“Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick told Taryn Luna, Liam Dillon, and Alex Wigglesworth of the Los Angeles Times that Trump’s linking of water policy to the raging fires was blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.’”
In effect, I would say that everything Trump is saying is “blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.”
“Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick told Taryn Luna, Liam Dillon, and Alex Wigglesworth of the Los Angeles Times that Trump’s linking of water policy to the raging fires was blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.’”
In effect, I would say that everything Trump is saying is “blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.”
When he was in Paradise, California, and suggested we should “rake the forests” (??😳😳?) the moron really showed how stupid he really is. And, for CRYING OUT LOUD! He’s going to be president for the next 4 years?? We are so screwed. 😔😔
We are not screwed. This is the guy a professor at Wharton - where this guy was allowed to AUDIT classes since he couldn't meet the then-low entrance requirements - remembered thus: "Donald Trump was the dumbest fucking student who ever walked in my classroom." The only people dumber than he are the 75 million mouthbreathers, most of whom are among the 30% of the population that cannot read and comprehend at a 5th grade level, who voted for him.
Sad to say, that's a preponderant part of Trump's electoral base, and likely include the ones who show up most regularly to evangelical churches, plus of course, most of them are "white", and a majority of these are men.
I have blocked him, thanks to the instruction of other readers here. It is WONDERFUL to doubt he even exists anymore, but I see from your comment he does.
I think it would be hilarious if everyone blocked him---he'd be shouting into a void and never know it.
What an idiot. I guess that sounds mean, perhaps he's a shut in or someone nobody pays attention to, and this negative feedback is his raison d'etre. As long as I don't have to see it, whatever.
Miselle, he can always go find comfort with like minded company. Some people just love to man the castle walls day in day out. I know a FB religious Catholic who spent a year or so haunting a local aggressive atheist site just so they could threw spears at him.
When you see a post of his, click on his name. His profile will pop up. There will be three dots over on the right. Click on them and a drop down list will appear. Hit the block. Voila!
While forest management techniques can be helpful in reducing the severity of some wildfires, they aren’t effective for all ecosystems and the fires in California were exacerbated by hot, dry conditions with extreme winds. Global warming has made this worse, as we've seen from the analyses of the scientists at World Weather Attribution in respect of the wildfires in Eastern Canada in 2023, central Chile and the Pantanal last year. This is going to get worse unless the US starts to reduce its CO2 emissions. What's Trump's response? 'Drill, baby. drill'!
He's apparentlly received $170m in donations towards his inauguration. Heaven knows what he's going to spend it on. The last time various artists politely declined his invitations and he was left wuth country singers, an America's Got Talent contestant and of course Lee Greenwood. This time he might be forced to fall back on his Spotify playlist with endless versions of Schubert's Ave Maria.
Trump refused to the sign the transition document that would have required him to disclose those donors. Some of them have been told they will not be getting VIP access to various events which are already fully booked up with sycophants. The NYT reports that money left over will go towards the Trump Presidential Library. This reminds me of Gore Vidal telling a joke about the Reagan library. He said that sadly it had been burnt to the ground and both books had been destroyed. Even more regrettably, the president hadn't finished colouring them in. I cannot imagine what books would be allowed in the Trump library (apart from 'The Art of the Deal' and his knock-off bible).
I doubt George Soros would have made any contribution to the Trump inauguration and to call this 94-year-old philanhropist a "Musk wanna-be" is way off the mark. Indeed, after Biden awarded Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Musk joined the MAGA chorus deploring this decision and Musk accused him of "fundamentally hating humanity". In the past, Musk has likened him to Magneto, a Marvel jewish supervillain an antisemitic trope if there ever was one. Emily Tamkin at Slate describes this as classic projection with the pathetic Musk imagining himself as doing all the good works that Soros has actually accomplished through his Open Society Foundations.
That’s what he ran on. Drill baby drill. And it has nothing to do with him. He is going to unleash drilling, fracking, as he promised and 77 million voted for him for that and the border
The climate fix isn't soon in coming I'm afraid, Russell. Apart from being a slow ship to turn or slow, we still run a net increase in petro burning, which means more up up and away....
Native So Californian here for 68 years. We love our beautiful state, but the leadership here has been out of control for YEARS! IM so so sorry it had to take a tragedy and loss of life to finally wake some of these people up. Praying for the first responders and all those affected by this fire. Going fwd, I hope we can do what’s best for those who live here and NOT POLITICS AS USUAL! They keep budgeting for infrastructure for water retention, water reclamation, and never allocated and so they never get built. IN 2020/ $1 billion was allocated and it’s still sitting there.
Temper temper are you effing kidding me over 100,000 people evacuated from a major city in their home. Their home is being burnt to the ground no water coming from the fire hydrants a mayor that just cut $17 million from the firefighter budget and a number of reservoirs that were supposed to be built already to hold water to fight these fires they’re not built yet, and the money has already been allocated and pledge for at least four years. One of my wife’s ex vice president of operations lost her home and Altadena that had just been remodeled and I should hold my temper. Are you kidding me?
The fires were being tackled by over 1,400 firefighters, Rick. They were unable to contain those fires. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
I lived there for 30 years…3 times the fires came as far as my driveway. So tell men I don’t know? I lived it while they’ve not done enough mitigation nor water saving…did you know this past years thousand of homeowners were NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOWED TO WATER THEIR LAWNS! And many of my good friends watched their entire lawns DIE.
A BILLION DOLLAR BILL PASSED INTO LAW IN 2020 TO BULD RESERVOIRS. and nothing yet. Oooops. .
Do you honestly believe that watering your lawn was going to insulate you from these fires? Where is the water for the resrevoirs going to come from? Rain from Heaven, as Trump says?! You want to use water like there's no end to it and you're now finding out, rather painfully, why that is foolish. If you wet a plum under a tap and remove it, the water remaining on the plum represents roughly how much water there is on the earth. Only around 17% of this is potable and much of it is locked up in glaciers and most glacial melt ends up in the sea, not in reservoirs. Climate change is a threat to America's 92,000 dams, many of which are over 100 years old. The irony is that most of them are threatened by heavy rainfall and flooding.
Are you stupid or ignorant or just unable to conceive it wasn’t about watering their lawn it was the fact that they had these big properties, including celebrities with huge lawns and the grass died and so all they were doing was looking out on this dead lawn for a year. Do you get it now wasn’t having anything to do with the fire. They weren’t permitted to water their lawns because they didn’t have enough water even to water lawns let alone to fight a major fire, and they did nothing about it
Honestly, without knowing you, you must be from the East Coast cause you have no clue what’s going on out here none whatsoever
Almost all the water that goes back into your drain almost all the water that comes out of your toilet here on the West Coast goes back through a refining plant and is used for irrigation of lawns, golf courses, etc. it’s not wasted water. It’s reclaimed water all over the west.
At least in Nevada, they got smart no live lawns and the government here gives us a four or five dollar per square foot credit if you remove your lawn and put in fake grass. Duh.
And you failed to respond as you normally do to the Hoover dam issue let’s just remove the Hoover dam I’m not sure if you know or not but California is technically a Desert. Maybe you didn’t know that the only reason they’re not a desert is because water from the Colorado and from Northern California, rivers and dams water it otherwise it would dry out
You’re unbelievably ignorant every year there is runoff major runoff from the Sierra Mountains running right to the sea, which the liberal idiot environmentalist here stop from building a damn to withhold the water so it would become drinkable treatable and usable for fire, mitigation, etc. they just wanted to save the smell and other irrelevant wildlife. I don’t know how much more plan I could give it to you if you lived here you’d understand it, but apparently you don’t. It’s ridiculous talking to you. You just don’t get a thing.
And you probably didn’t get the email I sent that is now be sending out a copy of a letter from the fire chief of LA to the mayor of Los Angeles because of her budget cuts they would not be able to adequately handle a major fire. And the letters all over Twitter right now. You can hate Trump. You can hate me and you could even hate the facts but they remain the facts and you guys just don’t wanna get it.
Good grief, I don't hate you, Rick and you've only confirmed what I've posted. For years, the state has failed to adequately conserve water resources and that's true of all the states served by the Colorado river. And by the way, do you know how many golf resorts your favourite ersatz billionaire owns? The removal of dams brings multiple benefits, including the expansion of spawning grounds for fish and an improvement in water quality. The state has been angaged in a larger effort to enhance regional climate resilience, restore wildlife habitats, and protect endangered salmonid populations. You can decry this as wasteful of water resources. when it's actually the opposite.
so, what's the next step, after saying all this, over and over?
Biden's last hurrah should be to exploit the SC's unfortunate ruling about presidential immunity, ASAP.
Release the Jack Smith summary.
Extradite the J6 convicts to blue state prisons where possible.
But that's window dressing -
Could it make a diff., to take some sufficient justified (Mueller report, J6 report, convictions, improperly dismissed crimes) executive action against the felon, with the objective to save the nation from a fatal error - a RESET, perhaps by identifying this 'bought' & sold election as such, and calling for a new special election, paper ballots, or whatever, in Nov 2025... with NO PAC, SuperPAC, dark money, or donations over $20K; and with a full CIA press on billionaire and foreign state misinfo via internet apps and algorithms (& a fresh slate of candidates from both parties.)
Basic principle: you can't have both billionaires and a democracy.
This case needs to be made clearly to the American people. Unfortunately, Biden can't.
America needs someone verbal, knowledgeable, fearless. Mitt Romney/Liz Cheney, and Adam Schiff/Jaime Ruskin?
As i understand it, Garland is releasing Smith’s report prior to the 20th. Because Aileen Cannon denied Smith’s case and recently is trying to stop his report from being released, Garland has asked the 11th Court of Appeals to grant him the right to release Volume 1 before the 20th. The 11th Court has already reprimanded Cannon twice so we will see if they kiss trump’s ring or not.
I absolutely agree with you, Mark Shields, that “you can’t have both billionaires and democracy”. But no matter how many times, and who our messenger is about this, it gets met with “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkey actions. Most people have to learn the hard way. The pissy thing is they drag us down with them. WE are the only messengers we can rely on. WE are the only ones who can steadfastly refuse to buy in to the worship of the Golden Calf. WE are asked to accept the baton and create -in the midst of chaos,- shelters for sanity, for learning, for strategizing how to build from the tools available to us, a functioning society. New-Deal-Americanism is in the crosshairs facing the firing squad. How we chose to go forward defines our character as human beings. Today President Jimmy Carter is laid to rest. He set a pretty good example for character and service. But no one promises you a prize at the end. Because it’s about more than US and OUR present moment. Together we can build a bridge to a future where we did not “Obey in Advance”. I don’t know what it will look like there. But it will more likely be better for our positive involvement and actions.
I don’t know Soros doesn’t bother you Bloomberg doesn’t bother you up until now. Bezos didn’t bother you Zuckerberg doesn’t bother you. Gate doesn’t bother you buffet doesn’t bother you.
Here’s a little quote I’m gonna give you. You shouldn’t worry about billionaires becoming politicians. You should be worried about middle of the road average citizens becoming legislators in Washington DC and on a minimal government salary becoming multimillionaires years later
We have NOT been democratic as a nation since Reagan gave money the vote; it has deteriorated ever since Carter left office (as the result of Reagan's treasonous deal with the Iranian hostage holders).
Well, I'm certainly NOT in favor of bringing a vote to a dollar fight, with apologies to Indiana Jones.
To have a democracy, you first have to fix misinformation. (And NO, one doesn't fix misinfo with just more of it.)
To fix misinformation you have to defund, deny, depose the billionaire class.
Money altering, when not determining, political outcomes is, was and always will be (a good old fashioned word) "corruption". So are some of the jaw-dropping conflicts of interest we have folded into our current concept of normalcy. Money has always weighed corruptingly on the "scales" of justice, and social justice has continued in some respects, to the current day, but since decades of progress against political corruption has been on a roll ever since sleazy Reagan successfully smeared government of, by and for the people. I think many opportunities missed to launch a public movement against the power of money over politics, but whatever, we surely must focus on it now. How many problems are caused or worsened, and remain seemingly irremediable because concentrated money is in the way.
Here is just one wrinkle of that that came to my attention yesterday. From time to time I see an article warning of the growing death toll of multiply antibiotic resistant bacteria. Every such article explains our lack of progress (for decades) the same way:
“We’ve had no new classes of antibiotics come into routine use since the late 80s and the market model that would promote the creation of new ones is broken. If you develop a new antibiotic, it might be used by someone for a weekly course once a year. Where’s the profit in that?”
“By contrast, blood pressure drugs that have to be taken every day, or cancer drugs that have to be administered for months, offer pharmaceuticals far greater profits. So there is no incentive for them to try to develop new antibiotics. It is a real headache.”
So we all wait for "The Invisible Hand" to reach out and save us from a potentially deadly epidemic? I'm not seeing it. It not that we could not be doing better, but big moneyed interests are getting in way, either by omission, or warping or stopping legislation when we seek our own remedy.
I was recently prescribed a drug that cost almost $800 for three months. It made me nauseous and I asked for a different drug. Another one for the same thing cost $5.00. I am still gobsmacked. I feel the vultures are overseeing our health care.
Similar experience here. Script was $900+. Good rx coupon was $46. Crazy. Today I pick up a $8500 script. We’ll see how the $2000 cap works. If no go, back to hospital infusions which Medicare covers. The same drug (Enbrel) that the pharmaceutical company provided almost free for 12 years. What a racket.
Monopolies are a form of extortion. Control the market for things that people need or want and name your price. My local paper ran a story on how a local surgeon who was "performing" several operations at once became the hero of hospital bean counters. The downside was poorer patient outcomes. That's the choice point we are facing, and since Reagan, the bean counters usually win.
One of the extortion rackets is what has become of patents. Patents, or something like them can serve the needs of both innovators and society because ostensibly, we make the rules. Yet the rules have steadily become more one-sided and abusive as an engine of monopolies. There is plenty of room to rethink and reevaluate policies that should serve everyone. Government of the people, by the people, for the people don'cha know?
I don't have many prescriptions, but before I hit Medicare, a friend told me about Good Rx. I have no idea how they manage to get the prices so low, and I do realize they don't apply it to your insurance, but still! I had a topical ointment that would have cost $100 through insurance and was $27 using the Good RX.
We are far from the days when Alexander Fleming, who discovered insulin to treat diabetes, sold the patent for a token $1 since he wanted the drug to be available to all. We should have a nonprofit research center working to develop new antibiotics, antiparasitics, and antivirals. The current system is not working and we are broke.
Fleming's perspicacity gave us penicillin, but yes, there a cases when breakthrough discoveries were donated to the common good. In recent decades, Congress reversed the policy that considered public university research public domain, and that opened a whole can of worms for both universities and the common weal.
I took a great macro econ class from the author of Prices and Choices in 1986 or -7 at HSPH, and he said, and I will always remember this formulation, that the benefits of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' of a free market have just 3 simple pre-requisites. The simple requirements EVERY American defender of a free market should know, inside out, are:
1) product choices (a variety of competing products in a niche)
2) informed consumers (who know key distinguishing attributes of the products), and
3) consumers acting rationally in their own best interest.
These conditions don't need to be perfect, just substantially the case.
However, these 3 things are the absolute LAST THING that any typical, self-serving laissez-faire capitalist wants.
US CAPITALISM FIGHTS the existence of a true free market, tooth and nail:
1) it seeks monopoly (and proprietary horizontal & vertical integration) at every opportunity and in every niche, and failing that, colludes on price, and failing both, commits fraud (disinformation, disinfotainment), to PREVENT actual product choice competition. A fair market is an unstable condition that strongly tends toward monopoly. One cannot obtain, nor keep a free market without a responsive and strong regulatory regime in governance. US Corporations are required both by law and stockholders to maximize their profits, and do so to the best of their ability. They will attempt to buy congress and law, capture regulators, increase in size, influence judges, and misinform the press & public, and therefore...
2) it invests in enormous advertising budgets, sufficient to sell refrigerators to Eskimos, or in Steve Bannon's phrase 'fill the channel with shit' or in Plato's phrase, 'to make the worse appear the better cause' (this last was part of the City of Athens' 'trumped' up indictment of Socrates - perhaps we should make hemlock available to the billionaires, CEO's, and presidents who ACTUALLY do this?). US Capitalism abhors an informed consumer! Even major corporations with a popular product (winning in a free market is never assurance one will continue to win) will pull out all stops (&undercut all regulations) to misinform! (Correct information IS fungible power, and leaving power with the consumer is an anathema to 'proper' self-interested corporations.)
3) it uses said misinformation in a cynical manner to trigger EMOTIVE human choices in domains where consumer choice does still exist. It overtly uses sex ('sex sells'), fear, appetite, addiction, love, even humor, and increasingly AI-targeted & individually informed misinformation, to steer the non-rational behaviors of those they have observed to have responded in desired ways in the past (via the Attention & Surveillance Capitalism Economy - to which we all have clicked "I Agree").
One only needs to see the growing misanthropy, objectification, obesity, addictions, amoral transactionalism, social isolation, dishonesty, and distrust in American society, to understand US Capitalism is playing what Simon Sinek calls a 'Finite strategy in an Infinite Game'. We are 'misinformation-marks'; we are rarely rational consumers. This extraction via misinformation does not scale as a civilization. There will be no winners here. This does not get prettier with greater consolidation of power.
o To summarize, US Capitalism exists in direct conflict with free markets.
o The capacity to control a market is related to the size of a corporation.
o Democracy and good governance can't co-exist with a billionaire class.
IF one has the money to buy / own information streams that half the nation consumes, or if one can buy 3/4 of congress with petty cash, one can always 'win', without risking free market competition on merit.
This is the kind of world that the kind of person who needs to be a billionaire, needs to have, and in my view increasingly does have.
Again, democracy, free markets, and billionaires are incompatible.
Exactly, and I was aware that I risked defaming Adam Smith by using what was originally his metaphor; although I think it was an unfortunate one as it seems to ascribe a benign purpose to what is instead a strategy of balance. Russian communists thought the could change human nature. The USSR even tried to push a phony theory of genetics (Lyesekoism) to reinforce that belief. The "right" believes that selfishness alone can deliver us to the promised land. Smith grasped that competition CAN serve as a regulator, but in a free market (in a free society) worthy of the name. "Freedom" to bully, freedom to monopolize is the opposite of that.
Remember a brief treatment of Lysenkoism when I studied genetics in the early-mid 70's.
Appreciate your distinction of types of freedom, very much along the lines of Jefferson Cowie's recent Pulitzer winning history, 'Freedom's Dominion', where he traces two disparate and conflicting uses of the concept of freedom to (as I recall) before the founding of the Union. One notion was the freedom of thought and religious belief and to 'the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness', the other being the freedom to dominate others (women, native Americans, slaves, the poor) without interference from government authority.
Both those notions of freedom continue to characterize American life and internal conflict. Seems this disparity needs to be addressed in the education of the youth for a couple generations to fully extirpate it, since the belief is culturally transmitted. Both parties agree on this point, just don't agree which freedom should define America's future.
Alas it appears to me that we are increasingly allowing others, and commercial media in particular, to define what our nation's culture is. It's sidewalk level and collaborative or it isn't really ours.
Exactly so. Fair markets are great, but unstable, and cease to exist without regulation sufficient to assure a level playing field of competition. This sufficient government regulation ceases to exist when business 'regulatees' become large enough to capture the 'regulators'. Most large US Corporations are substantially unregulated with regards to preserving 'level playing field' markets, and today, at best, regulation barely serves to preserve public safety and national security. And in the case of Musk, is failing at both.
Would love to catch up with him. That was Plainsboro, NJ, a bit outside Princeton. At the time I was friends with John, it was a one stop town (a few miles from Orson Wells' Millstone Pond setting for the radio version of H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds). John's home was in Cranberry, a couple miles east - no relative that you know?
To be fair, Kissinger also made a disastrous deal to delay the end of the Vietnam War to help Nixon’s reelection. Republicans have a history of putting their power above the good of the country.
Well I wouldn’t call that Republicans, but I certainly would agree with that having to do with Nixon by the way who was recently rated by Gallup the worst president in history. But you won’t be happy, but who is rated the second worst and believe it or not it wasn’t Jimmy Carter. It was your own Joe Biden. By Gallup.
And frankly, I think Heather needs to apologize because for her to talk about this tragedy and blame Trump for making a comment why is she making a comment about Trump?
He has nothing to do with the fires in California talk to the governor and mayor who are responsible for this tragedy in large part. In fact, if you read my post above, the mayor nicely cut $17 million from the firefighting budget to pay for homeless. You’re happy now?
Susan, what she did was exactly what she blamed Trump for doing she blamed Trump for blaming Newsome and she was blaming Trump for that but the problem is that Trump was correct. Maybe the timing I would agree was not the best but it should’ve been set a long time ago and I’m gonna send you a couple of articles here talking about exactly what I’ve been saying. They didn’t prepare. They didn’t plan everybody who lives in the west side of LA knows it and here’s some commentary about it and saving the fish was more important than saving the community.
Not only is there a problem with water reclamation there is a passage of a bill for 2.7 million to build a huge Reservoir back in 2014 and it’s still not built a huge reservoir.
Not to mention when I talk about California and here people love to talk about infrastructure not knowing anything about California doesn’t help you so let me inform you a bit
There was $33 billion allocated in 2014 I believe to build a high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which as of this year hasn’t even gotten started and now the estimate is $88 billion.
Really well guess what the comedy made about the California government not being prepared has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the fact that he was correct. Period. This happens every single year sometimes more than others and California politicians which basically has been a in control of the Democrats for four decades. Let this happen.
Sorry, not comedy ..comment he made. But I guess you’re OK with Biden’s lies. Anybody’s lies had nothing to do with the fire disaster that’s happening right now. The only thing that was a cause of that not the cause but the cause of the severe devastation was the lack of preparedness. And lack of budget, addressing the issue, which happens every single some years is worse than others
Marion, this is not a new issue it’s been happening for decades. And yes, when you let millions of gallons of water flow into the ocean instead of saving it to use for mitigation that’s correct. That’s the politician’s decision and that had to do with saving the smelt and other “” miscellaneous environmental concerns, which did nothing for the living human being, nor the farmland that they destroyed by not putting up the damn or two . So now you’ve got $50 billion worth of damage because you wanted to save a few fish.
If you lived in California for any parade of time, you would know that that’s been the situation not to mention Marion that the mayor of Los Angeles just cut $17 million from the firefighters budget to be able to provide for the illegal immigrants for food, shelter and medical care
So now you be the judge
Not just the governor, the entire Congress in the state of California
If you had followed California fires, you’d realize that every 40 every 2 to 4 years not only to have these kind of fires they don’t do sufficient brush mitigation. They don’t use burn area Mation and they’ve always calling other states to help them with a problem. what does that indicate to you? They’re always asking for help from other states.
Former "Dancing with the Stars" professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy aired grievances on social media Wednesday, writing, "5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?! Come on."
Sara Foster wrote on X, We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party."
Celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels remembered losing her home in the 2018 Woolsey Fire as she took to X to criticize California's leadership.
"5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?!"
You must have skipped paragraph five. Reading comprehension is important, particularly if you spout opinions based on a misread. It’s OK to re-read and acknowledge and maybe even retract your post.
Wait a minute were you Mrs. Manny my 12th grade English teacher. ?
Or the professor that graded my thesis?
Content over form, my fascist friend. I post a lot and I don’t have time to deal with minutia. If you wanna give me a C minus or a D no problem content, content content content. How about acknowledging what that said?
Subscribe to Meidas +. You can do so for free! They are consistently fighting back against the 😡 lies and are leading Faux News in digital views which is royally pissing them off!
Ben Meiselas just had to evacuate from the LA fires with his family and is already back at work.
Guess what your Hydro climatologist is wrong. For years, California and its Sierra club and radical environmental groups have refused to allow California government to do what it needs to do to save its water. Instead, it allows of gallons of water to run into the ocean instead of building a dam to save the water for emergencies like this, which let me repeat happen every single year.
Really? What's your degree in? Cause it is complete BS.
Hurricane force winds up to 100 mph whipping flames, fire and ember everywhere were too much for even tanker planes to go up in on Tuesday. The fire spread so quickly that there was no way to stop the destruction. The soil is parched from such a lack of rainfall, the Santa Ana winds ferocious and unrelenting, no amount of water could put it out like you seem to think. A torrential downpour might have done the trick but out here in California rain isn't even expected for the next 2 weeks.
This isn't just about water storage it's a major climate and ecological problem that we've all contributed to in some way and we need to start doing something about it now.
There has been a lot done to capture water and recharge aquifers that would have been realistic if the climate change wasn't happening as much faster than we thought we could control.
I remember back to the public hearings on DOGGR regulation of fracking when they wanted Twin Tunnels that would have shipped so much water south supposedly for farmers and LA (actually far more than ever admitted for fracking), when the higher risk was limiting water that kept salt water intrusion into the Bay Delta area.
"...Richard Stapler, Deputy Secretary for Communications of the California Natural Resources Agency, claimed that only 8 acre feet of water is used every year for hydraulic fracturing in California, in an apparent attempt to minimize the amount of water employed for fracking..."
A serious "perhaps" deliberate understatement?
Try the following:
"...So what is the actual amount of water now used for fracking in Califonia right now – 8 acre feet of water, 6,721 acre feet, or much, much more as fracking opponents contend?
Kern County oil industry uses vast quantities of water
One thing is for certain – oil companies use big quantities in their current oil drilling operations in Kern County, although the amount specifically used in fracking operations is hard to pinpoint. Much of this water this comes through the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct and the Central Valley Water Project’s Delta Mendota Canal, spurring increasing conflicts between local farmers and oil companies over available water.
“What’s resoundingly clear, however, is that it takes more water than ever just to sustain Kern County’s ebbing oil production,” according to Jeremy Miller’s 2011 investigative piece, “The Colonization of Kern County,” in Orion Magazine:
“At the height of California oil production in 1985, oil companies in Kern County pumped 1.1 billion barrels of water underground to extract 256 million barrels of oil—a ratio of roughly four and a half barrels of water for every barrel of oil,” according to Miller. “In 2008, Kern producers injected nearly 1.3 billion barrels of water to extract 162 million barrels of oil—a ratio of nearly eight barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced.”
Miller’s investigation has yielded some alarming data on how much water has been used by the oil industry in Kern County and statewide since the 1960s.
“In the time since steamflooding was pioneered here in the fields of Kern County in the 1960s, oil companies statewide have pumped roughly 2.8 trillion gallons of fresh water—or, in the parlance of agriculture, nearly 9 million acre-feet—underground in pursuit of the region’s tarry oil,” said Miller. “Essentially, enough water has been injected into the oil fields here over the last forty years to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario...”
This is not a one off!!!! . This is an every year occurrence and every four years they lose about billions of dollars because they don’t do enough fire mitigation and they don’t have enough water. I’ve lived there for 30 years. I see it every year, so please don’t try to tell me what what degree in
Degrees are for classrooms… living experiences is for life.
You say we we have not contributed to this we have wasted millions of gallons of water by letting them run into the ocean It doesn’t take a classroom to tell you that we see it every year on the news right after the fires every single year
There is no major ecological problem. The problem is brain trust the problem is planning the problem is budgeting. That’s the problem. Since where are you running?
Sorry for that last line somebody was talking in the background as I was voice texting.
This has been happening for the past hundred years that there’s not enough fire, mitigation and planning and storage of water so that it’s easier to put out a fire when there’s an ecological issue because every year there’s plenty of rainfall this is an unusual situation but four years ago they didn’t have that problem and still had 30 or $40 billion of damage
You obviously know nothing about California nothing they’ve allocated money after money after money to the budget and never spend it on what it’s supposed to be spent on including two reservoirs that were allocated four years ago that are still not built. Not to mention a high-speed rail that was supposed to be built in 2020 finished in 2020 and it basically hasn’t even gotten started and the budget was originally 33 billion and now it’s 88 billion.
“Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick told Taryn Luna, Liam Dillon, and Alex Wigglesworth of the Los Angeles Times that Trump’s linking of water policy to the raging fires was blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.’”
In effect, I would say that everything Trump is saying is “blatantly false, irresponsible and politically self-serving.”
When he was in Paradise, California, and suggested we should “rake the forests” (??😳😳?) the moron really showed how stupid he really is. And, for CRYING OUT LOUD! He’s going to be president for the next 4 years?? We are so screwed. 😔😔
We are not screwed. This is the guy a professor at Wharton - where this guy was allowed to AUDIT classes since he couldn't meet the then-low entrance requirements - remembered thus: "Donald Trump was the dumbest fucking student who ever walked in my classroom." The only people dumber than he are the 75 million mouthbreathers, most of whom are among the 30% of the population that cannot read and comprehend at a 5th grade level, who voted for him.
Sad to say, that's a preponderant part of Trump's electoral base, and likely include the ones who show up most regularly to evangelical churches, plus of course, most of them are "white", and a majority of these are men.
More than 30% of Americans can not name the three branches of government.
And more money than our treasury has, or will have after they suck every dime out.
I worked the polls on Election Day, and these folks had to check their t-shirts in order to vote.
Do you think #45 actually graduated from Penn?
not a minute. doubt he did any class work.
Spot on Tom 💥 👍🏻👍🏻
I haven’t forgotten his ridiculous rake the forests remark. He seems to think himself a know it all, but he doesn’t know very much.
lol i see you set Rick off, the community's most outsized troll.
I have blocked him, thanks to the instruction of other readers here. It is WONDERFUL to doubt he even exists anymore, but I see from your comment he does.
I think it would be hilarious if everyone blocked him---he'd be shouting into a void and never know it.
As I read at 0630 with 532 posts, said individual is up to 10 comments. He really decreases my enjoyment of this community.
I wasn't sure the blocking would work, but I am so glad it did.
I think I hit 30 by the time he went to bed, and then got up again.
What an idiot. I guess that sounds mean, perhaps he's a shut in or someone nobody pays attention to, and this negative feedback is his raison d'etre. As long as I don't have to see it, whatever.
Miselle, he can always go find comfort with like minded company. Some people just love to man the castle walls day in day out. I know a FB religious Catholic who spent a year or so haunting a local aggressive atheist site just so they could threw spears at him.
Ally, blocking him as well as James A (for asshole I assume) will make reading the comments so much better. Thanks.
My collapsing method was tedious when he posts 25 or more times a day.
Haven't seen James A on here for quite some time.
Please post the instructions!
When you see a post of his, click on his name. His profile will pop up. There will be three dots over on the right. Click on them and a drop down list will appear. Hit the block. Voila!
Thanks so much. My BP is already lower.
lol, i stay clear
Not only screwed but now an embarrassment before the whole world with his faux doctrine of trashing other sovereign countries
Raking , the forest is exactly what was needed Kathy. They have brush clearing mitigation, but they don’t have enough people doing it.
For crying out loud, you should be blaming Newsome and the liberal Democrats that have run the state into the ground for the last 30 years.
While forest management techniques can be helpful in reducing the severity of some wildfires, they aren’t effective for all ecosystems and the fires in California were exacerbated by hot, dry conditions with extreme winds. Global warming has made this worse, as we've seen from the analyses of the scientists at World Weather Attribution in respect of the wildfires in Eastern Canada in 2023, central Chile and the Pantanal last year. This is going to get worse unless the US starts to reduce its CO2 emissions. What's Trump's response? 'Drill, baby. drill'!
He offered to give unlimited drilling rights to companies in return for $1B. I’m concerned some companies may take him up on the offer.
He's apparentlly received $170m in donations towards his inauguration. Heaven knows what he's going to spend it on. The last time various artists politely declined his invitations and he was left wuth country singers, an America's Got Talent contestant and of course Lee Greenwood. This time he might be forced to fall back on his Spotify playlist with endless versions of Schubert's Ave Maria.
I take it one thinks that is an amount 'known', not an actual amount (over the table, not under the table)? A loose least lower bound?
Lying about bribes one has received may take a wee bit of life-long education and finesse, but hey, as one becomes senile, that's what bitcoin is for.
Trump refused to the sign the transition document that would have required him to disclose those donors. Some of them have been told they will not be getting VIP access to various events which are already fully booked up with sycophants. The NYT reports that money left over will go towards the Trump Presidential Library. This reminds me of Gore Vidal telling a joke about the Reagan library. He said that sadly it had been burnt to the ground and both books had been destroyed. Even more regrettably, the president hadn't finished colouring them in. I cannot imagine what books would be allowed in the Trump library (apart from 'The Art of the Deal' and his knock-off bible).
2 billion dollars ring a bell? 80 billionaires and one George Soros. A Musk wanna be.
I doubt George Soros would have made any contribution to the Trump inauguration and to call this 94-year-old philanhropist a "Musk wanna-be" is way off the mark. Indeed, after Biden awarded Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Musk joined the MAGA chorus deploring this decision and Musk accused him of "fundamentally hating humanity". In the past, Musk has likened him to Magneto, a Marvel jewish supervillain an antisemitic trope if there ever was one. Emily Tamkin at Slate describes this as classic projection with the pathetic Musk imagining himself as doing all the good works that Soros has actually accomplished through his Open Society Foundations.
That’s what he ran on. Drill baby drill. And it has nothing to do with him. He is going to unleash drilling, fracking, as he promised and 77 million voted for him for that and the border
The climate fix isn't soon in coming I'm afraid, Russell. Apart from being a slow ship to turn or slow, we still run a net increase in petro burning, which means more up up and away....
This is not my post
Native So Californian here for 68 years. We love our beautiful state, but the leadership here has been out of control for YEARS! IM so so sorry it had to take a tragedy and loss of life to finally wake some of these people up. Praying for the first responders and all those affected by this fire. Going fwd, I hope we can do what’s best for those who live here and NOT POLITICS AS USUAL! They keep budgeting for infrastructure for water retention, water reclamation, and never allocated and so they never get built. IN 2020/ $1 billion was allocated and it’s still sitting there.
PROP 1.
you are so predictably boring and wrong. take a break
Tell the boring part to the 100 thousand evacuees. And the 2000 structures that are gone. And the 55 billion dollars of damage to LA.
AND THE LEFT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE COMPASSIONATE PARTY?
ps. Not wrong AT ALL.
🙄
Temper, temper!
Temper temper are you effing kidding me over 100,000 people evacuated from a major city in their home. Their home is being burnt to the ground no water coming from the fire hydrants a mayor that just cut $17 million from the firefighter budget and a number of reservoirs that were supposed to be built already to hold water to fight these fires they’re not built yet, and the money has already been allocated and pledge for at least four years. One of my wife’s ex vice president of operations lost her home and Altadena that had just been remodeled and I should hold my temper. Are you kidding me?
The fires were being tackled by over 1,400 firefighters, Rick. They were unable to contain those fires. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
I lived there for 30 years…3 times the fires came as far as my driveway. So tell men I don’t know? I lived it while they’ve not done enough mitigation nor water saving…did you know this past years thousand of homeowners were NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOWED TO WATER THEIR LAWNS! And many of my good friends watched their entire lawns DIE.
A BILLION DOLLAR BILL PASSED INTO LAW IN 2020 TO BULD RESERVOIRS. and nothing yet. Oooops. .
Do you honestly believe that watering your lawn was going to insulate you from these fires? Where is the water for the resrevoirs going to come from? Rain from Heaven, as Trump says?! You want to use water like there's no end to it and you're now finding out, rather painfully, why that is foolish. If you wet a plum under a tap and remove it, the water remaining on the plum represents roughly how much water there is on the earth. Only around 17% of this is potable and much of it is locked up in glaciers and most glacial melt ends up in the sea, not in reservoirs. Climate change is a threat to America's 92,000 dams, many of which are over 100 years old. The irony is that most of them are threatened by heavy rainfall and flooding.
Are you stupid or ignorant or just unable to conceive it wasn’t about watering their lawn it was the fact that they had these big properties, including celebrities with huge lawns and the grass died and so all they were doing was looking out on this dead lawn for a year. Do you get it now wasn’t having anything to do with the fire. They weren’t permitted to water their lawns because they didn’t have enough water even to water lawns let alone to fight a major fire, and they did nothing about it
Honestly, without knowing you, you must be from the East Coast cause you have no clue what’s going on out here none whatsoever
Almost all the water that goes back into your drain almost all the water that comes out of your toilet here on the West Coast goes back through a refining plant and is used for irrigation of lawns, golf courses, etc. it’s not wasted water. It’s reclaimed water all over the west.
At least in Nevada, they got smart no live lawns and the government here gives us a four or five dollar per square foot credit if you remove your lawn and put in fake grass. Duh.
And you failed to respond as you normally do to the Hoover dam issue let’s just remove the Hoover dam I’m not sure if you know or not but California is technically a Desert. Maybe you didn’t know that the only reason they’re not a desert is because water from the Colorado and from Northern California, rivers and dams water it otherwise it would dry out
You’re unbelievably ignorant every year there is runoff major runoff from the Sierra Mountains running right to the sea, which the liberal idiot environmentalist here stop from building a damn to withhold the water so it would become drinkable treatable and usable for fire, mitigation, etc. they just wanted to save the smell and other irrelevant wildlife. I don’t know how much more plan I could give it to you if you lived here you’d understand it, but apparently you don’t. It’s ridiculous talking to you. You just don’t get a thing.
And you probably didn’t get the email I sent that is now be sending out a copy of a letter from the fire chief of LA to the mayor of Los Angeles because of her budget cuts they would not be able to adequately handle a major fire. And the letters all over Twitter right now. You can hate Trump. You can hate me and you could even hate the facts but they remain the facts and you guys just don’t wanna get it.
Good grief, I don't hate you, Rick and you've only confirmed what I've posted. For years, the state has failed to adequately conserve water resources and that's true of all the states served by the Colorado river. And by the way, do you know how many golf resorts your favourite ersatz billionaire owns? The removal of dams brings multiple benefits, including the expansion of spawning grounds for fish and an improvement in water quality. The state has been angaged in a larger effort to enhance regional climate resilience, restore wildlife habitats, and protect endangered salmonid populations. You can decry this as wasteful of water resources. when it's actually the opposite.
That was the place he called 'Pleasure', even after being reminded of the name. What is wrong with the guy?
so we know this, over and over!
so, what's the next step, after saying all this, over and over?
Biden's last hurrah should be to exploit the SC's unfortunate ruling about presidential immunity, ASAP.
Release the Jack Smith summary.
Extradite the J6 convicts to blue state prisons where possible.
But that's window dressing -
Could it make a diff., to take some sufficient justified (Mueller report, J6 report, convictions, improperly dismissed crimes) executive action against the felon, with the objective to save the nation from a fatal error - a RESET, perhaps by identifying this 'bought' & sold election as such, and calling for a new special election, paper ballots, or whatever, in Nov 2025... with NO PAC, SuperPAC, dark money, or donations over $20K; and with a full CIA press on billionaire and foreign state misinfo via internet apps and algorithms (& a fresh slate of candidates from both parties.)
Basic principle: you can't have both billionaires and a democracy.
This case needs to be made clearly to the American people. Unfortunately, Biden can't.
America needs someone verbal, knowledgeable, fearless. Mitt Romney/Liz Cheney, and Adam Schiff/Jaime Ruskin?
As i understand it, Garland is releasing Smith’s report prior to the 20th. Because Aileen Cannon denied Smith’s case and recently is trying to stop his report from being released, Garland has asked the 11th Court of Appeals to grant him the right to release Volume 1 before the 20th. The 11th Court has already reprimanded Cannon twice so we will see if they kiss trump’s ring or not.
Just volume 1?
Garland, go home already!!
I absolutely agree with you, Mark Shields, that “you can’t have both billionaires and democracy”. But no matter how many times, and who our messenger is about this, it gets met with “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkey actions. Most people have to learn the hard way. The pissy thing is they drag us down with them. WE are the only messengers we can rely on. WE are the only ones who can steadfastly refuse to buy in to the worship of the Golden Calf. WE are asked to accept the baton and create -in the midst of chaos,- shelters for sanity, for learning, for strategizing how to build from the tools available to us, a functioning society. New-Deal-Americanism is in the crosshairs facing the firing squad. How we chose to go forward defines our character as human beings. Today President Jimmy Carter is laid to rest. He set a pretty good example for character and service. But no one promises you a prize at the end. Because it’s about more than US and OUR present moment. Together we can build a bridge to a future where we did not “Obey in Advance”. I don’t know what it will look like there. But it will more likely be better for our positive involvement and actions.
I don’t know Soros doesn’t bother you Bloomberg doesn’t bother you up until now. Bezos didn’t bother you Zuckerberg doesn’t bother you. Gate doesn’t bother you buffet doesn’t bother you.
Here’s a little quote I’m gonna give you. You shouldn’t worry about billionaires becoming politicians. You should be worried about middle of the road average citizens becoming legislators in Washington DC and on a minimal government salary becoming multimillionaires years later
Dream on, I don’t know how Joe can watch this slow motion train wreck and not put a permanent stop to it. 🤷♂️🤬
We’re not that democratic, are we? A little pie-in-the-sky, perhaps?
We have NOT been democratic as a nation since Reagan gave money the vote; it has deteriorated ever since Carter left office (as the result of Reagan's treasonous deal with the Iranian hostage holders).
Well, I'm certainly NOT in favor of bringing a vote to a dollar fight, with apologies to Indiana Jones.
To have a democracy, you first have to fix misinformation. (And NO, one doesn't fix misinfo with just more of it.)
To fix misinformation you have to defund, deny, depose the billionaire class.
Money altering, when not determining, political outcomes is, was and always will be (a good old fashioned word) "corruption". So are some of the jaw-dropping conflicts of interest we have folded into our current concept of normalcy. Money has always weighed corruptingly on the "scales" of justice, and social justice has continued in some respects, to the current day, but since decades of progress against political corruption has been on a roll ever since sleazy Reagan successfully smeared government of, by and for the people. I think many opportunities missed to launch a public movement against the power of money over politics, but whatever, we surely must focus on it now. How many problems are caused or worsened, and remain seemingly irremediable because concentrated money is in the way.
Here is just one wrinkle of that that came to my attention yesterday. From time to time I see an article warning of the growing death toll of multiply antibiotic resistant bacteria. Every such article explains our lack of progress (for decades) the same way:
“We’ve had no new classes of antibiotics come into routine use since the late 80s and the market model that would promote the creation of new ones is broken. If you develop a new antibiotic, it might be used by someone for a weekly course once a year. Where’s the profit in that?”
“By contrast, blood pressure drugs that have to be taken every day, or cancer drugs that have to be administered for months, offer pharmaceuticals far greater profits. So there is no incentive for them to try to develop new antibiotics. It is a real headache.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/05/antibiotic-emergency-could-claim-40-million-lives-in-next-25-years
So we all wait for "The Invisible Hand" to reach out and save us from a potentially deadly epidemic? I'm not seeing it. It not that we could not be doing better, but big moneyed interests are getting in way, either by omission, or warping or stopping legislation when we seek our own remedy.
I was recently prescribed a drug that cost almost $800 for three months. It made me nauseous and I asked for a different drug. Another one for the same thing cost $5.00. I am still gobsmacked. I feel the vultures are overseeing our health care.
Similar experience here. Script was $900+. Good rx coupon was $46. Crazy. Today I pick up a $8500 script. We’ll see how the $2000 cap works. If no go, back to hospital infusions which Medicare covers. The same drug (Enbrel) that the pharmaceutical company provided almost free for 12 years. What a racket.
Racket describes it best. I had no idea til this last insanity.
Monopolies are a form of extortion. Control the market for things that people need or want and name your price. My local paper ran a story on how a local surgeon who was "performing" several operations at once became the hero of hospital bean counters. The downside was poorer patient outcomes. That's the choice point we are facing, and since Reagan, the bean counters usually win.
One of the extortion rackets is what has become of patents. Patents, or something like them can serve the needs of both innovators and society because ostensibly, we make the rules. Yet the rules have steadily become more one-sided and abusive as an engine of monopolies. There is plenty of room to rethink and reevaluate policies that should serve everyone. Government of the people, by the people, for the people don'cha know?
On point. Thanks
And so it should be. Extortion racket seems to nail what I have been through lately.
I don't have many prescriptions, but before I hit Medicare, a friend told me about Good Rx. I have no idea how they manage to get the prices so low, and I do realize they don't apply it to your insurance, but still! I had a topical ointment that would have cost $100 through insurance and was $27 using the Good RX.
I too found a source of a drug cheaper out of pocket than though my very expensive insurance through Good Rx.
I don’t get it. I suppose big pharma viewed Medicare as a cash cow.
You betcha. That's why Republicans prohibited Medicare from negotiating price. They capture power for plutocrats.
“Republicans” is synonymous with vulture. As HST said, they oppose anything that helps the average American. It’s been going on for a long time.
Thank you for this. I signed up for Mark Cuban’s drug plan but they don’t have any of mine at present. Maybe I’ll try Good RX
Here's another. Follow the money.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/08/health-experts-childrens-health-chemicals-paper
We are far from the days when Alexander Fleming, who discovered insulin to treat diabetes, sold the patent for a token $1 since he wanted the drug to be available to all. We should have a nonprofit research center working to develop new antibiotics, antiparasitics, and antivirals. The current system is not working and we are broke.
Fleming's perspicacity gave us penicillin, but yes, there a cases when breakthrough discoveries were donated to the common good. In recent decades, Congress reversed the policy that considered public university research public domain, and that opened a whole can of worms for both universities and the common weal.
I took a great macro econ class from the author of Prices and Choices in 1986 or -7 at HSPH, and he said, and I will always remember this formulation, that the benefits of Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' of a free market have just 3 simple pre-requisites. The simple requirements EVERY American defender of a free market should know, inside out, are:
1) product choices (a variety of competing products in a niche)
2) informed consumers (who know key distinguishing attributes of the products), and
3) consumers acting rationally in their own best interest.
These conditions don't need to be perfect, just substantially the case.
However, these 3 things are the absolute LAST THING that any typical, self-serving laissez-faire capitalist wants.
US CAPITALISM FIGHTS the existence of a true free market, tooth and nail:
1) it seeks monopoly (and proprietary horizontal & vertical integration) at every opportunity and in every niche, and failing that, colludes on price, and failing both, commits fraud (disinformation, disinfotainment), to PREVENT actual product choice competition. A fair market is an unstable condition that strongly tends toward monopoly. One cannot obtain, nor keep a free market without a responsive and strong regulatory regime in governance. US Corporations are required both by law and stockholders to maximize their profits, and do so to the best of their ability. They will attempt to buy congress and law, capture regulators, increase in size, influence judges, and misinform the press & public, and therefore...
2) it invests in enormous advertising budgets, sufficient to sell refrigerators to Eskimos, or in Steve Bannon's phrase 'fill the channel with shit' or in Plato's phrase, 'to make the worse appear the better cause' (this last was part of the City of Athens' 'trumped' up indictment of Socrates - perhaps we should make hemlock available to the billionaires, CEO's, and presidents who ACTUALLY do this?). US Capitalism abhors an informed consumer! Even major corporations with a popular product (winning in a free market is never assurance one will continue to win) will pull out all stops (&undercut all regulations) to misinform! (Correct information IS fungible power, and leaving power with the consumer is an anathema to 'proper' self-interested corporations.)
3) it uses said misinformation in a cynical manner to trigger EMOTIVE human choices in domains where consumer choice does still exist. It overtly uses sex ('sex sells'), fear, appetite, addiction, love, even humor, and increasingly AI-targeted & individually informed misinformation, to steer the non-rational behaviors of those they have observed to have responded in desired ways in the past (via the Attention & Surveillance Capitalism Economy - to which we all have clicked "I Agree").
One only needs to see the growing misanthropy, objectification, obesity, addictions, amoral transactionalism, social isolation, dishonesty, and distrust in American society, to understand US Capitalism is playing what Simon Sinek calls a 'Finite strategy in an Infinite Game'. We are 'misinformation-marks'; we are rarely rational consumers. This extraction via misinformation does not scale as a civilization. There will be no winners here. This does not get prettier with greater consolidation of power.
o To summarize, US Capitalism exists in direct conflict with free markets.
o The capacity to control a market is related to the size of a corporation.
o Democracy and good governance can't co-exist with a billionaire class.
IF one has the money to buy / own information streams that half the nation consumes, or if one can buy 3/4 of congress with petty cash, one can always 'win', without risking free market competition on merit.
This is the kind of world that the kind of person who needs to be a billionaire, needs to have, and in my view increasingly does have.
Again, democracy, free markets, and billionaires are incompatible.
Exactly, and I was aware that I risked defaming Adam Smith by using what was originally his metaphor; although I think it was an unfortunate one as it seems to ascribe a benign purpose to what is instead a strategy of balance. Russian communists thought the could change human nature. The USSR even tried to push a phony theory of genetics (Lyesekoism) to reinforce that belief. The "right" believes that selfishness alone can deliver us to the promised land. Smith grasped that competition CAN serve as a regulator, but in a free market (in a free society) worthy of the name. "Freedom" to bully, freedom to monopolize is the opposite of that.
Remember a brief treatment of Lysenkoism when I studied genetics in the early-mid 70's.
Appreciate your distinction of types of freedom, very much along the lines of Jefferson Cowie's recent Pulitzer winning history, 'Freedom's Dominion', where he traces two disparate and conflicting uses of the concept of freedom to (as I recall) before the founding of the Union. One notion was the freedom of thought and religious belief and to 'the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness', the other being the freedom to dominate others (women, native Americans, slaves, the poor) without interference from government authority.
Both those notions of freedom continue to characterize American life and internal conflict. Seems this disparity needs to be addressed in the education of the youth for a couple generations to fully extirpate it, since the belief is culturally transmitted. Both parties agree on this point, just don't agree which freedom should define America's future.
Alas it appears to me that we are increasingly allowing others, and commercial media in particular, to define what our nation's culture is. It's sidewalk level and collaborative or it isn't really ours.
Exactly so. Fair markets are great, but unstable, and cease to exist without regulation sufficient to assure a level playing field of competition. This sufficient government regulation ceases to exist when business 'regulatees' become large enough to capture the 'regulators'. Most large US Corporations are substantially unregulated with regards to preserving 'level playing field' markets, and today, at best, regulation barely serves to preserve public safety and national security. And in the case of Musk, is failing at both.
You are not by any chance the John Graham who attended Plainsboro elementary in the 60's? A Rocket man? McGraw-Hill fan?
No, I'm older than that. I thought rockets were cool though.
Would love to catch up with him. That was Plainsboro, NJ, a bit outside Princeton. At the time I was friends with John, it was a one stop town (a few miles from Orson Wells' Millstone Pond setting for the radio version of H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds). John's home was in Cranberry, a couple miles east - no relative that you know?
Not that I know. War of the Worlds was cool too.
To be fair, Kissinger also made a disastrous deal to delay the end of the Vietnam War to help Nixon’s reelection. Republicans have a history of putting their power above the good of the country.
Just like the current border “crisis”. Republicans don’t care about immigration except to fear monger and get votes.
I never saw a price tag for Trump dispatching thousands of troops to the border as a political stunt. Republicans get to do things like that.
And decency. When Democrats shed their most openly racist wing, Repubs assumed the lease. A "deal with the devil" if there ever was one.
Well I wouldn’t call that Republicans, but I certainly would agree with that having to do with Nixon by the way who was recently rated by Gallup the worst president in history. But you won’t be happy, but who is rated the second worst and believe it or not it wasn’t Jimmy Carter. It was your own Joe Biden. By Gallup.
Spot on
Hey Mark, if Reagan gave money, the vote and Kamala Harris’s output, Trump three to one and spent $2 billion on our campaign. Why did she lose?
And frankly, I think Heather needs to apologize because for her to talk about this tragedy and blame Trump for making a comment why is she making a comment about Trump?
He has nothing to do with the fires in California talk to the governor and mayor who are responsible for this tragedy in large part. In fact, if you read my post above, the mayor nicely cut $17 million from the firefighting budget to pay for homeless. You’re happy now?
Your comment is disingenuous. HCR isn't blaming any person for the fires, but she IS calling out falsehoods and that's her job.
Susan, what she did was exactly what she blamed Trump for doing she blamed Trump for blaming Newsome and she was blaming Trump for that but the problem is that Trump was correct. Maybe the timing I would agree was not the best but it should’ve been set a long time ago and I’m gonna send you a couple of articles here talking about exactly what I’ve been saying. They didn’t prepare. They didn’t plan everybody who lives in the west side of LA knows it and here’s some commentary about it and saving the fish was more important than saving the community.
Because she--and we--are sick and tired of Trump's lies, lies, and more lies, and his "everything is about me, me, me" rhetoric.
Not only is there a problem with water reclamation there is a passage of a bill for 2.7 million to build a huge Reservoir back in 2014 and it’s still not built a huge reservoir.
Not to mention when I talk about California and here people love to talk about infrastructure not knowing anything about California doesn’t help you so let me inform you a bit
There was $33 billion allocated in 2014 I believe to build a high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which as of this year hasn’t even gotten started and now the estimate is $88 billion.
Really well guess what the comedy made about the California government not being prepared has nothing to do with him. It has to do with the fact that he was correct. Period. This happens every single year sometimes more than others and California politicians which basically has been a in control of the Democrats for four decades. Let this happen.
Sorry, not comedy ..comment he made. But I guess you’re OK with Biden’s lies. Anybody’s lies had nothing to do with the fire disaster that’s happening right now. The only thing that was a cause of that not the cause but the cause of the severe devastation was the lack of preparedness. And lack of budget, addressing the issue, which happens every single some years is worse than others
the heat, the lack of rain for many months, the winds: the governor caused all that?
Marion, this is not a new issue it’s been happening for decades. And yes, when you let millions of gallons of water flow into the ocean instead of saving it to use for mitigation that’s correct. That’s the politician’s decision and that had to do with saving the smelt and other “” miscellaneous environmental concerns, which did nothing for the living human being, nor the farmland that they destroyed by not putting up the damn or two . So now you’ve got $50 billion worth of damage because you wanted to save a few fish.
If you lived in California for any parade of time, you would know that that’s been the situation not to mention Marion that the mayor of Los Angeles just cut $17 million from the firefighters budget to be able to provide for the illegal immigrants for food, shelter and medical care
So now you be the judge
Not just the governor, the entire Congress in the state of California
If you had followed California fires, you’d realize that every 40 every 2 to 4 years not only to have these kind of fires they don’t do sufficient brush mitigation. They don’t use burn area Mation and they’ve always calling other states to help them with a problem. what does that indicate to you? They’re always asking for help from other states.
Former "Dancing with the Stars" professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy aired grievances on social media Wednesday, writing, "5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?! Come on."
Sara Foster wrote on X, We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party."
Celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels remembered losing her home in the 2018 Woolsey Fire as she took to X to criticize California's leadership.
"5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?!"
🙄
You must have skipped paragraph five. Reading comprehension is important, particularly if you spout opinions based on a misread. It’s OK to re-read and acknowledge and maybe even retract your post.
Wait a minute were you Mrs. Manny my 12th grade English teacher. ?
Or the professor that graded my thesis?
Content over form, my fascist friend. I post a lot and I don’t have time to deal with minutia. If you wanna give me a C minus or a D no problem content, content content content. How about acknowledging what that said?
Biden isn’t built like that, he’s a traditional institutionalist. There’s probably lots he can do but won’t. Unfortunately
Subscribe to Meidas +. You can do so for free! They are consistently fighting back against the 😡 lies and are leading Faux News in digital views which is royally pissing them off!
Ben Meiselas just had to evacuate from the LA fires with his family and is already back at work.
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trump-spit-in-our-faces-as-we-evacuated?
Something new there Rowshan ?
Nothing whatsoever! Just hoping that one maggot will see that and take note!
He won’t
Guess what your Hydro climatologist is wrong. For years, California and its Sierra club and radical environmental groups have refused to allow California government to do what it needs to do to save its water. Instead, it allows of gallons of water to run into the ocean instead of building a dam to save the water for emergencies like this, which let me repeat happen every single year.
Really? What's your degree in? Cause it is complete BS.
Hurricane force winds up to 100 mph whipping flames, fire and ember everywhere were too much for even tanker planes to go up in on Tuesday. The fire spread so quickly that there was no way to stop the destruction. The soil is parched from such a lack of rainfall, the Santa Ana winds ferocious and unrelenting, no amount of water could put it out like you seem to think. A torrential downpour might have done the trick but out here in California rain isn't even expected for the next 2 weeks.
This isn't just about water storage it's a major climate and ecological problem that we've all contributed to in some way and we need to start doing something about it now.
There has been a lot done to capture water and recharge aquifers that would have been realistic if the climate change wasn't happening as much faster than we thought we could control.
Some old history, not completely suppressed (yet) is at https://truthout.org/articles/water-for-fracking-how-much-does-the-oil-gas-industry-use/
I remember back to the public hearings on DOGGR regulation of fracking when they wanted Twin Tunnels that would have shipped so much water south supposedly for farmers and LA (actually far more than ever admitted for fracking), when the higher risk was limiting water that kept salt water intrusion into the Bay Delta area.
"...Richard Stapler, Deputy Secretary for Communications of the California Natural Resources Agency, claimed that only 8 acre feet of water is used every year for hydraulic fracturing in California, in an apparent attempt to minimize the amount of water employed for fracking..."
A serious "perhaps" deliberate understatement?
Try the following:
"...So what is the actual amount of water now used for fracking in Califonia right now – 8 acre feet of water, 6,721 acre feet, or much, much more as fracking opponents contend?
Kern County oil industry uses vast quantities of water
One thing is for certain – oil companies use big quantities in their current oil drilling operations in Kern County, although the amount specifically used in fracking operations is hard to pinpoint. Much of this water this comes through the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct and the Central Valley Water Project’s Delta Mendota Canal, spurring increasing conflicts between local farmers and oil companies over available water.
“What’s resoundingly clear, however, is that it takes more water than ever just to sustain Kern County’s ebbing oil production,” according to Jeremy Miller’s 2011 investigative piece, “The Colonization of Kern County,” in Orion Magazine:
“At the height of California oil production in 1985, oil companies in Kern County pumped 1.1 billion barrels of water underground to extract 256 million barrels of oil—a ratio of roughly four and a half barrels of water for every barrel of oil,” according to Miller. “In 2008, Kern producers injected nearly 1.3 billion barrels of water to extract 162 million barrels of oil—a ratio of nearly eight barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced.”
Miller’s investigation has yielded some alarming data on how much water has been used by the oil industry in Kern County and statewide since the 1960s.
“In the time since steamflooding was pioneered here in the fields of Kern County in the 1960s, oil companies statewide have pumped roughly 2.8 trillion gallons of fresh water—or, in the parlance of agriculture, nearly 9 million acre-feet—underground in pursuit of the region’s tarry oil,” said Miller. “Essentially, enough water has been injected into the oil fields here over the last forty years to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario...”
This is not a one off!!!! . This is an every year occurrence and every four years they lose about billions of dollars because they don’t do enough fire mitigation and they don’t have enough water. I’ve lived there for 30 years. I see it every year, so please don’t try to tell me what what degree in
Degrees are for classrooms… living experiences is for life.
You say we we have not contributed to this we have wasted millions of gallons of water by letting them run into the ocean It doesn’t take a classroom to tell you that we see it every year on the news right after the fires every single year
There is no major ecological problem. The problem is brain trust the problem is planning the problem is budgeting. That’s the problem. Since where are you running?
Sorry for that last line somebody was talking in the background as I was voice texting.
This has been happening for the past hundred years that there’s not enough fire, mitigation and planning and storage of water so that it’s easier to put out a fire when there’s an ecological issue because every year there’s plenty of rainfall this is an unusual situation but four years ago they didn’t have that problem and still had 30 or $40 billion of damage
You obviously know nothing about California nothing they’ve allocated money after money after money to the budget and never spend it on what it’s supposed to be spent on including two reservoirs that were allocated four years ago that are still not built. Not to mention a high-speed rail that was supposed to be built in 2020 finished in 2020 and it basically hasn’t even gotten started and the budget was originally 33 billion and now it’s 88 billion.
Democrat controlled state.. for decades
💩