campaigns.
    To their credit, Sparks and Washoe County refused.
    "It's not one entity's responsibility to do PR for the entire region," stated blonde flaktitioner Abbi Whitaker.
    Yes, it is, that of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority which also fessed up $10k. RSCVA's room tax subsidy, originally intended for local fairs and recreation since 1955, has long been skimmed to subsidize the promotional budgets of the gambling-industrial complex.
    The Regional Transportation Commission has been equally profligate, wasting taxes on foreign contractors and corporate welfare while grinding its workers and risking another regionwide transit strike. (See NevadaLabor.com/)
    Veteran RGJ reporter Anjeanette Damon is the best they have but her story was narrowly focused. Six figures of corporate welfare will generate a few nasty letters to the editor, then fizzle. For the megabucks big picture, see CabellyUp.com, a rogues gallery of corporate welfare queens including Cabela's, Scheels, Tesla, Apple, Park Lane, the Reno Aceholes and many more authentic fakes.
    Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
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Andrew Barbano is a 48-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988.

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Union busters in town to disrupt bus system
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Special Online Edition 7-13-2017 / Updated 7-14, 7-15, 7-16, 7-20 and 7-26-2017 GMT

I've gone thru this every third summer for the past two decades.

The foreign-owned contractor hired to oppress local bus system workers tries to provoke a strike to bust the Teamsters Union. Meanwhile, elected and appointed officials sit shiva while hiding under the sleazy skirt of plausible deniability. ("Not my department.")

Before you dust off your picket signs, contact the five elected members of the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) and tell them to stop this exploitation and allow workers a fair day's pay for a hard day's work. (Contact info below.)

Over the years, our elected officials have squandered millions hiring foreign (European and Texan) management corporations to run the bus system into the ground. You will find chapter and verse at my websites. Lesson: Never accept low-bid from Tejano bandidos.

New bus drivers while receiving training — and not much of it — get unadjusted-for-inflation minimum wage. When they hit the streets, they get minimum wage adjusted for inflation. Which means some live in weekly motels and can never afford the Tejanos' high-priced health insurance. Wonder how many have applied for welfare or food stamps? How many have to hit the ER for health care? You know who pays for that.

Two of three new-hires quit over wages and working conditions. This has wasted well over a quarter-million taxpayer dollars in just the past three years.

The Texans have already imported a crew of expensive, professional union busters hoping that the workers will strike so management can attempt to illegally fire everyone. Their minds seem made up either way. RTC and its minions can drop all pretense of fairness and lock out workers with or without a strike, then bring in the high-priced imports.

We taxpayers are already stuck with that cost along with posh salaries for RTC staffers, 35 of whom are compensated over $100,000 a year to a high of $322,510.59. They live high while some of their workers dwell in weekly motels. Or worse.

Stop it. NOW. A growing region with a shrinking transportation system lives in a strait jacket of exploitation and embarrassment. Senior citizens, low-wage workers, young people, students, the sick and disabled, among many others, depend on our bus system.

Contact your elected officials and demand that they fix it. NOW.

RTC COMMISSIONERS/Re-election year

CITY OF RENO
Neoma Jardon, 2018
775-334-2016
jardonn@reno.gov

Paul McKenzie, 2018
775-334-2015
mckenziep@reno.gov

RenoDirect hotline 775-334-4636
renodirect@reno.gov

WASHOE COUNTY
Bob Lucey, 2018
775-328-2012
blucey@washoecounty.us

Marsha Berkbigler, 2020
775-328-2005
mberkbigler@washoecounty.us

RTC CHAIR RON SMITH, SPARKS
Term-limited/2020
Ron Smith 775-353-2311
rsmith@cityofsparks.us

RTC EXECS
David Jickling, 775-335-1902
djickling@rtcwashoe.com
djickling@charter.net
2016 compensation: $210,754.95

Lee Gibson, 775-335-1826
lgibson@rtcwashoe.com
2016 compensation: $322,510.59

System Manager Gibson touts how he has cut costs 30 percent since 2009. His compensation has risen 17 percent just in the past three years. His workers got ZERO 2011-2013 and a generous 2 percent annually 2014-2016. Somebody please buy him a dictionary and bookmark "inflation." Then ask why he loves to give away corporate welfare: "EXCLUSIVE: RTC trying to give away $50 million+ in corporate welfare" / NevadaLabor.com 21 Dec. 2012 and Please don't cook or eat the books, Barbwire 27 Sept. 2012.

Tell them that the buck stops with them, that you are tired of big taxpayer bucks being blown by bandidos from the land of the armadillo.

Should they argue, ask them why RTC paid a bogus $1.4 million bill last year for the Pyramid/McCarran construction project. Alas and alack, the wages of e-mail get expensive. (I hear that places like the Cayman Islands and Sochi are beautiful any time of year.)

If you're not registered to vote, please do so. And bring the family,

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

SMOKING GUNS —>14 July 2017 — Illegal worker intimidation 101: Foreign RTC contractor breaks the law by putting strikebreakers to work during employee voting on management's contract proposal. It was overwhelmingly rejected. Strike authorized.
Updated 7-15, 7-16, 7-20 and 7-26-2017 GMT
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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.