California is the most centrally controlled and planned state in the union. No one can do anything there without the Democrats at the state level giving their blessing. For Newsom to deflect to local officials when pressed on what is a devastating infrastructure failure, when he controls the infrastructure, is his entire political career in a nutshell.

Don't get me wrong, the local officials, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, are also deeply responsible for the lack of preparedness and response to these fires. Newsom is not a bystander, though. The state that he has led for eight years (and was lieutenant governor of the eight years prior) has failed to build a new reservoir since 1979 despite multiple ballot propositions passed to fund those projects.

During Donald Trump's first term, he sued the federal government to stop water diversions that would have lessened the dry conditions that led to wildfires. Newsom has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars over the years on boondoggles like "high-speed rail" while bending the knee to environmentalists that have put California in grave danger.

The human toll, which will continue to grow in the days and weeks, is heartbreaking. The property loss and personal effects consumed in the fires are just the beginning for a new batch of Angelino refugees. In the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, there will be ongoing concerns about shelter, and whether they can and will try to rebuild their lives in what once was among the most premium places to live in the world. //

The incompetence of Democratic leadership, from the very top at the national level with Joe Biden's addled administration, down to L.A. County and city governance, has failed Angelinos, and the cost of that failure won't be fully realized for a long time to come. //

In 2014, Californians passed a bond measure to finally do something about capturing rain and snowpack run-off before it blends into the Pacific Ocean, becoming useless as both drinking water and fire defense. Proposition 1 passed overwhelmingly, and voters paid $7.5 billion dollars, at least theoretically, to make it happen. Gavin Newsom has been the governor of California for the past six of those 10 years. Would you like to take a stab at how many of these new reservoir or water capture systems have been completed? You're absolutely right. Zero. Quadrillions of gallons of fresh water has been lost, or worse, intentionally pumped to the ocean.

Remember that California just turned in a performance that took 39 days in order to count ballots in the November election. It should be no surprise that the same level of competence didn't exactly get itself ready for fire season.

If there is one thing Newsom is competent at, it's playing the blame game. There's truly no one finer. It's always someone else's fault, or it's climate change's fault - any number of outlets for passing the buck when disaster strikes. When Donald Trump, who has been remarkably consistent on California's need to get their act together and finally get serious about their water issue, which is eminently solvable, and fire prevention programs such as brush abatement near dwellings and housing tracts, reminded people Wednesday of how poorly performing California's leadership has been, Gavin was beside himself. //

If anything good can come out of this man-made catastrophe, it would be that L.A. County would recognize the failure of their Democratic leaders and change course. Neither party can win a state race without the majority vote of L.A. County, so maybe this systemic failure could be the tipping point in future elections.

Fires happen here. It's one of California's unofficial seasons, alon with floods, earthquakes, and riots. and always will be so. But the destruction caused by wildfires doesn't have to be this bad. It didn't have to be as bad this time. It's incompetence and mismanagement that is as predictable as it is tragic. On behalf of the rest of us in the Golden State, Angelinos, please learn the lesson this week is trying to teach before Democrats finish killing us all. //

Elegy
2 hours ago edited
"We have no idea who started all these fires, but social media is full of timelines of people who when the winds began to blow, spotted homeless people starting fires. If you hear no reportage in the next few weeks about what or who started the fires, trust me. It was sparked by the homeless, and that fact will be deep-sixed by a regime media committed to the leftist narrative that would be forever destroyed if that detail leaked out. "

I'm certain this is an accurate assessment. However, there are valid reasons to wonder if there's more to it.

Thousands of illegal aliens from state sponsored terrorist nations have entered the US during Biden's presidency.

We have no way of knowing who they are, where they are, or why they're here.

Are we certain this wasn't originated, as in the setting of the first fires, by state sponsored terrorists perhaps working in the guise of homeless people?

That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What's interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.

Did you hear that scraping sound? That's the sound of goalposts being moved. //

anon-gkyt
25 minutes ago
Hey, Durbin. What part of Commander-in-Chief don’t you get?? As for use of the military domestically, General Winfield Scott, the senior army commander, stated in 1861 a self-evident fact. The military is to deal with threats foreign and domestic. Ever heard of Lincoln using the US military domestically? If that was not “domestic”, the invasion of the Confederacy was simply an act of aggression by the US government.

The Democrats’ entire assault on the court, and especially on Justices Thomas and Alito, has ended in utter defeat. //

The Democrats falsely accused Justices Thomas and Alito of violating ethics laws by not disclosing vacations with friends and not recusing from cases because of their spouses’ activities. They are wrong on both counts.

Justices Thomas and Alito complied with the laws, regulations, advice, and Judicial Conference rulings regarding reporting trips with friends. They were not required to report these trips under the personal hospitality exemption outlined in the law, no matter what the leaders of this witch hunt, Democrat Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, claim or wish.

When the Judicial Conference, which was established by law to administer the ethics laws for the federal judiciary, changed its rules in March 2023 and excluded from the personal hospitality exemption trips on private planes and boats, Justice Thomas promptly reported such trips.

In those early years of his post-presidency, the general agreement was that Carter meant well, and was just the poster child of the Peter Principle, having been promoted infinitely beyond his limited ability.

As the years went on, however, and as Carter continued his post-presidential activism, it became more and more difficult to make this argument.

During his presidency, the American people didn’t see a general worldview from Jimmy Carter. His support of nuclear weapons parity (favoring plans allowing Russia to build more while requiring the USA to reduce our stock), his support of giving away the Panama Canal that we built and paid for, his support of a new education bureaucracy at the federal level, and his capitulation to OPEC, are all just a few examples of the countless issues that may look like unrelated issues at first.

It is only with the advantage of hindsight that we see that, in fact, Jimmy Carter did have a coherent worldview: he worked constantly and intentionally toward increasing the general weakness of the United States of America and our allies.

Americans didn’t want to admit this, at the time. Many of us still don’t.

Americans are not a vindictive people; we were happy to see him out of the White House, and we preferred to give them the benefit of the doubt and just call him a dummy, for years and years.

But we can no longer deceive ourselves.

Between his writing, his speeches, and his endorsement of blatantly corrupt global elections, it has become undeniable that Carter long supported the prevailing Leftist theory, more commonly associated with Barack Obama today, that Americans and the West need to be brought down a few pegs.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his mishandling of the middle east.

As president, he convinced Israel to give a huge amount of land – the Sinai Peninsula – to Egypt, in return for nothing but a peace treaty. Israel has so little land, they could hardly spare so much; they should have demanded a solution to the problem of the arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. But Carter talked them into giving up the Sinai for nothing, and now, here we are, 45 years later, and Israel still suffers from this problem.

Also as president, he refused to support our solid ally, Iran, when its Shah was sick, enabling the mullahs to take over the country and enslave what had been the happiest, most modern, most westernized country in the muslim world.

It is therefore undeniable today, with the advantage of hindsight, that Carter is responsible for most of the jihadist terrorism of the past 40 years. He supported the PLO over Israel, and he supported the mullahs over the Shah. //

This one-time Sunday school teacher became a supporter of abortion. This one-time Naval officer supervised the downgrading of our military preparedness and materiel. This one-time southern politician supported the massive expansion of federal bureaucracy. And this once-noble veteran supported the growth and empowerment of numerous foreign terrorist organizations, from the PLO on.

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is banning future offshore oil and gas activity across 625 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf—an area larger than the amount of land included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803—in its waning days.

The action will shut down future drilling along the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, 250 million acres along the West Coast, and 44 million acres of the Bering Sea along the Alaskan Coast. The law that President Joe Biden invoked to issue the policy does not give presidents explicit authority to revoke withdrawals approved by a former president, so the incoming Trump administration may have difficulty unwinding the ban as it pursues plans to unleash the U.S. energy sector. //

The White House announcement laying out the new drilling ban suggests that Monday’s actions secure Biden’s legacy on climate and energy policy, and the administration previously moved to cut offshore oil and gas drilling by issuing the most restrictive five-year leasing schedule in modern history in 2023. The 625 million acres affected by Monday’s announcement is a larger total area of land than the 530 million acres bought in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

As provided by law, without objection, the 119th Congress formally counted the votes of the Electoral College, and, at 1:35 p.m. Eastern, having received 312 electoral votes, Donald Trump was certified as the 47th President of the United States (and JD Vance was certified as vice president). Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the session — something that places her in a somewhat exclusive (albeit not enviable) club.

So, we did a lot of good things. But all too often, Kristen, we talked about the mechanics of the legislation and the details of the legislation. And we really didn't show the kind of empathy and concern to average – or show enough of it – to average working families who didn't realize how much we had done and how much we care for them.

Ah, that’s it. We’re just too dumb to "realize" how good we had it. We should have ignored inflation, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden war on energy, the president calling Trump supporters “garbage,” the decline of the military, your assault on the Supreme Court—the list goes on and on—we should have looked past all that because there’s just so much good delivered by the Dems that we’re not capable of comprehending. //

No, Chuck, your team didn’t come out on the short end because you’re so wonderful. The Dems lost all three power centers because your policies are terrible. I encourage you, however, to keep doing the same thing and hoping that stupid Americans will one day realize that you’re awesome.

I think, however, that you’re finding out the hard way that that ship has sailed.

American Leftists have lied about President Trump and his supporters for so long that they are utterly bereft. How will they make it through the new year? Will they proceed through the steps of grief and finally accept that they were in error and outside the bounds of rationality or will they get stuck in anger—the second stage of grief?1

For some the stage of bargaining has begun already. They are insisting that we, Trump and the MAGA movement, we who insist on the precepts of the Constitution and rule of law, treat our Leftists better than they ever treated Trump or us.

Remember how they projected their anti-American rage on all conservatives? //

The anti-American Leftists want us to forget about their crimes and misdeeds, such as labeling the events of January 6, 2021, an insurrection, led by President Trump. Odd, isn’t it, that no one has been charged or convicted of insurrection in the Department of Justice’s largest manhunt in history.

Trump, whom the anti-American Left and its media gang continue to label an insurrectionist, was the one who had the National Guard standby to help keep the peace on January 6. But D.C. Mayor Bowser and Capitol Police and then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, specifically indicated that they did not want the National Guard at the Capitol or the Mall. Who called for peace? President Trump. Who was more concerned about the optics? The anti-American Leftists, of whom Pelosi is one. //

But for political equilibrium to be restored in America, those who have done wrong, who have violated the law (i.e., the Congressional J6 Committee that suborned perjury, doctored evidence, and suppressed exculpatory evidence), must be held accountable. That is the only way to restore the rule of law.

In order to have freedom, you must have the rule of law. The rule of law prevents bullies from overwhelming the weak. It preserves equal treatment before the law.

And, if the anti-American Left is grieving because of the electoral beating that they took in November, it might be possible that there is some residual desire for justice on the Right.

Accountability might just help the anti-American Left finally come to acceptance, the final stage of grief.

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
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Kamala Harris not knowing all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance is her political career in a nutshell.

1:08 PM · Jan 3, 2025 //

Are you starting to see how Harris not knowing the Pledge of Allegiance is a small indicator of something bigger? She is the emptiest of empty suits, an inauthentic, lazy politician who was handed everything only to finally run into a brick wall when she had to face an entire nation of voters. Watching her stumble during her last days in office is not just poetic. It's a microcosm of her career. //

Manowar
20 minutes ago
Makes no diff how Kamala performs the pledge. She doesn't mean a word of it.

The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox
·
NEW: Stephen A. Smith praises MAGA for allowing an open debate about H-1B visas.

His comments serve as a stern rebuke to Dems for making you “obey the party line, or you’re out on your ass.”

“There was no debate [among Dems]. That’s why they’re home. And Donald Trump is on his… Show more

5:25 PM · Dec 31, 2024

"What has ailed the democrats?" he asked. "It's not an ideology alone," he explained, indicating the problem isn't just their political positions. It's that if you go against that narrative, "cancel culture kicked in." "There was no room for debate."

Smith's take on this was brilliant where he talks about the Democrats' "diversity" --- in identity politics -- but NOT in diversity of thought. You must get on board with what the party wants, or all that diversity doesn't matter, "you were pushed out...you must obey the party line or you're out on your ass."

But that's why the Democrats "are home. And Donald Trump is on his way back to the White House."

Boom.

The liberal-left reaps what it sows. It was not merely Trump that was chosen. It was the not-Democrat, the option that wasn’t in power. A vote is a middle finger aimed to the sky. In the heat of all this, the liberal-left will have to recalibrate or dissolve. Radical chic is fading. The Hitler analogies are played out. So are the speech wars. They will have to, somehow, consider material conditions. This is never easy if you’ve never lived anything close to a precarious life. Harder, still, if you’ve allowed condescension and indignation to become the pillars of a worldview. The smug never inherit the Earth. If only the Bible printed this, or someone took it to cable television in time. Much grief could have been saved.

The smug never inherit the Earth.

As Congress prepares to do its duty, validate the Electoral College vote, and declare Donald Trump the 47th President of the United States, the bitter-clingers pushing the discredited "Trump is an insurrectionist" trope are making a final push to have their peculiar theory taken seriously. The latest iteration of this nonsensical twaddle was posted in The Hill in "Congress does not have to accept Trump's electoral votes."

The theory goes like this: Trump is an insurrectionist. The Constitution disqualifies insurrectionists from holding office, so Trump cannot be president. Given the right light and the correct amount of psilocybin, it makes perfect sense.

To the extent that sane people think there is one, the controversy starts with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. //

Instead of a fraudulent vote count, they want to use a fraudulent accusation of insurrection. As damaging to the nation as this move might be, this strategy is open. All it takes is 20 percent of the House and Senate members to sign a petition to trigger a vote. If a majority of both houses vote to exclude votes, they can, and the Supreme Court has no role in the process. Their conceit is thinking that once their side does this, everyone will forget about an indisputable electoral victory being set aside by way of backroom dealing. That is the quickest way for armed men to take control of the process and turn us into Pakistan. But that seems to be what the authors want.

He said that when one of his vice presidents spoke with Harris, Harris arrogantly told her, "You better get on board! You better get on board! Better get on board soon." O'Brien told the story, chuckling in disbelief at that arrogance.

Then, she finally agrees to come to the roundtable after all the pressure from O'Brien. Rank and file members asked questions -- 16 questions. Trump did it. But Harris didn't want to answer them. On the fourth question, O'Brien describes how one of her handlers slips him a note saying, "This will be the last question," ending the session twenty minutes earlier than when it was supposed to. Yikes, she couldn't even make it through 16 questions? But that was typical; she didn't want to be put on the spot, even in what might be friendly environments.

O'Brien then said that her incredible declaration on the way out was, "I'm going to win with you or without you."

Hammer, meet nail. For Democrats to now fear-monger about "unelected" people running the government is to ignore that's precisely what has happened throughout President Joe Biden's term. //

How does that compare to Musk making a post online? It doesn't. What he did was public and out in the open. People were able to decide whether to agree with him or not, and in the end, it was elected officials who chose to come up with another deal. That's democracy in action. What's not democracy in action is a bunch of nameless figures running the government behind the scenes while lying to everyone about the president's senility. //

Hang on just a second because, as Jennings will go on to note, that's a serious allegation. Did Musk oppose the 1,500-page CR because it didn't "directly benefit" him? That should be pretty easy to figure out. What is in the 105-page CR that passed that wasn't in the original deal? If Roginsky can't define that, then her claim is baseless.

I'll go ahead and spoil it for you. She didn't provide any evidence for her allegation. //

anon-eoij
2 hours ago edited
George Soros
Alex Soros
Bill Gates
Michael Bloomberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Jeff Bezos
….

Shall we go on about “rich folks influencing politics”?

The Democrats are trying to play this ridiculous game of attacking Elon Musk for objecting to the pork-filled continuing resolution that was initially put forth this week. They all were up in arms, asking who is he to weigh in?

The answer was a simple one: an American citizen — a citizen that the Democratic politicians are supposed to be serving. But imagine they all were chastising him because he wasn't an "elected" official, as though he couldn't offer his opinion. That was a sign of what they think of all of us in general, they don't think they work for us, they think they rule over us and don't have to respond. But Musk proved them wrong, and they were mad. //

They wanted to anger Trump by calling Musk the "shadow president," as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) did when she asked, "Who's the president now?" about the situation. That's pretty desperate and just shows how empty they are.

That's when CNN commentator Scott Jennings skewered them with an extremely important point.

Jennings turned that around on Jayapal as he spoke with Erin Burnett. "She [Jayapal] let the mask slip right at the end when she said, 'Who is the president right now...I mean, who is the President-elect?' She asked the right question first — who is the president right now?" //

Catturd ™ @catturd2
·
No one voted for Kamala in the primary and you didn't have a problem with that.

Nina Turner @ninaturner
No one voted for Elon Musk.
1:10 PM · Dec 19, 2024

During the first Trump administration, Democrats accused Republicans of abusing the Senate process in order to confirm nominees. //

The House just passed the JUDGES Act, which would create the first new positions on the U.S. District Court since 2003. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., allowed the Senate to pass it on Aug. 1, when he thought Kamala Harris would win the White House. Now that Donald Trump has won, and the House has passed the bill, President Joe Biden says he will veto it to prevent Trump from having more vacancies to fill.

Democrats controlled the Senate side of the process during Biden’s term and ran a highly partisan operation — with tactics they once criticized Republicans for using — to steer the judiciary sharply to the left.

Biden will appoint a total of 235 judges to the four courts with life-tenured judges: 187 to the U.S. District Court, 45 to the U.S. Court of Appeals, two to the U.S. Court of International Trade, and one to the U.S. Supreme Court. He will exceed President Donald Trump’s first-term total by one and take the second spot on the list of most single-term appointments in American history. Only President Jimmy Carter, after Congress created 152 new judicial positions in 1978, appointed more.

Biden’s total is even more impressive because the confirmation process is more cumbersome than ever. //

While Democrats created a new process in 2017 in order to routinely challenge Trump’s nominees, a determined Republican leadership in the Judiciary Committee and full Senate kept the confirmation process trains running. Democrats have done the same for the past four years. Today, according to the Federal Judicial Center, appeals court judges in active service are evenly split between Republican and Democrat appointees, while 60 percent of active district court judges were named by Democrats.

“Joe Biden is, like, dead. Not literally. Like, he, like, can’t say a sentence,” admits Henry Appel, advisor at the National Security Council (NSC), about the current state of the President’s health. Appel, who works in the Intelligence Programs Directorate, noted his team’s responsibility for providing senior policymakers with top secrets, stating, “We give all of the senior policymakers all of the secrets.”

He went on to describe Biden’s deteriorating communication skills as a concern, adding, “[Biden] can’t say a sentence.” Recalling a phone call in which the President struggled to understand the simple phrase, “novel phenomenon,” Appel shared “He [Biden] was just like, ‘What do you mean, like a book?’ when my boss [Jake Sullivan] used the word ‘novel.’” //

Appel didn’t stop there; he also recounted an exchange from a call with Biden, revealing, “I picked up the phone and said, ‘Hello, Mr. President’… and he asked for Jake [Sullivan]. After a brief exchange, Biden called me back 10 seconds later asking again, ‘Is Jake there?’” Appel told Biden, “No, he’s traveling with you,” adding, “He’s on the same trip that you are.” //

This situation should never again happen with a sitting president. Heads should roll for it happening at this time, and legislation or a constitutional amendment should be passed to ensure that it doesn't. //

Belle Contraire The word of Joe..
12 hours ago edited
The Democrat leadership liked the power structure dynamics exactly as it played out in the Biden administration.

Everyone was a winner except the American people.

Senate Judiciary Committee
@JudiciaryDems
·
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BREAKING: A group of Senate Democrats introduce bill to abolish the Electoral College, restoring democracy by allowing the direct election of presidents through popular vote alone.
1:47 PM · Dec 16, 2024

First, we hold elections to determine who the electors will be, and they vote for the president. That's not the way it's generally described, but that's how it works. The apportionment of electors is a brilliant system that ensures that every state will have a say in presidential elections; otherwise, every presidential election would be decided in a few major cities.

But most of all, these "Senate Democrats" clearly do not comprehend that they cannot just pass a bill to abolish this system. This would require a constitutional amendment, meaning a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by 3/4 of the 50 states - 33 states. Good luck with that.

Second, on the claim of "restoring democracy," one cannot restore what has never been the case. The United States was founded as a constitutional republic and remains a constitutional republic to this day. //

Also, "restore" means "return to a preceding state." The Electors system has been in place since the Constitution was ratified. There's nothing to restore. //

Finally, there is no popular vote for president. None. The Constitution does not allow for it. Oh, the "popular vote" is oft-quoted as a statistical curiosity, and it can be interpreted as giving an incoming president a mandate - and Donald Trump's 5-million vote lead over Kamala Harris seems to have done.

Have none of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ever even seen a copy of the Constitution?

Speaker Mike Johnson
@SpeakerJohnson
·
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BREAKING: ActBlue was accepting foreign gift cards until September.

This is ILLEGAL.

The @HouseAdmin Committee will continue this important investigation into ActBlue next Congress.

Our work here is just getting started.
Just the News
@JustTheNews
Breaking: ActBlue Bombshell: Dem fundraising platform tells Congress it didn't block foreign gift cards until fall https://justthenews.com/node/138532?utm_source=mux&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=social-media-autopost
11:15 AM · Dec 11, 2024. //

bpbatch
6 hours ago
The Trump team and the RNC would behoove themselves to run ads that highlight these schemes and shenanigans--through Nov 2026, at least--to constantly remind reminsquishy voters how corrupt and evil the Democrat Party actually is. Call it propaganda propogandor truth, but plant the seeds now and END this political farce of a party.