Rather than follow our usual format for the Final Word, tonight we have the privilege of getting it from our good friend, John Ondrasik. The lead singer for Five for Fighting has put himself on the front lines of dangerous situations, first in Ukraine and then in Israel, to draw attention to the moral crises of our times. 

This time, however, the front lines have come to John and his family and friends. John lives near the firestorms that have devastated Los Angeles, close enough that he has prepared to flee on a moment's notice. He just returned from purchasing the emergency goods that he will need even if he can ride out this season of fire and failure, but especially so if he has to leave his home behind to whatever may come.

In the midst of all this, John graciously sat down with me for a half hour or so to discuss the catastrophe and what led to it. John's house barely survived the Woolsey Fire in 2018, and he talks about why it did survive and the random nature of wildfire damage. John also talks about failures in Los Angeles and California that have been anything but random, and as he emphasizes, much of the devastation of bad governance by a progressive woke cult has nothing to do with the wildfires, either. 

"Living in California, especially after being through the Woolsey fire, you do the basics," John tells me. "You get all your backyard furniture out into the garage. Anything that can burn, you get out. You gas up the car. You have the animals ready to go. You have their food. You have your clothes. 

"But, and again, the Woolsey fire was horrific," John continues. "I think we lost over a thousand homes, but nobody has seen anything like this. It's Armageddon. It's every expression you could imagine. It's just breaks your heart. It infuriates you, of course. But, you know, as you said, we're not out of it."

Here are a few highlights from our conversation, and again, all of this took place while John is preparing for fight or flight on a moment's notice. 

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Ed: Why was the Palisades Reservoir drained? Isn't there enough water for the hydrants? Why wasn't the brush at least somewhat abated over the last few years in that area. And look, I mean, it's expensive proposition to do that type of maintenance and to build those types of things. But they have the money, or at least they used to have the money to do that. And it wouldn't necessarily have meant that there wouldn't be fires and there wouldn't be losses. But you wouldn't have had the massive amounts of fuel on the ground, combined with a lack of water to deal with it had there been preparations.

Is that unfair? Or is this such a force majeur that there really wasn't going to be any mitigation for this particular situation?

John: Well, look, it certainly was an extreme event. But, you know, you look on the news and you see Canadian water bombers, you know, doing heroic work. Why don't we have any water bombers? Why don't we have a fleet of water bombers? Why do fire hydrants not work? Why has our firefighting budget been cut? So I think those things have nothing to do with nature. That is human decisions. That is frankly decisions that politicians in California have been making for decades.

A lot of people are focused on these fires, but to just another symptom of the decision makers in California for decades. It's something that everybody's focused on because it's horrible. The images are apocalyptic and we have loss of life and we have loss of property, probably to the scale of a hundred billion dollars. But look, you know, we've talked about this before. California has been toxic for business for 20 years. ...

John: I have friends who their insurance was canceled three months ago because they wouldn't allow State Farm to increase rates, our insurance commissioner. Can you imagine that? You've lived somewhere, you have a house for 70, 80 years, your insurance gets canceled and three months later, it's literally ashes. So yeah, I think a lot of people are still in shock and that'll go on for a long time. ...

John: At my house, after the Woolsey fire, we could not get insurance. And when I say we could not get insurance because it was too expensive, we could not get a quote. Nobody would give us a quote. I'd say, give me any quote, $50,000, $100,000, What, a million dollars?

It's like, is there anything I could pay to get fire insurance? And they said, no, we're out. And of course, everybody's railing against insurance companies. But what they don't talk about is Gavin Newsom and his insurance commissioner would not allow insurance companies to raise rates. 

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John has plenty more to say, so be sure to watch it all. If you want to find ways to send resources to the victims and the responders in the Los Angeles wildfires, Charity Navigator can help you find legitimate charities that will ensure your donations will have the most impact. Or perhaps you might consider the GoFundMe campaigns for two of our fellow Salem Media employees that have lost their homes in the fires, Sean McConnell and Bob Mesrop. 

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!