One of the primary drivers of the devastation has been a lack of water due to unfilled reservoirs in Los Angeles County and unmaintained, failing infrastructure that caused fire hydrants to run dry. As RedState reported, the Ynez Reservoir was taken offline for maintenance during wildfire season, a decision that has turned out to be catastrophic.

When three 1-million-gallon capacity water storage tanks in Pacific Palisades went dry Tuesday night, firefighters were forced to abandon efforts to save thousands of homes. LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones has repeatedly claimed during press conferences that her utility did everything it could to prepare for the forecasted wind event and support the Los Angeles Fire Department as it responded, but left out one key fact: The Santa Ynez Reservoir in the hills above Pacific Palisades, which holds 117 million gallons of water and normally feeds those tanks, had been drained and taken offline for repairs to its cover even though the state's brush fire season was ongoing. //

Is Quiñones a unique talent, though? She sure doesn't seem to be given how badly and quickly the infrastructure failed in this case. Not filling the Ynez Reservoir for wildfire season was bad enough, but clearly, the water pumping facilities and hydrant system were not prepared for what should have been treated as an inevitability. For context, the hydrant issue has been known about since at least 2021.

What Quiñones did do well, though, is push the preferred narratives of the far-left. When Bass hired her, the mayor touted the new "CEO" as a person who could shift the city to "100% clean energy," but take a wild guess what else Quiñones was really concerned with? If you said "equity" and "social justice," collect your winnings at the window: //

Bearsblow
8 hours ago
They're achieving equity! The rich and the poor are suddenly homeless!!

Well done Janisse Quiñones. You deserve a raise!

With this announcement, Meta becomes the third major corporation to bail out of the burning DEI airplane since Trump was reelected. Walmart terminated its DEI programs in late November, and McDonalds dropped its programs Tuesday. They join a growing list of companies deciding DEI is terrible for business since the US presidential election season got underway:

Boeing — November, 2024
Toyota — October 2024
Harley-Davidson — August 2024
Caterpillar — September 2024
Stanley Black & Decker — September 2024
Brown-Forman — September 2024
Molson Coors — September 2024
Lowe's — August 2024
Ford — August 2024
John Deere — July 2024
Tractor Supply — June 2024

“No, because you’re not black, Hispanic or a woman and we’ll see you in about 7 years.”

The governor, along with LA Mayor Karen Bass, have been accused of mismanagement over the horrific fires, which are continuing to burn largely unchecked across nearly 30,000 acres of the city.

One of the predominant complaints has been about fire hydrants running out of water as firefighters tried to douse the blazes — a problem Newsom passed off on “local folks” during a CNN interview Wednesday night.

“Look, the local folks are trying to figure that out,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, claiming the hydrants weren’t designed to handle mass fires.

“I mean those hydrants are typical for two or three fires — maybe one fire and you have something of this scale, but again that’s gonna be determined by the local,” he said.

Earlier in the day the president-elect accused Newsom of blocking a law he passed during his first term that diverted water runoff from northern California — with Trump saying Newsom was more focused on saving “worthless fish” than helping his people.

“Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is to blame for this.”

The story of the Hebrew Bible is, at least in some part, the story of God punishing the wicked.

Welcome to wildfire-beset Los Angeles, or as The Post so poetically put it, HELL.A.

I don’t mean to suggest that Angelenos somehow deserve the catastrophe that has befallen them; to do so would be not only misguided but unforgivably cruel.

But as we’re reeling from one of the greatest disasters ever to befall an American city, we must be brutally honest, especially if we want to prevent this kind of calamity from happening again.

And a brutally honest assessment points to one inconvenient truth: The devastation of Los Angeles occurred largely as a result of people in power adhering blindly and madly to a very bad religion.

It was the woke religion, which judges people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character, that propelled Karen Bass to the highest office in town.

Hold the Fort
16 hours ago
An apology given because an apology is demanded is not an apology.

Ahead of a January 23 shareholder meeting, Costco is urging shareholders to vote against a measure that would limit the company's DEI commitment after receiving a proposal about doing away with what was described as "discriminatory practices." //

The proposal also reveals a curious move on the part of Costco, that of a revamping of the name of their DEI program to the innocent-sounding "People and Communities.". //

Costco may have renamed its DEI policies, but it is the same old playbook. The program still adheres to a "commitment to equity," not outcome and opportunity, and there is still a position for a "Chief Diversity Officer," whose job entails picking suppliers "based on their race and sex," and appears to "continue to factor in race and sex in hiring and promotions," and what should get the attention of many shareholders, the proposal states that the program "still contributes shareholder money to organizations that advance the discriminatory agenda of DEI.”

Minister of War
12 hours ago edited
Regardless of whether or not this is just a headfake by the Communist Chinese, China is going to dominate the future development of military equipment & technologies unless we get our shit together soon. And there are three primary reasons for that:

1) There are far more Chinese students focusing their university studies on math, science, engineering and technology than American students. With so many American students focusing their university studies on social sciences & other mostly pointless & BS majors, even American universities are training far more students from China & India in key STEM subjects than they are training Americans. American children today dream of being the next big star of Communist China's TikTok app far more often than they dream of actually building or inventing something. How can we expect to keep up with the Communist Chinese when China is training so many more of their young people than we are in these key fields?

2) The espionage program of the Communist Chinese has become vastly superior to ours. This problem is heavily related to DEI & wokeness in our intelligence services when Communist China doesn't have to worry about that at all. If the best American spy happens to be a white guy, this wouldn't be much help in Communist China because he'll stick out like a sore thumb. But if the Communist Chinese send Chinese nationals to do spy work in the US for them, Americans are forbidden from noticing that the Chinese national looks a lot like a Chinese person & might require additional vetting before being granted a top secret security clearance. The same garbage in America that required that a grandma from Kansas goes through the same TSA vetting process as a single male who appears to be of Middle Eastern descent also requires that we waste a ton of time & money that should be focused on more likely targets when it comes to Communist Chinese spying. The Communist Chinese Ministry of State Security has basically decimated our human intelligence gathering operations in China while we appear to be clueless about the great majority of Communist China's operations in the US or around the world until it is too late in the best case scenario. There is no surprise that at least one of the Chinese Gen 6 fighters bears so much resemblance to our own F-35 since Communist Chinese spying resulted in all specs for the F-35 being stolen by them. Imagine they same white guy American spy being able to steal such info from the Communist Chinese. It ain't gonna happen.

3) We continue to be our own worst enemies since we are the ones paying for Communist China's military buildup & military technology development programs. And this goes far beyond direct payments to develop their next weapons, as was the case with the Communist Chinese asset Anthony Fauci & his use of direct American taxpayer financial assistance to develop the Communist Chinese Military's Wuhan Bioweapon that killed millions, made hundreds of millions more very sick & brought the economies of the world to their knees. Our indirect funding of the Communist Chinese massive military buildup & weapons development programs comes through our enormous international trade imbalance. A not insignificant portion of any of the trade profits going to Chinese companies also goes to fund what has been the most massive "peacetime" military buildup & development program in human history. If we don't begin a serious initiative to completely decouple our economy from the economy of the Communist Chinese Party, then we will continue to be the ones digging our own graves.

In October 2023, Elon Musk, known for his provocative online behavior and willingness to push boundaries, made a headline-grabbing offer to Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia. Musk proposed to donate $1 billion to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, but there was a catch: the platform had to change its name to “Dickipedia” for at least one year.

Musk framed the offer as being “in the interests of accuracy,” suggesting that the name change would better reflect what he implied were questionable practices within the Wikimedia Foundation’s financial dealings. //

“Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know…” //

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
Wikipedia’s annual budget report from 2023—2024 reveals that they spent over $50 million of their total $177 million budget on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Stop donating to Wokepedia
1:32 AM · Dec 24, 2024

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has delivered a landmark decision striking down Nasdaq’s board diversity rules, marking a significant setback for corporate diversity initiatives imposed by regulatory bodies.

While the rules aimed to increase representation of women and minorities on corporate boards, the court found them inconsistent with federal securities laws, emphasizing limits on the authority of regulatory agencies to shape corporate governance. The Fifth Circuit's ruling deals a blow to recent, progressive trends in the corporate world - pushed by government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - calling for more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on corporate boards. //

The ruling redefines the landscape for diversity efforts in corporate America. It underscores that DEI goals must be pursued voluntarily and market-driven rather than through regulatory mandates. Nasdaq, acknowledging the court’s decision, stated it would not seek further review. Meanwhile, the SEC is evaluating its response.

DaveM
2 hours ago
"An incorrect statement involving Hegseth’s admission to the U.S. Military Academy was released by an employee on Dec. 10, 2024.”"
Given that the release of that information was itself a violation of the law- what is the status of this employee? //

Sojourner
2 hours ago edited
There are no adults in charge of the DoD writ large, the Army in general, and the USMA specifically.

The obvious question should be, "Who's getting fired for this?" We should ALL want to see some accountability here and not get any more of this "nameless employee" CYA BS.

On a separate note, "Go Army, beat Navy." //

David62
2 hours ago edited
It's not worth trying to prove they intentionally deceived. It would be difficult to prove and it helps Hegseth anyway. Regarding the release of personal info though - They still should not be allowed to get away with releasing his personal information. Federal employees and military all receive repeated training in privacy act, classification processes, and penalties. They know the rules. Do not let that part drop. Nobody in the position to be able to speak with reporters or inquirers of any kind, is ignorant of the rules.

isn't the fact that the league is 70 percent black evidence there is no "white privilege" involved in succeeding in it? The WNBA does not and has never discriminated against black players. On the contrary, it has always gone out of its way to highlight them. So where exactly does the "privilege" come in?

Was it when Clark was snubbed from the Olympics despite clearly being better than several players who were awarded spots? Was it when she was flagrantly fouled more than any other player in the league? Was it when she walked into a failing league that no one watched? Was it when the left-wing sports refused to defend her and instead stoked divisions? Was it when WNBA Hall-of-Famer Sheryl Swoopes started a racist crusade against her?

By the way, as expected, Swoopes didn't let up despite Clark's olive branch, suggesting there were more deserving candidates. //

You also can't discuss the WNBA without discussing the financial realities behind it. The WNBA has never turned a profit. Instead, it has subsisted on annual injections of welfare from the NBA. So what exactly was "built" when Clark got there?

That's not to dismiss the other good players in the league because they exist, but Clark did not walk into a bastion of success only to feed off her supposed privilege. If anything, the opposite is true. The rest of the league is enjoying the privilege of having her join them, and that's evidenced by the increased revenue the WNBA garnered, including a new television deal, during the 2024 season. //

Clark's attempt at humility would be laudable if it didn't feed directly into the racial grievance industry that has become so corrosive to society. There's nothing wrong with deferring to others who have come before you, but there was a way to say that without going the "white privilege" route. By doing that, as Swoopes' commentary linked above shows, she's only inviting more criticism. You can never be woke enough, and unfortunately, it appears Clark will have to learn that the hard way.

piscorman
2 hours ago
About Social Science, my physics teacher used to say, "If they have to call it science, it isn't." The same thing applies to Social Justice.

But upon reading the thoughts of Michael Harriot — a columnist for The Grio, guest on MSNBC programs, “board-certified wypipologist” and for our purposes “guy with 500,000 Twitter followers” — I was so dumbstruck all I could think of was Adam Sandler’s 1995 classic film, “Billy Madison,” which, underneath its farcical façade, is appropriately enough a clarion call for the necessity of quality education:

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

To the extent I can pull a premise out of Harriot’s mess, it seems to be that classical education “doesn’t measure a student’s ability to learn or teach them TO LEARN. It teaches students to learn LIKE WHITE PEOPLE LEARN who have already been deemed smart because they know white things.”

While obviously there are cultural differences that can affect one’s learning environment, I, along with the vast majority of normal people, don’t happen to believe that basic knowledge and how you go about learning it is relative to one’s skin color. Yet educrats everywhere increasingly believe what Harriot is saying. For instance, a proposed California mathematics curriculum declares that focusing on students “getting the right answer,” asking students to “show their work,” and grading them based on their ability to do problems correctly is “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom.”

Of course, it’s even worse in subjects that aren’t as literal as math.

The circumstances in these two cases are remarkably similar. Two men confronted on a subway train, a confined space, by an unpredictable, potentially violent individual. One witness in the Penny case stated that, while she did not see a weapon on Jordan Neely, she said, "But I truly felt that he was most likely armed."

The outcomes in these cases, however, are very different. Jordan Williams killed Devictor Quedraogo on June 13, 2023. It took a little more than two weeks for a Grand Jury to decline to indict him on the manslaughter and weapon possession charges. Daniel Penny's fate is now in the hands of a jury. Besides the outcomes, there is also another difference. Jordan Williams is black; Daniel Penny is white.

These are both cases of self-defense, and one might also argue, being a good Samaritan, looking out for fellow subway passengers. Daniel Penny has not been charged with any hate crimes, yet his life hangs in the balance. If there is a racial component in the Penny case, it has been created by the prosecutor herself. Manhattan prosecutor Dafna Yoran claims that Penny "didn't recognize that Jordan Neely was a person" and merely "saw him as a person that needed to be eliminated." Yet Yoran allowed witnesses to describe Penny as "the white man" and even a "murderer." Really? So, is it okay to dehumanize some people but not others? Penny's defense team rightly objected to the language and asked for a mistrial but was denied

We as a nation have made great strides in our battle against racism and intolerance, and I would argue that we’ve mostly been successful in that effort. But the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” movement is not forwarding that goal; in fact, it’s just deepening divisions. //

Anti-woke activist and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who has been leading a campaign exposing major corporations' woke policies, said on X on Monday that he warned Walmart executives last week that he would be doing a story on "wokeness" at the retail giant.

"Instead," Starbuck shared, "we had productive conversations to find solutions."

Starbuck outlined the changes Walmart agreed to make, including working to remove sexual and transgender products inappropriately marketed toward children and reviewing grants to Pride events to avoid funding sexualized content targeting kids. //

anon-tf71
3 hours ago
No, slavery is not the ultimate evil. It is a symptom of the ultimate evil: not recognizing the humanity of another person. Which is the same thing DIE does today. It was also at the root of Nazism.

anon-zr9w anon-tf71
23 minutes ago
God said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Slavery, including Africans selling Africans of other tribes, and the purchasing of those Africans to do agricultural work as slaves was primarily driven by a profit motive. Searing one's conscience to deny the humanity of another is truly an evil fruit of the love of money. //

reddotbluestate 2 hours ago

To quote Candice Owens, "White people didn't invent slavery. They ENDED it."

Or to quote me, "Nobody in my lineage owned slaves. You were never a slave - so get off my back.". //

anon-beag
4 hours ago edited
Agree with almost everything you said. Yes, slavery was, is and will always be horrific and wrong. But the ultimate evil that pervades our society is something, believe it or not, even worse. And that’s the barbaric and heinous act that has butchered tens of millions of babies—abortion. Somehow the Dems have been on the wrong side of these issues throughout history.

Jaguar, what have you done?

I appreciate things have not been easy in recent years. That your once sparkling reputation has been tarnished by poor reliability and a garage full of often average cars. That you’ve been traded from one parent company to another with barely a thought for your brand. And that when you landed at Tata Motors you had to face the ignominy of being outshone by sister brand Land Rover. For every Jaguar sold last year they shifted six.

He predicted, “That ratio will disappear completely next year, when Jaguar stops producing or selling anything. For the next 12 months, perhaps longer, the company will make nothing but headlines.”

“Jaguar has rebranded when it needed to revitalize,” Ritson explained. “Jaguar’s bizarre new campaign marks a complete overhaul of its positioning, when instead it should have celebrated and updated what once made it great.”

But, according to Ritson, “Jaguar no longer cares about retaining its current customer base. … The company expects to retain only 10% to 15% of its current customer base. Jaguar will shift its targeting to younger, wealthier, more urban shoppers that the company describes as ‘design-minded’ and ‘cash-rich, time-poor.’”.

HBO is doubling down on working with J.K. Rowling on the new Harry Potter series despite complaints of "transphobia" from the neon blue-haired, and mentally ill:

“We are proud to once again tell the story of Harry Potter — the heartwarming books that speak to power of friendship, resolve and acceptance,” the statement continued. “J.K. Rowling has a right to express her personal views. We will remain focused on the development of the new series, which will only benefit from her involvement.” //

WB told the permanently outraged to kick rocks.

That's not a good look if you're the authoritarian crowd who want to keep society under your thumb through guilt and suppression of ideas. This was the WB saying, "our ideas are going to actually be diverse, thanks."

And it truly goes to show something else that the left would rather you not figure out.

In order to defeat evil, you just have to endure as you refuse to move. We've seen constant reminders that when the left comes for you, the worst thing you can possibly do is apologize and back down, because this doesn't appease them. It just tells them you're easier to bully and that they can take their time in destroying you. //

Rowling, and indeed everyone who withstood the social pressure of the transgender movement at the height of its power, has won. While the infection is still here, it's clearly receding. Soon, it will be relegated to the fringes of society, where it belongs.

NASA spent millions on DEI and ‘Environmental Justice’ grants while laying off real scientists doing actual research and innovation. //

In an exclusive report, the UK Daily Mail says NASA staffers want President-Elect Donald Trump’s co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk to ‘clean house’, as insiders reveal the agency squandered millions of taxpayer money on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. //

Paula | November 18, 2024 at 1:19 pm
Democrats fear Elon Musk. And for good reason. He’s half Einstein and half honey badger.

That virus is the implementation of DEI and gender theory in our service academies. This is damaging to the intent of those academies. It's dangerous. It's harmful. And it could cause us to lose a major war. Pete Hegseth obviously understands this. //

Pete Hegseth has been there. He has led men in a war zone. He has smelled the smoke, and knows what it is like to be in a foreign place, to be in danger, to face possible death or maiming - and to have his men look at him and say "Sir, what do we do now?" Making a decision and acting under those conditions is like nothing else in any other field of endeavor. The wrong decision may get the officer and all his men killed, and he may have only seconds to make that decision. Pete Hegseth knows what that is like.