Summary
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California during ongoing Los Angeles wildfires that have killed at least 16 people and destroyed over 12,000 structures.
Davidson criticized California’s forest management policies, echoing misleading right-wing claims that poor management, not climate change, is to blame.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom refuted these claims, noting that the state’s forest management budget has increased tenfold since 2019.
Davidson’s comments follow a pattern of GOP blaming state policies for disasters, similar to rhetoric from Trump.
This is where we are now: fall in line with status quo, or burn.
They can’t get the independent and free-thinking side of America to support them, so now they will leverage health and safety to force them into submission.
Correct
Reminder that the late asshole, Jim Imhofe, did delay hurricane relief aid to hurricane Sandy victims. You don’t see them attempting this asshole behavior for relief to Oklahoma or Florida. Every time I have suggested that someone reciprocate this behavior for red state aid, I have been shouted down. Because the behavior goes unpunished, it continues.
It’s important to remember Republicans do not see voting as a way of selecting representative leadership.
They see it as a litmus test for the peasants, any who do not vote for the One True American Party are traitors to the state and must be punished.
Reminder that California pays the highest federal taxes in the country and has never once complained about the cost of rebuilding in Florida despite annual devastating hurricanes or rebuilding in “tornado alley” despite frequent devastating tornadoes. People keep rebuilding their houses there and we never say shit.
Californians did not build their houses in wildfire country, they built them in areas that were previously safe and have now become tinderboxes thanks to climate change. It’s not our fault that we are stuck holding the bag, but at least have the common courtesy of extending us the exact same aid money we send out to other high risk areas.
Great post but I have one quibble.
Californians did not build their houses in wildfire country
In fact we did. Most of the state is comprised of fire-adapted ecosystems. I think it would be more correct to say that we built in wildfire country when the impacts of wildfire were manageable.
I only mention this because I believe it’s important to accept that fire is good and a part of these ecosystems that we need to embrace if we are going to live in them. It’s not that climate change has “introduced” fire it’s that it, the scale of human development, and over a century of misguided fire management has made it so dramatically impactful.
Okay, that’s a very fair point. Perhaps we are not giving enough acknowledgement to the fact that we are living in a place that historically has been extremely fire-prone and that if we had bothered to ask the native tribes living here when we arrived, they probably would have warned us that settling in this area with buildings meant to last is probably not the best idea.
Absolutely. They could also have given us a lot of important information on how to handle it all through cultural burning. Instead we made their practices illegal and jailed/killed native americans for doing what they’ve done for millennia in part to “protect” timber “resources” but mainly to drive them off their land.
An interesting tangent here is that the ecosystems here are co-adapted to these cultural practices. IOW, native burning of areas has co-existed with and altered the landscape over thousands of years. The notion that this land was “untrammeled by man” is racist fiction.
Yosemite Valley is a good example of this and you can even compare what it looked like in photos from the 19th century. It was predominantly wide-open meadow with widely spaced very large trees that were extremely resistant to fire. We suppressed fire and now it’s incredibly susceptible to it. Duh.
The good news is that we are finally waking up to the importance of this historical native knowledge and their practices.
Here’s an interesting recent article on this: https://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods-magazine/autumn-winter-2024/banned-for-100-years-cultural-burns-could-save-sequoias/
And this one talks about Yosemite and nearby areas in particular: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/how-indigenous-practice-good-fire-can-help-our-forests-thrive
Deny us aid and we stop sending you more federal taxes than any other state…by far.
We could use that money here.
Almost every single red state is a welfare queen. They exist as parasites to better run, Democratic economies, and subsist on Federal largesse.
Let’s play the game. Cut these shitheel states down to their state-level economies, and use the funding for programs that allow citizens to move OUT of those states.
Now THAT is what I’m talking about! Finally someone who has an answer to the question “How and with what cash?”, when we Southerners are told to “Just move!”
Fuck Ohio then. GGez. Don’t @ me about hypocrisy I’m done with it.
Honest question here … What is Ohio good for? For a state that often determines elections and can have one idiot withhold money by a baseless opinion, exactly what does that state do that holds so much sway over the rest of the country and other states?
It provides comic relief.
When you’re driving, it’s better than Indiana or Kentucky or west Virginia, as well as being on par with western PA. So it’s part of a gradient of shittiness.
What is Ohio good for?
It helps you remember the Japanese word for “good morning”.
This is how I remember: https://youtu.be/JyFI-jpDkQA
Why do you think the kids use “Ohio” as in insult.
Like “You got skibidi ohio riz”
bOtH siDeS!
That was the old thing. The new thing is bOtH siDeS riGgEd SyStEm!
Then instead of doing anything you do nothing and it’s the same result. Much more convenient.
Do it, do it. Watch the federal budget crash without California.
It’s not like we can just choose not to pay federal taxes in response to this.
(Would be nice if we just seceded.)
Literally waiting for succession already. Please. California can sustain itself can we please leave already?
I think you are implying they could charge more in state taxes so the feds don’t get the money. Sadly in the California housing market, that $10k limit makes it meaningless.
These idiots really aren’t thinking through the repercussions of denying aid to a population that’s greater than almost every one of their states. What happens when pissed off Angelinos with nothing to loose start driving out to Ohio with a few gas cans and road flares?
The people fighting back is the only thing that will get the GOP to behave
I’d be curious to see how much $$$$ damage/relief is given to hurricane victims compared to fire…
Somehow all those Republican States deserve hurricane disaster relief but Californian’s don’t?
Lots of them voted “no” when it came time to help NJ and NY.
There is a small petty part of me that hopes it degenerates into no aid approval for anyone. The South is gonna get more hurricanes, they’ll break first
I don’t hope that of course, because people will suffer.
Probably the same thing that keeps happening to us: our state government will fuck us raw and gerrymander a bit harder as an extra fuck you. They might attack trans people and/or Marijuana in response as well as JD Vance decries such things as symptoms of coastal elitism.
Fuck I hate what they’ve done to my home
Not much. Ohio is covered in snow right now.
I’m in about the least snowy part of the state and I have almost a foot on the ground still.
So fucking tired of these clowns.
California could just not pay the US gov that much easily. They get MUCH more from Cali than Cali gets from them…I hope it doesnt come to that though.
Luigi-stares
Never mind how baseline dry California is. It’s so dry, your lips start to chap just being there. Embers in hurricane winds landing on exquisitely dry grass, brush, trees.
People who live in deserts get it. A semi can have a chain dangle too low, hit the highway, and start a brush fire.
Pod Save America has some solid, direct info on it.
Ohio was on the verge of similar wildfires because of the drought this year too. There was a stretch of several weeks where the shoe was almost on the other foot. I think it was more luck, than anything, that we made it into winter largely unscathed.
