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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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here weekday afternoon is on the Drive. He was born in Iran. Karami

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and his family left the country when
he was sixteen, lived in Mexico for

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two years, and wound up at
the University of San Diego with a BA

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in finance. He's now the editor
of the Southern California edition of The Epic

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Times. Karami has produced a new
documentary called Leaving California The Untold Story.

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Let's just start. We've been reading
a little bit about this Siamic for a

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while, but let's just start with
how did you get to this topic after

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all of the meandering you've done around
the planet? Well, thank you,

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Lee for having me on, and
I wanted to talk to you. I

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wanted to So it's interesting, like
I've lived in all these countries and when

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I came here in California, I
really trusted the media and the govern myth

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and the last thing I could picture
myself is getting involved with the media.

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So as most of us as immigrants, when we come here, you know

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this is this is the best country
in the world, and you know,

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we trust the system and we trust
the media, and in the last decade,

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I saw that things are changing the
state that I know. It's changing

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with crime. I had specific examples
where a lot of homelessness, crime is

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getting out of control. And I
started getting more involved in the media.

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And twenty seven percent of Californians are
immigrants compared to the rest of the mission

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which is fourteen percent. And I
realized I was left out even though I

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was very informed. I'm an entrepreneur
at the started businesses, and I realized

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that there was the problem here.
And I've interviewed about three hundred people on

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my show called California Insider. I
realized the state has a lot of problems.

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And then through the process of looking
at at the same time the trend

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of exodus. There was a mass
exodus. There's been a mass exodus of

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the state. I was like,
Okay, why are these people leaving?

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So we went in underground to dive
in to figure out why these people are

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leaving, and what we found was
amazing. It was it was unbelievable,

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and you documented all in your documentary
Leaving California, The Untold Story. Let's

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talk about some of these You mentioned
crime, but education you said is also

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becoming a problem in California. Education
is a big problem, and we are

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spending more than double, like we're
spending almost twenty three thousand dollars per student

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per year compared to ten years ago. Ten years ago, we were spending

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less than ten thousand dollars per student
per year. And the results, the

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proficiency is the same ten years ago, and it's very bad. About thirty

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percent of kids here can read in
the public schools at grade level to the

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disaster imagine three and kids can can
read that grade level and and nobody's talking

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about it. You know, it's
it's it's and sometimes are leaving because they're

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fed up with it. On top
of it, there's a lot of things

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in the school system that should not
be in the school system. Parents are

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frustrated with the fact that a lot
of things that are happening in the school

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systems that are not told about,
like the sex education and other things that

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But we we actually in this documentary
we went after all the things that everybody

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can agree on, which is that
the proficiency rates, and then we dove

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deeper to find out why is it
this way, and we kind of uncovered

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the unions and their influence on the
California government. See Karami is the producer

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of leaving California. You're the untold
story. Another is the cost of living

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One of the things we are seeing
firsthand here in Oklahoma siamic because many people

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are relocating here to Oklahoma because they
can sell their property in California with make

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a lot of money off of it
and can afford two and three houses in

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Oklahoma. Yeah, that's true,
and I'm sorry that it hasn't caused a

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problem yet. I haven't seen a
lot of the California sensibilities import with the

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with the people who are coming in. You know, the thing that's happened

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here. When I came here,
they would call it a sunshine tax.

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You know, everything is a lot
more expensive. You're in California, and

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you kind of think you're told this
is the sunshine tax, but nobody talks

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about why did this way? And
then the sunshine tax has been growing up

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and up and up in the last
and years. So coast of energy here

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it's thirty four cents per culo at
hour for electricity compared to fourteen cents national

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average, more than all cost of
gas here is almost forty percent higher than

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the rest of the nation. And
when these two things are higher, everything

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else gets more expensive. There is
these hidden taxes on energy because we want

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we have very extreme climate policies.
We want to solve the climate problems of

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the whole world, so we have
made everything a lot more expensive, and

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housing is another component to it.
Housing itself is significantly higher than the rest

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of nation. And California government talks
about solving their problems, but they're actually

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at the same time passing laws,
like they're mandating new homes to have solar

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panels on them, which would make
them to forty thousand dollars more expensive.

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At the same time, they're passing
laws that are making housing a lot more

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extensive. So there is a sense
of disconnect between the leadership of this state

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and the problems that they're trying to
solve and the problems that average people have,

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which we got to the conclusion of
seeing all of that in the documentary.

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The documentary is called Leaving California The
Untold Story Seamic Korami as the producer.

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He works with the Epic Times,
and that's another thing I wanted to

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touch on. Maybe you can correct
me if I'm wrong. There's a sensibility

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in California, whether it's northern California
or southern California. I think it's a

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sensibility that is derived from California weather. It is always beautiful in California,

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always sunny, always seventy two.
People spend a lot of time outdoors.

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There is no discernible winter where people
are cooped up for a long period of

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time indoors, So they go out. They enjoy these mountains, they enjoy

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these beaches, they enjoy this weather, and they don't want anything to happen

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to it. So they have no
problem paying all these extra taxes you site,

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because the government is going to preserve
all of this for them. Is

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that the sensibility or am I a
little off kilter? Yeah, we're kind

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of We're not paying enough attention.
You know. The thing is, if

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you look at Californians, we are
innovative, we are business oriented, we

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do we work hard. At the
same time, we have this outdoor environment.

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We enjoy it. We've trusted the
state, the politics and the laws

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and the state. We've trusted the
state leaders to manage the state and were

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we don't really know whether the root
of root cause of our problems, and

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we also are told so there's ballot
initiatives. When when we go back to

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crime, there was a ballot initiative
called Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act. It's

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uh, this ballot initiative actually legalized
best in California under nine hundred and fifty

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dollars. But we were told it's
Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act. So we

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voted for it. And at the
same time that we're not paying attention.

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It seems like there is a movement
in the state that there's all these laws

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that are passing based on different special
interests, are different ideologies that are kind

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of parroting us. So you're totally
right about the weather being the way it

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is and us being so disconnected because
it's not that we it's not that we

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cannot fix these things, because we
innovate a lot. We have a lot

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of businesses here, we're entrepreneurial.
It's like, I think it's because we

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are not looking into that. Well. Seeama Karami, the documentary is leaving

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California the Untold Story. We don't
mind your visiting if you decide to relocate

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to Oklahoma, just don't bring those
sensibilities. With you, We're going to

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try to see if we can help
change these things in this state here in

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Castling Up. We like our cars, We like our oil. Thanks for

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listening to Later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to

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listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons
from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation