Deflating Carl DeMaio’s Rat Invasion Scheme
Radio talk show host Carl DeMaio has found another cringe worthy cause to bolster his fringe Reform California group: the RATS are coming!
Fox News’ Laura Ingram show took time out from promoting white nationalism to cover this breaking story, running with the chyron "Rats Plague Leftist California Cities."
Check out this snip from DeMaio’s press release and tell me you’re not afraid:
Worse, as this crisis is just now coming to public light, California politicians are poised to do the worst possible thing: pass a law (AB 1788) to ban the most effective rodent control tools we have! Without these proven rodent control tools in our arsenal, we may see rodent infestations spread. While the economic costs to Californians of widespread rodent infestations is significant, the public health risk is even worse.
And if the rats aren’t scary enough, they say homeless people are to blame:
The measured and observed increase in California’s rodent population is directly related to the increase in the state’s homeless population. Homeless individuals provide food sources for rodents that are far more accessible than in homes and/or buildings. As the homeless population increases, it is no surprise that the rodent population would increase as well.
The Union-Tribune’s David Garrick repeated claims made in the press release, noting that County data didn’t agree with Reform California’s claims for San Diego.
My NextDoor app lit up on Tuesday night, with ‘concerned citizens’ urging people to get cats (who normally avoid adult rats) and call their legislators.
What the faux outrage is all about is a proposed law, the California Ecosystems Protection Act of 2019, which would ban certain anti-coagulants used by commercial exterminators. AB 1788 was already approved by the Assembly and will likely be approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The basis for the Reform California claims turns out to be a survey of 23 rodent control companies across the state. All of them report HUGE increases in rat populations statewide. As is true with every DeMaio undertaking, there’s slick report, chock full of cherry picked stats. Go figure.
It should surprise no one that pest control companies use anticoagulants; unlike some other rat poisons, which require multiple days of feeding by an animal, these can be lethal from one day's feeding. The time taken (hours later) for the poison to induce death --via uncontrolled internal bleeding--means rats do not associate the damage with their feeding habits.
From Union-Tribune coverage:
More than 78 percent of the companies reported an increase of at least 50 percent, and 43.6 percent reported an increase ranging from 76 percent to more than 100 percent. No companies reported decreases.
The survey found that San Diego has seen a similar increase in rat populations as the rest of the state during the last 12 months, DeMaio said at a City Hall news conference on Tuesday morning.
“Every single one of the San Diego County rodent control companies have reported increases of 75 percent to 100 percent,” he said. “Here in San Diego we are seeing the same rate of increase as we are seeing across the state in other urban areas.”
The County’s Department of Environmental Health statistics tell a different story. Their vector control program has received less than two thirds of the complaints so far this year as during the same time period in 2018.
AB 1788, co-authored by Assembly Members Richard Bloom, Laura Friedman and State Senator Henry Stern, is limited to state-owned lands throughout California and provides for use of these products for agriculture purposes and during public health emergencies.
The legislation was crafted following a recent state analysis finding rodenticides in more than 85% of tested endangered Pacific fishers, bobcats and mountain lions. P-47, a well-known three-year-old mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains, passed away with six different anticoagulants used in rat poisons in its system.
So to be clear, DeMaio’s panic-y press release is complaining about an explosion in rodent population while the chemicals it’s concerned about are still in use.
Another way of looking at those numbers might lead to the conclusion that anticoagulants aren’t as effective as they claim to be. Rats, after all, are highly adaptive creatures.
Also, there’s nothing in the legislation preventing ‘Jim-Bob’s Rat Killerz’ from using these poisons on private property.
After failing to get himself elected to any office based on his record as a city councilman, DeMaio’s reinvented himself as the Don Quixote of conservatism, tilting against liberal windmills of his imagination.
The sad part of all this is the use of fear to raise his profile and presumably more donations to Reform California.
Next up I bet we’ll be hearing about “meth-rats”, caused by people flushing methamphetamine down the toilet.
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Speaking of rats, there’s Congressman Duncan Hunter, whose latest fundraising report proves there is no bar too low when it comes to Republican depravity.
From The Hill:
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) raised $496,000 during the second quarter, while Democratic opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar collected $400,000 as they gear up for a highly anticipated rematch in 2020.
Campa-Najjar’s campaign said in a press release the second-quarter haul meant he had raised about $756,000 this cycle, more money than any 2020 congressional challenger this year, after factoring in the $350,000 raised in the first quarter. The average online donation amounted to $60.
Hunter hasn’t lost his taste for wining and dining while in Washington DC, having spent $448.50 at the Trump International Hotel Restaurant, $2580.17 at the Capitol Hill Club, and $471. at the Capitol Hill Grill.
I’m sure all these expenditures were for legit campaign events, at which the Congressman limited himself to sipping on sparkling water. And Las Vegas seems to be the best place for him to fundraise...
In addition to losing a court battle in which the San Diego Republican claimed his womanizing while using campaign funds was legit, Hunter’s made the news lately with yet another Islamophobic mailer. Some might even say they were “racially tinged.”
A photo of one of the terrorists involved in an attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics wearing a ski mask is paired up with photos of Campa-Najjar and Muslim Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan in the flyer.
A note from Hunter states on flip side says “Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ammar Campa-Najjar ... these three radical Democrats want you to forget their anti-semitism or family-terrorist ties! But as a Marine I’ll never forget the 1983 Beirut bombings and the 1972 Olympic murders!”
Campa-Najjar was born more than a decade after the Munich attack, is a Christian, and has forcefully denounced terrorism on multiple occasions. Maybe we are looking at “racially tinged” commentary.
From POLITICO:
Campa-Najjar is challenging Hunter for a second straight election, following Hunter’s victory, 52 percent to 48 percent, in the 2018 midterms. In that election, Hunter and his allies attacked Campa-Najjar, who has passed government security clearances, for the terrorist act Campa-Najjar’s grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, allegedly committed. Campa-Najjar never met his grandfather, who died before the Democrat was born.
“The closer Duncan Hunter gets to his criminal trial, the more absurd his lies and racist attacks become,” said Campa-Najjar, who runs his own public affairs firm and works in academia. “At this point, it’s pretty clear that Congressman Hunter has lost all ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, fact and fiction. It’s one scandal after another, one embarrassing news story after another, one potential crime after another, one courtroom appearance after another, and one lie after another.”
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Trump tax cuts trickle down on California’s homeless…
Via the Sacramento Bee:
Affordable housing advocates warned that the corporate tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017 could have disastrous effects on the development of more affordable housing. More than two years later, independent data show it has meant at least 15,000 delayed or killed affordable housing units in California alone.
The low-income housing tax credit is the primary federal program for funding affordable housing projects. It promises a tax credit to private companies — usually banks — that fund housing accessible to low-income families. It’s a program that has received broad bipartisan support over the years.
But when the Republican tax cuts lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, it had the unintended effect of lowering the potential benefits of the tax credits. Scott Hoekman, president and CEO of Enterprise Housing Credit Investments, LLC, a company that manages funds for the tax credits nationwide, estimated that meant companies were willing to invest about 10 to 15 percent less than they had before the 2016 election, cutting off a major source of funding and derailing thousands of projects.
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https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1151155571757867011
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