What do Tejon Ranch, missionaries, and the Spanish colonial empire have to do with Tea Party Speaker of the House wannabe Kevin McCarthy?
One of my uncles plays golf with Buddy’s dad. To be precise, that is the Honorable House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s papa. It’s a good thing they don’t go shooting target practice together, to bone up for hunting season in Montana. Why? The shooting ranges in Kern County (Bakersfield being the big metropolis) are a popular venue for weddings. To be sure, they stop the shooting so that the happy, undoubtedly non-same-sex or heterosexual couple can have peace and quiet, at least for a few moments.
All this demographic data that is putting poor Buddy on the spot is, of course, to say that he cannot lead. Not only is McCarthy not very Irish, he’s very Spanish (empire that is).
If the New York Times had done its due-diligence homework (i.e. braving Bakersfield, checking with some Central Valley residents), it would know that Kevin’s not very Irish — at least, not post-famine Irish. Rather, Kevin is a fourth-generation resident of the Central Valley, where he’s got some lineage to say the least.
Kevin’s granddaddy used to be the lawyer for Tejon Ranch. For those who haven’t done their California Mission history, Tejon Ranch, one of the “largest pieces of private property in the United States and traded on the New York Stock Exchange, is not about to be handed over to Native Americans under a ruling Monday from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Not only does this mean Kevin McCarthy hails from a pre–United States of American Catholic missionary Spanish empire lineage, but this Speaker of the House wannabe is not exactly friendly to immigrants, let alone the natives of Central and South America from before the Spanish Empire colonized California. Indeed, during Pope Francis’s visit, what the New York Times did cover was yet another hate crime, since “vandals” decided to characterize the so-called “Saint” Serra for who he really was — “a saint of genocide.”
Which of your Uncles plays golf with Kevin McCarthy? Present tense means they are still alive. One of your uncles is dead and the other never played golf. Just curious.