https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHd3XAMVDzE

'TOTAL INCOMPETENCY': Journalist argues California wildfires are a 'manmade disaster'

 

The Free Press founder and editor Bari Weiss criticizes Gavin Newsom and California leadership for their lack of wildfire preparedness on 'The Story.'

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lax-XgkI1w

LA Mayor Karen Bass posts ‘bizarre’ video amid growing calls to resign

 

 

CNN — 

As firefighters continue to battle raging fires across Los Angeles County, a cut to the Los Angeles Fire Department 2025 budget and its commitment to recruiting a more diverse force have come under attack.

Four major fires across the L.A. area have killed 16 people, scorched over 38,000 acres and damaged at least 10,000 structures. More than 166,000 people are under evacuation orders, the county sheriff said Friday.

Strong winds caused the fires to spread rapidly and complicated firefighting efforts, especially those from the sky.

 

As crews work to contain the inferno, LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley is facing criticism for prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion within the department. Meanwhile, Crowley has expressed concerns about a $17.4 million cut to the department’s 2025 budget, which included reductions in overtime staffing.

The finger-pointing has politicized what’s being described as the most destructive fire in L.A. history.

Los Angeles Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley-Hayes said it’s “out of line” to blame any local official for the magnitude of the fires, saying the focus should be on helping the residents who have lost everything.

The commission is composed of a five-person civilian board appointed by the mayor, and affirmed by the city council that oversees the fire department.

“This is not the time to demonize people,” Hudley-Hayes said.

The fire department budget has grown steadily year-over-year from $674.27 million in 2019 to $819.64 million in 2025, but it is down from $837.19 million in 2024. However, Hudley-Hayes stated that it has been underfunded for at least a decade.

Budget cuts

In June, Mayor Karen Bass approved a city budget of almost $13 billion that included a $17.4 million cut to the LAFD’s more than $800 million 2025 budget.

Crowley, in a December memo to the fire commission, said the cuts had “adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.”

The memo also pointed to a $7 million reduction in overtime due to fluctuating staffing needs, known as v-hours.

“The reduction in v-hours has severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires, earthquakes, hazardous material incidents, and large public events,” Crowley wrote. “Specialized programs and resources, such as Air Operations, Tactical EMS Units, Disaster Response, and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), which rely heavily on v-hours, are now at risk of reduced effectiveness.”

On Friday, Crowley reiterated city officials failed her department by slashing its budget, a decision that she says is now negatively impacting the agency’s ability to battle the raging wildfires in the county.

“We can no longer sustain where we are. We do not have enough firefighters,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Over 100 fire apparatus are out of service, the fire chief said. The budget cuts eliminated civilian positions such as mechanics, which “did and has and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair apparatus,” Crowley said.

Crowley has requested multiple interim budgets to show the city “how understaffed, under-resourced and underfunded” the LAFD is, citing data to show the agency “needs help,” she said. The data shows the department needs 62 additional fire stations, according to the fire chief.

The agency has seen a 55% increase in call lines since 2010, said Crowley, but it has fewer firefighters.

“Additional resources coming in will help us with this current disaster,” the fire chief said. “But moving forward, that potential can happen anywhere in the entire city of Los Angeles, and we need to be fully funded and supported.”

Hudley-Hayes said while she understands Bass needed to approve a balanced budget, the commission was concerned about how the cuts would impact certain functions of the department. For example, there was already a shortage of paramedics and EMTs, Hayes said.

The LAFD has more than 3,500 uniformed firefighters and civilian support staff and responds to 1,368 emergency incidents every day.

And there aren’t enough mechanics to fix all the equipment that is out of service such as rigs, fire trucks and hook-and-ladders, Hudley-Hayes said.

“Yes, I think the fire department is overwhelmed with what has happened,” Hudley-Hayes said. “The cuts have to be taken into consideration in terms of their ability to respond to something like this.”

But even with a fully funded fire department, Hudley-Hayes said she believes Los Angeles firefighters would have still struggled to contain the massive fires in strong winds.

“You’re talking about a phenomenon that we have not seen here,” she said. “I don’t see how anybody could have prepared for this.”

Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson told CNN on Friday the $17.4 million cut was only a line item and that there were increases in other areas, such as $100 million in fire department staff raises.

That assertion is echoed in reporting by the Los Angeles Times, which shows a complicated picture of the department’s budget: By the time additional funds were approved later in 2024, the department’s operating budget had actually increased, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing city financial analysts.

Robert Hawkins, president of the Los Angeles City Stentorians — which advocates for Black firemen — said he does not believe the budget impacted the department’s ability to fight the wildfires.

The fire department has been in disarray due to a lack of clear direction from leadership, Hawkins said.

He said there’s been a revolving door of assistant chiefs under Crowley, close calls on firefighter deaths and inadequate training.

Hawkins noted an instance this week where firefighters showed up to work, got suited up, and were then told to go home. He also mentioned that at times, there were firefighters ready to work but not enough fire engines to take them out to fight the fires.

“There’s frustration and a lack of trust in our leadership,” Hawkins said. “We just don’t have faith in the leadership.”

CNN has reached out to an LAFD spokesperson for comment.

The focus on inclusion

The LAFD has historically had mostly White, male firefighters, Hudley-Hayes said.

Crowley is the LAFD’s first woman and LGBTQ person to serve as chief, according to her bio.

In her bio, Crowley lists her priorities as “creating, supporting, and promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity while striving to meet and exceed the expectations of the communities.”

Hudley-Hayes credits Crowley with establishing the department’s Office of Equity and Human Resources last year. Since she became chief in 2022, there are more Black, Latino, Asian and female firefighters in each recruitment class, Hudley-Hayes said.

Hawkins, however, said the department still struggles with diversity and how it treats Black firefighters. The LAFD is roughly 11% Black, he said.

Black firefighters continue to face low levels of promotions and often don’t receive adequate training for their positions, leading to low retention rates, Hawkins said.

“The treatment of African Americans in the fire department has been horrible,” Hawkins said.

Actor James Woods suggested that Crowley prioritized DEI over ensuring fire hydrants had enough water.

“She took over and she put on her bio that her priority … is inclusion, diversity and equity …,” Woods said on Fox News.“And somebody forgot to fill all the reservoirs, I guess, with water because when I was getting smoke alarms there was a fire truck parked in front of my house, but they couldn’t pump any water because there was none.”

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that a nearby reservoir was undergoing repairs and was empty at the time of the fires, further hampering firefighting efforts.

Hours later, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for an independent investigation into the problems with the water supply for firefighters battling the blazes.

“The ongoing reports of the loss of water pressure to some local fire hydrants during the fires and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir are deeply troubling to me and to the community,” Newsom wrote in a letter, which he posted on X.

Scott Jennings, a CNN political commentator, also condemned the efforts to diversify the fire department.

“We have DEI, we have budget cuts and yet I’m wondering now, if your house was burning down, how much do you care what color the firefighters are?” Jennings said on CNN’s Abby Phillip’s News Night.

Johnny Gray, president of the Los Angeles County Stentorians, which strives to promote diversity in the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said DEI is important to ensure there is fair representation of firefighters of all ethnicities, genders and backgrounds.

It also helps build trust with the community when they know there are firefighters who look like them and understand them, he said.

“It’s very important that we do reflect the community that we serve,” Gray said. “We are going inside these folks’ homes. There are different cultures, different ways of handling different situations and if you’re not diverse in your fire department you might not know how to handle it or how to talk to someone.”

CNN Chris Boyette, Elise Hammond and Emma Tucker contributed to this report.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/12/us/fire-department-los-angeles-wildfires

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

INCOMPETENCE, AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT, IS A SKILL...

 

WHILE MANY VIEW POINTS BLAME THE MANAGEMENT OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE FIRES THAT HAVE DESTROYED PARTS OF LOS ANGELES, OTHERS TEND TO DISMISS THESE FACTS OF INCOMPETENCE THAT INCLUDE NOT ENOUGH WATER AND REDUCTION OF FUNDING FOR THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. SOME WILL BLAME TRUMP AND SOME WILL BLAME GLOBAL WARMING... 

ON THIS ISSUE, WE CAN SAY WITH CONFIDENCE THAT GLOBAL WARMING PLUS CALIFORNIA'S POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE ARE 100 PERCENT RESPONSIBLE. TRUMP HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS — EXCEPT HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING BUT SUPPORTS FOREST "MANAGEMENT"... YET, HE'LL BE BLAMED BY LEFTIES FOR THIS LEFTIES FUCKUP...

HERE IS THUS SOME LIMITED BIASED VIEWS:

 

Misinformation Spreads Like Wildfire Online While LA Neighborhoods Burn

Misleading claims and falsehoods about water and firefighting resources distracted from the unprecedented conditions that left Los Angeles primed for the most destructive fire in its history.

By Wyatt Myskow, Martha Pskowski

January 10, 2025

 

Fish and wildfires don’t tend to go together. But as a series of blazes driven by 100-mile-per-hour winds burned throughout Los Angeles, the country’s incoming president centered blame on a three-inch fish found in a completely different part of the state.

In a post on incoming President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, he blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for not signing an agreement “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” all to “protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt.” 

The post was just one of many flooding social media with misinformation and falsehoods assigning blame for the unprecedented fires that have destroyed thousands of homes, forced over 130,000 people to evacuate and killed at least five people. The Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires are already the most destructive in the history of the nation’s second-largest city, with all three continuing to burn with little if any containment so far and another fire breaking out in the city Thursday evening. Nowhere to be found in Trump’s message was the impact of climate change or how communities have been built in areas prone to fire. Just false mentions of the little-known endangered fish causing fire hydrants to run dry. 

The finger-pointing surrounding the LA fires offer a glimpse of the way political polarization and propaganda can increase the confusion that engulfs natural disasters. And the information ecosystem is expected to be further tested during climate-fueled disasters as social media platforms like Facebook roll back fact-checking programs.

“Several of the statements made by incoming president-elect Trump, as well as Elon Musk, were riddled with both misinformation about our water management system as well as about the fires,” said Ashley Overhouse, a water policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife whose work has focused on protecting the Delta smelt. “That kind of misinformation is not only incredibly inappropriate here, it’s also dangerous.” 

The real reasons places like California are seeing more natural disasters, from wildfires to droughts to floods, are often swamped in the sea of misinformation. 

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE FUELS BIGGER AND HOTTER WILDFIRES

Climate change has driven “weather whiplash” throughout California in recent years, with dramatic shifts in the state’s precipitation, temperature and wind patterns.

A severe drought gripped the region from 2020 to 2022. The next two years returned to the norm, with 2023 seeing 10 inches more rain than the average year. But recent months have brought back record-dry conditions for much of Southern California, drying out the vegetation that boomed during the moist years and leaving the landscape primed to burn.

Then the region’s Santa Ana winds, driven by extreme differences between high pressure in the Great Basin, to the east, and low pressure off the California coast, blasted at over 100 miles per hour. Santa Ana winds have been increasingly blowing in December and January, rather than the fall.

Such conditions have helped to extend California’s fire season year round, making major wildfires possible even in January.

“It’s not so much a problem that a fire happens, which is a very common occurrence in our ecosystems, but it might spread and ignite and grow much more quickly due to climate change,” said Sara McTarnaghan, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute who studies climate resilience and how communities are impacted by natural disasters. “So for many issues we have this environmental national phenomenon that exists, but it’s made more severe in some way.”

And those natural occurrences become disasters when cities and communities have been built in areas prone for them, she said.

“In a lot of places across the country, we have up until now taken insufficient action to adapt to climate change,” McTarnaghan said.

Mayor Karen Bass warned that Los Angeles could face more of these natural disasters. “Due to climate change, we are going to continue to see very unusual weather events,” she said during a Wednesday press conference in response to the fires. 

Misinformation and disinformation can add even more volatility to climate-driven disasters.

Tim Casperson, the host of the Hotshot Wake Up Podcast, which covers wildfire policy and response, dedicated a large section of his show on Thursday to debunking false claims about the LA fires. Casperson, who worked as a wildland firefighter, referenced people “making quite ridiculous claims about what’s happening out there.”

“There is a low bar when it comes to folks understanding wildfire,” he lamented.

COMPETING CLAIMS ABOUT FIRE DEPARTMENT BUDGET

Bass has been criticized for traveling to Ghana as the high winds mounted. She returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday to growing outrage over her handling of the fires. But some of the criticisms lodged against the mayor on social media were dubious if not outright false. 

Social media lit up with posts accusing Bass of cutting the budget for the Los Angeles Fire Department in favor of the Police Department. Los Angeles Times owner Pat Soon-Shiong posted on X that the mayor cut the department’s budget by $23 million. News reports referencing budget documents pointed out that Bass had cut the budget by $17.6 million from the previous year. 

But the real story is more complicated. The Los Angeles City Council adopted the budget in May, after intense pressure to make cuts. Months later, in November, the city approved a new contract with the union representing firefighters. The new contract included an annual 3 percent increase to their base wages. The city had set aside funding during the budget process in anticipation of the new contract, according to news reports at the time.

While the original allocation for LAFD had decreased $17.6 million—only 2 percent of the department’s budget—the funds dedicated to the new contract offset that amount. City documents show that the budget for operational supplies increased in 2023-2024 and then went back down in 2024-2025 after specific purchases were completed. In a Politico story, Los Angeles Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said that the city’s fire budget actually increased more than $50 million compared to the previous budget cycle. Inside Climate News reached out to Blumenfield’s office and the firefighters’ union, neither of which responded to emailed questions.

In the press conference Wednesday, Bass briefly addressed the uproar over the budget. “Within this fiscal year, LAFD would actually go above what it was allocated on July 1,” she said.

When reporters in attendance brought up a December request from the fire department for more funding, department spokesperson Jacob Raabe responded.

“Of course we can always use more resources, which is why we ask for more resources,” Raabe said. But he highlighted the challenge presented by the unprecedented nature of the fires, not the department’s budget. Officials noted that other fire departments have come to help Los Angeles because of the massive scale of the disaster.

“I’ve never seen winds that made it to the Pacific Ocean, turned around, and went back up the canyon,” the LAFD spokesperson said.

“When you have events like this where emotions are high … it’s easy to get caught up in information that’s not accurate,” Bass said Wednesday.

TINY ENDANGERED FISH OFTEN ATTACKED BY TRUMP

As firefighters battled the fire burning in the Pacific Palisades Wednesday morning, some 200 fire hydrants went dry, and rumors spread on social media that California’s lack of action to store more water during the recent wet winters was to blame.

Officials were forced to explain why the fire hydrants went dry and correct other falsehoods during press conferences that would normally be dedicated to providing real-time information on the progress of the fire, the firefighters and evacuations.

Janisse Quiñones, chief executive officer and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, explained during the press conference that the water distribution system saw four times the demand than it ever had before. 

“Fire hydrants are not made to fight multiple houses, hundreds of houses at a time,” she said. “They’re made to fight one or two houses.”

The system relies on three nearby water tanks located downhill from the site, which each holds 1 million gallons. With all the pumping to stop the fires, the tanks needed time to be refilled to restore pressure so the water could continue flowing uphill. High winds prevented helicopters from dropping water from the air, which only increased the pressure on the water tanks in the Palisades area.

But that context didn’t stop Trump from continuing his attack on the Delta smelt, the tiny endangered fish native to the San Francisco Estuary, though a truly wild one hasn’t been counted in years.

Listed under both federal and California endangered species acts since 1993, the fish has been a frequent target of Trump since 2016. While courting the votes of farmers facing water shortages at the time, he told a crowd in Fresno, California, that “there is no drought” in California and that the aridity was due to water being sent out to the ocean to help the smelt. 

 

READ MORE:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012025/misinformation-spreads-like-wildfire-as-los-angeles-burns/

  

SEE ALSO: 

the YD continuum since 2005....

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

INCOMPETENCE, AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT, IS A SKILL...

 

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