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Aerial view from KTLA of thousands of homes leveled
by this week's firestorm around Los Angeles. The actual
fire was followed by a blaze of gaslighting by
politicians and pundits with a bad agenda. |
This was so predictable, yet so infuriating and sad.
Yes, I'm talking about the Los Angeles firestorm. But also the gaslighting that grew out of it.
As always, Trump and his legions of fanboys and fangirls have jumped on the horrific California wildfire cataclysm to pick on their usual suspects.
The fire tragedy was apparently caused not be strong winds, dry conditions or even climate change. It was all supposedly the fault of liberals, by DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity hires) and the gays.
Yes, the gays did it. They always do.
Here's what's really going on. America is seething with justifiable anger right now. Health insurance companies mentally torture and sometimes literally murder medical patients who have become too expensive to maintain their record profits.
Billionaires take and take and take, while throwing crumbs in the form of inadequate wages and poor working conditions to their workers. Corporations hide behind a cloak of abysmal customer service to maintain their profits.
Homeowners insurance companies will screw over at least some of the Californians who lost their homes. Some of us are getting wise to the way climate change is creating or worsening these disasters, and making life harder, or at least sadder for so many of us.
And politicians don't do anything about all this because they're in on it. They get their take.
The solution? Distract us with bogus bogeymen and ridiculous "villains" who don't always have the means to fight back. Trump, MAGA and their enablers are terribly good at this sort of thing. And it seems to work. At least for now.
We're told that the fact a fire chief is a lesbian, the governor of the state is politically liberal, and migrants and gays exist as the supposed reasons Los Angeles burned down.
So let's take a dive into these distractions and scapegoats and, just for laughs, throw in a little fact checking.
MAGICAL WATER
Before we go further, I have to - sigh - get the whataboutisms out of the way. Yes, some on the left have been known to pick on disaster victims in red states. Sometimes even cruelly. But the mean girls and boys on the left have nothing on the lies and and insane accusations coming from MAGA.
Trump, as always, led the way, by essentially saying that California Gov. Gavin Newsom let Los Angeles burn because he was focused on protecting some strange little smelt or something.
Said our fearless leader Trump:
"Governor Gavin Newscum (sic) refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way."
Trump went on to say that water that could have been used to fight the wildfires was diverted to "protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt"
The wildfires are "all his fault!!!!" Trump wrote on a social media screed.
Also, the loathsome Jesse Watters on his Fox News show said Newsom was tearing down dams so, quote "Indians" can fish. Supposedly the fictitious water behind the fictitious now-removed dams could have been used to put out the fires. Or something like that.
OK, so I know fact checking is passé these days but I'm going to do it anyway, just to get it on the record.
There is no "water restoration declaration." There is also no magical spigot that Newsom could have turned out to flood the burn zone with neighborhood-saving water.
As always, Trump's words are based on the most microscopic grains of truth.
First the smelt issue: Trump holds grudges and he's still probably fuming that Newsom fought a Trump plan to send more water to farmers in the Sacramento/San Joaquin area of northern California in part to protect an endangered smelt.
So yeah, some northern California farmers might have been peeved at Newsom and we can debate whether the governor should have tried so hard to protect the smelt, but this had nothing to do with water in southern California.
There were water problems in the fire zone, which prevented firefighters from having enough to battle the blazes in Pacific Palisades. But its wasn't a water supply problem. Despite the drought, there's still more than adequate water supplies in southern California.
It was a water transport and local supply problem.
As I noted in a Thursday morning post, big tanks were filled with water in anticipation of the fires. But the fires were so big, and the firefighters used so much water that the tanks quickly emptied, and couldn't be refilled fast enough.
That is definitely something that has to be looked at and improve upon to prevent another mega-tragedy like the one this week.
DEI
In MAGA world, only white men can handle most jobs.
The accusations are pretty wild. Apparently, the so-called DEI hires, supposedly because all of them are evil, just want to let the fires burn as much as possible, with no efforts to put them out, said Fox contributor Leo Terrell.
The now ever-present Elon Musk informed us that the Los Angeles Fire Department "prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes."
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Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. If you believe
the Fox News types, the L.A. fires were her fault
because fire chiefs should be white males. Or
something like that. |
As if the LAFD spent this week holding hiring ceremonies for non-white people instead of heroically fighting the wildfires, which is obviously what they were doing
One thing Donald Trump Jr. does even better than his father is finding ways to be more despicable than anybody else. Junior had this to say on his buddy Elon's X:
"Can we rename DEI to DIE since that's what seems to happen to people downstream of those who place woke virtue signaling far above competency."
If Junior is holding himself up as one of the white guys who allegedly can do better than any of the black, Hispanic or female firefighters battling the wildfires, God help us all.
Fact check: LAFD is still overwhelming white and male, but the city has been trying to encourage others to join the ranks. With the obvious condition that they be actually qualified to be firefighters.
THE GAYS
In addition to the MAGAs bringing up DEI, and the notion that only white men can handle pretty much any job, we have gay people.
Which, as we all know, are so all-powerful that they cause every disaster known to man.
Which explains the attacks on Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who does happen to be a lesbian.
The ever-entertaining Charlie Kirk, fresh from his vacation with Don Jr to Greenland, had this to say:
"When California, in a couple weeks, comes crawling back for federal assistance, Trump should say, listen, I'm not gonna give you a dime unless you fire the lesbian Kristens (sic)."
The far-right Newsmax also weighed in on Crowley's orientation, with the implication that somehow made her incompetent
"Well isn't that just wonderful," Newsmax host Rob Finnerty said, his voice dripping with contempt. "The first LGBTQ fire chief, something we can all hope to have in our towns one day. The mayor even had her marching in the LA Pride parade in front of the fire engines."
Because, as we all know, marching in a Pride parade automatically disqualifies you from any job, apparently.
The reality: It's too soon to say who might have been the hero, and who were the incompetents or villains in this big fire episode.
But there's already evidence that Crowly at least tried to be a hero back in early December, way before Pacific Palisades caught fire. We have this from NBC4 in Los Angeles:
"The LA Fire Chief warned in the weeks before the devastating Palisades fire that the decision to cut the department''s budget by nearly $18 million would diminish its ability to prepare for and respond to large scale emergencies.
"The reduction... has severely limited the department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires,' Chief Kristin Crowley wrote in a memo Dec. 4 2024."
She said the cutbacks would harm federally mandated pilot training and helicopter coordination, and staffing for wildfire suppression. Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday disagreed with Crowley's assessment, but this should be looked into, for sure.
By the way, it's not just gays. Migrants are supposedly doing everything possible to harm the U.S. Remember how they were eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio? That false hysteria faded as soon as it was no longer politically useful,
But those damn migrants are a great addition to the MAGA tool case. Just on Thursday, Maria Bartiromo suggested migrants started the devastating fires.
For the record, we don't know what started most of the fires yet. Though it appears an arsonist started one of them around Calabasas. Los Angeles fire officials have been a bit too busy actually fighting the fires to spend much time probing their causes.
THE GAME
It was so easy for me to find the actual facts going on with California's fires. So it should have been easy or MAGA to do the same.
But they've never been interested in what's really going on. It's always been and always will be about brainwashing the base and gaslighting the rest of us.
Presidents, no matter what their political stripes, have always stepped up and sent resources to disasters and calamities without politics involved. Until Trump, any president would send FEMA aid to tornado victims in deep red Oklahoma, or flood victims in deep blue Vermont.
Which as it should be.
Now, it's different. Trump and MAGA say they are on the side of the average, working American. The diversions and lies have worked for now. And might continue to work indefinitely, who knows? But if their base and fans eventually realize it has all been a grift, it's going to be a mess.
In any event, while we're distracted by all this, cities will continue to burn, wash away, blow away or melt in extreme heat in this age of climate change.
And nothing will be done about it.
Because we're told it's entirely the fault of the liberals, DEI and the gays.
