Are Central Valley Voters Onto Devin Nunes' Bullshit Yet?

If I was an editor of the Fresno Bee, I would have suggested not endorsing anyone in years of Nunes reelection races. But the Bee just kept on endorsing Nunes, over and over and over. Yecchhh! But I sense from their coverage that that's probably over. They seem to have figured out just how awful he is. Marek Warszawski does work at the Fresno Bee and Marek is totally over Nunes-- with a vengeance! You'd think a headline about forgetting about Putin-Gate and evaluating Nunes about everything else would come as a relief for Nunes; not this time. "We deserve better," he wrote in an open letter to Nunes after he did a contentious interview with The Bee, "than your absent brand of leadership."

This isn’t about Russia, the infamous memo or how you’ve become, in the words of Bloomberg News, “the face of Republican capitulation to a corrupt presidency.” I’ll leave that stuff to the pundits in D.C. and the angry Twitter mobs.

This is about what you’re doing-- or aren’t doing-- for the people in your district. In other words, us.

After reading your Q&A with Bee reporter Rory Appleton, I’m left to wonder: Exactly what have you been up to during those eight terms on Capitol Hill? Certainly not serving us.

Let’s start with the immature, petulant response to Rory’s question about whether you’re planning to hold any town hall meetings between now and November.

The subject of the question didn’t matter. You knew Rory’s allotted 20 minutes were nearly up. He could’ve asked about your favorite color or your go-to Chipotle order. You were waiting to unleash a diatribe. This was your opportunity, since you avoid local media scrutiny like a hemophiliac avoids straight razors, and you pounced. The only thing missing was a Soros reference.


Incidentally, if The Bee is a “left-wing rag,” as you insist, then how come we’ve endorsed you on multiple occasions? Explain that one, Devin.

It’s odd to me why you’re so reluctant to appear at an open forum in your own district. The 22nd is 55 percent Republican. In the last election, you received 67.6 percent of the vote. Plus, you get to pick the setting. It’s not as if the town hall has to be in Clovis, home base to all those angry leftists. (How’s that for an oxymoron?) You could hold it at a dairy farm in Tulare.

Yet the only time we hear from you, aside from Fox News, is when you’re fielding softball questions on KMJ-580 or appearing at $2,700-a-plate fundraisers for wealthy donors.

Instead, you “communicate” with us through inane mailers packed with phony science and cherry-picked quotes and stats.

Exactly what are you so afraid of? You completely rule the roost, and still you operate like some frightened chicken.


Most striking to me was when Rory asked you to describe your major accomplishments over the last 15 years. It was a question you had to know was coming. Your answer only served to illuminate how short that list is.

Thanks to you, the citizens of the United States know the San Joaquin Valley has a “big water problem.” That’s your doing? Get real, Devin. Water has been a hot-button topic for decades, since before you were wearing a mullet in high school.


Other than complain about enviros and the Endangered Species Act, what have you done to help find a solution?

Just for fun, I looked up a few water bills. Know whose name I found as the sponsor of H.R. 4127, the Upper San Joaquin River Storage Act of 2014 that proposes the Temperance Flat Dam? Rep. Jim Costa’s. Know whose name I didn’t find? Yours.

You say you’re a friend to agriculture, and yet you’re one of the loudest climate-change deniers. Who do you think will get hurt most as the Sierra snowpack continues to dwindle? Valley farmers. But instead of championing a potential solution, like desalination, you blame some poor fish.

And what about poverty, immigration, education, air and water quality and all the other issues that plague your constituents? For such a powerful member of the political establishment, you sure don’t bring home the bacon.

...[Y]ou’re our congressman, Devin. The question we should be asking ourselves is a simple one. What have you done for us?

The answer, based on your own answer, can be summed up in two words: very little.

There's an excellent alternative to Nunes for Fresno, Tulare, Dinuba and Visalia voters this year: Ricardo Franco, a progressive Democrat with a message of hope, not the Republican-lite attitude Andrew Janz embodies. Franco told us that "The Fresno Bee stated before that we should leave the Russia investigation to Mueller and that Nunes needs to focus on local issues. Healthcare is broken and needs to be fixed. Republicans took a swing and a miss. The next rep needs to have a workable solution on this. We have deported veterans who fought for this country that have been separated from their families, including one from Nunes' high school alma mater. Even as a candidate I'm working to actually solve issues. At the California Democratic Convention I was even named the chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Deported Veterans of the Veterans Caucus. The voters will have a clear choice to either follow our congressman who delivers no results for us or to support the only candidate with a viable vision and plan of execution to improve our region."