February 5, 2026

IF ONLY SHE HAD DIRECTED WATERING DOWN THE FIRE AS WELL: Bass directed watering down of Palisades fire after-action report, sources say.

  • Sources told The Times that Mayor Karen Bass was concerned about legal liabilities for failures in combating the Palisades fire.
  • Bass wanted key findings about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings removed or softened, the sources said.
  • The most significant changes to the report involved a failure not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines ahead of dangerously high winds.

For nearly two months, Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in altering an after-action report on the Palisades fire to downplay failures by the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in combating the catastrophic blaze.

But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft, the mayor told then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities for those failures. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources said — and that is what happened.

The changes to the report, which was released on Oct. 8, came to light through a Times investigation published in December.

The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes role in watering down the report. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others.

One Bass confidant told one of the sources that “the mayor didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report.” The source said the confidant advised Bass that altering the report “was a bad idea” because it would hurt her politically.

Altering the fire department itself was a bad idea as well: LA Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6M, focused on homeless spending — months before wildfires turned city into hellscape.

“Charlie Peters’ ‘Fireman First’ principle says you always threaten to cut firemen in order to create a public outcry against budget cuts. You’re not supposed to actually do it,” Mickey Kaus tweeted a year ago, as a reminder of just how incompetent Bass is.

In November Cal Matters reported: In L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass is vulnerable but she’ll be tough to topple.

Good and hard, L.A., good and hard. This 2015 City Journal piece by VDH titled “The Scorching of California” is a reminder that wealthy Californians seem to have little desire to fix their state’s myriad woes.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

HOW IT’S DONE:

Example from the master:

Posted at 7:06 am by Glenn Reynolds

FROM CIRSOVA PUBLISHING:  The Mighty Sons of Hercules : Volume 1.

Long ago, in ages past…

There were men who travelled the world, seeking adventure, fighting injustice, defending the weak and the helpless, looking to right wrongs wherever they are found:

These were the Mighty Sons of Hercules!

Cirsova Publishing invites you to join eight of the Mighty Sons of Hercules on their daring adventures!

You’ll be amazed by their impressive feats of superhuman strength. You’ll be dazzled by the exotic and dangerous beauties who would seek their downfall. You’ll cheer as they save the innocent from peril and mete out justice to dastardly villains.

Wherever righteousness must have a champion, there you will find the Mighty Sons of Hercules! Whenever there is need and no mortal man can suffice, a Mighty Son of Hercules shall appear!

Posted at 7:01 am by Sarah Hoyt

THE ENTIRE LEFT IS BASICALLY FAKE:

Related: Antifa, a wholly owned subsidiary of a billionaire.

Also:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

February 4, 2026

INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION: How the Fed Politicized Itself—and What a New Chair Can Do to Fix It. How did the Fed politicize itself? Gradually, then all at once.

In September 2022, about a year after Joseph Wang left his job at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he came across an odd new research paper from his former employer. Wang had been a senior trader on the Open Market Trading Desk, carrying out the Fed’s monetary policy. In his five years there, the usual Fed research covered
topics like inflation, labor markets, and bank capital. This paper, though, was titled “800,000 Years of Climate Risk.”

“I thought that was very strange,” Wang recalled. “The Fed writing about CO2 concentrations.”

Wang wasn’t the only one to notice what looked like mission creep at the Fed. Just before Thanksgiving in 2021, a tweet from the St. Louis Fed suggested replacing Thanksgiving turkey with “a soybean-based dinner.” The post drew thousands of replies, many of them demanding that the Fed get back in its lane.

Getting the Fed back in its lane is likely one of the toughest tasks ahead for Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Fed. If confirmed, Warsh will command an institution that made itself a political
and ideological player during the tenure of outgoing chair Jerome Powell.

That shift matters because economists’ frequent defenses of the principle of Fed autonomy rely on the idea that its leaders are essentially technocrats. In practice, though, the Fed has moved well beyond that model, inserting itself into politically laden policy issues only tenuously connected, if at all, to its mandates of stable prices and low unemployment.

Indeed.

Posted at 10:15 pm by Glenn Reynolds