California’s “Leaders” Put DEI First. Now LA Is On Fire.

0:00 my heart goes out to everyone in Los Angeles this is all just a disaster but they are reaping what they sow politically hey there friends fans and foes of dad Saves America John paa here and I have to take this Friday to talk about the multi-layered catastrophe going on in Los Angeles California as we sit here the fire is not yet contained and the devastation is un imaginable and

0:31 the incompetence on display is far more imaginable actually but let's get a a ground level view shall we there just are not enough fire Crews uh able to deal with all the blazes that are going on how's water I mean the obviously Palisades that had water issues our hydrant ran dry about 2 minutes ago because there's so many engines tapping the grid and multiple grids we basically just taking all the water out of the grid uh just complete and utter

0:58 Devastation I I've been a lot of these fires uh a lot going back to paradise and this approximated paradise uh still no containment no we're zero containment what is the situation with the water obviously in the palage ran out last night in the hydrant I start the firefighter on this block let me just stop for a second there's something there's something so weird about Gavin Nome like I I know like we don't want to overread in a body language but is he

1:22 being flippant here I know he I I'm going to assume that he's not being flippant but this guy's just creepy I'm sorry they left cuz there was no water in the hydrate here the the local folks are trying to figure that out I mean just when you have a a system there is not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinar large scale fires whether it be pipe electricity or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system I mean those

1:48 hydrants are typical for two or three fires maybe one fire you have something at this scale but again that's going to be determined by the local I had to even asked this question but the president elect chose to attack you blame you for the uh one can't even respond to it I mean it's uh this guy wanted to politicize it I I I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say I

2:12 won't president Trump knew what he wanted to say and well it was it was it was as trumpy as we could expect right one of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning to the ground it's ashes and Gavin newsum should resign this is all his fault this is on uh truth social Gavin newsum is that states manly rhetoric it is not this is the world we're in this is nothing new from president Trump

2:43 what's also not new for president Trump is actually being pretty aware of what's going on in California both in terms of its water problems its water management and its Forest management problems this is one of the areas where he seems to at least be in touch with some of the details you know your Forest a dry as a bone okay dangerous that water could be routed you know you could have everything oh not only dangerous billions of dollars a year they spend on

3:09 forest fires and you know there's a case with the environment they're not allowed to rake their forests because you're not allowed to touch it when a tree falls down after 18 months it becomes very dry it's like you know like real firewood it's bad and I I every time I go to California said you have so much water they don't know it I'm telling you people living in Beverly Hills they turn off the water same thing with the

3:33 electric they want to go to all electric cars but they have brownouts every weekend you know well right after they made the announcement that as of 2035 you're not going to be able to buy an internal combustion engine in California like within a month they had some announcement asking people to not charge their Teslas I'm just waiting for the footage of uh EVS exploding in extreme bombass from this fire because um electric vehicles and their lithium

3:58 batteries are even more catastrophically um explosive than gasoline engines but we'll come back to the uh the various insundry luxury beliefs at work in the Los Angeles area when it comes to the relationship between President Trump and um Governor Nome things weren't always quite so acrimonious going back to 2018 and the and the fire in Paradise California you see a very different tone than

4:28 newsum is there any way to prevent this from happening again Mr President well we've been talking about that on the ride over and I think we're all on the same path we do have to do management maintenance and uh we'll be working also with environmental groups they've really uh I think everybody's seen the light everybody's seen the light uh I think the president spoke too soon in 2018 because just a couple years later there was more fires and of course the fire

4:57 this is a very fir prone area as we all no fast forward a couple years and you have this but those trees are dead and therefore they're very flammable they're explosive they are uh we can agree to disagree and I appreciate your frame on the politics of this uh but let me just acknowledge two things briefly and I'll turn it back to you um there's no question when you look past this decade looking past almost a thousand plus

5:21 years that we have not done Justice on our forest management I don't think anyone disputes that this is one of the things about politics we have these problems we we get all these promises they don't get solved and Gavin Nome is remarkably good at acknowledging problems that he says he's there to solve and not solving them and continuing to acknowledge that there's problems that need to be solved I guess by Magic whether it's homelessness or Forest management or any number of

5:52 things in California this is this is a recurrent pattern at this point not just with Newsome but with every politician more or less but Nome is expert at sounding empathetic about the problems he promised he would solve for everybody we acknowledge our role and responsibility to do more in that space and final point I'd be and this is where we get into the uh you know eeve for everyone luxury beliefs category negligent and this is not and we known

6:20 each other too long and uh and as you suggest the the working relationship I I I value we obviously feel very strongly that the hots are getting hotter the dries are getting drier when we're having heat domes likes of which we've never seen in our history the hottest August ever the history of the State uh the ferocity of these fires the drought five plus years losing 163 million trees to that drought Something's Happened to the plumbing of the world and we come

6:48 from a perspective humbly uh where we submit uh the science uh in and observed evidence is self-evident the science is in folks these fires have nothing to do with anything we're doing they're they're global climate change and we need to reorganize our society around that even though the Chinese are going to do no such thing and they don't care how many EVS we have in California and they produce more carbon dioxide than all of the continental US times two or three

7:18 but this is the malformed set of priorities that are animating what's going on in in California and in a lot of places around the country a lot of cities around the country uh that climate change is real and that is exacerbating this and so I think there's an area of at least commonality on vegetation Forest management uh but please uh respect and I know you do uh the difference of opinion out here as it relates to this fundamental issue again

7:46 the the the politization of uh weather events is on Full display or it was then and that's what that is that is a politicization of of the forest fires to talk about climate change climate change really isn't the primary mover here in this issue but it gets so much worse when as far as governance is concerned because the mayor of Los Angeles well the video on this really speaks for itself do you owe citizens an

8:17 apology for being absent while their homes were burning and do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars Madame mayor have you nothing to say today back up appreciate it have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today Elon Musk says that you're utterly incompetent are you considering your position what what what's going on here what what is what's happening Madam

8:48 mayor have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today who are dealing with this disaster no apology for them I don't know what that is I don't know this is the business you've chosen um Madam so I don't get it I was in New York City during 911 um when the towers came down and you know kind of the whole country got to see Rudy Giuliani who you

9:19 know has obviously is a bizarre figure is he in prison I'm not sure if he's in prison but Rudy Giuliani at least when the chips were down in a time of Crisis would string a sentence together I can imagine Rudy giuliani's response to sort of Gonzo journalism you know catching him at the airport and it wouldn't be to stare autistically without responding or acknowledging you're being talked to

9:50 leadership is about being able to handle yourself and communicate in a crisis shame on the voters of Los Angeles for picking this lady over AR Roomba I mean this is just a catastrophe it just so happens I was actually having lunch with Michael shellenberger earlier today and we were talking about what's going on he's a longtime Californian he ran for governor a couple years back and I think his commentary on this uh has been spoton he knows what's going on on the

10:20 from the inside out when it comes to California's interaction with environmental regulations and all of the minations of government in California on this front over the next few weeks you're going to hear Governor Gavin Nome mayor Karen bass and the Democratic party tell you that there's nothing that could have been done to prevent the catastrophic fires from ravaging Los Angeles those will be lies they could have prevented them Governor Gavin Nome cut the funding for preventing forest

10:45 fires and failed to build sufficient Water Resources for fighting fires mayor Karen bass cut 17.5 million in funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department and then went to Ghana even though she knew of the risk of catastrophic fires now it's true that California in general and Los Angeles in particular are fire replac and it's true that Santa Ana winds made the fires worse but Nome and bass have known about those hazards for all of their careers and failed to deal

11:06 with them the rank incompetence the lack of leadership is shocking and scandalous that is absolutely true especially uh by the mayor in particular the lack of leadership fundamentally functionally it's hard to overstate how badly they screwed up water management in particular Los Angeles firefighters haven't had the water they needed Nome hasn't built the new water reservoirs that Los Angeles needed and Nome even cut the budget for water INF ructure projects last year so why is that well

11:32 part of the reason is that they were focused on other things making the fire department more racially diverse climate change homelessness and the reason they were focused on those things is because those are what the radical left that controls the Democratic party wanted them to focus on year after year they do nothing while focusing on things like trans and Trump and climate and ignoring the things that really matter to the people of California now this video has been

11:54 making the rounds but I think it does underline that what Michael shellenberger and others are saying about the priorities in Southern California in Los Angeles County uh and and their repercussions aren't BS welcome back to CVS Saturday morning the city of Los Angeles swore in a new fire chief yesterday and for the first time in history of the department she is a woman amazing the most amazing thing ever can you believe it Kristen Crowley

12:27 will lead the nation's thirdd largest firefighter force in our second biggest city as a push for diversity continues in a male dominated field this is huge for diversity she's not only the first woman also the first lgbtq person to to take this position can I just say um she's not an lgbtq person she's a she's a lesbian what is this I'm an lgbtq person that's not a thing that's some metaphysical conglomeration category she's a Woman She's a Lesbian that's

12:55 fine you can just say that I don't know why that matters for being the chief of fire it doesn't actually it doesn't and at maybe we're finally starting to wake up from this psychotic trance we're in focused on tribes like ancient Babylon but I don't think any of that matters and I'm pretty sure this has all come back to haunt Los angelinos perfect position to start and to prioritize that work environment especially from the diversity equity and

13:24 inclusion side prioritize diversity equity and inclusion at the fire department Crowley says the key to fixing that is having more diversity on the department which is why they offer girls camps and Outreach it's going to make us a stronger team so we can ultimately serve the community in a better capacity focusing on Dei in the fire department literally makes the fire department weaker physically weaker what are the challenges of being a woman size uh I

13:56 would say that was probably my biggest uh hurdle this equipment isn't built for someone that's you know 5'4 and maybe 30 lb soaking wet some days 5'4 and 130 lb soaking wet well don't worry about the soaking wet because there's no water in California to soak you wet but I don't have anything against this young woman but this is ridiculous there are 7 million roughly Prime working age males this is like between 18 and 54 unemployed in America and I guarantee at

14:29 least a million of them are in California if not two to three you're telling me that as a chief of a fire department your first priority if you need to beef up the force which you clearly do wouldn't be to tap into the reserve Army of unemployed Bros that are having a blast playing Call of Duty I mean if anything you should be making video games to train young men to be firefighters and then like the last star

14:57 fighter recruiting them from the eor I mean I don't this is what you call Luxury beliefs and Los Angeles is the land of luxury beliefs it's the land of fairy tales it's the land of Hollywood and I I don't wish any ill upon anyone in Los Angeles I have too many friends in Los Angeles I have too many people I care about who happen to live in the Los Angeles area this is all just a disaster

15:26 but they are reaping what so politically by voting for people on the basis of virtue signaling instead of being capable of doing the most basic kind of governance that a city and a state should be doing we are forced to pay for what we are told our essential Services police utilities fire protection and time and again now we're seeing that abstract utopian ideas are taking priority and when they take priority

15:58 they literally take time and money and energy away from the basic good government that we should all expect especially at the level of the city cities are really important in a lot of ways cities are the foundation of civilization the word civilization itself is um rooted in the word civitas which stands for City and this is actually where government and governance is the close cl to our daily

16:30 lives this is where our potholes get fixed or left to rot and sink deeper this is the management of our kids schools I don't think it should be but it is this is all the things that constitute reality are happening at the level of our cities half of our population lives in cities and so we are constantly told about all these magical wonderful things and this Grand utopian vision that politicians will usher in

17:00 for us especially at the national level we just got out of a year and a half of presidential politics why should we believe a word any of these people tell us when they can't manage the most basic elements of running our cities and the answer is we shouldn't there's going to be a lot more to come out of this this is an ongoing Story the fires are destroying people's lives and you know there's going to be plenty of people on

17:28 the internet jumping up and down for joy that Mark Hamill's Mansion burned to the ground because he's such a kind of loud and kind of crazy Lefty and whatever I don't think that's reasonable we shouldn't want other people to suffer even when we disagree with them I don't think that's I don't think that's good or kind or Christian my heart goes out to everyone in Los Angeles I hope they can find safety I hope they can rebuild

17:52 their lives and that turns to the next level of sort of blue State Hunger Games nonsense that lies ahead and fellow friend of the show Adam Corolla had a rant on Twitter uh that was truly spectacular on this front and I know the stuff he's talking about quite quite well because we talked about it on our episode about construction and getting things done in the physical world so here's what's here's what's going to happen let me just give you guys a

18:19 little primer of what's going to happen you know how Bill Maher seems real conservative now when he's like arguing with Jane Fonda about regulations too many regulations like strangling everything because remember when Bill Maher tried to put solar in his house in Beverly Hills that's when he turned against the government because he saw what the government and the overreach of government and overregulation does he got strangled it took him three years to build a solar Shack he had old countdown

18:40 on a show you know day 1,000 since I've got my permit for my S he turned okay so here's what's going to happen all these people who were deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild and they're going to get the 28-year old from the coastal commission telling them to go off there's going to be a whole bunch of rich people and they're going to go I'm re building and I want to rebuild as

19:00 fast as I can and between the part where they go in to to Planning Commission and plan check and initially and try to pull a permit to the time the first load of lumber the first load of 2x forces dropped off on their lot where their House formerly stood it's going to be three years and a thousand permits and a thousand arguments and a thousand discussions with the coastal commission you guys all voted for Karen Bass the

19:22 mayor of Los Angeles you all voted for Gavin Newsome and now you get what you get he's not wrong you get what you get HL M said that democracy is the theory that the people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard and I can understand this is Adam Corolla at Peak HL M form but what he's touching on here is the next phase of disaster so we have the natural disasters of forest

19:51 fires and then we have the man-made disaster of how impossible it is to build anything in these cities and not just Los Angeles this permeates blue State governance blue City governance I'm here in Austin Texas and Austin is a slow poke they're not as slow as California they're not as slow as the San Francisco Bay area or Los Angeles but it is punishing to get things done it is ridiculous to purchase a plot of land and be told how many trees you're

20:23 allowed to cut down I'm sorry they're my trees I get to cut them down but that is is the world we're in utopian dreams give rise to utterly incomprehensible rules and regulations all of which are the product of a political process that really should be left to We the People to decide for ourselves in our neighborhoods frankly Houston Texas has some of the lowest housing costs of any American city and it basically lacks a lot of the zoning

20:54 rules and regulations that strangle Californians this is the problem this is the sort of double whammy double screw job you get with top down hyper utopian Progressive governance they want to deliver us Utopia and what they deliver is disaster both natural and man-made what do we do about that well I think one of the things that these moments offer as a teachable lesson is that our city elections actually matter a lot and very

21:26 often City and local elections are just simply ignored because they aren't flashy it's not glamour our national politics is literally the stuff of Hollywood you know president Trump he has a long-standing relationship with Governor Newsome because until he became president he was a Hollywood celebrity he worked in television he R he was on The Apprentice we have Hollywood government and we need a lot more brass tax get done government at the

21:58 local level and until we as a public redirect our attention to that and prioritize the brass tax of what we should expect out of our cities and our states we're going to get more and more nonsense and you can only spend other people's money for so long but eventually the chickens come home to roost and that's what's happened here in California with this devastating fire that is what's happened in California even more broadly with all the problems

22:26 that have turned it into sort of a disaster Zone that's bleeding population and we should just pray to God that that ideology is put to rest and doesn't resurface at the national scale I mean at the end of the day that's the best lesson we can take away from all of this there's only so many things we can do as individuals when a crisis like this emerges the precautionary principle is useful here and that's to say governance

22:52 matters pay attention to the things you care about and don't just vote on the basis of luxury beliefs and fairy tales I think there is a deeper cultural problem going on here and that is that too often our political class comes from the world of talkers of talkers not doers of the lawyers the Consultants the speech of fires that's Gavin Nome to a te and I think that one of the things I

23:23 happen to like about President Trump is he actually had to contend with building things in New York city of all places he is a talker he is a TV guy but I'd like to see and I think we should all want to see more leaders step up to the plate who know how to build something how to get things done and I think if we could prioritize that instead of fancy talk and fairy tales we might just be able to

23:48 avoid the kind of disasters that have hit us and that are currently ravaging the people of Los Angeles so here's to return to some basic common sense as we head into this New Year have a great weekend