Burning Questions about the Los Angeles Fires

"Your far-left policies have ruined our state and also, our party.” Could angry statements from California Democrats toward Newsom and Bass show they're waking up from the woke policies at last?

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Last night, I spoke with family and friends in Los Angeles. They said these fires are cropping up everywhere, and it’s strange… almost like they’ve been planned. My daughter said the other night the winds were so bad she thought the house would break apart. They haven’t had power since Tuesday. I wish I was there and not so far away.

Both my son and my sister-in-law said they suspected the fire near them had been started by an arsonist.

Their suspicions were right. An arson suspect was arrested Thursday night near the Kenneth Fire, after being accused of attempting to ignite a new blaze with a “flamethrower”. Residents who spotted the suspect held him down until officers arrived. It’s heartening to see Angelenos coming together to stop crime, rather than getting on their phones to film it.

There’s not a lot of good news about these fires, so I do want to say something positive to start. Communities come together in disasters. I’ve seen this over and over in Los Angeles, and it’s happening now, especially among religious communities.

In Alta Dena, the wildfires destroyed Altadena Community Church, as well as several homes owned by members of the congregation of about 60 people. The church, built in the 1940’s, was known for its colorful stained glass and for hosting a popular choir.

The church’s Facebook page shared images of the building engulfed in flames. Another photo showed parishioners singing outdoors. Underneath, the image it read: “WE are the church! We can worship anywhere.”

At least one historic synagogue, the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, was completely destroyed by fire, but not before community members battled challenging conditions to remove the Conservative congregation’s 13 Torah scrolls.

Los Angeles’ Jewish community — the second largest in the United States — has swung into action, attempting to provide relief and reassurance, opening their doors to those who have fled their homes. A Jewish loan society is doling out funds to people who must start from scratch. And local Jewish eateries are fanning out to distribute free food to firefighters. (1)

This is all reminiscent of the Los Angeles I used to know and love; a city where government officials as well as residents felt a sense of pride and responsibility for their communities.

On the phone with my sister-in-law, we reminisced on how firefighters used to regularly do controlled burnings, but not anymore. This isn’t the firefighters’ fault. It’s the fault of officials who would rather residents’ homes burn down than spend money on preventive measures.

Officials like mayor Karen Bass have more important things on their minds. She left for Ghana as the fires were starting.

Bass was part of a delegation to celebrate the inauguration of Ghana President John Mahama, and to meet the country's first female vice president.

Really? I would like to know why celebrating an African country’s first female vice president is so important to the mayor of LA. We’re tired of “the first female” this, and “the first black” that, and “the first trans” this, and “the first lesbian” that.

We don’t choose a heart surgeon because she is the “first black lesbian” to hold that position at a hospital. Anyone who did that would be insane. We decide based on their ability because we don’t want to die on the operating table.

It seems even leftist celebrities have finally had enough, probably because their homes have burned down, too.

“Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank God drug addicts are getting their drug kits.” This comment came from activist actor Sarah Foster, daughter of music mogul, David Foster.

Calling on mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom to resign, she said, “your far-left policies have ruined our state. And also, our party.” Yes, she’s a Democrat.

Both of these crooks should resign. But they’ll probably only do it kicking and screaming as they are pushed out the door.

It wasn’t that long ago that U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was forced to step down following the assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump, with Republicans largely blaming her DEI hiring policies.

Cheatle made big claims in a 2023 report that, “The strength of our organization is in seeking out the boundless benefits of diversity.”

Under her leadership, the Secret Service vowed to offer “leadership training on how best to support LGBTQ+ employees” and “training on unconscious bias” which is the idea that all white people are innately racist and tries to guide more “inclusive decisions” while “increasing empathy” for minorities.

Of course, not all government incompetence can be laid at the feet of DEI policies. But we would be remiss if we didn’t say they played a significant role.

The Los Angeles Fire Department proudly followed the same DEI hiring policies as the Secret Service, as these 3 top LAFD hires show.

Kristina Crowley

Kristin Crowley, LAFD Fire Chief — Salary: $439,722

Crowley’s LAFD website bio states she is the first female and LGBTQ+ Fire Chief.

In this hilarious, very short parody video, you will see how, in 2022 Crowley announces the launch of a three-year plan to build the department based on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Three years later, we see the results of Crowley’s DEI with other two top LAFD hires.

Kristine Larson

Kristine Larson - Equity Bureau Chief LAFD. Salary: $399,000

Her LAFD bio lauds her as the “first African American woman to be promoted” and it lists all her ranks. It also boasts:

She has completed a DEI certification program through Cornell University and is participating in the International Association of Fire Chief’s Diversity Executive Leadership Program which aims to advance DEI within the fire service, with a cohort of members from around the Country.

Kristina Kepner

Kristina Kepner - Assistant Chief LAFD. Salary: $264,468

Kepner is the first LGBTQ+ Assistant Chief and a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School for Managing Diverse Organizations. Although it was hushed up, she has been accused of a domestic violence incident involving her girlfriend, which is under investigation.

Most people don’t care if you’re white, black, brown, green, or purple; gay or straight. Most people don’t even care if you think you’re a chicken, as long as you’re the best for the job.

Of course, anyone who thinks they’re a chicken is crazy, so that should automatically disqualify them. But we are not even supposed to say that, for fear we will offend somebody.

Just get rid of DEI and I will no longer have to write such awkward articles about a person’s sexual preference or the color of their skin. We can get back a hiring policy that makes sense.

But there are bigger questions. Such as, who will benefit from these fires?

Because above our pesky officials are those with even more power dictating policies and exploiting every disaster.

Remember the Maui fires? 80% of historic Lahaina was destroyed or damaged.

Within one week of the fire being contained, investors were calling Lahaina residents who lost their homes, offering to buy their land, as this video posted to Instagram shows.

As Native Hawaiians struggled with homelessness and finding affordable housing in their own homeland, billionaires were buying up their land and houses.

Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have purchased land on Kauai totaling 1,500 acres, which is more than what the government of Kauai owns (975 acres). Oprah Winfrey owns more than the government as well, at 1,000 acres.

Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Nvidia president and CEO Jensen Huang, and Workday co-founder David Duffield all own sprawling properties on the island of Maui. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison owns nearly all of the nearby island of Lanai that’s part of Maui County.

These billionaires look after each other, not the residents of Maui, creating their own little fiefdoms. As a result, it’s become harder for Native Hawaiians and other residents to afford living on Maui.

Will Los Angeles suffer the same fate as Maui residents? Of course, they will.

Wildfires have caused an insurance crisis, leaving hundreds of thousands of Californians struggling to find and keep affordable homeowners’ insurance.

State Farm, the state’s largest home insurer, announced in March it would not renew 72,000 property insurance policies, while Chubb and its subsidiaries stopped writing new high-value homes with higher wildfire risk — just to name two insurers that pulled back from the California market.

Actor James Woods, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, tweeted Tuesday that “one of the major insurances companies canceled all the policies in our neighborhood about four months ago.”

I have watched tragic videos of people standing in front of their destroyed homes, saying their policies had already been dropped months before the fires, and they cannot afford to rebuild.

Yes, celebrities lost their homes, but somehow, I think they’ll be okay with their two or three other homes. These middle-class residents are now homeless. As if homelessness wasn’t already a horrific crisis in Los Angeles.

Who will swoop in and offer these desperate people a pittance for their property? Companies like Blackrock have made billions out of buying up homes that people can no longer afford, renting them back to the very same people for exorbitant amounts.

It’s not just Blackrock, though. Blackstone, a company historically related to Blackrock, has been doing this for a much longer time.

According to Business Insider:

While the outrage cycle has fixated on BlackRock, the firm is far from the largest or most prolific Wall Street player in the now booming single-family-rental business. And it wasn't an industry pioneer — that honor goes to another large investment firm with a similar-sounding name: Blackstone.

Blackstone, led by the Trump ally and major fundraiser Stephen Schwarzman, created an institutional strategy out of the wreckage of the financial collapse of 2008, gobbling up foreclosed homes at auctions and renting them out for a profit.

Single-family rentals have become one of the major bright spots for the commercial-real-estate industry as the performance of traditional investment categories in the sector such as offices and hotels remains muddled in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The greed and corruption at the top, whether it be our government, the billionaires or the companies they run, is as out of control as these fires. In fact, the bigger the disaster, just like Covid, the more money the uber wealthy make and the less power ordinary citizens have to fight against them.

This is creating the kind of rage that might send an arsonist to start another fire.

To ensure rage isn’t directed at those who deserve it, guess who’s being blamed once again? The Jews.

Several anti-Israel groups and commentators linked the war in Gaza and US military spending on Israel to the catastrophic fires.

Code Pink, a far-left activist group, said on Instagram, “When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.”

The New York branch of the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, in an Instagram post about the fires, said, “Instead of putting resources toward making our country livable, our government is putting billions toward Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Fatima Mohammed, a leader of New York’s hardline anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime, posted an image of the fires and said, “The flames of Gaza will not stop there.”

“Dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on Gaza, turning it into a blazing inferno, has consequences,” she said. “There are climate consequences that will find us all.”

Commentator Mehdi Hasan also linked US military aid to Israel to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget.

The Los Angeles Fire Department is mainly funded by the city of Los Angeles, while military spending for Israel comes from the federal government.

New York Congressman Ritchie Torres, one of Israel’s most outspoken supporters in Washington, lashed Code Pink for blaming Israel for the fires.

“The nature of Antisemitism is to scapegoat the Jewish People and the Jewish State for everything wrong in the world — no matter how tenuous the causal connection,” he said on X. “The modus operandi of Antisemitism is slanderous scapegoating: when in doubt, blame the Jews.”

In my previous article, Land of Fires and Corruption, I went into the history of fires in Los Angeles and, guess what, not once since 1900 have Jews been mentioned as a cause of LA fires. Only now.

Perhaps they will claim the arsonist that has just been apprehended is a Jew, part of a Mossad and CIA plot.

If these anti-Jewish activists really cared about indigenous people, they would have been protesting against the billionaires on Maui. They would have demanded the United States give back the land that was taken from Native Hawaiians after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. And they would still be demanding it until they were successful, they wouldn’t be spending their energy on a tiny country on the other side of the world.

In fact, they would be demanding California give itself back to Mexico and Spain. Wait, that’s not right. California should give itself back to the tribes that were here before the Mexicans and the Spanish.

See how insane this gets? It all started with the woke takeover, DEI policies, and irrational agendas pushed on an already unhappy public that has caused ever increasing suffering and injustice, now conveniently blamed on the Jews.

We all know what happened in Germany when Hitler managed to turn discontent and anger with economic hardships onto Jews as the scapegoats. 6 million Jews died. That same Jew hatred has been resurrected and spread across the world thanks to social media.

We cannot let that happen in the United States. Stay rational. Put blame where it belongs. Blame the arsonists. But more than that, blame our government officials because without their corruption and ineptitude the arsonists wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

And even more than that, blame the corrupt and greedy billionaire class for paying off the government officials with their agenda to own everything and everyone.

Let’s take this opportunity to come together as our Christian and Jewish communities are reminding us. Yes, that’s what we should do!

Note: James Woods made it back to his house and it has been spared while houses around it had not.