June 5, 2025 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (06/05) - US Congressman Kevin Kiley comes on the show to talk about the Trump Administration announcing they are cutting off federal funding for CA's high-speed rail project. More on the Trump Administration announcing they are cutting off federal funding for CA's high-speed rail project. High-speed rail was supposed to help revitalized San Francisco but that has not happened. San Francisco has a $322 million dollar deficit and they are proposing to tax people who have a driveway.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome,
how are you. It's good that you're here. Good that
you're here, Debra.
Speaker 4 (00:10):
Oh well, thank you. It's good that you're here too.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We're all happy here and we're on the air from
one inn till four every day after four o'clock. You
got the podcast John Cobelt Show on demand, the same
as the radio show, and so anything you missed you
can listen to it after four. We're going to follow
up on yesterday's big story. The Trump administration announced that
they are cutting off further funding for California's high speed
(00:37):
rail disaster. There was about four billion dollars still on
the table and Trump said, no more money. And the
Democrats in Sacramento, as they say, are doubling down and
they're shouting even louder that they're going to continue the project,
even though it's been seventeen years and seventeen billion dollars
(01:00):
and there's not even two feet of track laid down.
There are some stonehenge stonehenge stoneheads like viaducts that have
been built, but there's there's no actual track, there are
no trains, there's no train stations, and obviously it wouldn't
happen for decades even if they had the money, and
they don't have the money at he's not the federal money. Now,
(01:22):
let's say get Kevin Kylie on, because Kevin Kylie's Republican
Congressman from northern California, and he actually got the ball
rolling a couple of weeks before Trump was inaugurated, because
he introduced a bill in the House to start the
defunding process. Kevin, how are.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You doing great? How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm all right?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Uh, this this is obviously not a big surprise. And
there isn't anybody in Washington that can do anything about this, right,
Is there any lawsuits that can turn this around or anything?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know, the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This is a process that is well estyled, where when
you get a federal grant, you're not allowed to just
do whatever you want with the money. You have to
abide by the terms of the grand And so that
was the purpose of this audit, which was really a
compliance review, is to assess is California in compliance with
the terms of the four billion dollars in federal grants
(02:19):
that's received yeah, and you know, one.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Of those that's important to talk about. I don't mean
to dirupt you, but a lot of people are. They're
portraying this as Trump just being vindictive against California and
against high speed rail. But actually there is a contract
and they have violated the terms of the deal over
and over and over again for many years now. So
go into detail on that.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean it's sort of at the
most basic level, they were given a grant to build
a train and they haven't built a train, so they're
out of compliance with the terms of the grant. And
in fact, there are a whole host of ways in
which there are deemed atict compliance that are not adequately reporting.
Their timelines don't make sense, their funding models don't make sense,
and nothing has actually been built. They haven't laid any
(02:59):
track in seventeen years, despite massive federal funding and massive
state funding. And even now, you know, they're saying that
this initial set from Baker's Field to Merced it's going
to miss its twenty thirty three deadline, when the whole
thing LA to San Francisco was supposed to be up
and running five years ago. So it is time to
finally put this nightmare to an end so we can
(03:20):
use these funds on things we actually need.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Why are they clinging to this Baker's Field to Merced concept.
There's it's not going to be used. Nobody's going to
take that. There's no market there, right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
The whole thing has just been a scheme to keep
the project alive. You might remember in twenty nineteen, Newsom
came in its first State of the Union and said, no,
high speed rail is never going to happen. But then
he quickly did in about case. And the way that
they kind of, you know, kept it going was saying,
we're going to build this initial Baker's Field Merced segment
(03:55):
first is sort of a proof of concept, and so
they continue to get more money on the you know,
on the supposition that this was actually going to be built,
and then you complete the rest of it after that.
But the problem is they've proven locally incapable of even
making any progress on that initial segment, which no one,
as you said, would actually ride.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
There's a political story out I don't know if you
saw it, but it suggests that the reason this project
keeps going on is everyone in California government is intimidated
by the labor unions. There's fifteen thousand union workers who
get employed because of this boon goggle, even though they
apparently don't produce anything useful. And so anytime Gavin Newsom
(04:37):
or there's Katie Porter is now running for governor, anytime
they pop off against high speed rail, they got an
ugly phone call from the union and they change their
mind the next day.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is that what this is about.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Ultimately, this is a fifteen thousand jobs program for the unions,
and nobody actually expects to have a high speed rail
at the end of this.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, this is certainly the talking point that they fall
back on when all of us fails. And this is
what Newsome's attack dog. He pays a guy at a
tax payer money to troll me on Twitter on x
This is what he said, Oh, but it's creating so
many jobs, and I'm all four jobs. I think jobs
that we want to create jobs, but I want to
create jobs that are actually doing something useful.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
They safe jobs.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right, You could easily create jobs by having some people
dig a hole and then the other people fill the
dirt back in, which is essentially what they are doing.
But why not actually create the jobs, having them build
things like new roads or even new regional transit systems
to improve regional transit systems that people would actually ride.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So it is the unions, you're going to have their
sway forever. I mean, they're claiming there's in this California budget,
and I know you have no say over that, but
they're going to appropriate a billion a year for the
next twenty years, and I guess we're all just going
to have to eat that, huh, so that the union
the workers get.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Paid, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I mean, with the with the loss of the federal funding,
and at my bill houses that I'll make that a
permanent state of affairs, then the funding models for this
become even more just outrageously delusional. And so I think
that if anything is going to force the state to
reassess its completely irrational support for this project, despite the
(06:17):
massive deficit and everything else, that loss of federal funding
maybe it, Which is why I introduced that bill, because
I think this is the way that we can bring
high speed rail to an end. And in fact, I
think that this audit that just came out is the
beginning of the end for the project. And again we
can have jobs if we just invest in the transportation
infrastructure that Californians actually need in fact to have a
(06:38):
lot more jobs, because when you create, you know, things
that are actually used that are then additional there's additional
economic activity associated with that that then we'll create more jobs.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Your bill specifically says what it just plan out cuts
off high speed rail money forever.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Correct. It says that this project is ineligible for future
federal funding because what they're going to say now is, oh,
we just need to wait out of the Trump administration.
Then the spickett will turn back on and we'll get
billions more from whoever the next president. Is what my
bill is saying is now, from this point forward, the
project is simply ineligible to receive any federal grant.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Can you I mean, you've been watching the whole ride here.
Can you believe it's been seventeen years and nothing. It's
astonishing because we've done shows, you know, every day, we've
been covering this thing for seventeen years, and even before
that when there was a campaign to get this on
the ballot and vote on it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And it's just astonishing.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Even I didn't think in twenty twenty five you wouldn't
have two feet of railroad track anywhere, and say this
is just astonishing.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It is. Every day it gets even more farcical. And
the fact that they continue to throw good money after that,
literally just lighting money on fire, billions and billions and
billions of dollars. The New York Times itself said that
this there's going to be one hundred billion dollars over
budget and we'll even be finished this century. So I
(08:06):
think you're right. It's worse than we ever could have imagined.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
All right, Kevin, Well keep fighting. I can't wait for
that bills. All right, Kevin Kylie And he's the Republican
congressman in northern California, spent a number of years in
the legislature.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
We will tell you more about this.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I got to read you the quotes from some of
the Democratic politicians, I mean they I don't does the
Union have picked naked pictures of all these people? I
mean naked pictures of Gavin Newsom might do him much damage.
Katie Porter is another thing.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
John Cobelt Show. I Am six forty more stimulating talk radio. Hey,
moistline is eight seven seven moist eighty six eight seven
seven moist eighty six.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We just talked with Kevin Kylie.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
He is republic Getting congressman in northern California, and he
started on January sixth getting the ball rolling to cut
the funding off for high speed rail. He's got a
bill that would permanently cut the funding off so it
can't be refunded in case there's a Democratic administration replacing
Trump in four years, then they would have to go
(09:19):
through Congress all over again to get authorization. So now,
debor you you spent a few years working up in
radio in San Francisco, right, I did. So you must
have made a lot of travel back and forth between
LA and San Francisco because you know your family was
down here.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Of trips every holiday.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, and you either drove or took a plane. Right.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Did you ever once think to yourself, Gee, I wish
there was a train that went between these two cities.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
No, at the time, I never thought that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So it wasn't a desire you had, it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I mean, look, if I could get from here to
the Bay Area in an hour, not lying, but a train,
but that's impossible, right then I would have thought about it,
But I mean the trip is an hour on the plane,
and if you don't do that, then it's what five
hours by car?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
They sold it to us as two and a half
hours on the train, and now they're not going to
do that. Yeah, it's not even going to be high speed.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Right, so it's not I would just why wouldn't we
just drive it?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Just It never occurred to me because I had had
two sons go to school up in the Bay Area,
and you had one of your Your son went up
there too, right, Yeah, and so we took plenty of trips.
I mean, my son was on a baseball team up there,
so last year we were going up there most every
weekend that they were home. And it never occurred to me, Oh,
this would be so much better if I was on
(10:41):
a train, you know. I mean, the airport's a painting
in the ass, But you're right, the flight, the actual
in air portion of the flight is an.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Hour twenty five minutes or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's really fast.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
So I didn't understand the market, like, like, take all
the politics out of it and the wasted money.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's like, why where is demand for this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Well, if truly, if you could get okay, so I
said an hour, but let's just say two and a
half hours, which, like you said, that was sold to us.
If you don't want to deal with the airport and
you don't want to drive, and you want to be
able to do work and look at your phone and
all that, and going on a train, if it made sense.
I mean again, I never thought about that. But if
that were really the case, then yes, if it really
(11:25):
was going to happen like that, I could see that
being beneficial.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, but you know, even then you get I guess
it was going to go to downtown San Francisco, because
I got a story today about how they actually built
in one of the transportation centers in San Francisco. They
have a basement the bottom promenade down there. It was
meant for the high speed rail train and they had
(11:49):
electrified some rail and so they thought this was going
to be a huge.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Boost, and I would fly into Oakland for the most part.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, see that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You could take the train up there, But then now
you got to go find a taxi or Zackbert.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
So then it just doesn't make sense, right.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I tried taking a train years ago when my wife
and I lived in New York City and I worked
for a radio station about sixty miles away, and I
used to drive up and down the Jersey Turnpike twice
a day, sixty sixty five miles each way. And it's
more of a it's more of a train culture back
(12:27):
east within the cities, you know, because they have a
pretty well developed in New York and in Boston, Washington
a well developed train system, and then they had trains
went from New York through Jersey. So I tried it,
and it didn't work because I'd have to walk from
my apartment into New York to a subway, take the
subway to the main train station, then take the train
(12:47):
from New York City all the way to Trenton. Actually
I had to leave my car in Trenton because when
I got off the train, I had to get in
the car and drive to the radio station, and then
drive the car back.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
To the parking ride, get on the.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Train, take it to New York, switch to a subway,
get out of the subway, and walk. So there was
there was like four components to the trip, and it
took even longer exactly. So it was walk, subway train drive,
drive train subway walk, And I tried that for like
three days, and I said, this is a huge pain
in the ass. What are people talking about? And that's
(13:28):
what this thing in San Francisco would be. You that
same thing here in La If it brings you into
Union Station, Well, then what if I live on the
west side. What am I going to get on a
metro train and get stabbed?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Well, yeah, we're definitely not going to do well, I'm
going to take a bus.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I'm just fumnox as to why they thought that was
an answer, But you know, I should know better, And
still my mind works in the old way. It never
was about providing us with transportation, really, believe.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Me and understand.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It was about financing construction unions for the next Well,
it'll be thirty five years now, because we've done seventeen years.
And now they have a bill to keep throwing a
billion dollars of state tax money, your tax money into
high speed rail a billion a year for twenty years.
(14:23):
So twenty years from now, the unions would have gotten
thirty seven years worth of funding, tens of billions of dollars,
and then every time. Every time somebody says, why don't
we stop this, some union goon gets on TV and go, well,
you're gonna cost fifteen dozen jobs, and people don't. Oh
that's not good. Fifteen thousand people will be out of work.
(14:45):
It's like, no, they should be rebuilding the roads and
the bridges. For God's sakes. How about build reservoirs. There's
a lot of things that need building.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
My god.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
We went to Dodger Stadium last night and we drove
through downtown in the one ten free way to the ten.
My god, is that a dilapidated freeway? And I realized
it was built in the nineteen forties. It is eighty
years old, eight more than eighty years old. And it's
like this thing has not been touched.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In eighty years.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And you can't put some good union men on that.
And I don't know what they're building out in the
Central Valley anyway, except the Stonehenge sculptures.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
All right.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But here's the Democrats, and I guess they're all bent
over by the union. The Senate Budget Committee chair, oh
my god, this weasels in charge of the Budget Committee,
Scott Weener, and I'm sure they have him bent over.
We've seen this coming and we're gonna do everything we
can to prevent it. Regardless of what happens here, we're
committed to making this project a reality. And you know
(15:52):
how they're spinning it to the to their followers, to
progressive voters.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It's like Trump is against it.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
That means we're for it right right, So this is
a way to stick it to Trump, to keep using
California tax money to show Trump that he's not going
to win on this issue. And they figure they're cult members,
they're religious followers, are say yeah, yeah, yeah, f Satan. Yeah,
(16:23):
here's Newsome. I want to get it done. That's our commitment.
That's why it's still reflected in this budget for the
next twenty years. And it's gas tax money. They call
it cap and trade money, but this is the tax
on the oil companies which is passed, which has passed
through to the gas pump. So I call it all
(16:46):
a gas tax because that's what it is, because you
pay for all this stuff. They have about five different
gas taxes with different names so that you get confused
and it seems complicated. They're taking gas tax money and
they're using a billion of that every year for the
next twenty years for high speed rail by the way
as part of the referendum. As part of the law,
(17:07):
they weren't supposed to use any any tax money. A
Newsom spokes whole named Daniel via Signor. He when anybody
asks him about the funding being cut off, he says,
go to the budget press conference that Newsom did. That's
(17:29):
where Newsom said, We're gonna get it done. That's our commitment.
Then then Katie Porter, who's running for governor, missus potato head.
You remember she ran for She ran for Senate right
against Adam shiff and she face planted. She's the one
(17:51):
who dumped hot mashed potatoes on her husband's head.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That was before the divorce.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Katie Porter said briefly that she criticized high speed rail
and then she got the bad phone call and went
to a union event and said she wants to put
people to work and I want to get it done
for Californians. But she went on TV and criticized the project.
(18:19):
At first, they all get the bad phone call from
the unions, and the bad phone call is we are
going to spend millions of dollars on your opponents and
we're going.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
To drive you out of politics.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
And that's what Newsom is afraid of, and that is
what Katie Porter is afraid of. And you have these
government agencies that get funded because of high speed rail.
You have these labor unions, and these guys don't do anything.
It's fifteen thousand people shoveling dirt around up in the
(18:52):
Central Valley, spending your money seventeen billions so far, and
they have constructed nothing and they will never construct anything.
If they actually constructed it and it was done by
twenty twenty, then they would have been out of work.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
For the last five years.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So the purpose, and that's why they don't keep track
of the money when they do the audits. There is
no receipts, there's no paper trail where the money went.
It's because the unions, because because Newsom is so corrupt,
Katie Porter is so corrupt, Scott Wiener so corrupt, they.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Just bend over and they take it from the unions.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Because they're so terrified, the little babies, the little cowards.
And nobody wants to fight for us, Nobody wants to
fight for you at all. Nobody wants to say enough
of this nonsense. We're coming up.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
We're on every day one until four o'clock and then
after four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Now you miss something, What you miss something?
Speaker 3 (19:54):
John cobell Show on demand the podcast and that's where
you catch up to it. We've been Kevin Kylie on
in the last half hour, the Northern California Congressman, talking
about the high speed rail getting defunded by the Trump administration.
And that story will pop up at about a month
or so because high speed Rail has thirty seven days
(20:16):
to respond, but it's a done deal from Trump's end,
no more money. And then Kylie is trying to get
a bill passed and that will permanently end federal funding
in the future that the next administration couldn't do it
with that congressional approval. And amidst all this, you know,
(20:36):
in San Francisco there's a lot of die hard progressives
who are maybe tearing up a bit over the death
of high speed rail. And there's one writer here I
don't have his name, but in the San Francisco Chronicle
they wrote a headline was high speed Rail was supposed
(20:57):
to signal San Francisco's renaissance. And if you've been to
San Francisco within the last couple of years, whoa, it's
an outdoor drug bizarre mental patient asylum. The headline, well,
(21:18):
the story says what Gavin Newsom served as mayor of
San Francisco. Get this, He imagined the city not only
as a Paris of the West, but as the terminus
of an epic rail line that would stretch from Anaheim
to South of Market. Here's what Newsom said at a
(21:39):
twenty ten ceremony breaking ground for what's now known as
the Salesforce Transit Center. And this is where trains were
supposed to glide into a busy concourse down below at
the basement level.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's supposed to be high speed rail.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
And he said, we're going to be building something that
is our arguably a generation overdue. This was in twenty ten.
Fifteen years later, nothing's been built. Right now, the center
is a large bus station. It's basement still an empty
(22:19):
concrete vault, and now they don't know if that vault's
ever going to be filled. So they built this train
station below ground, figuring that they were gonna have high
speed rail coming through every two hours and the chronicle
(22:40):
rights why it may seem like a maddening image. While
it may seem like a maddening mirage see maddening. Oh
we're not getting high speed rail. High speed rail was
considered an element of San Francisco's downtown renaissance. It was
gonna be the lynchpin for a new high rise neighborhood
that bloomed around the transit center. It's sidewalks lined with
(23:01):
cylindrical buildings. More importantly, the train system would help shape
a transportation network aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A Yes,
the Holy Grail. A well operated rail anchored by two
urban metros, La and San Francisco would allow people to
(23:23):
move through California without relying on airplanes and cars.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Airplanes, bad, cars bad.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Now Here is the plan, Because you have to the
supporters of high speed rail.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
They fall into different categories.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
There are the greed bags who are looting the system
right the trade unions. They're looting our tax money, along
with the engineers, the environmental experts, the land use attorneys,
I mean the whole list of professional parasites who then
launcher the money back to the politicians with campaign contributions.
(24:01):
There are politicians who are just afraid of offending anybody, right.
They don't care one way or the other about high
speed rail. They can tell it smells bad, but they
don't want the labor unions giving them a bad phone call.
And then there are the true believers.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
These are the whack jobs who wake up terrified every morning.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
The earth is boiling over and it would be in
a communist paradise. It would be better if we were
all stuffed into trains and buses together and we didn't
have the freedom to travel, and the air would be
clean and the oceans would be cooler. Here's one of
these guys, Tom Radulovich. He's the senior policy manager at
(24:44):
the nonprofit nonprofit what does that mean? Probably getting taxpayer grants.
It's the think tank called Liveable City. And Radulovich says,
let's call it a multi modal California.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
They always have some weird modernistic sounding phrase that doesn't
seem to make any sense. He sees the state as
a massive transit ecosystem. Small communities. You're in a small town,
small communities that embrace walking and biking. There you go,
that's the plan.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
If you live in a small town, you're supposed to
walk and bike. You can't drive your car. No, no, no, no,
no visiting the bigger cities. But we'll have rail lines,
and the rail lines will connect the small towns to
the bigger cities. And then in the big city like
(25:44):
La or San Francisco, you would have longer haul transit
passenger trains. You see how it works. And then nobody
drives ever, nobody has any freedom. Nobody can enjoy themselves
bike and walk. That's free. All you riff raft peasants
in the small towns. Yes, use your legs. Stop polluting
(26:10):
the air, stop warming the planet. And so high speed
rails are very important in that they spent two point
two billion dollars on the Salesforce Transit Center. It opened
in twenty eighteen. It was going to be the end
point for high speed rail, whisking business travelers from southern California.
(26:33):
The transit hub was captivating merchants leased the retail space
to sell coffee and food. City planners promised that once
the train tracks came to downtown cowtrain commuters who are
dropped off in Mission Bay could step right onto Mission Street,
but instead of fulfilling Newsom's vision, the transit center became
(26:55):
a very expensive bus station. Fifteen years later, it's a
bus station and it's a bust.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
They blew a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now I go to smaller cities back east, their bus
stations are actually outdoors. The buses stop, they pull over
into a cutout, and the passengers step onto the sidewalk
and wander down to a parking lot, or they go
lay in the street and become homeless people. Radulovich, though, hey,
(27:30):
as long as he gets his nonprofit grants, says, well,
as long as the political will exists in California, we'll
get there. The only reason there's political will is because
they get bribed by the construction unions, and they get
bribed by rich, the wealthy interests, the lobbyists, the lobbyists
(27:56):
in engineering and in land use, you know, all the
attorneys that are in those scam industries. That's the political will.
If Newsom wasn't afraid of the trade unions, he would
have pulled the plug on high speed rail. He said
so a few years ago until he got the bad
phone call. And these believers, and they're called believers in
(28:20):
the story in urban transit still embrace the dream of
a fully connected state. No need to widen freeways. Yeah right,
this is their dream. Hey lady, walk yeah, walk from
with the nils.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Check out my commute every day, which really isn't much
better John by the way, Uh oh, holy maybe five
minutes getting to work.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
No, No need to build additional runways at airports. Yeah,
why would you want that? Just have thirty planes all
bunched up in the sky overhead. This is what And
they're in control of the government, These dreamers, these true
believers again, like a religion, even though it makes no sense.
What would makes sense is to have an airport with
(29:07):
more runways. It would make sense to have freeways with
more lanes, double deck them. Look, we have an Orange County.
They spent local tax money on freeways. They got eight
lanes across in Orange County on the on the five.
It's terrific. It's fast. Shootings across in Orange County. The
traffic blows wide open. You only got three lanes in downtown.
(29:32):
Listen to this. Another one of these guys, Sebastian Petty,
a senior transportation policy advisor at another nonprofits. You see
you see the pattern here One of the original justifications
for high speed rail that I thought were most compelling
was looking at the trade offs if you had if
you had to expand airport capacity or invest in Highway
(29:52):
ninety nine. In other words, what he's saying is the
reason you want rail lines is you don't have to
expand the airport. You don't have to widen Highway ninety nine.
So you end up with a narrow highway, you end
up with congested airports, but you're saving money.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Not really, No, you still don't have you don't have
a rail line.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So we have a cult. We're in the grips of
a cult that's governing the state.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
The moistline is eighty seven seven Moist eighty six eight
seven seven Moist eighty six, or the talkback feature.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
On the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I'm sorry to do another San Francisco story, but this
is all related and you're not going to believe this.
And I also say this because the California Legislator legislature
is a disproportionately run by San Francisco progressives. Okay, they
have all the leadership posts. They're in charge. So the
(30:56):
stuff that comes out of the San Francisco politically anus
ends up affecting us here all over California. In San
Francisco they have a three hundred and twenty two million
dollar deficit. You know what they considered to close the deficit.
And I know somebody in LA is going to pick
(31:17):
up this stupid idea taxing you if you have a driveway,
taxing you one hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
If you have a driveway. Do you hear that? What
one hundred?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
This was proposed in San Francisco, a one hundred dollars
tax if you own a driveway.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
But why they wanted to.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Tax you if you have a curb cut that's the
little ramp that cuts into the curb that leads to
your driveway.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
They wanted to tax that too.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
But I don't understand what's the purpose of taxing.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
For that because they had a three hundred and twenty
two million dollar deficit in.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
The city of saying that they'd rather you not they'd
rather you park on the street.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Em Francisco Chronicle calls it highly imaginative.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
I call it stupid.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The driveway could have been a reliable source of revenue
because everybody has a driveway.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Okay, isn't that part of your property taxes?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, this would be an extra tax.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
I mean it would give them fifteen million a year.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Okay, come on, get more creative.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
This is dumb, and says Luke Bonnheimer, executive director of
Streets Forward, this is a more equitable way.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So if you don't have a driveway, you can't you
don't have you can't afford a house that has a driveway, right,
so then you.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So you have an unfair privilege. So an equitable way
to use public space. Well, the driveway is not public space.
That's your private property.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
And it also keeps cars off the street, especially in
places like San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Under the current system, San Francisco essentially subsidizes car owners
and building owners by allowing them a free strip of
public right of way. That is the sloped curb that
leads to the driveway you see between the street and
you're the main part of your driveway is the little cutaway,
(33:24):
little ramp. So they want one hundred bucks for that
every year.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
This is really crazy to a homeowner.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
They right, It might seem brazen for a city to
levy a new charge on private property because that's what
it is. You're not charging them for the little cutout.
You're charging them because the cutout leads to the driveway.
I didn't have the driveway, that wouldn't be a cutout exactly.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
And that's what I'm saying. You're already being charged property taxes.
This should fall into that.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Well, they have blown in San Francisco. I hear so
much money on the drug addicts and the vagrants and
the mental patients that they're they're trying to come up
with highly imaginative ways.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
You know, one day there's not gonna be a single
person living in California. Maybe just homeless people. Yeah, because
no one is going to be able to afford it
or be want to live here.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
According to the City Control Controller Greg Wagner, he was
in charge of this group, there were many rounds of brainstorming.
As is often the case, some ideas were more feasible
than others. Wow, they would have had their heads got off,
that's what made it unfeasible.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
But some idiot Los Angeles just heard this. Oh yeah,
they're on the city council and they'll say it. What
don't say anything wrong with that?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Oh no, no, John, They'll put it on the ballot and
voters will.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
We've got all right, We got to talk about Trump
and Musk coming up next, because this is a few
that is shaking America. Here and Debora Mark is live
in the CAFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey, you've been
listening to the on 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.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome,
how are you. It's good that you're here. Good that
you're here, Debra.
Speaker 4 (00:10):
Oh well, thank you. It's good that you're here too.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We're all happy here and we're on the air from
one inn till four every day after four o'clock. You
got the podcast John Cobelt Show on demand, the same
as the radio show, and so anything you missed you
can listen to it after four. We're going to follow
up on yesterday's big story. The Trump administration announced that
they are cutting off further funding for California's high speed
(00:37):
rail disaster. There was about four billion dollars still on
the table and Trump said, no more money. And the
Democrats in Sacramento, as they say, are doubling down and
they're shouting even louder that they're going to continue the project,
even though it's been seventeen years and seventeen billion dollars
(01:00):
and there's not even two feet of track laid down.
There are some stonehenge stonehenge stoneheads like viaducts that have
been built, but there's there's no actual track, there are
no trains, there's no train stations, and obviously it wouldn't
happen for decades even if they had the money, and
they don't have the money at he's not the federal money. Now,
(01:22):
let's say get Kevin Kylie on, because Kevin Kylie's Republican
Congressman from northern California, and he actually got the ball
rolling a couple of weeks before Trump was inaugurated, because
he introduced a bill in the House to start the
defunding process. Kevin, how are.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You doing great? How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm all right?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Uh, this this is obviously not a big surprise. And
there isn't anybody in Washington that can do anything about this, right,
Is there any lawsuits that can turn this around or anything?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know, the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This is a process that is well estyled, where when
you get a federal grant, you're not allowed to just
do whatever you want with the money. You have to
abide by the terms of the grand And so that
was the purpose of this audit, which was really a
compliance review, is to assess is California in compliance with
the terms of the four billion dollars in federal grants
(02:19):
that's received yeah, and you know, one.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Of those that's important to talk about. I don't mean
to dirupt you, but a lot of people are. They're
portraying this as Trump just being vindictive against California and
against high speed rail. But actually there is a contract
and they have violated the terms of the deal over
and over and over again for many years now. So
go into detail on that.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean it's sort of at the
most basic level, they were given a grant to build
a train and they haven't built a train, so they're
out of compliance with the terms of the grant. And
in fact, there are a whole host of ways in
which there are deemed atict compliance that are not adequately reporting.
Their timelines don't make sense, their funding models don't make sense,
and nothing has actually been built. They haven't laid any
(02:59):
track in seventeen years, despite massive federal funding and massive
state funding. And even now, you know, they're saying that
this initial set from Baker's Field to Merced it's going
to miss its twenty thirty three deadline, when the whole
thing LA to San Francisco was supposed to be up
and running five years ago. So it is time to
finally put this nightmare to an end so we can
(03:20):
use these funds on things we actually need.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Why are they clinging to this Baker's Field to Merced concept.
There's it's not going to be used. Nobody's going to
take that. There's no market there, right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
The whole thing has just been a scheme to keep
the project alive. You might remember in twenty nineteen, Newsom
came in its first State of the Union and said, no,
high speed rail is never going to happen. But then
he quickly did in about case. And the way that
they kind of, you know, kept it going was saying,
we're going to build this initial Baker's Field Merced segment
(03:55):
first is sort of a proof of concept, and so
they continue to get more money on the you know,
on the supposition that this was actually going to be built,
and then you complete the rest of it after that.
But the problem is they've proven locally incapable of even
making any progress on that initial segment, which no one,
as you said, would actually ride.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
There's a political story out I don't know if you
saw it, but it suggests that the reason this project
keeps going on is everyone in California government is intimidated
by the labor unions. There's fifteen thousand union workers who
get employed because of this boon goggle, even though they
apparently don't produce anything useful. And so anytime Gavin Newsom
(04:37):
or there's Katie Porter is now running for governor, anytime
they pop off against high speed rail, they got an
ugly phone call from the union and they change their
mind the next day.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Is that what this is about.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Ultimately, this is a fifteen thousand jobs program for the unions,
and nobody actually expects to have a high speed rail
at the end of this.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, this is certainly the talking point that they fall
back on when all of us fails. And this is
what Newsome's attack dog. He pays a guy at a
tax payer money to troll me on Twitter on x
This is what he said, Oh, but it's creating so
many jobs, and I'm all four jobs. I think jobs
that we want to create jobs, but I want to
create jobs that are actually doing something useful.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
They safe jobs.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right, You could easily create jobs by having some people
dig a hole and then the other people fill the
dirt back in, which is essentially what they are doing.
But why not actually create the jobs, having them build
things like new roads or even new regional transit systems
to improve regional transit systems that people would actually ride.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
So it is the unions, you're going to have their
sway forever. I mean, they're claiming there's in this California budget,
and I know you have no say over that, but
they're going to appropriate a billion a year for the
next twenty years, and I guess we're all just going
to have to eat that, huh, so that the union
the workers get.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Paid, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I mean, with the with the loss of the federal funding,
and at my bill houses that I'll make that a
permanent state of affairs, then the funding models for this
become even more just outrageously delusional. And so I think
that if anything is going to force the state to
reassess its completely irrational support for this project, despite the
(06:17):
massive deficit and everything else, that loss of federal funding
maybe it, Which is why I introduced that bill, because
I think this is the way that we can bring
high speed rail to an end. And in fact, I
think that this audit that just came out is the
beginning of the end for the project. And again we
can have jobs if we just invest in the transportation
infrastructure that Californians actually need in fact to have a
(06:38):
lot more jobs, because when you create, you know, things
that are actually used that are then additional there's additional
economic activity associated with that that then we'll create more jobs.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Your bill specifically says what it just plan out cuts
off high speed rail money forever.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Correct. It says that this project is ineligible for future
federal funding because what they're going to say now is, oh,
we just need to wait out of the Trump administration.
Then the spickett will turn back on and we'll get
billions more from whoever the next president. Is what my
bill is saying is now, from this point forward, the
project is simply ineligible to receive any federal grant.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Can you I mean, you've been watching the whole ride here.
Can you believe it's been seventeen years and nothing. It's
astonishing because we've done shows, you know, every day, we've
been covering this thing for seventeen years, and even before
that when there was a campaign to get this on
the ballot and vote on it.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And it's just astonishing.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Even I didn't think in twenty twenty five you wouldn't
have two feet of railroad track anywhere, and say this
is just astonishing.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It is. Every day it gets even more farcical. And
the fact that they continue to throw good money after that,
literally just lighting money on fire, billions and billions and
billions of dollars. The New York Times itself said that
this there's going to be one hundred billion dollars over
budget and we'll even be finished this century. So I
(08:06):
think you're right. It's worse than we ever could have imagined.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
All right, Kevin, Well keep fighting. I can't wait for
that bills. All right, Kevin Kylie And he's the Republican
congressman in northern California, spent a number of years in
the legislature.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
We will tell you more about this.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I got to read you the quotes from some of
the Democratic politicians, I mean they I don't does the
Union have picked naked pictures of all these people? I
mean naked pictures of Gavin Newsom might do him much damage.
Katie Porter is another thing.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
John Cobelt Show. I Am six forty more stimulating talk radio. Hey,
moistline is eight seven seven moist eighty six eight seven
seven moist eighty six.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We just talked with Kevin Kylie.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
He is republic Getting congressman in northern California, and he
started on January sixth getting the ball rolling to cut
the funding off for high speed rail. He's got a
bill that would permanently cut the funding off so it
can't be refunded in case there's a Democratic administration replacing
Trump in four years, then they would have to go
(09:19):
through Congress all over again to get authorization. So now,
debor you you spent a few years working up in
radio in San Francisco, right, I did. So you must
have made a lot of travel back and forth between
LA and San Francisco because you know your family was
down here.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Of trips every holiday.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, and you either drove or took a plane. Right.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Did you ever once think to yourself, Gee, I wish
there was a train that went between these two cities.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
No, at the time, I never thought that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So it wasn't a desire you had, it wasn't.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
I mean, look, if I could get from here to
the Bay Area in an hour, not lying, but a train,
but that's impossible, right then I would have thought about it,
But I mean the trip is an hour on the plane,
and if you don't do that, then it's what five
hours by car?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
They sold it to us as two and a half
hours on the train, and now they're not going to
do that. Yeah, it's not even going to be high speed.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Right, so it's not I would just why wouldn't we
just drive it?
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Just It never occurred to me because I had had
two sons go to school up in the Bay Area,
and you had one of your Your son went up
there too, right, Yeah, and so we took plenty of trips.
I mean, my son was on a baseball team up there,
so last year we were going up there most every
weekend that they were home. And it never occurred to me, Oh,
this would be so much better if I was on
(10:41):
a train, you know. I mean, the airport's a painting
in the ass, But you're right, the flight, the actual
in air portion of the flight is an.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Hour twenty five minutes or something like that.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
It's really fast.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
So I didn't understand the market, like, like, take all
the politics out of it and the wasted money.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's like, why where is demand for this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Well, if truly, if you could get okay, so I
said an hour, but let's just say two and a
half hours, which, like you said, that was sold to us.
If you don't want to deal with the airport and
you don't want to drive, and you want to be
able to do work and look at your phone and
all that, and going on a train, if it made sense.
I mean again, I never thought about that. But if
that were really the case, then yes, if it really
(11:25):
was going to happen like that, I could see that
being beneficial.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, but you know, even then you get I guess
it was going to go to downtown San Francisco, because
I got a story today about how they actually built
in one of the transportation centers in San Francisco. They
have a basement the bottom promenade down there. It was
meant for the high speed rail train and they had
(11:49):
electrified some rail and so they thought this was going
to be a huge.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Boost, and I would fly into Oakland for the most part.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, see that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You could take the train up there, But then now
you got to go find a taxi or Zackbert.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
So then it just doesn't make sense, right.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I tried taking a train years ago when my wife
and I lived in New York City and I worked
for a radio station about sixty miles away, and I
used to drive up and down the Jersey Turnpike twice
a day, sixty sixty five miles each way. And it's
more of a it's more of a train culture back
(12:27):
east within the cities, you know, because they have a
pretty well developed in New York and in Boston, Washington
a well developed train system, and then they had trains
went from New York through Jersey. So I tried it,
and it didn't work because I'd have to walk from
my apartment into New York to a subway, take the
subway to the main train station, then take the train
(12:47):
from New York City all the way to Trenton. Actually
I had to leave my car in Trenton because when
I got off the train, I had to get in
the car and drive to the radio station, and then
drive the car back.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
To the parking ride, get on the.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Train, take it to New York, switch to a subway,
get out of the subway, and walk. So there was
there was like four components to the trip, and it
took even longer exactly. So it was walk, subway train drive,
drive train subway walk, And I tried that for like
three days, and I said, this is a huge pain
in the ass. What are people talking about? And that's
(13:28):
what this thing in San Francisco would be. You that
same thing here in La If it brings you into
Union Station, Well, then what if I live on the
west side. What am I going to get on a
metro train and get stabbed?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Well, yeah, we're definitely not going to do well, I'm
going to take a bus.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I'm just fumnox as to why they thought that was
an answer, But you know, I should know better, And
still my mind works in the old way. It never
was about providing us with transportation, really, believe.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Me and understand.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
It was about financing construction unions for the next Well,
it'll be thirty five years now, because we've done seventeen years.
And now they have a bill to keep throwing a
billion dollars of state tax money, your tax money into
high speed rail a billion a year for twenty years.
(14:23):
So twenty years from now, the unions would have gotten
thirty seven years worth of funding, tens of billions of dollars,
and then every time. Every time somebody says, why don't
we stop this, some union goon gets on TV and go, well,
you're gonna cost fifteen dozen jobs, and people don't. Oh
that's not good. Fifteen thousand people will be out of work.
(14:45):
It's like, no, they should be rebuilding the roads and
the bridges. For God's sakes. How about build reservoirs. There's
a lot of things that need building.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
My god.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
We went to Dodger Stadium last night and we drove
through downtown in the one ten free way to the ten.
My god, is that a dilapidated freeway? And I realized
it was built in the nineteen forties. It is eighty
years old, eight more than eighty years old. And it's
like this thing has not been touched.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In eighty years.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And you can't put some good union men on that.
And I don't know what they're building out in the
Central Valley anyway, except the Stonehenge sculptures.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
All right.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
But here's the Democrats, and I guess they're all bent
over by the union. The Senate Budget Committee chair, oh
my god, this weasels in charge of the Budget Committee,
Scott Weener, and I'm sure they have him bent over.
We've seen this coming and we're gonna do everything we
can to prevent it. Regardless of what happens here, we're
committed to making this project a reality. And you know
(15:52):
how they're spinning it to the to their followers, to
progressive voters.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It's like Trump is against it.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
That means we're for it right right, So this is
a way to stick it to Trump, to keep using
California tax money to show Trump that he's not going
to win on this issue. And they figure they're cult members,
they're religious followers, are say yeah, yeah, yeah, f Satan. Yeah,
(16:23):
here's Newsome. I want to get it done. That's our commitment.
That's why it's still reflected in this budget for the
next twenty years. And it's gas tax money. They call
it cap and trade money, but this is the tax
on the oil companies which is passed, which has passed
through to the gas pump. So I call it all
(16:46):
a gas tax because that's what it is, because you
pay for all this stuff. They have about five different
gas taxes with different names so that you get confused
and it seems complicated. They're taking gas tax money and
they're using a billion of that every year for the
next twenty years for high speed rail by the way
as part of the referendum. As part of the law,
(17:07):
they weren't supposed to use any any tax money. A
Newsom spokes whole named Daniel via Signor. He when anybody
asks him about the funding being cut off, he says,
go to the budget press conference that Newsom did. That's
(17:29):
where Newsom said, We're gonna get it done. That's our commitment.
Then then Katie Porter, who's running for governor, missus potato head.
You remember she ran for She ran for Senate right
against Adam shiff and she face planted. She's the one
(17:51):
who dumped hot mashed potatoes on her husband's head.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That was before the divorce.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Katie Porter said briefly that she criticized high speed rail
and then she got the bad phone call and went
to a union event and said she wants to put
people to work and I want to get it done
for Californians. But she went on TV and criticized the project.
(18:19):
At first, they all get the bad phone call from
the unions, and the bad phone call is we are
going to spend millions of dollars on your opponents and
we're going.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
To drive you out of politics.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
And that's what Newsom is afraid of, and that is
what Katie Porter is afraid of. And you have these
government agencies that get funded because of high speed rail.
You have these labor unions, and these guys don't do anything.
It's fifteen thousand people shoveling dirt around up in the
(18:52):
Central Valley, spending your money seventeen billions so far, and
they have constructed nothing and they will never construct anything.
If they actually constructed it and it was done by
twenty twenty, then they would have been out of work.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
For the last five years.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So the purpose, and that's why they don't keep track
of the money when they do the audits. There is
no receipts, there's no paper trail where the money went.
It's because the unions, because because Newsom is so corrupt,
Katie Porter is so corrupt, Scott Wiener so corrupt, they.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Just bend over and they take it from the unions.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Because they're so terrified, the little babies, the little cowards.
And nobody wants to fight for us, Nobody wants to
fight for you at all. Nobody wants to say enough
of this nonsense. We're coming up.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
We're on every day one until four o'clock and then
after four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Now you miss something, What you miss something?
Speaker 3 (19:54):
John cobell Show on demand the podcast and that's where
you catch up to it. We've been Kevin Kylie on
in the last half hour, the Northern California Congressman, talking
about the high speed rail getting defunded by the Trump administration.
And that story will pop up at about a month
or so because high speed Rail has thirty seven days
(20:16):
to respond, but it's a done deal from Trump's end,
no more money. And then Kylie is trying to get
a bill passed and that will permanently end federal funding
in the future that the next administration couldn't do it
with that congressional approval. And amidst all this, you know,
(20:36):
in San Francisco there's a lot of die hard progressives
who are maybe tearing up a bit over the death
of high speed rail. And there's one writer here I
don't have his name, but in the San Francisco Chronicle
they wrote a headline was high speed Rail was supposed
(20:57):
to signal San Francisco's renaissance. And if you've been to
San Francisco within the last couple of years, whoa, it's
an outdoor drug bizarre mental patient asylum. The headline, well,
(21:18):
the story says what Gavin Newsom served as mayor of
San Francisco. Get this, He imagined the city not only
as a Paris of the West, but as the terminus
of an epic rail line that would stretch from Anaheim
to South of Market. Here's what Newsom said at a
(21:39):
twenty ten ceremony breaking ground for what's now known as
the Salesforce Transit Center. And this is where trains were
supposed to glide into a busy concourse down below at
the basement level.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's supposed to be high speed rail.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
And he said, we're going to be building something that
is our arguably a generation overdue. This was in twenty ten.
Fifteen years later, nothing's been built. Right now, the center
is a large bus station. It's basement still an empty
(22:19):
concrete vault, and now they don't know if that vault's
ever going to be filled. So they built this train
station below ground, figuring that they were gonna have high
speed rail coming through every two hours and the chronicle
(22:40):
rights why it may seem like a maddening image. While
it may seem like a maddening mirage see maddening. Oh
we're not getting high speed rail. High speed rail was
considered an element of San Francisco's downtown renaissance. It was
gonna be the lynchpin for a new high rise neighborhood
that bloomed around the transit center. It's sidewalks lined with
(23:01):
cylindrical buildings. More importantly, the train system would help shape
a transportation network aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A Yes,
the Holy Grail. A well operated rail anchored by two
urban metros, La and San Francisco would allow people to
(23:23):
move through California without relying on airplanes and cars.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Airplanes, bad, cars bad.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Now Here is the plan, Because you have to the
supporters of high speed rail.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
They fall into different categories.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
There are the greed bags who are looting the system
right the trade unions. They're looting our tax money, along
with the engineers, the environmental experts, the land use attorneys,
I mean the whole list of professional parasites who then
launcher the money back to the politicians with campaign contributions.
(24:01):
There are politicians who are just afraid of offending anybody, right.
They don't care one way or the other about high
speed rail. They can tell it smells bad, but they
don't want the labor unions giving them a bad phone call.
And then there are the true believers.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
These are the whack jobs who wake up terrified every morning.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
The earth is boiling over and it would be in
a communist paradise. It would be better if we were
all stuffed into trains and buses together and we didn't
have the freedom to travel, and the air would be
clean and the oceans would be cooler. Here's one of
these guys, Tom Radulovich. He's the senior policy manager at
(24:44):
the nonprofit nonprofit what does that mean? Probably getting taxpayer grants.
It's the think tank called Liveable City. And Radulovich says,
let's call it a multi modal California.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
They always have some weird modernistic sounding phrase that doesn't
seem to make any sense. He sees the state as
a massive transit ecosystem. Small communities. You're in a small town,
small communities that embrace walking and biking. There you go,
that's the plan.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
If you live in a small town, you're supposed to
walk and bike. You can't drive your car. No, no, no, no,
no visiting the bigger cities. But we'll have rail lines,
and the rail lines will connect the small towns to
the bigger cities. And then in the big city like
(25:44):
La or San Francisco, you would have longer haul transit
passenger trains. You see how it works. And then nobody
drives ever, nobody has any freedom. Nobody can enjoy themselves
bike and walk. That's free. All you riff raft peasants
in the small towns. Yes, use your legs. Stop polluting
(26:10):
the air, stop warming the planet. And so high speed
rails are very important in that they spent two point
two billion dollars on the Salesforce Transit Center. It opened
in twenty eighteen. It was going to be the end
point for high speed rail, whisking business travelers from southern California.
(26:33):
The transit hub was captivating merchants leased the retail space
to sell coffee and food. City planners promised that once
the train tracks came to downtown cowtrain commuters who are
dropped off in Mission Bay could step right onto Mission Street,
but instead of fulfilling Newsom's vision, the transit center became
(26:55):
a very expensive bus station. Fifteen years later, it's a
bus station and it's a bust.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
They blew a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Now I go to smaller cities back east, their bus
stations are actually outdoors. The buses stop, they pull over
into a cutout, and the passengers step onto the sidewalk
and wander down to a parking lot, or they go
lay in the street and become homeless people. Radulovich, though, hey,
(27:30):
as long as he gets his nonprofit grants, says, well,
as long as the political will exists in California, we'll
get there. The only reason there's political will is because
they get bribed by the construction unions, and they get
bribed by rich, the wealthy interests, the lobbyists, the lobbyists
(27:56):
in engineering and in land use, you know, all the
attorneys that are in those scam industries. That's the political will.
If Newsom wasn't afraid of the trade unions, he would
have pulled the plug on high speed rail. He said
so a few years ago until he got the bad
phone call. And these believers, and they're called believers in
(28:20):
the story in urban transit still embrace the dream of
a fully connected state. No need to widen freeways. Yeah right,
this is their dream. Hey lady, walk yeah, walk from
with the nils.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Check out my commute every day, which really isn't much
better John by the way, Uh oh, holy maybe five
minutes getting to work.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
No, No need to build additional runways at airports. Yeah,
why would you want that? Just have thirty planes all
bunched up in the sky overhead. This is what And
they're in control of the government, These dreamers, these true
believers again, like a religion, even though it makes no sense.
What would makes sense is to have an airport with
(29:07):
more runways. It would make sense to have freeways with
more lanes, double deck them. Look, we have an Orange County.
They spent local tax money on freeways. They got eight
lanes across in Orange County on the on the five.
It's terrific. It's fast. Shootings across in Orange County. The
traffic blows wide open. You only got three lanes in downtown.
(29:32):
Listen to this. Another one of these guys, Sebastian Petty,
a senior transportation policy advisor at another nonprofits. You see
you see the pattern here One of the original justifications
for high speed rail that I thought were most compelling
was looking at the trade offs if you had if
you had to expand airport capacity or invest in Highway
(29:52):
ninety nine. In other words, what he's saying is the
reason you want rail lines is you don't have to
expand the airport. You don't have to widen Highway ninety nine.
So you end up with a narrow highway, you end
up with congested airports, but you're saving money.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Not really, No, you still don't have you don't have
a rail line.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So we have a cult. We're in the grips of
a cult that's governing the state.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
The moistline is eighty seven seven Moist eighty six eight
seven seven Moist eighty six, or the talkback feature.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
On the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I'm sorry to do another San Francisco story, but this
is all related and you're not going to believe this.
And I also say this because the California Legislator legislature
is a disproportionately run by San Francisco progressives. Okay, they
have all the leadership posts. They're in charge. So the
(30:56):
stuff that comes out of the San Francisco politically anus
ends up affecting us here all over California. In San
Francisco they have a three hundred and twenty two million
dollar deficit. You know what they considered to close the deficit.
And I know somebody in LA is going to pick
(31:17):
up this stupid idea taxing you if you have a driveway,
taxing you one hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
If you have a driveway. Do you hear that? What
one hundred?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
This was proposed in San Francisco, a one hundred dollars
tax if you own a driveway.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
But why they wanted to.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Tax you if you have a curb cut that's the
little ramp that cuts into the curb that leads to
your driveway.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
They wanted to tax that too.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
But I don't understand what's the purpose of taxing.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
For that because they had a three hundred and twenty
two million dollar deficit in.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
The city of saying that they'd rather you not they'd
rather you park on the street.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Em Francisco Chronicle calls it highly imaginative.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
I call it stupid.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
The driveway could have been a reliable source of revenue
because everybody has a driveway.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Okay, isn't that part of your property taxes?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, this would be an extra tax.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
I mean it would give them fifteen million a year.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
Okay, come on, get more creative.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
This is dumb, and says Luke Bonnheimer, executive director of
Streets Forward, this is a more equitable way.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So if you don't have a driveway, you can't you
don't have you can't afford a house that has a driveway, right,
so then you.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
So you have an unfair privilege. So an equitable way
to use public space. Well, the driveway is not public space.
That's your private property.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
And it also keeps cars off the street, especially in
places like San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Under the current system, San Francisco essentially subsidizes car owners
and building owners by allowing them a free strip of
public right of way. That is the sloped curb that
leads to the driveway you see between the street and
you're the main part of your driveway is the little cutaway,
(33:24):
little ramp. So they want one hundred bucks for that
every year.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
This is really crazy to a homeowner.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
They right, It might seem brazen for a city to
levy a new charge on private property because that's what
it is. You're not charging them for the little cutout.
You're charging them because the cutout leads to the driveway.
I didn't have the driveway, that wouldn't be a cutout exactly.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
And that's what I'm saying. You're already being charged property taxes.
This should fall into that.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Well, they have blown in San Francisco. I hear so
much money on the drug addicts and the vagrants and
the mental patients that they're they're trying to come up
with highly imaginative ways.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
You know, one day there's not gonna be a single
person living in California. Maybe just homeless people. Yeah, because
no one is going to be able to afford it
or be want to live here.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
According to the City Control Controller Greg Wagner, he was
in charge of this group, there were many rounds of brainstorming.
As is often the case, some ideas were more feasible
than others. Wow, they would have had their heads got off,
that's what made it unfeasible.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
But some idiot Los Angeles just heard this. Oh yeah,
they're on the city council and they'll say it. What
don't say anything wrong with that?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Oh no, no, John, They'll put it on the ballot and
voters will.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
We've got all right, We got to talk about Trump
and Musk coming up next, because this is a few
that is shaking America. Here and Debora Mark is live
in the CAFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey, you've been
listening to the on 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.
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