Sludgie

Today is the second in our special series Profiles of Jackassery, featuring our very own Golden State’s Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA.) Legend has it that little Richie Pombo grew up being teased for his babyface features, and one moonless night he went to a rural crossroads somewhere along the vast strip of farmland and meth labs between Modesto and Fresno, and at the strike of twelve he met a shadowy drifter who asked him his fondest wish. “I wish to have a moustache, like Magnum P.I.,” the young Pombo said.

“You shall have your moustache,” the drifter replied, a curl of smoke rising elegantly from what should have been a cigarette, but in the dark, was hard to see, it may just have been a shiny gold tooth reflecting the red of the traffic light. “And in return, you will spend the rest of your days striving to extinguish everything beautiful and wondrous in nature, to trample and stomp flat every free-roaming beast and bird, to use every fiber of your being as an agent for the blackest, darkest doom to all of God’s creatures.”

“Okey dokey!” exclaimed Pombo, and even though his moustache didn’t really make him look like Magnum P.I., in fact he looks more like the villain in a silent movie tying the innocent waif to the railroad tracks, Pombo carried out his dark master’s bidding with unexpected glee.

But, of course, that’s just hearsay. There’s also the theory that he was raised in the wild by wolves, and that his dad was an alcoholic who used to sniff strange women’s butts and mark his territory on Richard’s head after all-night “stag parties,” and Richard rebelled violently against his repressive upbringing. Or perhaps the most likely reason of all, may be that his heart is too sizes too small.

And then there’s the hypothesis that Richard Pombo is just a raging asshole. Whatever the cause, there’s nobody in Congress doing more to dismantle everything sacred to environmentalists and wildlife lovers. The cornerstone of his ominous agenda is to completely gut the Endangered Species Act, signed by Richard Nixon in 1973 to protect and preserve the great diversity of wildlife in America. Pomby cloaks his loathing of the animal kingdom in the dogma of “property rights.” To Pombo and his cronies, a piece of property has more rights than the living creatures that dwell on it.

It’s difficult to know where to start in the laundry list of grievances nature has against Mr. Pombo. As I posted in July, he spent his summer pushing his Wildlife Extinction Bill (which will accomplish just that,) trying to gut the laws that protect ocean waters, wiping out a frog who once befriended Mark Twain, fighting against fuel efficient cars, and gunning for marine mammals. Oh, and trying to sell off our national parks, lift offshore drilling restrictions, and give loggers the freedom to kill lynxes.

Pombo has received a number of special honors for his efforts. He’s been named one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress, crowned “Wildlife’s Number 1 Villain” by Defenders of Wildlife, and is part of the League of Conservation Voters’ distinguished Dirty Dozen. The LCV has a detailed analysis of the money trail in Pombo’s corrupt agenda, tracing back to when he rented an RV on the taxpayers’ dime to tour the national parks he plotted to raze and ruin.

The good news is that he faces a tough fight for his seat this November. If you want to help him lose his seat, you can donate to the cause. And maybe some dark night this winter, after his seat of power to spread destruction and death has been yanked from beneath him, he’ll be visited in his bed by a shadowy figure who will “tsk, tsk” disapprovingly, and with long, icy fingers, rip that hard-earned moustache off Pombo’s face.

Donate money to the cause.

Vote Pombo Out

Pombo’s In Their Pocket

Profiles of Jackassery – Rep. Richard Pombo Bites Heads Off Wildlife Acts

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