Cowboy LaMalfa, Food Stamps, Harriet Tubman and the Americans with Disabilities Act...

 

 

Northeastern California is more like Wyoming than San Francisco. Visit any of these small towns and you will see pick up trucks with Obummer bumperstickers and drivers who are trying to be the Marlboro Man. They all worship the image of the Cowboy. Resilient. Tough. Strong. Individualism matters here in the Red part of California. Of course, I'm old enough to remember when being a Red was to inhabit the Left part of the political spectrum. Now Red means Republican. And we have plenty of those around here.

 

I had a guest column about our Cowboy Representative Doug LaMalfa in the Chico News and Review last week. The thing lost some of its zing in editing it down to 400 words from the original 700. It took away much of the flavor of the thing. I hope I got the point across that LaMalfa is an attention hog who doesn't shy away from saying something stupid.

 

And he certainly has said some stupid things lately. I don't mean to focus on the guy so much but daily he gives me the strangest material. A couple of weeks ago, he was quoted as stating that it isn't government's responsibility to feed the poor. And he quotes the Bible when he states this. He believes that personal charity should be relied upon to take care of the poor. I guess he ignores the part of the Constitution, in the preamble, that says government should "promote the general welfare".

 

Watching C-Span yesterday, LaMalfa was criticized by one of his colleagues for voting against Food Stamps while he made sure that the type of rice he grows gets the biggest welfare payments in the form of subsidies. When it comes to taking handouts, LaMalfa is number one in Butte County, having received about 5.1 million dollars over the last two decades.

 

Then there is this story where LaMalfa thinks that a park to commemorate Harriet Tubman is much too big. He states this despite the fact that the people who run Tubman's estate already have the facility at 6,700 acres. I guess Doug believes in small parks in addition to small government.

 

And today Doug LaMalfa was in Chico where he was meeting with a group that is trying to take the teeth out of the Americans with Disabilities Act. LaMalfa was going to be there with Jim Nielsen, who went so far as to state that California's slow growth can be blamed on frivolous law suits enabled by the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's our boy. Taking millions of dollars in subsidies while he complains about Government programs that feed the poor and create access for the Disabled.

 

 

Addendum: I alerted my friends, Karen Duncanwood and Forest Harlan, a local Disability Advocate in town, regarding this event. They showed up en masse and changed the tone of the meeting. Here's a somewhat slanted TV story on the event. And here is a better print version in the Chico ER.