Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
I found some relief from depression about the coming kleptocracy and decade's long daily slaughter in a form of journalism nobody I know does better than Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the Independent (UK), He writes book reviews that are stories in themselves, soaked in the blood and history of the region in which he has been a resident and Arabic speaker for decades.
The spread of Trump's debt can in large part be attributed to the process known as "securitization," when debt is repackaged into bonds and sold off. More than $1 billion of debt connected to the president-elect has been handled in this way. -- Lauren McCailey, Common Dreams, Jan. 5, 2017.
When you spread manure on a sunny day, the stinking dust chokes you. When you spread manure in the rain you have to worry about it running off and polluting creeks and rivers. Nevertheless manure is a good fertilizer. If it's spread judiciously, it helps any seeds grow better, even the seeds of doubt and sheer obliteration. -- blj
As we roll into a week of confirmation hearings for President-Elect Donald Trump's selections to head the top positions in his cabinet, if you step back a moment, as the people at Public Citizen did ,1.what you see is a series of mergers and acquisitions of the various agencies by the "communities" they serve and regulate.
While specific conflict of interest laws that apply to officials below the president don't specifically apply to the commander in chief, the "tone from the top matters," Shaub said.
"The signals a president sends set the tone for ethics across the executive branch." -- Jordan Fabian, The Hill, Jan. 11, 2017
But, Holy Leon Leonwood! What are we supposed to wear?
Do they make galoshes in Oshkosh?
Will the hound dogs follow hunters in Wranglers?
Will the moose of Maine migrate to West Texas?
-- la jornada del malpais
1-12-17
The Hill
Trump's L.L. Bean tweet breaks WH policy
BY BROOKE SEIPEL http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/314103-trumps-ll-bean-t...
5
1-14-17
Pick Pruitt Stymied Cleanup of Scenic River Fouled by Factory Chicken Farm Waste
The three West Coast governors, all Democrats, are proposing to join up with the government of British Columbia to form an alliance to develop more means of dealing with carbon emissions that cause global warming and create " hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new jobs in lucrative manufacturing and energy sectors."
And, incidently, pull traditionally Democratic Party counties out of the pockets of Trump and back into the loving arms of Mama Democrat, who recently experienced a mugging at the polls.
...Sherri Dillon, a tax attorney at the law firm Morgan Lewis, also delivered an explanation of how the Trump Organization will be structured going forward.
Dillon said all of Trump’s assets, including his cash holdings and real estate properties, would be placed in a trust for his entire presidency.
The Trump Organization is hiring a chief compliance officer to ensure the business is “operating at the highest levels of integrity," according to Dillon.
1-19-17
New Yorker
Greg "Ol' Hoss" Hostetler of Los Banos, a prominent local real estate developer whose unfinished projects surround several cities in Merced, recently bought a full-page ag in the local McClatchy outlet. It is a call to "Fix Mariposa Creek Flooding," which had closed a section of SR 59 between Los Banos and Merced. For years, Hostetler, reportedly also the largest almond grower in Merced County, has shown animosity for any free-running water in the county.
'California Collapse'
by Lance Breakfast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQazFRIhZY&feature=youtu.be
1-24-17
New Yorker
A Bad Day For The Environment, With Many More To Come
Bill McKibben
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-bad-day-for-the-environment-wi...(124)&CNDID=48689978&spMailingID=10301070&spUserID=MTc5NzI4MDI2NDEwS0&spJobID=10820876
The thing about lies and threats is that they are meant to intimidate and they often achieve their goals. Part of the shock involves the recognition that the regime in power actually wants to intimidate you.
Actually, it does. It does it blatantly, as in Trump's lies about the number of illegal votes cast in the last election, who is going to pay for the alleged wall on the southern border, the size of the crowd at his inauguration.
Just a little note from John Dean, White House counsel to President Richard Nixon, to the crowd that prepared the political ground for the Ascent of Trump by declaring the end of history.
They then began to build bridges across the Hellespont from Abydos to that headland between Sestus and Madytus, the Phoenicians building one of ropes made from flax, and the Egyptians building a second one out of papyrus. From Abydos to the opposite shore it is a distance of almost two-thirds of a mile. But no sooner had the strait been bridged than a great storm came on and cut apart and scattered all their work.
After little more than a week, thoughtful Americans are anticipating the impeachment of Trump, basing their prediction on the evidence of Trump's unfitness to hold the office. He has already outraged more sectors of the population than can be imagined and the numbers grow by the day. The only real question is how much damage will be done before he is removed. -- blj
1-28-17
Huffington Post
The Inevitability Of Impeachment
After just one week
What does a developer want? Happy bankers. And if you are a developer who happens to be the president of the United States, you can make your bankers very happy by dismantling the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Dodd-Frank was a pale sister of the Glass-Steagall Act, which the Great Depression Congress passed to prohibit commercial banks from engaging in investment. The repeal of Glass-Seagall in the last year of the Clinton administration was one of the main causes of the real estate bubble and global financial collapse of 2008.