In this episode of California Underground, we reveal shocking truths about billions lost in hospice care fraud, rising gas prices driven by political power plays, and California's ongoing budget crisis impacting education and public services. Californians deserve to know how mismanagement, corruption, and politicized decisions are shaping their daily lives.
In this episode:
- Billions of dollars are being siphoned through hospice care fraud, with California leading the nation in billions lost to scam providers.
- Trump’s recent order to reopen the offshore Sable pipeline amid legal battles and environmental concerns.
- The real reasons behind California's skyrocketing gas prices, including refinery closures and political blame game.
- Thousands of teachers and school employees face layoffs due to declining enrollment and misallocated COVID relief funds.
- The state’s chronic budget mismanagement, inflated claims of job creation, and the push for a complete government overhaul.
Resources:
- Billions in hospice fraud uncovered by CBS News
- Trump reopens Santa Barbara offshore oil pipeline - Forbes
- California gas prices surge - LA Times
- Gavin Newsom’s COVID relief funding and budget mismanagement — California Budget Report
- California underground news channel
This show advocates for informed, independent thinking—no political endorsements here.
If you’re interested in local governance and policy, join our Telegram community to discuss these issues more deeply: Telegram Link
Timestamps:
00:00 - California hospice fraud scandal: billions lost to fake providers
01:15 - The offshore pipeline reopening: Trump’s push vs California regulators
02:44 - Rising gas prices: How policies and geopolitics collide in California
04:20 - The truth about refinery shutdowns and environmental concerns
05:54 - California’s education crisis: Thousands of jobs on the line amid budget cuts
07:32 - The deep-rooted government mismanagement and taxpayer betrayal
09:00 - Why California’s “progressive” policies are failing its people
10:36 - The call for a government reset: Burn it down and rebuild
12:00 - Local government’s role and the importance of community-level reforms
13:45 - Public resistance to taxes and government waste: The frustration boils over
15:20 - Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions and the strange dynamics within California politics
17:00 - The importance of local elections: city councils, school boards, and more
18:50 - California's potential for greatness: What’s holding us back?
20:00 - The danger of overcentralizing power: Why executive decisions can go wrong
21:45 - The real impact of federal relief funds and California’s financial deception
23:30 - The urgency of informed voting and primary elections
25:00 - The need to start from scratch: Rebuilding California, one step at a time
Are you a Californian who feels isolated and alone in your political views in a deep blue state? Feel like you can’t talk about insane taxes, an overbearing government, and radical social experiments without getting a side eye? Then join us on the California Underground Podcast, the most trusted podcast on all things California politics.
Original air date 3.17.26
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00:00:01
Billions of dollars lost in Hospice care fraud in
00:00:05
California, huge scheme being uncovered in Los Angeles and any
00:00:08
many other places in California, and the mainstream media has
00:00:12
finally decided to cover it. We're also going to be talking
00:00:14
about the sable offshore pipeline that President Trump
00:00:17
has just reordered to be open. Can it be reopened?
00:00:20
Will it make a difference? We could talk about that.
00:00:21
Also, thousands of teachers are about to be laid off in
00:00:25
California because Gavin Newsom didn't fund them.
00:00:27
We're going to talk about all that and more on tonight's
00:00:29
episode of the California Underground starting right now.
00:00:49
What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another
00:00:51
episode of the California Underground.
00:00:53
I'm your host, Phil. We have a ton of stuff to get to
00:00:55
big three stories tonight, including offshore pipelines,
00:00:58
thousands of teachers being laid off, as well as Hospice care
00:01:02
fraud. Actually, ironically, it's the
00:01:04
same time that I think Nick Shirley just dropped his video
00:01:07
as well. So before we get started, I'm
00:01:08
going to bring in my trusty Co host, the best, the fastest
00:01:11
researcher in the West, Camille. How are you doing tonight,
00:01:14
Camille? I'm good, thank you.
00:01:15
How are you? I'm good piece of housekeeping
00:01:18
if you haven't checked it out already.
00:01:20
Just a quick little shout out to California Underground News
00:01:23
channel over on YouTube. If you haven't checked that out,
00:01:26
if you are a fan of the news hits the 8 to 10 minutes, sort
00:01:31
of just give me the rundown stuff like that.
00:01:33
All those are now been like moved over and we're doing a lot
00:01:38
of new stuff over there on California Underground News.
00:01:40
So go check that out. Seems like it's growing really
00:01:44
quickly already. So thank you to everyone who's
00:01:46
gone over and checked it out. But so we're going to keep all
00:01:50
the podcast stuff here, chapters, long form episodes.
00:01:55
We got some other things in the work that are going to be
00:01:57
interesting in the deep dives. Think of it like this is the
00:01:59
deep dive channel, the conversational deep dives,
00:02:02
guests, roundtables, deep dive chapters and all that stuff.
00:02:07
And then like, think of California underground news as
00:02:09
more of your like, give me the news story, give me what I need
00:02:12
to know and let's get on with my life, stuff like that.
00:02:15
So all right, we got a ton of stuff to get to tonight.
00:02:19
We have a bunch of things to get to the Hospice care.
00:02:24
Hospice care is so hot right now.
00:02:26
Like everybody's talking about Hospice care fraud.
00:02:29
Nick Shirley's video did just drop.
00:02:31
I think today, like this morning, I watched the full
00:02:35
thing, the full 40 minutes with our friend Amy Reichardt.
00:02:38
She was also on there. We're not going to cover any of
00:02:41
that tonight, but maybe we will in a future episode.
00:02:46
Good stuff. Nothing enormously
00:02:49
groundbreaking that is going to change what we're talking about
00:02:52
with this. So I queued up a video, and the
00:02:55
reason I want to queue up this video is because finally the
00:02:58
mainstream media has gotten around to like, caring about
00:03:03
Hospice fraud, and it's got more attention.
00:03:06
So we're going to watch a little bit of this video from CBS News,
00:03:10
and then we're going to comment and talk about it.
00:03:12
What were the medical consequences?
00:03:15
I was terrified. It's the taxpayer funded system
00:03:18
that's supposed to get you through your final days.
00:03:21
I didn't feel protected, I didn't feel safe.
00:03:23
Hospice care to help those who are dying and their families.
00:03:26
They said you're in Hospice and I said.
00:03:28
What? What are you talking about?
00:03:31
Do I look like a master? She was.
00:03:32
No, no. With CBS News, do you mind
00:03:36
opening the door? ACBS News investigation found it
00:03:39
is ripe for fraud, especially in California.
00:03:42
Yeah. You can't throw a rock without
00:03:44
hitting a Hospice. Hundreds of red flag providers
00:03:47
vanishing overnight. Well, there's no Hospice there.
00:03:50
Companies accused of overbilling.
00:03:52
How does that make you feel? Real patients being denied care.
00:03:55
Really sad because I I talk to them every day.
00:03:59
I'm sorry, costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
00:04:02
You can't explain that. There's no explaining that.
00:04:05
What's being done about it? Is my government doing anything
00:04:07
to protect my taxpayer dollars? I share it, I have the
00:04:10
frustration. And why it's costing so much
00:04:13
more than money. It makes me lose faith in the
00:04:16
system that is built to protect us.
00:04:21
It's coming in very, I, I don't know, scrambled.
00:04:27
I don't know if that's happening for our audience.
00:04:34
I certainly couldn't understand. No, it's coming in fine on my
00:04:38
end, so chat if you want to let us know if everything is going
00:04:46
OK. So let's see.
00:04:51
Nope, Nope. Where did I go, OOP?
00:04:56
Well, that might be why, because it looks like her connection
00:04:59
just dropped. So that might be why there was
00:05:02
an issue right now. So we're going to keep watching
00:05:05
this while Camille, I think, has to sign back on.
00:05:07
I think there was an issue on her end.
00:05:10
Either way, we're going to keep going.
00:05:11
We're going to keep watching this.
00:05:21
Oh, you got a boy. That was great.
00:05:23
Let's do it again. Lynn, you are old and in
00:05:25
Hospice. So I I would be, I would be a
00:05:28
little bit more proud about my accomplishments.
00:05:30
But 69 year old doctor Lynn Ayani just ran me up and down
00:05:35
the pickleball court. But two years ago she was,
00:05:38
according to Medicare records, dying in Hospice care.
00:05:41
I was in treatment as physical therapy simply because I had had
00:05:46
a kind of an injury on the pickleball court.
00:05:48
The. Welcome back.
00:05:54
Is this a little bit better now? I was wondering if it was on
00:05:56
your. Yeah.
00:05:57
It must have been me since it kicked me right after.
00:05:59
So sorry. OK, we'll keep watching.
00:06:02
You didn't miss anything. They're playing pickleball.
00:06:04
Or the administrator at the office was like, they're not
00:06:07
going to pay any of your claims. And I was shocked.
00:06:10
They said you're in Hospice. And I said what?
00:06:13
What are you talking about? Are you kidding me?
00:06:15
Do I look like a master? She was.
00:06:16
No, no, I know you and. When Iani's Medicare number had
00:06:19
been stolen and used by a company to fraudulently enroll
00:06:22
her in Hospice care, which she obviously didn't need, that
00:06:27
meant IANI had no coverage and no easy way of getting
00:06:30
unenrolled from Hospice. Obviously, this was a major
00:06:33
hassle. Lots of phone calls, lots of
00:06:34
paperwork. What were the medical
00:06:38
consequences? I was terrified.
00:06:41
I mean, you know, something can happen.
00:06:42
That's why you have health insurance of any kind.
00:06:45
And just to think, you're literally without coverage
00:06:48
because of some ridiculous fraudulent thing.
00:06:53
My name is Adam Yamaguchi. I'm with CBS News.
00:06:56
ACBS News investigation found an industry ripe for fraud,
00:06:59
especially in California. Companies accused of over
00:07:02
billing real patients denied care, and it's costing hundreds
00:07:06
of millions of taxpayer dollars. I mean it's probably closer to
00:07:11
billions of dollars, hundreds of 1.
00:07:13
I feel like it's definitely under selling how much they are.
00:07:17
The first one to do this, to look in a Hospice care fraud was
00:07:20
Doctor Oz and he did a whole video, which was like a whole
00:07:23
thing. We're not going to watch that.
00:07:25
And then you have Nick Shirley, who also did his today.
00:07:27
So he did like a San Diego daycare fraud and the Hospice
00:07:31
care fraud up in LA. And now CBS News is doing it.
00:07:35
The Hospice Ayani was fraudulently enrolled in is
00:07:37
called Fortuna. When we called, no one answered.
00:07:44
The state of California increased monitoring of the
00:07:46
Hospice industry four years ago, identifying the hallmarks of
00:07:49
fraud. Fortuna has two of them.
00:07:52
And it's hardly alone. CBS News analyzed every Hospice
00:07:56
licensed in LA County more than 1700 and checked for the same
00:08:00
warning signs the state used, like multiple hospices packed
00:08:03
into one building or caregivers whose patients supposedly at
00:08:07
death's door are discharged alive.
00:08:10
Three years after the state crackdown, which included a
00:08:13
moratorium on new Hospice licenses, our investigation
00:08:16
found more than 40% of agencies still show at least three of
00:08:20
these state defined indicators of potential fraud.
00:08:23
So Victory Blvd. Seems to be.
00:08:28
A hotbed. Let's say we can skip ahead a
00:08:30
little bit. I want to skip ahead to see if
00:08:33
we can get to here. This is him talking to Rob.
00:08:36
Bontes, the criminal investigations, civil
00:08:39
investigations, that's after that.
00:08:41
The damage is done though, unfortunately.
00:08:42
State Attorney General Rob Bontes says his office has
00:08:45
brought Hospice fraud criminal cases against 109 defendants at
00:08:49
about two dozen civil cases. And what would you say to
00:08:51
citizens who are throwing up their hands and saying, how long
00:08:54
is this going to persist? Is is my government doing
00:08:57
anything to protect my taxpayer dollars?
00:08:59
Again, I share it. I have the frustration.
00:09:02
So to the that remain frustrated, I understand, I
00:09:05
share your frustration. Please know that we have
00:09:07
increased our efforts. We're working overtime on
00:09:09
prevention and on accountability, and we will
00:09:11
continue until Hospice fraud in California is rooted out.
00:09:16
CBS News reached out to the almost 60 hospices that have 5
00:09:19
or more flags. Many numbers were disconnected
00:09:22
or went straight to voicemail. Representatives that some others
00:09:25
denied any fraud and said they run legitimate hospices with
00:09:29
real patients. Back in Van Nuys, we.
00:09:32
All right, so you get the point. There's a lot of people who are
00:09:37
fraudulently setting up hospices.
00:09:38
This is something that Doctor Oz has gone over.
00:09:40
This is something that Nick Shirley has just recently gone
00:09:42
over. Now you have CBS who has gone
00:09:44
over this as well. Fox News did a little bit of a
00:09:48
deeper dive and I want to look at sort of the little bit more
00:09:54
of a rundown of how they do this and how they get away with this.
00:09:59
So this is from Fox News. It's Los Angeles.
00:10:02
Hospice fraud reaches billions as Medicare providers scam
00:10:04
federal system with fake companies.
00:10:08
They go, this is a quote, you've got Hospice that have grown
00:10:11
sevenfold in the last five years.
00:10:12
They represent about 3 1/2 billion dollars of fraud, we
00:10:15
believe just in LA County. So they are definitely
00:10:19
underselling in that CBS article that it's hundreds of millions.
00:10:22
We're talking about billions of dollars.
00:10:24
And backing him up was California Attorney General Rob
00:10:26
Bantus said that, quote, Hospice fraud has become an epidemic in
00:10:29
California, specifically in the greater Los Angeles area.
00:10:33
Seems like not enough has been done because there's still a ton
00:10:36
of it. And you can go to like these
00:10:38
office spaces and there are just a ton of fraudulent hospices
00:10:43
that no one's doing anything about.
00:10:45
Somebody says, I it's all just paperwork.
00:10:48
I could fill an application out in Kazakhstan if I want and get
00:10:51
a Hospice license. So here's how it works.
00:10:56
Because if you're wondering how does this all work?
00:10:57
How do they even get your Medicare number?
00:10:59
Recruiters go to shopping centers, senior centers to sign
00:11:02
up patients promising them walkers amongst 5 nutritional
00:11:05
drinks, yadda yadda yadda in exchange for Medicare number.
00:11:08
So if you have older family members, let them know.
00:11:12
Don't talk to recruiters at shopping centers.
00:11:16
Recruiters then sell that Benny or beneficiary's Medicare number
00:11:19
to a provider for $1000 to $3000 and receive a cut for every
00:11:22
month the senior stays on their rolls.
00:11:25
Hospice enrollees are supposed to have a terminal illness or
00:11:27
life expectancy of six months or less.
00:11:29
But frequently, Hospice owners treat patients like trading
00:11:32
cards, moving them from one provider to another if they stay
00:11:34
too long, which raises a red flag with auditors.
00:11:37
In the US, more than 50% of Hospice patients die with 18
00:11:41
days or less. In LA, the average length of
00:11:43
stay is more than three months. In many hospitals, hospices
00:11:47
patients never die, with court records showing hospices billing
00:11:50
the federal government for 18 months and more.
00:11:52
In LAA, Hospice is paid by the federal government $260 a day
00:11:56
for each day a senior is under its care.
00:11:58
And hospices can fraudulently obtain more money by up coding
00:12:02
and unbundling procedures to inflate invoices.
00:12:07
All right, so thoughts? I've been chatting for a while
00:12:13
and we've been watching the video.
00:12:14
Any initial thoughts right off the bat about all this wonderful
00:12:17
Hospice care fraud? Yeah, nothing deep.
00:12:20
I really want to give, not that they're watching us, but I want
00:12:23
to give CBS credit because I feel like this is actually real
00:12:26
news. This is what news should be
00:12:27
doing. And I appreciate that they
00:12:29
actually went and did this deep dive.
00:12:32
This is, correct me if I'm wrong because this is the impression
00:12:34
that I'm getting. And the same one we had Amy on
00:12:37
talking about the daycare centers.
00:12:39
It seems like there is government entities, jobs,
00:12:44
agencies, whatever in place that do actually check for fraud.
00:12:49
Like this video talked about the markers that are that show
00:12:54
possible fraud. So it seems like there's like
00:12:56
people that go out like to the daycare centers, to the Hospice
00:13:00
centers and stuff and do these check insurance and kind of come
00:13:03
back and report and say like check boxes, whatever.
00:13:08
We noticed this, this is unusual, this is suspicious,
00:13:14
whatever. And so they get these like kind
00:13:16
of like little, you know, possible, like maybe this needs
00:13:19
to be looked into and then that's where it dies.
00:13:24
It's like then, so that person did their job, they go on, you
00:13:29
know, to another Hospice center or whatever, carry on with their
00:13:32
lives. And then these check marks is
00:13:36
whatever, just kind of seem to go into this, the binders that
00:13:41
Gavin holds up or something and nobody ever then follows up with
00:13:45
that. Does that make sense?
00:13:47
That's the impression that I'm getting.
00:13:51
Yeah, it, it's definitely, I, I think this is an indictment on
00:13:58
every single layer to, to your point, I, I think it's an
00:14:01
indictment on every single layer of what's going on here.
00:14:04
You have the local government, you have the state government,
00:14:06
you have the county, and then you have the federal government
00:14:08
who's allowing this to happen. Like, this is a failure on so
00:14:13
many different levels that it's not just like a California thing
00:14:17
because it's also they're stealing Medicare, which is a
00:14:20
federal program, and they're using those tax dollars.
00:14:23
But you know, states get Medicare dollars from the
00:14:27
federal government to use as they see fit, right?
00:14:30
And this issue is that federal government's handing out all
00:14:34
this money in Medicare and then the state is not managing it
00:14:38
correctly. And then there doesn't seem to
00:14:40
be a strong enough enforcement process with what's happening
00:14:44
with these Hospice care. And now they're all of a sudden
00:14:47
determining, especially in Los Angeles, it must have just
00:14:51
spread like wildfire amongst all these people who are committing
00:14:54
these, this fraud and criminal acts of, hey, you can make
00:14:58
money, you can get rich off of doing this Hospice care fraud
00:15:00
and you can just do it. It's so easy.
00:15:02
No one checks. Like again, I keep referencing
00:15:06
the Nick Shirley video that we're not actually watching, but
00:15:08
in his video that he released it.
00:15:13
Yet, but we have. An idea, though, I feel like I
00:15:14
just keep we have an idea. He so he went to this one like
00:15:18
shopping center on Van Nuys and it was him and a buddy and they
00:15:21
just kind of walked down the entire hallway and they were
00:15:24
just like different places with like paper signs and logos and
00:15:28
like barely any effort to show that they were a real Hospice
00:15:31
care place. And there were like 50 of them
00:15:33
all in a row and nobody's working there.
00:15:35
Nobody's doing anything. Nobody wants to talk to you
00:15:38
about enrolling anybody in Hospice care.
00:15:40
So it's I mean, the fact that there's so many fraudulent in
00:15:44
just one building is shocking to me that it's gotten this far
00:15:50
that the state. Now you have Rob Bonta who's
00:15:54
acting like he's all about it and he's he's upset and he's
00:15:57
cracking down on it. I mean.
00:15:59
One of these taxpayers, too. I'm so offended.
00:16:02
Yeah. I'm offended because I'm a
00:16:05
taxpayer too. And yeah, OK, maybe, maybe not.
00:16:09
We don't know about that. He's got his own stuff to worry
00:16:11
about with the whole dwang conscious conspiracy in Oakland
00:16:15
and all that corruption and stuff out in the East Bay.
00:16:19
But yeah, it's it's sort of an indictment on the whole system.
00:16:22
And I think it's just we've gotten so laxed with.
00:16:26
Tax. Dollars and a lot of these
00:16:27
welfare programs overall that and a lot of rot and decay and
00:16:33
fraud has kind of seeped in and people have figured out how to
00:16:36
take advantage of it. But you, you might do something
00:16:40
now and crack down on it, but it's sort of like the horses
00:16:45
already left the barn. Like billions of dollars are
00:16:47
gone and taxpayer dollars and people are buying high end cars
00:16:51
and houses and stuff like that. And you're like, why are we even
00:16:55
paying taxes? What's the point of paying taxes
00:16:57
if it's all just going to go to these fraudsters and criminals?
00:17:00
And that's why I think people are frustrated.
00:17:03
What are your thoughts assuming? Well, I'm.
00:17:05
So I'm assuming back to what I said, I'm assuming that that's
00:17:08
like the bare minimum required to continue to get these federal
00:17:12
dollars is like, you know, because they they allegedly want
00:17:16
checks and balances in place. And so I imagine they send these
00:17:19
federal dollars, but then they're like, but you're
00:17:20
expected to, you know, submit some form of paperwork of like
00:17:24
auditing these places. And so that's probably the bare
00:17:27
minimum that they do is OK, we audit it.
00:17:30
And there was or wasn't suspicious activity or this
00:17:33
whatever. And then like I said, it just
00:17:35
seems to die there. And I know we complain that the
00:17:39
government's too big and I can't decide.
00:17:42
I can't. This has been.
00:17:44
Going on for four years. Gavin Newsom, to his credit, he
00:17:47
signed a moratorium on new licenses in 2021.
00:17:52
Yeah, again, here we are. Like they said, 42% of people in
00:17:55
Los Angeles with this Hospice care fraud are still in
00:17:59
operation. Like they're still fraudulent
00:18:01
and they're still in operation. And you can go see, and you can
00:18:05
go see all these other videos. You can see Doctor Oz goes out
00:18:07
there and looks at it. You would see Nick Shkreli goes
00:18:09
out and looks at it and it's just more and more money that
00:18:12
you look at and it it. I want to get back to this point
00:18:16
that I was talking about where this is between this and what
00:18:20
happened in Minnesota. This is the stuff that gets
00:18:23
people to go. Why am I even paying taxes at
00:18:25
this point? Because maybe you could have
00:18:28
gotten a lot of people to believe that their taxes are
00:18:33
going to something good like, oh, I want to pay taxes because
00:18:35
I want to support people who need it for Medicare or they use
00:18:39
it for something else like the. Government is so big and
00:18:43
inflated and is this an issue of it being too big and inflated or
00:18:45
is this an issue of we don't have enough agencies or checks
00:18:51
checks for this, you know, particular issue like do we need
00:18:54
more people on this or do we need less?
00:18:58
This is that's I'm torn, honestly, I'm torn because I am
00:19:01
such an anti pig government thing.
00:19:02
But I just, I think of my parents are probably not going
00:19:07
to get scammed by this because they're not, they're just,
00:19:10
they're not in that place yet. But they are older and my dad is
00:19:14
going through a bunch of medical issues right now.
00:19:17
And what if they do come to him now, especially because he's
00:19:21
going through these, these medical issues.
00:19:23
And so then where they're like, hey, you know, you're going
00:19:28
through this and we can offer you better care if you switch
00:19:31
over to this firm. And then he probably could
00:19:34
consider that and get scammed. And like, this is so sad to me.
00:19:37
It's so sad to me to think of these senior citizens who are
00:19:41
really they're like, and this this woman, the pickleball
00:19:45
player, I don't know how her information got into their
00:19:48
books, but she's now, you know, like if I break my leg, I may
00:19:52
not get care because they're like, no, you're dying on
00:19:55
auspice. Yeah, it's before I address your
00:20:01
point about do we need more government or less government.
00:20:03
I know what my feeling is. I didn't want to check in with
00:20:07
the chat. People were checking in.
00:20:08
What's up to the Redlands? Who has checked in Sacramento?
00:20:11
Sacramento's checking in. I see East Bay.
00:20:14
What's up? East Bay?
00:20:15
San Jose. So what's up to everyone?
00:20:18
Northern California. Yeah, a lot of Northern.
00:20:20
Californians, that's awesome. So is, are you guys getting a
00:20:24
heat wave up there? Because it's hot down here in
00:20:26
Southern California. I mean, hot to San Diego, it's
00:20:28
like 80° down here in San Diego. So to us, we're we're obviously
00:20:32
sweltering and dying because we can't handle anything above 80°.
00:20:37
To your point, I feel like. There's.
00:20:41
Like a reality of, like, what I know is going to happen.
00:20:46
And then there's, like my dream scenario of what I would want to
00:20:50
happen, which is I do have the mug.
00:20:54
Yeah. This is the mug.
00:20:55
This is the mug. Democrat, Republican, tear it
00:20:58
all down and start all over. That's essentially where I'm at
00:21:02
is like, tear it all down and start over.
00:21:03
Like, OK, so we've gotten way too big already.
00:21:08
We I feel like. We need to scale way back.
00:21:10
I, I definitely don't think we need more administrators and
00:21:14
people looking at this because gosh, how many people are
00:21:17
already working for Medicare and for welfare at the federal
00:21:21
level, at the state level, at all these levels?
00:21:24
And nobody caught this for years and years and years and years
00:21:27
and billions of dollars went out the door and no one was like,
00:21:30
hey, well, this is kind of weird.
00:21:31
Like we're spending all this money and these people aren't
00:21:33
really doing what they're supposed to be doing.
00:21:35
So to me, my dream scenario would be, OK, you've abused your
00:21:41
privilege of giving out welfare. Therefore we don't pay for
00:21:45
welfare anymore. Like this doesn't need to be, I
00:21:48
don't know. And it sounds cruel.
00:21:49
I'm sure people will be like, that's cruel for you to say we
00:21:51
should get rid of Medicare or just scale it really, really far
00:21:54
back. Like, I don't know.
00:21:56
I, I, I, I struggle with this argument of like, well, this is
00:22:00
the way it is and we can't change it.
00:22:03
So we just have to deal with it. And it's like, so we just have
00:22:07
to deal with fraud, waste and abuse.
00:22:10
That seems like a really crappy way to accept our reality and
00:22:13
just be like, yeah, people are going to steal from us.
00:22:16
They're going to steal your tax dollars.
00:22:17
Politicians are going to steal and pocket your money, but
00:22:21
that's it. You just got it.
00:22:23
Yeah, you just got, you know, shut up, peasants.
00:22:25
And, like, just accept it. Like, that.
00:22:27
To me, seems like that shouldn't be the answer.
00:22:30
The answer should be, OK, we we've completely bungled this
00:22:34
whole system up. OK, tear it down.
00:22:37
Like, just get rid of it and start over.
00:22:39
And that's something that in government, you rarely ever see.
00:22:42
When something goes horribly wrong and has the complete
00:22:45
unintended consequence, people don't tear it down and start all
00:22:48
over. They just kind of trim around
00:22:50
the edges and make it look like they're doing progress.
00:22:52
When in reality, the real solution is you got to get in
00:22:55
there and just RIP the Band-Aid off and be like, no, OK, we're
00:22:57
not doing this anymore. Sorry.
00:22:58
Until we figure this out, Like I know there's a moratorium on new
00:23:02
licenses. As of right now.
00:23:06
But again, horse LED out of barn way too late.
00:23:10
So many billions of dollars wasted and.
00:23:16
It is frustrating. And you know, we sorry, we had
00:23:19
Amy on a couple weeks ago, must've been a month or so ago,
00:23:23
Amy Reichardt and she was telling us about the daycare
00:23:25
system. And that's probably a whole
00:23:27
nother thing. Like how many millions of
00:23:29
dollars have we spent on daycare that people are getting away
00:23:33
with because we, the government wants, feels like they need to
00:23:36
provide like universal daycare and pre-K and all this stuff.
00:23:40
Like that's the new pushes. They want your kid basically
00:23:43
from a year old until they're 18.
00:23:46
Like they want them in government daycares and
00:23:48
government schools. So I don't know, I, I went on a
00:23:53
little bit too much of A libertarian anarcho capitalism.
00:23:55
No, that's OK. I know I feel like 'cause we
00:23:58
have many topics to get to, but this one is so there's, there's
00:24:02
so much involved. And I think that's where because
00:24:03
I'm definitely not pro big government.
00:24:06
I'm, I mean, I'm with you. I've been saying burn it down,
00:24:09
start over. I've been saying that forever
00:24:11
and. I don't sorry.
00:24:14
I'm. Like trying to articulate my
00:24:16
thoughts here because there's a part of me that feels like it's
00:24:18
like. The the California as.
00:24:20
Far as California is concerned, it's like they've done this just
00:24:23
so they can say we'll look at our numbers.
00:24:26
We've spent this amount of dollars on, you know, saving
00:24:29
people because of medical Medicare.
00:24:33
And so, you know, and we provide these numbers for Hospice care,
00:24:36
but it's like, OK, but do you like you can say you do provide
00:24:41
those numbers for Hospice care, but how much of it actually went
00:24:43
to Hospice care just like the homelessness we've spent, you
00:24:46
know, X amount of dollars on? I don't even think anyone really
00:24:48
knows. We we say 24 billion, but I
00:24:51
don't it's probably 30 billion that we don't even know about,
00:24:53
you know, and we say we've spent 30 like, well, California is
00:24:57
leading the way. But then did it really go to
00:25:00
homeless people? No childcare.
00:25:02
We're helping with childcare. Did it really go to childcare?
00:25:05
And no. And like this is where I would
00:25:07
like, you know, we had governor candidate Elaine Colotti on last
00:25:12
week, which she was so great. You guys should check that out,
00:25:14
whether or not you want to vote for her.
00:25:16
She raised some really excellent points.
00:25:18
And one of them was she wants to go in and start bankrupting the
00:25:21
large cities, not because she wants the large cities to be
00:25:24
bankrupt. But in a sense it's like you
00:25:25
bankrupt is to start just that's how you burn it down and start
00:25:29
it over is you bankrupt it. And then you see what actually
00:25:32
is essential, what actually is, you know, when the monies are
00:25:36
going to these NGOs, which NGOs are actually doing something?
00:25:41
How are they, you know, what progress are they actually
00:25:44
making or who's just making a dime off of having an NGO that's
00:25:49
not really helping who they say they're helping.
00:25:51
And so I left your points on that.
00:25:53
And that's where it feels like with the this too, it's sort of
00:25:57
like, cut it down, start from scratch, see who's actually, you
00:26:02
know, they, they do, they need to go in and audit this.
00:26:06
Which unfortunately. Audit does mean either hiring an
00:26:09
outside agency or which of course we'd want that, like we'd
00:26:13
want an independent audit. We don't want our own government
00:26:15
doing the audit because we know how that would go.
00:26:19
So yeah. Yeah, that was a great episode
00:26:22
of Elaine Clottey last week. And and I think there was
00:26:25
somebody in the chat who was like, oh, that, you know, her
00:26:28
big solution is to bankrupt cities.
00:26:30
And I asked her like, you know, clarify and and it made sense
00:26:33
when you're like businesses, when they're kind of on their
00:26:37
rear ends and they need to they're financially on their
00:26:41
rear ends. What they do is they file for
00:26:43
restructuring bankruptcy, not like go out of business dead
00:26:47
kind of bit. I think that's chapter the 13.
00:26:50
These are like reorganization bankruptcies so that you can go
00:26:55
to bankruptcy court and then like cancel a whole bunch of
00:26:58
contracts and basically start new.
00:27:00
It's kind of an ingenious idea of like, I think some of these
00:27:06
cities, like a lot of these big cities are so in the in the
00:27:09
lurch in terms of budget deficits, maybe declaring
00:27:12
bankruptcy is not a bad idea and restructure so you can get out
00:27:15
of it. So I said city of LA is broke,
00:27:19
and that's by Kenneth Mejia. I want to get Kenneth Mejia on
00:27:21
the show. I know they're trying to get rid
00:27:23
of him because he's too, he's only him too accountable.
00:27:26
So I want to say, where's Doge? Well, there's Cal Doge, and Cal
00:27:29
Doge just did a whole story about solar panels.
00:27:36
I did a video. There's a subtle plug for
00:27:38
California Underground Ground News, the other channel.
00:27:41
I just did a video about how Prop One, the results of Prop
00:27:45
One came out and nothing has been done.
00:27:48
So $6.4 billion bond, no projects have been completed.
00:27:52
So again, it's just you go down the line, it's like
00:27:55
homelessness, Hospice care, daycare, high speed rail,
00:28:01
billions wasted. And like you look at all of
00:28:03
these things and you go there's nothing to show for it.
00:28:06
Like for billions of dollars we should be having the best high
00:28:10
speed rail, the best Hospice care, the best daycares.
00:28:14
Like we should have solved homelessness.
00:28:16
And instead, like all of it has gotten way worse.
00:28:19
Like none of it by any measure has gotten.
00:28:21
We've either not made progress or it's gotten way worse so I
00:28:25
can see why people are getting frustrated.
00:28:27
I'm frustrated. I've been following this for a
00:28:28
while and I'm California truly has so much.
00:28:31
Potential we and what do you what is your quote about utopia
00:28:38
if the government is really how do you what do you say it yeah
00:28:41
if. If, what do I say?
00:28:43
It's We have a shirt that says it says if.
00:28:46
If progressive ideas work, California would be a utopia.
00:28:50
Yeah, I think California could. Basically be I mean, there's no
00:28:53
such thing as an actual like because everyone has their idea
00:28:56
of their own utopia, but it could essentially be if we had a
00:29:01
functioning government. We are such a beautiful state.
00:29:04
I know you talked about the heat that we can't handle this time
00:29:09
next year we'll be complaining about the cold and then a year
00:29:11
later we'll be complaining about the rain.
00:29:13
But we we're such a beautiful state.
00:29:17
We're a large and diverse state and we have so much to offer
00:29:21
Every city, every county. It's just amazing.
00:29:24
And it if we could just make it function better.
00:29:27
Oh my gosh. So much.
00:29:31
If only. If only.
00:29:33
Well, that's why we do this show.
00:29:34
That's why we do this show, which I'm in a real.
00:29:36
Quick look our Telegram because people in the chat are kind of
00:29:39
mentioning a few different subjects.
00:29:40
We just, we never have time obviously on Tuesday nights to
00:29:43
get to everything and our Telegram is small, but we want
00:29:47
to grow it, you know, because we want to discuss these issues
00:29:49
with you guys on a more personal level.
00:29:52
And so if you do join our telegram, you get to throw out
00:29:55
any subject, share any link whatever, ask questions.
00:29:58
And we hope that we can get people in there chatting about
00:30:00
these things more long form. I mean, it would be, you know,
00:30:04
via a taxed Telegram channel, but we, we would love to discuss
00:30:08
these things more in depth. And so join the Telegram, throw
00:30:12
out your questions and, you know, get your friends to join
00:30:14
and then we'll all chime in and we'll have our opposing opinions
00:30:16
and viewpoints and friendly discord.
00:30:19
Yep. A couple of people are asking in
00:30:22
the chat. I'll, I'll just say this right
00:30:24
now, this show doesn't endorse any candidate.
00:30:27
So people are asking like, which one are we voting for?
00:30:29
Steve Hill and her Chad Bianco? You'll never hear Camille or I
00:30:32
tell you who to vote for. We're not going to sit here and
00:30:35
be like, we formally endorse, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:38
We've never endorsed anybody. That's not our style.
00:30:41
That's not our policy. We don't endorse anybody because
00:30:45
we believe our listeners and viewers are smart enough that we
00:30:47
give them the information and they make their own decisions,
00:30:51
funny enough. That was the question I threw
00:30:53
out in the telegram today. This not because I was like, I'm
00:30:56
not asking who you are voting for.
00:30:59
I don't even know who I'm voting for.
00:31:00
And yeah, we don't endorse, but I would.
00:31:02
I was like, I want to hear everyone's pros and cons of
00:31:05
their, their opinions of these candidates because you know,
00:31:09
it's again, it's something that you can having the discussion,
00:31:12
you're kind of throwing out things that maybe other people
00:31:14
didn't think about. And we all want to have formed
00:31:17
opinions when we go to the polls in June because don't forget the
00:31:19
primary, don't sleep on the primary.
00:31:21
And so it, it is interesting to hear others opinions without
00:31:25
saying, you know, oh, I'm voting for so and so here's some pros
00:31:29
about him or her. Here's some cons about him or
00:31:31
her. And it's like, Oh yeah, I didn't
00:31:33
think about that. And then people can kind of go
00:31:35
and like look more into that. And maybe their minds are be
00:31:38
made-up from these. Maybe they'll change.
00:31:40
OK, sorry I need to quit going off because I we're like halfway
00:31:45
through. We still have two stories that.
00:31:48
Get there. With that said, if you guys in
00:31:50
the chat want to keep talking to each other about Hill and and
00:31:54
Bianco, please by all means chat with each other in the chat.
00:31:58
Just throwing that out there so people don't look to us for
00:32:02
who's going to be who do we think should be voting for?
00:32:05
We should be having them both. On the show, again, we don't
00:32:08
have official dates, but I know we've.
00:32:11
Yeah, we look. We look.
00:32:12
Forward to that. All right.
00:32:15
Next story as prices are on the rise.
00:32:21
I've seen some people. Say that they've seen like 6
00:32:23
dollars $7.00. Somebody on one of the videos
00:32:27
commented they saw 577 at Costco, which to me seems
00:32:31
outrageous that it's 577 at Costco.
00:32:35
I I don't. Know really what the price of
00:32:38
gas is here in San Diego because I I drive a Tesla I get to I get
00:32:43
to be that snotty guy who's like I I drive a Tesla I have no idea
00:32:47
what gas is my husband fills up my car I.
00:32:50
Have no idea what gas prices are that that seems.
00:32:53
Even more bougie is it would be like my my husband fills up my
00:32:56
car so I can't remember the last.
00:32:57
Time I had to fill up a tank. Well, I can't.
00:33:02
Remember the last time I had to fill up the tanks?
00:33:05
Yeah, I I mean, I just hear from all you what the prices are.
00:33:08
I see them out in San Diego, but the moral of the story is, is
00:33:12
that gas is getting really out of control here in California.
00:33:14
And they are. They're trying to spin this as
00:33:19
if it's the Iran war. Partially it is.
00:33:23
A little bit of the Iran war, but it's almost like, yeah, we
00:33:29
we got to where we are because of a lot of issues in California
00:33:34
with refineries closing and CARB and all of that stuff, which
00:33:37
CARB is supposedly tentative now they might be backing off their
00:33:41
decision to force refineries out.
00:33:44
I think all the public pressure work, which it does, public
00:33:47
pressure does work. So it it we're in kind of this
00:33:52
weird situation and and what was I going to say?
00:33:55
Oh, we've gotten to where we are with expensive gas prices,
00:33:58
mostly because of California policies.
00:34:01
And people like Gavin Newsom are trying to turn it around and say
00:34:05
it's because Donald Trump started this war in Iran.
00:34:09
Well, Donald Trump took action this past week to try and help
00:34:13
with gas prices and oil. Because if you've been following
00:34:16
the news, oil has gone through the roof because of Iran,
00:34:19
because of the Strait of Hormuz. There's just no getting around
00:34:22
it. Like, it's just the geopolitics
00:34:24
of it, OK? Like, the Strait of Hormuz is
00:34:26
all blocked up. That's where we get 20% of the
00:34:28
world's oil from. So.
00:34:31
But he took action this past week to reopen a offshore
00:34:37
drilling site in Santa Barbara. So I'm going to pull up this
00:34:41
article right now citing an Iran crisis.
00:34:45
Trump orders Santa Barbara oil pipeline restart.
00:34:48
California will fight it. The Trump administration invoked
00:34:51
emergency powers under the Defense Production Act Friday,
00:34:55
ordering the restart of the Santa Anas offshore oil platform
00:34:59
and pipeline along the Santa Barbara County coast that was
00:35:01
shuttered after a spill released thousands of barrels of crude
00:35:04
into the Pacific 11 years ago. The move, which comes in
00:35:08
response to skyrocketing fuel prices in the wake of the Iran
00:35:10
conflict, brought an immediate threat to sue by Gavin Newsom.
00:35:14
Sabel, which bought the system from ExxonMobil in 2024, has
00:35:17
told investors that production could increase from 30
00:35:21
barrels of oil equivalent per day to more than 50 if the
00:35:25
system restarts, sending oil to refineries in Los Angeles,
00:35:28
Bakersfield and Bay Area. The Rupture pipeline released
00:35:32
crude onto beaches north of Galletta in May 2015, killing
00:35:35
hundreds of birds and marine mammals and triggering one of
00:35:38
the worst California coastal oil spills in decades.
00:35:41
It was blocked from restarting operations by court orders
00:35:44
recurring approval from California regulators, A
00:35:46
requirement the Trump administration has tried to
00:35:48
override. This was a.
00:35:52
Gavin Newsom's quote, quote, Donald Trump started a war,
00:35:56
admitted it would spike gas prices nationwide and told
00:35:59
Americans it was a small price to pay.
00:36:00
Now he's using this crisis of his own making to attempt,
00:36:04
excuse me, what he's wanted to do for years, open California's
00:36:08
coast for his oil industry friends so he can poison our
00:36:13
beaches. This is not a cold.
00:36:14
This is allergies. So that's where we're.
00:36:20
At is that they're trying to open this pipeline.
00:36:22
They're facing criminal charges for spilling all that oil on the
00:36:27
beach, so it's kind of a conflicted story.
00:36:33
I read that it. Would equate to .0 zero, .05% of
00:36:41
America's overall oil production, which is not a lot,
00:36:48
but I guess anything is better than nothing.
00:36:51
Like 50 barrels coming into our refineries is better.
00:36:54
But if we're pushing all the refineries out like then
00:36:57
there's. Not going to be a lot of.
00:36:58
Refineries to be able to receive the oil, which kind of doesn't
00:37:01
really make sense What? Are your thoughts on?
00:37:05
This while I take another sip of water and clear my throat.
00:37:08
Few words it is. Conflicting because.
00:37:11
I just went off about how. Beautiful California is, and one
00:37:14
of the things that is so beautiful about California is
00:37:16
our coastline and our beaches and these oil spills are pretty
00:37:20
tragic when they happen. And I, I hate the, you know,
00:37:25
they have to close the beaches and then there is all these
00:37:27
animals, sea life, the birds and everything that are, are killed
00:37:32
because of it. And so I see why there's a
00:37:34
problem there. And I, I don't know that they've
00:37:37
resolved the actual issue. I mean, I'm sure that they,
00:37:40
whatever this, how the spill occurred that I'm sure they've
00:37:44
like fixed that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that
00:37:46
it's not going to happen again. And so, yes, there could be a
00:37:49
disaster with reopening this, but I, you know, as we've talked
00:37:53
about in previous posts, we're getting our the Bahamas right is
00:37:58
that, And so that's like South of Florida.
00:38:02
So we have to bring it in to Florida and then across the
00:38:05
United States. And, and we're, I guess that's
00:38:09
just going to make us pay for more climate change stuff.
00:38:12
It's so weird if we're, you know, trying to be climate
00:38:14
friendly that that obviously doesn't make any sense.
00:38:17
Getting the oil right here off the coast of California does
00:38:22
make sense. You said that number that .00
00:38:28
lots of zeros, 5% of America's production.
00:38:31
But if that's like we're just California, then that makes that
00:38:35
percentage a little larger for if for the sake of California,
00:38:39
which? I mean anything.
00:38:42
Anything that relieves our gas prices.
00:38:43
I know you don't pay for gas, but some of us do and like I
00:38:48
know my wife pays for gas. So it does affect you and.
00:38:52
We have I, you know, I said my husband fills up the car.
00:38:56
This is true. But I have a couple teen
00:38:58
drivers. We have a few cars that are all
00:39:00
gas. So certainly that's a financial
00:39:04
burden in my household with everyone, you know, going to
00:39:07
work and school and everything. And so we need relief.
00:39:14
I and I, I don't know, even though I agree with drilling off
00:39:17
of our own coast, I don't know if this is necessarily the
00:39:20
answer. We know that we've got these
00:39:22
inflated taxes, that we have current legislation.
00:39:27
We've got Republicans that are trying to strike down a lot of
00:39:31
these taxes, which I believe like July 1st, it goes up
00:39:35
because that's just automatic. So it's, you know, in just a few
00:39:38
months we're expecting another increase for our gas tax.
00:39:41
I believe, oh, I forget now, Bianca or Steve Hilton.
00:39:45
I think Bianca has promised to get rid of about $2.00 in excess
00:39:50
California gas taxes should he be elected.
00:39:52
And I don't know that he can do that.
00:39:55
Certainly he could try. But when you think about this,
00:40:00
think about if you're paying $6, five, $55 a gallon and two whole
00:40:06
dollars of that is taxes, just think about that.
00:40:10
That's like. A 1/3 a a little more than 1/2
00:40:15
of what you're paying. That is So that's sickening.
00:40:19
This. Yeah.
00:40:21
I feel like, Oh my gosh, again, we're like such a doomsday.
00:40:23
We just come on here and talk about like the the California
00:40:27
part of my words. California government is raping
00:40:29
you. I mean, they're just like.
00:40:32
I I don't even know. How anyone has a paycheck left
00:40:35
at this point because everything is so taxed and it's I just feel
00:40:41
like you just get pennies on the dollar to bring home to in.
00:40:47
Frustrating again. Frustrating.
00:40:49
It is. It is.
00:40:50
Frustrating was that report came out was like, if you make
00:40:53
$100 in like San Diego, it's really or Southern California,
00:40:57
it's equivalent to like $60 in the rest of the country.
00:41:00
Like it's it, it's just the cost of living and everything.
00:41:05
If it does help, I, I mean, obviously great.
00:41:08
It does help. The wonky side of me is worried
00:41:14
about this and I'm sure I'll get pushed back and you want to let
00:41:17
me know in the chat. You can let me know in the chat.
00:41:19
You disagree with me and you say I'm stupid.
00:41:20
That's fine. That's the point of the show is
00:41:22
that we can all express our opinions.
00:41:24
You. Can call me stupid?
00:41:26
You can say like whatever, shut up Tesla boy, You can go screw
00:41:30
like screw you and not worrying about gas prices.
00:41:34
I, I worry about the use of the defense Production Act for this
00:41:40
purpose because the point of the defense production Act, and if
00:41:44
you remember, it wasn't that long ago, the last time we used
00:41:47
the defense production Act in a, a novel way was during COVID.
00:41:52
They used basically, remember they were taking over factories
00:41:56
to like build ventilators because it was a war against
00:42:01
COVID. The, the whole historical point
00:42:03
of the Defense Production Act is that in wartime emergencies, all
00:42:07
right, we're at war. It's World War Two.
00:42:10
We need to send all of our boys over there with the right
00:42:13
helmets, the right flak jackets, the right tanks, all that stuff.
00:42:19
So we need to take over. Certain factories and just start
00:42:22
producing that stuff, bullets, ammunition, all that.
00:42:26
That was sort of the argument for the Defense Production Act.
00:42:29
Now it's kind of like it's rarely used because we have such
00:42:33
a huge military industrial complex that already produces
00:42:36
this stuff. Oh God, we need to get a cough
00:42:42
drop. It's kind of weird that they're
00:42:45
like, this isn't a full blown war with Iran, but it's enough
00:42:50
of a war to warrant using the Defense Production Act to take
00:42:54
over private facilities and order them open and override all
00:42:58
of these, like criminal charges against the pipeline, which did
00:43:02
do something wrong. Like it did have oil rupture and
00:43:06
get all over the beaches and kill millions of animals and
00:43:09
like, destroy the beaches for a while in the ocean.
00:43:13
So I guess I'm just kind of worried about the process here
00:43:16
of using this law. And I'm sure we'll find out in
00:43:21
court. It'll get enjoined and they'll
00:43:23
fight it out and we'll figure out whether Trump was right or
00:43:25
not or whether California was right or not.
00:43:28
Well, I'm sure we'll figure that out.
00:43:29
So to me the I apologize if I got wonky about this, but it
00:43:34
does seem like I'm worried that it's too much of A trigger happy
00:43:39
administration to be like, Nope, it's Iran.
00:43:42
We need to use defense production act.
00:43:44
Sorry, we need to take over this oil by Oh no, you don't need
00:43:47
that factory anymore. Like the state's going to take
00:43:49
it over, right? We don't.
00:43:52
We need a. Solution.
00:43:54
I don't think anyone here disagrees that we need a
00:43:57
solution. I'm getting a cough drop.
00:43:59
But. But is this the solution and I
00:44:02
don't know enough about this? Fills the expert.
00:44:06
Here on these things, but yeah, so I don't know enough about
00:44:09
this. To know to.
00:44:12
For me to definitively say like, Oh yeah, this is a great
00:44:15
solution because certainly there there are going to be side
00:44:18
effects of this, there are going to be consequences of it.
00:44:21
And, and I'm not saying it's not the right solution.
00:44:24
I just. I don't know and I.
00:44:27
We need to kind of weigh in on is, I mean, we know refineries
00:44:31
are leaving, oil factories have been shutting down, all that.
00:44:35
I think we just talked about like last week or the week
00:44:37
before we were talking about, you know, the whole the oil
00:44:41
industry in California is so great.
00:44:43
But is this particular one the solution and should it be coming
00:44:49
from a federal order? You know, that's where and then
00:44:54
that goes back to big government stuff.
00:44:56
And it's just like California does need a solution.
00:45:00
Now I'm rambling it. It needs.
00:45:02
A long we need a longer term solution than the one that is
00:45:08
questionably legal. I guess you could say
00:45:11
questionably constitutional. My concern is.
00:45:16
Like, yes, maybe this helps because it produces 50
00:45:22
barrels of oil a day. Great.
00:45:25
OK, that helps a little bit. I think it said there's only
00:45:28
already 30. So I'm not sure the difference
00:45:30
between 30. You know, 50 can make a big
00:45:34
difference. And but I guess my issue is like
00:45:39
California needs help because California is just doing it all
00:45:43
wrong on oil and gas, right? It's it's.
00:45:47
Kind of. Like, I guess maybe this is
00:45:50
where I get frustrated is like, we're not focusing on the fact
00:45:53
that California itself has screwed up gas and oil here in
00:45:57
the state exponentially. It made it so bad, like just
00:46:01
made an absolute calamity out of it.
00:46:03
Now gas prices are going through the roof because they've forced
00:46:06
everybody out of here. And then all of a sudden, I
00:46:09
guess too many people put their faith in the fact that President
00:46:12
Trump has come in and like, oh, I'm reordering, reopening this
00:46:15
offshore drilling. Oh, OK.
00:46:18
But that doesn't change the underlying issues of why
00:46:22
California's suffering from gas prices.
00:46:26
And maybe it's too much. Faith in a strong executive is
00:46:31
what it feels like. Yeah, and it's also.
00:46:35
I don't know, I, I, I hate the idea of AAI feel like I've been
00:46:39
very libertarian and wonky tonight.
00:46:41
I apologize to everybody. I don't know what's in my my
00:46:43
drink. I swear it's just soda water.
00:46:47
But I, I feel like I, I don't like the idea of an overly
00:46:51
strong executive branch that can do whatever it wants.
00:46:55
Like that wasn't the point of our government was to create a
00:46:58
presidency where they are essentially king and can just do
00:47:01
what they want? And maybe too many people put
00:47:04
their faith in like, if we get this president in, he'll fix
00:47:10
everything. He or she will fix everything.
00:47:12
And it's like that's not how our system is really set up.
00:47:17
Like our system's not set up that the president can come in
00:47:20
and solve everything. Like we have to focus on why
00:47:23
it's bad here, fix it here in California, and then doesn't
00:47:27
really matter what they do with offshore drilling, which
00:47:30
ironically, I'm wearing my local Elections Matter shirt.
00:47:33
Yeah, so. Well, no.
00:47:37
I was thinking about that kind kind of off topic, kind of on
00:47:40
topic of and I think we've talked about this before too,
00:47:42
but. We often.
00:47:46
Look outside for solutions instead of going back to the
00:47:51
local level. And I don't know if it's just a
00:47:56
California problem or if people people just do that all across
00:47:59
the United States in general. But oh, we have this problem
00:48:03
here. Let's, you know, try to make a
00:48:05
bill. Let's go to the legislation to
00:48:07
make this illegal, change this, whatever.
00:48:11
OK, that's not working. We need President Trump to come
00:48:14
in and fix this. Oh, we need Nick Shirley to come
00:48:17
in and doge California. Like we're not capable.
00:48:20
Calvin is so, so big. We we don't have people here
00:48:23
that can actually do this. We don't like, why can't we all
00:48:28
do this ourselves? Why do we need?
00:48:30
And this is nothing against Nick Shirley, by the way, because I
00:48:33
absolutely appreciate what he's doing.
00:48:35
But like, like I said, I appreciate that CBS is actually
00:48:38
has picked up and, you know, doing the real news, doing these
00:48:41
investigations that's we need more of that.
00:48:44
I mean, it's like we have plenty of people here that we we can
00:48:48
start at our local level, but we don't.
00:48:50
We just kind of all sit on our thumbs and wait for everyone
00:48:53
else to do it. We complain, and I'm guilty of
00:48:56
this too, so I'm not pointing fingers, but we complain about
00:48:59
these issues and then we expect the bigger government that we
00:49:03
don't even allegedly want to fix everything.
00:49:09
I I agree, Andre. Preset I I like I said, I don't
00:49:13
like the idea of increasingly giving power to A to the
00:49:17
executive branch because God. Forbid knock on.
00:49:21
Wood. I hope this.
00:49:22
I think this desk is actually Wood.
00:49:24
God forbid if you give all this power to the executive and then
00:49:28
you have a President Newsom. Like think about.
00:49:32
That like how scary that is for the country.
00:49:34
If you let, if you, if you give up.
00:49:36
Because The thing is, you give all this power to a president to
00:49:40
do whatever he wants, and you hope that he can come in and
00:49:43
just fix everything you want. They'll do it on the other side,
00:49:47
too. And that's always my critique of
00:49:49
like any expansion of government is like every time you expand
00:49:53
the government. Your enemies.
00:49:56
Or your political enemies are going to use the exact thing.
00:49:59
It's kind of like what's one of the best examples is I'm
00:50:03
thinking of it was it Harry Reid got rid of the the nuclear
00:50:06
option on judges? Like he want to get it used to
00:50:11
be 60 votes. And now he got it to a simple
00:50:13
majority because he wanted to get more Obama appointees on the
00:50:16
bench. And that came to bite him in the
00:50:20
ass because, well, then Trump came in after that and he got 43
00:50:27
Supreme Court justices, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and
00:50:32
Gorsuch. Yeah, he got three Supreme Court
00:50:34
justices because of what Harry Reid did.
00:50:38
So I guess that's my point is like the if it helps gas prices
00:50:43
complain about that now we. Hear every time that they make a
00:50:45
decision. Oh, the MAGA, the MAGA, the MAGA
00:50:49
court. The MAGA Supreme Court.
00:50:51
The MAGA Supreme Court. So yeah, anyway, moral of the
00:50:55
story, I hope it helps. Gas prices.
00:50:59
I I sincerely do because gas prices affect every inch of the
00:51:02
economy, whether I pay it by whether I pay it or not, because
00:51:06
I have electric car, it affects me one way or another because
00:51:09
gas effects transportation, transportation of goods, food
00:51:14
production, all that stuff gets affected by the the cost of
00:51:17
fuel. So it it trickles down to
00:51:20
everybody. I'm not.
00:51:20
Just because I have an electric car doesn't mean I'm immune to
00:51:23
it. All right, final.
00:51:26
Story of the night. And I don't know if people are
00:51:29
going to be sympathetic to this or if people are going to be
00:51:32
like, like, too bad, so sad. Let me pull up this.
00:51:37
Article I feel a little bit better.
00:51:42
I got a cough drop. Allergies are see it got warm
00:51:45
down here in Southern California.
00:51:47
Allergies kicked up. Now I'm now I'm dying of
00:51:51
allergies. So news came out the California
00:51:54
school districts issue thousands of pink slips to close growing
00:51:58
budget deficits. Thousands of California school
00:52:01
employees have received preliminary pink slips in recent
00:52:03
weeks as districts scramble Scrabble.
00:52:06
I think they meant to say scramble Scrabble to that's how
00:52:09
you use that word to close budget gaps caused by falling
00:52:12
and enrollment and rising cost. Most went to school
00:52:14
administrations and classified school staff such as clerks,
00:52:17
administrative assistants and para educators.
00:52:20
Church were complying with the state law that requires them to
00:52:22
send preliminary pink slips by March 15th to any employee who
00:52:26
could potentially lose their job before the beginning of the next
00:52:28
school year. Many of the notices are
00:52:30
withdrawn by May 15th, the last day Final notices can be given
00:52:34
as decisions about seniority. Let's see 5000 school employees.
00:52:41
It's declining. Enrollment reasons being because
00:52:44
of a declining enrollment due to a lot of immigration
00:52:46
enforcement, lost federal COVID dollars, increased cost of worse
00:52:50
in the school funding crisis. So that's sort of the story
00:52:55
right now is that thousands of teachers might be facing.
00:53:03
Dismissal. Firing layoffs because of
00:53:06
declining COVID. So there are all these COVID
00:53:08
funds that they dumped into California education and now
00:53:14
they're finally ending, which kind of crazy.
00:53:18
They issued this in 2020. It lasted till 2020.
00:53:20
Like again, like what are we doing here?
00:53:24
Like did we expect COVID to last like 10 years?
00:53:26
Like if COVID was six years ago and we're still using COVID
00:53:30
dollars to keep teachers on the payroll, I don't know it's so
00:53:35
that. It's like 3 thousandish teachers
00:53:38
or 3000 in LA county alone, something like that.
00:53:42
But then several thousand other school employees correct?
00:53:49
Yes, OK, correct. You're right.
00:53:53
No. I I wasn't trying to correct
00:53:55
you, I just wanted to make sure I understood it correctly
00:53:58
because yeah, what did they just.
00:54:01
The teachers obviously teach. But then it's like, did they
00:54:03
just hire a bunch of random school employees just because
00:54:05
they could? Like why not?
00:54:10
They just like in the. Hallways like.
00:54:11
Painting the halls and they're like, I am a school
00:54:13
administrator and I'm painting flower like what is happening
00:54:16
here again this. Is an example of adding more
00:54:19
administrators and government employees is not always the
00:54:22
solution. No, it's.
00:54:24
A clearly not a solution because Outlook maybe it was temporary.
00:54:32
LAUSD. Teachers unions point out that
00:54:34
the district is sitting on $5 billion in reserves while
00:54:37
handing out pink slips and has voted to authorize a strike.
00:54:42
Also keep in mind that the Superintendent of LAUSD also
00:54:45
just got raided by the FBI because of some shady stuff that
00:54:50
he was doing over in Miami with some corporations due to
00:54:52
education. He was getting money from
00:54:54
government. Shocker, I know.
00:54:58
This is where I've been at with, I mean with everything, but
00:55:01
especially with the school system, I have definitely been a
00:55:03
burn it down and started over. I mean, our school systems
00:55:07
aren't even doing that well. But these teachers, they put
00:55:11
themselves through school in the additional teacher training year
00:55:15
to become credentialed to do this.
00:55:17
And then they get their jobs and a lot of them are working to get
00:55:21
tenured. And then they're like, sorry, we
00:55:24
don't have. We can't afford you.
00:55:26
Anymore sayonara and I just want to remind everybody that the
00:55:30
government loves to say we added X amount of jobs and that means
00:55:35
if they actually added the jobs that that's taxpayers are paying
00:55:39
for it. Otherwise they didn't have the
00:55:41
job. And so California we've, we've
00:55:45
heard inflated numbers about the, you know, we've heard like,
00:55:49
oh, we added X amount of jobs in 2024 and then all of a sudden in
00:55:53
2025 we learned that those numbers were inflated and
00:55:55
weren't actually accurate. And now this is several thousand
00:55:59
that are about to be lost in California.
00:56:02
Again, California, you're just really leading the way here.
00:56:08
What's bizarre to me is that Newsom is literally about to be.
00:56:12
I mean his term is ending, he can't be re elected.
00:56:15
We're we're less than a year out from having a new governor and
00:56:19
Newsom isn't even like trying to go out with a a good reputation.
00:56:26
He's I don't even know where he is on a book tour.
00:56:32
Yeah, he's too busy worried. About his new book, which I have
00:56:36
not read yet and I don't think I want to read.
00:56:40
I guess feel like for the show we might have to do a little
00:56:42
bit. I feel like we needed to do.
00:56:44
Some reading and then just like share paragraphs here and just
00:56:46
make fun of it. That might be a fun show.
00:56:49
Might be a fun show, might be like an actual.
00:56:53
Speaking of Gavin. Newsom's presidential ambitions.
00:56:58
I'm going to read from you from a site that I would never
00:57:01
normally fall upon or check. And to everybody here, I just as
00:57:08
a disclaimer, I do not check this site ever.
00:57:10
It came up in my research and it is the World Socialist website.
00:57:19
I didn't even know that. Existed so.
00:57:21
Just throwing that out there is not I can't.
00:57:23
This came up in my. I can't believe this is.
00:57:26
Actually going to be in my browser history now.
00:57:28
I probably have to clear my browser history and cookies of
00:57:30
all that, otherwise I'm going to start getting like communist
00:57:33
manifestos mailed to me or something.
00:57:36
But the reason I want to bring this up is because, as we're
00:57:40
saying, Gavin Newsom's running for president soon in the next
00:57:44
couple years. We all know he's running for
00:57:46
president. And this is always a more
00:57:49
progressive wing of his party. And I want to read some stuff
00:57:54
that show you that maybe the progressive wing is not too
00:57:58
crazy about Gavin Newsom. The layoffs or a direct product
00:58:02
of schools being started of funds at both the state and
00:58:03
federal level caused by the Trump administration's cuts to
00:58:06
federal education spending by the BI administration's ending
00:58:09
of pandemic relief funding last year.
00:58:12
I mean, yeah, it we don't need pandemic relief funding anymore.
00:58:17
It's 2026. But this current state of
00:58:20
affairs is also a product of decades long bipartisanship
00:58:23
attack on public education. California Governor Gavin
00:58:25
Newsom, who was primed for leadership of the National
00:58:29
Democratic Party while courting outright fascist on his podcast
00:58:33
This Is Gavin Newsom, has also played a significant role in
00:58:37
these cuts. Newsom is included an $8.8
00:58:40
billion cut to statewide education funding in his last
00:58:43
budget proposal in response to the layoff announcements.
00:58:46
California Teachers Association, probably one of the worst unions
00:58:49
in California because they're way too powerful, isn't David
00:58:53
Goldberg released a statement saying layoffs are devastating,
00:58:56
chaotic to our school communities like Pasadena, where
00:58:59
educators and students lost their homes in the wildfires.
00:59:01
Our union will not stand by. We'll demand that every single
00:59:04
one of these notices is rescinded in the coming weeks.
00:59:07
However, such demands are intended merely as a public
00:59:10
relations campaign for the CTA and its affiliated unions, which
00:59:14
back-to-back to the hilt, the state Democratic Party
00:59:17
establishment responsible for the cuts.
00:59:20
In short, teachers and school workers will not be able to
00:59:23
launch any meaningful fight against these attacks if
00:59:26
leadership of their struggles is left in the hands of trade
00:59:29
unions and the Democratic Party. In fact, many trade union
00:59:33
leaders, such as the Teamsters most prominently, are finding
00:59:36
common cause with the ultra ultra nationalism of the Trump
00:59:39
administration. So.
00:59:43
They are, obviously. Not happy with Gavin Newsom?
00:59:50
I mean, that's pretty bad if you're.
00:59:51
Not winning over the far left progressives.
00:59:52
Or maybe that's good for him. Maybe it shows he's not that
00:59:55
progressive that the socialists are not on.
00:59:57
Yeah, I was going to. Say, just does this frighten me
01:00:00
now? Because who are they going to
01:00:03
put in place they don't want if they don't want Newsome?
01:00:08
Yeah, if Newsome is. Not their cup of tea then.
01:00:10
I gosh, I wonder who probably AOCI would imagine is probably
01:00:15
someone they're more aligned with.
01:00:16
Although yeah, I can't imagine anyone farther left than Gavin
01:00:21
Newsom. He plays the moderate, but in
01:00:23
reality we all know he's got more of a socialist Bay Area
01:00:27
leaning. So I don't know.
01:00:29
I thought that was interesting that these world socialist
01:00:32
website news propaganda hate Gavin Newsom and think he's an
01:00:37
establishment puppet. I mean, he is an establishment
01:00:40
puppet, but I for different reasons.
01:00:42
I think he's an establishment puppet.
01:00:43
He does whatever the establishment tells him to do so
01:00:46
he can get. He's an outsider on the.
01:00:48
Inside. He's an outsider.
01:00:51
On the inside, as he famously said in that book preview, is he
01:00:55
was the outsider on the inside because he hasn't been in
01:00:58
politics or connected to it his entire life.
01:01:01
Hasn't. Benefited from it?
01:01:03
Nothing. Nope.
01:01:05
Hasn't had any family, relatives or anybody related to politics
01:01:08
who could give him a leg up at all in politics.
01:01:11
Like you, he can't read. And he sucked at the ASATS, so
01:01:16
he's just like. You he's dumb and can't read.
01:01:21
That's how King knew some things of us.
01:01:22
He's like, I'm, I'm just like you stupid peasants.
01:01:25
I can't read either. So yeah, well, I guess a lot of
01:01:30
teachers and people are going to lose their jobs.
01:01:32
Not good for California economy when a lot of people lose their
01:01:35
jobs. But I guess when you rely on too
01:01:38
much COVID money. And it was always temporary.
01:01:41
I don't. Know what to tell you.
01:01:44
Yeah, I mean, and we've said this.
01:01:46
Before, I think it's the government is like winning the
01:01:48
lottery. How they they, you hear often
01:01:51
that people win the lottery, end up going bankrupt within a few
01:01:54
years because they don't know how to handle all the money that
01:01:57
they've been given and they just impulse buy.
01:02:02
Yeah. They got billions of dollars in
01:02:04
COVID relief money and just spending on hiring a whole bunch
01:02:07
of people, not knowing that they were going to have to fire these
01:02:10
people sooner or later. I mean, like, this is all
01:02:13
temporary relief money. It wasn't.
01:02:14
Yeah, I just. I don't.
01:02:15
Know how they thought that was going to keep coming in?
01:02:17
That's bizarre. Which is, you know, I, I think
01:02:22
it's very plausible that those years that Gavin Newsom crowed
01:02:25
about having a huge surplus, like what was $100 billion
01:02:28
surplus or something, those couple years he was like, oh, we
01:02:30
have $100 billion surplus. They all happen to coincide
01:02:34
right around COVID when the state was flush with federal
01:02:38
money. Funny how that worked.
01:02:40
And then once the COVID money dried up, all of a sudden we
01:02:42
were in a budget deficit every year.
01:02:46
I mean, I'm no expert on on, you know, maybe call me a conspiracy
01:02:51
theorist, but. Kind of lines.
01:02:54
Up. You know, if it quacks like,
01:02:56
walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
01:02:57
Kind of sounds like you're overspending federal money.
01:03:02
All right, any. Other final thoughts?
01:03:05
Let's see anybody in the chat. We're just going to start.
01:03:08
I mean, I've already said it here, but I'm going to start
01:03:11
promoting. The primaries are coming up
01:03:13
really soon. They're less than three months
01:03:15
away. Less than two months when your
01:03:17
mail in ballot is going to show up in your mailbox.
01:03:22
And so some people are going to start their early voting.
01:03:25
Please, please, when your voter guides and such start coming,
01:03:29
please start researching your candidates.
01:03:33
It's not going to happen overnight, but California can be
01:03:35
turned around, it can be saved, and it is worth saving.
01:03:39
And just like like I said, just don't be afraid to research your
01:03:44
candidates and don't sleep on the primary because you know,
01:03:47
the top 2 are going to go to the yeah, the top 2 are going to go
01:03:50
to the general. We want to hopefully get the
01:03:53
best top 2IN everything as much as we can to that general so
01:03:57
that when we show up in November we have great options.
01:04:03
Agreed. We can.
01:04:04
Do it and it's also. Important.
01:04:07
I know a lot of people in here are asking, well, Hilton or
01:04:09
Bianco, Hilton or Bianco. Outside of that, I.
01:04:13
Would say make sure you definitely research who's
01:04:16
running for your local offices because I hear way too much
01:04:22
stuff of people going well how do we get stuck with the City
01:04:25
Council? It's so like, you know, so dumb.
01:04:29
I don't know. When have you paid attention to
01:04:31
a City Council race? Why have you?
01:04:33
Could you tell me who your City Council member is off the top of
01:04:36
your head? Could you tell me who your
01:04:38
assembly member is off the top of your head?
01:04:40
Like those are things that those make a difference.
01:04:43
Like those literally make a difference in your life.
01:04:46
I know we say this like ad nauseam, but those things, I
01:04:49
think City Council, county supervisors, your assembly
01:04:53
member and your state senator have way more impact on your
01:04:57
daily life then who's president. Which I think is an.
01:05:02
Undisputed fact that they just have more of an impact on all
01:05:05
that. So we obviously can't vet every
01:05:10
single candidate who's running for every single race up and
01:05:13
down California. It's a huge state with 58
01:05:16
counties, cities and all that stuff.
01:05:19
We try our best to get as many candidates on as possible.
01:05:22
Like Elaine last week who came on.
01:05:24
We're going to have more candidates come on, obviously
01:05:27
before the primaries. So we'll do our best.
01:05:31
And yeah, just do your research. Because it all.
01:05:36
Matters, you know, in that way. Primaries are important.
01:05:40
Because you want to get the person in the general.
01:05:44
Who's going to end up? Running in the general and might
01:05:46
be winning that seat for you. So all right, any other thoughts
01:05:52
or comments before we log off for tonight?
01:05:54
Nope. Thanks Chad for being here.
01:05:58
Yeah, thanks. Chad, as always for being here,
01:06:00
thanks for hanging out with us. Go check out California
01:06:04
Underground News for weekly or more news, hit style videos.
01:06:09
We're growing over there. Got a lot of stuff coming up
01:06:11
this year because of 2026 and we got crazy amount of braces like
01:06:16
we said. And people are going to be
01:06:17
coming on and feel like there's going to be a lot of guests this
01:06:20
year. I just have a feeling that we're
01:06:22
going to have a lot of guests this year.
01:06:24
All right, with that said, the best thing you can do to, well,
01:06:28
make sure you like share, subscribe, review, all that
01:06:30
stuff helps with the algorithm. And the best thing you can do
01:06:32
that is 100% free to support the show is share this with somebody
01:06:37
else who will find this interesting and enlightening.
01:06:40
So with that, we will see you on the next one later.