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   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


FASCISM? That's a new face cream, right?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-30-2024 / Updated 10-30 & 11-15-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

Now playing in Las Vegas and greater Clark County, Reno-Sparks-Washoe, Carson City, Fallon, Douglas & Storey Counties. Imagine a day with no Trump in it.
Then VOTE!
On major highways, especially the Reno Spaghetti Bowl near the Grand Sierra. Contact me for locations.
Courtesy of Culinary Union 226/AFL-CIO

 


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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

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Cindy Crawford would be proud to sell overpriced goo to Americans who wouldn't know fascism if it bit them in their precious soft-skinned skinny asses.

All the buzz these days as the Apocalypse looms is that the man who raps America, T-Rump, is a fascist.

Uh-huh. Does anybody know what that means? No? Which explains all the laments I see from frustrated, well-educated and enlightened liberals, especially the vaunted Fake News Media.

Well, we have met the enemy and he is us.

I have seen countless comments about fascism, even in pro-T-Rump media. Everybody talks about the depredations of legendary fasciste Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

As the saying goes, if Jake Highton wuz alive, he'd be turnin' over in his grave.

My late Tribune colleague and double hall of famer was a legendarily hardassed University of Nevada-Reno journalism professor. Jake was death on unclear writing. Dozens of reporters who lauded and mourned him when he died all said Jake's toughness made them better writers.

Jake would have flunked just about every reporter I see these days, from the New York Times on down.

Take PBS. Please. When they announced last Friday that they'd talk looming fascism on their venerable "Washington Week" show, my hopes were raised.

Five killer major media journalists talked about T-Rump and fascism. NONE defined it.

Then came the Bible, the Sunday New York Times Magazine with two major pieces. Both worth reading. Both disappointing.

The first was entitled "The MAGA Moguls —- How Elon Musk and a group of Silicon Valley billionaires built a shadow campaign to put Trump back in the White House."

Oh boy, a story about Russian oligarchy American style. Pure fascism, right? Alas and alack, "fascist" appears just once with one of Musk's buds bitching about California's "fascist COVID lockdowns." (Pardon my tangent, but why the hell does Kamala continue to ignore the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died and continue to do so because T-Rump ignored the plague? Dammit!)

I had high hopes for another Times Mag piece featuring the guru of fascist scholarship, esteemed historian and author Robert Paxton. Alas and alack, the great one also shot around the edges, talking about the nasty effects of the disease without defining it.

Jake would have flunked them all.

The experts apparently can't see the forest fire because of all the trees. They assume everybody knows what the F-word means.

The late great Travus T. Hipp, another Tribune double hall of famer, defined fascism for his Nevada radio listeners decades ago.

Fascism is a form of government where the means of production remain in private hands under an oppressive, dictatorial ruler with the two factions promoting and protecting each other.

Perfect. Succinct. An A-plus performance.

Travus went on to contrast fascism with Communism [1], wherein the means of production are taken over by a single dictatorial government. Another gold star, right Jake?

Russia today is fascist, not communist. T-Rump's buddy Vlad the Impaler and his fellow oligarchs control the means of production for their personal profit. This has made Czar Putin the richest man in the world. (Sorry, Elon.)

The now mis-labeled Communist Party which controls China is basically a fascist state, but the most pure and ghastly example of the perversion rightly termed Leninism is madcap Kim Jong Un's North Korea.

.His population is much shorter than South Korea's because he feeds his military rather than his people.

Three decades ago, Travus decried the rise of "softshoe fascism" in America — burgeoning dictatorship as the rich got richer and increasingly controlled the government.

All that was missing was Hitlerian brownshirts and jackboots.

T-Rump's militias, who previewed their preparation in Charlottesville, Virginia, represent the final step.

They are organized and lie in wait as their buds patrol the polls in places like North Carolina. When T-Rump loses again, he will call them into action.

The evil which could not be named is here.

DIVING INTO EVIL MINDS. Why do all these rich guys (and a few rich gals) jump into follytix? Other than it's great for their businesses, screwing with people's lives is a kick.

When you've made more money than your heirs can ever spend in a century, the only thing left is to rule.

Which is why T-Rump in particular and "businessmen" in general make lousy civic leaders. They are used to treating their underlings with "my way or the highway."

You can't fire a recalcitrant U.S. Senator or the Chancellor of Germany.

Kamala is running uphill. I have quipped for years about the dilemma of women in politics. Americans want daddy to tuck them in at night knowing daddy will protect them.

They especially want papa in three areas of public life:

1. Network news anchor (The retiring Norah O'Donnell is just the latest who lost to the guys on other networks.)

2. Governor, not senator or mayor or just about anything else. We are comfy with daddy. Retro Nevada has never had a female guv.

3. President of the United States. The Bible tells the story of how Saul was named king of the Hebrews by acclamation. Why?

     "Saul stood head and shoulders over any other man." Daddy the tribe's protector again.

Which is why T-Rump boldly lies when he says he will "protect" women. Ask those who've died for lack of medical care because of him and "my justices."

THE EPISTLES OF JAMES AND ANDREW. Great minds think alike.

The Cajun Guru James Carville has announced that he is "certain Kamala Harris will win."

Correct.

I have predicted that Harris will prevail and approach landslide proportions close to 60 percent. Why?

"The arc of justice is bending toward the Harris-Walz ticket," I wrote on Oct. 2. I place complete faith where hope always resides: With the women of America.

Bet on it, Nevada.

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 56-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] Technically, what today we term Communism is actually Leninism. True communism is a commune where everyone does equal work for equal pay and all share in the benefits.

The utopian communities of the early 19th Century United States were the closest we've come. Versions may be found in many places in the U.S. to this very day. See Wikipedia.

My old football coach was a pretty good civics teacher.

"If you've ever read the book or seen the movie 'The Lost Horizon,' that's communism," he said.

The fictional Valley of the Blue Moon was secluded from the world high in the Himalayas, a place also called Shangri-La. Everyone worked to the best of his or her ability and all shared equally.Many of the youthful-appearing residents were well over 100 years old. It was a true fictional paradise dedicated to preserving the complete legacy of humanity WHEN the rest of the world destroyed itself.

James Hilton's book came out in 1933, the classic film in 1937, directed by the legendary Frank Capra. World War II came shortly thereafter. All those readers and moviegoers apparently learned little.

"It would never work in the real world," Coach Jon Peterson told my civics class. "People are too greedy."

Lost horizons remain visible all over the world today.

 

 

 

 

Breaking News —> Masks work!

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

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

 

UNR Follyball in Mississippi West
Bigotry cloaked in womens' rights drag
The UNR ladies have turned the concept of the rights of minorities on its head. Trans individuals are the oppressed minority, not the long tall white chicks engorged with an overdose of Fox Noise.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-23-2024 / Updated 10-22 & 10-27-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

SHAMEFUL NEWS ITEM: The University of Nevada-Reno ladies volleyball team refuses to play its October 26 game against San Jose State because one of Lord Rupert Murdoch's hate news disseminators asserted that a member of the Spartans team is transgender.

This modern-day hangover of Mississippi West is best explained and torpedoed by an excellent editorial by Bob Conrad and Kristen Hackbarth at ThisIsReno.com/ Read it.

The SJSU team will still suit up in Reno whether or not the Chicken Pack shows. UNR should show some chops like UNLV. Despite the Fox-News-in-the-Henhouse brouhaha, the Lady Rebels went to San Jose and beat the Spartans 3-1.

The UNR girls have disgraced the memory of a more courageous time back in apartheid Nevada. My very visceral emotions about this are best expressed in the Barbwire of Nov. 6, 2011. Herewith, "Heroes are made, not born."

My name is Andrew Barbano and I am a recovering racist, so schooled by my elders.

Jack Kelley taught me otherwise. The Fresno State football star and retired police detective died in the city of my birth on Oct. 25, 2011.

In 1946, Fresno State and the University of Nevada were confronted by America's apartheid. Jack Kelley was in the middle of it.

Jack's teams were 1-1 against the Wolf Pack, winning 33-0 in 1942 (against a Nevada team featuring future NFL Hall of Famer Marion Motley), and losing 7-4 in 1945. But the game changed forever in 1946 when they played against racism.

Nevada won.

Both schools were scheduled against all-white teams in the Jim Crow south. Fresno had to play powerful Oklahoma City University. The Wolf Pack from the fabled Mississippi West faced Mississippi State.

The Fresno Bulldogs were coached by the legendary James "Rabbit" Bradshaw, who had become Nevada football's first All-American in 1921.

Fresno's citizenry and student body became enraged when informed that OCU granted permission for "the colored players to play," but warned that it would not be responsible for what might happen. Bradshaw decided to suit up his star running back, Kelley, and first-string right tackle Millard Mitchell, but not play them. Fresno lost 46-7.

Students and some faculty voted to forfeit the game and a crowd of almost 2,000, many of them war veterans, demonstrated. Fresno citizens even raised $5,000 to pay the cancellation penalty the college faced. All of this happened six months before Jackie Robinson broke major league baseball's color barrier.

Nevada chose not to go rather than dishonor black players Bill Bass and Horace Gillom.

“It is not the custom in the South for members of the Negro race to compete in athletics with or against members of the white race in athletic contests,” a letter from Mississippi State officials informed the Wolf Pack.

"An unfortunate commotion would ensue if colored stars were allowed on the Starkville Field," they warned.

(In 2011) local sportswriter Joe Santoro noted that "the Wolf Pack not only didn’t understand it, they refused to play without Bass and Gillom."

Keith Kelley, a Fresno businessman and Millard Mitchell's godson, told the Fresno Bee that his father was never the same after the Oklahoma City game.

"I think it took a little bit out of Dad," Keith Kelley said. "This was a long time before Martin Luther King."

Detective Jack Kelley was a regular at the Barbano family diner in west Fresno. Like the neighborhood, the clientele was a racial and ethnic melting pot.

Then, as now, I talked a lot. One day, the teenaged me engaged the impeccably dressed Officer Kelley in a conversation about racial intermarriage. Jack's response astounded me.

"I don't know that I'd want my daughter to marry a white man," he stated in an offhand manner between bites of his sandwich.

I was shocked. Why wouldn't a black woman want to move up in class and marry white?

Jack had cleverly gotten me looking through the other end of the telescope. It was the beginning of my shedding the racism I had been carefully taught.

How could you grow up racist in a neighborhood filled with blacks, Mexicans, Jews, Armenians, Slavs, Chinese, Italians, Russians, Japanese and Portuguese? Our favorite hangouts were a black music store and a hobby shop run by Japanese Americans. Not even watching hateful World War II era movies could make us kids dislike the Maruko family.

Alas, the prejudices of some of my elder relatives had become mine. It took a long time to shed them.

Jack played pro ball for the New York Yankees, a predecessor to the New York Giants, before joining the Fresno Police Department in 1949.

He became Fresno PD's first African-American sergeant and founded the city's African American Historical and Cultural Museum. He is one of only two officers honored with department statues. The other, Sal Mosqueda, died in the line of duty.

Jack Kelley, 91, was laid to rest on Saturday. (Nov. 5, 2011)

He became a father to many, and that includes me.

Thanks, Jack.

BACK TO THE FUTURE. The UNR of today has not only forgotten, but shamed the memory of a courageous legacy.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE 10/22: CHICKENS KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE AND SAVE TRAVEL BUDGET: UNR MOVES GAME TO BAY AREA. At least local bigoted Nevada Moonhowler Republicans won't get to grandstand again. UPDATE PART DEUX: HOW WRONG I WAS. READ ON. —>

ALABASTER JIM CROW
UNR volleyball players chicken out and boycott game with alleged transgender player on other team
Worried about showering accommodations, perhaps?
By Jim Krajewski / Reno Gazette-Journal 10-26-2024

ONE MORE TIME. I never had a bucket list until this month. With both the NY Yankees and LA Dodgers dripping with millionaire superstars, I wished for another rematch before I die. Rivals going back to the 19th Century, they hadn't met in the Fall Classic since 1981 when rookie pitcher Fernando Valenzuela led the Angelenos to victory.

This Friday, the classic clash of the titans happens again.

Thank you, God. Or St. Babe Ruth, or whichever one of you anointed this.

CZAR DONALDOV'S GROUND GAME. Be thee not confused, my precious snowflakes. Local Trumpistas are hitting Republican households reminding them to vote. Some of my neighbors got door knob hangers from a GOP PAC.

ABOARD WITH CAPTAIN KIDD. If no presidential candidate scores an electoral college majority, the election goes to the NEW House and Senate elected Nov. 5. Finally, a reason to vote for newcomer non-partisan Gregg Kidd for Congress.

GREEN FRIDAY. Environmentalist legend Bill McKibben and Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar host a get-out-the-vote rally Oct. 25, 6-7:30p.m. 780 Del Monte Lane, Reno 89511. Info: ThirdAct.org/Nevada/ (775) 530-9463.

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.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

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

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

Piggy-backing to play leap-frog
Second in a series. (First hereat)
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-16-2024 / Updated 10-16-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

Corporate interests and billionaires, including FOX News baron Rupert Murdoch's family, are funding a sly and cynical propaganda campaign to use womens' rights to erode Nevada voting rights.

Question 6 on the November ballot would write protection of a woman's right to choose into the Nevada Constitution. I supported the 1990 initiative that installed Roe v. Wade into state statute.

However, the 1990 referendum can be changed or wiped out with a single statewide vote. Constitutional amendments take a much longer process, usually about five years.

Corporate moguls are outright lying to voters that passing Ballot Question 3 will further protect women's rights.

Q-3 would morph today's election system into a five-reel slot machine. Cloaked in the sheep's clothing of open primaries, this voracious wolf will eat democracy alive.

Any gambling odds expert will confirm that you can play a five-reel slot for the rest of your life and never win. Long run, the house always wins.

Imagine a primary election with 25, 30 or more candidates in each race where only FIVE can survive to November voting. That will cement big money control much worse than even today after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to allow corporate bank accounts to reign supreme by raining dollars on friendly pols.

Multiple choices among dozens of candidates was exactly how the Nevada State Assembly was elected for decades when apartheid Nevada was rightly nicknamed "Mississippi West." Everything old is new again.

I am sure that Q-3 supporters already have expensive cybertechs designing algorithms to skew multiple-choice primary balloting in their favor. Their techs could thus tell them how many candidates they would need to recruit in order to stack the deck for five they approve.

The cynicism and macho hubris necessary to latch onto one of the major 2024 deciding factors is simply mind-boggling.

Q-3 supporters are even doubling down by asserting that the current primary system discriminates against veterans and active military, another foray into fantasyland.

I am especially disappointed that some misguided pro Q-6 individuals and organizations are now packaging Q-6 and Q-3 together, falling for the false advertising.

Question 3 is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Friends of women's rights must not allow this synthetic wool to be pulled over Nevada voters' eyes.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL: (The following was distributed to Barbwire subscribers a few days ago.) The legendary Barbwire investigative reporting team, as usual, spared every expense acquiring inside information from a Republican-leaning tracking poll.

First, remember that it's a snapshot, a single frame in a motion picture. Nonetheless, it shows Q-3 trailing. Many organizations, including both major parties and several minor parties oppose it.

The Independent American, Green and Libertarian parties know they will never make it to a general election again if Q-3 monkey-wrenches the current process.

YES ON 3's TV campaign asserts that passage of Q-3 will protect abortion rights. Actually, Q-3 will facilitate election of well-monied anti-choice moonhowlers and passage of initiatives mega-funded by crytpofascists to ban abortion statewide.

Beware the wolf.

KAMALA KRASHES ON K-K-KOVID. I am now in my fifth year of COVID-19 self-quarantine. I only risk going out to medical appointments. Some people look at me funny for being the only one around wearing a mask.

Apparently, Dr. Vladimir Trump has convinced many that only wussy Democrats do so. I have had all my shots and have thus far beaten The Terminator. Some of my more gregarious friends have not been so lucky.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

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

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

I'm still OK and raising hell, albeit at a distance. Anyway, you gotta be basically anti-social to write a column.

Kamala Harris could, and well may, lose next month's election by ignoring the biggest rap on Czar Donaldov: He personally condemned 200,000 to 500,000 Americans to death by choosing to ignore the pandemic until it was running wild.

When he was himself infected, he was saved by medical care unavailable to us peons. He came close to death but still downplayed the seriousness of the little wiggly beasties that don't care about your bank account.

He even secretly sent his pal Putin COVID tests when Americans were desperate for enough. (Confirmed by Russian government.)

Remember "it's no worse than the common cold" and "it will go away in warm weather"? How about suggesting that you drink chlorine bleach or the main ingredient in fish tank cleaner. (Two of his true believers tried it and one died.)

Dictators do everything they can to look like all-powerful, all-knowing gods. That's why T-Rump idol Xi Xin Ping withheld information about the origins of the plague and has grossly understated the number of Chinese dead.

If you control the media, it's easy. T-Rump's buddy Czar Putin long ago changed textbooks to teach the lie that Ukraine was always part of Russia. Now, much of Russia's population believes it and thus supports the current genocide.

I see so much inept campaign management at every level of U.S. follytix. Too many "managers" are kissups who keep their jobs by making always-insecure pols feel good.

I am sure that some suckup has told the VP not to remind people of T-Rump's plague because it's OMG! negative! and polling shows you need a positive image.

Result: a growing number of short-attention-span Americans really believe the economy was better under T-Rump. They choose to forget the national shutdown that didn't have to happen which tanked the economy and reverberates to this very day.

Before the plague, T-Rump tried to eviscerate the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and Project 2025 promises instant replay if he wins.

Long ago, ruthless Rupert Murdoch said "Americans are retarded." The Fox News overlord has waxed wealthier for that twisted insight. Alas and alack, he's also oft been proven correct.

You really can fool some of the people all of the time — and that's usually enough.

CORREXION. My only sibling, my younger brother Larry, died a year ago this week. I mistakenly moved this item last week. Mea culpa. A memorial with friends and family happens in the Bay Area this coming weekend. My traveling days are over. Anyone in these parts who knew him may contact me for details.

Requiescas in pace, frater mei.

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.

Electing Judas Iscariot
First in a series.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-9-2024
Updated 10-9, 10-10 & 10-13-2024 GMT / Expansions in blue /

"I could elect Judas Iscariot. The name is familiar." — Boston Mayor James Michael Curley (1874-1958)

The legendary and corrupt Massachusetts pol won just about every elected office available to him, federal state and local.

He campaigned on the slogan "Curley gets things done." (Sound familiar?) He also did time in prison for mail fraud. (Also familiar?)

Nevada's 2024 Ballot Question 3 could easily be renamed the Governor Curley Memorial Election Law as it proposes to cement Curley's biblical axiom into the Nevada Constitution.

Follytix has always been my favorite sport going back to grade school. Us kids were taught that the person with the most votes wins. (Save for minor exceptions, of course, like Al Gore in Florida, 2000.)

Question 3 would permanently change all that. Civil rights activists have long reminded people that freedom in law (de jure) is not freedom in fact (de facto).

This old pol looks at de facto consequences.

So venture back with me now to a political strategy session which, based on a review of the proposed law, I am sure happened in some form.

Thank you for coming to this presentation, gentlemen. I hope you found the steaks and cigars to your liking.

I am sorry to report that our power is waning despite the effects of imposing a 120-day legislative session every two years and our successful campaign to require term limits on Nevada officeholders.

Witness the fact that the state's picayune gaming tax, the envy of our colleagues worldwide, has not been raised in more than 20 years.

As our mining industry colleagues showed us, Nevada has always been a sweet corporate cookie jar.

Term limits served us well to blunt the force of the "one-man, one-vote" U.S. Supreme Court decision and the growing influence of wrong-headed voters who relocated from other places.

Back in those heady times, each of Nevada's 17 counties had its own state senator and we owned the place. It was more unrepresentative than the U.S. Senate. Tiny Esmeralda counted for as much as Clark or Washoe. Ah, those indeed were the days.

One-man/one-vote was implemented in the 1972 election. Before then, Nevada actually had multiple choice elections — for the State Assembly. In Clark County, the top nine finishers went to Carson City. In Washoe, the top eight. Voters had to choose among two or three dozen candidates.

That's how Democrat Keith Ashworth of Las Vegas became the first Democratic Assembly Speaker in memory.

We nonetheless maintained multiple choice elections in the senate. In Washoe districts, two Democrats and two Republicans went to each general election ballot. The top two were elected. Same thing in Las Vegas for the next decade. Republican dominance was diminished but still a major force. [1]

We correctly forecast that the Las Vegas area would produce a plethora of woman lawmakers, which reached its height when Nevada elected America's first female-majority legislature in 2018.

That uppity dominance (break in recording for applause and laughter)...Thank you, thank you. As I was saying, that uppity dominance has produced increasingly negative results for our companies.

We were warned in 2017 when the legislature ratified the feminist Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which our predecessors had killed precisely 40 years earlier.

Thanks to President Trump's leadership, the public is now convinced to do something even if it's wrong, as the old joke says.

With a burgeoning feminist majority in southern Nevada and Reno-Sparks becoming increasingly liberal, we need to take action.

Get out your checkbooks and we will qualify a ballot initiative for ranked-choice voting like Maine and Alaska.

We can defend it by noting that conservative Alaska elected a woman Democrat to Congress over former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin thanks to ranked-choice. No one will remember that Palin committed suicide by failing to research the issue and simply instructing her supporters to check only her box. The Democrat won by accumulating more second, third, fourth and fifth-place preferences.

We will cloak our wolf in the sheepskin of open primary elections which will allow us to flood the ballot with dozens and dozens of candidates.

Only the top five among many will advance to the general election. In every case, this tilts the playing field in favor of the golden rule — the one with the gold makes the rules.

Most money wins and that will mostly be candidates favorable to us. We will never mention that this situation will make it almost impossible for those pesky third parties to make it to November.

This strategy will negate the increasingly aggressive legislative Amazons who are hurting our businesses. We will run ads including some creative lies — I'm sorry, let's call them "terminological inexactitudes" as they say in the British Parliament where you can't use the L-word.

For instance, we are toying with creating the fiction that the current system discriminates against veterans and active military members.

I trust you will help us cloak the wolf so that we may treat you to delicious lamb chops and genuine Havana cigars at our next meeting.

AND THUS, November Ballot Question 3 was spawned. Beware the wolf.

UPDATE 10-10-2024 GMT: YES ON 3 launched a new TV ad a few days ago outright lying about how the current election system is unfair to veterans and active military. On Oct. 8, they started a spot stating that passage of Q-3 will make sure that Nevada women will not lose abortion rights. Actually, Q-3 will facilitate the circulation and passage of initiatives funded by megabucks zealots and crytpofascists to ban abortion statewide. Beware the wolf.

BARBWIRE CONFIDENTIAL—>
UPDATED 10-13-2024 GMT: Tracking Poll sez Question 3 fading.

This column broughta lotta calls. I am jumping up and down while sitting. I can't tell you from where, but less than an hour ago (c. 22:21 GMT 10/12), I received unimpeachable insider info that Question 3 is polling badly. The game's afoot!

Stay tuned!

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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.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

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. {MORE}

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

Breaking News —> Masks work!

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

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024
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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!)

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$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

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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

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