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"Do you regret cutting the fire department's budget by millions of dollars?" Karen Bass: [silence]

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Absolutely not. My point was that this blaze is very difficult to manage and somehow either blaming those who are there or thinking more of them will take out fires fueled by 80 mph winds is ridiculous. The wildfires of So Cali have gotten worse over the years but none of that is bc of firefighters

It’s clear the Right needed a new Democratic whipping person to blame the fire on (Karen Bass) to light up the viewership of Fox News and distract away from what Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies and crackpots are up to.

Most of modern journalism are. It's click bait for a reason. ADHD feeding ADD babies for TikTok ad revenue. No one is fact checking. They rather community note and be wrong. He's an ignorant idiot who got a high paying job to ask these questions.

From someone who was there:

Hayes Davenport@hayesdavenport.bsky.social

Since I'm seeing it everywhere: I worked in LA City Hall when the budget passed. Our office voted No. But the idea that LAFD was "defunded" to increase the LAPD budget is not accurate. Both got increases due to salary hikes. LAFD's deal just happened after the budget process -- LAPD's was before.

Really it's quite a stupid question. These fires didn't start OR burn due to a lack of firefighting resources. While no one knows for certain how they started at this point, the LAFD budget was NOT responsible for 60+ mph winds OR the fact that LA has received only about 1/2" of rain since May.

Yeah if this is the way these fires are going (and not just Palisades, the Eaton fire too) then I'm not sure that $17.5 will make much difference. We nearly left over a fire we wouldn't have 5 yrs ago. B/c of how those two behaved.

Ppl arent serious. The city prohected a 2.5% reduction in revenue. The fire department was cut 2.1%. The police budget was increased to recruit vacant officer positions, a move that will also reduce OT in the long run. There are emergency reserves available to pay for this disaster response.

I can disagree with the focus on increasing policing without trying to gotcha the mayor and the council for largely reasonable budget decisions.

The fact that they have the nerve to even mention Musk here shows it entirely for what it is. Rage baiting. They wanted a response that they didn't get with a tag-in for online engagement. They didn't ask about next steps, what was done, what's happening now. They just want drama and a scapegoat.

I hate Musk, but he's the richest man on the planet and he has homes and businesses in LA. If you're the mayor, it kind of matters if the richest man on the planet who lives in your town, and has tons of backdoor channels with the federal government, doesn't like you.

It's like the whole state, which is funny considering we are on fire every summer. Just look at my county, and we literally had the "space laser" fire, AND the fire that went into burning Paradise to the ground

The LAFD budget was cut by 2% which was a bad call, but let's not pretend that this would have made a big difference with such a massive conflagration. But LAPD got a boost because of the relentless national fear mongering on crime - funny when cops spend only 4% of their time on violent crime.

When you have sky lying to you and then telling you what Musk said, you then know there is nothing that you could say to them, that would change anything in their tiny closed off minds.

California (unfortunately) had it coming, are they responsible? Nope, the democrats built their own grave with this situation. The party is a complete joke, and it's nothing that democracy stands for.

She should have stayed in LA but seems this is what happened re budget: bsky.app/profile/haye...

Hayes Davenport@hayesdavenport.bsky.social

Since I'm seeing it everywhere: I worked in LA City Hall when the budget passed. Our office voted No. But the idea that LAFD was "defunded" to increase the LAPD budget is not accurate. Both got increases due to salary hikes. LAFD's deal just happened after the budget process -- LAPD's was before.

Are you serious? Other cities/states are sending people and equipment to help. It's literally *how* they control the fire. What do you think they're doing right now? Crossing their fingers and praying?

It's ironic that this style of "press"is part of what drives Trump to lash out at media. Reporting the truth about his criminality doesn't help. But seriously,who is this idiot & who gives a fk what Elon Musk has to say about anything? "Gotcha" journalism is annoying period. He thinks he's the story

this isn't the own you think it is. a serious question is why isn't the budget higher, wildfires are one of California's biggest issues. this fire was preventable if LA invested more into controlled burns.

Technically the budget was increased overall. The allegations of a budget cut was a manipulative take by irresponsible journalism. Granted, nearly every news article I've read presents the information with a negative bias.

Karen knows she went out of her way to appease bigoted Republicans who demanded she give hundreds of millions more dollars to an already bloated LAPD all because they said they needed that money to stop immigrant crime that didn't exist NOTE: police commit more crime than they prevent