California Crazy
The hellish wildfires in southern California are still raging. More homes and businesses are being destroyed, and more lives are being lost. The death toll now stands at 24.
Politicians in California have plenty of excuses. Climate change tops the list. Meanwhile, the long list of failures caused by gross incompetence at every level of California’s government is shocking.
California is entirely run by the left. The woke left controls every center of power in the state.
The governor is a liberal Democrat. Liberal Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature. The mayor of Los Angeles is a liberal Democrat. And how many Republicans are on L.A.’s 15-member city council? None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.
Fighting wildfires doesn’t seem to be a big priority for the left. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest budget cut $100 million from wildfire prevention programs. Mayor Karen Bass cut $17 million from her fire department. So, where were all those tax dollars going?
California is spending roughly $5 billion a year to fight homelessness. Not only are those programs not working, but many people have been made homeless by the raging wildfires. While the state struggles with a record deficit, Newsom is spending $3 billion a year giving healthcare to illegal aliens.
Newsom and other Left Coast liberals felt it was really important to shame states that protected parental rights and religious liberty. In fact, Gov. Newsom said it was too dangerous for his bureaucrats to travel to states that put religious liberty ahead of LGBTQ rights.
Apparently, the state where they are in real danger is Newsom’s California!
Los Angeles is handing out taxpayer dollars for transgender walking paths and cafes, an LGBTQ archive of “queer histories,” social justice art-worker investments (whatever that is), and paying for Mayor Bass’s international trips, which she said she wouldn’t take.
Meanwhile, as the disaster was growing (a disaster Democrats are using to demand billions more to fight climate change), the California legislature convened for a special session. To find more money to fight the fires? No. To find more money to fight Donald Trump. They want to “Trump-proof” California so his policies can’t be enforced there.
And what is Gavin Newsom doing now? He’s begging Trump to come to California to see the damage caused by this leftist lunacy.
The Mess Biden Left
Joe Biden is delivering a number of farewell addresses this week. Today, he went to the State Department to talk about his “foreign policy legacy and his accomplishments” and how he “reclaimed America’s global leadership as a force of stability [and] put our adversaries in a position of weakness.”
Are you kidding me?! Do they really believe that? I guess they must. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Adviser, said yesterday on CNN:
“Our adversaries and competitors are weaker across the board. Russia’s weaker. Iran’s weaker. China’s weaker. All the while we kept America out of war. So, I think the American people are safer and the country is better off than we were four years ago.”
Clearly, the American people do not think we are better off. That’s why Biden and Sullivan are on their way out and Donald Trump is on his way back in!
Sullivan says Russia is weaker now. But we’re constantly told we must send tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine or Russia will conquer all of Europe.
How is Iran weaker? Well, the ayatollah lost some of his allies not because of anything Biden did, but because Bibi Netanyahu didn’t take Biden’s advice to restrain himself. Biden constantly tried to stop Israel from going where they had to go and doing what they had to do to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah.
Now Biden and Sullivan want to take credit for Iran being weaker? And weaker in what sense? They are just weeks away, maybe days, from developing nuclear weapons.
China is weaker? Sure, they have some economic troubles. But do Joe Biden and Jake Sullivan actually believe that the Chinese military is weaker? Communist China is building 11 warships a year to challenge our navy. We’re building just four ships a year.
And when it comes to shipyards and the production of large commercial vessels, it’s even worse. Much worse. These shipyards, obviously, are “dual use” and can be refitted to build warships. As one top Pentagon official noted, “Just one of China’s 13 shipyards has more capacity than all of the American [shipyards] combined.”
Biden has saddled us with massive amounts of debt and accelerated spending to make it as hard as possible for Donald Trump to make America stronger. Here’s a shocking fact: Under Joe Biden, we’re now spending more on interest payments on the national debt than we are spending for our national defense.
Biden thinks virtually every western country is looking at us and saying, “Oh, if only we could be like the United States today.” Well, he’s just a little off. Here’s what is true: The populations of those western countries are looking at us and asking, “When will we get a chance to elect a populist leader who will make our country great again?”
Vance Responds
Speaking on Fox News yesterday, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance responded to some of the nonsense coming from Joe Biden and Jake Sullivan. “On a whole host of issues,” Vance said, “President Biden has left us an absolute dumpster fire.”
On the economy, Vance said:
“[Joe Biden] . . . left us a dumpster fire, not just at the border but also with the economy. First of all, we know that prices are way too high for many Americans. . . he has added trillions and trillions of dollars to the federal debt during a time of peace. . .
“Oil prices are now shooting through the roof in the final two months of Joe Biden’s administration in part because of decisions that Joe Biden has made over the last few weeks.
“He actually hasn’t left the American people in good economic condition. That’s why they made Donald J. Trump the president-elect of the United States.”
Vance spoke at length about the border crisis. Host Shannon Breen pressed Vance on the ways Democrats will attack Trump’s immigration policies, and he handled it brilliantly.
On “family separation,” Vance said:
“Yeah, so this term is something you’re going to hear a lot in the next couple of months, the next couple of years. . . That is a dishonest term to hide behind. . .
“If . . . in the United States we have a guy who’s convicted of a violent crime and has to go to prison, we want that guy to go to prison. But yes, it does mean that that guy is going to be separated from his family. That is the consequence of committing violence upon your fellow citizens.”
On the “compassion” claim, he said:
“What the Democrats are going to do is they’re going to hide behind this. They’re going to say that this is all about compassion for families. It is not compassion to allow the drug cartels to traffic small children. It is not compassionate to allow the worst people in the world to send minor children, some of them victims of sex trafficking, into our country.
“That is the real humanitarian crisis at the border. You’re not going to exacerbate it through law enforcement. You’re going to fix it through law enforcement. And that’s what Donald Trump is going to do. . .
“We can’t buy into this lie that law enforcement at the American southern border is somehow not compassionate to families who want to cross illegally. Our number one responsibility is compassion to our fellow Americans.”