STARTING WITH A BANG — The Weekly Opine

Both of these events happened. In other words, your eyes did not deceive you. (Photos credit ABC News, Washington Post)

And it’s not yet January 20th

The year 2025 is off to a tumultuous start. Most notably, the news has shown us unimaginable devastation caused by wildfires rampaging across Los Angeles. Several days of ceremonies honoring former President Jimmy Carter captured our attention last week. And the impending swearing in of Trump – now officially a felon – weighs on our minds. The future of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance, in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Oh, and the newly released special counsel report inarguably proves Trump’s culpability in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. The report makes clear Special Counsel Jack Smith would have convicted Trump, if not for the utterly ridiculous Department of Justice mandate not to prosecute sitting presidents.

The celebration of Jimmy Carter, 100 years after his birth, was a poignant reminder of what constitutes a great man. Watching Carter’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., it became apparent that Carter in death runs circles around the five presidents in attendance. Former presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and current President Biden all are less than Carter. The funeral also raised questions about who is legit and who is phony.

Remember after the election, the sickening sight of Biden shaking hands with Trump in the Oval Office? And Biden and First Lady Jill smiling broadly while posing for a photo with Hitler sympathizer Trump? Seeing Obama chatting and chuckling with Trump at Carter’s funeral was equally disgusting.

Wishy-washy Democrats should stop normalizing Trump. (Photos credit Daily Sabah, Politico)

Honestly, sometimes it feels like we’re being played. The sight of our nation’s first Black president being chummy with racist Trump makes politics appear to be related to pro wrestling, where actors pretend to hate each other inside the ring, but outside the arena are pals. To those who claim decorum forced Obama (and Al Gore and Mike Pence) to play nice with Trump, I say normalizing Trump’s fascist behavior leads to more Trump fascist behavior. It took Pence’s wife, Karen, to demonstrate how to treat Trump when he’s in the company of civilized folks. Mrs. Pence snubbed Trump.

If only patsies like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Washington Post CEO Jeff Bezos, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai would locate their manhood rather than suck up to Trump by delivering $1 million checks for Trump’s inauguration.

Both events are real

What began January 7, 2025, in Los Angeles, and what’s transpired since, is real. Same as January 6, 2021, in the nation’s capital. That was also real. Yet, MAGAs would have you believe January 6 was not an insurrection but a peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol. The same MAGAs are adamant the burning fires in L.A. are real, caused by “woke” progressive policies.

Non-authority, dippy Rep. Marjorie Greene insists that cloud seeding – which she previously argued was nefariously used to start hurricanes – should be implemented to douse the fires in L.A. Meteorologists and climate experts took Greene to task for her stupidity. Atmospheric scientist Matthew Cappucci says the relative humidity in L.A. is far too low to induce rain. In other words, for cloud seeding to work moisture must be present. Greene, as is the case with virtually every topic she wanders in to, is out of her league, lacking the credibility or the intelligence to support her outlandish claims.

Trump and other uninformed MAGA Republicans are lying about what California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did, or did not do, prior to the fires. According to experts at UCLA, there is not a water system in the world that could have prevented, or quickly doused, the fires that exploded in L.A. Two years of extreme rain, which increased vegetation, combined with extreme drought last summer and no rain this fall resulted in an abundance of dried-out vegetation leaving L.A. vulnerable to the catastrophic disaster we are witnessing.

No fire system on Earth could have prevented this. (Photo credit YouTube)

As is the norm for Trump, rather than help or provide solutions, he is all bluster. Which is a reminder of his bloviating when the covid pandemic arrived in America. Fifteen cases “will soon be near zero,” said the buffoon Trump back in 2020. The incompetence and unseriousness of the Trump administration set the stage for the U.S. to lead the globe with 1.2 million covid deaths and counting.

Everyone knows MAGA Republicans oppose taxes. They support unfair tax cuts for the wealthy. But now they complain that the L.A. fire department doesn’t have more firefighters or more resources to fight the wildfire. MAGAs also deny climate change even as, just in the last 15 years, Southern California is 9% warmer and 15% drier.

A common refrain from MAGA World is there was a shortage of water available to fight the fires, that hydrants were dry or had low pressure. Firefighting experts note that the scale of the fires in L.A. is unprecedented, as was the stress placed on the system. Los Angeles Times reporting says the 114 water tanks that supply water to L.A. were full. But firefighters used such large amounts of water over extended periods that re-filling the tanks was problematic. (A side note: artificial intelligence servers require water to keep the servers from overheating. Large AI servers can use up to one million gallons of water per year. That’s a lot of water that could be used for other purposes.)

Putting to rest inaccuracies about a water shortage, the Pacific Institute says there is no water shortage relative to normal fire fighting. The problem is urban water systems are not built to fight massive, urban wildfires. A Los Angeles fire captain commented that fighting a large single house fire requires three trucks. A reported 12,300 structures in L.A. have burned. That means it would take more than 35,000 fire trucks to fight the current L.A. wildfires. So enough with the gross, inaccurate finger pointing. Let’s come together to help people who’ve lost everything.

Karen Pence (seated) did right when she snubbed Trump. (Photos credit Daily Mail, People dot com)

Two days of infamy

On January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the leader of Germany’s government. It was a day that would be regretted by the German people, Europe and the world. There were many on both sides of the Atlantic, and along the Pacific Rim, who foolishly bought the tyranny Hitler was selling. Germany’s descent into fascism and self-destruction has been aptly documented since the end of World War II. It was and still is the most destructive, yet preventable, period in history.

On Monday, January 20, 2025, America will hand our teetering democracy to the man most responsible for the dark clouds hanging over us like a pack of lions’ hovering over a downed Wildebeest. It would be foolish to embrace a presidential inauguration that will serve as a disguise to impending oligarchy and fascism. Being seduced by the pageantry would be tantamount to Biden posing for a photo with Trump, or Obama laughing with Trump like old friends.

Do not treat Trump the same as the others who’ve taken the presidential oath of the office. Do not minimize or close your eyes to the fact that, never has the U.S. lowered its standards by electing a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to be president. A pathological liar, Trump will claim falsely that he will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution (he didn’t four years ago on January 6). Trump will lie and say he will protect Americans (he didn’t during the pandemic).

Follow Karen Pence’s lead. Snub Donald Trump. And commit to defeating his administration’s agenda of sowing fear, greed, and corruption.

Honor the life-long decency displayed by Jimmy Carter. And win the mid-terms in 2026.