☕️ RES IPSA ☙ Friday, January 10, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

LA wildfires suggest wide-scale incompetence; minor Trump legal setbacks; sentencing imminent; squatter epidemic; big banks exist woke climate plan; Trump tariffs; super revival news; and more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! Since yesterday’s post was so late, I committed to an early release this morning. Thanks for your patient indulgence yesterday, since it was imperative to get that Grand Jury Report roundup out before the media misled everyone. Today’s terrific roundup includes: LA wildfires still burning as people grasp for explanations for the inexplicable; things that speak for themselves; Trump sentencing moves forward after Supremes decline stay; 11th Circuit greenlights Trump report release; squatter epidemic fallout satisfies; biggest banks exit UN’s climate program because Trump; media preparing public for Trump tariffs; and massively encouraging spiritual revival news in two different developments, including the biggest Gospel presentation in history.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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LA’s wildfires continued to wildly rage out of control through this morning, with no end in sight, and as far as anyone can tell, will keep burning without relief. The New York Times ran several stories this morning. One of the many articles was headlined, “‘Completely Dry’: How Los Angeles Firefighters Ran Out of Water.”

If, bouyed by that headline, you were looking for a courageous Times exposé on the failures of LA’s DEI-driven fire department and its loony Mayor’s office, you’ll be disappointed. This article was the news version of a 100-calorie stuffed-cookie snack. There’s a lot of packaging but not much cookie. And hardly any icing.

As we remain squarely in the ‘hot takes’ moment, it is difficult to know yet what to believe. The Times played it safe, front-loading its article with quotes from city and fire officials, who primly insisted that the reservoirs were full, but they just ran out quickly under unprecedented demand. Also, high winds shut down aerial fire fighting. And, the department’s tools and strategies were never designed for wide-scale urban firefighting in the first place.

Almost reflexively, to a woman the LA officials all blamed climate change, which is a very useful scapegoat that cannot be fined, jailed, sued, or fired. “Climate change” is a deep reservoir for unwanted blame. You just have to get your blame balloon to the brink and push it in before it bursts.

The alert and pronoun-perfect leading ladies of LA all protested that manmade climate change —punishment for our sins against mother earth— has produced a great fire for which there was no possible way to officially prepare or Mayorially imagine.

After all, LA has only experienced a handful of Great Fires in its history, like the La Mesa Fire (1825), the Great Chinatown Fire (1870), the San Pedro Warehouse Fire (1906), the Griffith Park Fire (1933), the Bel-Air Fire (1961), the Baldwin Hills Fire (1963), the Malibu Fires (1993), and the Getty Fire (2019).

Apart from all of those, they’ve never seen anything like this before.

But, like the 100-calorie snack pack, by digging around in the article’s wrapper, some ultra-processed news food finally appeared. The Times quoted a man (shudder), who by all accounts should be a reliable source: Rick Caruso, who twice served as the president of the City’s Department of Water and Power, who ran for mayor, and who is now a major area real estate developer.

To be clear, Rick wasn’t sitting around complaining about the Mayor and the ultra-diverse fire chief. Wait till you see this wildly understated gem of a sentence which should have generated an entire Times article, if not a made-for-TV movie, at least. Caruso wasn’t just waiting around, the Times reported. Instead, get this, “he had a team of private firefighters deployed in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday night, helping to protect a major outdoor retail space he owns, Palisades Village, as well as some nearby homes.”

My gosh. LA, behold the man you should have elected as Mayor.

The Times minimized the most interesting part of its story, which also had the greatest potential metaphorical explanatory power: the rejected mayoral candidate directing his own hastily-assembled private firefighting force to save the neighborhood. But sadly, perhaps creating an even more meta metaphorical explanation, the Times sneered at Rick Caruso’s rousing, all-American, self-reliant story because he wasn’t diverse enough.

In any case, after shrinking Rick’s adventurous tale of self-help firefighting down to one short paragraph, it added this, the lone criticism of the City’s fire handling (as if having to hire his own firefighters weren’t damning enough). Note that the Times didn’t even quote Rick, but delicately smoothed out whatever he did say:

A shortfall in preparation. That delicate nugget was as close as the Times got to criticizing anyone. As former Department of Water and Power president, Rick used to run a large part of the City’s fire preparation, and so he would know. As a former official, he’s less biased than current officials since he doesn’t have to cover his butt. You might have thought the reporter might have dug into Rick’s comment a little more. But no. Oh, well.

🔥 Social media was and is packed with wild speculation about the fires, where they came from, and now inept are LA’s public servants, and how can you blame folks?

It reminds me of a legal doctrine called res ipsa loquitur, which is Latin for “the thing speaks for itself.” The doctrine provides a way to prove negligence without direct evidence. Basically, under the right conditions, a lawyer may properly argue to the jury that whatever happened could only happen if someone was negligent.

For example, say your nail tech is sashaying down the street minding her own business when she’s suddenly squashed by a falling piano. Her family’s lawyer would probably be allowed to sue the nearby rooftop bar (whose piano is mysteriously missing), even without any other evidence. Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.

Social media’s grasping for explanations that fit the partially-known and war-fogged facts is our collective way of informally applying the res ipsa loquitur without even knowing the dialect. At this point, people are picking out unburned, blue-colored objects in photos and speculating about DEWs like in Hawaii. Other alert citizens are uploading videos allegedly showing arsonists at work:

Who knows.

What we do know is that thousands and thousands of homes and small businesses have been incinerated, burned to a crisp. The official death count is only 10, but I fear the final number will be much higher. The photos look more like La’haina than any normal wildfire pictures that we’re used to.

What I recall from previous California burns, my entire life, are the innumerable photos showing one house burned to the ground while the neighboring home is dandily untouched. But these photos from LA show block after blackened block, all reduced, leveled, and scorched, whether high or low, rich or poor, all ravaged down to a dreary, smouldering equality, regardless of status, every one humbled to a bleak height of what looks like about twenty-four inches.

Getting caught up in all the speculation over the fire’s causes and the city’s DEI failures is easy. I’m not suggesting anything is wrong with speculating, but let us also recall the real people, our fellow Americans, who are suffering in a million unimaginable ways from these horrible fires. We pray for their safety, comfort, and support.

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Today, at long last, the Democrats will finally and actually get what they’ve long, falsely claimed anyway: Trump’s conviction. CNN gleefully ran the story headlined, “Analysis: Trump to endure embarrassment of criminal sentencing after last-ditch Supreme Court appeal fails. No, CNN, Trump will not endure any embarassment. America is going to endure embarrassment, including the asshats at CNN, who are too stupid to realize they are beclowning themselves.

Judge Merchan’s strategy is now clear. Earlier this week, the New York judge, Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s case, oddly signaled in a order that he did not intend to sentence Trump to any jail time or any other punishment. Why include that? Now we know: It was to reassure the appellate courts. And it worked.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court, with assistance from conservative Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, denied Trump’s emergency request to stay today’s sentencing hearing. I am not surprised, especially in light of Merchan’s hinted intent to let Trump skate: what would the stay have accomplished except, as CNN’s headline gleefully stated, spare Trump a little embarrassment?

That’s not my view; the Supreme Court could have spared America this humiliation. But from a legal perspective, with Merchan’s implied promise, I recognize the argument no “irreparable harm” was about to occur. Irreparable harm is an essential element that must be proven to justify this kind of emergency stay. The Supremes probably concluded that Trump can just appeal his conviction and the fact of his sentence, whatever it is.

🔥 Trump suffered another minor legal setback yesterday. Call it “Jack Smith’s revenge.” USA Today ran the story headlined, “Appeals court allows Attorney General Garland to release Donald Trump report but timing uncertain.”

Keep in mind that Jack Smith and the Democrats have been crying for months about how “worried” they are that President Trump will prosecute them in retaliation. But all their worries about revenge prosecutions has not prevented the Jack and the DOJ from aggressively moving forward with publishing the special prosecutor’s sentencing report, which is widely expected to be a stinker and a narrative bonanza for corporate media and the left.

The short version is that after terrific South Florida judge Aileen Cannon restrained the DOJ from running the report, the 11th Circuit partially reversed her, allowing the DOJ to release half the report (the first of two volumes) in three days, which gives the parties time to appeal to the US Supreme Court if they want.

Again, I am not surprised. While corporate media’s narrative requires them to pretend like Smith’s report is some kind of amazing unicorn, such reports are not uncommon, and this one especially seemed destined for publication.

Trump’s lawyers were up against a nearly unbeatable argument. I’m sure you will recall special prosecutor Robert Hur’s report, describing his now-famous decision not to charge Joe Biden since Joe was “a sympathetic elderly man with a poor memory.” That literally happened in the same classified documents case. So it is painfully hard for Trump now to argue that he should get special treatment denied to President Biden.

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A few quick hits:

🔥 Remember the squatter epidemic? When the “defund the police” crowd tried to extend non-prosecution to residential tenancies? And illegals were making mocking TikToks explaining how to live in someone else’s house for free for years? States reacted by passing laws making it much easier to remove illegal immigrants brandishing fake leases. This YouTube was making the rounds this week, which tells the story of how fast Florida will yank a pack of illegal squatters out of someone else’s house, even with their fake lease:

YOUTUBE: Florida Cops Catch Squatters That Moved In With a Fake Lease (41:57).

🔥 The Guardian ran a terrific story earlier this week headlined, “Six big US banks quit net zero alliance before Trump inauguration.” The sub-headline was even more encouraging: “Exodus from target-setting group is attempt to head off ‘anti-woke’ attacks from rightwing politicians, say analysts.”

“Net Zero” is a United Nations-sponsored banking program that gives social credit points to banks that incentivize customers to comply with global climate policy. But according to the Guardian, the six biggest banks in the US have all quit the global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group, “with the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president expected to bring political backlash against climate action.”

The decision of all six top banks to quit en masse was described in the article as “sudden.” Sudden and unexpected.

The whole UN Net Zero program is now in doubt, and Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. So just wait. Meanwhile, enjoy the Trump effect.

🔥 CNN ran another greatly encouraging story this week headlined, “Trump is considering a national economic emergency declaration to allow for new tariff program, sources say.” While it’s not what the article was about, it described how Trump could implement his bold, sweeping tariff program.

The International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or “IEEPA” (“yeepa”), authorizes a president to unilaterally manage any or all foreign imports during a declared national emergency. Of course, he would need an emergency, and CNN was skeptical. “If Trump opted to declare a national economic emergency,” the Network mused, “it’s unclear what evidence he would cite.”

Well. If a medium flu season is a four-year international emergency, then the wide-open southern border must certainly be a national emergency.

The law gives the president a lot of flexibility. “Trump,” CNN explained, “has a fondness for the IEEPA, since it grants wide-ranging jurisdiction over how tariffs are implemented without strict requirements to prove the tariffs are needed on national security grounds.”

In 2019, President Trump quickly got Mexico’s cooperation with securing the southern border just by threatening IEEPA. Apparently he’s been thinking a lot more about his tariff powers.

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Finally, there was more massively encouraging news about spiritual revival this week. In September, I reported the New York Times story on the growth of young men in the faith. This week, the UK Telegraph ran another great story headlined, “Young, single men are leaving traditional churches. They found a more ‘masculine’ alternative.”

The article tried to craft a non-story about a movement between Christian churches rather than organic growth. Superficially it described a shift —in that critical young male demographic— between “traditional” U.S. churches and Orthodox ones. But there was a lot more to it.

The first unstated news was the dramatic growth of the Orthodox Church in America. The Orthodox Church split from Roman Catholicism way back in 1054. It has no Pope. But unlike the Pope-rejecting Protestant church, Orthodoxy maintained a liturgical character. It also hews toward early Christian practices like regular fasting and body discipline and is also arguably more mystical than mainline Protestantism.

As the article correctly stated, the Orthodox Church is decidedly more masculine than “traditional” mainline US denominations.

One reason why is because the Orthodox tradition is the most dominant tradition in Eastern Europe and the most dominant Christian tradition remaining in the Middle East. Curiously, and most narrative-smashing, Russia has the largest Orthodox body in the world. Meaning, Orthodoxy has largely escaped the ravages of wokeism.

The article’s second misleading element was that, when you boiled it down, all the personal anecdotes actually described converts of young men to Orthodoxy from atheism rather than from other traditions. In other words, growth. So it really was a story of a growing church, in particular rapid growth in the American Orthodox church, and altogether a rising spiritual movement with a decidely manly character.

For example, the story described Matthew Ryan, a 41-year-old science teacher and “former atheist,” who said he “hit rock bottom” during the pandemic in New York City, was converted to Orthodoxy after watching a YouTube video on good and evil. “What really drew me to Orthodoxy… was the structure, the guidance, the authenticity and the historicity”, he explained.

The article continued dropping some appropriate criticisms (from a young man’s point of view) about the feminization of the Protestant tradition in the US, and about the growing role of online influencers in making new Christian converts.

I don’t think it is coincidental that we are seeing growing online conversions following shrinking government censorship.

In other words, Hollywood’s baleful monopoly on spiritual influence is waning, cracking, and crumbling. Could something beautiful be emerging from the husk?

🔥 Following that line, there was even more encouraging news of spiritual revival —which is good news for everyone, even if you’re not yet a believer. The UK Daily Mail ran the story this week, dramatically headlined, “Former atheist Joe Rogan left in amazement after being gifted 'evidence that Jesus was real’.”

The ‘news,’ if you can call it that, was that former atheist Joe Rogan interviewed a young Christian apologist and influencer named Wesley Huff. It was the first time the mega-podcaster has ever held a full interview on Christianity. And miraculously, Joe let Wesley talk, a lot.

It was another shattered record. This podcast might be the most widely-broadcast, genuine articulation of the gospel in the history of mankind. It was like a digital angel electronically flew around the world proclaiming the Gospel.

During the show, Wesley gave Rogan a copy of a first-century papyrus that described Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Proving, in other words, the resurrection story was not a subsequent invention by the Romans or aliens or TV evangelists. Rogan, the former atheist, seemed appropriately impressed.

Joe said he spent over 20 hours watching Wesley’s apologetics videos to prepare for the show. Apologetics is the study of applying science to Christian theology (or vice-versa), and so is a way for Christians to relate to science-minded secular folks. For example, apologetics examines the complexity of DNA and the human cell and asks whether intelligent design might be a better fit than Darwin’s explanation.

Rogan’s interview with Huff was remarkable not just for its subject matter but also for its effect. A surprising number of secular folks reviewed the show well, like this gentleman, for example:

These astonishing signs of revival are unbelievably great news, for everyone, because they signal a possible return to a more ethical and self-governed society. Even if you aren’t Christian —or maybe especially if you aren’t— you should give this Rogan interview a try. It might or might not be life-changing, but it will be thought provoking. Here’s the link.

Have a fabulous Friday! And get back here tomorrow morning, for a jam-packed Weekend Edition roundup.

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