Badlands Journal

The article titled "Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 trillion in Fed's Secret Loans," was the result of Bloomberg business news agency's relentless quest involving numerous Freedom of Information Act requests and an act of Congress over a 3-year period. The article is destined to be famous in the annals of American journalism and will be a fundamental document of a history of these times.

It is not easy to read and demands study, rewards study.

We have included a 2009 article by Mark Pittman, who filed the first FOIA with the Fed and has since passed away. Below Pittman's article we have included  two opposing views on what "Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 trillion" means. At the very bottom we have included a passage from a Swedish novel about a financial investigative reporter about the importance of financial journalism to the future of that nation or any other.

In the case of the US financial crash and bailout, regardless of the divergence of views on the Federal Reserve's actions, perhaps a majority of the nation would now reply -- if polled -- that investigative reporting on the financial system was "too little and too late."  and had a nearly impossible task bucking the headwinds of hot air from the 450 high priests of the Free Market. 

8-24-11
Genetic Engineering News List
ConAgra Sued Over GMO '100% Natural' Cooking Oils
Michele Simon
Food Safety News
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/conagra-sued-over-gmo-100-natural-cooking-oils/

If you use Wesson brand cooking oils, you may be able to join a class action
against food giant ConAgra for deceptively marketing the products as natural.

These days it's hard to walk down a supermarket aisle without bumping into a
food product that claims to be "all-natural." If you've ever wondered how even
some junk food products can claim this moniker (witness: Cheetos Natural Puff
White Cheddar Cheese Flavored Snacks - doesn't that sound like it came straight
from your garden?) the answer is simple if illogical: the Food and Drug
Administration has not defined the term natural.

So food marketers, knowing that many shoppers are increasingly concerned about
healthful eating, figured: why not just slap the natural label on anything we
can get away with? That wishful thinking may soon be coming to an end if a few
clever consumer lawyers have anything to say about it.

You mean to tell me that the success of the (economic) program and my reelection hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of @$#%&!! bond traders? -- President Bill Clinton, The Agenda, Bob Woodward, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1994, p. 73

August 19 - 21, 2011
CounterPunch.com
Guard-Dogs for the Banks
The Case Against Rating Agencies
By MICHAEL HUDSON
http://www.counterpunch.com/hudson08192011.html
In today’s looming confrontation the ratings agencies are playing the political role of “enforcer” as the gatekeepers to credit, to put pressure on Iceland, Greece and even the United States to pursue creditor-oriented policies that lead inevitably to financial crises. These crises in turn force debtor governments to sell off their assets under distress conditions. In pursuing this guard-dog service to the world’s bankers, the ratings agencies are escalating a political strategy they have long been refined over a generation in the corrupt arena of local U.S. politics.

Why ratings agencies favor public selloffs rather than sound tax policy: The Kucinich Case Study

When we read a recent article in the Merced Sun-Star about the city zoo threatening to close down, we could not help remembering the story of the baby bobcat commandeered by UC Merced for a mascot with a combination of willing and coerced help from public and private agencies. These agencies are mandated by laws and regulations to help rehabilitate injured and orphaned wildlife for release back into the wild rather than help UC get a mascot, particularly when it already had one. We include various newspaper articles through the years that mark the progress of the story in doting words. The McClatchy Chain’s Merced outlet stayed consistent to its goals of unconditional love of UC development and UC’s attitude toward the environment. If the biggest public institution of higher education in the world could stomp fairy shrimp, there couldn’t be anything wrong with it, right?

8-11-11
The Record
Rep. Cardoza considering retirement…The Record

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110811/A_NEWS/108110318/-1/A_NEWS

STOCKTON - It seems certain that Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, won't be representing Stockton after the completion of his current term, but it is not clear what his plans will be come the 2012 elections.

News reports have raised the possibility that Cardoza was considering retiring rather than running for a sixth term.

On Wednesday, his office said he hadn't yet made up his mind.

"Congressman Cardoza has not finalized his decision and will not for some time," Robin Roberts, his chief of staff, said in an email.

Maps of new political boundaries drawn by the California Citizens Redistricting Commission won't be final until later this month, and they could face legal challenges. Nevertheless, the drastically different boundaries for state and federal offices have started to shift the state's political landscape.

One of San Joaquin County's two members of the House of Representatives, Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, already has announced plans to move to San Joaquin County to run for a newly drawn 9th Congressional District that contains many of the residents currently residing in McNerney's 11th District.

8-8-11

Lloyd G. Carter Chronicle of the Hydraulic Brotherhood
Budgets, Billionaires, profits and the Brown Family - Part Two
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/110808512_budgets-billionaires-bonds-big-profits-and-brown-family-part-two
 
The Browns and 50-Years of GO Bond Debts
Part Two
By Patrick Porgans and Lloyd G. Carter

The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little, old man, with a bald head and wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. The Tim Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out,

"Who are you?"

"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," said the little man, in a trembling voice, "but don't strike me -- please don't! -- and I'll do anything you want to" ... (p. 153, Signet Classics edition)

-- blj

8-3-11
Global Research 
The US Dictatorship and its White House Servant ‘President’
by Finian Cunningham
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25853

If there is one thing that the office of President Barack Obama demonstrates it is that democracy does not exist in the United States. This may seem a rather outlandish statement. For many people, the fact that the 44th president is the first black man to preside over the White House – with its American colonial-style architecture – is a tribute to the triumph of US democracy.

The investigators on California water issues we've learned to trust through the years -- Lloyd Carter and Patrick Porgans -- have delivered once again another chapter in the story of accumulation of control of this most vital natural resource. This is a story of another form of the famous California "win-win, Public-private Partnership" for the enrichment of the few, the rich, the powerful at the expense of the Public Trust.

The Badlands Journal editorial board heard  this week from ranch real estate agents that prices for farmlard are rising on sales to investors looking for a home for their money. It reminded us of an article that appeared on this site last September.

Meanwhile (see below Badlands article and congressmen's latest ag-pork announcement), the dogs bark but the caravan moves on. -- blj