Feel free to look up Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success. Both runoff rivers flow AWAY from Los Angeles and basically drain into other lakes or into the soil (at least as far as I can tell from the maps). There was no plan to capture any of this water, and Trump is demanding the release of water from several more dams shortly.
So not only has he wasted water which won’t be used to help fight the fires (and wouldn’t have been of any use anyway), but he has greatly depleted the reservoirs used to grow crops this coming Summer. He’s not trying to fight fires, he’s just depleting the food that the US will have available this year.
Trump – too dumb to know that water doesn’t flow uphill.
Trump – too dumb to know that water doesn’t flow uphill.
The fact that people still think he doesn’t know what he’s doing (or his advisers, anyway) is concerning. None of this is accidental, it is all about manipulation of the food supply and economy, and deliberately worsening living conditions for most people to make us even easier to exploit and oppress.
I’m really not sure… The way he rants about things, I feel like he’s dumb as a rock. On the other hand, the people who have gotten in close to him? It’s not hard to figure out that for someone with Trump’s ego, all it takes are a few careful suggestions, something to make him think people will admire him, and he’ll be happy to do the rest.
The idea that someone just stumbles their way in to a presidency is wild. It’s also ableist to blame his bigotry and oppressive actions on how intelligent you think he is, that has nothing to do with it.
So I’ll reiterate - the fact that anyone can still think that what’s happening is accidental or not thought out is frankly more than concerning, it’s scary.
These people are following a playbook, they’ve got their own playbook for fucks sake, and they will do as much damage as they fucking can deliberately and with forethought. Pretending otherwise because it’s easier to punch down and dismiss him as “dumb” than to confront the reality of things and punch up at a much bigger and scarier target is counterproductive.
I guess he could be trying to provoke mass unrest so he can declare a national emergency and start shooting people.
But I’m pretty sure he could declare a national emergency and start shooting people whenever he wants, no need to actually create mass unrest. Just declare that there’s mass unrest, who cares if it’s real?
I guess he could be trying to provoke mass unrest so he can declare a national emergency and start shooting people.
He’s running the Hitlerian playbook. Why do you think he’s engaging in mass persecution of various minority groups? Behind hatred, his real goal is power. If you put the screws on people hard enough, eventually people start setting off bombs and executing reprisal shootings. If you ruin enough people’s lives, some are bound to respond violently. Then you can use that violence to declare an emergency. And as we saw after 9/11, nothing increases a presidential power like acts of terrorism.
no need to actually create mass unrest. Just declare that there’s mass unrest, who cares if it’s real?
I joked with my buddy earlier today about something similar. Tensions are so high that someone could realistically kick off a revolution simply by convincing people that the revolution had already started. Get a few fake (but convincing) articles about revolutionaries across the country. Spread them far and wide, and shout them as loud as you can… If you got enough reach to hit critical mass, there’s a sizable part of the population that would likely go “well fuck it, I guess we’re doing this” and hit the streets with a real revolution.
Things have gotten to the point where if I woke up tomorrow morning to news of a revolution, I wouldn’t really be shocked. And that says a lot about the current state of affairs…
Nah he’s probably just fucking with California because he hates them for not voting for him, and also not liking their governor.
So you think he’s slapping Gavin Newsom around with this. And deliberately screwing over California crop GDP and the little guy via increased grocery prices. Trump isn’t good for farmers. When will farmers realize that?
I initially saw it as political theater to go with his false statements about fire preparedness.
Wait, you’re telling me that trump lacks a fundamental understanding of California’s hydrology and is just lying to get what he perceives as a political win? That doesn’t sound like him at all.
Do I need to say /s?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-31/trump-california-dams-opened-up
And his own voters have had to beg to get the flow shut so that their farms don’t flood.
Draining the reservoirs in January in a drought-prone blue state? Absolutely no ulterior motive, just the actions of an oaf.
What a waffling article from the LA Times
My favorite part is how they buried the issues releasing the water will cause a the bottom of the piece. At least they put it in there at all as opposed to the other RFK piece they just botched.
Remember, this is the newspaper with the owner who will creatively edit things to be in tune with Trumps status quo.
Including an editorial being altered to claim RFK was a great way to change healthcare problems.
I’m looking for the reasons you wouldn’t release water right now and can’t find any in the article. Does that mean this is a great idea with no downside or that this article too, has been creatively edited by the Trump licking owner?
Huh I’m surprised that an LA newspaper would cater to Trump, but it was the first article I found that seemed to have a lot of information (or maybe they’ve changed the page since I linked it?). Here’s another article which is currently very negative of the situation… https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/us/trump-water-california-central-valley.html
So basically, dams were opened up spilling water on the other side of a mountain away from the fires. There are no pipes connecting these reservoirs to LA to fight the fires. Even if you wanted to collect the water with fire-fighting airplanes, you would have done that in the reservoir, you can’t scoop it up from a river. Basically he drained all the water out into the ground to affect this Summer’s crops, there is no other logical explanation.
Political theater. It also reads like a shot across Gavin Newsom’s bow that says he can fuck with CA water whenever he likes. Details that are given include how there was no coordination with CA officials, Trump just went over all their heads and drained water from reservoirs, followed by a social media post of the flow bragging about releasing the needed water.
What is the currency CA needs most? Water. Trump admin showed a distinctive “power over” move here that says to Newsom he can drain the reservoirs whenever he likes.
I think we need to consider authoritarian interpretations of behaviors like these going forward.
With all the noise there was about California seceding this might bite him in the ass. Throwing away the water for no good reason is such an easy sell.
