In the first place, of course, the raging California fires, like those which have periodically gone before, are largely a function of misguided government policies. Officials have essentially curtailed the supply of water available to LA firefighters, even as they have drastically increased the supply of combustible kindling and vegetation which feeds these wildfires. The latter, in turn, are being amplified by the seasonal Santa Ana winds, which have visited the California coast since time immemorial.

The kindling at issue stems from forest management policies which prevent the removal of excess fuel via controlled burns, which are fires intentionally set by forest managers to reduce the build-up of hazardous fuels. As we amplify below, red tape and bureaucratic obstacles have frequently delayed or prevented these controlled burns, allowing brush, dead trees, and other flammable materials to accumulate excessively.

In this case, state and Federal politicians have simultaneously curtailed the supply of water available to Los Angeles firefighters in order to protect so-called endangered species. Specifically, southern California is being held hostage by sharp curtailment of the water pumping rates from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in order to protect the Delta Smelt and Chinook Salmon.

As a result, Greens have cynically used this 2-inch long fish, the Delta smelt, to deny Southern California cities and San Joaquin Valley farmers 100 billion gallons of water per year since 2008. The water is instead flushed into the Pacific Ocean.

These former are shiny but tiny little buggers, as suggested by the handful of Smelt in the first picture below. But apparently, if they are protected, fished and then fried up, they make for a certain kind of delicacy, as shown in the second picture.

Needless to say, California is entitled to stew in the foolishness of its own policies—if that's what its voters really want. But its self-imposed misery should not be an occasion for more howling in favor of Washington policies to fight climate change.

At least with respect to the latter, the Donald has his head-screwed on right. And he does not hesitate to opine on the matter, which is all to the good of balancing what has otherwise been a wholly one-sided and utterly misleading Climate Crisis narrative. Naturally, the latter has been promulgated and peddled by statists because it provides yet one more big, scary and urgent reason for an "all of government" campaign of more spending, borrowing, regulating and curtailing of free market enterprise and personal liberty.