Old Testament Libera
Old Testament Libera's JournalAnother repeated lie by Trump regarding California...
Trump keeps saying (a couple of dozen times at least!) it that Los Angeles burned because they (Newsom and CA officials) wouldn't "open the valve" to release the water from the Pacific Northwest - presumably the Columbia River basin. They wouldn't release the water because they have to keep it in the river to protect fishes, which Trump doesn't care about.
As a water system engineer with 45 years' experience, I just need to say that is totally inaccurate.
1. There is no water connection or pipeline from the Pacific Northwest to California. There never has been and never will be.
2. There is a water system from the Sacramento River (State Water Project) down to Los Angeles. That was the one Musk's incel boys tried to turn on to send more water down the pipe. They were kicked out of the station and rightly so.
3. Trump finally prevailed on a Corps of Engineers officer (who does work for Trump) to release 2 billion gallons of water from a big reservoir in California. The water flowed north, away from LA, and went into a dry lakebed to evaporate and be wasted. That water is needed now for agriculture in the Central Valley but it is gone.
4. The municipal water utilities in the LA Basin have a capacity of over 3 billion gallons per day. There was no lack of water. The reason all the houses burned is that the residential areas have smaller pipes (6-inch to 12-inch) and they cannot provide enough water to put out a very intense fire like those that happened. While to put 24-inch and 36-inch pipes in every residential street and ten million gallon water reservoirs on every square mile of residential land is simply impossible. That's what it would take.
5. To entrust your water policy to a bunch of f_____ing idiots is not a good idea. Starting with the top idiot.
The Case for a Democratic General Staff organization
Note, posted also as a comment at LGM blog:
I'm going to throw in a military history analogy...In terms of grand strategy, and even basic campaign strategy and tactics, Democrats have been substantially disarmed for a long time. All we have is the crappy overpaid consultants. Republicans by contrast have something more durable, in their various well-funded organizations and think-tanks - it is more like a General Staff organization. invented by the Prussians in 1814. The general staff was composed of a small number (about 50) of highly qualified officers whose duty it was to develop strategy, plan, make sure all basics were taken care of: mobilization, weapons, logistics, etc., and to subsequently advise the field units in the campaign itself. Often a staff officer could run an army as well or better than the commanding general himself, as in the case of Tannenberg, where the battle was basically won by a staff officer before Hindenberg even showed up.
When the Prussians fought the Austrians and French in 1866 and 1870 they walked over them, because their opponents had no similar organization to make sure everything was prepared for a campaign.
Democrats in 2024 were a lot like the French in 1870 - with substantial overall resources, but no real guiding hand and no real strategy except what Harris and her people could cobble together at the last minute. Unfortunately it seems like Democrats are always doing this. Wait for the nominee to be identified and only then put together a platform and a strategy to win. That is a horrible way to run a war or a political campaign either.
So, Democrats may not have all the right-wing billionaires, but in 2024 we raised huge amounts of money that was spent and resulted in basically nothing - not even any kind of long-term organization.
So Democrats can keep running campaigns like the French in 1870, or we can establish a durable organization whose job is to:
- Identify key platform issues and develop messaging to support the Democratic case
- Develop grand strategy - what are our long-term goals and how to get there - such as "take over 3/4 of the State Legislatures..."
- Develop detailed strategies - what states to target, what governorships, what court appointments
- Develop and game out theoretical cases for Presidential campaigns
- Identify logistical and fundraising targets and have strategies and means to achieve them.
And last but not least, the "Chief of Staff" could be a credible spokesperson for the Democrats, in the interim between Presidential races.
Why should we remain substantially disarmed?
If the fascists are out to destroy us we need to treat this more as a wartime organization.
Bring back Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy
Democrats should not cede one district or state. We should build permanent, effective organizations in every district and state.
Howard Dean (former Party chair) was on the way to doing that. The work that he and the DNC did during 2005-2008 paved the way for the Obama sweep, which was far more decisive than Trump's squeaker of a "landslide". Then Rahm Emanuel fired Dean, and we went back to the anemic and narrow-minded focus on only blue and "swing" states. That is where we lost a lot of voters.
Bring back the 50-state Strategy.
The Harris campaign spent a billion dollars and built nothing in the way of a permanent cohesive organization. I fact, where the hell is Harris now?
Also don't vote for Rahm Emanuel when he inevitably reappears, like a bad penny.
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