Someone should tell Speaker Johnson that Federal agencies own 45.4% of California land (USFS, BLM, NPS, DOD) and if he wants to allocate funding to manage those forests that border many communities out here to prevent them from burning into our towns and cities he is welcome to start there.
CA’s taxpayers collectively pay into the federal government’s coffers far more than they get out, unlike the typical red state. And federal tax brackets aren’t adjusted for cost of living, which, in turn, is tied to earning potential in a given location. In short, CA residents get a bad deal on their federal taxes.
Politicizing disaster relief is disgraceful, in any event.
The level of ignorance and outright lies being promulgated about California is truly disgusting. The LA fires were not caused by poor management of forest and water resources. California has the best management of these resources in the country. Anyone with any knowledge of Southern California, LA, and the challenges Californians face knows exactly how stupid the MAGA accusations are. The MAGA lies about this while LA burns are morally repugnant.
the fact that it's happening right now is definitely climate change, it should be raining. But I've lived in CA. The locals are resistant to the needed controlled burns and the electrical utilities are outright irresponsible. There are also areas where the building codes were more worried about earthquakes than fires. These things need to change. CA isn't the only state that might need to be coerced into better climate building codes. I grew up NJ, where they just accept flooding when it rains, having visited the Netherlands extensively I can tell you that's not a requirement. There's a way to do this that wouldn't be political, it would just be smart. Of course that's not how the GOP will do it.
Yeah, as I read this, it's not the first time I've thought that, in theory, there is probably a policy discussion that we could and ought to have -- if it could be done in good faith. The problem is that GOP leaders rarely operate in good faith anymore, especially not where MAGA has spoken.
McClintock is my Congressional Rep and I just called his office and gave his staff a piece of my mind. In the ten years he has represented us, he has NEVER done anything for us. His buddies are land developers and loggers and those are the only people he cares about. They want to capitalize on the wealth of our forests, he does not care one iota about the people in Socal.
Regarding land ownership of the forest in the state, only 5% is owned by the state, 40% is owned by private individuals like myself and 55% is owned by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The United States Forest Service is responsible for maintaining federal lands. They create firebreaks, and do controlled burns. But they are seriously underfunded by people like McClintock. In typical Republican fashion, they create the problem and then complain about the problem so they can scoop in and profit off it. The state does an EXCELLENT job of maintaining their FIVE PERCENT. Calfire has some of the best firefighters in the world. They saved my property several times last year. In addition to stupid people doing stupid things, we had multiple attempts at arson.
Regarding the water situation … all the STATE reservoirs are full. A new reservoir is scheduled to come online this year. The LOCAL palisades reservoir was offline for maintenance during what was supposed to be to be the rainy season.
Bottomline, don’t listen to McClintock. He’s just another Republican liar out to screw people in order to enrich his buddies.
i'm not too worried about california, it being the world's 5th largest economy. but seriously these folks want to politicize this? incredible. but hey go for it. we'll remember.
It is ironic the Mike Johnson complains about mismanagement in CA - specifically water and forests. Really? And he represents Louisiana, a poor state with a long history of bad management.
The entire fire zone of Pacific Palisades was carefully tended and pristine. Not one leaf or blade of grass was out of place. Some rain would have been nice though. The Greene woman says we should have seeded the clouds, if there had been any clouds and the wind wasn't 100 mph. What would we ever do without her?
Cool. No federal aide to Alabama for it's terrible mismanagement of the conditions that produce tornadoes and no aide for its terrible mismanagement of shorelines that allow hurricanes to roll in and flood homes and businesses. Sound fair, Tubby?
NY, WA, OR, MA,, NJ, and CA should just secede. The "blue states" make most of the money and pay most of the federal income taxes.
texas and florida will collapse into chaos with its "immigrants hatred". The texas electric grid will collapse because it ignores climate change. With global warming, the frequency of hurricanes category 5 will literally wipe out florida. New higher categories will be named. Simple physics. Alas, too many stupid and insecure folks out there. Monk learned a new term here: "toxic masculinity".
Exactly! Blue states will finance relief when the first CAT 6 wipes out Florida and the rest of the Gulf Coast. They'll be screaming that no conditions should be attached to that aid!
The MAGA CA Republicans quoted & Johnson are disingenuous in their water policy efforts (except for the CA rep that wants to look at the proposed changes first). The main change will have resulted in zero change to the fire fighting efforts. It will provide more water from Northern California to San Joaquin Valley farmers. Nunes & McCarthy introduced Trump to the SJ Valley Agricultural campaign funding source back in 2016. CA H2O wars are complicated, litigious and require new large infrastructure paid by the public. MAGA North in the Sacramento Valley and MAGA South in the San Joaquin Valley are generally on the opposite sides on this issue. North MAGA basically says don’t take our water (they get more rain and snow melt up there.) The larger CA Ag interests get big government subsidies and in turn they fork over big campaign donations. SJV is a bigger Ag area in size & production. CA is the biggest Ag revenue state in the nation. Remember the 43 billion in extra US Ag subsidies in the first Trump admin? The bulk goes to the larger AG entities, who LLC themselves into looking like smaller entities . How you tie short term disaster aid to a long term complicated issue sounds like the usual standing operating procedure for Trump’s favorable babble in exchange for $upport regardless of actual results
Oh, fer cryin' out loud. McClintock isn't a "victim" of any federal or state water policies. He is the poster boy for carpetbagging politicians. He represents CA-05, largely in the fire-prone foothills and forests of the Sierras between Sacramento and Fresno but he doesn't even live in his district. He lives in suburban Sacramento in Elk Grove, CA. Kiley, similarly, represents the Sierras surrounding the Lake Tahoe Basin and north to Lassen Volcanic NPK south along the East Side of the Sierras to the Mojave Desert but he lives just barely inside his district in Roseville, CA - also suburban Sacramento. Both of their heavily federally-owned and managed districts (USFS, BLM, NPS, FWS, etc.) have been affected by large, destructive wildfires in recent years that have consumed wonderful rural communities and run through large swaths of forest and rangeland. Funny, I don't recall McClintock ever calling for recovery aid for his constituents being conditional on California bending to GOP priorities on water and forest management issues.
When a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, Johnson and Tuberville are the first to have their hands out for aid. Who pays for that aid? California and the other Blue states.
Paul Krugman wrote (Jan. 13th) in his Substack post (https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-california) that "California paid in a lot more than it got back — $83 billion in total." Perhaps California should adopt a policy of "insuring" itself and retaining all revenues owed the US government ... tallying up at the end of the California fiscal year what "excess" can be paid to the US Treasury. Costs for housing immigrant labor necessary to rebuild homes, harvest the food, educate all people and continue to lead the way in technology and living sustainably. I am not certain there will be any funds "due" at year end.
I love it. Mike Johnson won't have to concern himself any further giving about aid to California. Profligate Blue California deals with it on its own. What's not to love, for R's so concerned with spending?
All of this talk to penalize California is just more garbage to spew to divide and hate each other. The new regime wants to cripple some states in order to get them to bow to the almighty leaders. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of a long 4 or more years of chaos and greed. They don’t really care about the people. It all a game of politics and to hell with those standing in the way. Unfortunately the divide and conquer is working in some areas.
This looks like another case where people are voting in horrible people. Whom they know to be horrible. Just meant give a middle finger to people they hate? Shoot themselves in the foot- that's fine if it sends their message of hate, via their elected officials? I'm having a harder and harder time understanding some of theses folks.
Someone should tell Speaker Johnson that Federal agencies own 45.4% of California land (USFS, BLM, NPS, DOD) and if he wants to allocate funding to manage those forests that border many communities out here to prevent them from burning into our towns and cities he is welcome to start there.
CA’s taxpayers collectively pay into the federal government’s coffers far more than they get out, unlike the typical red state. And federal tax brackets aren’t adjusted for cost of living, which, in turn, is tied to earning potential in a given location. In short, CA residents get a bad deal on their federal taxes.
Politicizing disaster relief is disgraceful, in any event.
Yes, this! Also, see Paul Krugman's In Praise of California
The level of ignorance and outright lies being promulgated about California is truly disgusting. The LA fires were not caused by poor management of forest and water resources. California has the best management of these resources in the country. Anyone with any knowledge of Southern California, LA, and the challenges Californians face knows exactly how stupid the MAGA accusations are. The MAGA lies about this while LA burns are morally repugnant.
the fact that it's happening right now is definitely climate change, it should be raining. But I've lived in CA. The locals are resistant to the needed controlled burns and the electrical utilities are outright irresponsible. There are also areas where the building codes were more worried about earthquakes than fires. These things need to change. CA isn't the only state that might need to be coerced into better climate building codes. I grew up NJ, where they just accept flooding when it rains, having visited the Netherlands extensively I can tell you that's not a requirement. There's a way to do this that wouldn't be political, it would just be smart. Of course that's not how the GOP will do it.
Yeah, as I read this, it's not the first time I've thought that, in theory, there is probably a policy discussion that we could and ought to have -- if it could be done in good faith. The problem is that GOP leaders rarely operate in good faith anymore, especially not where MAGA has spoken.
McClintock is my Congressional Rep and I just called his office and gave his staff a piece of my mind. In the ten years he has represented us, he has NEVER done anything for us. His buddies are land developers and loggers and those are the only people he cares about. They want to capitalize on the wealth of our forests, he does not care one iota about the people in Socal.
Regarding land ownership of the forest in the state, only 5% is owned by the state, 40% is owned by private individuals like myself and 55% is owned by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The United States Forest Service is responsible for maintaining federal lands. They create firebreaks, and do controlled burns. But they are seriously underfunded by people like McClintock. In typical Republican fashion, they create the problem and then complain about the problem so they can scoop in and profit off it. The state does an EXCELLENT job of maintaining their FIVE PERCENT. Calfire has some of the best firefighters in the world. They saved my property several times last year. In addition to stupid people doing stupid things, we had multiple attempts at arson.
Regarding the water situation … all the STATE reservoirs are full. A new reservoir is scheduled to come online this year. The LOCAL palisades reservoir was offline for maintenance during what was supposed to be to be the rainy season.
Bottomline, don’t listen to McClintock. He’s just another Republican liar out to screw people in order to enrich his buddies.
"McClintock is my Congressional Rep." I'm sorry for you, and the folks who got Kiley.
i'm not too worried about california, it being the world's 5th largest economy. but seriously these folks want to politicize this? incredible. but hey go for it. we'll remember.
It is ironic the Mike Johnson complains about mismanagement in CA - specifically water and forests. Really? And he represents Louisiana, a poor state with a long history of bad management.
Let's just turn our backs to Louisiana when the next hurricane strikes there.
To let them just say "mismanagement" and "policies" gets them off the hook.
Ask them specifics--what exactly do they understand and what specific changes are they requesting.
They can be cowards and you should call them cowards. They can be misinformed and sheep and you should call them that.
Yeah! we need policies like weekly leaf-raking.
The entire fire zone of Pacific Palisades was carefully tended and pristine. Not one leaf or blade of grass was out of place. Some rain would have been nice though. The Greene woman says we should have seeded the clouds, if there had been any clouds and the wind wasn't 100 mph. What would we ever do without her?
How about the death penalty for those who use fireworks?
Those dudes know who they are and I would not want to be them, if that is any comfort.
Cool. No federal aide to Alabama for it's terrible mismanagement of the conditions that produce tornadoes and no aide for its terrible mismanagement of shorelines that allow hurricanes to roll in and flood homes and businesses. Sound fair, Tubby?
They just aren't building their houses right there if they can't handle tornadoes. It's all on them.
NY, WA, OR, MA,, NJ, and CA should just secede. The "blue states" make most of the money and pay most of the federal income taxes.
texas and florida will collapse into chaos with its "immigrants hatred". The texas electric grid will collapse because it ignores climate change. With global warming, the frequency of hurricanes category 5 will literally wipe out florida. New higher categories will be named. Simple physics. Alas, too many stupid and insecure folks out there. Monk learned a new term here: "toxic masculinity".
Peace.
Exactly! Blue states will finance relief when the first CAT 6 wipes out Florida and the rest of the Gulf Coast. They'll be screaming that no conditions should be attached to that aid!
I've been saying for 8 years now that NY should petition the dutch to take us back.
Canada could have Washington, Oregon and California.
The MAGA CA Republicans quoted & Johnson are disingenuous in their water policy efforts (except for the CA rep that wants to look at the proposed changes first). The main change will have resulted in zero change to the fire fighting efforts. It will provide more water from Northern California to San Joaquin Valley farmers. Nunes & McCarthy introduced Trump to the SJ Valley Agricultural campaign funding source back in 2016. CA H2O wars are complicated, litigious and require new large infrastructure paid by the public. MAGA North in the Sacramento Valley and MAGA South in the San Joaquin Valley are generally on the opposite sides on this issue. North MAGA basically says don’t take our water (they get more rain and snow melt up there.) The larger CA Ag interests get big government subsidies and in turn they fork over big campaign donations. SJV is a bigger Ag area in size & production. CA is the biggest Ag revenue state in the nation. Remember the 43 billion in extra US Ag subsidies in the first Trump admin? The bulk goes to the larger AG entities, who LLC themselves into looking like smaller entities . How you tie short term disaster aid to a long term complicated issue sounds like the usual standing operating procedure for Trump’s favorable babble in exchange for $upport regardless of actual results
"CA H2O wars are complicated"
See the movie "Chinatown" for some seedy fiction with the water wars as a backdrop.
Yes, the north / south water wars in California have been going on for generations.
Oh, fer cryin' out loud. McClintock isn't a "victim" of any federal or state water policies. He is the poster boy for carpetbagging politicians. He represents CA-05, largely in the fire-prone foothills and forests of the Sierras between Sacramento and Fresno but he doesn't even live in his district. He lives in suburban Sacramento in Elk Grove, CA. Kiley, similarly, represents the Sierras surrounding the Lake Tahoe Basin and north to Lassen Volcanic NPK south along the East Side of the Sierras to the Mojave Desert but he lives just barely inside his district in Roseville, CA - also suburban Sacramento. Both of their heavily federally-owned and managed districts (USFS, BLM, NPS, FWS, etc.) have been affected by large, destructive wildfires in recent years that have consumed wonderful rural communities and run through large swaths of forest and rangeland. Funny, I don't recall McClintock ever calling for recovery aid for his constituents being conditional on California bending to GOP priorities on water and forest management issues.
When a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, Johnson and Tuberville are the first to have their hands out for aid. Who pays for that aid? California and the other Blue states.
How about we fill those greedy palms with our ashes?
I am sure that they will gladly accept the conditions that will be attached to that funding.
Since they've kissed trump's ass repeatedly, they've already met that criteria!
Paul Krugman wrote (Jan. 13th) in his Substack post (https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-california) that "California paid in a lot more than it got back — $83 billion in total." Perhaps California should adopt a policy of "insuring" itself and retaining all revenues owed the US government ... tallying up at the end of the California fiscal year what "excess" can be paid to the US Treasury. Costs for housing immigrant labor necessary to rebuild homes, harvest the food, educate all people and continue to lead the way in technology and living sustainably. I am not certain there will be any funds "due" at year end.
I love it. Mike Johnson won't have to concern himself any further giving about aid to California. Profligate Blue California deals with it on its own. What's not to love, for R's so concerned with spending?
All of this talk to penalize California is just more garbage to spew to divide and hate each other. The new regime wants to cripple some states in order to get them to bow to the almighty leaders. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of a long 4 or more years of chaos and greed. They don’t really care about the people. It all a game of politics and to hell with those standing in the way. Unfortunately the divide and conquer is working in some areas.
I live in the Sierra foothills. The reputation of both of those “gentlemen” precedes them. No one with any sense would listen to a word that they say.
Indeed, Debbie! I live in Nevada County and everyone here knows that Kiley is an lightweight and an idiot.
My daughter and her husband moved from Nevada County to Upstate NY. They are so happy now. While snow can be annoying, fires are terrifying.
This looks like another case where people are voting in horrible people. Whom they know to be horrible. Just meant give a middle finger to people they hate? Shoot themselves in the foot- that's fine if it sends their message of hate, via their elected officials? I'm having a harder and harder time understanding some of theses folks.
Isn't most of the forest in California federally managed?
Federally mismanaged, yes.