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John talks to the man suing to keep Eric Swalwell off the ballot
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And we continue at 205 in the afternoon on the John Phillips show, Mr. Randy Wings in
Culver City.
John, we got so many emails last hour from people checking out that website, claimit.ca.gov
to see if the state is holding on to any of your money.
Chris writes in it, John, he don't like show a Gmail.com.
I put my name in and my wife's name in there and it showed three cents from a bank.
I had an LLC for a couple of years when I was self-employed and I found $445.
Let's see if I can claim it.
This is the show that pays.
There you go.
Look at that.
I put in the LLC I used to have for my old podcast.
There's no money in there.
I'm going to start putting all of my relatives names in there.
That's not a bad idea.
See if I can find anything.
Now, especially the dead ones, now if you find your relatives money, you're the one
that found it.
So you get a percentage, right?
Well, they call it Finder's Keepers for a Reason 800-222-5222 is a telephone number 1-800-222-5222.
It is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to the program.
He is a filmmaker who you can get online at highway61ent.com.
You can follow him on X at Joel Gilbert.
You can check out his film, Rosanne is America at rosanneisamerica.com.
Joel Gilbert, welcome.
Okay.
Great to be here.
Thank you.
Well, thanks so much for stopping by.
You were one of the first ones, if not the first one, to be on to Congressman Eric Swalwell
and candidate for California Governor Eric Swalwell who claims that he has a legal resident
of the state of California and legally eligible to run for governor.
And you have to be a resident of California for I believe it's five years to have a legal
stake as a candidate for that office here in the state of California.
But you conducted your own investigation and found out that he is not in fact a resident
of the state of California and you decided to take him to court.
That's correct.
It started with my looking at his public mortgage document, his deed of trust in Washington
DC, he told his bank that his Washington DC home was his principal residence in order
to get below his interest rate.
Then I looked at his candidate statement which he was required to provide to the secretary
of state of California to run for governor form 501 and he'd ask him for his home address
and instead he puts the address of his attorney's office in Sacramento.
So that's when I decided to go ahead and file a petition for writ of mandate it's
called asking the court to force the secretary of state to disqualify Swalwell.
That hearing is coming up on March 23rd and if I win he will not be certified on March
26th to be in the June primary.
In the meantime, Swalwell has tried to hide the fact that he doesn't live in California
has not lived in California for many years.
He's trying to claim that he rents a home from a woman who lives in a 1300 square foot
home with her husband, kid and her dog and he's trying to say, well, I rented that house
but it's not credible.
The woman has a homestead exemption on that house that requires her to live there.
She does live there with her dog, it was in the New York Post today.
So Swalwell is in a heap of trouble.
He's a very bad liar and he is not qualified to run for governor because he has not lived
and does not live in California.
Here is another thing that was in the California Post today that I found to be extremely suspicious
and that is he spends a substantial amount of money on hotel rooms in the state of California
including in his own congressional district.
I get it.
We're a big state.
So if I'm going to San Francisco or I'm going to San Diego or I'm going to Sacramento
all rent a hotel room even though I am a legal resident of the state of California.
But if I'm going to something in my own town, there's no way in the world I would rent
a hotel room because I'd sleep in my own bed.
Yeah, look, that's correct.
Swalwell tries to claim that he lives at a house where he's registered to vote.
It's the sister-in-law of a former campaign worker and she lives there with her husband
and kid and her dog Swalwell never goes there.
The New York Post interviewed the neighbors.
They said they've never seen him.
So California has very strict laws.
You have to live in California for five years.
You have to be a domicile and have a residence in California.
Swalwell has none of those and he's trying to trick the people of California into saying
that he's a California resident when he's really not.
He's released all kinds of ridiculous statements.
His campaign said, oh, he goes to a donut shop in Livermore.
Or they said, oh, I get a thousand death threats.
I can't tell people where I live in California.
Meanwhile, he posts photos on Instagram every day of his kids and his Washington DC house.
Someone would not do that if they were getting death threats.
Yeah, none of that makes sense.
And I've got to tell you, in addition to being a problem with the California Secretary
of State's office, this theoretically
should be a problem with the federal government, too, because you're not supposed to lie
on bank documents.
And it's just, it's wild to me how lying on bank documents is like calling, holding
in the NFL.
You can blow the whistle whenever you want.
They just pick and choose when they do it because, I mean, you go back to Todd and Julie
Chrisley, for example, who were just pardoned by President Trump not long ago, the reality
TV show couple.
And they were accused of lying about their assets on bank forms to qualify for loans that
they shouldn't have qualified for.
Well, okay, I guess that's a cry.
A lot of people do that in the 1990s or the late 1990s, early 2000s.
Everyone was doing that because they wanted you to get into a loan that you, that the bank
would say no to if you were honest when you answered those questions.
But it's illegal.
I get it.
You're not supposed to do that.
But they actually were charged with a crime.
They went to prison and it wasn't until President Trump gave them the pardon that they got
out.
Why is it that the government can step in and ruin the lives of the Chrisley's and then
just look the other way when Eric Smallwell fills out these documents, these banking documents
and puts things on those documents that are provably not true.
Or I guess if they are true, makes him ineligible to hold the office that he has.
That's right.
Either Smallwell committed mortgage fraud in Washington, DC or he's eligible to run for
governor in California.
He can't have it both ways.
Now he did get referred to the Department of Justice for lying on his mortgage document
in DC.
I compared that to Maxine Waters.
She has a house in Los Angeles and on her mortgage in Washington, DC, she told the bank
it was her second home, accepting a little higher interest rate.
So she could run for governor of California, but Smallwell pulled the bank, it's his
principal residence in DC, but he wants us to believe that he lived in California.
You can't have it both ways.
Now Adam Schiff was under the same microscope not long ago where he has a home outside
the state of California in the Washington, DC area, Maryland, I believe, where he claimed
it was his primary residence.
He got the lower interest rate.
He does own a condo, a one bedroom condo in Burbank that he allegedly stays at when he's
here.
I assume that he would.
If you have a one bedroom condo, I would probably stay there too, even if I lived in
another state, but he wasn't kicked out of Congress.
What do you make of that one and do you think that that will impact the Smallwell case?
The laws to run for Congress are much looser.
You can kind of get away with some stuff.
California Constitution requires you to have a residence for five years.
California election law 3, 4, 9 says you have to have a domicile in California for five
years before running for governor.
The laws are much stricter when running for state office.
That's where Smallwell just didn't follow the law.
Every time you look at something Smallwell does, he's really not following the law.
He even started attacking me on Twitter.
He said, Joel, I'll see you in court.
He's not going to court.
I'm not suing him.
I'm asking the court to order the secretary of state to disqualify him.
Everything he does is just really not very smart.
It wasn't smart of him to declare his principal residence in DC.
It wasn't smart of him to think that he could fool California voters by saying, oh, this
woman in the 1300 square foot house, who's the sister-in-law of my old campaign manager.
Yeah, yeah, I live there.
I live there with my wife and kids.
It's just not credible whatsoever.
He seems to be very thin-skinned about all of it, too, because not only is he attacking
you, he's also attacking Tom Steyer, who is a candidate for governor who's brought
this issue up.
He's attacking the London Daily Mail and the California Post for investigating these
claims and making him look bad in public.
He seems to really, really be angry that you guys are moving forward with this.
Yeah, he's a very childish person.
I went to his town hall in Santa Monica last month, actually, and he came around and
greeted everybody.
He looked me in the eye and shook my hand, and I think he recognized me because he
cut the town hall from two hours to only 30 minutes, and then three of his security came
up and threw me out afterwards.
I did hear him say that the reason he became a Democrat was to annoy his parents.
So I think he's got some real issues.
He even sued the person in Washington, Bill Polthe, who referred him to the Department
of Justice.
He immediately sued him, saying his privacy was violated because I had looked at his
mortgage, but his mortgage has been online at the DC.gov.
It's a public document.
It's been online for years.
So he always comes out and says, I'm going on offense.
He attacks people, calls me names, and he just doesn't look at the substance.
If he would just, you know, he's an attorney.
If he would just follow the law, he wouldn't get in this mess.
I would love for someone to ask him if he nailed that Chinese spy in that small house
that he claims to live in with a husband and wife and their daughter living under that
same roof.
Well, look, he did get divorced.
Don't forget.
He got his divorce document in the divorce him and his wife are fighting over the can opener.
Napkin rings.
They cost $2.
They're having a big fight in the divorce document.
It's a little bit ridiculous.
And it looks like he left her for Fang Fang for the Chinese spy.
The FBI catches him and he gets kicked off the intelligence committee.
So he's got a lot of issues.
I mean, I wasn't surprised that he didn't have an address in California because he can't
afford it.
Look at his disclosure statements running for Congress.
He hasn't paid off his student loans.
He still owes his student loans from 2012.
He also still owes $100,000 in credit card debt.
He hasn't paid off anything.
So where is all his money going?
I don't know, but something is wrong with this guy.
I don't know if you saw the tweet, but the tweet has since been deleted.
So I can't read it to you word for word.
But the tweet was put out by a Democratic strategist, long time Democratic strategist
based out Los Angeles by the name of Trujillo, Michael Trujillo, who's affiliated with Antonio
Virgoza.
And this tweet was put out when Steyr, excuse me, not Steyr, right when Swalwell was getting
into the race.
And he talked about how every Democratic consultant, every Democratic elected in California
knows this guy's problems.
And it was alluded to people who worked for him in his office and inappropriate relationships
and those sorts of things and said that this guy is a ticking time bomb and it is only a
matter of time before this guy self-destructs and everyone knows it.
So if you want to sleep on the grenade, go ahead and do it, Swalwell, but everyone knows
how this story is going to end.
At a certain point, Trujillo took the tweet down and Trujillo is a supporter of Antonio
Virgoza.
So obviously he has his preferred candidate, but enough pressure was put on him to delete
that tweet.
I assume that when he put it out, he meant it and the other Democrats in California,
nobody was talking about.
Well, look, Swalwell is a very immature person.
The way he talks, he talks on television, he gives speeches in Congress, he tweets constantly
with the F word.
He's using the F word every other word out of his mouth, the S word, constantly everything
is SF, SF, and then he doesn't shave anymore.
He looks like some homeless person from San Francisco from his district.
So that's his whole campaign is trying to make people think he's cool because he curses
and doesn't shave.
He has no substance whatsoever.
He decided if I'm an anti-Trump person, I'll get the far left anti-Trump people to vote
for me, and maybe I can get enough votes to make the runoff.
And because I'm a Democrat, maybe I can become governor, but he's got no substance whatsoever.
It's all cursing and trying to make himself look cool, but I think he looks like a fool.
If you win in court, what do you think his reaction is going to be?
On March 23rd, coming up in a week and a half, and then on March 26th, it's the certification
to be in a June primary.
So if I win, he's out.
Now how's he going to react?
He'll go on Twitter and call me names like he's done before.
He'll say, oh, it's a maggot conspiracy, Donald Trump told him to do it.
I'm a California voter, I'm just looking at the law.
He's a lawyer, he should know the law better than me.
So I think he's going to cry and melt down and call everybody names.
That's how he behaves.
Judges in California, us being a one party state, we're a state where the Democrats have
all the statewide constitutional offices.
They have a super majority in the state legislature.
If you want to move up through the ranks as an appointed judge at the state level in California,
you need to be in the good graces of the Democratic Party, the California Democratic Party specifically.
Judges have historically been hesitant to step in and to take names off the ballot.
If it could impact the results of the election, do you believe that this judge that you're
going in front of could be hesitant the way that judges previously have been?
Look, I believe in the system, I think I have a good shot.
This judge is not an Obama judge or a Biden judge.
She was appointed by Governor Gray Davis in 2002.
She seems pretty straight.
I mean, my first petition that I filed had a couple problems with it.
She issued a minute order and told me what I needed to fix.
I fixed it.
She moved the case forward.
Then she put the date of the hearing on March 27, one day after the certification, I applied
for an expedited hearing and she gave it to me.
So she's treated me very fairly so far and I got to believe I'm going to get a fair shake.
If she follows the law, I win.
If for some reason, you know, the courts say they don't want to be involved in elections,
they can refund some technicality and say, oh, you have to go to the legislature.
We can't do this.
So it's possible.
It could be a 50-50 thing.
But if they follow the law, I think I win.
It seems like everyone knows that he's lying.
Nobody believes that he's living with that couple and their child in a small house in
Northern California, particularly when he's spending a bunch of money on hotel rooms in
his own congressional district, not when he's just traveling around the state, but in the
area where he claims to live.
And it's just, is the judge willing to do it?
Look, the facts are there.
I've documented it.
You can go to the Alameda County, the Sacramento Courthouse website.
You can read all my documents.
My website with all the filings and my articles is swallwellisdiscualified.com.
Swallwellisdiscualify.com.
You can keep up with it.
The facts, every time Swallwell tries to refute the facts, it just becomes a disaster.
First, his campaign said he gets a thousand death threats.
Then it was a hundred deaths.
Conservatives actually don't make death threats.
So it's all a big lie.
And he's running out of lies.
He's running out of excuses.
The facts are catching up with him.
And it's just, he's just not a good politician.
All he's going to do is use a bunch of curse words.
And that's how he thinks he's going to pave his way to the governor's office is by cursing
up a storm.
I just don't even know why you would want to be governor of a state that you couldn't identify
on a map.
Well, he's got, you know, that's funny, but look, he's very ambitious.
He rent for president already, don't forget.
So he really wants to become California governor.
So he can lead this kind of insurrection against Trump from California and then run for
president.
That's absolutely in his plans.
I've studied him very carefully.
I know a lot about presidential politics.
I was on the Ted Cruz for president campaign for two years.
I know what he's up to and he wants to run for president and he wants to use the state
of California to run for president one day.
That's his vision, but he has no substance.
All he does is come up with this loony, loony tune kind of stuff.
He's got very little personality.
I found things he wrote in college where he was, he wrote an article demanding that cop
killers be led out of prison.
He wrote some crazy violent erotic poem.
He's not a very substantive person.
So he's trying to fool the California voters by trying to say that he lives in the state
when he hasn't lived here for many years.
I don't think it's going to work.
What's the website again?
Swalwell is disqualified.com.
Swalwell is disqualified.com.
And you can follow Joel on exit.
Joel Gilbert.
Joel Gilbert.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Joel S.
Gilbert.
Joel S.
Okay.
Thanks for having me.
All right.
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It's 800-222-5222.
Is it telephone number?
1-800-222-5222.
If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail.com.
That's Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail.com.
And Randy, if you want to listen to us on the weekends in Fresno, that's easy to do.
They're calling it the most heavily promoted weekend best of of all time.
The Fixed California Hour Replay at air Saturdays at noon on our sister station, KMJ.
580 on the AM dial, which is a clear channel signal that you can hear even in Ventura County
or in the southern part of the Bay Area.
So give it a listen.
The Fixed California Hour Replay Saturdays at noon on KMJ.
Now tell KMJ that you love listening to the Fixed California Hour Replay.
800-222-5222 is a telephone number, 1-800-222-5222.
And right now it's time to open up the California Crime Blotter.
It's happened yet again.
It's wow, wow, what's up with you?
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
beats the California Crime Blotter with John and Randy.
And I'm not going to make any allegations regarding this one other than just to say this comes from the city of Irvine.
A UCI student was attacked by a wild mob of e-biking teens.
They physically assaulted him with their e-bikes
and used all kinds of racist language.
For more, here's NBC LA.
Let me just turn this on.
Okay.
Now at 11, chased, spit on, and attacked.
And a UC Irvine student says that's not all.
That's not what people pay Irvine prices for.
Nope, they're supposed to be safe over there.
He says a group of teens called him racially charged names.
And tonight he's talking about what happened only to NBC 4.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm Carolyn Johnson.
It's all took place on Friday night at the end of February when he was on his way back to his dorm room.
NBC 4 is Macy Jenkins, his live in Irvine forest, where she spoke to him and has reaction
from campus police and the university, Macy.
Hi, Carolyn.
Well, that student is a fourth year art history major.
He says, okay, not a part of the story, but kind of job you get with that.
Maybe you'd be a really good game show contestant.
Maybe you could work at a museum.
It seems like the prospects are quite limited for art history.
Hi, Carolyn.
Well, that student is not a part of the story, but just curious because UCI costs a lot of
money to go to.
Well, I think with degrees like that, you're supposed to accumulate more degrees and then you teach it.
And it becomes like Amway with a track team.
Hi, Carolyn.
Well, that student is a fourth year art history major.
He says he had just left a cookout with several of his fellow black students here on campus.
When he says he was approached by five white teenagers on their e-bikes,
he was attacked and assaulted, then called a monkey and it long.
What is it about being on an e-bike that turns you into a complete a-hole?
And it was two days before the...
Well, the fact that you have the e-bike to begin with says that your parents have money,
but don't want to spend any time with you.
And that could be for a good reason.
And it was two days before the end of black history month.
Now he says he wants the university to do something about it.
And it was just a matter of just trying to make it safely and make it back to my dorm.
And it was awful, it was horrible.
What was going through your mind?
That number one that these kids were trying to kill me?
A fourth year UC Irvine student describes a harrowing ordeal around 8.30 pm
after a February 27th cookout on the O'Royal Vista lawn with several of his fellow members
of the black student union.
He asked we not share his name or show his face.
He needs his identity protected from these e-bikes and teens.
How often does that happen in the blotter?
Every story now.
Nobody wants their face shown.
At that point, you were having a good time, you were about to head home.
Yes, that's when the art history major says he noticed five.
You don't have to keep referencing that.
They just keep going back to the well with that one.
It just seems like a really specific degree.
That's when the art history major says he noticed five teens on e-bikes.
One girl, four boys, who all happened to...
A girl, that's new.
I guess this is equality.
One girl, four boys, who all happened to be white.
One of the other juveniles asking me an inappropriate question about
one of the sorority girls that was there.
I told him to leave me alone, that's inappropriate.
So another one came up and said,
Hey, why are you so pressed?
Proceeded to call me a slurry.
It was the N word, but soft A.
Boy, these little white kids have got quite a mouth on them.
Well, do you think they have that kind of mouth off the e-bike?
Something about the e-bike, it turns you into a monster.
So stop buying these things for your kids.
And I wonder how many of these e-bikes were purchased for almost nothing
thanks to the California Air Resources Board
cap and trade voucher program,
where we were given $2,000 off e-bikes to take the cars off the roads.
If your kid comes to you and says, I want an e-bike,
your response should be, how about a swim?
And if they keep pressing the issue, your response should be,
how about a rickshaw?
I didn't respond to it.
I just said, please leave me alone,
and I made a decision to then head further out the road.
But he says the group started chasing him.
They were close enough that they started spitting on me,
trying to grab at me, doing...
And while you could probably outrun a bicycle,
outrunning an e-bike, that's a little tougher.
It's like the sons of Anarchy, Irvine style.
All sorts of heinous things in between.
I'm being called monkey,
blacky, completely out of my name.
Obviously, this is stuff I never expected to hear.
He was halfway home when one of the teens hit the accelerator
and headed straight for him.
And says, what's good?
What's good?
You effing N-word.
Whoa!
These parents who bought the e-bikes for their kids in Irvine,
because none of these kids have been caught, correct?
Not yet.
Well, no, some of them have been detained.
This is Orange County.
Okay, all right.
If that's one of your kids,
the bike needs to go away and never come back.
And in an attempt to clip me off the road,
his tire not only hit the back of my scooter,
but it hit my ankle.
And at that point, it was the worst pain that I had felt
in a very long time.
Eventually, he ducked into the Rosa Parks dorm for safety,
called his friends and UCIPD,
which he says arrived to de-escalate the situation.
I...
First time they got a call in a long time.
Well,
maybe domestic disputes at a certain house.
Let me just reiterate,
even though this story took place on the campus of UC Irvine,
it has nothing to do with Katie Porter.
Wait, please!
I'm just saying, did the potato incident happen there?
I hear about this happening in so many other places,
but for it to happen in Irvine is far beyond what I ever expected.
In a statement, the UCI Chief of Police confirms a hate crime investigation
after multiple juveniles on e-bikes use racial slurs,
spat, and hit the back leg of the reporting party
with the tire of an e-bike.
One of the teens was detained.
The school...
Okay, they got one of them.
Okay, well, let's hope that this graduating art history major doesn't say,
I can't wait for a little peace and quiet to get away from all these e-bikes
and the monsters who drive them.
As soon as I graduate, I'm moving to Manhattan Beach.
The school says UC Irvine remains firmly committed
to fostering a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment
for all members of our community.
But Black Student Union President,
Unique Sheroux says UCI and UCIPD need to do more.
We demand that these five juveniles be charged
and the one that specifically clipped his ankle be charged with assault and battery
and that they take more precautions to protect the Black Student here on this campus.
Skin abrasions and a medical boot now cover his right foot
as for those five teens on the bikes.
I want accountability to be had.
They've had it in the back of their month.
This kid wants vengeance.
No, he wants accountability.
And if he has the same definition of accountability that Gavin Newsom has,
that means he wants nothing.
Had it in the back of their minds that, well, if I do this for as many times,
I can get away with it.
Now, excuse me, the students of the students that we spoke to say they hope the parents of the
kids on the bike do a better job of keeping an eye on what their children are doing at night.
Because an e-bike is practically a motorcycle and because obviously the kids aren't buying
them themselves, the parents should be liable for anything the children do on those bikes.
100% because that's the only way to get the parents to stop buying those bikes for their kids.
Anyone who has seen these kids on the e-bikes around campus is asked to reach out to UCIPD.
We're pointing a lie that you see Irving Irving tonight, Macy Jenkins, NBC4 News.
Go antiters.
Well, no, because they're in the big West tournament, too.
Oh, go Titans.
Go Titans.
But we have to get through UC Davis and then Hawaii first.
I'll be watching that game tonight at 8.30 on ESPN Plus.
And it took me a very long time to figure out what ESPN Plus was.
So because I've invested that much time and energy in it, I am definitely watching that game.
800-222-5222 is a telephone number 1-800-222-5222.
If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail.com.
That's Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail.com.
And Randy, we have an update on the SEIU initiative to confiscate the wealth of billionaires.
A new poll from UC Berkeley shows a 64 to 28 support for the California billionaire tax.
This was an email poll, but still it looks like my theory was true.
The more you see a Tom Steyer ad, the more you want to take away his money.
It could be, but guess what? It's not just him.
It's all the other billionaires that if they leave, they're going to take their wealth with them.
Could we collect signatures for a ballot initiative that would just take away Tom Steyer's money?
I'd sign that one.
I mean, hey, could that be legal? If this is legal, why isn't that legal? Why can't we single out
one obnoxious billionaire? That's an excellent point.
All right. Now speaking of claiming money over the course of the commercial break,
you found money that is owed to you.
We're getting so many emails of people that have found money on this website,
claimit.ca.gov that I'm like, let me just look and I'm just going to put my name,
but I'm going to just scroll through the addresses and what do you know from my old dumpy studio
apartment in Valley Village that I haven't lived at since 2014. I am owed 15 cents.
Are you going to claim it? I'm going to claim it. I'm going to claim my 15 cents from a price
versus Uber technology settlement fund. So someone held a class action lawsuit against Uber.
I'm going to assume 10 years ago and I got 15 cents. So I'm going to hit claim.
I'm going to file this claim. I'm going to get my 15 cents, yo.
Well, good for you. Swimming pools, movie stars.
I'm actually doing this. I'm putting in my name and all my information for 15 cents because
I want to see that check. Well, I think that's an excellent idea and I think you need to report
back when you get it. Might be a while. Or report back when they tell you to go to hell, we're keeping it.
How much interest have they accumulated on my 15 cents in the last 12 years?
Three cents? Interest isn't that good.
All right, let's reopen the California crime blotter.
It's happened yet again. I see time for the California crime blotter.
And Randy, this one takes us to Long Beach. Long Beach is shrouded in darkness because of
copper wire theft. For more, here is NBC LA.
New tonight at 11 copper wire thefts have left some streets in Long Beach in the dark.
In fact, entire neighborhoods don't have lights to illuminate roads and sidewalks,
making people there feel unsafe. NBC4 Starshia Phillips is live in Long Beach for us with more
on the problem and the city's efforts to repair the lights. Starshia.
Yeah, Carolyn, we are here on Coronado and Second Street in Long Beach. We have our camera lights on,
but these streets are dark. We have seen some of these lights very dim. And then we also have
seen some of these street lights completely out. And as you mentioned, many people who live here
in Long Beach say these dark streets are making them feel unsafe. Racks, you got fixed the lights,
dude? You know, he doesn't get a lot of play, but he is one of the worst mayors in all of California.
And that's saying something because Karen Bass and Barbara Lee work here.
This street near Redondo in second in Long Beach is plunged into darkness after the sun goes down.
The street lights out or dimmed, making it difficult to see people crossing the street just
feet away. There are a lot of stop signs around. And so it's difficult to be seen in the dark.
So you never know if a car is going to stop or not. And so that is...
Aussie or New Zealander? I'm still deliberating internally.
There are a lot of stop signs around. And so... Sorry, that's Aussie. I think so.
There are a lot of stop signs around. And so it's difficult to be seen in the dark.
So you never know if a car is going to stop or not. And so that is probably one of the biggest
dangerous points for me. Others like Morgan Smith says her stroll... Well, we needed some
tradies to fix those lights. Whoa, you're not allowed to use that word anymore.
Trady? Oh, I thought you said something else. That's what the Australians call
electricians or construction workers. Oh, no, no, no, no. I thought you said something
entirely different. I learned a lot from watching Love Island, Australia.
Okay. I don't know where you thought I was going with that. But just to reiterate, I said
Trady. Okay, yeah, because I had to go through a whole meeting one time for using a different word.
Others like Morgan Smith says her stroll alone a few days ago was anything but relaxing because
of the unlit streets. I didn't feel safe. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, but I... Yeah,
how can you have a relaxing walk in pure darkness? You can't. Because it's like going to one of those
haunted mansions. I am always nervous. So I wish that the streets were more lit up for sure.
People who live in Long Beach say dark streets have been a problem for years. And they say because
of this, they feel less safe, feel that there is more crime, and say it has changed the way they live.
Vote for Rex 2026. That is quite a platform for re-election. We walk less. We walk less. Well,
we walk where it's crowded, but it still feels, you know, dangerous. Long Beach police says a spike
in copper wire theft may be the reason why so many streetlights are dimmed or simply not working.
I cracked that case. Sounds like they're right on top of it. I mean, we have the polls. They
should have bulbs in them. The department encouraging people to immediately report suspicious vehicles
and alleys, individuals tampering with utility infrastructure, and nighttime activity around commercial
buildings. Southern California Edison is also aware of the problem saying in part that the city of
Long Beach recently raised this issue and we have offered our full cooperation. We encourage
customers to report streetlight outages on our outage website. But what if the website's out?
The reason they won't replace the copper wires because it's just going to get stolen again.
And the reason that it gets stolen all the time is because we won't put anyone in prison.
And many people we spoke to tonight say they want the city to do more to fix lights that are
broken promptly and implement a plan to get these lights that are dimmed brighter and also have
more lights in areas that are dark and they also want the city to do more to prevent copper wire
thefts. Reporting live from Long Beach tonight. I'm Darsha Phillips and BC4 News.
There you go. Long Beach yet another major city in Southern California plunged into dark
dance because there's nothing we can do about rampant copper wire theft.
Well, there's plenty we can do. We choose not to. But we shouldn't confuse the two.
If we wanted to put an end to this, we could put an end to it tomorrow. But they're more upset
with over incarceration than they are with people having to live their life in the dark.
Which is totally insane when you think about it. Because the people who are living their life
in the dark are the people who are paying the bills. The people who are stealing the copper wire,
they're the ones on math. If there's any group that you want to come down on like a ton of bricks,
shouldn't it be the group that's on math and not the group that's paying the bills?
You would think at least the very least the cities and the counties would come or the state
would come down hard on the licensed businesses that are buying the stolen copper wire. But apparently
that's something we don't want to do anything about either.
Nope. But again, it's a choice. It's something we choose to do. And that is something that
in the case of Long Beach, the mayor of that city, Rex Richardson, has made his decision to
side with the crackhead stealing the copper wire over the people who pay the taxes and live there
and run the businesses.
The John Phillips Show
