If we can still believe surveys, 90 percent of England believes that being English is not about colour, yes, 90 percent, supposedly:
  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/30/being-english-not-about-colour-say-majority

“The number of people who believe that in order to be English you have to be white has halved over the past seven years, with the older generation apparently driving a wider acceptance of people with different ethnic backgrounds. Just over 10% of people believe that ethnicity is an important determining factor in being English, compared to 20% from a 2012 study, according to British Future and the Centre for English Identity and Politics, which is about to publish its follow-up to the 2012 study, This Sceptred Isle.  The biggest change was noted among over-65s, where the importance of whiteness fell from 35% to 16%. The new data could challenge the perception that the 2016 Brexit referendum reflected an increase in xenophobic English identity. The findings suggest that during the time of the Brexit vote, perceptions of English identity were becoming more, rather than less, ethnically inclusive.

     The late Guillaume Faye, French dissent right intellectual has had his final book released: Ethnic Apocalypse: The Coming European Civil War (Arktos, London, 2019).  The French title actually translates as A Racial Civil War, but the English publisher did not run with that, worried that the book would get banned or whatever. Pathetic. I will not give a blow by blow account of the book because it essentially follows topics that have been well discussed here, including changing demographics making white Europeans minorities in their own land, and festering crime. Here is some more recent material that this book on the same theme:
  https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/09/08/a-race-war-prophecy/
  https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/09/german-citizens-are-arming-themselves-with-firearms/
  https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/08/germany-25-of-the-population-and-42-of-young-children-now-of-migrant-backgrounds
  https://www.amren.com/commentary/2019/08/the-color-of-knife-crime-in-britain/
  https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/07/migrant-child-gang-puts-fear-into-neighbours-swedish-children-scared-to-go-outside/
  https://www.amren.com/news/2019/07/the-majority-population-in-german-cities-is-facing-its-end/

“Frankfurt am Main, Offenbach, Heilbronn, Sindelfingen — in these and other cities, Germans with no immigration background are still the largest group, but are no longer an absolute majority. That affects West Germany more than the East, and cities more than non-urban areas. As early as the 1980s, the Greens were propagating Multiculti — a multicultural society. Although it had already begun some time before, the very thought of it was hair-raising for some voters. This reality has been accentuated in recent decades. Although the phrase is somewhat out of style. Nowadays, we talk of diversity and mixed society. Meanwhile, the majority society is approaching its end in German cities. That means that Germans who have no immigration background (as defined by the Federal Office of Statistics) are no longer the statistical majority (>50%), but are just the largest of three groups, with foreigners and Germans with an immigration background.

     This was a surprising one: if Trump is a Russian agent, and the Democrats cannot let go of this one, then Obama must be an agent of Iran, some commentators are arguing. Consider:
  https://pjmedia.com/trending/obama-administration-stopped-israel-from-assassinating-soleimani-in-2015-report-says/
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-07-obama-gave-soleimani-amnesty-bogus-nuclear-deal.html

“While Democrats flirt with treason in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to take out one of America’s biggest enemies, Qassem Suleimani, and their propagandist allies in the “mainstream media” eulogize him as some kind of saint, it’s appropriate to remember not only who he was but who enabled him: Barack Hussein Obama. While Democrats flirt with treason in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s recent decision to take out one of America’s biggest enemies, Qassem Suleimani, and their propagandist allies in the “mainstream media” eulogize him as some kind of saint, it’s appropriate to remember not only who he was but who enabled him: Barack Hussein Obama. First, Suleimani’s record of violence against the United States and, in particular, American forces in Iraq. As head of the Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Suleimani was responsible for carrying out Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s foreign policy throughout the Middle East. In addition to dominating politics in neighboring Iraq and Syria, that policy includes financing, training and equipping scores of militant organizations in those countries as well as Lebanon — all of which are loyal to Tehran. These groups include Hamas and Hezbollah. The objective here is to box in Israel and, eventually, attack and destroy the Jewish state. But also, the objective has been to keep the U.S. off-balance as it prosecuted the war against Iraqi militants in the wake of deposing dictator Saddam Hussein. In this realm, Suleimani and his commanders supplied weapons and other material support to Iraq’s anti-American militants, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers.

Of course, over the last months we have all been involved, (in one way, or another) in the drought and subsequent fires. Some have lost everything, homes, relatives, farms, stock, friends, others have suffered from the smoke, hero’s have fought the fires, whilst other brave people have raised money, or traveled across our continent to deliver food and supplies.

Farmers and related business if not critically damaged have suffered and we still have another few months of hot weather to look forward too. Its all very sad, but as we know it’s Australia, this has all happened before, little of the money donations will get to those who deserve it and nothing that the government promises to help with will be forth coming. Even the insurance companies have historically been very slow to pay out in fire disasters such as in the Marysville disaster.

     Hillary Clinton on her Twitter has said:

“When I was a little girl, I wrote to NASA and told them I dreamed of being an astronaut. They wrote back and said they weren't taking girls. A new generation of little girls watched today's historic spacewalk. May their dreams of reaching the stars have no bounds.”

     So we now have a pending federal election with two parties campaigning on the dire consequences of climate change. As a young person at school in the mid sixties I was most concerned to learn that the world was running out of copper. There was widespread concern and debate as to how we could cope substituting aluminium. When I left school, I got a job in the mining industry and soon found that not only was there not going to be a copper shortage, but the mines that would provide the copper were being developed when this hysteria was being spread. It assured a good market price for copper. In the mid seventies we were bombarded with dire predictions that the world oil supplies were nearly exhausted. So scarce was bitumen going to be we would be building concrete highways. I had friends in this industry and collected enough information to see easily that this was a total beat-up, as is clearly evident now. Producers were simply creating hysteria to justify higher prices.

     Such a beat-up is the climate change argument, that they have to use naturally sinking volcanic islands to support the claims of rising sea levels. Since around the time of Charles Darwin, Geologists have known the Earths crust is not strong enough to hold up the volcanic cones rising from the sea floor. These old Volcanoes naturally sink as they have been doing for millions of years. Some volcanic islands have sunk to 6,000 feet below the sea surface with remnant coral reefs that could have only grown at or near the surface. The following is a quote from a Geology text book: "Next came the main islands all with drowned river valleys e.g. Pearl Harbour, with up to 1,200 feet of submergence." (Principals of physical geology, Arthur Holmes).  

     In a multicultural, multiracial society, according to the propaganda made when these were being set up in the West, all races are equal, there are no racial differences, and all cultures are equal. That is equalitarianism. So, it must be ok to be white, by definition, right? Wrong; we saw this in the Australian Senate vote against the motion, meaning that it is NOT ok to be white, and now in Scotland:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-50821872

“Scotland's deputy first minister has condemned the appearance of stickers bearing the slogan "It's okay to be white" in Perth city centre. The stickers were posted on lampposts and drainpipes throughout the city at the weekend. John Swinney, who is also MSP for Perthshire North, said the "atrocious" stickers had "no place in Perth or any other part of our country." Police Scotland said it was "currently looking into the matter." Posting on Twitter, Mr Swinney said: "We must stand together to resist this unacceptable material." 'Sickening and disgusting' Stickers bearing the same slogan appeared in Dundee in September. The message originally appeared as a 2017 poster campaign in the US organised by an internet message board, with the aim of provoking reactions. It was later picked up and spread by neo-Nazi groups. Local group Perth Against Racism said it has been contacted by local people who said the appearance of the stickers had made them feel unsafe. One person told the group: "I am certainly worried now for my daughters who are not white but are from Perth. "It's sickening and disgusting to know that people think like this." A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: "Although no complaint has been made to police regarding these posters, they have been brought to our attention and officers are currently looking into the matter."

     Here is one reason why the great replacement of the European peoples should be resisted: they have made an irreplaceable contribution to human history, and are not a flash in the pan as some conservative sites which are supposed to defend the white ethno-racial group think, but are an ancient contribution to the human species:
  https://phys.org/news/2019-07-oldest-africa-reset-human-migration.html

“A 210,000-year-old skull has been identified as the earliest modern human remains found outside Africa, putting the clock back on mankind's arrival in Europe by more than 150,000 years, researchers said Wednesday.
In a startling discovery that changes our understanding of how modern man populated Eurasia, the findings support the idea that Homo sapiens made several, sometimes unsuccessful migrations from Africa over tens of thousands of years. Southeast Europe has long been considered a major transport corridor for modern humans from Africa. But until now the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens on the continent dated back only around 50,000 years. There has however been a number of discoveries indicating the ancient presence of Neanderthals—an early human cousin—across the continent. Two fossilised but badly damaged skulls unearthed in a Greek cave in the 1970s were identified as Neanderthal at the time. In findings presented in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers used state-of-the art computer modelling and uranium dating to re-examine the two skulls. One of them, named Apidima 2 after the cave in which the pair were found, proved to be 170,000 years old and did indeed belong to a Neanderthal. But, to the shock of scientists, the skull named Apidima 1 pre-dated Apidima 2 by as much as 40,000 years, and was determined to be that of a Homo sapiens. That makes the skull by far the oldest modern human remains ever discovered on the continent, and older than any known Homo sapiens specimen outside of Africa. "It shows that the early dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa not only occurred earlier, before 200,000 years ago, but also reached further geographically, all the way to Europe," Katerina Harvati, a palaeoanthropologist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen, Germany, told AFP.”

     Following Trump’s military strike against Iran, there is great concern among young men that there will be World War III, and the need for a draft so that young men can be killed off for the globalists, as always.
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/us/military-draft-world-war-3.html

     However, the US draft is only directed at young men, which would seem discriminatory. Clearly, if there is going to be another mass slaughter, then what about the daughter?! Women will need, by the principle of affirmative action, to be the main one’s to be canon fodder now, as there needs to be restoration of the balance as men have died in all past wars. Isn’t it time for equality, and for young women to be slaughtered as well … which is just an argument for not having the draft at all! And, why we are at it, no war either.

     You will not find very much MSM stuff about the beheadings of Christians  on boxing Day in Nigeria. But, here is the basic information about the attempt in Nigeria, to eliminate Christianity:
  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15369/christmas-christians-beheaded

“Martha Bulus, a Nigerian Catholic woman, was going to her bridal party when she was abducted by Islamic extremists of Boko Haram. Martha and her companions were beheaded and their execution filmed. The video of the brutal murders of these 11 Christians was released on December 26 to coincide with Christmas celebrations. It is reminiscent of the images of other Christians dressed in orange jumpsuits bent on their knees on a beach, each being held by a masked, black-clad jihadist holding a knife at their throats. Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave in Libya. On the scale of Nigeria's anti-Christian persecution, Martha was less fortunate than another abducted girl, Leah Sharibu, who has now been in captivity nearly two years and just spent her second Christmas in the hands of Boko Haram. The reason? Leah refused to convert to Islam and deny her Christianity. Nigerian Christian leaders are also protesting the "continuous abduction of under-aged Christian girls by Muslim youths...". These girls "are forcefully converted to Islam and taken in for marriage without the consent of their parents". Nigeria is experiencing an Islamist war of the extermination of Christians. So far, 900 churches in northern Nigeria have been destroyed by Boko Haram. U.S. President Donald J. Trump was informed that at least 16,000 Christians have been killed there since 2015. In one single Nigerian Catholic diocese, Maiduguri, 5,000 Christians were murdered. How much bigger and more extended must this war on Christians become before the West considers it a "genocide" and acts to prevent it?

     Here is how Their ABC described a program about open borders, with guess Dr Sarah Fine of King’s College London:
  https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/keeping-them-out/10169906

“Most people agree that nation states don’t have any moral right to control the movement of citizens within their borders, or to prevent citizens from travelling beyond those borders. So why should we accept that states have the right to exclude or restrict entry to refugees and immigrants? The answers usually appeal to security, or the need to 'preserve' national values and culture. But these arguments may be less robust than they appear.”

     While the media here in Australia are going into overdrive about the bushfires being caused by climate change, we need to turn to overseas sources to get some sanity, and uncommon sense. Here is James Delingpole at Breitbart.com, making the sensible argument that it was, and still is, the environmental policies of the largely Leftist environmentalist system and Greens, that allowed the massive build-up of highly flammable dried vegetation:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-05-environmentalists-arsonists-australia-policies-forest.html
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/02/greens-made-australia-bush-fires-worse/

“As Paul Homewood pointed out last month, there has been no significant long-term decrease in rainfall or increase in temperatures in the affected regions. Yes, it has been dry in New South Wales (where most of the worst fires are), but there have been several years, especially pre-1960, when it was drier. The same applies to temperature. Yes, this has been a hot spring in New South Wales. But there have been times when it has been much hotter — making a nonsense of all stories in the Australian media about temperatures being the hottest ever: Neither is the monthly average of 38.0C a record high. The three years from 1899 to 1901 all saw average December mean maximum temperatures well above 38.0C. Since the station moved to the airport in 1993, 38C has only been exceeded once until this year, that was in 2005, when it averaged 38.5C, still well below the December 1899 when the mean was 39.9C. So, to be clear, there is zero evidence of any change in climatic conditions that might have increased the likelihood or severity of these bush fires. This is not — repeat NOT — a man-made climate change story, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a gullible idiot or a lying charlatan. There is, nonetheless, good reason to believe that the stupidity and irresponsibility of man is at least partly to blame for this disaster — just not quite in the way that the left-liberal MSM and the green wankerati would have you believe.

     The countdown is on to the big one, when Iran finishes mourning and retaliates for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani against the US. Already, Iran has raised, for the first time in history, a red flag over the Holy Dome of Jamkaran Mosque believed to be a warning of a battle to come, which could be conventional war, or more likely, a type of 4th generational, unconventional conflict involving terrorist cells.
  https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/irans-red-flag-war-hints-21213560
  https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-seeing-signs-iran-prepping-ballistic-missiles-as-tehran-vows-revenge/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
  https://affirmativeright.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-iranians-are-playing-chess-while.html

     Some articles are speculating that the US power grid, vulnerable at the best of times, may be attacked, and other articles indicate that Iranian hackers are already hacking  some US sites, such as the Federal Depository Library program’s website. This was hacked and the homepage replaced with Iranian propaganda. Admittedly, this was a soft target, but it could be a warning of what is to come:
  https://www.axios.com/us-iran-war-footing-qasem-soleimani-airstrike-13cbe74f-9095-47b4-8d03-85f1e702f447.html 
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-05-iran-to-activate-terror-cells-across-america-power-grid-vulnerable-infrastructure.html
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cfr-president-says-world-will-be-battlefield-after-iran-escalation
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iranian-hackers-take-down-us-government-site-after-dhs-warns-lone-wolf-terrorists

     To judge how far things have gone, consider the ever-politically correct J. K. Rowling, was attacked by the media elites for merely saying that biological sex is real. That is seen as anti-trans, and other celebs, such as Ricky Gervais, and Mark Hamill, who supported Rowling, also got slammed.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jk-rowling-cancelled-woke-outrage-mob-saying-biological-sex-real
  https://www.nme.com/news/jk-rowling-criticised-for-supporting-woman-who-posted-controversial-trans-rights-tweets-2589718
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/22/u-s-establishment-media-run-away-j-k-rowling-transgender-debate/
  https://celebrity.nine.com.au/latest/ricky-gervais-under-fire-transphobic-tweets-claims-jokes/3c712bd3-80b9-4d73-95aa-fdc13461567b
  https://summit.news/2019/12/20/mark-hamill-slammed-for-liking-jk-rowlings-transphobic-tweet/

“The U.S. establishment media is running away from a lucrative click-bait debate on sex and science, which is sponsored by the wealthy and famous author of the Harry Potter franchise, J.K. Rowling. The December 19 offer came when Rowling championed the free speech rights  of one woman — Maya Forestator — while simultaneously supporting sexual freedom, science, and the public’s right to recognize the different, equal, and complementary biological sexes of women and men. The New York Times‘ article followed the same pro-transgender format, with its headline saying “J.K. Rowling Criticized After Tweeting Support for Anti-Transgender Researcher.” The article quoted three critics but offered no quotes from supporters of Rowling or Forstator. The New York Times blocked reader comments. The Washington Post allowed comments on its news article, and the comments  — were overwhelming in favor of Rowling and against the article’s authors. Many other outlets were even worse.”

To The Australian           The death of Roger Scruton invites us to consider the nature of conservatism and the role it might play in the coming life of our own nation ("Life of a contrary don", 14/1). Scruton's horror of mob violence witnessed in France in 1968 alerted him to the need to oppose the revolutionary doctrine (it is nonsense) of human equality. He soon grasped that high culture was a vital bulwark in the defence of the ways of the elders. You are right ("Roger Scruton's brilliant mind") to applaud this life lived in devotion to "beauty, reason and tradition". However, the essence of conservatism is the honouring of the sacred, of the mystery of the holy; and Scruton does not seem to have been strong enough on this. Australians also tend at present to adopt a cavalier attitude to this source of truth, hence the current confusion generally in our intellectual forums. We can learn from Scruton, but we can learn more from the world's great sacred traditions and their wisest exponents.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Australian         Nadia Schadlow quotes Thomas Mann ("Come the hour, come the Mann", 15/1) as having believed that "democratic nations were at risk of separating their lofty ideals from inescapable realities", by which he presumably meant the self-interested machinations of the powerful and ruthless. She should have added to the demons of fascism and communism the current ongoing tyranny of the super-rich. She is right, of course, to champion the dignity of man, the open society and political freedom for the individual; but where both she and Mann may be in error is in their conviction that democracy is the best form of political order. "Rule of the people" is not so very attractive when you look at the behaviour of lots and lots of people! Perhaps aristocracy ("rule of the best") is superior, but how to transition to it in an age of globalisation, digital infrastructure, excessive surveillance and loss of autonomy is a question not easy to answer. However, the West's uncertainty and depleted confidence in democracy suggest that the effort should be made.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic
    

     Marvel has announced that a trans character is coming very soon in a film … I can hardly wait. They have begun the woke, politically correct push with the Captain Marvel film, which did ok riding on Avengers: Endgame, but most other woke films have gone belly up, especially the no doubt final Terminator movie, Cats, and Charlie’s Angels, all with an over-the -top feminist ideology:
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/12/31/video-marvel-studios-president-says-trans-character-coming-very-soon-in-upcoming-film/
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/12/31/hollywoods-most-notable-flops-of-2019-schwarzenegger-charlies-angels-and-cats/
  https://affirmativeright.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-long-goodbye-review-of-star-wars.html
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC-vExHeBII

“Unpopular social justice messages are to blame for some of the biggest failures as Hollywood continues to force feed left-wing ideology to audiences, who are catching wise to the game and rejecting it wholesale. Franchise fatigue was another factor, as creatively bankrupt studios continue to pump out sequels and reboots to diminishing returns. Hollywood is in panic mode. The domestic box office is expected to drop 3.6 percent in 2019 compared to last year, the largest percentage drop in five years. Audiences are shunning the cinemas in favor of at-home entertainment options, which include Netflix and a growing array of competitors. Here are some the year’s most notable box-office flops, and how much each stands to lose.

     The magazine Christianity Today featured a December article arguing that Trump should be removed from office because he is .. well something, immoral I guess.
  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/21/christianity-todays-op-ed-isnt-attacking-trump-its-defending-christianity/
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/politics/christianity-today-trump-evangelicals.html
  https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/12/23/christianity-today-doubles-down-in-call-for-trump-impeachment/
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/23/franklin-graham-again-slams-christianity-today-for-anti-trump-stance/

“The CEO of the evangelical journal Christianity Today (CT) published an editorial Sunday defending the magazine’s call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. In his essay, CT president and CEO Timothy Dalrymple defends the magazine’s decision to side with those demanding Trump’s removal, saying that CT has received “countless notes of encouragement from readers who were profoundly moved” by its editorial and insisting that the journal is beholden to God alone and not the Democrat party. “Out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship or intellectual elitism, this is why we feel compelled to say that the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness,” Dalrymple writes. “It has alienated many of our children and grandchildren. It has harmed African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American brothers and sisters.” Mr. Dalrymple suggests that the perceived alliance between the president and evangelical Christians in the U.S. has hurt the credibility of Christians across the globe. “While the Trump administration may be well regarded in some countries, in many more the perception of wholesale evangelical support for the administration has made toxic the reputation of the Bride of Christ,” Dalrymple writes. As evangelicals we are “associated with President Trump’s rampant immorality, greed, and corruption; his divisiveness and race-baiting; his cruelty and hostility to immigrants and refugees; and more,” he states.

     The US version of 60 Minutes, has really put a mountain lion amongst the black pigeons with a TV special on the alleged suicide of Jeff Epstein, notorious elite paedophile who had a pleasure island where the elite could go an rape underaged girls, while he filmed it all for blackmail purposes. In the program Dr Michael Baden said: “I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicide hanging.” Numerous pieces of evidence did not fit the suicide hypothesis:
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-autopsy-a-closer-look-60-minutes-2020-01-05/
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fake-noose-60-minutes-shreds-epstein-suicide-theory

“Among the injuries found on Epstein during the autopsy are contusions on both wrists, an abrasion on his left forearm, and deep muscle hemorrhaging in his left shoulder muscle. Photos 60 Minutes reviewed also show an injury to the back of his neck, a cut on his lip, and an injection mark in his arm, though it is unknown whether the latter injuries happened during an attempt to resuscitate Epstein at the hospital. Dr. Baden said small burst capillaries, known as petechiae, found on Epstein's face, mouth, and eyes are often an indication of strangulation. But it was injuries to Epstein's neck that make Dr. Baden call into question the official ruling of suicide. Autopsy photos show fractures of the left and right thyroid cartilage, which sits at the front of the neck, and the left hyoid bone, a u-shaped bone that sits under the jaw and acts as an anchor for the tongue. "I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging," Dr. Baden tells Alfonsi on the broadcast. He added: "Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40–50 years, no one had three fractures."

     We talk a lot about the coming social collapse here, but we are not the only ones, for much raw material can be found in mainstream sites, if one looks. Take California, the great liberal progressive experiment, for example:
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/12/why-california-keeps-making-homelessness-worse/amp/

“California is home to some of the world’s toughest environmental and public health laws, but skyrocketing homelessness has created an environmental and public health disaster. The 44,000 people living, eating, and defecating on the streets of L.A. have brought rats and medieval diseases including typhus. Garbage is everywhere. Experts fear the return of cholera and leprosy. And homelessness is making people violent. “We are seeing behaviors from our guests that I’ve never seen in 33 years,” said Bales. “They are so bizarre and different that I don’t even feel right describing the behaviors. It’s extreme violence of an extreme sexual nature. I have been doing this for 33 years and never seen anything like it.” Bales says he was one of the people who urged the US Government’s Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) to intervene. “We’ve been crying out for a National Guard-like response,” said Bales, whose church provides food, showers, and shelter to 1,350 people camped nearby. In 2016 Bales lost the lower half of his leg to a flesh-eating bacteria from contamination on Skid Row. How did things get so bad in California? The state has long prided itself on being humanistic and innovative. It is home to some of the world’s largest public health philanthropies, best hospitals, and most progressive policies on mental health and drug addiction. The Democrats have a supermajority. What went wrong? According to Bales and other experts, California made homelessness worse by making perfect housing the enemy of good housing, by liberalizing drug laws, and by opposing mandatory treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.