On Wednesday Ricardo Lara’s brilliant street vending regulation bill, SB 946, was approved by the Assembly Committee on Local Government with a 6 to 1 vote after only a very few gentle amendments. It’s now heading for the full Assembly, where it certainly looks like it’ll pass easily.

For obvious reasons, most of my coverage of the opposition to this bill has focused on our local Los Angeles BIDdies, so for a change this morning, I thought I’d introduce you to Randy Voepel, the dimwit 71st district repster and lone vote against SB 946. Hailing from the the methamphetamine capital of the world, this joker believes more batshit crazy nutcasery before breakfast than sane people can scoff at in an entire lifetime. Turn the page for more details than you actually want to read!

✦ Randy Voepel doesn’t believe in climate change: “I believe only about 1% of climate change is impacted by human beings. The rest of the 99% is solar cycles, the natural wobbling of the earth and volcanic activities.”

✦ But if there is climate change it’s good because it hurts Muslims: Global warming is good, Voepel argued, because “our enemies are on the Equator” — (it’s good when they fry)

✦ Not to mention this clarification: Asked about his earlier remarks touting the benefits of climate change, Voepel told the Times: “Most of the Muslim nations are in the hot areas of the world.”

✦ He hates Chinese people. Here’s what he said when a Chinese person asked him for an autograph: Dear Mr. Yong, I respectfully decline to cooperate in any way with what I consider to be an enemy of the United States. The People’s Republic of China is a repressive and evil communist regime that runs a Police State. I fought in Vietnam to stop communism and will fight communism until the day I die. Please accept me as a very determined enemy, as I assume you to be to me. Best Capitalist regards, Randy Voepel Mayor, The freedom and human rights City of Santee

✦ Homeless people, Viet Cong, all about the same to Randy Voepel: In a television interview two years ago, Voepel blamed homeless residents for stripping copper out of a Santee park. “I served two tours in Vietnam. And I’m getting attacked here by the Viet Cong, stealing my copper, and I don’t like it,” Voepel said, waving a copper bar at the camera.

✦ Some crazed internecine bickering about Voepel’s war record. I don’t care, you don’t care, but these angry white men care an awful freaking lot: Hoey also said Voepel, 67, claims to have been trained by the Viet Cong — North Vietnamese troops — and spent time in the jungles of Vietnam. Hoey calls such assertions “equal disgusting and comedy gold. With respect to Voepel’s claims of serving in the brown-water Navy, operating in ravines and inner coastal waterways of Vietnam, it is quite insulting,” Hoey said in a second interview. “No. 1, we know he didn’t. So he’s a valor thief in that regard.

✦ And just to show that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I’ll close with a bill Voepel introduced which would allow state employees to bring their newborn babies to work with them. We here at MK.Org fully support this even though its sponsor is insane. However, his reasoning in support of the bill is characteristically weird: “When babies come into the workplace, it’s like a puppy dog coming in,” said Voepel. “People love it and it’s good for morale. It’s good for the family feeling when you come to work.”

And with that loony-tunes note, we will sign off! Stay tuned for reports on the further progress of Lara’s bill. My prediction, as I said, is that it’ll pass the Assembly easily. I have no clue what the governor will do with it.

Image of Randy Freaking Voepel is ©2018 MichaelKohlhaas.Org and constitutes a complex re-envisioning of this classical piece of art here.