Badlands Journal

 As long as Uncle Sam deems marijuana an illegal, Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, black market demand for Emerald Triangle pot will remain strong, Leo said. -- Nicholas Iovino, Courthouse News Service, Jan. 7, 2017.

Law enforcement’s stance that marijuana causes crime is based on numbers from the black market, according to Will Skaarup, a consultant for Sister of the Valley, a growing cohort.

“We think a regulated market drives the black market away,” he said. -- Thaddeus Miller, Merced Sun-Star, Nov. 7, 2017

11-9-17

Washington Post

Saudi Arabia’s arms deals are buying the West’s silence over Yemen, activists allege

 Westlands Water District's predations against water used by others continue, perversely, and a big water bill in Congress tied to a defense-spending package could be another successful grab by the Colossus of Alkali Flats.  Westlands will take cover wherever it's available, even wrapping itself in the same Stars and Stripes that covers the caskets of soldiers killed in wars in countries their relatives would have a hard time finding on a map.

But in this battle they are up against Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, formerly a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of the lead attorneys on NRDC vs. Rodgers,  which resulted in water flowing in the San Joaquin River across the Valley for the first time in 55 years for the benefit of fish. (1)

 “This is typical Obama-era political science,” Bast said. “It’s all been debunked so many times it’s not worth debating anymore. Why are we still wasting taxpayer dollars on green propaganda?” -- Mooney et al, Washington Post, Nov. 3, 2017

Once in power, the shrill pack of lies of rightwing propaganda changes its tone. It casually dismisses a decade of sincere confrontation and effort to cope with global warming as something that you-know-what president did. Now in power, the Right delivers the propaganda of the deed.

-- blj

11-3-17

 10-26-17

Eureka Times-Standard

A century of obstruction

By Joshua Saxon

http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/20171026/a-century-of-obstruction

If the public does not have a newspaper that will dig into the county's business life, it will never be able to judge important to our citizens of anything important from the so-called "news." Like so "very, very" (to lapse into Trumpian) articles in this McClatchy Chain outlet, this is nothing more than a press release, pathetically concocted by the newspaper itself for the purpose of pleasing local "leaders."

 Nature Speaking:

Enjoy Julia Roberts as Mother Nature, Harrison Ford as Ocean, Kevin Spacey as Rain Forest, Penelope Cruz as Water, and more ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=julia+roberts+%2Cother+earth&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS583US583&oq=julia+roberts+%2Cother+earth&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.13574j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8Democrats

Copy and paste the address to get this series of short, beautiful spoken essays with great film. -- blj

“The bureaucrats at the State Water Board have lost any and all credibility with the communities I represent. I will continue to pursue every avenue at my disposal to promote greater public transparency and expose this out of control kangaroo court of an agency.” -- Assemblyman Adam Gray press release, Oct. 17, 2017

We've never seen as clear a statement that this legislator does not represent the environmental community in his district than this. He represents agribusiness and its parasitic water and irrigation districts and, like his predecessor and mentor, Dennis "The Shrimp Slayer" Cardoza, is terrified of the environmentalists in his district. --blj

10-17-17

 Although Jerry Mander, a San Francisco advertising man, wrote this 40 years ago, "it doesn't take a rocket scientist" to see that, while he calls the "machine" has been somewhat amplified by computers, it is still performing the same functions much faster of reduction and unification of viewpoint. But now, due to the extreme market analysis that all media employ, this reduction and unification has been miniaturized and fragmented in flood tides of greed for power and profit.

The drive for power and profit drive our media, and on the dark, unacknowledged side, fear of a critical public also drives our media.

But,  operating at different levels in media as in government, there are still good people who believe in reason and analysis. Journalistic integrity is only dead for those who never wanted any.

10-14-17

San Jose Mercury-News