Forget all the mayhem from DC. We've got all the moonhowlers we need right here in the High Desert Outback of the American Dream.

Cops, former cops, a Republican county chair and a newly-elected State Assembly member are all showing sympathy for treason and murder in Washington.

Freshman Assemblycritter Annie Black, R-Gomorrah South, joined her tribe in front of the nation's capitol for the sacrificial rite last Wednesday.

"I flew to Washington, DC to attend Wednesday’s 'Stop the Steal' rally that was marred by some fringe elements who assaulted police officers and damaged property," she stated.
Fringe elements. Sounds like a crocheting society, eh wot? Assaulted? How about "murdered?"

This reminds me of a line from the (Beware: Jewish!) Marx Brothers movie "Duck Soup": "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"

"Those who broke into the Capitol, assaulted police officers and/or damaged property should be punished," Ms. Black disclaimed. "However, I just found (a) video clip of Capitol Police Officers opening the door for protestors and standing aside to let them in," she added.

"While some protestors did unlawfully 'storm' the Capitol, others appear to have been welcomed in with open arms." (Notice the diminishing quotation marks around "storm.")

She's right about some of the capitol cops who ended up losing two of their own. Some even posed for selfies with the Confederate invaders and directed them to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. (Several threatened murdering both Pelosi and Vice-President Pence.)

A couple years ago at a Reno-Sparks NAACP law enforcement forum, Branch President Lonnie Feemster posed a question for six local police department leaders; "When's the last time you did a t-shirt check?"

The response: Dead silence.

Unannounced underwear checks at morning roll call around the country have revealed some cops wearing Nazi gear under their uniforms.

Not to worry, Trump has called them out of the closet and made them mainstream. Every expression of hatred is increasingly hidden as protected First Amendment free speech.

"But that doesn’t matter to the unhinged left bent on 'cancelling' anyone with an opinion different from theirs. So naturally, calls rang out on Thursday demanding that I resign as your representative in the Nevada State Assembly," Ms. Black wrote to her fans.

You can't holler fire in a crowded theater. The president and his ragtags committed TREASON against the United States of America. That's a hanging offense.

To the moonhowlers, anybody you don't like deserves to be shot in the name of patriotism. Alas, we slip and fall on the bloody residue of watching too many Hollywood cowboy movies.

The cancer has metastasized. The Nye County Republican chairman said the election isn't over and accused Pence of treason. Some rural Nevada sheriffs have abrogated their oaths of office and refused to enforce mask mandates in the name of freedom to die by virus.

Speaking of freedom lovers, the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees is close to having a werewolfian majority. Newly elected ex-cop and anti-education yahoo Jeff Church blasted Superintendent Kristen McNeill's letter condemning the DC violence and offering counseling for students.

This comes after the district recently banned teaching about the Black Lives Matter movement in class. Who's on first?

Despicable but no First Amendment to the rescue there. (Want to ban something? Tar it as "political." Zounds. Show me anything that isn't political, a word derived from "people.") Just like Facebook and Twitter, the district is free to police its own speech all the way down to what appears in student newspapers. The cybergods fear accountability for their criminal facilitation. Their longtime legal protection needs to end.

The remedy for lying hate speech is libel and slander court action, something district lawyers threatened Church with years ago.

BITTER PILLS. A Washoe County Sheriff's Deputy has joined some of his peers by defending criminal mayhem. Deputy Zachary Malizia found no criminality in the capitol break-ins, echoing rioters who screamed "this is our house." Sheriff Darin Balaam did not disagree with his fellow yahoo. Why? The First Amendment, of course.

"Any cop who says or writes anything in support of the insurrection should be fired," responded a prominent local civil rights lawyer.

THE MIND OF A TRAITOR. I can look inside his head. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, said Trump was "delighted" watching the assault he promised to lead but pulled a no-show. (Damned bone spurs. Just like 'Nam.)

What the czar was thinking: "My show's going to get great ratings."

It did.

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.

NAACP ELECTION. The only contested office for this Thursday's Reno-Sparks NAACP balloting pits branch treasurer Stephanie McCurry of Carson City vs. incumbent Lonnie Feemster of Sparks. Details at RenoSparksNAACP.org/ Given all of the above, we will need all the help we can get.

NEAL NEWS. Former State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, will be remembered at an ushered wake in southern Nevada on Friday afternoon followed by a COVID-19 limited invitation-only memorial service on Saturday. My dear friend and brother in justice will be laid to rest at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Ceremony in Boulder City on January 26. Details at SenJoeNeal.org/

This year, we need Joe Neal more than ever. His spirit will guide us, his words will remain forever online, in Nevada law and in our hearts.

¡Sí se puede!
__________________

JOE NEAL: You can't run from the truth
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the Wednesday 1-6-2021 Sparks Tribune

I knew what it was before I even opened the e-mail. I stomped the floor, cursing and swearing every damnation in the dictionary before I even sat down.

I didn't even know that he had been ill but I knew Joe was dead.

The three e-mails from Sen. Dina Neal all carried the same subject line: "My Dad." I knew what it meant.

Thus ended a very quiet New Year's Eve. Former State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, had died at 10:25 p.m. December 31.

Just when I thought 2020 could not possibly get any worse, God pulled a Loki.

My dear friend had been hospitalized since Dec. 18 with a list of maladies competitive with the plagues of Job. To the surprise of doctors and family, he rallied from near death several times but finally had nothing left. He was 85.

From a sharecropper's life in the outback of Mounds, Louisiana, to the heights of political power — twice serving as acting governor of Nevada — this man achieved enough for a dozen lifetimes.

He was the first African American elected to the Nevada State Senate, where he served for 32 years, second longest in history after only Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

"With a level of appreciation of the power of learning that only a once poor child could know, Joe successfully pushed to fund and expand the state’s library system," his biographer, Nevada Press Association Hall of Famer John L. Smith wrote on New Year's Day.

Joe once memorably noted that "a library is a poor man's university." Last year, the University of Nevada Press published his biography, "The Westside Slugger: Joe Neal's Lifelong Fight for Social Justice."

Joe and I were both products of our respective west sides, his in Las Vegas, mine in Fresno. The black and brown parts of town. We went through freshman year together in 1973, Joe in the senate and me as a motorcycle industry lobbyist.

I worked on both his gubernatorial campaigns in 1998 and 2002. He was defeated in the 1998 Democratic primary by Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones who was put into the race on the last day of filing by now-defrocked casino mogul Steve Wynn. (See below.) In 2002, Joe made history as the first African American major party nominee for the state's top post. Both he and Jones were defeated by the late Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn.

I also worked on his initiative petition to raise the world's lowest gross gaming tax on the largest, most profitable hotel-casinos.

In 2000, the gambling industrial complex marshalled all its money and consultants to knock Joe out of the senate for daring to say their stinginess had broken their deal with the state when gambling was legalized in 1931. They recruited a young black man to run against him in the Democratic primary. That was quite ironic, as Sen. Neal had helped his single mom find food and housing when she moved here with her small children years before.

"They got smoked," Joe told me on election night, winning re-election outright in the primary.

His major legislative accomplishments came with his 1981 high-rise fire sprinkler bill, the toughest in the nation, which he introduced after the disastrous MGM Grand conflagration of 1980. The gambling industry wanted it killed because it was too expensive. Joe thought differently.

"In large part because of your courage, the State of Nevada enjoys the most comprehensive fire prevention laws in the world," former Nevada State Fire Marshal Tom Huddleston said.

"Many countries, states and cities have copied all or part of what we have done in Nevada. The steady downward trend in life and property loss from fire in Nevada reflects our accomplishments. The yearly life loss in our state has been more than cut in half during the last few years even though our population continues to grow. This is due to your efforts. Many people owe you their lives and health. The fire service in Nevada is in your debt. Thank you."

Joe finally won the long-sought gaming tax increase in his last session in 2003. The tax has not been raised since he left office in 2004.

His mastery of parliamentary procedure resulted in passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by a hostile and conservative senate in 1977. It was killed in the lower house after Democrats made a dirty deal with some juice lobbyists. It finally passed in 2017.

Joe's 2002 Neal Care proposal, with a few tweaks, became known as Obamacare a decade or so later.

Joe never lost his sense of humor and remembering his hearty laughter always makes me smile.

He once addressed a labor convention at the Carson City Nugget and took the opportunity to trash Steve Wynn's state tax break for his expensive personal art collection.

"Look above you," he said, "that chandelier qualifies this casino for a tax deduction as art. Look down at your feet, the carpet does, too."

We fought Wynn at the Nevada Tax Commission and got his freebie seriously reduced. He was flamingly angry. 

Joe always knew that Nevada never got over our Mississippi West hangover. I once met up with two of his campaign stalwarts at a Reno Carrows coffee shop. John Stevens and Spurgeon Daniels had driven north with a bunch of campaign signs. They had arrived 20 minutes before me but the Carrows staff had not even handed them menus or water. Until little ole white me arrived.

Joe was once on a lawmaker tour of the Nevada nuclear test site. The busload of officials stopped for lunch in Beatty. All asked for separate checks. The skinny young waitress handed Joe his and informed him it was on the house. Why?

"Well, you're the bus driver, aren't you?" Had to be. The only black guy wearing a telltale blue short-sleeved shirt on a hot day.

THIS JOE BOB AIN'T CHICKEN. Joe found his kindred spirit at the other end of the hall in his North Las Vegas colleague, Assemblymember Bob Price. They began as bookends and ended up soul brothers, hard-wired by principles with soft spots for the least among us. Bob and his wife, former University of Nevada Regent Nancy Price, retired to Sparks where he died two years ago this week.

I started the new year filled with thoughts of my dear friends Joe and Bob. They allowed me to walk with giants for just a little while. Their gigantic accomplishments live with us for the rest of our lives here in the High Desert Outback of the American Dream.

Joe once said his mother told him that you can't run from the truth. Remember that advice as we emerge from the dark time of alternative facts.

Sen. Neal will be honored by the North Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday, Jan. 6, at 4:00 p.m. Zoom info with this column at NevadaLabor.com/

Be careful out there. And take care of each other.

Andrew Barbano is a 52-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, superannuated 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 and Protect Our Washoe.org and ChantalCoalition.org/ He is a withdrawn-in-good-standing member of Culinary Local 226. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. He has lived in both northern and southern Nevada during his half-century+ in the Silver State. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since 1988 and received its 10th Nevada Press Association award (6 of 10 first-place) at the 21 Sept. 2019 NPA annual convention in Ely. In 1996, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a six-month investigative series. His multi-media road construction zone safety campaign for Laborers' Union Local 169 won a first-place award from the National Safety Council in a nationwide competition. (Such ephemera and about six bucks will get you a Latte Mocha Cotsafracas Chingade at just about any Starbux worldwide, guaranteed.) His work has appeared on CNN, in The New York Times, The Guardian of London/UK and more important publications

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