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GELFAND’S WORLD - The mayor of Los Angeles is complaining that the Fire Chief didn't tell her that it was going to be hot, dry, and windy.
Really.
Apparently, all those weather forecasts on local television weren't enough. The announcements of Red Flag warnings weren't enough. The series of messages coming from the Emergency Management Department (which you can read about here) apparently weren't enough. I guess the Chief was supposed to drive to the mayoral mansion and hand deliver the warning written on parchment in her own blood. Except that the mayor was out of town. If you read the story linked above, you will discover that the Acting Mayor (the president of the City Council) had been contacted.
The problem for the mayor -- considering that she has a reelection coming up next year -- is that she is being less than honest in telling this story. She made the decision to travel outside of the continent which is to say that she guessed wrong. In a luckier week, she would have been able to play at international ambassador and get back in time for the budget negotiations.
Everybody recognizes -- rightly or wrongly -- that the reason for the firing of the Fire Chief is that she (the Chief) gave an interview to a reporter while the fire was still going on, and in that interview she bit the hand that fed her. It is, after all, the City Council and the mayor who write the annual budget and who were implicitly attacked in that discussion.
Whether the Fire Chief spoke accurately is not the issue. It is the fact that she broke ranks at a moment when the public expected effective unified action by all city officials and agencies. That's on the Chief, but it doesn't absolve Bass from being less than a leader.
This firing can only harm Karen Bass politically. If the Fire Chief was so ineffective, why wasn't she fired previously? But every indication is that this is just a symbolic act which is meant to take some of the heat off the mayor.
One additional thought. A lot of the pressure comes from the fact that Donald Trump continues to deny the fact of global warming and its resultant climate change. When hot dry winds gusting to 100 mph flow all over the basin, there isn't a lot that can be done to prevent fires from expanding rapidly and enormously. As I said previously, if you want to point the finger, point it at all of western civilization for creating global warming. But instead, we had a group of elected officials meeting here with the president and kowtowing to his ignorance and malice. They were careful to refrain from laughing out loud when he once again spoke about forest management.
One other thought about Karen Bass. I suspect that the voters, when they go to the polls, are going to engage in some backlash over the monomaniacal focus on homelessness at a time that the city faces difficulties on many competing fronts. It won't help that we will be hearing a lot of complaints about mismanagement of that money.
Addendum
Speaking of the president, it can no longer be in any doubt that this guy works for Vladimir Putin. The ambush interview with Zelensky was just the latest evidence. The peace talks between Russia and the U.S. -- leaving Ukraine and the rest of Europe out -- were equally demonstrative. Paul Campos has a discussion of the facts ("Trump belongs to Putin") which you can read here. Quoting from that discussion:
"The biggest and most successful gaslighting operation in the history of this country was the constant right wing hysteria about the “Russia hoax,” with “hoax” here having the specialized meaning of “claims that were 100% accurate, and if anything badly understated.”
And then there is the economic mismanagement.
As anyone with a little economic savvy could tell you, loss of consumer confidence leads to loss of business investment, and the two together are recessionary. Add inflation due to tariffs (if they happen) and you have a nasty prognosis. We already have the loss in consumer confidence and reduced investment by businesses.
The overall effect of undermining Ukraine and our European allies, combined with the creation of a recession in the U.S., is to reduce the power, prestige, and effectiveness of the United States.
Perhaps Trump is not intentionally tanking the economy, but that's the effect. But we have to recognize that undermining Ukraine is intentional, malicious, and in keeping with a long-term goal by the Kremlin to weaken the United States politically and economically.
So if Trump is not the equivalent of a communist stooge (because the Soviet Union was, at least officially, dissolved) he is doing the work of the Kremlin masters in a big way.
Hey, Kamala warned everybody. If midwestern farmers are worrying about lost export income and small town MAGA supporters are now feeling the sting of federal firings, we told you so.
And it gets worse. If the tariffs on Canadian products go into effect tomorrow, everything said above about financial consequences is multiplied.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
