Democrats Reach the ‘Republicans Pounce’ Phase of LA Wildfire Story
It all began in 2009 when the California Department of Fish and Wildlife deemed the longfin smelt to be “threatened” under the state’s Endangered Species Act.
As of Thursday morning, a fire has consumed more than 40 square miles of the Los Angeles area making this the most catastrophic wildfire in the city’s history, as per Fox News. To put this figure into perspective, it is nearly 10% of the city’s total area of 469 square miles.
Currently, five separate fires are burning, and due to the lack of water and winds gusting up to 100 mph, the flames are zero percent contained.
In the video below, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO Janisse Quinones tells reporters that firefighters in the Pacific Palisades had no access to water. She said, “The consumption of water was faster than we can provide…at 3 am [Wednesday morning] all of the water went dry in the Palisades.”
LADWP CEO Janisse Quinones confirms that firefighters battling the Pacific Palisades fire – which is still 0% contained and growing – had NO ACCESS to water.
“The consumption of water was faster than we can provide…at 3 am all of the water went dry in the Palisades.” pic.twitter.com/H0OYp3uKtY
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) January 8, 2025
The lack of water can be directly traced to the prioritization of woke policy decisions by state and local leaders over the years. A string of bad choices has created the perfect storm in which the state now finds itself.
It all began in 2009 when the California Department of Fish and Wildlife deemed the longfin smelt to be “threatened” under the state’s Endangered Species Act. Conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson sounded the alarm. State officials, he warned, “worry more about a three-inch fish than the farmers and farm workers who keep us alive one more day — and so divert fresh water out into the bay to keep the delta smelt alive.”
Although we can’t fault Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for being in Africa when the fire first broke out, we can hold her responsible for cutting the city’s fire department budget by $17.6 million in the latest fiscal year. During a Thursday press conference, Bass assured reporters that none of the budget cuts would have made a difference in this current crisis.
Yet, according to the New York Post, the Los Angeles Fire Chief warned Bass in December that the “budget cuts would impact the department’s ability to fight wildfires.”
And, as Leslie Eastman reported on Wednesday:
In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 1, the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014. A $7.5 billion water bond was supposed to upgrade the state’s water infrastructure.
Over 10 years later, only smaller-scale projects have been completed. The larger, more complex water storage projects are still in development due to extensive planning, permitting, and construction requirements. The only major projects on the docket for Los Angeles are a water purification facility and a toilet-to-tap system, which are still being built.
Additionally, caving to pressure from local Native American tribes, California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered four dams to be removed from the Klamath River. According to local media outlet Mongabay, in 2002, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted water to farms instead of letting it flow downstream (and out to the ocean), causing between 30,000 and 70,000 salmon to die.
Following this “catastrophic event,” local tribes began lobbying for the removal of the dams “that had choked the river for nearly a century.” Newsom was delighted to accommodate these special interest groups, and the project was completed in October.
It was great for the salmon and the tribal nations, but removing the dams left area residents – particularly farmers – with water and energy problems.
We’re making progress on the largest river restoration project in US history.
By removing 4 dams along the Klamath River, we're bringing life back to the river & honoring our commitments to tribal nations.
By fall, the river will be free-flowing for the first time in 100 years. pic.twitter.com/Futefy4WGk
— Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor) June 7, 2024
The worst case scenario has materialized and the inability of the best and the brightest to anticipate the potential risks associated with their choices has led to severe criticism from Republicans.
President-elect Donald Trump, who has very publicly warned the governor about the water issues in his state on at least three occasions, held nothing back in a Wednesday post on Truth Social. Blaming Newsom for the fires, he wrote:
Governor Gavin Newscum 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. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!
Elon Musk also took Newsom to task.
Crazy https://t.co/d20JO63nqC
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2025
So did Richard Grenell, a California resident recently named Trump’s presidential envoy for special missions. He wrote, “The far left policies of Democrats in California are literally burning us to the ground.”
This is the view from my home in Manhattan Beach.
The far left policies of Democrats in California are literally burning us to the ground.
Stop voting for people who won’t use common sense water management and forest policies.
I’m pissed off.
You should be, too. pic.twitter.com/GYGu0EojU6— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 8, 2025
Naturally, Newsom was furious over these scathing remarks. So angry, in fact, that he refused to respond. He told CNN, “One can’t even respond to it… This guy wanted to politicize it. I, I, I, I, I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say. I won’t.”
NEW: CA Governor Gavin Newsom says he is so furious at Trump for blaming him for the California fires that he won’t even respond.
Newsom, who has directed billions of gallons of water into the Pacific Ocean, fumed that Trump would blame him.
“One can't even respond to it… This… pic.twitter.com/scQo7BGi9v
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 9, 2025
Politico is shocked that Republicans are blaming Democratic policies for the fires.
Republicans are blaming Dem policies for the catastrophic wildfires tearing through Los Angeles. 👉 https://t.co/pp7CimBTaI pic.twitter.com/AR97OkuAJq
— POLITICO (@politico) January 9, 2025
And other Newsom apologists are angry, too.
I am watching the Hollywood Hills burn. Not far from my home. And I am overcome with rage and contempt that our President-elect is berating our mayor and governor rather than showing some solidarity with the citizens of this country he claims to love. pic.twitter.com/25Pe7ihRyu
— Mike Brock🇺🇸 (@brockm) January 9, 2025
Note CNN’s chyron in the video below: “TRUMP SEIZES ON L.A. INFERNOS TO RESTART FEUD WITH NEWSOM.”
NEW: @ScottJenningsKY responds to panel bashing Trump for “politicizing” the LA fires:
Newsom’s political future has a problem other than Trump — people are going to split screen Newsom’s emergency response with that of DeSantis:
"I do think there's a split screen here too,… pic.twitter.com/fiUMLIx7mv
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 9, 2025
CNN Producer probably spent 30 minutes debating pounce or seize
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 9, 2025
Anyone who takes the time to study the actions – or perhaps more accurately the non-actions – of California state and local officials over the past few years, can easily connect the dots. But, in order to distract from the apocalyptic images appearing on television and computer screens across America, Democrats have trotted out their old favorite.
Yes, the legacy media has officially entered “Republicans pounce“ territory.
Will it work, or will Americans finally catch on to them?
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
“….firefighters battling the Pacific Palisades fire – had NO ACCESS to water.”
The fire fighters were battling the fire without water. Did they:
a. spit on it
b. pee on it
c. stamp it out with their feet
d. call it names using wrong pronouns
Mayor Bass was warned by every weather wonk on tv that wind conditions were favorable to a catastrophic fire event. But she abandoned her post. Not that her presence would have made any difference.
I blame Noah Cross!
A classic. It’s California, Jake.
Recently Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) gave a podcast: “Germany’s New Morgenthau Plan.”
https://victorhanson.com/germanys-new-morgenthau-plan/
The plan, concocted by FDR and Morgenthau during WWII would have completely de-industrialized Germany. In reality it was so draconian as to constitute a genocide. Truman, along with many others, were appalled and canceled it. VDH goes on to state: “Currently, Germany is doing to itself almost everything Morgenthau once dreamed of. Its green delusions have shut down far too many of its nuclear, coal, and gas electrical generation plants.”
Well I think California, in its own way, is copying Germany’s plan of self destruction. Immigration, energy, water, roads, forest management, EV mandates, taxes, hostility to business, regulations … All destroying California. The current wildfires are but one consequence of California’s suicidal policies. I have no confidence anything will change. Once the new cycle dissipates it will go back to business as usual. This means more people leaving California and moving to Texas. So I have a personal stake in all this. The congestion here has become intolerable, and Californians ruin everything. Next stop for me. Israel?
That the vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crats’ modus operandi — display total incompetence, stupidity, callousness and dereliction of duty, in policy focus and implementation, and, when called out on their failures and fairly criticized with regard to a crisis that the Dhimmi-crats are directly and obviously responsible for exacerbating and failing to mitigate, they resort to their usual self-absolving smugness and disclaiming of all responsibility, by waxing outraged that anyone would possess the temerity to hold them responsible.
CA like many other blue states is like a coal-burning steamship after their coal runs out. They start burning wood of any kind to keep moving. In the CA case, wood is the ship’s infrastructure and the lifeboats are wood. Now the ship is in trouble but they have burned their equipment and their lifeboats. Their only hope is from the feds. Guess what their governor just said about Trump and working with him? He is preparing his state to resist all of Trump’s initiatives. From the bridge of his battered ship, does Newsom see a lifeboat or torpedo coming?
A ? going around on social media: “Is there some reason why sea water can’t be used to fight these fires??”
Might salt water damage equipment?
It will eventually corrode the tanks. The buckets carried under aircraft used to scoop up water can be used without much issue. The aircraft, most of them, are borrowed. The States have some aircraft for dropping on fires and they cooperate with each other. I think Canada sent a couple of aircraft as well.
For fire trucks? Not really without building pumping to use sea water. Probably need something to filter out seaweed and trash as well or it would clog up.
It certainly can, but you have to have equipment built to pump it. Apparently, they have none. Plus a bunch of these fires are out where seawater is out of reach.
None Chinooks with monstrous water bags underneath regularly dip sea water to fight fires in Washington State. I’ve seen it. The Palisades are close enough to the salt chuck to make it a flight o just a few minutes.. easy range.
Nearly all of populated Southern Caliornia is within range of those craft.
If Republicans screw up, the Press reports the Republicans screwed up.
If Democrats screw up, the Press reports the reports the Republicans are Pouncing on the Democrats.
I see where Republicans are pouncing. Still waiting for the seizing.
“Although we can’t fault Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for being in Africa when the fire first broke out”
We most certainly CAN and SHOULD fault this woman being in Africa on the taxpayers’ dime. She had no business being there, which is why when she was getting raked over the coals for being in Africa while LA was burning, she got her black behind on a plane and hightailed it back home to quell the political backlash.
Maybe she should be encouraged to stay in Africa permanently and the citizens should elect a new mayor who actually cares about the citizens.
These wildfires have been happening for years up in Northern California, in smaller towns and rural areas. Limousine Libs in Southern California were tone deaf to the victims, saying that’s the price they must pay for buying home in remote location. Leftist policy failures impact everybody.