Mark Arax, a resident of Fresno, has written books and articles about water issues in California’s Central Valley. In his article published August 5 in the Fresno BEE, ‘Deep State’ isn’t Nunes’ first conspiracy theory. Guess who he blames for the drought, Arax says he last saw his congressman in the spring of 2014. Nunes was holding a hearing on the three-year drought the state was enduring:
As the hearing opened, Nunes launched into a statement that would have made Father Coughlin proud. The Delta smelt, the two-inch fish that had shut down the federal pumps, was part of a left-wing conspiracy so vast it boggled the mind. The environmentalists in San Francisco were literally attempting to erase the San Joaquin Valley from the map, he said.
“These radicals,” he added ominously, “never tire of battle and never give up.” Government authorities were working in cahoots with the leftists… “This is not a result of global warming or drought,” Nunes intoned. “It’s a result of government run amok.”
Now in 2018, as Nunes joins with Sean Hannity to protect a president from what they call a deep state conspiracy, Arax recalls the conspiracy theory concocted by the pair in 2009 during an earlier drought.
That summer, Hannity came to the San Joaquin Valley to see how President Obama had supposedly turned the most productive farmland in America into a “Dust Bowl.” He devoted an entire live broadcast to what he called “The Valley Hope Forgot….
News footage depicted orchards uprooted, fields fallowed and equipment spoiling to rust. Never mind that the fallowed dirt where Hannity and Nunes were standing next to each other had produced a bounty of tomatoes the day before. One hundred feet away, beyond camera frame, acre after acre of irrigated green fields awaited harvest.
Nunes must have known that the federal pumps had been turned on for nearly three months, irrigating the same fields Hannity was calling a dust bowl. When a local reporter pointed out the truth, Nunes merely replied: “When you look at the radical environmental fringe, there is no question they are tied closely to the Communist Party.” abc30.com/...
Arax says that just as Nunes called drought a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the San Joaquin Valley’s farmers, he sees the Mueller investigation as a left-wing conspiracy to destroy a president. Some of Arax’s farmer neighbors wonder if being chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has prevented Nunes from working harder on water issues. A few even admit Sen. Dianne Feinstein has done far more, while Nunes has spent his time in office advocating “the most extreme position on water in the West,” and his bills never become law. However, that hasn’t stopped his voters from re-electing him again and again. Says one of the neighbors:
“I look at Devin and think he’s lost his way. He’s not doing anything for the district. But most people here don’t care that he’s neglecting their issues. As long as he’s throwing red meat at them, they’ll send him back to Washington for more.”
The Arax article has many more insights about Congressman Nunes. I strongly recommend reading the whole thing. www.fresnobee.com/...