TUESDAY: He also clattered about a "valve!"

TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2025

King Lear saves Cali again: He makes so many odd remarks that they tend to be quickly forgotten. 

In this morning's report about the commander, we forgot to cite the news report, from last Friday's Washington Post, about the shape of (California's) water.

There the commander went again! Headline included, the Post's report started as shown:

Trump says a ‘valve’ can solve California’s water woes. Experts say it’s not true.

It’s one of California’s thorniest problems. The nation’s most populous state is full of sprawling cities, vast farmland, rich ecosystems—and it must decide how to divide scarce water resources among them.

But for President Donald Trump, the solution is simple: Turn a valve and more water will flow.

“Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it,” Trump said at a news conference Tuesday. “All they have to do is turn the valve.”

As Trump prepares to visit wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles on Friday, he has offered different theories for how Southern California could get more water to fight fires. He is blaming a minnow-size fish, claiming that water can be diverted from Canada, and suggesting that a single valve could be turned to solve the state’s water woes.

Trump said during a Fox News interview on Wednesday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) “can release the water that comes from the north.” 

Exactly one week ago, that's what the commander said.

Forget about turning a "very large faucet," his recommendation from early September, when he was still just a hopeful. This time, the commander said the Golden State should simply "turn the valve!"

It sounded like a great idea—a simple solution to an alleged problem. To appearances, the brilliant commander had done it again—but the report continued directly as shown:

“There is massive amounts of water, rainwater and mountain water that comes through with the snow, comes down as it melts. There’s so much water they’re releasing it into the Pacific Ocean,” Trump said.

But experts say solving the drought-stricken state’s water scarcity isn’t so simple.

“The president is injecting himself into a difficult, complex situation that people have been working on for” years, said Tom Holyoke, a Western water politics expert at California State University at Fresno.

“There is no ‘valve,’” he added.

So it goes with these experts today!  Indeed, it's as we noted this morning:

Back in September, one expert had said that there's no such thing as a "very large faucet" which could release water from Neptune (or from some comparable locale). Now, the Post had found another expert—and this joker was trying to say that there is no magical valve! 

Citizens, can we talk? 

Starting with Caligula and his Senate-ready horse, history, legend and literature have gifted us with a succession of addled rulers of this familiar type:

There was Caligula and his steed. There was Lear, who refused to listen to the one daughter who was trying to tell him the truth.

Even on the plains outside Troy, Agamemnon, lord of men was persistently melting down at various moments of truth. Routinely, he was rescued from his lunatic conduct by the intercessions of such seasoned elders as Nestor, king of Pylos' sandy harbor, and Odysseus, the wily tactician.

Are we former Americans now in thrall to the madness of our own King George? We asked that question two weeks ago—and according to the Post's report, there's no such thing as that valve!

Tomorrow: In search of that $500 million