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In honor of the new year, I thought I would start a new tradition here at the FlashReport. I thought that we might pick the California politician who makes the biggest idiot out of themselves, and actually award them the “Idiot Of The Week” Award — a high honor, indeed. Of course this being California, we will not have a problem picking such an individual. In fact, we will have the opposite problem, there may actually be too many people from whom to choose. It might be that this award ultimately is a Friday thing, at the end of the week. But since I anticipate our Friday edition this week to be packed with some sane, rational critiques of Governor Brown’s proposed budget, Thursday it is.
Before we get to the top idiot honors, this week I would like to give a shout out to the two runner’s up — who almost were the most idiotic, but managed to get upstaged.
Runner Up Idiot #1 – Assemblyman Roger Hernandez. With legislators rolling out new legislative proposals this week, Hernandez introduces a bill to create a new “holiday” (paid day off) for state employees — which in and of itself is a bad idea. The idiotic part of it is that he wants to declare that holiday to be “Native American Day” — and basically is calling for this do be some sort of ‘day of shame’ where Californians can all mourn for the treatment received by the native indians at the hands of the evil colonists who came to America. Good grief. Do you get bonus points if you curse the name of Christopher Columbus in public places on this special day of hate?
Runner Up Idiot #2 – Assembly Speaker John Perez. To a wide swath of Californians, especially those who actually are trying to pay attention to what is going on in the State Capitol, the folks in the media are the main conduit by which the public finds out what is happening in the Capitol. So it makes sense that the Speaker would want to bend over backwards to assist this small group of folks to do a fine job. Um, no. Apparently over the holidays, Speaker Grinch was scheming to add significant restrictions to reporters in the Assembly chambers. This week the announcement was made, and many cynical tweets were to be sent by reporters. Only an idiot would do that, right?
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano - Idiot Of The Week
And now, for the big moment — the inaugural FlashReport Idiot Of The Week Award goes to — Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco, for announcing as part of his legislative package this year what he calls the “Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act.”
With a very straight face (and twisted mind), Ammiano has asked the legislative analyst to create language for a bill that would provide these rights to the homeless:
- Sleeping in public spaces such as sidewalks and parks
- 24/7 access to bathrooms, showers, water and clean syringes.
- Car camping on city streets without restrictions
- “Life sustaining activities” such as urinating and collecting recycling trash
- Welfare cash payments
- Meditating or praying in public
- Panhandling
- Payment for possessions seized in a roust
- Right to refuse the offer of a homeless shelter
- Right to a lawyer in most encounters with the law
This legislation has been lampooned nationally where folks are saying, “Only in California is the legislature considering a bill to guarantee the right to urinate in public.”
With the introduction of this amazingly lame bill, that even drew the scorn of the lefty Sacramento Bee Editorial Page and his own hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is hereby awarded our Idiot Of The Week Award. Congratulations on the dubious distinction of being… a complete idiot.
Until next week…