WEBVTT - Issues With LAUSD (10/26) 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.240 KFI AM 640. You're listening to the John Kobelt podcast 0:00:04.300 --> 0:00:10.220 on the iHeartRadio app. KFI AM 640. More stimulating talk radio. 0:00:10.300 --> 0:00:14.650 John Kobelt's show. Uh, welcome. We're on to six, uh, 0:00:14.700 --> 0:00:18.369 till six after six. John Kobelt's show on demand. Uh, 0:00:18.430 --> 0:00:23.729 voice line. Oh yeah. For Friday, 877-MOIST-86, 877-MOIST-86, or the 0:00:23.750 --> 0:00:27.970 talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. Um, I have been 0:00:28.510 --> 0:00:31.770 telling you just over the last few weeks just how 0:00:32.020 --> 0:00:37.440 bad the scores are across the state, especially at LAUSD. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.500 You have over half the kids, and they graduate this way. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.159 They're not proficient at reading, over half of them. Two-thirds 0:00:45.220 --> 0:00:52.670 or so not proficient at math or science. you know, 0:00:52.690 --> 0:00:57.050 they're illiterate and innumerate. That's the word for not knowing 0:00:57.110 --> 0:01:00.070 what to do with numbers. And so of course they 0:01:01.890 --> 0:01:04.370 botch up their finances right from the, right from the 0:01:04.430 --> 0:01:07.429 start because they bar too much money and they don't 0:01:07.490 --> 0:01:11.530 check to see whether their, uh, their, their major is 0:01:11.569 --> 0:01:14.230 eventually going to pay anything worthwhile and how easy it 0:01:14.270 --> 0:01:18.569 is to get a job. And, uh, and eventually they 0:01:18.910 --> 0:01:21.630 own a ton of money and, uh, They're bitter the 0:01:21.670 --> 0:01:25.890 rest of their lives, and they become socialists. If you're 0:01:25.930 --> 0:01:30.530 a winner, you never become a socialist. That is for 0:01:30.580 --> 0:01:38.039 the losers. That is for the uncool people. John Fleischman, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.420 who's a political writer and analyst, he did a column 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.680 in the New York Post. And here's one of the 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.480 other problems, even if you do try to pay attention 0:01:48.580 --> 0:01:51.510 at LA Unified. You got a good chance of getting 0:01:51.550 --> 0:01:59.560 beat up. They defunded the Los Angeles Unified Police Department 0:02:00.300 --> 0:02:06.920 a while back. And so now bullying, physical bullying, jumped 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.020 from 6% to 15% of the student body in just 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:17.030 a year. Overall, 17% reported being bullied. And that's a 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.070 lot of kids. That's almost one out of every five 0:02:19.130 --> 0:02:22.070 kids feels that they're bullied. And he wrote a piece 0:02:22.130 --> 0:02:25.430 today about how this happened. And, of course, it came 0:02:25.490 --> 0:02:29.209 out of the idiotic George Floyd protests where Black Lives 0:02:29.270 --> 0:02:34.150 Matter demanded that LAUSD defund the police. So they did. 0:02:34.270 --> 0:02:37.889 Now they have more and more students beating each other up. John, 0:02:37.950 --> 0:02:38.370 how are you? 0:02:40.250 --> 0:02:42.630 Well, I'm doing fine, except every time I come on 0:02:42.650 --> 0:02:46.639 your show, it's dysfunction junction, right, as we talk about– 0:02:47.260 --> 0:02:48.910 I know that there's a lot that they say about 0:02:48.970 --> 0:02:52.109 where you're born on the planet matters, right? If you're 0:02:52.130 --> 0:02:55.910 born into, I don't know, some Tony neighborhood, everything's great. 0:02:56.110 --> 0:02:58.690 If you happen to be born in the city of 0:02:58.730 --> 0:03:01.310 Los Angeles and have to go to the L.A. schools, 0:03:01.370 --> 0:03:07.040 God help you. Because the obsession that the unions have 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:12.389 with controlling these districts and then electing these schools– The 0:03:12.430 --> 0:03:15.270 whole reason there's a problem here is because the police union, 0:03:15.970 --> 0:03:19.660 this little tiny, it's not the LAPD. There's a union 0:03:19.810 --> 0:03:23.620 of police officers that are, it's like the LAUSD police. 0:03:24.340 --> 0:03:27.700 So it's this small little union that doesn't get along. 0:03:28.139 --> 0:03:31.470 It's not SEIU. It's not any of those big ones. 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.170 And so this is what happens. There's this crazy woman 0:03:35.230 --> 0:03:37.210 on the LA Unified School District Board. Her name is 0:03:37.290 --> 0:03:42.090 Kelly Gones. And she's bonkers town. And so like you said, 0:03:42.110 --> 0:03:44.950 and like you said, before she invited, before you invited 0:03:44.990 --> 0:03:48.590 me on here, you said that in 2020, the board, 0:03:48.610 --> 0:03:51.530 they joined the defund the police push after the whole, 0:03:51.550 --> 0:03:55.590 you know, stuff going on. And they cut 25 million bucks. 0:03:55.740 --> 0:03:58.620 They defunded the police. Like other people talked about doing 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.820 these people did it, but not just anywhere. They defunded 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.200 the police in our schools in Los Angeles. And with 0:04:04.260 --> 0:04:07.180 all due respect, Los Angeles is not like little house 0:04:07.220 --> 0:04:10.100 on the Prairie, right? This is a place where you 0:04:10.140 --> 0:04:13.360 want to have deterrence because there's a lot of kids 0:04:13.410 --> 0:04:16.730 who have grown up in tough neighborhoods. And it should 0:04:16.750 --> 0:04:18.370 be kind of clear, hey, you do what you're going 0:04:18.390 --> 0:04:20.490 to do, but you come on to this school and 0:04:20.529 --> 0:04:22.790 this is a safe zone for everybody here. But no, 0:04:22.810 --> 0:04:27.290 let's cut those people. So they eliminated 70 officers. And 0:04:27.450 --> 0:04:31.410 it's even better. They took the money and legitimately said 0:04:31.450 --> 0:04:35.190 we are moving it, $ 36. 5 million. We're moving it to 0:04:35.210 --> 0:04:40.250 the Black Student Achievement Plans. Um, uh, and, and, and that's, 0:04:40.450 --> 0:04:41.990 if you open that up and look at it, it's 0:04:42.029 --> 0:04:46.290 full of all kinds of DC garbage that isn't really 0:04:46.330 --> 0:04:49.240 doing anything to help black students achieve anything, because with 0:04:49.270 --> 0:04:51.180 all due respect, how are you going to achieve whether 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.240 you're a black, white, Asian, I don't care what kind 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.200 of a student you are. If you're getting the crap 0:04:56.220 --> 0:04:57.800 beat out of you at school, you're not learning. 0:04:58.940 --> 0:05:04.159 Uh, the plan included hiring climate coaches. What is that? 0:05:04.300 --> 0:05:08.130 Yes. Well, okay, in this case, it's not like climate 0:05:08.170 --> 0:05:10.930 like the environment. They're not checking if you have carbon emissions. 0:05:11.350 --> 0:05:13.810 They want you to have a nice, friendly climate around 0:05:13.850 --> 0:05:17.230 you in order to succeed. Translation, we want to give 0:05:17.270 --> 0:05:20.539 you everything. We want to coddle you. We want to 0:05:20.630 --> 0:05:22.800 make sure that, like, you don't actually have to pass 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.680 your classes to graduate to the next grade. All the 0:05:26.700 --> 0:05:29.580 stuff that is– we see all the effects of this 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.320 now because probably a bunch of these students have all 0:05:32.339 --> 0:05:35.780 been admitted into colleges where their placement exams are saying 0:05:35.820 --> 0:05:39.260 they don't know stuff. I can't profane on live air, 0:05:39.300 --> 0:05:44.020 but they don't know anything because– Yeah, exactly. And so, 0:05:44.820 --> 0:05:46.720 you know, this all kind of came to a head 0:05:46.779 --> 0:05:49.810 because back in September over at Franklin High School, they 0:05:49.850 --> 0:05:54.770 had this kid, Xavier Nungere Martinez, 17 years old. And 0:05:54.790 --> 0:05:57.229 I'm sure you've covered this. He fell falls from the 0:05:57.330 --> 0:06:02.950 fourth floor balcony after another student hits him. And his 0:06:03.010 --> 0:06:05.150 family is like, you know, they think he was he 0:06:05.190 --> 0:06:08.050 was bullied and all this. But of course, what's going 0:06:08.150 --> 0:06:11.700 on is I don't know if I could say that. No, 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:17.580 you can't. She actually passed a motion of the school 0:06:17.620 --> 0:06:22.600 board so that no individual school could request officers on 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.740 their campus. So not only did they take them out. 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.070 Are you serious? The principals can't go, hey, you know what? 0:06:29.089 --> 0:06:31.770 We got a special problem in our district. For now, 0:06:31.830 --> 0:06:35.390 we'd like to have somebody temporarily assigned to our campus. No. 0:06:35.550 --> 0:06:38.229 You can't ask for police officers? 0:06:38.250 --> 0:06:41.799 No. not to be permanently assigned to your school. 0:06:41.820 --> 0:06:45.500 And a kid got killed in a fight. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.600 And it goes on because this year, this year she 0:06:52.420 --> 0:06:56.540 restored $ 50 million more back to the achievement plan. But 0:06:56.580 --> 0:06:58.840 what did she do? She cut another three and a 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.850 half million from the LA USD police with another 7 0:07:02.850 --> 0:07:04.390 million a year next year. 0:07:04.410 --> 0:07:07.810 How does she end up being in charge here? She's 0:07:07.930 --> 0:07:12.020 one of the school board members. This is Kelly Gomez. 0:07:12.740 --> 0:07:14.640 That's a lot of damage this woman's caused. 0:07:16.100 --> 0:07:18.020 Yes. Well, this gets back to– I also put this 0:07:18.090 --> 0:07:21.310 in my story. It goes down to the million– literally 0:07:21.790 --> 0:07:25.350 millions of dollars that the unions have spent to keep 0:07:25.410 --> 0:07:28.310 her and her colleagues in office because– and this is 0:07:28.350 --> 0:07:31.720 the oldest rule in the book. These unions don't give 0:07:31.740 --> 0:07:33.960 a darn. See how I did there? I didn't say 0:07:33.980 --> 0:07:36.380 anything bad. You're getting better. They don't give a darn 0:07:36.820 --> 0:07:40.340 about educating the kids. They only need union members that 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.220 do two things, give them raises– And don't hold them accountable. 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.700 And they hit the jackpot with this Kelly and her 0:07:48.750 --> 0:07:53.070 board because these people are completely bonkers down. And so 0:07:53.210 --> 0:07:55.870 what's going on here? Now, remember, this is the same 0:07:55.950 --> 0:08:01.690 school board that practically has the entire district in receivership 0:08:02.220 --> 0:08:04.720 because last summer under the– I. 0:08:04.700 --> 0:08:05.500 Want to get to that next. 0:08:05.540 --> 0:08:07.930 Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay. 0:08:07.970 --> 0:08:10.810 Just hang on. Debra's got to do her news, and 0:08:10.870 --> 0:08:13.150 we've got to make a little money. And we come back, 0:08:13.270 --> 0:08:17.640 and you can talk about the massive fiscal crisis that 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.760 LAUSD is in right now. They are broke, and it's 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.100 really bad. All right. John Fleischman, sodoesitmatter.com is the name 0:08:26.140 --> 0:08:28.720 of his website. He also has a column in the 0:08:28.790 --> 0:08:29.620 California Post. 0:08:30.590 --> 0:08:34.870 You're listening to John Kobelt on demand from KFI AM640. 0:08:36.980 --> 0:08:41.180 We continue now with the writer, the commentator, John Fleischman. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.420 SoDoesItMatter.com is his website. You can read stuff every day. 0:08:46.420 --> 0:08:51.650 He also writes for the California Post. And over the weekend, 0:08:51.690 --> 0:08:55.050 he wrote a piece on how the Los Angeles School District, well, 0:08:55.070 --> 0:08:57.630 there's several threads coming together here. First, I told you 0:08:57.670 --> 0:09:03.190 that over half the kids graduate and they can't read 0:09:03.490 --> 0:09:07.670 up to the level they're supposed to. And almost two-thirds 0:09:07.730 --> 0:09:13.390 can't do math, and almost two-thirds can't do science. And 0:09:13.910 --> 0:09:18.809 the school is getting more dangerous because after the George 0:09:18.890 --> 0:09:24.790 Floyd festivities, Kelly Gomez on the LAUSD board led a 0:09:24.830 --> 0:09:29.530 movement to slash millions of dollars from the police department, 0:09:30.250 --> 0:09:34.890 the Los Angeles Unified School District Police. So they eliminated 0:09:34.890 --> 0:09:43.030 70 officers. And started hiring conflict resolution, social workers, climate coaches. 0:09:44.010 --> 0:09:48.600 And of course, there's been chaos. 17% of the students 0:09:48.660 --> 0:09:52.920 report being bullied. It's a big jump. And it culminated 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.689 with one kid falling to his death from a fourth-floor 0:09:55.750 --> 0:10:01.620 balcony after another student hit him. You combine that with 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:07.320 the union constantly demanding more and more money and the 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.560 board members approving the massive increases, and now the school 0:10:11.580 --> 0:10:16.800 district is looking at insolvency. They're broke. I'll pick up 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.850 with John here. All right, describe what that path was about. 0:10:22.030 --> 0:10:24.270 Well, I mean, the first thing I would say is 0:10:24.740 --> 0:10:29.339 you're not kidding. So the school district is literally on 0:10:29.380 --> 0:10:33.440 the verge of insolvency. The amount of shortfall they have, 0:10:34.020 --> 0:10:40.520 it's like you can't even tell you how much it is. 0:10:40.570 --> 0:10:42.650 But in case you're wondering, we can tell you how 0:10:42.690 --> 0:10:46.940 much it is. I think it's it's billions of dollars 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.579 that they're short. And then it's about, I'm sorry, $ 3. 6 0:10:50.980 --> 0:10:53.900 billion deficit projected by 2029. I had to go look 0:10:53.940 --> 0:10:54.580 at one of my own. 0:10:55.140 --> 0:10:56.660 Did you say B? 0:10:57.870 --> 0:10:59.770 I did with a B billion, 3.6 billion. The school 0:10:59.809 --> 0:11:00.870 district is short $ 3. 0:11:00.770 --> 0:11:01.109 6 billion by 2029. 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:02.530 3.9. But yes. And it's even better. So this year, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.570 There was a big, you know, the unions were protesting. 0:11:13.610 --> 0:11:16.189 We need more money. They obviously don't care about the 0:11:16.210 --> 0:11:18.250 state of the district. By the way, the district is 0:11:18.270 --> 0:11:22.260 also hemorrhaging money, paying out all these massive... settlements for 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.660 school employees who were, like, molesting children. And so that's 0:11:26.710 --> 0:11:29.450 going on at the same time. But so then the 0:11:29.550 --> 0:11:31.670 unions can't come to a deal with the school board. 0:11:32.010 --> 0:11:34.270 And so then Karen Bass, of all people, who's, like, 0:11:34.510 --> 0:11:37.250 you know, the worst, she comes in to negotiate a deal. 0:11:37.570 --> 0:11:41.180 Tell me, so June 12th, on June 12th of this year, 0:11:41.580 --> 0:11:44.020 the L.A. County Office of Education sends a letter to 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.900 every LAUSD board member that it says, The district's fiscal 0:11:47.940 --> 0:11:51.040 concerns are severe and urged the board to weigh them 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:56.110 carefully before ratifying union contracts. June 16th, four days later, 0:11:56.190 --> 0:11:59.429 the board approves contracts. What do these contracts do? They 0:11:59.470 --> 0:12:04.470 give 24% raises over three years to all the SEIU members. 0:12:04.910 --> 0:12:08.959 They give 14% raises immediately to all the UTLA board members. 0:12:09.380 --> 0:12:12.780 And what is the cost of this? $ 650 million a 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:18.300 year ongoing to UCLA, $ 490 million a year ongoing to SEIU. 0:12:18.660 --> 0:12:21.080 And this is like literally a train wreck waiting to 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.240 happen because, of course, if you want the real statistics, 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.340 just over the last five years, those unions have spent 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:32.400 over $ 4 million electing these idiots to the school board. 0:12:32.420 --> 0:12:36.569 They're tools. And so, of course, the school district would 0:12:36.590 --> 0:12:39.270 be better if it went into receivership because there's nobody 0:12:39.350 --> 0:12:41.490 worse than that you could pick out of a phone 0:12:41.530 --> 0:12:44.830 book to run this school district than those trustees. It's 0:12:44.970 --> 0:12:48.000 the most awful situation, and it's, you know. 0:12:48.300 --> 0:12:50.800 So what's going to happen? They're going to run out 0:12:50.820 --> 0:12:53.079 of money. There's no way to pay this, and it 0:12:53.100 --> 0:12:54.100 gets worse every year. 0:12:54.179 --> 0:12:57.620 So what happens? I, you know, your guess is as 0:12:57.660 --> 0:12:59.559 good as mine. You know, usually, I mean, I know 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.260 Karen Bass already went hat in hand for the city 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.010 to Sacramento to try to get a bailout. So you 0:13:05.030 --> 0:13:06.910 could be sure that the next thing that will happen is, 0:13:07.410 --> 0:13:10.250 you know, some smart Democrat who likes to do a deal, 0:13:10.370 --> 0:13:13.250 it'll be like Bobby Hertzberg, right? Hertzberg will go, I 0:13:13.270 --> 0:13:15.109 got a plan where we move money here, we move 0:13:15.150 --> 0:13:18.740 money there, we pass a bond measure, and we float 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:20.800 it out for 30 years and we rescue the district 0:13:20.820 --> 0:13:22.820 without having to give anyone a pay cut. It'll be 0:13:22.860 --> 0:13:26.200 that kind of a shtick thing. But what nobody's really 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.540 paying attention to, the biggest tragedy of everything, is what 0:13:28.580 --> 0:13:30.980 you keep bringing up, John, which is that these kids 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:36.569 aren't learning anything. And so it's literally pumping. It's like 0:13:36.610 --> 0:13:39.390 an employment system, not an education system. 0:13:39.429 --> 0:13:41.989 No, they just sit there. So they beat each other 0:13:42.110 --> 0:13:45.010 up for 13 years, and then when they come out 0:13:45.050 --> 0:13:46.589 the other end, they want to be socialists. 0:13:48.429 --> 0:13:51.070 And they're excited because their parents found out they've been excited. 0:13:51.090 --> 0:13:54.689 So like they've been accepted to the University of California. 0:13:55.090 --> 0:13:56.670 And I know you've covered that on your show because 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.620 I was on when we talked about it down there. 0:13:59.020 --> 0:14:02.060 You got the academic senate complaining because all these students 0:14:02.100 --> 0:14:04.980 are coming in from L.A. who have applied, gotten admitted 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.220 to a University of California. That's supposed to be the 0:14:07.260 --> 0:14:10.130 top of the top. And they need to take three 0:14:10.170 --> 0:14:12.890 or four years of remedial classes just to be able 0:14:12.929 --> 0:14:16.449 to take entry-level courses at the college. So that's what's 0:14:16.490 --> 0:14:18.630 going on. They want these kids to get them out 0:14:18.670 --> 0:14:20.930 of L.A. because then it's not on the teachers. Yeah. 0:14:21.170 --> 0:14:24.280 And then who cares if they have to go. 0:14:24.060 --> 0:14:26.140 To college for 10 years? You know what I saw today? 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.260 I saw today, I was going into a parking garage, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.940 and there was a young woman, and she had her 0:14:34.980 --> 0:14:37.480 window rolled down. She's just sitting there, sitting there, sitting 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.180 there until somebody came over and pressed the button on 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.420 the screen so she'd get a ticket and. 0:14:43.380 --> 0:14:44.760 Get in the garage. Yeah. 0:14:45.330 --> 0:14:48.370 And I looked at the screen and it said, big 0:14:48.410 --> 0:14:52.080 green button said, press for ticket. And I don't think she, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.940 I don't think she could read it. So she didn't know. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:02.460 It's probably the valedictorian of university high school right there. 0:15:03.820 --> 0:15:09.180 Right there. Because they hadn't had somebody that fit whatever 0:15:09.820 --> 0:15:11.580 category they wanted to put her in. So they're like, well, 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:12.720 make her the valedictorian. 0:15:13.020 --> 0:15:14.780 I was about to get out of the car and 0:15:14.820 --> 0:15:18.060 press the button for her, and I didn't understand why, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.739 because it's a bright green button. You can't miss it. 0:15:20.780 --> 0:15:22.860 And she spent a lot of time staring at the screen. 0:15:23.450 --> 0:15:25.490 And then it hit me. It's, oh, she can't read this. 0:15:26.430 --> 0:15:27.030 Obviously. Yeah. 0:15:28.100 --> 0:15:29.120 L-A-U-S-D graduate. 0:15:29.340 --> 0:15:32.460 I mean, you and I laugh about it. We're cynical 0:15:32.500 --> 0:15:35.840 about it, but it's really, really tragic and really, really sad. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.239 And it's just a different form of child abuse, and 0:15:38.300 --> 0:15:39.160 it's really terrible. 0:15:39.340 --> 0:15:43.980 It's bad out there. Hey, thanks very much, John Fleischman. Oh, 0:15:44.060 --> 0:15:45.540 and by the way, John and I did a live 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:54.100 stream last week, and that's a standalone video. cast and 0:15:54.140 --> 0:15:57.340 a podcast on the audio. And we cover, well, John 0:15:57.380 --> 0:16:00.380 did all the work. He covered all the propositions, all 0:16:00.380 --> 0:16:02.710 14 of them. So if you want to know how 0:16:02.750 --> 0:16:06.450 to vote on the propositions, John's ideas are the best around. 0:16:06.830 --> 0:16:07.630 Thank you for coming on. 0:16:07.990 --> 0:16:10.730 Yeah. All right. Thanks, John. Thanks. All right. 0:16:22.810 --> 0:16:27.910 KFI AM 640. More stimulating talk radio. John Kobelt's show. 0:16:28.050 --> 0:16:31.370 Until 6. After 6. The podcast. John Kobelt's show on demand. 0:16:31.490 --> 0:16:38.140 Live on YouTube. Live on X. And you could subscribe 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.460 and become a member on YouTube. YouTube.com slash at John 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:48.250 Kobelt's show. This is a good one. Now, the media 0:16:48.270 --> 0:16:53.680 world is so splintered that I'm always finding new internet 0:16:53.740 --> 0:16:57.440 publications which have, if not a big following, an intense following. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.480 And so many people are calling themselves journalists. Just about 0:17:02.620 --> 0:17:07.230 anybody who walks around with a camera is a journalist now. 0:17:07.250 --> 0:17:08.810 And you see them all over the internet. And a 0:17:08.810 --> 0:17:15.310 lot of them do good work because the regular journalists 0:17:15.350 --> 0:17:21.719 who work for recognizable– Newspapers and TV stations don't do 0:17:21.780 --> 0:17:24.879 much anymore that's useful, and there aren't that many of them. 0:17:25.090 --> 0:17:29.190 So I'm intrigued by either these independent journalists who work 0:17:29.250 --> 0:17:33.389 on their own or these new news sites that are 0:17:33.430 --> 0:17:37.030 popping up. And there's one I never heard of called 0:17:37.310 --> 0:17:41.550 LA Taco. You ever hear of this? LA Taco. This 0:17:41.730 --> 0:17:43.670 is not where you get lunch. This is the name 0:17:43.930 --> 0:17:50.110 of the news organization. And it looks to be positioned 0:17:50.630 --> 0:17:57.520 at English-speaking Hispanic residents and those who are interested in 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:03.480 things like immigration. They had a journalist, a journalist named 0:18:03.780 --> 0:18:08.040 Memo Torres. This is a guy, Memo. And he's 46 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:14.520 years old, a former landscaper. And apparently he was quite 0:18:14.540 --> 0:18:18.400 the fireball. And during the riots, he was working practically 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:23.460 24 hours a day pumping out stories. And of course, 0:18:23.740 --> 0:18:28.909 it's anti-ice stuff. This is not old-fashioned, down-the-middle journalism. This 0:18:29.470 --> 0:18:37.260 is riot journalism, okay? So Memo Torres, turns out while 0:18:37.300 --> 0:18:42.179 he was doing all this coverage... during the ICE raids 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.919 and before and after, he was sleeping with a local politician. 0:18:47.660 --> 0:18:51.530 He was sleeping with a state senator, Sasha Renee Perez. 0:18:52.710 --> 0:18:57.489 In fact, sources say that, and this is according to LMaterial.com, 0:18:57.859 --> 0:19:02.420 sources say that state senator Sasha Renee Perez was editing 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:10.639 and writing his stories. which were all very critical of 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:16.410 ICE and pro-illegal immigrants, pro-rioters. She is from the San 0:19:16.450 --> 0:19:22.150 Gabriel Valley, the youngest legislator in the state Senate. And 0:19:23.869 --> 0:19:26.889 it took a while before people figured it out or 0:19:26.990 --> 0:19:31.910 made the accusation. They're all denying it. But he did 0:19:31.970 --> 0:19:34.890 write about a news conference held by Perez about her 0:19:34.950 --> 0:19:38.220 legislation and And then there was another story the next 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:45.440 month which mentioned her bill. Oh, a third story about 0:19:45.810 --> 0:19:49.970 a bill Perez introduced to strengthen oversight of private detention centers. 0:19:50.020 --> 0:19:50.340 Centers. 0:19:50.380 --> 0:19:53.730 They hold illegal immigrants. So there are three stories that 0:19:53.810 --> 0:19:57.710 people are suspecting he wrote for her or she might 0:19:57.730 --> 0:20:03.170 have written and put his byline on it. There's probably 0:20:03.210 --> 0:20:06.750 more of this going on than people know. And he 0:20:06.830 --> 0:20:08.240 is now out at L.A. 0:20:08.250 --> 0:20:08.369 Taco. 0:20:10.830 --> 0:20:13.669 But this is what you're dealing with here. You know, 0:20:13.710 --> 0:20:15.470 this is some kind of... I don't know how old 0:20:15.490 --> 0:20:17.470 the publication is, but I guess it got a lot 0:20:17.490 --> 0:20:22.100 of notoriety. And nobody should ever trust what they're reading, 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.520 anything anymore. Because, you know, in Washington, D.C., a lot 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:31.720 of journalists are dating, living with, have married a lot 0:20:31.740 --> 0:20:36.060 of people in government. So they're all on the same team. 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:37.500 Many of them are compromised. 0:20:39.140 --> 0:20:39.470 And.... 0:20:44.030 --> 0:20:49.860 It's just for a guy actually to get fired after 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:56.000 five months of debate over this is really unusual. And 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.120 now he says he's going independent. But imagine you're reading 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:00.879 a news story and you don't know that the writer 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.180 is actually sleeping with the politician that he's writing about. 0:21:05.100 --> 0:21:09.780 And she's writing the story. This is where we are. 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.899 If you wonder where people in California are going as 0:21:18.940 --> 0:21:22.859 they move out of Los Angeles, a big story in 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.500 the California Post today that a fair number of people 0:21:26.660 --> 0:21:30.980 are moving to Fresno. It's the second story I've seen 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.780 about this. Fresno, has you ever been to Fresno? I've 0:21:33.980 --> 0:21:36.659 never been. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You know what? I 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.500 rescued my second dog in Fresno. She was being fostered there. 0:21:40.580 --> 0:21:43.869 So I went there, got the dog, and left. You 0:21:43.940 --> 0:21:45.570 drove to Fresno for a dog? 0:21:45.710 --> 0:21:46.210 Yes, I did. 0:21:47.130 --> 0:21:51.090 There wasn't a dog in distress within L.A.? No, there are, 0:21:51.230 --> 0:21:54.709 but she was the one that I found. And you 0:21:54.750 --> 0:21:57.980 drove to Fresno and back? My first dog, we drove 0:21:58.020 --> 0:22:02.840 to Bakersfield and back. What do you have against L.A. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:03.840 Dogs? Nothing. 0:22:03.859 --> 0:22:08.020 It just worked out that way. That's got to be, what, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.350 a four-hour drive to Fresno? No, I don't think it 0:22:11.390 --> 0:22:17.850 was that long. Long way. In total. Well, you can 0:22:17.890 --> 0:22:24.690 get a pretty decent home for under $ 500, 000. And that's 0:22:24.710 --> 0:22:30.040 what's driving things. Cheap land. You can build a house quickly. 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:35.639 $ 9 billion farm economy. So it's the centerpiece of, oh, 0:22:35.660 --> 0:22:37.460 you know whose district that is? We have this guy 0:22:37.540 --> 0:22:41.580 on often, David Tangipa. And it's led to a tech 0:22:41.619 --> 0:22:46.930 boom there as well. So people are escaping big, ugly, 0:22:47.609 --> 0:22:51.150 costly cities like Los Angeles, and they're paying less in rent, 0:22:51.790 --> 0:22:54.930 less in utility costs, less red tape to build your house. 0:22:56.300 --> 0:23:00.580 Tangipa says we don't have a crazy environmental arm. And 0:23:01.180 --> 0:23:04.260 in other major cities, there's not a lot of room 0:23:04.300 --> 0:23:08.590 to grow. Fresno ranked number one in California for new 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:13.719 business survival. which means that almost 70% of new businesses 0:23:13.850 --> 0:23:18.910 are still open after five years. Los Angeles was among 0:23:18.950 --> 0:23:23.250 the 10 worst metros in the nation for surviving businesses. 0:23:24.570 --> 0:23:29.690 Fresno was named one of the most entrepreneurial cities in 2026, 0:23:29.690 --> 0:23:34.880 number six in the country. San Francisco and Los Angeles 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:38.780 both dropped out of the top 10. The future is Fresno. 0:23:43.380 --> 0:23:46.550 City Council voted to let developers build homes and office 0:23:46.590 --> 0:23:50.910 districts and near bus stops without needing approval or public hearings. 0:23:51.510 --> 0:23:52.990 So they're fast-tracking things. 0:23:54.950 --> 0:23:56.609 Maybe we need to move to Fresno. 0:23:57.890 --> 0:24:00.510 Fresno may end up being a major metropolis at this rate. 0:24:03.070 --> 0:24:07.510 They got 561,000 people. I never would have expected over 0:24:07.530 --> 0:24:08.650 a half million in Fresno. 0:24:10.310 --> 0:24:10.490 They. 0:24:11.100 --> 0:24:17.040 Fresno County now has over a million residents. Meantime, Los 0:24:17.140 --> 0:24:20.669 Angeles lost 33,000 people just last year. But what do 0:24:20.690 --> 0:24:25.650 they do for work? Well, the farming industry is huge there. 0:24:26.290 --> 0:24:32.580 I'm not a farmer, so I guess it's not for me. Yeah, 0:24:32.619 --> 0:24:34.659 I can't see you farming. No, that's not my thing. 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:37.160 I wonder what, if you were born in another century, 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:43.739 what you'd be doing. Um, no, I have not wondered that. Like, 0:24:43.770 --> 0:24:46.850 I just wonder where you would fit in. Um, well, 0:24:46.869 --> 0:24:50.230 I mean, most women were, were wives and mothers. I 0:24:50.250 --> 0:24:51.949 guess that's what I would be doing. And you'd be 0:24:51.990 --> 0:24:59.189 milking the cow. I don't have those jeans. But there's a, 0:24:59.530 --> 0:25:02.190 they weren't very fashionable back then. No, that wouldn't work 0:25:02.230 --> 0:25:04.010 for me. You'd all be wearing the same long dresses. 0:25:04.130 --> 0:25:05.379 No. Yeah. Yeah. 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:08.659 And you'd have to go and work on the crops. 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:09.060 No. 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:10.140 What do you mean no? 0:25:10.260 --> 0:25:10.500 No. 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:14.020 Then you'd have to be a kept woman of some barren. 0:25:16.670 --> 0:25:18.890 Twist my arm. That comes with duties, you know. 0:25:20.510 --> 0:25:24.270 Well, that's true. All right. 0:25:24.290 --> 0:25:24.990