Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
Of course, Trump is not alone in this: populist nationalist authoritarian leaders on the rise all over the world win and hold power in ways very similar to the fascists of the inter-war period. What is there in these two eras almost a century apart that would explain this common political trajectory?
It's always good to remember and every once in a blue moon, people realize that the health of a farm depends on the health of its soil ...wmh
6-23-19
'Centers of Insurrection': Central Valley Farmers Reckon With Climate Change
Bay Nature/KQED
Mark Schapiro
Bribes are traditionally paid along the route to authorities, but also to organised crime groups that control territory, especially at Mexico's northern border with the US and charge smugglers for each migrant they cross.
Ebrard said Mexico was meeting weekly with governments from Central America's Northern Triangle - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador - to exchange information about smuggling rings. But he said he also expected cooperation from the US government.
This is a journal that Tracy Taft of Ajo AZ, a neighbor of Scott Warren, kept of this trial, in which a conviction carried up to a 20-year sentence. Ms. Taft began the journal as a letter to a friend. -- blj
June 1
Two speeches given by the President and Vice President of the United States in the months prior to US entrance into World War II state who we were and why we were going to fight fascism. These ideals and the works that had already sprung from them during the New Deal were hated by the ancestors of the far right kleptocrats now seeking to destroy America for the rest of us.
The very ugly story of corporate greed and aggression and government and judicial corruption known as corn genetically modified to resist the herbicide glysophate is coming round to the truths so long shouted down by high-paid, soulless flaks, politicians and other rotten grifters riding that grand “high-tech, bio-tech engine for growth” gravy train so deafeningly, vulgarly and lyingly broadcast locally by the University of California, Merced as it browbeat the local population into submission for the benefit of the local finance, insurance, and real estate speculating congregation.
But, how do you build a water bank under ground?
LeZotte said Santa Clara is sensitive to farmers’ apprehensions about groundwater getting moved.
A sentiment worthy of UC Merced. -- blj
5-29-19
Sacramento Bee
Thirsty Silicon Valley water agency might buy a Central Valley farm. Why agriculture is worried.
By Dale Kasler
The lede of the article below was buried in its last graph.
“Unfortunately, this complex scheme leaves (farmers) with more questions than answers,” Stabenow said. “I have a number of concerns about whether this plan is fair and equitable to all farmers. Government checks are no replacement for lost markets, and this temporary support will only go so far.”
There’s help for the Bloomingcamp Ranch right here in Merced City, where Safeway has been tapping into our tap water for years and bottling it for sale. We also have a local developer down here who is expert is constructing pipelines apparently to nowhere. So he can certainly build one from Merced City to the outskirts of Oakdale, so customers of Bloomingcamp can have confidence in the ranches water source. From Ranchwood to Bloomingcamp, ranch-to-camp, so to speak.
The California High Speed Rail project, ruinous to farmland, farm operations and habitat for endangered species, was sold to voters in a highly deceptive initiative and has been rammed down the throats of Valley landowners ever since by a cabal of project potentates and real estate special interests cattle-prodding local governments into support.