March 3, 2026 • 29 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (03/03) - Nick Gerda comes on the show to talk about a lawsuit that alleges a LA County $2 million dollar settlement was an illegal gift to the CEO. Contractors overseas have to go through all of the weird and gross stuff people record on their Meta glasses. Israel had hacked the street camera system and followed the Ali Khamenei on the way to the meeting where he was killed. Going through the CA gubernatorial candidates.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't I am six forty you're listening to the John
Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We're on every day
from one no from three until six, three until six
in the afternoon, and then after six o'clock John Cobelt's
show on demand on the iHeart app and that's where
you listen to what you missed and our number one
we talked with Steve Hilton, the leading Republican candidate for governor,
(00:22):
leading candidate overall, and we spent some time on Gavin
Newsom's busted care Court, a scam. He has spent over
four hundred million dollars on the care Court and this
is where you take mental patients off the street and
force them into treatment judge's orders. You know how many
times they've done it, twenty two, four hundred million dollars
(00:45):
for twenty two people. Yeah, that's a true story, as
Conway says, So anyway, listen to that. Also, last hour,
we went through from beginning to end that parole board
hearing of David Allen Funston, the serial child rapist that
they let go, they released from prison. Now he's been
(01:07):
rearrested and re jailed because there's another child sex case
that he was never tried for and somebody remembered it
and so they've hauled him back in. So you go,
you want to listen to that podcast. All right, Now,
let's go to Nick Gerda. Nick Gerda is a watchdog
correspondent at the public radio station LAist and his focus
(01:32):
is accountability in local government. And this this is a
pretty wacky story. We paid out in La County two
million dollars to a former CEO named Fesha Davenport. She
had claimed she was upset because there was a ballot
(01:53):
measure the voters approved to turn her position county chief
Executive into an elected position, and she said this brought
this brought a lot of terrible things to her life,
reputational harm, embarrassment, physical, emotional, mental distress.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And they gave her two million dollars to go away.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And now judge says, no, no, no, let's talk now
with Nick Gerda on Nick, how are you?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I'm doing well? Thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Talk about what the county executive does. I think most
people don't even know that position exists, let alone that
we're going to vote on it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, so let's take a step back. La County government
is the county government of the largest, most populous county
in America, more people than about forty of the states,
about forty or fifty billion, with a b dollars of
taxpayer spending each year. It's an enormous responsibility to run
La County government. You've got the Sheriff's department budget, You've
(02:55):
got social services, child protective services, a lot of home services.
It's an enormous array of programs for in many cases
of the the most needy in society. And the CEO
was sort of the point person for a lot of
the coordination on the policies, the proposals of the budgets,
managing the money, for a lot of responsibility on this role.
(03:16):
And what happened was Vicia Davenport. She's been the CEO
for a few years. In fact, her predecessor actually got
about a million and a half dollar payout. But what
happened was the last summer the county Board of Supervisors
voted behind closed doors to award THEFIA two million dollars
as a settlement, and it was paid out in August.
(03:36):
But the public never got any notice of this at all.
They avoided the normal public transparency process of the county
that usually would make this information available poor reported to
the public. That did not happen here, and I caught
wind of it and ended up exposing bringing to light
this deal in October, the fact that this two million
(03:59):
dollars had been paid out. I had to push the
county through Relise that I had a site actually state
law that requires release of this information and release forcing
the county to release the underlying allegations from Vizia that
led to this payout and what we ended. And one
of the things that's unique about this, by the way,
is usually when you see large payouts to executives and
(04:20):
local government, they're on their way out the door, or
they're already out the door. In this circumstance, she actually was.
She was staying on as CEO, so she is currently
the CEO, still the CEO of Like Counting. It's about
six hundred plus thousand dollars a year job, plus to
two million dollar payouts she got, although right around the
time of our reporting of the payout in October, she
(04:40):
went on medical leave and is still on medical leaves
a month later, supposed to return sometime later this year,
so she's still the CEO technically but on leave, so
he number two is stepped into that role, and we
brought to lighte this two million dollar payout and the
reason she sided, Like you mentioned, she claims she was
hard by a ballot measure that voters approved that changes
(05:03):
the CEO job into an elected one in late twenty
twenty eight, which is about two years after Theseia's employment
contract ends. Her employment contract scheduled to end in January
twenty twenty seven. She says she's harmed her plans to
continue on even though that was still subject to approval
a decision by the board of supervisors. Why didn't you
(05:24):
keep her on after her employment contract? She says she
was harmed by this change the job that would be
happening after her employment contract. And the second thing she
alleged was that she was harmed by the county supervisors
putting language on the ballot that says the county lacks
a strong CEO. You know, the widespread understanding of what
the county was dealing with the ballot measure was addressing
(05:47):
the weak CEO structure of the county and making a
strong elected CEO structure. That Jizia says that this was
sort of mean to an interpretation that people think they
were criticized and the board was criticized her individually. What's
interesting about that is California actually has in their defamation
laws about harming someone's reputation, a protection where governments do
(06:10):
not have legal liability according to California law if they
are making a statement as part of an official proceeding
or legislative proceeding. And so there's real questions here about
how much liability the counting actually had in order to
make the settlement payout. And that's where things get very
interesting with this lawsuit that was just filed, which is
now alleging that this whole two million dollar payout was
(06:31):
an illegal gift of public funds under the California Constitution.
I did some research on what the courts have said,
and what the court's says is that in California, if
a government local government pays out more than their actual
exposure or risks from legal claims, if they pay more
than that out in a settlement, that is an illegal
(06:52):
gift of public funds and subject to being reversed by
the courts. You know, courts can force it to be
paid back. And that is the allegation now in this lawsuit,
the county is alleging that this was a proper public
purpose in paying this out, but it will now appear
to be to a judge to determine what happened allot
as well that the unions representing county workers, most of
(07:14):
the county workers, including the Sheriff's Deputies union and the
union representing social workers and nurses, they have told me,
and we were publish a story on that, that they
have been outraged by this payout. They say that the
CEO and her and her representatives have been playing had
been playing hardball in negotiations and saying the county did
not have money for raises or educational stipends for workers,
(07:36):
and that behind the scenes, the CEO herself was negotiating
a two million dollars payout for herself while they were
well bosters telling the workers there's no money for raises
for them. And has been quite a reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I mean, the public voted saying, hey, we want to
elect the next county CEO, and you said that's not
going to be until when.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
The elections in twenty twenty eight, and in the new
CEO would take effect about December twenty twenty eight, which
is about two years after Fusia Davenport's contract.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So that we're going to elect a replacement for her
job three years at two years after her contract ends
and after.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The county is obligated to continue employing her absently invoking
a termination, and they gave her.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Two million dollars because her feelings were hurt.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I will add the two million in the records I
have obtained through Public Records Act requests here at LA.
The two million is what she was to appear to
be originally acting for, so it doesn't look like the
county negotiated her down from that amount.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
All Right, a great report, Thank you, Nick, Thank you
very much for me. All right, Nick Gerda and he's
the Watch Drug correspondent at public radio station last on
accountability and local government is his beat. All right, when
we come back, do you know about the metaglasses that
(09:03):
people are wearing. People are walking around wearing these special
glasses and they're recording you. I've heard it, yeah, uh
and and well it it looks like they're a lot
of this stuff is kept by Meta and they sent
it out to AI contractors. To analyze and use, and
(09:27):
people are recording all kinds of vile things, and there
are people overseas who have to watch all the vile
things that people see through their Meta Glasses job. Oh
this is me, yes, oh no, no, baybe Epstein would
love this job.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI A M.
Six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We're on every day three to six and then after
six o'clock the podcast John Cobelt Show on demand. You
probably heard about Meta's AI glasses. Ray Man makes the glasses,
and it's like having a computer on your face. You
can read notifications, and you can access GPS navigation and
(10:20):
translate text, listen to music, take photos and videos. You
get all this you put your glasses on. It says
it's hands free. How do you make all this stuff
work with you with your eyeballs?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I don't anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You can turn the video recorder on and you can
take photographs of people as you're walking around, and this
is all in service of artificial intelligence. There's facial recognition
in the glasses software. And if you're walking around recording
(10:59):
your surroundings, anything you record is being sent to contractors overseas.
For data labeling to train new AI models. Human contractors
have to review and take notes on the footage. And
(11:23):
this is what they do with your recordings. You record it,
it just automatically ends up overseas and some strangers are watching,
and they're based in Kenya, for example, because contractors in
Nairobi talk to a Swedish a set of Swedish newspapers
(11:44):
about how the system works. So one contractor says, in
some videos, you can see someone going to the toilet.
I guess they turn on their their camera and they
don't turn it off. They forget, So now you have
a video of somebody squatting on the ball. And these
(12:07):
these people it's their job to sit and watch this
stuff because they're coding for AI. I mean, I don't
understand this this person, His contractor says, I don't think
they know, because if they knew, they wouldn't be recording.
I saw a video where a man puts his glasses
on the bedside table, leaves the room. Shortly afterwards, his
(12:29):
wife comes in and changes her clothes, and this guy
is sitting in Kenya watching it. Other footage includes imagery
of people's bank cards with their bank numbers, or it's
taking video of these users watching pornography. So they sit
(12:53):
in their room watching porn using these glasses, which is
recording the porn and this gets said to Kenya for analysis.
Or sometimes they get treated to an entire live sex
scene in the bedroom.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
This is a good Do you want to get the
exit bag? This is gonna be the world? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
One employees, and they work for a company called Semma Sama.
One employee said they first forced to watch and take
notes or they lose their job. You understand that it's
someone's private life you're looking at, but at the same time,
you're just expected to carry out the work. You're not
supposed to question it. If you start asking questions, you're gone.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
When you buy these glasses, Meta has terms of use,
and you know it's the one hundred pages of very
tiny prints written in Legalese jargon. Company reserves the right
to review your interactions with AI, including the content of
your conversations or messages, and this review can be done
(14:04):
by a human. So everything you say and do in private,
if you leave the recording on your stupid metaglasses on
is going to Kenya.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Who wants this?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
What?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Why the life is so difficult that you need to
have a pair of glasses on to work a computer
screen automatically. And I don't even understand how you do that.
What you can record high resolution footage just by tapping
(14:40):
a button next to your temple and now you're recording everything.
And there's facial recognition software, so if somebody's walking down
the street, they can see your face and they connected
with your face, you know, all over the internet, and
they could know who you are and they could start
(15:01):
following you around.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I'm you know what it is, what it is, I'm
not that exciting. You want to follow me around? Go ahead,
Oh no, I think it'd be really entertaining to follow
you around.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Follow us on social media John coblt Radio at John
coblt Radio. People are joining all the time. You can
also subscribe to YouTube. We put out videos most days
after the show. YouTube dot com slash at John Cobelt's show.
YouTube dot com slash at John Cobelt's show, and you
can you can watch some of this thing the Ayatola
(15:47):
HOLMANI you.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Know I had his.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Order.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I mean, when you have a missile like that that.
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying the way
we're attacking all these terrorists in Iran.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I think this is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
It's like I want to take a week off and
just watch war coverage, because these bastards have been torturing
the Middle East, America and Europe, killing thousands of people,
tens of thousands of their own people, and finally now
all these all these bastards are being killed. Ayatola and
they got forty other military and political leaders. Do you
(16:28):
know that Israel's intelligence agency infiltrated the camera system in Tehran? Yeah,
average city has their own camera system and they track traffic.
They use it for security purposes, to track well, LA
doesn't do that. The time's going to say, to track
(16:49):
looters so they can arrest them.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Most other places do.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, you know, they had that system in Tehran, and
the Israelis found a way to hack into the system.
So they watched the Ayahtola on his way to work
every day and all these other leaders. They knew their
commuting patterns and where they lived and what time of
day they went to work or they went out to
(17:15):
eat or whatever. The hell. You know these people do
when they're not slaughtering thousands. And so they knew that
forty of them had all gathered for a grand meeting.
You know, they're probably their death to Satan meeting. And
that's why they dropped the missiles in daylight. Usually you
(17:37):
do that at night, catch everybody while they're asleep.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's like they had them on one I guess, in
one room.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You think they'd all stay underground, right, I was gonna
say and have a zoom meeting, but probably all the
zoom channels have been hacked too by the Israelis. These
rallies are incredibly smart. I mean they really are. Are
a small country and a small population, I gotta tell you.
And so they had the Iyahtola tracked on the way
(18:11):
to the meeting. They had all these guys tracked, and
then they send the missiles. Now, the thing is, you
send that kind of firepower, there's no remains left. Sometimes
you're just a smudge. I mean, you're just de molecular
lot molecularized. I don't know how to say that. I
think that's the word, right, I have not heard it.
(18:31):
If a missile comes and explodes you into molecules. You
are d molecularized. Interesting too, molecuized molecuized. Maybe that's how
you should say it. I don't know, I may have
made that up. So anyway, Iotola's gone shws his top
forty terrist thugs, and now they have a replacement, and
(18:57):
it's the Iyatola's sun. He's the leading choice to be
a successor. According to The New York Times, Wait, his
son didn't get the clearance to come to the first meeting. Well,
they thought his son was destroyed in the first meeting.
But now it seems intelligence is telling him that he's
(19:18):
the leading candidate to replace him.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
According to.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The New York Times, the senior clerics responsible for selecting
the next Supreme leader we're still deliberating, and the son
Ayatoda Ayatola Ali Hamione emerged as the clear front runner.
(19:47):
Oh no, that's all right. Ayatollah Ali Khamene is the dad.
The son is moch Taba Hamiane motaba m o j
t a b A. I don't know, it's japnnounced in
most of Bah.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
How do you know all this stuff?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Well, most of Bah that he would be the father's successor.
But they're afraid that if they select him, he's definitely
going to get wiped out by the US and Israel.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Who wants this job.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
They're tracking They're tracking you from home to the office.
They've tapped all your phone lines, they've intercepted your Internet.
By the way, this guy looks like his dad. I mean,
it's the it's the same beard, it's the same, it's
the same look. So, by the way, now now they're
(20:46):
having their meetings virtually, they are going back to zoom.
They're not collecting in one building anymore. They had one
meeting in the morning and one in the evening, and
the assembly is supposed to meet and accept a supreme leader.
But the building was empty. Hey, they're not stupid. They
(21:07):
figured it out. They saw forty other guys get blown
to molecules. It's like, I don't think we have it
in person meeting anymore. He was supposed to be the
successor for a long time, but for the past two
years he seemed to drop off the radar. If he's elected,
apparently he's more hardline than his dad.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Oh yeah, hey, mush Taba, is that how you say
most of all?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, he's fifty six. I mean he's no kid. He's
tied to the revolutionary guards who are pushing for the appointment,
and they like him because he's very familiar with running
and coordinating the military, because he was already running the
military end of things. So now he would take over
(21:53):
the whole government. And then there's other candidates they wrote
about who are considered moderates. What is a moderate terrorist?
What is a moderate? In the Iranian government, they have
(22:15):
something called the Assembly of Experts. What are they expert on?
They had their nuclear facilities all destroyed. Trump is destroying
all their launching capabilities. They knocked off the top forty
of their leaders. What's this assembly of experts here? They're
(22:42):
responsible for appointing, supervising, and discharging the supreme leader. They've
only had to do this so once before, when they
picked Iyatola Hamoni. Remember when they had the revolution in
nineteen seventy nine, the Iatola Holmany just immediately was installed.
This board of experts, experts, this is their second chance.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
All right? More coming up.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM six.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Forty John Cobelt's Show, and we are on from three
to six after six o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand
on the iHeart app Our Number one, we had Steve
Hilton on talking about Gavin Newso and wasting hundreds of
millions of dollars on the Care Court, which was supposed
to get homeless people off the streets and into mental
(23:32):
health treatment they're ordered by a judge. Well, he spent
hundreds of millions of dollars. They've only gotten twenty two
people ordered by a judge to get off the street.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Twenty two.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So Steve Hilton, we did an interview with him and
that is on our one of the podcasts Our two
of the podcast is a comprehensive examination of the parole
board hearing which allowed David Allen Funston to get parole
even though he had raped, kidnapped and raped and beat
up up to eight kids. I think a couple of
(24:04):
the kids got away, but it was nasty. But Newsom
had written a law that allowed him to retire as
a prisoner. Anyway, it's all in that second hour. Finally,
today you have people, well you have Steve Hilton leading
the polls as a Republican for governor June second, because
(24:26):
it's a jungle primary, all the Republicans and Democrats are
running together. It's, as you know, no longer two separate primaries.
It's all one top two go on to November. And
Democratic leaders are in a state of panic because the
top two right now are two Republicans, Steve Hilton and
Chad Bianco, who's the Riverside County sheriff. And then let's
(24:47):
see we've got and this is out of the major
names one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
nine Democrats. So they splintered the votes, they might not
be able to get to the top two. Not only that, yeah,
you have Bianco and Hilton, but the top two Democrats
(25:14):
are missus potato Head Katie Porter and mister Fengfang Eric Swalwell,
the guy who is canoodling with the Chinese spye in
his office. So I mean those two are complete clown
cartoon characters. The rest of the candidates, though, are in
(25:35):
low single digits. So you got Hilton, Bianco, Republicans they're
in the double digits, and you got Swallwell and the
Chinese spy and missus potato head Katie Porter. They're in
the double digits. Everybody else single digits. So they got
this Wien or Rusty Hicks. He's a California Democratic Party chairman,
(26:01):
and he was whining that if all these Democrats keep running,
the vote's going to get splintered and two Republicans are
going to make it to the top.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And so he's asking some of.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
The lower ranking Democrats in the polls to get out.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
But this is funny.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Most of the lower ranking Democrats are candidates of color,
like Xavier Bessera, Javier Bacaria. He said, there are people
calling for candidates to get out of the race. Isn't
it interesting that the candidates that they're asking to get
(26:36):
out of the race are the candidates of color.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I you know, if forgetting like two or three percent,
this is and I.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Read that and I thought, wow, these progressives really believe
that in this diversity nonsense, there's like no such thing
as merit. Like in politics, what passes for merry is
your ability to get the most votes. You don't have
to be smart, you don't have your policies, don't have
(27:08):
to make sense, they don't have to be successful. You
just have to be able to attract the most votes.
And right now, the Democrats that attract the most votes
are missus potato head and mister Fang Fang, but they're
both white.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
So you have Xavier Bersera's like, well, how come you
want the people of color to drop out? Because you
got three percent? That's why. You know who else is
at the bottom. Tony Vallar, he's still running, Tony Vallar.
And then all these people that you never heard of,
but they're government retreads, government hacks. Betty Yee who's secretary
(27:49):
of something. Tony Thurman, he's the educational superintendent for the state.
And you know we have we have mississipp has better
test courts than we do. He's in charge and he
wants to be governor. And Ian Calderon, who's Hispanic.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I don't know. He's been in the legislature. But they're
at the bottom. What are you gonna do? But they
don't believe in merit.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They don't believe that their job is to get the
most votes. They believe and these people have been running
for two years, some of them. They believe their job
is to be diverse. Well, I'm not leaving the race.
I'm diverse. You have three percent of the vote, yes,
but I'm diverse. You can't have none diverse people running
(28:35):
for office here it's everybody's nuts but a sorry bunch
of people though on the Democrat side, I mean that
is sad. God help us if one of those people
sneak in his government, a missus potato Head, really she
(28:56):
she needs to be forced into care court. She needs
to be locked up against your will and swallwell.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
You get kicked off the House Intelligence Committee for being
conned by a Chinese spy. Yeah, sure, that'll be a
good governor.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Why not? What the hell we're done?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Conway is next, and we have Michael Krazer live in
the KFAC twenty four our newsroom. You've been listening to
the John Cobelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from three to
six pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 4 (29:37):
App KFI AM six More stimulating talk
Can't I am six forty you're listening to the John
Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We're on every day
from one no from three until six, three until six
in the afternoon, and then after six o'clock John Cobelt's
show on demand on the iHeart app and that's where
you listen to what you missed and our number one
we talked with Steve Hilton, the leading Republican candidate for governor,
(00:22):
leading candidate overall, and we spent some time on Gavin
Newsom's busted care Court, a scam. He has spent over
four hundred million dollars on the care Court and this
is where you take mental patients off the street and
force them into treatment judge's orders. You know how many
times they've done it, twenty two, four hundred million dollars
(00:45):
for twenty two people. Yeah, that's a true story, as
Conway says, So anyway, listen to that. Also, last hour,
we went through from beginning to end that parole board
hearing of David Allen Funston, the serial child rapist that
they let go, they released from prison. Now he's been
(01:07):
rearrested and re jailed because there's another child sex case
that he was never tried for and somebody remembered it
and so they've hauled him back in. So you go,
you want to listen to that podcast. All right, Now,
let's go to Nick Gerda. Nick Gerda is a watchdog
correspondent at the public radio station LAist and his focus
(01:32):
is accountability in local government. And this this is a
pretty wacky story. We paid out in La County two
million dollars to a former CEO named Fesha Davenport. She
had claimed she was upset because there was a ballot
(01:53):
measure the voters approved to turn her position county chief
Executive into an elected position, and she said this brought
this brought a lot of terrible things to her life,
reputational harm, embarrassment, physical, emotional, mental distress.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And they gave her two million dollars to go away.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And now judge says, no, no, no, let's talk now
with Nick Gerda on Nick, how are you?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I'm doing well? Thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Talk about what the county executive does. I think most
people don't even know that position exists, let alone that
we're going to vote on it.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, so let's take a step back. La County government
is the county government of the largest, most populous county
in America, more people than about forty of the states,
about forty or fifty billion, with a b dollars of
taxpayer spending each year. It's an enormous responsibility to run
La County government. You've got the Sheriff's department budget, You've
(02:55):
got social services, child protective services, a lot of home services.
It's an enormous array of programs for in many cases
of the the most needy in society. And the CEO
was sort of the point person for a lot of
the coordination on the policies, the proposals of the budgets,
managing the money, for a lot of responsibility on this role.
(03:16):
And what happened was Vicia Davenport. She's been the CEO
for a few years. In fact, her predecessor actually got
about a million and a half dollar payout. But what
happened was the last summer the county Board of Supervisors
voted behind closed doors to award THEFIA two million dollars
as a settlement, and it was paid out in August.
(03:36):
But the public never got any notice of this at all.
They avoided the normal public transparency process of the county
that usually would make this information available poor reported to
the public. That did not happen here, and I caught
wind of it and ended up exposing bringing to light
this deal in October, the fact that this two million
(03:59):
dollars had been paid out. I had to push the
county through Relise that I had a site actually state
law that requires release of this information and release forcing
the county to release the underlying allegations from Vizia that
led to this payout and what we ended. And one
of the things that's unique about this, by the way,
is usually when you see large payouts to executives and
(04:20):
local government, they're on their way out the door, or
they're already out the door. In this circumstance, she actually was.
She was staying on as CEO, so she is currently
the CEO, still the CEO of Like Counting. It's about
six hundred plus thousand dollars a year job, plus to
two million dollar payouts she got, although right around the
time of our reporting of the payout in October, she
(04:40):
went on medical leave and is still on medical leaves
a month later, supposed to return sometime later this year,
so she's still the CEO technically but on leave, so
he number two is stepped into that role, and we
brought to lighte this two million dollar payout and the
reason she sided, Like you mentioned, she claims she was
hard by a ballot measure that voters approved that changes
(05:03):
the CEO job into an elected one in late twenty
twenty eight, which is about two years after Theseia's employment
contract ends. Her employment contract scheduled to end in January
twenty twenty seven. She says she's harmed her plans to
continue on even though that was still subject to approval
a decision by the board of supervisors. Why didn't you
(05:24):
keep her on after her employment contract? She says she
was harmed by this change the job that would be
happening after her employment contract. And the second thing she
alleged was that she was harmed by the county supervisors
putting language on the ballot that says the county lacks
a strong CEO. You know, the widespread understanding of what
the county was dealing with the ballot measure was addressing
(05:47):
the weak CEO structure of the county and making a
strong elected CEO structure. That Jizia says that this was
sort of mean to an interpretation that people think they
were criticized and the board was criticized her individually. What's
interesting about that is California actually has in their defamation
laws about harming someone's reputation, a protection where governments do
(06:10):
not have legal liability according to California law if they
are making a statement as part of an official proceeding
or legislative proceeding. And so there's real questions here about
how much liability the counting actually had in order to
make the settlement payout. And that's where things get very
interesting with this lawsuit that was just filed, which is
now alleging that this whole two million dollar payout was
(06:31):
an illegal gift of public funds under the California Constitution.
I did some research on what the courts have said,
and what the court's says is that in California, if
a government local government pays out more than their actual
exposure or risks from legal claims, if they pay more
than that out in a settlement, that is an illegal
(06:52):
gift of public funds and subject to being reversed by
the courts. You know, courts can force it to be
paid back. And that is the allegation now in this lawsuit,
the county is alleging that this was a proper public
purpose in paying this out, but it will now appear
to be to a judge to determine what happened allot
as well that the unions representing county workers, most of
(07:14):
the county workers, including the Sheriff's Deputies union and the
union representing social workers and nurses, they have told me,
and we were publish a story on that, that they
have been outraged by this payout. They say that the
CEO and her and her representatives have been playing had
been playing hardball in negotiations and saying the county did
not have money for raises or educational stipends for workers,
(07:36):
and that behind the scenes, the CEO herself was negotiating
a two million dollars payout for herself while they were
well bosters telling the workers there's no money for raises
for them. And has been quite a reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I mean, the public voted saying, hey, we want to
elect the next county CEO, and you said that's not
going to be until when.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
The elections in twenty twenty eight, and in the new
CEO would take effect about December twenty twenty eight, which
is about two years after Fusia Davenport's contract.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So that we're going to elect a replacement for her
job three years at two years after her contract ends
and after.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
The county is obligated to continue employing her absently invoking
a termination, and they gave her.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Two million dollars because her feelings were hurt.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I will add the two million in the records I
have obtained through Public Records Act requests here at LA.
The two million is what she was to appear to
be originally acting for, so it doesn't look like the
county negotiated her down from that amount.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
All Right, a great report, Thank you, Nick, Thank you
very much for me. All right, Nick Gerda and he's
the Watch Drug correspondent at public radio station last on
accountability and local government is his beat. All right, when
we come back, do you know about the metaglasses that
(09:03):
people are wearing. People are walking around wearing these special
glasses and they're recording you. I've heard it, yeah, uh
and and well it it looks like they're a lot
of this stuff is kept by Meta and they sent
it out to AI contractors. To analyze and use, and
(09:27):
people are recording all kinds of vile things, and there
are people overseas who have to watch all the vile
things that people see through their Meta Glasses job. Oh
this is me, yes, oh no, no, baybe Epstein would
love this job.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI A M.
Six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We're on every day three to six and then after
six o'clock the podcast John Cobelt Show on demand. You
probably heard about Meta's AI glasses. Ray Man makes the glasses,
and it's like having a computer on your face. You
can read notifications, and you can access GPS navigation and
(10:20):
translate text, listen to music, take photos and videos. You
get all this you put your glasses on. It says
it's hands free. How do you make all this stuff
work with you with your eyeballs?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I don't anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
You can turn the video recorder on and you can
take photographs of people as you're walking around, and this
is all in service of artificial intelligence. There's facial recognition
in the glasses software. And if you're walking around recording
(10:59):
your surroundings, anything you record is being sent to contractors overseas.
For data labeling to train new AI models. Human contractors
have to review and take notes on the footage. And
(11:23):
this is what they do with your recordings. You record it,
it just automatically ends up overseas and some strangers are watching,
and they're based in Kenya, for example, because contractors in
Nairobi talk to a Swedish a set of Swedish newspapers
(11:44):
about how the system works. So one contractor says, in
some videos, you can see someone going to the toilet.
I guess they turn on their their camera and they
don't turn it off. They forget, So now you have
a video of somebody squatting on the ball. And these
(12:07):
these people it's their job to sit and watch this
stuff because they're coding for AI. I mean, I don't
understand this this person, His contractor says, I don't think
they know, because if they knew, they wouldn't be recording.
I saw a video where a man puts his glasses
on the bedside table, leaves the room. Shortly afterwards, his
(12:29):
wife comes in and changes her clothes, and this guy
is sitting in Kenya watching it. Other footage includes imagery
of people's bank cards with their bank numbers, or it's
taking video of these users watching pornography. So they sit
(12:53):
in their room watching porn using these glasses, which is
recording the porn and this gets said to Kenya for analysis.
Or sometimes they get treated to an entire live sex
scene in the bedroom.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
This is a good Do you want to get the
exit bag? This is gonna be the world? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
One employees, and they work for a company called Semma Sama.
One employee said they first forced to watch and take
notes or they lose their job. You understand that it's
someone's private life you're looking at, but at the same time,
you're just expected to carry out the work. You're not
supposed to question it. If you start asking questions, you're gone.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
When you buy these glasses, Meta has terms of use,
and you know it's the one hundred pages of very
tiny prints written in Legalese jargon. Company reserves the right
to review your interactions with AI, including the content of
your conversations or messages, and this review can be done
(14:04):
by a human. So everything you say and do in private,
if you leave the recording on your stupid metaglasses on
is going to Kenya.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Who wants this?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
What?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Why the life is so difficult that you need to
have a pair of glasses on to work a computer
screen automatically. And I don't even understand how you do that.
What you can record high resolution footage just by tapping
(14:40):
a button next to your temple and now you're recording everything.
And there's facial recognition software, so if somebody's walking down
the street, they can see your face and they connected
with your face, you know, all over the internet, and
they could know who you are and they could start
(15:01):
following you around.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I'm you know what it is, what it is, I'm
not that exciting. You want to follow me around? Go ahead,
Oh no, I think it'd be really entertaining to follow
you around.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
You're listening to John cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Follow us on social media John coblt Radio at John
coblt Radio. People are joining all the time. You can
also subscribe to YouTube. We put out videos most days
after the show. YouTube dot com slash at John Cobelt's show.
YouTube dot com slash at John Cobelt's show, and you
can you can watch some of this thing the Ayatola
(15:47):
HOLMANI you.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Know I had his.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Order.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I mean, when you have a missile like that that.
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying the way
we're attacking all these terrorists in Iran.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I think this is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
It's like I want to take a week off and
just watch war coverage, because these bastards have been torturing
the Middle East, America and Europe, killing thousands of people,
tens of thousands of their own people, and finally now
all these all these bastards are being killed. Ayatola and
they got forty other military and political leaders. Do you
(16:28):
know that Israel's intelligence agency infiltrated the camera system in Tehran? Yeah,
average city has their own camera system and they track traffic.
They use it for security purposes, to track well, LA
doesn't do that. The time's going to say, to track
(16:49):
looters so they can arrest them.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Most other places do.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Well, you know, they had that system in Tehran, and
the Israelis found a way to hack into the system.
So they watched the Ayahtola on his way to work
every day and all these other leaders. They knew their
commuting patterns and where they lived and what time of
day they went to work or they went out to
(17:15):
eat or whatever. The hell. You know these people do
when they're not slaughtering thousands. And so they knew that
forty of them had all gathered for a grand meeting.
You know, they're probably their death to Satan meeting. And
that's why they dropped the missiles in daylight. Usually you
(17:37):
do that at night, catch everybody while they're asleep.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's like they had them on one I guess, in
one room.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You think they'd all stay underground, right, I was gonna
say and have a zoom meeting, but probably all the
zoom channels have been hacked too by the Israelis. These
rallies are incredibly smart. I mean they really are. Are
a small country and a small population, I gotta tell you.
And so they had the Iyahtola tracked on the way
(18:11):
to the meeting. They had all these guys tracked, and
then they send the missiles. Now, the thing is, you
send that kind of firepower, there's no remains left. Sometimes
you're just a smudge. I mean, you're just de molecular
lot molecularized. I don't know how to say that. I
think that's the word, right, I have not heard it.
(18:31):
If a missile comes and explodes you into molecules. You
are d molecularized. Interesting too, molecuized molecuized. Maybe that's how
you should say it. I don't know, I may have
made that up. So anyway, Iotola's gone shws his top
forty terrist thugs, and now they have a replacement, and
(18:57):
it's the Iyatola's sun. He's the leading choice to be
a successor. According to The New York Times, Wait, his
son didn't get the clearance to come to the first meeting. Well,
they thought his son was destroyed in the first meeting.
But now it seems intelligence is telling him that he's
(19:18):
the leading candidate to replace him.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
According to.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
The New York Times, the senior clerics responsible for selecting
the next Supreme leader we're still deliberating, and the son
Ayatoda Ayatola Ali Hamione emerged as the clear front runner.
(19:47):
Oh no, that's all right. Ayatollah Ali Khamene is the dad.
The son is moch Taba Hamiane motaba m o j
t a b A. I don't know, it's japnnounced in
most of Bah.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
How do you know all this stuff?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Well, most of Bah that he would be the father's successor.
But they're afraid that if they select him, he's definitely
going to get wiped out by the US and Israel.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Who wants this job.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
They're tracking They're tracking you from home to the office.
They've tapped all your phone lines, they've intercepted your Internet.
By the way, this guy looks like his dad. I mean,
it's the it's the same beard, it's the same, it's
the same look. So, by the way, now now they're
(20:46):
having their meetings virtually, they are going back to zoom.
They're not collecting in one building anymore. They had one
meeting in the morning and one in the evening, and
the assembly is supposed to meet and accept a supreme leader.
But the building was empty. Hey, they're not stupid. They
(21:07):
figured it out. They saw forty other guys get blown
to molecules. It's like, I don't think we have it
in person meeting anymore. He was supposed to be the
successor for a long time, but for the past two
years he seemed to drop off the radar. If he's elected,
apparently he's more hardline than his dad.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Oh yeah, hey, mush Taba, is that how you say
most of all?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, he's fifty six. I mean he's no kid. He's
tied to the revolutionary guards who are pushing for the appointment,
and they like him because he's very familiar with running
and coordinating the military, because he was already running the
military end of things. So now he would take over
(21:53):
the whole government. And then there's other candidates they wrote
about who are considered moderates. What is a moderate terrorist?
What is a moderate? In the Iranian government, they have
(22:15):
something called the Assembly of Experts. What are they expert on?
They had their nuclear facilities all destroyed. Trump is destroying
all their launching capabilities. They knocked off the top forty
of their leaders. What's this assembly of experts here? They're
(22:42):
responsible for appointing, supervising, and discharging the supreme leader. They've
only had to do this so once before, when they
picked Iyatola Hamoni. Remember when they had the revolution in
nineteen seventy nine, the Iatola Holmany just immediately was installed.
This board of experts, experts, this is their second chance.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
All right? More coming up.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM six.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Forty John Cobelt's Show, and we are on from three
to six after six o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand
on the iHeart app Our Number one, we had Steve
Hilton on talking about Gavin Newso and wasting hundreds of
millions of dollars on the Care Court, which was supposed
to get homeless people off the streets and into mental
(23:32):
health treatment they're ordered by a judge. Well, he spent
hundreds of millions of dollars. They've only gotten twenty two
people ordered by a judge to get off the street.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Twenty two.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So Steve Hilton, we did an interview with him and
that is on our one of the podcasts Our two
of the podcast is a comprehensive examination of the parole
board hearing which allowed David Allen Funston to get parole
even though he had raped, kidnapped and raped and beat
up up to eight kids. I think a couple of
(24:04):
the kids got away, but it was nasty. But Newsom
had written a law that allowed him to retire as
a prisoner. Anyway, it's all in that second hour. Finally,
today you have people, well you have Steve Hilton leading
the polls as a Republican for governor June second, because
(24:26):
it's a jungle primary, all the Republicans and Democrats are
running together. It's, as you know, no longer two separate primaries.
It's all one top two go on to November. And
Democratic leaders are in a state of panic because the
top two right now are two Republicans, Steve Hilton and
Chad Bianco, who's the Riverside County sheriff. And then let's
(24:47):
see we've got and this is out of the major
names one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
nine Democrats. So they splintered the votes, they might not
be able to get to the top two. Not only that, yeah,
you have Bianco and Hilton, but the top two Democrats
(25:14):
are missus potato Head Katie Porter and mister Fengfang Eric Swalwell,
the guy who is canoodling with the Chinese spye in
his office. So I mean those two are complete clown
cartoon characters. The rest of the candidates, though, are in
(25:35):
low single digits. So you got Hilton, Bianco, Republicans they're
in the double digits, and you got Swallwell and the
Chinese spy and missus potato head Katie Porter. They're in
the double digits. Everybody else single digits. So they got
this Wien or Rusty Hicks. He's a California Democratic Party chairman,
(26:01):
and he was whining that if all these Democrats keep running,
the vote's going to get splintered and two Republicans are
going to make it to the top.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And so he's asking some of.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
The lower ranking Democrats in the polls to get out.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
But this is funny.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Most of the lower ranking Democrats are candidates of color,
like Xavier Bessera, Javier Bacaria. He said, there are people
calling for candidates to get out of the race. Isn't
it interesting that the candidates that they're asking to get
(26:36):
out of the race are the candidates of color.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I you know, if forgetting like two or three percent,
this is and I.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Read that and I thought, wow, these progressives really believe
that in this diversity nonsense, there's like no such thing
as merit. Like in politics, what passes for merry is
your ability to get the most votes. You don't have
to be smart, you don't have your policies, don't have
(27:08):
to make sense, they don't have to be successful. You
just have to be able to attract the most votes.
And right now, the Democrats that attract the most votes
are missus potato head and mister Fang Fang, but they're
both white.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
So you have Xavier Bersera's like, well, how come you
want the people of color to drop out? Because you
got three percent? That's why. You know who else is
at the bottom. Tony Vallar, he's still running, Tony Vallar.
And then all these people that you never heard of,
but they're government retreads, government hacks. Betty Yee who's secretary
(27:49):
of something. Tony Thurman, he's the educational superintendent for the state.
And you know we have we have mississipp has better
test courts than we do. He's in charge and he
wants to be governor. And Ian Calderon, who's Hispanic.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I don't know. He's been in the legislature. But they're
at the bottom. What are you gonna do? But they
don't believe in merit.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
They don't believe that their job is to get the
most votes. They believe and these people have been running
for two years, some of them. They believe their job
is to be diverse. Well, I'm not leaving the race.
I'm diverse. You have three percent of the vote, yes,
but I'm diverse. You can't have none diverse people running
(28:35):
for office here it's everybody's nuts but a sorry bunch
of people though on the Democrat side, I mean that
is sad. God help us if one of those people
sneak in his government, a missus potato Head, really she
(28:56):
she needs to be forced into care court. She needs
to be locked up against your will and swallwell.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
You get kicked off the House Intelligence Committee for being
conned by a Chinese spy. Yeah, sure, that'll be a
good governor.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Why not? What the hell we're done?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Conway is next, and we have Michael Krazer live in
the KFAC twenty four our newsroom. You've been listening to
the John Cobelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from three to
six pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 4 (29:37):
App KFI AM six More stimulating talk
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