Ghost Homeless: LA's $118M Fraud, the Rail Nightclub, and California's AI Land Grab

[00:00:01] Tonight, a non-profit took in $118M to house homeless Angelenos and they built an expensive luxury lounge with that money. Also, the high-speed rail was found to be expensing cigar trips, luxury trips, first-class tickets, private fares, Uber Blacks, gym trips, and all that stuff.

[00:00:20] And the firm that employs and bills them is also the CEO's fiancee. And also, a barely-formed company wants 100-year leases on your county fairgrounds. These are three stories, one thread, your money, your tax dollars, and nobody's watching. This is California Underground. Let's get into it right now.

[00:00:59] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground. I am your host, Phil. We have three stories tonight that when I first originally started researching, because I thought they were all kind of interesting stories, actually had one common thread. And actually, two of the stories are actually linked in a weird way that nobody in news has even actually covered yet. I actually covered it on my Substack and published it. So if you haven't followed, I do publish some stuff on Substack.

[00:01:25] This was too good to pass up, so I published it on Substack for people. We're going to get into it tonight, how AI and the high-speed rail are both after public land. So much to get to tonight, specifically. But first, if you haven't already and you're listening, make sure throughout the show, if you like the show, subscribe, like, share, review. All that stuff helps with the algorithm, helps more people find us. Also, as a promo, The Gilded State. Here's my copy. It came in. I was so excited.

[00:01:55] There it is. That is the paperback version of The Gilded State. I want to thank everybody who has sent me pictures and told me that they've ordered the book. It's overwhelming to see so many people send me pictures of them ordering the book and telling me. I mean, I'm actually surprised. The girl who worked on this did a really good job. It sounds crazy, but I opened up the package, then I ordered a whole bunch of copies for myself, and I said, wow, this is a real book.

[00:02:21] This is like an actual legit book. So yeah, it's not a cheapy book. As you can see, it's about 300 pages, and then all these footnotes in the back, so you can see it's well-researched. Did a really good job. There's nice little pictures in there as well for some of the historical stuff, so go check it out. You can scan the QR code on Amazon. Go check it out. Again, it's $2.99 right now for the introductory price for Kindle, $14.99 for the paperback.

[00:02:44] I can't really do anything about that. That's just the price it is for a paperback, but you still can get it on Kindle for $2.99. That is the introductory price. It will go up soon, probably by the end of this month going into October. It will go up. So thank you, everyone, for tuning in wherever you're tuning in. Make sure you let me know where you're tuning in. I'd love to hear where you're tuning in from the chat so I can give you a shout-out, all of that stuff. So that's why we do this show live every Tuesday night.

[00:03:11] All right, before we get started, I want to start on a little bit of a lighter note. As we are heading into October, this is the time you start to see a lot of politicians and a lot of PACs. You're going to see a lot of campaign commercials. And, you know, this is the point where no matter where you are, whether it is, you know, it is on YouTube or it's on TV, traditional TV, you know, terrestrial TV, as they call it, not on the YouTubes, you're going to see a lot of campaign ads.

[00:03:38] And one campaign ad, well, one of our favorite people released his new campaign ad. And let's just take a look. Washington's a mess. I really wish someone could deliver real change. Wiener. Someone who always stands up to special interests to make health care more affordable. Wiener. Who's always protecting immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and abortion rights. Wiener. Who will stand up to Donald Trump and always deliver for San Francisco. Wiener.

[00:04:08] Hey, everyone. It's Scott Wiener. I'm Scott Wiener, and I approve this message. I'm just wondering if the whole point of that campaign ad for Scott was to how many times could he say the word Wiener in it? I'm just going to leave that out there. How many times could he have said the word Wiener, had other people say the word Wiener in there? So that's Scott Wiener's campaign ad.

[00:04:38] You know, stand up to Trump, all the same stuff. I made a comment on X about how all these campaign ads sound exactly the same. Like, it doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican, they're all sort of exactly the same in terms of the same thing of we're going to lower prices. We're going to make housing more affordable. We're going to lower gas prices. We're going to lower drug prices.

[00:05:01] It's like the same four or five points, and they all say the same bland thing, same generic thing, with absolutely no plan of how they're actually going to do that and whether or not Congress can actually do any of that stuff. So that always seems to be the same old thing. Let me know in the comments if you think it's always the same people who are making the same thing, and it just seems like it's always the same four or five promises that they always, always put out there. All right. Let's get into our first story. It's the top headline story of the show.

[00:05:31] It is about L.A. and homelessness. We've covered L.A. homelessness a lot on this channel. We've covered plenty of stories. We've covered numerous breaking news stories in terms of fraud, waste, and abuse, criminal allegations, all of that stuff. And if you've been watching long enough, if you've been watching long enough, you can see sort of the, how do you say, the threat.

[00:06:01] And we talk about a lot of these stories, and that's why, you know, subtle plug, you've got to kind of tune into this because we bring up these stories, and then we come back to these stories because they all kind of connect after a while. There was news that three individuals were arrested by the DOJ, so federal law enforcement, not California. And, well, they put their hands in the cookie jar in terms of how much homeless money.

[00:06:27] So let's watch that clip, and we'll comment, and we'll discuss how deep this rabbit hole really goes. Also tonight, federal agents arrested three L.A. homelessness nonprofit figures in a multimillion-dollar corruption sweep. The region's embattled homelessness agency, LASA, is also under scrutiny. Fox 11's Rachel Aragon live now in Eaglewood with the details. Rachel? Hey, Glenn Young.

[00:06:54] Federal officials announcing today three big arrests, and it comes, as you mentioned, LASA facing growing scrutiny over how they handle taxpayer money. In the meantime, though, homelessness crisis and LASA itself both becoming major topics in the L.A. mayor's race. No wonder their track record at LASA is a failing record. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, better known as LASA, back in the spotlight Wednesday,

[00:07:17] after federal officials announced three people were arrested and connected to separate federal homelessness corruption and fraud cases. I'll come to the front door with your hands up. One of the defendants is 46-year-old Michael Young, a founder of the Culver City-based nonprofit Home at Last. According to the complaint, Young misappropriated millions of dollars in taxpayer funds earmarked for homeless housing, including through programs administered by LASA.

[00:07:41] Among other gross misuses of taxpayer money, Young allegedly spent more than $1 million to open and operate a high-end restaurant and nightclub in Inglewood called 675 Lounge. Your tax dollars. Your tax dollars, ladies and gentlemen, are going to fund new lounges and bingo halls in Inglewood. That's where your California tax dollars are going to.

[00:08:11] Not to actually help the homeless. They're going to build a luxury lounge for this Mr. Michael Young so that he could run a side business on top of the business that he's running, this nonprofit business. Let's keep going. This crisis, a top issue in the L.A. mayoral race. Last week, Mayor Karen Bass announcing she's stepping down from LASA's governing commission to focus on establishing a city-led homelessness response team.

[00:08:40] In terms of LASA, it's really just a question of the timing. Also, recently I took over the chair of Metro, so I have a few things going on. Mayoral candidate and Councilwoman Nithya Rahman, whom Bass removed as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, was quick to respond. Overseeing more than $350 million in public money is not a responsibility the mayor can take on and then abandon because she doesn't have time. As for the three defendants accused of diversion...

[00:09:09] Fair point. Absolutely fair point. Yeah, I think you can't just decide you're too busy and just complain that you're too busy. You have to do the job. You're the mayor of Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in America. You can't just decide I'm too busy and I don't have time for this, especially something as serious as homelessness. ...millions in taxpayer funds for personal gain. I am not surprised. My office has been sounding the alarm about the lack of transparency and accountability and oversight.

[00:09:37] City Comptroller Kenneth Mejia, who has endorsed Nithya Rahman for mayor, says he's long pushed for the city to fund more oversight to root out this kind of alleged fraud. And what we've asked the city, the mayor and city council, is more auditors and fraud, waste and abuse investigators. We get 800 fraud, waste and abuse claims every year in the city of L.A. And we only have five people to investigate it. So we are not even scratching the surface. Well, LASA also released a statement on all this saying they have zero tolerance for fraud and waste.

[00:10:07] They also said in the statement that they're actively cooperating with federal investigators through all this. They know that they've terminated its contract with HOMET last in June after strong evidence of wrongdoing emerged. And they also noted, they say, no loss of personnel are implicated in any wrongdoing, adding charges involve external provider executives and outside contractors. Now back here in Lima Inglewood, we did get a statement from Mayor Karen Bass. She said in that statement that her administration has zero tolerance for fraud.

[00:10:34] In that statement, she also adds that they, again, are commenting DOJ for recovering those public funds and hopefully getting those money back to Angelenos who are unhoused. Print live in Inglewood tonight. I'm Rachel Aragon. Yeah. Zero tolerance from Karen Bass on homelessness fraud, even though it seems like every couple of months we get new news about homelessness fraud and waste and abuse and people stealing these criminal organizations.

[00:11:04] They're basically criminal organizations at this point. These crime rings that are basically stealing taxpayer money, public funds, and enriching themselves. And they are just making themselves richer and richer. And it's crazy. I'm going to get into the lineage of what has happened here in terms of how this is all connected over the past several months. And sort of my theory as to what DOJ is doing, because there is a pattern here.

[00:11:31] And if you know anything about law enforcement, you can start to read the tea leaves a little bit and see what's happening. So, like I said, since 2019, Home at Last received $118 million in public funds. LASA alone paid over $75 million. $1 million, as it said, went to go open this beautiful, and I say really high, schwanky kind of establishment. This is, what is this?

[00:12:00] 675 Lounge in Inglewood. So, $1 million went to go build this. And a bingo hall attached to it. So, Michael Young is allegedly, I mean, I got to make sure I say allegedly because they just got charged with all of this stuff. Allegedly used all this money to build a lounge and a bingo hall on top of it. And that money was supposed to go to homeless. And it didn't. Instead, it ended up here. How much money, how much could a million dollars help homeless here or there in San Diego?

[00:12:30] I'm getting all confused. In Los Angeles. It could have helped a lot of people, I'm sure. A million dollars could have fed a lot of people. Could have created some beds, stuff like that. Blankets, all of that. Instead, they built this, it looks like a nice lounge. But that's not the point of public money. That's not the point of the funds is to spend it on building a lounge. I want to go over here real quick. This is KPBS.

[00:12:57] And they said the people were charged by federal authorities $12 million. The second such arrest of people on federal fraud charges in Southern California this week. As President Donald Trump's administration tries to emphasize a crackdown on fraud and waste in government and aid programs. On Tuesday, 12 people were charged with stealing more than $10 million in federal child care day. Shout out. I think that was Amy Reichert that was down here in San Diego. She was a part of uncovering that. And people called her crazy. And they smeared her.

[00:13:27] And they said all these crazy things about her. And then she was vindicated. So shout out to Amy Reichert, friend of the show. Millions have been spent and wasted in Los Angeles homeless fraud. And it just gets worse. So all of this money, you had three charged. You had Young, Donye Mitchell, Lakia Malone. And they're all part of this Home at Last.

[00:13:55] Let's pull up Home at Last real quick. This is the actual site for it. Let's see. Pull that up. Thank you. Come on. Come on. Come on, EK. There we go. A world where everyone has a home. I mean, it's a legit site. Looks like a nice little site. Donate now. Help us provide housing and supportive. A message from Michael and Jennifer. Before COVID-19, our services were in demand.

[00:14:25] It's more individuals. Michael, I'm assuming it's Michael Young, who is one of the new defendants in this case. And here are the services. Rapid rehousing case management. Looks very legit. Sure. You know, it looks legit. It's got a nice web page. All of that. But turns out, since 2019, they took in $118 million. And a million of that went to a lounge. And it also went to trips to Tahiti, vintage cars, commercial real estate.

[00:14:55] So they funneled some of that money into their own actual enterprises to enrich themselves. And I want to get into the real connective issue here of what's going on of how this is really all connected. If you saw the thumbnail of today's show, you can see there's actual crime ring. And then you look at it, there's all these people. Let me see if I can pull that crime ring up. I want to see if I can pull that up while I'm talking. Let's see.

[00:15:23] I want to just pull this up. Because I think this is really worth showing everybody what we're looking at here. All right. So this is the kind of breakdown. And I did this on purpose because I wanted to show people. These are the individuals who are all named. You could look here alone. Donye Mitchell. I don't know why he's smiling. Why is she smiling? Michael Young. He's the head of the home at last. Alex Sufer.

[00:15:52] Let's get into Alex Sufer. Who's Alexander Sufer? You're probably saying, who's Alexander Sufer? Why does that really matter? Alexander Sufer was someone who was arrested and charged with $23 million in homeless fraud. And this was several months back. This was back in March, I believe. And we did a whole video on that as well. He was stealing $23 million through California homelessness. And he appeared in court not too long ago.

[00:16:23] So who is Alexander Sufer? This is his home, by the way. This is his home in Brentwood, I believe it is. Beautiful home. I think it's worth about $5 million. Must be nice. You know, we joke on this show that it's probably the best gig in the world right now, if you can get away with it, is to be the CEO of a homeless nonprofit. This guy was also found to have been giving like ramen noodles and like grilled cheese to the homeless. He was not actually giving them food.

[00:16:50] He was actually siphoning a ton of the money to himself. You know, he did the same thing. Nice house, lavish trips, went to Greece, vintage cars, all of that. Living the life of luxury was Alexander Sufer. And I bring this all up because it's all going to connect. Believe me, this is all going to connect. And it's all worth connecting.

[00:17:14] So, Lakia Malone, who was one of these three individuals who was just recently charged, she worked at Special Service for Groups, a massive LASA subcontractor. And LASA, Los Angeles Homeless Services Agency, defunct now. They're basically, they have no, because of the fact that they couldn't account for more like $2.5 billion. Shocker. All of a sudden, someone tamped down and said, you can't do this anymore.

[00:17:41] You can't run this because you're so, you're not transparent. You're obviously having issues with spending the money. So, they were a huge LASA subcontractor. She allegedly took $180,000 in bribes from Alexander Sufer. So, this guy who was arrested back in March, again, the $5 million home in Brentwood, vintage cars, classic cars, luxury cars, luxury trips to Greece, all of that stuff. Putting money in his pocket. Put it $23 million.

[00:18:11] He was giving bribes to Lakia Malone, who was just arrested last week. And they were disguised as consulting fees through a shell company she controlled. So, they have this whole system going on. And it's one thing to say, oh, we caught one bad apple. It's one bad apple. We caught him. Okay, we're never going to let this do this again. Man, this is growing.

[00:18:39] And this story is not even done yet. I want you to buckle. This story is not even really close to being done yet. So, what these bribes bought were priority housing referrals to Sufer sites, including ghost participants who never lived there. So, fake welcome letters, forged sign-in sheets, and falsified eligibility forms. Sufer pulled $17 million from SSG, inflated by fake referrals.

[00:19:07] And Sufer has agreed to plead guilty, by the way. So, they were counting people who were housed and getting paid for it. And he was funneling a ton of money to himself. And this Lakia Malone, who just got arrested, she was part of it. She was part of this whole ring. And that's why the title of this episode is The Ghost Homeless.

[00:19:35] Because they had set this whole scheme up where ghost participants, ghost participants, I say ghost participants, because they didn't exist. They were naming all these people who were getting housed so that they could go get their money from LASA. Say, look, these are all the people we've been housing. This is all the progress we've made. Look, you should give us more money. And it turns out none of them ever existed. Which brings me to a question.

[00:19:59] When they brag in L.A., every time Karen Bass or Nithya Rahman is going to brag about how much they've reduced homelessness, think about this. I want you to remember this specific story because how many people did they say were housed were actually not housed and didn't exist? How many of these were made up people?

[00:20:27] So when they're saying we got this many people off of the streets, this is how many people we've reduced homelessness, how many of them were ghost homeless? Not ghost as in dead, but ghost as in they didn't exist. So you have to ask how much of this is actually real? And this is why this whole story gets more and more fascinating but also terrifying because it is a ton of money

[00:20:53] that is being wasted and funneled to people who are not spending on actually solving homelessness. Again, we've said this plenty of times. If you were a CEO of a homeless nonprofit, why would you ever want to solve homelessness? I mean, you're making millions of dollars. You're buying these $125,000 cars going on lavish trips. Why would you ever want homelessness to be cured? You want it to be as bad as possible so you can continue to rake in as much money as possible.

[00:21:19] And now I'm going to get to my final point and wrap this all up in my conspiracy theory. And I want you to take this with you. Okay? So this is Corinne Price. Let's see. Pull this up. Corinne Price. Corinne Price. Corinne Price.

[00:21:48] Corinne Price, as one of the people who is connected to all these individuals, again, they're all connected. I didn't create this thumbnail and this graphic just for, you know, shits and giggles. Excuse my language. There's actually a reason to why I created this. They're all connected. And they're all slowly being taken down by the federal government. Well, actually, Corinne Price is being taken down by the Los Angeles District Attorney.

[00:22:16] Thankfully, you know, the Los Angeles District Attorney, Nathan. Nate Hockman. Nathaniel Hockman, I believe. That's his name. I always say Hockman. Hockman. So home at last, Michael Young's charity that took $118 million in 2019, they were listed as one of the nonprofits that Corinne Price was currying favor with as a city council member.

[00:22:40] Prosecutors alleged Price used his office to steer city lease agreements and $2 million in federal COVID-19 grants to Home at Last, which was a tenant of the Urban Healthcare Project, a nonprofit where Price himself served as CEO. How is that not a conflict of interest? That you're steering money to nonprofits that you're the CEO of? Some of that funding traces to a motion by former councilman Mark Ridley Thomas, convicted on federal corruption charges in 2023.

[00:23:09] Again, L.A. City Council, probably the most corrupt city council in, if not the world, probably at least in America. So his status right now, he's been ordered by two separate judges to stand trial on 12 felony public corruption counts, pleaded not guilty, pretrial for October 16th. It's coming up. Term limited out at the end of 2026, so he's not going to be city council anymore, but he tried to get away with taking as much money.

[00:23:36] Again, allegations, presumed innocence, you know, innocence will presume, you know, the whole line. So you have here, this is the city council right now, the L.A. corruption lineup in the past decade. Weiser was one he was found guilty. Englander found guilty. Ridley Thomas convicted in 2023. Kern Price is now on trial. Home at Last connects two of those four.

[00:24:03] So Home at Last by Michael Young, run by Michael Young, the man who was creating luxury lounges in Englewood, is connected to two city councilmen who are facing charges for this type of malfeasance and fraud. If you're in the chat and you're like, this is insane, let me know what your thoughts are in the chat, because I think this is insane. The more and more I look into this, the more it gets crazy.

[00:24:35] So going back to all this, let's go all the way back to the beginning. Federal court ordered an audit found LASA could not track how it spent $2.5 billion. And LASA couldn't verify 2,300 housing sites it was responsible for. It didn't have a written conflict of interest policy until September 26, 2025. So they didn't even have a conflict of interest. Probably why people were getting away with being the CEO of nonprofits that was then getting money.

[00:25:06] So HUD suspended LASA's federal funding. L.A. County is now dismantling it. It was done by July 1, 2026. Now, here is my crazy theory as to what's going on here. And you can tell me I'm a crazy conspiracy theory, but this is just my opinion. This is just what I'm thinking. Recently, as of last week, let me start here.

[00:25:35] Actually, step back. The point I'm making here and why I'm keeping this graphic up so you can see this is you have these individuals. Kern Price has been facing these charges for a while now. Alexander Sufer was arrested earlier this year. You have these three individuals who have been arrested as of last week.

[00:26:00] One little area right here that I think might happen, maybe, maybe could happen. I think Karen Bass's picture might be up there. And again, this is just my theory. I'm not saying this is a fact. I'm just opining here. How law enforcement works is they slowly start to get the dominoes to fall. They connect the web. They put the evidence together. Obviously, you know, the DOJ's smart.

[00:26:30] They know what they're doing. They know how to track all this stuff down. They found out all these people were connected. They found out how much was being siphoned. And the reason I bring up Karen Bass is because she's had her hand in the cookie jar, too, when it comes to homeless money. Now, there hasn't been any allegations of her actually stealing the money, but it was a shady program. So this is from Los Angeles Magazine. It's from 2023.

[00:26:59] Mayor Karen Bass's $67 million homeless program has only housed 255 people so far. So they spent $67 million and only housed 255 people so far. A year after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spearheaded her Inside Safe program to house the city's homelessness, results looked shaky. Bass has shelled out roughly $67 million on a program but only moved 255 of L.A.'s 46,000 unhoused individuals into permanent housing so far.

[00:27:28] Naturally, she told NBC's I-team that she was not satisfied with those numbers. I mean, 255 out of 446,000 people is, I don't know, someone do the math in the chat. You can tell me what that actually is. So goes off to talk about how much she put in. It was great right in the beginning. Nearly one year later, she's only been able to put an additional 215 unhoused into permanent housing.

[00:27:55] She cites issues with overwhelming amount of work for the city's caseworkers as a possible reason for low numbers. But it doesn't end there. For Karen Bass and why this whole Inside Safe is a little fishy. Also from Los Angeles Magazine, this is from most recently from, well, actually 2024, a couple years ago, over two years ago, and it was updated in 2025. City Ways Auditing L.A. Homelessness Program. Again, this is where we got into the federal court.

[00:28:23] This judge got into it and said, like, look, either you guys figure this out or I'm going to appoint a receivership and we're taking over homelessness and we're going to look at ourselves. In this, David O'Connor previously raised concerns about the city's program, particularly how public money was being spent. Quote, which provider is producing results out there? He asked. We have no benchmark and we have no accountability at this point. It's just simple as that. He also questioned Kenneth Mejia on whether he could audit Karen Bass' Inside Safe program.

[00:28:51] Though Mejia's ability to audit was disputed, he claims he could and later announced plans on X for a forced audit on Inside Safe. This is what he tweeted today at Judge Carter's request. I spoke in court about our auditing powers and the city's lack of transparency, accountability on homelessness efforts despite billions of dollars spent. We are announcing a forced audit of Inside Safe. Saying this isn't the first time her program has faced scrutiny. Just a year after a $67 million program was established.

[00:29:21] Again, 255 million people. And you're probably sitting here going, if you don't like Karen Bass, you're probably saying, yeah, that makes sense. Why not? She probably has her hand in the cookie jar as well. As of last week, this kind of starts to... The pieces are falling together in my mind, in my opinion. Again, opining here. She's a public figure. I'm allowed to opine on her.

[00:29:52] I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying that this is fishy. I have to make sure I say that because people get really weird about defamation and stuff like that. Last week, she was ordered to appear in front of Congress to talk about homelessness in Los Angeles. She declined. She just said, I'm just not going to show up. Congress was obviously furious with her and said, well, we're going to use every tool available to get you to come and testify about what's going on here.

[00:30:21] She just skipped it entirely. Now, call me a conspiracy theorist and all that, but you start to put these things together and wonder, well, she had this shady program that she didn't want people looking into. She pushed back on it. She went to court. She said that controller, Kenneth Mejia, doesn't have any authority to actually look into this because it's a mayor's initiative. So she could just do whatever the heck she wants with public money.

[00:30:51] Kind of seems a little fishy. So now she doesn't show up to Congress. Congress is going to try and figure out how to get her to testify. Did she not want to go because if she testified under oath about stuff and then it later came out against her and it found out that she testified under oath about certain things and then more stuff comes out, maybe she knows what's going on behind the scenes. She has a better idea of how this all connects. And again, Karen Bass is a well-connected politician.

[00:31:20] There was another politician who was a former state senator also in hot water with homelessness. I can't remember his name right now. But he also did the same thing, which is there were two other individuals who were caught basically buying property because they had insider information that the city was going to buy it and turn it into housing. So they would buy it for pennies on the dollar and then sell it back to the city. And this former state senator was involved in it. Also a close friend of Karen Bass.

[00:31:50] So here's the moral of the story. This was a long story, but I really wanted to break this down because I wanted you to kind of start to connect all of these dots. How bad is L.A. homelessness? I don't even think we've touched the surface on how bad L.A. homelessness is. Not in terms of the numbers. We know L.A. homeless is bad. Like we see it with our own eyes how bad L.A. homelessness is.

[00:32:17] I'm talking about the schemes, the criminal rings, the criminal organizations, all of these people funneling and stealing money. How bad and how deep does this go? I think it goes even deeper. And I think we're going to see more and more and more indictments and arrests coming down the pike as the DOJ starts to connect all of these dots. Whether Karen Bass gets implicated, who knows? Who knows where it goes? Maybe she's implicated. Could be.

[00:32:47] Possibly. She was involved in all of this. She knew all these different individuals. But the truth is we're spending billions and billions of dollars on homelessness, and it's going to these non-accountable, unaccountable nonprofits that don't tell you where the money's going, funnel it to themselves, enrich themselves. And I'm glad to say that at least we're seeing some people get arrested and be charged with this, and some people are being found guilty.

[00:33:15] And we'll see what happens to current price, and we'll see what happens to these three individuals, including Alexander Sufer. But it really is just insane to see how deep this is going. This is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. We're getting city councilmen involved. We're getting all these individuals. $23 million here. $118 million. $118 million to a nonprofit, and then millions were siphoned off. Kickbacks. Bribes.

[00:33:42] This is an entire criminal organization at this point of homeless money, tax money that is public funding that should be going to the homeless. And imagine what type of monster you have to be.

[00:34:01] I'm not sure to say what kind of monster do you have to be to take money that is meant to help the downtrodden and the homeless. Taxpayer money. That's not your money. You take that money, and you enrich yourself.

[00:34:23] What sort of monster do you have to be to go, yeah, I know this money is meant for the homeless, but let me build a luxury lounge in Englewood and a bingo hall. Let me go to Tahiti. Let me buy vintage cars. Let me pay myself all of this money. Let me buy a nice house in Brentwood. All of these things, what kind of monster do you have to be?

[00:34:48] And I don't even think we're close to figuring out who all the monsters are, but it is nice. At least the silver lining is that the DOJ is doing something about it, and we'll keep an eye on it, and obviously we'll keep connecting the dots as this story and all of this story unfolds. All right. So let me see. I want to get some of your comments before we get into the next story. Good evening from Palm Desert.

[00:35:18] What's up, Palm Desert? Or it's a nice 87 degrees outside. Well, that must be like chilly for you guys. You must have to put a little like light jacket on. Orange County, Camille checking in. What's up? Let's see. 23 and more to go. $8 million. Oh, it was $8 million.

[00:35:45] Phil, show us your secret wall full of sticky notes and red string showing everything connects. I don't have that. I do it virtually. That's why I did it online. Howdy from Cathedral City. What's up, Cathedral City? I'm not even quite sure where Cathedral City is. Let me know where Cathedral City is. Is that Inland Empire thing? So many immoral people. Yep. They're all unqualified idiots and thieves. That's a good way to put it. All right.

[00:36:14] Let's get into this next story. Speaking of misappropriating public funds and taxpayer money, let's talk about the high-speed rail. We all know the high-speed rail. Love talking about it. Hate hearing about all the numbers. Just seems like it gets worse and worse and worse. Let's watch this video and then we'll comment and we'll go into the story about the high-speed rail and what they uncovered recently.

[00:37:12] We'll be right back. Ashley, what else was there on this report? We are talking about first-class flights, luxury rideshare trips to a gym repeatedly, trips to nightclubs, and a cigar lounge in Washington, D.C. Four consulting firms working with the high-speed rail authority were reimbursed for travel that the inspector general says either violates state law or requirements in contracts that each of those firms have with the project.

[00:37:37] The inspector general says it resulted in more than half a million dollars in either wasteful or unallowable spending. The office of the inspector general released a new report today that lays out this investigation. The office looked into travel expenses for the four firms from June of 2024 to April of this year. During that time period, the state reimbursed more than $2 million in travel payments to these four consulting firms that you see on your screen here. The inspector general reviewed about half of those reimbursements.

[00:38:06] So of what they reviewed, the office of the inspector general found that 60 percent did not get approval in advance that is needed before the travel occurred. The office said they found little to no explanation or proof for the need of the consultants to travel. And for the explanation that they did get, the inspector general called it vague, such as meetings with HSR executives.

[00:38:29] The inspector general also identified $81,000 that were reimbursed for expenses that are not allowed under state law. That includes flight and rideshare upgrades, plus repeated trips to the gym and other rideshares to an escape room and nightclubs. The inspector general outlined one. An escape room. OK.

[00:38:57] What, like what, what is a, what is a escape room have to do with the high speed rail? Was it a team bonding experience? Was that what it was? It was a team bonding experience with our tax dollars to go to an escape room? Premium rideshare trip that went less than a mile in downtown Sacramento that cost taxpayers almost $40.

[00:39:22] The inspector general also identified $543,000 in travel payments that were not allowed under the contracts, including international and out-of-state travel. The inspector general said the authority routinely failed to show that it had properly determined that travel was necessary, economical, contractually permitted, and compliant with state rules. The report also noted the authority oftentimes didn't question costs or require proof or documentation, such as receipts in a lot of this.

[00:39:51] So, Ashley, who was approving all of these reimbursements since, you know, it was breaking the rules? Right. That was a question we posed. Contract managers are in charge of reviewing and reimbursing costs for the consultants. The inspector general's office said when it questioned the unnamed contract manager overseeing the legal services firm, why she approved questionable travel expenses that were not compliant with the contract.

[00:40:15] She said she had received direction primarily from the acting chief legal counsel for the high speed rail authority at the time because essentially the California high speed rail authority CEO had requested that. Now, the inspector general noted the CEO, Ian Chowdhury, does not have the authority to override requirements that are laid out in state contracts. This is not a good look. How are state leaders responding? Yeah. So, within the last hour, we heard from the high speed...

[00:40:43] It's an understatement that it's not a good look. I mean, the high speed rail not being completed and billions and billions of dollars being spent is not a good look, but this is certainly not a good look. ...speed rail authority and the governor's office. The high speed rail authority saying in part, quote, we take these findings seriously. In response, the authority will strengthen internal controls around consultant travel, implement more rigorous documentation and approval requirements, and recover any improper costs identified.

[00:41:11] The governor's office said in part, California created an independent office of inspector general because good government means transparency and accountability. That's exactly why the high speed rail authority has its own office of inspector general to ensure continued independent review of the project. I'll note this office is new and we're really seeing the inspector general's name is Benjamin Balnapp really ramping up this work now that he has a lot of the tools in place needed.

[00:41:37] And this is what taxpayers expect, a review and oversight of how their money is being used. It would have been nice if it would have been caught before so much money was approved. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been nice if we... Someone thought of an independent inspector general, I don't know, when this project first started. Let's just go over this again. Again, nearly $600,000 violates state travel policy or the firm's own contracts.

[00:42:07] Uber black rides to a restaurant, bar, and nightclub between 9.40 p.m. and 2.30 a.m. Uber black? It had to be Uber black, right? We couldn't do Uber X to a nightclub. Are they that bougie, these consultants, that we need an Uber black? They didn't stop and think that maybe we're using public funds and taxpayer money,

[00:42:33] that Uber black might be a little aggressive to be using with taxpayer money, that Uber X does exactly the same thing, gets you from one point to another. Maybe they didn't think, well, maybe let's not be as braggadocious as riding around in a luxury Uber black. You know, something that's three, four times the cost of an Uber X. No, it had to be an Uber black. Really? We needed an Uber black? Also, we talked about the escape room. What were we doing?

[00:43:03] Why are we charging Uber blacks between 9.40 p.m. and 2.30 a.m.? What's going on at a nightclub that warrants you going and getting an Uber black that has anything to do with the high-speed rail? Again, it's like the escape room. What does this have to do with anything, with the high-speed rail? Is this more team bonding? We're all going out. We're all going to go, you know, have a good time at a nightclub because we work so hard on not building the high-speed rail?

[00:43:31] We need to do, we really need to decompress. You know, all of us who work really hard on the high-speed rail, we really need to decompress from all of the rail we're not building for the high-speed rail. All of the stuff we're not getting done for the high-speed rail. You know, it's been how many years, you know, over 10 years, been over a decade? How many billions of dollars are we over? How much more money are we going to spend? How much money are we going to run out of? We're exhausted. You know, we just need one night out.

[00:44:01] And please, taxpayers, can you understand that, you know what, we just need to blow it out. We just need to go to a nightclub, do some, you know, flaming tequila shots or something, just let it all out because we work so hard at the high-speed rail. Of not providing a high-speed rail that we need to take Uber Blacks and go out on a town at your expense. That's what they're telling us.

[00:44:30] Screw you and your money. It's our money now. We don't care that it's tax dollars or it's public funds. We don't care. We're going to go out and have a lavish night out. And if I want to, you know, and they're saying to themselves, if I want to get the top-shelf tequila or vodka or gin or whatever they drink or scotch, I'm going to do it because I deserve it working for the high-speed rail, not providing you high-speed rail and doing literally everything wrong.

[00:45:01] Repeated rides to plant fitness after a supervisor specifically wrote gym ride shares weren't covered. Still approved. $118,000 in international travel. International travel. Where are we going internationally that has to do with the high-speed rail? We're going somewhere else to look at high-speed rails to get ideas? We live in a digital world. You can get videos. You can get videos. You can look at the internet. You can get FaceTime. You can do all this stuff. Where are you going internationally that you need to spend that much money?

[00:45:32] Oh, and then there was an Uber Black for one mile because, you know, gosh forbid, you can't ride in an Uber X for one mile. You got to get an Uber Black. $685,000, 60% was reviewed, was paid with no prior authorization. And here's the crazy thing about this. I really want to point this out.

[00:45:56] When they were coming up with the contract and who was going to get the contract for this, for consultants and all of that, bidders were asked about it and were told that travel restrictions would be enforced. Basically, the people who bid to get these contracts with the high-speed rail were saying, yeah, no, we're fine with travel restrictions. We're going to strictly enforce them. We're fine with that. And then they didn't.

[00:46:24] And then the people who won actually didn't even listen to it, and they just threw out their own promises that they were going to listen to it. So people who probably were going to take it seriously may have lost out on contracts or those firms may have lost out. And this is something the IG specifically flagged in terms of what they noticed was that the people who got these contracts promised that they were going to abide by these travel restrictions and ended up not.

[00:46:53] Here's something else that even more, kind of like the last story. We're talking about connections, corruption, fraud, waste and abuse, all of this stuff. KPMG, the firm that billed for the nightclub, right? The firm that went to the nightclub and spent all that money and a tiki bar and a cigar lounge, mind you, a cigar lounge. What a night they had. Also employs CEO Ian Chaudry's fiance.

[00:47:21] So the CEO of High Speed Rail, his fiance also happens to work at KPMG. Now, supposedly the authority says she doesn't work within the High Speed Rail scope. You work at a firm that also gets employed by the High Speed Rail, and then they're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on nightclubs and nice night out and flaming tequila shots.

[00:47:43] So, you know, Janet in accounting can blow off some steam from cooking the books for hiding all the money and spending all this money that they're not supposed to be spending. Just really got to blow off steam. Listen, she wants her fireball shot. She's got to blow off steam somehow. And it's nice of KPMG to go to a nightclub and then build the High Speed Rail for it. KPMG is a huge firm. They could spend their own money. Also, there were numerous meals in Folsom.

[00:48:13] And guess what's important about Folsom? Oh, that's where CEO Ian Chaudry lives. Yeah, so numerous meals in Folsom. He got to eat there. One legal consultant, this one got me. One legal consultant flew Denver to Sacramento 30 times in a year. $40,800 in travel plus $86,000 in travel time pay.

[00:48:39] And then when asked why the meetings couldn't be remote, he says Chaudry personally requested his presence and that others at the authority are learning the hard way not to push back on that. I mean, Ian Chaudry is not a nice person to work with because he gets mad. Again, just like the Uber Black. Did we really need this consultant to come from Denver 30 times? A Microsoft Teams or a Zoom couldn't do? We live in a digital world. So instead, we had to pay him to get on a plane, fly, pay for him to get here.

[00:49:07] All the hours spent here, all the time that he was spending, all that billable time. He could have hopped on a 15-minute, 30-minute call from Denver. Her didn't need to come out here 30 times. But, you know, the CEO, Ian Chaudry, said you have to be here. It's important that you're here in person. The chain of command contract manager confirmed she approved noncompliant expenses because she received direction from the acting chief counsel at the time to do so. Because the trips were at the CEO's request.

[00:49:37] So Ian Chaudry is just blowing through money. He doesn't care. He's the CEO of the high-speed rail. Who's going to check him? Somebody said no body shots. Maybe, maybe Janet and accounting started doing body shots, belly button shots or something like that. I don't know. They're obviously stressed over there at the high-speed rail, cooking the books and trying to figure out how to hide all that money that they're misappropriating.

[00:50:03] When the IG recommended requiring justification for each trip, the authority pushed back and argued it shouldn't have to. And the IG's written reply, this interpretation is fundamentally incorrect. Let me say that again. The high-speed rail authority, when the investigator general said, hey, you're supposed to tell us why you're doing this stuff. You're not supposed to just be wasting taxpayer money on all this stuff.

[00:50:33] The authority said, in polite terms, F off. No, we don't have to listen to you. So the inspector general says, show us why you're doing this stuff. We're supposed to be keeping an eye on you. And the authority goes, screw off. We don't have to tell you anything. Talk about drunk on power.

[00:50:58] So CEO Ian Chowdry, meals, requesting people to come out, trips, lavish trips, all because he wanted it. This is something I posted on X today. I said, Ian Chowdry should not only be fired from the high-speed rail, he should be in prison. I just want to say that again. Ian Chowdry from the high-speed rail. Again, this is my opinion.

[00:51:28] He should not just be fired as CEO of high-speed rail for all of this malfeasance with our tax dollars. He should be in prison for the amount of money. Those people in L.A., they absconded with millions and millions of dollars and built a luxury lounge and trips to Tahiti and cars and all that stuff. How is this any different?

[00:51:54] How is it different from the people who are getting arrested in L.A. over homelessness fraud? How is it any different than the inspector general coming down on the high-speed rail authority saying, you're not supposed to be doing any of this stuff. You're breaking your own rules. And the CEO goes, go pound sand. I don't care. He's breaking the rules and regulations and the restrictions that are in place for a certain reason. He should be in prison.

[00:52:19] And until people start going to prison over stuff like this, until people have made an example of like, hey, you stepped out of line, you're going to prison for a very long time for esconding with thousands if not millions of dollars of taxpayer money, this will never end. This type of waste is just going to keep continuing. So again, you know, I was talking about KPMG.

[00:52:50] That's the one I'm talking about. But just as a little bit of background, the money math says that voters approved $33 billion in 2008. Cost is now $126 billion. Zero track has been laid. The only track that has been laid is like a staging area, not functional track, like track that they actually run on. And it will potentially be out of cash by December 2027. We've given them money, money, money, money, money, and they're going to be out of money next year. And they're already raising the alarm that they're going to be out of money next year.

[00:53:20] Now, a lot of that is because President Trump clawed back $4 billion in federal grants, as he should have, because they weren't listening to the conditions of the federal grants. And I want to get into how this affects you right now about how people... Let me say this. When it comes to the high-speed rail, I've noticed something interesting about how people argue about this. It's kind of like people argue across each other about the high-speed rail. I'll give you a real-world example.

[00:53:48] I was on Reddit this past week when I saw the story, and I wanted to get people's intake. Because again, I go through the sludge of Reddit so that I can give you guys the inside scoop of what's going on. Also, if you're enjoying this, and this is a clip later, and you're enjoying this video, make sure you like, share, subscribe, review, all that stuff. Also, if you can hype it, that also helps us well. If you're watching this later, this whole video, make sure you hype it. That helps people find us more. There was a comment where somebody said,

[00:54:16] Who cares? It's a couple thousand dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars. Who cares that they're... This is big news. This is like breaking news. I don't care. I want a high-speed rail. And this is the mentality that a lot of people have, unfortunately, is that they want their really expensive fast choo-choo, regardless of whether it's not going to San Francisco to L.A. anymore. It's now going to Merced to Bakersfield. Again, nothing against Merced or Bakersfield. Not necessarily two big hubs that people want to be going to.

[00:54:47] People are just so obsessed with the fact that they want their high-speed fancy choo-choo, that they don't care about this stuff. They don't care about the corruption. And when you argue with them, you're saying, Well, you know, this project is clearly a case example. Basically, this should be in the dictionary. When you look up sunken cost fallacy, the high-speed rail should be the number one example. If you don't know what the sunken cost fallacy is, basically you've got to keep continuing with the project because you've already spent so much money on it.

[00:55:17] That's high-speed rail. Basically, people say, Well, we already spent billions of dollars on it. We should just keep going and finish it. Not knowing how much more billions it's going to cost because we haven't laid one track yet. So that's their position is we want our high-speed fancy choo-choo. And they look at you, and when you push back on it, they go, What? You don't like high-speed rail? You don't like clean transportation? You don't want that? You don't want to be like the rest of the world? The rest of the world? Like Europe and Japan, they have high-speed rail. Forget the fact that Europe and Japan

[00:55:47] are different in complete size of California. It's not exactly the same thing. It's not scalable in terms of what we're talking about here. They try and put it back on you. Well, you don't like progress. You don't like a high-speed rail. You don't like all that stuff. And the response should be, No, it's... I think I can't get past the fraud, waste, and abuse of the high-speed rail. That's probably the biggest thing for me with the high-speed rail. You know, nice trains, whatever.

[00:56:17] If they could get done on time and on budget and ahead of schedule, great. But I think a lot of people in California have a problem with the fraud, waste, and abuse. I think that's the big issue here. Not necessarily that people don't want a high-speed rail. I think it's the fraud, waste, and abuse that people are kind of not on board with. And for a lot of those people who don't really care about how much money it costs, let's put it into your own personal pocketbook. So as I said, President Trump clawed back $4 billion in federal grants.

[00:56:47] How Gavin Newsom has backfilled this in order to put aside $1 billion a year, how much of that will be going to Janet's, you know, flaming tequila shots or body shots, we have not yet seen. We'll find out later by the Inspector General. It's for 20 years, and it's going to come from California's cap-and-trade program. And cap-and-trade is paid by fuel and industrial emitters who pass the cost through to consumers.

[00:57:16] So every time you fill up at the gas tank, think about how much money the California high-speed rail is wasting. Think about that nightclub they went to. Think about the Uber Blacks they took for absolutely no reason. Think about the 30 trips for this one consultant to come out in a year and tens of thousands of dollars we had to pay in travel expenses and paying them their consultant fees. Every time you go fill up at the gas tank, think about that. That's what you're funding.

[00:57:45] You're funding that sort of malfeasance here in the high-speed rail. And we're going to get to the story in the third story. I know we're coming up, but I wanted to get all these three. They're kind of hard to unpack. I wanted to make sure I get through all this, so we're going to go a little bit over 9 o'clock. If you're all fine with it, I think you're all hanging out with me. You're all chilling with me. Love all of you for hanging out here on a Tuesday night, 8 p.m. We do this live, always so I can see what people are saying.

[00:58:16] But that's where we're at. So just keep that in mind every time you fill up at the gas tank that you're funding all of these lavish things that the high-speed rail is spending money on. And the CEO, Ian Chaudry, says, screw you. I don't have to explain it to you. Now, there is a bill that is sitting on Gavin Newsom's desk. And I'll bring this up real quick.

[00:58:47] AB 1608, they are trying to strengthen the office of the Inspector General. Authorizes high-speed rail authority Inspector General initiate audit or review regarding oversight related to delivery of high-speed rail undertaken by the authority selection oversight of contractors related to that project. So all these consultants and contractors that have got these contracts, they want more oversight. Existing law authorizes the Inspector General to select appoint employee officers and employees necessary to carry out the functions

[00:59:16] of the office as specified. So this is, as you can see, thanks to our friends over at CalMatters, this is sitting on Gavin Newsom's desk and he has until the 30th to sign this. I mean, I imagine he would sign this if he wants any sort of political traction in 2028, even though that seems to be going down the tubes. You can see right here in news coverage, it talks about literally what just happened last week. High-speed rail consultants flew first class, visited bars, and nightclub

[00:59:45] on taxpayers' money. So keep an eye on it. AB 1608. Will it actually have teeth? I don't know. Will it be able to really clamp down on the high-speed rail? Yet to be determined. Will Ian Chowdry continue to just say, screw you and go pound sand? Most likely. I believe so. I stand by the fact that he should not only be fired, but he should probably be in prison as well. So keep that in mind. Every time you go fill up the gas tank

[01:00:15] because of cap and trade and how they're still trying to fund this boondoggle of a project, that you get to pay for all those fun things that you get to do. Nightclubs, escape rooms, private planes. Oh yeah, someone expends the private plane fare, first class tickets, all of that stuff. Think about that. Every time you go fill up and it's over $6 a gallon. So just something to think about. All right, we're going to get into the final story real quick. Thanks again, everyone,

[01:00:44] for hanging out with me on, somebody said, no body shots. How do we derail the high-speed rail project? Well, it's a constitutional amendment, so you'd have to get a proposition that would overturn the constitutional amendment. It's doable. I mean, it's not the first time we've amended the Constitution plenty of times here in California. People were talking about, should we get a high-speed rail from the Coachella Valley to Los Angeles?

[01:01:16] Wish we had a rail between the Coachella Valley and Los Angeles and someone disagreed to San Diego. I mean, I'm biased. I think San Diego is nicer than Los Angeles, so come on down. It's beautiful down here. All right. Final story of the night. All right. First off, let me start off by saying this. This next story is going to be about AI.

[01:01:46] And I do want to talk about AI a little bit, a little bit. Just give you my thoughts about, my genuine thoughts about AI. I think AI has its uses. I've used AI, used AI to help research for this book, in fact, The Gilded State, which you can go get by checking on this QR code right here. So, definitely helped. I just treated it as a search engine along with reviewing

[01:02:16] scholarly articles and primary sources of jstor.org, but it also helped in a lot of other things. I mean, you could search on Google for stuff or you can search on AI and AI finds you the answer and as long as you can verify it. There's smart AI out there that does, Consensus is one of them. They do all scholarly, so they're a great AI source if you want to do scholarly research of verified white paper stuff like that. But my point is, there is a use for AI. There's certainly a use for AI.

[01:02:47] Is there a reason to be a little tepid or at least a little bit worried about AI? Absolutely. I think there's absolutely reason to be worried about AI. I think there's a reason to be worried about how fast it's learning. It feels like it was just yesterday people were introduced to ChatGPT and were like, oh my gosh, look at what AI can do and now it's creating movies and stuff. It's just insane how fast AI is progressing and learning on its own.

[01:03:17] It can be useful, but also I think there is some sort of trepidation. It's fine. I think trepidation is fine. I don't think we want to go full bore into it. I'm not going to get into the whole story about what's going on with AI in terms of the economy and all that stuff. They're illegitimate. It's not irrational and it's not irrational to be afraid or fearful of people building data centers in your backyard.

[01:03:47] I think there is people who are being demonized for being a little apprehensive about data centers going into their backyard have a legitimate concern. We're very new into AI. We're very new into what data centers do. We're very new into what the lasting effects of data centers are. Let's not just shove data centers everywhere we can. I think there's a legitimate reason people can be afraid of it. I know there's a lot of people out there who are like, oh, if you're against AI,

[01:04:17] you're doing China's bidding and you're part of the Chinese coup or something. You're being fed Chinese propaganda. That's a thing that I see on a lot of boomer conservative Instagram and stuff like that is comics are saying, oh, if you don't like AI, you're being brainwashed by China and all that stuff. But I think there's a reason to be concerned about AI. AI is smart. It's learning really quickly and we should probably, as a human race, be a little concerned about it because with anything with new technology, let's pump the brakes. It's great.

[01:04:47] It's great. It does a lot of great things. Not poo-pooing AI. Let me know what's going on in the comments in the chat. And here's where the story apply to California. Before I do that, I do want to bring up something else really quickly about, this is not really California,

[01:05:16] but I do want to say this because I think this is really interesting. You've heard a lot about news with AI saying they need the government to regulate them. And I was immediately reminded of the great libertarian author Murray Rothbard, who Murray Rothbard is a fantastic author. I highly recommend you read Murray Rothbard. If nothing else, please go read Anatomy of the State. It's free on Mises.org. It's like 74 pages. It's amazing. Go read Anatomy of the State. It'll change your political life. Anyway,

[01:05:47] he wrote this book called The Progressive Era. And he talked about what happens when big companies go to the government and ask for regulation. And this was back around the meatpacking time. He used the meatpacking industry as an example basically where they lobbied for federal meat inspection, which closed out a lot of smaller meat producers, which we're still seeing today, mind you. There's been efforts to deregulate in the sense that you can get beef and meat from smaller

[01:06:16] farmers, which would help those small farms so that you can go get local meat and stuff like that. There was a push by Thomas Massey to deregulate this and I think that's great. I'd love to be able to go and get local meat from the local ranch here in San Diego or the multiple ranches here in San Diego. I don't want to always just go to the store and get whatever is just mass produced for me. I think that's amazing. But it's the same thing. So when you have all these big companies running to the government saying, oh, you better regulate us, we could be dangerous. You better regulate us. We've been very naughty.

[01:06:46] You should come and regulate us. Always take that with a grain of salt because usually what happens is they regulate because they want to keep the smaller people out. They want to keep the little guy out. So they've made it. You have all these big companies like Claude and X and OpenAI and all these big huge AI companies. Meta's now getting into with Muse. They're all like, yeah, yeah, sure, let's regulate it because the cost of regulation and regulatory compliance is so big that only the big guys can compete with it and

[01:07:16] actually absorb it and the smaller guys can't keep up. Just a word of little libertarian thought for you there. But I want to get into this story and I'm going to set it up with something maybe a little obscure. Y'all remember True Detective, not season one, season two, the follow-up to season one. Loved season one. Some of the best TV I've ever seen. If you haven't watched True Detective, the original season with Matthew

[01:07:46] McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, amazing. Wife and I just recently watched it again not too long ago. Still great, loved it. Really great TV. I think it's what catapulted Matthew McConaughey into being a serious actor. Before that he was like rom-com, how to lose a guy, 10 days, failure to launch, all those kind of silly movies. After that he became a serious actor. I think that was around the same time he won Dallas Buyers Club and he won an Oscar for that. Anyway, season

[01:08:15] one, great. Season two, obviously a lot of hype because season one was so good. It was about California. And to make a long story short because True Detective is always so convoluted, the basic premise was it was this whole murder mystery around one premise. Insider access to California's high-speed rail were secretly buying land around the high-speed rail basically for pennies on a dollar and making a ton of

[01:08:45] money on it. So that's the premise for True Detective which came out in 2015. So 11 years ago this show came out. If you remember the show, there was a whole thing like at the end there was all these elites who were hobnobbing with each other and laughing about the you know, they called it the central rail something or other. They didn't call it the high-speed rail. It was central rail something or other but it was California and they were all in on it. Politicians,

[01:09:16] you know, local politicians, the governor, all of this. Criminal organizations, rich people, everything. Everybody was in on this. And why I want to bring that up right now is because of this story that no one has really kind of connected the dots with between the high-speed rail and these AI data centers. is, this is from SFGate, no one protested this controversial California project. Officials were stunned. Can small data

[01:09:46] centers avoid the backlash? The backlash against data centers in California has been growing. The facilities have been outright banned in Monterey Park and the city of Coachella. While several towns have issued temporary moratoriums as officials evaluate their stances. Meanwhile, public sentiment is souring with 73% opposing the construction of data centers in their communities according to a recent public policy Institute of California survey. 73% that's not a little bit that's not a slight majority that is a super majority that is an overwhelming majority of people are not

[01:10:16] not a fan of the data centers. But at August 26 Southern California Fair and Events board meeting in Paris, no one showed up to oppose a potential data center on its premises. The public comment period was silent so the venue's board directors group people chosen by the governor went ahead and signed a non-binding agreement to allow global stack and we're going to get into them, whoever global stack is. The company pitching the project to further study the feasibility of a small data center on the state-owned land.

[01:10:46] Let's keep going. So basically I want to keep talking about this. Is there anything else I want to bring up from this article? So the point that they're talking about right now is companies like this global stack are now approaching fairgrounds all over the state, different county fairgrounds and public lands and they're basically saying hey let us build one of our little data centers on your

[01:11:16] county fairgrounds and no one's opposing it. For some reason that there's no one opposing it. Also global stack are going to shift it heavily focus creating emergency responses through the complexes boasting the benefits of using the helipad for flights during a disaster and data center for blackout proof operations. So they want to build a data center and a helipad for people. What the helipad has to do with anything let your conspiracy theories fly. This has been a

[01:11:46] big true detective kind of conspiracy theory kind of episode. Let me know if you like this kind of episode in the comments and stuff like that kind of uncovering this. So they've been going up and down the state asking for all of this stuff. Some have already said no. Some places are like nope never going to happen and some are kind of like Tulare and King's County have signed non-binding agreements MOUs as they call it. and I want to talk about this global stack company.

[01:12:16] This is their leadership right here Dan Kang and Nick Kovacevic and here's their main page. Infrastructure built for every day ready for the moments that matter most. It's a very nice site. Again, you pay someone enough money kind of like home at last in our first story. It looks very nice. It looks very professional. I do want to pull this up right now. This is something that was really interesting is that Global Stack LLC

[01:12:45] was initially formed as of March this year and now they're already going out and getting these agreements to build data centers on public lands and county fairgrounds. Interesting. And here's where the address is and I want to point out where the address is because if you need to have any idea of again connecting the dots here. This little pin is right where they're supposed to be 555 Capital Mall. They're about

[01:13:15] four blocks from the California State Capitol. Coincidental? I don't think so. I don't think the fact that they got their home office right there is coincidental at all. So you have this new company Global Stack. They're asking to buy up all of this land and they just formed a couple months ago, not too long ago. And here's something else

[01:13:45] that's really interesting. So it's incorporating March 2026. It has no construction history at all, but for some reason it's pitching construction contracts. And the pitch is 100-year land leases on 70-plus California fairgrounds by 2030, plus multi-level parking garages and helicopter landing pads. The principals, as we saw CEO Dan Kang and Nicholas Kovacek,

[01:14:15] he recently was the former CEO of Kushco, a cannabis packing company. And the origin story per Kovacek, I'm not even saying this right, Kovacevic, the idea grew from a Newport Beach neighbor's private helicopter escape plan for earthquake preparedness. Okay, so the guy came up with this idea for rich people to escape earthquakes. And that's where Global Stack came from. If you're as confused as

[01:14:45] I am, that's fine because this is all very confusing and head scratching. Here's something that's even crazier. Michael Flores, Deputy Secretary for Fairs and Expositions at the CDFA, personally made introductions to tenant pitch meetings and towards sites of Global Stack executives.

[01:15:15] Now get this, his daughter, Alicia Flores, works for Global Stack and represent the company before Fairground boards, including the Southern California Fair in Paris, where the board discussed her father's support with her in the room. Multiple Fairground CEOs say they were never told she was his daughter. And Nicholas Kovacevic is also a sitting OC Fair board member. So he's on the board and

[01:15:45] he's also trying to get deals with the OC Fairgrounds. Now Newsom says he's investigating Common Cause California and says that Flores' involvement is not a clear violation because as we've seen in this whole episode, I guess conflict of interest and all that stuff is not a clear violation. So you have 73% of people who oppose data centers. You have this brand new company that has no construction history starting to buy up public land and county

[01:16:14] fairgrounds. Someone who has a state official who's making the introductions for Global Stack, his daughter works at Global Stack, and no one knows that she's his daughter. No disclosure there. And I want to talk about how this is all passed on to you. So PG&E has received applications for 10 gigawatts of new data center power demand over the next decade, roughly four times the entire output of Diablo Canyon.

[01:16:43] Basically, how much is it going to cost to actually fund and keep up with all this electricity? Now they say that there's no water, it's ordinary commercial load usage, UC researchers are saying that doesn't hold up, so whatever they're trying to sell you doesn't really hold up. And here's where I want to tie this all together. Our old friend, CEO Ian Chowdry, who we just talked about, who I mentioned very bluntly should not only be fired, he probably should be in prison,

[01:17:14] he is now pitching to companies like Global Stack that they should lease, they should give these leases up and down the corridor, where the high-speed rail is going to these data center companies who are building data centers. And I'll let you sit with that for a minute. So you have someone whose daughter, a state official whose daughter is at this company, she's pitching

[01:17:43] data centers to buy up your fairgrounds, you know, where you like to go and take your kids and get a corn dog and stuff like that. Just formed this year, by the way, nice office down the street from the state capitol. Nothing to see here. And then all of a sudden, Ian Chowdhury is now proposing the idea that they work with AI data centers to lease the property and all the land where the corridor, where the high-speed rail is going.

[01:18:14] I mean, if it sounds like true detective, and it sounds like that sort of mystery, you're not far off, because that's where we're at, is whoever is controlling where the high-speed rail is going, they can sell off the land or lease the land to whoever has the connections. And it's our public lands, and it's our money, and it's the lands that should be used for our benefit, and it's being gobbled

[01:18:43] up by data centers in the high-speed rail. There's one last thing I want to talk about in terms of the subsidiaries. So, here's what happens. They have these unregistered subsidiaries, they send them to cash-strapped fairgrounds with volunteer boards. Again, they're not being paid anything. They're making the pitch, and of course, the fairgrounds are like, sounds great,

[01:19:13] we need money, let's do it, let's sign it over. But they're a hundred-year lease. They're not going anywhere for a long time. And they're getting it probably for a small amount. And that's what's happening here, is insiders, connected insiders, are gobbling up public lands that should be for the benefit of Californians.

[01:19:43] And what are we left with? We're left with data centers and a high-speed rail that hasn't even been built yet. And they're still going to go out and use their Uber blacks and their night clubs and all that stuff. All right. We went way over tonight, but there was a lot to uncover tonight. Very kind of, yes, red string, on a board kind of thing. Thank you everyone for hanging out with us tonight and sticking around.

[01:20:14] All the people in the chat, love the people in the chat, thank you, who are sticking with me and all that stuff on the chat live every 8 PM, every 8 PM, every Tuesday at 8 PM, we do this show live. Also, make sure if you haven't already, check out my book recently, two weeks old, just published The Gilded State, how California went from the American dream to the American nightmare. Again, you can get it right here. I keep going backwards. This QR code right here, you can check it out,

[01:20:44] or you can just go to Amazon and check out The Gilded State. You'll see this beautiful cover, obviously the state falling apart. I also really liked how she did the LA in the background. If you notice LA on fire in the background, really excellent job, really great job. The girl who did this, really great All right, with that said, I want to thank everyone for tuning in. Make sure you like, share, subscribe, review. All of that stuff helps with the algorithm. Also, if you are watching this later, tuning in later, and there's an option after you like to

[01:21:14] hype it, that also helps. More people find it. Yeah, with that, we'll see you on the next one. Later, everybody.