January 21, 2025 • 34 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (01/21) - Royal Oakes comes on the show to talk about Pres. Biden pardoning his family before leaving office and Pres. Trump pardoning Jan. 6th participants. Some people have a gene mutation that allows them to function on very little sleep. More on who is to blame for the LA fires and the lackluster response.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Can hear us every day from one until four and
then after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand on
the iHeart app. And the moistline is eight seven seven
Moist eighty six eight seven seven Moist eighty six or
the talkback feature.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
On the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Trump Biden on his way out, pardoned much of his
family who hadn't been charged yet for anything. Trump, after
he was inaugurated, pardoned everybody involved in the January sixth insurrection,
everybody who was convicted of one thing or another, including
the ones convicted of the most violent crimes and insurrection.
(00:43):
We are going to talk now with Royal Oaks, who
is the ABC News legal analyst, and discuss this pardon situation. Royal,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm doing well? But boy, yeah, pardons are just huge
in the news, not only the family member by Biden,
but now as you're reporting, I mean about fifteen hundred
partons or commutations were given to the rioters. Of those,
fourteen were commutations for far right groups of the Proud
(01:13):
Boys and the Oathkeepers, militia. As you say, some of
them are really violent crimes. So there's probably going to
be some political blowback, John, But I'm guessing that, you know,
the American public is probably going to at the end
of the day give this a big ho hum because
so many have come to regard the politicization of the
criminal justice systems. Well, that's business as usual. You know,
(01:35):
to start with the Russia collusion, and then the two impeachments,
and then the four criminal cases against Donald Trump, some
of which were I mean, let's face it, you know,
with Alvin Bragg, the progressive da in Manhattan having dieded
Bernie Sanders. If Bernie Sanders had had a you know,
a fling with a progressive stripper, nobody believes that, you
(01:56):
know what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
What is a progressive strip.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
They probably asked their political views before they hire them.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
No, I mean, it's it's a free for all, and
everybody is getting dirty from it. I mean, nobody has
any high moral ground. Most of the people are criticizing
Trump didn't say a word about Biden pardoning his family
among many other criminals. I mean, the family was the
least of it. But there were a lot of criminals
whose sentences were commuted, people on death row, the federal
(02:32):
death row had their death sentences commuted, and people just
outright released and their records cleared through a pardon. Now
that's what a pardon is, right, the whole thing is
wiped away.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, here's the deal. It's kind of a subtle distinction.
When you get a pardon, it is a forgiveness of
the federal crime. It's essentially the president saying, you know,
I forgive you for this. It does not wipe it
off the books. And interestingly, it is not only still
on the books as a conviction. Let's say one of
these guys who was convicted and then pardoned is then
sued for, you know, assaulting somebody. The person who sues
(03:08):
in civil court for money damage is not a criminal
deal is entitled to say, hey, judge, you instruct the
jury in the civil suit that we win automatically because
the guy was convicted even though he was pardoned. So
it's not a complete get out of jail free card.
The commutation is a reduction of the severity, you know,
go home, no more, finds, no more jail. But it
(03:30):
is not an official forgiveness. And interestingly, for a pardon
to work, you have to say, Okay, I admitted I
did it, I'm sorry, and I accept the pardon. So
you know, there's some inside baseball differences. But yet still
you could see some civil lawsuits against some of these folks.
But you know, who cares eighteen twenty years in prison off,
you know, out of their future. They can put up
(03:51):
with a couple of lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
What I find curious is people who accept pardons and
claim they did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, of course, you know, you have to accept it
because you don't want to go to prison for twenty years.
But you know, free speech, you're entitled to say. But
by the way, you know that's a bunch of bunk,
I didn't do it at all. So yeah, they want
it both ways.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't see the Biden family refusing any of the pardons.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, I don't think anybody is going to refuse it.
And you know, from Biden's standpoint, he said to himself,
I can't trust Trump and his Department of Justice to
be fair. I think he's going to go after everybody.
I'm surprised he didn't pardon Liz Cheney too, But you know,
doctor Fauci and all the rest of them, so he
could excuse his pardon of a bunch of guilty people
based on the allegation that, well, I can't trust Trump,
(04:39):
you know, he'll do terrible things. But again, back to
my original point, I think the American public is just
so discouraged that I my gosh. You know, these people
with this ultimate power of charging with crimes and putting
people in prison forever, they're political. I mean, that's not
supposed to be the way America is, and yet it
seems like it's business as usual and.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This is an absolute right under the Constant. There's nothing
that anybody can do about it.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting that people have wondered, well, gee,
is self pardon legal? May have President pardon himself for
herself And we don't know because the Supreme Courts never
stuck its teeth into it. But most constitutional scholars say, yeah,
they could probably get away with it. For this reason,
if you read the Constitution, there are two exceptions to
the park power. One is it's got to be a
federal crime, can't be a state crime. And number two,
(05:24):
you can't help somebody out of an impeachment. If somebody
is accused of terrible high crimes and misdemeanors, and so
they want to impeach and convict them and kick them
out of office. The pardon power does not extend there.
The fact of Founders carved out two exceptions leads a
lot of scholars to say, well, you know, they were
smart guys. They could have said, oh, no, self pardons
(05:45):
by a president. So yeah, the bottom line is it's
basically unlimited as long as it's a federal crime.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Let's talk about two of the worst characters out of
the nearly sixteen hundred that Trump pardoned in connection to
the insurrection on January. Two of them was Enrique Tario
of the Proud Boys. The other was Stuart Rhodes of
the Oathkeepers. These are militia groups, far right wing groups,
(06:13):
and they had been charged with Well, let's talk about
Tario first. He was going to serve twenty two years
convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Explain what that is.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, basically, it's I want to overthrow the government. And ironically,
this guy, Enrique, because he had some previous criminal stuff,
a judge had kicked him out of Washington, d C.
A few days before January sixth, so he wasn't around,
but he was like allegedly the general of the army
of the people who wanted to take over the capitol
and allegedly overthrow the government. And so that's why he
(06:45):
got such a big sentence. He was seen as like,
you know, the Dwight Eisenhower on d Day or only
a bad guy. And so you know, there were other
guys ond you mentioned, plus a proud boy, this guy
David Dempsey, he got twenty years for using his hand
in his feet, a flagpole and crutches, pepper spray and
broken pieces of furniture. You know, there were a lot
(07:07):
of people using it, you know, hockey sticks, two by fours,
really violence. That one guy was stood by the gallows
calling for the hanging of Nasty Pelosi and the Barack Obama.
So yeah, a lot of people are going to say
these people are bad folks. They shouldn't get to swept
up in the pardon poalooza for your own.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
There was a wide range of people charged because some
people just followed the crowd and wandered in and then
there were others, yeah, who brought a lot of bizarre
weapons and they had bad intent. If they had found
somebody like Pelosi or Mike Pence. Yeah, they might have
hanged somebody because the.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Crowd is exactly. If you look at the fifteen hundred pardons,
about a thousand of them were misdemeanors for things like trespassing,
disorderly conduct. So the vast majority of people, it was
pretty low end stuff and you know, they probably weren't
going to be serving much time anyway. So that's the majority.
But of the fifteen hundred, about four hundred to five
(08:04):
hundred more serious things, including you know, trying to overthrow
the government. So when a lot of people say, you know,
it wasn't an insurrection, it was just a mob. People
got out of hand. But there were a lot of
judges and prosecutors who went real hard against these people.
One guy assaulted a fellow rioter who tried to disarm him,
using a broken piece of furniture on somebody, So it
was an ugly situation. But yeah, from a criminal standpoint,
(08:27):
it's a happy dayser here again, all of these folks
all of the country, hundreds and hundreds of were released
from jail, and if you had a pending trial, you know,
come up in a month or two. Boom, it's off,
no trial, go, you return to your homes, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
We have Stuart Rhodes from the Oathkeepers, he was going
to serve eighteen years on seditious conspiracy. Joseph Biggs, member
of the Proud Boys, he was going to get seventeen years.
And both of those sentences were commuted. Not an outright pardon,
but they are resentenced to time served and they're both
(09:04):
out already.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Exactly the exact same effect of the pardon, except you know,
the pardon has the forgiveness. But in all cases it
means freedom. It means no more jail, it means no
more fine, no probation. Usually, you know, you get these
kinds of things when somebody has had a lot of
good behavior behind bars and they or served a long time,
and you know, maybe they've got health issues, they've got
(09:26):
cancer or something. But this is obviously a very different situation.
This is Donald Trump saying, you know, these people were
victims of politicization of the system.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, Biden does it on his last day so he
can't suffer any repercussions from voters. He's already been pre
kicked out of office. And Trump does it on his
first day and he's never running for office again. So
in both cases, neither one of them is going to
suffer any personal or political consequences. They could pardon anybody
they want to, and they could pardon thousands more.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It wouldn't have mattered in their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, and that's the way it works. I mean there's
a rich history too. You remember back in Clinton's time,
on his last day, Clinton pardoned his brother Roger, who
was convicted of cocaine distribution. And he pardoned Mark Rich,
who everybody acknowledged was a really bad guy, dishonest, you know,
extortion the nancier. But his wife had given a million
bucks to the Democratic National Committee. So but what are
(10:22):
you going to do? You know, people criticized Bill Clinton,
but that didn't stop him from still, you know, having
a positive image.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You know, it cracks up put putting like politics aside, right,
is that people invest so much emotion into these guys
and and and admire them, and uh, they're all they're
all nasty characters.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean really.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
No, absolutely, But you know, your your politics gets in
the way, and you know that that's you look at
that through the prism of your personal views, and you
kind of ignore morality.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I mean, these are not people you'd want your
family or do business with. All right, thank you Royl
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You bet, thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
ABC News is a legal analyst on the pardon party
over the last few days for Trump and Biden.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
All right, here's that story I was telling you about
from before, the people who only need five hours of sleep.
Oh yeah, you have a you have a gene mutation.
Lewis Patacek is a neurologist a U SEE San Francisco.
He has a colleague, Ying hue Fu real name, human
(11:39):
geneticist and neuroscientists, and they have identified seven specific genes
that make some people natural short sleepers, people who only
need four to six hours a night and suffer no
health consequences. In fact, they may be healthier than others.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Really listen to this.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Potassic said his research started years ago with a woman
who came to him complaining of being well. She got
up really early in the morning. She would wake up
in the middle of the night. It was cold, lonely,
and dark, and she said there was a genetic history
of it in her family. Her granddaughters were the same,
(12:23):
so he decided to try to isolate the gene they could.
They were able to pinpoint the woman and her family
and found a genetic mutation. It's an actual trait various
mutated genes. One of them was in the gene called
DEC two. One of this gene's jobs is to control
(12:45):
levels of a brain hormone called orexin. Erexin promotes wakefulness.
Now at the other end of the spectrum are people
who don't produce enough erecsin, and they suffer from narcolepsy.
They're constantly falling asleep. So they genetically engineered these gene
mutations into mice, and they found that the rodents needed
(13:08):
less sleep than other mice, no health consequences, and the
mice also lacked the memory problems that normally follow a
short night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Do you have memory problems?
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I do?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, all right, Maybe maybe you have other problems I do?
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, Well that's that's a consequence of not enough sleep.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But if it was a genetic mutation, you wouldn't have
that problem.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Oh, so then it's not a genetic mutation.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Maybe you just way too stressed out and strung out
all the time. The short sleep gene might protect you
from certain diseases. And what they did is they crossbread
the mice that had the short sleep gene with mice
that carried genes predisposing them to Alzheimer's. The hybrid mice
(13:59):
developed fewer physical symptoms of Alzheimer's, you know, the tangles
and the proteins in your brain. It seemed the sleep
mutations were protecting them. And they found that short sleepers
actually excel on a small amount of rest. They don't
just survive, they excel their go getters, their ambitious, energetic, optimistic,
(14:22):
remarkable resilience against stress, and higher thresholds for pain.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
I don't have all those, I see.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I started out thinking this might make you feel.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Right, I know, No, I don't have this mutation. Unfortunately,
I think this is Trump though Trump is a four
hour guy.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean, who else could put up with what
he's endured over the last you know, ten years. There
are drawbacks because you end up with a lot of
time on your hands. I mean, I guess you kind
of have to be ambitious to fill all those extra hours.
(15:00):
Oh well, if you get most people an extra five hours,
and you gave them the five hours at a weird
time like four in the morning.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
Yeah, but don't they just try to go back to
sleep or they just say, you know, screw it, I'm
up and I'm gonna do whatever, because I just will
toss and turn until well it makes sense to get
out of bed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's a collection of brain chemicals, like melotonin gets secreted
in your brain naturally when you experience darkness. If you
don't disturb your brain with artificial light or by staring
at a screen all night, then the eventually the melatonin
builds up in your brain and puts you to sleep.
Or you could take it in pill form.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Yeah, it doesn't work right.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You're a research project. I really am nothing. You're a
previous to anything that would knock you out. Well, try
the hammer.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
No, I haven't tried that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
When ye cammer, see what happens.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Yeah, I need something strong.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, it's uh, it's one to two percent of the
population a sleepers, and women generally need more sleep than men.
So you're defying all the patterns here.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Well, now you know what my issues are, so be kind.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Uh, well, that's not the only issue.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Leonardo da Vinci had a twenty minute nap every four
hours rather than sleeping every night, and Winston Churchill took
a two hour nap at five o'clock every day and
said this allowed him to work one and a half
days every twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy also had daily naps
to break the day into two ships.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I have a daily nap too.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
You do in the morning, right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
In the morning, yes, like between ten and eleven, usually
about twenty minutes half hour. And I'd wake up feeling
much better after the nap than I do when I
get up in the morning and you really.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Are sleeping, because you're not just thinking your brain.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
No, no, I'm so jealous. I'm out.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I even start dreaming the whole thing. Yeah, it's like
a mini compressed night. I feel like I have two days,
Like I have my morning day, I take a nap,
and then I have the rest.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
How can you be tired again at ten in the morning, though,
because you sleep very you sleep long hours.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I have had this habit now for probably thirty years.
When I used to early in radio, I used to
work mornings and the show would be over at ten
o'clock and I'd go home and I would take a nap.
Because I was out late at night, I was getting
up really early, and that makes sense. I was never
getting enough sleep. So I started getting a habit of
(17:36):
going to bed at about ten thirty or so, and
that has stuck ever since.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
You do the same thing on the weekends when you're
not working.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, yeah, my wife knows that.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
She looks at my face, like on a Saturday, and
she goes, I could tell you need a nap. You're
looking franky, or if I am cranky, she goes, you
didn't get your nap, did you.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'm treated like a tubble.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Well, there's good reason.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
When when we come back. There's a story in the
La Times this past week about we know about the
water problem in the Palisades with the reservoir that wasn't
filled and the water tanks that got drained by the
fire department. They had a lot of problems getting water
(18:26):
into the Palisades because the only way to bring more
water in. You may have been wondering if they didn't
have the reservoir and if the tanks ran dry, then
what did they do. Well, they had to send water
down a pipe from other nearby LA towns. But that
could create problems because then nearby towns wouldn't have water
(18:46):
and if a fire broke out there, there could have
been a disaster. And I was going through the story.
I'll talk more about it next time.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
You're listening to John Cobel's on Demand from KFI AM
six four.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We're on from one until four after four o'clock, you
miss something, be Ashamed of Yourself John Cobelt Show on
Demand on the iHeart app, and then you can listen
to whatever you missed earlier in the day. We're going
to talk with Michael Gates, frequent guest on the show.
In Huntington Beach is the city attorney. Why would we
(19:21):
have him on so often? Because Huntington Beach is its
own charter city and they don't have to follow all
of Governor Newsom's absurd policies, and there's other policies that
they don't want to follow and they end up in
court one way or the other. They are going to
(19:42):
declare themselves a non sanctuary city, saying there's been an
increase in violent crime as one of the reasons to
become a non sanctuary city. In a sanctuary state, how
all this works. We're going to talk with Michael Gates
coming up. Always interesting to talk to you to Michael.
(20:03):
All right, So, one of the things that we're gonna
stay on top of all year long after the fires
are put out the rebuilding starts, is who's to blame
this here? You know that Elon Musk is the Department
of Government efficiency. I am starting the government of the
Department of blame and finger pointing, all right, because I
(20:26):
hear guilty politicians complain all the time. Now is not
the time for finger pointing, not is now the time
for the blame game. Now is not the time for
second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking. Well, welcome to the
Department of Blame, finger pointing, second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking.
(20:47):
We're gonna do all of it in the next four months,
and we're never gonna let up on the guilty parties
because things have got to change drastically here in the
city of Los Angeles, and I imagine in a lot
of places here in southern California. We have been so
consumed by these progressives who care only about homeless people,
(21:08):
illegal aliens, criminals, and climate change. That's it, and things
like police protection, fire protection, school systems that work, water
systems that work, energy systems that work, barely gets any
of their focus.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And now is the time to look.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
At why the Palisades ran out of water. Now we
know already that one of the gigantic reservoir one hundred
and seventeen million gallon reservoir was left empty. I'm reading
stories that other nearby reservoirs were also empty. And this
is the fault of the DWP and Genice Qiinoonyez, the CEO,
(21:57):
who is apparently obsessed with diverse, the equity and inclusion.
She was not obsessed with water and power. That was
her job to distribute water and power. I know it's
just not as cool and trendy and sexy as diversity,
equity and inclusion.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
But water in power.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
If we don't have it, we don't have a civilization,
we don't exist. So the La Times, a couple of
writers named Matt Hamilton and Ian James, did a story
detailing what happened when they realized we don't have enough water.
Reservoirs empty, the three million gallon water tanks are running dry.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
What are we going to do?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
According to Hamilton and James in the tanks that regulate
pressure in the upper reaches of the canyons. The water
was beginning to dwindle and DWP officials had to figure
out how to boost the pressure. There is a thirty
six inch pipeline that carries water from a bel Air
reservoir to the west side before it curves uphill in
(23:02):
to the Pacific Highlands. And so they had a choice
to make. Do they shut off water to nearby neighborhoods
such as Brentwood, or you'll keep running out of water
pressure on the front lines. Now, if they turned off
(23:23):
the water, medical facilities would be in trouble, dialysis centers
for example.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
How long would it take to turn off the valves?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And could the pipes handle such a shift or could
they rupture? By the way on Sunset Boulevard. And I
don't know if this is the pipe that runs under
Sunset Boulevard, but there have been some spectacular ruptures in
recent years.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I mean shooting.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Water, you know, like fifty feet into the air because
the pipes are crumbling. Which is going to be my
ultimate point here is that we have a crumbling system
that nobody in the County in the city has funded
They have not funded repairs, like real repairs, not just
patchwork repairs, in many, many years. And this has got
(24:05):
to change. And if anybody objects, you just point to
the palisades saying sorry, you're wrong, you're wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And you're fired. We got to get that. We got
to get the Trump attitude.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Trump woke up this morning and put out a post
on his on a social media site that said you're
fired in capital letters with an exclamation point, and that
was to one thousand bureaucrats who worked under Biden. You're fired,
Get out. Do not debate these people anymore, Do not
(24:37):
argue with them. They have to go. They have to
be fired, they have to be forced to resign, they
have to be voted out of office.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Otherwise there's going to be more palisades.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So they had a plan to turn off the water
for other neighborhoods on the West Side, but ultimately they
decided not to execute that plan. Newsom Is ordered an investigation.
The La City Council voted unanimously last week to demand
that the DWP present an analysis of its actions. There
(25:13):
should be outside investigations here. The DWP is not going
to admit they screwed up by leaving the reservoir empty.
I don't know what cover excuse there could possibly be,
but it leads to this bottom line. We have a terrible,
terrible water system in Los Angeles. All the experts in
(25:39):
here are saying, wow, you know, I mean, there's a
small water system is not designed to fight a fire.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Well it should be. We're in a high fire prone area.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
They keep claiming that climate change is going to make
it worse, and yet they cut funding for all this
stuff constantly.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Can't go on this way. It's got to stop.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We should have a water system that allows us to
live normally, and if an area or two is affected
by annual fires, there's.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Enough order to put them out. Period.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Build the system. People pay an enormous amount in taxes.
Let's start with the billion, three hundred million that is
spent on the homeless every fing year. Let's grab all
that money. Imagine if we had all that homeless money
(26:40):
and they start half the fires. I've been saying this
every single day, and I'm going to keep saying it.
You can't give money to the fire starters and deny
money to the fire fighters. We are so upside down,
I mean morally upside down under how morally can you
(27:01):
give money to people who start fires?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Every day?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Half the fires in LA that the fire department has
to attend to is from homeless people, and then you
only have half a fire department to combat this situation.
And they're part of the reason Palisades response was so
weak is that they have to keep firefighters back to
deal largely with the homeless fires. That's what they're talking about.
(27:26):
But they're talking in code. But if you read enough articles,
then I have and Michael Schellenberger has too. If you
look at what they're saying, the homeless starts so many
fires that they have to keep a significant percentage of
the force. They have to hold them back, not send
them to the wildfire because you don't know what's going
(27:48):
to go on in the city.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And plus just having all this in the air.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
The extreme fire danger, the Santa Andna winds blowing, just
all the mayhem that's going on that inspires these crazy
people that are whacked out on meth. I remember reading
one person in government said there's something about meth that
makes you set fires, like there's something about bath salts.
(28:17):
A few years ago that made people eat their own
flesh or eat other people's flesh because their brains get
wildly disordered, disordered, and then they have this compulsion to
light things on fire. We've got more when we come back.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I've got a little more on the DWP response to
the fire and the Palisades. When they ran out of water,
so we told you that they would because they left
the reservoir dry and the water tanks they had ran
out quickly. They were going to divert water from neighborhoods
like Brentwood, but they were afraid that something bad would
(29:00):
happen there. What if a fire broke out, What about
all the medical facilities there. Now, as it turned out,
they put a restriction on using the water in surrounding neighborhoods.
They said the water might be fouled and undrinkable, but
it was still coming out of the faucets. But further
(29:23):
on in this story, in the La Times, they were
trying to figure out maybe they could install a device
that would regulate pressure in the neighborhood where the fire
broke out and in the neighborhoods down below the hill,
but the flames overtook the neighborhood where the DWP workers
(29:47):
were trying to address the problem, so they had to
evacuate they were surrounded by fire. Now it turns out
the DWP, remember I told you the La Fire Department
had not pre deployed strike teams in the Palisades even
though there was an extreme fire risk. Well, the DWP
(30:10):
also did not deploy water crews in advance.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Either.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Employees were on high alert and ready to report to
DWP yards across the city, but not specifically to the
Palisades and other hillsides where the fire danger was the greatest.
This is according to Anselmo Collins, the chief of Water Operations.
This is a new character in the story and so
(30:40):
and Selmo Collins was defending this decision. You don't know
what the emergency is going to be, and you don't
want to make an assumption and put your staff in
the wrong location. But you did make an assumption. You
assume that you weren't going to have enough of a
fire issue and water issue in the Palisades and probably
elsewhere that you decided not to send in a deployment team.
(31:02):
So if you have the fire department not sending in
a deployment team, and you have the water department not
sending in their own deployment team, you end up with
nobody in the Palisades. When the fire does break out
and they quickly run out of water pressure and water, well,
(31:22):
what kind of a decision is that? They're always defending
bad decisions. What you're supposed to do is send the
troops in in case something happens, especially when a situation
says the risk is high.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
If they don't respond to the National Weather Service saying
extreme fire risk, what would they respond to? What would
make them send in strike teams? Both the water crews
and the fire crews. What does it take?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Guys? Extreme?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You're telling us to take it seriously. You're telling us
to be ready. Okay, we're ready, you are not. What
are we supposed to do while in the Palisades people
just watch their homes burn. No, they watched the firefighters
run out of water and then the homes burned. But
maybe all the tax dollars we spent for a billion
(32:14):
years should be going to create a water system that
could handle the daily city needs and fight wildfires in
the high fire districts.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Is that so radical?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Isn't that obvious instead of spending a billion three hundred
million every year on a group of vagrants who start
the fires.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
How can this go on another day? Really?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
How can we live another day with a government that
sends billions of dollars, doesn't help the homeless, just enriches
all these fake criminal nonprofits and then tell us why
we really don't have a system that can handle this
much of a water need you know, we really don't
(32:59):
have a fire department that's capable of covering this. You
have to double the funding to the fire department. God
knows how much funding you need for the water department.
But maybe if well, we will get into all the
misguided priorities of these energy companies.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You could do it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
You just spend the money, and you do it, and
stop spending it on nonsense. We're coming up right after
three o'clock. This is part of the whole insanity from
this progressive error. California is a sanctuary city for illegal aliens.
Are we going to be the last holdout? Well, Huntington
(33:42):
Beach says no, we want to be a non sanctuary city,
and the violent crime across California is one of the
reasons they want to start cooperating with the Feds. Debora
mark Liden, KFI twenty four Hour Newsroom, Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI AM six forty from
(34:04):
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course,
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Can hear us every day from one until four and
then after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand on
the iHeart app. And the moistline is eight seven seven
Moist eighty six eight seven seven Moist eighty six or
the talkback feature.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
On the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Trump Biden on his way out, pardoned much of his
family who hadn't been charged yet for anything. Trump, after
he was inaugurated, pardoned everybody involved in the January sixth insurrection,
everybody who was convicted of one thing or another, including
the ones convicted of the most violent crimes and insurrection.
(00:43):
We are going to talk now with Royal Oaks, who
is the ABC News legal analyst, and discuss this pardon situation. Royal,
how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm doing well? But boy, yeah, pardons are just huge
in the news, not only the family member by Biden,
but now as you're reporting, I mean about fifteen hundred
partons or commutations were given to the rioters. Of those,
fourteen were commutations for far right groups of the Proud
(01:13):
Boys and the Oathkeepers, militia. As you say, some of
them are really violent crimes. So there's probably going to
be some political blowback, John, But I'm guessing that, you know,
the American public is probably going to at the end
of the day give this a big ho hum because
so many have come to regard the politicization of the
criminal justice systems. Well, that's business as usual. You know,
(01:35):
to start with the Russia collusion, and then the two impeachments,
and then the four criminal cases against Donald Trump, some
of which were I mean, let's face it, you know,
with Alvin Bragg, the progressive da in Manhattan having dieded
Bernie Sanders. If Bernie Sanders had had a you know,
a fling with a progressive stripper, nobody believes that, you
(01:56):
know what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
What is a progressive strip.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
They probably asked their political views before they hire them.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
No, I mean, it's it's a free for all, and
everybody is getting dirty from it. I mean, nobody has
any high moral ground. Most of the people are criticizing
Trump didn't say a word about Biden pardoning his family
among many other criminals. I mean, the family was the
least of it. But there were a lot of criminals
whose sentences were commuted, people on death row, the federal
(02:32):
death row had their death sentences commuted, and people just
outright released and their records cleared through a pardon. Now
that's what a pardon is, right, the whole thing is
wiped away.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, here's the deal. It's kind of a subtle distinction.
When you get a pardon, it is a forgiveness of
the federal crime. It's essentially the president saying, you know,
I forgive you for this. It does not wipe it
off the books. And interestingly, it is not only still
on the books as a conviction. Let's say one of
these guys who was convicted and then pardoned is then
sued for, you know, assaulting somebody. The person who sues
(03:08):
in civil court for money damage is not a criminal
deal is entitled to say, hey, judge, you instruct the
jury in the civil suit that we win automatically because
the guy was convicted even though he was pardoned. So
it's not a complete get out of jail free card.
The commutation is a reduction of the severity, you know,
go home, no more, finds, no more jail. But it
(03:30):
is not an official forgiveness. And interestingly, for a pardon
to work, you have to say, Okay, I admitted I
did it, I'm sorry, and I accept the pardon. So
you know, there's some inside baseball differences. But yet still
you could see some civil lawsuits against some of these folks.
But you know, who cares eighteen twenty years in prison off,
you know, out of their future. They can put up
(03:51):
with a couple of lawsuits.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
What I find curious is people who accept pardons and
claim they did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, of course, you know, you have to accept it
because you don't want to go to prison for twenty years.
But you know, free speech, you're entitled to say. But
by the way, you know that's a bunch of bunk,
I didn't do it at all. So yeah, they want
it both ways.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I don't see the Biden family refusing any of the pardons.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, I don't think anybody is going to refuse it.
And you know, from Biden's standpoint, he said to himself,
I can't trust Trump and his Department of Justice to
be fair. I think he's going to go after everybody.
I'm surprised he didn't pardon Liz Cheney too, But you know,
doctor Fauci and all the rest of them, so he
could excuse his pardon of a bunch of guilty people
based on the allegation that, well, I can't trust Trump,
(04:39):
you know, he'll do terrible things. But again, back to
my original point, I think the American public is just
so discouraged that I my gosh. You know, these people
with this ultimate power of charging with crimes and putting
people in prison forever, they're political. I mean, that's not
supposed to be the way America is, and yet it
seems like it's business as usual and.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This is an absolute right under the Constant. There's nothing
that anybody can do about it.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting that people have wondered, well, gee,
is self pardon legal? May have President pardon himself for
herself And we don't know because the Supreme Courts never
stuck its teeth into it. But most constitutional scholars say, yeah,
they could probably get away with it. For this reason,
if you read the Constitution, there are two exceptions to
the park power. One is it's got to be a
federal crime, can't be a state crime. And number two,
(05:24):
you can't help somebody out of an impeachment. If somebody
is accused of terrible high crimes and misdemeanors, and so
they want to impeach and convict them and kick them
out of office. The pardon power does not extend there.
The fact of Founders carved out two exceptions leads a
lot of scholars to say, well, you know, they were
smart guys. They could have said, oh, no, self pardons
(05:45):
by a president. So yeah, the bottom line is it's
basically unlimited as long as it's a federal crime.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Let's talk about two of the worst characters out of
the nearly sixteen hundred that Trump pardoned in connection to
the insurrection on January. Two of them was Enrique Tario
of the Proud Boys. The other was Stuart Rhodes of
the Oathkeepers. These are militia groups, far right wing groups,
(06:13):
and they had been charged with Well, let's talk about
Tario first. He was going to serve twenty two years
convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Explain what that is.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, basically, it's I want to overthrow the government. And ironically,
this guy, Enrique, because he had some previous criminal stuff,
a judge had kicked him out of Washington, d C.
A few days before January sixth, so he wasn't around,
but he was like allegedly the general of the army
of the people who wanted to take over the capitol
and allegedly overthrow the government. And so that's why he
(06:45):
got such a big sentence. He was seen as like,
you know, the Dwight Eisenhower on d Day or only
a bad guy. And so you know, there were other
guys ond you mentioned, plus a proud boy, this guy
David Dempsey, he got twenty years for using his hand
in his feet, a flagpole and crutches, pepper spray and
broken pieces of furniture. You know, there were a lot
(07:07):
of people using it, you know, hockey sticks, two by fours,
really violence. That one guy was stood by the gallows
calling for the hanging of Nasty Pelosi and the Barack Obama.
So yeah, a lot of people are going to say
these people are bad folks. They shouldn't get to swept
up in the pardon poalooza for your own.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
There was a wide range of people charged because some
people just followed the crowd and wandered in and then
there were others, yeah, who brought a lot of bizarre
weapons and they had bad intent. If they had found
somebody like Pelosi or Mike Pence. Yeah, they might have
hanged somebody because the.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Crowd is exactly. If you look at the fifteen hundred pardons,
about a thousand of them were misdemeanors for things like trespassing,
disorderly conduct. So the vast majority of people, it was
pretty low end stuff and you know, they probably weren't
going to be serving much time anyway. So that's the majority.
But of the fifteen hundred, about four hundred to five
(08:04):
hundred more serious things, including you know, trying to overthrow
the government. So when a lot of people say, you know,
it wasn't an insurrection, it was just a mob. People
got out of hand. But there were a lot of
judges and prosecutors who went real hard against these people.
One guy assaulted a fellow rioter who tried to disarm him,
using a broken piece of furniture on somebody, So it
was an ugly situation. But yeah, from a criminal standpoint,
(08:27):
it's a happy dayser here again, all of these folks
all of the country, hundreds and hundreds of were released
from jail, and if you had a pending trial, you know,
come up in a month or two. Boom, it's off,
no trial, go, you return to your homes, and that's it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
We have Stuart Rhodes from the Oathkeepers, he was going
to serve eighteen years on seditious conspiracy. Joseph Biggs, member
of the Proud Boys, he was going to get seventeen years.
And both of those sentences were commuted. Not an outright pardon,
but they are resentenced to time served and they're both
(09:04):
out already.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Exactly the exact same effect of the pardon, except you know,
the pardon has the forgiveness. But in all cases it
means freedom. It means no more jail, it means no
more fine, no probation. Usually, you know, you get these
kinds of things when somebody has had a lot of
good behavior behind bars and they or served a long time,
and you know, maybe they've got health issues, they've got
(09:26):
cancer or something. But this is obviously a very different situation.
This is Donald Trump saying, you know, these people were
victims of politicization of the system.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, Biden does it on his last day so he
can't suffer any repercussions from voters. He's already been pre
kicked out of office. And Trump does it on his
first day and he's never running for office again. So
in both cases, neither one of them is going to
suffer any personal or political consequences. They could pardon anybody
they want to, and they could pardon thousands more.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
It wouldn't have mattered in their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, and that's the way it works. I mean there's
a rich history too. You remember back in Clinton's time,
on his last day, Clinton pardoned his brother Roger, who
was convicted of cocaine distribution. And he pardoned Mark Rich,
who everybody acknowledged was a really bad guy, dishonest, you know,
extortion the nancier. But his wife had given a million
bucks to the Democratic National Committee. So but what are
(10:22):
you going to do? You know, people criticized Bill Clinton,
but that didn't stop him from still, you know, having
a positive image.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You know, it cracks up put putting like politics aside, right,
is that people invest so much emotion into these guys
and and and admire them, and uh, they're all they're
all nasty characters.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean really.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
No, absolutely, But you know, your your politics gets in
the way, and you know that that's you look at
that through the prism of your personal views, and you
kind of ignore morality.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, I mean, these are not people you'd want your
family or do business with. All right, thank you Royl
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
You bet, thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
ABC News is a legal analyst on the pardon party
over the last few days for Trump and Biden.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
All right, here's that story I was telling you about
from before, the people who only need five hours of sleep.
Oh yeah, you have a you have a gene mutation.
Lewis Patacek is a neurologist a U SEE San Francisco.
He has a colleague, Ying hue Fu real name, human
(11:39):
geneticist and neuroscientists, and they have identified seven specific genes
that make some people natural short sleepers, people who only
need four to six hours a night and suffer no
health consequences. In fact, they may be healthier than others.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Really listen to this.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Potassic said his research started years ago with a woman
who came to him complaining of being well. She got
up really early in the morning. She would wake up
in the middle of the night. It was cold, lonely,
and dark, and she said there was a genetic history
of it in her family. Her granddaughters were the same,
(12:23):
so he decided to try to isolate the gene they could.
They were able to pinpoint the woman and her family
and found a genetic mutation. It's an actual trait various
mutated genes. One of them was in the gene called
DEC two. One of this gene's jobs is to control
(12:45):
levels of a brain hormone called orexin. Erexin promotes wakefulness.
Now at the other end of the spectrum are people
who don't produce enough erecsin, and they suffer from narcolepsy.
They're constantly falling asleep. So they genetically engineered these gene
mutations into mice, and they found that the rodents needed
(13:08):
less sleep than other mice, no health consequences, and the
mice also lacked the memory problems that normally follow a
short night's sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Do you have memory problems?
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I do?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, all right, Maybe maybe you have other problems I do?
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, Well that's that's a consequence of not enough sleep.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But if it was a genetic mutation, you wouldn't have
that problem.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Oh, so then it's not a genetic mutation.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Maybe you just way too stressed out and strung out
all the time. The short sleep gene might protect you
from certain diseases. And what they did is they crossbread
the mice that had the short sleep gene with mice
that carried genes predisposing them to Alzheimer's. The hybrid mice
(13:59):
developed fewer physical symptoms of Alzheimer's, you know, the tangles
and the proteins in your brain. It seemed the sleep
mutations were protecting them. And they found that short sleepers
actually excel on a small amount of rest. They don't
just survive, they excel their go getters, their ambitious, energetic, optimistic,
(14:22):
remarkable resilience against stress, and higher thresholds for pain.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
I don't have all those, I see.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I started out thinking this might make you feel.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Right, I know, No, I don't have this mutation. Unfortunately,
I think this is Trump though Trump is a four
hour guy.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean, who else could put up with what
he's endured over the last you know, ten years. There
are drawbacks because you end up with a lot of
time on your hands. I mean, I guess you kind
of have to be ambitious to fill all those extra hours.
(15:00):
Oh well, if you get most people an extra five hours,
and you gave them the five hours at a weird
time like four in the morning.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
Yeah, but don't they just try to go back to
sleep or they just say, you know, screw it, I'm
up and I'm gonna do whatever, because I just will
toss and turn until well it makes sense to get
out of bed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's a collection of brain chemicals, like melotonin gets secreted
in your brain naturally when you experience darkness. If you
don't disturb your brain with artificial light or by staring
at a screen all night, then the eventually the melatonin
builds up in your brain and puts you to sleep.
Or you could take it in pill form.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Yeah, it doesn't work right.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You're a research project. I really am nothing. You're a
previous to anything that would knock you out. Well, try
the hammer.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
No, I haven't tried that.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
When ye cammer, see what happens.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Yeah, I need something strong.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, it's uh, it's one to two percent of the
population a sleepers, and women generally need more sleep than men.
So you're defying all the patterns here.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Well, now you know what my issues are, so be kind.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Uh, well, that's not the only issue.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Leonardo da Vinci had a twenty minute nap every four
hours rather than sleeping every night, and Winston Churchill took
a two hour nap at five o'clock every day and
said this allowed him to work one and a half
days every twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy also had daily naps
to break the day into two ships.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I have a daily nap too.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
You do in the morning, right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
In the morning, yes, like between ten and eleven, usually
about twenty minutes half hour. And I'd wake up feeling
much better after the nap than I do when I
get up in the morning and you really.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Are sleeping, because you're not just thinking your brain.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
No, no, I'm so jealous. I'm out.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I even start dreaming the whole thing. Yeah, it's like
a mini compressed night. I feel like I have two days,
Like I have my morning day, I take a nap,
and then I have the rest.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
How can you be tired again at ten in the morning, though,
because you sleep very you sleep long hours.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I have had this habit now for probably thirty years.
When I used to early in radio, I used to
work mornings and the show would be over at ten
o'clock and I'd go home and I would take a nap.
Because I was out late at night, I was getting
up really early, and that makes sense. I was never
getting enough sleep. So I started getting a habit of
(17:36):
going to bed at about ten thirty or so, and
that has stuck ever since.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
You do the same thing on the weekends when you're
not working.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, yeah, my wife knows that.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
She looks at my face, like on a Saturday, and
she goes, I could tell you need a nap. You're
looking franky, or if I am cranky, she goes, you
didn't get your nap, did you.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'm treated like a tubble.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Well, there's good reason.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
When when we come back. There's a story in the
La Times this past week about we know about the
water problem in the Palisades with the reservoir that wasn't
filled and the water tanks that got drained by the
fire department. They had a lot of problems getting water
(18:26):
into the Palisades because the only way to bring more
water in. You may have been wondering if they didn't
have the reservoir and if the tanks ran dry, then
what did they do. Well, they had to send water
down a pipe from other nearby LA towns. But that
could create problems because then nearby towns wouldn't have water
(18:46):
and if a fire broke out there, there could have
been a disaster. And I was going through the story.
I'll talk more about it next time.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
You're listening to John Cobel's on Demand from KFI AM
six four.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We're on from one until four after four o'clock, you
miss something, be Ashamed of Yourself John Cobelt Show on
Demand on the iHeart app, and then you can listen
to whatever you missed earlier in the day. We're going
to talk with Michael Gates, frequent guest on the show.
In Huntington Beach is the city attorney. Why would we
(19:21):
have him on so often? Because Huntington Beach is its
own charter city and they don't have to follow all
of Governor Newsom's absurd policies, and there's other policies that
they don't want to follow and they end up in
court one way or the other. They are going to
(19:42):
declare themselves a non sanctuary city, saying there's been an
increase in violent crime as one of the reasons to
become a non sanctuary city. In a sanctuary state, how
all this works. We're going to talk with Michael Gates
coming up. Always interesting to talk to you to Michael.
(20:03):
All right, So, one of the things that we're gonna
stay on top of all year long after the fires
are put out the rebuilding starts, is who's to blame
this here? You know that Elon Musk is the Department
of Government efficiency. I am starting the government of the
Department of blame and finger pointing, all right, because I
(20:26):
hear guilty politicians complain all the time. Now is not
the time for finger pointing, not is now the time
for the blame game. Now is not the time for
second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking. Well, welcome to the
Department of Blame, finger pointing, second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking.
(20:47):
We're gonna do all of it in the next four months,
and we're never gonna let up on the guilty parties
because things have got to change drastically here in the
city of Los Angeles, and I imagine in a lot
of places here in southern California. We have been so
consumed by these progressives who care only about homeless people,
(21:08):
illegal aliens, criminals, and climate change. That's it, and things
like police protection, fire protection, school systems that work, water
systems that work, energy systems that work, barely gets any
of their focus.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And now is the time to look.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
At why the Palisades ran out of water. Now we
know already that one of the gigantic reservoir one hundred
and seventeen million gallon reservoir was left empty. I'm reading
stories that other nearby reservoirs were also empty. And this
is the fault of the DWP and Genice Qiinoonyez, the CEO,
(21:57):
who is apparently obsessed with diverse, the equity and inclusion.
She was not obsessed with water and power. That was
her job to distribute water and power. I know it's
just not as cool and trendy and sexy as diversity,
equity and inclusion.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
But water in power.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
If we don't have it, we don't have a civilization,
we don't exist. So the La Times, a couple of
writers named Matt Hamilton and Ian James, did a story
detailing what happened when they realized we don't have enough water.
Reservoirs empty, the three million gallon water tanks are running dry.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
What are we going to do?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
According to Hamilton and James in the tanks that regulate
pressure in the upper reaches of the canyons. The water
was beginning to dwindle and DWP officials had to figure
out how to boost the pressure. There is a thirty
six inch pipeline that carries water from a bel Air
reservoir to the west side before it curves uphill in
(23:02):
to the Pacific Highlands. And so they had a choice
to make. Do they shut off water to nearby neighborhoods
such as Brentwood, or you'll keep running out of water
pressure on the front lines. Now, if they turned off
(23:23):
the water, medical facilities would be in trouble, dialysis centers
for example.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
How long would it take to turn off the valves?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And could the pipes handle such a shift or could
they rupture? By the way on Sunset Boulevard. And I
don't know if this is the pipe that runs under
Sunset Boulevard, but there have been some spectacular ruptures in
recent years.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I mean shooting.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Water, you know, like fifty feet into the air because
the pipes are crumbling. Which is going to be my
ultimate point here is that we have a crumbling system
that nobody in the County in the city has funded
They have not funded repairs, like real repairs, not just
patchwork repairs, in many, many years. And this has got
(24:05):
to change. And if anybody objects, you just point to
the palisades saying sorry, you're wrong, you're wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
And you're fired. We got to get that. We got
to get the Trump attitude.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Trump woke up this morning and put out a post
on his on a social media site that said you're
fired in capital letters with an exclamation point, and that
was to one thousand bureaucrats who worked under Biden. You're fired,
Get out. Do not debate these people anymore, Do not
(24:37):
argue with them. They have to go. They have to
be fired, they have to be forced to resign, they
have to be voted out of office.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Otherwise there's going to be more palisades.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So they had a plan to turn off the water
for other neighborhoods on the West Side, but ultimately they
decided not to execute that plan. Newsom Is ordered an investigation.
The La City Council voted unanimously last week to demand
that the DWP present an analysis of its actions. There
(25:13):
should be outside investigations here. The DWP is not going
to admit they screwed up by leaving the reservoir empty.
I don't know what cover excuse there could possibly be,
but it leads to this bottom line. We have a terrible,
terrible water system in Los Angeles. All the experts in
(25:39):
here are saying, wow, you know, I mean, there's a
small water system is not designed to fight a fire.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Well it should be. We're in a high fire prone area.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
They keep claiming that climate change is going to make
it worse, and yet they cut funding for all this
stuff constantly.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Can't go on this way. It's got to stop.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We should have a water system that allows us to
live normally, and if an area or two is affected
by annual fires, there's.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Enough order to put them out. Period.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Build the system. People pay an enormous amount in taxes.
Let's start with the billion, three hundred million that is
spent on the homeless every fing year. Let's grab all
that money. Imagine if we had all that homeless money
(26:40):
and they start half the fires. I've been saying this
every single day, and I'm going to keep saying it.
You can't give money to the fire starters and deny
money to the fire fighters. We are so upside down,
I mean morally upside down under how morally can you
(27:01):
give money to people who start fires?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Every day?
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Half the fires in LA that the fire department has
to attend to is from homeless people, and then you
only have half a fire department to combat this situation.
And they're part of the reason Palisades response was so
weak is that they have to keep firefighters back to
deal largely with the homeless fires. That's what they're talking about.
(27:26):
But they're talking in code. But if you read enough articles,
then I have and Michael Schellenberger has too. If you
look at what they're saying, the homeless starts so many
fires that they have to keep a significant percentage of
the force. They have to hold them back, not send
them to the wildfire because you don't know what's going
(27:48):
to go on in the city.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And plus just having all this in the air.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
The extreme fire danger, the Santa Andna winds blowing, just
all the mayhem that's going on that inspires these crazy
people that are whacked out on meth. I remember reading
one person in government said there's something about meth that
makes you set fires, like there's something about bath salts.
(28:17):
A few years ago that made people eat their own
flesh or eat other people's flesh because their brains get
wildly disordered, disordered, and then they have this compulsion to
light things on fire. We've got more when we come back.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I've got a little more on the DWP response to
the fire and the Palisades. When they ran out of water,
so we told you that they would because they left
the reservoir dry and the water tanks they had ran
out quickly. They were going to divert water from neighborhoods
like Brentwood, but they were afraid that something bad would
(29:00):
happen there. What if a fire broke out, What about
all the medical facilities there. Now, as it turned out,
they put a restriction on using the water in surrounding neighborhoods.
They said the water might be fouled and undrinkable, but
it was still coming out of the faucets. But further
(29:23):
on in this story, in the La Times, they were
trying to figure out maybe they could install a device
that would regulate pressure in the neighborhood where the fire
broke out and in the neighborhoods down below the hill,
but the flames overtook the neighborhood where the DWP workers
(29:47):
were trying to address the problem, so they had to
evacuate they were surrounded by fire. Now it turns out
the DWP, remember I told you the La Fire Department
had not pre deployed strike teams in the Palisades even
though there was an extreme fire risk. Well, the DWP
(30:10):
also did not deploy water crews in advance.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Either.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Employees were on high alert and ready to report to
DWP yards across the city, but not specifically to the
Palisades and other hillsides where the fire danger was the greatest.
This is according to Anselmo Collins, the chief of Water Operations.
This is a new character in the story and so
(30:40):
and Selmo Collins was defending this decision. You don't know
what the emergency is going to be, and you don't
want to make an assumption and put your staff in
the wrong location. But you did make an assumption. You
assume that you weren't going to have enough of a
fire issue and water issue in the Palisades and probably
elsewhere that you decided not to send in a deployment team.
(31:02):
So if you have the fire department not sending in
a deployment team, and you have the water department not
sending in their own deployment team, you end up with
nobody in the Palisades. When the fire does break out
and they quickly run out of water pressure and water, well,
(31:22):
what kind of a decision is that? They're always defending
bad decisions. What you're supposed to do is send the
troops in in case something happens, especially when a situation
says the risk is high.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
If they don't respond to the National Weather Service saying
extreme fire risk, what would they respond to? What would
make them send in strike teams? Both the water crews
and the fire crews. What does it take?
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Guys? Extreme?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You're telling us to take it seriously. You're telling us
to be ready. Okay, we're ready, you are not. What
are we supposed to do while in the Palisades people
just watch their homes burn. No, they watched the firefighters
run out of water and then the homes burned. But
maybe all the tax dollars we spent for a billion
(32:14):
years should be going to create a water system that
could handle the daily city needs and fight wildfires in
the high fire districts.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Is that so radical?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Isn't that obvious instead of spending a billion three hundred
million every year on a group of vagrants who start
the fires.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
How can this go on another day? Really?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
How can we live another day with a government that
sends billions of dollars, doesn't help the homeless, just enriches
all these fake criminal nonprofits and then tell us why
we really don't have a system that can handle this
much of a water need you know, we really don't
(32:59):
have a fire department that's capable of covering this. You
have to double the funding to the fire department. God
knows how much funding you need for the water department.
But maybe if well, we will get into all the
misguided priorities of these energy companies.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You could do it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
You just spend the money, and you do it, and
stop spending it on nonsense. We're coming up right after
three o'clock. This is part of the whole insanity from
this progressive error. California is a sanctuary city for illegal aliens.
Are we going to be the last holdout? Well, Huntington
(33:42):
Beach says no, we want to be a non sanctuary city,
and the violent crime across California is one of the
reasons they want to start cooperating with the Feds. Debora
mark Liden, KFI twenty four Hour Newsroom, Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI AM six forty from
(34:04):
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course,
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.