In this episode of the California Underground Podcast, host Phil dives into the latest controversies surrounding California politics. From President Trump's decision to halt federal funding for the California High-Speed Rail, to Governor Newsom's controversial redistricting plans, and the implications of AB 84 on charter schools, Phil unpacks the complexities and implications of these major stories. Tune in for an in-depth analysis and join the conversation on how these developments could shape the future of California. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share to help grow the show!
Chapters
00:00 Federal Funding Fallout for California High-Speed Rail
14:13 Gavin Newsom's Redistricting Controversy
28:24 The Charter School Debate in California
30:47 The State of Charter Schools in California
38:14 Impact of AB 84 on Charter Schools
41:27 The Rise of Charter Schools Amid Public School Decline
47:59 The Consequences of Fabricated Stories
55:11 Public Perception and Emotional Reactions to Education Issues
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Original air date 7.22.25
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00:00:00
Into the line for federal funding for the California High
00:00:03
Speed rail. Newsom wants to redraw district
00:00:05
line so he can ram more Democrats into Congress.
00:00:08
AB 84 is going to be the death knell of charter schools and
00:00:13
faked hoaxes of ICE kidnappings happening in California all over
00:00:18
the country. All that and more on tonight's
00:00:20
episode, the California Underground Podcast, starting
00:00:22
right now. What's going on everybody?
00:00:41
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California
00:00:43
Underground podcast, the most trusted podcast for all things
00:00:46
California politics. I am your host, Phil.
00:00:48
We have a full show tonight, 4 big stories to get to.
00:00:52
But before we do, make sure if you're watching, make sure you
00:00:55
subscribe, like, share, comment, review, all that stuff helps
00:00:57
with the algorithm and it helps people find us and helps grow
00:01:00
the show. So with that, let's jump right
00:01:02
in. We'll get to your comments.
00:01:04
If you're in the chat and you're here live on YouTube, Rumble X
00:01:08
IG, wherever you are, I'll get to your comments and questions.
00:01:12
But let's get first started on our first story for tonight.
00:01:19
President Trump puts the brakes on federal funding for
00:01:22
California high speed rail. He said enough is enough.
00:01:26
We're not giving you any more money because this is quite
00:01:28
literally the train to nowhere. Let's get right into that story.
00:01:33
The federal money train to California has stopped.
00:01:36
Today's announcement. Pulling $4 billion from the
00:01:39
state's high speed rail project put Governor Newsom on a path to
00:01:42
court, but lengthy litigation could further stall the line.
00:01:45
That's over budget and overdue. Trump administration had
00:01:49
previously threatened to pull the funding just last month.
00:01:51
But now that the money has been officially terminated, Governor
00:01:54
Newsom says ending the Fed's funding agreement is illegal and
00:01:58
abandons the future of transportation that would have
00:02:01
been routed through the Central Valley.
00:02:04
In a statement tonight, the governor said in part quote,
00:02:06
we're now in the track lane phase and building America's
00:02:10
only high speed rail. Track lane phase, Track lane
00:02:15
phase, it's supposed to go hundreds of miles and it's gone
00:02:18
about one or two. That's how many tracks they've
00:02:22
laid. And it's taken about over a
00:02:24
decade to get to this point. So it's taken a long time to get
00:02:27
to the track lane phase that Newsome's talking about.
00:02:30
California is putting all options on the table to fight
00:02:33
this illegal action And quote, California voters first approved
00:02:38
the project in 2008 to build the rail line connecting the Valley
00:02:42
to Los Angeles and the Bay Area by 2020 at a cost of $33
00:02:47
billion. Since then, the spending
00:02:50
skyrocketed to more than 100. If you're watching on video,
00:02:53
that is about as much as they've gotten done.
00:02:56
Whatever you're seeing on video, that's the, that's the tracks
00:02:59
right there. That's what they're getting
00:03:00
done. $2 billion with little progress.
00:03:05
Construction is currently underway for a 171 mile section
00:03:08
of track between Merced and Bakersfield.
00:03:11
Testing on that portion is planned for 2028.
00:03:16
Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on
00:03:19
social media saying California's Train to Nowhere is now
00:03:22
projected to cost $135 billion. That price tag we could give
00:03:28
every single resident of LA and San Francisco.
00:03:32
Almost 200. Free flights.
00:03:35
This is the definition of government incompetence and
00:03:38
possibly corruption. That's why we're pulling the
00:03:40
plug. No more federal funds for this
00:03:43
high speed train to nowhere. President Trump had pulled
00:03:46
funding for the project during his first administration, but
00:03:50
California sued and regained funding during the Biden
00:03:53
administration. High Speed Rail Authority board
00:03:56
member Henry Perea sent a statement to Action News tonight
00:03:59
saying the board expected this move.
00:04:02
He added, Quote, we have enough money to continue our work for
00:04:05
the next two years and are currently working with the
00:04:08
governor and legislature to make this a California project and
00:04:13
fund it accordingly. So as we all know, the
00:04:17
California high speed rail has been a boondoggle.
00:04:20
It's been a project that is almost at this point emblematic
00:04:25
of government bureaucracy and corruption and blow and all of
00:04:29
that where they just keep pouring money and billions and
00:04:32
billions of billions of dollars into a project.
00:04:35
It continues to get delayed. It continues to meet or miss its
00:04:38
deadlines. This is all coming from a report
00:04:40
that the Transportation Department had done where they
00:04:43
did not agree that the fact that they were going to hit their
00:04:46
20332033, that's 2033 completion target for its initial segment.
00:04:53
So not even the actual full train, the initial segment,
00:04:57
they're not going to hit by 2033, which is coming up in
00:05:00
eight years or so. So they're they got eight years.
00:05:03
The federal government said we don't even think you're going to
00:05:05
hit the initial segment in eight years.
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As Secretary Duffy said there it is ballooning the cost about to
00:05:13
$135 billion to complete. And they said this is absolutely
00:05:17
out of control. Right now is supposed to be
00:05:19
around $30 billion. Someone in the chat made a
00:05:23
really good point. And I say this a lot often.
00:05:26
California already has high speed rail.
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It's called airlines. That America has high speed
00:05:30
rails, They're called airlines. You have Southwest Airlines.
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That's the fastest way to get around California without having
00:05:37
to build all of these train tracks.
00:05:39
But I did want to talk about this article.
00:05:41
This was written by our good friend of the show, Lance
00:05:43
Christensen from the California Policy Center.
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I really strongly recommend you go check that site out there.
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They're a great site. They can do some great
00:05:51
journalism. He did an op-ed on this.
00:05:55
It also appeared in the Epic Times, he said.
00:05:57
Let's do some accounting. The original cost estimate in
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2008 was $33 billion for a significant portion of a
00:06:06
purported statewide system. Today, we're staring down a
00:06:09
price tag north of 100 billion and climbing the so-called
00:06:13
initial operating segment. The iOS.
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A rail line through the middle of nowhere is projected to cost
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$35 billion. So far, 13 billion has been
00:06:23
spent on what exactly? We're still trying to figure
00:06:26
out. This is where taxpayer money
00:06:27
goes to die. And who exactly is going to ride
00:06:31
this train? A 2023 High Speed Rail Authority
00:06:33
report quietly slash ridership projections by 25%.
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Even the authority can't deny what post COVID trends and
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common sense made clear. When given the choice,
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Californians prefer the flexibility of their own cars or
00:06:48
planes that actually take off and land in places they want to
00:06:52
go. The Madera to Shafter corridor
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doesn't connect major population centers, tourist attractions or
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economic hubs. It's like building a luxury
00:07:00
clues line between two puddles. He goes on to say the
00:07:05
comprehensive route from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
00:07:07
Anaheim is now estimated to cost of $128 billion.
00:07:10
Where I talked about that, Take that number and divide by the
00:07:14
estimated distance of track to be laid and the cost is more
00:07:17
than $200 million per mile. That is nearly three times
00:07:22
higher than the original total projected cost for the entire
00:07:25
system. And don't forget the financing
00:07:27
trickery. The high speed rail authority is
00:07:29
propped up by California's cap and trade program, which funnels
00:07:32
roughly $1 billion per year to the project.
00:07:35
That's money siphoned away from everything touched by carbon
00:07:38
pricing, energy bills, gas prices, and even food costs.
00:07:42
In essence, Californians are paying more their daily lives to
00:07:45
bankroll a train that they will never ride.
00:07:49
And this is coming, obviously, after many, many years.
00:07:53
People who are here in California know the high speed
00:07:56
rail has become a joke. It's become a political joke at
00:08:00
this point to the point where it is so symbolic or emblematic of
00:08:05
the corruption and the blow of California government and these
00:08:09
projects, right? I think the the CEO or someone
00:08:12
like that who, who runs the High speed Rail Authority makes over
00:08:15
500 and $50 a year. I mean, people are making hand
00:08:20
over fist a ton of money. I'm wondering, like Lance
00:08:23
Christiansen said in that article, where did $13 billion
00:08:26
go? Most of it is going to
00:08:28
consultants to write these reports, these complex reports
00:08:32
that they spend a whole bunch of money on.
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Nothing gets done because all they do is write these reports
00:08:38
and no track is being laid. Nothing's happening now.
00:08:43
It went from, it was going to go from San Francisco to Los
00:08:46
Angeles, then it's going to go to sort of around through the
00:08:50
Central Valley. There is a train that is being
00:08:54
built by a private company from LA to Las Vegas and it's going
00:08:58
to be done before the high speed rail gets done, which is just an
00:09:01
example of how private enterprise will outpace and beat
00:09:06
government work 10 times out of 10, right?
00:09:09
They have built, they're building this.
00:09:11
I forget what the name of the company is, but you can look
00:09:13
them up. They are building a train from
00:09:15
Los Angeles to Los Vega, high speed rail and they're going to
00:09:17
get it done way faster than what's happening here in
00:09:21
California. So President Trump obviously
00:09:23
looked at all of this and said, well, enough is enough.
00:09:26
We're not going to give you any more money because you can't.
00:09:28
First you, you failed this report, this report that you
00:09:32
sent to us to show what's happening when you're going to
00:09:35
complete it. We looked at the specifics and
00:09:39
you're not going to do any of this stuff.
00:09:41
You're failing everything. So therefore a condition of you
00:09:44
getting this federal money is to meet certain amount of
00:09:47
deadlines. You can't just get unlimited
00:09:48
amount of federal money. Maybe the Biden administration
00:09:51
thought that they could just give them an unlimited amount of
00:09:54
money. But President Trump and
00:09:57
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, it said enough is enough.
00:10:01
We are now freezing this. Of course it's going to go in.
00:10:03
The lawsuit is going to be a litigation.
00:10:05
They're going to fight over this and stuff like that, whether or
00:10:07
not they abided by whatever correct federal procedure.
00:10:11
It is tiresome to think about how many federal procedures
00:10:14
there are that are in place to gum up the works of stuff like
00:10:17
this can't be easily repealed. But regardless, it is a huge hit
00:10:22
to the California high speed rail project.
00:10:25
And I looked up the numbers. At the end of 2023,
00:10:28
approximately 24% of the California high speed rail
00:10:31
projects committed funding came from federal sources with the
00:10:35
remaining 76% provided by the state of California.
00:10:38
And this is based on the high speed rails funding breakdown
00:10:41
where the project have received about 23 billion in combined
00:10:43
state and federal funding with federal grants accounting for a
00:10:46
little less than 1/4. So it's not all of it, right?
00:10:51
It's not going to be all of the money.
00:10:52
It's not all being federally funded.
00:10:54
There's a good amount of it, though.
00:10:56
To lose 25%, about 1/4 of your funding on a project like this
00:11:02
is an enormous hit to the project's ability to even get
00:11:06
done. It's not like it's getting done
00:11:07
anyway at this point. But 25% is definitely something
00:11:11
that is going to put a huge damper on this.
00:11:14
Now, keep in mind, if they have to fill that gap, that 25% gap
00:11:19
for the funding that they are now losing from the federal
00:11:22
government, this is a state government that has been
00:11:25
perpetually seeing big billion dollar budget deficit year after
00:11:31
year, right? This year we saw a $12 billion
00:11:34
budget deficit that they plugged with some financing, you know,
00:11:39
shenanigans and trickery and stuff like that.
00:11:40
They borrowed from themselves. They've moved money around to
00:11:43
make it look like they balanced the budget.
00:11:45
But every year there is a budget deficit outside of COVID, which
00:11:49
I'm sure there were some shenanigans there where they
00:11:51
were taking coveted money may look like they were.
00:11:53
They had a huge surplus. And now they're facing the fact
00:11:59
that they don't have money to pay for the high speed rail.
00:12:01
They face a huge budget deficit every single year.
00:12:04
Where are they going to get the money from?
00:12:06
It's not going to be the federal government.
00:12:07
As long as President Trump is there or probably whenever
00:12:10
there's a Republican in office, they're not going to get that
00:12:13
funding anymore. So is this going to put an end
00:12:17
to the high speed rail for good? Is it going to make it dead on
00:12:22
arrival or I mean, it's already been dead on arrival as it is
00:12:25
not nothing's getting done. But let me know in the comments
00:12:28
and in the chat and what you're thinking.
00:12:30
Do you think this puts a complete end to the high speed
00:12:32
rail? Because they won't be able to
00:12:33
fund it and they won't be able to make up the difference.
00:12:36
And that the high speed rail is just going to languish and that
00:12:39
one little track, that one cute little track they had in the
00:12:41
video, we'll just sit there and probably grow tumbleweeds or
00:12:44
something like that. All right, So I want to take a
00:12:48
quick minute, say hi to everybody in the chat.
00:12:53
What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning in tonight.
00:12:58
If he knew he had some tries to get the private equity to fund
00:13:02
the high speed rail. The thing is private equity
00:13:05
would not want to fund the high speed rail because they want a
00:13:07
return on their investment. And that would mean you'd
00:13:11
actually have to get work done. And the high speed rail is
00:13:14
basically give us all the government money you can and
00:13:17
we'll just hire all these consultants.
00:13:19
We'll get all these reports out. A lot of people will make a lot
00:13:21
of money. There was a if you're into True
00:13:24
Detective, there was a season. Season 2 was all about the high
00:13:26
speed rail and the conspiracy behind the high speed rail.
00:13:29
It was it was done all right, but I think they could have gone
00:13:31
a little bit deeper. But that was the whole premise
00:13:33
is that it was about the high speed rail LA to Vegas, if
00:13:38
anything. Yeah, that's what I said.
00:13:41
There was AAI can't remember what is someone could probably
00:13:44
look it up in the chat and let me know.
00:13:47
So that's that's what I heard and I think they're already
00:13:51
going to be close to done. There are they're really they're
00:13:54
plowing away with that. All right, thank you everyone in
00:13:59
the chat for joining us tonight where we are, YouTube, IG, all
00:14:02
this stuff. Make politicians accountable
00:14:04
again. Yeah, I agree with that.
00:14:07
All right, next story for tonight.
00:14:13
Gavin Newsom, the bastion or self-proclaimed champion of
00:14:19
democracy now wants to redraw the district lines and cheat the
00:14:25
voters and ram more Democrats into Congress.
00:14:29
Let's get into that story. Gavin Newsom is seriously
00:14:34
considering redrawing California congressional seats ahead of the
00:14:37
next election to put more Democrats in Congress.
00:14:40
The governor said the move would be in response to President
00:14:42
Trump, who's asking the Texas Legislature help Republicans
00:14:46
pick up more seats as the state discusses redistricting.
00:14:49
KCRS 3 Capital Correspondent Ashley Zavala joins us now to
00:14:52
explain what's going on. And can he do that?
00:14:54
Ash and Lisa, off the top, Let's just note this is not Texas.
00:14:58
The California legislature, state lawmakers here do not draw
00:15:01
congressional districts here in California.
00:15:03
For the last couple of decades, an independent citizen LED
00:15:06
redistricting Commission has been doing that because that's
00:15:09
what voters called for. The governor says he's now
00:15:11
exploring 2 options again to try to counter what Republicans are
00:15:15
trying to do in Texas. The first is calling a special
00:15:19
election to ask California voters to change that
00:15:22
redistricting process. The second calling on the
00:15:25
legislature to just quickly redraw those congressional maps.
00:15:29
All of this before the 2026 election.
00:15:33
California elections expert Paul Mitchell pointed out on X that
00:15:36
state law does prohibit mid decade redistricting for cities
00:15:41
and counties, but not for those congressional lines.
00:15:45
Here's what the governor had to say about all of this.
00:15:47
I don't come to this lightly. This is not a point of, you
00:15:52
know, it's just a point of rationalization and I hope a
00:15:56
realization for everyone else. Everything has changed and it's
00:16:00
changing in real time. And I'm not going to be the guy
00:16:03
that said I could have, would have, should have.
00:16:05
I'm not going to be passive at this moment.
00:16:07
I'm not going to look at my kids in the eyes and say I was a
00:16:10
little timid. I didn't like the word that this
00:16:13
guy used. I'm just not going to be that
00:16:15
guy. I'm sorry.
00:16:17
What more evidence do you need? I mean, everything that dams
00:16:19
happened last six months in in this part of the state.
00:16:23
So that's my approach. And to the extent that others
00:16:26
share it, by definition it requires the consent of our
00:16:32
represented body, the Legislature.
00:16:34
And they'll make that determination.
00:16:35
And if it if they choose the path of a ballot initiative, the
00:16:39
people of this state will decide for themselves.
00:16:43
The governor did not give a set specific timeline on how soon
00:16:47
he'll decide what to do here, but it does sound like a
00:16:50
decision needs to be made pretty quickly.
00:16:51
We should point out California's typical legislative session ends
00:16:55
in mid-september and they are about to break for a month long
00:16:58
recess. So what are state lawmakers
00:17:00
saying about this, Ashley? So I did just reach out to
00:17:03
legislative leaders, state Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire and
00:17:06
Assembly Speaker Robert Revis for comment right after we got a
00:17:09
sense of what the governor is looking for here.
00:17:11
We have not yet heard back from them, but so far the reaction
00:17:14
we've seen now from both sides of the aisle has been negative.
00:17:19
Javin Newsom, always the tough talk to, as we all know, bolster
00:17:26
his 2028 credentials. And this is coming in response
00:17:30
to President Trump saying something off the cuff about how
00:17:33
Congress, they need more Republicans, they need more
00:17:35
Republicans in the House. So Texas being a very RedState,
00:17:38
that could figure out and get a couple more, squeeze a couple
00:17:42
more congressional Republicans out.
00:17:44
So Newsom, who is more concerned about running against President
00:17:48
Trump in some fantasy world where he's running against
00:17:51
President Trump as opposed to actually running the state of
00:17:55
California. I like to call him the deadbeat
00:17:57
governor because he's never around and never cares about any
00:17:59
of our problems. Basically what that clip said,
00:18:04
and we're going to talk about it.
00:18:05
It's going to get a little wonky.
00:18:06
I'm going to do my best to make this as interesting as possible.
00:18:10
Is what he's proposing to do is legally impossible.
00:18:15
But it is interesting that he would go there and say, well, I
00:18:20
want to see if I can call a special session and get the
00:18:22
legislators to come back and then start doing this and then
00:18:26
start redrawing the districts. It takes a lot to redraw
00:18:29
districts. This is something that's done
00:18:30
every 10 years with the census. You get a better idea of like,
00:18:33
who the citizens are in these districts, and that's why you
00:18:36
draw these districts. And there's been a lot of rules
00:18:39
around how the district happens. Now, here in California, the
00:18:43
policy is it's not the legislature who actually even
00:18:48
draws those districts. That is not something that the
00:18:52
legislature does. He's trying to get it so the
00:18:55
legislature can do this, which would take the power away from
00:18:58
what people voted on. So it's back in 2008.
00:19:03
Let me see, I want to point this out real quick.
00:19:04
So we have 120 state legislatures, 52 United States
00:19:08
representatives. That is basically the make up
00:19:12
right now. The federal requirements
00:19:13
according to Article 1, Section 4 of the US Constitution, the
00:19:16
States and legislatures have primary authority in determining
00:19:18
the time places a manner of congressional elections going
00:19:23
down a little bit in California, non politician bait Commission
00:19:27
draws both congressional and state legislative district
00:19:30
lines. Established in 2008 by ballot
00:19:32
initiative. Again, Gavin Newsom, Mr.
00:19:35
Democracy, Mr. Campaign for Democracy as his pack is called,
00:19:40
loves to always trample on democracy when it doesn't fit
00:19:43
his narrative or his goals. Kind of like with Prop 36 where
00:19:46
he didn't like Prop 36 and it passed overwhelmingly.
00:19:48
He tried to do everything he could to kill it.
00:19:51
This was established by ballot initiative by the voters back in
00:19:54
2008. That is going to be a Commission
00:19:56
of people who redraw the districts, not the legislature.
00:20:00
It comprises of 14 members, 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans and
00:20:03
four belonging to neither party. A panel of state auditors
00:20:07
selects the pool of nominees from which the commissioners are
00:20:09
appointed. This pool comprises of 20
00:20:12
Democrats, 20 Republican, 20 belonging to neither party.
00:20:15
The California Constitution requires that districts be
00:20:18
contiguous. Further, the state constitution
00:20:20
mandates that, to the extent possible, districts must
00:20:23
preserve geographic integrity of cities, counties, neighborhoods,
00:20:26
and communities of interest. Districts must also encourage
00:20:29
compactness. State Senate, Assembly districts
00:20:31
should be nested where within each other where possible.
00:20:35
So what Gavin Newsom is proposing, and some people in
00:20:40
the chat have already talked about this, is gerrymandering.
00:20:43
We're going to get to gerrymandering in a little bit.
00:20:46
He's basically saying, I want to get the state legislature to
00:20:50
come back, redraw these lines in the middle of the decade.
00:20:54
You know, we still have five years to go until the next
00:20:56
census is done, which is usually when these districts are done.
00:20:59
We've done that. We did this five years ago
00:21:01
already. It's an enormous amount of work.
00:21:05
While some people say it's better than what we've seen in
00:21:08
terms of the Legislature and all that, it wasn't perfect.
00:21:13
So this was recently the the Redistricting Commission.
00:21:19
This is from the Sacramento. But it says for all the talk of
00:21:21
how California's redistricting process put the Voting Rights
00:21:23
Act first, that didn't really happen.
00:21:25
It was clear that too many commissioners didn't understand
00:21:28
some communities they were redrawing, and those communities
00:21:31
paid the price of lost representation.
00:21:34
There were embarrassing pratfalls by some commissioners,
00:21:37
too many critical decisions left to the last minute, and
00:21:39
commissioners who sat on the sidelines or didn't show up at
00:21:43
all, just commissioners who were supposed to be a part of it.
00:21:45
They just didn't show up to start the 2021 redistricting.
00:21:49
Commissioners didn't understand all of California with the
00:21:52
majority of commissioners from the Bay Area in Los Angeles,
00:21:55
which if you're from outside of California, I can tell you first
00:21:58
hand as someone who grew up on the East Coast, everyone outside
00:22:01
of California thinks that's all California is, is San Francisco
00:22:04
and Los Angeles anyway. So maybe that's why they thought
00:22:06
it made sense. They get everybody from the Bay
00:22:08
Area in Los Angeles. There were clearly blind spots
00:22:11
when they turn their attention to areas such as southern part
00:22:13
of San Joaquin Valley. The newly drawn 20th
00:22:16
Congressional District spans from Bakersfield to Clovis, with
00:22:20
an arm reaching out to grab pieces of Tulare, Hanford and
00:22:24
Lemoore Lee Moore. It was redrawn numerous times,
00:22:28
and a lack of community understanding by the
00:22:30
commissioners was painfully evident when they ignored
00:22:33
compelling testimony from Bakersfield and Fresno
00:22:35
highlighting the differences between the two regions.
00:22:39
So that's one of the big problems is that you get these
00:22:44
independent commissioners, great.
00:22:45
If they're not legislators, they're not politicians.
00:22:48
They're not redrawing it. It's not within the state
00:22:50
government. It's outside of the state
00:22:51
government. Sounds great in theory, but the
00:22:56
play out is not great either because a lot of these
00:22:59
commissioners aren't really giving their 100%.
00:23:02
Maybe they're not even getting 50%.
00:23:03
Sounds like some of those people aren't even showing up and they
00:23:06
don't really care at all. But I guess it's the best system
00:23:10
we have. And the fact that they don't
00:23:12
understand most of California and they all came from the Bay
00:23:14
Area and Los Angeles is a problem because then they're,
00:23:18
you can imagine the politics of the people who are drawing lines
00:23:21
for what is a Republican area of California.
00:23:25
And they are from deep blue parts of California.
00:23:27
And they're trying to draw lines that, you know, maybe they end
00:23:30
up benefiting a Democrat here or there.
00:23:32
Maybe we pick up an extra seat here or there.
00:23:34
I, I could see where that where that happens.
00:23:36
Now, what Gavin Newsom is proposing is this idea of
00:23:42
gerrymandering. And this political cartoon that
00:23:44
I have on the screen right now is an old political cartoon from
00:23:48
1812. It has become sort of the symbol
00:23:52
of what gerrymandering is. So in 1812, the Federalist
00:23:57
newspapers in Massachusetts reprinted a cartoon with its
00:24:00
portmanteau of Gerry and salamander, helping the new word
00:24:03
to take off. Although the pronunciation has
00:24:06
changed a lot for over often time.
00:24:08
I didn't actually know this Gary's name is pronounced like
00:24:10
Gary, but Americans now pronounce it like Jerry the
00:24:14
main. The meaning is still mostly
00:24:16
stayed the same. So they basically in 1812, they
00:24:20
created this whole district, this little salamander looking
00:24:25
monster thing that you see on the screen, because the idea was
00:24:28
they wanted to reach out and grab as many Jeffersonian
00:24:32
Democrats as possible so that they could win this district.
00:24:36
And that's where gerrymandering is coming from.
00:24:39
But that's that's what Gavin Newsom is proposing.
00:24:41
Gavin Newsom is proposing quite blatant, kind of right out and
00:24:47
boldly. I want to redraw the lines in
00:24:50
California so I can ram more Democrats into Congress, right?
00:24:55
That's what he wants to do because the the law is a little
00:24:58
shaky on whether or not you can do a mid decade congressional
00:25:02
redrawing. So he wants to get the state
00:25:05
legislature back to approve the redrawing of the line so he can
00:25:08
then make it so the lines benefit Democrats.
00:25:12
Now just think about that for a second.
00:25:14
The party that says they're all about democracy and upholding
00:25:17
the voters rights want to now rig the outcome of these
00:25:22
elections by drawing the districts in their favor.
00:25:26
That's the type of power tripping kind of egomaniac that
00:25:32
Gavin Newsom is, that he wants to just do this with the stroke
00:25:36
of a pan and get the legislature to come back under his
00:25:38
gubernatorial powers and force this to happen so that he can
00:25:42
shove more Democrats into Congress.
00:25:45
Now, I thought it was you win fair and square.
00:25:48
That was it, right? That was the the whole idea was
00:25:51
you win fair and square. Now, I don't agree with
00:25:54
President Trump saying that Republicans should do it in
00:25:57
Texas, but the issue is I live here in California.
00:26:00
And if they're going to redraw districts to benefit Democrats
00:26:03
and shove more Democrats into California, I have a problem
00:26:06
with that, especially from the party that puts them out
00:26:09
themselves out as this high and mighty.
00:26:13
Kind of we're the party of democracy.
00:26:15
We stand for voters rights. We don't want to disenfranchise
00:26:18
any voter. And now Gavin Newsom is quite
00:26:21
literally coming out and disenfranchising voters for the
00:26:24
benefit of his party. So let me know in the comments
00:26:28
what you think about Gavin Newsom and his plan to
00:26:31
gerrymander California so that he can benefit and get more
00:26:36
congressional Democrats and shove more than congressional
00:26:38
Democrats for his benefit and for his party's benefits, not
00:26:41
for the benefit of the voters. All right, do so it says.
00:26:50
I haven't seen that illustration since school days.
00:26:54
That was one of those ones. I know people.
00:26:56
It's kind of like a political cartoon.
00:26:57
You see it, it kind of sticks with you because it's such a
00:27:00
weird looking thing. But then all of a sudden you you
00:27:04
kind of forget whatever. And then you see it again like,
00:27:06
oh, I remember that is from my school days.
00:27:09
I'm sorry. I mean, commissioners.
00:27:11
Yeah. Love all the comments.
00:27:20
Everyone who is here live, the Gavin fatigue is just on
00:27:25
OverDrive. He is.
00:27:29
When I saw this, I was like, this is, you know, win
00:27:32
elections. You know, if I was, I'm not
00:27:35
trying to give advice to Gavin Newsom.
00:27:37
And by the way, Speaking of gubernatorial candidates, if you
00:27:39
haven't checked out the interview that we did on Sunday
00:27:42
with Steve Hilton, go check it out.
00:27:43
It's doing really well. He stopped by for 30 minutes.
00:27:47
We're going to get him again. I know a lot of people have
00:27:50
questions about like some specific things like the Second
00:27:52
Amendment, stuff like that. It was more of a broader kind of
00:27:56
introductory interview because of the 30 minutes.
00:27:58
So I want to hit like broader topics and get sort of an
00:28:00
introduction to him when he's in town.
00:28:03
We're going to we're going to have an in studio in person
00:28:05
interview. So we've already talked about
00:28:07
that. That looks like that's going to
00:28:08
happen. So all right, let's move on to
00:28:12
our next story because I know a lot of people have been asking
00:28:16
me about this story, so this is going to be a good one.
00:28:24
California loves its political or public schools, and they love
00:28:31
their public schools so much they're willing to write in
00:28:34
legislation to effectively kill charter schools.
00:28:40
And this new law that they are trying to pass is effectively
00:28:44
the charter school killer to force people back into public
00:28:48
schools. Let's get into the story.
00:28:51
Turns over a new assembly bill and its impact on local charter
00:28:55
schools. I'm still informing your
00:28:56
community. Reporter in San Luis Obispo
00:28:59
looking into the bill and what it means for charter and non
00:29:03
classroom based schools have passed.
00:29:09
Assembly Bill 84, currently being considered in the state
00:29:12
Senate, seeks to provide more accountability in financial
00:29:15
oversight for schools, specifically charter schools.
00:29:21
Of the legislation, I'm sure, is to just protect public dollars.
00:29:25
Amelia Sheehan and her two kids are a part of the non classroom
00:29:29
Bates Charter school, Heartland Charter School, which overseas
00:29:32
6500 kids across Central California While partnering with
00:29:35
over 270 educational vendors that help kids learn outside the
00:29:39
classroom. Sheehan says those resources are
00:29:42
at risk as a result of the bill. Don't take away student choice.
00:29:46
Don't take away the flexibility of a non classroom based
00:29:49
charter. We need that flexibility, the
00:29:51
ability for our students to really thrive and to become the
00:29:54
best version of themselves as they're in ways they grow up.
00:29:56
The bill partly stems from concerns over the behavior of a
00:29:59
select few charter schools that engaged in misappropriation of
00:30:02
funds or scams, most notably one in San Diego County that saw the
00:30:06
theft of 400 million of taxpayer money from 2016 to 2019.
00:30:10
We all want to crack down on the fraud and abuse of tax dollars.
00:30:15
We also don't want the unintended consequences of
00:30:19
hurting good charter schools to authorize.
00:30:23
I'm going to call BS on that. I think they we'll get into
00:30:29
that. But I I think this new bill is
00:30:33
specifically focused on killing charter schools here in
00:30:37
California. Al Muratsushi made sure to
00:30:40
recognize that most charter schools are beneficial.
00:30:43
With California having the most charter schools out of any other
00:30:46
state, there are good charter schools that provide choice for
00:30:50
students and parents in many communities throughout our
00:30:54
state. Courtney Mccorkle is the.
00:30:56
There are good charter schools that we want to destroy and put
00:31:00
out a business. I'm sorry, did I say that on the
00:31:03
record? Executive Director of Heartland
00:31:05
Charter School and explained they already have a rigorous
00:31:07
accountability system through their authorizing school
00:31:10
district and that much of what they do already involves a great
00:31:13
amount of oversight. There's a lot of accountability
00:31:16
written into this bill. Some of it's already being
00:31:20
required and already being already done through Heartland
00:31:24
and and, but some of it is as new and cumbersome.
00:31:29
Currently there is a moratorium on the establishment of new non
00:31:31
classroom based charter schools through January 1st of 2026,
00:31:35
which began in 2020 for Heartland.
00:31:37
Between oversight fees, more audits and potential changes in
00:31:40
authorizing districts, it could be costly.
00:31:43
Yes, overhead costs are what would be increasing and that
00:31:47
unfortunately would affect how we serve our students.
00:31:52
On Wednesday, the bill will go before the Senate Committee on
00:31:55
Education for the second time. After that, it will head to the
00:31:59
Senate Appropriations Committee and then must pass through the
00:32:03
legislature before September 12th.
00:32:06
All right. So I want to talk about real
00:32:09
quick this AB 84, right? So there's a lot to unpack here.
00:32:16
But in regards to the charter school itself and this whole
00:32:21
kind of notion that it is going after charter schools.
00:32:24
And after you look at this bill and you kind of breakdown what
00:32:27
they're putting on charter schools, there is a lot here
00:32:30
that you look and say, yeah, this is pretty much geared
00:32:33
towards killing charter schools and forcing everybody back into
00:32:36
public schools. So these are some notes I wrote
00:32:39
down is that AB 84 introduces A funding formula that reduces per
00:32:44
student funding for charter schools, not classroom based,
00:32:49
non classroom, basic NCB, non classroom based charter schools
00:32:52
by up to 30%. So 30% is a huge reduction in in
00:32:58
getting those funds based on the percentage of in person
00:33:01
attendance. So they're trying to force it
00:33:04
that it now has to be based on in person attendance.
00:33:07
Although there are charter schools that are specifically
00:33:09
geared towards non classroom based charter schools so that
00:33:14
they help people and children who can't go to classrooms and
00:33:17
they they need this special access.
00:33:19
They need the ability to go to these charter schools and learn
00:33:22
in a probably virtual environment or something like
00:33:24
that. Schools with less than 20% in
00:33:27
person instruction face the steepest cuts.
00:33:31
This targets programs offering independent study.
00:33:33
So again, less than 20% of in person instruction, meaning that
00:33:38
if you have less than 20% of your kids who are actually in
00:33:40
person, they're going to get the steepest cuts.
00:33:42
This targets programs offering independent study, virtual
00:33:45
learning or homeschooling which rely on flexible, non
00:33:50
traditional models. The bill also ends the practice
00:33:53
of allocating enrichment funds to homeschooling families for
00:33:56
activities like tutoring, arts or extracurricular programs
00:34:00
requiring all educational activities to be provided by
00:34:03
credentialed employees or vetted vendors approved by the school's
00:34:07
governing board. So I don't know how you look at
00:34:12
that and go, this is not, this is not specifically geared
00:34:16
towards killing charter schools off and getting rid of them
00:34:19
because it is geared towards these non traditional methods.
00:34:23
They're trying to to kind of shoehorn charter schools and
00:34:28
their eligibility for funding into this public school
00:34:32
paradigm. And the great thing about
00:34:34
charter schools is that they are trying out new methods.
00:34:39
They are experimenting, they are working with children who learn
00:34:42
different and they're trying to force them into this public
00:34:45
school model, which most of them probably can't comply So slowly,
00:34:49
but truly, they're all going to just end up going out of
00:34:51
business. They're going to be forced back
00:34:52
into public school. But the here's the thing about
00:34:55
charter schools and that's why I put the headline, if you can't
00:34:58
beat them, destroy them. And that's, that's my theory as
00:35:03
to why here in California, legislators who love public
00:35:07
school, public school teachers, they love funneling money in
00:35:10
public school. They want you sitting in their
00:35:12
public schools and all that stuff.
00:35:13
The California Teachers Association, huge lobbying group
00:35:16
in Sacramento, they want you in public school.
00:35:19
But why are they so obsessed with charter schools?
00:35:22
Is because charter schools routinely do beat out
00:35:25
traditional public schools. This is a study from CREDO,
00:35:29
which is a university based study that looks at charter
00:35:34
schools and this was its synthesis and conclusions.
00:35:37
This was back in around 2014 based on the findings presented
00:35:41
here. The typical student in Los
00:35:44
Angeles charter school. So they did a study just on Los
00:35:47
Angeles gains more learning in a year than our traditional TPS
00:35:52
traditional public school counterpart, equal to the
00:35:56
additional days in reading and 79 additional days in math.
00:35:59
These positive patterns emerge in students first year of
00:36:02
charter attendance and persist overtime.
00:36:05
Black and Hispanic students in poverty especially benefit from
00:36:09
attendance at charter schools. A substantial share of Los
00:36:12
Angeles charter schools appear to outpace traditional public
00:36:15
schools in how well they support academic learning gains in their
00:36:18
students in both reading and math.
00:36:21
Over 48% Los Angeles charters outpace the learning impacts of
00:36:25
traditional public school and reading, and 44% to do so in
00:36:27
math. Across lunch Los Angeles, about
00:36:30
13% of charter schools have results that are significantly
00:36:33
worse than TPS for reading, and 22% these results to show that
00:36:37
relaxed regulatory environment does not guarantee blah, blah
00:36:40
blah. So this was a study done on
00:36:44
charter schools in Los Angeles, and it showed that a lot of
00:36:48
these students benefited from charter schools almost to the
00:36:52
point of they were getting, you know, dozens of more additional
00:36:55
days and reading and math, and they were actually performing
00:36:59
better. And the most interesting thing
00:37:02
to me about charter schools and private schools and the idea of
00:37:04
school choice, I myself am a proponent of school choice
00:37:08
because I think competition is the best way to ensure that we
00:37:12
get a amazing product when it comes to schooling for our
00:37:15
children. Education for our children, is
00:37:18
this idea of competition. You're not forced into the
00:37:20
monopoly of whatever area or whatever neighborhood you're in.
00:37:26
And to me, when it comes to issues of minorities in low
00:37:30
income neighborhoods, charter schools have been proven by
00:37:32
Harvard studies, by this study, it shows that they do benefit
00:37:36
from the ability to go to these charter schools, to go to
00:37:39
private schools, to benefit from school choice.
00:37:42
One is because they are able to go to a school that is high
00:37:46
performing that they are not forced to go to schools and then
00:37:49
these public schools in their neighborhoods.
00:37:51
I don't think that children should be forced to go to a
00:37:54
school based on their address. I think you should be able to
00:37:57
pick which school you want to go to, whatever school works best
00:38:00
for you. This was another thing that
00:38:05
probably the most important thing.
00:38:08
So outside of the test scores, outside of how much better all
00:38:12
these students are performing when it comes to their going to
00:38:15
charter schools and they are getting into these private
00:38:18
schools and trying out these new methods is the enrollment.
00:38:22
Now, if you remember, let's get back in the Wayback Machine.
00:38:25
About five years ago when there was COVID, a lot of people were
00:38:29
kind of frustrated with the fact that California public schools,
00:38:32
no matter what you, what they did or how many times they
00:38:34
begged, wouldn't reopen. Their kids couldn't go back to
00:38:36
school. And they're getting tired of
00:38:38
their kids going to like virtual classes.
00:38:39
So private school and charter schools start to see their
00:38:43
enrollment spike and this is as of the 2023-2024.
00:38:48
This I think is really where the rubber meets the road and this
00:38:52
is really at the heart of why I think legislators in Sacramento
00:38:55
want to destroy charter schools and want to protect public
00:38:58
schools. As of 2023 and 2024, charter
00:39:02
schools enrolled 728 students, 12.5% California's
00:39:07
public school population across 1280 campuses, up from 685
00:39:14
in 2022 to 2023, despite declining overall public school
00:39:18
enrollment, 5.85 million students.
00:39:21
This growth reflects parental demand for alternatives,
00:39:24
particularly in urban areas like Los Angeles.
00:39:27
Like 15% charter enrollment and in Oakland for 30%.
00:39:34
I mean that that's why I I say if they can't beat them, they
00:39:37
want to destroy them because charter schools are just
00:39:41
outpacing California public schools.
00:39:43
And, and correctly, as someone in the chat might be able to
00:39:45
tell me, I think it's like 47th were 45th, 47th in education,
00:39:51
math and reading. Public schools are absolutely
00:39:54
failing students here in California.
00:39:57
So when you have charter schools and private schools competing
00:40:00
and doing a way better job, and not only that, people are going
00:40:04
and flocking to these charter schools because they like the
00:40:07
idea of sending their kids to a better school.
00:40:10
Getting a better outcome, getting a better return on
00:40:12
investment for the funding. Public schools seen an enormous
00:40:16
decline in enrollment, but more people are going to charter
00:40:19
schools. And obviously those schools, at
00:40:21
public schools, they don't like this.
00:40:24
They don't like this. The state doesn't like it.
00:40:26
The state wants your children in these public schools.
00:40:30
They want you sitting there in these public school curriculums
00:40:32
and all that. They don't want kids to go to
00:40:34
charter schools and private schools and help them learn in
00:40:37
different ways and be more critical thinking.
00:40:39
So I think at the end of it, when charter schools are beating
00:40:43
in test scores and math and reading and all of that, and
00:40:47
they're getting a better quality education at charter schools,
00:40:51
and you're starting to see the decline in attendance at public
00:40:54
schools and an increase in attendance at charter schools,
00:40:58
it all starts to make sense why AB 84 is even making its way
00:41:02
through the legislature right now.
00:41:03
So you can contact your representative.
00:41:06
You can let them know that you are opposed to this.
00:41:08
This is still making its way through.
00:41:09
I think it's got to its second committee reading at this point.
00:41:12
So it's still making its way through, but we'll keep an eye
00:41:14
on it. Let me know in the comments.
00:41:16
What do you think? Why do you think California and
00:41:19
Sacramento want to kill off charter schools?
00:41:22
Do you think it's because of jealousy?
00:41:24
Let me know in the comments. All right, trying out a new soda
00:41:35
water tonight. So been on a big soda water
00:41:38
kick. Someone said yes, homeschooling
00:41:41
is best. That's not an option for most
00:41:42
families or right for all students.
00:41:44
Post schools are designed like a prison for a reason.
00:41:46
It creates pupils willing to be system drones.
00:41:49
Yeah. I mean, you go back how many
00:41:51
years in American history it was, it was a lot of local
00:41:56
schools, local people who did school.
00:41:58
There wasn't this whole top down mentality with schools.
00:42:04
It was it was definitely more community based.
00:42:07
There's more based on the students do not trust the SEIU
00:42:12
union. I never trust any unions.
00:42:16
Most of the time, Yeah. But looking at all the comments,
00:42:20
thanks again for everyone who's tuning in.
00:42:21
There's a whole bunch of people. You're all getting wild and
00:42:23
crazy. If you're listening on audio.
00:42:25
You want to watch us live? It's live every Tuesday at 8:00
00:42:28
PM on YouTube, Instagram Rumble X, whole bunch of places.
00:42:36
And you work with a teacher who is making sure you get the
00:42:38
support you need and they submit records to the state for you.
00:42:41
But again, charters aren't automatically unionized and they
00:42:43
don't have to be. So that's the big thing too.
00:42:48
I was looking into this about the whole idea of of being part
00:42:51
of the union. We talked about the CTA, the
00:42:53
California Teachers Association, one of the most powerful unions
00:42:58
in California. I would I would put it up there
00:43:00
with the SEIU. It is unbelievably powerful.
00:43:03
The amount of money they drop into Democratic politicians
00:43:06
pockets is astounding. If you go and followthemoney.org
00:43:10
and you look up the California Teachers associate, we're
00:43:12
talking about 10s of millions of dollars every single year.
00:43:14
So those union dues that a lot of these public school teachers
00:43:17
are paying into, they go right into Democratic coffers.
00:43:22
Like that's what they it's kind of a you scratch my back, I
00:43:24
scratch your back. So that's what that's what
00:43:28
happens. These unions, then they put
00:43:30
these people into office and then they kind of pass bills
00:43:32
that help the union. Then it just goes back and back
00:43:34
and forth. All right, heading into the last
00:43:36
story of the night. So if you guys have any
00:43:38
questions when we finish up that one at the end of the show, we
00:43:41
can chat and do some more comments and questions.
00:43:43
But this is the final story of the night for us.
00:43:49
You know it's pretty bad when they have to start faking horror
00:43:54
stories about ICE kidnapping people to try and garner
00:43:58
sympathy from people and the general populace, and people
00:44:02
like Karen Bass are even following for it.
00:44:03
So let's get into it. Now at 4A, S LA woman accused of
00:44:10
staging a fake immigration kidnapping is now facing federal
00:44:13
criminal charges. Good afternoon.
00:44:15
This is the KTLA 5 News at 4. I'm John Finoglio.
00:44:19
She allegedly claimed she was being held in a facility near
00:44:22
the border, but the Department of Homeland Security says they
00:44:25
found her at a mall in Bakersfield.
00:44:27
KTLA Sarah Welch joins us from South LA with the story.
00:44:31
Sarah. Hey, John, good afternoon.
00:44:35
The Department of Homeland Security says Julie Calderon
00:44:38
made this whole story up that it was a hoax, that she blamed
00:44:42
federal agents while stocking fear in the community.
00:44:48
Back on June 30th, family and friends of Julie Calderon
00:44:51
claimed she was kidnapped in this Jack-in-the-box parking lot
00:44:54
off Alameda and South LA by federal agents or people working
00:44:57
with them. On uniformed man and unmarked
00:45:00
cars, kidnapped Julian. But the US Attorney's Office
00:45:03
says that was a lie in its criminal complaint.
00:45:06
They say these are photos of Calderon, a citizen of Mexico on
00:45:10
June 25th, parking her Toyota in the fast food parking lot,
00:45:13
getting out and then walking across the street to get into a
00:45:16
another vehicle at this gas station and later driving away.
00:45:20
Days went by and the family set up a GoFundMe to help find her,
00:45:23
and they also filed a missing persons case with LAPD.
00:45:27
She was taken straight from here to the border.
00:45:31
Couple days that's that's the first thing you're focused on is
00:45:34
a GoFundMe page that that kind of that should ring some alarm
00:45:37
bells, right? They're not.
00:45:38
I really care about finding my mother and my family member.
00:45:41
It's we please give us money right away.
00:45:45
Couple days later, right? They I guess they they just
00:45:48
figured they would just go right to the GoFundMe and pressure to
00:45:52
sign self deportation paperwork. Calderon claims.
00:45:57
To assign to that, if you're going to get someone to protest
00:46:00
on a corner, they better have a little bit more charisma than
00:46:02
this guy. Used another person's cell phone
00:46:05
to say she was taken to a warehouse at an unknown
00:46:08
location. But federal investigators say
00:46:10
that was also a lie. And when we asked LAPD, all they
00:46:14
would tell us is that they had closed the missing persons
00:46:16
investigation. Federal investigators say
00:46:19
Calderon was never in federal custody.
00:46:21
And on July 4th, they located her with this woman at a parking
00:46:25
lot in Bakersfield. Investigate.
00:46:29
Last time I checked, Bakersfield is still in the United States of
00:46:32
America. In fact, it's still in
00:46:34
California. So I don't think she's self
00:46:38
deported anywhere to Mexico because, you know, I, I, as
00:46:44
opposed to some people who don't know anything about California
00:46:46
geography, Bakersfield is still in California, which is still in
00:46:50
the United States of America. She stuck to her story.
00:46:54
She'd been kidnapped. And these are photos
00:46:56
investigators say Calderon created to make it appear as if
00:46:59
she was in custody and being mistreated.
00:47:01
But the US Attorney's Office says she orchestrated the phony
00:47:04
kidnapping to generate public sympathy and solicit donations.
00:47:11
Now, the US Attorney's office released this statement saying
00:47:14
dangerous rhetoric that ICE agents are kidnapping illegal
00:47:17
immigrants is being recklessly peddled by politicians and
00:47:20
echoed in the media to inflamed the public and discredit our
00:47:23
courageous federal agents. He went on to say in terms of
00:47:27
this case, all those involved will face the full consequences
00:47:31
of their conduct under federal law.
00:47:33
Now, Calderon has lived in LA for more than 20 years.
00:47:37
She's charged with conspiracy and making false statements to
00:47:40
federal aid. So far, no one else has been
00:47:43
charged in this case, but the US attorney's office says this case
00:47:46
is ongoing. We did reach out to Calderon's
00:47:49
family and the family attorney, but we haven't heard back yet.
00:47:54
Sam, we'll set it back to you. Sarah.
00:47:56
Thank you. So this is the problem when you
00:48:00
worry so much about scoring political points and taking
00:48:04
advantage of a hot button. Issue is, there are people out
00:48:08
there who will grift off of this and Karen Bass, who you know,
00:48:14
never misses an opportunity for a publicity stunt or to try and
00:48:17
score political points because she's got to distract from the
00:48:20
fact that Palisades is still not being rebuilt.
00:48:23
Altadena is not being rebuilt. Any of those places are not
00:48:25
being rebuilt as fast as possible.
00:48:27
And as much as she tries to say homelessness is going down, the
00:48:29
numbers don't really pan out the way she thinks they do.
00:48:32
This is a real tweet by her where she goes.
00:48:35
She's a mother from LA, taken out of her car on her way to
00:48:39
work and then held in a warehouse as officers hoped she
00:48:43
would self deport. No hearing, just fear.
00:48:47
That doesn't make anyone safe. It was all a lie.
00:48:52
It was all a big fat lie. It was all a ploy.
00:48:56
It was all she did it she got into a car, she left that car
00:49:01
there to make it look like she got kidnapped or picked up or
00:49:04
somehow that's the story that got out.
00:49:07
Wow. I wonder how that story got out.
00:49:08
She probably already planned that with some people to make it
00:49:11
look like that was going to be the story and they were going to
00:49:13
spread that out in these protests or whatever.
00:49:17
And now she put out those fake pictures of her making it look
00:49:21
like she was held at some warehouse.
00:49:22
And then conveniently, 2 days later, they set up a GoFundMe.
00:49:26
So it seems like it was pretty well orchestrated and they knew
00:49:29
what they were doing. They're going to take advantage
00:49:31
of all of this. But word to the wise, federal
00:49:35
law enforcement's pretty smart and they have ways of kind of
00:49:38
figuring this stuff out. They may have thought they were
00:49:41
being really ingenious in doing this, but now they were caught
00:49:45
in Bakersfield and now she's facing these conspiracies and,
00:49:48
you know, lying to federal agents and all this stuff.
00:49:50
So she tried to think she was going to get rich quick off of
00:49:52
this GoFundMe and trying to garner sympathy for this whole
00:49:56
ICE and immigrant raids and all that stuff.
00:50:00
Didn't work, backfired completely.
00:50:02
But this isn't the only story. Like I said, this is a hot
00:50:05
button issue. So there's going to be people
00:50:07
who are going to take advantage of this because people are so
00:50:10
emotionally charged when they hear these stories that they
00:50:14
automatically fly into a blind rage about it.
00:50:18
They don't look into it. They don't really kind of do
00:50:20
some digging and go, oh, wait a second, wait a second.
00:50:22
It's kind of like the story with the raid on the cannabis farm
00:50:25
where they were so upset about what's going on the cannabis
00:50:27
farm. Then it kind of came out.
00:50:29
There was children, there were minors who were working on the
00:50:32
cannabis farm, and that made them look really kind of dumb.
00:50:34
So I've always said, Democrats, they're about 24 hours behind
00:50:40
how long they should wait to actually do something.
00:50:42
They love to rush to a podium whenever stuff like this
00:50:45
happens. And then 24 hours later, they
00:50:47
have egg on their face because they're so concerned about
00:50:50
scoring political points that they don't wait until all the
00:50:52
facts come out. So this was another story from
00:50:55
Bill Malujian from Fox LA. It appears another hoax has been
00:51:01
attempted. Members of an A2 year old
00:51:04
Chilean man in Pennsylvania went to the media claiming ICE
00:51:08
arrested him while renewing a greeting card in Philly, that he
00:51:11
died in ICE custody, that then he secretly deported to
00:51:15
Guatemala. The story went viral online.
00:51:18
It appears to have all been made-up by the family, which has
00:51:20
since gone dark and stopped responding to the press.
00:51:23
Here's what happened since the story first ran in The Morning
00:51:26
Call in Allentown, PA newspaper. I used to work at a radio
00:51:30
station in Allentown, PA, so I know exactly where this is.
00:51:34
Records in Chile show a man with the same name and date of birth
00:51:37
died in Chile in 2019. Guatemala says they have no
00:51:41
record of him being deported to their country.
00:51:44
DHS says there's no record of him appearing at any green card
00:51:47
appointment in the Philly area, and they say ICE never arrested
00:51:50
him. DHS says they never deport him
00:51:53
and their only record of him entering the US is in 2015 from
00:51:56
Chile via the Visa Waiver Program, not an asylum grant
00:51:59
from the 1980s as the family claim.
00:52:01
His granddaughter claimed he was sick in a Guatemalan hospital
00:52:04
with pneumonia after ICE deported him and that he was
00:52:07
traumatized after first claiming he was dead.
00:52:10
So he was traumatized after he was dead.
00:52:12
That's what they were claiming. Again, you got to get your
00:52:15
stories a little bit straighter. You got to, you know, if you're
00:52:17
going to try and pull the wool over the eyes of federal law
00:52:19
enforcement, you got to get your story straight.
00:52:21
A doctor, a hospital she claimed he was at, says there is no
00:52:24
record of him even being there. So this is what we're going to
00:52:30
start seeing is people taking advantage of this.
00:52:33
They're going to try and say, my relative was taken, They were
00:52:36
kidnapped in the night. You know, you're starting to
00:52:38
hear these ludicrous stories of people just getting nabbed in
00:52:41
parking lots and people in grocery stores now they're going
00:52:44
up and down grocery aisles. They're popping out of the
00:52:46
freezer section. You know, you're going to grab
00:52:47
ice cream and a nice agent pops out and grabs you and deports
00:52:50
you. Like, these are the stories that
00:52:52
are going viral online because people are so absolutely
00:52:55
emotionally charged about this that they don't take the couple
00:52:59
hours that it takes to actually sit and go in.
00:53:01
Maybe we should let the facts come out about this story before
00:53:05
we jump to any sort of conclusion, Including the mayor
00:53:08
of Los Angeles herself. Karen Bass couldn't wait 24
00:53:11
hours to actually see what the facts were.
00:53:15
And now she came out and looked stupid because she supported a
00:53:19
woman who is now being charged with a federal crime of lying,
00:53:22
lying to federal law enforcement and conspiracy, who was just
00:53:25
trying to, what it looks like to me, raise money through a
00:53:30
GoFundMe and through the sympathy of all these ICE and
00:53:33
immigration raids that are happening.
00:53:35
So at the end of the day, but I think the most important thing
00:53:39
that Billa Saley was the US attorney up there in Los Angeles
00:53:42
brought up these kind of stories that people are fabricating
00:53:46
because they want to get some sort of personal gain or they
00:53:49
want to go viral or something like that.
00:53:50
It is putting ICE and law enforcement in a dangerous
00:53:55
position because it is making them out to be more dangerous
00:53:59
than what is really happening on the ground.
00:54:03
And that's the real kind of tragedy here is that all of
00:54:06
these fake stories are really putting everyday law enforcement
00:54:11
in the crosshairs because now people are getting so fed.
00:54:15
You know, they're fed all of these viral stories about people
00:54:18
getting kidnapped in parking lots and this guy who they sent
00:54:21
back to Guatemala and he's had pneumonia and he's traumatized
00:54:24
and all that stuff. Then you see a story like we saw
00:54:27
in New York City this past week where an agent is getting shot
00:54:31
in the face by someone in New York City because of the hatred
00:54:36
and all of the fear that is being stoked.
00:54:38
So that's the most dangerous thing, I think.
00:54:40
Forget the fact that they're trying to grift and trying to do
00:54:43
these GoFundMe so they can raise some money for themselves.
00:54:45
That to me is the the saddest thing is that they are creating
00:54:49
this kind of illusion of what is really happening out there in
00:54:53
the real world. So, you know, let me know in the
00:54:56
comments what you think about this and whether or not these
00:55:00
viral stories, are they going to increase?
00:55:03
Are they going to get more out of control?
00:55:04
Are they going to get more outrageous?
00:55:06
Just let me know in the comments what you think.
00:55:09
All right, couple minutes left before we sign off for the
00:55:14
night. Yes, the CEO of In and Out is
00:55:19
moving to Tennessee. So I said I'm tired of my tax
00:55:22
money being wasted. I'm right there with you, man.
00:55:25
I am right there with you. So I can add that to the
00:55:29
podcast. Here we go talking about Elian
00:55:33
Gonzalez. Oh, Elian Gonzalez.
00:55:36
Yeah, that was that was a that's a throwback.
00:55:41
If you remember Elian Gonzalez, that was the Clinton
00:55:44
administration, that was the little boy in Florida that they
00:55:48
just kind of ran in and grabbed in the house or something like
00:55:50
that. Flashbacks to the Florida boy
00:55:53
and the kind of. Yeah, Elian Gonzalez.
00:55:57
Let's see, Ocean's Four. Yeah, that could be the new
00:56:01
Ocean's 11 trying to defraud people by setting up a GoFundMe.
00:56:11
New Baltimore man just dropped S LA woman that excellent point.
00:56:15
Yeah, you guys been brought up, which is new.
00:56:18
If you remember, the Baltimore man was all the rage.
00:56:20
Now it's the South LA woman who they're going to find out.
00:56:24
She none of this ever happened. And she even fabricated photos
00:56:29
to make it look like she was being abused in these fit in
00:56:31
these warehouses, these like ice warehouses where they they keep
00:56:35
people. No due process, right?
00:56:40
Do just checking out if you guys have any more comments or
00:56:44
questions. We got a couple more minutes
00:56:45
before we sign off. Thanks to everyone who joined us
00:56:48
live. Like I said, we do this every
00:56:51
Tuesday at 8:00 PM. Go check out the Steve Hilton
00:56:54
interview. Some people were talking about
00:56:55
Chad Bianco. We're going to get through
00:56:59
different candidates. I'm sure we'll get Bianco on.
00:57:02
Bianco's already been on. This was before he ran, so
00:57:05
definitely go check that out. But we're going to try and get
00:57:08
him back on as well. We're trying to get some other
00:57:10
candidates as well, maybe across the aisle, see if they come on
00:57:14
as well and kind of maybe hold their feet to the fire and
00:57:16
question them about some stuff. If they want to come on, I'll
00:57:19
ask them questions. Literals are emotionally charged
00:57:23
over their selective rage. Yeah, when you get so kind of
00:57:27
caught up in a lot of this stuff, it is you do see it
00:57:31
through a different lens of like you react emotionally first and
00:57:35
then that clouds your judgement and your ability to actually
00:57:38
think. And I can see why people are.
00:57:44
I can see why people fall for it because there is so much kind of
00:57:47
fear and trepidation happening that these people thought that
00:57:52
they could scam the system by playing on that emotion in that
00:57:58
fear. All right, let's see if there's
00:58:01
any more comments. Thanks to everyone who tuned in
00:58:04
tonight. We got a lot of people who were
00:58:05
very chatty in the chat. All right, thanks to everyone.
00:58:22
As I was saying, everyone in the chat and thank you everyone for
00:58:24
being live. This was our weekly podcast
00:58:27
episode. We go over a couple news
00:58:29
stories. We're going to keep doing more
00:58:31
videos and more one off stuff like this as well.
00:58:34
So if you enjoy the podcast, best thing you can do that
00:58:38
supports the podcast is make sure you like share, subscribe,
00:58:41
review. The best way you can support the
00:58:44
show that is 100% free is you can share it with someone who
00:58:48
you think will benefit from this, like it, enjoy it and want
00:58:52
to learn from it. So with that, we will see it on
00:58:55
the next one later.