Will Swaim on the state of the Governor's race

00:00:00
Speaker 1: And we continue at two oh five in the afternoon on the John Phillips Show. Mister Randy Wangs in Culver City.

00:00:07
Speaker 2: John AC Transit is the latest Bay Area transit agency to say that if they don't get that sales tags hike, they're going to cut a bunch of service.

00:00:18
Speaker 1: Well, at least they're not putting a gun to our head. That's what the people who jump the turnstiles do. Literally. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one. Eight hundred two two two five two two two. It is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to the program. He is the president of the California Policy Center and he is the host of National Reviews Radio Free California. You can get him on x at will Swam, will Swam Welcome.

00:00:52
Speaker 3: Hey John, thanks for having me.

00:00:54
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much for stopping by. So let's start out with the gubernatorial race, because there has been a lot of chatter on social media about allegations that are expected to drop about California Congressman and candidate for governor Eric Swalwell regarding him potentially sexually harassing both staffers and interns. That story might drop as soon as tomorrow. According to what I've been told, you talk to people in and around Washington, d C. And you expect them to say, well, you know, these are unsubstantiated claims. No one's put their name to it yet, we'll wait and see. That is the exact opposite of what I have been hearing. Everyone I talked to go it goes, oh, yeah, this guy's a creep, and we're surprised it's taken this long. What do you think is going to happen when this story drops? And do you think that guy's in real trouble?

00:01:49
Speaker 4: Well, I think what's fascinating to watch for those of us who are on the other side of the political spectrum from Swalwell is we're seeing again how the left east its own at the progressive identity politics campaigns.

00:02:03
Speaker 3: That could be run against conservatives.

00:02:05
Speaker 4: Also in a really superheated political campaign like this one, will be really brought to the campaign by progressives. In fact, there are a number of people Swalwell himself who have vaguely asserted or overtly claimed that this is all brought by Katie Porter, who's the other real progressive in the campaign. She's, of course, the former UCI law professor, who was in Congress for a couple of terms, absolutely inadequate to the job of being governor and kind of stalled out in her gubernatorial campaign, but loved by those folks on the far left for her commitment.

00:02:40
Speaker 3: To identity politics. So what do I think.

00:02:43
Speaker 4: It's popcorn time for people like you and me, John, And that is, let's watch the case roll out and watch Swalwell object to it.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: We also bring to the case here you and I do.

00:02:53
Speaker 4: The knowledge that Swalwell has been accused, not just accused. He admitted he was having a relationship with the Chinese while in Congress while involved with intelligence matters on Capitol Hill. That woman just skudadled quickly back to China. When the case was revealed, a swell Well said, g I had no idea. But then more recently he's accepted money from Chinese intelligence connected people here in California for his gubernatorial campaign.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: So he's the kind of guy who does.

00:03:23
Speaker 4: Not seem to learn the lesson once or twice burned, He just keeps coming back.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: We know that the California Democratic Party is worried that two Republicans will end up on the November ballot and that the Democrats will be locked out. They've been trying to get their candidates who are pulling in single digits to drop out of the race. Only Ian Calderon, the former assemblyman, took the party chairman up on that offer. Everyone else said that they were in it to win it. And when I looked at that, I remember saying, I think I said it on the program too. Well, you can either get the low performing candidates to drop out, or you can spend a ton of money going after one of the Republicans by uplifting them like they did in the US Senate race a couple of years ago, so that Republicans vote for one candidate and then the other one falls behind. Or there's a third option, and that's to whack one of your own. And if you whack one of your own and then that campaign just collapses, and you assume, I guess that the majority of that person supporters would end up being scattered all over the board. Well, if you take out one huge piece of the pie, then maybe that's enough to get one of them onto the runoff.

00:04:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I understand that point. I think again, here it's.

00:04:45
Speaker 4: The multi factoral, the combination of different factors here is really really amazing. So yes, we saw a few weeks ago, I believe you covered it, the USC debate of gubernatorial candidates that got all locked up when identity politics reasserted itself again. The case the case there was the lowest performing candidates who were likely to be uninvited to the USC debate all turned out to be.

00:05:12
Speaker 3: People of color.

00:05:13
Speaker 4: Loosely speaking, I mean it was you know, a few black candidates, Tony Thurman, state Superintendent of Public Instruction, Latino candidates, and an Asian American woman.

00:05:22
Speaker 3: And they were prideful on the base that the USC.

00:05:27
Speaker 4: Stab the formula for figuring out who would really be a legitimate candidate air quotes around legitimate was based only on the money they had raised. So that left, I believe Porter Swallwell and Tom Steyer, and so that would have been one way to simply just make the decision almost invertly. We've seen this before in democratic politics, where folks get to decide who's a legitimate candidate who's not, and it's just let's we'll make a political decision, but will make it seem that the political decision to lock some people out is actually based on a math formula.

00:06:00
Speaker 3: You can't deny the science. I think your.

00:06:04
Speaker 4: Instinct here is right that this is part of the Democrats being so terrified of a Chad Bianco Steve Hilton general election in November that they're shooting their own because nobody will back off.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: Nobody will back.

00:06:17
Speaker 4: Out among the Democrats, and so you know, this is a case where they're going to really let these people tear each other apart in the run up to the primary. I'm not sure it fully helps the Democrats to watch small Well go down with these allegations. It just heightens the even among Democrats. It heightens that sense the Democrats are not serious people that they you know, they will always collapse back on this uniform kind of claim of racism or sexism when or you know, sexual assault and sexual harassment, which they love to deploy. We saw that recently with Sazer Chaves, of all people. So I'm more interested I put more stock frankly, John, and in your analysis here. My own is that Donald Trump stepping into back Hilton kind of did the Democrats work for them to some extent by diminishing the prospects for Chad Bionco.

00:07:08
Speaker 3: What do you think of that?

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Well, I've got to tell you that when you stack those two candidates up against each other, Hilton and Bianco, I prefer Hilton, but I'm going to go vote for Bianco because I think that the Republican electorate should try to split its vote as close to fifty to fifty as possible. And if the vote is split as close to fifty to fifty as possible, that is the only chance at picking up this seat. And if the low information voters are going to pay attention to the Trump endorsement and they're going to go for Hilton, then the people who really pay attention to politics and the people who really understand the stakes that are at play here, if they vote for Bianco and we split our vote fifty to fifty, then we still have a chance. And that's what I'm going to do, and anyone who asked my opinion, that's what I recommend that they do too.

00:08:06
Speaker 3: John.

00:08:06
Speaker 4: I would never play poker against you in Vegas or anywhere. That is a really smart analysis.

00:08:12
Speaker 3: You know.

00:08:13
Speaker 4: I've heard a lot of people on our side say, look, a Democrat is ultimately going to win. I'm just setting aside your analysis, which I think is right on.

00:08:19
Speaker 3: That makes a lot of sense to me.

00:08:21
Speaker 4: But I've talked to a lot of folks on our side, and I speak as a conservative, not a registered Republican here, and I don't speak for my organization when I talk about who people how to vote for. But a lot of Republicans are looking at Tom Stire and saying, well, you know, look, he's got this one thing.

00:08:36
Speaker 5: That I like.

00:08:36
Speaker 4: He's got a business background and a couple of billion dollars in the bank that allows him to sort of stay above the political fray. But the last thing I've seen Tom Steyer do is stay above any political fray. He is a climate alarmist of the most extreme sort we have out here in California. And I'm not sure that, like, even if I stipulated that a guy like Steyer could get into the Governor's office and bring some financial rigor to the state.

00:09:02
Speaker 3: Budget, that ain't going to be enough.

00:09:04
Speaker 4: You've got a legislature that is fully overstocked with the kind of trout who just eat anything that's not you know, progressive Democrat. So I just I think that I really like your analysis. I think it's very subtle, very nuanced, sounds good to me.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this about Stier, and this is the case I think across the board with any convert, the converts that I know are always the most dogmatic. The only Catholics I know who don't eat meat on Fridays are people who converted later in life. They're the ones that are getting the fish filet at McDonald's on Friday when they're sitting in the drive through window. With Tom Steyer. He made his money on oil, he made his money on private prisons. He made his money on all of the things that the Democrats hate, and I believe to prove that he is repenting for how he made his billions of dollars, he would be the most vicious on those subjects to try to, I guess, make up for past sins. And I believe that compared to the other candidates, particularly the two moderate ones are more moderate ones Mayhan and Via ra Goosa, Steyer would be far worse on those subjects and others.

00:10:25
Speaker 4: I agree completely, and I think it is because of that conversion sensibility. I'm a guy who used to be a Marxist, so go figure always been a Catholic. But I totally agree with you that the people who are converted, they are much.

00:10:39
Speaker 3: More what sort I'm looking forward. They're much more earnest in their beliefs.

00:10:42
Speaker 4: They didn't simply grow up this way, Get on a bus, drive around, get off at I'm a climate change alarmist. For him, You're right, this is a propitiation for many many past sins as he sees it, and the Left does. But that hasn't spared him. The Left's in dignity.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: You know.

00:10:56
Speaker 4: We started off the conversation by talking about how much the left loves to go to sex harassment claims against men, racism against white people, and they also love to pick at how a rich person is a simply rich and be how they got rich, and Styre is just cashing a load of flack again from within his own party. This is a you know, a circular firing squad in this case. You know, Katie Porter has expressed dismay that a man of tremendous wealth could have ever made his money in a legitimate way. She says that about all rich people in America, and she's been the one who's been most alarming, I think in her attack on him as a simply wealthy, rich white man. These for her are terribly alarming characteristics in anybody. And so I think that again, I just approach a lot of this, and I think you do. This is in some respects just entertaining to watch the logic of the progressive left cave in on itself, and it makes it absolutely really makes it difficult for them to build co I think, what do.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: You make of this philosophy. Among the top performing Democrats in the race, the top three stire Porter Smallwell, where they almost exclusively talk about federal issues. They talk about Donald Trump, they talk about ice, they talk about abortion, they talk about the Supreme Court. They talk about subjects that have nothing to do with the issues a California governor would have influence over. And when they're in an interview or a debate setting where they're forced to talk about some issue that is a state issue or a local issue, they have a very surface level understanding of it. It's like they haven't read much about it, they haven't thought much about it, they don't particularly seem to care much about it. They're there to I guess, position themselves as the chief foil to Donald Trump. Well, okay, you can go ahead and do that. And I guess you could position yourself to become the next Gavin, the next California governor, that's going on the national programs and talking about the national figures. But that's not what the state needs right now. What do you make of the fact that they almost regard state issues as an annoyance?

00:13:17
Speaker 4: That for too many politicians, including some on our side. You know, I speak of center right politicians. Politics is only theater, it's only performance. There is no serious issue, and there is, of course in bred in the Americans. You know, the American people a real sensitivity about elites and experts.

00:13:39
Speaker 3: We come by this.

00:13:42
Speaker 4: Wisdom, if you will, hard earned. We are a very small de democratic people. We are skeptical of experts, and I think there's good reason for that. But I think when it comes to the Democrats, what I am constantly shocked at is they are absolutely willing. I said a moment ago that the Democrats have a hard time because of the progressive politics and especially around identity, they have a hard time building coalitions. The way you build a coalition, I think, is that you point to a larger, more remote challenge that almost everybody can agree on, and the most remote challenge to California is Donald Trump. That's how they see it. So you know, seventy percent of Californians do not like Donald Trump. So all I have to say is you have to utter it like an incantation in some weird pagan ritual, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, and these people will react the way they would do a swinging watch and a magician's performance in Vegas. They will, in fact, just become mesmerized by that. Yes, yes, yes, this is the really big issue. And it's hard to argue with that human sensibility about drama. You know, the president of the United States is now engaged in a war in Iran. That's dramatic.

00:14:49
Speaker 3: That is big. It dominates the news.

00:14:52
Speaker 4: Find the Californian who knows more about the state budget, or about the impact of the California Environmental Quality Act on our inability to build a single home in this state, About our environmental radicalism that has driven our energy cost to the highest in the nation, our tax policies, they.

00:15:11
Speaker 6: Don't want to touch that.

00:15:13
Speaker 3: When you start to talk.

00:15:13
Speaker 4: About those things, you get the coalitions aiming their weapons at one another inside.

00:15:20
Speaker 3: The Democratic Party.

00:15:21
Speaker 4: But you talk about Trump and there's almost universal agreement it's the easy way to get access.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: Remember you know Karen Bass famously what issue.

00:15:28
Speaker 4: She's a lifelong activist, comes to congressman, no men and experience, no expertise in managing a large entity at all, anything larger than a congressional staff. She gets into office in LA and then just proves you really do need an expert. She can't balance the budget, she can't reduce homelessness. She was not present, she was absent without leave during the LA wildfires. I don't have to go into all the detail, but Californians love an activist. They love a theatrical person. They like a person who can promise to change the course of the universe, but can't balance a government budget. So I think that's what we've the problem we've got here with Stallwell, Stire and Katie Porter. You got a bunch of people who've with the exception of Stire, nobody there has run a business. Nobody there has had bottom line responsibility for making a dollar. And we've already talked about the problems in Sire's background. But the fact is these are not serious people. The people who are running I would argue Chad Bianco has run a department He has actually got top level call it CEO executive authority in the Sheriff's Department for the County of Riverside.

00:16:35
Speaker 3: Steve Hilton.

00:16:35
Speaker 4: You could argue doesn't have that kind of experience, But the guy is a policy wonk. I've met him, You've talked to him. This is the man who knows the details of the state budget.

00:16:44
Speaker 3: He knows why we don't have housing.

00:16:45
Speaker 4: He knows where the problem of education is buried with the teachers' union.

00:16:50
Speaker 3: He understands these nuances.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: So who would I vote for a guy who has that.

00:16:56
Speaker 3: Level of detail, that level of experience.

00:16:59
Speaker 4: I really shudder for my friends on the Democratic side who continue to pull the lever for people like a Karen Bass or a Katie Porter, and they are shocked by the results.

00:17:10
Speaker 3: Just they can't understand it.

00:17:13
Speaker 4: They do not understand the connection between total incompetence and bad policy on the one hand, and really horrible outcomes for California on the other.

00:17:22
Speaker 1: We have about one minute left, one of them is going to win. How bad is the budget situation in Sacramento that the next governor will be inheriting.

00:17:33
Speaker 4: It's worse than most Californians can really appreciate every year about this time, heading into May, when the budget conversation gets serious, we talk about, you know, whether the structural deficit is in the tens of billions or the hundreds of billions. California Policy Center or eyework comes out with an annual measure, an estimate of the actual buried costs the obligations we have going forward, and that includes paying for things like public employee retiree benefits and pension payments, that sort of thing healthcare that is nearing now. The bond debt and all these other kinds of really unexposed hidden costs are nearly two trillion dollars now, two trillion, multiples of what the California budget is, and those things are starting to really manifest themselves in local budgets. As cities and school districts struggle with budgets. There is a I'm not going to say a total collapse, but there is a strong headwind. Forever who gets into office, they're going to come front some real problems that have not been discussed fully by anybody but Hilton and to some extent, Chad Bianco.

00:18:42
Speaker 1: Will Swayin, President of the California Policy Center, host of the National Review Radio Free California Podcast. You can get them online at California Policycenter dot org and you can follow him on x at will swam Will Swayin. Thanks so much for stopping by.

00:19:00
Speaker 3: It's always my pleasure, John, Thank you.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is jellphone number one. Eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail dot com. And Randy with the end of the show about twenty six minutes away. If you want to continue listening to us after we sign off, that's easy to do.

00:19:26
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00:19:42
Speaker 1: You do a Google on the YouTube.

00:19:43
Speaker 2: Get the KABC app, the KSFO app, or even the KMJ now app because we're on that station Saturdays at noon. There are so many different ways to be listening to this noon to three show live wherever you want thanks to the magic of streaming and it's a higher quality signal, or you can download all the podcasts and listen to us whenever you'd like.

00:20:03
Speaker 1: All Right, we know that there are a number of tax increases coming up on the ballot later this year, and one of the things that tax increase proponents are doing is they're putting the proverbial gun in your head. If you don't give us our tax increase, something bad is going to happen to you and Randy. When it comes to public transit, that's certainly the case.

00:20:24
Speaker 2: We have heard doom report after doom report about how bad Bart's gonna get, which has already gotten pretty bad with all the shutdowns that have happened if they don't get their big sales tax increase. We heard Caltrains say the same thing. Well, the next one to do it is AC Transit. They say, if they don't get more funding, they're going to have to make service cuts, which means even more cars on the road because people won't be able to reliably take this public transit.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: For more, here's kron four Laurence.

00:20:59
Speaker 7: Sc Transit board of Directors is looking into potential service cuts.

00:21:03
Speaker 8: The transit agency is facing a fifty million dollar budget shortfall.

00:21:07
Speaker 4: Crawford is Gelong joining us out in the newsroom with what this could mean for Ryders Scale dan Vicki.

00:21:13
Speaker 9: There have been no changes to AC Transit bus lines yet, but the agency is now considering a few plans to close the growing budget gap. AC Transit is weighing two cutback scenarios. One shows a thirty seven million dollar gap, cutting service by eleven percent in impacting up to two hundred workers. The other would include deeper cuts of more than sixteen percent and up to three hundred jobs on the line.

00:21:38
Speaker 10: This is not just an AC Transit problem.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: No, this is a problem in every agency in the state. Apparently you notice they.

00:21:46
Speaker 1: Don't have the impulse to go We're going to bring in an auditor and we're going to find all the waste, fraud, and abuse, and we're going to get rid of all of that so we don't have to cut service to our customers.

00:21:58
Speaker 10: This is not just an AC Transit problem.

00:22:02
Speaker 9: Agencies like bar COMMUNI and Caltrain are facing similar challenges. Emily Loafer, Senior vice president of public Policy at the Bay Area Council, says transit systems were hit hard during the pandemic.

00:22:14
Speaker 2: And love, but then they got these massive bailouts, two of them, one from the Trump people in twenty twenty and then one for the Biden people in twenty twenty one, and every single transit agency used that money one time money to balloon their budgets thinking that oh, more money's coming.

00:22:30
Speaker 1: And now they're a hurt.

00:22:32
Speaker 9: And lost even more revenue.

00:22:34
Speaker 2: And the reason that we're seeing all this happen now is they got so much money that it finally ran out four years later.

00:22:43
Speaker 9: And lost even more revenue as remote work reduced ridership. Now inflation and rising costs are making things worse.

00:22:49
Speaker 10: Those are the four largest transit systems in our region, and it's really impossible to imagine a Bay Area without them.

00:22:57
Speaker 9: The Bay Area Council is pushing a regional measure this November aimed at funding public transit and preventing deep cuts.

00:23:04
Speaker 2: By the way, that's still in the signature collection phase. I don't know it's not a done deal that that one's going to make the ballot.

00:23:11
Speaker 1: The problem with California voters, though, is that they are more than willing to support tax increases if you threaten them enough. We sure have done it a lot lately.

00:23:21
Speaker 9: How dire is the situation if this measure does not pass.

00:23:25
Speaker 10: So, these four major agencies carry eighty percent of the transit riders in our region, and so these level of service.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: By the way, if I was somebody that was being forced to go into the office in San Francisco and I would tell my boss, Hey, AC transit shut down, BART shut down. I got to work remotely, Sorry, buddy.

00:23:47
Speaker 1: And they'd say, yeah, right, sit in traffic.

00:23:50
Speaker 10: These level of service cuts that they're projecting would be really catastrophic, not just taking away the transit options for people who depend on them to get to work or to school wherever they're going, but also for drivers. Now, all of those transit riders would end up on our roads and it would cause a traffic nightmare.

00:24:09
Speaker 2: Commuters are wait, the Bay Area is already a traffic nightmare.

00:24:14
Speaker 1: I guess it would be more of a nightmare.

00:24:16
Speaker 9: Commuters are already reacting.

00:24:18
Speaker 4: I think it would be foolish if we didn't have them, because then all.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: The cars would be this is the new trend, and it's going to be this bizarre situation where now every single year when we have an election, there's going to be some part of what just should be the general budget of the state of California or the county that you're in. You're going to have a special sales tax for this and a special sales tax for this, because none of these budgets can, none of these agencies can live within their means. The fact that there's going to be a ballot measure in LA to bail out the fire department is an indictment of the City of Los Angeles.

00:24:54
Speaker 1: Well, and they don't ask the relevant questions. They're asking this woman, should there be a tax and increase to prevent service cuts for public transit? But isn't the more appropriate question weren't they dumb and derelict in their duty to use one time COVID funds for pay increases.

00:25:14
Speaker 11: I think it would be foolish.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: I mean, you talked to the former director of BART, Deborah Allen. She'll talk about that the labor contracts that they negotiated were so generous, including all of this overtime that they've been spending on people not doing a whole lot of work. That's how they got into the red so fast. Sure, sure, COVID had something to do with it, but also it was BART that decided to defer maintenance, which has led to all these shutdowns recently. And it was BART and all the other transit agencies that went along with Gavin in twenty twenty and said, yeah, let's make transit free and turn all of these things into a giant homeless shelter, which drove away people for a very long time.

00:25:56
Speaker 4: I think it would be foolish if we didn't have them, because then all the cars would be on the roads and nobody would enjoy it.

00:26:02
Speaker 11: I think we need it.

00:26:04
Speaker 4: I got to worry that BART just hasn't come back the way I would have expected it to after COVID and.

00:26:10
Speaker 2: UH and I get it. A lot of that is BART shooting themselves in the foot. The ridership is coming back and at the exact same time they have had how many shutdowns in the Transbay Tube they just had one of the Embarcadero station. It's happening a lot. It is making that service a lot less reliable, and that's all on them. You can't blame that on COVID or remote work.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: And you notice a management change is not something that's part of this.

00:26:38
Speaker 2: And the other thing that's never talked about is if you need more money, why don't you increase the fares. The idea is always to make the people who aren't using the system pay for it, not the people that are using the system.

00:26:52
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous, and.

00:26:55
Speaker 4: I'm glad we're seeing a few more people out there, but we really need to use.

00:26:59
Speaker 9: These saying temporary funding helped keep systems running, but that support is set to expire next year.

00:27:05
Speaker 10: Going to the ballot in November is really our only option to prevent these massive cuts.

00:27:11
Speaker 2: And then what happens when you balloon that budget you put another sales tax increase next year, of course, and.

00:27:17
Speaker 9: As for AC Transit situation, the board is expected to vote on the two options in June, and if approved, there would still be a public input process before any final decisions on.

00:27:28
Speaker 1: Which bouts would be cut.

00:27:30
Speaker 9: Reporting here in the newsroom, gil on cron for neis all right.

00:27:33
Speaker 1: Gail, thank you, So there you go.

00:27:35
Speaker 2: AC Transit the latest Bay Area transit agency to warn that if they don't get that sales tax increase in November, they're going to be making all kinds of service cuts, making this system even less reliable than it already is.

00:27:49
Speaker 1: Let's go to Jack and Escondido. Jack hello.

00:27:53
Speaker 6: Ulcher was saying, is just tragic. Fifteen years ago Mart's unicible bonds when investment grad Now they are junk and I'm in that business and we're getting killed on both ends because if the billionaire and millionaire tax passes, all the people that buy these bonds are leaving the state if they haven't already left, and will really change things even more than Hilton winning. Is some major defaults in the California bond market, and the coverages on these bonds are not who wouldn't have free to want anymore. They're barely making enough money to pay just cover the interest on these bonds. And your earlier guest about the structural depthsit in the state of California is exhibit A. Even the State of California's general obligation bonds are being downgraded.

00:28:54
Speaker 1: It is a very scary future, particularly when you're dealing with candidates who are running for the office office of governor who aren't even running on state issues. They're running on federal issues. So all of these problems are going to catch them by surprise and they're going to not have the skills needed to be able to fix it. Thank you for the call, Sarah. Let's go to Lesson Pasadena Lass.

00:29:18
Speaker 5: Hello John Randy. Two things. First of all, I don't know if you guys ever got a Golden Mic Award, but you deserve one for your hilarious episode Katie Porter in the Kitchen. It's as good as Lucy and Ethel in the candy Factory. Well, anyway, I'm calling with good news.

00:29:37
Speaker 1: As you know.

00:29:37
Speaker 5: I called into the station on March eleventh, the day after I went to a Glendale City Council meeting and demanded the Southern California Railway Authority, which owns the track shoes by Amtrak, Mentro Lincoln Union Pacific, remove a homeless encampment under a bridge halfway between Glendale Station and Union Station. Well, I think that mayor aar Nazarian who is on the board of Metro and Mentoral life. I got the message. The encampment was removed on or about March twenty fourth, and the story gets better. Last Friday, I took the train from Union Station to Northridge after a Metrolink conductor tipped me off about homeless encampments on the railroad right of way between Northbridge and Van Eyes. He was right, three encampments on the west side of the tracks and twenty one encampments on the east side of the tracks. Before I could demand that the railway authority remove those encampments, another Metrolink conductor told me that Cruz removed those encampments on Tuesday. And my advice to anyone who is angry or frustrated about a homeless encampment in or around the neighborhood, please remember that liberal politicians are like cockroaches. They don't like the glare of bad publicity. And last for John and Randy, I want to be in the same company with Spencer Pratt, Seneca Scott, Nick Shirley and others who are trying to turn this corrupt one party stayed around.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for the call, Sir. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. Eight hundred two two two five two two two is telephone number one eight hundred two two two five to two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny Don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. Let's go to Travis and Oakland and Travis.

00:31:31
Speaker 3: Hello, John.

00:31:35
Speaker 6: If AC Transit shuts down, there's gonna be a lot less guns than people's faces, because that's what goes on in AC Transit Oakland.

00:31:45
Speaker 3: And let me say one more thing.

00:31:47
Speaker 6: Those people in sam Pablo were lucky to get a cop that wasn't busy, because there are more fistfights in big parking lots in Sam Pablo, California than just about anywhere else in.

00:31:59
Speaker 3: The world world.

00:32:00
Speaker 4: So they really lucked out finding one that wasn't busy.

00:32:05
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you for the call, sir. Let's go to Craig I San Jose, Craig Hello.

00:32:13
Speaker 12: Hello John, if bart limit's uh service? Where will the bums void their bladders? Where will the junkies empty their bowels?

00:32:31
Speaker 1: I think that's one of those questions where you probably don't want to know the answer to it.

00:32:39
Speaker 12: With if evidence is on your side.

00:32:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for the call, sir. I don't know if I needed that mental image in my head, but here we are all right. Yesterday we had Matthew Seedorf on the program, who is a reporter extraordinariy for Fox eleven and we had a discusis about all the unusual places where homeless people are now living in Los Angeles. Well, on the subject of unusual, Oh boy, did Matthew Cedorf have a humdinger last night?

00:33:13
Speaker 2: A homeless encampmen outside of a school in South LA. Where you're walking on top of tons and tons and tons of discarded condoms. Not exactly Norman rockwells America for more. Here is Fox eleven in Los Angeles and.

00:33:31
Speaker 7: Tonight long standing concerns of safety at a South LA elementary school, parents complaining about dodging homeless encampments, drugs, and prostitutes while walking their kids to class. Fox elevens of Matthew Pseudo reporting live tonight in South LA was the latest Matthew Well.

00:33:50
Speaker 13: Christine, this is something that parents say that they've been complaining about for years, and today finally city crews cleared out those encampments, but already some are back.

00:34:00
Speaker 1: Of course, it is a game of black them all.

00:34:05
Speaker 13: Only hours after a city cleanup, a notorious and cam in returns near an elementary school with flames.

00:34:11
Speaker 14: They come back within an hour. Someone just said, oh, which is waiting for them to clean up and we gonna get back.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: It's almost like we have a maid that comes and cleans up their house. Is the maid like the one on the Brady Bunch who dates the butcher?

00:34:26
Speaker 11: That's how bad it is.

00:34:27
Speaker 13: About a block from sixty first Street Elementary School is the one ten freeway underpass.

00:34:32
Speaker 14: Not that A pipes that are broken, epheesist, massive condoms used?

00:34:36
Speaker 1: Whoa wait, massive condoms used? Is she talking about the size of the condoms or the number of the condoms on the street. It's unclear.

00:34:47
Speaker 14: No, that ap pipes that are broken epheesist, massive condoms used.

00:34:53
Speaker 1: It could just be one person If it's massive condoms a.

00:34:56
Speaker 13: Spot parents and their kids, daily dodge tents, mounts, trash, drugs and violence just to get to class.

00:35:03
Speaker 11: And people having sex in their cars.

00:35:06
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Oh so this is also on a blade and there's a bunch of prostitution going on.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: If that cars are rocking, don't go and knocking.

00:35:15
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe that's where the condoms are coming from. Maybe they just discard them at the homeless encampment.

00:35:22
Speaker 8: And once they're done, they throw the used condoms on the sidewalk in on the street and this.

00:35:27
Speaker 1: Is I can't wait for the Olympics to come. So what goes on when they do that? They just throw the condom on the street. They go back to mother nature from which it came.

00:35:41
Speaker 11: Directly where children are walking to and from school.

00:35:43
Speaker 14: Had a parent that actually comes into school and she has two kids, and she was snatched by one of the homeless and comment and was placing the tent.

00:35:50
Speaker 1: WHOA, that's no fun.

00:35:53
Speaker 13: Several residents have voiced concerns.

00:35:56
Speaker 11: I've been in contact with City nine and also.

00:35:58
Speaker 2: The Oh current price and answer in your calls, he's got a corruption trial to deal with.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all those calls are followed on deaf ears.

00:36:06
Speaker 8: I've been in contact with City nine and also the school for since twenty twenty one, trying to get them to come up with permanent solutions.

00:36:14
Speaker 13: What's been the solution so far?

00:36:15
Speaker 11: Zero?

00:36:18
Speaker 1: Well, it's on brand zero.

00:36:21
Speaker 14: I've called three one one, I've done it through the app. I report when there's actually fires, when I have got him here at the fire department, journey, Oh yeah, we know the boy the names, but we can't do nothing about it.

00:36:36
Speaker 2: We know these homeless people buy their names. Ones that start fires every day, but there's nothing we can do about it.

00:36:43
Speaker 1: This is how we live in Los Angeles.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: This is the kind of nonsense that leads to over half of all response from the fire department being homeless related.

00:36:53
Speaker 13: Finally, Wednesday, city crews cleared it out, but within hours some homeless return to trash cans back. We walked in and found this fire burning over motor oil.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: Oh my, I'm telling you, it's like the day after the end of the world.

00:37:08
Speaker 13: Then turned around after seeing a man neighbors say consistently carries a machete that I.

00:37:14
Speaker 11: Am very, very disappointed with.

00:37:16
Speaker 13: The CD parents demanding a lasting fix so kids can walk to school safely, respectfully.

00:37:22
Speaker 14: Come as Jo Dessy, come and do your job because these kids deserve better.

00:37:26
Speaker 2: Well, you're gonna have to get different representation at the city council level, and you're going to need to have a different mayor.

00:37:33
Speaker 1: If you want to see anything change, yep, start voting differently, Rosie Perez.

00:37:39
Speaker 13: We reached out to counsemember Current Price as well as the school district is so far tight, we're still waiting to hear back. Reporting live Matthew Seedorf Fox elevenues.

00:37:47
Speaker 2: There you go, the latest in Matthew Seedorf's what seems like never ending series of where are the Homeless Today?

00:37:54
Speaker 1: He could turn all this into a book. All right, that's going to do it for us. Today we'll be