KM I am sixty. You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand on
the iHeartRadio app. Chris Mariland from O Kelly give it an eye on that
standoff. That's good times, good time with the standoff. Who doesn't love
a good stand up, huh? I know I do. I'm a big
fan of it, big big fan. So anyway, we'll give an eye
on what's going on there that the everybody's standing off fighting one another. Meanwhile,
travel continues by the air air travel. I don't if you're unfamiliar,
and well, we'll connect on what's going on with the standoff here. As
I see what's going on, I'm trying to keep an eye on it.
But honestly, listen, my Internet is like the whole strings on a tin
can thing going on right now. So behind the scenes, listen, I
sung calm, cool and collected, but behind the scenes kind of freaking out
as we speak. So I wanted to talk about this briefly, is what
I had in my notes, and I'm I'm just going to kind of forge
forward as we watch what else is going on, and I'm going to rely
on ron Or to jump in if he has to. Is that once again,
we've got another airline issue. Now. There were some internet issues with
some of the airports this morning, which delayed things all day long. But
then there was this Imagine that you are on a flight, and I've always
imagined how wonderful it would be. I don't know why, strange thoughts to
slide down one of those emergency slides. I get such a kick out of
those things. I don't know why, but I do. So. Imagine
that you're in New York and you're headed back here, right, so you're
about to jump in in the plane, and the plane takes off and everything's
fine, and then you're in the air, and I can tell you this
is not when it's supposed to happen. You're in the air and the emergency
slide deploys YEP. Typically frowned upon, not something to give somebody a whole
lot of comfort, which was the case with Delta Airlines this morning. The
FAA is investigating another incident in the sky. This morning. A Delta flight
carrying one hundred and sixty seven passengers had to turn around after departing JFK Airport
due to an emergency equipment malfunction. The plane was headed to LA, but
it returned after about thirty minutes. Delta says the emergency slide had separated from
the air. They say, what, no one? Aaircraft landed safely.
Everything was fine. After take off, the crew observed a flight deck indication
related to the right wing emergency exit slide, as well as a non routine
sound from the rear right wing. That non routine sound would have been the
screaming of passengers as they watch a piece of the wing deployed so the slide
falls off. As the thing is in the air, a couple of things
come to mind. Right The obvious is, oh my god, we're all
going to die. That's first. Foremost. Second is when you start thinking
about the people on the ground. Look, there are freak accidents. In
fact, last week there was an issue with NASA. I don't know if
you caught this. NASA had a piece of their International Space Station fell out
of the space and crashed through somebody's roof and lodged itself in the wall.
They later determined it was like a giant battery. I say giant, not
like the size of a car battery, but definitely larger than a D battery.
It was meaty. It was a sizeable, chunky battery that came out
and it right on through the ceiling and lodged itself in the wall. And
I immediately thought, my god, what is the worst way to die.
That's got to be one of the worst freak accidents anyone could imagine. Right
then I got to thinking about suppose you're on your way to work and you're
driving along the New York I don't know roads in New York, turned Pike,
New York Way, the whatever, and then you are smothered by an
emergency slide. If and this is where I always get a little bit confused,
if you are if you are a victim of an emergency slide crashing through
the roof of your vehicle and it crushes you, is that considered irony?
Right? Because it's an emergency slide is meant to save lives and then you're
dead. That didn't happen, Thank god, did not happen. Air traffic
control audio obtained by the news station there in New York captured when the pilot
communicated that the plane was heading back to JFK, saying Delta five twenty.
Yeah, we got an indication light that the right wing flight latch on the
door. One of the latches is showing an open indication. So yeah,
we plan on returning back to Kennedy and having them take a look at it,
saying we are starting to get a little bit of vibration on that right
side. We're not declaring an emergency this, but we'd like to return back
to Kennedy as soon as possible. Seems kind of emergency like to me,
And I know what you're thinking. I don't know what you're thinking. I'm
just hoping that you and I are thinking the same thing. You're thinking,
is this another Boeing incident? And I think that's a really good question.
You know what's funny is that the stories I found about this, this lax
bound Delta flight that had the emergency slide fly off after it had taken off,
what I found was, Yep, it's a Boeing. Yep, sure
enough. Now look full disclosure. I bought Boeing stock a number of years
ago because I was told that Boeing stock always makes money. Even when Boeing
has disasters, Boeing rebounds and makes money because they have these giant government contracts.
They're one of only two major producers of aircraft and so going tends to
do really well. This was a seven sixty seven, by the way,
for you air nerds, a seven sixty seven to three hundred twin jet as
it were. I'm gonna say, not a good look for the Boeing manufacturing
company, frowned upon when you have doors, not doors, old doors that
were welded on, and then the welds come loosen, the door falls off,
and then you have people making that funny look like they do in their
skydiving or their their cheek sculpe flying back. So you've got that going for
you. Uh, and then what wheels falling on? We had a wheel
fall off a few weeks ago, and now we've got the emergency slide is
exploding off of the wing. This is not a great way to end your
week. Not a great way, not just for Boeing, but for any
of the passengers. Now funny side note, coincidentally, I have to drop
my wife off at the airport at six o'clock tomorrow morning. She will be
in a Boeing, So I did make sure premiums are paid. We're we're
up to snuff on that, We're ready to go. So it should anything
happen, I guess Dinners on me. You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly
on demand from KFI AM six forty. This is the worst. I think
you sound like you should be recording Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album right now. That's
good, that's really smart. I like that deep cut. Oh my gosh,
I'm having the worst time. My sound card died. My my internet
is garbage. It's an impressive day of just everything going wrong all at once.
I'm here for you. Thanks, buddy, I appreciate you. What's
the deal on the standoff? I was I had it open and that I
was trying to fix my internets. I'm not seeing it on the TV right
now. I've got went to commercial. Channel five doesn't have it, and
my other TV's on CNN. So we'll we're taking that scar a breather from
the standoff. Fix that, Hey, sa, I'll get on it.
Anything else, you need something to eat? Are you hydrated? You need
to stay hydrated? Thank god, I have you here. I missed that
voice. It's been a while. I know, I know, I was
really looking forward to this and every now and again on that Sunday show,
I'll have a little bit of a hiccup on the internets, and I contacted
Cocks and they're like, hello, may I have your name? I'm like,
yeah, it's Chris Merrill and they go, I'm waiting for your name.
Oh, you sons of guns. I'll put you in your place.
Yeah, and then let's see, I just got this. Would you like
a tective visit. I can check the slots for you. There may be
a possible charge of seventy five dollars if the issue is on your end.
There will be no charge for you if it's on our end. Yeah,
yeah, check this slots. Yeah. So this is a this is a
high quality radio program we're putting forth right now. Who does the thing is?
Is that sometimes when this stuff goes wrong, all of a sudden,
it will just magically clear right up. I don't get it. Well,
look, you and I can pretend we're kids doing that thing with the cans
on the piece of string across the street from each other. It'll just be
you and me. Nobody else is listening. Yeah, that's kind of what
it feels like, too, right. I'm literally holding the like the team's
camera up to my mustache. If you take a photo of this fancy.
Oh, it's so bad. Just like Star Trek. I was covering on
my day job. I was covering some of these protests that people are doing
on the college campuses, and I saw that, you know, USC has
decided we're going to cancel all of our commencement ceremony. And I thought good,
because the last thing was that the valedictorian was and she was pro Palestinian,
and so they were other people. They were telling other people they didn't
have to come in and get their honorary degrees and they shouldn't come speak and
all this kind of stuff. And then I see that there's another demonstration encampments
at UCLA and happening all over the country. And I'm fascinated by this because
there seems to be two schools of thought. It's either, yeah, the
protesters are right on, yeah, good stand up for what you believe in.
Or it's the protesters are anti Semits and they hate America and they want
death to America. And there's really no nuance left in America, is there.
I think it's not really an either or situation, and there is some
nuance to be had, but people aren't treating it that way. The Daily
Show. The Daily Show had a fantastic segment on it last night where they
pointed out, you know, can can universities ever do anything without cracking down
on people? And just from my own I was a history student, along
with a few other things, did we learn anything from Vietnam? Anything at
all? And we learned at the other thing that struck me? And I
made that same comment to a respected colleague of mine today and he said,
listen, Vietnam was different. That was a war we shouldn't have been in.
That was a different situation altogether. We don't have any troops in Israel
and we're probably not going to have any going into Gaza. And I went,
I don't know about that. He said, we don't need to.
We have drones. Well, taking the moral high ground there, Yeah,
okay. There was a really interesting commentary that I read in the morning newsletter
from the New York Times, and it had to do with Arnold Kling,
who's an economist, and he published a book, they said, a decade
ago that offered a way to think about the core difference between the progressives and
conservatives. He said, progressive see the world as a struggle between the oppressor
and the oppressed, and they try to help the oppressed. Conservatives see,
the world is a struggle between civilization and barbarism, between order and chaos,
and the product they try to protect civilization. And so one of the things
that strikes me when it comes to the protests about Hamas is they say,
you people who are supporting Palestine, you're celebrating the murders on October seventh,
Right, That struck me as absolute. Is there no room to acknowledge an
overkill of civilian deaths without being called an anti Semite? That was my question.
Okay, certain nuanced? Whatsoever? I actually I've got to tell you,
without taking sides or anything, I am heartened that college students are taking
a moral stand and popping their heads up from their smartphones about something else going
on the world, in the world that's not directly affecting their lives. I'm
kind of proud that this has happened for once. Yeah, so there is
that piece that should be celebrated. However, I do run into the there
are the people screaming death to Israel from the river to the sea, all
that stuff. Right, He's like, maybe just tone it down, like
know your own nuances. But again, we're not in a world of nuance,
right, No, And there's always going to be extremists and troublemakers and
anarchists in any kind of movement like that. I mean anything I've ever covered
as a reporter. I mean, there were reasonable people in the wto riots,
and there were the ones smashing the Starbucks windows, and they always kind
of dragged the debate and the attention toward them when it shouldn't be. Yeah,
but that's the easiest way to argue. It's just find the most extreme
example. Zero went on that as an example of what everyone's doing. Yeah,
and it's up to the adults in the room not to do that.
Where are those Can you point them out to me? There's none in this
room. Yeah, that's that's what we run into. There don't seem to
be any all right. I'm going to see if I can plug a different
microphone in because this is garbage. You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on
Demand from KFI AM six forty. I don't know if this one's any better?
Is it a little better? I think you sound a little better a
little bit. Still sounds like I'm in the bathtub. Bad deal. Man
of it. We got this. I appreciate you. You're a good man.
All right. So where was I? We had Palestine? Yeah,
nuances? Oh yeah, yeah, here's another. There's another onegream. I
don't know if he caught this. So the La Times had a story that
was talking about the bane of retail to prevent theft, Many big chains now
lock up all kinds of merchandise. And that sounds ominous, doesn't it.
But if you've been to a store or lately, and it also depends on
which neighborhood you're in, but if you've been to a story, you know
that sometimes weird things get locked up. Have you been? I mean,
what's the strangest thing for me? It's it's where they lock up the underwear.
And I think hm are boxer thefts on the rise underwear underwear? Is
there grand theft briefs going on? I don't know. And if it goes
to court until the lawyers have to file a stop, don't do it.
So so this article was talking about all this this locked up stuff and deodorant.
I think razor blades are gonna be locked up for probably the rest of
our lives because they're easy to steal right there. They have value and you
can pocket those really easily. Yeah, those things are as expensive as saffron
and printer ink. And I can't believe how expensive they are. That's insane.
And I made the mistake. I got the TMU ones. And the
problem with the Timu razors they cut more skin than they do hair. They're
bad. What are Tu razors? It's like, have you not been on
Timu? No? Oh, Mark, I'm missing beautiful man. Apart from
having the flesh flensed from my skeleton. Well, you're definitely missing out on
that. Uh, wish have you done wish? No? I haven't done
that either, but you know what it is. Yeah, I'm aware of
it. Okay. So Timu's like wish. It's like, here's a bunch
of junk from China. We'll ship it to you and uh, and you
can save a whole bunch of money. It'll probably fall apart by the time
it gets there. Who could resist, right, But when you see razors
that are thirty of them for the price of one Gillette razor, you think
it's worth a shot. And they last about I would say I get like
two shavings out each each one of them. They're bad, So I don't
recommend, but what they're saying is well. The true severity and scope of
the problem remain an enduring mystery of the free market, as national chains eagerly
point to retail theft is a key drag on profits, but are reticent to
publicly discuss internal numbers on shrink huh. They won't talk about it publicly,
or or specifics on anti theft measures. According to the Murkiness, the issue
has become more politicized in recent years, as some voters and elected officials in
Los Angeles, San Francisco and other city centers clamor for a response to what
they are seeing as a worsening problem. So is retail theft getting worse?
It depends what do you want to believe, Because if you want to say
it's getting worse, the politicians are happy to tell you it's getting much worse.
If you want to look at statistics, you're going to be very disappointed.
Yeah. I looked at the whole fact checking and here's what the Renan
Center for Justice says. Broader claims about trends and retail theft have not panned
out. Walgreens, for example, cited spikes and shoplifting as an explanation for
falling profits and store closures. The claim has since been retracted. Hold on,
it's since been retracted. I thought this was a growing problem. I
thought this was the bane of retail, as is the headline in the La
Times, the bane of retail, And yet they've retracted that claim. Target
blamed theft for a rash of store closures, but in an analysis showed that
according to the limited data available, because again they shroud all of their actual
numbers and mystery, Target closed stores in Portland and Seattle that had less crimes
than stores that were not closing. I should also point out I think they
should say fewer crimes, but we're just gonna go with less crime. CNBC
in September of last year, cast dout on retailer claims about the impact of
theft, noting that certain retailers have pulled back from blaming organized theft as a
primary cause of losses, in fact to the extent that it can be replied
upon industry data, says the recent national spike in retail theft, it's just
not there. Retail shrink is held steady since twenty fifteen, So why do
we keep pushing this whole lie. Look, here's the headline from the La
Times from early twenty twenty three. I think it was March retailer setting theft
lost one hundred and twelve billion dollars in inventory in twenty twenty two USA today
from the middle of last year. Retail theft and other factors drained billions from
stores in twenty twenty two. And here's what Reuters had this in June.
I think of last year, organized retail crime a multi billion dollar problem.
And they said, quoting a retail source, it's costing seventy billion dollars a
year. But as Marie Povich would say, that was a lie. So
what's going on. It's it's a very convenient lie. I guess that the
politicians can push because who you gonna believe, those geeky statisticians or your eyes.
And here's a TikTok showing you all of the crime that's growing. Look,
growing crime, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, growing crime,
organized crime. If you walk by an Apple store, you'll see people that
are stealing iPads, iPhones, and I don't even know what else. If
you go into a Greens you'll see a young man on a bicycle who's just
pulling items off the shelf and riding out the door. All of these things,
mind you, did happen. But are all of these things constantly happening.
They're not. The numbers just aren't there. And then I was reading
an article caw Matters had let me see Wednesday. So the cow Matters article
says that listen, these petty thefts and these and these drug offenses are on
the way up. They're not, but they're on the way up because of
Proposition forty seven. You know what that is, right, that's the one
where they raised the threshold between a a misdemeanor and a felony and I had
to be over one thousand dollars. And they said Prop forty seven is the
reason for the uptick in crime. Just another example of how California politicians are
ruining America. But it's not there. This notion of raising things up to
one thousand dollars for something to go from a misdemeanor to a felony. The
narrative is, well, now you've got criminals that know that they can steal
up to one thousand dollars. And then uh, and so that's what they're
doing. Do they take calculators in with them? I'm glad you brought that
up. How many of these people do you suppose are walking through there with
one of those old school cash registers chi chin ju chtin None. When they
go into the Apple Store and they start ripping things off the walls, do
you think they're going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Don't get the iPhone fifteen that's a base retail price of twelve ninety nine.
You're gonna have to go to the older model that's been reduced in price down
to nine. None. No, of course they're not any want more evidence?
I love this. I was doing a show in Dallas a few months
ago and they were on about how California retail crime is on the way up
and it's a disaster in society's falling apart and all this other stuff. And
I actually had a caller that said, well, this is because they put
in Prop forty seven. And I said, oh, that's the one that
raised the threshold from a felony up to one thousand dollars, right, And
they said yes, and the criminals know how to get around it. Wow,
that's interesting. I said, what do you suppose the threshold is in
Texas? And they said, I don't know, there's two thousand dollars.
So evidently the sorry criminals in California are smarter than the criminals in Texas because
they care calculators. Well, it just goes to follow, of course,
California criminals. Are you put it? A Writer's article from last summer.
Writers also reported in December of last year that the National Retail Federation had to
retract its statements about organized retail theft, so they I'm glad you brought that
up. Yeah, because there's a big difference between retail theft and shrinkage.
This is one of those. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle
is not a square situations. I'll sort of explain that and then tell you
about the upside of pushing the narrative that just is not true. You're listening
to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty look back on
the standoff that's going on on the ninety one freeway. What channel are you're
watching it on? I got a channel seven ABC, okay, but I
might be on a delay because I'm watching the streaming feed, So they have
the dog out there ready to go. They just pulled a cruiser up to
the back of the this van that's wedged against the wall. It was a
pursuit. They put out the stopsticks right, and the van kind of crashed
into a wall, completely surrounded by cops. They seem to have something like
a sheet and maybe a cardboard box hanging out the window. Are you still
seeing this or am I delayed too far here? Okay, I just got
it on KKEW. Looks like they have somebody on the ground. The cops
do. Oh they got him on the ground now, Hi, okay,
so but they're they're obscuring whatever they got. What don't do that? That's
the good stuff. The van's over on the side, the door on the
sides open. The driver's door is open, so it must they must have
the driver down on the ground. Oh let's shoot bad. Yeah. I
kind of love that. Okay, I probably shouldn't though, right, I
should probably be like, oh, thank goodness, just to serve now everybody
can get home. But I'm not stuck in that traffic, So for me,
I get kind of excited about that silly stuff. Well, you're only
human. It's silly, they get kind of crazy, wound up by that.
Who doesn't like a good car chase? Right, yeah, okay,
yeah, now the streaming just went back. Oh yeah, they pulled him
out of the van. They've got him. It's not obscured on seven.
It's just that there's cops in the way. Yeah, they got somebody.
Yeah, they got somebody. All right, So it sounds like that pursuit
is gonna end, and then I don't know, maybe they're gonna get traffic
moving here in the next ten twenty minutes. So if you're stuck in that
mess, then good news. I guess you're you're gonna be on your way
home soon. Ish. I suppose. All right, what were we talking
about, Mark, Oh, we were talking about that retail crime. Oh,
yes, there's a crime wave, retail crime wave. And I happen
to see another headline that that popped up from the La Times this week,
the bane of retail to prevent theft, many big chains now lock up all
kinds of merchandise. And I thought, but the stats don't show that there's
actually been enough crime. You know what shows there's been enough ticking crime TikTok.
But it's in front of us. Now, we can't ignore it.
We can't pretend like, well, the stats show it's not so bad,
because there it is. It's on TikTok. I saw it. And then
the TikTok video got shared on all of the news stations, and the news
stations breathlessly replayed it over and over and over again. They said, look
at the smashing grab, look at this going on, look at that going
on. And I will say this, though, stats do show that it's
gone up in Los Angeles County. It's one of the few, but the
stats have gone up a little bit. So give that, okay, But
here's what we have. Here's what we have going on right now. Imagine
that you are a DA. What's your job. Your job is enforcing a
little tough on crime. You say you're the ag. What do you say
that's tough on crime. I don't care which side of the political aisle you're
on. You always say tough on crime. On the state's top cop.
I'm the county's top cop. I'm the city's top cop, city attorney,
district attorney, attorney general. I'm tough on crime. And so if you
can find this is what's brilliant about it if you can find something that people
are convinced that we they've already convinced themselves that crime is on the uptick because
TikTok told us, and then all of a sudden you can come out and
say, under my watch, we're seeing retail crime numbers back to their twenty
fifteen levels, even though they never came off their twenty fifteen levels statistically speaking,
Why would you ever counter the argument. Why would you ever say,
oh, hey, the National Retail Federation actually backtracked on what they were saying,
because it was total bunk. You would never do that. You would
say I'm tough on crime. Or it's kind of a backdraft situation too.
You know, remember, of course you remember the movie Mark backdraftsat film.
Sure, Yeah, who was the guy setting the fires? Oh? It
was it Scott Glenn? I forget it was Scott Glenn. Also, if
you didn't see the movie, you should know Scott Glenn was one of the
firefighters. So the whole thing, I mean, otherwise just saying it with
Scott Glenn setting fires probably doesn't ring so true with people. But it was
one of the firefighters. So I got to set these fires and then I'm
doing it for us. It makes us look good, we get more funding,
we have know all this other stuff that happens, and Alec Baldwin says,
what not Alec Baldwin, who was it? Kurt Russell, Yeah,
it was one of the Baldwin brothers that was in that too. I can't
believe it was you that did this the whole time. So imagine you've got
this narrative that crime is on the uptick, and then you're a politician who
of course is going to catch a little bit of grief to start with and
might cost you your job if you're in San Francisco. But if you're one
of the politicians here, you can say, under my watch, we put
together the Organized Retail Crime crit Task. And then you can go to the
city council and you can say, well, you've all seen the tiktoks,
crime is on the rise. You're gonna have to give me more money.
And the city council is like, well, don't have a choice. Crime
is on the rise. I was just watching a TikTok about this and then
they say, well, I turned on Fox News and it said crime was
on the rise. Look at crime ridden cities and they showed San Francisco,
Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, So let's allocate some more funds,
and they do because they want to be the politics. They don't want to
be the politician the castill vote against trying to stop crime. They don't want
to be the pro violence, the pro crime city council member. You can't
run against that. And so it kind of behooves them to keep buying into
the narrative, to keep pushing the narrative that things are bad. Boy,
you thought they were bad before they're even batter Now. Meanwhile, these same
companies keep locking up underwear and so what do you and I do? We
order ours? I love that the l Times article quoted somebody is saying,
I give my money now to Daddy Bezos. Commando is always an option.
Yeah, you can do that. I mean, listen, if you're on
a budget, you gotta do what you gotta do. But I'm giving my
money to Daddy Bezos instead. Daddy Bezos. I mean, that's just fantastic.
So Amazon doesn't have any interest in saying, now, the crime is
not as bad as what people are claiming. The politicians don't have any reason
to say crime is not as bad as what people are saying. TV networks
don't have any reason to say crime is not as bad as what people are
saying. The stores don't have any reason to do that because the stores are
saying, well, we had to close these stores because your community is violent.
They gaslight the hell out of things, and then they save money,
and then they say our profits they're up. So the trouble here is that
nobody is incentivized to be honest with you. That's the sad reality. All
right, Speaking of honesty, we'll talk fast food follies. As some are
saying, well, you know it's all because of California. When we dive
a little deeper into the story, maybe that minimum wage increase is not the
reason for firing everybody right now. That's next. It's Chris merril In for
mo Kelly kf I AM six forty. We are live everywhere in your iHeartRadio
app. You've been listening so later with mo Kelly. You can always hear
us live on kf I AM six forty seven pm to ten pm every Monday
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