BLUE RUIN: As flames were devouring the Hollywood hills...

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2025

...Fox News was devouring the discourse: What ever happened to all those drones—to the drones which were swarming all over New Jersey?

We'd been wondering in recent days. Yesterday, somebody asked. 

As seen on the Fox News Channel, a reliable Stepford inquired about this forgotten tale. He spoke with a plainly disordered man:

(PETER) DOOCY (1/9/25): A story that kind of disappeared very suddenly—Do you any idea whatever happened to the drones?

TRUMP: What happened to drones?

DOOCY: Well, you said you knew—you thought the government knew what was happening with these drones over New Jersey. There were some by Bedminster?

TRUMP: I don’t know. They’re all over Bedminster a lot, so I can imagine—

I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration. Because I think it’s ridiculous that they’re not telling you about what’s going on with the drones...

The imitation of an answer continued on from there. Videotape of the full exchange is provided by Mediaite in its brief report on this press event.

According to the incoming president, "they’re not telling you about what’s going on with the drones." In fact, no one's discussing the drone invasion any more—and that includes Fox News!

At Fox, the flames of the drones had raced up a hillside. But then, all of a sudden, just like that, they disappeared over a hill. 

They had their fun with the tale for a couple of weeks. At that point, the tale disappeared.

For the record, that was Peter Doocy of the Fox News Channel, speaking with the incoming Donald J. Trump. Full disclosure:

There won't be a report on the drones "about one day into the administration." In all likelihood, that particular wildfire has completely run its course. In all likelihood, it won't flare up again.

It's true! The disordered man in question did say, at one point, that "the government knew what was happening with these drones over New Jersey." In all likelihood, he'd simply been devouring one more hillside within our rapidly failing nation's rapidly failing culture.

In the past few days, Blue Ruin has come to large parts of The City of Angels in the form of runaway fires. A more familiar version of Blue Ruin had come to our tribe in the form of the November 5 election—and yes, we Blues had worked very hard to earn our way out in the years, and in the decades, which preceded that event.

We'd earned our way out by ignoring the (unexplained) apparent craziness of President Biden's (unexplained) policy at the southern border. By ignoring President Biden's refusal (or inability) to speak about that and about other major issues. 

By hoping and praying that we could Lock Trump Up. By the endless hours we endlessly spent massaging that tribal dream, even as our tribunes disappeared the topics the electorate was more concerned about. 

By the way we've looked down on "the basket of deplorables" over the course of the past sixty years (on our nation's lower breed). By the way we pursued one absurd position after another in the realm which came to be described as "Woke"—by the way we were unable to see, or unwilling to finger, the plain absurdity of so many of those tribal manifestations. 

By our refusal to see that something seemed to be wrong with the leader of our own party, with the incumbent President Biden. 

Across the nation, the others could see that something seemed to be wrong. Until the night of June 27, we alone couldn't see this apparent problem—and many of our leading figures said he was sharp as a tack.

In such ways, we Blues worked to earn our way out. Our dumbness has been visible to everyone—to everyone except us. 

(In fairness, this is one of the ways we humans are wired. It has always worked this way with our species' tribes.)

Today, though, the topic is the form of ruin which has come to large parts of Los Angeles. Also, though, the topic should be the devouring of the American discourse, the devouring of the American intellect, which was being performed again yesterday all over the Fox News Channel.

Flames devoured the hills of Los Angeles; Fox News has devoured the discourse. And as Fox News has executed that form of Blue Ruin, the New York Times has gazed away, refusing to say their names.

We'll go ahead and say them today. These are the "jugglers and clowns" we watched yesterday as they made mincemeat out of the discourse:

Co-hosts on Fox & Friends, 1/9/25
Lawrence Jones
Steve Doocy
Ainsley Earhardt
Brian Kilmeade

Panelists on The Five, 1/9/25
"Kennedy"
Jessica Tarlov
Jesse Watters
Dana Perino
Greg Gutfeld

Panelists on Gutfeld!, 1/9/25
"Tyrus"
Kat Timpf
Greg Gutfeld (host)
Dana Perino
Jamie Lissow 

Adam Carolla (very special guest)

We watched those collections of jugglers and clowns they pretended to discuss the Los Angeles fires—as they devoured the possibility of having an actual discourse. 

Flames were devouring the Hollywood hills. These flyweights went after the culture.

Since 1965, we Blues have been working very hard to bring ourselves down. As happenstance had it, we ourselves were physically present that year when this effort started.

We hope to describe that historic event next week. For today, we direct you to the eating of the American discourse—to the flames which continue to devour American journalistic and intellectual culture.

(By the way: Where are all the brilliant professors who should be discussing Fox News? Where are the "academics?")

Yesterday, as we watched Fox News, who was the least fair of them all as they pretended to discuss the Los Angeles fires? We'd probably name Kennedy first, but that involves a long-standing bit of personal prejudice. 

We'd also name Adam Carolla, who arrived on the scene with the ugly, stupid, gong-show misogyny of The Man Show. That was back in the early days of the never-ending pushback by the masculine children of this type. Pepperidge Farm remembers:

Adam Carolla

[...]

Carolla co-hosted the syndicated radio call-in program Loveline with Drew Pinsky from 1995 to 2005 as well as the show's television incarnation on MTV from 1996 to 2000. He was the co-host and co-creator of the television program The Man Show (1999–2004), and the co-creator and a regular performer on the television show Crank Yankers (2002–2007, 2019–present). 

Crank Yankers! This is who, and this is what, these unyielding throwbacks are.

Carolla and Kennedy would be our individual choices for yesterday's worst players. We'd also wonder what's going on with the strangely backsliding Jessica Tarlov at this point in time.

The larger question concerns the way Blue America's journalistic and academic elites have chosen to look the other way as this destruction of the nation's discourse and intellect has continued to roll along on a daily, round-the-clock basis.

Yesterday, the Stepfords were advancing the mandated instant claims about the Los Angeles fires. At Trader Vic's, a werewolf's hair was once said to be perfect.

So were yesterday's "cable news" recitations.

At some point, some clarity may be available concerning the claims these children have been reciting. This very morning, we strongly recommend the preliminary assessments offered in this New York Times news report:

‘Completely Dry’: How Los Angeles Firefighters Ran Out of Water.

[...]

Officials now say the storage tanks that hold water for high-elevation areas like the Highlands, and the pumping systems that feed them, could not keep pace with the demand as the fire raced from one neighborhood to another. That was in part because those who designed the system did not account for the stunning speeds at which multiple fires would race through the Los Angeles area this week.

“We are looking at a situation that is just completely not part of any domestic water system design,” said Marty Adams, a former general manager and chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is responsible for delivering water to nearly four million residents of Los Angeles.

Municipal water systems are designed for firefighters to tap into multiple hydrants at once, allowing them to maintain a steady flow of water for crews who may be trying to protect a large structure or a handful of homes. But these systems can buckle when wildfires, such as those fueled by the dry brush that surrounds Los Angeles’s hillside communities, rage through entire neighborhoods.

As urban growth spreads into wilderness areas around the country and climate change brings more challenging fire conditions, an increasing number of cities have confronted a sudden loss of water available for firefighting, most recently in Talent, Ore.; Gatlinburg, Tenn.; and Ventura County, Calif.

The problem can be especially acute during high-wind conditions, like those Los Angeles experienced this week, when firefighting aircraft could not safely make their usual aerial drops of water and fire retardant.

There's more to be found in that assessment—in that preliminary assessment. Even one of the stars of the current show is paraphrased saying this:

Rick Caruso, the real estate developer and former candidate for Los Angeles mayor who served two stints as president of the Department of Water and Power, said he had a team of private firefighters deployed in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday night, helping to protect a major outdoor retail space he owns, Palisades Village, as well as some nearby homes.

All night, he said, the team was reporting that water was in short supply. He said it would take time to account for the supply problems, but suggested there appeared to be a shortfall in preparation.

Will it turn out that there actually was some sort of (serious or actionable) "shortfall in preparation?"

As always, everything is possible! That said, even Caruso has been quoted saying that it will take time to account for the supply problems—and of one thing you can be sure:

By the time some such account has been reliably assembled, the wind-whipped flamers on the Fox News Channel will have leaped ahead to some other set of instant tales.

Flames are devouring the hillsides of The City of Angels. The American discourse is being devoured by an endless array of flamers on the Fox News Channel, but also across the podcast dial.

Back in the early 1990s, it was the New York Times and the Washington Post which invented the Whitewater pseudo-scandal. Starting in March 1999, it was those same mainstream orgs which drove the punitive, twenty-month War Against Gore which sent George Bush to the White House.

Today, our discourse is being devoured by life forms like Gutfeld, Carolla and Kennedy, along with the corporate-owned blowhard Tyrus, a former professional "wrestler."

This array of jugglers and clowns is being paid by the corporation to advance the corporation's Storylines and interests. As they strut and recite their claims, Blue America, producing Blue Ruin, agrees to look away.

We've decided to start saying their names. Fuller profiles will follow, but no one's dumber than we Blues are. We've been proving that point, again and again, as we've worked to earn our way out over these past many long years.

We've long been convinced that we're the smart ones. Sadly, no—we aren't!