Politico reports on the politics of LA's enormous fires:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass faced mounting criticism Wednesday for her handling of deadly wildfires that continued to rage across the region, taking blame from influential city figures as she traveled back from a trip to Africa.
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, slammed Bass in an X post.... The prominent publisher’s condemnation came after moderate Democrat Rick Caruso, a real estate mogul who lost his mayoral bid to Bass in 2022, spent the morning making local TV appearances blasting Bass for traveling to Ghana, despite reports as early as last week about an impending wind storm.
I don't care one way or another about Karen Bass, but I sure am tired of this nonsense about politicians having to personally be there whenever a natural disaster breaks out in their neck of the woods. Both sides play this childish game and it's ridiculous. The LAFD doesn't need personal direction from Karen Bass to do its job, and if it did Bass is available 24/7 via the miracle of modern technology.
In this case the criticism is coming from Patrick Soon-Shiong, who's obviously trying to curry favor with Donald Trump, and Rick Caruso, who wishes he were mayor. What's the point of taking either of them seriously?
It hardly matters whether Bass was there at the beginning. It does matter that Bass and the City Council agreed to large salary increases for city employees that effectively make the city broke, and have resulted in budget items getting cut or reduced in order to deal with the shortfall. If you want to criticize her for a critical lack of leadership, that's where the criticism should go.
If you want to criticize the fire department, you can criticize them for failing to educate the public about how to evacuate their areas, and for failure to develop more effective evacuation procedures. For example, traffic always backs up when people try to leave an area, and the traffic authorities don't do a little bit of judicious traffic directing.
The COLA adjustment did not make the City "broke"
Just stop it
Total lack of details is highly suspicious.
Is the city budget in good shape, not needing to cut things?
I was about this many years old when I realized to a lot of my fellow citizens and to basically all of the political press, it’s all just a game and, anyway, lol nothing matters. That’s why anyone takes these clowns “seriously”. - they don’t but pretend to. Because lol, nothing matters.
Yes. And politicians too - their positions are a grift and an excuse for taxpayer funded junkets.
Why was Bass in Ghana at all? Does Ghana invest a lot in Los Angeles? Is Hollywood investing into Ghollywood? Of course not. This was a taxpayer funded junket / vacation and should be condemned whether or not it coincided with the wildfires.
Maybe she should have taken a private jet to go fishing in Alaska with a billionaire hedge fund manager with business before the city of Los Angleles And she should have done it on the sly without any offical notifications.
To be fair it's probably a good question as to why Bass was in Ghana but if we're going to ask it of her we should be asking it of eveyone in both government and the corporate world. The stock holders have a right to know why Cook/Zuckerberg/Bezos/Pichai/Brin etc are all running down to Mar a Lago from Silicon Valley. Hey why is Trump Jr in Greenland ? Do you think he's doing it on his own dime ?
News today: the MAGA red hat wearers in Greenland were mostly homeless people recruited with the promise of a free restaurant meal.
1. If Bass was on vacation on her own dime then the question would be why she did not cut it short but she was apparently on taxpayer time and the taxpayers' dime.
2. The stockholders actually do not have the right to that level of detail on corporate expenditures and the reason is obvious - to lobby. Are you suggesting that Bass needed to lobby for something in Ghana on behalf of LA?
3. If you have evidence that Don jr’s trip to Greenland was paid for by US taxpayers then you should ask Joe why, not me.
None!
Caruso is not a Democrat. He's always been a Republican. He pretended to be a Democrat because he wanted to be elected mayor.
Meanwhile can't Trump come here and teach us how to rake the forests?
Yes, and we can all watch, from afar. Way far!
It’s emotional. She needs to be there, for the same reason a father needs to be in the delivery room. You’d get that if you didn’t have undiagnosed autism.
Wow. Way to shit on the neurodiverse, asshole.
I have no idea if Kevin has any degree of autism (and neither do you), but implying that Kevin must be autistic because he finds performative criticism of a public official (for the crime of not coming home early enough despite reports "about an impending wind storm") tiresome and pointless is pretty awful.
I'm pretty sure that fire response is led by the heads of various city and state fire related agencies. The mayor's job may be apponting one or two of them.
What an extremely stupid comparison. An elected official is nothing like a parent. Nor should they be.
+
Besides, the job of fathers in the birth process is to pace up and down the hallway smoking cigs.
My brother has diagnosed autism, and I am quite sure that he has a full grasp of why it is nice for elected officials to be present during an emergency as quickly as reasonably possible. Quit tossing out the term autism in a way that insinuates a lack of awareness.
The old folk here tell of a time when natural disasters would bring out the best in people. Political differences would be set aside while everyone concentrated their efforts on helping the victims. The young people smile indulgently at such implausible stories.
Soon-Shiong is proving to be as craven and manipulative and deceitful as Musk. shocker
So should Ted Cruz have stayed in Cancun or not?
Yes, permanently. He could run a booze boat named "Cancun Cruzer"
Why not?
As I recall it wasn’t a matter of “stay”. It was a matter of running away during the emergency and returning with his tail between his legs when criticized. But Texas reelected him anyway, so I guess that’s what they expect.
Of course, Cruz was running away from a disaster. Bass is running back to the burning city.
Wildfires are not nearly as predictable as hurricanes and, well, ice storms.
Didn't seem to hurt his Senate campaign did it? Anyone trying make political judgements right now are idiots
No love for Patrick Soon-Shiong here in San Diego. He sold off the SD Union-Tribune to a vulture cannibal (Alden) who will eventually sell whatever valuable pieces there are and leave us with 1 less local paper. He's just another billionaire pretending he's human. He's not.
Ah, the lovely blaming phase of the story! We very quickly got past the horde of "on-the-scene" reporters shouting into their mask mikes and asking weeping homeowners "how they feel" after seeing their homes go up in smoke. I was expecting to hear by this evening about how "questions are being raised" about how the fires started, and whether to blame the power company or some mystical arsonist. I forgot about the "where was the mayor" phase, which of course has now begun.
What I'm not hearing on the news is why S Cal is once again a tinderbox because of climate change, where the region ping-pongs between atmospheric rivers that cause vegetation to grow like a horror movie and baking heat that turns all that biomass into crunchy dry leaves and twigs. Not hearing about how the SoCal fire season runs from June to November, but isn't it just so WEIRD that we have this right smack in the middle of January? How could that BE?
Climate change! Either too boring or too political or both. Instead, blame the gummint.
Chris Hayes on MSNBC just did a piece on why S Cal is once again a tinderbox because of climate change. He pointed out that while the relationship between hurricanes and climate change is complicated, the relationship between climate change and the fires is direct and easily understood.
You've clearly not been paying attention for the past few years.
Climate change is a hoax, it's all cyclical and will pass as it always has. The problem is damn liberals and their refusal to manage the flora and fauna overgrowth. If things had been properly managed by real professionals instead of a bunch of DEI woke losers, none of this would have happened.
This is why there are caravans of people fleeing California for better places that are run by sensible Republicans.
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Indeed. And it is such a yuge hoax we need to take-over Greenland 🙂
This is foreign territory to me, so Ive nothing to add other than that Biden and others have take pains both as responsible management and simply showing that government can share your feelings, while Trump in his presidency was a jerk as ever.
But what reaches me out east more is Trump's now blaming the fires on California's governor. As always, liberals are soft on . . . you name it. Maybe Greenland.
Trump thinks the fires can be put out by turning on that huge faucet up in Canada.
Sure, but because of the librul tree huggers all you get is drip drip.
I think when a leader speaks in time of disasters it draws attention in a good way, so I think it is important that the mayor be there. In a certain way, that’s why they are elected, to be the spokesperson for the people. I have been to The Getty museum and the whole area is basically dry brush and tinder on hills, I don’t see how a hundred mile an hour wind fire can be contained. More to the point, people need to seriously start thinking on where to build homes as nature will do what nature does.
Western scrub and forests etc. are not like Eastern ones. In California I went backpacking without a tent because there was sure to be no rain for half of the year.
The wet/dry mostly warm and then really hot dry seasons not only create and then dry out more vegetation with warmer temperatures but change the bug populations. They go waaaay up when times, even a year, are good for them. In this case (certainly in pinon pine/juniper forests elsewhere in the West) warmer winters mean the bugs don't get killed off by cold, their populations go up expotentially, and all the pines get killed. Similar things go on everywhere.
C'mon, it's obvious what's going on here. And what point Caruso and Soon-Shiong are trying to make.
She was in Ghana. On a trip to Africa.
I'll say no more.
Paid for by taxpayers.
Why, exactly?
What is LA's particular interest in Ghana that justifies paying for a mayoral trip?
Are you an LA voter?
LA has a population greater than 22 states, so the LA mayor's office has a bigger and wider set of issues on its agenda than would, say, the Pawnee town council. I'm not sure exactly what interest LA might have in Ghana in specific or in Africa generally, but (a) it's not implausible that it would have one, and (b) that's an issue for LA voters, not yappers on this blog.
I look forward to everyone in the US shutting up about all politicians who they are not constituents of. I am not holding my breath.
She was selected by President Joe Biden as one of his four-member presidential delegation to attend the inauguration of the African nation’s incoming president, John Dramani Mahama.
Why are there only insane wingnuts who own newspapers, radio and tv networks?
No one else has the balls to step up here?
That's probably what is really needed anyway balless people (women) to take the reins. I'm sure there will plenty of fuckery but I'm willing to bet there'll be less.
Logical or not, when a crisis hits, people expect the leader(s) to be there. Comes with the territory.
That said, my question is why would the Mayor of a US city be traveling to another country for the inauguration of that county’s new leader? That sounds more like a job for a highish-ranking federal official.
Apparently you missed all the criticism of Tom Bradley for his out of country travel when he was mayor (the international terminal at LAX is named for him). Of course all he was doing was meeting with foreign officials and big shots promoting tourism, trade and the port of LA-Long Beach to our benefit.
In this specific case the stories have been the travel was for the new leader of Ghana’s inauguration. Is there much trade for LA to engage in with Ghana, or investment to be made by Ghana in LA?
And it always disturbed me that Tom Bradley International Terminal had that name while Bradley was still alive and politically active. I had assumed that things get named after you only when you're dead.
Google is your friend.
According to Wikipedia:
Karen Bass is a significant American with a long distinguished record in elected office. She's a lot more than just a local city mayor.
Right now she is being paid to be a mayor.
If she wants to work for the State Department she should resign as mayor.
-10
You should go post on Twitter. They'd love your stupid posts there. Plus, you could get all the nazi content you want.
Thanks.
I agree, that asshole FDR snubbed all those sailors, Marines, and soldiers.
Confused as to why the "conservatives" who constantly bash California still live here. Move to the "conservative" paradise of Mississippi already.
+25.
Arkansas, North Dakota, West Virginia, Nevada, and Louisiana (in order) are the least educated states so one of them might be better. Missippi is next at #45 though. Of course various ratings differ because of being based on different measures.
Nevada is sort of an outlier demographically because of all the Mexican immigrants there mostly for hotel jobs.
In a way, it feels like Angelinos are about to relive a different version of the Rodney King riots. Instead of racial inequality, the core issue is income inequity with racial undertones. If this is the case, then Caruso and Soon-Shiong are tempting fate.
Any person directly impacted by the fires has been busy preparing to evacuate, evacuating and waiting for news about their home or business. I sincerely doubt that many people were worried about where the goddamned Mayor was. Anyone who knows one fucking thing about emergency management knows that the initial responses were life safety and the people entrusted to carry out their roles (fire and police) didn't give one shit about where the Mayor was. It's only the screaming mimis who want to take pot shots, just like Trump and his fucked up band of idiots. Sorry, but being there wasn't critical. Emotionally, the people affected were thinking 99.9% or more about their families, friends, neighbors and property. Caruso and Soon-Shiong are just a waste of protoplasm.
Voilà !
Word! We lost a house on Maui to a tidal wave in the late 50s. We didn't need a politician - we needed police and emergency services on the job to warn everybody to turn on their radio(s) to the civil defence channels and evacuate ASAP with clothes, food, and water.
The police and other emergency responders did a great job, particularly since we didn't have an actual tsunami detection system until some time into the mid-60s. So they had to assume that seismic events at certain points around the Pacific Rim could have generated a tsunami.
The University of Hawaii collaborated with the State and got some federal grant money to put monitoring stations on various islands and atolls between Hawaii and those danger points. Made life a lot less dicey because they were positioned to provide several hours warning that an actual tsunami was aimed at us.
Yes. I wouldn't think it mattered whether the mayor was on the scene. And I don't think it would matter to most people. If there's good polling on that, it would be interesting to read what they found.
If the mayor were to "speak to the people of" whatever city, she would appear on the teevie, internets and radio. It would look no different whether she was in Ghana, the Mayoral Office, an evac center, or on the fire lines.
This is the 21st century. We have telecommunications! That's how people find out what's happening! Nobody sashays down to the local fire line or City Hall to look at what's happening.
Exactly. I have yet to see a single attempt to identify any material difference in the fire response efforts that would have occured had the mayor been on the phone from the mayor's office as opposed to on the phone from someplace not the mayor's office on the way back to the mayor's office.
This isn't like where Trump sat on his gigling fat ass for hours and watched his brownshirts storm the Capitol, blocking efforts to do anything about it (because they were doing exactly what he wanted). Maybe we should focus a bit more outrage on that, and how that same giggling fatass plans to pardon those same Capitol-storming brownshirt cop-killers.
I take it then Kevin, that Biden should go ahead with his trip to Italy? https://apnews.com/article/biden-fire-pope-california-italy-df89b74eec47dc94cc87f51601e44c0d
My brother and his wife live in Manhattan Beach, south of LAX. Very heavy winds in the 80-100 mph range were lashing the fire on - they know people who had to flee and lost homes. My wife's sister-in-law also has relatives that have had homes destroyed or are waiting to find out.
When I checked yesterday the news was predicting high winds through tonight. AF1 is a sturdily constructed beast - but, it is also big and susceptible to nasty winds on take-off. President Biden made a reasonable decision to not risk lives for a diplomatic courtesy trip.
A tidbit from the past has resurfaced: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/us/karen-bass-ghana-wildfire-travel-los-angeles.html