No One Knows Where LA Homeless Spending Went

[00:00:06] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense, or just the same person, this is the political podcast for you. It's the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:27] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning into another episode of the California Underground Podcast, the most trusted podcast for all things California politics. I'm your host, Phil. And as always with me, my trusted co host, the best, the fastest researcher in the West. Camille, how are you doing tonight? Well, you could call me Mike Pence, because I think a flyer mosquito just landed on my face and is buzzing around. So, um, Oh no. That means something's satanic or something. Oh boy.

[00:00:56] So I think it's a mosquito. I don't know where it came from. Um, mosquitoes don't like me or I don't have reactions to them, but they like, they'll land on me and hang out. So if I, for anyone watching as I like swat around you, that's what's happening here. Got it. So you're being possessed by satanic demons is what you're telling us. And no, my house is. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Difference. Big difference. Got it. Okay.

[00:01:25] Anyway, it's a rainy day. We always discuss the weather real quick. We had a beautiful day here. I don't know about you guys. Yesterday was a few. Okay. Don't get me started on the rain because it took me twice as long to get home because I know I'm going to probably pissing people off in the chat.

[00:01:42] Um, but, uh, people in Southern California, y'all gotta learn how to drive. Okay. It's just rain. It's just water from the sky. Your tires can handle it. I guarantee you, as long as you have good tires, not ball tires, people, for some reason, just, they forget how to drive.

[00:01:59] They don't know how to stop or go. That's traffic. It's, it's a mess. Took me twice as long. So, um, I have to say this in people's defense though. Okay. This today doesn't count because we had rainy weather just a few days ago. I forget what less than a week ago, but when it has been dry for a while and then it rains our freeways, you know, the slick oil is very slippery and you can easily lose control of the car.

[00:02:26] So that first day you always had to be cautious, but today's not the first day because we had it a few days ago. So today there's no excuse a few days ago. Yeah. Um, it's totally unrelated to the podcast, but now if you are watching, now you have to tell us where you are. You don't have to talk to yourself. I don't mean like give us your address, but you know, maybe city, county area, whatever. And then you have to tell us what the weather is. So as I was saying, explain why you didn't learn how to drive in the rain at some point in your life.

[00:02:57] As a transplant, Phil's very upset about this. People drive like it's like six inches of snow out there. Like they just, they don't, whatever. Anyway, that's not the point of tonight's episode. Uh, tonight we got a jam packed episode because we have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. Uh, breaking news. As of this morning, Katie Porter, Ms. Whiteboard herself is running for governor. Uh, there were two men arrested, attempting to kill a witness in the mayor.

[00:03:24] Uh, Oakland mayor, uh, trial wild. Yep. This will be on Netflix. I guarantee you someday there'll be a documentary. Uh, 20% of fire started in San Diego, likely by homeless people. So that's also a fun fact. And then the top story, which we're going to get to is LA has absolutely no idea where any other homeless spending went and they spent a whole ton of it.

[00:03:45] So we're going to get to all of that, but we do have courtesy of the Democrats who are on this new social media kick about trying to go viral. Um, well, we let's just watch it. They're trying to be as relevant as possible.

[00:04:04] Uh, and boy, are they coming off cringe. And we thank you very much for, uh, you know, providing us content for cringe moment of the week. And we have like a backlog now. So this is really, really fantastic. And also because of our appearance at an AI conference, we do have a new stinger. So thanks to the OG of cringe yourself, our new cringe moment of the one of our new cringe moment of the week stingers.

[00:04:27] Uh, so I was willing to give up whatever might be the tracking of Kamala Harris's particular fondness for nacho cheese Doritos for the sake of getting a big bag of Doritos as I watched the Oscars. Well, great story. I don't know what she meant. Like, like she was at home watching the Oscars, but wanted Doritos.

[00:04:55] So she door dashed a big bag of Doritos. And this is hilarious because, because she can waste money on door dash fees to get a bag of Doritos. Well, I didn't even care about that part. Like I wasted money on door dash when I don't want to not on Doritos. Um, but it's like, I just feel like she keeps trying to be, and this is a lot of like, which we're probably going to see in the actual clip.

[00:05:22] But they're trying to be relevant. They're trying to be like, we're relatable. And she just wants to be like, I'm just, you know, sitting on my couch. I wanted to watch the Oscars and eat Doritos. Look at me. You're dashing. You're so great. Well, wasn't there was that video that, um, I was just grinch. I apologize. Was totally organic and not staged at all. When her and Tim Walts stopped at that, what was it?

[00:05:51] Convenience store in Pennsylvania. I think it was sheets or something. And it was my Doritos. But she said it weird. She said Doritos. She put a wrong accent on the wrong syllable basically. Or yeah, I don't remember. I'm not going to try to. Maybe she really, you know, maybe she really genuinely does love Doritos. And we were making fun of her for being inauthentic and trying to. So you see,

[00:06:19] I just wanted to eat some Doritos. I know they get my fingers red. And I don't mean like red, like the Republicans, but I just wanted to eat my Doritos. Are we doing Gavin Newsom hands? No, she does weird hands. Oh, I thought we were doing the Gavin Newsom hands. I was doing her and her, but I, okay. I thought I, I should probably just exit this episode. I've already embarrassed myself. Probably a few minutes ahead.

[00:06:47] I don't think anything will top this next video. So let's just dive right in and watch this video. And it'll just, it'll be a palate cleanser and everyone will forget. I'm just going to see myself out. All right. Yo, this is the ranking Rizzer on appropriations serving Connecticut's third district. It's time to enter your dark academia Congress era. All right, besties house appropriation is the money moves in Congress. We are not chasing the bag.

[00:07:15] We are the bag. Democrats are making life smoother. Government funding. It's giving, it's giving it. So Sigma main character energy, but Republicans project 2025 is mad. Sus eliminating the department of education, negative or a point. Basically the biggest fandom tax on the environment, on your education and your rights. Big L posting it online, buddy.

[00:07:45] Democrats understood the assignment, but go off. See how I keep you informed. Very cutesy, very demure. I'm going to leave the podcast just because you made me sit through that. I wouldn't blame you. That's I've watched that a couple of times now, just be, you know, again, we do this for you, for the listeners at home. Uh, to, we suffer through this while they've suffered through it now too. Uh,

[00:08:13] I don't think there's a good idea to take every single tick tock phrase in the past four years and jam it into one video is a good strategy because most of that stuff, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm not that age group, but I'm pretty sure 90% of that stuff is no longer in Vogue or in or trendy or something like that. Like it's like the Sigma energy and cutesy and demure. Like now it's kind of like a joke cutesy and demure,

[00:08:42] but it's not in, it's just the whole thing reeks of like, you are trying way too hard and it, none of it makes sense. And you're trying to jam these phrases into your argument. And it just doesn't make, I just don't know what you're trying to say. Not because I don't understand most of the sayings, but also because I just don't understand what you're trying to say. Like get the bag. We are the bag. Okay. Not sure. um,

[00:09:12] I know we discussed this before when you sent it to me, I have teenagers. They use some of that slang. Certainly I'm familiar with a few, a few of those terms. And, um, they'll try to use it on me. And I'm like, you know, I don't know what that means. So just stop. But, and I, I told you this. So now you have to hear me say it again, but what annoys me the most about that video is, so they're trying to relate to Gen Z. That's not annoying. However,

[00:09:40] they're trying too hard to relate to Gen Z, which is implying you're stupid and you're going to fall for our stupidity. And I'm sick and tired of this whole Gen Z is stupid. And, you know, Oh, the millennials were the last good generation or whoever wants to claim that Gen X were the real ones. You know, we're the OGs. Like Gen Z isn't stupid. And they're certainly not going to come across any smarter.

[00:10:09] If you keep telling them that they're stupid and keep pretending like they're stupid and keep talking to them and acting like this, they know what they're talking about when they're making jokes about aura and Sigma. And sus and stuff like they, they, they know, you know, that's their own little, and you and I were once a part of that when we were teenagers. Well, we had our own slang that we, you know, our parents would be like, Oh, I'm too old for this. But we would do it. Weren't we? We're, I'm a little bit older than you, but we were like,

[00:10:39] talk to the hand, which is so dumb. And like, what was it? Like, Oh, it's the bomb. And just, you know, the bomb.com. We had our own. Dot com. Wow. That is a throwback. Stupid slang. Throwback to the bomb.com. My parents never tried to act like that. And that's something I actually really appreciate about my parents is that they never tried, like they never pretended like they were cool and with it and try to talk to us like that.

[00:11:07] Like it's so when I see this, it's just like, I can maybe joke around with my kids in my own house, but I'm not going to go and like actually communicate with them by like, when I want to discipline them or have a serious conversation with them, I'm not going to pull out all this slang and pretend like they're going to learn something from it and that I'm with it and cool and relevant. And it's just, so yes, that's an incredibly cringe moment. That is sus. So sus. No, it's so annoying.

[00:11:37] Yeah. It's a, you're either are the culture and you're setting culture and phrases or you're catching up to it. And politicians catching up to phrases is always cringe because you're not usually starting the culture. You're usually behind it. So, um, it's kind of like the JD Vance memes, which I guess are making the rounds now. And it's like, it's funny. Like, they start, they start all this stuff about JD Vance. I'm like, whatever. We're just,

[00:12:07] you're making it more popular, but, um, I, why did they also pick, like, I guess they thought it was ironic or funny that they picked like one of the oldest members of the house to do it because they're like, Oh, look, this old person's doing it. Isn't that so funny? People have this thing where like, Oh, the cute old grandma, you know, like there's always that character in a lot of the movies, uh, you know, where there's like the cute old lady that says the unexpected thing. If they were going for that, they really failed. Um, and I,

[00:12:36] I told you too, I played that clip for my, my daughter's turned 16 tomorrow. And I played that clip for her. And she said something like she's using all, all those are most of those terms wrong. And this video doesn't make sense. And what is going on here? So all out of context. Yeah, it was just. Anyway, cringe. It was cringe. It was cringe. Very cringe. That's kind of one of their terms to cringe, cringe.

[00:13:05] I don't think they say it anymore. And we're all saying it now. Uh, there was something else that I, so that song in the background for all you kiddos out there was just a girl by no doubt. And I had to look up when this song came out, it was 1999. It was, it was, I knew it was early nineties. That was, I think the first CD. Yes. CD that I ever bought huge Wednesday. Bonnie fan. Don't know why they more. I mean, like I, I idolized her.

[00:13:35] Um, I have no idea why they pick that particular song, a 1995 song, I guess, girl power, something anyway. Uh, super cringe. And thank you for providing us with plenty of content. And I'm sure the Democrats will provide us with more content coming up, uh, cause they just can't seem to help themselves and whoever their social media manager is. They're just doing a bang up job of putting these videos out. All right. So I think we should hit our two quick stories and we'll get to our more meaty stories. Okay. Uh,

[00:14:04] this was a story. This is more of a development where she, we need to check in on what's going on with mayor shank thou in that whole federal indictment. Um, in case you don't remember, uh, she was recalled and now she's under federal indictment for a whole bunch of things, uh, including corruption and campaign finance, all that stuff. Uh, it got weirder. So Mario Juarez, uh,

[00:14:32] was shot at back in June before a few days before the FBI raided the homes of thou and tongue who they're guess they were trying to kill him. Who, uh, Mario Juarez as he was the guy who owned the company that sent out the campaign flyers that got a kickback from mayor shank thou. If I'm remembering this correctly, I can't even keep up. I'm so confused. Yeah. I'm really confused.

[00:14:59] He was facing his own criminal trial. Yes. Uh, which they then dropped the DA, former DA, Pamela Price then dropped. Uh, and now he was almost killed by people involved in this shank thou case. Now, if you don't remember that it's shank thou, the Duongs, the Duong family who own cow waste, they are involved in this. They're very corrupt. They,

[00:15:28] one of their things was they were going to do these kickbacks to mayor shank thou so that they could get their pick of who they wanted inside the administration. So they could pick like their buddies to be inside the inside city hall for Oakland. Uh, it, the whole thing is an absolute, you can go back and listen to our whole thing about it, but, uh, they tried to kill him. So that's fine. Was he like a key witness or something? Here's my little friend. Well, I would assume because he's a main,

[00:15:56] because he was so involved in the campaign flyers and the kickbacks and stuff like that. I assume he's one of the main witnesses and they figured we'll just, if we just kill him, then he won't, won't be able to testify. It's choice that all of us usually lean towards. I mean, when you're already facing federal indictment, why not just kill the guy? Sure. This is like the godfather or something. Um, but yeah, that's just checking in on mayor shank thou. Things are going great over there for her. I don't know.

[00:16:26] I don't think she had anything to do with it. I'm sure it's the Duong family who are really corrupt. Who probably had their hand in trying to kill this guy. right. Well, so they arrested them, but have since released them and they didn't give names. So we don't even know who these people are, why they were released. It again, it's just weird. Yeah. They arrested him in December. They said it's been freed. The paper did not name them.

[00:16:56] Chronicle said police had no additional information at the Alameda County district attorney declined to fight. Why would they decline to file charges for two men who tried to kill someone? It's, it's so weird. There's so much corruption, I think going on up in Alameda. I think it runs deeper than you, you or I could even imagine between the mayor shank thou and the DA who was recalled. Like there was probably so much corruption up there in Alameda County. And I, yeah, I don't even know how you start to look at it. Tiny part of it. I think.

[00:17:28] All right. Second quick, I know we're hitting like quick stories cause we got a lot to get to with Katie Porter in this LA homeless stuff. Uh, the next story that I thought was really interesting. Uh, a good friend, Amy Ryker. I think she had posted about this a while back. Yeah. So she had kind of alluded to this, but now it's official. This came out in the San Diego union tribune, nearly 20% of San Diego fires likely began by homeless encampments. Data shows,

[00:17:58] more than 1,100 fires in San Diego last year may have begun in homeless encampments, amounting to almost a fifth of all blazes in the city. The total was an increase from 2023. According to the five years worth of San Diego fire rescue data obtained through a public records request. Uh, the quote, the risk is not only to surrounding communities and the people who live near these encampments, but the entire counties as San Diego County supervisor, Jim Desmond. Um,

[00:18:26] the fire department responded to more than 29,600 blazes of all kinds during the past five years record show of those 5,000 likely began in encampments, which is about 17% of the total. Uh, the department's classify fires as likely originating in or near tent camps based on what nine one, one callers report and firefighters observe. So if there isn't enough problem, you know,

[00:18:56] we all are trying to be as empathetic as possible to the homeless plight. And we're going to get to a story a little bit about how much financial empathy we've been shoving towards homelessness, whether it's going to them or not. That's a different story. Uh, but at a certain point, there is a societal danger of people living on the, on the streets. And this is one of them, especially in a very dry winter up until now, a very, very dry winter. I mean,

[00:19:25] to have any fire started by encampments could have set most of San Diego on fire. Actually, I think there was a, not too long ago in mission Valley, there was a fire that started that made people evacuate their apartment buildings. And it was likely started by a homeless encampment. So these are dangers to the public and people who live in the area, just trying to live their lives. And now they have to worry about whether or not their, their community is going to be burned down because of homeless encampments.

[00:19:56] Have they tried making fire illegal? Yeah. Uh, and they should do that. It's like, they should ban fire and see if that happens. It's like, it's like guns. They should just ban it. Right. Like they're not going to like, yeah. Like murder's already illegal, but banning guns is the answer. no, but like you said, we all are trying to be empathetic about the homelessness situation. None of us want to be in that situation. None of us want someone in that situation, but homeless, these,

[00:20:26] these camps, they're not compassionate. Um, there was one kind of in my area, not, not exactly. You're blended. It doesn't allow homeless people. Um, but over the bridge, over the freeway, there was a, a quite a tent camp and there was a fire was started. And I think that they figured out it was started by somebody who fell asleep while like smoking a cigarette, a homeless person in the, in this camp and somebody died.

[00:20:56] That's not, that's not being compassionate for us to not want that for anybody is, is compassionate. So to say, Oh, they just, you know, don't want to live in their tents, leave them alone. They need a safe, you know, weatherproof space, whatever. No, this is not, it's not it. Now. And this is, we can't just continue to let encampments grow and grow and not do anything about it. And we, we've discussed on this show, I brought up the point that like,

[00:21:24] we spend so much money on homelessness that it, I think it's more empathetic and compassionate to stop it all for a minute and go, Whoa, where are we spending all this money? Like what's going on? Why, why is it not making it to the people it needs to get? We spend so much money on homelessness. Let's see that. And it's only being, which makes you bag, which makes you a hater. Yeah, I guess that's one way to put it. Sure. Um,

[00:21:51] which in California is basically illegal to be doge or MAGA. Uh, but it, it's not compassionate because it's, it's, I guess we've talked about it before about the idea of like, we're either a society or we're not a society. And we either have a set of laws or we don't have a set of laws. And we can't have two sets of laws for people. Like people who live these normal lives, go to work, come home, pay their rent, pay their mortgage, have a certain set of laws that you have to abide by because California loves to

[00:22:19] pass laws that you have to abide by. And then if you're homeless, you don't have to abide by a lot of these laws. And then when those laws or decorum or society kind of breaks down, all of a sudden it's okay until a whole apartment complex is burned down and people are injured or God forbid, even worse people die because of it. So I think you can, I'm paying attention. I think you don't know. And I think that's,

[00:22:48] that's where I think a lot of people are losing the patience of if you're starting to let law or let homeless encampments start to burn things up, not let them, I guess you should say, but like when it gets, we're not letting them, it's just the problem that there are so many encampments and fires happen, whether it's because of cigarettes or because they have a propane tank and they're cooking something and they forget to turn it off. Like either way,

[00:23:17] like it's a danger to society overall. And that's, that's something that they just don't seem to grapple with is like, well, if this apartment complex burns down because of homeless encampments, you know, whatever, not like there's no insurance anyway to fix anything for stuff that burns down California. question. Yeah. Two part question.

[00:23:44] Is this homelessness something that you believe government should be responsible for? That is a, so I'm of the belief that private charities do the work 10 times better than the government. And as we'll get to in a little bit,

[00:24:08] there's a reason why private charities have to fight for money in the free market based on how well they do. And it's hard. They have to fight for this money and make money and continue to do it. Government is not very good at it because it's a bad allocation of resources. Government just, they, they've, if there's one thing, governments consistently all over the world,

[00:24:36] everywhere are all consistent at is that they are very bad at allocating resources. They are very inefficient. They just don't know how to allocate resources that they take from us because government, remember government does not produce resources. They don't produce capital. They don't produce labor. They take it from us. And then they say like, Oh, we're doing something. Is there a idea of like, well, the government should do it because who else is going to do it?

[00:25:04] I still think that private charities are better. I think private charities will pop up and people will support private charities because at this point we have government and we're spending a ton of money on it. Nothing's getting done. If we had given all that money that has, is lost in the homeless spending, we're going to talk about in LA or the $24 billion. We have no idea where it went, went to private charities who know what they know what to do with it. We all donated to them instead. We'd probably help make a dent.

[00:25:34] So I agree. And if people don't want to donate, that's between them and God who they may or may not believe in, but that's, you know, that's their personal choice. Um, I used to have this belief and I don't really know if I still hold onto this belief, but churches historically were responsible. Yeah. Okay. I understand that the United States is like no longer a Christian nation, certainly California.

[00:26:02] I wouldn't consider it like a Christian state and I'm not trying to push Christian beliefs into political beliefs here. Like that's not what I'm doing, but going back into history where, you know, religion has been a huge role in all of history and we've had wars since the beginning of time over it. But, um, I think the majority of the world at one time was a Christian world. There was, it was more popular religion. Um,

[00:26:29] so they subscribe to the beliefs of the Bible and the Bible does call for the churches to take care of the widows, the homeless, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so what I used to say was the churches failed and the government had to step in. I don't know if I still believe that so much, but cause it's kind of a, which came first chicken or egg situation. Like did the government start to take this over and churches then backed off? And I'm not saying that churches aren't doing anything.

[00:26:59] And I like you guys could be all in the comments being like, well, why church is this? And I'm, I'm not saying that I am generalizing here. And this wasn't supposed to be some deep topic that we were going to go. But now that we, here we are. Um, I, maybe it's more like, because I don't know what I believe anymore. Um, people look up as good kind of chime in, but what was it like a, the church failed or was it the government took over as far as the United States? Where, where do you think we went wrong here?

[00:27:27] Cause I'm not going to ask you what your answer, what your solution to homelessness is. Cause I don't think you have the solution. You probably have ideas. And it's such a huge issue. And it's certainly not going to be answered now here on the podcast, but, um, I am just kind of like, do you, am I even making sense? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, do you feel like there was a role here where somebody. Yeah. And this is actually a intro or a funny story. It's interesting. You brought this up because, um,

[00:27:57] my wife and I actually got invited to a fish fry at a local Catholic church here in San Diego, uh, older Italian church, our lady of the rosary. Most people who go to little Italy know it. It's historic. It's beautiful. Um, usually just people stop in. It was built by Italians, obviously. Um, but it's been around for a long time. And you go to this fish fry and you look at the people who are working there and you look at the families and you say,

[00:28:28] like it was generation after generation, people would come to this church and be a part of a community. And that was basically what people needed back in the day. Now I'm not saying it has to be church, but I'm saying there people voluntarily used to find ways in their community to localize and organize and get together and feel like they were part of a community and do stuff. Whether it was, you know, a fish fry or a clothing drive or stuff like that. That communities would get together and do this stuff.

[00:28:59] And we've lost that along the way where people, instead of voluntarily being part of a church or a group or a community, uh, activity, there's actually a great book, um, about this is it's kind of like about social science. I think it's called bowling alone or something. And it's about the idea of like social clubs and social society is kind of broken down like social fabric. We don't do stuff together as a community. So to your point,

[00:29:27] I think there was much more people looking after each other and their neighbor a long time ago. Yeah. And I say a long time ago, because I think it, you know, it was right around the corner. It probably isn't a rare. It's probably more like 25, 30 years ago. We looked after each other. So there, there, you're right that there is this breakdown and government filled that void because no one else was doing anything. Um, the problem is the government forcefully makes you try and solve these problems, whether you like it or not. Right.

[00:29:57] The difference with communities and private charities is like you said, you can donate if you don't want to donate. If the charity is bad at what they do, you don't donate anymore. You're not forced to maybe another charity starts up and figures out what to do. Um, but there is that, that volunteerism that we've lost along the way in communities that I think is where government filled the void. And that's on everything. Like I think government filled the void on everything when community started to break

[00:30:26] down in that social fabric. So long story short, uh, no, I don't think government has done a good job of helping homelessness. And I think if anybody's going to fix it, it's probably private charities and yeah. Which is so hard now to even have a private charity because of what they require of you. And even though it's like tax free, you still have to set up your board and official files with the government. Um, X, Y, and Z. And yeah. Um,

[00:30:55] so that's kind of, there's, there's always like, it's a catch 22 with everything with the government these days. And I, I want to kind of get more into that when we talk about Katie Porter in a bit. So I'll allow you to move on to our next topic, which I know is. Coincides with this topic, but what's going on everybody. I want to take a quick minute and talk about today's sponsor for our show. Stopbox. If you're not familiar with Stopbox, it is a firearm retention device. No electronics, no biometrics, nothing like that,

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[00:32:22] actually that's a perfect segue because the next topic is Katie Porter. I think we'll do Katie Porter and then we'll do the LA homeless. Okay. Okay. I think there's a lot more to talk about with the LA homeless. So let's, we'll come back to the homeless issue and we'll talk about, I did a head fake. I'm sorry. I thought I was going to do homeless into homeless story, but instead we're doing homeless into Katie Porter. Cause you brought her up. So I was like, okay, let's talk about Katie Porter.

[00:32:49] So Katie Porter was a former Congresswoman from orange County. You're neck of the woods. Uh, she ran for Senator and lost. She did not make it past the primary, uh, jungle primary election season. And after much rumor and speculation, she announced today she is running for governor. Let's take a minute. And watch, well, three minutes. Cause it's a long introductory ad. Ready to take more notes just in case. All right. Okay. And, uh, it's three minutes long.

[00:33:18] There may be some pausing in between. Cause I have to point some stuff out, but this is Katie Porter's announcement video to the world. She is running for governor of the state of California. Californians hear a lot of excuses from elected officials. That's a complex problem. That's proving challenging. That's not my job. It's too hard. What a bunch of bullshit. Okay. First off, do we need the swearing 10 seconds in? Like,

[00:33:48] is this the whole, like we're trying to, we're trying to be connect with the youth or something by saying, dropping a swear bomb. You don't have to drop. Well, I feel like, yeah, I feel like she's somewhat angry throughout this video. Whatever. She's allowed to be angry. She's allowed to feel whatever she wants, but, um, I do feel like she's sending more of an anger message, but I think that's what she wants. And so right off the bat, starting with the curse word, I think was because she's like trying to let you know,

[00:34:17] I'm angry about this. And this is why. And I'm not afraid to hold back. Like off road. But was she accused of like throwing pots and pans at her ex-husband? Anyway. Um, good story. What we need is new ideas, a willingness to. Okay. 16 seconds in, and there's already a picture of Trump, Musk and Mike Johnson. We'll get back to that in a little bit. I would have a comment about that. Yeah. I have a comment about it as well.

[00:34:47] So to take on dangerous leaders and their corrupt enablers, the courage to lead in this moment, it's going to take all of that to solve the challenges that we face right now, a rapidly changing economy, a dangerously changing climate, costs that are out of control, housing and healthcare out of reach for millions, and fundamental rights that are in jeopardy. What California needs now is a little bit of hope and a whole lot of grit.

[00:35:17] Fresh blood. I thought you were going to say a little bit of hope and a whole lot of change. Sound familiar? Blood and new ideas and leaders with the backbone to fight for what's right. That's why I'm running for governor. I first ran for office to hold Trump accountable. I feel that... Okay. So 58 seconds. Mention of Trump. All they could tally mark. Okay. So there's the first one. Mm-hmm.

[00:35:46] That same call to serve now to stop him from hurting California. Okay. Minute and two seconds. A picture of Trump. Okay. From hurting Californians. In Congress, I held the Trump administration's feet to the... Second. Okay. Minute and seven seconds. Another mention of Trump. ...feet to the fire when they hurt Americans. As governor, I won't ever back down when Trump hurts Californians. Minute 14.

[00:36:13] Whether it's holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights and our communities, or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his crones. Minute 22. Another picture of Trump. We don't have to choose between defending our values and tackling our challenges. Working with businesses and protecting workers to create good jobs and a thriving economy. Keeping our communities safe and upholding individuals' rights.

[00:36:38] As governor, I'll bring all voices to the table to hear good ideas, no matter who they come from or what else we may agree or disagree on. Doubtful. Doubtful. I'm just going to say that. I know that they all try and play and pander to this whole, I'm going to be bipartisan and I'll listen to everybody, whether I disagree with you. Doubtful. She might listen.

[00:37:06] I doubt you would listen to anyone who is a proud and open Trump supporter. If she listens, then she'll just argue or ignore you. But she might. Yeah, she never said like she would. She just said, I would listen to you whether I disagree with you. Yeah. Doesn't mean I'll take your advice or do anything about it. Just I might listen to you. So it's very brave of you, Katie Porter. I'm glad you can be kind enough to listen to people you disagree with. What a great quality.

[00:37:35] I'll work with anybody and I'll say no to anybody because I've never been for sale and I never will be. That's how I got billions back from drug companies that ripped patients off and passed a law cracking down on health insurance companies that wrongfully deny care. It's how I passed legislation to raise firefighter pay. And it's how I'll make damn sure that California always protects abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and our immigrant communities.

[00:38:04] And never lets big oil. Obviously, the top three things that Californians are struggling with, not not housing affordability, not affordability of groceries, not income inequality. Those are the top three things. Abortion rights, LGBTQ and immigrant communities. Run on those. Go right ahead. Sure, that will be a go over like a fart in church. Good job.

[00:38:31] No, it's not that it actually would work in California if you run on those three issues. Big oil, big banks or big pharma screw people over. I've been a U.S. Congresswoman holding powerful interests accountable when they cheated taxpayers. I've been a consumer protection advocate helping families protect their homes from predatory banks. I've been a teacher training our next generation of advocates for our rights.

[00:38:56] And yes, I'm a mom who's invested in our kids' futures and actually knows the price of groceries. I've only ever been motivated by one thing, making Californians' lives better. And I'll go toe-to-toe with anyone who tries to hurt Californians. Because that's what it means to have the courage to solve our toughest problems. To build on our progress. To fight for you. To build back better. Oh, wait. They used that already.

[00:39:27] Okay. She said something about she's never been bought. According to SoCal Daily Post in an article in 2019, Porter exploited a loophole by accepting funds through leadership PACs that had taken corporate money before donating to her campaign. The article claims she received over $100,000 this way by December of 2019. Although, according to Open Secrets, while she avoids direct corporate PAC contributions,

[00:39:57] she has accepted donations from individuals affiliated with corporations. Well, yeah, obviously. So, not completely true that she's never accepted corporate money. And that was a big sticking point in the Senate campaign, right? I think she was like, I've never accepted corporate donations. Yeah, that's her big talking point. I'm doing a search for something really quick. Keep talking. I'm here. I'm paying attention. And I'm just... I had another point, but now I forgot.

[00:40:27] Okay. So, let's talk about the fact that I don't know what your count was. I actually counted them up beforehand, too. So, this is how many times she mentioned Trump, and this is how many times she showed Trump. So, she mentioned Trump four times out of a three-minute video, and she showed him three times. And if you're in the chat, and I... You know, I've... If you were counting along with me, and I was wrong, let me know. Four times in a three-minute video about running for governor of California.

[00:40:58] Here's a radical idea for someone running for governor of California. Why not talk about the issues of stuff that we were just discussing, like homeless encampments that are starting fires and putting communities at danger? Why don't we talk about that? Why don't we talk about affordability? Why don't we talk about anything that actually, like, harms or affects Californians?

[00:41:21] But instead, it took her all of 15 seconds to show video of Trump and Musk. Now, I get it. You're running for governor of California. You'll work with the federal government. Yada, yada, yada. Here and there. If your opening line is, I'm going to stand up to Trump, do you really care about running

[00:41:48] for governor of California to actually solve California's problems? Or are you doing it because, to you, it is the next platform up of, I want to do this because I want to stick it to Trump. And, oh, look what I did in the U.S. House of Representatives. I stuck it to Trump's people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so out of touch with how bad the state of California is.

[00:42:10] That if you go right to Trump, and it's, I know that every Democrat is going to run on the idea of facing down Trump, and I'm the tough person who's going to face down Trump. Are you the tough person who's going to face down the homeless industrial complex? Are you, are you someone, I hope someone asked Katie Porter that question. Are you the tough person who won't take it and you won't give any, any BS answers or won't

[00:42:40] take any BS when someone questions you about, Hey, why don't you take on the homeless industrial complex and stop begging Californians for billions of dollars that you then waste? How about we talk about corporate lobbyists up in Sacramento? How about we talk about unions who dump tons and tons of money into elections and rig the elections? Oh, which by the way, we do have a video speaking of someone who complains about rigged elections. So this was right after her Senate campaign.

[00:43:07] If you remember, the whole thing was people were making fun of Trump for saying that the election was rigged in 2020. And this was Katie Porter's response. Disinformation, conspiracy theory, right wing. You're a threat to democracy. You're an insurrectionist. All those things. This was right after she lost her Senate run to Adam Schiff. Why didn't I was going to say Scott Weiner? It's not Scott Weiner. Adam Schiff.

[00:43:38] House representative Katie Porter called the California senatorial primary rigged after failing to advance out of the state's jungle primary. In a social media post, Porter placed the blame on billionaires who she claims interfered in the race. Rigged means manipulated by dishonest means, Porter wrote on X. She went on to say a few billionaires spent $10 million plus on attack ads against me, including an ad rated false by an independent fact checker.

[00:44:04] Her comments led to swift backlash from fellow Democrats online, including Senator Brian Schatz, who said the election was not rigged. Porter's post comes less than 24 hours of when she originally accused her detractors, notably the cryptocurrency super PAC fair shake of rigging the election. In the jungle primary, there were three House Democrats vying to fill the late Senator Dianne Feinstein seat. Representative Adam Schiff advances to the general election in November against Republican Steve Garvey. Okay.

[00:44:34] Okay. I have so many comments. Luckily I made notes, but I do have a quick question for you. Yeah. Does this, is it backwards? Yes. Does this whiteboard. I had to, I had to look around my camera. Oh, okay. Does this whiteboard qualify me as governor? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to check. All right.

[00:44:57] So in the video, I forget what you, you called out, what marker was at, but she, you know, she's willing to take on the leaders. What was her comment when she starts showing right away, it's Donald Trump and Elon Musk and J.D. Vance. And what, what, what did she say? Like, she's willing to take these people on who are, I guess, destroying America. I don't know.

[00:45:24] Whatever she said was something that was like, okay, she's going to take on, she didn't say Republicans, but she only showed photos of Republicans. Why didn't she show Adam Schiff who she claims ran attack ads against her or conspired to and the election was rigged and he takes money from big pharma, all that. Why wasn't his photo in there? Obviously she's going to try to play safe with the Democrats now.

[00:45:50] So she's not going to attack them because she, you know, she needs him to endorse her. I'm sure, you know, like, look at us. We're all in this together. So that was one comment. Okay. So then we talked about, she claimed the election was rigged. If you claim the election is rigged, which of course people are going to be like, well, why don't you talk attack Donald Trump for this? Because this podcast is not about national politics and it's not about Trump.

[00:46:20] We're talking about California and I'm talking about Katie Porter right now. The election was rigged, but I'm going to run for an even bigger election. Which Carrie Lake played that card too. I lost because the election was rigged. Like, no, sometimes people don't like you or your messaging just didn't work or whatever it was. Like, yes, you want a congressional seat and that's a big deal. But a congressional seat is so much smaller than a statewide state seat.

[00:46:47] And of course, this is California where we've got, what, 10 million voters? I don't even know. Maybe it's 40 million voters. How many voters do we have? Well, we have like 44 million resident or citizens. It wouldn't be 44, but it'd probably be closer to 10. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, winning a statewide seat is going to take a lot more effort and work. And obviously Adam Schiff, who had been in Congress much longer, people just, he resonated with them for whatever reason they chose him.

[00:47:19] And okay. This is going to go back to what I was talking about when we were talking about the homeless camps. And I said, I'm going to bring something up with Katie Porter. So right off the bat, she's, you know, I'm like healthcare or whatever. She's going to fight for all these, all these things for us, for California. And I know this is like such a rhetorical question, but why do we believe every issue needs to be solved by government?

[00:47:47] Why is everything, this is a problem. Therefore we need to bring in the politician that's going to, you know, expand and to open the department and do X, Y, and Z because everything needs to be run by the government. Why? Why? Why? I don't understand that. I don't understand that line of thinking at all. I think, I think if you think that, I am sorry, I'm going to sound so offensive, but you are dumb. You lack critical thinking. You sincerely lack critical thinking.

[00:48:14] If you think that the government needs to step in and save everything. If you think that you and your community can't work together and that you can't work with your next door neighbors or that you can't figure out a solution for yourself and for your family and for your neighborhood, you lack critical thinking. And if you have a fancy degree on your wall, rip it up and burn it because it's useless because you lack critical thinking and you are stupid. You are literally stupid every time that you think the government needs to step in and solve everything. So every time that you vote for these people who were like, I'm going to come and I'm going

[00:48:43] to do this, this, this, this, this, and this, and you were dumb to vote for them. You are absolutely, you should not be allowed to vote because you can't even think for yourself. You probably can't even make a meal for your family or for yourself because you're so dumb. And yes, I believe that. I'm not taking that back. I'm not apologizing for that. Well then. All right. Well, that's it for us tonight. I think we solved all of it and we'll see you on the next one. Oh, uh, we'll see on the next one. I'm not even done with her yet, but I just. No, I, I, I agree.

[00:49:14] And, um, I, I, I was thinking about this today because there's this whole new narrative of this is not normal. Like that's the new thing that Democrats are saying. Oh, this is not normal. This is not normal. About what's going on with Trump and Doge and all that stuff and cutting fraud and waste. Right. Okay. So they're saying this is not normal. What they're saying is that this is not the status quo that we've gotten used to that we've built for ourselves. Yeah, you're right.

[00:49:42] It's not normal because the status quo and normal has sucked for over a hundred years and we need to fix it. And you're, you're, you're dead on. Right. Of. We need to stop having politicians who run out there and are like, well, when I get elected, I am going to do X, Y, and Z with the government. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I want you to tell me everything you're going to go in there. And at this point, I don't even want to like be cutesy with words.

[00:50:12] I want you to go in there and slash and burn all of it. Like our government has gotten so bloated from state to local. I mean, look at, look at how many cities, all the cities in California are severely underwater and in the red when it comes to their budget. Yep. Every single city, San Francisco. I literally tried to like use Grok, which I didn't get an answer, but I was like, which cities in California? Have a surplus. Yeah.

[00:50:43] Which are doing better. I want to get a shorter answer, but I was like, I have a budget deficit. And they were like, cool. This is, we don't know. San Francisco, half a billion dollar deficit. LA, $400 million deficit. San Diego, $300 million deficit. Like this is mind blowing that governments have run themselves into the red so much.

[00:51:09] And yet politicians in California are still going out there and saying, we need government to solve it. You can't afford the stuff you've proposed now. Right. Um, I mean, I, I don't, I had, I always have a theory. My personal theory is the dirty parking meter theory theory. One day I'm going to write like a little piece about it and explain what it is. Basically the theory is if parking meters are dirty in your city because they haven't been

[00:51:37] cleaned in weeks, you don't get to do the other things that you think are important until you do the basics. Right. Right. Like if you can't keep your city clean and you can't do the basics, you don't get to do the social programs and climate change and social justice, LGBTQ plus, and all of this stuff that you, you know, bike lanes, you don't get to do all that stuff. Right.

[00:52:07] Until you've done the basics. And if you're running a deficit of half a billion dollars and you can't keep the city clean, you have failed. Bottom line. Right. And I agree with you. There is no, we need to get out of this mindset that government is always the solution. And I think we need to start reframing it to be, we need politicians to go in there and figure out how to dismantle all that doesn't work in government and start all over.

[00:52:36] I want someone genuine to get up there and say, I am running for governor of California or whatever they're running for, because I believe in you, the person, I believe that you are capable of handling your own, your, your own life, you know, I, and that we're here for safety. We're here if we, if you need us, but you, you go, you know, you're an adult and, uh, you know,

[00:53:05] you, you go live your life and, um, we'll, you know, hopefully arrest any criminals that are doing shady things and, um, and you know, and we'll get your roads paved so that your tires last longer and, um, you can save money on that. And so that people can, uh, drive well in the rain. Maybe that's why it's your bad roads in the rain. And they're like, that's why Californians suck at driving in the room because they had to deal with,

[00:53:34] with unfixed roads for so long. Um, her dancing now, um, you know, we know that Kamala Harris is saying like, she'll let us know by the end of summer, if she's planning to run for governor or not. And so I feel like Katie Porter wanted to get a headstart on this to be like, I'm the female running. Uh, you know, I, I've been here in California fighting and now Harris, I'm sure that'll be kind of her attack thing.

[00:54:04] Harris lost for vice president and she's just trying to do whatever. And, but I'm the one for you. Cause I've done X, Y, and Z. Um, two more points on her. So in her video Porter, there's someone holding the sign that said, no human is illegal. But then she turns around and it was, you know, number one issue is abortion. And it's like, no human is illegal, but babies should be banned from life. Okay.

[00:54:33] Um, that's an abortion debate issue. We won't go there. Then, you know, she's all about like, I don't take money from big pharma, big pharma, big pharma, Adam Schiff, big pharma. Uh, but yet she pushed the COVID vaccine. What do you, what do you, where's, do you think the COVID vaccine came from? Big pharma. Like what did you guys not, not you Democrats who were like, you must get this vaccine to save everybody. Oh, but I don't deal with big pharma. No big pharma is bad.

[00:55:02] Like what do you believe? What make up your mind? Yes. You either, you either are against big pharma or, um, you push the greatest wealth transferred towards big pharma and human history in 2020. And Katie Porter was the latter. She supported the greatest wealth transfer and the biggest huge contract to big pharma in human history with the COVID vaccine. So you can't be for both. Sorry.

[00:55:33] Can't stand up to big pharma and then also support them making hundreds of billions of dollars. And then they got the, the role of a governor in California is a four year term. Uh, the elections coming up and just, you know, a little less than two years about it. We'll have a new governor. Newsom will be termed out. Um, Trump will then have two years left. He will then be termed out.

[00:55:59] So what is her argument going to be for those remaining two years that she's in office? If her big thing is that she's working against Trump, then what is she going to be working for or against for those remaining two years? Possibly six years, because if she does win, she'll likely run again. Don't know where my voice is going probably from all that shouting I did about her.

[00:56:23] Um, I, I mean, I'm interested to see if it does get down to Kamala Harris and Katie Porter. Who else is running? Who else is announced on the Democrat side? Yeah. I can't remember. Tony Thurmond. Uh, oh, Tony Atkins. Tony Atkins. Um, the, our Lieutenant Gunner or Elaine, Elaine, Elaineus. I don't know how to say her last name, so I don't want to butcher it.

[00:56:49] Um, I haven't really heard from her or seen anything from her. I guess she's busy actually running the state while Gavin Newsom is podcasting. Maybe. She's busy. Yeah. She's actually busy doing her job then. Stuff to do. So I think Katie Porter's a disaster. Um, I think she believes what she says. Her personal life has been a mess.

[00:57:17] If you even go start looking into it, there has been, she has been accused of like assault and battery from her ex-husband. She's accused him. I think she had another boyfriend. She, she accused of abuse. Like she doesn't seem to choose the right partner. She keeps getting herself into shady situations. And I, I feel for that. I feel bad for that. That's, I don't want any woman in that situation. But if that's who you are, then you need to get your personal life together before you can

[00:57:47] even go and like even try to run a state, especially the size of California. Um, so like Katie, go work on yourself. Like, don't try to pretend like, you know, what's best for us when you can't even figure out your own life. Um, I, and if I, if, if it came down to Katie Porter and Kamala Harris, I probably wouldn't vote because I wouldn't want to put my name behind either, but I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one I'd prefer.

[00:58:16] You might just have to abstain, write somebody in. Right. I probably would because I wouldn't want, like I said, I wouldn't want my name behind either vote, but still I, one of them would be my governor. So which one would I prefer? Doritos? Dorito hands or whiteboard? Hmm. It's a tough choice. Um, all right. Got to get to our next topic of the night, which is. I had no plans for a rant, by the way. There's nothing in my notes that said rant. You didn't put it on your whiteboard? Make sure to rant.

[00:58:45] No, my whiteboard's not too short for that. Uh, all right. So this is a story from LAist. Uh, it's called Syrian audit. Fine city of LA has failed to properly track billions in homelessness spending. Uh, so this was from an audit that was commissioned by a federal judge. The draft audit report released Thursday by us district judge David O Carter comes as Los Angeles city council members weigh an overhaul of homeless spending.

[00:59:14] Many of the problem auditors identified were at the Los Angeles homeless service authority. L a H S a. If that sounds familiar. Yeah, I got that hard one to say. You want to say Lasha, but the H comes before it. Lasha. Yeah. If you, if it sounds familiar, you are onto something. It's the government agency overseen by the city and county that for decades, LA mayors and council members have outsourced management of much of the city's homelessness dollars for sheltering, feeding, and serving people.

[00:59:42] The report paints a blistering picture of a lack of accountability for taxpayer dollars in recent years. Auditor said the document trail provided by the agency was so poor that it made tracking the spending nearly impossible. The agency failed to verify whether the services invoiced were provided. Auditors also found there was a high level of noncompliance among the small number of service provider contracts that were reviewed. Auditors added any lack of oversight.

[01:00:10] They wrote has made it challenging to, Oh, to determine how programs funded were used and Oh my gosh, how program funds were used and whether they achieve the intended outcomes. In one example, auditors said L a H S a leaders failed to provide them documentation to verify the existence of about 2,300 housing sites, not housing units, housing sites.

[01:00:35] The agency was responsible for 70% of the contracts that for those sites did not disclose any expenses over the prior year. The auditors added a county supervisor, Lindsay Horvath responded to the audit by calling LA H S a problems quote a nightmare and announced that she will schedule a vote by county supervisors to pull county funding from the agency. Instead have the county manage it directly. The city is projected to send about $306 million in taxpayer dollars this fiscal year.

[01:01:05] to LA H S a. There's been no comment so far by chief executive, Valacia Adams Kellum. Again, if that sounds familiar, you've been watching the show who has been leading LA H S a for the past two years. She was in charge for the last 15 months of the timeframe reviewed by auditors. Shocking. Coincidence. Interesting.

[01:01:28] Um, if, so, if you don't remember, she was the person who signed mistakenly. And I put that in quotes. She said it was a mistake. She somehow signed three contracts as a mistake and gave $2.1 million to a nonprofit where her husband works. So there's that. Um, and she won't give up. And she was also the person who didn't believe that people should fill out those 700 forms

[01:01:56] to disclose any potential, uh, conflicts. She just didn't see the reason why. Karen Bass weighing in has been critical of plans to pull funding for LA H S a. Wonder why we'll get to that saying the city's work should focus on serving on house people, not creating new bureaucracies. Wouldn't pulling funding and getting rid of a bureaucracy in an agency, get rid of bureaucracy. Wouldn't it be, be the opposite. I'm not creating new, but anyway,

[01:02:24] side, that's my response side. I'm going to raise my whiteboard. And I'm just going to start doing whiteboard responses. Rodriguez motion to yank the funding. So this is Monica Rodriguez of city council was in limbo for three months until Wednesday when the city council's housing and homelessness committee voted to further explore an exit from LA H S a by directing city staff to prepare an analysis. The county level, they voted for nothing to explore redirecting its funding and instead have it managed directly by the County. Um, all right.

[01:02:54] This is where I thought it got interesting. Carter, the federal judge initiated the audit after learning that LA's independently elected city controller is blocked from auditing the mayor's signature homelessness program inside safe and inside safe is a agents or it's a more bureaucracy. So Bass who doesn't want to create more bureaucracy somehow created more bureaucracy with an executive

[01:03:22] order calling this inside safe homeless program. Now, um, do you want to know how well they're doing? Sure. On a scale, on a scale of one to 10, how well do you think they're doing one being bad and 10 being outstanding? Negative two. Okay. It's a good guess. Los Angeles has dedicated $341 million to its inside safe housing program. This is from, what is this from the center square?

[01:03:48] Um, Los Angeles has dedicated 341 million to its inside safe housing programs, serving 2728 individuals, largely through providing temporary housing. Los Angeles city controller, Kenneth Mejia's report outlines how inside safe has spent approximately $125,000 per individual since the program was launched in December of 2022. And just 30 program participants are either reunited with family or back on their feet and

[01:04:17] I'm unsubsidized housing. 30, 30. Yeah. Out of 2728, only 30 were reunited and, or back on their feet in their own unsubsidized housing. Um, the recent report also lays out a 45% of the city's homeless individuals are service resistant or unwilling to make use of offered city services. I understand there's your, you're, there's always going to be those people.

[01:04:47] They don't trust they're mentally not there. They're on drugs, whatever. And, and they're not going to go along with any sort of program, but that's not all of them. So do you, it, the, the success rate gets better. Okay. And by better, I mean much worse. Okay. Uh, between July and December of 2023, the city attempted contacting 22,019 verified separate

[01:05:14] homeless individuals, 12,000 of whom engaged with city personnel enrolled in city programs of those 12,000, 2,962 took offers of city shelter. 428 exited to permanent housing and 328 exited to temporary destinations, which they put in quotes. So I don't know what that means. So that's approximately 2,500 ish people total who. Okay.

[01:05:44] Out of 3000. Okay. Not a great rate. Um, if you want to do the math on your whiteboard, I'm not good at math by hand. I have a phone calculator, but of the $341 million, 96 million is for buying the Mayfair hotels. Um, 111 million is for interim housing.

[01:06:07] 105 million is which is spent at privately owned hotels, hotels, 106 million for services for participants, including the total cost of services at the LA grand and Mayfair hotels, 19 million in permanent housing programs and 9 million on city departments. So 19 billion on permanent housing that basically a handful of people have used. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:06:36] Out of how many people it's, uh, 428. 19 million for 428 people and not all of them used it. I'm talking to the 19 million for permanent housing. This is all the numbers kind of got confusing to me. So maybe I'm saying that wrong, but okay. So these are the numbers that they were able to somewhat track. Right. But there's a lot unaccounted for, right?

[01:07:06] Like there's millions unaccounted for. Okay. Mm-hmm. That's why I'm keeping up with this. It probably makes sense that Karen Bass is against getting rid of LAHSA. Right. Because if we're funneling money through LAHSA and they're not keeping track and part of her program, maybe she doesn't want to see where the money's going.

[01:07:35] Um, I'm looking at this right now. There's something else that caught my eye. Uh, of the 506 individuals in permanent housing, more than half our house through two year city housing subsidies of $1,800 per month, a fifth are in another kind of subsidized housing and a 10th are in permanent supportive housing. Just 14 were reunified with family and 16 are back on their feet in unsubsidized housing. Two things. Mm-hmm.

[01:08:05] I've said it before. I feel like you rolled your eyes. did I, I didn't mean to roll my eyes. Okay. I may have rolled my eyes because I look at these numbers and I'm like, I can't believe we're spending so much damn money on this stuff. Mm-hmm. Government funding to end homelessness in California is just one giant Ponzi scheme. All right. Second thing, question. Check. And I don't know if you know this, but, um, so we know that in the last few years,

[01:08:31] there's the state of California can't account for $24 billion in homelessness spending. Do you know if any of the numbers that you just mentioned are a part of the 24 billion or is that separate? That's, oh, that's a good question. Uh, probably should have done a little bit more research to see if the 24 billion filtered down. Well, I assume this is a city budget.

[01:09:01] We'd have to break it down to see how much they get from the state and grants and stuff like that. And then how much is allocated to this 300, $300 million budget. Right. Um, and that's, we're not going to figure it out now, but that is a question that I have because we talk about the 24 billion, but every city seems to have its own homelessness budget. And so I'm trying to figure out if there's like an additional source.

[01:09:29] And if so, what is that? What is that for? Meaning like, I don't know how many cities there are in California, but if, if, you know, each city gets a certain amount, probably based on the size of the city and how many approximate homeless people they have and all that. I'm sure. I just want to know if that's the 24 billion went out to the cities or is there an additional state funding plus the cities? And then if there is, how much money is there in total?

[01:09:56] And where is this 24 billion, which they don't know where it's going, but where is it going or how is it supposedly going? If cities all have their own budget. Like, that's what I'm trying to figure out. And I know you don't know the answer to that. If anyone does, it's certainly something that we should probably explore because it's interesting question. But like, I want to know if there's more than the 24 billion. That's what I'm saying. Captain Kirk in the chat has a good guess of where it's going. He says it's going to a charming Swiss bank account.

[01:10:26] I love Switzerland. That's, it's probably a good guess. One year ago tomorrow, I was on my way to Switzerland. Missed it every day since. So they followed up with this other article, the five things we learned about from the audit. One, no one's collecting clear data on spending. That's obvious. Two, the system connecting people to services is disjointed.

[01:10:56] Probably on purpose. Three, LA's lead homelessness agency doesn't track subcontractor compliance. Okay. That should be important. I think every dollar should be tracked and why it's not. Again, this is also the same one. Every cent should be tracked. Every red cent that comes from us should be tracked. But this is also the same lady who doesn't believe that they should fill out those form 700s to disclose whether they have financial conflicts.

[01:11:23] Gives you an idea of what she thinks about people looking at finances. Four, different providers charge widely different prices for the same services. After reviewing per bed daily costs at some shelters, the auditors found that personnel expenses ranged from $67 to $7. Food or meal expenses ranged from $18 to $7. And security expenses ranged from $32 to $2. Those are some big swings in money.

[01:11:53] Right. And I guess they just rubber stamp all of it. So like you come in and you're the subcontractor who's charging $67. I guess they're just rubber stamping it. Why not? Who cares? We're going to get the money next year. And five, few people are leaving shelters for permanent housing.

[01:12:17] In the previous fiscal year, about 22% of shelter and interim housing units, housing residents moved into permanent housing. About 48% left shelter and returned to homelessness. Overall, the report metrics did not demonstrate consistent trends or correlations. A high percentage of document rate participants or prolonged stays did not appear to result in high permanent housing placements. So $300 million a year and we're not moving anybody into permanent housing.

[01:12:45] We're not getting anyone off the street. And I say anyone is like an exaggeration. I know they're saying 14 or whatever somehow found permanent housing. Yeah. A couple of people were. A couple of people found permanent housing. This just proves government is too big. This is the literal argument for government is too big. We don't need to add another agency or three agencies to then like hone in on this money.

[01:13:15] We need to. The government is bleeding us out of our paychecks. They're like, we've got nothing left in us. They're taking all these taxes and then they're supposedly giving them, you know, to here and there to help this. And yet nobody seems to be able to account for barely a few dollars. And that tells you government needs to stop. They don't know what they're doing.

[01:13:44] They, they can't manage it. They're incapable. So stop, stop taxing us for that. Stop giving money to it. Um, maybe just a one or two year pause even to like really reign this in, figure it out, get a better handle on it. Hire people that are capable of handling it. And then we can maybe proceed at a lower level.

[01:14:11] But this, this is, this is literal government failure. We don't need big government. We don't need Katie Porter. We don't need more agencies. We need less. No. Yeah. Yeah. This is at this point, it's, it's economic suicide. Um, it is, we're, we're throwing our money into a huge pit that is, could have gone to other things. It could have gone to private charities. It could have gone to people affording more stuff. It could have been to boosting our economy.

[01:14:39] Um, but instead it went all to who knows. That's the thing that the auditor doesn't really understand. Again, they don't have tracking of the subcontractors. They don't have contract. Like they don't have tracking of the payments. Um, I, to me, this is like, we brought this up before and maybe this is a federal crime or something. Um, politicians got to start going to jail. I'm sorry.

[01:15:06] We, we are not tough enough on politicians who absolutely screw up monumentally. Like being a politician and a government official is the only one, one job I know, especially politicians where you can screw up massively and waste millions and billions of dollars and just wipe your hands clean and go. So that I don't know where it went. Right. I'm sorry. And those billions and billions of dollars are not theirs.

[01:15:34] No, they're just, they're throwing it at problems and people should go to jail. I'm sorry. We need to just, we need to put like the fear of God into these politicians. Like you screw up. You do this in the private sector. You lose $24 billion. You're going to federal white collar prison for a long time for the rest of your life. But for some reason, when you do it in the public sector, you just get to wipe your hands of income. Yeah, whatever. Not my problem.

[01:16:03] We, we definitely need a way to start arresting people and charging them. I don't know if there is a way to do so. If it's a federal crime, if DA should start, like, I don't know what to do other than they just even recall. Like people are like, oh, we need to recall them. I'm like, I don't think that's harsh enough because recall people just like they either find a new job as a lobbyist or they do something else. They become a consultant and they still get to wash their hands clean of like losing millions of dollars. Who cares?

[01:16:33] It's all gone. Yeah. And this is, this kind of brings it full circle to the idea of, I like, that's, I like the idea of people going in and saying, I want to slash and burn. I'm not going to be here to propose another government agency or another government solution. Government has lost my trust almost completely. Yeah.

[01:16:58] And I've become more and more radical on this point of like, I tried to be patient and say, I can wait for the government to figure out. Maybe we just need to trim here and there. I've, I've read enough about government and I've, we've done the podcast for not long enough that I'm at the point now where I'm like, nope, sorry. No empathy. You have all completely screwed up.

[01:17:24] Don't try and don't try and guilt shame me with the whole, oh, you're going to take money from first responders. The roads. I think that's always the first thing. It's always the roads and the teachers. We need roads, I think. And it's like, well, you don't do that well either. So, sorry. You, you've lost all privileges. You have blown whatever privilege or trust you have. You get nothing. Sorry.

[01:17:53] We're going to slash it and burn it and bring it all back down and start all over again. Yeah. Yeah. Burn it down. Not, not LA. Not literally. We're not saying literally go burn down the government. Yeah. No, I'm not even like, yeah, I don't mean go out and start an actual, uh, you know, physical fight or fire or don't do anything crazy. But, but yeah, yeah, we have to, we have to take it, take it back.

[01:18:20] And this goes back to my rant that I'll, you know, try not to do, but just like we, we are, we are capable of being responsible for our own lives. Stop giving it to the government. This is what they do with it. When we, when we give it to them. Mm-hmm. Uh, I strongly recommend, uh, if you like this kind of talk about burning down the government, I strongly recommend you read anything by Murray Rothbard. Um, I would suggest you start with anatomy of the state.

[01:18:49] Fantastic book. Once you read that, your eyes will be open for it. It's like, you want to talk about like, you know, Dorothy walking out from black and white into color. Go read anatomy of the state. Um, and just really quickly, I, we're not a national politics, but this has been bugging me about what's going on in Washington right now. Okay. Is this, this mentality is not being adhered to by congressional Republicans.

[01:19:15] And I've been watching like the, the continuing resolution and the budget talks and all that stuff for all of the mandate that president Trump got. And Elon is there doing his Doge thing and people are looking at the amount of fraud and waste. I am so frustrated with congressional Republicans that they are basically rubber stamping status quo all over again. They're just like, they're just like, yeah, that's great. Trump. And Doge is amazing. We love it. And okay.

[01:19:44] But anyway, we're just going to pass the same exact budget we did last year. And it's like. Right. Like what? I think I shared something today. Let me find it. If you, and you probably saw this, um, sorry, pulling it up on my Instagram. Imagine thinking that, uh, Thomas Massey is the problem in Congress. Right. Yeah.

[01:20:12] I know that people feel a certain way about Thomas Massey, but he, he's been pretty consistent about him and Rand Paul have been consistent about spending and they've said the same thing, you know, for all these Republicans who give lip service to Trump and his, his mandate that got elected in, they don't care. They're just going to keep rubber stamping the same budget. And it's going to be the same thing, which makes me disappointed because it's like, oh, nothing will really change.

[01:20:37] I mean, Trump can do as much as possible to try and cut down on a lot of waste and fraud, but until Congress actually signs off on it and really goes after it, it's not going to change. Like once Trump leaves, they'll just go back to normal. So this goes back to, you know, Congress has two terms or two year terms. They're always just thinking about reelection. And so they're trying to probably like appease their people and their people are going to vote for them again, which is not going to change anything.

[01:21:06] And it's just going to be more government waste because people lack critical thinking. Sorry, there's not too many, too many people in Congress right now. I think cause they're getting pushback when they go back to their home district and like people are protesting and they're getting mad and stuff like that. They have no spine and they're like, oh yeah, we'll, we'll go back to funding everything. And yeah, sure. We'll keep the blood going. I wasn't even justifying that, that like, that's, that's not a good reason just because they're getting pushback.

[01:21:35] I mean, yes, they have a certain obligation to, you know, to their people, but we did elect Trump on certain terms. He said he was going to do these things and we were like, yes, we want those things. And then he won and, and now we're voting against those things. Like congressional Republicans have really let me down.

[01:21:59] You know, what are we more than 50 days through the hundred we're, we're past the halfway point of the first hundred days, that crucial first hundred days of like a presidency where there's all the momentum and we're just like, and we're just barely getting a continuing resolution, like barely getting a continuing resolution. And like the budget already looks bloated and like, it's going to be exactly the same. And the tax cuts are going to be like, meh.

[01:22:29] Like, I don't know. I don't know why they don't learn. I just don't know why they don't learn. But anyway, on that topic or on that note, any other final thoughts? No. Told you. We told you listeners we had a jam-packed show. I feel like this podcast is going to get canceled because of me. So I think I need to. It's going to be canceled. Well, it certainly will show up this time. Not like our episode on Sunday, which YouTube was not happening. That's my opinion. That was not the opinion of the podcaster, Phil.

[01:22:56] That was my rant that he had no idea it was a Jew. I had no idea. I had no idea I was going to do. Just the moment took you over. Don't cancel him. Yeah. If you guys didn't know, we tried to do the Gavin Newsom podcast on Sunday. It's up on audio and there's been no problems. Um, but, uh, we tried to do it here on YouTube and it got immediately copyrighted and it's happening to everybody who like brings up the Gavin Newsom podcast.

[01:23:26] Like it's just massive. We worked so hard to find the video so that we can use the actual video and not just the audio. And then you guys have no idea what we did to try to get that podcast to you. Yeah, we did. We did a lot of work, but if you want to go check it out, you can go listen on Spotify, Apple, all those places. So, um, all right with that, uh, make sure you like share, subscribe, review, hit that notification bell. All that stuff helps with the algorithm. And the one thing you can do that is 100% free to support the show is you can share this

[01:23:55] with somebody else. And with that, we will see you on the next one later. Thank you for listening to another episode of California underground. If you like what you heard, remember to subscribe, like, and review it and follow California underground on social media for updates as to when new episodes are available.