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Episode Two Hundred Twenty Two: Zoo Animals II · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and twenty two of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: your host on this special bonus episode of the podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: We talk about how Los Angeles was hit with the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: most economically catastrophic fires in the history of the United States,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and I'll provide some analysis you will likely not here elsewhere.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: When we began twenty twenty five, we transitioned to a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: new schedule for this podcast, which was going to mean
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that we would only be doing one episode per week,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: as opposed to what we were doing previously, which was
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: two episodes per week. But I stipulated that that would
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: change if events warrant, and obviously, over the last several
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: days here in southern California, events have warranted at the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: very least another episode of the podcast, because the entire
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: country and much of the world has been enthralled by
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the tragedy that has occurred here near where I live,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: thankfully not right now where I actually lived. Thank you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for everyone who has reached out with their concerns. By
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the way, at the end of the podcast, I'll go
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: through the list of rather interesting people who have contacted me,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: because it tends to be what people do when they
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: know people in an area that is being dramatically impacted
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: by a major news story. But there may have actually
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: been a silver lining at least when it came to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: people getting back in touch with me because of what
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: has transpired here in southern California. But obviously, you know,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that's nowhere near as important as what has transpired to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the people who have been directly impacted. Thankfully, my family
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: has not yet been directly impacted, although our in laws
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: have been. My wife's family has been impacted. Both her
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: sister and her parents have been evacuated. Right now, things
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: look okay, although we are bracing for more winds this week.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: We are nowhere near out of the woods yet the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: entire region of southern California really until at least Wednesday evening,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: but it may be going beyond that because we have
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  Speaker 1: some unique circumstances that have really created a perfect storm
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: that caused this situation to happen in the first place.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: By now, I'm sure you're aware that over ten thousand
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: structures have been destroyed in the Greater Los Angeles area.
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  Speaker 1: Billions and billions and billions of dollars of damage has
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: occurred at least a couple of dozen people, probably more
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: than that have lost their lives, and as far as
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the magnitude of what has transpired here in southern California,
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  Speaker 1: the best analogy that I can come up with in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: my lifetime is probably Hurricane Katrina, and there are a
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: lot of similarities. Obviously, the difference being that Hurricane Katrina
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans was a very different event than these
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: wildfires in Southern California, but there are some similarities. One
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: with regard to the catastrophic damage done. Katrina actually impacted
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: more people and more structures, but economically did not have
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: anywhere near the same level of destruction as what appears
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to have occurred here in southern California. But to me,
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  Speaker 1: the biggest analogy between Katrina and these wildfires is the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: ticking time bomb aspect of both situations. Now in Katrina,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: because of the media and the politics that were involved there,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in the fact that George W. Bush was a Republican president,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the narrative surrounding Katrina was a bit different, but to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: me it should have been exactly the same that New
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Orleans was a ticking time bomb when it came to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: flooding related to a hurricane, it was built in a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: way that was going to make that always inevitable. And similarly,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: here in southern California, what has transpired really was inevitable.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: There was no getting around it. It was just a
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: matter of time. It was just a matter of the
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  Speaker 1: perfect storm of circumstances all coming together at exactly the
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: wrong time, with the wrong set of circumstances, bad luck,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: everything that could go wrong going wrong, and that's what transpired.
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  Speaker 1: And a lot of this goes to human ubrius. When
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I go through a lot of Los Angeles, including the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades area, which was most impacted by what transpired.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I mean Pacific Palisades was basically wiped off the map
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  Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes. This is a very beautiful area,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: lots of very rich people living there. It's essentially the
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Riviera Country Club, which hosts a PGA Tour
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: golf event. Although I am going to be stunned if
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: they're able to hold that event next month. There's no
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: word on that as of yet, but I will be
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  Speaker 1: amazed if that actually goes forward as scheduled. But I
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  Speaker 1: have spent some time there because of its proximity to
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  Speaker 1: Riviera Country Club and have attended that event on multiple occasions.
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  Speaker 1: And it's definitely one of those many areas in Southern
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  Speaker 1: California where I think to myself, why are people living here?
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  Speaker 1: And that sounds, I guess terrible in retrospect, but I
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  Speaker 1: feel this way throughout everywhere I go. Almost everywhere I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: go in the Los Angeles area, I am constantly My
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: wife and I are constantly talking about this because her
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in law live in one of these, or may in laws,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: her parents live in one of these areas where you're
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  Speaker 1: just thinking people were not intended to live here. It's beautiful, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, ninety nine point nine percent of the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: time everything's going to be okay, but unfortunately, there're gonna
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: be circumstances that create this perfect storm of doom. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that was what was happening, although there were not nearly
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: enough alarm bells being sounded by those in charge, including
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: in the media, in my opinion, leading up to what
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: transpired over the last week. And those circumstances were basically
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: two things that are not that unusual but which came
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: together at exactly the wrong time. The first is, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I've discussed as many times on the podcast before, where
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: southern California has a very unusual rainy season three months
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: tops December through February. Any rain that comes outside of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: those three months is highly unusual. But when you have
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: such a short rainy season, there's going to be the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: chance that you're gonna miss at least part of that
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: rainy season. It's just a matter of chance. It's just percentages,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's just cycles. And the last two winters we have
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: had very heavy rains way above normal, especially two years ago.
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  Speaker 1: But the way that this works in southern California, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: it's not just me having lived here for twenty years,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I've done the research into it. It's like clockwork. You
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: get two rainy seasons and then you get four or five,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe six if you're unlucky, dry seasons where you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: either mostly or at least partly they even totally miss
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: a rainy season, and that's where you get droughts. And
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: then the Liberals all go crazy for a couple of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: years during the down cycle, saying word a permanent drought,
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  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, the world is ending. And then we
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: wait a couple more years and we get to winters
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  Speaker 1: like we did the last two years and everything's fine again,
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  Speaker 1: And of course they pretend as if the rainy years
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: or flukes and the draft years are normal. Well, in
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: this particular year, so far, we got nothing in December.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Now we may get nothing the whole winter. Right now,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: we're as dry as it could possibly be. As I'm
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: doing this podcast, it's incredibly windy. The next couple of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: days are also supposed to be windy. The Santa Ana
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: wins from the desert incredibly dry, no sign of anything
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: close to rain in the forecast. So we are dangerously
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: close to maybe missing. I doubt we're going to miss
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  Speaker 1: the entire rainy season, but we are very close to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: potentially missing most at least most of this rainy season.
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  Speaker 1: And so we get these Santa Anna wins from the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: desert normally in October and November, and that's when the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: fire season generally is October and November, because rainy season
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: hasn't started yet. But this year we miss December, and
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  Speaker 1: so therefore Santa Ana wins in January, which are not
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: as common as those in October and November, and certainly
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: not to the extent that we got them. With almost
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  Speaker 1: one hundred mile an hour wins into parts of Los
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Angeles when this whole thing exploded last week. Normally, if
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  Speaker 1: that happens in January, there's not a fire risk because
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you've had some rain in December and the ground is wet,
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  Speaker 1: and so it doesn't really matter as much how much,
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  Speaker 1: what to what degree you get the Santa Ana wins
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  Speaker 1: because the ground is not fertile for massive wildfires. Well,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: here it's been bone dry because we missed basically four
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: or five weeks of what could have been should have
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  Speaker 1: been the normal rainy season. So you have these two
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  Speaker 1: things converging that create a perfect storm, and that's the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: environmental reality that allowed these fires to happen. But of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: course there's been an awful lot of speculation and commentary about, Okay,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: what are the real underlying causes? Why is it that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: we were not able to be ready for this perfect
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: storm of circumstances. And that is a conversation that I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: frankly have been pleasantly surprised has not been dominated totally
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: by the whole global warming climate change narrative. I really
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: think that liberals thought when this whole thing happened, that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: they were going to be able to use their normal
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: playbook and say, Okay, yeah, this is a global warming
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  Speaker 1: climate change and this is more proof that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we need to do more to stop global warming climate change.
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  Speaker 1: And if you don't believe in global warming climate change
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  Speaker 1: at this point, you're you're a right wing nut job.
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  Speaker 1: And there were some people who tried to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders tried to do that, a few other liberals
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: tried to do that, but it just didn't work. You know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to borrow a line from the movie Jaws, I got
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  Speaker 1: the sense that some of them, when that play didn't work,
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  Speaker 1: we're basically saying we're going to need a bigger boat here.
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  Speaker 1: The global warming ate, my homework excuse was not going
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to work because this was too big, too destructive, and
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: because there are other elements of the narrative that are
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: so obviously problematic here from you know, one of the
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  Speaker 1: biggest differences between as I've already alluded to Katrina, which
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  Speaker 1: was obviously a democratic city New Orleans, and here and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what's happened in California is that you don't have a
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  Speaker 1: Republican president that they can blame. And you know, even
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: though some have actually tried, MSNBC tried a couple of
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: times to try to blame Donald Trump and Elon Musk
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Jen Pizaki specifically, which was just absolutely ridiculous and absurd.
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  Speaker 1: But everyone knows that California is extremely democratic state, Los
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Angeles extremely democratic city, and obviously Joe Biden is still president.
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  Speaker 1: So it's more difficult for anybody inter rational world to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: get around the idea that, Okay, maybe the democratic establishment
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: here has some responsibility either directly or indirectly for what
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: actually transpired. And I am obviously somebody who is going
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to agree with that. I mean, the direct cause of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this is almost certainly one of three things, other than
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the environmental circums dances that I've already outlined. Almost always
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: these fires are caused by a homeless situation, an arson circumstance,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: or electrical wiring issues in high winds. I mean, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what the percentage is, but having lived here
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: for a long time, it's almost one hundred percent one
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  Speaker 1: of those three things. And sometimes it's a combination of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: those three things. But homelessness, direct arson, or electrical wiring
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: issues in high winds. It appears no one knows for sure.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: It appears that at least some of this was the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: electrical wiring issues because of the high winds, and that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that can cause a fire like this to start. It
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: was not because somehow the climate is fundamentally different. It's
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: not because anything has been unusual. It's not unusual for California,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Southern California toms a month of rainy season and then
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: be vulnerable the Santa Ana winds from the desert. It's
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: in fact, very historical, very cyclical, and it's very much
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to be anticipated after having had two very wet, wet winters.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But I will say, and this goes to the authorities,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and I already referenced the media, there was not the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: level of alarm that there should have been when we
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had this obvious circumstance where you've got very dry ground
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and incredibly strong Santa Ana winds coming in in January.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: There just wasn't. I mean, you know, it's human nature.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot more alarm now about what's about
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to happen over the next couple of days, even though
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: you know the winds aren't forecast to be as strong
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: as they were last week. There's a lot more alarm
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and media attention and obviously the authorities, you know, making
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: sure people are trying to try to be as careful
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: as possible and that we're as prepared as possible, But
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of course the horse has already left the bar. We've
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: already seen absolute catastrophe. I mean, Pacific Palisades is gone.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Much of Malibu is gone, which is really startling from
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a visual standpoint, because you know, that's as iconic as
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it gets in the Los Angeles area. I mean you
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: drive PCH Pacific Coast Highway and all these incredible homes
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: right on the beach in Malibu and they're just gone.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I mean just a war zone, completely obliterated. And there's
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the irony there that here these these multi multi million
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: dollar homes feet from the largest body of water in
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the world, the Pacific Ocean, and they burned to the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: ground with nobody there to try to put out the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: fire because it comes from the hills of Malibu and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: they get hit from the backside. And it was obvious
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that the firefighting efforts in Pacific Palisades and Malibu and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: also a town called Altadna that got absolutely obliterated, that
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: there was almost no pushback from the firefighting forces. And
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not blaming the firefighters. There were a lot of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: reasons for this, but I mean this was This was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: something that I had never experienced before, and I think
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who were in these areas were
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: unprepared for. Because a lot of people left their houses
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: in a situation that's not that unusual, we kind of
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: get desensitized to it here in southern California. In fact,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I was desensitized to it. During the taping of the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: last podcast, I referenced the fires, but I was taping
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: it before I had any real knowledge of just how
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: bad this was. But you get used to these fires
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and you think, Okay, it's gonna be bad. There's gonna
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: be some people who are gonna lose their homes, but
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it's not going to get completely and totally out of control.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be a lay down situation. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this really was a laydown. I mean this was put
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: in sports terms. This was like Florida State against Georgia
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and their bowl game last year, losing sixty three to three.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was like no fight at all, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I think part of it was lack of preparation. Part
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of it was lack of resources. They had no ability
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to fight from the air because of the high winds.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: There are reports, you know, of reservoirs being dry and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: hydrants being empty and water pressure not being there, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of potential reasons for why this happened.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But you know this is this is unprecedented in my
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: time here in twenty years, and certainly it's unprecedented in
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the history of Los Angeles with regard to the level
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of destruction that these fires have created. But as far
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: as the blame game and the narrative here, I have
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to say, and part of this is because Elon Musk
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: owns Twitter, and because the right wing media is able
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to influence narratives a heck of a lot more dramatically
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: than they were prior to that happening where Elon Musk
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: owned Twitter. I mean, my gosh, everything that Elon Musk tweets,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: for better or for worse, automatically gets tens and tens
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of millions of views. And you know, there's no question
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: that the narrative of this whole thing has been influenced
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: by this. I mean, if this was just a local
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles story and had not been big enough to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: where it has become a huge story nationally and internationally,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I think the local media would still be able to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: bottle up the truth of what happened here, but that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: has not been the case now. To be clear, the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: local media narratives have been nowhere near as right wing
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: or conservative or anti liberal as what we've seen in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the national conversation about this. So I don't want to,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you know, make it sound as if, oh my gosh,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the local media here has woken
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: up and they're really holding everyone's feet to the fire.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And we're seeing a new day in southern California as
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we've realized the damage that it can be done because
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of a one party state with DEI and progressive policies
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and you know, ridiculous concerns about environmental circumstances and not
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: clearing brush. And I mean, and by the way, when
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I say that, when I go through parts of Los Angeles,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I don't even understand how people can live there. I'm
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: usually talking about the mountainous areas. Although Pacific Palisades is
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: just below the mountains, it's in a basically a canyon area,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: which made them incredibly vulnerable once the fire, the fires
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: came down that hill and into the neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: There's so many different factors in that, but one of
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: them is the obsession with brush and palm trees and
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: all sorts of vegetation that become kindling wood, especially when dry.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: When we haven't had any rain throughout the entire month
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of December in the beginning of January. I mean, really,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles is a city that should not exist. I
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: refer to you. I refer you to a piece done
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: by Keith Morrison from NBC's Dateline, which I posted on
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: my twitter feed. I was considering playing it, but it's
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a little bit too long to play in this podcast,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but it's really extremely well done. Keith's one of the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: few remaining pros left and television news, and I posted
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it on my twitter feed and as of this taping,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: it has over two hundred thousand views. My tweet of this,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: this piece that Keith Morrison did, and basically his commentary
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: is that this crazy town Los Angeles shouldn't exist. And
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: we go through this all the time. We're always battling
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: these fires and all sorts of things, earthquakes that can
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: happen here. But you know, we'll rebuild and people will
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: always be enamored by Los Angeles, this crazy mess of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a town. And again, it's about a four minute piece
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and if you're interested, I would urge you to go
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to my Twitter feed because it's or just find it
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: on your own. Just just look up Keith Morrison and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the Wildfires on Twitter and you'll find it. It's extremely
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: well done, and it very much dobtails with my view
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of this whole thing. I mean, yes, I have empathy
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and sympathy for the people who have lost everything in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the fires, but there is a part of me that thinks,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: what are we even thinking doing this? I mean, there
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: are this is an area that is just way, way,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: way overpopulated in so many different ways, and yeah, we
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: get away with it for the vast, vast majority of time,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: but it's a ticking time bomb, much like New Orleans
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: was with Katrina. And this was a situation where all
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the circumstances came together and you know, one of those
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and it's a long time coming. Is this obsession within
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the one party state that is California, especially Southern California
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and San Francisco with equity and DEI and progressive environmental
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: policies and look, I am always trying to be as
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: fair as I possibly can, And I get that as
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: an evidence based person, a person who wants there to
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: be evidence for any conclusion. I come to that. You know,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: there ought to be some direct correlation or causation between
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: these progressive policies and why it was that Los Angeles
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: or much of Los Angeles just burned to the ground.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So I get why people would want there to be
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: evidence to make that connection. However, to me, I look
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: at the DEI thing a little bit differently. To me,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: DEI is a luxury. Now, that's a progressive luxury. So
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: if you want to show off virtue signal to the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: rest of the world that you can have a woman
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: who is the head of the Los Angeles Fire Department
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and that she has her job mostly, if not totally,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: because she happens to be a lesbian. And oh, by
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the way, there are two other lesbians who are in
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the top administrative positions in the Los Angeles Fire Department.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: By the way, they all seemingly have basically the same name,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: some form of Christian. If you're going to do that,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: that's fine, I guess. But when something goes wrong, especially
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: when it's catastrophically wrong. There's going to be a demand
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: for accountability when this disaster strikes. You can't get away
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: with it. See, this is the game, This is the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: way the rules ought to be. Okay, if you want
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to virtue signal and you want to hire people based
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: upon things that have absolutely nothing to do with whether
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: or not they're good at their job, there's going to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: be a price for that. There must be a price
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: for that, regardless of whether they did anything wrong that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: can be proven. That's the way the game has to work.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And so when you live by DEI, you must die
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: with DEI. And I'm not sure that enough people fully
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: understand that deal. You lose the benefit of the doubt.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: You lose all benefit of the doubt if you decide
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that you're going to hire top people based upon their sexuality,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: especially the situation where you know whether it's you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: if it's your gender, that's one thing, but your sexuality
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: can at least theater antically be chosen. It's just unbelievable
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to me that we've gotten to this point. I mean,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Whitney Cummings, that now suddenly conservative female comedian here in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, put out a video that went viral where
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: she was talking about how is it that you get
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to choose people for their jobs based upon who is
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: in your own dating pool, And I think there's something
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to be said for that. I mean, it's just crazy.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: And I have nothing against you know, especially the woman
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: who's actually in charge, the head of the Los Angeles
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Fire departments. She seems somewhat competent, even though she got
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: her job because of the fact that she's a lesbian.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And that's the way this must work. If you're going
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to put someone in the leadership position because of DEI considerations,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: then when it goes really badly, you lose all benefit
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of the doubt. You lose all benefit of the doubt
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: as to what transpired here. And there's been some accountability
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: on that front, but probably not nearly enough. I mean
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles in the local media, there's been
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: very little talk about the impact that DEI may have had,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly on why Los Angeles was not
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: prepared for this. But I want to play a couple
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of clips here to give you some specific examples of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: some of the things that have happened here in the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles area and response to this catastrophe. Because obviously
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: this is the death of journalism podcast. And I think
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that one of the many, many reasons why Southern California
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: was set up for this catastrophe is that we won
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have a one party state politically, but we also have
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: no news media. I talk about this all the time,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and those two things go hand in hand, but we
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: have absolutely no news media in this state. None. We've
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: discussed this with Elix Michaelson, the anchor of the Fox
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: eleven news here in Los Angeles, Lyssa Beebe's former television station,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and Alex and I go at each other from time
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to time, and I actually think that he helped Gavin
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Newsom out a bit over the last few days by
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: helping him change the subject somehow to Donald Trump and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: his invitation to have Donald Trump come out here and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: his attacks on Donald Trump from supposedlylitic sizing this whole thing.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So Alex was basically doing Gavin Newsom's bidding in my
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: opinion on this. But I also think that Alex's heart
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: is in the right place. He at least tries, he
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: at least cares. But the reality here is we have
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: no real news media in Southern California or in California
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: as a whole. And what's really been fascinating to see
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: over the last several days is what happens when we
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: suddenly get a semblance of a news media. I have
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: made the comparison many times before between the news media
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: being like the defense in a football game and Democrats
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: being a quarterback in a football game where they know
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the defense is basically on their side and certainly the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: referees are on their side. And it's a lot easier
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: to be a quarterback be a Democrat when you have
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: absolutely no pressure on you and you know there's not
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: going to be any pressure on you. Well, suddenly we
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: saw pressure in the aftermath of this catastrophe. Now that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: pressure came from a couple of different perspectives, one of
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: which and this is where politics and media are clearly connected.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you don't you know, it's a symbiotic relationship.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Because there's a one party state in California, all Democrat,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the media goes along with it. The media is completely
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you know, castrated. There are a bunch of eunuchs in
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: most situations. But suddenly, because of these unique and catastrophic circumstances,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that changed and there were a couple of really good
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: examples of that and what happened suddenly, And the other
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: analogy I'll use other than football is, you know, democrats
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: in California especially, are a lot like zoo animals who
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: have been in captain their whole life. They've been you know, fed,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and they don't have to go, you know, out and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: find their own food. And they don't. They've lose basically
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: all of their survival instincts. They don't know how to
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: handle a situation where all of a sudden they're out
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: in the wild. So, you know, those are I think
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: two really good analogies. Democrats as quarterbacks knowing that the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: defense is not going to pressure them at all and
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: if they do, they'll get called for a penalty by
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the referees. And also this this zoo analogy. Well, if
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: you keep both of those in mind, that'll, I think
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: give you some more insight as to what's really going
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: on with a couple of these clips that I'm going
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to play. The first I want to play deals with
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a couple of different issues. Specifically, this, I guess you
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: would call it controversy over whether or not the fire
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: hydrants in parts of Pacific Palisades actually had water in them.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: And this scot first brought up by Rick Caruso. Now
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: this is important as to who Rick Caruso is. That
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: name may ring a Bell because he ran for mayor
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago against the current mayor, Karen Bass,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and he's a rich businessman. He's not nearly as liberal
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: as most Democrats. He was once a Republican, although he
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: frankly has a lot of liberal positions. But he spent
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a ton of money on his mayor's race. He almost won,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but he did not win. He did not win basically
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: because the Democratic establishment, specifically Barack Obama, said hey, we
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: can't go against the black female. I'm paraphrasing, but that's
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: essentially what happened. Karen Bass is a black female, so
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: she won over the white guy who had a lot
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of experience and business of human and certainly the wherewithal
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to potentially be a really good mayor of Los Ange Angels. Well,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: he actually has a very strong connection to Pacific Palisades.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And what's really important in this whole narrative is that
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: he actually hired his own his own firefighting force to
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: protect the mall that he owns in Pacific Palisades and
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: it apparently was very successful. And this is a guy
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: who has a lot of knowledgees in this area. He's
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: not somebody who's just talking at of his butt. And
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: he went on Fox eleven, Alex Michaelson's station that I've
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: already referenced here in Los Angeles, and he made a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: pretty serious allegation very early on in the coverage of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: this whole situation that he was being told and I'm
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: sure he has a lot of strong connections in the
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: fire department in Los Angeles, that they just simply weren't
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: able to get water from some of the fire hydrants.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: So he says this on Fox eleven. The Fox eleven anchor,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: not Alex Michaelson, but some other guy that was on
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the air at the time makes the rather extraordinary move
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to say, look, we don't know this to be true
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and basically make it sound like Rick Caruso is, you know,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: being Donald Trump and spreading misinformation and you know, we're
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: not verifying that information. And then Fox eleven goes to
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: one of their top reporters in the field, and the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: reporter in the field confirms Caruso's report. So right here
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: in a nutshell. You've got a fairly short amount of time,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of different issues coming together in one
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: short snippet that really exposes a whole lot of things.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: One the reality of what was happening on the ground here,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: but also the way that the local media normally rallies
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: around the liberal narrative. You're in Los Angeles, but where
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the circumstances and the reality of this catastrophe were so
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: obvious and so overt that they couldn't get away with
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: it this time. And here's what that sounded like on
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the Fox affiliate here in Los Angeles.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: For maer Eller excuse me. Former LA mayoral candidate and
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: real estate developer Rick Caruso, criticizing the city's response to
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: the windstorm and fires. He says officials should have been
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: more prepared.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: The real issue to me is twofold. We've had decades
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to go remove the brush in these hills that spread
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: so quickly. And the second is you've got to have water.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: And my understanding is the reservoir was not refilled in
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: time and in a timely manner to keep the hydrants gone.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: So that's a failure. Whether I'm DWP's part or another
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: city agency. But this is basic stuff. This isn't high
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: science here, and it's all about leadership and management. We're
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: seeing a failure of and all of these residents are
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: paying the ultimate price for that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Despite what you have heard from Caruso, No firefighters have
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: told us that they are running out of water.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: And let's go out to Gigi Gracie.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: She is live in Pacific Palisades.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: I know your signal's not the best, but Gigi, what
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: can you tell us?
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Well, firefighters have told me they have no water on
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: this block. And you may be able to make out
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: the Ember storm that we're in the middle of right now,
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: this house going to be a total loss. They have
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: no water to put on this fire. They are standing
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: by because they're trying to stave the home that is
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: next to it.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Now, that was pretty extraordinary, and that went viral online
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and I think it was very telling in a lot
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of ways. And by the way, I think that Rick
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Caruso is going to play a very important role, if
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: only indirectly, in how all this transpires from here, because
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I think he's made it very clear that he will
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: run for mayor again next year when Karen Bass is
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: up for reelection, and if only the threat of that happening,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the threat of that happening, I think could have an
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: enormous impact, mostly positive impact on how Los Angeles recovers
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: from this catastrophe. And of course a lot of that'll
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: be up to Karen Bass, and Karen Bass, the mayor,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: really has handled a lot of this situation from a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: media perspective, very very poorly. She came back from Africa
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and she refused to answer questions from an Irish an
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Irish reporter, a reporter from Ireland confronted her extremely hard
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: when she returned to Lax Airport, and she just refused
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to say anything. It was really pathetic, and you know, well,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: it went viral. I can assure you that if she
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: was or a white male republic and every American would
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: have seen this on a loop, this horrendous video of
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: her just sitting there and standing there, just saying nothing,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: doing nothing, unable to defend herself for her city's response
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: to this horrendous situation and the damage, the catastrophic damage
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of these fires for which they were clearly unprepared. And
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I referenced this idea that the local leaders here, especially Democrats,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: are so used to not getting any pushback from the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: media that like zoo animals out of captivity or back
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: into the wild, they're completely unprepared for it. And I
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: think Karen Bass exposed that with regard to what happened
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: when she returned to lax but also when she was
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: confronted not once, but on multiple occasions by a CBS
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: National reporter. And this guy was really not taking any
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: of the normal BS here. And I don't think that
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass was really at all ready or prepared for
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the fact that the media was not going to lay
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: down for her. I think that Democrats are just so
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: used to that happening here, especially locally, but in this
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: particular situation, here is a press conference the day after,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: so this is still very early on in this entire situation,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: but this is after we now know for sure the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades has been wiped out, much of Malibu has
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: been wiped out, much of Altadena has been wiped out,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and that LA was clearly not prepared for it. And
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: this is an extraordinary exchange between a CBS National reporter
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and Karen Bass, where Karen Bass simply refuses to answer
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: questions about her accountability or her city's preparedness lack therab
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: for this event, basically using the the not now card,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I'll address that later, essentially saying these are not legitimate
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: questions and I'm gonna, you know, refuse to answer them,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: which is amazing, it's extraordinary, But I don't think it's working.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think she's gonna get away with it. But this,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to me, from a media perspective, is a classic example
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: of what happens when you're not used to dealing with
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: difficult questions, and you're used to the news media being
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: on your side, and now all of a sudden, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: what's this all about? We're actually getting real questions. I
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: don't know what to do here. I'm gonna punt, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna try to play the card that this
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: is not even legitimate, that somehow this would actually be
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: firming our relief efforts if I was forced to answer
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: questions about my outability or why my city was not
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: prepared for this. But here's what that sounded like. This
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: is one of several exchanges between the CBS supporter and
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the Los Angeles marrikaren Bass, but this is the one
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that I think that was most talent.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: My crew and I arrived shortly after it started, and
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: for several hours we watched as hundreds of homes in
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: a neighborhood burned to the ground. We did not see
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: a single fire engine. We watched as good Samaritans guided traffic.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: There was fear and there was a lot of confusion.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: You were out of the country at the time. Shortly
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: after the fire started, a press release was put out
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: warning of this fire behavior. My question to you is
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: what explains this last of preparation and rapid response.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Let me just say, first and foremost, my number one focus,
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: and I think the focus of all of us here
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: with one voice, is that we have to protect lives.
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: We have to save lives, and we have to save homes.
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: Rest assured that rest assured, Let me finish, rest assured.
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: When that is done, when we are safe, when lives
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: have been saved and homes have been saved, we will
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: absolutely do an evaluation to look at what worked, what
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: didn't work, and to correct or to hold accountable anybody, department, individual, etc.
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: But my focus right now is on the lives and
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: on the homes.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: Do you think your leadership was effective while responding to
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: this disaster.
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: I just said what I believe is the most important
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: thing for us to do.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Now. That kind of media pressure has an impact. It's
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: not just theoretical. It's not just a situation where it
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: makes Karen Bass look bad. To me, it goes way
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: beyond that. This is a classic situation where you know
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: there's a domino effect. Pressure in one area impacts life
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: in another aspect. And to me, this created a rift
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: between the Lesbian LA Fire Department chief and Karen Bass
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: to the point where at one juncture there was a
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: rumor or a report that Bass had fired the fire chief. Well,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that turned out not to be the case, but at
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the very least, what transpired was that the head of
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Fire gave not one but two interviews, one
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: local one national where they essentially criticized the mayor and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the resources that were available and the budget cuts that
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: had transpired before these fires. Well, that rift between the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: head of the fire department and the mayor doesn't likely
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: happen without the media pressure on Bass to begin with.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: This is all a domino effect, and it's another example
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: of what happens when Democrats who are used to getting
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: no media pressure whatsoever, all of a sudden have to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: live in the real world, and part of it's glorious.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I will acknowledge that as someone who is very frustrated
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: by the fact that we live in a one party
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: state with no actual real journalism or media coverage. But
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: there's also some positive impacts of this, because not only
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: do you get the truth to come out and a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: lot of that did happen because of the rift between
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the head of the Los Angeles Fire Department and the mayor,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: but also you might potentially get some positive change. And
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: when it came to positive change and the news media
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: one of the people that was maybe the most shocking,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: although I guess in retrospect maybe it wasn't that surprising,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: but it certainly was potentially. The most impactful is the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: reaction to all this from the owner of the Los
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Angeles Times, doctor Pat Soon she Young, who is obviously
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: somebody who is not a conservative. The Los Angeles Times
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: is not as liberal a paper as you can possibly find. Now.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Prior to the fires, he had already made some overtures
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: as to try to be more fair from a political perspective.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: They did not endorse Kamala Harris for President. They hired
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Scott Jennings from CNN for some reasons on the East
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Coast to be part of their editorial board at the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times. But I wasn't really taking him very
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: seriously as someone who was going to be a change
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: agent when it comes to the media environment in southern
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: California until the last few days when on Twitter and
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: in at least one interview that I'm about to play
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: for you that he did with a conservative host on
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: News Nation Television, where he has made it very clear
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that he does not believe that the Democratic establishment was
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: prepared for this, that he believes that this entire situation
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: has really exposed that we need competence when it comes
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: to our leaders and not to vote based purely on
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: labels or basically one party democratic state. Part of that
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: is my interpretation of what he's saying, but some of
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: it is very consistent with his actual words. And this
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: is the owner of the Los Angeles Times. To me,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: this was a potential wake up call here. I'm not
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: someone who believes that all of a sudden, this catastrophe
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: is going to cause parts of California to turn red
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: or even come close to that. I don't believe that
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: at all. I'm going to get to what I think
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: is going to happen momentarily, but as far as they're
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: being glimmers of hope and the impact of this whole situation,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: When even the owner of the Los Angeles Times is saying,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, Democrats screwed up here for all intentsive purposes,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: that's significant. And here was the owner of the Los
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Angeles Times on News Nation Television responding to how it
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: is that one party in competence may have had a
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: role in why Los Angeles effectively has burned to the ground.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: When your team of reporters brought you this that the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: reservoir was offline and empty, what was your response that.
• 46:38
  Speaker 7: It's so crazy that we have leaders that are reactive
• 46:43
  Speaker 7: rather than proactive. I mean, it really emphasizes what I
• 46:47
  Speaker 7: treated yesterday about issues of competence, and I think that's
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: why we really concerned. We don't elect people with great
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: operational competence. There's really no surprise that we would have fires.
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: In fact, we live through a fire many just a
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: couple of years ago. So the idea that for example,
• 47:08
  Speaker 7: we don't create firebreaks, we actually reduced the budget we
• 47:13
  Speaker 7: actually don't inspect the hydrants. We don't parently. There's another
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: we will be doing this investigation of a valve that
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: actually could have actually increased the pressure the absence of
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: water in the reservoirs. Now you hear all these excuses,
• 47:28
  Speaker 7: and I just heard this excuse about disinformation. I mean,
• 47:31
  Speaker 7: I think that's outrageous when you have thousands of acres
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: burning and ten people are dead. So at least, so, yes,
• 47:40
  Speaker 7: I think the policies were misplaced. We have to ask
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: our questions, where are we spending the money and why,
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: and what is the sort of planning and the logistics
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: skill set of actually preparing ahead for this.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: So I think that's an incredibly potentially positive development, if
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: only a cry for some semblance of rationality that if
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: we can just get out of this one party rule situation,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: then at least we have a chance. And if the
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: owner of the Los Angeles Times is making that argument,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: that has potential significance. Now, of course, you know, the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: big prize in all this, as far as I'm concerned,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: because I've talked about how much I loathe him for
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: many many years, is our Governor Gavin Newsom. Now I
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: have no expectation that Gavin Newsom is going to be
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: completely destroyed by all this. I have, you know, found
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: it interesting that even some liberals are more willing to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: attack him in light of this wildfire disaster, even though
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we may not be able to directly connect
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: his incompetence with what transpired here. I mean, he's awfully slippery.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: He's very good in elements of the news media. There
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: are still members of the news media that are willing
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: to block for him and to obfuscate for him and
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: allow him to change the subject. But there have been
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: some embarrassing moments for him from immediate perspective over the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: last several days. Most prominently, he was confronted by a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades female resident in a video clip that went
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: viral where it appears as if he was lying about
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: speaking to President Biden on his cell phone, which was
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: just so classic Newsome. I think some of the backlash
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: against Newsom has been at least residually from the COVID response.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I think I've seen a lot of people who are
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: in the non conservative, moderate even liberal perspective who have
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: been more willing to attack Newsom in the aftermath of
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the fires. Partially because now it's politically okay, it's socially
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: okay now to attack Newsom, And I would like to
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: believe that it's kind of like Newsome used up a
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: lot of his political capital with all of the COVID
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: insanity and tyranny, and now it's socially acceptable for people
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to go, okay, Wait a minute, maybe this guy doesn't
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: really know what the hell he's doing, and it's now
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: okay to criticize and attack him. But I don't sense
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that he has been mortally wounded yet. Now this is
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: a guy who clearly wants to run for president in
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, and I think that's an important part
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of the equation as far as where Southern California is
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: going to go from here. To me, this is going
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: to be the ultimate test of liberal insanity and whether
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: or not liberals in the state of California are able
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: to at least temporarily check their insanity because it's there
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in their self interest to do so, that's going to
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: be the key question. And I don't have an answer
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: to that. But I'm actually a little bit optimistic, more
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: optimistic than a lot of other people are, especially considering
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the fact that I'm known as a pessimist as to
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: how this all may work out from here. Now you
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: have people like Adam Carolla, look I like and respect,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and I think he's a smart dude, and I like
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: his commentary, and my wife loves him, and he and
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I agree on a lot of things, and we've had
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: some decently positive interaction over the years. And Adam Carolla
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: is definitely in the pessimists camp with regard to how
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: this is all going to transpire, because his whole thing is,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: there's no possible way that the state of California, with
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: all of our insanity, with all of our environmental protections,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: as impossible as it is to get permits for anything,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: that there's ever going to be any sort of legitimate
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: cleanup and rebuild even with the next five to ten years.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I don't want to misquote Adam Krola, but he's been
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: putting the theory out there that basically California is completely
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: screwed because we are totally and completely unable to recover
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: from a situation like this, because we're burdened by all
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: sorts of progressive environmental insanity. And I at first one
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: hundred percent agreed with that perspective, I one hundred percent
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: agree that that is a massive problem, a huge challenge,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and one that unless we have unique circumstances, there's no
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: way that California could overcome that. This would be the
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: end of California. This would be the end of Los Angeles.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: This is an existential threat to the future of Los Angeles,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: especially given the fact that as an industry town, it's
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: an industry that's dying fast. The movie industry, the entertainment industry,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: tell vision industry. It's a terrible time for this to occur.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: But I actually believe that that might be what saves
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. And let me explain the reason why I've
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: kind of shifted away from the Adam Carolla pessimistic view
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: of how this is all going to go from here
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: is I'm a big believer that when it comes to tragedies,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the worst kind of tragedy you can be involved in
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: is where you are very negatively impacted with only a
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: few other people, in a situation that doesn't get a
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: lot of attention, That where you don't become a class
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: action so to speak. Like, for instance, a month or
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: so ago, here in my small town Inventura County, just
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: north of Los Angeles. We lost about one hundred homes
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: due to a fire, and it was horrific, horrendous. It
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: came very close to where I live. In fact, I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: got an evacuation notice on my phone while I was
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: doing the podcast on one of our episodes of a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: month or so ago. Well, unfortunately, those people are not
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: part of a situation that has any real political power.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: It's too small a number of people. There are no celebrities,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: nobody that's super duper rich. The media has moved on.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: There's nothing compelling about the story. It wasn't big enough.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: It wasn't big enough to where you are going to
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: be taken care of. You're not going to be forgotten.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: The best tragedy, if there's ever a good tragedy to
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: be a part of, but the least bad tragedy to
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: be a part of, is when you are a victim
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: along with a lot of other people, especially if those
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: other people happen to be very rich, and they happen
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: to many of them be celebrities, and especially if it's
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: in a situation where you have unique political circumstances, where
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: those in charge are deeply invested and incentivized in trying
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: to fix the problem, and I think that is what
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: we have here currently in Los Angeles. There are unique
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: circumstances and incentive structures that may underlying may save the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: day here. And let me go through a few of them.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I've already referenced one, and that is that the mayor
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: or the mayoral situation in Los Angeles is really perfectly
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: designed for there to be real movement here where you
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: have an embattled incumbent who will be running for reelection
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: next year in twenty twenty six. Now, normally that wouldn't
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: matter because the Democrats control everything, but because Rick Crusoe
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: already has enormous recognition, he's made it obvious that he's
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: interested in running a second time for mayor against Karen Bass.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: He has the money to do so, the name recognition
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: to do so. He looks fantastic in my opinion, coming
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: out of this fire, if only because he had the
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: wherewithal to save part of Pacific Palisades with his own
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: fire department, thus exposing the incompetence of the actual Los
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Angeles Fire Department. By the way, he just donated five
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: million dollars to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, so
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: I think politically, it's obvious that he is making moves
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to run for mayor again, and just the threat of
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Caruso running against Bass, I think is going to make
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Bass one hundred percent incentivized to cut the fucking crap.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: That's really what this is all going to come down to.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: And she's already said that, you know, we got to
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: cut red tape. We have to allow these things to
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: happen more quickly than they normally would. And Gavin Newsom
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: has said exactly the same thing. He's already signed an
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: executive order where supposedly a lot of these environmental restrictions,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: this insanity that causes it to be impossible to get
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: a permit for anything in southern California, are going to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: be done away with. Now, there's a difference between what
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: you say in theory and what's going to actually happen
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: in reality. But Newsome, much like Bass, is also extremely
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: incentivized to unleash some semblance of rationality here in order
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to save Los Angeles because he wants to run for
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: president in twenty twenty eight and his entire legacy as
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: governor is on the line. It's going to be judged
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: on how Southern California recovers from this. And so you
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: have a mayor that is going to have someone breathing
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: down her for sure in her reelection bid in twenty
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: twenty six. You've got a governor who wants to run
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: for president, and I think it's currently delusional that he
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: thinks he has a chance of being successful there, but
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I think that that's what he's going to want to
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: try to do. Plus his legacy is on the line.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: You got a city that has the World Cup coming here,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: a super Bowl coming here, the Olympics are coming here
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, and you've got a whole bunch
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: of celebrities who are directly impacted by all this, who
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: are going to be able to keep this in the
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: news for basically perpetuity. And so you have these horrendous pictures.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: You have two towns that have basically been wiped off,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: been a third one Malibu, that has been incredibly negatively
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: impacted by all this, And who knows what's going to
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: happen over the next few days, is these wins continue.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: But this is the best case scenario right now as
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: far as the amount of damage that Los Angeles has suffered.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: But you have a situation that is so large that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think it can possibly go away, and you
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: have these unique political incentive structures that I think, now
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I may be giving Democrats too much credit here, but
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in incentives, and the incentive structures
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: here are such that I think we're going to see
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: a rather surprising and remarkable recovery. Now, there's gonna be problems.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be perfect. I mean, this insurance
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: issue is a complete clusterfuck. And let's be clear about
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: you know this, This insurance situation is a really classic
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: example of how progressivism and liberalism causes problems. And then
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like they kill their parents and complain
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: about being an orphan. This is a class the example
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: of that. Because you've probably heard that a lot of people,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: specifically in Pacific Palisades had their insurance dropped by State
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Farm just before this happened, and you know somehow State
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Farm or the insurance companies are the bad guys. Well,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: what you're not being told is that the reason why
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: State Farm had to drop so many people specifically in
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades, is one that they had made a risk
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: assessment that apparently was based in reality that this was
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: going to cost them potentially too much money to continue
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: to ensure these homes in a fire prone area like
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades. But they were not allowed by the State
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: of California to increase the rates that they were charging
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: in conjunction with their increased risk assessment. That's called supply
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: and demand.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: Top.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: If you believe that you are going to incur more risk,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: then guess what, You're going to need to charge more
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: money in order to justify that risk. But it was
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: the state of California that prevented that. If they had
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: been allowed to charge more, the people in Pacific Palisades
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: would not have been dropped. They would have had the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: option to pay more, but the state wouldn't allow that.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: And so now in response to all this, you know,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Governor Aism says, well, we're going to prevent anybody from
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: being from their insurance for at least a year, which
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: has all sorts of potential implications. Because progressives don't believe
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: in supply and demand, they believe that corporations are inherently evil.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: They don't understand what happens when you deny the laws
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: of supply and demand. It's as basic as that. They
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: just don't believe in capitalism. Now it's capitalism perfect, no,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: but it's a help a lot better than the alternative.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: And we're seeing that here. There are gonna be people,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: we don't know how many yet who lost everything and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: we're not insured, and you know, new some them. I'm
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: sure we'll blame the insurance companies, but it's actually the
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: state of California that is to blame. So that's gonna
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: be a mess. I don't know what's gonna happen with
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: regard to, for instance, the housing market. The I think
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: banks could be impacted by this because we we have
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: all sorts of mortgages that are that are on the line.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the insurance companies are gonna have
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: enough money to even cover what they owe people for
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: their loss. I mean, so there's a lot of unknowable
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: things right now. It's possible this could be so large
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that it's not a problem that can be solved in
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: anything anything close to a timely fashion. But I do
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: think there's an opportunity for democrats because of the incentive structures,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: because there's going to be so much money available, both
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: from a state and I think even a federal perspective.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Biden is doing everything right now, but
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: even Trump is somewhat incentivized to help here. First of all,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: Trump owns a very prominent property in Palas Verdes, California,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: which is not an area that's been impacted so far,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: but he has an incentive from a financial perspective to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: get Los Angeles back up on its feet. And so
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: you've got a president that is at least somewhat personally
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: incentivized coming into office. And I've already talked about the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: mayor's incentive, Newsom's incentive to basically say, we got to
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: knock at the fuck off in this particular circumstance when
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: it comes to this environmental insanity. And of course, you know,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and I tweeted this, and people seem to understand where
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I was coming from. So let me follow the lodge.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that it's okay to he's
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: claiming he's not disregarding environmental restrictions but diminish environmental restrictions
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: in an emergency. Politically, when there's a political emergency, it's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: okay to get rid of red tape. Why can't you
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: get rid of tape red tape all the time. Aren't
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: you admitting that the red tape is bullshit? The red
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: tape is basically a luxury much like DEI, that you
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: simply can't afford anymore because the political circumstances have changed.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: That's essentially what's transpiring here. And I do think if
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: there's one reason why I'm somewhat optimistic about the long term,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure I'm clear about this when
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I'm talking a couple of years from now, that I
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: think that by the time, for instance, the twenty twenty
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: eight Olympics occur, I think Los Angeles will have made
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: a better than expected recovery because they have no choice.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: It's not just politically. I've references already, but I want
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: to mention it one more time. This is a do
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: or die situation for the city of Los Angeles. If
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: this goes poorly and people decide, you know what, fuck it,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: I'm done, I'm leaving, and you know, all these celebrities
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: leave and the industry of the entertainment business is already
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: in dire straits, and you know, and if the place
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: still looks like a mess and tourism goes away, we've
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: already lost so many historical sites, and frankly, I've always
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: thought the Los Angeles was a very overrated tourism city
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: to begin with. If if they don't recover, if they
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: don't meet this challenge, it's over. Los Angeles is done.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: So when you have that level of imperative, when you
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: have that much political incentive, and when you have that
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: much money, because there's going to be a ton of
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: money from the state life, there's gonna be a ton
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: of money from insurance, There's going to probably be tons
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: of money from the federal government because again, this whole
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances was so large. Once you're in the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: realm of Katrina, you know, and you cannot be ignored,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: and it becomes a national cause to try to fix this.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I think you got a hell of a chance unless
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: you blow it. Now. It's possible there may be so
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: much liberal and competence that they just can't get out
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: of their own way. That is possible. But I actually think,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: in a contrarian point of view, that there is an
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: opportunity here for Democrats to show that they can actually
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: rise to the occasion when properly incentivized under unique circumstances,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: and they knock at the fuck off with the insanity.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong about that, but I you know,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: that's where I currently am on this. I hate it
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: when I'm an optimist because that almost always means that
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, especially someone who is generally considered understandably to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: be a pessimist. But I am cautiously optimistic. Then in
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of years, you're going to see Los Angeles
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: being a lot better shaped than a lot of conservatives,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: including people like Adam Carolla, currently think is likely. I
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: could be wrong about that, but I'm just looking purely
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: at the incentive structures and the unique set of circumstances,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: and the fact that there's going to be an enormous
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: amount of resources here from a variety of sources because
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: of the fact that this story has gotten so big,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: it's almost, you know, the reverse of too big to fail,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: You know, this is this is the situation is so
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: big and the stakes are so high that failure is
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: really not an option. And and so that's why I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: am actually betting in the semi long term that Los
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Angeles is going to be in a better position than
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: most people think. That being said, there are certain elements
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: of this that will are impossible to recover from. I
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: don't even know how you rebuild in Pacific palisades when
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: you don't have any schools. You know, you've lost all
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: the infrastructure. There's no talent anymore. So I don't even
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: know how you begin to do that. So they are
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: going to be enormous challenges for sure. But I just
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: think that the unique incentive structures here have not been
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: given quite enough attention from a lot of people who
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: want to know better, like for instance, the Adam Carollas
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: of the world. But I could be wrong. Maybe I'm
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: giving Democrats too much credit here. Maybe they're going to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: blow this even though they really have an enormous amount
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: of factors going in their favor at least if they
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: have a clue. And look, they may not have a clue.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: They may just be completely unable to function in a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: modern world. And we'll see it's going to be a
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: very interesting test. This is going to be, you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: almost an ultimate test, like the unstoppable force against the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: immovable object. That's kind of what we got here, the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: ultimate liberal insanity versus the ultimate incentive structure to get
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: your together and knock it the fuck off with the
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: stakes being incredibly high. So from an observer's perspective, that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: will be very interesting to see what transpires, and obviously
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: we'll continue to talk about it on the podcast as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the weeks and months go on. I referenced that I
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: was contacted by a lot of different types of people,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: because that seems to be the natural inclination that human
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: beings have when they know somebody who may or may
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: not be impacted by a massive story. And this was
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: interesting from a couple of different perspectives. One because back
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: when my talent was actually directly impacted, that my house
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: was almost directly impacted, nobody contacted me. I mean not
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: even family members, not even my father, because I don't
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: think that they heard about it. There wasn't enough media
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: coverage of it, and if they did, they didn't connected,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: and so it didn't reach anywhere near a critical mass
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: perspective when it came to people around the country saying, hey, zigger,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: you okay. And by the way, I'm just to be clear,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about this mostly from a curiosity perspective. I'm
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: fascinated by human behavior. It doesn't really matter that much
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: to me. It's nice to hear from people around the country.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: I've lived all over the country, so I know a
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: lot of different people from lots of different areas. And
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't keep in touch with people as
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: you move along in life, and so when something like
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: this happens, it's interesting to see who's going to contact you.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: So nobody, to my recollection, really contacted me a month
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: or so ago when we were really in pretty grave danger.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: But because this story has gotten so big and is
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: so ubiquitous, I have heard from tons of people, and
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it's very I think telling to kind of
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: do a recap of Okay, who contacts to me, either
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: via text or phone call or what have you, to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: see how I was doing in light of these recent fires,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: again when we have not been directly impacted yet, with
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: the exception of my in laws who have been evacuated.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: So to do here's the laundry list. A couple of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: ex girlfriends from decades ago. It's fun to hear from them.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: A psychiatrist friend of mine from North Carolina. It was
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: great to hear from him. Marty Rowe, the lead singer
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: of the very well known country music band Diamond Rio.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned on the podcast before an old golfing partner
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of mine. He got back in touch. The play by
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: play announcer for the Chicago White Sox got back in
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: touch after not having heard from him in quite a while,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: which was nice to hear from him. The widow of
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: Franco Harris, Dana Harris, who I've not heard from in
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: quite a while, she reached out, which was a particular
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: appropriate since this past weekend was the fiftieth anniversary of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Franco Harris being the Super Bowl MVP. I tweeted about
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that over the weekend. My good friend frank O Harris,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: who passed away a couple of years ago. But it
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: was nice to hear from Dana. And then, most interestingly,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: but I guess most significantly, I suddenly heard from my
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: former friend I thought was former friend and former Congressman,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Democratic Congressman John Yarmouth, who I have referenced on this
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: podcast many many times, specifically my confusion over the last
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: three plus years that I had not heard anything from
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: former Congressman Democrat from Louisville, Kentucky, John Yarmouth. He and
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: I had been very very close. We had hosted a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: television show together in Louisville, Kentucky. We had been golfing buddies,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: We had talked many, many times, done dozens of interviews
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: on all sorts of different platforms over the years, and
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: then back in twenty one, he sent me a text saying, Hey, John,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I just wanted you to know I'm retiring. When things
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: calm down, I'll give you a call and we can
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: catch up. We had not talked for the previous several months,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: and of course this was in the middle of the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: whole COVID insanity, and my desire to talk to any
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Democrat was not strong at all. But I responded to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: his text saying, thanks for letting me know. I look
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: forward to catching up. It'll be a difficult conversation. I
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: was alluding to COVID. I don't even know if he
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: understood that I was alluding to COVID, but you know,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: just you know, basically, contact me whenever you want. And
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: then I never heard anything from him. He ended up,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: you know, finishing out his term in Congress, and I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: kept waiting to hear from him, and I never heard
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: a damn thing. And I've referenced that on this podcast
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: many times that I was confused. I was even a
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: bit hurt, and I just did not understand, Okay, what
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: the hell happened because to my knowledge, there was no
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: falling out. I mean, I've had a lot of falling
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: outs with friends over my lifetime, especially with some prominent people,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing that was consistent with that with
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: regard to John Yarmouth, and we had had a relationship
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: that was really very consistent and there was no roller
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: coaster rides. I mean, I've had a lot of relationships
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: that are up, have ups and downs, and it's not
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: unusual if they end up going sideways, but this was
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: not one of them. This was always a lot of
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: mutual respect and there was never really any conflict, despite
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that John's a Democrat and I now loathed Democrats,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: especially post COVID insanity, and I kind of imagined in
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: my mind, what the hell could have possibly happened here,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: and I'd basically given up on the relationship. I was
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: absolutely going to, you know, basically keeping in John's court
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: that since he said he was going to contact me,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: that it would be his responsibility to do so. So
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: a few days after the fires broke out, all of
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: a sudden, I got a text from John Yarmouth, and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: I was a bit surprised, not totally shocked, because I
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: had already been contacted by the list of people that
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I've already referenced, and so you kind of get used
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: to it. All right, all right, we're in the midst
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: of a massive news story here, so people are going
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: to come out of the woodwork to suddenly contact you.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: But you know, he was very nice, and he said
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: he was wondering about how we're doing, and he'd been
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: meaning get in touch for quite a while, and let's
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: try to catch up at some point, give me a call, basically,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: And I tried to play a joke on him by
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: responding to his text with the question who dis and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think he got the joke because he responded
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: John Yarmouth, and I said, John, I know it's you.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just joking around. I haven't heard from you in
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: many years. But let's get on the phone and talk
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: at some point. So over the weekend we we did
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: have a conversation, and it was very nice. He didn't
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: really have an explanation for what had caused there to
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: be almost three and a half year long silence, and frankly,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: my takeaway was that I had thought about this and
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: how of a lot more than he had. I guess
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: our relationship meant a lot more to me than it
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: did to him, because it essentially seemed as if it
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: was one of those situations that kind of fell through
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: the cracks, and then when I got, you know, the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: inclination that something was wrong and therefore I didn't facilitate
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: any communication. It was kind of a sight out of mind.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: And then once it becomes so long that you've had
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: any contact with somebody, you need a really good excuse
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: to do so, right, although there would have been plenty
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: of excuses for that to happen. I mean, as much
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: as he and I have talked about Donald Trump over
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: the years, Donald Trump being re elected president probably would
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: have been enough to warrant getting back in touch. But
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it wasn't Trump's reelection. It was these wildfires,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: which thankfully have not directly impacted my family yet. But
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful that that has finally allowed the relationship to
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: be renewed. We had a very nice conversation and John
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: has actually agreed to be a guest on the podcast again,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: so we're scheduling this for the episode after Trump's inauguration.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: I thought that would be pretty appropriate considering the fact
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: that John is obviously a former Democratic congressman and very
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: very anti Donald Trump, and then that's been a source
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: of a lot of conversation both on and off the
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: air between myself and former Congressman Yarmouth. So it'll be
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: not our next episode or the one after that, it
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: will actually be I guess episode two hundred and two
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: twenty five, as currently scheduled. John y Yarmouth will be
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: our guest. So if there's been a silver lining to
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: the disaster that has been the wildfires in southern California,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: it is that Johnny Armouth and I are now back
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: in touch. I guess we're friends again. I guess we
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: never really worked friends. It just we didn't have any
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: contact for over three years, and I look forward to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: having him as a guest on the podcast in the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: coming weeks, just after Trump's inauguration. One other note about
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: the aftermath of the wildfires here in Los Angeles. I
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: have kind of become somehow known for being outspoken when
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: it comes to the issue of sports cancelations or cancelations
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: in general, or postponements in general. I've even coined the
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: phrase cancelation Nation, which is what I think we have
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: become post COVID. For instance, I was very much against
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: the postponement of the Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: Georgia because of the terrorist attack in New Orleans early
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: in the morning on New Year's Day. Well, we have
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: a somewhat similar situation that is actually going to transpire
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: tonight as I tape this on Monday morning, but will
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: have already happened by the time you hear this podcast,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: and that is that the NFL playoff game between the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings, which was supposed
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: to be held in Los Angeles, is going to be
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: held instead in Arizona because of fear of what's happening
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: with regard to the wildfires. Now, generally my reaction to
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: this would be that this is a mistake, and this
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: is just another example of where insanity has become normalized.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: And look, there is a ninety nine percent chance, maybe
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: even more than that, that this game could have happened
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles without there being a major problem. The
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: wildfire are not currently near where the stadium is. However,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I am not that exercised about this. I think it's
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: unfair to the Rams. I mean, they work their whole
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: season to get the home field advantage by winning the division,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: and they're playing the Vikings, and now all of a sudden,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: they're playing on a different surface in a different state
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: with no crowd. And not that the la home field
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: advantage is all that great, but it does seem a
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: little bit sketchy to me that the NFL probably wants
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the Vikings to win that game, because if the Vikings lose,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: it kind of exposes the playoffs or the regular season
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: is a bit of a fraud because the Vikings were
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: so strong during the regular season, but they lost their division,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: so they had to play on the road to the Rams,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: which did not have nearly as good a season as
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: the Vikings. I'm not saying that that was a conspiracy
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: by the National Football League, but it's one of those
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: situations where, boy, that's awfully convenient that now the Viking,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: in theory, are in a situation where they have no
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: disadvantage against the Rams. I'm a little bit less upset
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: by this postponement or this change of venue because of
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: the fact that the wind forecast is so bad for
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: Monday and specifically Tuesday, and because you're taking all sorts
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: of different resources from a police perspective, and who knows
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: what could possibly happen. So while I hate the fact
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that we now live in a world where this is
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: a knee jerk reaction to take a playoff game and
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: change the venue, I can kind of understand it. There's
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: a big difference in my mind between this situation and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: New Orleans. New Orleans. The reason why the game should
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: have been played was that the situation was over. Yes,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: a tragedy it occurred, and fourteen or fifteen people at
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: least have been killed, many others injured, but the perpetrator
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: had been taken out and there was no evidence, as
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: it turned out, that anybody else was on the loose,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: so there was any other great danger to the area.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: The danger was over with. That's not the case here.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: The danger still exists. Of course, there's the issue of Okay,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: by what standard do you use when it comes to
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: danger and postponeman Because you know, if that's the standard,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: if the chance of a wildfire impacting a game is
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: enough to change the venue, even for an NFL playoff game,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: that's a dangerous precedent. So I'm not thrilled with this
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: whole thing, but I'm not as outraged by it as
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: I have been with some other postponemans or similar situations.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: But I at least want to mention it because I
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: don't want to be seen as a hypocrite on this
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: whole issue of postponemans cancelations and venue changes. My guess
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: is the Vikings are probably going to win the game,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: which you know, might upset some people on Los Angeles,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: adding insult to injury that we lose a home playoff
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: game because of this whole situation and we're still enduring
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: all these wildfires. But who knows, we'll find out in
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: short order. Like I said, you'll already know by the
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: time you listen to this podcast. One last note, and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I do intend to have some more thoughts on this
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: in our next episode of the podcast later this week, which,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: as is normally scheduled, we've taped on Wednesday, but obviously
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: we just had the college football semi finals. The championship
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: game is now set between Notre Dame and Ohio State.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: And I had an interesting thing happen, very fascinating thing
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: actually occur with regard to my Twitter feed and the
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: aftermath of the two semi final games. Now, as you
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: well know, I am not a fan of the twelve
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: team playoff. I think it's terrible, and I think it
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: has all sorts of negative implications, and many of which
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: have been unforeseen, many of which have happened exactly as
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: I have predicted. But I've also said that I felt
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: as if this would be very popular, that it's too
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: big to fail, that ESPN is going to make sure
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: this thing is seen as a success because they basically
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: destroyed the essence of college football to facilitate these eleven
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: playoff games that gives them all sorts of content and
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: gives betters all sorts of reasons to bet. I mean,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: that's really the essence of it. We got to you know, basically,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: college football fans, we're not comfortable betting on ball games anymore,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: and so and and the playoff games were there are
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: only three of them with four teams. So you know,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: if you can create a twelve team playoff that gives
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: you eleven games and we're gonna put everything on betting,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: you know that that's where the horse we're gonna ride
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: towards economic growth. It's the last thing we've got. The
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: last passion of economic growth is betting. So we're gonna
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: embrace betting, and we're gonna get eleven games that betters
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: are gonna feel very comfortable betting on because they're playoff games.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, in theory, both teams are incentivized
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: to play hard, and most players are going to play,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: even in this transfer era, and you know, people that
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: have the ability to opt out of playing because they
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: want to protect their draft situation, but a playoff game
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: is seen by betters as worthy of their attention, and
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: so that's really the great motivation here. And so I've
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: not been really that surprised by the perceived success of
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: the playoffs, but there have been some signs of weakness,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to one of those in
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: just a second, but I want to first mention what
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: happened on my Twitter feed. So just for the hell
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: of it, after Ohio State and Notre Dame were set
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: into the championship game, I took ESPN's Sports Center tweet
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: of the fact that Ohio State and Notre Dame are
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: going to be playing in the National Championship Game, and
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: I posted the following message in what's called a quote
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: tweet or a quote post, I wrote, congratulations everyone who
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: won to the twelve team playoffs. You somehow managed to
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: make the two biggest upset losses of the regular season
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: completely meaningless. I'm referencing there the Ohio State Michigan game,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: where Ohio State loss to their rival at home Michigan,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: and also to Notre Dame being upset by Northern Illinois
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: early on in the season. So I wrote, you know,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: you somehow managed to make the two biggest upset losses
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: of the regular season completely meaningless and probably helpful to
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: the teams which got beat. Oh and neither finalist even
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: played a conference title game. Exclamation point. Then I put
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: a smiley faith and a violment emoji, and I thought
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: nothing of that tweet. I just thought, you know that
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: for people that follow me, and there are some people
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: who aren't seemingly interested in my thoughts on what's going
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: on with the college football playoff because I've been so
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: outspoken against the entire system, I really didn't think that
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: that was going to make much of a mark or
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: that anyone would really give a damn about what I
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: was saying on the matter. Boy, did I miscalculate, because
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: as of this taping, that post has been seen or
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: has had seven million impressions, whatever the hell that means
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: on Twitter. I don't think that means seven million people
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: actually read it, but seven million impressions for that particular tweet,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: which is probably the most viewed tweet, maybe of my
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: entire life. I don't know for sure, but certainly for
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: a long period of time. Seven million impressions in basically
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: two days, and almost all of their spons I shouldn't
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: say all of it, but a lot of the response
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: has been extremely negative, I mean, like insanely negative. Have
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: gotten dozens and dozens of direct messages or people attempting
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: to direct message with the most hateful comments that I've
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: ever experienced. I'm someone who defends Jerry Sindski on a
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: regular basis, and I've never htten this level of hatred.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: I mean vile, disgusting, absurd stuff where people are incredibly
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: angry at me for daring to question whether or not
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: this twelve team playoff has been a good thing, and
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: I've been shocked. I've found most of this to be
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: hilarious but also very telling. No now, in order for
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: this to get seven million impressions, there has to be
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of support for that view as well. So
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: I think one of the takeaways here is there is
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: an extremely large divide when it comes to college football
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: fans as to whether this is the greatest thing that's
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: ever happened or whether or not there's some problems with
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: this that are going to come back to haunt us
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: in the long run, which is obviously the camp that
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: I'm in. So I found that the reaction to this
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: supposed to be very interesting, telling fascinating, a bit depressing,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: but also rather hilarious because of the extreme reaction that
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: it provoked. And I also found it to be appropriate
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: to point out that at least one of the two
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: playoff games, the Notre Dame Penn State game, which was
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: a heck of a game between two obviously storied programs
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: to huge fan bases, that that game got really a
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: rather mediocre at best rating. In fact, it had ten
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: million viewers less, ten million viewers less than last year's
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: semi final game, which was played at the Rose Ball
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: between Michigan and Alabama. Now, I'm always someone who tries
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: to be fair and is you know, I'm always concerned
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: about the truth. So even though it fits my narrative
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: that oh my gosh, what a disaster for the college
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Football Playoff that they lost ten million viewers in comparison
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: to last year's semi final game, I do think it's
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: important to point out that while the Michigan Alabama matchup
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: is similar to a Notre Dame Penn State matchup with
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: regard to fan bases and you know what have you,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: you cannot compare the Rose Bowl, which is where the
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: Alabama Michigan game was played on New Year's Day, with
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: that iconic time slot and that venue that is so
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: incredibly important to the history of college football. The rose
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: Ball still has cachet even though it means nothing anymore.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: People don't know that. I mean, I've experienced that in
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: my own personal life. We still have family members who
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: don't care at all about college football. That you know,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: only we go to the Rose Ball parade. I missed
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: it this year because I was sick, but my family
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: went and then they hold a party to watch the
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: rose Ball game. They couldn't care less about the teams
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: that are in the game. They don't know if it's
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: a corner final game, a semi final game. All they
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: know is it's the rose Ball's and that still has power,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: and apparently is even more power than I realized, because
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: ten million more people watched the rose Ball semi final
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: last year than watched the Notre Dame Penn State semifinal
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: this year. Now, as of this taping, and I have
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: tried very hard to find it, there are not any
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: public numbers yet for the Ohio State Texas semi final game,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: which would I think be extremely telling as to whether
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: or not Notre Name Penn State was a fluke or
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: whether or not this really is a troubling trend for
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: ESPN if those numbers are similarly down from last year's
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: semi final, and my gut tells me that they will be,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: because I'm not sure that a Friday night Ohio State
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: Texas game, even though Ohio State and Texas are also
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: teams with huge fan bases, but the game was, you know,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: it wasn't as good as the Notre Name Penn State game.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: I would be shocked if Ohio State Texas on a
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Friday night got even better rating than what Notre Name
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: Penn State did. And if that's the case, then there's
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: a problem here. But I'm going to hold off until
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: I get that information, and I'm sure i'll have some
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: more thoughts on this in the next episode of the podcast,
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to at least put out a I
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: guess you would call it a bonus episode of the podcast,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: especially as we transition to our new schedule of just
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: doing episodes once a week because of the news obviously
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: involving the Los Angeles wildfires and whatever unique perspective I
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: may have on that living here in southern California. So
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: that'll do it for episode two and twenty to a
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: bonus episode of the Death Journalism podcasts. Thanks as always
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: for listening, thanks for being a subscriber. We'll have our
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: normal episode next on Wednesday, coming out on late Wednesday
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: early into Thursday. That'll be episode two hundred and twenty three.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: Until then, thanks so much for listening to Death of
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: Journalism podcast. My name is John Ziggler.