[January 11, 2025] A good friend of mine is one of those kinds of folks ’marginal’ leaders hate to have around. This man is brutally honest and has zero fear in saying what he thinks. For that reason he is often detested. But he doesn’t miss anything. The past few days in California, the LA fires have raged killing an unknown number, destroying at least 10,000 structures, and continues to spread. He called it a FUBAR atomic bomb.
Jack is the kind of person that makes an alligator blush. I was fortunate to have him in two of my military units when I was a commander. At the time, I thought he was a serious pain but his aggressiveness and sharp tongue helped me be a far superior commander. I see this kind of honesty missing in the leadership in the city of Los Angeles and the state of California. Which is very unfortunate because it is easy to get yourself intellectually trapped in an echo chamber, especially if surrounded by yes-men.
We need people like Jack around us. He could help us characterize these fires as what it is — a “FUBAR atomic bomb,” meaning this is the result of the catastrophic failure to plan and resource a perfectly predictable event. This fire is no Black Swan event because of the predictable winds, insufficient water storage, the cutting of firefighting funds, and prioritizing DEI and woke ideology over firefighting operations.
The DEI push by the lesbian Fire Chief, who lacks real hands-on experience in firefighting and resource management, has created an atomic bomb in the form of the most destructive fire in Southern California history. This is also a systems’ breakdown from CA governor Gavin Newsome, who diverted water from Northern California out to sea rather than ensuring it flowed south. This meant that LA didn’t have sufficient water to fight the fire. This is just the start of failed policies.
California’s fire prevention and containment systems have been systematically dismantled in the name of environmentalism. Governor Newsome bragged about removing four dams and allowing all this water to flow away from the southern part of his state. And the mayor of LA, Karen Bass, declaring an emergency and promptly flying to Ghana, Africa. Why would a leader voluntarily leave during a crisis? This was a big mistake on her part and shows she lacks basic leadership skills and even empathy for her citizens.
All together, the LA fire is the direct result of the failure to address the predictable fire risks by Mayor Bass and the purposeful diverting of water resources and improper forest management by Governor Newsome.
Bass and Newsome are fiddling while LA burns
There’s an old saying that I’ve quoted here before and I think it’s appropriate to repeat because, I believe it partly explains the situation California finds itself in today.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” – G. Michael Hopf1
Good times have created LA’s DEI’s leaders and Gov. Newsome.
At the time of publication, brave firefighters from around the nation are battling the flames. God bless them and those who were impacted by this tragedy.
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Note: There are several major second-order effects waiting to make this whole thing much worse than we’ve seen. Long-term respiratory problems and mortality, dramatic insurance rate hikes and dropping out of California altogether, looting and associated crimes, and major political upheavals.
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- The quote is from a post-apocalyptic novel called “Those Who Remain” by the author G. Michael Hopf.
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Please read my books:
#### News Flash ####
All the Leftist Liberals say these fires are Trumps’s fault, you’ll remember I said it first right here on Gen. Satterfield’s leadership forum. Now, please salute!
At this point, the Palisades fire is 8% contained. 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Rebuilding these areas burned will take decades if LA’s strict building bureaucracy remains in place. And even if your house wasn’t burned down, you might not be able to move back in because their is no power, water, sewer, or other services like police, fire, and ambulance because they are gone. I see California relaxing some of their overregulation, else it will be decades before normalcy.
Welcome and good points.
I found this comment on another website and it is spot on:
“ Please, please,understand the absolute devastation the Marxist ego has visited upon California. Because of their absolute worship of APPEARING to protect the environment, DEI, Identity Politics, and profligate spending on illegal aliens, which prompted them to ignore fire protection, 35,000 acres of land, much of it populated, has been burned to the ground. To put that in perspective, only 2800 acres were burned down in Hiroshima. In other words, Marxists dropped the equivalent of 8 atom bombs on Los Angeles.”
WOW
Yeah, great points. This is the result of current -day Neo-Marxism and its minions.
. . . and yet they say “we” must (read that as mandated ) kneel before them and live the Woke. I don’t and I thank God that I live in the free state of Texas and not the Marxist state of California. Just like Sweeney and Gen. Satterfield say, AMAZING!
Appearance is everything. Why else does CA Gov Gavin Newsome wear his hair slicked back. Maybe he could buy less hair-slick and put the money into fire fighters.
Thanks, Gen. Satterfield. Well said.
AMAZIN’
DEI’s FINEST IN ACTION.
SEE WHAT YOU SEE AND REMEMBER THE NEXT TIME THERE IS A NEED FOR REAL LEADERSHIP, YOU WILL NOT FIND IT IN DEI.
https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1877210995468239038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1877210995468239038%7Ctwgr%5E7d0925016f5dd5d08ea4fedf2b8b83236ad12c9d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2025%2F01%2Fwildfire-of-the-vanities.php
This is the kin$ of comments I find everywhere. Most folks around the world are realizing that it’s the Democrat Party that is fully responsible because their policies lead directly to stopping all preventive measures for fires to spread.
It is almost unbelievable that the DEI incompetence of LA’s leaders have led us to this moment. Horror. That’s what happens when good times create weak men (and really weak and perverted women).
Perverted “leaders” are not leaders.
Greg, we are not supposed to be shaming these marginalized people who are in charge, getting a huge salary, handed many excessive privileges-power-authority, and loved by the world. They are to be given all deferences. Besides, this is bot their fault. It’s climate change. /sarc
😁😁😁😁😁