WEREWOLVES R US. I agree with Republican moonhowlers in only two areas, corporate welfare and the death penalty.
I have long advocated capital punishment for corporations proved to have knowingly killed people. Purdue Pharma, America’s drug cartel, is one. Boeing is another.
Once found guilty, a corporation (legally a person entitled to constitutional rights under the law), should be executed, its assets sold off to satisfy damages done to aggrieved families and the remainder going to public education. Stockholders and managers lose all investments.
That’s how we should enforce corporate accountability.
My former longtime Tribune colleague in columny, Sen. Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, and I have always agreed on the depredations of corporate welfare.
To use the late Tribune journalism legend Dennis Myers’ favorite term, passing out corporate welfare like cookies has resulted in overcrowded and decaying schools and roads and woefully understaffed first responders. Reno City Hall just juiced thru a new high rise that will shade a Methodist church in perpetual darkness. (Somebody call an exorcist.)
Orwellianly-named “redevelopment agencies” are epidemic in Nevada. They shunt tax money toward the use of major developers and put local governments in debt for decades. (See the corporate welfare archive at NevadaLabor.com)
Laborer’s Union Local 169 last week filed an action with the Nevada Labor Commissioner over the latest sweetheart deal. Sparks City Hall’s redevelopment hustle turned over “The Deco” parking garage downtown on “C” Street near the Tribune’s former HQ. The union alleges that it was conveyed at less than fair market value and in violation of several sections of Nevada law. The complaint alleges that workers have been underpaid and asks that they be made whole. The full doc may be accessed via NevadaLabor.com/
This is an old Rail City story. When downtown became “Victorian Square” and huge amounts of corporate welfare were expended building the plaza and movie theatre, labor sued and won. But that took years, fly-by-night contractors had flown and many workers never got their back wages.
SEN. NEAL ON THE CHIEF JUSTICE. Retired 32-year Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, taught constitutional law at Community College of Southern Nevada for many years. He recently published an opinion contrary to conventional wisdom (typical behavior for those who know him) that the chief justice of the United States can do no more than bang the gavel and shut up at the trial of a president.
“The Majority Leader (Mitch McConnell, R-KY) is claiming powers constitutionally he may not have…It is my belief from reading and studying Constitutional Law (that) the Chief Justice has tremendous powers in conducting an impeachment trial,” Neal wrote in an e-bulletin.
“The Senate cannot set the rules as to whom will be heard or testify. This is a question left to the Chief Justice’s implied powers found in his duties to preside and administer the oath of impartial justice under the Constitution. The language of the Constitution allows the Chief to kick Mitch McConnell off the Senate panel if he insists that he cannot be impartial…after taking the oath. I believe the Chief Justice has the power under the Constitution to insure impartiality, including denial of the Majority Leader the right to participate in the trial.” The full text may be viewed at SenJoeNeal.org/
IMPORTANT MLK WEEKEND EVENTS. BELIEVE it or else and wear your woolies, the Reno Women’s March forms this Saturday, Jan. 18 at 11:00 a.m. at the “Believe” sculpture on the former site of the assassinated Mapes Hotel across from Reno City Hall, First & Virginia at the mucky Truckee. Intrepid souls will trek to the Reno Events Center at 400 N. Center Street where entertainment and death-defying’ speechifyin’ will hold forth until 3:00 p.m.
The 34th Nevada Interfaith Association MLK memorial service starts at 5:00 p.m. this Sunday, Jan. 19 at McKinley Arts & Culture Center on Riverside Drive at Keystone Avenue.
The 22nd Onie Cooper Memorial MLK Highway Caravan departs from the Truckee Meadows Boys & Girls Club,1090 Bresson Avenue northwest of Kietzke Lane and Vassar Street at 11:00 a.m. January 20. Former Reno-Sparks NAACP President Cooper worked many years to get a stretch of road named for Dr. King. Former Democratic Gov. Bob Miller finally designated five miles of Interstate 580/US 396 as Nevada’s MLK Highway.
Be well. Raise hell. Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Barbano is a 51-year Nevadan, executive producer of Nevada’s annual March 31 César Chávez Day celebration, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal. org/ E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988.
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