‘Obstructionist bureaucrat': Turlock mayor holds funds hostage for critical We Care Program
'Turlock approves 114 houses amid neighbor complaints. The site has long grown strawberries,' (modbee.com, Feb. 15)
At the March 25 Turlock City Council Meeting, Mayor Amy Bublak put on an appalling performance regarding a resolution about the We Care Program, an important partner in Turlock that provides transitional and emergency shelter, mental health treatment and job training to help homeless individuals become more self-sufficient.
The program has been awarded a large grant from Stanislaus County, with a routine, administrative step to receive a letter of support from the Turlock City Council by April 28, before the funds can be released.
Bublak, however, opposed the resolution, contending that the county failed to identify what funds the county will pay to the City of Turlock to address homelessness. The mayor now apparently intends to hold the We Care Program hostage 'until the county comes to the table,' despite the impending April 28 deadline.
This is a dispute between the city and the county, not with We Care. The decision to block funding for this critical program is the move of either a naïve politician or an obstructionist bureaucrat. Turlock residents deserve better.
Myrna Wachs
Turlock
Opinion
'Budget cuts impact national parks: What visitors need to know,' (modbee.com, March 13)
American writer and historian Wallace Stegner once called our national parks 'the best idea we ever had.' Yet President Donald Trump's rush to cut spending and eliminate federal jobs for those who work at the national parks is at odds with this great notion. On the chopping block are park rangers who respond to medical emergencies, visitor center employees and crews that clean bathrooms and empty garbage cans. Firing thousands of employees with no notice or reason is cruel — leaving individuals without paychecks, unable to serve in the parks they love.
Recent court orders from two federal judges have led to the reinstatement of about 1,000 National Park Service employees; however, further cuts are still planned, potentially impacting park operations and visitor experiences. Further proposed cuts include a potential 30% payroll reduction for the National Park Service.
One might hope the national parks would be spared the current political polarization many governmental agencies now find themselves embroiled in. It is reasonable to believe that former President Teddy Roosevelt, a great Republican, would not be in favor of the cuts the current administration is proposing to the national parks — America's best idea.
Kent Mitchell
Riverbank
'Trump orders removal of 'divisive,' 'anti-American ideology' Smithsonian exhibits,' (modbee.com, March 27)
President Donald Trump continues his war on truth. In addition to authorizing Elon Musk to tear apart the government and cut funding to critical agencies and government programs, now, our national parks are at risk.
Our rights are threatened when the presidential administration not longer adheres to the laws of the land. Trump even fired the inspectors general of 17 federal agencies, individuals who were the watchdogs for fraud and waste.
Now, the operations of the Smithsonian Institution and the Kennedy Center are being interfered with by Trump. The president now seeks to remove all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the Smithsonian. Instead, he wants to propagate his version of 'truth' and eliminate our history.
Diane Kroeze
Modesto
'California Democrats were called 'soft' on sex trafficking. This could make it worse | Opinion,' (sacbee.com, March 25)
Every year, the California legislature and news media push anti-trafficking bills focused on policing and criminalization, approaches that have harmed survivors and failed to prevent exploitation. This recent column is a necessary reminder that real solutions require more than punitive laws. They require a public health approach.
For 25 years, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (Cast) has provided services to survivors in Los Angeles, Our data shows the impact of criminalization: Nearly half of the 250 survivors in our long-term services disclosed having criminal records, often due to being forced into crimes by traffickers or misidentified as offenders, which creates significant and lasting barriers to jobs, housing and stability.
Survivors are not a monolith, but one principle is clear: We can't cause harm to end harm. Instead of continued criminalization, lawmakers must invest in housing, healthcare and economic opportunities — real solutions that prevent human trafficking.
Kay Buck
CEO, Cast
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump tariffs may remain in effect while appeals proceed, U.S. Appeals court decides
By Dietrich Knauth (Reuters) -A federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump's most sweeping tariffs to remain in effect on Tuesday while it reviews a lower court decision blocking them on grounds that Trump had exceeded his authority by imposing them. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. means Trump may continue to enforce, for now, his "Liberation Day" tariffs on imports from most U.S. trading partners, as well as a separate set of tariffs levied on Canada, China and Mexico. The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the tariffs are permissible under an emergency economic powers act that Trump cited to justify them, but it allowed the tariffs to remain in place while the appeals play out. The tariffs, used by Trump as negotiating leverage with U.S. trading partners, and their on-again, off-again nature have shocked markets and whipsawed companies of all sizes as they seek to manage supply chains, production, staffing and prices. The ruling has no impact on other tariffs levied under more traditional legal authority, such as tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and that the president had exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address "unusual and extraordinary" threats during national emergencies. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the Federal Circuit in Washington put the lower court decision on hold the next day while it considered whether to impose a longer-term pause. The ruling came in a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the duties and the other by 12 U.S. states. Trump has claimed broad authority to set tariffs under IEEPA. The 1977 law has historically been used to impose sanctions on enemies of the U.S. or freeze their assets. Trump is the first U.S. president to use it to impose tariffs. Trump has said that the tariffs imposed in February on Canada, China and Mexico were to fight illegal fentanyl trafficking at U.S. borders, denied by the three countries, and that the across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. trading partners imposed in April were a response to the U.S. trade deficit. The states and small businesses had argued the tariffs were not a legal or appropriate way to address those matters, and the small businesses argued that the decades-long U.S. practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA. At least five other court cases have challenged the tariffs justified under the emergency economic powers act, including other small businesses and the state of California. One of those cases, in federal court in Washington, D.C., also resulted in an initial ruling against the tariffs, and no court has yet backed the unlimited emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed. Errore nel recupero dei dati Effettua l'accesso per consultare il tuo portafoglio Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati Errore nel recupero dei dati
Fox News
34 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump-backed Jack Ciattarelli captures GOP nomination for New Jersey governor
HOLMDEL, N.J. - The candidate President Donald Trump recently endorsed in New Jersey has won the state's Republican gubernatorial primary, in the 2025 race to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. The Associated Press projects that Jack Ciattarelli, a former GOP state lawmaker who is making his third bid for New Jersey governor, will capture the Republican nomination, topping four rivals in Tuesday's primary in a race that for months had been a battle for Trump's support. Among those Cittarelli defeated were former businessman and popular conservative talk radio host Bill Spadea and state Sen. Jon Bramnick, a lawyer who served for a decade as state Assembly GOP leader. Ciattarelli and Spadea spent months trading fire over which of them was a bigger Trump supporter. But last month the president endorsed Cittarelli, who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 2017, but four years later he captured the nomination and overperformed in the general election, coming close to ousting Murphy. "I'm asking you to get out and vote for a true champion for the people of your state – Jack Ciattarelli. He's been a friend of mine, and he's been a real success story," Trump told supporters a week ago, as he dialed into a tele-rally on the eve of the kick-off of early voting in New Jersey. Trump's grip over the GOP is stronger than ever following his convincing White House re-election victory last November, and Cittarrelli, in a Fox News Digtal interview last week, said the president's endorsement was "a really big deal" and added "the president's doing very, very well in New Jersey." Spadea said that not landing Trump's endorsement "was certainly disappointing." "I mean, we made no bones about this. We absolutely wanted the president's endorsement. Unfortunately, the president endorsed a poll and not a plan," Spadea told Fox News Digital last week. "I have been a supporter of President Trump since he came down the escalator," as he referenced Trump's announcement in 2015 of his first presidential campaign. "There is no question that I am the common-sense conservative. I am the actual Republican in this primary," Spadea claimed. And Spadea questioned Ciattarelli's support for Trump, arguing that his rival "has disrespected him [Trump] for the better part of the last eight years…We thought that that endorsement would have been better served with me." Four years ago, after he won the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Ciattarelli, when asked if he was seeking the then-former president's endorsement, told Fox News Digital "there's only one endorsement I seek, and that's the endorsement of the voters of New Jersey. That's the only one that matters." Fast-forward to 2025, and Ciattarelli emphasized that "people really appreciate what he [Trump] is doing for New Jerseyans. He's put a temporary hold on the wind farms off the Jersey Shore. He's beating up on the New York Democrats over congestion pricing. He supports a quadrupling of the SALT [state and local tax] deduction on our federal tax returns. Those are big deals to New Jersey, and that's why he's got so much great support here. And I'm honored to have his endorsement." Asked why Trump endorsed him rather than Spadea, Ciattarelli said that "the president wants to win. He knows that I provide the best opportunity to win in November." "He knows we're going to raise the necessary money. We've raised more money than the other five Republican gubernatorial candidates combined," added Ciattarelli, a certified public accountant who started a medical publishing company before getting into politics. Ciattarelli's fundraising allowed him to dominate the GOP primary ad wars. The Democratic Governors Association, pointing to the rush to embrace Trump by the top two candidates, long described the 2025 Republican showdown as a "MAGA battle" and argued that there's "extremism in the GOP primary." While New Jersey has long leaned toward the Democrats, Republicans have had success in gubernatorial elections. "It's not a blue state when it comes to governor races, Republicans have won six of the last 11. That's better than 50%," Ciattarelli said. Trump, who for years has spent summer weekends at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, held a very large campaign rally last year in Wildwood, N.J. And he improved from a 16-point loss in the state in the 2020 election to a 6-point deficit last November. Ciattarelli, looking ahead to the general election campaign, said he's "really looking forward" to Trump's "active participation…I think New Jerseyans are anxious to have him on the campaign trail with me and help deliver a win for us in November."
NBC Sports
34 minutes ago
- NBC Sports
Stephen A. Smith: Failure to buy Bills sparked Donald Trump's first presidential run
Nearly 10 years ago to the day, a certain someone took a certain ride down a certain golden escalator and most certainly upended American politics. As Stephen A. Smith told it on Monday night's edition of The Daily Show, the rise of Donald Trump the politician is tied directly to his inability to buy the Buffalo Bills a year before he threw his hat in the presidential ring. 'In 2014, he wanted to purchase the NFL's Buffalo Bills,' Smith told Jon Stewart. 'The price tag was $1.4 billion. . . . My sources tell me he had $1.1 [billion]. . . . He literally called me in 2014 and he said, 'Stephen, I'm going to tell you this right now' — and this is a quote — 'if them mutherfuckers get in my way, I'm gonna get them all back. I'm gonna run for president.' Those are his exact words. 'And so the NFL often jokes with me, 'So it's our fault' when I tell them that story. And I say, 'Yeah.'' This prompted Stewart to make a direct plea to the camera: 'People of Buffalo. Give him the fucking team. Save us.' Smith explained Trump's viewpoint on the matter. 'He was putting the word out that if this doesn't happen — he wanted to do it, and this should happen, I'm Donald Trump, I'm very popular and well known, I'm worth over a billion dollars, I should be able to purchase an NFL team if I want it,' Smith said. 'And if I can't get it, it's because they're getting in my way. That was his position. Their position was, 'You didn't have enough money.'' And he didn't. Because at the end of the day that's all it takes to buy an NFL team: Come up with the best offer. Terry and Kim Pegula came up with a better offer than the twice future president. But, yes, there's an alternate universe in which Trump owns the Bills and he isn't the president and he calls in to PFT Live on a regular basis to complain that the league office is being very unfair.
