Link Roundup

Today, I am going to put up an omnibus summary of the recent campaign events, which will include my promised description of what happened last weekend. While I’m writing it, however, I thought I’d post some interesting links that you might want to check out.

• Fun with audio, take one: Last Sunday’s Contra Costa Times featured a number of pieces on Richard Pombo. I mentioned, and listed, the pieces here. However, part of the multimedia component on the website includes mp3s of Pombo’s interview with one of the reporters. Here are direct hyperlinks to the files. (Hat tip: the newest addition to the anti-Pombo blogosphere, the CA-11 blog).
  
  Listen to Pombo talk about:
  
  • His views on Jack Abramoff
    
  • His family life and raising pigs (not the kind who walk the halls of Congress)
    
  • Why industry-funded travel for Members of Congress and their staff is perfectly ethical
    
  • Why he likes family members on his campaign staff
    
  • Why he has a man-crush on El Presidente
    
  • Pombo’s plans for the future.
    
  
  
  You can download a rawer version of a part of the interview, here (it’s not publicized on the website).
  
  
• Fun with audio, take two: Pete McCloskey scored an interview on Eco Talk on Air America Radio. The Eco Talk website describes it thusly:
  

  
  Former Republican representative Pete McCloskey is coming out of retirement to challenge "Pombo the Plunderer" in California's June primary. Could it be that Richard Pombo, a 6-term Central Valley congressman is attempting to roll back every environmental law that McCloskey championed back in the 70's and 80's, including the Endangered Species Act? McCloskey also talks about why this race is a battle for the "soul of the Republican Party" (Pombo has also been the recipient of $40,000 in donations from one Jack Abramoff).
  

  
  You can download the seven minute interview, here.
  


• The Fish Sniffer “the #1 newspaper in the West dedicated exclusively to fishermen” gave Richard Pombo the Cold Dead Fish Award. I am excerpting the parts of the article explaining the award and why they gave it to Pombo, but the entire piece is worth a read to see the issues anglers are concerned about in California. Not only is the article good on issues, it also has great rhetoric, as you will see from the following (emphasis in the original):
  

  
  We bestowed our First Annual “Leaping' Steelhead” awards in the last edition of the Fish Sniffer to those individuals and groups who went out of their way last year to restore our fisheries. Now we will change our focus to the “Bad Guys” who did everything they could to destroy fish populations and serve the greed of corporate polluters, agribusiness and the "wise use" movement in 2005.
  
  [….]
  
  But [Congressman David] Nunes, [Governor Arnold] Schwarzenegger and these federal agencies, although they did a lot to destroy our fisheries, had tough competition in these awards from Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Representative Jim Gibbons (R-NV) These two corporate-owned politicians sponsored an atrocious provision in a House-Senate reconciliation bill that would have sold off millions of acres of our public lands to mining and other companies.
  
  A campaign by 750 sportsmen’s and conservation groups defeated the legislation on December 14. For their attempt to sell off the public trust lands, Pombo and Gibbons get the “Enviro-Thug Team” of the year award.
  
  Now we go to an award that only Pombo wins – and won’t share with Gibbons or anybody else. Since being elected as Congressman, this scion of a wealthy developer family, who poses as a “Western rancher” wearing a cowboy hat, has dedicated his tenure to the destruction of the Endangered Species Act, in spite of its successes in restoring endangered species.
  
  This law has served as the last resort to protect salmon, steelhead and other fish on the brink of extinction. Yet Pombo, in a typical display of extremist rhetoric, has blasted supporters of fish and wildlife restoration as the "eco-federal conspiracy of crypto-communist environmental regulations makers.”
  
  The evil darling of the “‘wise use” movement and “property rights” extremists, Pombo and his buddies in Congress passed HR 3824, the deceptively titled “Threatened and Endangered Species Act,” through the House this fall. The vote was close, passing by only one vote, so it is hoped the legislation will be thwarted in the Senate.
  
  For his dedication to the destruction of the fisheries of California and the nation, Pombo receives the 20th annual “Cold, Dead Fish” award. Hopefully, Pombo will be defeated and sent packing in the upcoming Congressional election!
  
  Note: Retired Congressman Pete McClosky [sic] has announced his intention to run against Pombo saying "Pombo has lost sight of the true principals of the Republican party."
  



• I’m putting this article in our Zombie Policies file (you know, the damn things just keep on rising from the dead):
  
  

  Washington -- Republican leaders, after losing a bitter fight over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge late last year, plan to bring the contentious issue before Congress again this year.
  
  […]
  
  House Republicans also are plotting their own strategy to open the refuge, but it will be fought by party moderates -- especially those in swing districts that could be crucial to the GOP's effort to retain its narrow majority in the November midterm elections.
  
  "It certainly will be tough in an election year," said Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee. "But this is a big energy year when you consider our growing foreign imports, our shaky foreign relations, not to mention rising energy costs. By keeping (the refuge) locked up, we are not doing anything to help our energy supply situation."
  
  Republican leaders and the White House are also renewing their efforts to increase energy production off the nation's coasts, which failed last year.
  
  Pombo is considering new hearings on a bill that would end the 23-year-old moratorium on offshore drilling, allowing drilling for natural gas -- but not oil -- on about 85 percent of the nation's coastline that is now off-limits. Pombo is also pushing a plan to give states the ability to opt out of the moratorium to drill for either oil or gas.

  
  

Tags: CA-11, Richard Pombo, Pete McCloskey, Jack Abramoff, Fish Sniffer, ANWR