Badlands Journal

News From…

Congressman Dennis Cardoza

18th Congressional District of California

 Congressman Cardoza hails long-awaited House passage of PAYGO budget requirement 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto power Tuesday to kill a legislative compromise that would have cut the state's Williamson Act subvention to counties by 20 percent. The Hun axed it all, leaving a token $1,000 in the fund.

Reports are coming in from rural counties across the state:

"Fresno County will lose about $4.8 million in Williamson Act money ...Tulare County will lose about $3.4 million in Williamson Act money, officials said. Madera County Supervisor Frank Bigelow said his county will be out $1.3 million. 'We're either going to have to borrow the money ... or we're going to have to make cuts to police or libraries,' he said." -- Fresno Bee, July 29, 2009 (via CVSEN clipping service)

Tehama County to lose $800,000 -- Corning Observer, July 28, 2009

Eighth District Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada ... said the governor's "reduction in annual Williamson Act subventions to local governments for forgone property tax revenues, in effect, eliminates the Act and continues the assault on agriculture in California. Without this land protection program, California will likely lose more farmland to development -- something we will never be able to regain." -- Woodland Daily Democrat, July 29, 2009.

Glenn County to lose $950,000 in state subventions for land enrolled in the Williamson Act -- Orland Press-Register, July 28, 2009

Press Release

California Sportfishing Protection Alliance

3536 Rainier Avenue, Stockton, CA95204

7-22-09

Merced Sun-Star

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/story/963037.html

Letter: Patience is needed

Editor: Gary Frago made a mistake. He has admitted it and has apologized for it. Like others, I was surprised and disappointed. From serious eye-opening experiences like this, humble people can learn and grow from them.

Give Gary Frago a chance to address the issue from all angles, spiritual included. Elections are the time to select our City Council persons.

You have to hand it to Rep. Devin Nunes, Tragic Hero-Visalia, he’s a performer. In fact, you have to stand in line to hand it to him, behind national PACs, agribusiness and oil and gas to hand it to him. He’s raised nearly a million dollars for his campaign next year and if some strong Democrat contender lurks in Nunes’ district, that contender lurks below the surface so far.

The Costoza, representatives Jim Costa, D-Fresno and Dennis Cardoza, Fairy Shrimper- Annapolis/Merced, are not in Nunes’ league. The political theater-going public, knowing this, has dispensed a mere $350,000 and change to each of these chorus boys. . The fourth member of the Valley congressional delegation, Jerry McNerney, Goose Egg-Pleasanton, who represents the actual Delta, tries to keep the Altamont between him and the Valley as much as possible. Closer to Mother Nancy, McNerney gets nearly half a million.

In the state Capitol, the conventional wisdom, what is politically possible, has bankrupted the state and put its most vital water resource, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, in so much peril that the only solution this wisdom can imagine is a peripheral canal.

Here are two unconventional ideas floating around outside the Capitol. That neither of them appear to be politically possible inside the Capitol is in itself an excellent argument for their consideration – not immediate adoption, but more careful consideration than the current attention being given to trying to float another $20-billion bond initiative for a peripheral canal in a state that now enjoys the worst bond rating in the nation, meanwhile slashing health and social services and education budgets in a state with more than 11-percent unemployment, the highest foreclosure numbers in the nation and a public education system nearly as bad as its bond rating.

The situation is desperate. By formally requesting the Obama administration to convene the God Squad, the governor would be following through on his promise to fight on behalf of California farmers, farmworkers, businesses and all water consumers.…”Arnold should call in the God Squad,” By Brandon M. Middleton and Damien M. Schiff, Vacaville Reporter-7/12/09

No sooner had Badlands Editorial board members clarified for a grateful readership that the phenomena known to all Californians as the “water wars” was in fact a theological schism, than the next day God is invoked as the only solution in the by two young Christian mouthpieces for Pacific Legal Foundation. The article advises the Hun, our governor, to focus his rusted star power on the Obama administration to convene a “God Squad” to exempt the Delta environmental crisis from the Endangered Species Act.

Every culture has its sacred texts. Chinese, the Sumerians, Indians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs -- and on and on. You name the culture and we'll name the sacred text -- from the I Ching to the Koran and beyond. It is the world's greatest literature,

the true treasury of the deepest human values and highest human visions.

In California, we have the water news. Because we are so young, dynamic and full of the belief that economic growth equals population growth, the notion that natural resources, especially water, may have limits, has created a theological crisis here in California.

Since 1919 North Dakota has had a state bank, one the state government owns. North Dakota and neighboring Montana are the only two states in the nation this year that don't have budget deficits.

Are there any other ideas for taking control of the state government out of the hands of finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) special interests? By law, these special interests must defend corporate profits, not state and local governments. The people represented by these governments do not even figure in the conversation behind the glass wall that surrounds the state Capitol. Of course, such a decision would take great political leadership within the state Legislature and from the governor, who, at the moment look like the pathetic playthings of private corporations. It would take an astounding act of real political leadership for elected officials to stand up against lobbyists on behalf of those who actually cast the votes. It would be equally astounding to see the two political parties, whose "legitimacy" these days lies largely in their demonization of each other, to reach the sort of serious compromises around honest statements of the interests of their constituents that we dimly remember as government in this state a few decades ago.

In an aggressive new tack, the National Republican Congressional Committee on Wednesday began running a 60-second radio ad attacking Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno. The ad running throughout the week links the two Democrats to systemic irrigation-water shortages.
"Cardoza and Costa can't persuade Democrat leaders to change radical environmental laws," the ad intones. "So while the congressmen fail ... the Valley goes dry." -- Fresno Bee, July 2, 2009

There are a large number of Americans, as we've seen in recent years, and an even larger percentage of Californians, who will believe any political statement as long as it is a Big Enough Lie.

Several of the state's leading banks, meanwhile, said they would accept the IOUs, formally known as registered warrants, but only until July 10. Others had not decided yet.
"Given the poor credit rating of California – the worst in the nation – banks may be hesitant to extend credit to the state," Rod Brown, president and CEO of the California Bankers Association, said in a prepared release. -- Sacramento Bee, July 3, 2009

Last month, when the US Congress failed to pass a bankruptcy reform measure that would have allowed home mortgages to be modified in bankruptcy, senator Dick Durbin succinctly commented: "The banks own the place." That seems pretty clear.
After all, it was the banks' greed that fed the housing bubble with loony loans that were guaranteed to go bad. Of course the finance guys also made a fortune guaranteeing the loans that were guaranteed to go bad (ie AIG), and when everything went bust, the taxpayers got handed the bill. The cost of the bailout will certainly be in the hundreds of billions, if not more than $1tn when it is all over. -- The Guardian, June 30, 2009

In May, Merced County official unemployment rate fell to 17.3 percent. -- Badlands

6-30-09
Global Research
California's Empty Wallet: Turning Crisis into Opportunity...Ellen Brown
webofdebt.com 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14180

THE PR FIRM FROM HELL
As published in the June 30th, 2009 edition of the Fresno Community Alliance newspaper
(First of two parts)
By Lloyd G. Carter

http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/090629251_the-pr-firm-from-hell  

    Cesar Chavez knew the power of a good march. He led by example and he never stopped trying until he found a way. And this is exactly what we are going to do. We never will stop until we find a way, find a way together here, because this is the right thing to do, because we need water, we need water, we need water, we need water [chanting with crowd]. --

            Gov. Schwarzenegger, on April 17, at the San Luis Reservoir, following a four-day grower-funded march in which non-union farmworkers were paid to walk 50 miles from Mendota.  Chavez’ United Farm Workers union did not participate.  UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta called it shameless exploitation of the late labor leader’s legacy.