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Speaker 1: Can't.

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Speaker 2: I am six forty.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio

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Speaker 1: app every day. I'm around from one until four. And

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Speaker 1: if you missed the first hour, you missed a lot.

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Speaker 1: I'd listened to it on the podcast John Cobelt's show

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Speaker 1: on demand that's posted after four o'clock, same as the

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Speaker 1: radio show.

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Speaker 2: By the way, the.

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Speaker 1: Petition change dot org, the petition demanding the immediate resignation

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Speaker 1: of Karen Bass up to one hundred and thirty seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: five hundred and forty six one hundred and thirty sous

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Speaker 1: seven thousand and five forty six.

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Speaker 2: And I also should note that.

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Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom announced a day or two ago that it's

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Speaker 1: going to take nine to twelve months just to remove

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Speaker 1: the debris in the Palisades, nine to twelve months, so

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Speaker 1: construction is not going to start for all the residents

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Speaker 1: for let's say a year. All right, Let's now get

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Speaker 1: into what Michael Sellenberger wrote today. Public News Public dot

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Speaker 1: News is his website, and he's really a great journalist,

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Speaker 1: and he's printing a lot of truth that the other

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Speaker 1: outlets said they don't touch. Let's get Michael on We've

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Speaker 1: had him on a number of times before.

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Speaker 2: How are you great?

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: I can't tell you.

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Speaker 1: How much I enjoy and I'm enraged by what you write.

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Speaker 1: You're really one of the best journalists out there covering

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Speaker 1: California and all the nonsense that's going on, and I've

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Speaker 1: just learned an awful lot. I've used a lot of

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Speaker 1: your stories on the air, so thank you for that.

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Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate that.

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Speaker 2: You had a story today.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, before we talked about today's story, tell

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Speaker 1: people your overall view on what's happened in California government

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Speaker 1: with this wok progressive movement and what it's done to

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Speaker 1: the state and why they're doing it.

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Speaker 3: Well, sure, I mean it's all much worse than you realize.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think people see the degradation, the loss

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Speaker 3: of dignity, particularly around what we call homelessness, but it's

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Speaker 3: really a problem of untreated mental illness and addiction and

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Speaker 3: of the breakdown of civilization. I mean, you know, civilization

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Speaker 3: requires law and order, It requires that we have safe

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Speaker 3: sidewalks that people don't camp everywhere, and now we're seeing

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Speaker 3: the worst consequences of it. With these fires. I mean,

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Speaker 3: without even getting into what may have called that caused them.

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Speaker 3: We know that half of all the fires that the

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Speaker 3: LA Fire departments respond to are started by homeless people.

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Speaker 3: That's just insane. That's one of the consequences. But we

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Speaker 3: know also the National Weather Service issued a strong warning

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Speaker 3: on January second of extreme fire danger. They then underscored

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Speaker 3: that warning on January third, and then the next day

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Speaker 3: Mayor bastwise to Ghana in the midst of these warnings.

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Speaker 3: At that moment, Governor Gavin Newsom should have called out

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Speaker 3: the National Guard. He should have called for help from

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Speaker 3: around the country, around the United States to mobilize immediately,

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Speaker 3: have C one thirties flying over Los Angeles, ready to

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Speaker 3: put out fires as soon as they see them. They

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Speaker 3: should have had fire trucks in place in the in

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Speaker 3: the critical neighborhoods that doesn't even get The reservoir should

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Speaker 3: have been full of water. The Santa Ines Reservoir, the

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Speaker 3: second largest reservoir serving Los Angeles, should have been full

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Speaker 3: of water. It's it's just a breakdown. It's so many

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Speaker 3: things that break down when you don't have leaders who care.

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Speaker 3: We have leaders that only care about their own careers.

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Speaker 3: They are obsessed with their careers. Gavinism is obsessed with

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Speaker 3: They're all obsessed with the next job. If you're in

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Speaker 3: the state Assembly, you want to be in the state Senate.

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Speaker 3: If you're in the state Senate, you want to be

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Speaker 3: in the Congress. If you're in Congress, you want to

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Speaker 3: be mayor. If your mayor, you want to be governor.

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Speaker 3: The governor un to be president. Nobody wants to govern,

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Speaker 3: Nobody wants to actually take responsibility. And just look at

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Speaker 3: their behavior after the fires. It was just all of

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Speaker 3: this nonsense about how they couldn't prevent it because of wins,

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Speaker 3: because it's the fires, as though we didn't know that.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we've been talking about this for decades. We

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Speaker 3: in the bel Air fires nineteen sixty one. So sure, yeah,

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Speaker 3: the people before Gavin and mayor baths knew about the problem.

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Speaker 3: Sure they're responsible, But these guys have been in power

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Speaker 3: for decades, so it's all much worse than people realize.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's just the They spent twenty four billion

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Speaker 3: dollars on homelessness since twenty nineteen, and homelessness increased by

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Speaker 3: forty percent, and then they say, boy, we really can't

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Speaker 3: understand what happened. It's such a paradox that homelessness increased

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Speaker 3: after spain aless money. So the homelessness increased because you

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Speaker 3: spent all that money incentivizing homelessness and subsidizing homelessness. So

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Speaker 3: it's incompetence driven by narcissism, nihilism, and careerism, and that

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Speaker 3: explains ninety percent of the proms in our states.

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Speaker 2: So they're not aware of the damage that they're doing.

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Speaker 1: Don't They wake up in the morning and travel the

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Speaker 1: same roads and watch the same newscasts and experience, oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, the same mega fires. They aren't they

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Speaker 1: aware of the consequences everybody else sees them.

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Speaker 3: I mean, this is you know, narcissism is like a

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Speaker 3: kind of developmental problem. You know, it's like their little chilterns.

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Speaker 3: You know, they want all of the privileges and none

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Speaker 3: other responsibilities. I mean, just I mean, there's so much

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Speaker 3: to talk about. I mean, contemplate that at the moment

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Speaker 3: these fires broke out, Kevin Newsom had called for a

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Speaker 3: special session of the legislature to figure out how to

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Speaker 3: sue Donald Trump. And then when in the middle of

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Speaker 3: the fires yesterday or maybe this day before Yeshua. They

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Speaker 3: then passed the legislation to get fifty million dollars to

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Speaker 3: give to lawyers to sue Trump so he can't implement

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Speaker 3: his agenda. That was happening in the midst of the

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Speaker 3: most catastrophic fires in American history. You know, it's just

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Speaker 3: these people, are you know, I mean, and you know, look,

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Speaker 3: the voters of California need tape responsibilities. I mean, it

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Speaker 3: was the people of Pacific, Polisade, Santa Monica, Malibu who

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Speaker 3: raised the money, who turned out the vote for Karen

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Speaker 3: Bass and Gavin Newsom. This is wok ideology. These are

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Speaker 3: the consequences of wok ideology, by which I mean this

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Speaker 3: complete obsession with racism, which is not only is there

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Speaker 3: less racism today than ever before, America is the least

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Speaker 3: racist country that has ever existed.

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Speaker 1: You know, we we are the.

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Speaker 3: Leader in reducing carbon emissions because of fracking, and these

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Speaker 3: guys wanted to shut down our best power plant, our

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Speaker 3: last nuclear plant. They wanted to shut it down. The

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Speaker 3: only reason they didn't is because they kept having blackouts

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Speaker 3: for lack of electricity. So I mean, you look, you know,

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Speaker 3: we all love California because we're idealistic. We're creative, we're

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Speaker 3: you know, we're imaginative, we're innovative, but we also have

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Speaker 3: this dangerous tendency towards narcissism and nihilism and fatalism, and

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Speaker 3: we don't demand enough from our leaders, and we've been

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Speaker 3: in the grip of a delusion for you know, decades.

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Speaker 3: At this point, it's a super Democrat majority, so there

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Speaker 3: is no passing the buck or passing the blame at

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Speaker 3: this point. They've got to take responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: Does this shock the public into voting for different people?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I hope so. I think you're doing a

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Speaker 3: great job telling urging people to sign the petition. I

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Speaker 3: think that Elon Musk taking over Twitter has had a

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Speaker 3: hugely beneficial impact. The center of the political conversation in

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Speaker 3: the United States is on x. It's not determined by

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Speaker 3: the media anymore. And you've seen the media in recent

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Speaker 3: days have had to come out with stories that acknowledge

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Speaker 3: that Mayor Karen Bass is in real trouble, Gavin Newsom

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Speaker 3: is his career is over. I mean, I don't think

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Speaker 3: that the good people of ian Iowa. I don't think

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Speaker 3: even Iowa Democrat primary voters or caucus govers or New

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Speaker 3: Hampshire primary voters. I don't think they're on board with

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Speaker 3: this level of mismanagement. They've got much more confident Democrats

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Speaker 3: in the form of Fetterman or Shapiro in Pennsylvania. These

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Speaker 3: California politicians, these California Democrats, they're not like Democrats in

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Speaker 3: the other parts of the country. These are radical left, narcissistic,

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Speaker 3: nihilistic careerists, people disavowing responsibility. I mean shame on all

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Speaker 3: of them. I mean to just I mean carry I mean,

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Speaker 3: you know, by the way, it's part of the way

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Speaker 3: the conversation is changing. Who was it that finally exposed

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Speaker 3: that Karen Bass had promised not to travel abroad? It

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Speaker 3: was the New York Times, you know, she promised. They

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Speaker 3: surfaced that she told them that she would not travel

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Speaker 3: abroad as governor, and she went abroad six times. These

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Speaker 3: are vanity jun kids to go and rub elbows in

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Speaker 3: Ghana with the new president. I mean, shame on her.

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Speaker 3: It just tells you where her priorities are.

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Speaker 2: And narcissists don't feel shame.

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Speaker 1: Can Can you stay on another segment because I want

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Speaker 1: to talk about your whistleblower story today.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely? All right?

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Speaker 1: Michael Schellenberger, the writer Public dot News, the website I

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Speaker 1: subscribe to it. You should too. You read this every

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Speaker 1: time he puts out a new story. You'll understand way

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Speaker 1: better than any of the main media organizations in LA.

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Speaker 2: What's going on?

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM

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Speaker 4: six forty.

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Speaker 1: We continue with Michael Schellenberger, great journalist, writer, reporter. His

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Speaker 1: website is public dot News, Public dot News, and he's

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Speaker 1: got a piece today about a forty year veteran firefighter

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Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles County who was quite candid about

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Speaker 1: what's been going on when it comes to firefighting strategy,

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Speaker 1: and it was quite shocking and sickening. Really, let's get

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Speaker 1: Mike Michael Schellenberger back on to talk about it. So

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Speaker 1: you have this whistleblower, why didn't you capsualize for those

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Speaker 1: listening what this man told you?

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Speaker 3: Well, sir, I mean, keep in mind, there are many

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Speaker 3: more people coming forward. I'm getting a lot a lot

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Speaker 3: of whistleblowers coming forward, people that are very angry, many firefighters.

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Speaker 3: I had another whistleblower we did. It was a water

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Speaker 3: utility executive who explained just how catastrophic and idiotic. The

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Speaker 3: failure to keep the Santa Ynez Reservoir full, which was

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Speaker 3: right next to the Pacific Polstage fire and would have

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Speaker 3: made a huge difference. New whistleblower, as you said, forty

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Speaker 3: year veteran fire department in Los Angeles. I'm going to

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Speaker 3: protect their identity because they're afraid of retaliation. But they

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Speaker 3: just made it very clear that, look, the buck stops

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Speaker 3: with the mayor and the governor. Governor, they should have

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Speaker 3: set up an immediate crisis response on January second, January third.

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Speaker 3: It's really all about prevention. I mean, it is hard.

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Speaker 3: They're right that it is hard to stop the fire

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Speaker 3: once they're going with those wins, So you have to

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Speaker 3: snuff them out right away, and that means that you

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Speaker 3: need to have positioned fire trucks across Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is a.

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Speaker 3: Mayor who cuts the fire budget seventeen and a half

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Speaker 3: million and was looking to cut it by another forty

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Speaker 3: nine million dollars. This fire is going to cost somewhere

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Speaker 3: on the order of two hundred and fifty billion billion

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Speaker 3: dollars two hundred and fifty thousand million dollars if they

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Speaker 3: had spent fifty million. They could have got five hundred

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Speaker 3: fire trucks, five hundred used fire trucks. They could have

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Speaker 3: gotten a one hundred million. They could have gotten a

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Speaker 3: hundred fire trucks and just positioned them around different parts

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Speaker 3: of Los Angeles, just parking them in the key fire zones.

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Speaker 3: And then when the fire warning came, they could have

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Speaker 3: flown people in. This person said they could have flown

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Speaker 3: people and bust them in get the extra help they needed.

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Speaker 3: They did none of that. They did none of that.

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Speaker 3: Look at what they do. I mean Gavin in the

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Speaker 3: middle of this fire, he doesn't take command. He goes

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Speaker 3: on and he goes on a podcast with one of

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Speaker 3: the Obama bros. It just shows you these are not

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Speaker 3: people that are obsessed. We need California. Look, it's so beautiful.

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Speaker 3: Beauty comes with danger. We all live there because even

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Speaker 3: though we know there's a risk of earthquake, we know

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Speaker 3: there's risk of fires, we know there's riskle floods, we

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Speaker 3: live there because we love it. It's beautiful, and we

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Speaker 3: pay a huge amount in taxes for basic maintenance of

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Speaker 3: civilization so that we you know, we don't get killed

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Speaker 3: in fires. And we've got politicians who are just obsessed

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Speaker 3: with themselves. They drop the ball on the most basic

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Speaker 3: aspects of fire prevention. Look, the firefighters are enraged. I

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Speaker 3: mean they've been enraged for years and it's just bubbled

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Speaker 3: over on this why.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the cutting of the police department had its

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Speaker 1: own special political controversy, see right, defunding the police, brutality, racism,

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Speaker 1: most of it nonsense. What was the animosity towards the

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Speaker 1: fire department of all things? I mean, this is hostility

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Speaker 1: the way bass Garcetti and the rest of them have

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Speaker 1: treated the fire department with these budget cuts, we had

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Speaker 1: half the fire department that we should have. It's half

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Speaker 1: the size of what it's supposed to be. Why hostility

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Speaker 1: to firefighters?

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Speaker 3: I think at a superficial level, it is political. Firefighters,

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Speaker 3: like police officers, tend to be a Republican. They tend

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Speaker 3: to be a bit more conservative. Of course in California

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Speaker 3: that's more liberal than any other state. But nonetheless they

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Speaker 3: they think that if they put more money into social

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Speaker 3: services that you'll have less crime and less fires. It's delusional.

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Speaker 3: I think the other thing is just that, Look, the

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Speaker 3: radical left in Los Angeles and Karen Bath is a

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Speaker 3: Manifestation of the radical Left went to Cuba eight times

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Speaker 3: expresses admiration for Fidel Castro. I should say I would

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Speaker 3: know I was on the left in my twenties. I

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Speaker 3: was a dumb radical leftist like many of them. You

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Speaker 3: get older, you get more moderate, you realize civilization is important.

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Speaker 3: But you know, there's the fashion in LA was that

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Speaker 3: we should let Malibu burn. That's what Mike Davis, the

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Speaker 3: Marxist author of City of Courts, this book that was

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Speaker 3: celebrated in Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

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Speaker 1: And I read that book, you know, when we moved

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Speaker 1: here in ninety two, right before he moved. That was

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Speaker 1: the first book I read about Los Angeles was City

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Speaker 1: of Courts. And I guess that had a powerful impact

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Speaker 1: on the whole activist crowd.

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Speaker 3: It did. Look, what what is that book saying. It's

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Speaker 3: saying that capitalism is evil, It's it's doomed to fail. Well,

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Speaker 3: it's they wanted to fail. I mean, Marxism is about

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Speaker 3: overthrowing civilization. I mean, that's that's what Marxism is. And

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Speaker 3: so now, of course, if you're going to try to

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Speaker 3: take power, you have to hide that because most people

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Speaker 3: like civilization. Most people like being safe. But look at

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Speaker 3: you know, look at there's It was unbelievable. But there

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Speaker 3: was this video that went around of the deputy Los

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Speaker 3: Angeles County fire Chief, a woman who said, I get

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Speaker 3: asked by people, will you be strong enough to carry

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Speaker 3: my husband out of a burning house? And she said, well,

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Speaker 3: your husband shouldn't be there in the first place. Actually,

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Speaker 3: first of all, that's a violation of firefighter epics and

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Speaker 3: she should be fired. I mean, she is putting people's

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Speaker 3: lives in danger. She is saying she's not going to

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Speaker 3: rescue people because they were not where they were supposed

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Speaker 3: to be. But look at how perfectly that matches up

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Speaker 3: with the city of courts idea that we should let

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Speaker 3: Malibu burn. I mean, these people are nihilists. They hate civilization.

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Speaker 3: A lot of them hate rich people, They hate white

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Speaker 3: people for being honest. They think they're entitled to not

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Speaker 3: only run the city, but run it into the ground,

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Speaker 3: and that's what they've been doing. And look it just

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Speaker 3: the fire is just an inevitable consequence of pursuing anti

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Speaker 3: civilization policies.

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Speaker 1: They really mean it, don't they. I mean, they they

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Speaker 1: really do hate the city and the public that much.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, years ago, I thought some a

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Speaker 1: statement like that was hyperbole, and now I'm convinced they

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Speaker 1: got what they wanted it. They wiped out the Palisades.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of wealthy white people there a

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Speaker 1: lot of middle class white people too, and it's all gotten.

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Speaker 3: And so I guess they would big lie. Yeah, I

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Speaker 3: mean this lie that somehow humans that were somehow not

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Speaker 3: able to live in certain places. I mean, we're landing

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Speaker 3: rockets at this point, like we're going to go to Mars.

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Speaker 3: We've invented fusion. That stuff is hard. Figuring out to

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Speaker 3: put fire engines when you get fire warnings and using

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Speaker 3: water to put out fire, that's not hard. That's not hard.

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Speaker 3: It's not it's not complex. I mean, it's hard work

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Speaker 3: and God blessed the firesiders, taking nothing away from them,

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Speaker 3: but it's not complicated. No, it's just basic maintenance of civilization.

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Speaker 2: I've got to go.

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Speaker 1: Uh but just one more thing, and you mentioned it,

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Speaker 1: and I just can't let it float away. And I'm

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Speaker 1: going to return to this a little later. How in

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Speaker 1: the hell do they not fill up a one one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir right in the heart

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Speaker 1: of the Palisades. How could and it's not been filled

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Speaker 1: up for almost a year. How could that be.

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Speaker 3: By the way it looks like. And I can't confirm it.

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Speaker 3: I haven't confirmed it yet, but I'm get the information

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Speaker 3: that it hasn't been filled for years, for years. I

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Speaker 3: mean that's I mean that the head of the Department

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Speaker 3: of Water and Power should be fired. That's it is

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Speaker 3: grotesque levels of incompetence. The I mentioned, I had another whistleblower.

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Speaker 3: Some of these are people that come to me because

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Speaker 3: they are so shocked and outrage I was happening. This

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Speaker 3: person said that if they didn't have a reservoir that

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Speaker 3: wasn't online at any moment they were, they would be

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Speaker 3: nervous the whole time and they would have had developed

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Speaker 3: backup water sources to compensate for it. None of that happened,

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Speaker 3: and according to the fire departments, they never knew that

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Speaker 3: that reservoir wasn't available onable.

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Speaker 1: Michael, thank you for coming on and let's talk again soon.

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Speaker 3: And I'm gonna thank you so much for having me here.

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Speaker 3: I appreciate you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much, And I'm going to read some

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Speaker 1: of what Michael wrote today. Public Dot News. Uh, this whistleblower,

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Speaker 1: forty year veteran of firefighting here in La County. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to read you what he told Michael in more

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Speaker 1: to tell them.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM

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Speaker 4: six forty.

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Speaker 1: We're on from one until four and then after four

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Speaker 1: o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand the podcast on the

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Speaker 1: iHeart app, and if you're just joining us, please listen

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Speaker 1: to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Later. Listen to Michael Schellenberger. We had him on for

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Speaker 2: the last half hour.

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Speaker 1: The writer. Public dot News is his website, and I'm

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Speaker 1: going to read you some of his posting today because

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Speaker 1: it's really important. There is so much that I didn't know,

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Speaker 1: You didn't know, Most people don't know, and it's been

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Speaker 1: it's been bubbling for years under the surface, and we

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Speaker 1: wouldn't know it until there's a catastrophe like the Palisades fire.

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Speaker 2: But the government.

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Speaker 1: In California, led by Gavin Newsom and in La here

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Speaker 1: led by Karen Bass, has completely abdicated nearly all responsibility

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Speaker 1: to do the basics, to care and protect for the citizen,

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Speaker 1: To Karen protect the citizens. We don't ask a whole

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Speaker 1: lot right what do you want from a government, police protection,

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Speaker 1: fire protection, roads paved, Well, they don't do much of that.

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Speaker 1: Schools for your kids, Well, in La that is a

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Speaker 1: disaster that is almost as disastrous as the fire. It

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Speaker 1: turns out they only fund for half the fire department

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Speaker 1: that we need. I'm in the police. This demonization was obvious.

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Speaker 1: I had no idea that they haven't funded the fire

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Speaker 1: department for decades and they were still cutting. Listen to

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Speaker 1: this Michael Shellenberger's story. He got a whistleblower, a forty

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Speaker 1: year veteran, he fights fires here in La County. Otherwise

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Speaker 1: he's an honest and he came forward to Shellenberger to

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Speaker 1: describe what Michael says is a shocking series of failures

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Speaker 1: by state and city leaders. Now, first of all, the

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Speaker 1: National Weather Service said there would be an extreme fire

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Speaker 1: risk on January second, and the National Weather Service of

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles had a briefing on January third. Canter Bass

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Speaker 1: Food had gone it anyway, Newsome did nothing, didn't call

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Speaker 1: out the National Guard until Friday this past Friday. I

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Speaker 1: had the naivete to think that when there is an

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Speaker 1: extreme fire warning and the Weather Service is saying it

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Speaker 1: could be it could be deadly that they have some

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Speaker 1: emergency command center and all the leading public officials and

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Speaker 1: the people who run the fire department and the water

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Speaker 1: department and the police department. Right, everybody's staffed. They've got screens,

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Speaker 1: they've got cameras all over the fire prone areas, all

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Speaker 1: along both mountain sides. They've got drones flying through the air.

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Speaker 1: They have strike teams in these neighborhoods ready to go.

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Speaker 1: Turns out they had none of that. I thought they

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Speaker 1: had all of that, and I don't know much about

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Speaker 1: firefighting at all, but I just assumed, well, that's what

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Speaker 1: you would have, right. No, they had nothing. Here's what

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Speaker 1: the whistleblower says. You have to mobilize. These are exact quotes.

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Speaker 1: You have to mobilize fire departments before the fire start

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Speaker 1: because we're so spread out. They had the long term

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Speaker 1: weather forecast already on New Year's Eve. You have areas

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Speaker 1: where they should have pre deployed rigs, fire trucks. Jit

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Speaker 1: They should have had them there a day before the

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Speaker 1: winds started, so crews can scout the area, recognize safety zones,

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Speaker 1: potential problem areas, and check water supply, things of that nature.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure that took place. The whistleblower goes on,

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Speaker 1: but the fire chiefs should have quote pre deployed engines

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Speaker 1: and high fired dangers, danger zones and neighborhoods that have

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Speaker 1: overgrown trees and vegetation, narrow roads, limited access roads, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: The ones which have burned in previous years. These areas

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Speaker 1: such as Malibu, Palisades, Pasadyena, Brentwood, Hollywood Hills, Palas, Verdi's Peninsula,

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Speaker 1: some areas in Orange County. As a firefighter, when you

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Speaker 1: hear very strong Santa Ana winds are coming, you think

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Speaker 1: of these areas because you have been there before on

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Speaker 1: previous fires in your career. They know where these fires

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Speaker 1: are going to take off from. They've done this before

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Speaker 1: many times. The firefighter writes here, quote what I'm hearing

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Speaker 1: is that this may not have been done. They could

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Speaker 1: have pre evacuated high density areas in these neighborhoods, the

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Speaker 1: ones that have one way streets and have ample police

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Speaker 1: in the area for possible emergency evacuations and the need

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Speaker 1: for traffic control.

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Speaker 2: Again, there was none of that.

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Speaker 1: He goes on, quote the governor, mayor and fire chiefs

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Speaker 1: said they had been mobilizing starting in early January. But

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure where those units were staged or how

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Speaker 1: many were called in. They should have said there's a

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Speaker 1: very high probability of a fire Tuesday or Wednesday due

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Speaker 1: to the sixty to eighty mile per hour winds coming.

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Speaker 2: In, so be prepared. Winds will be howling every day.

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Speaker 1: There are fires in La County, which starts from vehicles, accidents,

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Speaker 1: down power lines, outdoor fires, aresonists, or whatever. We know

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Speaker 1: there's going to be a fire somewhere at some point,

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Speaker 1: large or small. They should have been clearing bushes and debris,

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Speaker 1: he said. Quote, what's crazy is those canyons. You make

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Speaker 1: people trim and clear brush. Why not clear the canyons?

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Speaker 1: Some have fifty foot high trees and brush in there.

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Speaker 2: That's heavy fuel. If you don't have those fuels, you

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Speaker 2: won't have those effects.

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Speaker 1: Contract companies to start clearing the brush in the canyons

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Speaker 1: and fields.

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Speaker 2: They didn't do that.

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Speaker 1: What's like you said, how many trees are drinked over

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Speaker 1: the fire with.

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Speaker 2: Many power lines?

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Speaker 5: Way too many to count.

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00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: He says morale is very low before the fires began

433
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: because of budget cuts. This will be a one hundred

434
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: billion dollar fire. He says, actually, it looks like it's

435
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: going to be a two hundred and fifty billion dollar fire.

436
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 2: Lint.

437
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: Now listen to this and this is yeah, this is

438
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: the whistleblower. We hear that LA Fire Department had only

439
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: only We hear that LA Fire Department had one hundred

440
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: fire apparatus in the shop, so they had one hundred

441
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: fire engines being repaired. Who knows how short all the

442
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 1: other departments are. The state or county could have spent

443
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: fifty million and bought lower end fire engines for about

444
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars each about one hundred and put

445
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: them around the county in strategic locations or housed them

446
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,400
Speaker 1: in local fire stations. We're way short of fire engines,

447
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: and one hundred of them are being fixed. They probably

448
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: don't have the funding to fix them. They don't have

449
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: the mechanics. If you had these fire engines, you could

450
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,479
Speaker 1: have crews bust in or flown firefighters to run the engines.

451
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 2: We don't have enough engines.

452
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: The number of calls LA firefighters have make have made

453
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: in a year has tripled over the last thirty years,

454
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 1: while staffing has declined by one third.

455
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: Triple the calls one third the staff got more coming up.

456
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM

457
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 4: six forty.

458
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: Coming up after three o'clock, Alex Stone ABC News is

459
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: going to come on here and give us the latest

460
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: on the red flag warning situation, the dangerous wins and

461
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: what the prospects are for tonight and tomorrow, because so

462
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: far this is supposed to be over this wind event

463
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: by tomorrow.

464
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 5: Well, now the National Weather Service has changed and so

465
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 5: that really dangerous situation is supposed to start at three am,

466
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 5: three am, So it was really supposed to start early,

467
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 5: I think four o'clock this morning, and I think we

468
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 5: all were kind of excited that it really wasn't so windy,

469
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 5: and then it was supposed to be later this afternoon.

470
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 5: And now the National Weather Service is saying that it's

471
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 5: three am tomorrow and.

472
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, and is it going to go on later then

473
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: well through through Thursday. Now through Thursday, yes, which means

474
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: my power is going to be through Thursday for sure.

475
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 5: Then well, the regular red flag mornings are staying in

476
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 5: the fact through Thursday afternoon.

477
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: But you know what, I feel so bad for all

478
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: the people who lost their homes. And I'm sure if

479
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: you've been listening the last couple hours, you're extremely angry

480
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: and frustrated. But this is the consequence of the way

481
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: people vote, and this is the consequence of our progressive,

482
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: woke news media, what's left of it not covering all

483
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: these stories. I have never seen a story. I can't

484
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: tell you I must read like a hundred stories a day,

485
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty days out of the year. I

486
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: have never seen a story that said the fire department

487
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: is half the size it should be. Go back to

488
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: Michael Sellenberger's story here. He's got a whistleblower. He's worked

489
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: as a firefighter for forty years.

490
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 2: In La County.

491
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: Otherwise he's anonymous, And we'll get into this sick woke

492
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: cult ideology a bit. The whistleblower says, the underlying problem

493
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: is lack of leadership. That's the whole point. We used

494
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: to have general type guys with a capital G. They

495
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: were salty. Now we have DEI people who got promoted.

496
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: We don't have commanders. Crowley, the LA fire chief, has

497
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: only been twenty two years on the job. Thirty years ago.

498
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. If we landed in normandy today we

499
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: would lose. And the firefighter said that progressive LA elected

500
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: officials have let homeless addicts and start fires across the city,

501
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand of them a year. Every drug has a

502
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: weird way of affecting the mind. Several years ago, people

503
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: took bath salts a stimulant, and they started eating their

504
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: own skin mef. People start fires, arson fires. Compare the

505
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: arson arrest rate five years ago to today. You will

506
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: see the spike and arson crimes. We now arrest hundreds

507
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: per year. People are starting fires in homeless camps, lighting

508
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: their meth and they're living in tents on the sidewalk.

509
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: Then their cardboard burns down and a business burns down

510
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: and insurance goes through the roof.

511
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 2: Says this firefighter.

512
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: Many of the homeless calls are frivolous and leave people

513
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: to die.

514
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 2: Because here's this quote.

515
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: You'll go on a call, get your stuff on, drive

516
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: ten minutes to the liquor store or a gas station.

517
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 1: Check on a homeless person happens over and over twenty

518
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: five times a day. Meanwhile, while out on that BS call,

519
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: the eighty year old across the street has a heart

520
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: attack and nobody's there to rescue them. Happens frequently, so

521
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: the tax paying citizens in La County get a heart attack.

522
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 2: And they die.

523
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: Because the firefighters have to go out twenty five times

524
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: a day on homeless calls, and many of them are nonsense.

525
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: He says things are only likely to get worse worse.

526
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: He says, we're losing people like crazy because you used

527
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: to work every other day for three or four shifts

528
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: and then get four days off. But departments are so

529
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: thin that they work seventy two or ninety six hour

530
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: shifts three to four days in a row. Guys are

531
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: so burned out they don't want to work. They call

532
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: in sick or get injured due to being overworked. The

533
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: problem is growing exponently. Guys are burned out. They closed

534
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: so many stations. You used to do ten or twelve

535
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: runs a day at a busy station. Now it's not

536
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: uncommon to run twenty five calls a day. That's one

537
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: every hour. You can't get sleep. The divorce rate is

538
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: going through the roof. Addictions are at higher rates now

539
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: stress PTSD. That's a forty year firefighter here in La

540
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: County talking to Michael Schellenberger. Nobody wants to tell the

541
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: truth because everybody's afraid of getting fired and losing their pensions.

542
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: That's really what it is. You have to look out

543
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: for yourself. But you could retire at fifty five and

544
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: you get ninety percent pension. And I think they're paying

545
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: firefighters north of two hundred thousand dollars now, So you're

546
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: going to protect that, and you don't tell the truth,

547
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: and you just put up with all the idiocy and

548
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: what used to be the mainstream media, they don't cover

549
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: it anymore. Now you need guys like Michael Schellenberger. You

550
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: need our show to tell you this. But this has

551
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: been going for a lot of years. So Palisades had

552
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: to happen, the eaton fire in Altadena had to happen.

553
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: You have all these bad policies, all this understaffing, underfunding,

554
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: all this hateful animosity from these woke progressive cult members.

555
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: This is what you're gonna get. Like Michael said, they're

556
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: all narcissists. They only care about themselves. They fake empathy,

557
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: they don't have real empathy. If they cared, cared, best cared.

558
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: She would fully fund a fire department in Los Angeles.

559
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: It's fifty percent funded. It's fifty percent the size it's

560
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: supposed to be. When we come back Alex Stone and

561
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: see where these fire wind warnings are. Deborah Mark is

562
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey, you've

563
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can

564
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: always hear the show live on KFI Am six forty

565
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: from one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and

566
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 1: of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app