International
Bill Maher Torches California’s Disastrous Wildfire Response in Brutal Monologue
After 27 fatalities, the destruction of over 12,000 structures, and $150 to $250 billion in damages, California resident and comedian Bill Maher didn’t hold back his outrage over his state’s catastrophic wildfire response on Real Time.
In a scathing monologue, Maher first pointed out to the climate cult that mandating EVs and shaming people for their carbon footprints means nothing when the government can’t even manage wildfires.
“You know what the absolute worst thing for the environment is? Wildfires. A 2022 study found that the smoke from just the two in 2020 wiped out 18 years of carbon reduction in the state—which means we suffered the pain of driving those early-model Priuses for nothing,” Maher quipped.
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Maher zeroed in on LA Mayor Karen Bass’s selection of Kristin Crowley as fire chief, suggesting she was only chosen for being the “best lesbian” for the job instead of the best person—something Maher argued was “not good enough” for essential services.
“Am I against a lesbian being chief? Of course not. Do I think a lesbian can do the job? Of course, I do. And maybe she’s the best person for the job. Or maybe they really wanted a lesbian in that job, and she’s just the best lesbian for the job, and with essential services, that’s not good enough,” Maher snapped.
“Crowley’s official bio says, ‘Chief Crowley leads a diverse department, creating, supporting, and promoting a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity, while striving to meet and exceed the expectations of the communities.’ Well, you didn’t exceed my expectations, which was that the whole city wouldn’t burn down!” he stressed.
“But it’s telling that diversity is mentioned twice before we get to ‘while striving to meet expectations.’ Now, can you do two things at once? Yes, but it matters where your head is,” Maher argued.
Maher went on to admit that it’s “not wrong” to blame wokeness for California’s disastrous fire response, turning his attention to Deputy Fire Chief Kristine Larson, whose recent comments are so absurd that Maher called them “kind of racist.”
Larson said in a viral social media post, “You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it’s a medical call or a fire call that looks like you.”
Maher fired back at this statement, saying, “which would sound kind of racist if a Southern sheriff said it.”
“Now, is wokeness the main reason for the fires? Of course not,” Maher said. “But let’s not pretend it hasn’t played a role. Our government’s unforced errors are straight out of the progressive playbook: questionable budget priorities, sky-high taxes that get you nothing, and a constant obsession with identity politics instead of fixing what’s broken.”
“Cali’s got commissions, agencies, bureaucrats, and even sign language interpreters who emote with their face,” Maher continued. “But where’s the common sense? Where’s the action?” he asked.
In his final words, Maher warned California that they better figure out how to actually govern “soon” because “wildfires in California are like boob jobs in a strip club: inevitable, and only getting bigger.”
Watch the full monologue below:
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From the Daily Caller News Foundation
I’ve written frequently here in recent years about the financial fiasco that has hit Ford Motor Company and other big U.S. carmakers who made the fateful decision to go in whole hog in 2021 to feed at the federal subsidy trough wrought on the U.S. economy by the Joe Biden autopen presidency. It was crony capitalism writ large, federal rent seeking on the grandest scale in U.S. history, and only now are the chickens coming home to roost.
Ford announced on Monday that it will be forced to take $19.5 billion in special charges as its management team embarks on a corporate reorganization in a desperate attempt to unwind the financial carnage caused by its failed strategies and investments in the electric vehicles space since 2022.
Cancelled is the Ford F-150 Lightning, the full-size electric pickup that few could afford and fewer wanted to buy, along with planned introductions of a second pricey pickup and fully electric vans and commercial vehicles. Ford will apparently keep making its costly Mustang Mach-E EV while adjusting the car’s features and price to try to make it more competitive. There will be a shift to making more hybrid models and introducing new lines of cheaper EVs and what the company calls “extended range electric vehicles,” or EREVs, which attach a gas-fueled generator to recharge the EV batteries while the car is being driven.
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“The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling; We’re following customers to where the market is,” Farley said. “We’re going to build up our whole lineup of hybrids. It’s gonna be better for the company’s profitability, shareholders and a lot of new American jobs. These really expensive $70k electric trucks, as much as I love the product, they didn’t make sense. But an EREV that goes 700 miles on a tank of gas, for 90% of the time is all-electric, that EREV is a better solution for a Lightning than the current all-electric Lightning.”
It all makes sense to Mr. Farley, but one wonders how much longer the company’s investors will tolerate his presence atop the corporate management pyramid if the company’s financial fortunes don’t turn around fast.
To Ford’s and Farley’s credit, the company has, unlike some of its competitors (GM, for example), been quite transparent in publicly revealing the massive losses it has accumulated in its EV projects since 2022. The company has reported its EV enterprise as a separate business unit called Model-E on its financial filings, enabling everyone to witness its somewhat amazing escalating EV-related losses since 2022:
• 2022 – Net loss of $2.2 billion
• 2023 – Net loss of $4.7 billion
• 2024 – Net loss of $5.1 billion
Add in the company’s $3.6 billion in losses recorded across the first three quarters of 2025, and you arrive at a total of $15.6 billion net losses on EV-related projects and processes in less than four calendar years. Add to that the financial carnage detailed in Monday’s announcement and the damage from the company’s financial electric boogaloo escalates to well above $30 billion with Q4 2025’s damage still to be added to the total.
Ford and Farley have benefited from the fact that the company’s lineup of gas-and-diesel powered cars have remained strongly profitable, resulting in overall corporate profits each year despite the huge EV-related losses. It is also fair to point out that all car companies were under heavy pressure from the Biden government to either produce battery electric vehicles or be penalized by onerous federal regulations.
Now, with the Trump administration rescinding Biden’s harsh mandates and canceling the absurdly unattainable fleet mileage requirements, Ford and other companies will be free to make cars Americans actually want to buy. Better late than never, as they say, but the financial fallout from it all is likely just beginning to be made public.
- David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
International
House Rejects Bipartisan Attempt To Block Trump From Using Military Force Against Venezuela
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Adam Pack
The House of Representatives rejected a bipartisan attempt Wednesday evening to reign in President Donald Trump’s authority to use force against Venezuela.
Lawmakers voted 211 to 213 against a war powers resolution that would have blocked Trump from using military force against Venezuela absent congressional authorization. The failed vote comes a day after Trump designated the Maduro regime as a foreign-terrorist organization and ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela.
Under U.S. law, Congress can restrict the president from using military force against a country or entity without the legislative branch’s explicit approval.
The resolution, sponsored by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, attracted the support of two leading anti-foreign intervention voices in the Republican Party, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Republican Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a retiring, moderate Republican who has frequently criticized Trump, also sponsored the war powers resolution.
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was the lone Democratic lawmaker to oppose the resolution checking Trump’s powers. On Dec. 3, Trump pardoned the embattled congressman, who was set to face trial in 2026 on federal bribery charges.
“When war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves,” Massie wrote on X. “Congress needs to vote before the President attempts regime change.”
Republican Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, countered that Trump does not need permission from Congress to execute “precise, limited strikes.”
Trump has ordered the military to rapidly build up its presence in the waters around Venezuela, amounting to more than 15,000 troops. The administration has also been engaged in a months-long campaign against alleged Venezuelan drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing nearly 100 reputed traffickers in more than two dozen strikes.
The president told Politico that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered” and has suggested that land strikes on the country could commence soon.
The House also rejected a resolution Wednesday from Democratic New York Rep. Gregory Meeks that would block the president from using force on any “presidentially designated foreign terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere” unless authorized by Congress. The measure failed 210 to 216.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune voiced approval Wednesday of the escalating pressure campaign against Maduro.
When asked by reporters whether the Trump administration is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, the majority leader said “I don’t know if that’s a publicly stated policy position, but I don’t — I would certainly not have a problem if that was their position. I mean, I think Maduro is a cancer on that continent.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles clarified Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela in an explosive set of interviews with Vanity Fair published Tuesday.
“He [Trump] wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Wiles told the outlet. She also conceded that Trump would need approval from Congress for a land war with Venezuela.
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