Newsmax host Rob Finnerty kicked off his Wednesday night program with an off-the-rails rant that claimed the devastating California wildfires were the latest example of “death by DEI” in the United States, explicitly pointing out that the Los Angeles Fire Department chief is a lesbian.
Finnerty’s anti-DEI tirade is just the latest example of right-wing media using the disaster in Los Angeles to suggest that liberals’ push to initiate diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the workplace has resulted in deadly consequences. Meanwhile, at least five people have died in the raging fires, which have destroyed tens of thousands of acres and still have yet to be contained by thousands of firefighters due to high winds and extremely dry conditions.
“And what’s happening right now in Southern California is absolutely terrible. But please do not be fooled by what you’re hearing from the media. These are not once-in-a-generation wildfires. This is not climate change,” Finnerty fumed at the top of his primetime show.
The MAGA host went on to compare the apocalyptic situation in Los Angeles to the recent terror attack in New Orleans, noting that there was one common element at play: women were in charge of the response.
“This is death by DEI once again, just like we saw last week in New Orleans with Ann Kirkpatrick, the DEI-hire police chief who didn’t know the city had barriers in storage that could have been placed on Bourbon Street to prevent that madman from doing what he did on New Year’s Eve,” Finnerty groused.
He then took aim at L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, claiming that she was more focused on promoting LGBTQ inclusivity than preparing the department for readiness. Crowley was nominated for the role by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2022 after Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas stepped down amid a growing scandal that he didn’t do enough to stop racist and sexist behavior in his department.
Crowley, who had been with the department for 22 years when she became chief, had previously become the city’s first female fire marshal in 2016. Additionally, when she first took the firefighter exam in the 1990s, she ranked in the top 50 among 16,000 applicants.
1 Comment
The fires are caused by insufficient back-burning. Insufficient back-burning is caused by a democracy that permits very stupid and selfish people who don’t want the smell of smoke in their washing to hold ballot initiatives to stop it. It’s not uniquely American to blame the government for everything, but it is very American to forbid the government from governing, to be horrified at the very thought that a government should be able to do so, and then to blame it for everything.