It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand what took place in Los Angeles and the surrounding area last week. Thousands of homes were burnt to the ground with most people thankfully able to escape with their lives.
The estimate on the damage incurred and what it will take to rebuild is being bandied about as approximately $50 billion. It’s important to note that at this point around 25 people have lost their lives either trying to fight the fires or just standing firm and refusing to leave under any circumstances. More than a dozen people are missing and still not accounted for.
At the same time, interestingly, at the zenith of the crisis in LA in which it was revealed the fire hydrants had no water to extinguish the rapidly racing flames, there was the abbreviated untelevised sentencing of Donald Trump in New York on charges that most legal experts insist will be reversed on appeal sometime during the next few months to a year.
In the meantime, anti-Trump Democratic Party leftists will be able to factually pronounce at events like his inauguration in a few days that “this is the first president of the United States who is also a convicted felon.”
That was the partial fallback goal all along after it became clear that the lawfare effort and the weaponization of the legal system would not succeed in destroying Mr. Trump’s objective to serve a second term in the White House.
The Trump sentencing last Friday had the impact of a feather falling from a skyscraper. The funniest thing I heard the other day was that Joe Biden is calling for a ceasefire in Los Angeles.
The more interesting matter here is that the fires in LA dominated the news to such an extent that there was hardly a mention at all of the Trump sentencing (which barely qualified as a sentencing for any “crime” at any level).
The real sentence was that the leftist news media will be able to refer to the president as “the first convicted felon” to serve in office. That’s about the long and short of it. But the real news is the wildfires in Los Angeles, the inability of the fire department to control them, and the potential loss of over 10,000 homes. With the powerful winds expected, any new spark can turn into a raging inferno. To get an idea of the size of the catastrophe, the total area burned by the Eaton, Palisades, and Hurst fires is roughly 60 square miles, or an area larger than Paris.
There was hardly any interest in the Trump sentencing, nor was there any room in the news to talk about it. Instead, we are watching the political careers of Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass implode before our eyes. We know now she was at an embassy cocktail party in Ghana as the Palisades fire erupted.
In the end, Trump’s years-long legal saga came to a wimpy anti-climactic end. No one had the time or interest in that subject as if a sudden Divine destruction in the form of these devastating fires not only destroyed thousands of acres of Los Angeles but also rerouted the key talking points on just about every news program and podcast.
This entire ordeal and destruction of Biblical proportions reminds me of the story of Korach and his followers who, as you know, were swallowed up by the earth after challenging the leadership of Moshe Rabbeinu.
As Rashi explains, after 250 of Korach’s followers were also swallowed up by the earth, Moshe and Aaron beseeched Hashem: “You know who is guilty or innocent. You know what is in a man’s heart unlike a flesh and blood judge, you know what people are thinking…”
Okay so perhaps it’s something of a stretch to have this kind of death and destruction meted out simply for voting for and believing in Gavin Newsom and his woke agenda.
Additionally absurd is the suggestion by the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese on what she calls “Palestinian territories.” An avowed Jew-hater and critic of Israel, Albanese claims that the fires in LA and the war in Gaza are connected. She stated that, “On our small planet, all injustices are connected.” Several others who think along the same lines saw similarities between “Palisades and Palestine.”
What happened in California could have been avoided with proper preparation and forest management. Instead, the fire department budget was cut by more than $17 million, while Los Angeles spent more than $2 billion on the homeless and illegal migrants. The reservoirs sat empty for a year awaiting repairs.
Trump? What crime? What sentence? In Los Angeles, while the flames raged and destroyed everything in sight, key reservoirs had no water.
In an effort to present further political coverage, 5TJT is pleased to announce that former Congressman Anthony D’Esposito will be offering his expert analysis in a weekly column, beginning next week with the inauguration. We look forward to his insights.
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
