Aug 03 2010
Governator Desperate For Legacy, Risks California Budget
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal state of emergency last week amid a political stalemate over the 2010 – 2011 state budget. In the last few years the California legislature has routinely been unable to pass a budget by the June 1st deadline, and this year negotiations have been especially contentious. Recently Schwarzenegger said if a budget that he likes …
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal state of emergency last week amid a political stalemate over the 2010 – 2011 state budget. In the last few years the California legislature has routinely been unable to pass a budget by the June 1st deadline, and this year negotiations have been especially contentious. Recently Schwarzenegger said if a budget that he likes …
The watchdog group Fairness and accuracy in reporting (FAIR) recently published an advisory regarding the media coverage of the WikiLeaks documents. According to FAIR, less than a week after the release of the immense “Afghan war diary,” it has already been parsed and broken down to fit the various news outlets’ narratives. Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote of …
A leaked memo to the head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services reveals that the Obama administration is considering helping certain categories of immigrants through administrative procedures instead of through comprehensive immigration legislation. Among the groups identified for assistance are those who have what is called Temporary Protective Status, as well as students who are children of undocumented parents. …
Mumia Abu Jamal is an award winning journalist and political prisoner. Today’s commentary is on the Wikileaks and the media. 
Last week Robert Dudley, the incoming CEO of BP, said it is “not too soon” to begin scaling back clean-up efforts along the Gulf Coast. It’s been just over two weeks since a temporary cap has stopped the flow of oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Oil gushed into the Gulf for close to 100 days, from late …
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned yesterday that there is a “pause” in the economic recovery touted by Wall Street so that it feels like a “quasi-recession.” Greenspan speculated that if home prices continued to decline it would lead to what’s called a “double-dip” recession. He did acknowledge that the benefit of any economic recovery in recent months was …
Ricky Smith grew-up working on his family’s farm in Wartrace, Tennessee. After college, he moved to California and earned an MFA in Visual Anthropology and Cinema from USC. But he didn’t leave behind his intimate knowledge of agriculture and food systems. In 2001 Smith founded the Los Angeles based company, Urban Green. Urban green is an innovative, multi-faceted company, …
Discussions have begun among US Senators on the US nuclear treaty with Russia known as START or the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The potential agreement between the two countries calls for the reduction of their respective stockpiles down to 1,550 strategic warheads within the next seven years. START has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate and …
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have made farmworkers eligible to receive overtime pay after 8 hours a day, or 40 hours a week. The bill would also have given farmworkers the right to take one day off a week. Since 1972 California farmworkers have been eligible for overtime pay after 10 hours …
The 2008 US Farm Bill is set to expire in two years, and the agricultural community has already started to mobilize for substantive changes to be made in the 2012 version of the bill. To date, the passage of the farm bill that occurs every four or five years has elicited little public attention, allowing farm-state legislators and corporate …
