Roasting the governor for the irresponsible handling of the raging fires destroying California, the Babylon Bee ran a headline saying, “Newsom Assures Wildfire Victims He Is Diverting Millions Of Dollars To Emergency DEI Initiatives.” Satire aside, for people victimized, DEI feels more like DIE.

Rivaling the recent discovery of FEMA doling out $59 million to New York City for housing illegal aliens in hotels, but quickly clawed back (thanks to DOGE), it did not take long to find out about LA county taxpayer-funded “priorities” like millions for EV’s, millions to the homeless and illegal aliens and chunks of public funding pouring into the Midnight Transgender Cafe and “equity and inclusion. “

The city cutting $17 million for firefighting even had the DEI-duped fire chief beleaguered, especially with a staggering percentage of unrepaired fire trucks sitting on a lot as raging flames engulfed communities.

In their pagan-like fascist devotion to environmentalism, climate change fanatics in California ignored and abandoned the common sense policies of clearing brush and controlled burns consistent with well-managed forestry and conservation. Collection of much needed water from snow melt had to be sacrificed for Delta Smelt. As valuable rainwater had run into the Pacific to “save the environment,” people helplessly watched the inferno incinerate their property and possessions.

After spending $50 million of taxpayer money to “Trump-proof” California, Newsom retains bragging rights for preserving fish at the cost of human lives and tens of billions of dollars leaving it to taxpayers to pay for the recovery on top of the massive merciful outpouring from compassionate people for the devastated sufferers there. It took Trump traveling to California to set up sensible fire prevention procedures.

Though forewarned and caught with their pants down, highly paid DEI-trained officials at the water department making over $700,000 a year failed to keep fire-fighting infrastructure and reservoirs fully operational.

How many of them still say, “Diversity is our strength” with LA county appearing to have more genders than functioning fire hydrants?

Observing how hard his state has shifted left, Jewish social commentator Dennis Prager could say yet again, “The Left ruins everything it touches.” In one word, another person calls it “Californication.”

How eerily this resembles the high taxation, DEI indoctrination, strangling regulation, wasteful spending, soaring homelessness, criminal coddling, and suffocating energy restrictions in our state for the CLCPA Green scam forced on us New Yorkers. Both states need a double dose of DOGE.

Knowing how people ask about the whereabouts of God in all this, a bright young man in my congregation called it the “consequences of chaos” of California’s own making. The director of the LA water department considered equity as the top priority. The city prioritized public virtue-signaling above public safety. Coupling incompetence to the foolishness of DEI, wokism and gender agendas ripened California for chaos resulting in deadly catastrophic consequences.

Before the fires, protest signs said, “Keep God out of California.” It prompts the repeating of the proverbial saying, “Be careful of what you want because you’ll get it.”

After being torched by the apocalyptic-type fires, are those signs still held high and proud or are they repenting?

If the state makes a change in governor, will Californians replace Gavin Newsome the way New Yorkers replaced Andrew Cuomo with Kathy Hochul? With her misguided leadership governing our state as if God must be ignored, Governor Hochul is “Californicating” New York.

Thankfully, the Californication of the USA is off the table for the Trump administration and DEI is DOA with billions of dollars now being saved.

Mel McGinnis is a Frewsburg resident.