Barbwire: Espera!

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

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

UPDATE: WORLDWIDE LEADER? ACT OF GOD OR JUST A GARDEN-VARIETY IMPOSSIBLE DREAMER? ALL OF THE ABOVE? VERY POSSIBLY. Was Andrew Barbano the only advocate for an American pope? Google apparently says YES! At minimum, the Barbwire stumped and broke Google trying to find out. See for yourself. And please lemme know what you think.

Big news. Prayers answered: Pope takes on T-Rump head-to-head.

Hope you and yours enjoy Happy High Holly Days
Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah/Thanksgibleting
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo / Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2026

Under construxion / Stay tuned

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BREAKING NEWS—>

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2024 Barbwire Winners!

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Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame (2019)

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 (2012)

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The Grasshopper and
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Kicked off the Ledge
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NATIONAL NEWS FIRST-BREAK
Back to the Future in
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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

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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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The Storm before the Calm
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-17-2025

"The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I wept thru last weekend. It had nothing to do with football games. Indeed, meaningless sporting violence provided brief surcease from sorrow.
The news brought a seemingly nonstop succession of extreme madcap mindlessness -- murder, mayhem, rape, famine, natural and unnatural disasters.
It seemed as though all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had paid their favorite primitive playground a visit all at once.
There have been worse times but that's cold comfort for those condemned to rainsoaked tents in Gaza or to kidnapped Ukrainian children being trained to fight against their country.
Expert analysis is available at all points of the commentary dial: What's really wrong, where things went awry, how to fix, who's to blame. All the usual stuff from the usual suspects.
So forget the purveyors of pennygreed imposed upon their exploited proletariats.
Dream a little dream with me. Let's look at the present as part of a continuum, one step forward, two steps back in aeternam. Where does it end?
Perhaps sooner than we think, for better or worse. Self-styled truth seekers are a dime a dozen. Self-styled truth peddlers will cost you more.
Whatever happened to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius? Maybe this is it, the hard way.
The greatest mass murderer of recent times and perhaps of all time, Mao Zedong, said "power comes from the barrel of a gun." The proliferation of those easy-kill devices afflicts all aspects of the planet.
Those brute tools enforce greed and spawn hopelessness in victims who increasingly and mindlessly lash out. Even in peaceful climes, a persistent miasma of fear and violence permeates.
So do we destroy ourselves, as so many artists have predicted for millennia, or will we rise as one to say "no more"?
The worldwide epidemic of strongman rule is the last gasp of backlash before the Age of Aquarius. The alternative is that we snuff ourselves and all around us, leaving a barren planet for rats and roaches to tend for a few million years.
Longtime readers know that my singular solution, the place to start, lies with women in politics. Male egos have long proven incapable of problem solving greater than war, better known as politics by other means.
I have sometimes told the story of my old football coach who provided a definition of communism I've not seen advanced since high school.
He noted that true communism could never work because people are too greedy. Some lowlife, infected with the "more" disease, will monkey-wrench the societal striving for common good.
Coach Jon Peterson advised that if you want to see what communism may look like if ever attempted, watch the movie "Lost Horizon." It describes a loving, peaceful society where people live over 200 years.
Given recent scientific advances, that's now doable if we have the political will to follow the research and the dream.
Sequels fall flat. Get the originals. James Hilton wrote the novel in 1933 as the world witnessed the rise of fascism which again infects us today. Legendary director Frank Capra ("It's a Wonderful Life") helmed the 1937 film starring Oscar-winner Ronald Colman as a noted writer and political leader; Jane Wyatt ("Father Knows Best" who layer starred as Spock's mom in "Star Trek" films) and Sam Jaffe ("Exodus") as the high lama.
Jaffe arranges for Colman's plane to be hijacked and the passengers brought thru brutal conditions to a valley high in the Himalayas -- the Valley of the Blue Moon, Shangri La.
It's a meteorological anomaly -- a temperate climate in Mt. Everest's neighborhood. There is no violence and no war. People live in harmony to take care of each other.
Jaffe's guru character, a transplanted westerner, has gathered a world class library representing the accumulated knowledge of mankind -- in anticipation of an Armageddon he knows will come. Shangri La is humanity's fail-safe.
Get the book. View the film. Buy a bunch of copies to give away as presents now and in the future.
The old southern spiritual song advises "God gave Noah the rainbow sign -- no more water, the fire next time." That fire is now. Madmen are lighting it.
There is a better future in our hands. Steve Jobs put a computer in the hands of everyone on earth who wants one. Some get addicted to theirs like casino slot machines. But the high-tech tools are empowering, allowing people to see what's possible, to provide hope.
Sociologists attribute the success of the 1960s civil rights movement to television. When long-oppressed black people could actually see that individuals who resembled were living better lives in the north and west, they began to believe that they could break the still-brutal chains left by the Confederacy.
My forebears, impoverished farm workers in southern Italy, saw that a better life was available in the place called America and came here.
The iPhone is in the process of defeating the guns of Mao and his fellow travelers.
Believe, as do I, that we live in the storm before the coming calm when the better angels of our nature prevail and we maximize the potential of this beautiful little round blue spaceship upon which we are all tenants -- for just a little while.
May you and yours enjoy Happy High Holly Days --> Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah
Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad.
HAPPY NEW YEAR / Feliz Año Nuevo / Felice Anno Nuovo
Frohe Weihnachten und beste Wuensche fuer 2026.
Be well. Raise hell. Stay safe.
Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Ethiopia among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
________
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com, Rentvolution.org and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com.
BRWR CC12/17 ShangriLa/brwr/opsn25a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

The shining city on the hill goes dark
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-10-2025

No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!
— Woody Guthrie 1954

In 1950, Woody Guthrie leased an apartment from Fred Trump Sr., father of our current emperor.

According to Dr Mary L. Trump, Fred wanted to raise "a killer" made unto his own image and likeness.
Fred Jr., psychologist Mary's dad, was a peaceful soul who only wanted to be commercial airline pilot.
"That's like beng a cabdriver," his brother Donald groused.
So Old Man Trump turned to Donnie, You and I and countless millions of others suffer the results and will likely remain so in vitam aeternam.
Bringing it home: "New federal requirements could push close to 1,000 Nevadans into homelessness" read the headline of Nevada Current story in the Reno Gazette-Journal.
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2025/12/08/new-federal-requirements-could-push-close-to-1000-nevadans-into-homelessness-analysis-finds/87672050007/
?utm_source=pren-DailyBriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-briefing&utm_term=Content%20List%20-%20Stacking%20-%20optimized&utm_content=1011GJ-E-NLETTER65
"An abrupt change to federal funding requirements by the Trump Administration could put nearly 1,000 formerly homeless individuals in Nevada at risk of losing their permanent housing, according to a new analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH). The move is expected to displace 170,000 people nationally," reporter Michael Lyle wrote.
"The new requirement came as a surprise since Congress already authorized the funds 'to be a two-year funding cycle,' said Catrina Peters, the Homeless Services Coordinator with Washoe County.
"As the Trump administration has reversed long-standing approaches to homelessness, local governments and nonprofits that rely on federal funding to support homeless programs have been preparing for future changes.
"Yet the funding notice was still unanticipated, Peters said.
“ 'We would really love to at least have some time to be able to plan for these changes, and have a little runway to be able to work with folks on what some different options might be, instead of just being pushed off a cliff, which is what it feels like right now,' ” she added.
Which brings me to a fundraising letter I just got from Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada. They have
changed their approach due to new restrictions from the blackguards in the White House.
"We chose to reduce reliance on federal grants that come with restrictions not aligned with our mission and values," the letter states. You may send a contribution to P.O. Box 5099,Reno NV 89513.
This comes as T-Rump and his warmongers want the Pentagon budget increased to more than $900 billion.
Military spending is the most inflationary thing you can do. Tanks don't create additional value. Tractors do. We just won't learn when our leaders increased the deficit to pay for the Vietnam War. (See "Peace is Bullish" at NevadaLabor.com)
Some money, you gotta spend. But I have zero faith in our Fox host secretary of defense and our 4-f president, he of the magical phantom bone spurs.
Judge President Bulsha Tartist by his deeds, not his words. Right now, he is leading us back to a dismal future, reviving 19th Century Gunboat Diplomacy against Western Hemisphere Banana Republics. (So named because we often sent the Marines against our southern neighbors on behalf of Chiquita Banana and her brothel of exploiters.)
Vladimir Putin must have pictures of T-Rump in bed with a hairless boy or a hairy donkey or somesuch. Look at how the Big 3 dictators are chopping up the world. We throw Ukraine to the Russian bear and Putin gets to start wars in Europe.
"Every time he gets into political trouble at home, he starts a war," said former world chess Champion Garry Kasparov.
He was talking about Czar Putin but that also applies to T-Rump's forming an invasion of Venezuela. Why? So he can brag he has a bigger one than the murderous dictator of Saudi Arabia. Bigger pool of oil reserves, that is. And wars improve poll numbers.
T-Rump is a simpleton. Putin gets Ukraine and can go screw with Europe unto World War 3. Xi Xing Ping gets Taiwan and the eastern Pacific as his playground,
And the T-Rump family gets North and South America in this perverted real estate deal. The divine right of kings is nonesuch. Family dynasties lead to bloodshed, rape and pillage.
Sen. Prescott Bush and his cohorts remained as US representatives of major German industries all thru World War2. George Bush the Elder invaded Kuwait to protect his family's oil leases. Bush the Lesser had to prove his was bigger than daddy's and US troops remain in jeopardy in Irag.
Putin now hosts his ousted vassal Bashir al Assad after his murderous family dynasty was ousted in Syria. Madcap Jim Jong Un, T-Rump's admitted buddy, is making sure his family's domination of nuclear-tipped North Korea will last unto a fourth generation.
I shudder to think of Donald Trump Jr. as president for life.
Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Ethiopia among the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.
¡Sí se puede! Or as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Happy High Holly Days to you and yours.
_______________
[1] In December 1950, Woody Guthrie signed a lease at the Beach Haven apartment complex owned and operated by Fred Trump in Gravesend, Brooklyn. "Old Man Trump" is a song with lyrics written by American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in 1954. The song describes the racist housing practices and discriminatory rental policies of his landlord, Fred Trump, father of President Donald Trump. ...In the 1950s, the Federal Housing Administration, which funded some of Trump's housing projects, set guidelines for avoiding the integration of black people into white neighborhoods...In 1973, the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division sued the Trump Organization (Fred Trump, chair, and Donald Trump, president) for violating the Fair Housing Act. [Wikipedia]
––––––––––––––––––––
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 56-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com, Rentvolution.org and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since August 12, 1988. E-mail <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us> Links and references with the expanded edition at NevadaLabor.com.BRWR CC12/10 Dynasties/brwr/opsn25a
CWA 9413/AFL-CIO
-30-

Balm to soothe and warm your cockles
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-3-2025 / Updated 12-3-2025 GMT/ Expansions in blue

"Donald Trump has a heart of gold. Cold, yellow and hard." -- Paul Drahn (adapted from an old LV union frycook-philosopher I was once privileged to know.)

"No matter how cynical you become, it's hard to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
"You can fool some of the people some of the time and that's usually enough." -- W.C. Fields update of Abraham Lincoln
"I'm the Sheik of Araby,
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you're asleep,
Into your tent I'll creep." -- T-Rump's oily dream (Snyder, Smith & Wheeler, 1921)
Time to snap back to reality. Why is President Bulsha Tartist massing forces to do to Venezuela what his pal Putin is doing to Ukraine? I submit so he can prove to his idols that his is bigger than theirs. Venezuela sits on the largest oil reserves in the world, bigger than the Saudis.
So, he kills cheap, abundant alternative energy to jack up the price of oil while he takes over much of the petroleum business.
As I have oft stated, the U.S. government today is the result of the largest corporate takeover in history. Chairman Donaldov's only goal, after self-gratification, is profit.
He blackmailed Ukraine into committing to give the U.S. half of its agrarian export revenue in exchange for releasing T-Rump-delayed military aid. Putin the Rapist reveled in ecstasy.
We occasionally bailed out companies like Chrysler/Stellantis and GM, but the taxpayers never became permanent investors.
Until now.
"Government Pours Billions Into Private Equity Stakes. Trump officials cite national security -- Unusual ties to firms raise questions." -- New York times front page lead story, 12-2-2025
The Donald was never a very good student. Fascist governments are not supposed to take over the means of production which should be left in private hands with a dictator supporting them. It's them dirty commies that take over the private sector, remember.
Maybe he paid somebody to take his final civics exam. Welcome to communism, Comrade T-Rump.
I can envision his conversation with Chinese boss Xi Xin Ping: "When I invade Venezuela, you take advantage of the distraction to grab Taiwan. Just don't bomb their world-class microchip manufacturing, which I will split with you. Deal?"
The wild card in this apocalyptic fantasy may come when superpower distractions enbolden terrorist outfits like Isis and Al Qaeda. 9/11 Part Deux, anyone?
And Ukraine? "My pal Putin will protect my investment in the agricultural products." Eh wot?
It can't happen here? Now that our government is openly committing premeditated murder, the only thing left is to scale up to maximize rate of return.
Kim Jong Un, Duterte and bin Salman nod in dark admiration.
"I'll bend every effort to win and I come from a long line of effort benders." -- W.C. Fields
SHORT SHOTS. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, ain't nobody's fool. The media hot dog is retiring from Congress after exactly five years -- when she vests in government pension benefits.
In this twisted time, the only thing that matters is getting famous as quickly as possible. Bote Mother Theresa and Charles Manson could get book deals and movie contracts.
"Life's a bitch and the bitch is television." Author David Ritz.
If you've been puzzled as to why pseudo-Fox TV empire Sinclair has moved Channel 4 to 11.2, here's a theory.
Only 12 to 15 percent of households are total cord cutters, no TV other than over-the-air free. So who cares if they get screwed over?
Sinclair has not published the full changes, so here they are.
11.1 - FOX
11.2 - NBC
11.3 - Charge! (cop shows)
4.1 - ROAR (Comedy)
4.2 - Comet (Sci-fi and fantasy)
4.3 - Antenna (Classic TV comedy)
4.4 - Rewind (Classic TV comedy)
21.1 - NSN (Sports)
21.2 - The Nest (Reality/True crime)
21.3 - Dabl (50s-60s comedy)
THE LONG GAME. Remember way back in 2009 when TV went from analog square-screen to digital and the government funded billions for us peons to buy converters if we would just go buy expensive new TV sets?
Well, get set for instant replay. It's called NextGen TV and it will bring us lots more channels and undoubtedly greater expense.
TV, including iPhones, cut the cord of our connections to each other and gave us Donald T-Rump whose face is in our faces 24/7/365, just like George Orwell's Big Brother in his prescient 1949 novel "1984." Orwell never explained how Big Brother got two-way TV in every room everywhere, creating a total surveillance state.
Well, now we know. We bought Orwell's "telescreens" ourselves. The last line in the book described the capitulation of main character Winston Smith: "He loved Big Brother."
Life imitates art.

Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

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 and former vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and a member 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. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.

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

Under construxion / Stay tuned

Happy Thanksgibleting, fellow suckers
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 11-26-2025
Updated 12-3-2025 GMT/ Expansions in blue

From the pharmacy to the grocery store, you are stuck in a rigged game. As I have oft noted, a few major corporations and their billionaire bosses have succeeded in the biggest corporate takeover in history -- the US government.

The average American worker has not had a raise, adjusted for inflation, since 1973. Millions live daily with a seething frustration wondering why they can never get ahead of the game.
Over the past half-century, voters have often decided to "do something, even if it's wrong."
And we have, several times.
The American Medical Association killed universal health care in the late 1940s, calling in communism-socialism. Red Scare works. Great Britain passed it and their national health care system became the model for the modern world.
Socialism? In 2009, the U.S. government passed the 50 percent threshold as the biggest payer of health care.
An insurance company better known as AARP, caved to Bush the Lesser and Dick Cheney to prevent Medicare from negotiating drug prices. Now this from the fake news New York Times: "last week, Medicare officials announced that the standard Part B premium, which covers services such as physician visits and hospital outpatient care, will be $202.90 a month — up 9.7 percent. Next year is the first time the monthly premium will exceed $200 — and it will be 66 percent higher than a decade ago. The annual Part B deductible will also climb, to $283, up 70.5 percent over the past 10 years.
"The Part B premium is just one component of senior health spending, but it’s a closely watched number for many, because typically it is deducted from retirees’ Social Security checks.
"The net annual cost-of-living, or COLA, increase in Social Security benefits depends on the dollar amount of the Part B premium increase. Next year, the Part B rise will consume a substantial portion of the 2.8 percent Social Security COLA announced last month. The average retired worker receives $2,008 per month; the premium increase, $17.90, will reduce that worker’s effective COLA to 1.9 percent. For a lower-income beneficiary receiving $1,000 per month, the effective COLA is just 1 percent.
“ 'Many people will not receive the COLA they might be anticipating, because the premium eats part of it,' said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president of KFF, a health care research nonprofit," the Times noted (11-21-2025)
Then, a ray hope, but first, the coming storm.
"The growth of Medicare Advantage plans — which now account for more than half of total enrollment — plays a role as well. These privately offered alternatives to government-run traditional Medicare often reduce upfront costs by including prescription drug coverage. They also include out-of-pocket caps ($5,320 this year) without the Medigap policies that provide that protection in traditional Medicare. That comes with trade-offs, including health care provider networks and frequent red-tape hassles with coverage approvals, known as prior authorizations.
"Medicare spends about $80 billion more annually for Medicare Advantage enrollees than it would if they were enrolled in traditional Medicare, leading to higher spending for both Part A (which covers hospitalization) and Part B," the Times noted.
Zounds!
"Federal programs can help. Medicare Savings Programs cover premiums and out-of-pocket costs for low-income seniors and automatically enroll them in the Low Income Subsidy program for Part D prescription drugs. Yet only about 60 percent of eligible seniors participate, often because they are unaware of the programs or find enrollment complex."
So apply if you are not a financial heavy hitter.
Rubbing in the sale, the fake news PBS reported last week that Medicare Advantage insurers are using A.I. to turn down claims. Astoundingly less that one lousy percent of the denied ever file an appeal.
I am one such. Aetna failed to informed me of a generic medication. I spent about $1,500 before I learned that a zero co-pay alternative had been available since 2019.
I have enough paper to start a large fire of A.I.-generated claim denials. Only one ever mentioned the issue. The rest came from the "generic turndown" department.
Even if you talk to a living person, you get a letter from Hal the Computer which never treats the issue. Or me or my wallet.
The industry uses the abovementioned "benefit managers" which are basically hired guns on commission to turn down claims. Kinda like the doctors on the take from Purdue Pharma to addict people to oxycontin -- like my late granddaughter, Tara. Dead at 22.
I repeat what I always advise: Insurance companies are in only two businesses, collecting money and denying claims. Rigged game, indeed. People suffer and die as a result.
T-RUMP HAD TO CHANGE HIS DIAPERS if he watched the dirty commie fake news PBS last week.
Last week, I asked "what really inflamed the colonists to start shooting? When King George III and Lord North placed troops in the streets of Boston to control the people. Sound familiar, President T-Rump? Oh, I forgot, you are rewriting history in your own image and likeness. But I do know you are a TV junkie. Try to resist your compulsions."
If he watched, he watched producer Ken Burns and writer Geoffrey C.Ward conclude the six-part series with a warning from Alexander Hamilton regarding the checks and balances built into the US Constitution as a protection against demagogues.
"History will teach us that...of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants".
In 1792, Hamilton described a demagogue as "a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune...known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty…" who seeks to "ride the storm and direct the whirlwind".
Maybe President Bulsha Tartist will try to defund them. Ooops! Been there. Done that.

¡Sí se puede! Or, as they say in Poland, SOLIDARNOSC!

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.)

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

Let it Be: An American Pope Francis2
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-23-2025, uploaded 4-22-2025

Pinky & the Brain taking over the world
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-2-2025

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

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

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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$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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Andrew Barbano is a 56-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. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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