LAist:
Fact check: What really happened with the Pacific Palisades water hydrants?
LADWP’s explanation for the shortage comes down to three nearby water tanks, each with a storage capacity of about a million gallons. These tanks help maintain enough pressure for water to travel in uphill areas through pipes to homes and fire hydrants — but the pressure had decreased due to heavy water use, and officials knew the tanks couldn’t keep up the drain forever.
“We pushed the system to the extreme,” LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones said in a news conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”
According to LADWP, the tanks’ water supply needed to be replenished in order to provide enough pressure for the water to flow through fire hydrants uphill. But officials said as firefighters drew more and more water from the trunk line, or main supply, they used water that would have refilled the tanks, eventually depleting them.
Those fires needed air based firefighting, prevented by the same winds spreading the fire. Sometimes, there’s not much anyone could do. But that won’t stop exploitation of the disaster.
A longish tweet post because it’s of great interest [Threadreader is unavailable]. Jake Bittle is an environmental reporter for Grist.
John Stoehr/Editorial Board:
Trump won’t implode on his own. The chaos is the point
Some say he’ll “overstep,” but amid the insanity, what does that mean?
“Trump cannot help himself,” the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson told Salon Monday. “He’s an agent of chaos who has to inject himself into every story, whether it’s helpful or not. He nearly derailed the budget to cause a shutdown and weakened [House Speaker Mike] Johnson even more. He empowered [Elon] Musk and is now upset he’s stealing the spotlight … As always, I remain hopeful the American people will see the terrible consequences and push back to correct his oversteps.”
But the chaos isn’t a liability.
It’s how Trump is going to prevent his supporters from feeling the consequences of their choices. Liberals and Democrats believe those people fucked around when they voted for him. Now they’ll find out.
They won’t.
Adrian Carrasquillo/The Bulwark:
‘He’s compromised’—NYC Dems Fear Mayor Will Trade Deportations For Trump Pardon
Eric Adams is politically vulnerable, under indictment, and has just one card left to play.
Adams’s tough-on-immigration turn reflects a larger shift among Democrats across the country as they try to stabilize their standing after November’s election losses. But unlike the rest of his party, the New York City mayor has an incentive that isn’t entirely political.
Hounded by prosecutors, who on Wednesday revealed they had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Adams, facing a possible trial in April, and staring down the possibility of 45 years in jail if convicted, there appears to be one last hope for hizzoner: a pardon from Trump.
And Trump knows it. Asked at a Mar-a-Lago press conference in December if he would consider a pardon for Adams, the president-elect said he was open to it.
“Yeah I would,” Trump said. “I think that he was treated pretty unfairly.”
Trump, Hegseth and the Honor of the American Military
When it comes to articulating a vision of American warfare, Mr. Trump is the least hypocritical president of my adult life. He does not promise to spread democracy or human rights or a liberal, international rules-based order. He does not claim we’re a shining city on a hill. “We’ve got a lot of killers,” he has said instead. “What? You think our country’s so innocent?” He has stated smaller, less idealistic goals: our borders, secure; our economy, soaring; our wars, ended. These are most presidents’ goals, of course, but Mr. Trump expresses them plainly, even crassly.
Given this, it seems unlikely that Mr. Trump will start a disastrous war in a faraway country to “free its people and defend the world,” as George W. Bush did, or make appeals to international law in Ukraine while ignoring it in Gaza, like President Biden. And if and when Mr. Trump does kill people overseas, he’s more likely to claim they “died like a dog” than perform hand-wringing the way Barack Obama did about how he wanted to save them but “the world they were a part of, and the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead.” After so much presidential windbaggery, Mr. Trump’s bracing cynicism is almost refreshing.
But this sort of amoral pragmatism, especially in matters of war, has its limits and dangers. It will inevitably run up against a core belief in America’s identity as a nation, the belief in the moral obligation to strive to conduct and fight wars honorably. It’s a belief I still hold and that millions of Americans do, too.
Axios:
Biden job gains top Trump and Obama
The big picture: There have been more jobs gained under Biden's term than under the full terms of former Presidents Trump, Obama, or George W. Bush.
By the numbers: Biden is now at +16.1 million, aided by the post-pandemic economic recovery.
- Trump oversaw 2.1 million job losses, although there were 6.6 million jobs added during his first three years in office (i.e., pre-pandemic years).
- Obama oversaw 7.1 million job gains, with losses at the beginning of his first term due to the Great Financial Crisis.
- Bush oversaw 5.2 million job gains.
Cliff Schecter on the LA wildfires:
