Thousands of homes burned. No preparation. No water. If they didn't know it before, Los Angelenos began to realize what they'd done to themselves when L.A. Mayor Karen Bass landed on Jan. 8, 2025, at LAX from Ghana and walked right into the buzzsaw of a SkyNews reporter. Reporter David Blevins asked all the right questions, following as Bass tried to sneak out a side door. And she had not a word to say to the people she had just forsaken to make political points with President Joe Biden.
Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent whilst their homes were burning?
Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?
Have you nothing to say today?
Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?
Elon Musk says you're utterly incompetent. Are you considering your position?
Madam Mayor, have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today that are dealing with this disaster?
No apology for them?
Do you think you should have been visiting Ghana while this was unfolding back home?
Madam Mahor, just a few words for the citizens today as you return to deal with the catastrophe?
Bass stared blankly at him, as if in a trance from her long flight, and stayed silent. She offered nothing.
'Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent whilst their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department's budget?
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 8, 2025
@skydavidblevins questions the mayor of LA, Karen Bass, as she faces backlash regarding the California wildfires.https://t.co/Nkz8onjC7V pic.twitter.com/WwRwp6Imqz
Bass's silence and her inability to give a hopeful message set the tone from that moment on.
More: 'Lack of Leadership': L.A. Fire Vet Says No One Prepared Even After Extreme Wind Warnings
She was as inauthentic and unserious as her critics had always said and supporters feared.
L.A. realized too late that it had hired a political hack for mayor. Oh, sure, she checked the DEI boxes: Woman, black, lesbian, commie. Voters forsook the competence of her opponent — a white, male, heterosexual, Democrat, Rick Caruso — for this hack with no administrative, budgetary, or large organizational experience. Caruso wasn't perfect, but he was someone who knew how important cops, firefighters, and water are for a mayor's top priority: Public safety.
Instead, they hired a cop hater, DEI hirer, someone who reallocated to DEI projects the millions she'd taken from the fire department, and then Karen Bass expected the city to run itself. It should be noted that the vice-mayor in charge of emergencies was on the sidelines because he was serving home confinement for calling in antisemitic bomb threats to City Hall.
What a clown show.
And thousands of houses and businesses burned down in her city. Twelve people died. There was no water. And the mayor didn't know what to do.
As a candidate, Bass, an L.A. area congressman since 2011, said she wouldn't leave the country for grifty trips that congressional reps are known for. But President Joe Biden asked her to represent him at the inauguration of Ghana's new president and felt she couldn't turn him down. She should have resisted the urge to please the "incapacitated vegetable," as his fans called the addled president.
She left Saturday, January 4. On Friday, January 3, her Emergency Management Department, full of more than 100 employees, received an email about the strong wind predictions and the fire danger for the following week. They sought a Monday meeting to prepare for the expected Tuesday and Wednesday 80-100 miles per hour gusts. Even that was too late. They sat on their hands for days.
Advice: Don't Be Like Karen
A March L.A. Times story continued:
The mayor nevertheless went on the trip, attending the Ghanaian president’s inauguration, as well as a U.S. Embassy cocktail party, on Jan. 7, the day the Palisades fire broke out.
Bass’ team did not inform her of the Friday, Jan. 3, email, which advised of a meeting the following Monday to coordinate preparations for the anticipated high winds. In the days before Bass’ flight, the National Weather Service had also begun alerting the public on social media about the growing wildfire risk.
The reports continued to grow more dire. On Monday, January 6, the National Weather Service sent out a warning of "life threatening" conditions ahead.
...LIFE THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE, WIDESPREAD WINDSTORM TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING FOR PORTIONS OF LOS ANGELES AND EASTERN VENTURA COUNTIES-- WITH LONG DURATION OF RED FLAG CONDITIONS INTO THURSDAY-- POSSIBLY EXTENDING INTO FRIDAY... ...RED FLAG WARNINGS IN EFFECT FOR LOS ANGELES COUNTY AND MUCH OF VENTURA COUNTY---SEE TIMINGS IN HEADLINES BELOW...
The warning was posted to social media.
HEADS UP!!! A LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE, Widespread Windstorm is expected Tue afternoon-Weds morning across much of Ventura/LA Co. Areas not typically windy will be impacted. See graphic for areas of greatest concern. Stay indoors, away from windows, expect poweroutages. #LA pic.twitter.com/yl83LxeMEc
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) January 6, 2025
The LAFD Chief was fired the following month for failing to prepare, but the DEI hire — a woman and a lesbian — testified she'd warned the mayor and the entire city.
During her appeal to the Los Angeles city council, Former LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley lays out the multitude of ways Karen Bass was notified of impending fire danger. pic.twitter.com/6rQ82W5q8U
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) March 4, 2025
That doesn't absolve the chief from failing to set up water tenders and pre-deploy assets, and fix the ones in the shop, to areas that LAFD personnel were all too aware would have been subject to fire in these Santa Ana "Devil Winds."
Flashback! West Coast, Messed Coast™ Year in Review!
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, with another DEI hire in charge, presided over the empty reservoir instead of releasing water to help fight the potential firestorm.
Bass, now running for re-election on her disastrous record, has retconned her story and claimed not to have been told about the Devil Winds coming.
In a podcast interview with Matt Welch, which she asked to be scrubbed, Bass admitted to "botching" the response.
“Both sides botched it,” she told Welch, giving a brutally honest assessment of the emergency response to the tragedy, which became the most destructive wildfire in LA’s history.
“They didn’t tell people they were on fire,” she added, according to the Times, referring to the lack of evacuation alerts in west Altadena, where 19 people died.
And fire lies have kept coming. She deleted emails, and her office changed the after-action report.
Corruptocrats gonna corrupt.
In Fire Lies 3, I'll look back at the first moments of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
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