August 12, 2025 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (08/12) - Sue Pascoe comes on the show to call out LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath for the lies she is saying about the fire rebuilding process. Don Mihalek comes on the show to talk about the DC Metro Police being placed under federal control by Pres. Trump. More on DC Metro Police being placed under federal control by Pres. Trump.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We're on every day from
one until four o'clock and then after four o'clock John
Cobelt Show on demand on the iHeart app. Another day
goes by, Another day of virtually no progress when it
comes to rebuilding after the fire the Palisades in Altadena.
(00:24):
Another day of virtually no information as to what started
the fire, why the reservoir wasn't filled, why the hydrants
didn't work. Everybody, everybody in government is stonewalling, hoping everyone
stops scaring. But we keep forging on here, and we're
(00:44):
going to talk now with Sue Pasco. Sue is a
journalist from the Palisades. She's the editor of Circlingthnews Circlingthnews
dot com, which is an online news website, and she
flagged us an interview that was done by the La
(01:05):
Times podcast host named Kate Cagel with Lindsey Horvath. And
we're gonna play a couple of clips along the way,
but first let's get Sue Pasco on here. Sue, how
are you? I'm good?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I just you know all this crap basically about officials
trying to ignore that they were responsible is just driving
to me crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Have you learned anything new about their lack of preparation
lack of response?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But John, don't you know they had everything ready? Just
listen to Lindsay in this interview. She was beyond prepared.
So you know, they were prepared, so it wasn't their fault.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Uh, let me play a clip here. Let's play in fact, Eric,
let's play cut number two, and this is Lindsay Horvath
talking to Katie Cagle from the Times about how everybody's
county and state firefighters were prepositioned.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
In addition, of course, the county operation was already underway.
We had worked with the state to stage various teams
from all over the state that came to southern California
to stage throughout Los Angeles County in preparation for this
red flag event. We had Los Angeles County Fire that
was staged and one of the things that came out
of Woolsey. We have an Emergency Operations Management, a whole
(02:33):
division that is focused on this work, and so our
officer who leads that was, you know, bringing everyone together,
and in fact, we opened our EOC our Emergency Operations
Center in advance of the fire ever breaking out, because
we wanted to be ready.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
To go stop stop it there. Well, there you go.
What you just said. She claimed there was a county
and state prepositioned all of the Palisades. There wasn't a
single fire truck prepositioned in Palisdes nobody.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
No. And even in Altadena, where the fire was, there
was only one county fire truck over in West Altadena.
So I'm not sure where these fire trucks were positioned.
A lot of the residents in Palisades saw there said
there was an enormous amount of fire trucks landed up
on will Rogers Beach. I don't know if they were
county or city, but they were just lined up there
(03:24):
during the fire. So, and the other interesting thing she
said is we opened up the office, and then if
you listen to the interview, they opened up the emergency
office on Tuesday morning, January seventh, the fire started at
ten thirty. Did they even get into the office before
the fire started?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I looked up because we caught Newsome in a big lie.
He claimed that state cal fire trucks were prepositioned the
closest one we could find was in Santa Clarita. I
mean it was like twenty miles away.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, I don't think. Parting to residents who were pretty
much everywhere, there were no fire trucks around the pala
save waiting to go anywhere. The shoogle mentioned Sunset Mesa,
which is sort of by the ocean, by the Getty,
and those residents said, in the past there have had
fire trucks preposition there, but not this time. There were
(04:23):
no fire trucks anywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Let me let me play another clip here because she
spent some time with This Times podcast on this Blue
Ribbon Commission, and here she discussed the water issue, about
the lack of water pressure hydrants not working at all.
Play cut number seven.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
How did the commission suggest we tackle the water issue? Well,
there were a lot of suggestions, and in fact, in
our region, in the third district, we have several different
water agencies. I mentioned water Works twenty nine, which the
county leads, but there's also the Las Virginis Municipal Water
District that has been doing extra ordinary innovation in terms
of providing clean drinking water for the region and thinking
(05:04):
about water resiliency. Going forward and how we source water locally,
not only for clean drinking water, but also to fight
fires and address emergency circumstances. So we have a lot
of great expertise right in our region and that's why
we tried to put it at the table. But they
we also need to invest in the infrastructure that can
help us deliver water in that way.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And I can just stop.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Where was Eli Early in the interview, they asked her
about the Santas Reservoir. She sort of smugly said, well,
that's the city and the question the interviewer could have
asked her is, well, where does the county get its
water for the helicopters if not from the SA reservoir,
which it has in the past.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, but what I don't understand is why they all
since the first fire warnings went out on January second,
and there were actually some National Weather Service warnings about
a major window going back to December thirtieth, why they
didn't convene a meeting city and county and state local
officials everybody and go through how many fire trucks do
(06:13):
you have? Where can we park them? How much water
is available? Is that reservoir filled? They never had these meetings,
they never discussed any of this. And how did the
reservoir not be filled for a year. Nobody wants to
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Oh, one of my readers said, I found out already
back in twenty twenty four. So that's when I contacted
the city and said, you know, the reservoir is not filled.
And that's when they explained to me, oh, well, our
fire trucks get water from hydrants. It's the county and
the state that uses the reservoir. It's sort of like, okay,
how are they going to use it if it's not filled. Well,
(06:53):
it makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's just gibberish.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You get exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Just nonsense. That's one hundred and seventeen million gallons that
didn't exist, and it should have existed, and nobody's taken
responsibility for this yet.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And Chatagua was empty too. There's a reservoir on the
top of Chicagua that they had initially used in nineteen
seventy eight to help put out the fire that came through.
But that reservoir they drained in June. They sort of said, well,
maybe we'll use it while Lestagianezza is down. They drained
it because residents are saying garbage cans are flowing down
the streets and everything, and then it appears they decided
(07:33):
not to refill it for whatever reason. So that reservoir,
which could have provided some water with empty too.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So is this Blue Ribbon Commission just an all purpose
talking point to divert conversations when reporters ask questions.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I think what it is is it's a blueprint to
try and take over some land and try and tell Okay,
so the people's Pacific and the people of Altadena have
been screwed basically, they don't have money to rebuild, and
so what this Blue Ribbon Commission is going to do
is going to tell us how we should do everything
(08:11):
in the future, and it will help if you can
afford to do anything on your land. It will take
over the land right now, and then maybe you can
sell it back to you when you have the money.
And who's going to make the decision who's selling whose
land to?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
What the way? What the county is going to take
over the land for those homeowners?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The authority for the Blue Ribbon Commission.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, they're going to take over people's lands if they can't,
if they don't have the money to rebuild and then
at some point maybe sell it back to those homeowners or.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Give it back or something. Yeah, that's crazy Ribbon Commission.
It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And they make a big
point of saying, oh, well, people from the Palisades and
Alta Dina are both represented on this Blue Ribbon Commission.
So I asked, well, who's from the Palisades is on
this Blue Ribbon Commission. Turns out there's one person from
(09:08):
the Palisades on the Blue Ribbon Commission, the head of
Heal the Bay who lived in the Highlands, whose house
did not burn. She was the sole person on the
Blue Ribbon Commission from the Palisades. On the from Altadena.
There was a very interesting person on her who actually
is the founder of Some Advisors, which supports clients and
(09:31):
enviancing project policies and programs in the realms of climate
resilient infrastructure. So basically, you know, this woman is sort
of a lobbyist for doing all this climate change. She's
she was one of the people from Altadena.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, climate change lobbyists. How about an expert in selling reservoirs.
Do they have one of those people on the on
the commission.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Or maybe just sprain water on the fire. Would that
would that work?
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
About that keeping fire hydrants operating properly well.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And the other thing that in this interview that really
made me upset, going back to the Lindsay Horbeth interview,
which is just it's just full of it. She keeps
this myth that they were hurricane wins. There were not
hurricane winds. One of the residents in the Palisades, Michael Kurves,
actually went to I think forty eight nearby weather stations
(10:27):
and got the wind speeds from all of them and
the highest gusts between ten am and four pm was
thirty nine miles per hour. That was between ten and
four And then there were a few other Palisadians who
actually had weather stations on their roofs. One of them,
the highest he captured was fifty miles per hour when
the station went dead at eight PM, which is when
(10:49):
the flames came through that area. And the other one
had a weather station on the Huntington Palisades and he
said that the wind speeds at my location ranged from
three to two miles per hour all the way until
five pm that evening. So I really wish that people
would stop saying hurricane wins at tornado force and hurricane
(11:10):
wins I think are supposedly started seventy three miles for.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Hurricanes. Yeah, yeah, seventy I think I think seventy four.
You're right. Hold on the line. We're talking with Sue
Pasco from Circling the News. She's the editor, she's longtime
journalists and Pacific Palisades and we're talking about this new
Blue Ribbon Commission and basically it's politicians trying to cover
up and ignore all the I think or criminal acts
(11:37):
that they committed leading to the fire.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Moistline is eighty seven seven Moist eighty six for Friday
eight seven seven Moist eighty six, or use the talkback
feature on the iHeartRadio app. We're talking with Palisade journalist
Sue Pasco Circlingthnews dot com. She's the editor of it,
and we're discussing this new way to kind of obscure
(12:10):
politicians responsibility for the lack of preparation and lack of
response to the fires in Padalle States. Now to Dina
they have this new Blue Ribbon Commission. Lindsey Horvath is
this dope supervisor we have in La County. She's my supervisor,
and she did a podcast with the La Times, and
the answer to every question pivots to the Blue Ribbon Commission.
(12:33):
It's almost like a way to ward off evil spirits,
where we're just gonna here's what we're going to do
in the future, and you know, we're all looking ahead here,
we're all going forward. It's that nonsense. Without one of
them taking one ounce of responsibility and offering an explanation,
we're just going to pretend this never happened and it'll
(12:54):
never happen again. I want to play a part of
the clip here. Can you explain Ben Allen's affordable housing
bill for people? We're not familiar with it because it's
caused a lot of controversy. He's the state senator out
of Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
This actually came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission because
I think he and then's your friends, and so he
pushed this forward so that it sort of goes with
the Blue Ribbon Commission. And I'm not sure best how
to explain and except what would do the people of
(13:33):
the Palisades no favor whatsoever. It would take away control
from the people, although they keep saying no, it won't
take away control from the people.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Well, it would be pushing high density multifamily housing in
a lot of the palace. So you'd have you'd have
a multifamily duplexus quadruplex's apartment buildings for a single family's
owne neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Right, And that came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission.
So your lawn, if you take your lot where you live,
and your neighbor all of a sudden decided to put
up a duplex, there's nothing you can do about it, right,
And it's all part of the laws that have come through.
And this goes back to what you were just saying, Actually,
let's just cover everything up and go forward. So if
(14:20):
one would look and say, okay, what was what were
the problems during the fire and what needs to be changed,
they're not addressing that at all. Part of the problem
during the fires was one there was no water to
put anything out, There were no fire trucks anywhere around,
and then evactuation became heroweing.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And that's you know what, that's the only things they
will talk about. Instead, you get a lot of discussion
about putting in these multifamily apartment buildings basically where the
single family homes used to be, which is going to
create more congestion, make it more difficult to leave during
an emergency where there isn't parking available for this. No,
(15:00):
and that's what's infuriating. It's you're talking about X, and
they keep talking about Z over and over again.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
They keep yeah, they are not going. We can't. They
really shouldn't be making produce plans for the future until
they can put their finger on what exactly went wrong
here and we have to change it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
How about about a plan to preposition uh, fire assets
in the areas where the fire is most likely to
hit when you have certain weather conditions.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
How About how about, yeah, a fire that was there
just a week ago and was probably never put out,
a fire truck there.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
How about constant monitoring the reservoirs. How about letting us
know that, hey, we've got a torn cover. We think
we have to drain the reservoir. Uh, but we'll get
it done in a month, which they could have done, right,
but instead they take a year and they never told anybody.
That's what that's what the Blue Ribbon Commissions ought to
be resolving here.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
They actually lest this is a Blue Ribbon commission for
a socialistic socialism experiment, I think, and I would that is.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And that's what Ben Allen is. They're a bunch of
socialists and now this is their grand opportunity to start
stuffing people into apartment buildings of various sizes and get
rid of the single family housing concept.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And the other thing I would I would urge people
is why are we all buying into this idea that
there's a lack of housing in Los Angeles? Because those
of us when we were forced to evacuate and forced
to find a new place to live, which we all were,
there were apartments everywhere. I was shocked at. I thought
it was going to be impossible to find apartments, but
(16:46):
there are apartments everywhere. I think it needs to be
looked at exactly how truthful it is that statement that
there's a lack of housing.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's not truthful. They are dishonest because what they want
to do is get up support for more money for
homeless program saying hey, look at all these apartments complexes
that we have to build for the homeless. We need
to build affordable housing. That's what it is. It's if
you're going to pull off a scam, you need a
sales pitch.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it works on a lot of people. People
start believing it's like all these poor people in the streets, Well,
we've got to build them housing. Yeah, a million dollars
a unit. That's a good idea. Well, listen, I about
one more question, one more question. It's about something different.
The reason we had you on the last time is
trying to track down the money from fire Aid, that
(17:39):
the big concert that raised one hundred million dollars for
the for the people who are victims. Any any progress
on where the money went.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No. I just sent something to Chris Walls, is the
media spokesperson for fire Aid, and I just asked, who's
paying for the lawyers, because of course they've hired expensive
lawyers to make sure that no one. I don't know
why they hired lawyers. Why would you need lawyers to say, hey,
we're giving money here, we're giving money here. But they've
hired lawyers.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So I just just print out the list of the lawyers, print.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Out the list of agencies that got the money and
then those agencies printed out a list of the people
they gave it to.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I see no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You need expensive lawyers. Well we know what that's about,
all right, Sue, thank you for coming on with us,
keep at it, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
For having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Sue Pasco with Circlingthnews dot com. She's the editor there.
When we come back, we're going to help back into
the Washington d situation with Trump taken over the well,
the Washington Police Department. Don Mahollock's going to come on.
He's the ABC News Law Enforcement contributor and he's retired
(18:53):
senior Secret Service agent, and he's going to talk about Washington,
d C. And the crime there and what Trump is doing.
That's next.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You can hear us every day from one until four o'clock.
You miss stuff, We've had a lot of good stuff
already barely halfway through, and whatever you missed, you go
to the podcast after four o'clock. John Cobel Show on
demand on the iHeart app. You probably heard that Trump
has taken over the Washington d C Police Department and
(19:28):
sending in hundreds of National Guard troops because the crime
has been bad in Washington, d C for a long time.
We're going to talk with Don Mahallock. Now, he's the
ABC News law enforcement contributor also retired senior Secret Service agent,
and we have him one frequently to talk about these
kinds of matters. Don Mahallock, How are you.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Good, John? How are you?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Is is it so outrageous that Trump is sending in
wells taking control over the police department. I mean, the
federal government has legal author already over Washington, d C
and has added from day one.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's what
was done. I think how was done. I think the
fact that it was done overnight, literally with the stroke
of a pen, has caused a lot of the consternation
and the problems. I mean even for the law enforcement
agencies who now have to figure out how to coordinate
with each other where usually they have more ramp up time.
(20:25):
So I think, you know, the president is doing what
he did, he has the authority to do it. It's
probably a good idea. D C has been a rife
with crime as a lot of major cities have over
the last couple of years. The DC folks say the
crime has been reduced, but the perception there amongst the residents,
the federal employees that work there, and the people visiting
(20:46):
d C is that crime is still a problem. When
they're walking around homeless encampments throughout the city and they're
seeing people that look like drug dealers on a street,
corners interrehering about shootings and assaults, that is not a
feeling of safety. And I think what the President wants
to do with the administration wants to do is address
those crime problems, and that way, hopefully it then creates
(21:10):
the space for the city and the federal government and
some other nonprofit partners to address some of the societal
issues there that we're also dealing with.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You know, what you're talking about is so important because
we have exactly the same situation here. Whether it's the
mayor bass or the police chief. They'll come out and
do a song and dance about numbers, and then let's
say I go take a walk with my wife and
we just want to walk to the local drug store
or the grocery store, and there's some crazy, wild haired,
(21:41):
wild eyed guy who looks like he's capable of pulling
out a knife and slitting our throats. And that's a
constant fear. And they can tell me all they want
about their statistics, but it feels scary in even nice
neighborhoods outre And I know that's true in Washington, d C.
Because I'm reading now since Trump's announcement a lot of
(22:05):
people in the neighborhood saying, no, you don't know what
it's like here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
No, And I think it's true in a lot of cities.
LA being another one case in point that there is
a general feeling of unsafety in some of our large
studies because over the last couple of years, the attacks
on police, the attacks on law enforcement, the quote unquote
criminal justice reform has released a lot of people out
into the streets. The mental health system has imploded, so
(22:30):
there's a lot of folks that were released from hospitals
that would have been in hospitals, and it creates this
feeling of not feeling safe on his treats. And you know,
I would say the same thing up in Idaho where
we just had the guy who took the guilty plea
for murdering the four college students in Idaho. That town,
as a case in point, probably felt very safe until
(22:51):
they had four people murdered. Now, my guess is nobody
feels safe in the town, but the client statistics won't
reflect that. But the people will tell you that. I
think that's what the people in LA or DC or
even New York are telling the local officials, which goes
beyond prime statistics. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I'll reaching just a little clip from a Washington Post
story that was highlighted by Byron New York and the
Washington Examiner. You know, there was a federal employee named
Edward Coorstein. He worked for DOGE and he was the
one who was all bloodied up. That's been in all
the media, and a Washington Post story said, well, after
(23:32):
Coorstine was attacked, residents in a nearby block were rattled
awake by shouting on their usually quiet, tree lined street.
One person peeked out the window and saw a rowdy
crowd of youngsters summ in masks and a young man
beaten and bloodied. Police came, couldn't find any suspects, couldn't
find the beating victim. Another crime that's not going to
(23:56):
be reported, not part of the statistics. How much of
that going on. Crimes happen and people are so terrified
they don't even report it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Well, and John, that's the missing piece of this whole puzzle,
that there is a lot of unreported or underreported crime
that occurs on the streets. You know, somebody gets hit,
somebody gets smacked, somebody gets assaulted, and they don't report
it to the police. That's a crime. That person doesn't
feel safe anymore. But maybe that doesn't make it into
the crime statistics. So we need to make sure that
(24:27):
that incident does not happen. And look, even in DC
a couple of months ago or last year, I think
it was, it was a Secret Service protectee's home who
was broken into by somebody with the Secret Service sitting
out front. And then you had another situation where two
guys tried to steal the Secret Service car with the
agent sitting in it. I mean, that's just hastened point
(24:49):
of what's going on in DC. Yet the politicians would
quote the statistics, and I don't doubt what the statistics say,
but the statistics never tell the whole story. They never
tell what's going on on the streets. In front of
people's home. They never tell what's going on in neighborhoods,
and they never tell you what's going on in dark
alleys and any city, in any city. So the way
(25:11):
to combat that mobilize the police. Mobilize law enforcement, Let
them do what they should be doing, locking up people,
putting bad people in jail, and keep them there, and
then hopefully then the city and the other officials can
address some of these other, like I said, some of
these other holistic issues, homelessness and whatnot. So that way
it can create a better city for everybody.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So what is the National Guard going to do? What
is Trump having his administration run the department for now?
What's going to be done differently? That's going to result
in a noticeable decrease in crime and an increased feeling
of safety.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
So the National Guard is your go to if you
want to just put people in places as a deterrent.
We started after nine to eleven, where the nation was
there was going to be a terrorist attack every day.
The National Guard was deployed in cities across the country
and they were in PlayStations, bus stations, and airports. They
couldn't do anything but their physical presence, there was a
(26:13):
deterrent and it made people feel safer because you have
a uniformed soldier standing on the corner there. It radiates
that feeling of safety. While the National Guard is creating
that feeling of safety, You're going to have the uniformed
federal law enforcement agencies, US Park Police, US Secret Service,
Uniform Division, Capital Police, as well as some of the
(26:34):
plane closed folks working with MPD identifying and tracking and
apprehending some of these street crimes that are going on.
A lot of the federal agency. The uniform ones already
have full police powers in DC. They already do traffic
stops and make arrests and can enforce DC code. They
just do it in a limited fashion by departmental policies
(26:55):
based upon where they work. But under this executive order
that those lines have been expanded and now they're going
to be all over DC like they were in the
eighties and nineties and forcing d C code and locking
up bed guys, and I think they're going to see
a significant decline in a short run. I think people
are going to see a lot of police officers in
places they haven't seen them before. That feeling as safety
(27:17):
should come back. The issue then is how do you
sustain that in the long haul, which will then go
back to the city of DC and working with the
federal government to make sure you have that sustained effort
of safety.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
All right, Don, thank you for coming on again.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Don, always good to be with you.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Hi, Don Mahallak. He's ABC News Law enforcement contributor and
a retired senior Secret Service agent. And we will continue
with more about Washington, d C. Because many, many people
who work in the media in Washington, d C. Are
now writing and talking on air about what they have
(27:57):
to deal with all the time. Now, the media is
not necessarily, in this case in lockstep with the screaming
vegetables from the Washington, d C. City Council claiming that
this is overreach, overreaction. We'll talk about that when we
come back.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The cheap plastic that covers the button it's broke, I
will let it know. And the cheap little plastic that
says host Mike blues Gun. All right now, well, I've
been talking about Washington, d C. And Trump taking over
the police department, and just praying to the gods that
(28:41):
he finds some excuse to take over Los Angeles. Somebody
needs to take over Los Angeles. I mentioned that that.
I think what really triggered Trump is this guy, Edward Corstein.
He worked for Elon Musk. He was in Doge. His
nickname was Big Balls. This guy was actually in the
(29:03):
news some months ago because he was one of the
guys helping to mastermind the system to shrink the government
spending software engineer. And he's very young, and he was
brutally attacked by teenagers just two miles from the White House.
(29:23):
He was protecting a young woman at the time. And
I think this is this really enraged Trump because he
took it personally. I'm sure he knew the kid. And
you get the predictable prattle from the vegetables on the Washington,
DC City Council and jack offs in the media about well,
(29:45):
the crime right's actually falling. As of twenty twenty four,
DC had the fourth highest homicide rate of major US cities.
That's after it dropped about thirty percent. After a drop,
it's still unconscionably high. It had a higher homicide rate
(30:06):
than all fifty states. This is last year, higher than
all fifty states. That's after the drop from twenty twenty
to twenty twenty three. The crime rates, the violent crime
rates astronomical, doesn't begin to do justice to describe what's
going on. And here's the killer, if you'll pardon the expression.
(30:30):
The homicide rate for young black men have been above
the national average for decades now. They're killing its young
black guys, killing other young black guys, and none of
the city council members, many of the minorities want to
do anything to stop it. The killings overwhelmingly involved males
(30:54):
who've already been entangled in the criminal justice system. This
is according to Rich Lowry from the National Review, and
Charles Lahman of the Manhattan Institute says that according to
a report, they found five hundred identifiable people who have
(31:17):
substantial rap sheets, have been entangled in the justice system,
have served prison time. Five hundred names they can identify
who fit that category. They account for sixty to seventy
percent of all the gun violence in the city. Five
hundred guys. They're all guys. They're all really young. In fact,
(31:40):
most of the carjackings are mostly minors. So since they
have the identities of these of these psychos, violent psychos.
They have the identities, they know what they've done in
the past, they know they've served prison time, and you
can document that they're responsible for up to seventy percent
(32:01):
of all the gun violence. Lock them up, end it.
You lock up those five hundred violent psychos who are irredeemable.
You cannot rehabilitate them. It's impossible. They're lost causes. They
(32:24):
were raised without any parental discipline, no parental control. They
roman gangs, looking for victims to beat up and terrorize.
They look for cars to steal, they look for people
to assault and kill, and often they all kill each other.
(32:46):
There's nothing you can do. It's a fact of life.
A certain percentage of society is going to be like that.
We are very flawed, at times, very badly behaved, violent species.
And if you could, if you could reduce crime by
seventy percent by locking up five hundred people who've already demonstrated,
(33:10):
it's already been proven that this is what they do
with their days.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Who's hainst this idea? Who? Why would you be against this?
Spare me the sob stories about redemption and rehabilitation. No,
no more. We tried it. Your way, your way failed,
Your way led to more dead people. I'm totally baffled, flummoxed.
(33:46):
I don't know why these ideologies exist. I don't know
why people believe in them, and I don't know why
normal people put up with this stuff. This is like
a mystery for the ages. There isn't a day go
by where you know people have believed in defective philosophies, ideologies,
defective politics, defective religions since the beginning of time. Because
(34:08):
the human mind is can be really dysfunctional. Not everybody's
walking around with a useful brain. A lot of people
walk around with thinking about and believing in nonsense. Nothing
you can do about it. But when you have a
(34:29):
group that's identified, it's been proven that they're hostile to
normal civilization, lock them up. What are we going to
lose here? What are we going to lose? Hundreds of
felonies will be eliminated from the records every year. People
(34:49):
will walk the streets and they'll go to work, and
they'll go to restaurants, and they'll take their kids out
and enjoy themselves. For five hundred guys who are all
gonna end up dead anyway. Most of them are gonna
end up killing each other. Just lock them up. I'll
pay for that. We come back. Nathan Hockman is the
(35:14):
DA We're gonna He's trying to do his part and
get rid of one of the scourges of Los Angeles.
And I have never understood why white people put up
with this either. And it's those street takeovers, and he's
gonna do a big crackdown on it. We'll talk about it.
We come back, and we've got infratbor Mark Brigitta Diegostino
live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey, you've
(35:34):
been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can
always hear the show live on KFI Am six forty
from one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and
of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We're on every day from
one until four o'clock and then after four o'clock John
Cobelt Show on demand on the iHeart app. Another day
goes by, Another day of virtually no progress when it
comes to rebuilding after the fire the Palisades in Altadena.
(00:24):
Another day of virtually no information as to what started
the fire, why the reservoir wasn't filled, why the hydrants
didn't work. Everybody, everybody in government is stonewalling, hoping everyone
stops scaring. But we keep forging on here, and we're
(00:44):
going to talk now with Sue Pasco. Sue is a
journalist from the Palisades. She's the editor of Circlingthnews Circlingthnews
dot com, which is an online news website, and she
flagged us an interview that was done by the La
(01:05):
Times podcast host named Kate Cagel with Lindsey Horvath. And
we're gonna play a couple of clips along the way,
but first let's get Sue Pasco on here. Sue, how
are you? I'm good?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I just you know all this crap basically about officials
trying to ignore that they were responsible is just driving
to me crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Have you learned anything new about their lack of preparation
lack of response?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But John, don't you know they had everything ready? Just
listen to Lindsay in this interview. She was beyond prepared.
So you know, they were prepared, so it wasn't their fault.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Uh, let me play a clip here. Let's play in fact, Eric,
let's play cut number two, and this is Lindsay Horvath
talking to Katie Cagle from the Times about how everybody's
county and state firefighters were prepositioned.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
In addition, of course, the county operation was already underway.
We had worked with the state to stage various teams
from all over the state that came to southern California
to stage throughout Los Angeles County in preparation for this
red flag event. We had Los Angeles County Fire that
was staged and one of the things that came out
of Woolsey. We have an Emergency Operations Management, a whole
(02:33):
division that is focused on this work, and so our
officer who leads that was, you know, bringing everyone together,
and in fact, we opened our EOC our Emergency Operations
Center in advance of the fire ever breaking out, because
we wanted to be ready.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
To go stop stop it there. Well, there you go.
What you just said. She claimed there was a county
and state prepositioned all of the Palisades. There wasn't a
single fire truck prepositioned in Palisdes nobody.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
No. And even in Altadena, where the fire was, there
was only one county fire truck over in West Altadena.
So I'm not sure where these fire trucks were positioned.
A lot of the residents in Palisades saw there said
there was an enormous amount of fire trucks landed up
on will Rogers Beach. I don't know if they were
county or city, but they were just lined up there
(03:24):
during the fire. So, and the other interesting thing she
said is we opened up the office, and then if
you listen to the interview, they opened up the emergency
office on Tuesday morning, January seventh, the fire started at
ten thirty. Did they even get into the office before
the fire started?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I looked up because we caught Newsome in a big lie.
He claimed that state cal fire trucks were prepositioned the
closest one we could find was in Santa Clarita. I
mean it was like twenty miles away.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, I don't think. Parting to residents who were pretty
much everywhere, there were no fire trucks around the pala
save waiting to go anywhere. The shoogle mentioned Sunset Mesa,
which is sort of by the ocean, by the Getty,
and those residents said, in the past there have had
fire trucks preposition there, but not this time. There were
(04:23):
no fire trucks anywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Let me let me play another clip here because she
spent some time with This Times podcast on this Blue
Ribbon Commission, and here she discussed the water issue, about
the lack of water pressure hydrants not working at all.
Play cut number seven.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
How did the commission suggest we tackle the water issue? Well,
there were a lot of suggestions, and in fact, in
our region, in the third district, we have several different
water agencies. I mentioned water Works twenty nine, which the
county leads, but there's also the Las Virginis Municipal Water
District that has been doing extra ordinary innovation in terms
of providing clean drinking water for the region and thinking
(05:04):
about water resiliency. Going forward and how we source water locally,
not only for clean drinking water, but also to fight
fires and address emergency circumstances. So we have a lot
of great expertise right in our region and that's why
we tried to put it at the table. But they
we also need to invest in the infrastructure that can
help us deliver water in that way.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And I can just stop.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Where was Eli Early in the interview, they asked her
about the Santas Reservoir. She sort of smugly said, well,
that's the city and the question the interviewer could have
asked her is, well, where does the county get its
water for the helicopters if not from the SA reservoir,
which it has in the past.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, but what I don't understand is why they all
since the first fire warnings went out on January second,
and there were actually some National Weather Service warnings about
a major window going back to December thirtieth, why they
didn't convene a meeting city and county and state local
officials everybody and go through how many fire trucks do
(06:13):
you have? Where can we park them? How much water
is available? Is that reservoir filled? They never had these meetings,
they never discussed any of this. And how did the
reservoir not be filled for a year. Nobody wants to
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Oh, one of my readers said, I found out already
back in twenty twenty four. So that's when I contacted
the city and said, you know, the reservoir is not filled.
And that's when they explained to me, oh, well, our
fire trucks get water from hydrants. It's the county and
the state that uses the reservoir. It's sort of like, okay,
how are they going to use it if it's not filled. Well,
(06:53):
it makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
That's just gibberish.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
You get exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Just nonsense. That's one hundred and seventeen million gallons that
didn't exist, and it should have existed, and nobody's taken
responsibility for this yet.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
And Chatagua was empty too. There's a reservoir on the
top of Chicagua that they had initially used in nineteen
seventy eight to help put out the fire that came through.
But that reservoir they drained in June. They sort of said, well,
maybe we'll use it while Lestagianezza is down. They drained
it because residents are saying garbage cans are flowing down
the streets and everything, and then it appears they decided
(07:33):
not to refill it for whatever reason. So that reservoir,
which could have provided some water with empty too.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So is this Blue Ribbon Commission just an all purpose
talking point to divert conversations when reporters ask questions.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I think what it is is it's a blueprint to
try and take over some land and try and tell Okay,
so the people's Pacific and the people of Altadena have
been screwed basically, they don't have money to rebuild, and
so what this Blue Ribbon Commission is going to do
is going to tell us how we should do everything
(08:11):
in the future, and it will help if you can
afford to do anything on your land. It will take
over the land right now, and then maybe you can
sell it back to you when you have the money.
And who's going to make the decision who's selling whose
land to?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
What the way? What the county is going to take
over the land for those homeowners?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The authority for the Blue Ribbon Commission.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, they're going to take over people's lands if they can't,
if they don't have the money to rebuild and then
at some point maybe sell it back to those homeowners or.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Give it back or something. Yeah, that's crazy Ribbon Commission.
It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And they make a big
point of saying, oh, well, people from the Palisades and
Alta Dina are both represented on this Blue Ribbon Commission.
So I asked, well, who's from the Palisades is on
this Blue Ribbon Commission. Turns out there's one person from
(09:08):
the Palisades on the Blue Ribbon Commission, the head of
Heal the Bay who lived in the Highlands, whose house
did not burn. She was the sole person on the
Blue Ribbon Commission from the Palisades. On the from Altadena.
There was a very interesting person on her who actually
is the founder of Some Advisors, which supports clients and
(09:31):
enviancing project policies and programs in the realms of climate
resilient infrastructure. So basically, you know, this woman is sort
of a lobbyist for doing all this climate change. She's
she was one of the people from Altadena.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, climate change lobbyists. How about an expert in selling reservoirs.
Do they have one of those people on the on
the commission.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Or maybe just sprain water on the fire. Would that
would that work?
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
About that keeping fire hydrants operating properly well.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And the other thing that in this interview that really
made me upset, going back to the Lindsay Horbeth interview,
which is just it's just full of it. She keeps
this myth that they were hurricane wins. There were not
hurricane winds. One of the residents in the Palisades, Michael Kurves,
actually went to I think forty eight nearby weather stations
(10:27):
and got the wind speeds from all of them and
the highest gusts between ten am and four pm was
thirty nine miles per hour. That was between ten and
four And then there were a few other Palisadians who
actually had weather stations on their roofs. One of them,
the highest he captured was fifty miles per hour when
the station went dead at eight PM, which is when
(10:49):
the flames came through that area. And the other one
had a weather station on the Huntington Palisades and he
said that the wind speeds at my location ranged from
three to two miles per hour all the way until
five pm that evening. So I really wish that people
would stop saying hurricane wins at tornado force and hurricane
(11:10):
wins I think are supposedly started seventy three miles for.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Hurricanes. Yeah, yeah, seventy I think I think seventy four.
You're right. Hold on the line. We're talking with Sue
Pasco from Circling the News. She's the editor, she's longtime
journalists and Pacific Palisades and we're talking about this new
Blue Ribbon Commission and basically it's politicians trying to cover
up and ignore all the I think or criminal acts
(11:37):
that they committed leading to the fire.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Moistline is eighty seven seven Moist eighty six for Friday
eight seven seven Moist eighty six, or use the talkback
feature on the iHeartRadio app. We're talking with Palisade journalist
Sue Pasco Circlingthnews dot com. She's the editor of it,
and we're discussing this new way to kind of obscure
(12:10):
politicians responsibility for the lack of preparation and lack of
response to the fires in Padalle States. Now to Dina
they have this new Blue Ribbon Commission. Lindsey Horvath is
this dope supervisor we have in La County. She's my supervisor,
and she did a podcast with the La Times, and
the answer to every question pivots to the Blue Ribbon Commission.
(12:33):
It's almost like a way to ward off evil spirits,
where we're just gonna here's what we're going to do
in the future, and you know, we're all looking ahead here,
we're all going forward. It's that nonsense. Without one of
them taking one ounce of responsibility and offering an explanation,
we're just going to pretend this never happened and it'll
(12:54):
never happen again. I want to play a part of
the clip here. Can you explain Ben Allen's affordable housing
bill for people? We're not familiar with it because it's
caused a lot of controversy. He's the state senator out
of Santa Monica.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
This actually came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission because
I think he and then's your friends, and so he
pushed this forward so that it sort of goes with
the Blue Ribbon Commission. And I'm not sure best how
to explain and except what would do the people of
(13:33):
the Palisades no favor whatsoever. It would take away control
from the people, although they keep saying no, it won't
take away control from the people.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Well, it would be pushing high density multifamily housing in
a lot of the palace. So you'd have you'd have
a multifamily duplexus quadruplex's apartment buildings for a single family's
owne neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Right, And that came out of the Blue Ribbon Commission.
So your lawn, if you take your lot where you live,
and your neighbor all of a sudden decided to put
up a duplex, there's nothing you can do about it, right,
And it's all part of the laws that have come through.
And this goes back to what you were just saying, Actually,
let's just cover everything up and go forward. So if
(14:20):
one would look and say, okay, what was what were
the problems during the fire and what needs to be changed,
they're not addressing that at all. Part of the problem
during the fires was one there was no water to
put anything out, There were no fire trucks anywhere around,
and then evactuation became heroweing.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And that's you know what, that's the only things they
will talk about. Instead, you get a lot of discussion
about putting in these multifamily apartment buildings basically where the
single family homes used to be, which is going to
create more congestion, make it more difficult to leave during
an emergency where there isn't parking available for this. No,
(15:00):
and that's what's infuriating. It's you're talking about X, and
they keep talking about Z over and over again.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
They keep yeah, they are not going. We can't. They
really shouldn't be making produce plans for the future until
they can put their finger on what exactly went wrong
here and we have to change it.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
How about about a plan to preposition uh, fire assets
in the areas where the fire is most likely to
hit when you have certain weather conditions.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
How About how about, yeah, a fire that was there
just a week ago and was probably never put out,
a fire truck there.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
How about constant monitoring the reservoirs. How about letting us
know that, hey, we've got a torn cover. We think
we have to drain the reservoir. Uh, but we'll get
it done in a month, which they could have done, right,
but instead they take a year and they never told anybody.
That's what that's what the Blue Ribbon Commissions ought to
be resolving here.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
They actually lest this is a Blue Ribbon commission for
a socialistic socialism experiment, I think, and I would that is.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And that's what Ben Allen is. They're a bunch of
socialists and now this is their grand opportunity to start
stuffing people into apartment buildings of various sizes and get
rid of the single family housing concept.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And the other thing I would I would urge people
is why are we all buying into this idea that
there's a lack of housing in Los Angeles? Because those
of us when we were forced to evacuate and forced
to find a new place to live, which we all were,
there were apartments everywhere. I was shocked at. I thought
it was going to be impossible to find apartments, but
(16:46):
there are apartments everywhere. I think it needs to be
looked at exactly how truthful it is that statement that
there's a lack of housing.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's not truthful. They are dishonest because what they want
to do is get up support for more money for
homeless program saying hey, look at all these apartments complexes
that we have to build for the homeless. We need
to build affordable housing. That's what it is. It's if
you're going to pull off a scam, you need a
sales pitch.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it works on a lot of people. People
start believing it's like all these poor people in the streets, Well,
we've got to build them housing. Yeah, a million dollars
a unit. That's a good idea. Well, listen, I about
one more question, one more question. It's about something different.
The reason we had you on the last time is
trying to track down the money from fire Aid, that
(17:39):
the big concert that raised one hundred million dollars for
the for the people who are victims. Any any progress
on where the money went.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
No. I just sent something to Chris Walls, is the
media spokesperson for fire Aid, and I just asked, who's
paying for the lawyers, because of course they've hired expensive
lawyers to make sure that no one. I don't know
why they hired lawyers. Why would you need lawyers to say, hey,
we're giving money here, we're giving money here. But they've
hired lawyers.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So I just just print out the list of the lawyers, print.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Out the list of agencies that got the money and
then those agencies printed out a list of the people
they gave it to.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I see no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You need expensive lawyers. Well we know what that's about,
all right, Sue, thank you for coming on with us,
keep at it, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
For having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Sue Pasco with Circlingthnews dot com. She's the editor there.
When we come back, we're going to help back into
the Washington d situation with Trump taken over the well,
the Washington Police Department. Don Mahollock's going to come on.
He's the ABC News Law Enforcement contributor and he's retired
(18:53):
senior Secret Service agent, and he's going to talk about Washington,
d C. And the crime there and what Trump is doing.
That's next.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You can hear us every day from one until four o'clock.
You miss stuff, We've had a lot of good stuff
already barely halfway through, and whatever you missed, you go
to the podcast after four o'clock. John Cobel Show on
demand on the iHeart app. You probably heard that Trump
has taken over the Washington d C Police Department and
(19:28):
sending in hundreds of National Guard troops because the crime
has been bad in Washington, d C for a long time.
We're going to talk with Don Mahallock. Now, he's the
ABC News law enforcement contributor also retired senior Secret Service agent,
and we have him one frequently to talk about these
kinds of matters. Don Mahallock, How are you.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Good, John? How are you?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Is is it so outrageous that Trump is sending in
wells taking control over the police department. I mean, the
federal government has legal author already over Washington, d C
and has added from day one.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's what
was done. I think how was done. I think the
fact that it was done overnight, literally with the stroke
of a pen, has caused a lot of the consternation
and the problems. I mean even for the law enforcement
agencies who now have to figure out how to coordinate
with each other where usually they have more ramp up time.
(20:25):
So I think, you know, the president is doing what
he did, he has the authority to do it. It's
probably a good idea. D C has been a rife
with crime as a lot of major cities have over
the last couple of years. The DC folks say the
crime has been reduced, but the perception there amongst the residents,
the federal employees that work there, and the people visiting
(20:46):
d C is that crime is still a problem. When
they're walking around homeless encampments throughout the city and they're
seeing people that look like drug dealers on a street,
corners interrehering about shootings and assaults, that is not a
feeling of safety. And I think what the President wants
to do with the administration wants to do is address
those crime problems, and that way, hopefully it then creates
(21:10):
the space for the city and the federal government and
some other nonprofit partners to address some of the societal
issues there that we're also dealing with.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You know, what you're talking about is so important because
we have exactly the same situation here. Whether it's the
mayor bass or the police chief. They'll come out and
do a song and dance about numbers, and then let's
say I go take a walk with my wife and
we just want to walk to the local drug store
or the grocery store, and there's some crazy, wild haired,
(21:41):
wild eyed guy who looks like he's capable of pulling
out a knife and slitting our throats. And that's a
constant fear. And they can tell me all they want
about their statistics, but it feels scary in even nice
neighborhoods outre And I know that's true in Washington, d C.
Because I'm reading now since Trump's announcement a lot of
(22:05):
people in the neighborhood saying, no, you don't know what
it's like here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
No, And I think it's true in a lot of cities.
LA being another one case in point that there is
a general feeling of unsafety in some of our large
studies because over the last couple of years, the attacks
on police, the attacks on law enforcement, the quote unquote
criminal justice reform has released a lot of people out
into the streets. The mental health system has imploded, so
(22:30):
there's a lot of folks that were released from hospitals
that would have been in hospitals, and it creates this
feeling of not feeling safe on his treats. And you know,
I would say the same thing up in Idaho where
we just had the guy who took the guilty plea
for murdering the four college students in Idaho. That town,
as a case in point, probably felt very safe until
(22:51):
they had four people murdered. Now, my guess is nobody
feels safe in the town, but the client statistics won't
reflect that. But the people will tell you that. I
think that's what the people in LA or DC or
even New York are telling the local officials, which goes
beyond prime statistics. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I'll reaching just a little clip from a Washington Post
story that was highlighted by Byron New York and the
Washington Examiner. You know, there was a federal employee named
Edward Coorstein. He worked for DOGE and he was the
one who was all bloodied up. That's been in all
the media, and a Washington Post story said, well, after
(23:32):
Coorstine was attacked, residents in a nearby block were rattled
awake by shouting on their usually quiet, tree lined street.
One person peeked out the window and saw a rowdy
crowd of youngsters summ in masks and a young man
beaten and bloodied. Police came, couldn't find any suspects, couldn't
find the beating victim. Another crime that's not going to
(23:56):
be reported, not part of the statistics. How much of
that going on. Crimes happen and people are so terrified
they don't even report it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Well, and John, that's the missing piece of this whole puzzle,
that there is a lot of unreported or underreported crime
that occurs on the streets. You know, somebody gets hit,
somebody gets smacked, somebody gets assaulted, and they don't report
it to the police. That's a crime. That person doesn't
feel safe anymore. But maybe that doesn't make it into
the crime statistics. So we need to make sure that
(24:27):
that incident does not happen. And look, even in DC
a couple of months ago or last year, I think
it was, it was a Secret Service protectee's home who
was broken into by somebody with the Secret Service sitting
out front. And then you had another situation where two
guys tried to steal the Secret Service car with the
agent sitting in it. I mean, that's just hastened point
(24:49):
of what's going on in DC. Yet the politicians would
quote the statistics, and I don't doubt what the statistics say,
but the statistics never tell the whole story. They never
tell what's going on on the streets. In front of
people's home. They never tell what's going on in neighborhoods,
and they never tell you what's going on in dark
alleys and any city, in any city. So the way
(25:11):
to combat that mobilize the police. Mobilize law enforcement, Let
them do what they should be doing, locking up people,
putting bad people in jail, and keep them there, and
then hopefully then the city and the other officials can
address some of these other, like I said, some of
these other holistic issues, homelessness and whatnot. So that way
it can create a better city for everybody.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So what is the National Guard going to do? What
is Trump having his administration run the department for now?
What's going to be done differently? That's going to result
in a noticeable decrease in crime and an increased feeling
of safety.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
So the National Guard is your go to if you
want to just put people in places as a deterrent.
We started after nine to eleven, where the nation was
there was going to be a terrorist attack every day.
The National Guard was deployed in cities across the country
and they were in PlayStations, bus stations, and airports. They
couldn't do anything but their physical presence, there was a
(26:13):
deterrent and it made people feel safer because you have
a uniformed soldier standing on the corner there. It radiates
that feeling of safety. While the National Guard is creating
that feeling of safety, You're going to have the uniformed
federal law enforcement agencies, US Park Police, US Secret Service,
Uniform Division, Capital Police, as well as some of the
(26:34):
plane closed folks working with MPD identifying and tracking and
apprehending some of these street crimes that are going on.
A lot of the federal agency. The uniform ones already
have full police powers in DC. They already do traffic
stops and make arrests and can enforce DC code. They
just do it in a limited fashion by departmental policies
(26:55):
based upon where they work. But under this executive order
that those lines have been expanded and now they're going
to be all over DC like they were in the
eighties and nineties and forcing d C code and locking
up bed guys, and I think they're going to see
a significant decline in a short run. I think people
are going to see a lot of police officers in
places they haven't seen them before. That feeling as safety
(27:17):
should come back. The issue then is how do you
sustain that in the long haul, which will then go
back to the city of DC and working with the
federal government to make sure you have that sustained effort
of safety.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
All right, Don, thank you for coming on again.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Don, always good to be with you.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Hi, Don Mahallak. He's ABC News Law enforcement contributor and
a retired senior Secret Service agent. And we will continue
with more about Washington, d C. Because many, many people
who work in the media in Washington, d C. Are
now writing and talking on air about what they have
(27:57):
to deal with all the time. Now, the media is
not necessarily, in this case in lockstep with the screaming
vegetables from the Washington, d C. City Council claiming that
this is overreach, overreaction. We'll talk about that when we
come back.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The cheap plastic that covers the button it's broke, I
will let it know. And the cheap little plastic that
says host Mike blues Gun. All right now, well, I've
been talking about Washington, d C. And Trump taking over
the police department, and just praying to the gods that
(28:41):
he finds some excuse to take over Los Angeles. Somebody
needs to take over Los Angeles. I mentioned that that.
I think what really triggered Trump is this guy, Edward Corstein.
He worked for Elon Musk. He was in Doge. His
nickname was Big Balls. This guy was actually in the
(29:03):
news some months ago because he was one of the
guys helping to mastermind the system to shrink the government
spending software engineer. And he's very young, and he was
brutally attacked by teenagers just two miles from the White House.
(29:23):
He was protecting a young woman at the time. And
I think this is this really enraged Trump because he
took it personally. I'm sure he knew the kid. And
you get the predictable prattle from the vegetables on the Washington,
DC City Council and jack offs in the media about well,
(29:45):
the crime right's actually falling. As of twenty twenty four,
DC had the fourth highest homicide rate of major US cities.
That's after it dropped about thirty percent. After a drop,
it's still unconscionably high. It had a higher homicide rate
(30:06):
than all fifty states. This is last year, higher than
all fifty states. That's after the drop from twenty twenty
to twenty twenty three. The crime rates, the violent crime
rates astronomical, doesn't begin to do justice to describe what's
going on. And here's the killer, if you'll pardon the expression.
(30:30):
The homicide rate for young black men have been above
the national average for decades now. They're killing its young
black guys, killing other young black guys, and none of
the city council members, many of the minorities want to
do anything to stop it. The killings overwhelmingly involved males
(30:54):
who've already been entangled in the criminal justice system. This
is according to Rich Lowry from the National Review, and
Charles Lahman of the Manhattan Institute says that according to
a report, they found five hundred identifiable people who have
(31:17):
substantial rap sheets, have been entangled in the justice system,
have served prison time. Five hundred names they can identify
who fit that category. They account for sixty to seventy
percent of all the gun violence in the city. Five
hundred guys. They're all guys. They're all really young. In fact,
(31:40):
most of the carjackings are mostly minors. So since they
have the identities of these of these psychos, violent psychos.
They have the identities, they know what they've done in
the past, they know they've served prison time, and you
can document that they're responsible for up to seventy percent
(32:01):
of all the gun violence. Lock them up, end it.
You lock up those five hundred violent psychos who are irredeemable.
You cannot rehabilitate them. It's impossible. They're lost causes. They
(32:24):
were raised without any parental discipline, no parental control. They
roman gangs, looking for victims to beat up and terrorize.
They look for cars to steal, they look for people
to assault and kill, and often they all kill each other.
(32:46):
There's nothing you can do. It's a fact of life.
A certain percentage of society is going to be like that.
We are very flawed, at times, very badly behaved, violent species.
And if you could, if you could reduce crime by
seventy percent by locking up five hundred people who've already demonstrated,
(33:10):
it's already been proven that this is what they do
with their days.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Do it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Who's hainst this idea? Who? Why would you be against this?
Spare me the sob stories about redemption and rehabilitation. No,
no more. We tried it. Your way, your way failed,
Your way led to more dead people. I'm totally baffled, flummoxed.
(33:46):
I don't know why these ideologies exist. I don't know
why people believe in them, and I don't know why
normal people put up with this stuff. This is like
a mystery for the ages. There isn't a day go
by where you know people have believed in defective philosophies, ideologies,
defective politics, defective religions since the beginning of time. Because
(34:08):
the human mind is can be really dysfunctional. Not everybody's
walking around with a useful brain. A lot of people
walk around with thinking about and believing in nonsense. Nothing
you can do about it. But when you have a
(34:29):
group that's identified, it's been proven that they're hostile to
normal civilization, lock them up. What are we going to
lose here? What are we going to lose? Hundreds of
felonies will be eliminated from the records every year. People
(34:49):
will walk the streets and they'll go to work, and
they'll go to restaurants, and they'll take their kids out
and enjoy themselves. For five hundred guys who are all
gonna end up dead anyway. Most of them are gonna
end up killing each other. Just lock them up. I'll
pay for that. We come back. Nathan Hockman is the
(35:14):
DA We're gonna He's trying to do his part and
get rid of one of the scourges of Los Angeles.
And I have never understood why white people put up
with this either. And it's those street takeovers, and he's
gonna do a big crackdown on it. We'll talk about it.
We come back, and we've got infratbor Mark Brigitta Diegostino
live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey, you've
(35:34):
been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can
always hear the show live on KFI Am six forty
from one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and
of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
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