Time is of the essence, and relief for victims of the Los Angeles fires is priority Number One for the rulers of the Golden State...except when it isn't.
Oooooo, these rabid California progs are so tricksy!
They are also students of Democratic political philosophy, doggedly following wise and proven maxims from ancient Chinese...
"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."
~ Sun Tzu
...to contemporary Chi-Townese.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
~
There is no one more adept at the art of making mountains out of molehills than progressives, and it looks as if California state officials are going to take a shot at it again, using Trump as an excuse.
CA Republicans had called for a special session in Sacramento to deal with getting fire aid flowing to those dispossessed and impacted fire victims and communities as quickly as possible.
I mean, that makes sense. Who could object?
Oleaginous governor Gavin Newsom didn't - he just tweaked the idea to suit his purposes.
How 'bout we do this, Newsom said. I already had a special session called to Trump-proof the state.
Let's just tie that money all in together.
...California Republicans, meanwhile, still weren’t entirely satisfied by Newsom’s move to include fire relief in the special session.
Republican state Senate leader Brian Jones noted that Newsom heeded the GOP’s calls to convene a special session on fire recovery. Then, in the same statement, he called it a “politically motivated” move to so closely associate Trump resistance and fire relief.
You Republicans shouldn't have a problem with that, right?
I watched this w/out sound at first and thought it had to be manipulated. Nope. Besides the weird shoulder shimmy, what is it with Newsom and Bass and the serial killer grin during a horrific tragedy? https://t.co/rnWHECsCqm
— Steve Gordon (@stevemgordon67) January 13, 2025
Republicans let Gov Randall Flagg-lite know the slippery smile and shimmy act wasn't fooling anyone. Yeah - Republicans had a problem with it.
Newsom adds LA wildfire funding to Trump-proofing special session
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday expanded a special Trump-resistance legislative session to include billions of dollars in wildfire spending as catastrophic blazes tear through Los Angeles County.
Newsom’s move, endorsed by Democratic legislative leaders, came as Republicans knocked them for striking a $50 million deal to beef up state and local legal defenses against the incoming White House amid what may be the costliest fires in U.S. history.
Including disaster aid in a special session that originally focused only on resisting Donald Trump offers Democrats another opportunity to highlight the president-elect’s threats to withhold federal relief from California. Newsom has repeatedly warned that Trump could hinder the state’s ability to respond to fires, earthquakes and floods, though he did not echo that messaging in his announcement Monday.
Have a problem with holding up speedy relief to victims purely so Newsom and state Dems can bloviate and posture about possible future Trump impacts as their citizens are suffering in real-time?
Sure, guys - no worries. Wait 'til the folks in Los Angeles shake some of the ashes off and find out being attached to a special session wasn't even necessary - that the legislature could have addressed the residents' immediate needs, like, immediately. Worse, when they hear state Democrats are lollygagging on aid to improve party unity as if this was a corporate team-building exercise instead of a survival situation?
If you think Los Angelenos are hot under the collar now, just wait.
...California lawmakers don’t need a special session to quickly allocate the fire money, which will also provide schools with technical assistance as they rebuild and reopen. But the sessions can help Democratic leaders unify their caucuses around time-sensitive proposals.
People “are scared and angry, and we must act fast to expedite resources for clean-up and recovery,” Rivas said, adding that Los Angeles-area legislators will bring “feedback to the discussion as we consider the Governor’s proposal.”
Newsom’s office did not set a deadline for passing the coming package of proposals, which will fold the fire aid into funding for state and local litigation against the incoming White House. But before the disasters struck, Democrats were aiming to get the legal funding in place by Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Everyone's favorite deviant creeper, State Senator Scott Weiner, put the "up yours, LA" icing on the progressive cake with his virtue-signaling justification for tying relief to the anti-Trump legal fund.
Oh, noes! Trump wants to deport all those immigrants who've been so helpful with the fires, and we must stop this monster.
...“California faces two massive challenges: Horrific destructive wildfires in Los Angeles … and an incoming federal Administration that has vowed to make it harder for Los Angeles to recover, by withholding disaster relief and deporting immigrant Angelenos who have been impacted by the fires and who are actively helping their neighbors,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Scott Wiener said in a statement earlier Monday.
Oh, I'm sure people in Palisades and beyond will be all "Hell to the yaas!" for Weiner's prioritizing these guys staying in the community over them getting a school up for their kids.
Illegal in Los Angeles with a blow torch has been ID’d as Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 13, 2025
He’s held for a probation violation but isn’t charged with arson.
ICE made a detainer request but California isn’t expected to honor it since they’re a sanctuary state.pic.twitter.com/AeNp9F62vb
But our construction workers!!!! says the deviant creeper. LA can wait.
My GOP colleagues say we have to choose between helping LA recover from wildfires & protecting CA from Trump.
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) January 13, 2025
But we can do both.
Indeed, we must do both, since Trump & co. are threatening federal aide for LA & threatening to deport a big portion of our construction workforce. https://t.co/fXPvYfHqsN pic.twitter.com/2TS3oA9gla
Weiner's an excellent example of why CA isn't going red any time soon, whatever the effect of the Los Angeles fires and their aftermath on the folks in that city.
It's an isolated incident in the rest of a massive state. They are all so alike but all so divorced from each other in their enclaves.
The rest of the progressive areas and their equally detached-from-reality representatives in Sacramento inhabit unique and lovely little bubbles. Assuredly, they will make the appropriate noises when something awful happens, mournfully intone '[insert city name] STRONG' in a show of support, and maybe get some friends together to record everyone warbling a treacly anthem for Instagram and TikTok - whatever's cooler at the time.
But then they're back to life as usual - continuing to skip merrily through their unicorn-fart-saturated fantasy existences, dispensing fairy dust edicts at whim as they flutter by.
"40 million under heat warnings as 89 large fires rage across U.S."
— Karen Bass (@KarenBassLA) July 20, 2022
I am still the only candidate running to be the next mayor of Los Angeles with a plan to address climate change.https://t.co/UbywglOK84
Even as people in LA find out what it's almost like to be in North Carolina or Maui, someone in their own state a month from now will already be screaming at a man in yellow rubber overalls during the next protest because CalFire is trying to clear brush.
You'll tell them, "Hey, wait! Doing this could have helped save some of the houses that burned in LA."
The little blank face before you will look puzzled and clear for a moment before saying, "Oh, yeah. I have that T-shirt. F**k TRUMP!"
And go back to screeching because their hillside is different.
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