Speaker 1: I want to talk about the horrible wildfires.
Speaker 2: In Los Angeles and kind of what this might mean
Speaker 2: for the Gavin Newsom legacy. The obvious human toll of
Speaker 2: it is terrible, their homes being destroyed, their people's lives
Speaker 2: on the line. First, though, let's talk about city government
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And the total.
Speaker 2: Incapacity of modern day liberal When you have modern day liberals,
Speaker 2: with their modern day liberal approaches to the world, their
Speaker 2: focus on DEI, I think it leads to a competency crisis,
Speaker 2: where basically, when the far left completely controls an area,
Speaker 2: they are incapable of running it. You see this in
Speaker 2: city after city after city that is completely governed and
Speaker 2: administered by the left. When the left completely controls your
Speaker 2: criminal law enforcement, it's a disaster. When they control the
Speaker 2: provision of city services, those city services suffer. They do
Speaker 2: great with diversity, equity, and inclusion, but not very good
Speaker 2: at the actual purpose of those city services. Here's a
Speaker 2: news story from recently about the new LA Fire Department
Speaker 2: fire chief, which, by the way, they've got problems because
Speaker 2: I guess apparently in La Fire hydrants weren't fully loaded,
Speaker 2: like they didn't have enough water on hand, so this
Speaker 2: is leading to problems with fighting fires. But here is
Speaker 2: a news story from looks Like from ABC seven in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles about the first gay female fire chief for
Speaker 2: the LA Fire Department.
Speaker 3: Ellen Caulleen. The discrepancies are a start, even just on paper.
Speaker 3: The LAFD this year hired its first ever female chief,
Speaker 3: and it says so far this year, eight percent of
Speaker 3: its applicants have been women. That might sound like a
Speaker 3: small number, but it's actually twice the percentage of female
Speaker 3: firefighters currently in the department. Every day, the LAFD is
Speaker 3: called upon to respond to crises, and today it is
Speaker 3: taking a step to resolve one of its own. The
Speaker 3: department's first ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureau will launch
Speaker 3: in January, one year since its first ever female fire chief,
Speaker 3: Christian Crowley, was appointed.
Speaker 4: So by creating this new bureau, our Diversity Equit Inclusion Bureau,
Speaker 4: now we actually have the staff to do the work.
Speaker 4: When it comes to doing a deep dive in regard
Speaker 4: to how we do business, how we take care of
Speaker 4: one another in the fire stations and in our work environment.
Speaker 3: The plan is to do so by adding training and
Speaker 3: enforcing accountability. Calls for accountability have echoed for years. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, women's advocacy groups, including one representing female firefighters,
Speaker 3: pushed for changes at the highest level, saying, all right.
Speaker 1: It goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2: So first the news report calls it a crisis that
Speaker 2: within the LA Fire Department women are underrepresented. Then you
Speaker 2: had this quote from the LA Fire chief that, oh,
Speaker 2: thank god we have a DEI department because now we
Speaker 2: can really get down to doing the work.
Speaker 1: To solve how we take care of each other within
Speaker 1: the fire station. Which is like.
Speaker 2: And I see this, by the way, again and again
Speaker 2: and again and again with liberal government workers, teachers' unions,
Speaker 2: public sector unions, I think have a lot to do
Speaker 2: with this attitude. The focus of government work as being
Speaker 2: a job's program for the workers, an inward facing.
Speaker 1: Set up.
Speaker 2: As opposed to this, government work is ordered towards helping
Speaker 2: other people. The point of the fire department is not
Speaker 2: to benefit the lives of fire workers. The point of
Speaker 2: public schools is not to be a job's program for
Speaker 2: teachers and school administrators. The point of the police department
Speaker 2: is not to represent the diversity of the community. The
Speaker 2: point of city workers is not again that it's some
Speaker 2: kind of government jobs program. The point of all of
Speaker 2: these things, which when liberals get in charge, I think
Speaker 2: this is lost sight of because they are so obsessed
Speaker 2: with DEI, so obsessed with being pro labor, so obsessed
Speaker 2: with all of these this panoply of sort of leftist
Speaker 2: concerns that we forget what's the whole point of these jobs.
Speaker 2: Like within the context of schools, if someone says, hey,
Speaker 2: should maybe teacher pay be somehow tied to teacher performance?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? What what kind of a monster are you?
Speaker 1: That's outrageous.
Speaker 2: That's the genuine reaction you'll get from from the teachers
Speaker 2: union if you dare breathe the suggestion that maybe teacher
Speaker 2: pay should be tied to student outcomes in some way,
Speaker 2: shape or form.
Speaker 1: WHOA, what the heck are you talking about?
Speaker 2: That's a anti labor and it's missing the point. What's
Speaker 2: the point of the teachers It's not to be a
Speaker 2: jobs program for teachers. What In the context of this
Speaker 2: fire department discussion here for the l A F D, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we need to get the DEI program because oh, we
Speaker 2: got all this problem. This is massive underrepresentation of women
Speaker 2: within the fire station with this baffled. Ho, why could
Speaker 2: that possibly be that there aren't as many women who
Speaker 2: sign up to be firefighters? Hmmm, as if it's one
Speaker 2: of life's great unscrutable mysteries.
Speaker 1: Inscrutable, I guess, unscrewab inscrutable. Yeah, oh, we gotta really,
Speaker 1: we gotta bump up these numbers.
Speaker 2: We need a DEI proper as opposed to, Hey, what's
Speaker 2: the job of a fire station? It's to put out fire,
Speaker 2: It's to respond to emergencies. That is the t lose
Speaker 2: the end goal towards which the fire department is oriented,
Speaker 2: not DEI whatever. Also, by the way, every employer the
Speaker 2: idea that you need a DEI department in order to
Speaker 2: correct I'm not sure if that's exactly where this news
Speaker 2: story was going, But if there are allegations of sexual
Speaker 2: harassment or something in the workplace, or improper treatment of
Speaker 2: female employees within the fire station, you don't need a
Speaker 2: DEI department.
Speaker 1: To deal with that.
Speaker 2: We already have laws on the books in California, laws
Speaker 2: governing how employers conduct themselves that can address problems like that.
Speaker 2: You don't need a DEI department. You don't even need
Speaker 2: a DEI department to deal with like hiring discrepancies, If
Speaker 2: they are actually the result of discrimination on the part
Speaker 2: of employers, you don't need a DEI department to deal
Speaker 2: with that. Unlawful Gender based discrimination is already unlawful. But
Speaker 2: the focus here is so much on these things that
Speaker 2: are just ancillary internal workings of the internal mechanics of
Speaker 2: the fire department, without any sort of sense of no.
Speaker 2: The actual job of the fire department is putting out fires.
Speaker 2: It's right there in the name fire department. It's not
Speaker 2: the DEI department. It's not the making government employees feel
Speaker 2: good department. It's the fire department, and its chief goal
Speaker 2: should always be effectiveness of emergency response.
Speaker 1: That's the point. And I.
Speaker 2: There are some people who will try to make the oh,
Speaker 2: there's a walk and chew gum fallacy. They can be
Speaker 2: concerned about DEI and also be concerned about, you know,
Speaker 2: firefighting effectiveness. I don't believe that. I honestly don't believe that,
Speaker 2: not all the time.
Speaker 1: I do. Yes, I acknowledge that people can walk and
Speaker 1: chew gum.
Speaker 2: At the same time, I acknowledge that maybe there could
Speaker 2: be a scenario where someone can spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time and effort focused on DEI initiatives, but also really
Speaker 2: be focused on firefighting really effectively, and that maybe one
Speaker 2: won't detract from the other, But.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have a fire chief, that person
Speaker 2: only has so many hours in their day. They have
Speaker 2: only so many hours of their day to work on
Speaker 2: buttress support, engage with problems within the fire department.
Speaker 1: And I think if you're.
Speaker 2: Spending a lot of time on exit does lead to
Speaker 2: less time on why. And you know, and again, let's
Speaker 2: let's look at Los Angeles. This is a city government,
Speaker 2: city government, county government completely dominated by Democrats. They only
Speaker 2: just now got rid of George Gascon, their ultraliberal district
Speaker 2: attorney for La County, but short of that they had
Speaker 2: complete one left control. Karen bass Is their mayor, who,
Speaker 2: by the way, as of early this morning, was not
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles. She was in Ghana for the inauguration
Speaker 2: of its president Ghana, the African country of Ghana. I
Speaker 2: hope in the next election that she will be a
Speaker 2: Ghana But you know, if she loses, it'll only be
Speaker 2: to another Democrat.
Speaker 1: But it's astonishing to me how every.
Speaker 2: Single part of this country where Democrats have complete control
Speaker 2: over some over a city or over a state. The
Speaker 2: whole thing has fallen a hell in a handbasket. And
Speaker 2: more and more commentators, even of the left, are starting
Speaker 2: to notice the massive ineffectiveness of the left in being
Speaker 2: able to actually build infrastructure projects, being able to actually
Speaker 2: govern cities effectively, being able to actually reduce crime, actually
Speaker 2: address homelessness. I mean, they are even Liberals in California
Speaker 2: who are starting to be like, how many billions of
Speaker 2: dollars has Gavin Newsom spent on homelessness and it's the
Speaker 2: situation is still not improving. How many billions of dollars
Speaker 2: have we spent on the high speed rail and it's
Speaker 2: still not anywhere close to being done with any real
Speaker 2: prospects of getting finished. How many gazillions of dollars have
Speaker 2: we spent on you know? I think Biden had some
Speaker 2: whole like Wi Fi infrastructure thing, a broadband infrastructure program
Speaker 2: that they.
Speaker 1: Spend billions of dollars on, and it's accomplished. Jack.
Speaker 2: I think Liberals are having some real trust deficit problems
Speaker 2: because it's very hard for someone who's a genuine although
Speaker 2: they keep voting for Democrats in California.
Speaker 1: Jes Louise.
Speaker 2: But I'd have to think if you're a genuine independent
Speaker 2: who is looking at the situation of California right now,
Speaker 2: you can't look at the situation and think, boy, the
Speaker 2: Democrats sure are doing a great job governing the state
Speaker 2: of California. All of the things that were problems ten
Speaker 2: years ago are still problems today, worse. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that there's a single thing. I mean, if they're not worse,
Speaker 2: they're about as bad.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: We've got massive wildfire problems, you know, after four years
Speaker 2: ago we had horrible wildfires, and Gavin Newsom in all, oh,
Speaker 2: this wildfire thing is such.
Speaker 1: A terrible problem.
Speaker 2: He did the sort of Gavin Newsom thing where something's
Speaker 2: been a long standing problem in California, but then it
Speaker 2: happens while he's governor, and then he's like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: this thing just fell into my lap. What a what
Speaker 2: a terrible thing that now I must deal with? Ah,
Speaker 2: poor poor me. This problem has fallen from the sky.
Speaker 2: I could have never predicted it, could have never imagined it.
Speaker 2: When everyone could have predicted it, imagined it. It's been
Speaker 2: a long standing problem in California for years and years
Speaker 2: and years. The problems without controlled wildfires. So Newsom in
Speaker 2: twenty with the bad wildfires we had in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one's, oh my goodness, how terrible this is.
Speaker 2: What a surprise that this has become a problem? Makes
Speaker 2: all these grand promises, for all these wonderful ways he's
Speaker 2: going to fix a beefing up, CalFire, beefing up all
Speaker 2: this stuff, and then mean to in the meanwhile, here
Speaker 2: we are with these horrible wildfires in Los Angeles, threatening homes,
Speaker 2: threatening lives. Clearly he hasn't done enough to be able now,
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm I'm trying not to be unfair,
Speaker 2: Like how you know, how fair is it to judge
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom on? You know, can you is it possible
Speaker 2: to fully eradicate the problem of wildfires in California? I
Speaker 2: don't know that that's fully possible. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of things that are outside of his control, but I
Speaker 2: know that the kinds of I mean, he was resisted
Speaker 2: in a lot of the policies he was promoting by
Speaker 2: people like the Sierra Club, who were constantly pushing on
Speaker 2: him to never dare cut down any tree ever, even
Speaker 2: though thinning of forests and things like that controlled burns
Speaker 2: and things like that are actually a useful way to
Speaker 2: reduce the risk of more serious wildfires. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I can't say I know one hundred percent how Newsom's
Speaker 2: policies may have contributed or not contributed to this problem,
Speaker 2: but it's certainly nothing has really improved, it doesn't seem.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got this Palisades fire that's burned over
Speaker 2: twenty nine hundred acres, it's threatening ten thousand homes, and meanwhile.
Speaker 1: The fire chief for the city of la.
Speaker 2: Is going on and on and on about DEI and
Speaker 2: she's far from the only one. I mean, the government
Speaker 2: of workers all up and down the state, in Democrat
Speaker 2: controlled areas have had this massive focus on DEI initiatives
Speaker 2: while their city services or county services or governmental.
Speaker 1: Services that they were actually supposed to provide were not
Speaker 1: really being provided.
Speaker 2: When we return, more thoughts on governor gave his various
Speaker 2: wardrobe changes for when he's roughing it, and more about
Speaker 2: the fires next on the John Gerardy Show.
Speaker 1: One question I have.
Speaker 2: About these wildfires now I know what is causing them
Speaker 2: to spread. You have the Santa Anna winds, you have
Speaker 2: dry conditions. Once a fire gets started and the Santa
Speaker 2: Ana winds are blowing. That's, you know, in some of
Speaker 2: the foothills and mountainous areas around Los Angeles, US. You know,
Speaker 2: that is a perfect recipe for disaster, and especially for
Speaker 2: areas with lots and lots of trees. I've got ember
Speaker 2: I've seen some of the videos of these fires.
Speaker 1: You've got these.
Speaker 2: Embers just flying all over the place, floating all over
Speaker 2: the place like you know, dry conditions.
Speaker 1: This is a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering what started them, though, very often wildfires get
Speaker 2: started by human activity, whether it's a car, some kind
Speaker 2: of car explosion, or something sparking, like a kind of
Speaker 2: a converter, something going wrong with a car that's often blamed.
Speaker 2: Sometimes wildfires get started by arsonists. Sometimes it's started by
Speaker 2: lightning strikes, although that doesn't seem like that's the right
Speaker 2: explanation for this particular wildfire. So my mind is starting
Speaker 2: to wander, and I will freely admit here I am
Speaker 2: going into the realm of wild reckless, possibly irresponsible speculation.
Speaker 2: So just understanding that I don't know this at all
Speaker 2: to be true. Understand this is again John gerlready engaging
Speaker 2: in wild wild somewhat reckless speculation.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. I've given you that caveat means
Speaker 1: I can say whatever I want.
Speaker 2: I wonder with these wildfires, given that it seems like
Speaker 2: some of them are starting near major roads, given that
Speaker 2: the you know, given that starting around populated areas. Also
Speaker 2: given the timing of it, this is a weird time
Speaker 2: for big wildfires to happen, even in La right. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's January. It's not like this is, you know, September
Speaker 2: or October. Yeah, I could understand September. It's tinder dry. Still,
Speaker 2: it's still pretty hot. You've had three months of no rain.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a tinderbox just waiting to go up.
Speaker 2: It's January.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: That kind of conditions. And I genuinely wonder the following
Speaker 2: at my office a right to life, and I know
Speaker 2: this is a problem throughout the city. There are problems
Speaker 2: with homeless people lighting fires. Okay, my office. In November
Speaker 2: of twenty three, I had someone break into my office,
Speaker 2: into the bathroom and light a fire under my bathroom
Speaker 2: sink because presumably this person was cold. I've seen people
Speaker 2: lighting small fires on the street right outside of my business,
Speaker 2: asked the fire department to come out for it. Actually,
Speaker 2: what I was really doing was asking nine to one.
Speaker 2: I was just calling nine one one. Mostly I was
Speaker 2: wanting the police to get the person to leave. I
Speaker 2: didn't actually really need a whole fire truck to deal
Speaker 2: with the situation. I wanted the police to make this
Speaker 2: almost person who had let a fire in front of
Speaker 2: my business to go away. But in winter, that's what's happening,
Speaker 2: and it's a very common phenomenon throughout California, where homeless
Speaker 2: people are cold at night and they try to find
Speaker 2: a way to keep themselves warm, they light fires. These
Speaker 2: are often not people who are making the best decisions
Speaker 2: or practicing you know, ideal eagle scout level fires safety.
Speaker 2: And sometimes homeless people are living near on under freeways
Speaker 2: freeway overpasses that have a lot of dry grasses and shrub.
Speaker 1: There was a big, really.
Speaker 2: Bad fire near freeway in Los Angeles I believe last
Speaker 2: year that was caused by homeless people. This is not
Speaker 2: an uncommon phenomenon, and it seems as though no one's
Speaker 2: It seems like fire authorities have not really identified the
Speaker 2: source of the fire yet, Like I don't know, I
Speaker 2: did a Google search how did the wildfires in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles start? And I get to a USA Today story
Speaker 2: how do the wildfires in Los Angeles start? And it
Speaker 2: says we don't actually know, so it seems like that
Speaker 2: has not been identified. So I apologize if I'm engaged
Speaker 2: in wild speculation here, but it doesn't feel like and
Speaker 2: again I'm engaged in speculation here. I don't know this
Speaker 2: for effect, but I will say, if it turns out
Speaker 2: that this was caused by homeless people lighting fires, it
Speaker 2: wouldn't shock me. It wouldn't shock me because this is
Speaker 2: a weird time of year for wildfires to be happening
Speaker 2: in January, it's cold at night. It would sort of
Speaker 2: make sense that if it was started by something, it
Speaker 2: could have been started by homeless people lighting fires and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden that fire gets out of control.
Speaker 2: I'm again, I don't know that that's what happened. It's
Speaker 2: kind of speculation. It's one hundred percent speculation at this point,
Speaker 2: but it would perhaps be consistent with my own experience
Speaker 2: and with a phenomena that is phenomenon that is happening
Speaker 2: all up and down the state. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about Gavin Newsom and his wardrobe changes. We got some
Speaker 2: updates on the high speed rail and the competence gap
Speaker 2: that we see in California. That's next on the John
Speaker 2: Gerardi Show. Good Old Gave, Good Old. Gavin Newsom I
Speaker 2: think is sort of desperate for some aspect of the
Speaker 2: high speed rail to be functional before he leaves office,
Speaker 2: or certainly at the very least for some aspect of
Speaker 2: it to be functional before twenty twenty eight when he's
Speaker 2: running for president, because he had a very consequential decision
Speaker 2: that he made in January of twenty ninth. Is starting
Speaker 2: in January of twenty nineteen, after he became the governor,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of thought that Newsome was not
Speaker 2: as enthused about the high speed rail project as Jerry
Speaker 2: Brown had been. I mean, the high speed Rail was
Speaker 2: already looking like a disaster, a complete flop in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and there was a thought
Speaker 2: that Newsom would retreat from Jerry Brown's just unbridled commitment
Speaker 2: to the project, and from most of the reporting, it
Speaker 2: sounded like that's what was going to happen. And then
Speaker 2: Organized Labor got to him and basically convinced him to
Speaker 2: change his position to not abandon high speed rail, but
Speaker 2: to focus on we're gonna get Merced to Bakersfield done,
Speaker 2: and that's been the Newsome pasture ever since. We're gonna
Speaker 2: get Merced to Bakersfield completed. Once we complete mer said
Speaker 2: to Bakersfield, that will demonstrate the viability of the system
Speaker 2: more broadly viability, that's the term they used. And from
Speaker 2: there that will give us the momentum needed to get
Speaker 2: the funding necessary to extend this all the way from
Speaker 2: San Francisco to Los Angeles. That was the new some postures.
Speaker 2: So Newsom had the opportunity to just cut bait from
Speaker 2: this sunk cost or to carry on, and he chose
Speaker 2: to carry on, and that was I think it's going
Speaker 2: to be a very consequential decision of his. It's going
Speaker 2: to be very consequential for his prospects of whether or
Speaker 2: not he can be president because by choosing not to
Speaker 2: cut out this sunk cost, I think Newsom has doomed
Speaker 2: his chances or or severely harmed his chances of being
Speaker 2: president because there's no way the high speed rail is
Speaker 2: going to get done in the timeframe that he wants.
Speaker 2: There's no way the high speed rail is going to
Speaker 2: get done in a way that's not embarrassing to him.
Speaker 1: So yesterday, excuse me.
Speaker 2: On the sixth, rather, Newsom tweets out, we're opening twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five with a bang. We're moving into the track
Speaker 2: laying phase for the California High Speed Rail And there's more.
Speaker 2: California is also building towards connecting California High Speed Rail
Speaker 2: Authority with other projects, beginning a regional high speed rail network.
Speaker 2: Now it shows him laying track, but it's not the
Speaker 2: actual high speed rail track. It's just track that seems
Speaker 2: to be laid purely ceremonially so that he can stand there.
Speaker 2: And I my wife sent me the tweet about his
Speaker 2: tweet about it, and my wife and I have noticed
Speaker 2: this that Newsome is never wearing, you know, less than
Speaker 2: a five thousand dollars suit, but when he is, he's
Speaker 2: now started to have a lot more of these photo
Speaker 2: ops of him quote roughing it and his wardrobe anytime
Speaker 2: he's doing some kind of outdoorsy quote roughing it job.
Speaker 1: Is so funny.
Speaker 2: It's so funny just how obviously carefully he's selecting his
Speaker 2: wardrobe to be just precisely so, like, yeah, he's got
Speaker 2: his sleeves.
Speaker 1: Just rolled up about a quarter length.
Speaker 2: He's got you know, he's got a shirt that's it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a rough in it sort of shirt,
Speaker 2: but it's almost certainly costs like two hundred dollars, you know,
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars para jeans, you know, two hundred dollars
Speaker 2: pair of boots. My my sister in law, My sister
Speaker 2: in law who manages I think it's a bunch of electricians,
Speaker 2: like like an electricians, an electrical company. So she's she's
Speaker 2: sort of the one who's sending electricians off one place
Speaker 2: or another. So she's around all these working class dudes
Speaker 2: all the time. She noted, Ah, let's see, she noted,
Speaker 2: nothing says roughing it like unused goat skin gloves, immaculate
Speaker 2: goat skin gloves. That he's wearing an unblemish pair of
Speaker 2: white goat skin gloves. So he's got this pair of
Speaker 2: gloves on, and he's grabbing like a pickaxe or something like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm working on the railroad. Yeah, And my wife texted
Speaker 2: me there, sent me the tweet with her caption he's
Speaker 2: wearing his railroad in clothes, and of course his hair
Speaker 2: is still he doesn't. There is clearly nobody in Gavin
Speaker 2: Newsom's life who is willing to pull him aside and say, Gavin,
Speaker 2: you have the stupidest haircut in the world. Everyone makes
Speaker 2: fun of you for this haircut. You need to stop
Speaker 2: styling your hair like this. You look like a nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties movie villain. You look like pat Riley. Okay, like
Speaker 2: just or Rick Patino or something. Okay like stop stop
Speaker 2: doing this with your hair.
Speaker 1: You look like again, he looks like a movie villain
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties. It's anyway, but.
Speaker 2: Newsom has basically decided, no, I'm gonna commit myself to
Speaker 2: this high speed rail project. And I think he's starting
Speaker 2: to feel the urgency. I think he's starting to feel
Speaker 2: the urgency to actually demonstrate to an audience other than
Speaker 2: Californians that he's actually accomplished something. And the high speed
Speaker 2: rail thing is going to loom large because now you've
Speaker 2: got liberals even who are noticing.
Speaker 1: I reference this in the first segment. Now you're now starting.
Speaker 2: To get liberals noticing, and they're they're sort of bitterly
Speaker 2: noticing this. In the wake of Trump's victory, the collapse
Speaker 2: of the Biden the Biden presidency, the Harris campaign, the
Speaker 2: fact that there's a lot of liberal incompetence at delivering
Speaker 2: basic government services, and California's got to be exhibit A.
Speaker 2: Ezra Kleine, who's a calumnist for the New York Times,
Speaker 2: a kind of reliable liberal most of the time, has
Speaker 2: these bitter broadsides about these different liberal you know, supported
Speaker 2: by liberals, infrastructure projects that are just flops. And the
Speaker 2: first thing he leads with is the high speed rail
Speaker 2: program in California that you know, California voters voted for
Speaker 2: that in I can never remember if it was two
Speaker 2: thousand and four to two thousand and eight. I think
Speaker 2: it was two thousand and eight. Yes, it was two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. Okay, sorry, I'm looking it up as
Speaker 2: I'm talking. California Proposition one A, the high speed rail
Speaker 2: bond measure. The two thousand and eight election in California,
Speaker 2: by the way, absolutely wild. Barack Obama wins by an
Speaker 2: enormous margin. For the presidential race for California, we passed
Speaker 2: the high speed rail ballot initiative, and we passed Prop eight.
Speaker 2: So we loved trains, we loved the traditional definition of marriage,
Speaker 2: and we loved Barack Obama in California in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight.
Speaker 1: What a world.
Speaker 2: So two thousand and eight we passed that ballot initiative.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty five, not one inch of operational track.
Speaker 2: We're starting to lay track, starting to lay the track.
Speaker 2: Now seventeen years later, the cost overruns have ballooned from
Speaker 2: forty billion to at least one hundred billion. We're we
Speaker 2: don't have the funding to finish merceaid to Bakersfield, let
Speaker 2: alone San Francisco to Los Angeles. I think public support
Speaker 2: for the public support for the high speed rail project
Speaker 2: within California is anemic. Media entities as diverse as the
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times has done a ton
Speaker 2: of work showing that massive problems with the High Speed
Speaker 2: Rail Authority, Massive terrible strategic decisions were made that harmed
Speaker 2: the success of the program, rejecting the French consultants that
Speaker 2: we had at the start, because the French consultants said,
Speaker 2: you should have it just run along I five. You
Speaker 2: already have everything ready for I five. But the decision
Speaker 2: was made, oh no, no, no, it has to be
Speaker 2: more like kind of somewhat along the ninety nine, not
Speaker 2: actually following the ninety nine, but it's sort of along
Speaker 2: the ninety nine because they'll all clear some deals were
Speaker 2: done to loop Fresno in and so the French engineer said, well,
Speaker 2: that's a dumb idea, and they abandoned the project, brought
Speaker 2: in different consultants who were not as effective. So I
Speaker 2: think Newsome is staring down the barrel of he's going
Speaker 2: to be on the debate stage in twenty twenty probably
Speaker 2: in late twenty twenty seven on a Dais with a
Speaker 2: bunch of other Democrats who will all be running for president,
Speaker 2: and he needs to give an account of himself.
Speaker 1: He needs.
Speaker 2: He made a faithful decision in twenty nineteen that he
Speaker 2: was going to tie himself to the high speed rail
Speaker 2: project and it hasn't happened. And what we're seeing more
Speaker 2: and more and more all across the country is liberals
Speaker 2: in charge of state and local governments who cannot deliver
Speaker 2: basic city or state services and cannot accomplish the kinds
Speaker 2: of infrastructure projects that.
Speaker 1: They want to accomplish.
Speaker 2: And they are self hampered by their own commitments to DEI,
Speaker 2: to environmental policy, to the culture of trial lawyers and
Speaker 2: wanting everyone to sue everyone. The amount of litigation that
Speaker 2: can happen because of environmental laws, it makes it impossible
Speaker 2: to build.
Speaker 1: A massive infrastructure project in California. You cannot do it.
Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a massive trust gap
Speaker 2: that's going to keep going for Liberals as long as
Speaker 2: they can't run California. The state has all the same
Speaker 2: problems it had ten years ago, and they're all worse.
Speaker 2: Homelessness was beginning to be a problem ten years ago,
Speaker 2: it is worse. Wildfires were a problem ten years ago.
Speaker 2: It's not clear that it's better. I mean, as far
Speaker 2: as looking at the insurance market for homes in mountainous areas,
Speaker 2: it's certainly not better. It's not like reforms from the
Speaker 2: state have ensured the insurance community, and these wildfires in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles are not going to do anything to help
Speaker 2: that situation. So there's going to continue to be I think,
Speaker 2: with independent voters growing skepticism about the competence of Democrats
Speaker 2: to actually do some of the relatively non partisany stuff
Speaker 2: of just running a city, running a county, running a state,
Speaker 2: and delivering its basic services, and the perception that is reality,
Speaker 2: the perception that I think is firmly grounded in reality,
Speaker 2: that there's an over emphasis on these ideological liberal pet
Speaker 2: projects of environmentalism and DEI, and that those pet projects
Speaker 2: are resulting in a sacrifice to basic provision of services
Speaker 2: that leads to a discernible decline in.
Speaker 1: Quality of life.
Speaker 2: When we're returned solving the grand mystery of why there
Speaker 2: are more male firefighters than female firefighters. Next on the
Speaker 2: John Girardi Show, we're seeing now post on Twitter all
Speaker 2: this stuff about the City of Los Angeles fire chief,
Speaker 2: who I will just give the caveat. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if it's chiefly City of Los Angeles fire that their
Speaker 2: deficiencies with water pumps, or if it's county stuff. I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is conservatives getting out a little
Speaker 2: over their skis because they found the one lesbian fire
Speaker 2: chief in the LA area and they're.
Speaker 1: Just blaming her immediately.
Speaker 2: This is City of Los Angeles, and a lot of
Speaker 2: this stuff is happening in possibly other municipalities like Pacific
Speaker 2: Palisades and things like that. Anyway, regardless, the whole news
Speaker 2: stories that were covering this new fire chief in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles who was the first gay and first female fire
Speaker 2: chief to be hired in LA. Was the problem not
Speaker 2: enough female firefighters? Oh, we really got to address this problem.
Speaker 2: These people who just live in this unreality where they
Speaker 2: just do this pretend dance like we don't understand why
Speaker 2: more men volunteer to be signed up to be a
Speaker 2: firefighters than women do. Like you'll notice that for really
Speaker 2: cruddy jobs, no one does this. Why are there so
Speaker 2: many more male garbage collectors than female garbage collectors, or
Speaker 2: male bricklayers and female bricklayers. It's it's no, it's not
Speaker 2: a surprise. I guess the idea is that firefighting is
Speaker 2: more glamorous than those jobs.
Speaker 1: Somehow.
Speaker 2: It's because it's really physically taxing and demanding, and men
Speaker 2: are on the whole on a hopur bigger, taller, and stronger.
Speaker 2: That's why it's not rocket science. But we live in
Speaker 2: this unreality where we pretend like we don't understand that.
Speaker 1: That'll do it. John Girardi Show, See you next time
Speaker 1: on Power Talk