While Los Angeles Burns, Mayor Bass Parties in Ghana, Fire Chief Fiddles

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went on a junket to Ghana as part of a Biden administration delegation to President John Dramani’s inauguration despite indications that fire season was about to begin.

Bass is reportedly on her way back as of Wednesday morning and “should return to the city within hours,” according to Newsweek. To that, Los Angelenos should probably give a collective shrug and go back to whatever they were doing — because Bass and the rest of California’s ruling Democrats have baked in the damage already.

Let’s start with this little tidbit.

Karen Bass cut fire dept funding by $17.6M.

That was her 2nd biggest cut. pic.twitter.com/RwcQWqEZ8a

— Film The Police LA (@FilmThePoliceLA) January 8, 2025

Cutting fire protection in Los Angeles is like turning off tornado warning sirens in Oklahoma City. It might not come back to bite you right away on the rear end, but eventually, it’s guaranteed to.

When you think of fighting fires, probably one of the first things you think of is water — and lots of it. And yet making sure there was plenty of water wasn’t on Los Angeles County’s to-do list.

🚨 #BREAKING: Los Angeles fire hydrants are OUT OF WATER because the county REFUSED to refill reservoirs, per Rick Caruso

“You can’t fight a fire without water!”

The Mayor did ZERO prep despite the advanced warning of winds and fire risk.

This is EXACTLY what happened on Maui! pic.twitter.com/fBj445yGgw

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 8, 2025

Then there’s Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, whom local ABC7 celebrated as “the first LGBTQ+ person to the lead the department, [and] also the first woman.” Her focus seems to have been less on fighting fires and more on launching the “Los Angeles Fire Department’s first-ever Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Bureau (DEI) focused on ensuring a safe, diverse, and inclusive workplace for all.”

Crowley can fiddle with DEI while Pacific Pallisades burns.

Both of those previous links are courtesy of FrontPageMag’s Daniel Greenfield, who wrote, “Right now, I think even the most die-hard woke in LA would take competence over diversity.” The problem, of course, is they didn’t choose competence over diversity when it mattered most. By the time the fires start and the winds whip up, it’s too late.

Looking higher up the ladder of Democrat governance, here’s a guy who has been there and done that — my friend and Townhall colleague Kurt Schlichter:

I commanded two reinforced battalions in Northern San Diego County during the 2007 fires. I am wondering if the Cal Army Guard has been mobilized yet. Seems Newsom and the other Democrats running the state have been caught off guard yet again.

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) January 8, 2025

Yeah, well, in 2007 California had a Republican governor — its last, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But even a nominal RINO like Arnold showed more basic competence than California’s Permanent Democratic Majority.

“This is not climate change, this is criminal negligence,” one X user noted.

Let me remind you of something Rahm Emanuel said during the 2008 financial crisis: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Crises are a government’s favorite justification for bigger and more powerful government. Even if sometimes it has to manufacture the crisis itself.