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.

  • WrenFeathers@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      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.

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      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.

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          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

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Deny us aid and we stop sending you more federal taxes than any other state…by far.

    We could use that money here.

  • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      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!”

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    2 days ago

    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?

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      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.

  • Aphelion@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    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?

    • ShadowRam@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      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?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      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

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      3 days ago

      Or, you know, just moving there and voting those a-holes out of office? The average default Lemming reaction being violence is getting old.

      • half_fiction@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        I mean, the fact that those people would then have to live there kind of insulates the politicians from those consequences. It’s not so simple to move your entire life, but to do so in order to live somewhere you don’t actually want to, so you can be one small drop in the bucket toward maybe voting one of these jerks out 2 years from now? Ridiculous, quite frankly, and not something enough people would ever be willing to do (rightfully so) to turn the tides.

      • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Californians have been moving to Texas and voting for decades without change. They have these red states so fucked on gerrymandering. Look at the voting district map of Austin TX and see exactly why that won’t work. Those map drawing folks llooooove them a good snake drawing.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Right wing Californians keep moving to Ohio and being real assholes to us left wing ohioans. Like dude you moved to a major city, idk why you thought there wouldn’t be a lot of queer and left wing people here

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            The Californians moving to Texas aren’t typically Democrats. California has more Republicans than Texas, after all.

            There’s also just a lot of generally apolitical people who move to cheaper (generally red) states from California, New York, etc. for totally apolitical reasons. Not everyone cares about the cultural advantages of living in a city and just want a big house with a yard to have steak and potatoes in every night. They might as well move to Idaho and live their best life.

            Not to pick on Idaho, specifically. It’s just a land where the potatoes and cows are plentiful.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            Sure, but with tons of voter suppression and when a Democrat becomes governor in a state with a GOP controlled legislature, they transfer powers from the governor to themselves before the new governor even takes office.

            It’s happened 3 times in the last decade or less and since nobody did anything to stop it or even punish the ones responsible afterwards, it’s going to keep happening.

          • AquaTofana@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Bruh, this fact right here is truly what made me give up on Texas. Gerrymandering IS a valid excuse for the federal elections.

            But when Greg Abbott, and Dan Patrick won AGAIN?!, I immediately was like “Fuck this state and everyone in it. We get what we deserve.”

      • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Proposing a ridiculous solution like “just move there and vote” as if it is a viable option, is just as tiresome.

        • Oyml77
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          3 days ago

          I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I get the same sort of feeling when I am told I should just pick up and move out of Florida when I’ve lived here my whole life. I don’t like the bullshit policies these clowns like DeSantis put in place, but running away doesn’t help things either. Better to try to work to make people see how shitty the politicians are making life for everyone here than running to greener pastures.

          At least until the climate forces me out, which may come sooner than I want.

          • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            No worries, I don’t take it as argumentative, just expressing your opinion, same as me. 🙂

            My general thought is, if you don’t like where you live AND you can leave, take action and go. But in many cases, leaving just isn’t an option. I know this all too well. I hate Oklahoma. I hate the politics of it. I hate that it’s always 20 years in the past compared to any other state. I hate the people wanting to strike up a convo while I’m in line to get my groceries. I hate the “good ol boy” culture and the obsession over sports trucks and hunting. I hate so much about this place. But I can’t afford to leave. I’ve tried to save many times but wages are so suppressed here and getting an out of state job is such a bitch, I can’t. Still trying a decade down the road with the same road blocks and will keep trying till I die.

            But until then, I vote in everything I can. I try to make it work. I take opportunity to disagree with bad politics when I can. I try to make the best of what I’ve got. Because I can’t do anything else. Do what you can, when you can, where you are is my general philosophy for this. Bit rambly but hope that makes sense.

            • Oyml77
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              2 days ago

              Extremely relatable response and sounds pretty close to my situation as well.

          • ubergeek
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            2 days ago

            Im confused as to why all these people who purport to hate their government, do nothing while living in a stand your ground state.

            Lots of ground to stand on…

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Now that many of them don’t have homes, provided they don’t get scammed out of their insurance money, moving to some of these states might be a decent financial option. Then they can vote these assholes out.

  • mesamune@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    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.

  • graycube@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.