It takes a special kind of wretched creep to take advantage of a deadly tragedy to advance a deadly agenda, and it is particularly obscene when a pair of creeps seemingly celebrate an ongoing disaster as retribution for some perceived, and fabricated, offense – either against a special interest or a special so-called “religion.”
America has no shortage of “creeps” in positions of authority in 2018, so it was no big shock that the nation’s chief buffoon, dumb Don Trump, and an evangelical preacher, malicious Kevin Swanson, used their platforms to score political and religious points with the imbeciles keeping Trump and the religious right in power. What is particularly noteworthy is that both Trump and the alleged “follower of Christ” failed to acknowledge the economic and human tragedy while blaming California’s conflagrations on gays and environmentalists.
The moron in the Oval revealed to Americans exactly why he is a moron, as well as why he is a monumentally poor excuse for a human being; something most Americans recognized before Trump’s poorly attended inauguration. He has long ago forfeited any right to call himself anything other than the ugliest of Americans.
Even while California was burning, and shortly after declaring an emergency, Trump could not resist an opportunity to deny science, lie, and promote some of the Koch brothers’ most-used pro-fossil fuel propaganda. Trump said by way of Tweet:
“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!
Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.”
First, there has been no shortage of water for fighting fires, and there has been no shortage of state fire officials’ and environmental scientists’ contradicting Trump’s “comedically ill-informed” remarks. That was the opinion of wildfire expert Professor Eric Kennedy who tweeted that Trump’s comments were “comedically ill-informed;” and that “it’s near impossible to overstate how ridiculous this comment is.”
California climate and water expert Peter Gleick tweeted that Trump’s explanation was “gobbledygook bullshit” and “unmitigated crap.” Mr. Gleick explained to Trump via Tweet that:
“California’s forests are burning because of past severe drought and current extreme temperatures and weather, worsened by human-caused climate change, which you think, in your fantasy world, doesn’t exist.”
Mr. Gleick’s remarks are substantiated by a couple of decades of climate scientists’ warnings, and the United States Interior Department reported a little over a year ago that “high temperatures due to man-made warming worldwide in the atmosphere — are drying out forests and creating a longer wildfire season with more intense wildfires."
Trump is correct that water from the mountains is being diverted, but it is for agriculture; including giant corporate-owned farms that are over-planting extremely water-intensive almond orchards. Water is also being diverted by global corporate giant Nestlé to its bottling operations, and then sold back to California communities lacking safe drinking water due to oil drilling and fracking operations.
What Trump failed to say is that less and less water is being made available to flow naturally to the ocean. As any eighth-grader learns, river water flowing to the ocean is crucial to keep rising sea water from creeping into America’s “salad bowl” that also is a major source of income for America’s fruit and nut industry.
Trump’s claim that California should clear cut its forests is as obscene as it is moronic and deadly. Areas that have suffered wildfires in the past generally suffer the natural result of denuding – deadly and devastating mudslides. Moreover, because of the severe droughts, literally more than 102 million trees have been lost because they were easy prey for all manner of pests and disease, and fire.
It is noteworthy that the Koch brothers have been fervent crusaders to eviscerate California’s environmental protections for the past decade at least. And they are champions of clear-cutting forests to supply paper and lumber to companies owned by Koch Industries.
Trump’s comments were as much about pandering to the Kochs et al as it was about using the ongoing tragedy to appeal to his ignorant supporters in some of the areas affected by fires
A different kind of moron, an evil evangelical preacher, had a different explanation about why California is burning and it is just as absurd as Trump’s. Kevin Swanson is a radical anti-LGBTQ radio host, a true evangelical extremist, and a conservative maniac. He is beloved by religious conservatives such as Ted Cruz and it may explain why he blamed California’s acceptance of gays as American citizens with Constitutional rights for the near-biblical conflagration events plaguing California.
On his radio program, Swanson spoke for his particularly hateful deity and proclaimed “that the wildfires are god’s punishment on the state for its years of attempting to legitimize the sin of homosexuality.”
The anti-gay “man of god” raged thus:
“If you look at the history of California, they have been at the forefront of this. The first gay pride march occurred in San Francisco in 1970 and then San Francisco legitimized homosexuality in 1972. In 1982, Laguna Beach, California, elected the first openly homosexual mayor in United States history. In 1999, California adopted a domestic partnership law; I believe it was one of the first in the nation to do that.
In 2005, California state legislators became the first in the nation to pass a same-sex marriage law … In 2008. In 2011, California became the first state to mandate homosexual indoctrination for K-8 students and then, in 2012, California became the first state to sign a ban on therapy that was attempting to convert homosexuals into non-homosexuals. And then, in 2017, the California state schools implemented the homosexual indoctrination program … and that was the kickoff for the biggest fires that California has ever seen in its history.
So God is burning down California in 2017 and 2018 after about 25 years of leading the pack to legitimize the sin of homosexuality in that state.”
There is not much to say about Swanson’s vile remarks except that California has not “mandated homosexual indoctrination for K-8 students,” and it has not “implemented the homosexual indoctrination program.” Most of this author’s family and friends, and spouse, are current K-8 public school teachers; implementation of “the homosexual indoctrination program” has never come up in any conversation. Public schools have banned bullying against LGBTQ students, but no rational human being considers it “mandated homosexual indoctrination.”
Of course California banned “gay conversion therapy;” the state will also ban therapies using raw sewage in syringes as a cure for cancer and diabetes if some idiotic religious group attempts to pass it off as “therapy.” It is also a certainty that the state has some statute in effect banning 1-year-old infants from performing brain and heart surgery, despite how intelligent their parents claim they are.
It is true that no sane human being believes that gays, laws protecting gays from discrimination, or that environmental laws or water management officials are responsible for exactly what climate scientists began warning decades ago was in the offing due to anthropogenic climate change – longer and more intense wildfires. In addition, California is not the only state on fire.
Thus far in 2018 New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and California have or are suffering wildfires; and none of those states are implementing homosexual indoctrination programs. A few of those states are landlocked and have no ocean to divert water towards or harsh environmental regulations. What they all have in common is the predicted effects of climate change; the primary reason California is burning exactly like 97 percent of climate scientists predicted it would decades ago.
The greatest tragedy of despicable brutes using a disaster to promote their vile agendas is that there are a significant number of Americans, primarily Trump supporters in the racist and the evangelical movements, who believe everything Trump and Swanson say is gospel truth. Those imbeciles supporting Trump and reveling in anti-gay hatred, even those in California, are the reason there will be even less action on climate change – especially when charlatans convince morons it’s the gays and environmentalists fault.