Thursday, October 10, 2019

CALIFORNIA IN MELTDOWN - FEINSTEIN'S PAYMASTERS PACIFIC GAS & PLUNDER HAVE THE STATE IN MELTDOWN - WHERE'S THE OLD WHORE FEINSTEIN SUCKING OFF BRIBES TODAY?

PG&E IS THE OLD WAR PROFITEER FEINSTEIN'S BIGGEST BRIBSTERS. IT'S HARDLY A WONDER SHE'S KEPT HER FAT MOUTH CLOSED ABOUT THEIR CRIMES.... THAT HAVE GONE ON FOR DECADES IN MEXIFORNIA!


Decades of financialization and the subordination of essential services to the profit interests of Wall Street and the Financial District in San Francisco, where PG&E is headquartered, have produced this crisis.


PG&E imposes blackout for over two million residents in Northern California

On Wednesday, at least two million people in 34 counties across Northern California experienced the first deliberate mass power outage engineered by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the energy monopoly that controls the gas and electricity market for the northern two-thirds of the most populous state in the United States. PG&E has stated that the blackout may last for as long as a week.
Facing numerous lawsuits from the victims 
and survivors of the Camp Fire —the 
deadliest and most destructive wildfire in 
California’s history sparked by the utility’s 
downed power lines—and potentially $30 
billion in legal liability from the hundreds of 
other recent wildfires for which it bears 
responsibility, PG&E filed for 
bankruptcy earlier this year. Instead of taking
any proactive measures to eliminate the 
danger of wildfires, including transitioning 
from above-ground wooden electrical poles to
steel poles or below-ground energy 
infrastructure, PG&E has decided to further 
impose the crisis on its customers through 
forced blackouts.
Having conducted similar forced blackouts on a smaller scale since October 2018, PG&E officially announced its decision to impose mass shutoffs on Tuesday afternoon. With less than 12 hours to prepare before the first shutoffs, thousands scrambled to purchase gasoline and emergency supplies, with reports of lines at gas stations extending multiple blocks.
PG&E utility trucks (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
The full scale of the impact of this reckless maneuver is as yet unknown, but it has already disrupted the lives of millions and endangered thousands. PG&E’s Medical Baseline Program for customers with “special energy needs,” including medical devices that require electricity, merely states that these customers “may receive extra notifications [prior to a shutoff] which may include additional phone calls or a door knock to ensure they’re aware and can make preparations to stay safe.” With such loose guidelines in place, potentially thousands of disabled or vulnerable customers are at risk of death or injury as a result of PG&E’s mass shutoff of power.
PG&E stated that the power outage will impact at least 800,000 “customers,” or accounts, while also noting that “any of PG&E’s more than 5 million electric customers could have their power shut off because the energy system relies on power lines working together to provide electricity across cities, counties and regions.”
In total, PG&E’s 5.3 million accounts cover 16 million people, meaning that each account represents roughly three people. Thus, roughly 2.4 million people may be directly impacted by the ongoing power outages, while all 16 million face the possibility of losing power. PG&E’s website for customers to search whether their address will be impacted has been down most of the time since the announcement Tuesday, leaving millions unsure whether their homes will have power.
PG&E first cut power to 22 counties at midnight Tuesday, impacting 513,000 customers, or over a million people. On Wednesday evening, parts of seven more counties had their power shut off, impacting an additional 234,000 accounts, with a third phase of shutoffs considered for the remaining counties, the blackout thus covering almost the entire northern half of the state.
Citing a National Weather Service “Fire Weather Watch,” PG&E warned of “a potentially widespread, strong and dry wind event Wednesday morning through Thursday afternoon,” with winds predicted to reach 20-30 miles per hour with gusts up to 50 miles per hour in some areas. Given that there has been little rain in California in recent months, the potential exists this year for deadly wildfires to again hit the state, as they did in 2017 and 2018.
As numerous posts on social media have emphasized, there have as yet not been any reported significant wind events in the heavily-populated Bay Area region or other areas outside the Central Valley region of the state, which nevertheless have endured mass outages. Very few places where power has been cut have experienced wind gusts above 40 miles per hour. A couple of very small wildfires have broken out in El Dorado County and Tehama County, and have already been suppressed by firefighters.
California residents have expressed outrage at PG&E’s forced shutoffs, with the hashtag #poweroutage trending on Twitter. One commented, “How many more people are going to die from the #poweroutage due to traffic collisions, medical neglect, dehydration and exposure than from the wildfires? This isn't preventing disaster, this is creating one.” In response to this public backlash, PG&E installed a set of barricades outside its San Francisco headquarters.
While the company has insisted that the power cuts may last for up to one week, it has announced no definitive timeline in place for restoring power. PG&E states that before restoring power they must inspect all of their equipment for damage after the wind event. Local officials, including the mayor of San Jose, have also told residents to brace for an entire week without power.
Numerous university campuses, including the University of California Berkeley and at least 18 school districts in the affected areas, closed some or all of their schools. Other, more financially strapped districts, including Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), are closing some schools but forcing teachers to continue working in the dark Thursday and Friday.
In San Jose and Santa Clara County, officials have each declared a local “state of emergency” due to the high number of traffic accidents and emergency responder calls. In Morgan Hill, police imposed a curfew starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday until the following morning, with no specified punishments for those who violate the curfew.
The mass power shutoffs underscore the complete bankruptcy of the capitalist system, in which all resources, production and services are subordinated to the profit interests of the capitalist class. Decades of financialization and the subordination of essential services to the profit interests of Wall Street and the Financial District in San Francisco, where PG&E is headquartered, have produced this crisis.
In the richest state of the richest country on earth—which is home to 157 billionaires with a combined wealth of over $750 billion—basic infrastructure is in such disrepair that it cannot withstand winds that are in no way extreme.
Responsible for sparking over 2,000 fires from 2014-17 alone, the state’s utility monopolies—PG&E in the north, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric in the south—have done nothing to modernize their equipment or prepare for the long-predicted impact of climate change. Subordinated to private profit, the monopolies have chosen to impose sweeping blackouts instead of investing in critical infrastructure and transition to renewable energies.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, endorsed PG&E’s blackout policy, stating, “I do believe with the limited number of tools in the toolkit what they’re doing is appropriate under the circumstances.” California has long been controlled by the Democratic Party, which has facilitated PG&E’s criminal negligence and parasitism and will continue to do so going forward.
One possible motive for the widespread character of the current blackout, despite the small threat posed in most regions affected, is that PG&E is sending a message to state Democrats that it will continue mass blackouts as long as it faces legal liability for wildfires. All three utility monopolies in California intend to expand their usage of forced blackouts this fire season, and state Democrats will undoubtedly extend a legislative offer that suits both parties’ interests.
PG&E’s imposition of mass electricity shutoffs underscores the unplanned, anarchic character of the entire capitalist system. With the potential for a wind storm across a dry region that threatened to implicate them in yet another disaster, at the last minute this energy behemoth decided—without any public discussion or placement of alternative energy systems for those most in need—to place the lives of thousands at risk.
The utility is setting a precedent which it will repeat with increasing regularity. PG&E spokesman Denny Boyles told the SF Chronicle that the company expects more power shut-offs “will be necessary this year based on past weather events.”
Rather than face liability for disasters or invest the needed billions in overhauling their infrastructure it will simply cut off electricity for millions of people, and then continue to charge them exorbitant rates for its monopolized services at the end of the month.
Unless PG&E is taken out of the hands of its 
shareholders and transformed by the working
class into a democratically-controlled public 
utility run for social need, not private profit, 
the California blackouts will become the new 
normal.




Northern, Central California Suffer Sweeping PG&E Blackouts

PG&E blackouts (Brittany Hosea-Small / Getty)
Brittany Hosea-Small / Getty
2:18

Households and businesses across northern and central California suffered blackouts on Wednesday — and are bracing for more on Thursday, as the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) company shut down portions of its power grid due to weather conditions that could lead to wildfires.

Wildfires are endemic to California’s Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Power lines through forest or brush create additional fire risks.
Last year’s catastrophic Camp Fire — the deadliest in the state’s history, which wiped out much of the town of Paradise in mere minutes — is thought to have been sparked by a problematic power line in windy, dry conditions.
The outages were expected to affect as many as 700,000 customers for several days, closing schools and businesses. In some places, that meant water systems that rely on electricity for pumping and drainage could also be shut down.
The Los Angeles Times editorial board cautioned against blaming PG&E alone, however, listing several causes:
It wasn’t PG&E officials who approved housing developments in high-risk areas. In fact, the utility can’t say no to serving those homes, no matter how great the fire risk. The utility also doesn’t make decisions about how the vegetation around their customers’ houses and the forests nearby are managed. Nor is it the utility’s fault that human-caused climate change has created conditions that fuel massive wildfires. That’s a disgrace we all own.
There is no scientific link between climate change and the recent wildfires, though many scientists believe a warmer, drier California resulting from climate change could make the risk of wildfires greater than it is today.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.



California's Gavin Newsom calls power 


outages needed


Socialism, including greenie socialism, is always about blaming Those Greedy Capitalists for whatever hideous policies the government cooks up, which inevitably prompts an unintended consequence.
California's Gov. Gavin Newsom is right there with the best of them, blaming the wreckers and hoarders for California's massive power outages, taking northern California back to a state of nature, and in the full greenie spirit, telling us it's needed, necessary, all for our own good.
Get a load of it, from the Sacramento Bee, emphasis mine:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he’s “outraged” over Pacific Gas and Electric Co shut-offsblaming decades of mismanagement at the utility.
He made the comments Wednesday morning, several hours after millions of Californians woke up without power amid massive blackouts that have stranded huge swaths of the state without electricity.
Given the potential danger posed by the utility’s power lines, Newsom said the blackouts are needed to keep people safe as powerful winds sweep through the state.
There's more detail here, from CBS's San Francisco affiliated, KPIX5:
But Newsom, who spoke to reporters after he signed a rent cap measure at the West Oakland Senior Center, said the power shutoff “was anticipated many months ago and this is the (utility) industry’s best practice.”
Newsom said, “The determination of whether or not to do this is based on a number of factors,” including intense winds, low humidity and the areas that are near to windy areas. 
He said that determination is up to PG&E based on “their determination of what’s in the best interest of their customers in partnership and consultation with the Office of Emergency Services, CalFire and experts in this field.”
Newsom said, “This is all about public safety and saving lives.  This is part of something we all knew was likely and would occur many months ago when PG&E finally woke up to their responsibility to keep people safe.”
However, the governor said the power shutoff “is not how things should work in the (utility) industry.”
He said, “None of us are happy about this.”
Ah, the best interests...and PG&E, not his policies, is the one that did it. 
Actually, it's PG&E's best interests, given the leftist lawsuit lunacy that prevails in California, sufficient to drive PG&E into bankruptcy last January, now that any wildfire is the basis for a lawsuit against it. In the past, homeowners used to deal with wildfire damage through fire insurance, but with costs being what they are, some can't afford and others conclude they can skip it: who needs fire insurance when lawsuit payouts are even better? The electrical monopoly ought to be immune from such lawsuits, given its role in supplying power to the population, but it's not - it's now vulnerable to big lawsuits all over the place any time there's a fire. Can the law be fixed? Not a chance of that under Newsom California's one-party blue regime -- blaming the utility is much easier.
So, too bad about the hospitals and the cell phones and the refrigerators now that the electrical supplier is focused on legal liability based on weather conditions and Newsom assures us it's needed.
Instead of telling Californians it's for their own good, Newsom should be blasting this legal situation and moving to change the law.
That's not the only Castroite Cuban master in the woodwork that Newsom's taking orders from as it commands the state's Venezuela-like power failure here, either.
The real root of the problem, prompting the PG&E reaction is the state's greenie laws, which, as AT contributor Tom Trinko notes, prevents the clearing of brush to prevent power equipment from catching fire and spreading wildfires. (This one, by J.R. Dunn, is good, too.)  Apparently, no greenie law can be criticized in Newsom's purview, any more than Nicolas Maduro's laws against wreckers and hoarders can be blamed for Venezuela's currency collapse or structural shortages.
Newsom just claims that PG&E has "finally woke up to their responsibility"on wildfire blame (of course they did - they're liable for billions for past wildfires and bankrupt to boot) so nothing needs to be changed on the greenie laws. Hence, the 'need' to shut off power and return the state to greenie nature.
Quite a blame game he's got going on as he makes nominal claims about not liking it and being concerned about his rich man's plaything winery harvest even as refrigerators go bad with spoiled food, looting and car crashes commence, and hospitals go dark.
It's green regulations behind this, and those also include the lunatic ones from the Jerry Brown era, which Newsom supports, demanding crazy greenie fuel mandates from solar and wind sources, which require -- are you ready -- more power lines to transmit it. The cost of that less-efficient and unreliable boutique fuel is like the cost of Hugo Chavez's socialist handouts - the investment capital needed by P&GE and all the state's electrical companies to maintain upkeep and the best equipment in wildfire zones, is going instead to expensive and unsustainable greenie projects.
It's the same pattern as Venezuela, except that instead of Cubans commanding things from the inside and Chavista social spending spending all the seed corn, it's greenie mandates, which drive capitalists to protect themselves from ruinous lawsuits and drain their investment capital dry. That's Newsom's real Cuban master. And like Nicolas Maduro, Newsom, in that same socialist tradition blames people downwind of the policies, everyone but himself, as he tries to explain it out for the cameras.
Here's another one: Notice his Facebook page: He's got all kinds of stuff up there about all his supposed great achievements and it's updated every few hours. Anything to say about the man-caused disaster of California's blackouts? He's mysteriously silent. 
Blackouts look exactly the same in Caracas or California, and what's most obvious here, as Newsom tells us we need these blackouts is that socialism is at the root of all of it. He's getting more and more like Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro by the day.  

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