As we have been tracking here at Wonkette, the misinformation or disinformation or whatever we’re calling it — oh hell, let’s just say “bullshit” so we don’t confuse anyone with technical distinctions — about the California wildfires has been flying around at the speed of light. Real journalism takes time and effort, particularly with a situation this chaotic. It is much more fun to sit on social media, retweeting every rumor that some rando made up on an obscure subreddit and trying to shove every factoid into your daily wingnutty frame.
This is how you get the likes of intellectual voids like Elon Musk and LibsofTikTok and Donald Trump Jr. implying that of course these fires are historically destructive, the Los Angeles fire chief is a woman. And kind of butch at that! Also, the state insurance commissioner is gay! And California governor Gavin Newsom uses hair product like some sort of unmanly metrosexual!
Partly to combat all this misinformation, Newsom’s staff set up a webpage on his site called “California Fire Facts,” and we find it utterly enraging that the likes of Musk and Republican Senator Mike Lee, who is an elected official and should know much better but doesn’t because he sucks donkey balls, even made it necessary.
The problem is, how can a page buried on a governor’s website even begin to counteract the spread of bullshit on sites like Twitter or Reddit? It can’t, not really, not when a post from Musk is available to be immediately spread far and wide by his 200 million followers. Such a Sisyphean task is beyond the abilities of one website. Trust us, Governor, Wonkette has been doing this work for a couple of decades and the boulder is still as heavy as ever while the top of the hill remains out of sight.
Still, at least Newsom and his people are trying, no matter how ridiculous the lie:
If anything, Newsom is making it easier to rebuild single-family homes by suspending some of the permitting and environmental rules in the disaster zones so people can rebuild faster. This is actually probably a bad idea, since lord knows what corners builders will cut. Frankly, the city probably would be well-served to change zoning laws to allow for more density, it would help ease its housing crunch.
But that’s not what Newsom is doing:
![SCREENGRAB FROM NEWSOM’S WEBSITE: "LIE: 60 fire trucks from the state of Oregon are being held up in Sacramento [for] ‘emissions testing.’” Quotes Dinesh D’Souza tweet: “Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to California to help with the fires, but they’re being held in Sacramento for emissions testing. you can’t make this up! What is going on?!” NEWSOM’S WEBSITE FACTCHECKS: “FACT: out-of-state fire trucks take part in 15 minute safety & equipment inspection to ensure no issues with the vehicle. At the time fo the original post, the Oregon firefighting teams were already in the Los Angeles area battling the blazes.” “LIE: Firefighters are using women’s purses to fight fires.” Quotes Justin Hart tweet: “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this scene of an LA firefighter using a woman’s purse to put out a fire has nothing to do with climate change.” NEWSOM’S WEBSITE FACTCHECKS: “FACT: The LAFD uses canvas bags to fight small trash fires because they are more efficient to put out the fires as opposed to a long hose.”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i77I!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F38478939-9fb2-4261-b2bf-5467a7a6dffd_1027x682.png "SCREENGRAB FROM NEWSOM’S WEBSITE: \"LIE: 60 fire trucks from the state of Oregon are being held up in Sacramento [for] ‘emissions testing.’” Quotes Dinesh D’Souza tweet: “Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to California to help with the fires, but they’re being held in Sacramento for emissions testing. you can’t make this up! What is going on?!” NEWSOM’S WEBSITE FACTCHECKS: “FACT: out-of-state fire trucks take part in 15 minute safety & equipment inspection to ensure no issues with the vehicle. At the time fo the original post, the Oregon firefighting teams were already in the Los Angeles area battling the blazes.” “LIE: Firefighters are using women’s purses to fight fires.” Quotes Justin Hart tweet: “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say this scene of an LA firefighter using a woman’s purse to put out a fire has nothing to do with climate change.” NEWSOM’S WEBSITE FACTCHECKS: “FACT: The LAFD uses canvas bags to fight small trash fires because they are more efficient to put out the fires as opposed to a long hose.”")
Dinesh D’Souza is going to burn in hell for so, so, so very many things he has done in life.
Something else Newsom’s team has done to try and counter the bullshit Musk has been spreading at levels that could fertilize all of America’s farmland is to actually let the giant baby have some one-on-one time with fire officials who can explain to him in very simple sentences why he is so goddamn wrong, and then hop on his own website, X, to reinforce that he’s wrong:
You can go watch the video if you want, but allow us to paraphrase it for you:
ELON: I heard that water wasn’t available in the Pacific Palisades.
FIRE DEPARTMENT PERSON: Untrue. Here’s how much water we had. It’s a large number. The demand was just so high due to reasons that anyone with two brain cells to rub together could easily learn if they are so inclined, which we know isn’t your thing, so here we are having to take time out away from this crisis to entertain your crap, you giant baby.
ELON: Okay, thanks. (immediately goes back to tweeting that Gavin Newsom sucks)
Musk was so impressed, he offered up a bunch of Cybertrucks outfitted with Starlink to re-establish internet in the area of the Palisades. Given how frequently we hear about Cybertrucks catching on fire, we think this was probably a less-than-ideal solution!
On the other hand, Musk thinks the Cybertrucks are bulletproof in case any looters get any ideas:
Tommy guns! This is bad news for any LA thieves who are working for Bugsy Siegel or Jack Dragna in 1933.
Beyond Musk, though, you have all sorts of idiots on TV spreading absurdities. Mel Gibson, for example, a guy who used to make kind of fun movies back in the 1980s and has since lost his mind, was on Fox News over the weekend hinting that California had deliberately limited its water supplies as part of a Democratic plot to depopulate the state:
Speaking on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on Friday night, the controversial actor told the show’s host there were any number of unanswered questions about the “convenient” circumstances surrounding the inferno in the Los Angeles area, wondering aloud whether the fires had been “commissioned” as part of a nefarious effort to move tenants off otherwise valuable land and property.
"Do they want the state empty? I dunno,” Gibson told Laura Ingraham, who nodded along and said something about the state wanting to get rid of single-family homes and build high-density housing. How building more housing fits in with the idea that the mysterious forces that run the state are trying to depopulate the place remains unexamined, of course.
Washed-up movie stars and ignorant industrialists don’t have a corner on the market of dumb. They have to share the space with elected officials who are not from California and also are dumb as rocks. Like Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who asked the most important question this weekend: why isn’t science rushing to make it rain?
Sure, cloud seeding is an idea, if there were any fucking clouds to seed. Part of the reason these fires have been so bad is because southern California has been in such a drought that it is drier than Ben Shapiro’s concept of the ideal vagina. (We read one day last week that the humidity over Los Angeles was eight percent, and even that sounded high.) No moisture in the air means no clouds containing water molecules that particles injected into said clouds can join with to make the droplets heavy enough to fall to Earth.
Our question is why Marge isn’t simply praying to the Lord for rain. Isn’t that the usual solution?
Or maybe Marge could get whoever is running the weather machine that threw a hurricane at western North Carolina a few months back to gin up another one? And if they can only spin it up on the East Coast, maybe Donald Trump could nuke the hurricane to nudge it to California so it can do the work of putting out the fires?
Or maybe everyone could just shut up and let the people on the ground do the work. It’s a bold strategy that we happen to favor. There will be plenty of time for grandstanding congressional hearings later.
[California Fire Facts / Daily Beast]
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"Marjorie Taylor Greene, who asked the most important question this weekend: why isn’t science rushing to make it rain?"
Pssst, Marj. C'mere. I got something to tell you:
It's not raining because the Jewish Space Laser is parked at the Yentagon and is operated by Hanukkah Solo with his partner Jewbacca.
Trust me, I know this.
Musk should be outraged that fire-fighters have to take time away from fighting fires to deal with his dumb ass, then kick himself off X for being short-circuiting cheap knockoff of a Ronco asstwaddler.
(And yes, I have forced my autocorrect to learn the words "asstwaddle," "asstwaddler," and "asstwaddling." Some words are that important.)