27 Comments
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K Tucker Andersen's avatar

Compelling expose - unfortunately not surprising that rats proliferate in such conditions.

Why has it been left to City Journal to investigate this? Hues it dies not align with the proclivities of the local media.

From now on - it is Mayor Karen Rat and King Rat Newsom for me . Some great caricatures present themselves . Hope Spencer Pratt comes up with some great videos. If I voted there I would still write him in.

Gary Edwards's avatar

Can't wait for the next round of AI videos. It's not a comical situation, but it seems like a few laughs is all we can get from this crew.

alewifey's avatar

Meanwhile Pratt is the one stuck with a name that actually sounds like Rat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

john peterson's avatar

CA is a petri dish of left wing illness. Fitting that actual infectious disease is now increasing. Incompetence has consequences.

Gary Edwards's avatar

I recall a red CA where this never happened.

alewifey's avatar

If Oregon voters pass proposition IP28 in November, it will become illegal to harm or kill rats or mice (among other animals). Just... leaving that here for your consideration

Cranky Frankie's avatar

Karl Rove couldn't have crafted a better Republican turnout vehicle than this. Are we sure he isn't behind it?

https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Criminalize_Hunting,_Fishing,_and_Intentional_Injury_to_Animals_Initiative_(2026)#google_vignette

Cathammer's avatar

Disease-ridden non-humans are the least of your health worries in blue cities & states.

Paul Harmon's avatar

Vagrancy unchecked always has social health consequences. Along with the loss of peace, beauty, efficiency and shared public space is the disease.

Nancy's avatar

No funding to deal with the rat infestation seems to me to be total BS. If the mayor and the councilwoman running against her really wanted to deal with the rats, they would find the money. Appropriations be damned. Find the money.

Roger Beal's avatar

Karen Basshole would likely prefer to blame the rats and the typhus on Trump and his army of angry whyte male supporters.

Joel Torczon's avatar

I can only imagine how much worse it has gotten since a friend and former co-worker covered this atrocious situation while at the Orange County Register more than a decade or so ago.

Cranky Frankie's avatar

As a child (elementary school) in South Alabama, nurses for the county department of health showed up at school with trays of loaded syringes and vaccinated all of us against typhoid. This was about 1957 or so. I don't remember consent being solicited or an opt-out choice being offered. I was just a kid so who knows? Maybe parents kept it secret to avoid trouble getting us to go to school that day. Anyway, we just lined up and were shot.

Probably responsive to a bad case that frightened them so the department just decided to take matters into their own hands.

Leigh Smith's avatar

I was thinking while reading this that there is an immunization - DPT (diphtheria, pertussis and tentanus). Is this not given anymore?

Cranky Frankie's avatar

Available at your local Walgreens (and many, many other providers), likely for no co-pay. Still very much around.

Typhoid, I'm not so sure.

Gary Edwards's avatar

Interesting how the bureaucrats see this as an opportunity to get more funding.

Penny's avatar

In 2002, my young family bought a lovely Craftsman bungalow in Altadena, adjacent to Pasadena, which is adjacent to the City of LA. It was built in 1908 but had been renovated, with up-to-date electrical systems and so forth. Within a month after moving in, I saw a rat running down one of the walls in the living room. We called the exterminators, and within the next ten weeks or so, over 20 rats were taken out of the house. Both Pasadena and Altadena have many older homes, and the exterminators told us that both communities were riddled with rats. These are middle-class and upward communities. I can only imagine what life within a mile or two of Skid Row must be like. I left California in 2020, thank God.

Karen Bernstein's avatar

I could say many serious things about politicians of a certain stripe and the people who vote for them. Instead, I’ll suggest that LA bring in PETA to solve the problem. 🤣🤣🤣

Kurt's avatar

Egad. Vermin on the march.

Ben F.'s avatar
2hEdited

Los Angeles won the rattiest city award! Even the rats like the great weather! “We keep livin’ most our lives livin’ in a ratty paradise..” for those who are not aware, that’s a take from Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” which was written in the Hollywood Hills. This should be the next AI political commercial, it’ll be a hit.

Frederic whinery's avatar

It’s interesting that the huge increase in rat population correlates exactly with the legislation which prohibits effective rat poisons. I wonder how many people need to become hospitalized or die before our legislators make a change.

Stephanie A's avatar

I don't think the communists see this as a failure. It's one more provocation to get the population angry and fighting each other.

And the destruction is a natural consequence of the Critical Theory Marxism that is pervasive in California institutions.

I think people should realize this isn't incompetence. It's on purpose.

Marvin's avatar

There's been a huge increase in street vendors over the past five years or so, and I believe they contribute to the problem by dumping cooking grease wherever is most convenient (down storm drains, etc.).