Some Republicans Balk at Writing California a Blank Check for Fire Relief, Seeking to Condition That Relief on Policy Changes

One big change they're looking at:

Many Californians don't have home insurance. They don't have it because the communist government of California banned insurance companies from raising rates commensurate with the major risk of fire (caused by the California government itself), so insurers simply stopped doing business in the state.

California's government said that the state would insure these uninsured homes -- but they don't have anywhere near the money to cover the massive losses they've caused.

So they want the rest of us to pay for their folly. As usual.

California will now be demanding that the citizens of the non-communist states pay for the costs of their communism.

They need to be told that communists can pay for themselves with all their magical communist money.

As wildfires rage in California, Republicans in Washington have begun discussing whether to condition federal aid on changes to policies they blame for the blazes.

"It's part of the discussion right now," Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. "People are unwilling to just stroke a check for something that, quite honestly, they still have a lot of questions. And obviously, the fires are still burning, so we don't even know what the total is going to be at the end of the day."

The Los Angeles area has been grappling with multiple deadly wildfires in recent days, with nearly 100,000 Californians under evacuation orders.

Officials are far from knowing what the final damage estimates will be, as well as how much additional funding will need to be approved by Congress.

But a broad cross-section of Republicans are already blaming the Democratic stronghold state's policies and management for exacerbating the issue.

"I think there's going to be a lot of questions raised about it, but we also want to work cooperatively with, you know, everybody on both sides of the aisle," House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said when asked about conditioning aid. "But I think that's just the reality. There's gonna be some questions we'll be asking."

Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee's subcommittee on housing and insurance, said it was too early to be discussing possible specific conditions but criticized California's home insurance policies.

"I think there's real issues... For far too long, California state laws have been pushing out insurers from that state, making it even harder to get home insurance," Flood told Fox News Digital.

"I think California's got to do a couple of things. They have to demonstrate that they are going to create an environment where home insurance, housing insurance, is reflected in the risk, that they understand the risk, and they are pricing accordingly. And then, as it relates to forestry management, I think there's a lot of members of Congress who will wanna say, 'How did this happen? What kind of policies led to this?'"

Meanwhile, members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who typically are adamant about steep cuts to offset any supplemental government spending, are no different on California's fires.

"It's got to be more than paid for. They've got to own it," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told reporters. "California has never been exactly the most conservative state in terms of spending. We've got to get a pound of flesh on any dollar spent on California, in my opinion."

Quick, let's reward Newsom and Bass for their incompetence.

The unnamed fire department veteran told Schellenberger's Public Substack, "We don't have enough engines, and 100 were in the shop" He also said that "Lack of leadership is the problem."

But as fires continue to rage out of control, it's increasingly clear that the response to the fires by California's leaders was inadequate. The LA Department of Water and Power had drained the city's second-largest reservoir of water, which was right near the Palisades fire, and failed to notify the County or City Fire Department. The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of "extreme fire risk" on January 2, the NWS - Los Angeles held a briefing on January 3, and yet Mayor Bass flew to Ghana anyway. Newsom did not call out the National Guard until Friday and did not mobilize national and international help until the last few days.

One thing we won't have to spend money on is an investigation into the causes of this regularly-scheduled apocalyptic fire -- because the media already has all the answers.

CBS "News" knows a secondary cause of the devastation -- and no, it's not "Democrat mismanagement."

It's "suburban sprawl." Once again, the real culprit is people who don't want to live in Democrat cities with all of their crime, disease, and misery.

Get into your Government-Provided Hab Units, sub-peons!

How suburban sprawl and climate change are making wildfires more destructive

Meanwhile, Biden is so pleased with himself that he's sending out checks in the amount of $770 to each California wildfire victim.

As PJ Media points out -- don't expect the residents of a blue state to have to beg and scrape to get that payment, as the victims of the hurricane in North Carolina and Georgia had to.

Unprecedented? It happens every other year, like clockwork.

Julia Roberts, who campaigned for Kamala and who supported, I'd bet every dime I have, the "reform" to criminal law decriminalizing crime, is now angry that the homes of her rich Hollywood pals are being looted.

Julia Roberts delivered a spicy comment to criminals who are preying on the vulnerable during the LA fires.

On Monday the Pretty Woman star took to Instagram with a rare remark.

'F.U. looters,' wrote the mother of three who is married to movie cinematographer Danny Moder.

Indeed, looters are still targeting empty mansions in the $10M range that have been left unsupervised as families evacuate. In many areas the fire alarms are off because the power is out. And police are not accessing the areas easily due to fire hazards.

This comes as California governor Gavin Newsom accused the tech billionaire Elon Musk of 'encouraging looting.'

Musk said that Gavin was decriminalizing looting but that is not true.

'Stop encouraging looting by lying and telling people it's decriminalized. It's not,' Newsom wrote. 'It's illegal -- as it always has been.'

So Musk is encouraging looting? Seems that your decriminalizing crime and emboldening criminals and emptying the prisons encouraged the looting.

About 30 people have been arrested for suspected looting.

Most of Julia's post was about the devastation over the Palisades fires. 'There is so much healing and help needed. We will get through this,' wrote the Oscar-winning star.

F.U. has-been.

The Daily Mail wants you to know that the looters have "all share one common trait."

The one thing they have in common is that they all traveled to do their looting.

Why, what did you think I meant?

Racists!

Dozens of those accused of looting homes and stores in the ritzy Pacific Palisades enclave of LA during the deadly fires have been pictured in police mugshots.

Cops charged more than 40 detainees with various offenses including burglary and drug possession since the fires broke out on January 7.

Remarkably, none of those arrested were actually living in the evacuation zone and seemingly travelled with the intention of taking advantage of the devastation.

posted by Ace at 06:35 PM

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