GMontag's Journal: Not enough California National Guard to fight the fires?

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California lit the match on this story, saying at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the California National Guard was "down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment, because they're all in Iraq" and that that had hampered fire fighting efforts. Local officials and frustrated first responders have been quoted beefing about the federal and military response: a lack of preparation, a lack of resources, bureaucratic red tape.

The rest of that article is pretty good in its criticism of the Democrat from California too.

One thing that struck me as being total bullshit in the Senator's statement is that California has around 20,000 National Guard members. A very small amount of that is fire fighting equipment and I doubt that 50% of that is in Iraq. Does the Honerable Senator have some information that tanks and Bradleys are good for fire fighting?

I have heard of other Democrats (a Lt. Governor perhaps?) saying that the California Guard is deployed too heavily in Iraq to fight fires in CA. Without checking too hard, I found out that around 1,500 CANG are deployed OCONUS and around an equal number are in other phases of deployment or redeployment. That leaves around 17,000 CANG still sitting around waiting for something to do. I did not hear anything about the Governor having any trouble mobilizing whatever he wanted, at least not from the Governor.

Can't these folks just cut the crap?

Um, no - no they can't

[stoolpigeon]

the 'crap' is their job. if they cut it they lose the whole reason they exist.

moof

[Bill Dog]

Yes, it was the CA Lt. Governor that along with Sen. Boxer tried to drag Iraq into the fires issue. To be fair, I should point out that Sen. Feinstein, another Democrat, did not do this, and joined with the politicians that were trying to be productive instead of just partisan and whiny.

Can't these folks just cut the crap?

Crap to Liberals is not a bad thing. It's just a tool, utilized towards their single main goal: achieving power. So in a sense, Sen. Feinstein "sold out" by passing on the opportunity to t