Tuesday, January 14, 2025

The non-Christians in the GOP attacking California

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pete Hegseth Reflects On His Confirmation Hearing" 


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Each day, the Republican Party proves to be just a little more disgusting than the day before.  Daniel Hampton (RAW STORY) reports:


A firebrand Republican senator said Monday that California wildfire victims don't deserve federal aid because they elected Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) joined the right-wing Newsmax network with host Chris Salcedo on Monday afternoon to talk about the fires, which have left at least two dozen dead.



That's not how federal aid works.  You may remember when Donald Trash lied and claimed that Biden wasn't sending aid here or there because it was a Republican voting region?  That was a lie.  But Baby Dumps Himself did that in his first term.  Again, that's not how it works.  These people are going to hell.  That's reality.  They pose and preen as Christians but they don't have a Christian sentiment in their heart, not even one.  They're hateful people and their liars.  Remember Tommy 'represents' Alabama.  They voted him in as a senator.  Despite the fact that his primary address was Florida.  That's the kind of liar Tuberville is.  He's also that satan-lover who threatened he would "ruin" any Republican senator who didn't support Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.  That would be Matt Gatez who drugged women and girls, who had sex with underage girls which is also known as statutory rape.  Again, he's a satanist, he's not a Christian.  Don't listen to this liar who tries to lead true Christians astray.  Church of Christ, my Black ass.  If Tuberville truly practiced his faith, he'd know federal aid was not only required, it was a way to show God's love.  His church needs to kick him out or just own up to engaging in Tuberville's blasphemy. 

Apparent closet gay boy Mike Johnson is screaming for conditions as well.  Fortunately, the GOP does appear to have some wise members.  Sonam Sheth (NEWSWEEK) reports:


Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, whose state was hit with catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Helene last year, pushed back on the idea of conditioning federal disaster aid.

"I would ask those folks to put themselves in the same position as people [in] western North Carolina," Willis told HuffPost's Igor Bobic. "You got to be consistent on disaster supplement, period."

Florida Senator Rick Scott echoed that sentiment, telling Bobic: "I think we ought to do aid the way we do everybody else."


Exactly.  


Leigh Kimmins (DAILY BEAST) notes Lara Trump tried to lie and deny this had anything to do with climate change; however,  "Multiple studies have shown that climate change has increased the length of the wildfire season, the frequency of wildfires, and the burned area, according to the Environmental Protection Agency."  Michael Hiltzik (LOS ANGELES TIMES) notes:


The Southern California wildfires have generated billows of noxious smoke coming from Donald Trump and his GOP sycophants, who claim that efforts to protect the smelt from extinction have complicated firefighting efforts by diverting water that could have been used to extinguish the blazes.

In a Truth Social post, Trump accused Gov. Gavin Newsom (whom he addressed with an infantile insult) of wanting to "protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt."

Bizarrely, Trump stated that Newsom wanted to protect the smelt by "giving it less water;" possibly he meant "more water," since increasing water flows would be the instrument of environmental protection for the delta smelt, but who knows?

"The delta smelt is standing in the way of getting desperately needed water to a number of parts of California," Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) pontificated on television last week. "The fact that California's own leadership is steadfast in protecting the delta smelt above everything else shows just how ridiculous their priorities are."

The delta smelt has been called a "sentinel species," meaning that its health signals the condition of its ecosystem — and the signal it has flashed is alarming. (Think of it as a canary in the environmental coal mine.)

It's also a signal of another kind: Claims that the fish has anything to do with the fires indicates a speaker's surpassing ignorance about water, the environment, global warming and wildfire management.

Indeed, Trump is so profoundly uninformed that he doesn't seem aware that pumping more water from Northern California south to quell the Los Angeles fires would actually harm the Central Valley growers whose interests he has long claimed to support — it's water they rely on that would be diverted south.

This isn't the first time that partisans have asserted that protecting the delta smelt is an obstacle to efficient water management in California.


Lisandra Gomez-Tate (2PARAGRAPHS) notes:


Paul Krugman, former New York Times columnist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, has taken to Substack where he frequently points out — using economic data to back his rhetoric — the hypocrisy of various government actors.

This week Krugman considered the rampant politicization of the raging wildfires in California, and how various GOP figures — backed by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk — have threatened to withhold aid while blaming DEI policies and opposition politicians like Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass for the devastation, rather than blaming nature, drought, climate considerations and the ferocious Santa Ana winds.

Krugman took issue with aid being withheld in California’s time of need, at the same time House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that the aid would likely be “conditioned” and that emergency provisions might be allotted only after considerations about the levels to which California’s leaders were allegedly “derelict in their duties.”

"our system more or less automatically bails out states when they run into financial trouble. And as it happens, the biggest such bailouts I'm aware of involved red states." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/remembranc…

[image or embed]

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper.com) January 14, 2025 at 9:12 AM

Doing what Deep Throat famously advised Woodward and Bernstein to do, Krugman follows the money, showing how California’s financial contributions to the U.S. government dwarf the contributions of antagonistic red states which, unlike California, receive far more in federal dollars than they contribute.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, January 14, 2025  This morning, the supremely unqualified Pete Hegseth is scheduled to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to make the case that anyone -- any crazy, drunken loon -- can be the US Secretary of Defense.  


Today, Donald Chump's nominee has a confirmation hearing.  Which nominee?  The Otis The Town Drunk of Chump's nominees.  Remember, kids, Pete Hegseth will stop drinking if he gets to be the Secretary of Defense.  Supposedly, that's a promise.  Even though it sounds more like a threat -- as in, "If you don't confirm me, I will continue my drunken ways until I have an accident while driving drunk and that will be on your heads!!!!!"   Like every active alcoholic, Pete's looking for some US senators to play his co-dependent.  



Only one top Senate Democrat has read Hegseth's FBI background check since it was given to Congress last week. His confirmation hearing begins on Tuesday morning.


  • Paperwork delays meant the background checks and other materials for top Trump nominees were given to lawmakers late. Democrats have pushed for the reports to be available to all members before the hearings.
  • Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the panel's top Democrat, met with Hegseth last week. Reed said the meeting did not relieve his concerns about Hegseth's nomination.
  • Hegseth's hearing is the party's first shot to carry out the demands handed down by Schumer — skewer Trump's nominees and the MAGA brand.

Zoom in: The background report on Hegseth is particularly important given allegations of sexual assault and financial mismanagement of a nonprofit group.




  • Republican senators at the time said the allegations were concerning and wanted more details about the complaints.
  • Hegseth has denied wrongdoing.



Hegseth, according to co-workers at FOX "NEWS," gets blotto drunk and can't even remember what happened while he was drinking.  Meaning, if he did assault a woman, would he really remember it?

His drunken blotto episodes raise concerns about many things -- including whether or not he's a security risk.

 Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:


Multiple Democratic senators are pointing with alarm at what they believe are gaps in information provided by the FBI on one of Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet nominees.

According to a report from the New York Times, the slim information provided on Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, chosen to be the president-elect's secretary of defense, does not include examinations of information they have been provided directly.

Hegseth is facing a slew of questions over accusations of sexual assault, excessive drinking and financial improprieties while heading up several veterans organizations.

According to the Times, with Hegseth scheduled for a confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Democrats are questioning whether the nominee has received enough scrutiny in the short time allowed.

The Times is reporting, "several Democrats on the panel expressed concerns that they might not have relevant information for Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday," adding, "Democrats on the committee believe there are additional allegations that should appear in the pages of an F.B.I. background check, to inform their questioning. That belief is based in part on information they have gleaned from individuals who have quietly approached Senate offices to divulge information about Mr. Hegseth."


Some opinions?  At NEWSWEEK, Greg Kelly offers:

Pete Hegseth, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, revealed his vulnerability to blackmail in a single damning statement. Asked by Megyn Kelly why he paid money to a woman accusing him of sexual assault, Hegseth responded, "I paid her because I had to—or at least I thought I did at the time. I had a great job at Fox and a wonderful marriage... It is not what I should have done, but I did it to protect that. I did it to protect my wife, I did it to protect my family, and I did it to protect my job. It was a negotiation purely to try to prevent that."

This is the essence of blackmail: coercion through exploitation. It's a dark and dangerous reality. And it disqualifies Hegseth from leading the Pentagon—or any national security role under longstanding federal policy.

National security regulations have been clear for decades: Individuals susceptible to coercion cannot hold sensitive positions. Executive Order 10450, signed in 1953 and still in effect, explicitly bars individuals with vulnerabilities—such as blackmail—from positions of national security. This principle is reinforced by Standard Form 86, the mandatory questionnaire for all national security roles, which screens for "vulnerability to exploitation and coercion."

Hegseth's admission aligns directly with these disqualifiers. He has already demonstrated a willingness to pay off his accuser, allegedly to protect his personal and professional life. As Secretary of Defense, his responsibilities would be infinitely more critical, and his adversaries exponentially more dangerous.


Christian Whiton (NATIONAL INTEREST) offers:

There is much talk about experience, considering he can boast so little. He has never supervised or run an organization of any magnitude or complexity like that of the Defense Department. He has never reformed an obstinate organization, and this obstinate Pentagon has been in desperate need of change since the Cold War ended thirty years ago. It has lost the ability to win wars and is still configured for a Europe-first foreign policy with counterinsurgency and nation-building as side hustles. It needs a radical transformation to deter war with China. Hegseth is neither a leader of leaders, a deal guy, or even a simple manager. His garish choice of finery is another clue to his future performance. That may sound like a gratuitous comment, but appearances matter—man-boys with tough guy tats won’t move a culture that places exceptionally high value on what the military calls “command presence.”


The two people quoted above?  Both conservatives.  The first, a NEWSMAX host, the second served in Chump's first administration.  Are you getting how wrong Pete Hegseth is?


Again, he pinky swears he'll give up the booze if he's confirmed. 

Drunks active in their disease say a lot of things though, don't they?

As Carly Simon notes, people say a lot when they want the job.



Not every senator appears willing to indulge Hegseth in his fantasies and lies.  Jennifer Bowers Bahney (RAW STORY) explains:


Some Senate insiders, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), are blowing up Pete Hegseth's nomination for Secretary of Defense citing his lack of qualifications a day before the former Fox News host's confirmation hearings are set to begin.

Rebecca Traister, writer-at-large with The Intelligencer, quoted Kelly's devastating take on Hegseth in a column posted Monday.

"I don’t expect any candidate to check every single box. But he doesn’t seem to check any boxes,” Kelly said.


[. . .]

Traister concluded, "Pete Hegseth is, by every measure, an abysmal nominee to run the American military. The Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News commentator has no experience managing enormous, complex organizations like the Pentagon and would, as secretary of Defense, be in charge of an $850 billion budget and 3 million active-duty and civilian personnel."

Traister then broke down the controversies plaguing Hegseth.

She wrote, "His spotty professional record includes having been asked to step down from two nonprofit veterans’ groups whose budgets he reportedly ran into the ground. Questions about his personal behavior abound: He has been accused of rape (he reached a civil settlement with his accuser in 2017) and has a reported habit of excessive drinking, including while on the job and to the point of incapacitation in public. He has defended waterboarding and torture, advocated on behalf of alleged war criminals, and as recently as November he declared, 'I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles.' Even Republicans haven’t been able to find much good to say about him. 'If it were a secret ballot,' one moderate senator told me, 'I don’t think he’d be confirmed.'


While Hegseth is on for today, another nominee's hearing was delayed.  REUTERS notes, "The U.S. Senate energy panel said on Monday the nomination hearing for President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, will take place on Thursday instead of Tuesday, blaming a 'bureaucratic delay' with a federal ethics office."


And more people are coming forward to address just how unsuitable Hegseth is for the job.  Sarah K. Burris (RAW STORY) notes:

On Monday, former Marine fighter pilot Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath, spoke to host Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC after Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) revealed that he and other officials had been denied access to the FBI file and financial documents outlining Pete Hegseth's history overseeing nonprofit organizations.

McGrath confessed that she couldn't understand why Republicans would try to hide the report from members of the Armed Services Committee or anyone else in the Senate who wanted to read it. 

 It is "the most consequential sequential position in the United States government. It is the largest agency in the United States government. As I mentioned, this is in the chain of command for nuclear weapons deployment," McGrath noted. "And the FBI report is going to talk about, you know, past personal conduct."

Leading the Pentagon is a job that will require "rapid minute-by-minute decisions on the deployment of nuclear weapons." She asked: "Do you want this man in the room? I mean, is he even going to be sober?"





Last night, Marcia noted:

Just when you think Pete Hegseth can't get more disgusting, he does.  Brad Reed (RAW STORY) reports:



Trump Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth has in the past raged against efforts to change the names of military bases named after Confederate generals — and has even floated bringing the old names back.

CNN reports that Hegseth just last year said that the government should change the name of Fort Liberty in North Carolina back to Fort Bragg during a podcast appearance in which he was promoting his book, "The War on Warriors."

"We should change it back," he said. "We should change it back. We should change it back, because legacy matters. My uncle served at Bragg. I served at Bragg. It breaks a generational link.”


And that's another damn reason the idiot is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense.  It breaks a generational link for the drunk and his pathetic family.

And, pray tell, Pete, what do you think it said to Black people all this time?  



Turning to the media,  Josh Fiallo (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:



The star Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin resigned from the paper Monday and took a parting shot at Jeff Bezos, its billionaire owner.

Driving her departure was recent executive decisions at the Post, she told CNN. That included its refusal to publish a satirical cartoon showing Bezos bending at the knee for Donald Trump and its blocking of a planned Kamala Harris endorsement last fall.

Rubin often pens columns from a conservative perspective but has been a staunch critic of the president-elect. She said Monday the Post has “failed spectacularly at a moment that we most need a robust, aggressive free press.”



Good for Jennifer Rubin. I think this goes to the collapse of journalism.  Once upon a time, with The Pentagon Papers, you had journalists.  That's why the news broke.  THE WASHINGTON POST was run by Katherine Graham who grew up in a family of journalists.  Jeff 'Bezos' has no ties to journalism.  Not even if we call him by his real last name.  He sold wares like a street merchant.  That's all he ever did.  And his college record was spotty.  He has no appreciation for journalism and that's what he's telgraphing.  It's the same with THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.  When owners don't come from a journalistic background -- either family or education or previous employment -- they don't tend to respect it.  And I'll trash many journalists but I do respect the profession, the idea of what it can be.



Journalist Kara Swisher has spoken publicly of mounting some sort of group to buy out Bezos.  I don't know how serious she was about that but THE WASHINGTON POST needs to strengthen its ties to journalism.  Alex Griffing (MEDIAITE) notes some of her comments regarding Mark Suckerberg and his attempts to pretend that he can escape responsibility for his actions:


I think it was on Piers Morgan. He’s like, are you surprised? I’m like, no. No, this is what he’s like. This is what I’ve told you he’s like. I wrote a piece in the New York Times where I was like, this guy is the most dangerous person on the planet. He has amplified and weaponized everything, and then he doesn’t want to take responsibility.

Let me tell you, I’ve talked to a lot of people inside Facebook and Meta. They are sick to their stomach, Mark, just so you know. I know Joel Kaplan is kissing your ass to get the job that he got, but let me just be clear. So many people called me this past week. The first person who was this first PR person was like, we got to get off threads now. I’ve had so many calls. ‘Sick to their stomach’ seems to do it, and they should be sick to their stomach because you are a sad and shameless weather vane. In four more years, if the Democrats take over, you’re going to shift again because that’s what you do. You have no values whatsoever.

I thought Will Oremus did a great piece in the Washington Post, of all places. He goes, ‘Mark Zuckerberg cited a cultural tipping point to justify dumping fact checks and relaxing hate speech rules. Meta ending fact checks in the US made headlines, but the real ballgame here is a broader repudiation of the idea that a company is responsible for bad stuff on its platform.’

As Zuckerberg puts it, ‘bad stuff.’ Mark, you don’t– ‘bad stuff.’ What, he thinks he’s going to like stub a toe.

These people, you put people in danger. ‘The company never really wanted that responsibility and Trump’s election allows them to shrug it off.’ They never wanted to.


He doesn't care.  He's never cared about anyone but himself.  In that way, he's the perfect mate for Donald Chump.

Reality will never go hand-in-hand to the alter with Chump.  No, reality tends to bitch slap Chump repeatedly.    Sarah K. Burris (RAW STORY) reports:


Donald Trump told the public Sunday that he wants "one big, beautiful bill" that would cover a kind of "Christmas tree budget bill," so-called because it includes many different funding measures.

Trump thought he and Republicans in Congress were all on the same page, But according to Punchbowl News on Monday, it turns out they aren't. And it came as a shock to the incoming president.

Top Republicans spent the weekend with Trump and Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago to unify the splintered caucus. But Punchbowl says that no matter which direction Johnson takes, he'll "anger one portion of the House Republican Conference or another."

"Before the meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Trump was under the impression that the House GOP was in agreement on the one bill approach to reconciliation," Punchbowl News reporter Melanie Zanona posted on X. "He quickly learned that wasn’t the case ALSO — it’s looking increasingly likely that the debt ceiling will fall out of the bill."

“At the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, 'one big, beautiful bill.' And there's a lot of merit to that, because we can put it all together, one big up-or-down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it," the non-committal Johnson told Fox Business on Sunday.


So many problems for Donald Chump.  Aaron Blake (WASHINGTON POST) reports:



In one week, the MAGA movement will make its triumphant return to the top echelon of power in Washington, with Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president. This time, he will lead a party and congressional contingent more thoroughly crafted in his image.

But that in and of itself has created problems, because the MAGA movement has always been a loosely stitched-together confederation led by a man with relatively few ideological convictions. It and he have always been much more animated by Trump the man than any particular set of ideals. And because Trump has proved so malleable, there is a premium on being the one in his ear.

That dynamic is already leading to a rash of infighting over who grabs that ear and guides both Trump and his base.

And the fight over what Trumpism means has gotten quite ugly quite quickly.

While previous battles were mostly between the old Republican establishment and MAGA, the new ones are largely between various sectors of the MAGA movement jostling for influence.

And because the tensions appear intractable and Trump has fostered such a combative movement, the clashes don’t appear likely to subside any time soon.

The most recent fight pits one of the most significant figures in Trump’s 2016 win, Stephen K. Bannon, against the face of Trump’s 2024 win, Elon Musk. Bannon has now thrown down the gauntlet and pledged to oust Musk from Trump’s orbit.


Bannon went so far last week as to tell Musk to “go back to South Africa,” where Musk was born and which Bannon said is home to “the most racist people on earth, White South Africans.” (Bannon also invoked other influential Trump advisers with ties to South Africa, David Sacks and Peter Thiel, in his comments.)


Chump was a joke in his first term and he's already a joke again before he gets sworn in for this second term.   Sidney Blumenthal (Max's smarter and saner father) writes at THE GUARDIAN:



Donald Trump’s silly season has already caused irreparable damage to United States national security. Despite not yet holding office for a minute, Trump has made it plain that in his second term the U.S. will be an unreliable partner swayed by his personal whim, that he has no respect for historic alliances and that he has contempt for the rule-based international order that the U.S. has led since the end of World War II to prevent the reemergence of catastrophic great power collisions.

Beginning with his “Merry Christmas to all” tweet that he wanted to seize the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland, Trump has not relented in his absurd claims, extended to renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. His disdain for the sovereignty of independent nations—two of them NATO allies and Panama a fellow member of the Organization of American States—has undermined the credibility of opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s ambition to grab Taiwan. The soft power of the U.S., ultimately based on its democratic example and respect for international order, has been tossed away by Trump’s fantasy Manifest Destiny that is simply the latest wrinkle in his isolationism. Hardly the Rough Rider, if Trump were acting as Putin’s or Xi’s agent he could not have kowtowed more for their benefit.

Some have suggested that Trump contrives his ludicrous claims as a distraction from his broken campaign promise to bring down prices that was the central basis for his election. “Inflation will vanish completely,” he pledged. Time and again, he stated: “We’re going to bring those prices way down.” Then, on December 12, he revealed that the core of his campaign was false all along. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” he said. “You know, it’s very hard.” He also acknowledged that his tariffs could spike inflation. “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow.” Oh, and, in his one truthful statement: “Things do change.”

One of Trump’s changes since the election in his endless three-card monte game is making Greenland into his new frontier, for “national security.” As a matter of fact, the U.S. military has operated its northernmost base in the Arctic Circle, the Pituffik Space Base, formerly the Thule Air Base, in Greenland, absolutely rent free in cooperation with our NATO partner since 1951.


Chump's not lowering grocery prices and he's not doing anything but wrecking the country.  That includes his goal of providing more tax cuts for the wealthy and plotting to sell these tax cuts as something that will help the people being screwed over.  Sadly, MAGA's so stupid they'll probably get tricked again.  Let's hope the majority of Americans aren't so stupid.  Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:


Donald Trump’s lobbyist friends are starting a nationwide campaign to convince the public that Republicans’ lopsided 2017 tax cuts—which benefited large corporations and the wealthy—should be renewed.

In a minute-long TV ad, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, described the Trump tax cuts as “a landmark law that gave hardworking Americans much-needed relief.” It then rattled off a list of statistics before blaming Bidenomics for inflation while scary music played.



AFP’s version of events goes against every piece of evidence that emerged after the tax cuts went into effect.

If the law is extended, households in the top 1 percent of income on average will receive tax cuts of more than $60,000, while households in the bottom 60 percent will get only $500, according to the Tax Policy Center.

“Wage growth is tepid … and gross domestic product growth is slowing and projected to revert to its long-term trend or below,” the Center for American Progress wrote in 2019. “Meanwhile, budget deficits are higher due to revenue losses—which have largely been triggered by the massive corporate tax cut at the heart of the TCJA [Trump’s tax cut bill].”

And yet AFP is committing to its own fictional story, even describing its Koch-funded initiative as “grassroots.” But not everyone is buying it.







A variety of adjectives come to mind when assessing congressional Republicans’ plans for the year, including some obvious descriptions such as “regressive” and “misguided.”

But just as notable is the degree to which the GOP agenda is expensive. Tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations aren’t going to pay for themselves — despite partisan claims to the contrary — and the party’s border policies similarly carry a hefty price tag.

With this in mind, the first question facing Republicans is whether to try to pay for their priorities. The answer might seem obvious given the fact that the GOP at least pretends to take fiscal responsibility seriously, but in recent decades, Republican administrations and their allies on Capitol Hill have generally been quite comfortable approving their policy goals and putting the costs on the national charge card, resulting in ballooning deficits and adding trillions of dollars to the national debt.

But if the party answers the first question by deciding to at least make an effort, a second question soon follows: How, exactly, will GOP officials pay for their plans? According to a Politico report, House Republicans are considering a “menu” that’s circulating on the Hill.

While the reporting hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Politico published a copy of the “menu” online.


The following sites updated:

Posted by at

Monday, January 13, 2025

Lying MAGA filth attack California



The helicopter blades beat through the smoldering air no more than a couple hundred feet above my head. At ground level, the scent of fire brings back memories of fire pits I’d seen at “Cement City” during the Gulf War. As the helicopter passes overhead on the way to the nearby fire, my middle son, his wife, their son and daughter, hurry to pack the car and leave their home near West Hills, California, after the outbreak of the Kenneth Fire. Neighbors pack up and move out as well. Traffic in the area is at a standstill. 

And while the residents packed and fled, firefighters scrambled to give those fleeing extra time to do so even as the fierce winds whipped up the fire in a drought-stricken land, making any effort to contain it problematic at best and futile at worst. Those in LA spearheading the effort to put out half a dozen wildfires apparently diverted some of the air resources from the Palisades and Eaton fires to assist, slowing the growth of the West Hills fire which still grew from five acres to nearly 1000 acres in a matter of hours. After burning more than 1,000 acres in the San Fernando Valley since Jan. 10, the Kenneth Fire has now been 100% contained. 

The day before, the Pacific Palisades fire had prompted the evacuation of my oldest son and his fiancée from their home in Santa Monica. This monstrous fire, which began Monday and reached nearly 24,000 acres by Sunday evening, had destroyed some of the most expensive and picturesque residential real estate in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As the sun set Thursday, the fire's eerie red glow and thick acrid smoke smell permeated everything from Malibu east through the Palisades and Santa Monica. Ash fell in Santa Monica which contained burned paper and rubbish and looked like snow on a cool winter night.



[. . .]

Friday morning Donald Trump was sentenced for his conviction of 34 felonies in Manhattan. Judge Juan Merchan unconditionally discharged the case saying it was the only thing to do out of respect to the office of the President of the United States. Not the man. The office. At the same time, Trump made a rambling statement about the tiniest slap on the wrist he received by the only court to hold him accountable for any of his alleged illegal actions over a long lifetime of grifting as a case of “lawfare” against him. In rambling, typical Trump fashion, the president-elect referenced the deadly southern California fires as a reason the legal actions taken against him were ridiculous.

Many others have politicized the fires while forgetting that wildfires just don’t care what your politics are. The fire burns Republicans, Democrats, Christians, atheists, blacks, whites, members of the LGBTQ and straight community without prejudice. 

As I helped my son evacuate, I thought about that; how we have more in common with each other than we realize. In times of crisis, I often think of the Trump supporters and detractors who have suffered. Nobody cares what your religion is when you’re in the foxhole. Everyone in LA is in that foxhole now. 




Exactly.  But Donald Trump and other liars keep lying because they have no humanity and they have no decency.  Rhona Tarrant (CBS NEWS) notes:


The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reactivated its online rumor response site, which it last used in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton in the fall, to address false claims about the agency as it responds to deadly wildfires in California. 

The agency posted responses to rumors that resurface during major disasters, including setting the record straight on whether FEMA assistance is limited to one payment (it's not), and whether applying for assistance grants FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of a person's property (it doesn't). 

The Los Angeles Fire Department has also directly refuted falsehoods as it continues to respond to the fires. "Clearing Up Online Misinformation," LAFD Public Information Officer Erik Scott wrote on X as he debunked claims that they were calling on the general public to help fight wildfires. 

The rapid and direct response to false claims reflects a new approach to communicating with the public during disasters, according to Jason Davis, a research professor at Syracuse University specializing in disinformation detection.

Davis says the rapid spread of false claims, combined with the rise of AI-generated content, has prompted officials to be more direct in confronting the falsehoods. 

"In the past, the idea was to be above the mis- and disinformation, to not say anything because it would give it credibility," Davis said. "That conversation has changed because of its prevalence and the quality that's now being generated."



The lies are out of control and then some.  Which is to be expected when Donald Chump's involved.  Troy Matthews (MEDIASTOUCH NEWS) notes:


Quite possibly the only thing that spreads faster than a wildfire is disinformation. There has been a firehouse of lies online largely stemming from Donald Trump and his MAGA influencer corps, trying to discredit the California and Los Angeles response to the devastating wildfires for political gain. A similar outbreak of lies occurred around the FEMA response to hurricane Helene in North Carolina to try and discredit President Biden and Vice President Harris before the election.

These lies and misinformation are extremely harmful to rescue and recovery efforts during a natural disaster and quite literally put people in danger. Here is a fact-check of the biggest lies spread so far about the Los Angeles wildfires, with quick facts and longer explanations. This information was largely provided by the State of California on their own wildfire fact-check site:

Myth: There was no water in the fire hydrants when the wildfire broke out

Fact: A number of factors caused a lowering of water pressure in the hydrant system, but the hydrants were never out of water, and wildland firefighters don't use hydrants

Probably the the biggest claim of incompetence leveled at state and local leadership in Los Angeles is that they somehow allowed hydrants in the wildfire area to go empty and there was no water available for firefighters. This is false. 


Multiple factors led to low water pressure in hydrants at the outset of the Palisades fire. These included the use of multiple hydrants at once to deal with the massive size of the fire, where more water was pumped from the hydrants than is used during a typical fire. There was also reportedly a cut off of power to pumping stations that filled hydrant storage tanks due to prescribed fire outages; part of a larger California containment plan to prevent power station explosions which spread the fires.

Moreover, wildland firefighters use water tenders, not hydrants, so the majority of the wildfire operation is not being sustained by the urban hydrant system. According to the State of California, "three million gallons of water were stored in three large tanks for fire hydrants in the area before the Palisades fire, but the supply was exhausted because of the extraordinary nature of this hurricane-force firestorm."

Elon Musk filmed a video trying to push the idea that the hydrants were empty in a video posted on X, where he can be seen being corrected by firefighters on how hydrants and water storage work during a wildfire.




Not only do we have to deal with lies about the fires, we also have to deal with jerks and idiots and liars like Trump and Elon Musk and also Senator John Barrasso.  Who?  The idiot who went on CBS' FACE THE NATION and argued that their should be "strings" attached to any aid to our state.  David McAfee (RAW STREET) explains:

Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator from Connecticut, wasn't buying it.

"C'mon. We aren't idiots. Republicans never ask for 'strings' attached to disaster funding for Republican states," the Democrat said. "This isn't about helping California. This is about punishing California because it votes for Democrats."

Norm Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, also weighed in, saying Barrasso "is not the worst or most embarrassing, pathetic partisan hack among Senate Republicans."

"Which tells you a lot about Senate Republicans," the scholar added.

Sharon Loper Miller, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, said, "Never heard Barrasso say one word before about anything and now he is so animated about 'strings attached to money' for Californians."

Writer and director Marshall Herskovitz replied, "Here we go."

"Trying to remember the strings attached to money going to FL, GA, and NC after Hurricane Helene. This definitional. A statement like Barrasso’s reveals what authoritarianism looks like," he then added.



These people are disgusting.  They can't stop hating long enough to be a Christian so let's stop indulging their fantasies of faith.  Barrasso and others are going to hell and it's where they belong. 


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, January 13, 2025.  Surprised by the attacks on Kamala Harris that THE NATION engaged in from August to election day?  Maybe you didn't know that a Marxist was now running THE NATION?  JACOBIN remains silent on Ana Kasparian's rightward lurch and grift because they used to play seven minutes in heaven with her in the closet that they all hid in while they pretended they were Democrats, Mark Suckerberg continues to lie about Joe Biden as the timeline demonstrates, FANBASE is being talked up, and much more.



Let's start with POST-LEFT WATCH.



Ana's a hateful transphobe grifter who's moved over to the right and yells and screams on camera because what says I-love-my-viewers more than caterwauling like the criminally insane?  

And I would've left it alone but PLW notes Ben Burgis rushed in to defend her.

Of course, he did.  He's trash garbage.  He's a lying fat f**k.  

There's the fact that he's written a book about Chris Hedges that tries to redeem Chris and that's your first proof that Ben is not a journalist.  

A journalist doesn't praise a plagiarist.  In 2014, when THE NEW REPUBLIC exposed his long, long pattern of plagiarism, that should have been it for Chris Hedges.  He's doctored his own WIKIPEDIA page to pretend that THE NEW REPUBLIC stood down from the report.  It did not.  Everything was fact checked and this was noted in a response that THE NEW REPUBLIC ran.  But Chrissy Lynn is a dirty liar.  We'll probably address that again this week when switch from the "Iraq snapshot" to just "Snapshot."  

A real journalist does not endorse a plagiarist.  

Doris Kearns Goodwin was all over the place talking about Jimmy Carter in recent days.  We didn't highlight her due to her own plagiarism scandal.  

It's called standards.

And Chris Hedges has none.  (He does have the blood of Iraqi people on his hands.  We'll talk about that this week.)  What is he?  A closeted Socialist.  Corporate media is never bringing him back so why does he have to hide in a political closet?

And look who's in there with him:  Ben Burgis.

Which is why we're starting with this today.

Ben's a columnist for the DSA bible JACOBIN.  That's where the Democratic Socialists of America pretend to be Democrats.  It's basically SOCIALIST WORKER -- a publication that began falling apart as the Iraq War continued on Barack Obama and as they twisted themselves into pretzels to avoid calling that out.  It eventually collapses in 2019 due to a multitude of work place scandals having to do with racism and sexism.  Before that happened Bhaskar Sunkara, admitted Marxist and DSA member, created JACOBIN.  Bhaskar has taken his strand of politics to THE NATION where he was wrongly named president of the magazine.  He was part of the cabal working to destroy Kamala Harris so, yes, he helped put Donald Trump back into the White House.

THE NATION has long lied about their history.  At THIRD, we have explored the forties where, for example, THE NATION ran writings by propagandists who were not Democrats 

We've, for example, noted their silence on Otto Katz.  

Are they confused?  He also used the aliases Simon Katz, Otto Simon and Andre Simon.  He's the one that the magazine's editor and owner at the time Freda Kirchwey went to the Sherry Netherland with to plot another 'Democratic' magazine that could fool the readers.

 Because Otto wasn't a Democrat.  He was a Communist.  Know what else he was?  A double or triple agent for foreign government.  He was executed December 3, 1952.

Bhaskar Sunkara, a Marxist, is now in charge of THE NATION with Socialist Katrina vaden Heuvel (the Freda to his Otto).  

And we saw what that resulted in from August through election day as THE NATION ran one article after another trashing her and KvH would use her Twitter account (yes, she's still on Twitter, we told you she's a racist) to amplify those.  House Democrat Joan Walsh wrote pro-Kamala column but she wasn't platformed by Bhaskar or Katrina.  

So let's get back to 'honest' Ben Burgis.  He defends Ana's attack on a Black man because, of course, what else would a White fat f**k do?

A real writer would be exposing Ana.  A real writer would call out her move to the right and her attacks on people of color.

But Ben Burgis is in a bind.

See, Ana started out a Socialist.  That's why JACOBIN gave her a podcast to begin with.

And they try to look the other way.

It's not just that they're in political closets, it's also that they are compromised liars.

They should have called her out forever ago.

But some at JACOBIN -- like Ben Burgis -- aren't as left as they pose and others fear calling out Ana would mean inviting people to really look into what they do and who they are at JACOBIN.

But let's be very clear, putting a Marxist in charge of THE NATION resulted in the magazine tearing into Kamala constantly, selling the lie that she was a liar, selling the lie that she was no different than Donald Chump.

THE NATION is a joke and it is a lie.  It's producing Marxist thought and doing so dishonestly by hiding behind the lie that "We're just Democrats talking about issues."


They have become a Marxist periodical with a few left overs from previous years.


When Katrina and Bhaskar Sunkara published the editorial telling people not to vote for Kamala, they showed you the real damage that political closet cases can do when they're allowed to pose as Democrats.

I studied poli sci, I have no problem with Democrats, Socialists or Marxists.  I do have a problem with those who hide in a political closet and lie so that they can trick you.


They're liars and we call out liars here -- liars like Mark Suckerberg.  As we noted Friday, all hell was about to reign down on Suck as he announced and implemented a new policy for FACEBOOK that will promote hate speech and lies which he refused to acknowledge because he was too busy lying.  Did Suck not grasp that he doesn't own FACEBOOK/META?   He may be the largest single stockholder but he's answerable to the board and -- yes, FACEBOOK is a publicly traded company, one that sells itself as being positive and diverse -- the stockholders.  Facts were never Suckerberg's strong suit.  That's why he keeps showing up lying about 2020 and 'pressure' from Joe Biden.  Joe Biden was a candidate in 2020.  He didn't get elected until the end of 2020 and he didn't get sworn in until January 2021.  We've been pointing this out forever -- most recently August 28th:


From liar Paxton to another, Mark Zuckerberg.  META's anti-Christ is back in the news and see if you can spot the lie:


Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration pressure to censor content, saying in a letter that the interference was "wrong" and he plans to push back if it happens again.

Meta's CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms. Zuckerberg detailed how senior administration officials leaned on the company to censor certain posts about Covid-19, including humor and satire, and “expressed a lot of frustration” when the social media platform resisted.


FACEBOOK started as garbage.  Sorry, I never had a FACEBOOK account.  But you do see the lie don't you?
 

Ruth posted "There are numbers and then there are the fake numbers in Trump's crazy head" last night.  Convicted Felon Donald Trump -- a worm apparently eating what was left of his brain -- was raving like a nut that in 2020 Joe Biden's White House was having him censored.  Joe wasn't in the White House.  Donald was.

So before you back up the liar Mark Zuckerberg, maybe revisit Kurt Wagner's March 30, 2020 report for BLOOMBERG NEWS entitled "Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Remove Posts From Bolsonaro" which opened:


Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google’s YouTube have all removed posts shared by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for including coronavirus misinformation that violates the social media companies’ rules against posting harmful content.


So FACEBOOK was censoring post on COVID in March 2020.  Per Mark's testimony -- if you believe the liar -- that's due to the White House.  Again, Joe Biden wasn't president in 2020.  He's sworn in January of the following year.

Facts is hard for garbage like Zuckerberg.  He wanted to endorse Donald a few months back but he was told it would be bad for the shares in the company -- so he claimed he wasn't endorsing despite calling Donald "bad ass."   This is his way of endorsing him: Lying to Congress that FACEBOOK only censored COVID posts due to Joe Biden's White House.


Lie.

Liar.

Trash.

I can do this all day long.  Want to drop back to February of 2021 (when Joe was president) and  Michael Gryboski (CHRISTIAN POST) noted this:


In 2019, before the pandemic began, Facebook announced that they were looking to reduce the influence of anti-vaccination posts on their social media platform.

“We will reduce the ranking of groups and Pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations in News Feed and Search. These groups and Pages will not be included in recommendations or in predictions when you type into Search,” stated Facebook at the time.

“When we find ads that include misinformation about vaccinations, we will reject them. We also removed related targeting options, like ‘vaccine controversies.’ For ad accounts that continue to violate our policies, we may take further action, such as disabling the ad account.”


Again, Joe was president in 2021.  However, he wasn't president in 2019.  That was Donald Trump.  So if Zuckerberg was having his arm twisted to censor by a White House, in 2019 that would have been Donald.



Under mounting pressure to counter misinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook is increasingly dictating what its users should see and think.

Facebook already downgrades any posts it doesn’t like the look of regarding the virus, but it’s apparently concerned that some of its users might still interact with the wrong content. It’s not Facebook users’ fault, you see, they’re just hapless plebs with not critical faculties of their own. Thankfully Facebook is on the case.

The social media giant’s VP of Integrity (an Orwellian job title if there ever was one), Guy Rosen, recently provided An Update on Our Work to Keep People Informed and Limit Misinformation About COVID-19. “We’re going to start showing messages in News Feed to people who have liked, reacted or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19 that we have since removed,” said Rosen.


Again, that would be when Donald Trump was president. 

Legal idiot Jonathan Turley felt the need to Tweet:

Fox posted my column on Mark Zuckerberg's admission that Facebook did censor Americans under pressure from the Administration. He wants people to know that they are really regret now their role. It is the feigned regret that comes with forced exposure...


No, you fool,  the censorship began under Donald -- as we took the time to document above.  Jonathan, you're a damn liar and a bigger disgrace and disappointment than even Robert Kennedy Junior.  Matt Taibbi and Glynneth Greenwald are equally stupid.  

Deliver us from the idiots, please.

Again, Zuckerberg made statements that are being spun as truth but it is public record that the censorship began long before Joe was president.  


He's lying and he's been lying and the media has let him get away with this lie for months and months now.  It's not that hard to demonstrate he's lying.  But for some reason, the media can't do a basic fact check on Mark Suckerberg.  We can but they can't.  In the words of John and Yoko, "I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one."  Lily Mae Lazarus (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

Mark Zuckerberg’s shock choice to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram has sparked concern and outrage—including from inside the top ranks of the company.

Michael McConnell, co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said in an interview Friday that the move looks like “buckling to political pressure.”

“I would have liked to have seen these reforms laid out in less contentious and partisan times, so that they would be considered on the merits rather than…Donald Trump is president and now they’re caving in,” McConnell told NPR.

According to him, neither he nor the board, an international group of experts in law, human rights and journalism, were not told about the new policy ahead of time.

Meta executives, however, allegedly informed Trump officials about the change in policy prior to the announcement, a source with knowledge of the conversations told the New York Times. 



Again, a publicly traded company with a board of directors and a publicly traded company that's sold itself to shareholders as a company that respected diversity and was socially conscious.  





Roland Martin and Isaac Hayes III are calling on people to leave FACEBOOK and move to FANBASE.


I can't follow that call because I'm not on FACEBOOK.  Never had been.  But I will gladly amplify their call for people to move to FANBASE.


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Miss Sassy On A Leash" went up Friday,   Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cult Member? Yes. Sex Slave? No" went up on Thursday and Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Ugly Rudy G" went up Wednesday.   The following sites updated:









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