Vice President Kamala Harris suggested that the victims of the Southern California fires be patient in a statement that has since gone viral for the wrong reasons.

Over 88,000 Californians remain under evacuation orders, largely in the Los Angeles area, as of Wednesday after multiple fires burned 40,000 acres. At least 25 people have died as wildfires continue to spread across the region. According to Harris, FEMA still has some search and rescue work to do. She went on to console victims with one of her notorious world salads.

"Lots of people who still have a home who are under evacuation order, I know you want to get back home, but this is a time to be patient," Harris said. "It’s critically important that, to the extent you can find anything that gives you an ability to be patient in this extremely dangerous and unprecedented crisis, that you do."

"It’s terrifying to think how Kamala would have treated the American people if this is how she treats her home state supporters," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell responded to the clip on X.

"The bullet we just dodged on display!" another user wrote.

"Did Kamala just tell them to calm down?" another user commented.

"What she's trying to express here with this confusing word salad is that it's super important for LA residents to be patient with the bungling incompetence & appalling stupidity of CA Democrats & not to link the ongoing disaster to their woke, civilization-destroying policies," another user wrote.

Many of the fires have spread into neighborhoods and destroyed homes. Over a week after the fires sparked, as many as 12,300 structures have burned.

The Pacific Palisades neighborhood has been the hardest hit area, with the most buildings burned but also because of empty fire hydrants. Los Angeles Water and Power Department Chief Engineer Janisse Quinones confirmed in a press conference that all three water tanks ran out of a million gallons of water each a week ago, hours after the fires started. As of Wednesday, the fire there is 19% contained.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, the Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.



The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.


The agency’s move, confirmed to the AP on Tuesday by five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive regulatory review, clears the last significant regulatory hurdle before the agency’s biggest policy change in more than 50 years can take effect.




Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public-comment period the agency would publish the final rule.


It comes after President Joe Biden called for a review of federal marijuana law in October 2022 and moved to pardon thousands of Americans convicted federally of simple possession of the drug. He has also called on governors and local leaders to take similar steps to erase marijuana convictions.


“Criminal records for marijuana use and possession have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” Biden said in December. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs.”


The election year announcement could help Biden, a Democrat, boost flagging support, particularly among younger voters.





Schedule III drugs are still controlled substances and subject to rules and regulations, and people who traffic in them without permission could still face federal criminal prosecution.


Some critics argue the DEA shouldn’t change course on marijuana, saying rescheduling isn’t necessary and could lead to harmful side effects.


Jack Riley, a former deputy administrator of the DEA, said he had concerns about the proposed change because he thinks marijuana remains a possible “gateway drug," one that may lead to the use of other drugs.


“But in terms of us getting clear to use our resources to combat other major drugs, that’s a positive,” Riley said, noting that fentanyl alone accounts for more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. a year.


On the other end of the spectrum, others argue marijuana should be treated the way alcohol is.


Last week, 21 Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York sent a letter to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram and Attorney General Merrick Garland arguing marijuana should be dropped from the controlled-substances list and instead regulated like alcohol.


“It is time for the DEA to act,” the lawmakers wrote. “Right now, the Administration has the opportunity to resolve more than 50 years of failed, racially discriminatory marijuana policy.”


Federal drug policy has lagged behind many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing its recreational use.


That’s helped fuel fast growth in the marijuana industry, with an estimated worth of nearly $30 billion. Easing federal regulations could reduce the tax burden that can be 70% or more for businesses, according to industry groups. It could also make it easier to research marijuana, since it’s very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies on Schedule I substances.


The immediate effect of rescheduling on the nation’s criminal justice system would likely be more muted, since federal prosecutions for simple possession have been fairly rare in recent years.


But loosening restrictions could carry a host of unintended consequences in the drug war and beyond.


Critics point out that as a Schedule III drug, marijuana would remain regulated by the DEA. That means the roughly 15,000 cannabis dispensaries in the U.S. would have to register with the DEA like regular pharmacies and fulfill strict reporting requirements, something that they are loath to do and that the DEA is ill equipped to handle


Then there’s the United States' international treaty obligations, chief among them the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which requires the criminalization of cannabis. In 2016, during the Obama administration, the DEA cited the U.S.’ international obligations and the findings of a federal court of appeals in Washington in denying a similar request to reschedule marijuana.

Are we still going with this move being petty and disrespectful to Jimmi Peanut Brain? >

• OptumRx, the group's pharmacy benefit manager, along with its two main peers, Express Scripts and CVS Caremark Rx, have pocketed an extra $7.3 billion over cost thanks to price gouging, according to the findings of a report by the Federal Trade Commission. CVS Caremark Rx blasted the findings for cherry picking certain drugs in an effort to push what it called an 'anti-PBM' narrative.

UnitedHealth Group is charging patients a markup for key life-saving drugs that could easily exceed their cost by a factor of ten or more, according to findings from the Federal Trade Commission.

The report, which levels the same allegations at CVS and Cigna, is the latest indictment of us healthcare system.

Neat.

Login to view embedded media

As she runs away from the press.
Login to view embedded media

President-elect Donald Trump has never been terribly concerned with the legitimate obstacles in front of him or the finer points of legislating. And getting him to mind these hurdles is only likely to get harder now that he’ll be term-limited and will have more loyalists around him — people who are less likely to question and try to check his impulses.


Get the latest election news and results

Already, Trump could be setting himself and his party up for some heartache by trying to go big once he enters the White House.
Trump has in recent days come out in favor of combining many of his biggest priorities in one big reconciliation bill — a “beautiful” bill in the words of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), and a “powerful” bill in Trump’s own words. That bill would allow the GOP, in theory, to make sweeping changes to fiscal policy with only 50 votes in the Senate, under special rules for legislation that impacts the economy (there are ostensibly some limits on what can go in it).


Trump wants such a single bill to include a multitude of items: border security, energy, extending his tax cuts from his first term, eliminating taxes on tips and possibly taking the debt ceiling off the table.
🏛️
Follow Politics
The idea is to do all of these things under the reconciliation process. Because it only requires half of the Senate, reconciliation bills are not subject to a Democratic filibuster. Some in his party, especially in the Senate, have proposed splitting up some of Trump’s aims into two reconciliation bills. Trump says he likes the single-bill idea because it’s “cleaner” and “nicer.”
The problem is that history suggests the GOP could struggle to pass any of these items on their own; packaging them together could give plenty in their party reason to view the final product as not nice enough, because of how much it spends or because there will be something they abhor. And procedural hurdles loom that could pit Trump against leaders of his party.


First, the lay of the land and some relevant history.
The margins for the GOP in the House are incredibly tight. As things stand, they can lose only one GOP vote if all Democrats are voting in opposition. (The GOP’s majority should be even smaller for a period of time early in this Congress, given that Trump has plucked two House members for Cabinet-level roles and those seats would be vacant. But those vacancies could be filled before the vote, which Johnson has pegged for April.)
In other words, the party needs near-unanimity in the House.
It’s come up short of unanimity in each of these areas in recent years.
The House GOP’s 2023 border bill initially lost the votes of two GOP House members: now-former representative John Duarte (R-California) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky). Duarte worried about the impact on food production in his district. Massie, a libertarian-minded Republican, didn’t like that the bill included E-Verify, a federal government program to determine whether someone is authorized to work. (That last one was a sticking point for other members who nonetheless wound up supporting the bill.)


House Republicans also passed an energy bill in 2023 that lost the support of one of its members.
And Trump’s tax cuts lost the votes of a dozen House Republicans. They predominantly came from the Northeast and California and didn’t like how the bill curtailed the state and local tax deduction, also known as SALT.
That’s a lot to get consensus on its own. And throwing in eliminating taxes on tips and nixing the debt ceiling could make it significantly more difficult.
The idea of eliminating taxes on tips is a politically popular idea, which was ultimately embraced by Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 campaign. But while it was a solid, populist campaign play in the abstract, there will be significant concerns about just how practical it is and whether it would even wind up benefiting low-income workers. It could also cost the government an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion per year in revenue.


Tossing in raising or eliminating the debt ceiling on top of it could make things considerably more difficult. Johnson told Fox News on Sunday that this will “have to” be part of the big bill. But piling a potentially costly border crackdown onto eliminating taxes on tips means this package would be costly. And certain fiscally conservative members of Congress have balked at raising the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts; eliminating it is probably a complete nonstarter.
Trump has offered a plan to pay for all of it.
“IT WILL ALL BE MADE UP WITH TARIFFS, AND MUCH MORE, FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE U.S. FOR YEARS,” Trump wrote on social media.

But the shape of those tariffs is to be determined, with conflicting signals about how far they’ll go and how much revenue they might generate. There are indications that Trump is interested in wielding them as negotiating ploys with other countries and might not actually institute the large, universal tariffs he proposed on the campaign trail. (The Post’s Jeff Stein reported Monday that Trump’s team is looking at focusing on certain sectors rather than actual universal tariffs. Trump called the report false but didn’t elaborate.)

Regardless of what happens, the amount of revenue the tariffs would generate would be uncertain, posing a dilemma for budget-conscious Republicans who might not like the tariffs in the first place and who worry about whether to trust that Trump won’t just balloon the national debt (again).
And then there’s what could happen in the Senate. The reconciliation process doesn’t provide carte blanche to include whatever you want in a bill; it is limited to spending, revenue and the debt limit, and it can’t include policy changes.

That raises the possibility that the Senate parliamentarian could rule that certain aspects of the big, “powerful” bill, particularly on border security and taxes, don’t meet the requirements. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) signaled this week that Senate Republicans wouldn’t seek to override those rulings, because it would be akin to abolishing the filibuster.

It’s not difficult to see significant pieces of the package getting adverse rulings from the parliamentarian, and Trump — who has shown little regard for institutionalism and once called for getting rid of the filibuster — pushing for the Senate to do what Thune doesn’t want to do.
In sum: Pitfalls abound. And having someone in Trump who doesn’t have much regard for them leading such a huge, all-encompassing effort would not seem an ideal circumstance for Republicans who want to get big things done with their newfound control of Washington.

You guys really paying 6k for homeowners insurance? Holy schnikees!

Login to view embedded media

There is an Iowa City connection.

They need to snag 8 wins imo to have a chance at the Dance.

Which games do you feel are their best shots at Ws?

> schedule <

And by 'ordered to release client list' I meant 'has received a $112 million refund from the IRS'.

Politicians and celebrities everywhere breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The last remaining Maid-Rite in Cedar Rapids, dubbed the city’s oldest sandwich shop, is closing this week after about 82 years in business.



The last day open for Maid-Rite West, 621 First Ave. SW, is Jan. 15.


The restaurant was the last remaining in the Corridor of the iconic Iowa brand known for its loose meat sandwiches, and is one of the last remaining in Eastern Iowa. It first opened in 1942, according to historical records.


“Owning and operating this iconic piece of Cedar Rapids history since 2020 has been an incredible honor,” the restaurant’s current owners said in a statement. “We’ve cherished serving you, hearing your stories, and being part of your traditions. This shop is special in so many ways, and we are deeply grateful to have been its caretakers over the past few years.”


The owners said many factors, unspecified in the statement, impacted the decision as they decided where to focus their energy and resources to meet long-term goals. But the closure may not be permanent.


The location’s manager of over 20 years has expressed interest in “carrying on the tradition,” to continue the Maid-Rite West’s legacy. The owners are working closely with the manager to explore possibilities and said they are “optimistic about what the future holds.”


Maid-Rite will have 14 locations remaining in Iowa after the Cedar Rapids closure. The chain also has five locations in Illinois, two in Minnesota, three in Missouri and one in Ohio.


Remaining Eastern Iowa restaurants serving Maid-Rite sandwiches include Davenport, Dubuque, Waterloo and West Burlington.


Before Maid-Rite West, the Cedar Rapids restaurant’s address on First Ave. SW was known as Gundling Restaurant.


A Maid-Rite on Cedar Rapids’ east side was open from 1930 to 1997. Another location at 728 First St. SW was open from 1944 to 1963.

Reality TV at its best.

Wow, I can't believe it is that time of year again, time to vote for the 2024 MPOTY. We have such amazing finalists this year, may the best poster for the specific award win the victory.

Can’t quite figure out why or how this keeps happening year in and year out.

Oh and always being out rebounded. Crazy how it just happens.

Just a lot of untimely bad luck I suppose.

Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex as he launches the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to slash government spending in the Trump administration, according to two people briefed on the plans.
The space anticipated for Mr. Musk’s use is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House. The location would allow Mr. Musk, who owns companies with billions of dollars in contracts with the federal government, to continue to have significant access to President-elect Donald J. Trump when he takes office this month.
Mr. Musk has had discussions with transition officials about what his level of access to the West Wing will be, but that was left unclear, according to two people briefed on the matter. Staff members and others who are able to come and go freely in the West Wing typically require a special pass.
Mr. Musk donated hundreds of millions to help Mr. Trump win the 2024 election and has been a regular by his side since then, often using one of the cottages available for rent on Mr. Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago. During the transition, he has sat in on official meetings and at least one foreign call, and weighed in on staff and cabinet choices.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


It was not clear whether Vivek Ramaswamy, Mr. Musk’s partner in leading the project, would also have office space in the Eisenhower building.
The Musk-Ramaswamy project is called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, but it is not a “department” in the sense of the Justice Department — an official, congressionally authorized part of the government. Mr. Musk’s status and the project have raised myriad issues about the rules for outsiders helping to wield governmental power.
DOGE staff members are currently working out of the Washington, D.C., offices of Mr. Musk’s SpaceX company.
Officials with the Trump transition and associated with DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.
The work around DOGE has so far been shrouded in secrecy, with the transition revealing little to nothing about how it will function, or how it will be budgeted for.

​

It remains to be seen how large Mr. Musk’s team will be, as well as what his own status will be. Some transition officials have suggested he could become a “special government employee,” a status that can be paid or unpaid and has more flexible rules for personal financial disclosures than what is required of ordinary employees.
Should he do that, Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world, would almost certainly forgo a salary. But there could be legal implications to how the Trump administration ends up defining Mr. Musk’s role and how DOGE fits in the executive branch bureaucracy.
One issue involves ethics rules, including financial disclosures and prohibitions on certain conflicts of interest, like limits on the ability of former special government employees to lobby on behalf of certain private interests after having worked on relevant topics during temporary service.
In particular, all government employees, including special temporary ones, are subject to a criminal conflict of interest law that bars them from participating in official matters in which they or their families or organizations have a financial interest. Because some of Mr. Musk’s companies have contracts with the federal government, that statute would seem to bar DOGE from working on related issues if he takes on such status.
If Mr. Musk or his staff were to become special government employees, they would have to file financial disclosure forms. If they decide to pass up sizable government salaries, however, the Trump administration could keep those records secret from the public.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


There would also be implications for government transparency laws.
One such law is the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates boards, panels, councils and other types of committees that work with people from outside the government to provide advice to the executive branch.
If Mr. Musk does not seek special government employee status for himself and all his staff members and everyone else who provides input, the act would seem to apply to DOGE’s work. Among other things, the law says that all meetings of such committees are to be conducted in public, and all the documents submitted to such a panel or produced by it are also supposed to be available to the public.
Mr. Musk has not yet determined whether he will take on the status and obligations of being a special government employee, according to his allies.
Another relevant issue is the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. It allows members of the press or the public to request access to official records, with certain exceptions, and to file lawsuits for court orders requiring their disclosure.
The president and his immediate staff in the White House whose sole function is to advise him are considered to be exempt from FOIA requests. But much of the larger bureaucracy surrounding them is subject to such requests.

Campaigns to remove Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass from office have gained steam as devastating wildfires continue to rage in California.

The two officials have faced sharp censure over their handling of the wildfires that first erupted on Jan. 7. The fires have killed at least 24 people, torched 12,000 structures, and destroyed large sections of the greater Los Angeles area.

California activist Randy Economy, who is leading the movement to recall Newsom, escalated the effort because of the governor’s “woefully unprepared and incompetent response to the fires.” In a recent statement, Economy said he expects to file papers in the next two weeks to start the recall process. Recall supporters will have to gather roughly 1.3 million signatures in the next five months.

Newsom already survived one recall attempt spearheaded by Economy in 2021. However, this time around, the fire crisis could give anti-Newsom activists the fuel they need to push the governor out of office.

“Under the reign of Governor Newsom, living in California has become impossible for average people through years of poor policies which have increased the costs of living, increased crime, increased drug use and homelessness, increased the cost of burden [sic] on small businesses and communities, while decreasing our professional standards, education standards, the disappearance of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to failed pet programs, and our public services,” Economy said. “This was most recently demonstrated by the woefully unprepared and incompetent response to the fires currently ravaging the Los Angeles area.”

As California’s governor, Newsom experienced swift backlash when the fires broke out. Critics said state policies about brush and debris removal fed the fires and argued Newsom ignored years of warnings to change course and avoid the latest disaster. Some furious Californians also said Newsom’s water policy left firefighters without the tools they needed to stop the crisis and slammed him for approving a special session to fight President-elect Donald Trump while Los Angeles burned.

"Governor Newsom is 100 percent focused on the fires, ongoing rescue efforts and the recovery process - not politics," Newsom's office told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. "Readers still should have the context that the same group of far right activists have launched 6 different recall attempts against the governor since he’s taken office, each of which have failed spectacularly. Even Republican Party leaders have criticized these repeated attempts as a brazen campaign finance 'grift,' and the recall organizers have been sued by their own donors for pocketing funds raised previously. For example, they didn’t even turn in a single signature in their last attempt."

While ousting Newsom is the primary focus of Economy’s grassroots coalition, Saving California, he is also eyeing plans to remove Bass from office, according to Newsweek.

A separate online petition calling for Bass to step down as the mayor of Los Angeles launched Wednesday. The Change.org petition had garnered more than 130,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

“We demand the immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass due to her failure to lead during this unprecedented crisis,” says the petition. “Water supplies have been severely strained, billions of taxpayer dollars have been misallocated or left unaccounted for, and countless lives have been lost… the city has been woefully unprepared to ensure the safety and well-being of its residents.”

Footage of a speechless Bass after she was asked questions about the fires went viral last week. She has faced intense criticism over revelations the Santa Ynez Reservoir, a 117-million-gallon water storage complex that is part of the Los Angeles water supply, sat empty and out of commission when the fires broke out.

The mayor also faced scrutiny over why local fire hydrants went dry as emergency personnel tried to fight the disaster as well as questions over her presence overseas in Ghana when the Palisades fire ignited.

“I don’t understand how they did not cancel her trip,” a senior staffer for another local elected official told the Los Angeles Times, explaining that their office began viewing the coming wind event as a grave threat during the preceding weekend. “It was political malpractice.”

“Mayor Bass is leading our city through one of the worst crises in our history," Bass's office told the Washington Examiner. "Hurricane-force winds and unseasonably dry conditions drove these firestorms – misinformation surrounding this crisis has been staggering. The Mayor has secured the federal, state, and local resources we need to continue fighting these fires and is moving forward on an all-of-the-above plan for recovery.”

I’m trying to figure out why a literal giant hasn’t moved on from college yet.

The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) committed significant resources to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives before the outbreak of massive fires that devastated the Los Angeles area overnight.

The LAFD has implemented an internal “racial equity plan,” subjected employees to diversity training and is currently led by Chief Kristin Crowley, “the first female and LGBTQ Fire Chief in the LAFD” and a staunch supporter of the initiatives. As strong winds fed the wildfires on Tuesday evening, former Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso reported that some fire hydrants were running low on water as the department scrambled to mobilize firefighters.

The department’s racial equity plan, adopted in 2021, asserts that the LAFD is a better firefighting organization for focusing on the demographic characteristics of its personnel.

“The strength of any organization rests in its greatest resource—its people; and LAFD leadership cannot accomplish any of the racial equity and inclusion goals without the employees to accomplish the work and embrace the vision while being guided by competent leadership,” the LAFD racial equity plan states. “It has been concluded and realized that the more talent, skills, perspectives, insight, knowledge, and abilities acquired through racial equity and inclusion, the stronger and more effective and competitive the organization has become.”

The LAFD evidently did not have adequate personnel on hand to mount an immediate and sufficient response to the devastating fires, indicated by the rare Tuesday night call to off-duty firefighters to report their availability. Some forecasts, including those issued by the National Interagency Fire Center and the California Office for Emergency Services, warned that Southern California was at high risk for serious fires before Tuesday’s events.

In a brief with the news media Wednesday morning, officials said that the fires have claimed more than 1,000 buildings and caused serious injuries for civilians who did not evacuate hard-hit areas in time.

Shortly after taking over the top job at LAFD in 2022, Crowley made clear in a local news segment that one of her top priorities would be increasing the department’s diversity. In the interview, she suggested she does not look to meet specific demographic quotas in the department because there is “never enough” diversity.

Los Angeles County also posted an October 2024 video touting a one-day DEI planning event hosted by the Anti-Racism, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, during which county leaders worked on ideas and plans to “realize a just and equitable LA County for all residents and all communities.”
An official county website detailing its work with the Anti-Racism, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative states that the county “seeks to end structural racism and its consequences by working closely with all County departments, commissions, agencies, and advisory bodies to collaborate with all cities, unincorporated communities, school districts, state and federal agencies, community-based organizations, philanthropy and academic institutions.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the fires were still out of control, consuming thousands of acres of land with the help of powerful wind gusts that have yet to subside.

The LAFD did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.



As Los Angeles burns to the ground and its citizens suffer you can sleep better knowing DEI played a large part in this tragedy.

Any basement dwellers interested in projecting their projected two deeps? And no I didn't look to see if the topic has already been posted.

Late, for the first time in the 9 years we've had the pleasure of her cleaning our home. What should be her punishment? She did text 20 minutes before her scheduled arrival time to let us know she was running late.

Of course, this is Beacon and I'm kidding. Just subtle bragging about how awesome she is...

19 years old and a damn shame. Much like the Hawkeyes with the wave, the run was a class act by the Huskers.