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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp here. I’m also in deep fear of what happens under dry CA conditions over the next 4 years if federal aid is withheld, as Trump promised on the campaign trail.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/03/helene-trump-politics-natural-disaster-00182419[/quote]

In 2020 Trump signed a bill that would have diverted excess water from Northern California to LA specifically to boost the reservoirs for fire fighting purposes. The state and advocacy groups, including Newsom, battled him using the pretext that it'd hurt the salmon among others. That is the origin of the disagreement of Trump and Newsom. Unfortunately, it is true, so for all of his childish petulant screeds in a manner that only Trump can muster, Trump actually does have a point here. Right now California is not really governed to serve the safety and wellbeing of its people. Its programs and policies are bled by a thousand cuts through demands by so many advocacy groups wanting to protect/preserve/champion equity for this and that.

Wildfires are a fact of life in California and the dangers of a massive wildfire promising this level and even greater destructions has always been there, yet what we saw was a strange lack of advance preparation despite plenty of warnings that the conditions were ripe. Serious questions have to be asked about it. And I would not be upset if the Trump administration demanded LA and the California state governments to explain why they weren't better prepared or to outline new policies and laws that guaranteed a basic level of preparedness for worst case situations before releasing any new federal aid to the state. Americans cannot be called to pour more money (billions and billions) after bad if no basic changes are being made at the ground level. To use as one small but critical example, so many wildfires (fortunately mostly doused in time) are started by homeless people yet California has seemingly done little to address the homeless problem or is, at least, very slow to do anything meaningful.

Legitimate questions need to be asked about the competence of California governing class. 
[/quote]

I’m OP worried about Trump. I agree questions need to be asked re the response to the current fire. That said, the videos of Santa Ana winds and the idea that entire neighborhoods in Southern California should all be able to hose their houses while fire fighters are using hydrants and having enough water for it all seems very hard - if not impossible - to be prepared for. Also, I don’t know that water should be diverted from Northern CA to southern CA and / or farmlands. This is not a problem unique to CA - red states have plenty of wildfires (Alaska, Idaho etc) and also have cities that are likely to face severe water problems regardless of whether a fire ever whips through neighborhoods (eg Phoenix, Las Vegas).

My understanding is that Trump didn’t sign a water diversion bill (ie no such bill existed) but that there have been other water fights. By all means there should be investigations into what happened - Newsom has said as much - but we also need federal aid to continue in January. Calling for an investigation to occur and be concluded as a condition of aid is a dangerous president. For instance, I suspect many more people would have died had a completed investigation into the Texas powergrid failure been a condition for federal aid then, as is true of other emergency responses (hurricanes, forest fires etc). [b]The precedent is that Trump has wanted to withhold disaster funding to CA - and he repeated this on the campaign trail - as a stick, but other states (to my Knowledge) haven’t had similar sticks as conditional requirements in their emergencies. [/b]

The whole debate reminds me of the gun reform arguments - after a mass shouting there are a lot of statements that it’s not the right time for policy and help is needed now, but then it never is the right time for policy because help is always needed by that standard given the number of shootings in this country. Balancing emergency response and care with policy reform is needed, but there does have to be some triage. [/quote]

Agreed. The partisan targeting of California when red states have been equally or even more unprepared is really vile and frankly immoral. [/quote]

This a thousand times. It’s vile and evil [/quote]

+1 Yes, and there are many DCUM threads in which posters bash red states. Vile and evil no matter who does it.[/quote]

The difference is that this time it is red state politicians targeting Californians who have lost their homes. That is not something blue politicians have done. [/quote]

Think what you want, but blue politicians are not above reproach either.[/quote]

I have not seen a specific example of blue state politicians holding (or pushing publicly to hold) aid hostage like red state politicians are currently doing.

Example:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/11/warren-davidson-republican-disaster-relief-california-wildfires

And I am no partisan Democrat. I’m a moderate independent. But honesty is important here. I have never seen that behavior from Democrat politicians towards the victims of disasters. [/quote]

Malibu. WNC.

Now you’ve seen it all[/quote]

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