The Los Angeles Fires seem to symbolize the great achievements of collectivist governance. It took decades to reach these Black Belt levels of incompetence: to weaponize the committees, neutralize the media, and to teach the people that fires are caused by hamburgers and stopped by solar panels.
Currently 150,000 people are still under evacuation orders in Los Angeles and some 10,000 buildings are estimated to have been destroyed. To twist the knife on the pain, some insurance companies have recently abandoned Californian clients due to a 1988 law called Proposition 103. The State government regulates price rises in insurance. It’s a form of price fixing. It means insurance companies can’t adjust their premiums to take the higher risks into account, so they do they only thing they can — stop offering insurance.
Then there is the irony that green activists have worked to stop fuel reduction burns. @MarioNawfal names the Sierra Club.
The Californian situation by Dennis Presiloski
In a form of Democrat maths — the LA mayor Karen Bass saved $18m from the fire department budget but the state lost $150 billion in damage (so far).
“The bluest people on the planet are going to flip vote red”
Adam Carolla points out that the areas that burnt were some of the wealthiest, most democrat-voting precincts in the country. “It’s about 80% Democrat” — who he predicts will flip red when they drown in regulations trying to rebuild.
What he doesn’t say is that these are often the most important donors who may abandon the party. It’s not the size of the votes that matter but the financial clout and cachet of the famous and wealthy that the Democrats will lose. (Though there will be 10 million people in LA watching this debacle and they might not actually need to have their own house burn down to get the point.)*
The people in the $20 million dollar mansions on the beach are going to be “knee deep” in regulations. The deep blue democrat fire victims are going to spend years trying to permits to rebuild their own homes and that will turn them into red voters. He names one couple that tried to get a permit to rebuild their home of 40 years on PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). In the end they gave up and moved. He says the point that got to Bill Maher (the comedian who seems so much more conservative lately) was the three year epic he went through to set up his solar panels on his house in Beverley Hills. “He was strangled by the regulations, the overreach.” “That’s when he turned against the government”.
These are wealthy people who love their homes, he says. They love Malibu, they love the Palisades… there is going to be a whole bunch of rich people and they want to build as fast as they can. From the time they go in and fill in the first form, til the time they get delivery of the first load of wood on their property will be three years. [This Australian wonders if they will rebuild with wood. How does anyone defend a wooden house against embers during the Santa Ana winds? — Jo]*
Then there are the extras:
You want a swimming pool… it has to be double hulled in case it leaks into the water table. Carson Daily had to build a swimming pool like a modern day oil tanker. It’ll just cost $500,000 for a swimming pool.
He’s in a hotel room, evacuated from his home at the time he did this, and “language warning”, he doesn’t hold back:
“You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom, and now you f**ing get what you get. Now that your house is on fire.“
He doesn’t think the coastal commission of California will even let people rebuild on the beach. “They are in the business of getting you to leave …”
Warning: his language is strong.
Accurate https://t.co/aS7f9mw5o6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2025
His prediction sounds outlandishly pessimistic, but Elon says “Accurate” and @StewMama71 agrees, saying: Only 25% of the houses burned in Malibu in 2018 Woolsey fire have been rebuilt. UPDATE: The Democrats could change this in five minutes, by dropping most of the regulations. But will they?*
Then there is the Oscar level Virtue Signalling:
Bureaucrats in California were so concerned about breaking glass ceilings they seemingly forgot their first priority.
Nothing quite sums up how far gone everything is, better than this — listen to the assistant fire chief who blames the man caught in a fire (that she can’t carry) for being in the wrong place:
LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson:
“Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place.” pic.twitter.com/BofTVr6dWP
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2025
Not only did the Assistant Chief of the LAFD say it — apparently other people edited that into a professional little promo clip. What were they all thinking?
Apparently of rainbows, and not fire hydrants and fuel loads.
*A few late additions this morning.
** The Rainbow hydrant photo is a Grok image “Satire”