Badlands Journal

Americans have been jerked around by the rapid serial montages of the "news cycle" to the point where even Rep. Dennis Cardoza, the Pimlico Kid-Annapolis MD, believes he can foist the rhythm on us, mere constituents of His Greatness, with impunity.

So, the Great Pimlico Kid Himself, makes marks on the administration like the all-powerful legislative lion, which he isn't,  by introducing a bill to cut the travel budget of the secretary of HUD, like it makes a difference.

This would have been a far more useful story if the reporter had bothered to ask and record the answers to these simple questions: did the California Environmental Protection Agency investigate the allegations against Merced Irrigation District? What did it find? What enforcement action was or might be taken? A quote "cannot comment because of an ongoing investigation" from CEPA would have added a nice symetry to the story.

As it is, what we have is a brief report of a legal brief filed on behalf of an aggrieved employee of MID and a whole lot of reporter dodging by an agency that finds it extremely difficult to comply with a California Public Records Act request.

MID's latest managing director is a member of the family of an MID board member who doesn't pay her bills. Director Suzy Hulgren parlayed a few public rants against Riverside Motorsports Park promoter, John Condren, lies and financial double-dealing into a seat on the board, with the help of the Merced County Farm Bureau and California Women for Agriculture. She was, however, unsuccessful as the frontwoman for the farm bureau and CWA in the attempt to bankrupt her partners in the RMP lawsuit, San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and Protect Our Water, or to financially damage two law firms, Don E. Mooney and Associates and Sproul and Troost, who represented the petitioners against the race track project.

At the end of June and an 18-month campaign, the Hun, our governor, and other legislative lackies of the finance, insurance and real estate interests, announced they will now try to rally enough votes to remove the $11-billion water bond from the November ballot. This after heroic efforts of bribery and corruption to get the proposition on the ballot last year. But that was then – “the third year of the drought” – and this is now, with 150 percent of normal snowpack melting in the Sierra.

Porky Stables

On June 17, residents of the 18th congressional district of California were informed by McClatchy Chain local outlets that a new star was rising in the world of horse racing, Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Pimlico Kid-Merced.

"I think it's actually a brilliant opinion in that it finally says we have to look at the big picture here, and not that endangered species trump everything," said Roger Marzulla, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who frequently sues the federal government over endangered species rules. "Don't we have to take some other things into consideration here?"
Others question the logic of requiring scrutiny of species protection rules under a second environmental law.

"It doesn't make any sense to do environmental analysis on the back end when you're trying to help the environment," said Holly Doremus, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. "What he's (Federal Court Justice Oliver Wanger) saying is the agencies have to find absolutely the least burdensome way to save the species." -- Contra Costa Times, 6-14-10

We have taken "the big picture" for, in Bob Marley's words, "four hundred years," during which the species were offered absolutely no way to avoid massive destruction at the hands of an economic (and legal system) that was "absolutely" into "absolute" exploitation of natural resources, species, and anything else on which a profit could be made.

Ratepayers, Farmers, & Conservationists File Suit to

Calif.– Today groups are seeking to block a secret backroom deal signed by five water contractors along with the Department of Water Resources [DWR] toundo water contracts underlying voter approved bonds four decades earlier. Absent courtaction, contract changes that largely benefit southern central valley corporate irrigators atthe expense of urban ratepayers will trade away ratepayer funded projects and allowmassive diversions of water from the Delta charging only pumping costs. [C-WIN], one of the groups seeking decades of urban ratepayer protections for the benefit of a few agribusiness corporations and real estate developments at the expense of ratepayers

The back room deal, known as the ―M

                               Area of Origin Protection:

                            A Promise that has been Broken  

by Felix Smith, May 25, 2010

We were deeply gratified that on the same day it announced a truly rotten federal court decision on the Delta pumps, one that will cause more damage to the endangered spring run of salmon and more economic damage to residents of the Delta and the Pacific Coast commercial fishery, the McClatchy Company’s Fresno outlet chose to run the long piece on revolving doors in resource regulatory agencies. We replied below to this act of self-righteous, hypocritical publication that becomes blatant propaganda considering its timing and place.

Badlands Journal editorial board

5-25-10

BP's ace in the hole is its contracts with the US Department of Defense, the largest oil consumer in the world. While the military is fighting two wars, one for oil wells (Iraq), the other for pipeline routes (Afghanistan and Pakistan), one of the Pentagon's most favored oil companies commits one of worst oil spill on record and it is still spilling, unabated. Because of BP's military contracts, the government may not impose serious sanctions on the company. It could become "a matter of national security" that BP not be punished. The wars were are fighting for oil are being fueled to a significant extent by BP from wells in the US and Gulf of Mexico.

The civilian government is helpless and is in fact continuing to permit new drilling in the Gulf. It can't stop the spill itself and has little control over BP's efforts. This situation is leading to cynical speculations about the government and BP, for example: pollution of the coastline is just a political obstacle to overcome on the way to full build out of drilling rigs in the Gulf. What is the entire population of the coast worth in comparison to the influence of a few oil companies?

Below, find a complex defense of former Rep. Richard Pombo, Crooked Cowboy-Tracy, currently running for a congressional seat far from his residence and home of his family's real estate business. McClatchy's Fresno and Modesto chain outlets have been covering the fund-raising efforts of Pombo, state Sen. Jeff Denham (endorsed by retiring Rep. George Radanovich), and two more Republicans and a brace of Democrats running far behind. Unlike Pombo and Denham however, the four in the rear of the race actually live in the district they are seeking to represent. And to make it more complicated, Radanovich places third in contributions at this time.