Ep. 257: Live at the 2024 CAGOP Convention

[00:00:01] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense,

[00:00:13] or just a sane person, this is the political podcast for you. It's the California Underground

[00:00:19] Podcast.

[00:00:29] What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning into another episode of the California Underground

[00:00:32] Podcast. We are here live at the California GOP Convention 2024 deep in the heart of

[00:00:39] the East. We are in Burlingame, which is basically San Francisco at this point. It's like 10 or 15 minutes away from San Francisco, close to the San

[00:00:46] Francisco airport. We're here live on the convention floor. Hopefully we get to see a lot of candidates walking by. I think there's a big

[00:00:53] luncheon event going on right now, which is why there's not a lot of people walking around. When did you say, Christy Noem, I

[00:00:59] think, is the featured guest this year, right?

[00:01:01] Yes. I don't know if PETA is outside or not.

[00:01:05] I didn't see PETA when I drove in, but that was a while ago. Maybe they figured out when she was going to show up. For those of you who don't know

[00:01:13] the story about Christy Noem, she wrote a book or ghost wrote a book. I'm sure she had someone ghost write her book and it had a

[00:01:21] story about how she had to put her dog down because he was aggressive. Here we are. She's the big guest speaker. It wasn't like

[00:01:28] the last convention where we had Trump come in. That was a big convention. Lots of people were there. As always with me, my

[00:01:35] trusty cohost, best and fastest researcher in the West, Camille. In person, here we are on the convention floor. How are you

[00:01:42] doing?

[00:01:43] I'm good. I'm good. You're making me wear these rigidness headphones, but I'll get through it.

[00:01:48] All the fun of doing a live podcast. We are now live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Rumble. Something

[00:01:57] about Instagram says it cuts us off after an hour. If you're watching on Instagram and it cuts out, make sure you go check

[00:02:03] us out over on YouTube and Rumble. That's where we'll be continuing to podcast. So any stories that we should get started

[00:02:11] on off the top of your head, we kind of are going to do so the how we're going to do this whole show today, because we

[00:02:18] are going to span three hours, we're gonna take some breaks in between because we do need to take some breaks.

[00:02:23] We're going to be interviewing candidates who stopped by. We know some people were looking forward to chatting with us

[00:02:28] for a little bit, but we're also gonna be kind of doing like rapid fire stories. There's really no theme to today to today's

[00:02:34] show. So we just have a whole bunch of stories we're going to talk about. So is there anything, anything convention wise

[00:02:41] that we should know about right now?

[00:02:42] Well, I'm going to mention it is a smaller convention this year. Like you said, the last one we had that

[00:02:48] Grandmaswamy, Ronda Santis and Donald Trump. So that was obviously a very busy, very popular convention. And this

[00:02:55] one's a little bit slower. A lot of candidates are campaigning. So I think only mostly mainly just like local ones showed

[00:03:04] up a lot down south are they've got events going on. I'm actually a runner the registration booth and just a moment ago, I

[00:03:10] was watching guys just spinning in his chair to tell you how busy it is. And so I don't say that in a negative way,

[00:03:16] but it is definitely slower than the last one where we just had candidates literally lined up. But we're like, Okay, thank

[00:03:23] you, next. Thank you, next. And that's not the case here.

[00:03:26] Yeah. Yeah, it's always interesting to see the ebbs and flows of convention if you've never been to a convention. It depends

[00:03:34] on what year it is, is it presidential year? Is it election year? Because you got to think a lot of these candidates are

[00:03:39] trying to drum up support for nominations for endorsements from the party. So it really depends on sort of the time of

[00:03:47] the year, what year it is. Obviously, the last one was really hectic because Trump was there. So that was that was a

[00:03:54] big one. It also depends on who they get to come for speakers. If you get a big name, usually a lot of people will

[00:04:00] show up. But, you know, it is, again, we're not trying to say it's it's a bad thing. We're just trying to give

[00:04:08] you an idea of what's happening on the convention floor right now. And if you're not here, what the feeling of

[00:04:14] convention is, I think it's a little quieter right now. Like I said, because there is that luncheon speaker before when we

[00:04:20] were getting set up, we did get a lot of people who were walking by asking about the podcast, not really knowing what

[00:04:27] the podcast, like, what's the podcast? What's it all about? So we also are been giving out these really cool

[00:04:34] stickers that Camille came up with. So people have been going nuts about the stickers. I am rocking my brand

[00:04:41] new local elections matter shirt, which you were rocking yours last night. And I think we both got the same

[00:04:50] reactions like you get a lot of people who kind of do a double take that kind of look at and they see it

[00:04:54] out of the corner there. I was like, Huh, is that BLM shirt? Oh, no. Okay. It's local elections. Oh,

[00:04:59] that's pretty cool, man. Okay. So I've been walking around the convention. I get a lot of people giving me sort

[00:05:04] of the side eye right now.

[00:05:06] Okay, but show the shirt and then tell them where to go.

[00:05:10] Go go to California underground live. And then if you go to shop, right on there, it will take you to our full

[00:05:17] teespring shop, which has all of our shirts, including a new one designed by Camille as well as the

[00:05:23] California is worth fighting for as long as as well as this one local elections matter. That's a new one.

[00:05:28] It's really soft material too soft and stretchy, which is good. So yeah, go check it out. We got a lot of

[00:05:34] things on there as well. Some other stuff like the elites hate you support or stop Brown at support nuclear

[00:05:40] is one of my favorites. And yeah, I guess we should get the show started. Okay. So what serious topic are

[00:05:49] we going to talk about? So the first topic that I think is really important to talk about is we'll talk

[00:05:56] about this one later. Is psychedelics? No, that's not really the first one I want to talk about.

[00:06:01] I just saw he's got these I have a billion tabs open right now and I'm trying to let's talk about

[00:06:09] first the fact that the the budget deficit that is happening right now is a kind of blessing in

[00:06:17] disguise because it stops the legislature from passing all sorts of crazy bills. For those of you

[00:06:25] who don't know, states are not like the federal government. The states cannot take on huge amounts

[00:06:33] of debt. They're supposed to balance their budget every single year. So you can't have you can't

[00:06:40] have states going in the red, they can't have $73 billion in a deficit. So what happens is oh,

[00:06:46] we might have our first candidate we'll come back to this story in a little bit.

[00:06:52] Hold that thought hold that thought. We might have our first candidate arriving live on the scene as he

[00:07:00] gets settled in.

[00:07:02] Come on, sit down, throw on some headphones. Your mic is hot and ready to go.

[00:07:10] Will you click on the videos? Yeah, yeah, we can make sure he's in here. Perfect.

[00:07:16] We'll give him just a second to get given a second to get started. His wife is taking photos. I love

[00:07:21] it.

[00:07:23] Okay, just make sure his microphone is on. You have not met Phil. I know we got to a chance to

[00:07:28] meet each other last night. So Phil, Ronald, and what's your name? Come here. Hold the mic a

[00:07:37] little closer and then introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you're running for, what

[00:07:43] you're doing and then we'll chat. Okay, Camille, I'm a first time candidate. My name is Ron Edwards.

[00:07:51] Ronald is a proper name but I go by Ron. And yeah, first time candidate. No big name. No money.

[00:08:01] No volunteers. You're not alone in that. So you know what my situation is. So if anybody

[00:08:07] wants to help me, they can. Met you last night. I've been meeting a lot of good people. Lots of

[00:08:16] good people are here at this event. So God is blessing me and blessing all of us as we connect

[00:08:23] with one another.

[00:08:26] What seat are you running for?

[00:08:27] I'm running for the California State Legislature, District Number 60. It's a D plus 24 on paper.

[00:08:37] Okay. I emphasize on paper because you know, reality is different than on paper. You know,

[00:08:45] accounting, you can put stuff down on paper but that's not how it's gonna be in real life. So

[00:08:51] we're ready to flip the seat.

[00:08:53] Who are you running against? I'm sorry.

[00:08:55] The Democrat in that seat is named Corey Jackson. African American black guy. Say he's a

[00:09:02] Christian and gay. Once to defund the police wants to take children out of the family's home.

[00:09:13] If the mom and dad says they disagree with the kid being a transvestite, just lunacy and put

[00:09:21] them in government homes, foster care. Has anybody seen the results of kids in foster care?

[00:09:27] Take a kid out of a good home with a mom and a dad. That's insane. That's insanity. Everything

[00:09:34] these Democrats are doing is insanity. It's totally against common sense. I tell people

[00:09:41] all the time, you don't need to be a rocket scientist. You don't have to have a degree in

[00:09:46] public administration. It's common sense. A lot of this stuff is common sense. We know how

[00:09:53] to live life. We know how to be successful. My wife and I, we've been married 40 years. I got 38

[00:10:00] years federal government service, United States Army, United States Postal Service. My son

[00:10:05] graduated straight A student, calculus two, physics two. He's at the University of

[00:10:11] Wisconsin-Madison majoring in computer science. We know how to raise a kid. We know what

[00:10:16] kids need to be successful. They need a lot of things. They need stability in the home,

[00:10:22] number one. If the home life is in turmoil, that kid is going to have a lot of problems.

[00:10:29] A kid is supposed to love his mom and he's supposed to love his dad. He's not supposed

[00:10:34] to hate his mom. You're not supposed to hate his dad. Supposed to love both parents.

[00:10:40] You can't beat God's system. I'm a licensed minister. So I'm not even supposed to be

[00:10:47] here. I tell people, but God wanted me to be here. So that's why I'm running for this office

[00:10:53] because California needs common sense. And there's a lot of things we can talk about

[00:10:58] when it comes to common sense. I tell people and speaking engagement, I just had

[00:11:04] a couple of weeks ago, I said, if you give me $320 billion with the B, I'm going to

[00:11:11] give you two things. Number one, I'm going to give you a receipt. Number two, I'm going

[00:11:17] to give you some change. Common sense. If you give me money to go buy something,

[00:11:23] I'll take your money. I'll come back with a receipt. And number two, I'll give you the

[00:11:28] change. Where's the receipt and where's the change in California? $320 billion.

[00:11:34] And this is common sense and foundational things or what we need to get back to. So if you're a

[00:11:42] baseball player and you forget your fundamentals, you're not hitting the ball over the fence.

[00:11:48] So you're going to go back down to the minors and a coach like me or some other coach is

[00:11:52] going to teach you fundamentals. Those coaches down there don't have the big height like the

[00:11:57] big coach at the majors, but those coaches know fundamental things. So I've coached baseball,

[00:12:02] I've coached basketball, I've coached at the middle school level. I've coached, my kid went to

[00:12:09] Las Vegas, played in summer leagues and it's fundamentals. Everything in life is

[00:12:14] fundamental. You can never forget fundamentals. So if you want to be this great mathematician,

[00:12:19] you never can forget zero through nine. I don't care if you want to be a great novelist,

[00:12:25] you can't forget your ABCs. It's just fundamental things. Three times three is nine,

[00:12:31] two times two is four. You can't forget those things. And so we have a lot of people in

[00:12:36] society that are offering people solutions, but they don't include the fundamentals. They

[00:12:44] leave those things out and so California is going down. I heard a rumor and I don't want

[00:12:50] to disparage, but someone said you were a former Democrat, now turned Republican. Is that

[00:12:54] correct? Yeah. Well, Republicans should be grateful to any Democrats, independent, non-party

[00:13:04] preference that comes over to the party. The whole thing that Republicans should be focused on

[00:13:11] is getting independents, Democrats, non-party preference to come over. And then they should

[00:13:18] be celebrating those independents, no party preference and Democrats that come over.

[00:13:24] Yeah. You should be, it's like I'm having a party and I'm inviting people to come over.

[00:13:27] And then when a person comes over to the party, you look at them cross-eyed. That's

[00:13:31] ridiculous. So you were a Democrat? In a black community, what's the large amount of black

[00:13:38] and brown people when they turn 18, you know what they're going to be? Yeah. They're

[00:13:42] going to be what? Democrats. That's just fundamental. That's just the way it is.

[00:13:47] The Democrats have the black and the brown, the minorities voting Democrat. We all know that.

[00:13:53] So why would we be astonished when people come over and they used to be a Democrat? It's

[00:14:00] ridiculous. I'm always curious what like for you, what was it for you that woke you up,

[00:14:05] if you will? I kind of hate saying that, but to switch parties. Now, what brought me

[00:14:11] to the Republican party is me and my wife got married. I think I was around 26 years old

[00:14:19] and I'm working. I've got a wife. My relationship with Jesus Christ was taking off,

[00:14:28] meaning that I'm not going to church because of my mom. I'm not going to church because

[00:14:33] of my dad. I'm going to church because of me. My relationship with Jesus Christ was now a

[00:14:40] personal relationship. So now God is not for abortion. God is not for homosexuality.

[00:14:49] So no person talked to me. Nobody convinced me to come over to the Republican party.

[00:14:55] My relationship with Jesus Christ brought me over to the Republican party. So I started voting

[00:15:00] for Republicans in 1984. I tell people I'm a Ronald Reagan Republican. So that's when I

[00:15:10] started voting Democrat. I didn't change my party because I wasn't a political person.

[00:15:16] I just started voting different. I've been voting for Republicans since 1984.

[00:15:23] And so just recently, because of all the chaos that's been going on, I'm watching

[00:15:28] our country get invaded. I'm watching our country go down the tubes. I'm watching our citizens lose

[00:15:34] their individual freedoms. You can't go to a job unless you take some drugs. Are you kidding me?

[00:15:40] So then I started getting activated and I found the Republican party. And as I started

[00:15:45] getting more involved in political things, then I changed my party. I had no need to change

[00:15:52] your party because I wasn't politically active. I just voted. So now I had to change my party

[00:15:58] because now I'm getting politically active. So you had mentioned that it's 20 plus D. 24.

[00:16:06] So obviously, you know the numbers. You have an uphill battle in terms of reaching across

[00:16:12] the aisle like we're talking about. You have to reach across the aisle. And I think there's a

[00:16:15] lot of people who maybe vote D or vote Democrat just as a reflex or that's just part of they

[00:16:23] grew up and that's the culture. What's your plan to kind of reach out to disenfranchise Democrats

[00:16:30] and independents? No, good question. And once again, the Lord has been my guide in life.

[00:16:37] He really has. Jesus is a personal savior. In other words, he speaks to you individually.

[00:16:47] What he tells Peter, he might not tell Paul. What he tells one person,

[00:16:51] he might not tell another person. But it was my relationship with God that got me

[00:16:58] involved in this kind of thing. So what God has prepared me to do

[00:17:06] is to speak to the Black Christians because that's what I am, Black Christian. So this

[00:17:12] is what I tell them. I say everything we preach about, everything we teach about,

[00:17:18] everything we pray about, everything we teach our kids, everything we say we believe. Why do

[00:17:25] we go and vote for men that legislate just the opposite? That's a straightforward message. Those

[00:17:32] five points. We preach it, we teach it, we teach our kids, we pray about it, and we believe

[00:17:38] those things. And then you vote for men that legislate just the opposite. Yeah, that don't

[00:17:43] make sense. It don't make common sense. I'm the common sense candidate.

[00:17:48] Do you see a positive response to that message? Do you see people picking up on that?

[00:17:55] Absolutely. It's like chopping down a tree.

[00:18:00] I like your card. Sorry, you're talking. I'm going to get this card.

[00:18:07] It's well designed.

[00:18:09] Thank you. I'm the common sense candidate. So it's like chopping down a tree. If I was back in

[00:18:13] the military and I was in Kansas, and I'm in waist deep snow, we have to chop wood to make

[00:18:18] fires in Kansas. And so I'm chopping wood and chips are coming off and I'm getting people.

[00:18:26] And Black men more than any other dynamic demographic are coming over to the Republic

[00:18:31] Party. Not the Black women, it's the Black men. Everybody should know that. We're conservative.

[00:18:38] We're conservative as a group. We're conservative. It doesn't mean that you got liberals and

[00:18:45] progressives and chaos going on, but nothing is 100%. But the Black men especially are coming

[00:18:52] over. So now, as men, we don't talk to people. We go to the marketplace or we go wherever,

[00:18:58] shopping, whatever. We're not talking to anybody. We just kind of minding our own business.

[00:19:02] So now what God has done with me, he's prepared me. So now last time we was in Costco,

[00:19:07] me and my wife was together. She was pushing the basket. She ended up way down the aisle

[00:19:12] and I was still talking to a guy. So now I'm talking to people at the gym.

[00:19:18] I'm talking to people at Costco. Wherever I go, I'm talking to people. God has prepared

[00:19:24] me to do that. And so yeah, people are coming, they're peeling off. They're peeling

[00:19:29] off. I got photos right now on my phone from Black men that's like, yeah, man, I agree

[00:19:34] with you. You know, especially when you start telling them about the transvestite stuff,

[00:19:38] the homosexual stuff, this stuff is just not natural. It's not natural for human beings to

[00:19:46] man with men, women with women. It's just not natural. And we have to say these things

[00:19:51] because the left will say absurdities and they'll see it like it's truth. So the Democrats,

[00:19:58] they tell lies. Joe Biden tell lies and they tell it like it's the truth. Gavin

[00:20:02] Newsom, he tells so many lies and it's just like it's true. And it's the opposite of truth.

[00:20:08] So we have truth on our side and we need to proclaim it. And that's what I'm doing.

[00:20:13] So running for assembly, there's a lot of things wrong with California. I mean,

[00:20:18] we can go on all day. What's wrong with California? First thing you would get

[00:20:23] accomplished if you were elected in the first, let's say 60 days,

[00:20:27] what's the first thing you want to accomplish? Yeah, and I'm not a professional politician.

[00:20:33] I'm not a guy that's like got all the I's dotted T's crossed and, you know,

[00:20:39] got this resume that's just so and I got these points all perfect things. But

[00:20:46] two things I see that's the problem that I will work on first. Number one is public safety.

[00:20:52] Mm hmm. If you can't have property possessions and somebody can just take it from you,

[00:21:05] you have nothing. Somebody can just take your car. Yeah, somebody can just take your purse.

[00:21:10] Somebody just take whatever you own. You have nothing. Yeah. So prime public safety has to be

[00:21:18] addressed. We have to fund the police, give them the police dogs, give them the whatever other

[00:21:26] tool they need at their disposal. We need to support them. I would be the law enforcement

[00:21:35] candidate that will support law enforcement. We have to have laws. A civil society has to

[00:21:41] have laws. You cannot go squat in somebody's house. They got illegals coming here right now

[00:21:46] getting government funding and food, phones and everything else housing. And then they go squat

[00:21:52] in people's houses right now. That's happening right now. You say what are you in people's

[00:21:57] eyes like are you are you know it's happening right now. We're squatters. And so the judges

[00:22:03] are coming down on the side with the squatters because the people that's in power

[00:22:07] in a lot of places, they're the progressives and the globalists and they're taking over.

[00:22:13] So number one would be crime. Number two would be public education. Public education,

[00:22:20] reading, writing, doing arithmetic. Those are that's just basic fundamental things.

[00:22:26] You got to be prepared to help society to be productive in society. I raised my son and I

[00:22:33] never depended on the teachers to teach my son everything. We always work. I taught him.

[00:22:40] We always work. I said you can work five days a week, take two days off on a weekend or you

[00:22:44] could work seven days a week and do a little bit less you know but you work all the time.

[00:22:49] Same principle during the summer we never take summers off. We work all throughout the year.

[00:22:55] We never stop working so from the time he was in seventh grade we were always at a division

[00:23:01] one university so he wouldn't be afraid of higher education. So we was at division one

[00:23:06] school seventh grade eighth grade in the summer ninth grade in the summer 11th grade always in

[00:23:11] school take him down to USC take him to UCR take him to the college up there in Moreno Valley.

[00:23:19] Those things so we don't take any time off and what I taught him I say RJ if you're

[00:23:24] successful at school you can be successful in real life because it's the same thing.

[00:23:29] So you do your homework, you do your classwork, you do your projects. When you finish with all

[00:23:34] of that I'm not talking to the teacher you talk to the teacher and ask the teacher can I do some

[00:23:39] extra work. If you do those things on the job you'll be very successful. Yeah don't slack off

[00:23:44] always work hard. Would you be in favor of supporting school choice? I am I was the school

[00:23:51] choice lead in Moreno Valley. I was the lead. I led it. I stood in front of targets. I had

[00:23:57] police called on me and I read them my rights. You gotta know your rights if we can

[00:24:02] engage in civic engagement in the public place, in the marketplace of ideas. It's a public place

[00:24:09] so you can speak. You're a citizen and engage. I was the lead on school choice. It's your money.

[00:24:16] It's taxpayers money. I tell people politicians don't have money they have your money and you

[00:24:21] know what I tell them? I say I want my money back. Yeah yeah I think well I think to your point

[00:24:29] about how you've raised your son I think school choice is one of the things where it allows parents

[00:24:33] to guide their children into schools that fit that goal of you know different styles of learning.

[00:24:41] Get them out of public education and focus on more of the results and let them choose and I'm

[00:24:48] a big fan of the marketplace and let the free market choose where those tax dollars or where

[00:24:52] those dollars should go and I think it's a good way to kind of cure this issue here in

[00:24:58] public because I don't know you know more about education Camille. Where do we rank in terms of

[00:25:02] math in California? We're definitely at the bottom. I hear I've seen 50th, I've seen 48th

[00:25:07] yeah but somewhere at the bottom so sure we're at the bottom for sure. Yeah and then you

[00:25:13] think about the amount of money we spend on public education, the unions especially the

[00:25:17] teachers unions. So tell us where can people find you and support you and learn more about

[00:25:24] you. Well I do have a website on the websites here it's Ronald Edwards for assembly

[00:25:35] 2024.com this is the campaign name and that's F-O-R not the not the digit four.

[00:25:42] Ronald Edwards for assembly dot com that's the website. I'm on social media, I'm on

[00:25:51] Instagram, I'm on Facebook and yeah awesome. Thank you yeah I'm glad to be here with you guys.

[00:25:59] Thank you for being here thank your wife too thank thank you for supporting him and she's

[00:26:03] taking video and stuff so that's important always having a supportive wife absolutely what

[00:26:08] they say behind every great man is a great woman absolutely obviously well obviously.

[00:26:14] So thank you again Ronald it's nice to meet you and thank you for stopping by and chatting.

[00:26:17] So everyone who's watching and listening check out Ronald if you're in his district or want to

[00:26:21] support him check him out. Thanks for being here absolutely nice meeting you as well.

[00:26:27] Don't get all tangled up I know we've got a lot of wires here.

[00:26:30] So

[00:26:49] they're twinning they're twinning right now they're

[00:26:54] rocking some some blue suits yeah

[00:27:03] yeah uh I think we interviewed him last time he was yeah he was on last time but he so he

[00:27:12] obviously won the primary won the primary so he's onto the general come take a seat no better

[00:27:18] time than the present come on down are you is that you that's great are you able to put

[00:27:37] on over your uh your hat there I don't know if you want to take off your hat and then

[00:27:42] great sorry great um okay so we got uh is it Jim this isn't him sorry we made you take your

[00:27:54] hat off I know we're a little more professional oh there we go a little more professional this

[00:27:59] time yeah we it's tough to hear with all the background noise can you just tap the back of

[00:28:05] screen it'll go blank and so if you just literally just tap the screen

[00:28:12] just tap the screen and like that's it yeah like that you know like when the iphone goes

[00:28:17] blank you're just tapping it to like thank you yeah no yeah that's it thank you thank you okay

[00:28:25] sorry all right next up Jim Schumacher welcome back Jim we talked to you last convention

[00:28:32] you're running for the primary so you made it onto the general congratulations

[00:28:36] awesome before we get started why don't you tell people what seat you're running for where

[00:28:40] that's located I'm running for and it's Jim Schumacher Schumacher yeah sorry not the German

[00:28:46] version I'm running for the fifth senate district and it's in northern California

[00:28:52] it's in San Joaquin county and part of Alameda county which we consider the tri-valley

[00:28:58] area of Alameda it only encompasses the two two areas and 100% of San Joaquin

[00:29:06] it's just south of Sacramento county and Stanislaus county is on the southern side of us so

[00:29:14] right there central valley okay where all the water comes from where all the water comes from

[00:29:19] a lot of farming comes from there too largest largest grow of walnuts and ammons

[00:29:24] okay so we talked to you last time you're moving on to the general election

[00:29:30] why don't you remind us some of your top priorities what you're running on and why

[00:29:34] you're running for this specific senate seat well where we are right now in the state

[00:29:41] of California and the circumstances that are we're suffering through mainly about our children

[00:29:50] protecting our children from what the state's trying to do in our schools and taking away

[00:29:57] parental rights to their children also the crime issue is our second top-notch thing I think

[00:30:03] that's really a concern throughout the whole state in our area it's right up there because

[00:30:09] they're putting many many small business owners out of business because of it and the

[00:30:15] prosecution situation the other the other issue is the economy I mean bottom line gas prices

[00:30:23] where they are now I think a lot of people do have no idea how much gas prices affect

[00:30:32] everything that we do in this state from our food costs to to everything because supply and

[00:30:40] demand requires trucks and right now as of just on another note tomorrow on Sunday the

[00:30:53] what is it I just went blank on our California environmental guys what are they that carb

[00:31:03] carb regulations will kick in and a number of trucking companies will now not be allowed to

[00:31:08] utilize their trucks because they are using engines over 2010 or older and so that's going to affect

[00:31:18] hundreds of small business owners that have maybe two three from one to eight trucks which is a lot

[00:31:24] of guys who do a lot of delivery services for the construction industry and other areas can I

[00:31:30] interrupt you real quick can we talk about how backwards that is that we are this oh we need

[00:31:35] to we need to be clean and we need to recycle we need to all these things and yet they're

[00:31:39] they're wanting to just throw all these engines into a landfill basically they I'm gonna I'll go

[00:31:46] back a little farther back in the 90s I had a trucking business back in the 80s my truck got

[00:31:53] four and a half miles to the gallon whether it was loaded or empty going uphill or downhill

[00:31:57] I don't care in the 90s we started to improve fuel mileage on our semis quite a bit

[00:32:06] and towards the end of the 90s early 2000s our trucks were getting anywhere from 10 to 14 15

[00:32:13] miles a gallon with all the new regulations that carb kicked in all of a sudden those

[00:32:18] require those numbers dropped half went back to five six miles a gallon so now you're driving

[00:32:28] twice as far supposedly saving co2 and yet you're dumping twice the co2 because you're using

[00:32:37] twice the fuel so the same question this is all nonsense this is all about control

[00:32:43] and controlling the means of production and and everything else that we have so and energy

[00:32:50] how do you go to how do you go to electric batteries when we don't produce enough energy

[00:32:56] to supply the need well it's kind of like this ridiculous idea that they want trucks

[00:33:01] to be electric by a certain amount of time but my wife she works in the trucking industry

[00:33:07] okay and she tells me all the time she goes that we don't have the technology so the state

[00:33:12] is telling us you have to be done by 2035 or whatever they keep pushing it back but the

[00:33:18] technology isn't even close to being developed they don't have it so i don't think people

[00:33:23] realize if you cut off trucking in the state of california because of this alternative goal

[00:33:30] of of green energy and all that you think groceries are expensive now you know you go

[00:33:36] to the grocery store now and you think inflation's bad wait until trucks can't come

[00:33:40] and deliver the food exactly will be a food desert here in california we won't be able to

[00:33:44] have anything it's one of those like near-sighted policies that comes out of sacramento right well

[00:33:50] this is this is to me this is all by design this is control this is not some idiot this

[00:33:58] i mean we do have those but you know we you have too many of them that are sitting there

[00:34:03] by design creating this chaos that we have because how do you take a semi-truck

[00:34:10] these two batteries they're 8 000 pounds each so now you got 16 000 pounds of battery

[00:34:17] in a truck and they're trying to get waivers from the federal government so that they can

[00:34:21] haul you know we roughly are on an 80 000 pound basis for our trucks that's what we

[00:34:27] can haul yeah and they're trying to get a waiver now for these trucks so they can make up the

[00:34:33] difference of the less amount that they can haul now that same truck only can go 150 maybe

[00:34:39] 200 miles and then it's going to take almost 24 hours to recharge it yeah so outside of the

[00:34:47] infrastructure we haven't built any power plants we're taking power plants out of service

[00:34:55] i mean even that even our goofball governor realized if he shuts down the only nuclear power

[00:35:00] plant we have you're going to lose 12 to 13 percent of electricity in the state of california

[00:35:05] yeah and so they can't do that we don't have any replacements and this is where the people

[00:35:11] have got to realize they gotta quit listening these people one what is the co2 level in the

[00:35:18] atmosphere right now it's 0.04 at 0.02 we start dying because everything else will die

[00:35:26] you know all our trees plants and everything else so you're going to tell me we're going

[00:35:31] to panic because of that percentage of co2 in the air if we had more co2 we will green

[00:35:37] everything because that's what the plants that we live off of will survive but the state of

[00:35:45] california because of the regulations and the rules and everything that they've created

[00:35:49] they're putting small businesses out and they're wiping out everything that we have and along

[00:35:56] with crime you know they want to get rid of uh you know the only way for normal people

[00:36:02] to protect themselves is you know by getting rid of the guns and it's like but you're not

[00:36:07] willing to lock up criminals or you know prosecute any of these people so i always find

[00:36:14] that kind of contradictory that the policy out of sacramento is well we want everything to be

[00:36:21] green and running on electric yeah yet we keep shutting down things that produce electricity

[00:36:29] and while they say oh we have solar panels and wind panels and all that stuff

[00:36:33] it's nowhere as close as like nuclear power um and you can't have one without the other so

[00:36:40] you're trying to make this goal of well everything needs to be electric we want our

[00:36:43] cars to be electric we want our trucks to be electric we want our lawn mowers to be electric

[00:36:47] i mean they just banned gas-powered lawn mowers and lawn care equipment but there's not enough

[00:36:52] electricity and the grid can't even handle what we have now they're telling you don't charge your

[00:36:57] electric car don't turn on your ac when it gets hot so it always seems contradictory that

[00:37:03] they're they're shutting down the amount of electricity we have but then also saying but

[00:37:07] you're also required to have literally everything be electric so listen it just

[00:37:12] last summer where they had the announcement of shutting down another power plant and literally

[00:37:16] 24 hours later please don't charge your vehicles yes yeah they were they were telling us because

[00:37:22] we can't yeah they told you don't charge your electric vehicles because the grid can't take it

[00:37:27] and so what are people with electric vehicles supposed to do just not go to work i guess i

[00:37:33] i don't know well you know but this goes back to the foolishness of this of government

[00:37:37] thinking they can run everything yeah and like i said it is by design that's what they're

[00:37:41] doing create the chaos we need to go back and build nuclear power plants we need to put in

[00:37:48] gas-fired generation which could be up and running a lot quicker and two go to go to hybrids or

[00:37:56] others but the idea that we're empowering and making china very wealthy with the idea of

[00:38:05] solar and wind because all those components come from china so we're not supporting our

[00:38:11] own industries you look at the windmills you're dropping 30 tons of concrete in the ground

[00:38:17] roughly i think between 10 and 15 000 tons of steel for the rebar and then you're you know

[00:38:25] that takes all those trucks yeah that takes a you know the excavators to dig the hole for it

[00:38:30] and you're utilizing all this equipment that as we said we don't have an electric so

[00:38:37] so going back to um i mean we can continue on the energy issue and specifically about oil here

[00:38:44] in california what's your thoughts on the fact that we are basically an oil what do they call it

[00:38:52] an oil island even though we have a number of refineries and we have oil in california

[00:38:58] instead we import it from ecuador latin america what's your thoughts on the fact that we just

[00:39:02] don't even drill for oil in california well we like to get oil from our adversaries and so we

[00:39:08] can spend more and then when you start to look at the idea of the shipping aspect of it

[00:39:15] california only looks at the pollution from the ship 12 miles out yeah and it's like going

[00:39:22] okay hold it but that ship left venezuela or or you know wherever it's coming from

[00:39:28] and traveling and you're going to only account for that i'm a drill baby drill man we got more

[00:39:35] oil natural resources in the state of california there's no reason we can't build this industry

[00:39:40] up again hot you know they talk about all the jobs in the green energy well yeah in china

[00:39:47] but we got great jobs here in the energy you know area i mean all over this state and we

[00:39:54] know how to do it cleanly this is what's nuts i mean you're going to have us go back to burning

[00:40:00] wood you know and stuff to stay warm and all day out on wood burning fireplaces so

[00:40:05] no you can't do that even build houses well yeah i know it's it's ridiculous because

[00:40:11] you know i i grew up with a fireplace so you know and the thing yeah and it's like you know

[00:40:18] what we'll come in with a burning stove and put a hole in the wall and get that thing working

[00:40:23] illegal yeah well and that's the other thing think about that they're training our children

[00:40:29] and others to tell on their neighbors you know because we have a program in the you know

[00:40:35] with the environmental air resources board you know 800 number call us if your if you

[00:40:43] your neighbor's burning you know and it's like you know this is insane you know teach teach

[00:40:49] people to be communist yeah so yeah so uh question i like to ask all candidates

[00:40:59] get elected it's your first 60 days what's the number one priority

[00:41:02] try to find who we can work with okay try to try to make as quick relationships as we can

[00:41:09] and then then frame the argument to our favor instead of letting others frame it for us and

[00:41:17] i think we can accomplish that if we have more like-minded people that get elected

[00:41:23] to where quit looking like we can't do something we can put pressure and that's

[00:41:29] and that's utilizing we the people again to do that uh shannon grove was has been

[00:41:36] successful in moving the arrow for our children and others to the point that even gavin newsome's

[00:41:44] calling how do i help get that through yeah that type of approach is what we republicans need to

[00:41:52] be better at yeah and that's what i'm i'm looking at they know i'm in my district right

[00:41:57] now i have people that are democrats inclined to states independent and they're switching

[00:42:02] they're either switching parties or they're voting for us we've reached across lines

[00:42:08] after the primary i have the highest vote count out of everybody in the region on the number one

[00:42:13] on the on a ticket and my numbers out did a number of other republicans that were thought

[00:42:20] to be better shaped because they had more money and um our numbers are so up there because

[00:42:26] we got so much crossover vote so we're we've penetrated every group you can come up with

[00:42:33] and and they see it and so we're on really good track right now to take this seat so

[00:42:40] so we're we're now just looking for funding financing and all that good thing

[00:42:45] yeah as every candidate always is well it is and it's a challenge walkers

[00:42:50] everything costs money you know but uh we're blessed we got a lot of great volunteers on

[00:42:55] my team and and uh and as we're doing it we're out there every day and everywhere today there's

[00:43:01] a couple events going on we got representatives at every one of them is this this area your

[00:43:07] district no okay my district is straight east from here okay i'm not i'm from southern

[00:43:12] california and i'm not that familiar with yeah well i was born in southern california so

[00:43:17] okay san pedro okay down there yeah okay yeah i'm from i mean i'm from slainte but i went

[00:43:24] to college in stockton so i'm familiar with oh there you go up yes okay good old up

[00:43:31] up the campus is beautiful yeah stockton the city needs a little bit of work as well but where can

[00:43:37] people go and find you and support you and they can go to help our volunteers and what

[00:43:41] shoemaker for senate.com that's our webpage and you can go for uh i believe shoemaker for

[00:43:49] senate at gmail.com and just look us up everything's on there and uh you know no matter where you are

[00:43:57] in the state you can certainly send a check or help fund and uh and we're reaching out all over

[00:44:03] the state and we're having pretty good success with that too so you know we're uh we are

[00:44:09] even even the republican party of california considers us the one seat that we'll take back

[00:44:15] oh wow so i mean there we're there so you got you got a lot of support we got the support we

[00:44:21] just need some finances to kick in the rest of it yeah well congratulations for like that's a

[00:44:26] yeah big feat it is just you know thank you for running oh yeah and flipping seats is important

[00:44:33] i think people need to realize that well we need we need to take every seat we can yeah

[00:44:37] and we need to start this process going back the other way and a lot of people go well you

[00:44:42] know well it's only you know there's eight seats that are republican right now in the state senate

[00:44:47] out of 40 okay and i can tell people that this isn't going to be a one-time win everything

[00:44:53] this is going to take us probably three election cycles that be my my feeling

[00:44:58] and if we can keep people motivated and show that we're doing what we say we want to do

[00:45:03] or going to do and show that effort and not just keep compromising away because there's

[00:45:09] nothing left to compromise we've given away everything yeah and i'm not about ready to

[00:45:14] give any more rights away so we need to i keep hearing hold the line and i'm like where's the

[00:45:19] line i feel like it's like fell off into the ocean and like it's gone no no what line are

[00:45:24] we holding i don't believe in off i don't believe in defense i believe in offense the

[00:45:30] only way you win it win anything is an offense so we need to be forward we need to be out

[00:45:35] there we need to not we don't need to compromise our values because the people realize when you

[00:45:42] have a belief and you believe in something and you follow through on it you'll have more respect

[00:45:47] from those that even oppose you because i have had that i haven't compromised anywhere i stand

[00:45:52] and i stand on everything that's right because as a christian and a believer

[00:45:57] i i know god's going to judge me again and i'm more scared of that than i am anybody else

[00:46:03] and and as republics we should have no fear you know we need to move forward and we can we can

[00:46:09] win and our campaign can win and we're trying to help other campaigns at the same time

[00:46:14] by working together so we can be out there and utilize all our efforts yeah absolutely

[00:46:21] yeah i think people especially in california need to realize

[00:46:25] if you want the insanity to end you have to chip away at the super majority in sacramento

[00:46:31] that's the bottom line exactly and that's where you know my district encompasses almost every

[00:46:39] group you can come up with i don't think there's anybody we don't have within our group and and

[00:46:46] every demographic and i and and we've crossed every demographic in that for support

[00:46:52] and it's because of what is happening a lot of it is i mean people that have been lifelong

[00:46:57] democrats just they're crazy yeah i can't support them anymore but the children is really one of the

[00:47:03] biggest issues this transgender thing you know or you know they're going to convert you and

[00:47:09] all that it's like that galvanizes families that you'd never think would come our way

[00:47:16] and they're jumping on that too so you know we got a it's a fight yeah you know me i'd

[00:47:22] rather be on my motorcycle riding cross country that sounds pretty good too is it electric

[00:47:30] no riding away from california on your motorcycle yeah i i like that fuel thing that it takes me

[00:47:37] only a couple seconds to put in the bike and keep going so yeah i hear you we just bought a

[00:47:42] or at least the new car it's half it's a hybrid it's a plug-in hybrid electric oh really

[00:47:48] um and i'm still getting used to the whole culture of plugging in and even a hybrid

[00:47:55] still takes three hours to charge and it's not even full electric it's just yeah and you know

[00:48:01] you go to a commercial charger it took three hours to to do so um so you want your trip to

[00:48:07] take all day instead of maybe a couple hours yeah well we got to figure out a way to

[00:48:11] to maybe do some overnight charging but jim thank you so much you guys best of luck uh

[00:48:16] hope you flip that flip that seat for us thank you for coming on thank you thank you for coming

[00:48:21] back god bless you guys yeah have a great day and it's shoemaker for the number four senate.com

[00:48:29] there you go thank you thank you jim awesome yeah don't get all tangled up but so many

[00:48:35] cords going on back here this is the hard part is stepping out of here without pulling the

[00:48:43] entire table of cords all it oh you're very welcome thank uh no it's going to be up on youtube

[00:48:54] rumble um you can go find the video so and we're probably going to clip the videos

[00:49:00] specifically for interviews and stuff like that yeah thank you thank you jim all right

[00:49:07] so coming up on the top of the hour i don't know if the lunch thing has let out yet

[00:49:12] this kind of seemed like i don't know maybe i'm imagining it looks like some people are

[00:49:15] floating out here is there food is there food is there food that way people are floating out here

[00:49:22] um so we're coming up on the top of the hour we'll probably take a 10 minute break

[00:49:27] um at the top of the hour just to give ourselves a break uh from talking uh so

[00:49:34] two two good candidates um jim especially an interesting senate seat i didn't know that it

[00:49:40] was a flippable seat so that's always exciting to hear i think people need to figure out who you

[00:49:47] know these are the seats if they are flippable then people should be focused on hence why

[00:49:54] i wear this shirt local elections do matter and it's it's so true that if you want to change

[00:49:59] things in california no offense to people who run for congress or federal office

[00:50:03] you change california at the legislature you have to kind of break that super majority so

[00:50:08] getting someone to flip a seat like jim in a competitive district is really important

[00:50:14] there's a whole bunch of seats that i think maybe it's like 10 or 12 i think seats that

[00:50:19] they believe are pretty competitive this year that they can flip so um it doesn't seem like

[00:50:24] a lot but it does make a difference makes the difference yeah um i know i feel like i say it

[00:50:30] every time just because you never know who's listening and i just gavin newsom is a mess

[00:50:36] yes yeah but if we can stop the super majority we can flip the super majority he's not going to have

[00:50:44] all those crazy bills coming to his desk he's not authoring the bills gavin newsom signing them

[00:50:48] yes but if we can stop them before they even get there or stop so many from getting authored

[00:50:55] we can make a huge difference and so that's why it's so important to flip these seats

[00:50:59] yeah and i mean i'm not a huge nerd on the terms of like what happens i'm sure people

[00:51:05] understand the procedural rules but it does make a big difference when you break that super majority

[00:51:11] and then they have to start negotiating with the other side it's not as easy to pass the crazy

[00:51:18] bills that you hear now granted a lot of these crazy bills and we're going to talk about them

[00:51:21] in a little bit probably on the other side of this break um a lot of these bills do get held

[00:51:27] up because they are a little too crazy they sound crazy because they get introduced in the

[00:51:31] legislature and that's what the news picks up they go oh california is passing this crazy bill

[00:51:35] or they're trying to get this bill through the legislature um but those bills don't even really

[00:51:42] have a chance if the super majority is gone and that's that's where it has to first start

[00:51:48] is it has to first start with the super majority it has to start in assembly has to

[00:51:51] start in the senate and it forces them to kind of reach across the aisle and actually

[00:51:56] um and actually work with other people so yeah i like what jim said when you asked him about his

[00:52:02] first 60 days and he said find who you can work with because if if you start reading all these

[00:52:07] bills every so often we actually do have co-authors that are democrats and republicans

[00:52:12] on bills and so there it's possible it is possible to work with the other side so i like

[00:52:17] that he said you know find who you can work with and start there yeah and i forget who it

[00:52:23] was we had on but um i do remember someone who came onto one of the episodes and talked about

[00:52:30] how behind the scenes there are a good amount of democrats in sacramento who will come up to

[00:52:36] republicans and say like you know what actually do support your bill and i think this is a

[00:52:40] good bill but if i vote for it the democratic party or the unions like come crashing down on

[00:52:46] me um but there are democrats like not every democrat in sacramento has got wiener

[00:52:53] not every democrat is alex lee or buffy wicks or anybody like that there are a lot of moderate

[00:53:00] democrats who are in moderate districts who are in inland districts that maybe have been former

[00:53:06] like districts with a lot of oil workers and stuff like i can't remember the name

[00:53:10] of the one democrat who voted against um what was it there was one democrat who voted oh

[00:53:18] against the uh gosh why is it escaping me now the the oversight the the windfall tax

[00:53:25] for remember when newson was pushing that and it was in the assembly and this one democrat

[00:53:30] voted against it i forget who it was but i remember we're like let's have them on the podcast

[00:53:34] we're like we should get this on the podcast yeah because they're from a district that was

[00:53:38] heavily uh you know had a economy heavily right into oil and gas and all that so to her

[00:53:46] she was like this is going to kill jobs like i can't vote for this and hurt my constituents so

[00:53:50] there are democrats out there in sacramento is what i'm trying to say um and yeah jim jim

[00:53:55] nailed it i mean that's when you get there your way outnumbered but reaching across the

[00:54:01] aisle is very important figuring out who you can work with to get things passed or you know

[00:54:06] just trying to make some sort of change in sacramento makes a big difference so with that

[00:54:12] said uh we're gonna take a short little break now to give us uh some time to maybe see who's coming

[00:54:19] out maybe grab some more candidates if we can or just have a drink or we'll be back in a couple

[00:54:24] minutes all right what's going on everybody we are back live after our little lunch break we

[00:54:30] were talking to some candidates as well we had jim shoemaker on before who's running for

[00:54:35] california state senate again we're live here at the california gop convention 2024

[00:54:41] up here in the belly of the beast in san francisco in the bay area um so yeah

[00:54:49] i forgot what i was gonna say well we were talking about you had an article up right we

[00:54:54] kept like trying to talk about it right so now if you want to go through your 643 tabs and

[00:55:01] find that one specific article one specific article right so and before we we went to break

[00:55:06] we were talking with jim shoemaker about the importance of breaking the supermajority

[00:55:14] and the fact that those crazy bills are harder to see the light of day if you break that

[00:55:20] super majority and we're going to go over some bills right now the silver lining of the fact

[00:55:27] that the state is utterly broke and has a 73 billion dollar deficit i mean depends on who

[00:55:32] you ask newsome says it's 50 billion the in the legislative analyst office says it's about

[00:55:37] around 73 billion um the even one billion billion billion it's too much is still too

[00:55:45] much and like we were saying at the top of the show and then and ronald joined us states

[00:55:49] cannot um have a debt they can't be like the federal government that can run up 31 trillion

[00:55:55] dollars in debt states have to balance their budgets they can't have on a whole bunch of

[00:55:59] debt so they are forced to make these hard decisions so these crazy bills that you see get

[00:56:05] introduced um in a year like this year a lot of those crazy bills don't see the light of day

[00:56:13] because of the fact that there's no money and because they would be highly unpopular

[00:56:17] right what do they call the i forget what the name of the file is is it the suspense

[00:56:22] file the suspense file yeah they put a lot of controversial bills or bills that they're

[00:56:26] trying to effectively kill they put them in the suspense file um we're gonna go over a couple of

[00:56:32] them right now this is from real quick i don't know exactly how it works i don't know if you

[00:56:36] do but it's something like if they're gonna cost the state over a certain amount of money

[00:56:43] or i i don't remember exactly how it works i was trying to figure it out but it's basically

[00:56:48] i think they put a few hundred into the suspense file and so it's basically it's kind of dead for

[00:56:55] now at least but yeah be dead forever so yeah a lot of these bills that are superfluous

[00:57:01] nice ten dollar word superfluous or sort of like pie in the sky leftist ideas uh

[00:57:09] that need a lot of money they end up in this file they got to make hard decisions

[00:57:13] they don't go anywhere after that because hard choices have to be made there's not money for

[00:57:17] everything there's already a huge shortfall even newsum's magical mathematical way of trying to

[00:57:25] balance the budget with the budget that he proposed um i think he's still like 20 billion

[00:57:31] dollars short of like what is is proposed with all the cuts that he's proposing yeah we're not

[00:57:37] gonna get into this i don't think but i want to throw out the fact that i think that

[00:57:40] we're not going to get into this i don't think but i want to throw out that on thursday's podcast

[00:57:45] this so the march may 16th episode we actually discussed the fact that after trying trying

[00:57:52] to and successfully passing prop one which is billions more for homeless newsum is now cutting

[00:57:58] homeless funding because there's no money yeah so there's a lot of stuff that he's already

[00:58:04] so it is kind of funny that we approved this proposition to borrow six billion dollars

[00:58:11] but now we're cutting way more than six billion dollars for homelessness so in the end i think

[00:58:18] it became a wash like sounds like it so instead of actually just cutting and figuring

[00:58:24] out where the money like we were spending the money we are spending way more than six billion

[00:58:28] dollars in the budget for homelessness and then they want to borrow six billion dollars

[00:58:33] so now we're on the hook for borrowing six billion dollars which will end up probably

[00:58:36] being around ten billion dollars with interest rates the way that they are and now we're

[00:58:40] ending up going backwards and cutting homeless spending so it didn't add to the overall spend

[00:58:46] of homelessness i guess it but it's for this specific program so it just goes to show

[00:58:53] how backwards this all is and again i think if prop was it prop one prop one

[00:58:58] um had been on the november ballot i think it would have been defeated based on

[00:59:03] the current budget and the numbers we talked about in the episode about the homeless and

[00:59:07] the defendant um all right let's get into some of these bills that are dead in the water thanks

[00:59:13] to uh there being a budget deficit this is from cal matters california's staggering budget

[00:59:18] deficit squashes hundreds of bills california's budget crunch is forcing the legislature to scale

[00:59:24] back its agenda the session with bills to legalize psychedelic therapy offer that was scott wiener

[00:59:32] i think that was scott wiener yeah that was a he's big on the psychedelic therapy uh off

[00:59:36] their reparations to the descendants of enslaved people i'm sorry the reparations were yeah there's

[00:59:42] we're still doing the reparations but i thought now we're throwing them out uh there's some so

[00:59:48] this was i think cash like they were wanting to give money so there's another article we're

[00:59:54] going to talk about regarding there was one bill that did pass which i don't think cost us any

[00:59:59] money it's it's a formal apology from the state of california okay um but there's still 14 other

[01:00:06] bills out there in regards to reparations i'm i keep interrupting you but was that letter

[01:00:13] we're so sorry for never enslaving slaves as a state i don't think i released it yet but

[01:00:21] okay the idea is that they're supposed to be a statue or something with a formal apology

[01:00:27] okay from the state of california and again for those who are not history buffs california was

[01:00:32] never a slave state um we were uh added as part of the union so um i guess that's why people

[01:00:40] find it really ridiculous that uh california has taken this up but anyway uh offer reparations

[01:00:46] to descendants of enslaved people require more transparency around who is paying for lawmaker

[01:00:50] sponsored travel among the early carnage facing estimated deficits of tens of billions of dollars

[01:00:56] over the next two years leaders of the legislature's appropriations committees said today that they had

[01:01:01] to make especially difficult decisions as they held or amended hundreds of proposals with a

[01:01:07] significant cost during the biannual calling process known as the suspense file though most

[01:01:13] of the bills in each committee still passed turn off your mic i don't feel like i'm hearing

[01:01:18] it come through real strong for me turn up my mic yeah is that better yes that is much better okay

[01:01:25] um of the 341 bills of the senate suspense file 87 or about 25.5 percent were held in line with

[01:01:33] the average over the past decade but another 121 were amended even as they advanced to the floor

[01:01:39] ahead of the crucial deadline next friday for measures to pass their house origin

[01:01:44] this is from buffy wicks she said quote we have an obligation to balance the budget

[01:01:48] here in california we can't go into debt oh um wicks told the reporters after the hearing

[01:01:54] where she killed another attempt to establish single-payer health care system in california

[01:01:58] policy she was supposed to uh she supported in the past quote we needed to be responsible

[01:02:03] for taxpayers monies so that why that's why we had to make tough calls today so uh i don't

[01:02:10] i don't know if the freudian slip was on purpose that she said we have to be responsible

[01:02:14] with taxpayers money which is why we're not going forward with single-payer health care

[01:02:18] i don't think she meant it that way um there are some people who are like wait a second

[01:02:23] supporters of single health care health or single-payer health care are like wait a second

[01:02:26] this is supposed to save uh the state money but the fact that they act single-payer health

[01:02:31] care when they needed to save money is kind of telling as is um with more than 30 billion

[01:02:38] in cuts to the education public health environmental and other programs in the next two years on

[01:02:42] the line newson is likely to have little appetite this year for pricey new legislation

[01:02:47] he has already urged discipline over the past two sessions his california's finances soften

[01:02:51] vetoing dozens of bills that he said would add unaccounted costs to the budget the suspense

[01:02:57] file where all legislation with a major fiscal impact is considered concurrently and dispensed

[01:03:03] with a rapid-fire hearing has all has also long provided the legislature with an easier way

[01:03:08] to kill controversial or undesirable bills so um there's another list of other bills that i

[01:03:15] want to go over um okay so you asked about reparations uh in terms of these cuts and everything

[01:03:23] that's happened um after all this it says just from the aps says was a good day mostly for

[01:03:30] proponents of reparations for black californians the state assembly overwhelmingly passed a state

[01:03:34] apology for the legacy of slavery and the senate appropriations committee advanced several

[01:03:39] other proposals to rectify harms against descendants of enslaved people key proposals

[01:03:44] to establish an agency to administer reparation programs and help black families research their

[01:03:49] family lineage to play to pay black families for land that was taken unjustly through eminent

[01:03:54] domain and to create a state fund for reparation programs all advanced um but bills to give

[01:04:01] property tax and financial assistance to descendants of enslaved people were held by

[01:04:05] the senate committee state senator stephen bradford of los angeles area democrat who

[01:04:09] authored the bill said that was largely because of the state's budget problems so

[01:04:15] so some things came through for reparations not everything came through for reparations the

[01:04:20] formal apology seems to be the overwhelming thing this other uh agency which i actually attended a

[01:04:27] speaker about it the other day talking about this agency and how it's going to go into effect

[01:04:35] and um she was a law professor and she keeps track of all this stuff and her worry is that

[01:04:44] even if it does pass it's not something that could likely be struck down in court

[01:04:51] it's not it's not so she says she would not feel confident that even if this did pass where

[01:04:58] there was an agency that gave preferential treatment based on race or i think they're

[01:05:05] including everything now it's like race national origin all that stuff gender um that it would

[01:05:11] not be struck down in court in california so if it's something that you think is well it's

[01:05:19] clearly obvious that it's you know illegal or unconstitutional equal protection we're not

[01:05:24] supposed to be preference based on race or anything like that um her concern is that it

[01:05:31] would it would still go through in california court i think it's aca7 is what they're trying

[01:05:37] to establish um and they want this agency to help those in california determine whether they were

[01:05:48] descendants of slaves or whether their family was here prior to 1900 so even if you don't

[01:05:56] establish that you are a descendant of slaves they want that you you can still qualify for

[01:06:02] the preferential treatment if your family was here prior to 1900 okay so that is still likely

[01:06:12] to be pushed through the formal apology is going through right now obviously i don't think cash

[01:06:20] payments are going to happen anytime soon well we're broke clearly the democrats are

[01:06:24] admitting it at this point yeah uh so cash payments i don't think are coming through i

[01:06:29] know that's always seems to be at the top of the list for a lot of these reparations

[01:06:33] committees like san francisco and the state all said the top thing was we we have to give cash as

[01:06:38] reparations um so now they're trying to find different ways to pay reparations uh outside of

[01:06:45] just cash payments and we don't have it in the budget that's not going to happen i don't

[01:06:49] think it would be a political winner for gavinus and to sign off on to give cash reparations

[01:06:55] um but it it's it is interesting why california is taking the lead on this i mean i know

[01:07:02] it's not surprising california is taking the lead on this i mean it is

[01:07:06] but it is interesting what california is taking the lead on this as if it's going to be

[01:07:12] do you think this will start a trend across the country of people saying well california

[01:07:16] did it so we should do it like other blue states are going to start doing this as well

[01:07:21] yes i do and because you and i always say on this show as goes california so goes the country

[01:07:29] right and so we do seem to be the sometimes new york's ahead of us but we we do seem to be the

[01:07:35] leader of the california way as newson says uh in many many of these kind of absurd extreme

[01:07:43] issues yeah yeah it's it's they they push this stuff out i i feel like a lot of times they

[01:07:50] push um these ideas or things they try them out in california and again we keep coming back to

[01:07:59] what jim was saying and what we always say on this program they try these crazy ideas out here

[01:08:04] in california to see if they work it's almost like the canary in the coal mine they'll try them

[01:08:09] out here in california and if it's too radical even for california they kind of back off

[01:08:14] nationally they're kind of like okay if it doesn't work in california we can't get people

[01:08:18] in california to get behind it maybe we're some years off yeah we're like the test dummy state

[01:08:23] yeah but then i feel like even like they'll test something that's kind of crazy

[01:08:26] and then it goes away because everyone's like no that was too crazy

[01:08:30] but then give it four or five six years and they've slowly kind of chipped away at it

[01:08:35] and then all of a sudden they bring it back and it's like not as extreme it seems it feels

[01:08:40] like not as extreme because we've slowly kind of like okay that didn't work but you know

[01:08:46] let's yeah one two you know it's just exactly and they try and yeah and it seems like in

[01:08:54] california they we go we get all excited because we can defeat bills or bills die in

[01:09:00] these suspense files like the single-payer health care it's not dead forever like they're

[01:09:05] gonna bring it back every single year that they can that's gonna be a big push so like

[01:09:10] every year there's going to be a push for single-payer health and i think you and i

[01:09:14] can even admit health care is a mess it does need reform right now i don't believe this is

[01:09:19] the answer right but because i think the majority of people do believe the same thing that as they

[01:09:26] continue to push this issue they will be like well yeah i'm that i see why that's needed i

[01:09:32] might have i want that yeah and i think they i think they have the benefit of a state that

[01:09:39] so deeply blue they can try these ideas out over and over again where they may try it one year

[01:09:48] and then all of a sudden it doesn't work and they can kind of go back to the drawing board

[01:09:52] they can look at the tea leaves they can say okay what messaging work what didn't work

[01:09:56] and then they come back next year and they try it again and they try and change it up right

[01:10:02] like last year was it last year two years ago was prop 16 which was they were trying to

[01:10:08] remove a part of the constitution that made it unconstitutional in the california constitution

[01:10:15] not the u.s. constitution california constitution that you can't differentiate give preferential

[01:10:23] treatment based on race that was basically the thing and prop 16 wanted to get rid of that

[01:10:28] and then i think people found out about it and it lost overwhelmingly in california of all

[01:10:33] places but that that didn't stop them just because we voted prop 16 down they just went

[01:10:41] back to the drawing board and now they're coming up with these agencies or they're like well

[01:10:45] we're going to change the language we're going to try like and that's what makes california

[01:10:50] politics so tough is that every year there is an issue or there is a bill that you think

[01:10:57] you've killed or that it's done for but they'll just come back like next year and keep trying

[01:11:03] the same thing over and over again yeah i think even with the psychedelics isn't this the second

[01:11:08] time it was pushed through yes yeah this seems like a similar bill that scott wiener i think

[01:11:13] he's the second year in a row he's done the whole psychedelic bill psychedelic treatment

[01:11:17] bill and it's it's not legalizing psychedelics it's legalizing the use of psychedelics in

[01:11:23] treatment so it didn't go as far as let's say like oregon i think oregon legalized basically all

[01:11:30] drugs or decriminalized all drugs including psychedelics which funny enough they actually

[01:11:35] just went back on all that and actually re-criminalized a lot of that stuff but yeah

[01:11:40] it's this stuff doesn't just it gives us a breath it gives us a moment to kind of take

[01:11:46] a breather and go whew okay single payer is dead for this year what's the next thing we

[01:11:52] have to fight because there's only so many resources there's only so many volunteers

[01:11:55] there's always so much news coverage you can give stuff and it just seems like it's like

[01:12:01] an onslaught every year and you i mean we do these legislative episodes where we go over

[01:12:06] like the craziest bills or the most impactful bills it just seems like every year it's just

[01:12:11] an onslaught of of bills and insanity that we're just like i can't believe we're like

[01:12:16] passing this stuff there was one bill going off topic well sort of on topic that did die in the

[01:12:23] suspense committee which i thought was funny and i actually kind of supported it was the bill

[01:12:29] that employers can't text people after hours or call or call after hours um i actually didn't

[01:12:38] think that was a bad bill um i think it's kind of sad that we needed that bill yeah i think

[01:12:43] in yeah you're right i think that's mostly because of like what happened with covid and

[01:12:48] the idea of like remote working like everyone's available all time like you can always hop on a

[01:12:53] zoom you can always go on microsoft teams you can always pick up your phone and get text or

[01:12:57] stuff like that so um that was one bill that i was actually like yeah it'd be nice to see

[01:13:02] that i think there's some employers who abuse that and maybe it was maybe it wasn't meant

[01:13:10] to be but maybe i've just had bad experiences with bosses texting me or emailing me after work so

[01:13:15] i thought i was like yeah this would be a good idea i know i know one person who could probably

[01:13:20] use that bill to stop them from emailing or texting but anyway um so let's see there's some

[01:13:25] other bills uh like we said the psychedelic therapy the senate committee stopped a bill

[01:13:29] that would have allowed 21 people 21 and older to consume psychedelic mushrooms under

[01:13:34] professional supervision the legislation wouldn't have allowed for personal possession and use

[01:13:40] um the bipartisan bills introduced after democratic governor gavin newsome last year

[01:13:45] vetoed legislation that would have decriminalized the possession personal use of several plant-based

[01:13:49] hallucinogens including psychedelic mushrooms so again this is what we're talking about where

[01:13:54] it's like last year they went for the gusto they were like let's just decriminalize it you can

[01:14:01] now have psychedelics and then this year they kind of backed off and they were like well

[01:14:05] let's just do psychedelic treatment let's see if that works so they kind of they massage they're

[01:14:11] allowed to get more than one bite at the apple in california because you have the support

[01:14:16] and because it's such a deep blue state so they even then they they tried to scale it back to

[01:14:20] just treatment and keep in mind these uh these legislators are authoring what a thousand twelve

[01:14:27] hundred bills a year yes something insane like that yeah it's uh i mean that's that's

[01:14:35] something i think should be added to the californian constitution is there should

[01:14:37] be a max on how many bills you should be able to to actually introduce um i had an interaction

[01:14:44] on reddit which anybody who's ever been on reddit would not be surprised by this interaction

[01:14:52] i had mentioned something about like i think i forget what the post was about but i my

[01:14:56] comment was we should cap the amount of bills that legislators can introduce and we

[01:15:03] should make the whole legislature part-time real quick didn't kate sanchez try to pass

[01:15:11] did she author a bill that actually would okay yes i think it was this year and i did that

[01:15:15] probably that probably didn't yeah that probably didn't get passed i probably didn't even get

[01:15:19] picked up by committee um a for effort though i mean i think these legislatures they have

[01:15:25] way too much time on their hands to push a lot of these crazy bills through to yeah um

[01:15:30] you know like who wants a uh a date milkshake well yeah i was gonna say some of them are just

[01:15:35] ridiculous stuff like that that really is not going to have an effect on any of our lives

[01:15:38] whatsoever right like should we make this day such and such name this highway such and such

[01:15:46] sorry go back to your reddit story uh my reddit story was um yeah so i said i think the

[01:15:53] legislature should be part-time and i think there should be a cap on how many bills that

[01:15:57] they introduce and someone had replied you want the fifth largest economy people who run the

[01:16:04] fifth largest economy in the world to be that's what they were doing that that's how i imagine

[01:16:10] in my head you can read between the lines and reddit you can hear the tone of their voice like

[01:16:14] whatever keyboard warrior is typing um you want the fifth largest economy we run by people

[01:16:20] who are only doing it part-time yes and my response was the fact that you think

[01:16:26] the legislature needs to run our economy is telling enough yeah and that's the scary thing

[01:16:32] about a lot of people in california is they think like oh we need the legislature to run

[01:16:35] the economy it's like you don't i am all for part-time and less of them yeah okay with that

[01:16:40] yeah the less of them try and it's just like they figure out ways to just justify like why

[01:16:45] they're there now a lot of these bills don't end up because we do these episodes we see

[01:16:50] how many bills come through and how many bills end up actually making it to like

[01:16:54] the governor's desk um but yeah it's just it's insane the the amount of stuff that they do push

[01:17:00] out there it's like do they have they must have some brainstorming session when they first get

[01:17:04] there in january with their staff and they're like okay guys what crazy bill what are we going

[01:17:09] to introduce this time and like everybody throws up a hand and everybody comes up with an idea

[01:17:13] and like they just take everything they're like okay we're gonna do this we're gonna

[01:17:16] do that we're gonna like this is an important bill um but yeah i think definitely in support of

[01:17:21] capping the amount amount of bills and you know what if you run out of bills

[01:17:25] and you're like you know what i introduced all the bills that are important to me

[01:17:29] guess what maybe you have to go to another legislator and be like will you co-author this

[01:17:34] bill with me or author this bill that i think is a good idea and work across the aisle or

[01:17:39] like you have to get so many qualified signatures from your from your constituents

[01:17:46] that's not a bad idea because is this really necessary yeah that might not be a bad idea i

[01:17:52] think like yeah if you if you want to introduce more like give them the top priorities maybe

[01:17:58] every bill should have that maybe maybe in california we should do that like voter

[01:18:03] approval on everything but every you know you get your top priority bills let's say everyone

[01:18:10] i'm just putting out number two let's say every legislator gets 10 bills we go okay

[01:18:15] maybe 10 is even too much 10 bills and they go okay these are your top 10 bills these are really

[01:18:20] important to you actually 10 might be too much because 10 times how many people are in the

[01:18:25] legislature let's say five bills let's say you get five bills that are your top priorities

[01:18:30] and you run out then you go crap like i want i think this is really important to me but

[01:18:35] i've already introduced five bills we're just like rewriting that we're just rewriting all

[01:18:39] california constitution right now this is this is how it was in the 1700s when they were creating

[01:18:45] the u.s constitution i just imagine them all like in a in a bar with beer where you're like

[01:18:51] we should do this like this is how i'm down another beer i have an idea i have a great idea

[01:18:56] we should this should be five five bills ten five bills um so five bills and you run out

[01:19:05] and you go you have to go to someone else who maybe they only wrote i was gonna say that i was

[01:19:08] gonna say someone should second you yeah so like you could be like okay i know uh you know bill

[01:19:14] down the hall has only four bills he has a slot open maybe i could work with him maybe he wants

[01:19:21] to like then you have to go working together working together reaching across aisles you

[01:19:26] know that may force them to actually reach across the aisle and actually talk to your

[01:19:30] constituents maybe what they want and maybe if that doesn't work that's a good idea like take

[01:19:35] it to the constituents if you think it's that important put it to the constituents if they

[01:19:40] support it um so that's just my crazy idea but that's that's how things start yeah now we

[01:19:47] have to go because we have a whole california constitution tree we have a whole new california

[01:19:52] constitution we're gonna write we're gonna write it we're gonna submit it anyway um other

[01:19:56] bills uh that have happened uh this one we we did a post on regarding the monthly charge

[01:20:03] that is now going to go into effect um says it's uh i think it's supposed to go into effect not

[01:20:10] this year but next year okay so this one is passing it's not so there was the rule that the

[01:20:17] california public utilities commission came up with and i think that's going into effect

[01:20:22] next year by the end of next year okay and that's the one that is a flat fee

[01:20:29] 24 or whatever they're saying oh no it's gonna be a flat fee and then if you make more they're

[01:20:34] gonna charge you more regardless of how much electricity you use and if you make less you

[01:20:40] may not even pay for electricity okay so um good job with those solar panels california

[01:20:47] good job yeah um they saved you so much money i'll be interested to see the amount of electricity

[01:20:54] usage going up based on income level when that actually happens i don't know if they'll ever

[01:21:00] be able to release that data but i can imagine if you were like you're in this income

[01:21:04] bracket you don't pay anything for electricity does your electricity usage go up or do you

[01:21:09] think it's gonna stay the same or it's just a weird way to kind of reward and punish people

[01:21:15] because isn't the idea like we're trying it really we're trying to get people to conserve energy

[01:21:23] and then you're rewarding people based on nothing to do with conserving energy

[01:21:27] that they could use as much as possible yeah like that doesn't seem fair at all doesn't seem fair

[01:21:33] so and they don't take into account too because like i wouldn't be considered though income

[01:21:38] well i personally don't make an income but you know i stay home my household but there's

[01:21:44] six of us in the house we have four for kids and so that's a that's obviously a lot of use

[01:21:52] a lot of us using electricity and uh you know so what are we just supposed to not have

[01:21:59] air conditioning because we are a certain income level bracket yeah so my kid's too bad

[01:22:06] too bad for you you live in a household with x amount of income and so or minimum and so

[01:22:12] you can feel sweaty all night yeah and if it's a flat fee no matter how much

[01:22:20] you use even at different levels so this everyone would even with solar correct like this just i

[01:22:26] think across the board unless i don't know if they buy it back or i'm not even sure how solar

[01:22:30] works like i know that some people sell their electricity back to the grid is that how i'm

[01:22:35] sure they're going to stop yeah i think if you're able to store it if you're like

[01:22:40] producing more than you use and you're able to store it you can get a refund yeah they don't

[01:22:45] like the idea that if you want to charge your own private batteries though they don't like that

[01:22:49] idea they want you to sell it back to the grid but but even if you're a higher income

[01:22:56] and you're like well it doesn't matter how much electricity i use this just seems like

[01:23:00] it's counterproductive to the idea of we need to conserve energy because you're basically well

[01:23:05] i'm getting screwed one way or another you know i'm in the higher bracket i'm going to pay

[01:23:09] x amount of dollars but that's now how it is with home loans correct didn't like nationally this

[01:23:16] isn't california but nationally didn't they they pass congress passed like a if you are or is it

[01:23:23] is it better credit or higher income and you now help fund basically the people's home loans

[01:23:29] is that what it is yeah i forget how exactly how it works like it didn't affect me because we

[01:23:35] already bought my house but somebody who might be trying to buy a house this week

[01:23:39] would have like a little extra on their mortgage payment to help those

[01:23:46] is that part of the whole giving 400 to people to make them more sure i need to go back on

[01:23:51] these details it was it was a year or two ago so i forget oh no this was no this was a

[01:23:56] biden wants to give everyone 400 to make housing more affordable um i don't know how

[01:24:03] that makes anything more affordable but whenever the government gets involved in trying to make

[01:24:07] affordable housing it does completely the opposite um but anyway final point i i don't understand

[01:24:13] this rule at all i feel like it does the opposite of what they want us to do which is

[01:24:16] probably gonna have to do a deep dive into this one we're probably yeah but it's not going

[01:24:20] until into effect until next year so we have some time to do some more research on it

[01:24:24] but yeah it doesn't seem like people are going to conserve more energy because if you

[01:24:27] get penalized if you get charged regardless of usage and just based on your income

[01:24:33] then your needs didn't change right so if i'm like instead of trying to think like

[01:24:40] oh i'm not going to keep all these lights on you're like well i'm getting charged regardless

[01:24:45] for electricity right whether i use it or not so i might as well use electricity

[01:24:50] it just seems so you know fast backwards here in california like we were talking to jim the

[01:24:55] idea of like they they want us all to be in electric cars and electric lawnmowers and all

[01:24:59] that stuff if they don't produce more electricity here in california they don't want to produce

[01:25:04] more electricity here in california so um i don't know it will be interesting to say how

[01:25:09] that actually goes on i i don't even know like the logistics like now you got to start sharing

[01:25:14] your income with the electric company right i don't understand how that works legally

[01:25:19] like why would the electric company have a have any right to just know your income if

[01:25:24] you don't give it to them how are they gonna how's it gonna know off your power

[01:25:28] they're like hold you hostage and why is the why is your bank statements yeah why is a private

[01:25:33] company why is a private company looking into my income why would they have access to that

[01:25:40] it just seems so i don't know it seems like a boondoggle of a mess hopefully that's a rule

[01:25:45] that eventually gets just delayed because it is idiotic um anyway back to some of these bills

[01:25:51] that we were talking about uh i know there's some candidates walking around we might have

[01:25:54] some candidates hopping on in a little bit um this was the workers right to disconnect

[01:26:00] uh this was what i was talking about in regards to people uh or bosses not being able to

[01:26:07] text you or call you after work uh lawmakers also shelved a bill that would have given

[01:26:12] california workers the right to not engage in work-related emails and text messages outside

[01:26:16] of working hours california would have been the first state in the nation to do so the

[01:26:20] bill modeled after a policy started in europe also would have required employers to create

[01:26:24] action plans to implement the standard um opponents including the california chamber of

[01:26:29] commerce said the bill was too vague and would have impeded company's ability to operate effectively

[01:26:35] um i mean i disagree with that but i i understand if it was too vague i still think it's not a

[01:26:42] bad idea i think for like hourly workers i don't think you should be able to text people

[01:26:47] after work call me crazy yeah but i feel like i can see scenarios where they would

[01:26:55] in this sense of like hey can you cover so-and-so's shift tomorrow or maybe they want more

[01:27:01] hours and they're like oh could you could you come pick up some extra hours or whatever

[01:27:07] but people take advantage of these things they do yeah i think if you're salaried and you're

[01:27:14] expected to be kind of on call that's different and like yeah okay there i can see where people

[01:27:19] are gonna be like oh but what about nurses oh what would you know like what about doctors

[01:27:24] what if there's an emergency situation and so then all of a sudden it turns into panera bread

[01:27:30] gate where you have to start like really labeling and so i guess i can see why that is

[01:27:34] a confusing bill but i told you i mean i haven't even worked in it outside of the home

[01:27:41] for over 18 years but i had a situation where our phone lines went down at my last job

[01:27:45] and for some reason my boss forwarded calls to my cell phone and then i when i didn't answer

[01:27:50] before work hours one morning he left me a voicemail mad at me that i didn't answer he's

[01:27:55] like i'm calling and i'm like no i'm sleeping i could i'll be there when i'm supposed to be

[01:28:02] there but right now i'm gonna answer my phone um looks like we have a video issue but we'll

[01:28:10] get that resolved right now as long as people can still hear us so going back to the issue of

[01:28:18] the reparations this is from cal california globe first of 14 slavery apology bills passed

[01:28:26] california assembly a bill that would issue a formal apology by the state for human rights

[01:28:33] violations and crimes against humanity on african slaves and their descendants was passed

[01:28:37] by the assembly in a 62 to zero vote on thursday assembly bill 3089 authored by

[01:28:45] assemblyman reggie jones soyer would provide that the state of california recognizes and

[01:28:51] accepts responsibility for all the harms and atrocities committed by the state

[01:28:56] and entities under its jurisdiction who promote it facilitated enforced and permitted the

[01:29:01] institution of chattel slavery and the enduring legacy of ongoing incidents from which the

[01:29:05] systemic structures of discrimination have come to exist in addition ab 3089 would further provide

[01:29:12] that the state of california apologized for perpetuating the harms african americans have

[01:29:16] faced and affirms its role in protecting the descendants of enslaved people and all black

[01:29:19] californians the bill would also require a plaque memorializing this apology to be publicly

[01:29:25] and conspicuously installed and maintained in the state capital while many of the 14 reparation

[01:29:31] bills are not expected to pass ab 3089 managed to gain traction earlier this year because of the

[01:29:38] symbolism of such an action in two assembly committee meetings this year ab 3089 passed both

[01:29:44] with zero nay votes but with many assembly members simply choosing not to vote as well

[01:29:49] because of the controversial nature of the reparations bill as a whole nonetheless ab 3089

[01:29:54] moved on to an assembly vote on thursday with a 62 to zero vote but with a nearly quarter

[01:29:59] of the assembly also not voting on the bill as protest we cannot possibly quote we cannot

[01:30:05] possibly move forward without acknowledging our role in evil behaviors that assemblyman jones

[01:30:09] soyer after vote even though our state entered the union as a free state every branch of

[01:30:13] government has had a hand in perpetuating the oppression of black folks this bill is an

[01:30:17] opportunity to confront those tough truths in a meaningful way so that's the bill that passed

[01:30:24] ab 3089 that's how many you said of the there was 14 reparations bills of 14 reparation bills

[01:30:32] and how many of them were in the thrown into the suspense file

[01:30:38] i don't know specifically how many i think of anything with the cash payments i think was

[01:30:42] probably thrown in but this one is probably like we said it probably made it through

[01:30:49] um mostly because of the fact that all it and it's not going to cost the state money outside of

[01:30:56] getting a statue and what the plaque says uh and just issuing a formal apology so but it doesn't

[01:31:05] mean again that they won't try it again to come to try it again next year so there you have

[01:31:13] it if you thought the reparations committee wasn't going to get anything through i would

[01:31:19] i would foresee this actually what do you think do you think with governor newsom the way

[01:31:25] things are going for him right now between the deficit the audit of the 24 billion dollars

[01:31:30] his presidential aspirations being called into questions by like the new york

[01:31:34] the other thing is the new york mag or the new york times or something like that

[01:31:38] do you think this is a bill that he passes or signs the sorry the apology letter or the

[01:31:45] this apology letter and i feel like that would pass okay because that's safe right like i mean

[01:31:54] are you and i really going to take up arms that they issue an apology letter no like we

[01:31:59] could be all you know on twitter saying stupid nonsense about why we disagree with it and then

[01:32:04] we'll literally move on 24 hours later because somebody killed their dog right so yeah and

[01:32:10] there's something um this speaker that i was talking about the the the speaker event that

[01:32:17] i went to she made a good point which is if you open this door and you have this formal

[01:32:22] apology there are other groups racial groups that have been discriminated against in california

[01:32:30] that would probably stand up and go wait a second um why are we going to get a statue in

[01:32:35] a formal apology right and the one group she brought up was chinese americans and talking

[01:32:40] about how you know their work on the railroads how they were treated there's a there was a

[01:32:45] supreme court case uh i think yeeck woo i think it was called and i'm pretty sure that it's

[01:32:52] from a long time ago san francisco basically the facts where everybody reads this in law

[01:32:58] school this is one of those famous ones uh basically the the story is is that the city

[01:33:04] of san francisco was discriminating against chinese american-owned laundry mats okay so like

[01:33:13] you had to have a permit from the city of san francisco to off to open and operate these

[01:33:19] laundry mats and they found that like every chinese american who applied for this permit

[01:33:25] was denied so there is a history of discrimination and abuse of chinese americans i mean you can go

[01:33:32] what about mexican americans so it is opening this door in california of well if you're

[01:33:38] going to say this we weren't a slave state you know we didn't we weren't like allowing

[01:33:44] slavery on the down low or anything like that so it does raise this question of how many other

[01:33:49] groups are going to come forward and go okay well where's our formal apology yeah but right

[01:33:53] now in america who do you think which race is the loudest right now as far as we've been

[01:34:01] mistreated which race would you say that is yeah i'd probably say it's the african american

[01:34:06] community so he's gonna probably pass this because he's trying to obviously get their vote

[01:34:14] right right and and politically it makes sense for someone like avanusim if he's running for

[01:34:19] president because we know that the democratic party does overwhelmingly have the support of

[01:34:25] the african american community like ronald was saying like he just he came from that community

[01:34:29] understands you know a lot of people who just they they don't think of the other side it's

[01:34:34] just they automatically become a democrat they don't they don't maybe think about why

[01:34:39] they become a democrat um but yeah i mean that's a great point that this is such an

[01:34:45] alley-oop red meat thing if he's gonna run for president that he can say on the campaign trail

[01:34:51] and say california was leading the way we're the first state to formally apologize for slavery

[01:34:57] and the wrongs and the injustices um yeah i think that that does i mean obviously i think

[01:35:03] that's a slam dunk for him right and especially like i said like republicans you and i there are

[01:35:10] there's always going to be the loud voices but you and i are like we're not going to take up an

[01:35:15] issue with this again we might say something on social media and be like well this why was this

[01:35:20] necessary or what about the other races but other than that we're going to move on and we're

[01:35:24] not going to be like this is the issue i stand on in that i you know this is the hill i die

[01:35:29] on no no well i mean the conservative influencers will have a field day with it

[01:35:33] that's for sure yes and you and i are not those people so as much as yeah we try not to be those

[01:35:40] people um they'll have a field day with it and it'll help their likes and follows and stuff

[01:35:45] like that so but you're right i it's not going to like keep me up at night and think like oh

[01:35:49] gosh this is what our state is focused on right um i'm more worried about the fact that

[01:35:54] like you can't buy a home in california i was gonna say you're not thinking i need to get a

[01:35:58] second job because new some issued an apology yeah that has no bearing on my life at all

[01:36:03] switching to i'm sorry not to say that you're looking for a second job i just mean this is it

[01:36:09] i'm not looking for a second job i'm busy enough with my my current job i don't need any second

[01:36:13] jobs um so from one cheery subject to another cheery subject you want to talk about this topic

[01:36:19] you want to talk about unemployment rate here in california oh gosh speaking of second jobs

[01:36:24] speaking of second job get one if you wanted uh it's funny enough a lot of people are finding

[01:36:30] that these numbers are rising because people are getting second jobs and they can't afford

[01:36:33] the economy anymore as job growth in california falls back unemployment rate remains highest in

[01:36:39] the country this is the la in the way california's leading the way in employment leading the way

[01:36:44] um california we're holding microphones we can't do all of our political

[01:36:48] our our politician hand now but there was a sound maybe next time i do a sound button

[01:36:54] there's like a sound pad on here i can put gavin newson doing the leading the way please

[01:36:59] every time that they do leading the way uh california posted another month of anemic

[01:37:04] job growth in april keeping the state's unemployment rate the highest in the country

[01:37:08] 5.3 percent the government reported friday statewide employers added a net of just 5200

[01:37:15] jobs in april down from 18200 in march according to california's employment development

[01:37:20] department nationwide employers added 1750 000 jobs in april and 315 000 in march

[01:37:28] the u.s unemployment rate was in april was 3.9 major sectors of california's economy

[01:37:35] including manufacturing information and professional business services showed job losses last month

[01:37:41] and job opportunities aren't as plentiful as before even as the number of unemployed workers

[01:37:45] in the state has risen by 164 000 over the past 12 months so um how many or just say

[01:37:56] that number again uh let's see the number of unemployed workers in the state has risen by

[01:38:03] 164 000 over the last 12 months okay so now we have those people now aren't paying taxes they

[01:38:13] can't they can't get a job we're not paying taxes so what do you think happens here

[01:38:20] uh well since california bases a lot of everything on tax revenue um the state falls

[01:38:26] further in which i think that's a big part of going back to the suspense file right is because

[01:38:32] they definitely had low numbers the tax returns yeah yeah and and for those who don't really

[01:38:39] so california does anybody looks at their paycheck knows california taxes the the heck

[01:38:44] out of you um a lot of california's revenue does come from the wealthy capital gains taxes

[01:38:54] and the fact that the market and people left and stuff like that the capital gains returns

[01:39:00] wasn't as great this year as they were expecting it does create this kind of boom and bust cycle

[01:39:05] for california they need to um they need to figure out some way to reform that because

[01:39:10] right now it is literally booming the bus like one year you have a huge surplus and then

[01:39:14] one year you have a huge deficit okay wait let's let's did we really have a huge surplus

[01:39:19] do you think i think a lot of that was phony baloney math because that was coming out of

[01:39:23] covet right didn't we have 100 billion surplus right after it was coming out of covet yeah where

[01:39:28] we and going back to transparent california.com like we've been looking at so many of the

[01:39:33] numbers that were so the paychecks just absolutely inflated 2020 2022 so there was that

[01:39:41] but then we're seeing that newson's definitely fudging numbers like he's trying to say this

[01:39:46] deficit is lower than it is and yet the surplus was higher than i don't know i'm just

[01:39:53] starting to wonder if that surplus was really as big as they said it was yeah i think um you can

[01:39:59] pad the numbers um with a lot of covet money like if you think about a lot of those agencies

[01:40:07] were padded with covet money maybe that's why there was a surplus you know they're smart

[01:40:12] enough to figure out we got billions of dollars in federal money i think we got a

[01:40:16] candidate waiting here who wants to jump in really quickly yeah come on down have a seat

[01:40:24] mike mike greer be careful of horns it's all kind of yeah have a seat crazy i'm going to turn

[01:40:31] on your mike mike is joining us right now he's running for assembly and then be sure to speak

[01:40:41] into the mic which you're not doing so well that's why sorry yes hello hello hello who are

[01:40:49] you introduce yourself i'm mike greer running for district two assembly which takes in from santa rosa

[01:40:59] over up to the oregon border five county area of uh part of sonoma mendicino humboldt trinity

[01:41:09] and dale nort county okay so i'm just down here at the convention and i appreciate this

[01:41:17] opportunity to talk to you it's a district that has been under democrat control for a number of

[01:41:26] years and this is the year that we actually have an opportunity to win because the district

[01:41:33] is actually 51 Democrat 22 Republican i managed to get the top vote in the primary

[01:41:42] uh i was the only Republican running for it and against six Democrats including the

[01:41:49] Democrat party chair rusty hicks well hey who did not even get in the top two that's that's

[01:41:56] amazing and so they spent 3.5 million dollars fighting amongst themselves and were able to go

[01:42:03] ahead and get the top votes uh in the entire primary which surprised a lot of them especially

[01:42:10] the fact that we did get a 18 to 20 percent crossover vote during the primary so what made

[01:42:19] you decide to run is this your first time running for office or have you been in office

[01:42:23] before i've been on a school board for almost 20 years okay i put you know about 17 years

[01:42:34] spending time with the school board in paradise

[01:42:37] uh prior to the fire so i was a school board president at the time of the camp fire

[01:42:44] i ended up getting you know we were burned out of paradise so we relocated

[01:42:49] over to crescent city up in dale north i spent the first year after the fire though because

[01:42:54] i was board president getting the kids back into school getting the schools rebuilt and

[01:43:01] and lobbying in washington dc and in sacramento in order to get the funds necessary to help

[01:43:09] rebuild and get the district going then once i moved over to uh crescent city i they needed a

[01:43:18] teacher for special education i am a retired teacher and so i went ahead and started doing

[01:43:24] special education over in dale north county for about three weeks before they shut everything

[01:43:29] down for co-ed okay they kept me on to teach with during that time but you can't do special

[01:43:40] education on the computer it doesn't work with it and so i did that but during the first two

[01:43:46] weeks that i was teaching i had the opportunity to meet with the superintendent and a board

[01:43:53] member over there to tell him you can't teach education the way you're doing it here

[01:43:59] even before you know i had a class that had a special day class of eight students k through

[01:44:06] five then another 32 students coming through the classroom for a resource where my aid was going

[01:44:13] and so you couldn't do it and at that time i made up my mind to run for the school board

[01:44:17] in dale north county and now here you are you want the primary down here because of it

[01:44:22] yes and i won the primary so now i get to go door to door meet with people and talk about

[01:44:28] the issues that they have which basically education because i am an educator is the

[01:44:36] number one issue that i put out uh i was a cta union president over five county area of

[01:44:43] teachers and so i understand education so that's one of my main things and right now it's one

[01:44:48] of the main issues you know wherever you are it's education what changes are you going to make

[01:44:54] you know i'm also looking at other issues such as a water problem down in that we're going to

[01:45:00] have if they keep you know taking down the dams we're not going to have that reserve that

[01:45:05] we've had in the drought years and it's going to go away i represent the urock tribe area or

[01:45:13] the clamath river uh and they've had all the dams come down there so we're taking a look to see

[01:45:18] what's going on with those dams we've got the windmills coming in for energy one of the big

[01:45:24] problems we have is the cost of energy but we keep putting money into things like windmills

[01:45:30] that are the highest cost of energy whereas our hydroelectric you're not the first person to

[01:45:36] say that today actually seems to be a common thing it is because what they're doing out

[01:45:41] on the ocean to put the windmills out there is it's it's not so much even the what does

[01:45:48] it look like way out there because it's way out there but it's what it's going to do to our

[01:45:52] fishing industries it's what it's going to do you know so it's not environmentally friendly

[01:46:00] it is not isn't that just amazing and that doesn't take consideration of course the

[01:46:07] making of wind energy and everything else that goes on uh and we're not getting any

[01:46:12] benefits from it up north they're going to put the windmills up north off of the coast of

[01:46:17] humboldt county you know off the coast of maria off the coast of dale north you know

[01:46:22] up in you know brookings in oregon so what is your solution to that your alternative

[01:46:28] Well I think the alternative is do we need to go away like that yes we do do we need to put it

[01:46:36] on the oceans no we don't I say well you know there are some technologies that are coming up

[01:46:40] you know wave technology that you can go ahead and use it for I say put them down in malibu

[01:46:48] and see how well they work down there on the beaches what is wave technology like they go ahead

[01:46:52] you use the waves to go ahead and produce it you don't rely on the wind it's the wave energy

[01:46:58] okay that does it and it's consistent whereas the wind is we don't know how strong the wind really

[01:47:06] gets out into our areas off our coasts that are also um have a lot of earthquakes out that way

[01:47:13] we don't know what that's going to happen to these floating wind platforms do we need to

[01:47:18] take a look at it I think we need to take a look at it as we go through and get as

[01:47:24] technology is developed for that that is consistent yeah with it because everybody knows some of the

[01:47:30] things that are happening on the east coast with the winds with the whales the mammals so forth

[01:47:34] what's going on with it and the fact that a lot of these companies are leaving those places

[01:47:42] I wonder what's going to happen to the windmills when companies leave they're going to

[01:47:45] leave them out there yeah there's no place to do it that's all part of it but we need to

[01:47:49] take a look at it I put on thousands and thousands of miles on my vehicles I do a lot of

[01:47:56] traveling I put on 10,000 miles on my pickup truck so I know what energy is costing us

[01:48:03] but why are we in the state having to pay anywhere from a dollar fifty to two dollars

[01:48:07] more a gallon than any other state that gets it from the same place as we do yeah it's because

[01:48:13] of the taxes we need to take a look at that and see what's going on so we need to

[01:48:18] look at that energy because that's a big thing and what is it costing I don't have PG&E or you know

[01:48:25] Edison out of southern California I'm not affected by this new tax increase by this low

[01:48:32] according to the reading and saying I've been you know they're going to charge everybody

[01:48:36] this flat rate because I come out I have a power company in Del Norte do you have like

[01:48:42] it's like a small independent one it's not a specific power okay but it hasn't been included

[01:48:48] at least according to what I've seen every place else of course I'm not real thrilled with

[01:48:54] PG&E because of the fire in paradise that was caused by them and so forth yeah you know I have

[01:49:00] to but I do you know there are some benefits that came out of the out of that fire one of

[01:49:04] those is they get to have the opportunity to help support me on my campaign yeah just to

[01:49:09] get some of the money that they've actually you know have given me has gone to that but we still

[01:49:15] have to look at the other is you know I went down to Fresno and spoke at the Pacific Fisheries

[01:49:21] because they shut down the chartering so there are a lot of issues there and it's a large area

[01:49:26] what happens in Del Norte what we need there isn't what necessarily is what we need

[01:49:31] down in Santa Rosa do you mind if I circle back to education real fast school choice

[01:49:38] yes or no I am pro-choice I'm trying to get the state charter schools you know to go and support

[01:49:46] me absolutely we need competition in school yes yes we do and stuff and with that competition

[01:49:53] in paradise we have 3,500 kids in our school district we had five charters there we looked

[01:50:00] at those charters said why are these kids leaving and we took a look at it says well

[01:50:05] okay let's take those things we've learned and put it back into our schools and we actually

[01:50:10] had kids coming back to our school district because we listened to the parents listened to

[01:50:15] the students and incorporated in our district good for you yeah it's I'm gonna admit I

[01:50:22] you're from an area of California that I've never been to oh you and I think a lot of

[01:50:28] people forget like north of Sacramento that whole what they call the state of Jefferson

[01:50:33] like it's just it exists up there and it's beautiful I should probably get up there

[01:50:38] and visit one day you probably should come and see me in five minutes from my house I

[01:50:42] can ride my bike to the harbor 10 minutes I'm in the Redwood Park so did a Dye Smith Redwood

[01:50:49] and we have the cleanest river in the Smith River one of the top two in the nation

[01:50:54] wow you know I said it's beautiful up there but the what you're saying is interesting

[01:51:00] because California is so big I'm from San Diego so I'm from the complete opposite end of where you

[01:51:05] are in the state many times but what San Diego needs is different than what your area they do

[01:51:12] have the big fishing though they they do yeah but they've also been shut down on some not

[01:51:16] nearly as much as we'd have up north but yes they were also shut down though it's been

[01:51:21] back installed back into the you know in the season we're starting to be able to do a little

[01:51:26] bit of it now not as much but we still have the salmon fishing which is huge so it it just goes to

[01:51:34] the point that California is so big and there's so many different localities everybody needs

[01:51:40] something different this whole idea of like Sacramento is just going to issue edicts

[01:51:45] that apply across the state of 58 counties it just doesn't fit because what you need is

[01:51:51] completely different than what we need in San Diego yeah and we're actually in our campaign

[01:51:56] addressing that all of my handout cards uh in the past there were it wasn't generic but what

[01:52:03] I'm saying that we did the same one to every county that's changing we're actually going to

[01:52:08] be changing all of our campaign materials to fit the issues of the county go out and talk

[01:52:14] to them and that's what we did we I don't know how many thousands and thousands of doors

[01:52:19] we knocked in on in the during the campaign because everybody has different issues and different

[01:52:25] thoughts and we need to connect with those people yeah you know uh we're doing the same thing

[01:52:31] with a hispanic vote we're going out we're advertising on hispanic channels not just you

[01:52:36] know english channels because we need their vote I don't go out to just republicans I cannot

[01:52:43] win my election in november unless I get a 20 crossover vote that and we got that in the

[01:52:50] primary yeah now we need to go ahead and increase that to get you know get the other people and

[01:52:56] people are tired of what's going on they're looking to change you know you can't win with

[01:53:02] the same partner if the partner keeps doing the same thing yeah and so we need to change

[01:53:07] that partner and it's refreshing because you are now the third candidate who's come on today

[01:53:14] who has recognized that that in California you can't just win just being a republican

[01:53:22] and I think that's great that candidates are starting to say we need to start reaching

[01:53:26] across the aisle and we need to start saying hey independence or moderate democrats give me

[01:53:33] a look you know like look at what my platform is and just check me out because

[01:53:39] that's it because I have to do that I've done that in all my campaigns for school board I've

[01:53:44] done six or seven different campaigns and the thing that's really important is you need to do

[01:53:49] that when I was running for school board I had the you know the backing of the democrats

[01:53:55] I had the backing of the republicans you know I have all this different backing because

[01:53:59] that's what you need if you want to be successful to get things done for the working

[01:54:05] working people okay I did not graduate from college till I was 50 years old and then I

[01:54:10] started to teach I have a lot of different issues I've been that I'm that person that

[01:54:16] has had that difficult time you know making ends meet I've had that in the past you know

[01:54:23] still have it and it's getting even more so and that we have to face those things constantly

[01:54:30] we need to address those issues that the ordinary everyday working people have not the people that

[01:54:37] are getting all the handouts from the non-profits okay we need to go ahead and talk to all of these

[01:54:45] people and be able to be successful to do it and you can't do it if they don't know that

[01:54:50] you're one of them and that they can't trust you you need to have their trust you need to go out on

[01:54:55] the street and meet them not once to say hey would you vote for me we need to find out what

[01:55:00] their problems are go back and talk to them again I've actually got democrat parties local

[01:55:07] parties asking me to come and talk to them I'll be meeting with the cloverdale democrat party

[01:55:12] wow with it they contacted me and I will talk to everyone yeah I'll talk to everyone

[01:55:18] anyone it does not make a difference anywhere I will travel yeah and that's what I do because

[01:55:25] I have to cover over you know 12 000 you know square miles you know it's a 300 miles

[01:55:32] coastline that I have to cover from the mountains to the sea you know from the mountains

[01:55:37] to the ocean that's what I cover yeah and I have the timber industry behind me I have the

[01:55:43] fishing industry behind me I have the agricultural industry behind me because we need to address

[01:55:49] these issues of the working people and take off that tax burden right take off those regulations

[01:55:55] that non-elected regulators put on the people right yeah and and I think um reaching across

[01:56:03] those party lines is what we need more of which he's experienced at since he's run for school

[01:56:08] board so many times yeah non-partisan non-partisan you got to reach across

[01:56:11] that absolutely and that's when you run for school board as a non-partisan you don't have

[01:56:16] the benefit of just saying well I'm gonna throw out the red meat to my republican colleagues

[01:56:20] I just have to say you know I have to tell people what is going to get solutions done or

[01:56:26] get get you know things done it doesn't matter party you're just saying these are

[01:56:31] things that need to get done so and that's why I'm not running my campaign as a republican

[01:56:35] campaign I'm running it as a quality of life and the opportunity to achieve that quality

[01:56:43] of life that an individual wants for his family right well the same question I've been asking

[01:56:49] every candidate who's been sitting down today you're elected first 60 days what's your number

[01:56:54] one priority to get staff behind me that I can send out to go ahead and talk to the people

[01:57:01] I've been working extensively with assemblyman Gallagher okay so I've worked with him for a long

[01:57:09] time and he's a good one as I look forward am I going to go out there and just this is the bill

[01:57:14] I'm going to do you know we need to take a look at the bills that are some of them that

[01:57:18] are there and let's readjust some of those laws that we have right you know we don't have

[01:57:25] a complete breakdown in Sacramento what we have are these people that don't look at it and see the

[01:57:31] unintended consequences of what they've done they says okay you cannot have you know power

[01:57:38] generators to recharge our electrical batteries you know how do you do that out in the woods

[01:57:43] how do you go out there in some of these rural areas I represent rural northern California

[01:57:51] that's what I represent right okay and Sacramento so far removed from that they don't understand

[01:57:57] it but they don't understand that everything they do how it affects the small business owners

[01:58:02] local elections matter they do that's exactly where it's at that's what I'm involved in

[01:58:07] with it you know it is local and I've seen that on the school board I've seen this state

[01:58:14] now taking away local authority on the school boards and in education and trying to dictate

[01:58:22] and if you don't do it we're going to take away the money that you you know from the state and

[01:58:27] they're threatening us with that right you have to do it well I say you know hey

[01:58:32] pound sand I'm going to go out and do what's right I would rather lose being right than be

[01:58:38] victorious being wrong right yeah so that's what we'll be doing to do it because of that

[01:58:45] okay this is my final final question someone's coming to your neck of the woods to come visit

[01:58:50] what's the one place you tell everyone they should visit to visit first time up in your

[01:58:56] neck of the woods what should they go say hey what they need to do is I know where they need

[01:59:01] to visit and every one of those places that they visit whether it's the trees and mystery

[01:59:06] you know all our local shops it's those workers it's those people that live there visit with them

[01:59:13] come and see our fishing people come and go out on a charter and see what it's like to be able

[01:59:20] to be there I've only been in Del Norte county for four years yeah okay so I had traveled up

[01:59:28] there before so I knew kind of what I wanted to do but it's the beauty of the area but we

[01:59:33] need to protect that area we need to go ahead and take a look at some of those things I work

[01:59:39] sensitive with the tribes in the area our school this week we actually teach two

[01:59:44] Native American languages okay the Europe language we teach from kindergarten through high school

[01:59:52] wow okay we're getting ready to want to change one of our schools names actually back to your

[01:59:59] name for a location that it's at instead of after an individual you know so we're starting

[02:00:06] to look at that and they you know so we pay attention to the environment pay attention to

[02:00:10] the culture you know let's go ahead and do those things you know let's teach the different

[02:00:15] things that are necessary in education for people to have a quality life where they can

[02:00:21] support their own culture continue with it but still go forth with the American dream right

[02:00:27] I'll take care of that in a second our video went off but you're still on you're still on

[02:00:32] so Mike where can people find you and learn more about you and support you they need to go to

[02:00:38] mike greer assembly 2024.com for my website with it that's the best way to do it is to

[02:00:49] go to that you'll see what I represent you'll be able to go ahead and contact me through my

[02:00:56] email and get out and you'll see me because the only way I get to be known is visit everything

[02:01:04] you'll see me in your parades you'll see me you know at their events they'll see me all the time

[02:01:10] but you know and that's what I do and you'll recognize me because I have a hat and it's

[02:01:17] something I've worn for 20 years I've been recognized in the you know back of Washington

[02:01:22] DC because of my hat wow but go to my website that's the best thing hey I appreciate the time

[02:01:28] you spent Mike it was a great conversation great to know you and it's mike greer g re er 20

[02:01:36] mike greer assembly 2024.com so go check it out if you're up there in the state of

[02:01:41] jefferson check it out wherever you are and maybe one day well you know wife and I will

[02:01:46] go take a trip up there and spend a weekend you'll love it we'll take you to the high

[02:01:49] spots perfect places that you need to see the place where you can go down on the beach

[02:01:54] and see the starfish at low tide this sounds beautiful high poles or the big trees big trees

[02:02:01] got to go through the big trees so mike thank you so much for stopping by thank you great

[02:02:06] conversation uh best of luck to you in the race while we readjust here and get the video

[02:02:15] back online still live it looks like we're still live on youtube rumble and all those

[02:02:27] now it looks like now still need to reconnect the video source

[02:02:36] so we're still here uh broadcasting streaming live from the 2024 california gop convention

[02:02:44] still got a little bit more time um I think there's a couple other candidates who are

[02:02:48] looking to swing by in a little bit um again like we said it seems like a quieter convention

[02:02:56] than the last time so we're just here we're in the exhibitor hall so if you

[02:03:05] happen to be here at the same time come by and see us grab a beautiful sticker that camille

[02:03:11] designed and brought along I just I just took his logo it came out great I really I really

[02:03:19] like it um and people have been grabbing them like crazy so um yeah people I guess people

[02:03:26] love stickers they're like I'm gonna put on my laptop I'm gonna put on my Stanley cup or

[02:03:29] whatever right put it wherever put it on you know I can't advocate for putting in on public

[02:03:36] places but if you um if you're not here and you're probably not here if you're watching at

[02:03:42] home um and you want one of these stickers you can contact me but I'll charge you for

[02:03:48] shipping I mean I don't I don't I don't mean to be rude I just because I'm sure we'll have a few

[02:03:54] left over these stickers are cool yeah so we do have a whole bunch of them if you're in the

[02:04:02] area swing on by that was a great conversation with with my it's always interesting when we

[02:04:08] get people who just kind of swing by and I've never met them before it's kind of a touch

[02:04:13] and go coin flip of like what you're gonna get when you when you're at convention and you get these

[02:04:19] candidates who sit down you're kind of like oh how is this gonna go I hope this goes really

[02:04:23] well but he was amazing I think that was a great conversation with Mike well and it goes

[02:04:27] back to you too like we keep talking about how big this state is um we can't know every name

[02:04:34] who's running like we're just like we're just it's not like something we can mentally even

[02:04:39] know and so as much as we try to pay attention we're there's so there's so many people and then

[02:04:45] now of course we're past the primaries so this is who's on the actual november ballot so it

[02:04:50] is fascinating to come up here and then have these people from these areas that we've never

[02:04:55] even been to and can't even imagine what they actually look like yeah and then get to hear

[02:04:59] from them because their seat is important too yeah and like I said he's on the complete

[02:05:04] opposite side of the state from us so to think like he's all the way up there we never heard

[02:05:10] of him before like I don't even know what that area is like up there sounds pretty

[02:05:15] sounds beautiful definitely want to go visit but yeah it was a great conversation I'm really

[02:05:20] happy it's really refreshing to hear these candidates sit down with us and say the same

[02:05:27] thing which is we have to reach out to democrats and independents if we're gonna

[02:05:33] make a difference it's refreshing that we're starting to see candidates who are saying that

[02:05:40] and it's becoming a big part of their campaign because I feel like in past years it was a lot

[02:05:46] of my way or the highway you know what I mean like it felt like a lot of candidates were very

[02:05:53] you know these are my these are my visions this is what I believe in everyone should believe

[02:05:58] or agree with me because these are these things are right and I'm not going to compromise

[02:06:01] or I'm not going to talk to anybody else and the truth is you're not winning in California like that

[02:06:07] right in many of these districts you are not winning in California if you're just going to

[02:06:12] go out there as it's funny I'm looking from where we're sitting right now we have a straight

[02:06:18] sight line of the maga mall no it's a maga mall it's a maga I wish we could show you

[02:06:25] it's for a convention that's it's truly a maga mall and you know I was gonna say that's

[02:06:29] actually one thing that's so great about doing these in-person podcasts is because it gives us

[02:06:33] the opportunity to because you know the old saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease he's not the

[02:06:37] squeaky wheel he's not out there being maga or being extremely liberal and therefore he's not

[02:06:44] the person that's getting the attention online on the news or whatever because he's not saying

[02:06:48] anything extreme right and so he's more of a quiet type who has very common sense logical

[02:06:55] no nonsense you know solutions and answers and then we get to come here and actually talk to him

[02:07:01] a person and like see all Republicans aren't these extremists yeah they're not like he

[02:07:08] he didn't come here and be like I'm coming out with my gun and I'm you know like there

[02:07:12] was nothing like that he's just like I'm up here in my community trying to do his best

[02:07:17] for the kids I'll see you at the parade yeah yeah and you're right it's um a lot of these

[02:07:22] candidates who are running are like self-funded they don't have big backing they don't have big

[02:07:27] financial backers um they don't have these big packs or anything like that running for them

[02:07:32] and you know his slogan is actually electing common sense oh I didn't see that and it's

[02:07:38] funny if you like I think if anybody just sat down with with Mike and was like hey let's

[02:07:43] have a beer and a conversation and you didn't know his political party I think a lot of

[02:07:48] people in California if they sat down with him would be like I agree with a lot of what

[02:07:52] you're saying like we need to make energy more affordable we need to protect the environment

[02:07:56] like it's a lot of things that he's like crossing over aisles and political lines to say

[02:08:02] like we need to protect our because he comes from a very beautiful part of the state

[02:08:07] and obviously protecting the environment is important to him and protecting the fish and

[02:08:11] the wildlife and all that stuff and wildfires and preventing wildfires and stuff like that

[02:08:15] gotta plug the merch we have a California is worth fighting for shirt right on the site

[02:08:20] go check it out yes you made the point like right California has very beautiful it is a

[02:08:26] beautiful state it truly is yeah and just to finish that we do a California underground dot

[02:08:33] live go to shop you can check out all the merch including this awesome shirt that has been

[02:08:36] getting plenty of second looks and dirty looks um the responses are always funny people

[02:08:42] are like and uh okay one guy I was on my way to the bathroom he kind of looked at me laughed

[02:08:47] and he was like that's a great shirt man um but anyway what was I gonna say well about my career

[02:08:54] yeah um yeah you know it's it's we always focus on like I mean the news what bleeds

[02:09:02] leads right and that's true of both sides like we love to show the we love to show skid row in

[02:09:10] LA like we love to show crime in San Francisco but like California is such an enormous state it's

[02:09:20] not just San Francisco and Los Angeles um so hold on keep talking I have to shoot I've got

[02:09:30] nothing to say you have nothing to say um no um this show we've been streaming since a little

[02:09:39] after one so if you are just now tuning in be sure to check out after after the fact this will

[02:09:46] be up on YouTube rumble and Spotify and stuff and we'll do smaller clips so we've heard from

[02:09:50] some great candidates today from all over so be sure to check that out uh there was Mike Greer

[02:09:56] there was somebody Shoemaker Jim Shoemaker yeah we we had a few on um drop of business cards

[02:10:06] uh these these people they do need support and if you don't have the finances to support them

[02:10:15] you can always commit an hour a week less than an hour a week phone calling um if you're in

[02:10:20] their district you can join off you don't have to be in their district to make phone calls

[02:10:25] phone calls are very quick and easy and you can just boom boom boom go down the line and

[02:10:29] just kind of call and say hey have you heard and so and so they'll give you a script

[02:10:33] there's like all training you contact them and they'll they'll tell you what to say and where

[02:10:37] to direct people and stuff yeah and that with technology now as I understand it like you don't

[02:10:42] have to be in his district no they give you an Arizona yeah they give you an app now and like

[02:10:47] you call through the app and you just go down the list and like they give you a script and

[02:10:51] you call so like phone banking is a big thing it helps with their fundraising um you know Jim's

[02:10:56] seat is uh hotly contested so we that's a flipable seat uh Mike Greer up there looks like

[02:11:02] he's making waves up there um so you know check them all out if you're in their district

[02:11:08] support them because uh they need their support and and you know with it sadly as we sit here

[02:11:16] in the middle of the California GOP convention the GOP here is more concerned with the big

[02:11:21] flashy congressional races as we all know they love to get their congressional wins and put

[02:11:26] that up on the scoreboard and say like look at how many seats we have and how many seats

[02:11:30] we flipped but it feels like they kind of abandon the local races a little bit can I say can I make

[02:11:35] negative comments no one's here I don't know someone's gonna like you know someone's gonna

[02:11:40] come down on the ceiling on us so governor Kristi Noem she's here or was right I like her

[02:11:49] I'm not even saying anything negative about her but why does the California GOP have her here

[02:11:54] like we were talking earlier about Shannon Grove really is um she makes moves she she gets things

[02:12:01] done why is someone like her not up here right talking to us and teaching us her ways because I

[02:12:07] believe she's turned out right so yeah and I don't mean just her but there we do have some

[02:12:14] good players in the California GOP and I'm just curious why are we not bringing them up

[02:12:20] to be like hey uh yeah I think it's obviously because you can charge a premium price

[02:12:28] but again that kind of just highlights the discrepancy of like well we're paying the

[02:12:33] California GOP to sit here and listen to Kristi Noem who has nothing to do with California

[02:12:38] politics she has nothing to really add to California unless she's the VP pick but I

[02:12:42] don't know I think she I don't think I think she shot that one uh sorry just waving at

[02:12:48] some friends now hey do you want to come we're gonna bring Austin in oh okay we're gonna bring

[02:12:53] Austin in just come sit we were just talking about Kristi Noem so he made it he made a

[02:13:02] joke to me earlier that I quite laughed at throwing the headphones tell us who or what

[02:13:08] you were here to talk about no wires might be a little yeah there we go wired technology

[02:13:16] okay so this is Austin this is Austin he's from Orange County

[02:13:20] shout out to Orange County you talk close to the mic because it's kind of

[02:13:23] Amazon karaoke mics basically that okay I like calling on a budget so tell us about you don't

[02:13:29] tell them all our secrets oh geez anyway what do you think who are you what do you do and

[02:13:36] what can you tell us I'm actually only here for these really cool stickers okay you and

[02:13:41] everybody else told that I have to do an interview too sure sure my name is Austin

[02:13:46] I'm Austin Edsel I live in Phoenix Beach California and I I'm the former president of the Orange

[02:13:52] County Young Republicans and I'm currently the vice chair of the California Young Republicans

[02:13:56] awesome yeah so how's it been going at convention so far it's it's been going great

[02:14:01] we had our regional meetings this morning our president Ariana and I did a little run around

[02:14:06] at all the different regional meetings and letting folks know about us what we're doing what we're

[02:14:11] working on and we've got a lot of fun things planned for this year did you get to go see

[02:14:15] Kristi Noem I did not okay it's uh what did you call it what I ran into you what did you

[02:14:22] about the lunch I don't remember I thought you made some reference to the dog I don't know

[02:14:27] okay so we all are I forget we're all making the dog all right the poor dog what was the

[02:14:33] dog's name Skittles or something I don't know the dog's name that's trivia right there what

[02:14:37] was the name of Kristi Noem's dog that she put down herself yeah so anyway we actually like

[02:14:44] Kristi because now I feel like because we we said some things but we do like Kristi

[02:14:48] like both of us actually really like Kristi the reason we're talking about Kristi Noem

[02:14:52] and feel free to chime in is because we were asking like well why is Kristi Noem here

[02:14:57] at the California GOP like obviously she's a big ticket she probably brings in a lot

[02:15:02] of money but like aren't there more prominent California politicians that we could get to come

[02:15:08] in and like talk or rally the base or get people excited about California politics and

[02:15:14] the party as itself so yeah there are a lot of exciting folks here in California I think some

[02:15:21] of the draws that a lot of the folks that go to conventions they come to convention every year

[02:15:25] and they have a lot of people know each other we all know each other it's the same

[02:15:29] folks that have been coming for years and so I think a lot of our California it's kind of

[02:15:33] bizarre a lot of our California elected officials are very accessible and as Republicans we only have

[02:15:38] a handful right you know I think at this point Assemblyman Gallagher and you know

[02:15:45] Senator Brian Dali have met everyone at all of these conventions for the last several years

[02:15:51] and so I think it's you know it's just another name draw and you know with her you

[02:15:56] might pick up just some folks who maybe would never normally go to convention and now they're

[02:16:00] here. Good points. So young Republicans to a lot of people that sounds like an oxymoron

[02:16:09] especially in California because it's not the cool thing to do to be a young Republican

[02:16:15] tell us what the young Republicans in California do to reach out to young voters. Well as

[02:16:22] California young Republicans as a statewide organization our job is to support our county

[02:16:26] chapters and recruit train and elect the next generation of Republican leaders in our state

[02:16:32] and so as a statewide organization we train our folks in activism we train them you know in

[02:16:38] the door-to-door contacts we also train them to be the next generation of leaders who kind of

[02:16:42] take over we do socials so we make sure that as a community we're building young

[02:16:49] Republicans in a community you know something that we've done very well in Orange County we have a

[02:16:54] community of folks we do life together you know we celebrate when somebody gets pregnant or

[02:16:58] somebody gets engaged and somebody buys a house you know we're doing life together and I think

[02:17:03] for a lot of young people who are conservative they don't always have that community and they

[02:17:07] don't know it exists a lot of the time too especially in southern California like they could

[02:17:12] think it's a little bit tough for folks because you know you work every day you work 60 hours

[02:17:16] a week and then you go to the gym and then that's kind of their life and then you know maybe

[02:17:21] they'll go to a bar or whatever but they don't get to see the like you know they watch they'll

[02:17:24] watch the Ben Shapiro podcast or one of those you know what a conservative you know influencer

[02:17:30] and or this podcast or this I just want to be honest like you know I'm in Orange County

[02:17:36] yeah and I didn't even know you guys existed until like spring convention last year yeah I

[02:17:41] didn't and I'm embarrassed to say that because I have been a Republican my Republican my whole

[02:17:45] life and I have been very active in politics and in Orange County yeah well and we've and we're

[02:17:52] one of the more successful clubs in the state where we've been we've our membership we've got

[02:17:56] a lot of members a lot of active members and you know usually our monthly membership meetings

[02:18:01] they get we get like 60 people 60 plus people we have a lot of local I can confirm we have

[02:18:06] a lot of local electeds come through and they it's again Republicans in California are very

[02:18:10] accessible yeah um because we have Cynthia off camera here taking pictures make sure you get

[02:18:16] my good side Cynthia smile everyone um do you want to talk about you work for a candidate we could

[02:18:25] I don't know if you want to talk about that but we we could not if you want uh I think

[02:18:30] my focus today is just the young Republicans okay okay my off time I like to participate

[02:18:35] I volunteer a lot for the young that's right you're just here for the stickers

[02:18:38] and we're just here so California victory is what it says on your jacket right now what's

[02:18:42] California victory um yes actually this is fun I got this for losing the scott boffa congress

[02:18:47] campaign last cycle okay that's a joke uh I uh no we um so last cycle I'm an accountant by

[02:18:54] trade okay I took a pause on that to jump on the scott boffa congress campaign scott

[02:18:59] boffa he's a great candidate running for congress he's running again this year he's

[02:19:03] gonna win we're gonna he's gonna win we're gonna send him to DC for sure as our congressman

[02:19:07] and that that district specifically to me was important because I live in the district and and

[02:19:13] for me like I've always liked to volunteer and support the candidates that I that will represent

[02:19:18] me and so you know in all my my years of volunteering and the work that I do I always

[02:19:23] strive to support those who are going to represent me um and so jumped on the scott

[02:19:28] boffa congress campaign for the last four months of the cycle and uh it was a blast

[02:19:33] and I worked for the CRP to do that so we worked for the CR the California Republican Party was

[02:19:37] assigned to boffa and uh we made gosh I think it was nine million voter contacts in the year not

[02:19:45] just our district but the whole program the victory program and so we all got these fun

[02:19:49] sweaters I just want to point out real quick on that district that is where Katie Porter

[02:19:54] currently is the congresswoman yes but she ran for US Senate she did not make it through

[02:20:01] the primary and so she is not currently running for congress and scott boffa is pulling way ahead

[02:20:08] the the one democrat I think is barely even pulling like not even um I think it'll be

[02:20:15] it'll be a close race but the wind is in our sails for scott boff definitely we'll see so

[02:20:21] I mean it's a it's a whole different election from the last cycle too yeah uh scott I love

[02:20:26] him because he I've never heard of an elected official talk but he's not an elected now

[02:20:31] he's been a lawyer for the last 30 years but I I've never heard a candidate speak about the

[02:20:35] constitution the way that scott does and uh he's really passionate about it he knows what to do

[02:20:41] when he gets to congress he's great at relationships so I think we'll see great

[02:20:45] things from him this race is completely different too um with with Katie Porter she had

[02:20:50] 27 million dollars that she had to drain just to get re-elected against scott she only won by

[02:20:56] 9 000 votes so you know only winning by 9 000 votes having spent 27 million dollars against

[02:21:02] a candidate who supposed was not supposed to be so close um and you know the the dems don't

[02:21:09] really have that much of an interest as far as we know in jumping in this race as hardcore as

[02:21:14] you know Katie Porter jumped into the race awesome so is there any way uh if young

[02:21:20] republicans are listening right now how can they get involved well uh we've got all of our

[02:21:26] we've got 12 chapters um in California uh Orange County LA County we've got North Valley

[02:21:34] Central Valley and I think even South South Valley my geography on this state is very small

[02:21:41] my knowledge of the state it ends born and raised it's a gray map anything above LA it's

[02:21:48] kind of a gray area for me I'm peeking at Cynthia off camera if she's like looking at

[02:21:52] you like San Diego we've got San Diego hey remember San Diego recent like testing

[02:21:58] you on all this San Diego's booming right now what up represent most of the major population

[02:22:03] centers we've got a club but if you want to get involved then we have state-wides too

[02:22:08] our we have a national committee man who's not part of the home club but he's he's from Shasta

[02:22:13] and so uh we've got people from up and down the state and just get plugged into your local

[02:22:18] organization and if they don't have local organization if they don't you can follow

[02:22:22] us on social media because we've got to actually a lot of great opportunities coming up for them

[02:22:27] so keep up with us sign up on our website just to get our notifications but um this year the

[02:22:32] California young republicans are doing uh three deployments that we're doing one in

[02:22:37] Bakersfield uh we're doing one in the desert out in Palm Springs um and then we're also

[02:22:44] doing one in Orange County and so these big deployments the statewide deployments are to

[02:22:49] get you know just republicans from all walks young republicans from all walks of life active

[02:22:54] in these campaigns and these races these are our targeted seats and so we're going to get out

[02:22:58] there we're going to knock doors for these candidates and we're going to help them get

[02:23:01] across the finish line that last month of the election um so for those who don't have a club

[02:23:08] that you live under in your county keep following us because you can get engaged with

[02:23:13] those we have sponsorships so we'll have you know we'll pay for flights or reimburse

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[02:23:22] to support our candidates that we're targeting here um that we're doing a big national deployment

[02:23:26] for uh Scott Baw actually in Orange County um October 15th or October 12th I think is a

[02:23:33] Saturday and so that'll be a big deployment we're going to that'll be a national

[02:23:37] deployment so what we do as a state organization is we link up with the national young

[02:23:43] republicans which is a big organization they have I think I think every state's charter but I'm not

[02:23:48] sure 100% sure I think there might have been a couple that have fallen off but uh national

[02:23:52] organization and you know each of their clubs you know it's kind of funny because California

[02:23:57] is a force you would think like oh California is just this like kind of Democrat stronghold

[02:24:01] but we have more republicans in the state than other people have state populations and so

[02:24:07] even you know when we go up to these national conventions we have a huge group we rival Texas

[02:24:13] the amount of republicans that we young republicans that we ring to these things

[02:24:18] and so we invite folks we'll invite folks from all across the country to fly in and

[02:24:22] join us on these uh on that deployment and it'd be fun awesome well thank you for coming on

[02:24:27] Austin uh what is the website you said find the website but you didn't it's a yeah it's

[02:24:33] ca y r f dot org okay um you can sign up on our newsletter there and actually while you're

[02:24:39] there uh we have a page you can find it on our social media too this uh the California

[02:24:44] young republicans are hosting a national convention a national young republican convention

[02:24:48] in san diego this november two weeks after election day and the that's going to be a ton

[02:24:54] of fun that's another great opportunity if you don't have a club that you are working

[02:24:58] with or you're involved with that's a great opportunity come down to san diego tickets will

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[02:25:16] we have a special rate for california young republicans and come on down to san diego

[02:25:22] after we win all of our elections have some fun celebrate with us we'll go do a tour of

[02:25:26] the midway we'll have some great guest speakers and that's an opportunity for us as an

[02:25:31] organization we want to get as many young republicans there as possible in california

[02:25:37] and we want to let them know that hey there is this network of conservatives who think like you

[02:25:42] and are professionals like you and work like you like there are people who are like-minded

[02:25:46] that you can meet and hang out with and make like lifelong friends awesome thank you

[02:25:51] for stopping by i'm glad we grabbed you and don't forget to take a sticker or two

[02:25:56] you earned that sticker yeah thank you thank you um all right uh i'm thinking we took a little bit

[02:26:07] of a long lunch break why don't we go on a quick 10 minute break yeah i think there was

[02:26:12] a candidate around here she keeps walking by and then we'll have someone else so i'll probably

[02:26:16] go try to grab her she's another assembly candidate i think she has a really good chance

[02:26:21] okay yeah so we'll we'll do a quick 10 minute break uh and we'll be back right after that

[02:26:28] want to make sure we give you guys all the content we can we're having a good time it's

[02:26:31] kind of just cool hanging out here and doing the podcast so we'll see you all in 10 minutes

[02:26:36] later guys all right everyone we are back from our break and uh we were lucky enough to grab

[02:26:42] another candidate joshua rodriguez assembly district 69 is it joshua or josh which you

[02:26:48] prefer to go joshua okay oh sorry i think your mic was muted say your name again joshua rodriguez

[02:26:54] there we go much better so um tell us a little bit about yourself what district you're running

[02:26:59] for where is that so people now they don't always remember the numbers so so district 69

[02:27:03] is long beach signal hill catalina and avalon and actually covers little segments of carson

[02:27:10] so southern california um about my here my sorry er i think you're the first southern

[02:27:15] california uh candidate we've had on today yeah a lot of it and we're we are southern california

[02:27:20] so everyone's talking about these districts where we're like never been there what where's that

[02:27:23] yeah sorry go on so uh a little bit about myself i'm a marine corps veteran i served five

[02:27:29] years in the marines as a corporal joined the national guard for three years i'm now an

[02:27:33] la pd officer uh for 12 years and uh father of three boys and with a beautiful wife at home

[02:27:39] and you know this whole got into this whole political game so the obvious question is why

[02:27:46] did you get into the whole political game so a little bit divine intervention back in 2021

[02:27:52] uh being threatened with termination for not getting the covid vaccine um i was led to run

[02:28:01] for mayor of long beach and so i ran for mayor of long beach because i wanted to fire 40

[02:28:06] of the police department there when at the time was a 400 increase in homicide i thought

[02:28:11] that's insanity now you know i had no delusions of grandeur i still don't you know it's it's

[02:28:16] gonna be a hard state to win but someone's got to fight for it i was tired of complaining

[02:28:21] you know saying oh look we only have these two options they're both democrats so

[02:28:26] let's do my name in the hat and you won the primary i did win the primary there's only two

[02:28:30] of us so right yeah but i did receive enough votes so he didn't get fit that that uh 50

[02:28:36] well actually didn't matter so he did get that so obviously crime is one of the major issues

[02:28:40] that you see in your district oh most definitely especially being a patrol officer i'm out there

[02:28:44] arresting people and they get released on zero bail they just get out literally with the

[02:28:49] before my reports even done they're already being processed out of the jail wow so

[02:28:54] so what do you think is attributing to that level of crime that you can help by being in the

[02:29:02] assembly oh well so the legislature and we first we started with getting rid of prop 47

[02:29:08] and making so many of these like petty crimes back to where they were supposed to be felonies

[02:29:12] like 950 dollars a lot of money for anybody you know especially especially for me father of

[02:29:18] three so i think it's kind of a sick joke and then we're killing our own businesses with

[02:29:23] with this stuff so um again we need to just enforce the law even felonies now non-violent

[02:29:31] and some violent are just being released people are being released for committing these crimes

[02:29:37] um one of them that was downgraded this is gonna blow your mind uh rape under intoxication

[02:29:44] you're no longer a sex offender wow yes so again or spreading hiv knowingly is used to

[02:29:53] be a felony now it is a misdemeanor crime which they won't prosecute we have a very awoken um crazy

[02:30:02] district attorney in los angeles that just does whatever he feels like there's no

[02:30:07] oath of office that he uh upholds so um i had a question that was on the top of my mind

[02:30:15] and i just forgot you can ask your regular question my regular question yeah um outside

[02:30:20] of crime what are some other issues you see that are important in your district right now

[02:30:25] okay well uh again it's the homeless population which also are everything that runs in tandem

[02:30:32] so we have businesses fleeing uh yes our my assembly district so again there's only so much

[02:30:38] you can do in the legislature especially when it comes to voting for like budget measures

[02:30:41] and stuff so if i can stop california from continuing the way they're spending losing money

[02:30:48] everywhere and just being a roadblock so we can as taxpayers can you know get rid of the tax

[02:30:55] you know uh gas tax or like that's that's kind of the focus it's like if if i get into the

[02:31:01] assembly i can uh help contribute to the to the fight with the republicans to uh stop the

[02:31:09] crazy spending uh bring back law and order you know uh with with assembly bills or just

[02:31:15] having um again having these district attorneys investigated trying to push for that through

[02:31:22] uh all the way up to the doj whatever influence i can provide through the office i will i will use

[02:31:29] to our advantage because again we see the issues and um again the homeless population

[02:31:36] uh is substantial and especially in los angeles in long beach so again those are ballot

[02:31:43] measures that you know we're paying for but they lose 60 billion dollars and it's right

[02:31:50] you know may i ask how old your boys are so i got a seven-year-old uh a one-year-old

[02:31:56] and a three-month-old okay oh wow you're busy it's so seven-year-old not not trying to get

[02:32:01] all into your personal life but like education is obviously a big issue so seven-year-old

[02:32:05] in school yes so uh because of california especially uh k-12 is now forced to be taught

[02:32:14] lgbt sexual identity my son is attending a private school you know and it's it's really

[02:32:21] just heartening and expensive to send your kids to private school when i grew up in the public

[02:32:26] education system the system wasn't the best but you learn other things while going to a

[02:32:33] public school you know not so right like we've been talking about a lot of the candidates i'm

[02:32:38] talking about like bring back basic education you know reading writing math yes and i've had

[02:32:45] this conversation with not like people i work with and with voters again there's a way to

[02:32:50] just avoid the liability of having a government you know did you bring friends there's a few

[02:32:56] police officers here so i'm just kidding um having someone a government official a teacher

[02:33:04] is paid by the government they are government officials and they're teaching you know sexuality

[02:33:10] to kids from k-12 i think that's a liability if we want to talk about it so again that's

[02:33:16] another problem with our our government right now taxpayer money is is just thrown willy-nilly

[02:33:23] you know out of a bucket and they're fine with it because there's no accountability

[02:33:27] but we're going to change that so pro pro school choice oh yes 100 oh yes again it

[02:33:34] you know we can't the distance we're being forced into or the where you're being forced

[02:33:39] to send your kid to if you live in that district and it's poor education because

[02:33:44] there's indoctrination or there's a lack of focus in core uh again california we spend

[02:33:50] so much money uh we probably one of the higher uh expenditures for um kids in school and we have

[02:33:57] the worst test grades where i think worldwide we're like number 23 or something like that

[02:34:02] yeah i think it's might be lower than that oh yeah 37 or something oh well that last time

[02:34:08] yeah i think he stopped checking he doesn't want to see the numbers i know it's the press

[02:34:12] line up at 23 now it might be even lower than that yeah it's it's scary to think that this

[02:34:17] is happening but you know we're all here to fight for it to fight against it so what are

[02:34:22] what are you taking from your experience in the marine corps and applying it to your run for a

[02:34:28] sound well politics i don't know if you know marines uh we're pretty vicious and relentless

[02:34:35] and and stubborn so yeah our friend who you just passed on the way out was a marine as well

[02:34:39] so go all christy gnome on us so it's it's that's the way we are and again we're outspoken

[02:34:46] we're not afraid again we defended this country i'm willing to die for this country still today

[02:34:52] i'm a police officer on the streets you know chasing these these gang members you know what

[02:34:56] what can i do other than fight continue to fight for a clean safe society that with some

[02:35:02] hopefully some sanity on top of it so question i've been asking every candidate who's been

[02:35:08] sitting down with us today first 60 days you're elected to office what's the number one

[02:35:13] law and order we we got to get a prop 47 repealed it's already uh is gonna hit the ballot um again

[02:35:19] expenditures stop building bullet trains if if we can i think they did stop they're just pretending

[02:35:24] no they're trying to they're trying to do another one they want to do another one from

[02:35:28] vegas to los angeles again no that we don't we're we're in a deficit we can't we shouldn't

[02:35:34] be studying yeah of all the things that we've got going on they're like i know yeah this

[02:35:39] whole responsibility is what's important like again that's what makes us conservatives and

[02:35:44] republicans like we they need to our wallet is not something the government could just pull

[02:35:51] money out of and that's what they've been doing again we have the highest tax rate so tax cuts

[02:35:55] will be another one of my top priorities we need to get rid of a lot of these taxes

[02:36:01] um we're just spending money for nothing yeah how is your race looking so i received 32%

[02:36:08] of the vote 25 000 votes in the primary i know that we focus on democrats and again

[02:36:16] the democrats are doing the job for us again with high crime with high taxes it's unbearable

[02:36:23] for everybody that's in the state so i anticipate that we're going to start seeing a lot of those

[02:36:28] voters vote our way and so luckily my ballot designation also hopefully will bring some clarity

[02:36:34] to some voters because it says police officer and father so they can hopefully relate i blue collar

[02:36:40] worker i get dirty a lot so um i hoping that that would bring some of those voters but with

[02:36:48] the help here especially the the networking here at california gop uh in la gop i i think

[02:36:54] we can do it you can do it well where can people find and support you so i'm on instagram

[02:37:00] so uh josh rodriguez assembly district 69 it's not is josh rodriguez ad 69 on instagram and

[02:37:09] facebook you can't miss me i'm i'm gonna stand out so uh most people find it pretty quickly

[02:37:17] so i have no website yet which is a whole different conversation uh i'm having trouble

[02:37:22] with the banks so contact you through instagram if people want to volunteer donate etc i don't

[02:37:27] and so that's the other thing i don't ask for donations and i'm getting i get uh yell that a

[02:37:33] lot over here we're not raising funds but i think grassroots level like for me it's about

[02:37:38] doing the work and uh getting you know the name you know my name out there so for people

[02:37:44] to say this guy is actually genuine legit person and he's not just trying to look for

[02:37:48] popularity i don't i i have a lot to lose with just running for office because i have

[02:37:53] to take two year break from law enforcement just to be in the assembly and then come back

[02:37:58] to law enforcement after i'm fat and happy of not being you know chasing people so yeah

[02:38:05] so awesome thank you for stopping by josh i'm glad we were we were able to grab you and get

[02:38:10] you to talk with us for a little bit i appreciate it thank you god bless you all thank you thank

[02:38:15] you feel free to take a cool sticker

[02:38:20] thank you gosh best of luck fix my hair real quick it went great thank you that's the best

[02:38:29] that's the best time to catch people is when they're not prepared that's the best time to

[02:38:32] catch people when they're not prepared for interviews yeah so just off the cuff natural

[02:38:39] we don't want talking points we don't want canned talking points so thank you so much

[02:38:43] thank you so much yeah so a point about the question that you ask every candidate

[02:38:47] yes of you know what are what are they running on what are their issues yeah every candidate has a

[02:38:52] different issue because every candidate again yeah 58 counties in this massive state of ours

[02:38:58] each area each demographic has their own issues right and and yes there's a lot of crossover

[02:39:04] issues but it's something in their district that they saw inspired them to step up and run

[02:39:09] because they were like this is what i'm seeing and it feels like we've gotten a different

[02:39:12] answer from each of them because they're seeing something different in every area

[02:39:17] which always goes back to our point about sacramento like local elections matter sacramento

[02:39:22] needs to calm down and stay out of all the local elections right because different areas

[02:39:28] have different issues it's not one size fits all yeah no i think that that perfectly

[02:39:34] summarizes it because everybody from you know humble county all the way down there is

[02:39:39] something completely different that each area needs and it's it's galvanized these candidates

[02:39:46] to jump into the race right like for josh it was crime crime was he obviously sees crime

[02:39:53] on a daily basis um he knows how bad it is right now he's raising three kids in that

[02:39:59] district so that's important to him but that's not the same issue that like mike greer was

[02:40:04] talking about or that like ronald was talking about that jim was talking about uh you know

[02:40:09] jim was talking more about the economy and farming and trucking and all that stuff so

[02:40:14] yeah and then like with what was it mike way up there he wants to reserve the nature

[02:40:20] preserving and then like you know with uh josh just now down in josh right i'm forget i'm

[02:40:26] starting to just down down in la obviously more populated we all know there's a lot of

[02:40:32] out-of-control crime there he's caught there so it is it's just different issues for all

[02:40:38] these different areas and they all matter they're all important but they're all being

[02:40:42] neglected and so all these people are now stepping up not ever really having had political

[02:40:47] aspirations but suddenly they're like well like what he said like am i just going to

[02:40:52] sit and complain about it or i'm going to do something yeah yeah that seems to be the

[02:40:56] the strain of all or the same common strain of all the candidates we've had so far is

[02:41:01] they all kind of look at their area and they say something's wrong i'm going to stand up

[02:41:06] and do something about it and whether i have big backers or not like i applaud anyone who

[02:41:11] jumps into the political race because it is a huge sacrifice um it's it's straining on your

[02:41:17] family it's it's a lot of work like and you know that's why we're not doing it that's why

[02:41:22] i'm not doing it that's why i just enjoy doing this podcast and giving my commentary on everything

[02:41:27] um but yeah it's i applaud anybody and the fact that people get so galvanized

[02:41:32] in their specific areas to say i'm not going to sit by and just and the other thing i like about

[02:41:38] all the candidates we've had today is they're genuine you can tell they're genuine like these

[02:41:44] are people who really care um we've definitely talked to candidates in the past who have their

[02:41:51] like canned talking points and i think you heard me saying to josh grabbing him as he's

[02:41:55] walking by and just asking questions was the best because he it's not like he was prepared

[02:42:01] i'm going on tv or i'm going on newsmax or i'm going yeah he didn't know who we were

[02:42:05] he was like i think we just saw that he was a candidate we're like hey yeah we saw his

[02:42:09] little pin and we're like hey you're a candidate come on over actually we have another candidate

[02:42:12] who is ready to sit down as well we've been trying to he keeps passing by at the same time

[02:42:17] so we're ready for you sir

[02:42:21] mr paul jones yeah

[02:42:24] yeah absolutely he's paul jones another candidate oh we got cards uh-oh

[02:42:42] we're losing here we can so many chords there we go all right your mic is on it's ready

[02:42:52] we're good oh it's okay it's fine it's so we can see his name that's okay paul welcome

[02:43:02] thank you thank you who are you my name what are you running for my name is paul jones

[02:43:07] i am running for california district assembly district 62 this is la county it is la county

[02:43:14] i'm have a population of 540 000 wow what's your city's area because la county is huge

[02:43:21] obviously i just saw the area code that's how i know yeah it's well i have uh what seven cities

[02:43:27] okay total lakewood where i've worked you know i've i've lived and then there's bellflower and

[02:43:33] paramount and go it's the 710 corridor is what they call i actually am familiar with this district

[02:43:39] my husband was raised in ball flower and he lived there when we met 20 something years ago

[02:43:44] so and then his brother lived in lakewood for years i've we've been in lakewood for 24

[02:43:49] years now in the area for the last 28 awesome all right sorry continue on tell us tell us

[02:43:57] about your district and what you're running on and well i well of course you know i'm

[02:44:01] running primarily on the economy because the economy is it my district is probably one of

[02:44:06] the poorest districts around it's 77 Hispanic 48 percent of those speak english um i ran a

[02:44:18] pretty good did a lot of door knocking right a lot of door knocking ran against two democrats

[02:44:26] uh one of them is far left okay about as far left as you can get um the other one um i passed

[02:44:34] the other the other your individual three days after the primary was over she lost called me

[02:44:41] actually called me scared me actually i didn't know what she wanted uh so set up a meeting

[02:44:49] she endorsed i'm i'm endorsed by my opponent the other opponent the democrat along with a

[02:44:56] donation check to my campaign wow she dislikes the other opponent profusely i'm putting it nicely

[02:45:06] so i have and this individual had spent eight hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars to

[02:45:11] take me off the ballot he just wanted democrats only so and you won and i got it

[02:45:18] it's he and i for november wow so here you are and here i am and let's talk about what you are

[02:45:24] most passionate about as far as your district is concerned because of the economics with my

[02:45:29] district when we come up you know july 1st is the dollar 12 cents tax um a lot of my

[02:45:39] folks in in my district uh are very are low income so this is killing them yeah um

[02:45:46] my job is to try to cut through and remove as much as the burden as i possibly can

[02:45:52] getting an office but you know their concern is about from being fed from one day to the next

[02:46:01] so i have to step in and i have to make sure that their life is going to be better than it

[02:46:06] is right now we've gone through what 12 years of trivecta uh so everyone has been the damage

[02:46:14] is done quite a lot to all these people so i just i understand what it's like to be poor

[02:46:23] i was born on the south side of chicago i'm that kid that used to carry cardboard around

[02:46:27] in the back of my pocket for my shoes oh really so and then into the marine court 17

[02:46:34] right out of high school um spent my 18th birthday um getting off the ship into vietnam

[02:46:41] wow and unfortunately i'm out of the eight of us that left i'm the only one left at this point so

[02:46:50] yeah i noticed the the medals yeah i'm service connected thank you for your service thank you

[02:46:55] very much um i spent six years in the marine court so i i have a very good understanding of

[02:47:03] what it's like to be poor i grew up poor um i i've been homeless i've lived in my car

[02:47:12] so i i know i have a better understanding of the people that i'm about to serve i this is probably

[02:47:19] the longest employment interview i have ever had in my whole life ever well it is one just

[02:47:26] long interview right when you're running for politics yeah it it's never ending um you know

[02:47:32] i'm happy that that there's you know you folks out here that give us a chance to talk

[02:47:36] yeah and get our name out there which is critical at this point because when you're fighting

[02:47:44] a money machine which the democratic party here is just it's hand over fist with money i'm gonna

[02:47:50] bring that up because like you said your district this gas tax increase in a couple

[02:47:55] months here is going to a couple weeks here it's going to just kill them like they're going

[02:48:00] to be they're not going to be able to leave to go to work to afford the groceries they

[02:48:04] need and all that so your district you probably don't have a lot of financial backers because

[02:48:11] they simply they can't no they can't and yet the democrats the dnc is pouring money and

[02:48:17] moving people into districts to try to make sure that no republicans win so this is just

[02:48:22] i just want to point out like you can't support candidates financially and other ways

[02:48:28] that are not in your district i'm always telling people like if you live in a safe

[02:48:31] district phone bank for him you know because he doesn't his his district doesn't have the

[02:48:37] money to fund him and he's going to be out raised by the dnc because they're literally

[02:48:42] pouring that money into it yeah and you know when you have an individual you know the

[02:48:47] individual he's a mayor of a city he's also a commissioner of of everything you can the

[02:48:52] sanitation department he's a commissioner of the education and assistant he's the he's the

[02:48:57] director of the chamber of commerce he's have to look at this this guy is his salary his salary

[02:49:02] he's got his fingers into everything yeah and it makes it a little bit more difficult however

[02:49:07] he's made a lot of enemies including this the other democrat that i'm running that

[02:49:13] is backing me now yeah so i do have i have a very good advantage yeah um i was why do i

[02:49:22] it's been a long day this is i know you guys have been here all day long it's been a long day um

[02:49:28] we were actually just talking about that was going to be my question right before we went on

[02:49:32] break we were talking about how california lost 164 000 jobs in the past 12 months

[02:49:40] so we're talking about the economy here and we're talking about your district specifically

[02:49:45] it just seems like this state that promises so much economic prosperity and you know gavin

[02:49:50] newson loves to say we're the fifth largest economy in the world it that's not resonating

[02:49:55] in your district they're not seeing the fifth largest economy in the world and they're not

[02:49:59] seeing that so no i'm i'm every time i go out and talk to a lot of the small business

[02:50:04] owners and there are a lot of very small business we have a plaza de mexico which is

[02:50:09] in in uh in lindwood yeah um there's barely anything left of it most of those shops

[02:50:16] for the people are gone we don't they do not they're lindwood for instance does not even have

[02:50:22] a grocery store they have to go into compton to buy groceries wow it's compton in your district

[02:50:29] just a little about three blocks of it but they have to actually leave the city to go into

[02:50:37] buy groceries to go buy groceries just the basic necessities just the basic necessities

[02:50:42] now they're gonna have to walk that extra now they're gonna do the extra

[02:50:46] for pay you know a million dollars in gas just i've talked to to various companies in

[02:50:52] two different growth i've talked to ralph's and all the you know the big ones they don't

[02:50:56] want to go in there they don't want to go in there because of the low income because of

[02:51:01] the crime they have a very serious crime the the local sheriff's department la county

[02:51:07] sheriff's department in lakewood cover five cities and they're short about a thousand officers

[02:51:13] so what does that tell you as far as how bad the crime is yeah um our the last candidate who

[02:51:19] was on right before us he was a police officer in his district same issue which is pretty

[02:51:25] close to where you are long beach signal hill that's he and i share the same part of the same

[02:51:29] district oh okay so yeah yeah joshua and i know each other actually what's happening now

[02:51:35] for california is a lot of the a lot of us who are candidates with not so you know high

[02:51:43] income districts are coming together so joshua is one of them another one is mario paus

[02:51:49] so we're putting together our own you know our own thing where we're appearing together

[02:51:56] awesome yeah that's smart yeah yeah and we we were just saying before you popped on how

[02:52:02] a lot of it's great that we're getting to meet candidates like yourself candidates who are not

[02:52:09] close to us are not necessarily the big names but we're glad to have you on and everyone's

[02:52:15] been so genuine like you all have a genuine reason for doing what you're doing yeah you

[02:52:20] know none of you have come on here with like talking points or can talking points like you're

[02:52:25] appearing on fox news or something like you i can tell like every one of these candidates

[02:52:29] like yourself who come on here you guys you're passionate about helping like you've stood up and

[02:52:34] said this may be an uphill battle i mean is david and goliath but i'm going to do it so well

[02:52:42] you know for the marine corps you know i'm born a marine i think um we have eight children

[02:52:48] that we've raised between you know with my wife and i she had four i had four this is

[02:52:53] my second marriage so we've raised eight children i'm always been accused of running

[02:52:58] on rink or boot camp so but we have that the semper fi or semper fidelis is always faithful and i

[02:53:07] use that to show that i am faithful to the people of this state yeah god and country

[02:53:15] and family that's what it's all about your card says so going back to the economy and crime

[02:53:23] specifically though it seems like in your district specifically those two are intertwined

[02:53:29] you can't have you can't help one without the other right yeah so what's yours what's your idea

[02:53:35] on crime in your district to help bring back the economy and bring back those grocery stores

[02:53:39] for example but i'm trying there there it used to be called riverside started the thing

[02:53:43] called neighbor neighbor to neighbor bringing you know taking block by block make sure

[02:53:48] that every single neighbor knows the other neighbor has their phone number

[02:53:53] you have bring them together where they all know exactly everything that's going on

[02:53:58] so this way they can keep track of hey you know i saw this is going on two blocks from you

[02:54:05] it's uh just coming together as a people to protect one another the police can't be there

[02:54:12] all the time it's just they don't have enough manpower but neighbor to neighbor can do that

[02:54:18] yeah doesn't cost anything all you're doing is making sure that your neighbor is watching out

[02:54:24] for you as they're watching so it's it's a good it's a i think it'll it'll work well

[02:54:32] because the hispanic community that i've learned you know i mean i i have a one daughter

[02:54:40] daughter is is filipino my other daughter daughter is is is spanish

[02:54:47] so i've i have a great understanding of what's needed when you don't have all the

[02:54:55] the assets that other neighborhoods may have yeah so by bringing everyone and you get to

[02:55:00] know your neighbor in case of an emergency even it works because you can you know you

[02:55:08] can come here or you can come to my house or whatever it may be but you keep a solid base

[02:55:14] and that's to me that's about the best way to do it watch out for one another right

[02:55:20] but in addition to that when you're in uh the assembly a lot of it has to do with the laws

[02:55:26] on the books themselves yeah about prosecuting a lot of these lower level offenses uh not

[02:55:33] getting rid of zero bail or trying to create a you know i hate to say like stiffer punishments

[02:55:40] but kind of that line in the sand of like we're not going to tolerate this anymore and that may

[02:55:46] affect places like grocery stores or pharmacies uh when people can when there's increased theft

[02:55:52] retail theft and stuff like that so um that's something as well that you could tackle right

[02:55:58] in the assembly yeah because we can we can change the laws repeal the laws whatever they may be

[02:56:03] because for instance with all this smash and grab i mean we have had a bakery that's been

[02:56:08] there for 35 years they went in destroyed his store robbed him i mean did everything

[02:56:16] that they could do to destroy his business the people in the neighborhood came to his aid

[02:56:22] uh we do stand up for all for one another

[02:56:28] sorry our video is off or we're still on audio so i was just pointing out to him

[02:56:33] but it this thing it goes back to being that person that you want everyone else to be you

[02:56:44] know if you are going to extend yourself and you're going to make sure that they know that

[02:56:49] you're there for them they're going to be there for you

[02:56:54] sorry we're good we're back on we're back on video we didn't we didn't lose audio yeah well

[02:56:59] i also i appreciate that you say because certainly there needs to be like you you mentioned

[02:57:04] there's at least short a thousand police officers and we need that we need law and order

[02:57:09] but i love that you were saying neighbors need to watch out for one another and you

[02:57:13] didn't say the government needs to come in and fix this this is this you know the government

[02:57:19] needs to intervene here i mean what does the government ever fix literally that is the

[02:57:25] million dollar question i'm sorry million dollars is nothing anymore that is the

[02:57:29] billion dollar question it is yeah i agree with you there i mean the state of california is

[02:57:34] what 74 billion dollar deficit right now i'm more like 73 yeah so we're told they say 53 73

[02:57:41] well actually when i started doing all the figures and i went through all of them i

[02:57:45] i'm good at research so before i even open my mouth i want to make sure that i have the facts

[02:57:52] right but you're looking at 30 you're looking at 30 roughly 30 billion dollars a year just in

[02:57:59] homeless they can't find 25 billion dollars right now right but that was our most recent

[02:58:05] episode that was two days ago yeah well you spend 20 you lose 25 billion dollars you can't

[02:58:10] account for after five years the only thing you've accomplished is you've made california

[02:58:14] the number one in homeless and they turn around and demand not even ask demand more money

[02:58:21] yeah and then one of the one of the most interesting things i've found in in my district

[02:58:26] is tom homan when i first decided to run i emailed him and he came back said if you're

[02:58:33] going to run get yourself out there and go to the border so i i hooked up with a journalist

[02:58:40] ended up in sespe in arizona i spent a week there confronting child traffickers and coyotes

[02:58:47] and the rest that gave me the you know the knowledge that i needed to know what's going on

[02:58:52] however the people in my district they don't want to know they don't care about that what

[02:58:56] they care about right now is where their next meal is coming from it's we've gotten to that

[02:59:03] point yeah so even though there's what 2000 coming into the border in san diego every

[02:59:09] single day he's in san diego yeah i live in san diego yeah so you know and so does my daughter

[02:59:14] yeah uh so you know i'm i'm getting calls from her telling me that you know these people are

[02:59:19] walking through their neighborhoods and yeah it's bad i am just going through the the airport

[02:59:27] and it's yeah you see a lot of migrants sleeping in the airport waiting for wherever

[02:59:32] they're gonna go um it's no secret you get to the assembly you're gonna have to

[02:59:39] reach across the aisle to work with the other side what's your game plan or what's your thoughts

[02:59:48] on you have you will have to work across the aisle somehow to get something done in the

[02:59:53] assembly if you can confront the other side and put them in a position where they don't have

[03:00:01] a choice that i mean that's basically what i'm looking at here's the situation that you have

[03:00:06] created you have created this by these laws yeah now you're going to have to help me

[03:00:13] to repeal these laws for instance with the taxes i'm i'm pushing for you know the suspension

[03:00:20] of the taxes what do they do instead now it's going to be a dollar 12 cents tax on fuel

[03:00:27] the people in my district the most of the people in the state can't afford that right

[03:00:32] i can't afford it i mean i you know i'm a disabled vet okay so i'm i've been on a fixed income

[03:00:38] so everything that i'm doing now comes out of my retirement yeah these people are in worse shape

[03:00:44] than most of us are and that's where what has to change these laws these taxes have to stop

[03:00:54] they can't and the only way to do that is to run against them you have to literally

[03:01:00] confront them and i've done it so i know it can be done to where they will give a second thought

[03:01:05] if okay i'm gonna i'm not going to get re-elected if this is what i'm going to continue to wall out

[03:01:11] yeah it's um it's always interesting to me that a state that is progressive and i i put

[03:01:21] quotes around that because it seems like a lot of stuff that they propose is not progressive

[03:01:26] we're not making progress with any of these we're going backwards but a lot of these taxes end up

[03:01:31] hurting the people that they pretend to that they they postured that they stand up for

[03:01:37] correct gas tax um taxes on you know raise taxes or inflation or anything like that

[03:01:43] it always ends up hurting the people who can't afford it not the people who live in the

[03:01:47] fancy gated communities they don't care if the gas goes up 50 cents or a dollar you know

[03:01:52] whatever it is to them but to that single mom with three kids trying to make ends meet 50 cents

[03:02:01] a gallon makes a huge difference every single week and every single month of how much how you're

[03:02:08] going to try and make ends meet right that's that's the whole problem i mean i'm finding a

[03:02:13] lot of a lot of people who are getting on bicycles you know they can't afford the fuel

[03:02:17] so they're they're actually pedaling to work 10 miles 15 miles are they going to be in good

[03:02:23] shape or they're going to get run over you know yeah it's but they're looking for someone

[03:02:29] for the people who are going to be there for them who can understand them i've lived in my

[03:02:35] home in lakewood for 24 years i can't afford to buy my house yeah and a lot of these folks

[03:02:42] that i run into they they have got more relatives moving in with them so that they can afford to

[03:02:48] keep their house yeah you'll find anywhere from six to seven people living in one home the

[03:02:55] average that i have right now in in i have what 12 000 per square mile that's a lot of

[03:03:01] people yeah and my district is you know as many people are in it is not that big mileage wise

[03:03:10] for instance you're talking about a city with this with a population of 66 000 why do you need

[03:03:14] seven dispensaries for cannabis in a population of 66 000 why is that the one without a grocery

[03:03:23] store that's the one without the grocery store but they do have seven dispensary yeah so you

[03:03:30] can get the munchies and you can't buy the munchies correct that's basically what it comes

[03:03:34] down to yeah um paul where can people well actually this before i end this is always

[03:03:40] the question that i ask every candidate who's been sitting down first 60 days you're elected

[03:03:45] what's the number one priority you're working on economy economy the economy okay you can't

[03:03:51] how you can't do anything without the money to buy your groceries to buy your gas to pay

[03:03:56] your electrical you're looking at what are the 58 increase over the over electro over the last

[03:04:02] couple of years yeah people i've had some of the people that i've knocked on the door and spoken

[03:04:08] to them showing me their electric bill why am i paying 150 for a transfer fee why am i paying

[03:04:14] this yeah yeah it's it's become more and more unaffordable to live in the golden state

[03:04:23] exactly well paul thank you so much for starting i know we've been passing by each other

[03:04:28] keep saying like come on over and then someone yes where can people find you and support you

[03:04:34] and reach out if they want to volunteer it is my name is paul jones it is paul jones for state

[03:04:39] assembly 2024.com is the website and it's paul jones for state assembly 2024 at gmail.com

[03:04:47] excellent thank you so much for coming on thank you for putting up with me no it was

[03:04:51] great conversation thank you so much for stopping by and thank you for i know you kept

[03:04:55] walking by i was like i was trying to get your attention like that no come back now we want you

[03:04:59] to come on so glad you made it i'm glad i am thank you very much best of luck yeah now it's

[03:05:10] coming on the other side it's it's well yeah it's this glass up here it's just like a

[03:05:16] greenhouse in here right now so yeah thank you thank you paul thank you yeah we're almost in the

[03:05:25] i know we're gonna she went that way

[03:05:34] she's spending she's spending money at the back of all

[03:05:38] um no i know we keep talking about the golden state or like the golden state without gold

[03:05:43] yes yeah it's not very golden right now um painted mustard yellow um so

[03:05:50] yeah we're almost back in the sun it's funny we started the day and the sun was

[03:05:54] blaring on us now it's going on the other side this is an interesting hotel because the convention

[03:05:59] is like in the middle of all the hotel rooms so we're like looking up at all the hotel rooms

[03:06:04] in the center of the hotel it's like we're in a giant greenhouse like yeah that's probably why

[03:06:09] it's so hot in here is because the sun just comes in here and just yeah it's it's uh it's

[03:06:13] an interesting hotel that they have this in but regardless paul great conversation with paul and

[03:06:20] i think it just continues what we were talking about before he sat down which is

[03:06:24] a lot of these candidates are very very genuine in what they're standing up for and

[03:06:29] what they're doing and like they all have their specific thing that galvanized them to start

[03:06:36] and you can tell like paul it was the economy with josh it was crime and you can see that all

[03:06:43] these candidates are hopping into the race because they genuinely have a passion and want

[03:06:48] to do something about it which is which is really refreshing to see and you know they all have an

[03:06:54] uphill battle in front of them which is why we keep shouting out like reach out to these candidates

[03:07:01] you can phone bang for them if you don't want to donate you can always volunteer time that

[03:07:04] always helps so yeah what do you think of paul did you just ask me a question yes i

[03:07:11] literally heard everything you said up until that you were just like spacing out no i wasn't

[03:07:15] spacing out i adjusted my headphones real quick what was your question what did you think of paul

[03:07:20] oh i thought paul was great um so as i mentioned that's where my husband was well that's where

[03:07:27] he was living when we started dating that's where he grew up and i want to tell the story

[03:07:31] and this is this is honestly kind of embarrassing for me in the sense of like okay white girl

[03:07:36] privilege okay okay so uh my husband i started dating almost 24 years ago and the city of

[03:07:44] bellflower i was raised in orange county in a bubble all right i live in a very safe city like

[03:07:50] if there is a helicopter in the air it's like what's going on lock the doors still to this

[03:07:55] day it's like oh my gosh and everyone on my local facebook group will be doing this like

[03:07:59] what's going on with the helicopter like it's it's not normal for us to have that so when

[03:08:04] i started dating my husband he was living in the city of bellflower which is los angeles county

[03:08:08] and first of all my mom she didn't mind dan but she didn't want me dating him because i was 18

[03:08:15] and she didn't want me going to bellflower because it just she didn't feel safe well

[03:08:18] neither my parents felt safe about me going to that like driving there and back and late at

[03:08:23] night and just being there in general well um one day i was there and there was like

[03:08:27] one or two helicopters circling so i'm in bellflower i was like what are you and this

[03:08:30] is literally like i'm like 18 years old 24 years ago and i'm like what's going on and

[03:08:37] dan was like what are you talking about i'm like these helicopters what's going on he's like

[03:08:42] there's always helicopters here like this is normal and i so i can't even imagine because

[03:08:47] he hasn't lived there obviously we could live in orange county but he moved to orange county

[03:08:50] before we got married i can't even imagine now 20 years later how much worse it is and that's

[03:08:56] you know josh was talking about the crime and bellflower is on the border of his district as

[03:09:01] paul just mentioned and so i can't imagine how much worse it is now 20 something years later

[03:09:08] yeah and it's his district and the story of his district for paul is interesting

[03:09:13] and it's sad to hear in a state that that prides itself on supposedly being

[03:09:20] the fifth largest economy in the world there is still so much poverty yeah why do we even say

[03:09:27] that i get that that's a thing but why do why do we brag about it like we have bragging rights

[03:09:33] yeah and everyone talks about well there's an income disparity but

[03:09:40] it doesn't resonate with the people in paul's district no to say we're the fifth largest

[03:09:46] economy yeah like they're like hey can you do something about the gas tax well we're the

[03:09:50] fifth largest economy in the world yeah and so keep falling back on that is just it's not

[03:09:56] addressing the real issues on the ground that people are facing right i like that he said like

[03:10:02] someone mentioned go to the border he's like i went to the border he's like that's not what

[03:10:05] my district is concerned about which goes back to each district has its own set of issues and

[03:10:09] that's why these people are stepping up to run they're not they're not thinking especially

[03:10:13] because they're kind of you know a few hours several hours away from the border like you

[03:10:17] the border issue is an issue for you because you are right there and like you just said

[03:10:22] going through the airport even yesterday for them there are several hours removed from it

[03:10:27] and they're just like look i just want to be able to afford groceries yeah or not go to buy

[03:10:32] groceries in compton right so which even back then when i was doing my husband compton was

[03:10:38] like like i remember i was with a friend there because i had several friends that lived

[03:10:42] in that area and we were gonna go get therapies one hot day and the closest seven

[03:10:46] eleven was actually compton he's like i'm not taking you to compton like and this was

[03:10:50] 20 something years ago you know so um yeah they've all been great and i'm glad we got to

[03:10:57] talk to candidates outside of jim who we interviewed at the last convention it was

[03:11:04] great meeting new candidates and talking to them and we had no female candidates we didn't

[03:11:09] have any female candidates um i didn't really see any there's a couple and i did try to

[03:11:14] get them to come here and they would pass by but they would also same thing someone

[03:11:18] would be here and so they'd run off come back you know it was just poor timing they would just

[03:11:23] walk by and um but i think this was a great uh overall convention podcast um

[03:11:33] i don't know if we want to stick around for a little bit longer or we want to wrap it up

[03:11:37] right now like the sun might kill us right the sun is coming in hot so we're probably going

[03:11:41] to wrap it up because otherwise we're going to be sitting here in the we're wearing black

[03:11:44] we're just wearing black i'm saying i'm i'm not even in the sun and it's starting to get

[03:11:47] hot in here already um but yeah great convention uh like we said it's always good to get out here

[03:11:54] and do the live conventions i love doing this because again we get to see these people it's

[03:11:58] kind of spontaneous and people sit down and you know i didn't know who paul jones was or mike

[03:12:03] greer or joshua rodriguez or any of these people until today and it was great to sit down

[03:12:09] and chat with them um and get their point of view and enjoy the convention so what did you

[03:12:15] think yeah i agree that was that was fun like we only had the one repeat but everyone else was new

[03:12:20] and these and now because the difference from the fall convention back in uh september slash

[03:12:26] october is that they were all competing for their spot yeah for you know passing the primary

[03:12:31] and so now these are all people that are going to be on your ballots if they're in

[03:12:35] your district yeah i mean if they're candidates now they're running to be on the you know

[03:12:40] they're running to win right now they're not people who are competing for a spot yeah six

[03:12:47] months or six or seven months ago they have their spots they have their spot they are running

[03:12:51] so if they're in your district definitely check them out um all right any other final thoughts

[03:12:56] before we sign off for the day before we get melted by the sun that's oh my gosh now it's

[03:13:01] starting to come in right into my eye so if you can see it on the camera how much it's

[03:13:05] coming in right now you're starting to disappear the camera yeah it's really accentuating my

[03:13:11] nice untanned white skin right here hey um all right thank you everyone for tuning in wherever

[03:13:19] you tuned into youtube rumble uh any of these places so uh we're gonna work on this video

[03:13:26] we'll clip it up for the interviews specifically of people so uh if you want to

[03:13:32] tune into one interview or another um we're all stickers merch you know stickers merch

[03:13:37] california underground live go check it out um yeah so thank you everyone for tuning in i

[03:13:42] don't know when the next convention is or when the next there's not going to be a fall

[03:13:45] convention this year because they don't have one in presidential election years and so

[03:13:50] the next convention will not be for another year but we're open to doing lives yes

[03:13:56] yeah i think you know i think you want to hire us for your birthday party no i'm just kidding

[03:14:02] we're gonna pay to have a podcast coming no but if you have if you have events

[03:14:06] yeah we like talking yeah if you have stuff you want us to be at and set up like this

[03:14:11] again we can definitely do that um so yeah we just want shade not sitting in the shade

[03:14:18] shade in ice water gosh that was really getting bad all right thank you everyone for

[03:14:22] tuning in uh wherever you tuned in just like i said make sure you like share subscribe

[03:14:27] review all of that stuff um go check out those candidates that we talked to today or more

[03:14:32] importantly wherever the district is that you are go research whoever your candidate is or

[03:14:38] who the candidate you want to go support in your district and go help them out um and with

[03:14:44] that we'll see you on the next one later everybody i keep forgetting the cameras over

[03:14:48] later everybody bye