Becerra Isn't Even Campaigning (09/29)

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human I'm Tom Slash Cheers. This is ETVOR.com Slash Cheers. Can't find AM640. You're listening to the John Covell Podcast on the I Heart Radio app. Can't find AM640. Live everywhere. On the I Heart Radio app. It's the John Covell show. And in about an hour, the podcast, and you could hear this entire program. If you missed the first two hours,

1:01well, it's six o'clock. You can download the podcast and listen to everything that you haven't heard yet. In the meantime, we mentioned that well, we were laughing about Kamala Harris' word salad podcast interview last segment. And I said, you know, Biserra is not going to provide that kind of material because he's he's really a dud. He's really boring and he's not even campaigning. I don't amaze how passive people in California are. They have a they have a candidate who's not even campaigning because he's so sure that everyone's going to vote for him and he's probably right. And the thing is he's kind of a lazy dud according to the people who know him in government. And so this is just perfect. He's just going to fly into the governor's seat because he's got a D after his name. And the dumb ass voters in this state are going to vote for him. Because he's not a Republican.

2:03Even though Democratic insiders think he's really there's nothing there like he's not really bright and he's not very motivated and he's kind of lazy. And I'll give you an example of this. Josh Cohen wrote a piece in the New York Post today. Some insiders from Biden's administration. Remember Joe Biden had Javier Bissera as the health and human services secretary. And part of his job was to take care of the immigrant children who came over the border. And they ended up losing track of over 330,000 children. And I'm not making this up. I'm not exaggerating this. The New York Times did a story back in 2023. And the post followed up in August of 330,000 cases of children released during his tenure.

3:06And nobody knows where they went. And a lot of them ended up in slave labor or prostitution. They ended up working in meat packing plants and chicken factories and farm on farms. Just set out into the wilds on their own. It's been several years now. Well, this story says that one former colleague. One former colleague claims that Bissera would disparage the migrant children. He called them little Juanitos and Juanitas. He was the only one who would use language like that. And that got Bissera's campaign upset. That's about right fabrication. But there's a lot of insiders who are thinking he's not going to do much as governor, but be a figurehead. In other words, whatever crazy legislation, the idiots in the legislature come up with, he's just going to sign.

4:10Within a week of him taking over the job as health and human services secretary, March of 2021, there was a White House Zoom call where cabinet secretaries and other advisors and staff were scrambling trying to move the unaccompanied migrant children out of detention facilities. One of the secretaries Alejandro Mayorkas, remember that bald little troll. He was in charge of Homeland Security. He was nearly in tears describing the conditions the children were experiencing. And then everybody looked at Bissera because it's his job to get him out of these detention centers. So the official claims we cut to Javier Bissera and I can only describe it as dead fish eyes. There was nothing there. You would expect at that moment for the person responsible for the biggest humanitarian crisis to show some emotion.

5:16But no, no emotion, no response, nothing there. And Mayorkas was in tears. Now they'd created this mess by flinging the border wide open, right? That's when you had. Thousands of people come out of the border every day. Eventually it was like eight million. Another one person at the meeting said it seemed like Bissera didn't even seem like he was paying attention. He was just staring dead eyed but Mayorkas is crying. They don't know what to do with all these kids. Now in the 2023 New York Times investigation, he was pushing his staff to speed up placements and said it's like an assembly line. So in his mind, it was little Juanitas and Juanitos on an assembly line. The senior White House advisor to Biden, Susan Rice, regularly demanded answers during the meetings on the crisis and berated Bissera in front of the staff at least once a week.

6:26She lost it said one official. It was a common occurrence. But Bissera is always playing catch up. He didn't seem to have a desire to do the job. There's a lot to be desired as far as his leadership is concerned. I think governing is going to be very difficult and challenging. That's another thing. He didn't have any executive experience here. And what little he does, I guess he was a disaster at as healthy human services secretary. And he can see the ways campaigning. He's lazy. He's not coming out. He has nothing to say. Other than he's going to continue new sums policies, which is the last thing you want. And of course, they just blame Trump. Whatever this has come up with Bissera, he blame Trump. The Democratic state legislator said they were not impressed when he was California attorney general.

7:27Saying he always deferred to staff. He didn't take leadership positions. They say he's going to be a figurehead. It's going to be status quo in Sacramento. And everyone's going to blame Trump. For the first two years, you don't want to rock the boat and just go up against Trump. He's held few public events in the campaign rarely speaks with reporters. The campaign proposals offer a few specifics. One Democratic political consultant. These are all Democrats talking, by the way. Says if Bissera is any vision for California, he hasn't shared it. Asked about detailed plans to consult and said there are nine. Steve Hilton says California needs to wake up before it's too late. And we put the world's fourth largest economy in the hands of a complete idiot. That's what Hilton called Bissera a complete idiot. That's not my word for him. That's the word of the people who are side by side with him for years.

8:33Remember Bissera was six in the polls until swawa collapsed. But you had so many freaks running that somehow he floated to the top of the bowl and became the nominee. Mark this down. You are really, really, really going to regret him as governor for the next four years. It is bad and it's going to get worse. You got you got a double play of ramen and Bissera. You might as well sell. Really just sell your house. Get out. May already be over. You've mastered the classic wine regions. Now discover a hidden gem. Oregon's to-allatin valley, the closest wine destination of Portland in the Willamette Valley. Explore boutique estate wineries and sip world-class wines. Round out your wine getaway in to-allatin valley with 18 holes in the lush countryside.

9:35Bring your sense of adventure and we'll introduce you to your new favorite destination. Plan your Oregon wine adventure at ETVOR.com slash cheers. This ETVOR.com slash cheers. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. KFI AM640 live everywhere on the I Heart Radio app. John Cobalt show and you can follow us on social media at John Cobalt radio and John Cobalt radio. And we have no live stream today because the Wi-Fi is down doing construction here. I was telling you about about how the herbacea are getting roasted by the people that used to work with them in the Biden administration. I had one more quote I didn't get to. A former Biden administration official is skeptical that Bissara can be the governor.

10:37Javier Bakaria. I do not think he is qualified to be the governor. Says this Biden official. I don't think he's qualified to be the boss of anything. Now, you know, these kind of people are usually hyper partisan and they're full of crap. They're all spin and deflect and duck and turn it out. Just do anything to support the team and to support teammates. So whatever the teammates step out of line and say, wait, wait, not this one. This guy's really bad. You really should pay attention. But there is such an irrational hatred of Trump. They're Trump phobic that they've transferred that to Steve Hilton who is a very smart guy who makes a lot of sense. And I don't know how anybody can disagree with a laundry list of things he has produced on how he changed California policy.

11:46I mean, it's impossible to argue with what Hilton wants to do from a factual basis. It's not even political. It's common sense. It's basic stuff. But everybody is so Trump phobic. I love to use those terms back on these people. Now, you're irrational. You have a mental illness. I'm sorry. Hilton is a completely separate independent individual. And he's talking about California issues, not federal issues. It's about California legislation, not federal legislation. It's completely just stupid, irrational, silly, childish to be treating Hilton and Biserra through the lens of Trump. Trump has nothing to do with Biserra, nothing to do with Hilton. What Hilton is saying about these issues, and we'll get into this over the next month. And it's obvious. And you know it's obvious.

12:48So now the FBI director cash, cash, cash, Patel was talking to Fox News. And we have talked about this occasionally that they're these huge. They're like, I don't know. They're, they're, they're, they're cities in Asia. Places like Thailand, Vietnam, where thousands and thousands of young people live, who have been lured through job employment ads to come to these cities. They're like work cities. They're, they're dozens and dozens, just endless high rises where you live in a small apartment. And you work in, in the same complex and your work, and you don't know this until you take the job, but your work is to go online and randomly contact people with text messages and target elderly people, lonely people, and start engaging in a text conversation.

14:07And it may then progress phone calls and you befriend them, game their trust. And then you get them to send you money because you have access to a great investment or cryptocurrency or some such nonsense. And you'll make them a lot of money. And they have a lot of elderly people to the tune of, well, I'll give you the number just a second. A lot of elderly people who send these Asian workers money. Now the workers themselves are forced to do this. They, they arrive at the complex. And they realize they're locked inside and they have to work long hours and they have to keep sending the text and the phone calls and, and, and, and generating revenue or they, they whip you. They spank you. And you get tortured. So, but you learn to do it. I guess it's not hard to scam people and the game their confidence.

15:09And, you know, these people are elderly and they're half in the bag and they don't know what's going on. And it's turned into billions of dollars. Massive scam compounds. The FBI is investigating all across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The workers are trafficked to carry out these fraud schemes against victims thousands of miles away. The majority of targets are senior citizens in America, according to Casper tell he told Fox News. And it's carried out through social media phone calls text messages. So the FBI has an operation called Operation Blackout. And the criminals cultivate these online friendships, get them to send their money to some fraudulent crypto currency and they run off with cash. For example, in Cambodia, there was 200 acres of the, this compound massive office buildings. The O smack resort, 28 buildings and the FBI busted into all 28 over three days.

16:14Seized 113 hard drives and 15 computers and 35 boxes of evidence. And they have recovered 17 billion dollars. That's how much money they recovered from all these fraud schemes. They have notified 10,000 victims. They have prevented $660 million of losses. They've seized a, they have frozen 122 million in cryptocurrency and three quarters of the people that they contacted didn't know that they were being scammed. 99 of the victims were referred to suicide intervention because the ones who realized they were scammed wanted to kill themselves because they gave away their life savings. It's another thing you got to watch out for when your, your parents get old. Don't just take away their car keys, take away their phone.

17:17They've been their text messaging. Don't don't let them answer the phone either. They think they have thousands and thousands of these people overseas doing this. And it works. Billion 17 billion. I got more coming up. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. Live everywhere on the I heart radio app. John Cobalt show and about a half an hour or whatever you miss so far. That's in the podcast. Download the podcast at six o'clock. Do that and listen to whatever you want. John Cobalt show on demand on the I heart app. K Grimes wrote an interesting piece in the California globe today about just how great the economy is across the country and how how much it sucks in California. Now this is a weird time because we get the presidential election going on. So you have just just a lot of the S in the air.

18:26And the inflation has been as not been good. It's at 3.7%. And that's almost double what it should be. And the gas prices are just catastrophic. Oh, that's what I meant to do. I meant to look up the gas prices. Hold on. We'll get to that is one of my myself here. I spent 85 bucks the other day at the gas station when I normally how many weeks ago month ago $60. How many gallons you get for 85 bucks? I think it was 11. Oh my god. It's typing in state by state gas prices because they heard something that they got my attention. And so people are upset over the gas prices because they're terrible. And they're much worse here in California because of New Sims policies. Trump has his Iran war that's jacked up the price of gas. And then new some compounds it with all his nonsense.

19:26All his climate change taxes that go to the high speed rail scam. And that leads to part of the reason food prices have increased as well. But the economy is a home this country is doing really well. Retail sales were higher than expected in August. And that's usually the major indicator of the healthy economy. How much people are spending how much how much they're buying stuff. And median household income is at a record high of 87,000 dollars plus. That is the highest median household income in the world. Unless you live in one of those small oil countries or tax havens, right? Where wealthy people gather to hide their tax money or you go to one of those places in the Middle East where everybody's part of a oil, you know, the royal family and they're living off the the oil proceeds.

20:30Unemployment claims have dropped to 196,000, which is a good number. It looks like the economy is going to grow over 4% in the third quarter. Now say it people drive around every day and they're upset because of the gas prices. And you should be. But the economy as a whole wall street stock prices are doing really well. And you know, 150 million people in America have some kind of investment in the stock market one way or the other, mostly through their 401ks. And then you go to California. And California's unemployment rate is tied for first 5.1%. Boy, is that a number that is not covered believe me if the national unemployment rate was 5.1%. People would be screaming gloom and doom about the great depression coming. It is significantly higher than the national average, which is 4.1.

21:32We're at 5.1. Our labor force has been shrinking. We are now 263,000 jobs lower than the peak, which was right before the pandemic. We have never made up 263,000 jobs that were lost when new some shot everything down. And in fact, the number of employed workers last month dropped by another 36,000. Total losses this year 278,000. This is all California only. If dropped employed workers have dropped by 1.5% in the last year. And nobody talks about nobody talks about how bad the economy here is in California. And how great it is in the rest of the country.

22:34And then there's the gas prices. All right, so here we go. Do you know there are still three states, Indiana, Texas and Mississippi, where gas is selling in the threes, 385 in Indiana, 390 in Texas, 399 in Mississippi. Can you imagine if woke up tomorrow morning and you saw 385 on your local gas pump? I'd be so happy. And then much of the country is in the force like Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky. They're all under $4.10. Now we get to California. Oh my God. California is at $6.38. And remember early this year, we had Michael Mischay on. He said, you know what's coming to California because of a whole myriad of troubles is $8 gas.

23:34And the News of administration scoffed. Well, there's a lot of gas in California in the sevens. And the average is 638. Number two is Hawaii at $5.59. That is $0.80 less. We are 80 cents more expensive than the number two state, which is Hawaii, which is thousands of miles out in the ocean. And it's because of all the excessive taxes. It's because News of policies has closed down, have closed down a number of refineries in the state. We import gas and oil from all over the world. Those transportation costs raise the price of gas. We had another set of regulations. That also jacked up the cost. Washington is third at $5.51.

24:34Nevada is fourth at $5.49. If our price dropped into the mid $5.50s, the mid $5 range. Oh, it's like, whoa, this is great. Look, 638. How is News of the Democratic legislature not being punished for this? Why do they still keep getting votes? How the herbicera has made it clear that he is not going to change the tax policy or any of the other regulatory policies on oil and gas in this state. He is mum. And the few things he said is he's going to continue News of policies. So you actually have a guy running on the idea that $6.38 gas is normal. And when one reporter pressed him on it and about the high gas taxes, he goes, well, we need the money to fix the roads.

25:41You want to have good roads? Except we have the worst roads in the country. According to a number of independent studies, they rank California 50th, if not 50th 49th. So the highest gas taxes by far in the country give us the worst roads. Does anyone know this? Is this covered anywhere? The people who give us the worst roads and the highest gas taxes are all going to be returned to power. How your best Sarah has backed this tax and regulation policy that Newsom has implemented the last eight years. And he's winning by 25 points. This is not. Yeah. The rest of the country is supposedly going to take out the high gas prices on the Republicans in the house and the Senate Trump's approval approval rating is in the toilet. And the number one issue is gas and inflation. Why doesn't that happen here?

26:47If they're happy to spank the party in power in Washington in all the other states, why don't the people here give a spanking to the Democrats that run everything? And then you have Steve Hilton and he's running on getting rid of these regulations on getting rid of these taxes and his goals get to get to $3 gas. Which is what we had in the rest of the country before the Iran War hit. And when that war ends, if it ever ends, it'll look back to three bucks. We're at 638 and it's going up. We're in because our refinery capacity is so tight. Remember the oil are our major pipeline was shut down because there's such a lack of oil in the pipeline. It's the most fascinating thing in this state. 638. Let's see. In Indiana, $385. It is now $2.50 difference.

27:55$2.50 is the number. It used to be in buck 50. Now it's $250. We're paying $250 gallon more than people in Indiana. You've mastered the classic wine regions. Now discover a hidden gem. Oregon's toollatin valley, the closest wine destination of Portland in the Willamette Valley, explore boutique estate wineries and sip world-class wines. Round out your wine getaway in toollatin valley with 18 holes in the lush countryside. Bring your sense of adventure and we'll introduce you to your new favorite destination. Plan your Oregon wine adventure at ETVOR.com slash cheers. This ETVOR.com slash cheers. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640. KFI AM640 more stimulating talk radio. John Cobalt show and just a few minutes after six o'clock, we're going to have the podcast release. John Cobalt show on demand. Moist line. Get to it. 877 Moist 86. 877 Moist 86.

28:59Or use the talk back feature on the I heart radio app. UC Berkeley professor. And I don't even know how to pronounce her name here. It's it's ZV E Z D E L I N A Z Z Lina Stankova. It's got a PhD in mathematics at Harvard University and became a California. UC Berkeley mathematics professor. She's born in communist Bulgaria. And recently she wrote a piece in the San Francisco standard. And she shocked at how horrible the admission standards are now. And she's got it. She's supposed to teach calculus at UC Berkeley. She's dealing with students who can't even do fractions.

30:02She said some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Five to eight years behind. Let's see. You come to class as a freshman. You're 18 years old. If you're eight years behind. You're 10. Your fifth grader. Right? Yeah. Maybe 11. So basically she has people who have the same math capability as 11 year olds do in fifth grade. Because they got rid of the SAT scores in math. And so the admission standards went to hell. And she wrote a piece saying what what is going on? She says office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra that you would expect students to learn in middle school.

31:11If you look at the national assessment of educational progress, California's math performance has been sliding for years. According to the California globe. It's dropped dramatically over the last 10 years. The average SAT math score actually has dropped as well. Significantly. And it's because they stopped requiring kids to be confident at things like mathematics. And and and stopped testing them and stopped. Stop using your math skills or your reading skills as requirements for admission into the better universities like Berkeley. And I guess we're a few years the Berkeley professors put up with it and then suddenly they looked around and say what am I doing? Why am I teaching teaching fractions?

32:14To college students at an elite university like Berkeley. What what's going on out there? This has been in the works for years. And it was who else in the UC system that like the regions that voted for this. And this all happens quietly. It's definitely. It's not obvious until finally someone speaks out and says what are we doing here? All right. Tomorrow we're going to have audio of a Javier Bissera interview which seems inexplicable talking to the people here who listen to it. He did something with a comedy person at the San Francisco standard. And apparently it's really strange. And and the reason it's noteworthy is he gives almost no interviews. There's almost no audio with him. No public appearances. No interviews. No nothing. He is going to be in a debate with Steve Hilton on Thursday. And I guess Bissera is just going to scream about Trump.

33:23And Hilton is going to explain just how far gone California is. So I'll be entertaining. We got Conway coming up next and Michael Chariser is the news live in the KFI 24 hour newsroom. You've been listening to the John Cobalt show podcast. You can always hear the show live on KFI AM640 from 3 to 6 p.m. every Monday through Friday. And of course anytime on demand on the I heart radio. KFI AM640 more stimulating talk. You've mastered the classic wine regions now discover a hidden gem organs to allatin Valley the closest wine destination of Portland in the Willamette Valley. Explore boutique estate wineries and sip world-class wines. Round out your wine getaway into allatin Valley with 18 holes in the lush countryside. Bring your sense of adventure and we'll introduce you to your new favorite destination. Join your organ wine adventure at ETVOR.com slash cheers.