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An inferno of incompetence in California
Washington Examiner ^ | January 10, 2025

Posted on 01/10/2025 7:24:36 AM PST by george76

The most politically damaging video to emerge from the massive wildfires burning Los Angeles could have been of Mayor Karen Bass staring blankly into a camera like a deer in headlights as reporters asked her if she had anything to say to the thousands of people whose homes were incinerated.

However, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) did one worse than Bass by telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “The local folks are going to have to figure that out,” after Cooper asked why so many fire hydrants in the city had no water to douse the flames threatening homes.

Newsom shouldn’t have been showboating and should have known that although pressure was maintained on the city’s main trunk line, so much water was used in the Pacific Palisades that there was not enough pressure to get water to the higher elevations that needed it.

The city eventually sent 20 water tankers to support firefighters at higher elevations, but when those tankers ran dry, they had to drive long distances to refill before returning to the fires.

“This is a window into a systemic problem of the city,” Rick Caruso, Pacific Palisades property owner and former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power commissioner, told reporters, “not only of mismanagement, but our infrastructure is old.”

Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park, who represents Pacific Palisades, agreed with Caruso, adding, “Chronic under-investment in the city of Los Angeles in our public infrastructure and our public safety partners was evident and on full display over the last 24 hours.”

The Democratic Party’s failure to spend on water infrastructure goes beyond incompetence and into ideology. Asked to respond to Caruso’s claim that low water pressure was due to mismanagement, Greg Pierce, University of California professor of urban environmental policy, told reporters that investing in necessary water infrastructure to protect homes in Pacific Palisades was a “subsidy” for wealthy homeowners, adding, “I think the conversation has to be more about whether these areas are habitable.”

What Pierce and his ideological colleagues in the Democratic Party’s elite forget is that most of Los Angeles is habitable only because of expensive infrastructure and policy choices that the current Democratic Party lacks the stomach to make.

The Los Angeles River could support about 300,000 people, but the river basin has 4 million residents. The only reason these people survive is past generations’ hard decision to build suitable water infrastructure.

Half the water used by Los Angeles comes from the Colorado River through 242 miles of aqueducts. Another quarter comes from the State Water Project of 22 dams and reservoirs and 444 miles of aqueduct that carries water from Northern California. Another 15% comes from the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which draws from the Owens River Valley and the Mono Lake Basin. Just 10% comes from the Los Angeles River.

All of these projects were completed before the California Environmental Quality Act and California Coastal Commission were invented, and none could be built today. The Democratic Party’s willingness to transform the environment to support human flourishing has died in California. The fire burning Los Angeles is a direct result of this political failure.

...

The Poseidon Resources Corporation recently proposed building a desalination plant in Hunting Beach, a project that could supply water for 250,000 homes a year. The California Coastal Commission blocked the project because studies showed it would kill plankton near the facility. Democrats running the Coastal Commission chose a microscopic organism over people. That’s why California is dying. It has nothing to do with anything so grand and exaggerated as global warming.

In November, President-elect Donald Trump made some of his strongest gains in deep blue jurisdictions such as Los Angeles. It is these communities that have suffered most from Democratic incompetence. They are coming to realize they get poor services in return for high taxes. Until more Democrats vote for Republicans at the local level, incompetent misrule will continue.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; disaster; fire; incompetence; inferno; misrule; water
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1 posted on 01/10/2025 7:24:36 AM PST by george76
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To: george76

That inferno of incompetence is due to the rat party.


2 posted on 01/10/2025 7:30:25 AM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: george76

The fires are deliberate. There, I said it.


3 posted on 01/10/2025 7:31:04 AM PST by subterfuge (I'm a pure-blood!)
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To: george76

Good article.


4 posted on 01/10/2025 7:32:38 AM PST by jcon40 (Leftists are usually obnoxious Bullies)
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To: george76
IOW, "Let them eat cake."

Too bad the Slave Party decomissioned San Quentin. We don't have Alcatraz anymore either.

More's the pity.

5 posted on 01/10/2025 7:34:42 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: george76

The handbasket has literally arrived in Hell.


6 posted on 01/10/2025 7:35:55 AM PST by Huskrrrr (Alinsky, you magnificent Bastard, I read your book!)
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To: jcon40

Agreed—if Democrats continue to rule the LA Basin will turn revert back to the desert that it was for thousands of years.

Their “progress” is mass destruction.


7 posted on 01/10/2025 7:36:09 AM PST by cgbg (It is time to pull the Deep State out of the mass media--like ticks from a dog.)
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To: george76

dementia has a way of telling the truth, Biden slipped and mentioned the water pumps were shut down to prevent power line overloads that may cause fires.
fire chief video on her LGBTQ agenda when getting the portion, gavins video his crown achievement removing 4 dams and not using million dollar tax increase to fund more. These people need to be brought up on charges not just fired


8 posted on 01/10/2025 7:38:26 AM PST by ronnie raygun
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To: subterfuge

Same in Maui


9 posted on 01/10/2025 7:41:48 AM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: jcon40

Thank you


10 posted on 01/10/2025 7:42:02 AM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: subterfuge

I’m surprised there weren’t more. 100 mph winds and now they have seen the limitations of the FD in both response and water supply. It is entirely possible now for SOCAL to be burnt to the ground. The terrorists are watching and will strike.


11 posted on 01/10/2025 7:42:08 AM PST by DownInFlames (P)
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To: george76

Yessir.


12 posted on 01/10/2025 7:51:00 AM PST by subterfuge (I'm a pure-blood!)
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To: george76

All available evidence suggests that Hell is run by DemocRATS.


13 posted on 01/10/2025 7:56:56 AM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (The same people who are outraged at "cultural appropriation" fully support "gender appropriation".)
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To: No name given
I know how the city can save over a million dollars a year. Cut the three positions that the 3 lesbians with diversity degrees and no firefighting experience hold. What a joke. They are diversity hires for diversity sake. The chief couldn't even climb a ladder nevermind climb it with equipment on her back. The ladder would have to be 5 feet wide to accommodate her girth.
14 posted on 01/10/2025 7:58:00 AM PST by Rdct29 (The Democrats Are The New Nazi Party )
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To: Rdct29

Yep, this is shocking. The fire chief has no fire fighting experience, she has never been a fireman? What the heck?


15 posted on 01/10/2025 8:07:57 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: george76

California’s leading agricultural products are tinder and kindling.

Their leading export is stupidity.


16 posted on 01/10/2025 8:08:58 AM PST by motor_racer ("We're gonna punish our enemies and reward our friends" - Barack Hussein Obama)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
The fire chief has no fire fighting experience, she has never been a fireman? What the heck?

Apparently she has two talents, cutting budgets and DEI incompetent policies/hires.

17 posted on 01/10/2025 8:10:27 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: All

Not her fault. Asst Fire Chief Kristine Larson replies:
“Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire?
He got himself in the wrong place.”
Twitter ^ | January 9, 2025 | EndWokeness
Posted on 1/9/2025, 7:34:35 PM by grundle

LAFD Asst Chief Kristine Larson: “Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire?
He got himself in the wrong place.” (Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...


18 posted on 01/10/2025 8:10:55 AM PST by Liz ((This then is how we should pray: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. ))
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To: george76

Note to California...

You’d better pray that if the Big One is gonna hit, it happens while Trump is in office.

God help you if it doesn’t.


19 posted on 01/10/2025 8:12:53 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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To: george76

THE ENDLESS remarks about “MOVING water from N Calif to So CALIF not being feasible” are a joke.

THAT happened for many, MANY years.

There are massive concrete canals along the east side of the SAN Joaquin valley & massive pumps at Wheeler junction that pump water over to Los Angeles. IT comes out near Balboa Blvd at North side of San Fernando Valley

WATER has been pumped from MONO Lake for decades. READ UP ON HOW MULLHOLLAND BOUGHT MONO LAKE WATER RIGHTS DECADES AGO.

THE CAUSE of shutting this all down is the DELTA SMELT.

A TOTALLY useless fish.

CANNOT USE IT FOR BAIT-—IT is protected & Other fish won’t eat it.

USELESS as a human food source.

PERFECTLY good water from the east side of the SIERRA NEVADA SNOW MELT is washed out to a salty PACIFIC OCEAN.

DAMS are being removed that :
1. Prevent flooding
2. Provide electric power
3. Provide irrigation of farms in San Joaquin Valley
4. Provide recreation in the rivers...N Fork of the American/Middle Fork of American/South Fork of American/Folsom, etc.

The ENVIROS have SCAMMED CALIF FOR DECADES.

THIS IS THEIR “REWARD”.

SIERRA CLUB needs to be used out of existence.

LAWSUITS NEED TO BE AIMED AT THEM FIRST & FOREMOST, IMO.


20 posted on 01/10/2025 8:30:06 AM PST by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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