Badlands Journal

We agree with Merced County Planning Coimmissioner Jack Mobley's letter below. The people of California generally believed that they were voting to spend $9 billion to plan for a railroad along existing rail routes from LA to SF to travel at a high rate of speed. What they bought for their money was dishonest ridership. cost and job estimates, routes going through both suburban and rural areas that would be extremely disruptive to flows of existing traffic and the movement of farm machinery, staff barring the public from public meetings, supine federal resource agencies selling out the environment "because The Boss wants high speed rail." and a seemingly endless stream of ubiquitous, meaningless flak fomented by local land-sue authorities and their boosters like Merced trying to cover up their disastrous failures of judgment about housing and growth by denying the simple facts Mobley outlines below.

"It's been explosive growth for them," he said in a telephone interview. "The economics on it are staggering." -- Bloomberg, 12-12-11

12-12-11

Bloomberg News

Dark Side of Fracking Makes Heckmann a Takeover Target: Real M&A…David Wethe and Tara Lachapelle, ©2011 Bloomberg News. Editors: Michael Tsang, Daniel Hauck.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/12/bloomberg_articlesLW3TAV6K50Y6.DTL&type=printable

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The need to reduce the environmental risk from shale-oil drilling is boosting the allure of Heckmann Corp. and Poseidon Concepts Corp. as takeover targets.

Local and federal regulators are raising questions about pollution after demand for so-called hydraulic fracturing, which uses millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to unlock oil and gas in shale rock, more than tripled in the past five years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report last week it found evidence of chemicals used in the process in a drinking-water aquifer in Wyoming.

12-13-11
Democracy Now!
Ex-Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, Former Democrat, Launches Third Party Presidential Bid Against Obama, GOP

ROCKY ANDERSON: Well, I registered with the Federal Election Commission, the Justice Party. And we did a lot of vetting overthe name, probably took too long to do that, but we got a lot of input from all over the country. And it seemed that thenotion of justice—economic justice, social justice, environmental justice—that’s what the people in this country want. Theywant an equal playing field. They want the laws to apply to everyone equally. And they don’t want our Congress and ourpresident simply serving the interests of the economic aristocracy in this country any longer.

12-8-11

Global Research

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine

by Ellen Brown

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

--Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Every economy is planned. This traditionally has been the function of government. Relinquishing this role under the slogan of “free markets” leaves it in the hands of banks. -- Michael Hudson, Counterpunch.com, December 2, 2011

12-1-11
Wall Street Journal
Massachusetts sues banks over foreclosures .Article Comments more in New York | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».Email Print Save ↓ More .
Associated Press
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP42fa25a884654772aaf9a9ec07459844.html
NEW YORK — Massachusetts sued five major banks Thursday over deceptive foreclosure practices such as the "robo-signing" of documents, potentially undermining negotiations between lenders and state prosecutors across the nation over the same issue.

The lawsuit named Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc., and GMAC. It was filed in Massachusetts by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

"We have two clear goals with this lawsuit — one is to provide for real accountability for the role the banks have played in unlawful and illegal foreclosures, and secondly to provide for real and enforceable relief for the harm that the misconduct has caused," said Coakley in a press conference to announce the lawsuit.

Given that credibility was already in short supply as state and federal officials try to resolve water conflicts in the Delta, Wanger hasn't done Californians any favors.

 

12-1-11

Scarmento Bee
Editorial: By working for Westlands, Wanger puts legacy in doubt

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/01/4091362/by-working-for-westlands-wanger.html

Of all the federal judges who have recently presided in California, none has had more impact on California water issues than just-retired U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Fresno.

Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, Wanger was at the center of highly contentious rulings on federal water contracts, endangered species protections and disputes over toxic drainage.

On numerous occasions, the Westlands Water District – the nation's largest agricultural district by value of crops – was a party in those cases, and several times Wanger issued rulings favorable to this powerful water agency.