With all the courtesy and tact of an occupying army, brass hats from Vandenberg Space Force Base this week bullied and browbeat California Coastal Commission members who sought to ease environmental and wildlife damage from a surging number of rocket launches.
On a new episode of Newsmakers TV, Nick Welsh recounts the arrogance and total disrespect with which the U.S. officers treated commissioners.
They dismissed the concerns and refused to answer questions from the public's representatives of the state agency charged with protecting the state's most valuable natural resource -- the better to heed the interests of the repulsive Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company is the biggest beneficiary of the ever-increasing number of blasts-off from the North County base.
Josh Molina offers a glimpse of his in-depth and detailed interview with Hilda Maldonado, the embattled superintendent of the Santa Barbara Unified School District, who offers reflections - but nothing approaching an apology - to her many critics, and on the just-completed school year, marked by hostility and conflict between the districts and its classroom teachers.
And Callie Fausey catches us up on the still-unfolding scandal at Santa Barbara Charter School, where a series of hidden cameras, allegedly planted by a now-former teacher, provided a peeper's-eye view of students, as she also reprises her reporting on SBUSD's effort to hire scores of new teacher's assistants before the new academic year starts in a few weeks.
Plus: the sad plight of seals and sea lions neurologically afflicted, or sometimes killed, by demoic acid coursing through the food chain due to algae blooms believed to be driven by climate change; City Hall shines on condo owners mistakenly being charged like businesses amid the roll-out of the new downtown assessment district; and the Board of Supervisors gets legally squeezed as a Houston-based energy company pushes to restart the flow of offshore oil through pipelines shut down by the Refugio spill.
Don't miss: Amazing but true, Nick embarks on a new career as a fine art critic.
All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV.
JR
Check out the latest episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here, Channel 17, airs the program every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the show at 5:30 on Monday.
Image: George C. Scott, appearing in "Dr. Strangelove" as General Buck Turgidson, on whom the senior officers at Vandenberg Space Force Base seem to model their behavior (comiccrossroads.fandom.com).
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