RUSH: Have you seen, folks, the Reagan Library is now surrounded by — Fox is calling it a brushfire. There’s a bunch of different fires. There’s the Getty fire. This brushfire is in Simi Valley, and it is very, very near the Reagan Library. Employees at the Reagan Library — “liberry,” for those of you in Rio Linda — have been ordered to evacuate.

And I can’t help it, this is a little bit symbolic. Here you have the library of Ronaldus Magnus in the communist state of California. I can’t help but think that some in the media are rooting for the fire, maybe the first time ever that a fire has had fans. I mean supporters.

But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a bunch of leftists say, “Burn, baby, burn! Get rid of Reagan forever. We can put up a new solar plant.” Did you see where Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has publicly announced that the Getty Fire… By the way, do you know how they name fires? Well, it’s not all that complicated, but the names of fires are so odd that I had to look into it. You know, like the Lockerbie Fire, but there’s no Lockerbie, or whatever the names are of the big fires recently in California. They are the location where they think this fire began.

So if it’s a street corner of, you know, Khrushchev Avenue and Castro Street, they’ll call it “the Castro Fire,” and then you say, “Castro Fire? What? What?” (chuckling) Well, we’re talking California. (interruption) Well, I don’t… (sigh) Give them time. They’ll figure out a way to sell naming rights to the fires because they’re gonna become so frequent. Now, let me ask you a question, ’cause I want to share something with you that happened many times to me when I moved to California in 1984.

When I’ve flown over the country or when I’ve driven around it, I have seen massive power lines that have been run up and down forest hillsides, and next to the power poles — the towers, the structures — they clear-cut the forest in a very wide swath (like 10, 15 yards) on both sides of the tower on which the electricity wires are strung. I looked at that and said, “This is ugly,” you know, before I knew what was going on. “This is ugly. How in the hell can anybody…?” Now I know why.

They clear-cut the forest so in case a downed power line falls, it’ll fall on nothing that could turn into a fire, nothing that could catch fire. Well, this is what California has not permitted to happen. The environmentalist wackos are the reason for the fire, not PG&E, and not anybody else. The environmentalist wackos have prevented the clear cutting of any wood — deadwood, waste wood. They won’t permit it on the basis that it’s au natural. “It’s the way it was intended by nature. There could be unknown, unnamed species living in that deadwood!

“You can’t touch it.” So in California, you can’t touch it. So Gavin Newsom says that a downed power line started the Getty Fire. A tree branch from a eucalyptus tree fell on a power wire, and that caused the wire to go down. He called it “an act of God” in one of the most recent, rare expressions of the existence of God by a California government official. God? You know, God exists in California when you can blame Him! Uh, Her, It, They. (I’m trying to be woke.)

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RUSH: This is serious, folks. Here in California, if you want to know how to control a population, don’t clear-cut, do not allow forests to be managed properly, do not allow land to be managed properly. Get government bureaucrats who don’t know what they’re doing in charge of everything. Now they’re telling us that the new norm in California is to expect blackouts. Expect interruptions in electricity. Expect it for days at a time, because of what we know is gonna happen every year: Winds. Santa Ana winds and fire.

So guess who’s getting the blame? Guess who’s having to take and suffer consequences? The citizens of California! This stuff could be dealt with much more wisely than it is being. Clear-cut near the power plants. Make sure that a downed branch of a tree doesn’t start a fire, that shuts down electricity for two weeks. The governor actually said this? If they can’t protect people from downed branch from a tree… But it’s worse than that.

While they have not been permitting proper forest management and land management, what else have they been doing? They’ve been encouraging as many people as possible to go out and buy an electronic car, an electric car, battery-driven car. Then what do they do? Shut down power! So now these people that have electronic cars can’t charge ’em. They can’t evacuate if they have to unless they do it on foot, or maybe you get lucky and somebody hasn’t bought an electric car, and somebody still has an SUV.

You can hitch a ride down the mountainside to save yourself! ‘Cause the state of California has shut down power plants randomly and told everybody, “This is the new norm.” After making sure as many people as possible drive around in Teslas and Priuses and whatever the heck else, you shut down the power plants. Now hospitals and other emergencies, they’ve got generator backups.

But how do you put a generator backup on your Tesla? How do you do it? They don’t allow any fossil-fuel burning engines in these things that would destroy the environment. So you sit there and you die. You’re unable to escape. You can’t charge the battery in your car. And there’s not a single Republican fingerprint on any of this insanity anywhere in California.

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RUSH: No sooner do I say it — even though I might have been half joking — and it comes true. I said, “The brush fire threatening the Reagan library in Simi Valley would have the media rooting for the fire.” Lo and behold (put it up on the Dittocam there, Brian), we have a tweet. It’s a guy named Keith Boykin. The guy works at CNN. He’s a former Obama adviser. “For those who think God punishes sinners with natural disasters,” and he has a picture of the Reagan library near the brush fire.

We have here a former Obama aide and a current CNN analyst rooting for the fire to destroy the Reagan library. Keith Boykin. “For those who think God punishes sinners with natural disasters…” So Reagan’s a sinner, obviously. Why? Oh, he’s a conservative! Absolutely. He sinned against the left-wing state by opposing it. The Ronaldus Magnus “presidential library is being threatened by the Easy Fire in Simi Valley.” See, this one’s called the Easy Fire, and I guarantee you there’s an Easy Street or an Easy Strip Club or an Easy something nearby.

That’s why it’s called the Easy Fire. That’s gonna be why. They don’t just randomly choose these names. There’s a geographical tag to these things. “Mandatory evacuations were ordered Wednesday morning in Southern California as a rapidly moving wildfire ignited and burned in Simi Valley, near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.” So Keith Boykin thinks God is pushing Reagan via his library — he is a sinner — with natural disasters.

Now, stop and think. If God actually did that, how could there be a Washington, D.C.? How could there be a Chappaquiddick? How could there be a Boston? How could there be a Hyannis Port? How could there be… (Snort!) Take your pick of any institutional location that you want. Speaking of sin and California, for crying out loud, how could there even be a California if God punished sinners!

But that’s not the point. The point is, the Reagan library is surrounded by what is being called the Easy Fire. Employees have been ordered to evacuate. It is a little symbolic. Here is something the left despises, Ronald Reagan, and they’re actually rooting for the fire and tweeting out their support of the fire, and I just wanted you to see it.

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RUSH: Man, am I on the cutting edge or am I on the cutting edge? Look at this headline. It’s from The Daily Caller: “Tesla Warns Californian Customers To Keep A Full Charge Ahead Of Roving Blackouts.” That’s not the story. The story is: “Some electric vehicle owners in California are resorting to –” dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut “– using gasoline power as the state’s power utility employs roving blackouts to avoid potential wildfires.”

Excuse me for smiling here. I know overall this is not a laughing matter, but this is manmade. Unlike climate change, California’s situation is contributed to by incompetent leftist politicians, inexperienced know-it-alls who think they can manage everything that they’ve never managed in their lives because they’re smarter than everybody or they care more than anybody else.

Elon Musk warned his customers today to be aware of the problems. You think they’re not? You think electric car owners don’t know the jam that they’re in here? Where do you think they think the power comes from when they plug in to charge? The cornstalk in the backyard? No. It comes from the power company. And what’s powering it? Fossil fuels, namely evil, dirty, filthy black coal.

And you know where it’s from? China. You know how much coal we import from China? It’s not our sole source, obviously. We have domestic supplies, but we import a hell of a lot of coal from China. There are power plants in Connecticut that are run by ChiCom coal. I may even be the name of the company, ChiCom Coal, for all I know.

So Elon Musk is warning the owners of his Tesla vehicles to be aware of the problem of roving blackouts and to fully energize their vehicles instead of relying on half power. Energize, for those of you in Rio Linda, means charge ’em. “Two electric vehicle owners in the state say they are not taking any chances and will rely on gas power to run their cars if they lose power.”

As I say, it’s not a laughing matter, but, hell, you can’t help but be smug because this is a manmade problem, or contributed to problem, in California.

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RUSH: To the phones. We’re gonna start with Daniel in Simi Valley, California. Great to have you on the program, sir. You’re up first today.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing?

RUSH: Good, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: I’d just like to say I’m a Millennial that lives in Simi Valley right now. I just got back from the grocery store. I had to buy dry ice ’cause our power got shut off for all our fridges. The power got shut off at 3 o’clock in the morning, and the fire started at six. So even though they shut our power off, we’re still getting the wildfires here.

RUSH: Okay. So what are you gonna do?

CALLER: Well, luckily I’m on the east side of town, it’s burning on the west, so we’re just keeping an eye on it and hoping that we don’t have to evacuate and just try and stay safe from the fires. The other point I’d like to make is Gavin Newsom took money from PG&E after they were convicted of a felony for the murders of the people up in Paradise a couple years ago, and while —

RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it a second. Hold it. PG&E was convicted of murder?

CALLER: Well, they were convicted of a felony. They got a felony conviction for the Paradise fire that caused the deaths of 85 people up in Paradise.

RUSH: Okay. So what was the felony they committed, do you remember?

CALLER: I don’t know the felony. It just got reported. The other day it broke they were asking questions if he was gonna donate the campaign money, but he took over $200,000 from them.

RUSH: Before or after that?

CALLER: After the conviction. He took the campaign donations after, along with I think 90% of our state —

RUSH: Right. Now he’s out there jamming ’em. See this is the game, folks. He’s out there jamming PG&E for causing the Getty fire. Yeah. You see what happened, a eucalyptus tree had a branch on it that fell, took a power line with it. The power line ignited essentially kindling, deadwood, at the bottom of the pole. Poof, you’ve got a big fire. He’s blaming PG&E. It’s not PG&E’s fault. They’re not allowed to cut that stuff away.

Again, I go back. I know you have all seen this. Well, most of you have. You’ve driven around, and if you’ve been out in the countryside, you’ve no doubt seen where they have run countless numbers of poles, big metallic poles on which to string power lines up a hillside and down the other side to get electricity to a small town nearby or whatever. And underneath all of that construction they’ve clear-cut like 10 to 20 yards on either side of the pole.

The first time I saw it — you know, having been sensitized to the dangers of clear cutting and the spotted owl and all that — I said, “Why? It’s ugly as hell.” Now I know why. I’ve grown up, and now I understand that this was done to prevent fires in case something like high winds or a bolt of lightning took down a power line. There’s nothing underneath to ignite, so no fire will start. Well, in California, there’s all kinds of stuff underneath electricity wires to ignite.

So he’s now blaming PG&E — and apparently PG&E was charged with a felony for the Paradise Fire — and yet he’s accepting donations. He’s apparently out there seeking donations. So what’s the game? Well, there’s a wink and a nod. PG&E gives money to Gavin Newsom, and like everybody else gives money to political candidates, they’re trying to buy something. “Quid pro quo” is what it’s called, folks. They’re trying to buy easy treatment from the state, favorable treatment from the state, favorable regulatory arrangements, whatever.

They understand. They understand. PG&E and other donors understand that the recipient — the politician you’re giving money to — may have to wink at you and rip you in public now and then. But it’s a wink and a nod and PG&E knows that the governor has to do it, and it’s evidenced by the fact that they continue to give him money. It’s pay-for-play, and it’s one of the many aspects of politics that people have resented for a long time. It’s made them think they really don’t have any say-so in political affairs. But this California situation…

You know, I love it there, folks. I would actually at one point… I did live there for 3-1/2 years, and I love it. But the taxes and the culture and now this, the fires that are happening? It just distresses me to see this happening when you realize this isn’t necessary. The extent of these fires isn’t necessary. Look, they’ve always had them because of these incredible winds, and California’s a desert. There is no natural water source. So they have to make arrangements to truck it in.

This is what I’ve always meant by human beings have to adapt. If we as human beings choose to live where natural resources that are needed don’t exist, okay, then we’re acknowledging that we’re gonna have to pay through the nose to bring ’em in! You live in a desert where nothing will grow because there’s no water and the weather is such? Well, that’s what California, Southern California is. It’s essentially arid. They have to get water from the northern part of the state and from Colorado. They have to pay through the nose for it.

Everybody living there has to know what they’re doing. It’s no different than people like me who live on the coast in Hurricane Alley. You adapt if you’re responsible with it. But when a natural disaster like a fire happens or a hurricane, you can’t sit there saying (whining), “Oh, my God! This is so unfair,” because we chose to live there knowing full well what could happen. The same thing with people in California.

Now, in California it’s compounded because of the incompetence of the people they’ve elected. These fires that happen annually and naturally are being exacerbated. They are being made larger and more dangerous by the fact that a bunch of incompetent people that residents of California have elected have instituted policies that favor fires over citizens and over their property — and unknown species that may live in the bottom of one of those piles of kindling at the bottom of an electricity power pole.

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RUSH: Staying with the phones, Fontana, California, this is Tony.

CALLER: Hi, Rush!

RUSH: Tony, how are you? Great to have you here.

CALLER: I’m fantastic. Great to be on the show. First-time caller. I’m super happy. So I was telling your screener, I live in Fontana. Every year, we deal with horrible things.

RUSH: Okay. Tell people, where is Fontana?

CALLER: Near San Bernardino, Ontario, Riverside.

RUSH: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

CALLER: Every year we deal with horrible winds from October to December. It destroys my Halloween stuff every single year. It’s part of what we deal with. This year, of course, with these power outages we’ve been experiencing for the past several years… We live, as well as several of my friends live, in very new neighborhoods and communities where all of our power lines are underground.

RUSH: Your power lines are underground and yet they’re still cutting your power?

CALLER: And they’re still shutting off our power, okay? Entire refrigerators and freezers worth of food, gone. Devices not charging. Not being able to prepare for work. We’re shut down and absolutely no compensation.

RUSH: Now, why did they tell you…? When they wanted to pass the bond issue to charge you to rerun the lines underground, what did they tell you was the reason for doing this?

CALLER: Honestly, I don’t know what the reason was. Probably because they were gonna be saving power or —

RUSH: Let me tell you what the reason is, ’cause they’re doing this where I live. They’re running power lines underground so that there will never be an interruption. (chuckles) No hurricane can ever destroy power lines that are run underground. Fire, rainstorms, thunder, climate change, nothing is supposed to interrupt power when it’s underground. That’s why you paid additional for it — and yet here it’s been cut off.

Now, I’m sure they haven’t finished the whole project, so much of the power to your lines that are underground is still delivered above ground. But I’ll bet you that the same thing happens even when and if they ever complete this in your region where the power lines are fully underground. You watch. There will still be an excuse. (sigh) I try never, ladies and gentlemen, to get personal on this program, but I’m telling you.

If you ever agree to do this where you live, you better find out first if they’re gonna go underneath the roads, ’cause I’m telling you: I may as well be driving home to Kabul every day. I’ve got potholes like sinkholes that I’m driving and avoiding, and I’ve got people behind me thinking I’m drunk ’cause I’m trying to avoid all the potholes and sinkholes I see, and they’re flashing their lights at me. Pretty soon, one of them’s gonna call the cops on me, and I’m just trying to make sure my car doesn’t get destroyed driving home!

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RUSH: This is Jeremy in San Clemente, California. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you. You’re up next. Hello.

CALLER: (garbled cell) Yes. Yes, sir. How you doing today?

RUSH: I’m (garbled cell impression).

CALLER: Good. I just wanted to make a comment on the wildfires and how it is man-made and the government, how they allow and promote the homeless camps that are starting a lot of fires.

RUSH: (garbled cell impression) Really?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: The homeless are doing it?

CALLER: (laughing) Yes, sir.

RUSH: (garbled cell impression) Damn. Homeless camps are starting a lot of the fires? That’s what you said?

CALLER: Especially in San Diego. Yes, they are.

RUSH: Especially in San Diego? Holy smokes. No wonder.