#like September? Started seeing santa ana

[strawbabycowboy]

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[sibylsleaves]

The 911 fic writer’s guide to LA

I asked if anyone would be interested in a short little guide to LA for fic-writing reference, and surprisingly I got a lot of replies. I lived in LA for 20 years so while I’m not an EXPERT per se I thought there might be some knowledge I could share for people who want more info about the city of Los Angeles to add a bit of realism to their fics. I can’t cover everything, so this is just a sampling of stuff that may or may not be useful. I got some additional help from @swiftiesisters14​ who added some great insights and details. YMMV of course! 

Weather and climate: for the most part, yes, it is very warm and sunny in L.A. the majority of the year. Rain is very uncommon, especially from May - October, and when it does come it usually lasts a couple days up to maybe a week on and off. Rainstorms and thunderstorms are very rare. It does not snow but it does, very rarely, hail. Within a few miles of the ocean, mornings will be quite cold and cloudy thanks the marine layer–this is true even in the summer. “June Gloom” is a phenomenon in LA where we get a lot of cloudy weather in May/June (usually just in the morning although it can sometimes last all day). It can get fairly cold at night during the winter (though almost never below freezing). Even during the summer, nights aren’t as warm as you might imagine, as the dry air makes temperatures drop quicker once the sun goes down (if your characters are going anywhere during a warm day and expect to be there until night, they will most likely bring a jacket). 

There’s a HUGE difference in weather/temperature between the coastal parts of the city and areas further east (and especially into the Valley, where it is frequently over 100 F degrees in the summer). Closer to the ocean, highs typically don’t break 90 unless there’s a heat wave, lows typically stay above 50 except for some nights in the winter. September is often the hottest month of the year (this surprises a lot of people). This also coincides with wildfire season, which used to be roughly September-October, but has started earlier and earlier and lasts later and later into the fall (hello climate change).

Most people from LA are fairly sensitive to the cold and will definitely wear jackets and such the minute it drops below 68 degrees. Many Angelenos do not own a proper winter coat or snow boots or rain boots. Air conditioning is very common in homes and businesses, so hot days are less of an issue if you’re staying indoors. The heat here is DRY, so if you’re used to sticky East Coast heat, this is a totally different beast. Hot weekend days result in swamped beaches and tons of beach traffic. When it DOES rain, even just a little drizzle, the entire city tends to go fucking nuts, and everyone forgets how to drive (a stereotype that is unfortunately very accurate). I imagine the 118 gets LOTS of calls on rainy days because Angelenos just do not understand how to deal with rain. 

Santa Ana winds: you may have heard of these. they suck. Basically an extremely hot, extremely dry, extremely high-speed wind that blows into LA for a week/up to a few weeks at a time and make your allergies go crazy. Trust me, it’s miserable. It usually happens in fall, although they can happen at other times of the year (and doesn’t necessarily happen every year. They’re unpredictable). A weather advisory will go out discouraging from making outdoor fires/doing fire-related activities during this time, as fires can spread extremely rapidly in these conditions. The Santa Anas have a somewhat mythological status in LA, because people sort of think they make people crazy and unpredictable (i mean, it’s not hard to see why--who wouldn’t be irritable in these conditions?) In addition to the Santa Anas, wind storms in general are not uncommon, especially in fall, and winds can cause a lot of damage to powerlines/trees/etc.

Wildfire season: Usually at its peak in September/October, can last all the way into December some years. Areas that are susceptible to burning are the hilly/mountainous areas that surround LA, including Topanga Canyon, the Santa Monica mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, Malibu, etc. Even if there is a fire that’s miles and miles away, depending on winds it can cause the air in LA to be very smoky and dangerous to breathe. There can sometimes be ash literally falling from the sky...like you go to your car and it’s just coated in ash. Again, this doesn’t happen every year but it’s becoming more and more frequent. 2020 was a particularly bad wildfire year.

Water: California has basically been in one giant drought for the past two decades. Water conservation is a big deal, especially in LA which literally imports a lot of its water. There’s restrictions on when/how long/how you water your lawn. When conditions get really bad, they will place restrictions on commercial water features (fountains and the like) and do stuff like make it so that restaurants only serve you water if you ask for it. There’s always stuff about shortening showers/washing dishes more efficiently/etc. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily something Angelenos think about on a day-to-day basis but it is part of living in LA.

Earthquakes: small earthquakes happen fairly frequently and most people won’t even notice them (what often happens is you’ll be sitting there and you’ll be like was that an earthquake? And then you google whether there was an earthquake nearby). Occasionally a small-to-medium earthquake might wake you up in the middle of the night. Larger earthquakes that actually cause injuries/fatalities are much rarer. 

Driving and Traffic: traffic in L.A. is no joke. If your characters are driving virtually anywhere during the afternoon, they WILL be stuck in traffic or they will worry about getting stuck in traffic. Fridays are the absolute worst traffic days. Something can be “10 minutes away” and take half an hour to actually drive. (For instance, Buck’s drive to get to Eddie’s? during peak traffic hours that could take easily 30-40 minutes). Traffic is a huge consideration in most Angelenos daily lives–-there are certain places you just DO NOT GO during certain hours of the day if you can avoid it, or you have to budget in extra time in case there’s bad traffic. Gridlock in main arteries of the city is extremely common.

LA drivers are known to be aggressive, decisive, and rude. If you display a single second of hesitation or indecisiveness on the road (whether thats making a turn or changing lanes or running a yellow) you WILL get honked at. Maybe this is why Eddie prefers to have Buck drive him around. Pedestrians on the other hand are incredibly timid and cautious. You will almost never see people in LA jaywalking the way they do in East Coast cities. 

A common topic of conversation in LA is various driving routes (yes, it’s a stereotype, but at least when I lived there it was true). Why? Because it is essential to know multiple routes to get from place to place because one or more of them will be congested, and knowing alternate routes can be a lifesaver (although everyone uses apps now, but that is its own topic of discussion amongst Angelenos.)

Freeways are referred to as “the ___” (so the 10, the 405, the 101, the 5, etc. Although the Pacific Coast Highway is just PCH--almost no one calls it the 1). There are very few toll roads in LA--in fact, I don’t know of any.

Parking in L.A. also sucks, and knowledge of little-known, cheap and/or questionably legal places to park in popular neighborhoods is social capital. Restaurants with valet parking outside are very common in certain upscale neighborhoods (Cher Horowitz was right about that).

Public Transportation: has improved somewhat over the past decade when they built out the Metro a little, but is still pretty paltry and inconvenient given the size of the city. L.A. remains a very driving-heavy city. Truthfully, in my 20 years of living in LA i almost never took public transportation except when I was too young to drive and took the bus. LA is also not a very bike-friendly city, and there are only a few streets with dedicated bike lanes. BUT you will often see people biking on dedicated bike paths near the beach.

Geography of the city: It’s hard to fathom just how big and sprawling LA actually is unless you’ve lived here or another geographically huge city like it. You can spend your whole life living in L.A. and there will be parts of the city you have never set foot in and know virtually nothing about (and that is partially because traffic makes getting around to these different enclaves extremely arduous). It is a sprawling behemoth, like six or seven cities smushed into one. And actually, there ARE in fact five other cities/unincorporated communities that exist within the borders of Los Angeles: Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and Marina del Rey, as well as surrounding municipalities that many people consider “L.A.” (such as Compton, Pasadena, Santa Clarita, Malibu, Long Beach, Burbank, Glendale, etc. etc.) As it would be impossible to run through every neighborhood in L.A., here are just a few popular areas near the downtown area where the 118 firehouse is (apparently) located. This is roughly moving east-west but you can look at a map for more precise geography:

Downtown: definitely the most dense “urban-y” part of L.A. with tons of skyscrapers, high-rises, etc. Downtown LA is huge, with lots of sub-neighborhoods and districts, including the Fashion district, Chinatown, Skid Row, and Little Tokyo. Like any downtown, there are a lot of attractions here, like the convention center, sports arenas, theaters and music venues, nightlife etc. This is where Buck’s loft is according to this helpful guide and based on the establishing shot they use, which includes the East Columbia building, a notable Art Deco building that is smack downtown. (It’s the greenish building with the clock on it that you can see in many episodes). To the southwest of downtown is where you’ll find the University of Southern California (USC) where May is starting college.

Silverlake/LA River area: includes Silver Lake, Echo Park (home to Dodger Stadium), Los Feliz, Little Armenia, Westlake and the Griffith Park area (home to the LA Zoo). To be honest I don’t know this area very well because I lived in West LA and didn’t spend a lot of time over here, and also it has gentrified quite a bit. Silver Lake is pretty artsy and trendy, with a lot of small local businesses, and also has historical ties to the LGBT community so there are lots of queer-friendly bars and community spaces. 

Koreatown (aka K-Town): pretty cool/trendy neighborhood that was historically home to L.A.’s large Korean immigrant population. The makeup of this neighborhood now is actually a majority Latine, but you’ll still find a lot of Korean food and markets in K-Town. A very commercial area with lots of bars, restaurants, clubs, and shops as well as apartments. Koreatown has an extremely fascinating history, which I will not go into here.

Hollywood: super touristy, this is where you can find the walk of fame (the stars with celebrities names on them), the Chinese Theater, and like, Ripley’s Believe or Not museum. Used to be where most of the major film studios had their studios, but most of them have moved. Best place in Hollywood in MY opinion is the Hollywood Bowl, which is a beautiful outdoor concert venue tucked into the hills.

West Hollywood: a fairly upscale residential and shopping area, but not a bougie as Beverly Hills and not as touristy as Hollywood. West Hollywood is actually its own city/town (although Hollywood is NOT), and is well-known as a historically LGBT+ village/district (historically much of L.A.’s gay population lived here...these days it’s a bit more complicated thanks to gentrification.) As such it’s got a little more of an “alternative” reputation than Hollywood and Beverly Hills, although to be honest it’s lost a lot of its “edge” so to speak. This is where you’ll find the Sunset Strip (historic nightlife area on Sunset Blvd--I would say its more touristy nightlife). Nearby you’ll also find The Grove shopping center, and the La Brea tarpits and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), both of which are popular field trip destinations.

Beverly Hills: actually a separate city from LA but it’s kind of right in the middle of it. Very upscale. Home to Rodeo Drive, Lots of upscale shopping, big beautiful houses, luxury hotels, trendy restaurants, etc. It’s basically where all the rich people live and hang out and it’s very, like, bougie and curated. Parts of Beverly Hills are in fact hilly, but most of the commercial areas are flat.

West LA: Lots of smaller residential neighborhoods interspersed with commercial corridors (this is where I’m from). You’ll find Sawtelle Japantown here (kind of a smaller Little Tokyo with Japanese markets and shops), as well as “Little Tehran”/Tehrangeles (lots of Persian markets, shops and restaurants. There’s a large community of Iranian-Americans in this part of the city and you’ll definitely see signs in Persian/Farsi.) Brentwood is another upperclass/rich people neighborhood around here, as well as UCLA’s campus in Westwood. I believe according to this guide that Eddie, Bobby and Athena, and potentially Hen and Karen all live near West LA (looks like Athena and Bobby’s house might be in Culver City? idk)

Culver City: another city within LA. Culturally speaking I’d say Culver city is pretty much like West LA and it has gentrified a LOT in the past decade or so. Idk what else to say about Culver City...it has a romance-centered independent bookstore called The Ripped Bodice. And an ice rink!

Santa Monica: this is slightly further afield but still significant because Santa Monica is where the closest beaches are located, and is obviously home to the Santa Monica Pier (RIP). Parts of Santa Monica are pretty trendy and upscale, and is also kind of “business-y” because a lot of entertainment companies are headquartered here. 3rd Street Promenade is a pedestrian-only shopping district that’s quite popular, with 3 blocks of shops, restaurants, movie theaters, and more. Lots of buskers and street performers. A popular hangout for families and youths (or at least it was when I was a youth). There’s also a huge mall at one end of it. 

Other beach communities: Venice Beach (has a very weed and art and hippies vibe, and is where you’ll find the boardwalk with lots of artisan stalls and shops), Marina Del Rey (lots of restaurants and boats and water-based activities), the Palisades (beautiful oceanside cliffy/hilly neighborhood where lots of rich people live), Malibu (very bougie, touristy, and upscale.)

LAX: not a neighborhood, but I thought I’d include the infamous airport of Los Angeles. (There are actually something like 4-5 other nearby airports, but LAX is the biggest). LAX is kind of infamously terrible, because it’s huge, often congested, annoying to navigate, and not very well-planned. Getting in and out during peak travel times can be a nightmare. Driving someone to/from LAX is a true act of love (I only do it for my most beloved family members and friends). The best thing I can say about LAX is that there’s an iconic art installation as you drive in/out, which are these pillars that light up in different colors. 

The Valley: directly north of the other areas I just covered. Referred to as one entity by people who don’t live there, but the Valley is actually comprised of many different cities, including LA, Burbank, Calabasas, and San Fernando. It is MUCH hotter here than the rest of LA and a little more suburban-y. My experience of the Valley as someone who does NOT live there is mainly “ugh I have to drive to the Valley.” AKA, it’s to be avoided. Burbank has its own airport and a lot of the film studios are headquartered there.

Demographics: L.A. is one of the most diverse cities in the world. About a quarter of residents of Los Angeles are white (non-hispanic). Latine people make up about half the population (mainly Mexican and Mexican-Americans). There are also sizable Black, East Asian (mainly Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), Arabic, and South Asian populations. Additionally, LA is home to the largest concentration of Armenians and Iranians outside of Armenia and Iran, respectively. There is a significant and diverse Jewish population.

Food: as you might imagine, the huge amount of diversity in L.A. means the food is equally diverse (and extremely delicious). You can find almost any kind of cuisine in L.A., but common types of cuisine include: sushi,  thai, Persian (my personal favorite food to get in LA), chinese, pizza, Jewish delis, shawarma, pho, Korean BBQ (particularly in K-Town) and of course, tacos and other Mexican food, along with your standard “American” fare like burgers (you might find yourself wondering why everyone is so obsessed with In-N-Out even though their french fries are such garbage....), seafood (lots of nice-ish seafood places near the beach where the food is overpriced bc you’re really paying for the view), sandwiches (Bay Cities my beloved <3), etc. as well as lots of trendy fusion cuisine. Additionally, everyone who lives in LA has gone to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles at least once their life--it is an institution. 

Housing: Expensive. I mean, what did you expect? Single-family homes are quite common in LA vs. apartment buildings and condos. In addition, there is a HUGE population of unhoused people in Los Angeles (in fact it ranks No. 2 for the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the US). I won’t go into all the political hows and whys here, but this is a huge humanitarian crisis and a powder-keg issue amongst LA residents.

Most houses have a backyard and a front lawn and may or may not have a fence/gate. Few houses have basements. I don’t really know why that is. 

Lots of houses and apartment complexes have pools, but mainly in richer/upper-class neighborhoods who can afford the upkeep. Many LA parks have a community pool. Some schools even do, too.

Trees and flowers: I personally like knowing what kind of plants there are in any given setting, so here are some noteworthy trees and flowers found in LA:

Palm trees -- of course. The classic. Particularly common to the Venice, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills areas, but you can find them all over. There are actually a lot of different types, but the most common is the extremely tall skinny Mexican fan palm variety.

Jacarandas -- certain neighborhoods in LA will burst into furious purple bloom during jacaranda season (usually April-June) and the sidewalks will be littered with squished flowers for weeks

Ficus trees -- idk maybe these were specific to my neighborhood but we had a LOT of them

Birds of paradise -- I think this is the official flower of LA. Found in a lot of gardens.

Bougainvillea

Night-blooming jasmine -- smells incredible

Other notes: trees don’t really change color in the fall--you might see a few here and there with orange leaves, but for the most part we don’t get that nice fall foliage (nor do we really...have a fall season...). Grass lawns are common in residential areas (sadly) but more and more people are replacing them with succulent gardens and native gardens (yay!).

School: Public schools in LA go Grades K-5 for elementary, 6-8 for Middle School, and 9-12 for High School. The school year starts mid-August and ends mid-June (evidently they changed this since I was in school). Kids get three weeks of vacation for winter break (usually the week before Christmas - week after New Years) and one week for Spring Break (around Easter). 

Sports: there are TOO many sports teams for one city, even one as big as ours (absurdly, four of them share the same arena). They are as follows:

Baseball: the Dodgers are the main L.A. team (who are doing EXTREMELY well this season). They play at Dodger Stadium in Echo Park, and their fans tend to be more die-hard and stalwart. There’s also the Anaheim Angels, which some Angelenos root for, who play...idk somewhere in Anaheim.

Basketball: the Lakers, of course, and the Clippers. They both play at Staples Center which is located downtown (and as of last year is called Crypto.com Arena, ugh). In my experience Lakers fans are the most fair-weather of LA sports fans--they get super intense when the Lakers are good, and when they’re not, well... Clippers fans tend to be more die-hard and less fair-weather because, well, they have to be (sorry). The Sparks are the WNBA team. They ALSO play at the Staples Center (aka Crypto.com Arena but I refuse to call it that).

Hockey: the Kings. They ALSO play at The Stadium Formerly Known as Staples Center. I don’t follow hockey so idk anything else about them.

Football: the Rams and the Chargers. They both play at SoFi stadium in Inglewood (near the airport). Both are recent additions (2016 and 2017 respectively I think). When I lived in LA we had zero football teams and now we have two so I have no idea whats going on there.

Soccer: LAFC (Los Angeles Football Club) who play at the Banc of California Stadium near downtown and LA Galaxy who play at Dignity Health Sports Club near Compton. There is also a women’s team, Angel City FC, who also play at Banc of California Stadium. I know virtually nothing about soccer but hey, the stadium is going to feature heavily in the season 6 premiere!

Hollywood/celebrities/the Film Industry: you will absolutely see celebrities roaming around L.A. from time to time, especially if you frequent certain trendy areas like West Hollywood/Melrose, Santa Monica, Brentwood, etc. I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it’s not super rare. (I’ve seen like a handful of celebrities in the 20 years I lived there.)

You will DEFINITELY see filming happening all around the city. Usually you’ll see signs posted (usually with code names for whatever project it is), trucks, and tons of crewmembers walking around. Occasionally a street or other location might be blocked off for filming, but usually not anything too disruptive.

You will also see those “star-watchers” bus tours (where people go on a tour bus and they like drive around celebrity neighborhoods and look at celebrity houses) in and around the Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and West Hollywood areas. I use to see these tour buses every single day on my commute through Beverly Hills. 

There’s also, of course, many people living in LA who work in the industry or are trying to make it as an actor or writer or what have you. There are disproportionately attractive waiters/baristas in certain parts of LA because many of them are waiting tables to support acting careers. This is a stereotype but it’s also pretty true in my experience.

Studios are kind of sprinkled all over the city--there are some in West LA, some in West Hollywood, but the biggest concentration of studios is in Burbank, which is actually its own city in the Valley.

Places to go: in case you want some ideas for fun outings for fic purposes, here’s a list of places in or within reasonable distance of LA (not an exhaustive list obviously):

Disneyland

Universal Studios

Knott’s Berry Farm (this is a small-ish theme park, not an actual berry farm in case that’s unclear)

Six Flags

The Long Beach Aquarium

The LA Zoo (of course)

The Griffith’s Observatory (and Griffith Park in general)

The Getty Museum (very beautiful museum up in the hills with a gorgeous view of the city)

The Getty Villa (different place, also a museum)

Huntington Gardens/Library/Museum

Walt Disney Concert Hall 

Echo Park Lake (they have SWAN BOATS 🦢)

LA Science Center/Museum of Natural History

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)

JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab): this is where Karen works. Located in Pasadena. Once or twice a year they’ll do an open house where you can go and learn all about the types of stuff they’re doing. It’s very cool!

Catalina Island

Various beaches--closest would be Santa Monica, Venice, Will Rogers (Pacific Palisades), Playa Del Rey, Dockweiler (to my knowledge this is the only beach that allows bonfires). A bit further: Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Malibu, Huntington Beach

San Diego! Technically close enough for a day trip, but due to traffic you’d most likely want to stay the night.

Palm Springs (same kind of deal, although I’ve done it as a day trip)

If there’s anything I left out that you want to know about, please shoot me a message and I’ll add it! If you spot any errors, please also let me know. This is based mostly on my knowledge/experience of living in LA, but I did some additional research for stuff I wasn’t sure about or just needed a little more detail on (shout out to @swiftiesisters14 for her help!)

The geography might be a little generalized and I left out a LOT of the city, mostly because I just don’t think anyone wants to read a twenty-page paper on LA neighborhoods. If you want any additional details on a certain area/topic feel free to shoot me a message and I’ll do my best to help.

In general, if you ever have questions about LA while writing fic, I am happy to answer to them (if I can). 

[lizzygrantarchives]

Billboard, October 22, 2015

After reinventing herself as a cryptic Hollywood femme fatale, the 30-year-old singer has fought off the haters to become a proper, if unusual, pop star. In a rare interview, she opens up about coping with anxiety, her new-age mentors and how she almost played Sharon Tate on the big screen: “I could have become an American nightmare.”

LANA DEL REY AND I WERE FIRST introduced at an Architectural Digest pimped manse off Pacific Coast Highway during a party thrown, weirdly enough, for Werner Herzog and his bud, the physicist Lawrence Krauss. (Del Rey, 30, has spoken before of her interest in science and philosophy.) On that night, she wore an unformfitting Polo shirt dress with a personal-old-fave vibe. In deglamorized “Stars Without Makeup” mode, she was unpretentious and softly gregarious, like a doe-eyed, underdressed newcomer to the Town. I was at the same table, and she caught me staring off at the horizon. Del Rey was sardonically attuned, nudging her boyfriend, the Italian photographer-director Francesco Carrozzinni, to have a look at the cliché: Old Brooding Man. Her warmth took me out of myself.

Lana Del Rey’s fourth album, Honeymoon, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in September, but when I asked if she planned to go on the road to promote it, she shook her head. “I do everything backwards. It already happened — I’m actually done with the world tour I started four years ago, when I needed to be out there. I really needed to be out there singing.”

That exodus was partly born of the need to heal following a 2012 appearance on Saturday Night Live that elicited a slaughter-of-the-lamb storm of derision over the then up-and-coming star’s seemingly zoned-out amateurism. She was tarred as a poseur — part Edie Sedgwick, part Valley of the Dolls, a Never Will Be Ready for Primetime Player — but it turned out that Del Rey was only at the end of Act One in an all-American A Star Is Born passion play of celebrity crucifixion and resurrection.

Born Lizzy Grant in Lake Placid, N.Y., Del Rey moved to Manhattan at 18. “For seven years I wrote sexy songs about love,” she says. “That was the most joyous time of my life.” The screen that so many gossipy personas have been projected onto (rich preppy, suicidal anti-feminist, morbid dilettante) has instead transformed into a nearly religious dashboard icon of ghostly seduction. She’s a global phenomenon, part of the national conversation and cultural soundscape. Nielsen Music puts her total U.S. album sales at 2.5 million, and her videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. Del Rey is now a few years into her return from the desert, having arrived on a mystery train of Santa Ana winds, existential dread and “soft ice cream” (to quote her song “Salvatore”) that is uniquely her own.

I meet her for the interview at a John Lautner house she rents in Los Angeles. Lautner was a seminal Southern California architect, and Del Rey says her choice of lodging was deliberate. She production-designs her life. She greets me in the drive — inquisitive, friendly and aware. For a moment, she looks like Elvis and Priscilla, all in one. The hair is old-school Clairol dark, the eyes siren green, the auburn ’do the most done thing about her.

“You’d love my dad,” she says. She was just on the phone with him; her parents are visiting. He’s a realtor, and Mom’s an English teacher whose passion is reading history books. Del Rey lives here with her younger sister, Caroline Grant, a photographer who goes by Chuck. (Del Rey tells me that her sister was so shocked by the force of the fans’ emotions during concerts that she doesn’t take pictures of them anymore.)

“My dad’s that guy with perfect Hawaiian shirts and matching shorts,” says Del Rey. “The other day he said, ‘We should see about getting you a vintage Rolls.’ I said, ‘Um, it’s a little attention-grabbing.’ And he said, ‘Uh, yeah.’ ”

What do you do with yourself now that you have nothing on your schedule?

I go for long walks, long drives. I’ll get in the car and drive the streets, feeling for places. I go to Big Sur. I love Big Sur, but it has gotten so touristy. I went to the General Store, and there were hordes. On a Monday! But I’m drawn there. Sometimes I go to write. I’ve been thinking it might be time to do a longer video, a 40-minute video. I was watching The Sandpiper, and I was working on something kind of based on that.

Have you thought of writing something for yourself? Shooting down the paparazzi helicopter in the video for “High by the Beach” was your idea, no?

Yeah, it was. I’d like to write a book one day. But you need a beginning, a middle and an end! I can deal with four minutes — but I’m not so sure about a book.

Your song “God Knows I Tried” fits somewhere between The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I’m thinking of Cohen because of that line “Even though it all went wrong.”

I love Leonard — because he’s all about women. Women and God.

Does it all go wrong?

It’s hard for me sometimes to think about going on when I know we’re going to die. Something happened in the last three years, with my panic…

I had read that you were prone to that.

It got worse. But I’ve always been prone to it. I remember being — I was, I think, 4 years old — and I’d just seen a show on TV where the person was killed. And I turned to my parents and said, “Are we all going to die?” They said “Yes,” and I was totally distraught! I broke down in tears and said, “We have to move!”

How do you cope?

I saw a therapist — three times. But I’m really most comfortable sitting in that chair in the studio, writing or singing.

The panic won’t last forever.

I don’t think so, but … sometimes you just want to be able to enjoy the view. I think I’m really like my mother, in the sense that I make small lists. To calm myself down. I reward myself. You know, “If I finish this, then I’ll do that” — I’ll go for a walk on the beach or swim in the ocean. I go for swims and am actually shocked I do that. Because one thing I’m terrified of is sharks.

Do you think having a child would chill you out? Do you want to have kids?

I’ve thought about it. Really thought about it lately because I’ve just turned 30. I’d love having daughters. But I don’t think it’d be a good idea to have kids with someone who wasn’t … on the same page.

Someone who…

Who isn’t exactly — like me! (Laughs.) Though maybe it’s best to have kids with someone who’s … normal.

When was the last time you got trashed by a love affair?

The last one — before the boyfriend I’m with now — was pretty bad. It wasn’t good to be in it, but it wasn’t good to be out of it, either. He was like a twin. Not a facsimile twin, but a real twin.

So maybe finding the same person doesn’t work. Are relationships hard for you?

For someone like me — and it’s not a codependent thing — I just like having someone there. I’ve been alone, and that’s fine. But I like to come home and have someone there. You know, to say, “Oh, he’s here. And this other thing (Mimes a table.) is there. And this (Mimes setting down an object on the table.) is there. (Laughs.) I’m very methodical. I have to be. I’m like that in the studio too. Mixing and mastering can take four more months after we’re done — three to mix and one to master. I like having a plan. Though I do leave spaces for ad-libbing in the studio when I write.

Do you mind if I write all this? Because I don’t want to piss off Francesco.

Oh, he’s going to read this! But he’ll have things to say anyway. He’s very … aggressive. (Smiles.) And besides, I didn’t say he wasn’t just like me.

There’s something weirdly shamanistic about your work. You channel Los Angeles in ways I haven’t seen from anyone, at least not in a long while. Places now extinct, streets and feelings that you have no right to be able to evoke because of your age. And it’s so unlikely that you’re the one to be the oracle that way. But it’s for real.

I know. I know that. I love that word, “shamanistic.” I read energy; I always have. One of the books I love — aside from [Kenneth Anger’s] Hollywood Babylon — is The Autobiography of a Yogi. And Wayne Dyer … I was so upset when he died! [Dyer, part Buddhist, part New Thought motivational speaker, was best-known for his book Your Erroneous Zones. He died in August.] He gave me so much over the last 15 years. I went to see a clairvoyant. She asked me to write down four things on a card before I came in, things I might be thinking about, and she nailed all four. I asked about the man I was seeing — that one, before the one now. She said, “I don’t really like to go there, but … I just don’t see him present.” I went, “Ugh.” She’s seeing the future and doesn’t see him present. Oh, no!

Are you aware of your effect on men?

I’ve only recently become aware of the heterosexual males who are into my music. I remember when I was 16, I had a boyfriend. I think he was… 25? I thought that was the best thing. He had an F-150 pickup and let me drive it one time. I was so high up! I panicked and was worried I might kill someone — run over a nun or something. I started to shake. I was screaming and crying. I saw him looking over, and he was smiling. He said, “I love that you’re out of control.” He saw how vulnerable I was, how afraid, and he loved that. The balance shifted from there. I had the upper hand — until then.

Do you want to be in the movies?

Well… I’m open to it all. James Franco asked me to be in three films that were going to be directed by a Spanish director, and I was hesitant. I think he heard my hesitance and got scared. Someone wanted me to be Sharon Tate. I thought, “That’s so right.” At that time, there were three Manson movies being talked about, but none were ever made. So maybe that was the answer.

Have you ever been the “voice of reason” for a friend in crisis?

I have — I can be. It’s easier to do that sometimes … for someone who’s half-checked out.

Meaning you.

Yes. (Pauses.) You know, I was living in Hancock Park once and thought about a movie idea. I was renting this house whose high walls had been grandfathered in, so of course I kept making them taller and taller. And I had an idea about writing something about a woman living there, a singer losing her mind. She has this Nest-like security system installed, cameras everywhere. The only people she saw were people who work on the grounds: construction people and gardeners. One day she hears the gardener humming this song she wrote. She panics and thinks, “Oh, my God. Was I humming that out loud or just to myself? And if it was aloud, wasn’t it at 4 in the morning? Did that mean he was outside my window?” Then a storm comes, one of those L.A. storms, and the power goes out except to the cameras, which are on a different source. And the pool has been empty for months because of the drought. And she goes outside in the middle of the night because she hears something — and trips over the gardener’s hoe and falls into the empty pool and dies facedown like William Holden at the end of Sunset Boulevard.

For me, one of the most interesting things about you and your story — and of course your work — is that you broke through. That it has turned out well.

I think about it, and I’m so grateful. I am aware that it could easily not have happened. That I could have become … an American nightmare. I see her — Lana — I listen to her and watch her, and I’m … protective.

Let’s end with Big Sur. Do you think your interest is by way of your kinship with the Beats? Your enthrallment with Kerouac?

Big Sur challenges me to surrender. What draws me is … the curves. I’m really drawn to the curves.

Originally published on billboard.com, and in the October 31, 2015 issue of Billboard with the headline An Inconvenient Woman.

[ediblegardenspointloma]

In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Warmer days and less fog kick-started the red bell pepper plants. These were the first four of the season and there are another half dozen in various colorations. Stuffed green bell peppers are ahead and some will be diced and frozen for winter uses. I can be patient for a week or two as the cauliflower starts need to size up before supplanting the peppers.

Over the last ten days I’ve removed the three dwarf tomato plants and the black cherry. Though the Rosella Purple were often “cat faced,” they echo my favorite tomato, Black Krim. A recap of the “dwarf tomatoes in the fog belt” experiment is coming soon. Capsule summary: we got tomatoes though the months June through September were the cloudiest in four years as measured by our solar panel production.

With the messiness of end-of-season tomatoes and dry beans cleared, I refreshed the beds with compost, organic fertilizer and gypsum in readiness for the second season garden. Premium Crop and Jacaranda broccoli thrive in the bright winter sun and cool winter days. Netting protects the plants from cabbage moths for a few weeks and 40% shade cloth is at hand for hot, dry Santa Ana conditions

We’re still in strawberry guava season with the total harvest at 75 pounds and another 20 percent of the crop to come. That is thousands of guavas. The fruit is larger and more abundant this year likely due to excellent winter rains last season and two inches of rain in August with the tropical cyclone. Yesterday I did guava drops at church (pizza pan) and three pounds or so to a friend’s front porch. If they weren’t so perishable, I’d give to a local food bank.

Click on the square in the lower right corner to expand the guava shake. You can hear them plop down on the trays below the tree. We harvested 15 pounds on the weekend. There appears to be a smaller winter crop coming on as well, guessing around January or February.

Light is everything and late season roses are enchanting. Hot Cocoa and Ambridge.

This is most of the dry bean harvest from a 3 x 4 foot area, drying on the warm stone patio. The reveal comes next week. I may struggle with tomatoes, but my garden in amenable to beans. I doubled the ground devoted to dry beans this year.

October brings the asters and fond recollections of the ones I grew in my Massachusetts garden.

Check the What I’m Planting Now page as I transplant and sow seeds for the cool season garden. Then head today to Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres blog and see what garden bloggers around the world harvested last week.

To leave a comment, click on “Leave a comment/Show comments,” enter the comment, then insert your name. Finally, click on “Comment as Guest” to post comment.

[weaselle]

California Fires

Did you know Fire Tornadoes are a real thing that exist and are happening in my state right now?

We knew this was going to be an especially bad fire season, but boy is it determined to prove us right -- and it’s still the beginning, it’s actually a little early for fires like this, it won’t even stop being fire season until around November 1st.

People who aren’t from California seem to think of fires as something that happens when it gets hot in a year that hasn’t had much rain, but it’s actually something that happens when it gets dry and windy in a year that had a lot of rain. Here’s the pattern:

Lots of rain means lots of growth of ground cover plants; bushes and grass come in thick and tall. Then during most of the summer, those plants slowly die off and dry out, leaving a bunch of tall, thick, dry, dead vegetation everywhere. Then, closer to fall, the wind starts to pick up. Without wind, fires can stay small and localized. But wind will let a fire send embers from bush to bush and even across roads and creeks.

And the reason we started calling it Climate Change instead of Global Warming is because even though the problematic big picture trend is increased global temperature, the actual local immediate experience is extreme weather in all categories. Floods that are bigger or unseasonal, storms that are bigger or unseasonal, cold that is colder or unseasonal, drought, heat, snow, wind, all just MORE and with unusual timing, breaking established weather patterns.

So, this year we had a drier than usual winter, but then an unseasonably wet spring. At this point my friends and family and I were already talking about fire season, because this meant a LOT of grass and brush growth riiiiiight before summer.

Then, sure enough, record breaking dry heat for the summer. All that grass and brush died and dried. Great.

The Santa Ana winds that blow hot dry air at high speeds across California every year have also been acting up, in addition to supplementary wind activity from the extra storm systems we’ve been seeing. The Santa Ana winds are usually most active in autumn, which is part of why September is solidly in the middle of fire season here, but this year they’ve been pretty active sporadically, and then,, like a baker making the perfect fire-season cake, they’ve ramped way up extra early.

To top it off, we’ve gotten dry thunder storms this month, which I’ve never seen here before, so there has been a lot of dry lightening strikes (over ten thousand lightning strikes in the last 72 hours with almost no rain). We don’t even get normal thunderstorms at all in August. Like, at ALL.. I’ve gone whole years without hearing thunder once. So this is highly unusual.

Which is how we’re here now. With 367 different wildfires currently raging in California, some of which are truly huge. The fire one county over from me is bigger than all of Washington DC, and another fire in the county on the other side of me is nearly as big, and thousands of people are being evacuated, and there is ash falling like snow in the backyard. The biggest one in Southern California is over 130 square miles (or 335 square kilometers). Basically my whole state is burning.

And we’ve been getting fire tornados.

Which sounds like something out of a bad movie, but is, apparently, a real thing that is happening in California. That is where already strong winds and huge balloons of heat rising from fires create tornadoes MADE OF FIRE. Like, the air itself is on fire, and also is a tornado.

So that’s fun. 

[rjzimmerman]

Each year, we see plenty of stories just like this. Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The (changing) climate

But while California’s climate has always been fire prone, the link between climate change and bigger fires is inextricable. “Behind the scenes of all of this, you’ve got temperatures that are about two to three degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than they would’ve been without global warming,” Dr. Williams said. That dries out vegetation even more, making it more likely to burn.

California’s fire record dates back to 1932; the 10 largest fires since then have occurred since 2000, including the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest in state history, and this year’s L.N.U. Lightning Complex, which is burning west of Sacramento.

People

Even if the conditions are right for a wildfire, you still need something or someone to ignite it. Sometimes the trigger is nature, like a lightning strike, but more often than not humans are responsible.

“Many of these large fires that you’re seeing in Southern California and impacting the areas where people are living are human-caused,” said Nina S. Oakley, an assistant research professor of atmospheric science at the Desert Research Institute.

Many deadly fires have been started by downed power lines. The 2018 Carr Fire, the state’s sixth-largest on record, started when a truck blew out its tire and its rim scraped the pavement, sending out sparks.

Fire suppression

It’s counterintuitive, but the United States’ history of suppressing wildfires has actually made present-day wildfires worse.

“For the last century we fought fire, and we did pretty well at it across all of the Western United States,” Dr. Williams said. “And every time we fought a fire successfully, that means that a bunch of stuff that would have burned didn’t burn. And so over the last hundred years we’ve had an accumulation of plants in a lot of areas.

The Santa Ana winds

The second stage of this year’s fire season is yet to come.

Each fall, strong gusts known as the Santa Ana winds bring dry air from the Great Basin area of the West into Southern California, said Fengpeng Sun, an assistant professor in the department of geosciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Dr. Sun is a co-author of a 2015 study that suggests that California has two distinct fire seasons. One, which runs from June through September and is driven by a combination of warmer and drier weather, is the Western fire season that most people think of. Those wildfires tend to be more inland, in higher-elevation forests.

But Dr. Sun and his co-authors also identified a second fire season that runs from October through April and is driven by the Santa Ana winds. Those fires tend to spread three times faster and burn closer to urban areas, and they were responsible for 80 percent of the economic losses over two decades beginning in 1990.

[rosalyn51]

BOOKS NEWS

All Souls Trilogy: Harry Potter for Grown-Ups?

By Peter Haldeman Jan 17, 2019

Deborah Harkness’s best-selling series — brimming with magic, time travel and witches — has spawned an avid fan base, an annual convention, and now, a splashy TV adaptation.

Photo Credit Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times

“What is the book you pick up when you’re done with Harry Potter? I’d like to think you’d pick up a big set of chunky books like All Souls, which similarly talks about real issues, but issues facing adults, not teenagers,” said Deborah Harkness.

PASADENA, Calif. — On the patio of the Langham Huntington hotel here, on a sunny afternoon tinged with smoke from the recent wildfires in the area, Deborah Harkness swirled a glass of Jules Taylor sauvignon blanc, sniffed and sipped, then pronounced the wine “zingy. Really zingy. 2017, if I had to guess.” Not an unusual appraisal from an oenophile who once wrote a blog called “Good Wine Under $20.” But then came a less expected disquisition on the quasi-scientific history of winemaking: “There’s all kinds of lore about alchemists fortifying wines and liquors, boiling them down, evaporating, ending up with something they called the spirit of wine.”

Harkness’s wine blog may have won awards from Food & Wine and Saveur, but she is better known as a historian of science and medicine at the University of Southern California — and far better known as the author of a series of novels brimming with alchemy and magic, witches and vampires. All three of the books in her All Souls trilogy — “‘Twilight’ for the intellectually restless,” as NPR described one of the volumes — as well as her most recent novel, “Time’s Convert,” have landed at the top or second spot on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

The trilogy — “A Discovery of Witches,” “Shadow of Night” and “The Book of Life” — has also spawned a fan wiki, an annual convention attended by hundreds of adults who self-identify as supernatural, and a merchandise line that extends to duvet covers. “The series has great brand recognition and some of the most loyal fans on earth,” said Laura Tisdel, Harkness’s editor at Viking. “The books feel like guilty pleasures, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about, because with Deb you’re in the hands of a real honest to god historian.”

Until recently the All Souls brand lacked one critical asset — the splashy television adaptation. But on Jan. 17, Sundance Now and Shudder air the United States premiere of an eight-part series based on “A Discovery of Witches.” (Two more seasons, corresponding to the other books, have been greenlighted.) The show, produced by Bad Wolf and Sky Productions, stars Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop, the Yale scholar and “reluctant witch” whose discovery of an enchanted manuscript attracts the attention of an assortment of magical beings, including Matthew Clairmont — a smoldering-eyed vampire scientist with designs on Diana — played by the suitably hunky Matthew Goode.

Photo Credit Robert Viglasky/SKY Productions and Sundance Now

Until recently the All Souls brand lacked one critical asset — the splashy screen adaptation. That’s just changed, with Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer starring in the new series “A Discovery of Witches.”

“It’s a very character-driven story, which is why I’m glad it ended up with Sundance,” Harkness said. “It means we don’t have to blow up so much stuff and have so much fake blood.” As executive producer of the show, Harkness had a hand in everything from the casting to the edits. She has been busy promoting both the show and “Time’s Convert.” Harkness gives a lot of interviews in hotel rooms — which may be why her publicist stipulated that this one take place at the Langham Huntington, even though the author lives less than two miles away. In any case, Harkness, who arrived in jeans and well-worn cowboy boots, her blonde hair staticky from the Santa Ana winds, fairly radiated spontaneity and sincerity. Maybe it was the wine.

She was, for example, expansive on the subject of new projects, a topic many writers would rather submit to a tax return than discuss. All Souls groupies will be happy to hear she is now 200 pages into a book about Matthew grappling with the forces of religious radicalism in 16th-century Europe. She recently returned from a three-week cruise around New Zealand to research another book about Matthew’s nephew, the beloved soldier and mercenary Gallowglass. A deep dive into the history of witchcraft is also in the works.

Harkness is descended from a witch — or at least a woman hanged in Salem for allegedly practicing witchcraft. The supernatural seized her imagination at a young age. “I can still see ‘The Witch of Blackbird Pond’ on the shelves of the Horsham library,” she said. Horsham, a suburb of Philadelphia, is not a bad place to grow up if you’re interested in history, another early passion of hers. There were family picnics at battlefields, tours of historic houses. When she was 8, her father, the manager of a paint store, and her mother, who worked as a secretary, took Harkness and her younger brother on a trip to England — sparking a lifelong interest in Elizabethan history.

She went to college at Mount Holyoke, where she designed her own major, in Renaissance Studies. A class called “Magic, Knowledge and the Pursuit of Power in the Renaissance” was transformative: “It was like somebody had taken a can opener to my brain and peeled off the lid. The teacher opened up the class by asking, ‘How do you know what you think you know?’ I’ve never stopped asking that question.”

Harkness studied the history of magic and science in early modern Europe at Northwestern University, where she received a master’s degree. Her adviser, convinced she was a natural storyteller on the strength of a one-page writing exercise, suggested she try her hand at fiction. Instead she went on to get her doctorate at the University of California, Davis, spending a year at Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship and writing her dissertation on John Dee, the alchemist and mathematician who served as the astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I.

Photo Credit Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times

Harkness’s trilogy has spawned a fan wiki, an annual convention attended by hundreds, and now a television adaptation.

At Northwestern she also met Karen Halttunen, a professor of American history who has been her partner since 1995: “Nothing happened for seven years, but when I started my first teaching job she was like a mentor to me and within a year it was clear to me, at least, that I was head over heels,” Harkness said. In 2004 the couple moved from Davis to Los Angeles to take jobs at U.S.C., where Halttunen is the head of the history department.

One of the things about natural storytellers is that they can tell a tale over and over and it never gets old. Like this one: In the fall of 2008 Harkness took a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, where, at the airport bookstore, she was surprised to discover racks of books featuring supernatural characters (the Twilight craze was at its peak). “I bought a notebook and began sketching out ideas,” she recalled. “I think I thought I was writing an op-ed piece about why are we today as fascinated by these creatures of myth and legend as my research subjects were in 1550.” Five or six weeks later she had 180 pages — and they contained dialogue.

The three-part narrative she had begun started with a romantic tale that became “A Discovery of Witches,” published in 2011. It was followed by “Shadow of Night” in 2012 (Diana and Matthew time travel to Elizabethan England to unlock the secrets of the ancient manuscript), and “The Book of Life” in 2014 (the quest concludes at Matthew’s ancestral home in Auvergne).

Harkness calls “Time’s Convert,” which came out in September, a “prequelly sequelly book,” spanning the life of Matthew’s son Marcus, from his days on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War to his contemporary romance with Phoebe, a warmblood turned vampire. (Vampires, remember, live forever.)

The author said that her books do not cleave to the conventions of genre fiction. Rather, she sees her writing in the vein of J.K. Rowling’s: “What is the book you pick up when you’re done with Harry Potter? I’d like to think you’d pick up a big set of chunky books like All Souls, which similarly talks about real issues, but issues facing adults, not teenagers.”

The popular novelist Jodi Picoult — herself no stranger to best-seller lists — admires the intellectual heft of Harkness’s books. “Her storytelling may hook you first,” she wrote in an email, “but you’ll learn history, literature and science in the course of reading one of her novels.”

You will also encounter weighty themes. Differentness — the differentness of a daemon with a drug problem, say — is a dominant motif. “That’s sort of what the whole series is about,” Harkness said, washing down some wasabi peas with the last of her wine. “That eternal conflict between on the one hand knowing that difference and diversity is what makes us stronger and on the other being terrified of it.”

She is not a fussy writer. Her primary work space is her home office overlooking the swimming pool in the backyard of the English cottage-like house she shares with Halttunen. But she also writes in hotels and on planes. Playlists are essential — “a lot of period music, but not exclusively, so it’ll be like a loop of 16th century and then Mumford & Sons.” She relies on “a great team of beta readers” to review early drafts.

To clear her head Harkness rides her quarter horse, Blue. A year and a half ago she bought a getaway home, set amid the conifers on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Wash. But she hasn’t been able to spend as much time there as she would like. In addition to her teaching and writing schedules, there are the demands of running a literary franchise — the TV series, the book tours, the social media.

From the FAQs page on her website: Q: Do you believe in magic? A: Absolutely. When asked about that claim, Harkness dialed it back just a bit. “I believe there’s more in the world that’s happening than we’re able to explain,” she said. “Do I believe that you could do something on the terrace of the Langham and it would have an effect on that tree over there? I’m not sure I do, but I could see why you might believe that.”

Maybe it was the wine again, but a skeptical reporter found himself focusing on the tree in question, a tall, skinny fan palm, and concentrating on movement: swaying trunk, fluttering fronds. The tree didn’t move — but that’s beside the point.

[doomedandstoned]

To Helltown & Back: Electric Citizen’s Laura Dolan Speaks

~By Jamie LaRose~

Photographs by Sally Townsend

My recent visit with Laura Dolan, the commanding winger of Cincinnati’s Electric Citizen, was both enlightening and welcomed. She is a vegan, a lover of classic cars, and a well-experienced thrift store fashionista. I remember meeting Laura in 2014, when Satyress had the pleasure of playing a show with Electric Citizen and Fu Manchu at Dante’s in Portland, Oregon. I found the band to be a delightful, friendly, and talented bunch. Electric Citizen is currently on tour with Monster Magnet in support of the new album, 'Helltown' (2018 - RidingEasy Records). Their third album is reminiscent of their first, 'Sateen' (2014), with its raw, powerful sound. This is a great Cincinnati Northside-true album, written, recorded, engineered, and inspired by “Hell Town” itself. Get your dose of heavy psychedelic healing at one of the tour dates listed below and get your copy of Helltown while you're at it!

I don’t know if you remember, it’s been a while, but we’ve played a show together. It was the Fu Manchu show in Portland, Oregon in May of 2014.

I thought so! Yes, I remember your band. You were wonderful.

You, too! I remember meeting you and talking with you about essential oils.

I remembered it was Pentagram or Fu Manchu because we played the same venue, it was at Dante’s.

All of us at Doomed & Stoned are excited to get the chance to talk to you at this time of your new release 'Helltown.' I was interested in the meaning behind the name of the album and the band. I read that “Hell Town” is one of the names by which the neighborhood you live in is known. I would like to know a little bit about the relationship between that and the writing process for the band on this album.

Absolutely. I chose that name for several different reasons. I mean the most obvious is the translation of where the album was written and practiced, recorded. It just kind of made sense to pay homage to that. I also like that it can also take on these multiple meanings, which is something I really try to do with songwriting, as well. It can be a futuristic thing, or it could play into current times.

Helltown by Electric Citizen

As far as what our neighborhood means to us is this is where everything happens. The studio where we record is a stone’s throw away from our house, which is also where we practice and write all the music. It’s just this really great little neighborhood which is unique in Cincinnati where there’s a lot of different ethnic groups, and there’s a lot of artists, the LGBTQ community is strong here. All of these different types of people that we are surrounded by are hugely inspiring to me. I just have this very special place in my heart for this neighborhood, and the guys share the same sentiment. "Hell Town" is a nickname that was more commonly used in the 1800s when it was an entertainment district for the factory workers because we are in a very industrial area. So this is where they would go and hang out after they got off work from the factories and it was just known as "Hell Town." There were so many different things about it that are so meaningful that it just makes it the perfect title for this album.

Where do you find or draw inspiration in the process for the band or when writing any music in general?

I like to start by writing a track and feeling out where it’s going from the melody standpoint, and then trying to craft something meaningful into that. The melody is such a hugely important part of the song. There’s so much to draw inspiration from like today’s political state, relationships between people, our current times. I feel fascinated by the idea that we are living in this huge turning point, the dawn of the era of technology and how that’s affecting us as a human race. That’s something I love exploring. Every day is like an episode of Black Mirror. What’s going to happen to us? There are so many things happening right now that we’ve never experienced as the human race.

I can hear that questioning nature of inspiration in the lyrics and music. What type of challenges might you face while working together and making and recording music together?

Well, we’re pretty lucky in that we get along. That’s something I don’t take for granted because we’ve had a few different change-ups in the lineup, and we’re now kind of back to where we were at the beginning of the band. We had a great time with our other bass player, but the dynamic can be very different. Having the energy of the original band, and the relationships we all have with each other is a huge help as far as writing and making the music, as well as enjoying the process the whole way. I think we make it harder on ourselves by choosing to record analog; that’s definitely a much more tedious task than recording digitally. We have a pretty standardized process where Ross writes the basics of the song, and then we all start layering on top of that using a huge amount of editing. I think it’s a really important quality to have to be able to stand back and say, “You know what, I’ve created something and it sucks,” and I’m going to scrap it and try again. I think that self-reflection is really important.

It is the universal nature of some good work to be thorough. Speaking of the process of the mixing and the engineering, can you explain a bit about that process as used in the new album?

Unlike the process of the second album which may have been a bit more polished than we would mean, we knew on the third album that we wanted to try to capture what we had in the first album.

It sounds like everything about 'Helltown' was done in “Hell Town.” From the new tracks, I can see its relationship to the first album in its grittiness and more natural nature. What are the details of the release?

The album official release date is September 28th. It’s being released worldwide through Riding Easy Records. There is distribution all of the world, you can get it at Riding Easy Records in the states and of course we are also starting a tour with Monster Magnet on the same day so you can come get it from us at the merch booth.

What are some of your most successful accomplishments so far as a group?

Beyond what we’ve created, which is really the whole reason we’ve started doing this, I think that some of the bands we’ve gotten to tour with have been a huge accomplishment. There’s been Arthur Brown, a long-time hero he is the godfather of shock rock. He’s inspired so many different artists. We’ve opened for King Diamond, Joan Jett, Fu Manchu and this tour with Monster Magnet is a big deal for us. That’s a band that’s really made a name for themselves. Getting to tour Europe, I personally had never been over there before touring as a band. It’s great to go into a project like this having no expectations, and then having all these things happening. Every single one of them has kind of been mind-blowing for us. That’s one of the things I’ve learned growing older, have no expectations and life will exceed them all.

How have you grown as a singer and artist over the years?

When I was first starting out, singing in bands, I had such a fear for doing what I’m doing. As soon as I was able to release that and have the fearlessness of, “If I fail, I fail. If I don’t, I don’t.”, I would encourage anyone that’s going into any form of art; remember to have that fearlessness. It’s so freeing. I feel like that’s such an important message, especially to young girls that are interested in doing this and following in our footsteps, singing in a band or whatever it is. It’s just, "You have nothing to fear except fear itself!"

What is your message to the universe?

Oh wow, that’s a good one. Hmm, that is such an important question. I think really for me it comes down to… just be kind to each other. Everybody in this world is fighting their own fight, and I think it’s so important to remember to give room for people to behave like they do because you just don’t know what’s going on with their life. I think that ultimately what this world needs more than anything right now is kindness. I guess it would be just as simple as that. Be kind to each other. Maybe to ask everyone to love each other is too much, but if you can’t find that in your heart, just be kind.

Electric Citizen & Monster Magnet on Tour

10/02 - Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge 10/03 - Minneapolis, MN @ Cabooze 10/05 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater 10/06 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge 10/08 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater 10/09 - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom 10/10 - Seattle, WA @ El Corazon 10/12 - San Francisco, CA @ Thee Parkside 10/15 - Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory 10/16 - San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick 10/17 - Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge 10/19 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger 10/20 - Dallas, TX @ Canton Hall 10/21 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall 10/23 - Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade 10/24 - Nashville, TN @ Basement East 10/26 - Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage 10/27 - New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre 10/28 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair

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[patriotsnet]

Can Republicans Vote In Sc Democratic Primary

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/can-republicans-vote-in-sc-democratic-primary/

Can Republicans Vote In Sc Democratic Primary

The Presidential Primary Will Not Use The Familiar Top Two Ballot

Republicans launch Operation Chaos 2020 ahead of SC Democratic Primary

California voters can be forgiven for assuming that political party registration doesnt really matter.

In 2010 voters backed a measure to create the states nonpartisan top two election system, in which all primary voters fill out a ballot with every candidate on it regardless of either the voters or the candidates political party. The top two winners then move on to the general election ballot even if theyre both from the same party.

In races for state legislative and congressional seats, the top two method will still reign on the 2020 ballot.;

But when you vote in the presidential primary, its back to the old partisan system: Democrats on the Democratic ballot, Republicans on the Republican ballot, and so on.

So while voting in California usually goes like this under the top two:

In the presidential primary, it looks a little more like this:

Sanders Warns California Primary Could Disenfranchise His Independent Base

OAKLAND Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders charged Friday that Californias primary system threatens to disenfranchise millions of independent voters whose support he has cultivated in the nations most populous state.

Sanders said Friday during a press conference in Santa Ana that he and his team have been campaigning hard to reach Californias 5.3 million no-party-preference voters, who now represent the second largest voting bloc in the state at 25.9 percent ahead of Republicans, who comprise 23.7 percent.

But in California, where voting has already started ahead of the March 3 election, the Vermont senator said hes concerned that independents are not yet turning out in large numbers.

Each party establishes its own presidential primary rules. In California, Democrats allow independents to participate if those voters request a Democratic ballot, while Republicans have a closed system that requires voters to re-register with the GOP.

Unfortunately, under the current NPP participation rules, we risk locking out millions of young people millions of young people of color and many, many other people who wanted to participate in the Democratic primary but may find it impossible for them to do so, he said. And that seems to me to be very, very wrong.

Sanders himself has long been registered as an independent while serving in Congress, but he caucuses with Democrats and has filed as a Democrat to run twice for president.

How Are Presidential Primary Elections Conducted In California

Qualified political parties in California may hold presidential primaries in one of two ways:

Closed presidential primary only voters indicating a preference for a party may vote for that partys presidential nominee.

Modified-closed presidential primary the party also allows voters who did not state a party preference to vote for that partys presidential nominee.

If a qualified political party chooses to hold a modified-closed presidential primary, the party must notify the California Secretary of State no later than the 135th day before Election Day.

Voters who registered to vote without stating a political party preference are known as No Party Preference voters. For information on NPP voters voting in a presidential primary election, please see our webpage on No Party Preference Information.

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Effort Underway To Get Republicans To Vote In Sc Democratic Primary

GREENVILLE CO., SC One Upstate group is working to get Republicans to vote in the South Carolinas Democratic primary on February 29.

Karen Martin, the organizer of Trump 2-29, said the group is encouraging Republicans to vote for Senator Bernie Sanders in Februarys primary.

GOP leaders in the Upstate say, the effort is designed to make a point about open primaries.

Trump 2-29 is set to announce their plans during a news conference at Greenville GOP headquarters Thursday morning.

GOP chairs from five counties, and leaders of the Tea Party activist group plan to attend the announcement.

Following the announcement, the group plans to spread their message across Republican social media pages and conservative talk radio shows.

Republican party officials voted in September 2019 to cancel the GOP primary. Party leaders said the cancellation will save taxpayers over $1.2 million.

If There Is Such Evidence I Havent Seen This

Yanna Krupnikov, an associate political science professor at Stony Brook University, told me that even beginning to understand the impact of crossover voting strategies like Operation Chaos or the South Carolina GOPs votes for Bernie Sanders is challenging.

For example, wed first have to assume that partisans would truthfully explain their strategies, she said. Second, wed have to assume a counterfactual of what would have happened if there wasnt any effort by the other party to push a certain candidate. She added she hadnt seen much proof that crossover voting strategies were effective. If there is such evidence, I havent seen this.

Kelly Rader, an associate political science professor at Yale University, agreed, telling me that while crossover voting is common in open primaries, theres little empirical evidence that crossover voters are trying to sabotage the party in the general election. Rather, she said, They seem to be voting for their sincerely preferred candidates. Of the South Carolina GOPs push for Sanders, she said, It seems more like a political stunt to draw attention to the drawbacks of open primaries.

Related

The deeply strange Republican New Hampshire primary, explained

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The High Stakes In South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District: Can Republicans Answer

If you have a mail-in absentee ballot:;For it to count,;it must be received by your county voter registration office no later than 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

Options to ensure your vote is counted if you have not mailed it already include personally delivering your ballot to your county voter registration office.

You cannot return your absentee ballot to your polling place. In-person absentee voting ends at 5 p.m. on Monday.

Races to watch: The biggest race in the state is the coastal 1st Congressional District GOP primary that will decide a Republican nominee to take on incumbent Democrat Joe Cunningham.

The candidates are: Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox, Mount Pleasant Town Council member Kathy Landing, state Rep. Nancy Mace, and Bluffton housing official Brad Mole.;

Residents from parts of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Colleton and Beaufort counties will decide the nominee.

If no candidate receives better than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election will be held in two weeks, on June 23.

In the GOP U.S. Senate race open to Republican voters statewide, incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham faces three challengers: attorney Duke Buckner, retired businessman Michael LaPierre and maritime engineer Joe Reynolds.

Heres what else you need to know;about voting:

Where can I learn more about the candidates on my ballot?

A quick and easy online source is the website assembled by the non-partisan League of Women Voters: Vote411.org.

Where do I vote?

S.C. drivers license

Where The Campaigns Stand

With the exceptions of Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard, each of the seven Democratic candidates competing in South Carolina spent more than three times as many days in Iowa than in South Carolina to date. Combined, the candidates have spent over 120 days in the state since launching their respective campaigns. A Winthrop University survey published Thursday the first qualifying state poll released ahead of the South Carolina debate shows Biden remains the front-runner, narrowly leading the Democratic pack by 5 percentage points. Among black voters, Biden holds a 13-percentage point lead over his closest contender, former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.

Six days from primary day, CBS News’ poll shows Biden 28% support, Sanders with 23% and Steyer with 18%. Here’s where the candidates stand, going into Saturday’s primary election here:

For months Biden consistently held a double-digit lead in every South Carolina state poll. Even when other early state surveys showed that he may have trouble, time and again;he remained the runaway favorite;in South Carolina especially among African American voters. After 4th and 5th place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively, some of his South Carolina supporters;have expressed doubts about his prospects.;His second-place finish in Nevada, though distant, may help ease those doubts, though.

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Grassroots Group Of Republicans Say They Are Protesting Open Primaries By Voting In Saturdays Primary

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Cole Kazmarski and thousands of other voters in South Carolina will be casting their ballots in the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary on Saturday.

Kazmarski is the Vice Chair for the Midlands Republican Liberty Caucus. “This coming Saturday I plan to vote for Bernie,” she said.

Kazmarski is taking part in Operation Chaos 2020. Some conservative Republicans in South Carolina are protesting open primaries in the Palmetto State by voting on Saturday. “The only thing you have to lose is you get on their mailing list and they spend a little ad money on you in the future.”

Pressley Stutts is the Chairman of the Greenville Tea Party. He is urging fellow Republicans to vote for Senator Bernie Sanders in Saturday’s primary. “We are open and proud about it,” he said.

Stutts said if Sen. Sanders were to become the Democratic nominee, he believes President Donald Trump would have an easier path to reelection.

According to Stutts, their goal is to get South Carolina to switch to closed primaries. He said, “Primaries are a selection process. It’s not until November we actually have an election. There’s a difference between the selection process which should be done by the Republicans and the Democrats.”

Over at the State House today, the discussion of closing primaries took center stage. A Senate Judiciary Subcommittee took up two pieces of legislation that would change primaries in the state.

Most Read

South Carolina’s Open Democratic Primary Means Republicans Can Vote Too

Some Republicans want to sabotage Democratic primary in South Carolina

When South Carolina voters cast their votes in the state’s Democratic primary Saturday, registered Republicans will also be able to show up and vote. Here, the state’s primaries are open, which means all registered South Carolina voters can participate in either party’s primary regardless of political affiliation.;

The South Carolina Republican Party;announced;in September that it would join a list of other states that would not hold a presidential primary this year. Historically, the South Carolina GOP also didn’t hold primaries when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were incumbents in 1984 and 2004, respectively.

Now, some South Carolina Republicans and Tea Party activists are encouraging Republican voters to participate in Saturday’s contest. Karen Martin, organizer of the Spartanburg Tea Party, is leading Trump 229 , an effort that’s using social media and word-of-mouth to encourage Republicans to vote for Bernie Sanders on Saturday.;

Joe Biden has been leading the race in South Carolina. Martin said that her small group was hoping to win enough support for Sanders to bump him into first place, above Joe Biden, who has been holding onto a shrinking lead in the state.;

The initial impetus for the group, according to Martin, was “who can we pick to coalesce our votes around that would make the most impact on South Carolina Democrats understanding why they should join us closing their primary?”

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Compromise Got Amy Klobuchar This Far Will It Work In 2020

North Charleston, South Carolina President Donald Trump suggested his supporters in South Carolina cast their primary ballots for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during his rally Friday, the second straight Democratic primary in which he’s suggested his supporters get involved.

CNN’s Lauren Fox and Jason Morris contributed to this report.

Republicans Urging Gop Voters To Vote For Sanders In South Carolina Primary: Report

State Republican leaders in South Carolina are urging;GOP voters to vote for Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersDon’t let partisan politics impede Texas’ economic recoveryThe Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Alibaba – Democrats argue price before policy amid scramble Overnight Energy & Environment Presented by the League of Conservation Voters EPA finalizing rule cutting HFCsMORE in the state’s Feb. 29 Democratic primary.

The plan orchestrated by;Greenville GOP chairman Nate Leupp and several other prominent Republican Party leaders revolves around GOP leadership’s belief that Sanders poses the least amount of challenge to President TrumpDonald TrumpOvernight Energy & Environment League of Conservation Voters Climate summit chief says US needs to ‘show progress’ on environmentFive takeaways from Arizona’s audit resultsMORE in November’s general election and its goal of getting the Palmetto State’s Democratic lawmakers to agree to close the state’s primaries.

Bernie Sanders is the most socialistic, liberal candidate running in the Democratic presidential preference primary, Leupp told The Post and Courier. So we feel we can make a strong point that our Democratic state legislators need to help work to close our primaries so it protects them as well as the Republican brand.;

South Carolina has open primaries, meaning;voters don’t have to be associated with a political party to cast a ballot.

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I Dont See That Happening

Ultimately, she hopes that the crossover vote push will cause South Carolina Democrats the same kind of angst that weve had for years and push them toward closing their primary.

I do not think it was a result of our efforts, even if we were as successful mathematically as we could be, that everyones going to agree to close the primaries tomorrow, she told me, but said coverage of their efforts was already getting traction with Democrats in the fight for closed primaries.

I asked whether Martin was concerned that a Sanders primary victory in South Carolina pushed by Republican crossover voters could ultimately result in a Sanders presidency. She took my point, but said, I dont see that happening.

The Iowa caucuses, she said, showed that the people that make the rules in the Democrat party are not going to allow Bernie to be the nominee. Citing debate rule changes and recent remarks by Democratic Party stalwarts like James Carville, she said that there was no way the party would permit Sanders to win the nomination.

The rule makers in the Democrat party are not going to let him be the nominee, so that is not a concern for us.

Will you support Voxs explanatory journalism?

‘operation Chaos’ Leader Hopes Trump Will Support Effort

Greenville County tea party leader Pressley Stutts said he is hoping;Trump will back his “Operation Chaos” effort calling for South Carolina Republican voters to cast ballots for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Republicans for Bernie Sanders:Conservative leaders encourage votes for Sanders because they think it will help Trump

“In my opinion;a;vote for Bernie in South Carolina is a vote for Donald Trump because there’s such a stark contrast between his socialistic communistic tendencies versus Trump’s capitalism,” Stutts said.

Stutts and other Trump supporters who gathered at a restaurant in Columbia appeared Wednesday on “Fox and Friends,” a morning program that the president is known to watch.

Stutts said he believes that Trump is “very well aware;of it now, according to my sources, you know with what we’ve been doing with Operation Chaos.”

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Why You Need To Vote In The Primary Elections

True or false. You only need to vote in the November presidential election and not the primary elections.

FALSE!

For most American voters, the presidential primary elections matter more than the general election. Like Ive said before, if you live in a red state or a blue state, your vote in the presidential election wont make a difference. The rest of your state will overwhelming vote for a Democrat or a Republican. Your vote wont change your states outcome. .

But the primary elections are an entirely different story.

The presidential primaries determine who will represent the Republicans and the Democrats during the November election. Instead of voting between just 2 candidates, you have the choice of 3 Democrats or 12 Republicans. Unlike the general election, you actually have a chance of voting for your preferred candidate, not just the lesser of two evils.

United States Senate Election In South Carolina 2022

Federal and state primary competitivenessBallotpedia’s Election Analysis Hub, 2022 See also U.S. House elections, 2022Submit

Voters in South Carolinawill elect one member to the U.S. Senate in the general election on November 8, 2022.

The election will fill the Class III Senate seat held by Tim Scott , who first took office in 2013.

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How Parties Can Enact 17

17-year-old primary and caucus voting does not require state legislative action.;Many states adopting this policy have done so by state law, but others have by changing state party rules.;

State parties have broad authority over their nominating contests.

They may request to allow 17-year-old primary voting by asserting their First Amendment freedom of association rights.

Primary voting rights for 17-year-olds is legal and does not change the voting age.

Only those 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election may vote in the corresponding primary election or caucus. FairVote’s proposal treats the nomination contest as an integral part of the general election in which these citizens can vote.

The 26th Amendment prevents states from denying suffrage to 18-year-olds, but does not prevent states from establishing 17-year-old primary and caucus voting.

What Is A Voter

S Carolina Democratic primary: Republicans plan ‘Operation Chaos’

The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect January 1, 2011, created voter-nominated offices. The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act does not apply to candidates running for U.S. President, county central committees, or local offices.

Most of the offices that were previously known as partisan are now known as voter-nominated offices. Voter-nominated offices are state constitutional offices, state legislative offices, and U.S. congressional offices. The only partisan offices now are the offices of U.S. President and county central committee.

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[statetalks]

How Do Republicans Feel About The Wall

Half Of Republicans Believe False Accounts Of Deadly Us Capitol Riot

How do Hispanic Americans truly feel about the border wall?

7 Min Read

WASHINGTON -Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have listened.

Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists trying to make Trump look bad, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that Novembers presidential election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.

Since the Capitol attack, Trump, many of his allies within the Republican Party and right-wing media personalities have publicly painted a picture of the days events jarringly at odds with reality.

Hundreds of Trumps supporters, mobilized by the former presidents false claims of a stolen election, climbed walls of the Capitol building and smashed windows to gain entry while lawmakers were inside voting to certify President Joe Bidens election victory. The rioters – many of them sporting Trump campaign gear and waving flags – also included known white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys.

DANGEROUS SPIN ON REALITY

They Just Come For Show

The four House Republicans were unfamiliar with the history of the fight over Santa Ana.

It was not addressed by the Border Patrol agents who led the morning excursion. And by the time E&E News connected with Chapman, the delegation had departed the refuge for a briefing on Border Patrol activities at the local headquarters of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Later, when asked whether Westerman thought the environmental impact of installing a wall at Santa Ana and in other refuge areas was a necessary sacrifice to stop the flow of illegal immigration, the lawmaker said it didnt sound unreasonable.

One hundred and fifty feet kind of sounds like what the right of way would be on a levee, but I dont know, he said. Obviously, if youre going to build a wall, theres going to be clearing. And from what Ive seen, stories Ive heard about human trafficking, the rapes, the deaths yeah, I think its worth building the deterrents.

At the National Butterfly Center a 100-acre nature preserve that was also exempted from having a border wall built on its land in the same 2019 spending package Executive Director Marianna Trevino Wright said she thought the GOP lawmakers were ignorant by choice.

I think they have no idea, Trevino Wright asserted. They come just for show. Theyre not interested.

The real litterbugs, she contended, were the officers with Border Patrol.

There’s Something Happening Here

But he uses a different touchstone: Occupy Wall Street, the left-leaning anti-establishment movement that blossomed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

“This is Occupy Wall Street Part 2, but this time it is on their turf, and there are real financial consequences,” he said. LeGate, who received a $100,000 Thiel fellowship to drop out of college and start a company when he was 18 years old in 2013, has been watching the WallStreetBets Reddit discussion for several years.

He said he is seeing increasing frustration and anger, which is exploding in the Covid pandemic era and it is bringing together the traditional political left and right.

“People were willing to take a risk on Trump and now they’re willing to take a risk in the markets,” he said. “A lot of people just want to see the world burn right now, and they’re enjoying watching it happen.”

He said he’s already seeing people on the WallStreetBets Reddit page looking for new targets and there are two themes. First, they’re looking for highly shorted stocks where big hedge funds might have a lot of leverage. And second, they’re looking for nostalgia plays to bring back the companies from their youth. That’s why Nokia, Blackberry and Blockbuster are all getting attention.

Border Walls In The Middle East

One major proof of concept that Republicans supporting a Mexican border wall cite is the success of similar walls in the Middle East. For example, walls along the Israeli-Palestinian border reportedly cut down illegal immigration between the countries. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, stated that he was impressed with a system of fences he had inspected along the Israeli border with Palestinian territories. Johnson stated Im always looking for best practices. Its been incredibly effective. They had thousands of illegal immigrants; its down to the teens.

House Republicans Propose $10 Billion For Trumps Border Wall

House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a plan to provide $10 billion for President Donald Trumps border wall with Mexico, a bill unlikely to clear the Senate but which could fuel a shutdown fight in December.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul said his panel will vote on the legislation next week. The bill also would add 10,000 more border patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers, tap the National Guard to patrol the southern border and target people who have overstayed visas.

Now that we have a partner in the White House who has made this a top priority, its time to send a bill to President Trumps desk so we can deliver the American people the security they have long demanded and deserve, McCaul said in a statement.

The bill represents Republicans opening salvo in both the looming year-end government funding fight and high-stakes negotiations over undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

It almost certainly wont pass the Senate, where at least eight Democrats would be needed to clear a 60-vote threshold.

Partisans Approve Their Partys Approach To Shutdown Negotiations Disapprove Of Other Partys

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 76% approve of how Trump is handling shutdown talks, including 50% who say they strongly approve of Trumps approach. In contrast, just 4% of Democrats approve of Trumps handling of the negotiations, while 93% disapprove .

The overall pattern is similar in views of Republican leaders in Congress: 69% of Republicans approve of their partys leaders handling of negotiations, while just 10% of Democrats approve.

And while about seven-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners approve of the way Democratic leaders in Congress are handling the shutdown negotiations, just 11% of Republicans say the same.

Republicans Pray For A Border Crisis To Bring Biden Down

Joe Biden and his programs are popular. Republicans cant lay a glove on him. So theyve settled on immigration as the way to drag him into the mud.

Guillermo Arias/Getty

Republicans are crazy about immigration. No, really. The issue makes them loco. Just listen to the things theyre saying. Many of them have lost touch with reality.

Or maybe Republicans are crazy like a fox. The GOP seems to have once again pinned all of its hopes for retaking powerin this case, by winning back control of the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections and possibly regaining seats in the House of Representativeson the immigration issue. If either of those things happen, Republicans will be in decent shape to try to retake the White House in 2024.

President Joe Biden has only been in office for about 60 days, and Republicans who want to attack him and his administration dont have a lot of material with which to work.

Thats what some of the current fearmongering over the situation at the U.S.-Mexico borderabout half of itis all about. The other half is made up of good ol fashioned nativism and racism. Thats one reason why Republicans act like the prospect of what could turn out to be 100,000 would-be refugees from Central America mostly women and children is the end of Western civilization as we know it.

Here we are again. And the same Republicans who were quiet and subdued when former President Donald Trump confronted this same problem now cant stop talking about this being a crisis.

Republicans Spent Two Years Resisting Trumps Border Wall What Changed

Since the government shutdown 25 days ago, Republicans have largely defended the need for a border wall. While there appear to be some cracks in support, most are standing by the presidents insistence on funding.

As recently as September, The Washington Post described it this way:

The same Republican lawmakers who rushed through the tax bill Trump wanted, confirmed his first Supreme Court pick and are fighting to defend his second, and have remained largely deferential amid multiple scandals, have taken a far different approach when it comes to one of Trumps most memorable campaign promises deeming the wall to be impractical, unrealistic and too costly.

Most GOP lawmakers didnt come right out and say that, of course.

Instead, for the first two years of Trumps presidency, GOP lawmakers avoided the wall debate completely. In September 2017, USA Today took on the laborious task of surveying every member of Congress to determine their position on Trumps wall. At the time, the White House was requesting $1.6 billion to begin wall construction. The survey found that just 69 of the 292 Republicans in Congress said they supported Trumps funding request. Three outright opposed it, but the majority avoided answering the question directly.

Shortly after Trumps inauguration, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham , Trumps onetime nemesis turned close ally, told Politico that the border wall is probably not a smart investment.

Every Congressperson Along Southern Border Opposes Border Wall Funding

How would Republicans build Donald Trump’s wall? BBC News

Nine congressional representatives serve the districts that line the 2,000-mile southern border. They are men, women, freshman politicians and Washington veterans. The Democrats among them span liberal ideologies, while one of them is a Republican.

But they all have one thing in common: each is against President Donald Trump‘s border wall.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a multi-bill package that provided funding for federal agencies and reinstated Department of Homeland Security appropriations without offering any new border wall funding. All nine of the politicians serving in districts along the border voted in favor of the bills, which were an effective rebuke of the Trump administration’s request for $5.7 billion in border wall funding.

“It’s a 4th-century solution to a 21st century problem,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat and one of the lawmakers along the southern border who voted against funding the wall.

Gonzalez doesn’t oppose border security. He said, “Nobody wants stronger border control than me.” But he’s against adding to the existing border wall because he doesn’t “think it brings real border security and it comes at a major cost to taxpayers,” the lawmaker said Tuesday in a telephone interview with CBS News.

“At the time I thought we were going to be able to have a reasonable conversation,” Gonzalez said. “I had no idea it was going to get this crazy.”

Everybody Look What’s Going Down

Holmes believes the key to understanding the power of this new movement is the gamification of investing melded with an anti-elite fervor. Sticking it to hedge funds and potentially making a lot of money is, simply, fun. And if you believe its also the right thing to do, and thrive on the engagement of a community of like-minded traders, so much the better.

“When things really get going is when the fun meets the purpose,” Holmes said. “This is the perfect storm of those two.”

His warning to Wall Street is: understand this. Be willing to scrutinize yourself. This not going away, and it is probably bigger than you think.

“People need to take the time to understand the social dynamics of this. What are the problems that have created this class of retail investor who seek to completely destroy your industry, and how do you remedy that?” Holmes said.

Holmes said he has spent the past decade watching American politics turned inside out. An earlier generation of politicians spent their time raising money at country club ballrooms from hundreds of donors writing $500 or $1,000 checks.

But now they spend their time on the internet raising money from millions of donors making $5 and $20 contributions. In politics, the retail money turned out to be bigger much bigger — than the institutional money. And that’s driven massive political spending inflation: the big Senate campaigns that once cost $15 million now cost $100 million.

There’s Battle Lines Being Drawn

But what explains that nostalgic impulse in the midst of a revolution? It is the same emotion that animated the MAGA movement which, after all, stood for make America great, again. It is a desire to return to an earlier time that the members of the movement remember as better than today.

“There’s a feeling I sense across society that people want to go back to a simpler time,” LeGate said. “No one likes Covid. People don’t feel the economy is fair. Everything looks better in hindsight.”

And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.

“If someone on Main Street loses half their portfolio in a day, nothing’s going to happen. But if a hedge fund does, they literally stop the trading,” he said. “I myself question whether this is really about protecting the individual investor or protecting the hedge fund.”

Public Disapproves Of How Shutdown Negotiations Are Being Handled

Most Americans offer negative evaluations of the way that the nations political leaders in both parties Donald Trump, Democratic congressional leaders and Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations over the shutdown.

Overall, just 36% of the public approves of how Trump is handling negotiations over the government shutdown, including 23% who say they strongly approve. About six-in-ten disapprove of Trumps approach to the negotiations, including 53% who say they strongly disapprove.

Views of how Republican leaders in Congress are handling shutdown negotiations generally parallel evaluations of Trump. Six-in-ten Americans say they disapprove of the way Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations, while just 36% say they approve. However, fewer Americans characterize their views of GOP leaders handling of negotiations as strong approval or disapproval than say this about the president.

Public views of Democratic leaders handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove than approve .

Intensity Of Trumps Support Increases

Also in the poll, 46 percent of voters approve of President Trumps job performance, which is consistent with the other NBC/WSJ polls over the past year and a half.

But other numbers in the survey his strong job approval ticking up to its all-time high, his positive rating jumping to its highest level since after his inauguration prompts GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies to call this Trumps best NBC/WSJ poll in three years.

Still, 49 percent of all voters say they are very uncomfortable about Trump when it comes to his re-election bid in 2020.

Thats compared with 43 percent who are very uncomfortable with Sanders, 36 percent with Warren and 35 percent with Biden.

Klobuchar: Trump’s Actions Are Like A ‘global Watergate’ Scandal

Today, as Democrats in the House of Representatives move toward bringing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, with the next Judiciary Committee hearing of evidence set for Monday, few Democrats are still clinging to the hope that Republicans will reach a breaking point with Trump like they did with Nixon.

“I really don’t think there is any fact that would change their minds,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News.

Why? Two key changes since Nixon: a massive divide in American political life we hate the other team more than ever before and a media climate that fuels and reinforces that chasm, powered by Fox News on the Republican side.

Himes said he was “a little stunned by the unanimity on the Republican side,” especially among retiring lawmakers who don’t have to worry about surviving a GOP primary had they gone against Trump. “We’re in a place right now where all that matters to my Republican colleagues is the defense of the president,” he added.

No Republican congressmen have said they support impeachment. In the Senate, the entire GOP voted to condemn the impeachment inquiry, except for three moderates: Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The three have stopped short of saying they support Trump’s impeachment, however, and it would take at least 20 Republican senators to vote to convict him in a Senate trial for removal to succeed.

What Do Republicans Believe In

Do all Republicans believe the same things? Of course not. Rarely do members of a single political group agree on all issues. Even among Republicans, there are differences of opinion. As a group, they do not agree on every issue.

Some folks vote Republican because of fiscal concerns. Often, that trumps concerns they may have about social issues. Others are less interested in the fiscal position of the party. They vote they way they do because of religion. They believe Republicans are the party of morality. Some simply want less government. They believe only Republicans can solve the problem of big government. Republicans spend less . They lower taxes: some people vote for that alone.

However, the Republican Party does stand for certain things. So I’m answering with regard to the party as a whole. Call it a platform. Call them core beliefs. The vast majority of Republicans adhere to certain ideas.

So what do Republicans believe? Here are their basic tenets:

Questions Ahead Of The Democratic National Convention

Andrew Redleaf, founder of the hedge fund company Whitebox Advisors, has been a Republican donor in the past. He gave to the campaign of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He calls himself a libertarian conservative who favors free trade and immigration.

This year, he’s given money to the Lincoln Project, a group of conservative never-Trumpers who are running scathing ads against the president in swing states.

“I’d like there to be a right-of-center, limited-government party … which is not the Trumpist Republican Party,” Redleaf says.

Redleaf is wary of Democrats and has no particular affection for Biden.

But the former vice president is a known commodity on Wall Street and is widely seen as a more centrist, acceptable alternative to more liberal Democrats who ran for president, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Biden has also been a top recipient of financial industry money for decades as a senator from Delaware, home to financial and credit card companies.

“He’s not somebody that the industry is particularly afraid of,” Bryner says. “So I think that we would see them kind of hopeful that he would be a more moderating influence, whereas Trump can be quite unpredictable.”

Widening Party Divide Over Expanding The Border Wall

El Chapo financing Trump border wall is a yes vote: GOP lawmaker

Public views of a U.S.-Mexico border wall have changed little over the past three years. But the partisan gap has widened, as Republicans have become more supportive of a border wall, while Democratic support has declined.

Currently, 58% of Americans oppose substantially expanding the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, while 40% favor the proposal.

Since early 2016, roughly six-in-ten Americans have opposed building or expanding the border wall .

Yet partisan differences are now wider than they have ever been. Today, 82% of Republicans and Republican leaners favor substantially expanding the wall along the U.S-Mexico border. Over the past year alone, Republican support for expanding the border wall has increased 10 percentage points . Over the same period, the share of Democrats who favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall has declined from 13% to 6%.

Conservative Republicans and Republican leaners overwhelmingly favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall . Moderate and liberal Republicans are somewhat less supportive .

Overwhelming shares of both liberal Democrats and conservative and moderate Democrats oppose expanding the border wall.

As in the past, opinions about expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall are divided by race, education and age. Whites are more than twice as likely as blacks or Hispanics to favor expanding the border wall.

Why Do Republicans Behave The Way They Do

Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich?

Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich? Thats the incessant question as posed by liberals today about the partys now enacted tax reform. Not only does the bill include another attack on Obamacare, but it provides the pretext the need to reduce deficits to go after other long-held goals, the end of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. 

The answer should be obvious by now. Republicans behave as they do because they can get away with it! Its no more complicated than that. 

Contrary to liberal opinion, Republican politics isnt out of the mainstream provided we push the clock back sufficiently. A political economy without social services and entitlements is in fact the default position of the capitalist mode of production from its inception. If recent comments from Republican Sens. Orin Hatch and Charles Grassley sound like characters from a Charles Dickens novel their barely disguised contempt for the working poor that should come as no surprise. Such attitudes were almost de rigueur for ruling elites in capitals long ascent. The constant refrain of the rich Why should we be taxed to pay for the education of the children of the irresponsible poor?  explains why public school education became a widely accepted norm only in the 20th century. 

How Dems aided and abetted

What Republicans And Democrats Have In Common On Wall Street Regulation

The Democratic and Republican parties disagree on most major issues. When it comes to Wall Street, however, it’s a mixed bag. Take the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Democrats believe the bill has reined in the type of out-of-control behavior that led to the near collapse of the banking industry in 2008 and prevented a similar crisis. Republicans have criticized the legislation calling it “the Democrats legislative Godzilla.” They feel the financial regulations have made it too difficult for small lenders and community banks and has indirectly slowed the growth of small businesses. 

Regulation of the financial services industry has been a major issue not only in the current presidential election but in house and senate races. Democrats believe that the electorate largely sides with them that banks have overstepped and that they can use their position to win votes and take back the Senate. Republicans currently hold a majority 54 votes. Because of gerrymandering rules, Democrats will have a tougher time retaking the House.  

Dodd-Frank was intended to increase transparency and accountability in the financial services industry and to protect consumers. Among other things, the bill created a new consumer protection agency and standards for a number of common financial services products. 

A Shift In Immigration Thinking

Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois is one of the Houses most outspoken Democrats on immigration reform, and she understands this shift, and believes it is essential. Lives are at stake and the lives of Dreamers are more important to me than bricks, Gutierrez said. If advocates would reject any money for Trumps wall in exchange for freedom and legalization and eventual citizenship for the Dreamers, I understand their choice, but for my part, I would lay bricks myself if I thought it would save the Dreamers. For me, the very real attacks on legal immigration are far greater threats than bricks and drones and technology on the border.

This shift has also led Democratic views on a border wall to soften in general. As Trump has become less demanding, Democrats have begun to consider what type of barrier, and what size, they would be willing to agree to if push came to shove. The 2,000 mile wall that Democrats had feared would be a looming symbol of America turning inward on itself is becoming something closer to the 2006 plan; some new barriers, some new monitoring technology, and that is somewhat agreeable to Democrats, especially if they can garner support in other arenas in exchange for it.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-do-republicans-feel-about-the-wall/

[emilialuciasantos]

💭

When: September 29, 2017

Where: The Observatory, Santa Ana, California

Featuring: Paula Valentine (mom)

Triggers: N/A

Summary: Emilia and her mom see Bleachers live in concert.

Emilia couldn’t believe this was actually happening. It all felt like a dream to her, but it wasn’t a dream. It was all real. She was actually in the same room as Jack Antonoff. When George gave her two tickets to see Bleachers live for her 18th birthday, she thought he was playing a prank on her. No one had ever gotten her a gift like this before. As much as her mom would’ve loved to take her to big concerts like that, she could never afford the tickets. But George could easily afford such a gift, so he got it for her.

Initially, she was going to go with a friend of hers from high school, but she had to cancel last minute, so she gave the second ticket to her mom. Paula didn’t know any of the music, so Emilia played the entirety of the new album, Gone Now, in the car on the way to the venue. Indie pop wasn’t really Paula’s cup of tea, but as long as Emilia was happy, she wasn’t going to complain.

The night went on, and they pulled out the hits, but Emilia’s favorite song still hadn’t been played. But at the very end of the show, for the last number, Jack started to play “Don’t Take The Money.” Ever since she first heard the song as a single back in March, she was hooked. The fact that it was a collaboration between Jack and Lorde-- another artist she adored-- was amazing in of itself, but it was the meaning behind the song that really drew her in. She had never been in a relationship of her own, but she hoped that she could love someone that deeply one day.

As the song played, she screamed the lyrics as loud as she could. After the bridge, Jack stopped singing and let the crowd take over for the last chorus for a moment, then he joined back in with them. It was in that moment that Emilia felt truly connected to the artist, and to everyone in the venue. This is what a real concert was like.

“You steal the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it I pray for everything we lost, buy back the secrets Your hand forever's all I want Don't take the money Don't take the money”

[residentiallawn]

via Residential Lawn Mowing Service,

September to December are typically considered “peak” months of California’s annual fire season. This year we started early and for the past few years, we have seen a trend of increasingly destructive fires due to the effects of climate change. Naturally-occurring wildfires tend to spark during periods of extreme drought and dry weather. These dry conditions, coupled with strong winds, natural kindling form of dried-up vegetation, and a spark from a campfire, a cigarette, or a fallen power line can be a deadly combination. 

Wildfire season is not a unique event to California residents, its effects can also be felt in other States. as well. Oregon, Washington, and Nevada residents are no strangers to the dangers that quickly spreading wildfires can pose to a community. In recent years, UCSB has been directly affected by fast-spreading, intensely destructive fires. 

Once a wildfire has been ignited, 3 conditions must be present to allow the fire to continue burning and spread. Firefighters call this the “fire triangle”.  The three conditions are ”fuel, a heat source, and air.” California, which is known for its dry Santa Ana winds, and the lack of substantial rains have caused vegetation and soil to dry up in record numbers. This is the result of the rapidly changing global climate. 

[googlemaps https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZfR66icw6VY&#8221; width=”560″>

According to Yale Climate Connections, California experienced an extreme case of “weather whiplash,” going from a record-breaking drought in 2012-2016 to a wet, rainy season in 2017-2018. The combination of drought followed by rain contributed to the growth of new plant life that has subsequently dried up by record-breaking heat levels, contributing to California’s intensely destructive 2018 fire season. And this year is shaping up to be even worse and breaking all records of fire destruction.

The undeniable danger that wildfires pose in California and other drought-prone areas has led scientists at UCSB to take a more hands-on approach towards explaining unpredictable weather phenomena. 

For example, researchers at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are exploring the possible effects of climate change on the major weather pattern and how those effects could possibly impact the frequency and severity of future wildfires in California. Their findings, published in a study called “ENSO’s Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire in a Warming Climate,” could have “implications on land use and on wildfire fighting and prevention strategies at urban/wildland interfaces.

According to study co-author and Bren School faculty member Samantha Stevenson, the paper proves that “in fire-prone places like California and Australia, we can expect future El Niño and La Niña events to have a bigger impact on fire risk in a given year.” Stevenson also added that the sensitivity of land temperature and precipitation is “due to climate change.”

The research being conducted by academics at UCSB is just one of the ways that communities are doing their part to combat and raise awareness of fire dangers in the area. 

For example, controlled burns are being initiated by Fire Departments all over. Controlled burns include permissive burns and prescribed burns. Permissive burns are conducted by the fire departments to destroy areas of dense brush that might serve as kindling for future fires. 

Although these measures might seem overly cautious, wildland fire specialists see them as a necessary form of fire prevention.

If you live in a rural area it is extremely important to clear the brush around your home according to the recommended guidelines from your local Fire Chief. Generally, The recommended clearance is 30ft from your structure and more if you are dealing with elevations.

Prevent the next wildfire in California and give us a call (707) 647-2000 if you live in the San Francisco Bay area and your mowing equipment can’t handle dense brush, we can certainly help you with that.  

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[patriotsnet]

How Do Republicans Feel About The Wall

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-do-republicans-feel-about-the-wall/

How Do Republicans Feel About The Wall

Half Of Republicans Believe False Accounts Of Deadly Us Capitol Riot

How do Hispanic Americans truly feel about the border wall?

7 Min Read

WASHINGTON -Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have listened.

Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists trying to make Trump look bad, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that Novembers presidential election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.

Since the Capitol attack, Trump, many of his allies within the Republican Party and right-wing media personalities have publicly painted a picture of the days events jarringly at odds with reality.

Hundreds of Trumps supporters, mobilized by the former presidents false claims of a stolen election, climbed walls of the Capitol building and smashed windows to gain entry while lawmakers were inside voting to certify President Joe Bidens election victory. The rioters – many of them sporting Trump campaign gear and waving flags – also included known white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys.

DANGEROUS SPIN ON REALITY

They Just Come For Show

The four House Republicans were unfamiliar with the history of the fight over Santa Ana.

It was not addressed by the Border Patrol agents who led the morning excursion. And by the time E&E News connected with Chapman, the delegation had departed the refuge for a briefing on Border Patrol activities at the local headquarters of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Later, when asked whether Westerman thought the environmental impact of installing a wall at Santa Ana and in other refuge areas was a necessary sacrifice to stop the flow of illegal immigration, the lawmaker said it didnt sound unreasonable.

One hundred and fifty feet kind of sounds like what the right of way would be on a levee, but I dont know, he said. Obviously, if youre going to build a wall, theres going to be clearing. And from what Ive seen, stories Ive heard about human trafficking, the rapes, the deaths yeah, I think its worth building the deterrents.

At the National Butterfly Center a 100-acre nature preserve that was also exempted from having a border wall built on its land in the same 2019 spending package Executive Director Marianna Trevino Wright said she thought the GOP lawmakers were ignorant by choice.

I think they have no idea, Trevino Wright asserted. They come just for show. Theyre not interested.

The real litterbugs, she contended, were the officers with Border Patrol.

There’s Something Happening Here

But he uses a different touchstone: Occupy Wall Street, the left-leaning anti-establishment movement that blossomed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

“This is Occupy Wall Street Part 2, but this time it is on their turf, and there are real financial consequences,” he said. LeGate, who received a $100,000 Thiel fellowship to drop out of college and start a company when he was 18 years old in 2013, has been watching the WallStreetBets Reddit discussion for several years.

He said he is seeing increasing frustration and anger, which is exploding in the Covid pandemic era and it is bringing together the traditional political left and right.

“People were willing to take a risk on Trump and now they’re willing to take a risk in the markets,” he said. “A lot of people just want to see the world burn right now, and they’re enjoying watching it happen.”

He said he’s already seeing people on the WallStreetBets Reddit page looking for new targets and there are two themes. First, they’re looking for highly shorted stocks where big hedge funds might have a lot of leverage. And second, they’re looking for nostalgia plays to bring back the companies from their youth. That’s why Nokia, Blackberry and Blockbuster are all getting attention.

Border Walls In The Middle East

One major proof of concept that Republicans supporting a Mexican border wall cite is the success of similar walls in the Middle East. For example, walls along the Israeli-Palestinian border reportedly cut down illegal immigration between the countries. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, stated that he was impressed with a system of fences he had inspected along the Israeli border with Palestinian territories. Johnson stated Im always looking for best practices. Its been incredibly effective. They had thousands of illegal immigrants; its down to the teens.

House Republicans Propose $10 Billion For Trumps Border Wall

House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a plan to provide $10 billion for President Donald Trumps border wall with Mexico, a bill unlikely to clear the Senate but which could fuel a shutdown fight in December.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul said his panel will vote on the legislation next week. The bill also would add 10,000 more border patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers, tap the National Guard to patrol the southern border and target people who have overstayed visas.

Now that we have a partner in the White House who has made this a top priority, its time to send a bill to President Trumps desk so we can deliver the American people the security they have long demanded and deserve, McCaul said in a statement.

The bill represents Republicans opening salvo in both the looming year-end government funding fight and high-stakes negotiations over undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

It almost certainly wont pass the Senate, where at least eight Democrats would be needed to clear a 60-vote threshold.

Partisans Approve Their Partys Approach To Shutdown Negotiations Disapprove Of Other Partys

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 76% approve of how Trump is handling shutdown talks, including 50% who say they strongly approve of Trumps approach. In contrast, just 4% of Democrats approve of Trumps handling of the negotiations, while 93% disapprove .

The overall pattern is similar in views of Republican leaders in Congress: 69% of Republicans approve of their partys leaders handling of negotiations, while just 10% of Democrats approve.

And while about seven-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners approve of the way Democratic leaders in Congress are handling the shutdown negotiations, just 11% of Republicans say the same.

Republicans Pray For A Border Crisis To Bring Biden Down

Joe Biden and his programs are popular. Republicans cant lay a glove on him. So theyve settled on immigration as the way to drag him into the mud.

Guillermo Arias/Getty

Republicans are crazy about immigration. No, really. The issue makes them loco. Just listen to the things theyre saying. Many of them have lost touch with reality.

Or maybe Republicans are crazy like a fox. The GOP seems to have once again pinned all of its hopes for retaking powerin this case, by winning back control of the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections and possibly regaining seats in the House of Representativeson the immigration issue. If either of those things happen, Republicans will be in decent shape to try to retake the White House in 2024.

President Joe Biden has only been in office for about 60 days, and Republicans who want to attack him and his administration dont have a lot of material with which to work.

Thats what some of the current fearmongering over the situation at the U.S.-Mexico borderabout half of itis all about. The other half is made up of good ol fashioned nativism and racism. Thats one reason why Republicans act like the prospect of what could turn out to be 100,000 would-be refugees from Central America mostly women and children is the end of Western civilization as we know it.

Here we are again. And the same Republicans who were quiet and subdued when former President Donald Trump confronted this same problem now cant stop talking about this being a crisis.

Republicans Spent Two Years Resisting Trumps Border Wall What Changed

Since the government shutdown 25 days ago, Republicans have largely defended the need for a border wall. While there appear to be some cracks in support, most are standing by the presidents insistence on funding.

As recently as September, The Washington Post described it this way:

The same Republican lawmakers who rushed through the tax bill Trump wanted, confirmed his first Supreme Court pick and are fighting to defend his second, and have remained largely deferential amid multiple scandals, have taken a far different approach when it comes to one of Trumps most memorable campaign promises deeming the wall to be impractical, unrealistic and too costly.

Most GOP lawmakers didnt come right out and say that, of course.

Instead, for the first two years of Trumps presidency, GOP lawmakers avoided the wall debate completely. In September 2017, USA Today took on the laborious task of surveying every member of Congress to determine their position on Trumps wall. At the time, the White House was requesting $1.6 billion to begin wall construction. The survey found that just 69 of the 292 Republicans in Congress said they supported Trumps funding request. Three outright opposed it, but the majority avoided answering the question directly.

Shortly after Trumps inauguration, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham , Trumps onetime nemesis turned close ally, told Politico that the border wall is probably not a smart investment.

Every Congressperson Along Southern Border Opposes Border Wall Funding

How would Republicans build Donald Trump’s wall? BBC News

Nine congressional representatives serve the districts that line the 2,000-mile southern border. They are men, women, freshman politicians and Washington veterans. The Democrats among them span liberal ideologies, while one of them is a Republican.

But they all have one thing in common: each is against President Donald Trump‘s border wall.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a multi-bill package that provided funding for federal agencies and reinstated Department of Homeland Security appropriations without offering any new border wall funding. All nine of the politicians serving in districts along the border voted in favor of the bills, which were an effective rebuke of the Trump administration’s request for $5.7 billion in border wall funding.

“It’s a 4th-century solution to a 21st century problem,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat and one of the lawmakers along the southern border who voted against funding the wall.

Gonzalez doesn’t oppose border security. He said, “Nobody wants stronger border control than me.” But he’s against adding to the existing border wall because he doesn’t “think it brings real border security and it comes at a major cost to taxpayers,” the lawmaker said Tuesday in a telephone interview with CBS News.

“At the time I thought we were going to be able to have a reasonable conversation,” Gonzalez said. “I had no idea it was going to get this crazy.”

Everybody Look What’s Going Down

Holmes believes the key to understanding the power of this new movement is the gamification of investing melded with an anti-elite fervor. Sticking it to hedge funds and potentially making a lot of money is, simply, fun. And if you believe its also the right thing to do, and thrive on the engagement of a community of like-minded traders, so much the better.

“When things really get going is when the fun meets the purpose,” Holmes said. “This is the perfect storm of those two.”

His warning to Wall Street is: understand this. Be willing to scrutinize yourself. This not going away, and it is probably bigger than you think.

“People need to take the time to understand the social dynamics of this. What are the problems that have created this class of retail investor who seek to completely destroy your industry, and how do you remedy that?” Holmes said.

Holmes said he has spent the past decade watching American politics turned inside out. An earlier generation of politicians spent their time raising money at country club ballrooms from hundreds of donors writing $500 or $1,000 checks.

But now they spend their time on the internet raising money from millions of donors making $5 and $20 contributions. In politics, the retail money turned out to be bigger much bigger — than the institutional money. And that’s driven massive political spending inflation: the big Senate campaigns that once cost $15 million now cost $100 million.

There’s Battle Lines Being Drawn

But what explains that nostalgic impulse in the midst of a revolution? It is the same emotion that animated the MAGA movement which, after all, stood for make America great, again. It is a desire to return to an earlier time that the members of the movement remember as better than today.

“There’s a feeling I sense across society that people want to go back to a simpler time,” LeGate said. “No one likes Covid. People don’t feel the economy is fair. Everything looks better in hindsight.”

And he argues that efforts to regulate trading will feel to Reddit traders more like suppression, and could fuel more anger.

“If someone on Main Street loses half their portfolio in a day, nothing’s going to happen. But if a hedge fund does, they literally stop the trading,” he said. “I myself question whether this is really about protecting the individual investor or protecting the hedge fund.”

Public Disapproves Of How Shutdown Negotiations Are Being Handled

Most Americans offer negative evaluations of the way that the nations political leaders in both parties Donald Trump, Democratic congressional leaders and Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations over the shutdown.

Overall, just 36% of the public approves of how Trump is handling negotiations over the government shutdown, including 23% who say they strongly approve. About six-in-ten disapprove of Trumps approach to the negotiations, including 53% who say they strongly disapprove.

Views of how Republican leaders in Congress are handling shutdown negotiations generally parallel evaluations of Trump. Six-in-ten Americans say they disapprove of the way Republican congressional leaders are handling negotiations, while just 36% say they approve. However, fewer Americans characterize their views of GOP leaders handling of negotiations as strong approval or disapproval than say this about the president.

Public views of Democratic leaders handling of the shutdown talks are somewhat more positive than views of Trump or GOP leaders. Still, more disapprove than approve .

Intensity Of Trumps Support Increases

Also in the poll, 46 percent of voters approve of President Trumps job performance, which is consistent with the other NBC/WSJ polls over the past year and a half.

But other numbers in the survey his strong job approval ticking up to its all-time high, his positive rating jumping to its highest level since after his inauguration prompts GOP pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies to call this Trumps best NBC/WSJ poll in three years.

Still, 49 percent of all voters say they are very uncomfortable about Trump when it comes to his re-election bid in 2020.

Thats compared with 43 percent who are very uncomfortable with Sanders, 36 percent with Warren and 35 percent with Biden.

Klobuchar: Trump’s Actions Are Like A ‘global Watergate’ Scandal

Today, as Democrats in the House of Representatives move toward bringing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, with the next Judiciary Committee hearing of evidence set for Monday, few Democrats are still clinging to the hope that Republicans will reach a breaking point with Trump like they did with Nixon.

“I really don’t think there is any fact that would change their minds,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News.

Why? Two key changes since Nixon: a massive divide in American political life we hate the other team more than ever before and a media climate that fuels and reinforces that chasm, powered by Fox News on the Republican side.

Himes said he was “a little stunned by the unanimity on the Republican side,” especially among retiring lawmakers who don’t have to worry about surviving a GOP primary had they gone against Trump. “We’re in a place right now where all that matters to my Republican colleagues is the defense of the president,” he added.

No Republican congressmen have said they support impeachment. In the Senate, the entire GOP voted to condemn the impeachment inquiry, except for three moderates: Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The three have stopped short of saying they support Trump’s impeachment, however, and it would take at least 20 Republican senators to vote to convict him in a Senate trial for removal to succeed.

What Do Republicans Believe In

Do all Republicans believe the same things? Of course not. Rarely do members of a single political group agree on all issues. Even among Republicans, there are differences of opinion. As a group, they do not agree on every issue.

Some folks vote Republican because of fiscal concerns. Often, that trumps concerns they may have about social issues. Others are less interested in the fiscal position of the party. They vote they way they do because of religion. They believe Republicans are the party of morality. Some simply want less government. They believe only Republicans can solve the problem of big government. Republicans spend less . They lower taxes: some people vote for that alone.

However, the Republican Party does stand for certain things. So I’m answering with regard to the party as a whole. Call it a platform. Call them core beliefs. The vast majority of Republicans adhere to certain ideas.

So what do Republicans believe? Here are their basic tenets:

Questions Ahead Of The Democratic National Convention

Andrew Redleaf, founder of the hedge fund company Whitebox Advisors, has been a Republican donor in the past. He gave to the campaign of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He calls himself a libertarian conservative who favors free trade and immigration.

This year, he’s given money to the Lincoln Project, a group of conservative never-Trumpers who are running scathing ads against the president in swing states.

“I’d like there to be a right-of-center, limited-government party … which is not the Trumpist Republican Party,” Redleaf says.

Redleaf is wary of Democrats and has no particular affection for Biden.

But the former vice president is a known commodity on Wall Street and is widely seen as a more centrist, acceptable alternative to more liberal Democrats who ran for president, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Biden has also been a top recipient of financial industry money for decades as a senator from Delaware, home to financial and credit card companies.

“He’s not somebody that the industry is particularly afraid of,” Bryner says. “So I think that we would see them kind of hopeful that he would be a more moderating influence, whereas Trump can be quite unpredictable.”

Widening Party Divide Over Expanding The Border Wall

El Chapo financing Trump border wall is a yes vote: GOP lawmaker

Public views of a U.S.-Mexico border wall have changed little over the past three years. But the partisan gap has widened, as Republicans have become more supportive of a border wall, while Democratic support has declined.

Currently, 58% of Americans oppose substantially expanding the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, while 40% favor the proposal.

Since early 2016, roughly six-in-ten Americans have opposed building or expanding the border wall .

Yet partisan differences are now wider than they have ever been. Today, 82% of Republicans and Republican leaners favor substantially expanding the wall along the U.S-Mexico border. Over the past year alone, Republican support for expanding the border wall has increased 10 percentage points . Over the same period, the share of Democrats who favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall has declined from 13% to 6%.

Conservative Republicans and Republican leaners overwhelmingly favor expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall . Moderate and liberal Republicans are somewhat less supportive .

Overwhelming shares of both liberal Democrats and conservative and moderate Democrats oppose expanding the border wall.

As in the past, opinions about expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall are divided by race, education and age. Whites are more than twice as likely as blacks or Hispanics to favor expanding the border wall.

Why Do Republicans Behave The Way They Do

Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich?

Why are the Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to the poor and so indulgent when it comes to the rich? Thats the incessant question as posed by liberals today about the partys now enacted tax reform. Not only does the bill include another attack on Obamacare, but it provides the pretext the need to reduce deficits to go after other long-held goals, the end of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. 

The answer should be obvious by now. Republicans behave as they do because they can get away with it! Its no more complicated than that. 

Contrary to liberal opinion, Republican politics isnt out of the mainstream provided we push the clock back sufficiently. A political economy without social services and entitlements is in fact the default position of the capitalist mode of production from its inception. If recent comments from Republican Sens. Orin Hatch and Charles Grassley sound like characters from a Charles Dickens novel their barely disguised contempt for the working poor that should come as no surprise. Such attitudes were almost de rigueur for ruling elites in capitals long ascent. The constant refrain of the rich Why should we be taxed to pay for the education of the children of the irresponsible poor?  explains why public school education became a widely accepted norm only in the 20th century. 

How Dems aided and abetted

What Republicans And Democrats Have In Common On Wall Street Regulation

The Democratic and Republican parties disagree on most major issues. When it comes to Wall Street, however, it’s a mixed bag. Take the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Democrats believe the bill has reined in the type of out-of-control behavior that led to the near collapse of the banking industry in 2008 and prevented a similar crisis. Republicans have criticized the legislation calling it “the Democrats legislative Godzilla.” They feel the financial regulations have made it too difficult for small lenders and community banks and has indirectly slowed the growth of small businesses. 

Regulation of the financial services industry has been a major issue not only in the current presidential election but in house and senate races. Democrats believe that the electorate largely sides with them that banks have overstepped and that they can use their position to win votes and take back the Senate. Republicans currently hold a majority 54 votes. Because of gerrymandering rules, Democrats will have a tougher time retaking the House.  

Dodd-Frank was intended to increase transparency and accountability in the financial services industry and to protect consumers. Among other things, the bill created a new consumer protection agency and standards for a number of common financial services products. 

A Shift In Immigration Thinking

Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois is one of the Houses most outspoken Democrats on immigration reform, and she understands this shift, and believes it is essential. Lives are at stake and the lives of Dreamers are more important to me than bricks, Gutierrez said. If advocates would reject any money for Trumps wall in exchange for freedom and legalization and eventual citizenship for the Dreamers, I understand their choice, but for my part, I would lay bricks myself if I thought it would save the Dreamers. For me, the very real attacks on legal immigration are far greater threats than bricks and drones and technology on the border.

This shift has also led Democratic views on a border wall to soften in general. As Trump has become less demanding, Democrats have begun to consider what type of barrier, and what size, they would be willing to agree to if push came to shove. The 2,000 mile wall that Democrats had feared would be a looming symbol of America turning inward on itself is becoming something closer to the 2006 plan; some new barriers, some new monitoring technology, and that is somewhat agreeable to Democrats, especially if they can garner support in other arenas in exchange for it.

[lawncreservice0]

via Lawn Care Service,

September to December are typically considered “peak” months of California’s annual fire season. This year we started early and for the past few years, we have seen a trend of increasingly destructive fires due to the effects of climate change. Naturally-occurring wildfires tend to spark during periods of extreme drought and dry weather. These dry conditions, coupled with strong winds, natural kindling form of dried-up vegetation, and a spark from a campfire, a cigarette, or a fallen power line can be a deadly combination. 

Wildfire season is not a unique event to California residents, its effects can also be felt in other States. as well. Oregon, Washington, and Nevada residents are no strangers to the dangers that quickly spreading wildfires can pose to a community. In recent years, UCSB has been directly affected by fast-spreading, intensely destructive fires. 

Once a wildfire has been ignited, 3 conditions must be present to allow the fire to continue burning and spread. Firefighters call this the “fire triangle”.  The three conditions are ”fuel, a heat source, and air.” California, which is known for its dry Santa Ana winds, and the lack of substantial rains have caused vegetation and soil to dry up in record numbers. This is the result of the rapidly changing global climate. 

[googlemaps https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZfR66icw6VY&#8221; width=”560″>

According to Yale Climate Connections, California experienced an extreme case of “weather whiplash,” going from a record-breaking drought in 2012-2016 to a wet, rainy season in 2017-2018. The combination of drought followed by rain contributed to the growth of new plant life that has subsequently dried up by record-breaking heat levels, contributing to California’s intensely destructive 2018 fire season. And this year is shaping up to be even worse and breaking all records of fire destruction.

The undeniable danger that wildfires pose in California and other drought-prone areas has led scientists at UCSB to take a more hands-on approach towards explaining unpredictable weather phenomena. 

For example, researchers at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are exploring the possible effects of climate change on the major weather pattern and how those effects could possibly impact the frequency and severity of future wildfires in California. Their findings, published in a study called “ENSO’s Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire in a Warming Climate,” could have “implications on land use and on wildfire fighting and prevention strategies at urban/wildland interfaces.

According to study co-author and Bren School faculty member Samantha Stevenson, the paper proves that “in fire-prone places like California and Australia, we can expect future El Niño and La Niña events to have a bigger impact on fire risk in a given year.” Stevenson also added that the sensitivity of land temperature and precipitation is “due to climate change.”

The research being conducted by academics at UCSB is just one of the ways that communities are doing their part to combat and raise awareness of fire dangers in the area. 

For example, controlled burns are being initiated by Fire Departments all over. Controlled burns include permissive burns and prescribed burns. Permissive burns are conducted by the fire departments to destroy areas of dense brush that might serve as kindling for future fires. 

Although these measures might seem overly cautious, wildland fire specialists see them as a necessary form of fire prevention.

If you live in a rural area it is extremely important to clear the brush around your home according to the recommended guidelines from your local Fire Chief. Generally, The recommended clearance is 30ft from your structure and more if you are dealing with elevations.

Prevent the next wildfire in California and give us a call (707) 647-2000 if you live in the San Francisco Bay area and your mowing equipment can’t handle dense brush, we can certainly help you with that.  

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from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/what-you-should-know-about-the-california-wildfires/ via IFTTT

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[commercialyard]

via Commercial Yard Maintenance,

September to December are typically considered “peak” months of California’s annual fire season. This year we started early and for the past few years, we have seen a trend of increasingly destructive fires due to the effects of climate change. Naturally-occurring wildfires tend to spark during periods of extreme drought and dry weather. These dry conditions, coupled with strong winds, natural kindling form of dried-up vegetation, and a spark from a campfire, a cigarette, or a fallen power line can be a deadly combination. 

Wildfire season is not a unique event to California residents, its effects can also be felt in other States. as well. Oregon, Washington, and Nevada residents are no strangers to the dangers that quickly spreading wildfires can pose to a community. In recent years, UCSB has been directly affected by fast-spreading, intensely destructive fires. 

Once a wildfire has been ignited, 3 conditions must be present to allow the fire to continue burning and spread. Firefighters call this the “fire triangle”.  The three conditions are ”fuel, a heat source, and air.” California, which is known for its dry Santa Ana winds, and the lack of substantial rains have caused vegetation and soil to dry up in record numbers. This is the result of the rapidly changing global climate. 

[googlemaps https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZfR66icw6VY&#8221; width=”560″>

According to Yale Climate Connections, California experienced an extreme case of “weather whiplash,” going from a record-breaking drought in 2012-2016 to a wet, rainy season in 2017-2018. The combination of drought followed by rain contributed to the growth of new plant life that has subsequently dried up by record-breaking heat levels, contributing to California’s intensely destructive 2018 fire season. And this year is shaping up to be even worse and breaking all records of fire destruction.

The undeniable danger that wildfires pose in California and other drought-prone areas has led scientists at UCSB to take a more hands-on approach towards explaining unpredictable weather phenomena. 

For example, researchers at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are exploring the possible effects of climate change on the major weather pattern and how those effects could possibly impact the frequency and severity of future wildfires in California. Their findings, published in a study called “ENSO’s Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire in a Warming Climate,” could have “implications on land use and on wildfire fighting and prevention strategies at urban/wildland interfaces.

According to study co-author and Bren School faculty member Samantha Stevenson, the paper proves that “in fire-prone places like California and Australia, we can expect future El Niño and La Niña events to have a bigger impact on fire risk in a given year.” Stevenson also added that the sensitivity of land temperature and precipitation is “due to climate change.”

The research being conducted by academics at UCSB is just one of the ways that communities are doing their part to combat and raise awareness of fire dangers in the area. 

For example, controlled burns are being initiated by Fire Departments all over. Controlled burns include permissive burns and prescribed burns. Permissive burns are conducted by the fire departments to destroy areas of dense brush that might serve as kindling for future fires. 

Although these measures might seem overly cautious, wildland fire specialists see them as a necessary form of fire prevention.

If you live in a rural area it is extremely important to clear the brush around your home according to the recommended guidelines from your local Fire Chief. Generally, The recommended clearance is 30ft from your structure and more if you are dealing with elevations.

Prevent the next wildfire in California and give us a call (707) 647-2000 if you live in the San Francisco Bay area and your mowing equipment can’t handle dense brush, we can certainly help you with that.  

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-you-should-know-about-california.html via IFTTT

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/what-you-should-know-about-the-california-wildfires/ via IFTTT

from Commercial Yard Maintenance https://commercialyardmaintenance.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-you-should-know-about-california.html via IFTTT

[shamrocklandscape]

via Shamrock Landscape Company

September to December are typically considered “peak” months of California’s annual fire season. This year we started early and for the past few years, we have seen a trend of increasingly destructive fires due to the effects of climate change. Naturally-occurring wildfires tend to spark during periods of extreme drought and dry weather. These dry conditions, coupled with strong winds, natural kindling form of dried-up vegetation, and a spark from a campfire, a cigarette, or a fallen power line can be a deadly combination. 

Wildfire season is not a unique event to California residents, its effects can also be felt in other States. as well. Oregon, Washington, and Nevada residents are no strangers to the dangers that quickly spreading wildfires can pose to a community. In recent years, UCSB has been directly affected by fast-spreading, intensely destructive fires. 

Once a wildfire has been ignited, 3 conditions must be present to allow the fire to continue burning and spread. Firefighters call this the “fire triangle”.  The three conditions are ”fuel, a heat source, and air.” California, which is known for its dry Santa Ana winds, and the lack of substantial rains have caused vegetation and soil to dry up in record numbers. This is the result of the rapidly changing global climate. 

[googlemaps https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZfR66icw6VY&#8221; width=”560″>

According to Yale Climate Connections, California experienced an extreme case of “weather whiplash,” going from a record-breaking drought in 2012-2016 to a wet, rainy season in 2017-2018. The combination of drought followed by rain contributed to the growth of new plant life that has subsequently dried up by record-breaking heat levels, contributing to California’s intensely destructive 2018 fire season. And this year is shaping up to be even worse and breaking all records of fire destruction.

The undeniable danger that wildfires pose in California and other drought-prone areas has led scientists at UCSB to take a more hands-on approach towards explaining unpredictable weather phenomena. 

For example, researchers at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and the National Center for Atmospheric Research are exploring the possible effects of climate change on the major weather pattern and how those effects could possibly impact the frequency and severity of future wildfires in California. Their findings, published in a study called “ENSO’s Changing Influence on Temperature, Precipitation, and Wildfire in a Warming Climate,” could have “implications on land use and on wildfire fighting and prevention strategies at urban/wildland interfaces.

According to study co-author and Bren School faculty member Samantha Stevenson, the paper proves that “in fire-prone places like California and Australia, we can expect future El Niño and La Niña events to have a bigger impact on fire risk in a given year.” Stevenson also added that the sensitivity of land temperature and precipitation is “due to climate change.”

The research being conducted by academics at UCSB is just one of the ways that communities are doing their part to combat and raise awareness of fire dangers in the area. 

For example, controlled burns are being initiated by Fire Departments all over. Controlled burns include permissive burns and prescribed burns. Permissive burns are conducted by the fire departments to destroy areas of dense brush that might serve as kindling for future fires. 

Although these measures might seem overly cautious, wildland fire specialists see them as a necessary form of fire prevention.

If you live in a rural area it is extremely important to clear the brush around your home according to the recommended guidelines from your local Fire Chief. Generally, The recommended clearance is 30ft from your structure and more if you are dealing with elevations.

Prevent the next wildfire in California and give us a call (707) 647-2000 if you live in the San Francisco Bay area and your mowing equipment can’t handle dense brush, we can certainly help you with that.  

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-you-should-know-about-california.html via IFTTT