May 29, 2025 • 31 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (05/29) - John kicks off the hour with Richie Greenberg to expose San Francisco’s now-scrapped DEI grading policy that would’ve guaranteed every student a C or better—while disproportionately penalizing Asian students. Then, John shreds Mayor Bass’s bogus homelessness claims and LAHSA’s bloated staffing. Later, he covers Santa Monica’s war on Waymo: residents are using traffic cones and noise complaints to push back against driverless cars—while ignoring the exploding homeless crisis on their sidewalks. John wraps with news that Newark Airport will install fiber optics after radar failures.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome, Where have
you been? You miss so much? We're on every day
from one until four o'clock. You should be getting here
at one. Don't give me this work stuff one to four,
and then after four o'clock if you missed it John
Cobelt's show on demand, it's the podcast. We had a
(00:23):
couple of really outstanding things today. Already we had Jamie
Page from the West Side Current on who told us
about how La City and County poured over a billion
three hundred million into buying old hotels and motels and
apartment complexes and it was supposed to be for homeless
(00:44):
people and most of the units are still vacant and
the money's been blown. They way overpaid in a lot
of cases for the property and they never filled them
with homeless. So you want to hear Jamie in the
first hour and then last hour. The return of Michael mcchee,
the USC professor. His studies that we've talked about about
(01:05):
the price of gas being the fault of the California
government has gained a lot of traction and his prediction
that gas might hit eight p fifty by the end
of next year, had several Democrats scared and pushing back
on the California Air Resources Board chairwoman. And so that
was in the two o'clock hour. You ought to hear
that with Michael mcche and the video TV report that
(01:29):
we played from Ashley's of OLLA. Now we continue with, Uh,
we're gonna talk about Ritchie Greenberg. We discussed this briefly
yesterday because the story just broke yesterday afternoon and I couldn't.
I'm really I look at things sometimes it's like, is
this a prank, is this from a one of the
(01:51):
you know, the the Onion site, like a parody news story,
or is it some AI joke. I can't trust anything anymore,
and I don't, but this turned out to be real.
The San Francisco School District, for about twenty four hours,
had a policy that students would be graded on a
(02:11):
new scale, and if you scored a twenty one out
of one hundred, you'd pass. You'd get a D, a
forty one you get a C, and anything between eighty
and one hundred would all be great at the same
as an A. So you got one hundred. It's an
A eighty is an a boy? Oh boy? This really
would destroy the motivation of most kids, and there was
(02:33):
so much blowback that they reversed the decision. Richie Greenberg,
he's a writer and a commentator and is very politically
connected and active in San Francisco, and we use him
kind of as an anthropologist to explain that strange tribe.
It's pretty screwed up here. But some of the stuff
out of San Francisco. Well, you know, Richie, how are you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm doing great, Thanks for having me on this tomorrow today.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, explain this a twenty one out of one hundred
and you pass in the San Francisco school district.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, well, you know, we have come to learn that
parents get infuriated. Don't mess with our children, right, and
that's exactly what's happening here. And you know, we've got
to applaud some of the investigative journalists and others that
leaked out this information Tuesday late afternoon that this whole
(03:29):
plan on equity grading even was under consideration, because if
it wasn't for that, this might have just been implemented
with barely a whimper. And suddenly there's this. You know,
we always go back to the DEI, right, the diversity
and equity exclusia, So this is another one of those,
(03:50):
one of the letters, right, there's the equity involved with this.
And yeah, there's a bit of disinformation though, and I
think we have to acknowledge that because some people got
really enraged when this program was exposed. But yeah, it
looks like what they were trying to do ultimately is
(04:10):
to ensure and I'm looking at some of the quotes here,
to ensure that every student would receive a SEA or
better each marking period. So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And how does I don't know if you know how
they think if you decode, if if nobody after they fail,
if no child is told, hey you've sailed at this,
we got to do it again. We've got to go
for you know, extra classes. If you don't know you failed,
how are you ever going to accomplish anything in life?
If they won't even tell you any more that you failed?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Exactly And again, this is like a participation trophy, right,
you're as lung as you're enrolled in the class, you're
going to succeed. You're going to get your medal or
a certificate on the wall that will be potent actually
good for your future. But we know that that's not
the case, because then it is not setting up these children,
(05:07):
these students for success when they go on to higher education.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Do you know anybody in real life who actually believes
in this crap?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, how about the author follow this whole thing that
Joe Feldman, the one who came up with this. He's
this founder and CEO of the Crescendo Education group based
in Oakland. He's the one that came up with a plan.
He's the one that wrote books on this, and he's
(05:42):
the one that apparently fully believes, firmly believes that what
he is proposing to make vast changes in the and
the grading system of public schools, that he's doing something good.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, if you skate by by getting a twenty one
and every single assignment for twelve years, right, you get
a twenty one every time you get a diploma? What
does that prepare you for? What college are you going
to be able to compete in?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Exactly, But you know, beyond that, what's going to happen
with the admissions departments of these different collegers that know
that these school districts might have some problem with their
grading system and may not even want to accept these
students because of the dubious nature.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I don't know much about the San Francisco school district.
Is it mostly minority students that go there? I mean,
I can't imagine with all the rich people in San Francisco,
all the tech people, that they would put up with
this kind of stuff, because the tech industry is all
about merit, regardless of their politics. It's all about merit
(06:59):
when you're you know, on the field.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yes, correct. The thing though, is that those who have
financial means have their children in private school and there's
a lot, a pretty high percentage of kids are in
private and private schools, and others that are coming, like
new couples that are expecting a child within the first
(07:24):
couple of years, they raise them here in the city.
But we have a very high what's a good word
at attrition rate. The couples leave because they know the
quality of education is just not up just enough, it's
not what they want, so they leave.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Who's left to be taught in the schools?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Then, well, you do have there's a lot of Asians.
It's a pretty high percentage. And this is what has
caused over these years, that that fight, that resentment, that
argument saying that the white and.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Asian school children population right, you see, so they're the
ones that have the privilege, and so we have to
do something to bring down rather than although the rising
tide brings up all boat rises all.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Boats or whatever however that goes. And so that's you're
seeing that in play here as well.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Equity is about equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. Equality is
about equal opportunity. Equity is equal outcomes no matter what.
So you have to drag down the kids who were smart,
the kids who were driven and work hard, the kids
whose parents put in a lot of resources. You got
to drag them down with the kids who maybe the
(08:34):
parents don't care at all, and maybe they weren't born
with those particular gifts or they just don't care.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, yep. And you know, we had another situation here
a few years ago with one of the premier public schools,
but it was by you had to test well to
get into this school. It's called low O High, and
they made this controversial change and say we're taking away
merit and instead we're just going to open up to
(09:01):
a lottery system and that outraged all of these parents
who had their kids already in the school, and it
wound up. Part of this is the whole reason why
there was a recall against three of the school board
commissioners back in twenty twenty two. And so we're fighting,
we are seeing this, we are fighting. Many of us
(09:24):
are so thankful that this particular issue with the equity
grading program got exposed so quick and it went national
and we saw all over all over the country picked
up on that almost immediately, and the blowback against the
superintendent who went ahead. And Maria Sue is her name.
(09:44):
She is under fire. Now we're agreeing to bring in
this program.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Means there a way to fire her. How do you
remove the superinten?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, there is, Yeah, the superintendent is not an elected position,
so we have seven elected school board commissioners. They can
vote to toss her out.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
She ought to be tossed for us. This is unforgivable,
absolutely too. Yeah right, oh, I bet all right. Hey listen, Richie,
thank you for coming on with us again.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Hey, my pleasure anytime.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Richie Greenberg, writer and commentator up in San Francisco about Yeah,
Maria Sues her name. Superintendent said, Hey, if you score
at twenty one, you pass in San Francisco's schools. And
you know a lot of the Asian parents did revolt
several years ago and removed three of the school board members.
And I'm surprised anybody would want to take that contingent
(10:38):
on again. But I guess that's just shows you how
stupid Maria Sue must be. I mean, what did you
think was going to happen? All country thinks this is ridiculous.
When we come back, Mayor Bass is such a failure
when it comes to homelessness that it looks like some
of the city council wants to end her emergency power.
(11:01):
Tell you about it. When we come back.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Man moistline It's last call here eight seven seven Moist
eighty six eight seven seven Moist eighty six, or you
go to the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. Mayor
Bass is such a failure when it comes to homelessness,
and I think everyone is starting It's interesting now Democrats
(11:31):
are having an awakening a little bit throughout the state.
Like Gavin Newsom realized having men compete in girls sports
is deeply unfair, right that ruckus this week. And then
you have several Democrats on the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee.
They started pushing back with the California Air Resources Board
(11:55):
chair saying, hey, hey, wait a second. You know we're
looking at you know what, ten dollars a gallon gas here?
What are we doing? What's going on? People can't afford this?
And then here in Los Angeles, you know, we've been
under a homeless emergency for two and a half years.
It was the first thing that Karen Bass did. She
(12:16):
invoked a city emergency on homelessness, and that gave her
all the power. She could give out no bid contracts
to all those predatory, parasitic nonprofit groups and they were
supposed to rent hotels and motels for interim housing. It
(12:36):
was also going to allow them to buy these organizations
to buy apartment buildings. She was going to waive regulations.
And after two and a half years, well, we told
you earlier in the show, a billion, three hundred million
have been spent by the city in county on hotels
(12:56):
and motels and apartment buildings, and there's very little to
show for it. In the city forty four percent of
what they purchased is still vacant. The county seventy one
percent of the rooms vacant. They way overpaid for a
lot of properties, and a lot of the properties that
(13:17):
needed to be renovated and upgraded are still sitting and
rotting behind chain link fences. So it's a big failure.
And maybe the city council everybody saw this report that
the West Side Current did, because now you've got some
some city council people saying, well, maybe maybe we should
(13:38):
end this emergency here because nothing's getting better. In fact,
there's one activist, Sam Yebry, who says that pass is
going around claiming that there's ten percent fewer homeless on
the streets, and he says, well, that ten percent accounts
(14:02):
for the twenty five hundred vagrants who died in the streets.
If there are fewer homeless, it's only because twenty five
hundred of them died last year. That's why. Then and
then here's this Tim McCosker. He replaced, He was the
(14:28):
councilman from San Pedro. He replaced Joe Bisquano. Tim mccoskar
says he wants to return city government to its normal
process the way it's spelled out in the city Charger
Charter and Bass his power toward no bid contracts. Well,
(14:49):
that should be cut off here. Let's go back to
why these processes exist. Mccscar said, they exist so the
public can be made aware of what we're doing with
public dollars. Hey, why didn't this guy say this two
years ago he watched billions of dollars disappear. We now
have a federal court investigation, we have a federal criminal investigation.
(15:14):
You realize what's going on here. You got the Judge
David Carter doing a federal investigation from the bench with
an audit, threatening to put everything into receivership the county
and the city management of the homelessness. Then you have
Bill A. Saley, the US attorney who's has launched a
(15:35):
federal investigation because if federal money's involved in all this
money laundering and all this theft, then people are going
to go to federal prison. And now Tim McCosker woke
up from his two and a half year nap and said, well,
maybe we ought to take the power back from Karen Bass. Really,
the city needs to address the remainder of this crisis
(15:58):
because you now have all these hotels we paid for,
these motels, these apartment buildings with vacant apartments and vacant
rooms everywhere, and the hotels and motels, the ones that
were dilapidated are still in ruins and nothing was done
to fix them. Now today, Karen Bass was supposed to
(16:22):
testify at Judge Carter's hearing, and we will address this tomorrow.
We don't know what's been going on the inside yet.
All right, we got more coming up.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI Am
six four.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Just not enough of you, I know, I know, five
and a half hours every single day.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Now we're getting highlights of debor from yesterday.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Yes, well no it was from today.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well it was today. Okay, it's all the stuff you
just did old news. But if you didn't hear her
the first time.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Here, we want you to know what you might have missed,
because we're on top of everything here at KFI that
in eight.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Minutes, she's just she's going to tell you again, So
get it through your head listen, or she won't stop.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
No, I'm like the energizer bunny. Just keep going and
going and.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Going KFIM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock
John Cobelt Show on demand the podcast, and if you
miss the show or most of it so far, then
well that's the makeup exam you get after four o'clock and.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
You'll get an A.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And you'll get an A. Right even if you listen
to just twenty one percent of.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
The show, we're going to say it was one hundred percent, you.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Are graded as an A listener. Did a lot on
the homeless disaster here in Los Angeles in the last segment,
and some of the highlights are One political activist has
calculated Karen Bass claims that there are ten percent fewer
homeless in the streets. Well, if that's true, be it's
(17:53):
because ten percent of the street homeless died last year. So,
I mean, she might be right, but it's not because
she helped them, it's because they died. Well, we also
find out that the county and city has blown a
billion three hundred million on motels and hotels and apartment
buildings and much of those many of those buildings are
(18:17):
empty still. Now, you would think since the County pulled
out a LASA. The Housing Services Authority basically defunded LASA.
The city may do it soon. The federal judge is
investigating what's going on there. The head of it has resigned,
(18:39):
and there's a huge budget problem that the city and
the county have, especially the city. LASA, LA Homeless Services
Authority has over seven hundred employees. With all this turmoil, right,
all this failure, all the money it's been spent, all
(19:01):
the layoffs that are going on, how many how many
loss of workers are actually getting laid off losing their jobs?
You get to guess there's no eric toa You're close,
You're amazing. Eleven eleven out of more than seven hundred.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I'm surprised.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I have surprises that. I yeah, the last week everybody
got an email asking everyone to consider voluntary separation, voluntary
separation to minimize involuntary layoffs. And then after all that,
they only got rid of eleven people. That's pretty good.
(19:43):
You know, when ninety nine percent of your staff survives
a big layoff, when you are one hundred percent of failure,
and LASA is a one hundred percent failure, that's that's
something else. Now in Santa Monica. In Santa Monica's gotten
really really disgusting. It's really out of control. There are
so many mental patients, vagrants, drug addicts running around, criminals.
(20:10):
They're terrorizing everybody. Stores are empty and boarded up all
over the place. Most people are afraid to walk the
streets because somebody might club you over the head. Do
you know what the Santa Monica residents are upset with?
Though Weimo vehicles getting recharged. Residents have been so angry
(20:40):
that the Weimo robotaxis they are bending together. There's fifty
six vehicles in the Santa Monica fleet and they all
show up and you know, in a parking lot, and
they pull up and they get recharged. But when they
(21:01):
back up out of their recharging slot, they beep, you
know the way delivery trucks are trash trucks beep, you know, beep, beep, beep. Well,
it goes on all day. If you live in the neighborhood,
it drives them crazy. And I read this, It's like
I understand the beep, beep, beep all day. But the
homeless people screaming, vobbiting all over the place, taking their
(21:23):
fecal dumps, assaulting, assaulting you. That doesn't that doesn't upset
you enough to organize. But the beep beep beep of
the Weimo taxis well, that's it. I can't live here anymore.
Residents are blocking the way moos from entering the parking
(21:44):
lot themselves. They use cones cars and sometimes they stand there.
So now Waimo has called the cops on the residents,
says Darius Boom Darius Bourne, I want the noise stopped.
I thought it was cool, and then those freaking noises started,
and then I thought, oh no, this can't be happening again.
(22:06):
Does he get aggravated with all the mental patient drug
addicts screaming in the streets, It's gotten so bad that
the Weimo company has called the cops on the residents
a half dozen times. City officials are surprised. They had
no idea Waymos set up charging stations in their backyard.
(22:30):
Oh the bozos who run the city, the mayor and
the city council. Yeah, they have no idea what's going on.
They don't know there's a waymo charging station. They don't
know there's crazy people roaming the streets and criminals terrorizing anything.
They barely opened their eyes and they all got Joe
Biden disease. One guy named Christopher Potts lives near one
(22:53):
of the lots. Uh, this is not what we signed
up for. They opened up two charging stations. Santa Monica
is a base of operations. And at first everybody thought
it was cool because you have that little rotating device
on the roof and wow, look at it going round
and round. They must all be stoned in Santa Monica.
(23:16):
They all thought it was cool, but the beep, beep
beep is driving them out of their minds. And the
company apologized, said they would do something about it, but
they'd never done anything about it. The city staff checked
sound levels and they said, well, it's within city noise limits.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
You know, I still have not seen an autonomous car
in la Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
They're every day I see them.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I have not seen a single.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
One, sometimes multiple times. You saw that story of the
way most stopping just short of running over a little dogs.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I know I did that story today. I thought that
was amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Of course, if it if it was just a couple
of more inches, but it wasn't, people would have been
torching Waimo headquarters. Yes, so now people are fighting back
with orange cones. Yeah, waymos can't handle orange cones. They
if they drive up to an orange cone. Or there's
one guy I think up in San Francisco who would
put the cones on their hood and it would paralyze
(24:18):
the car. It's like kryptonite. An orange cone. One resident
was so effective that parking lot workers called the police
on him six times and the company saw a temporary
restraining order. Wow, that's what That's what animates the idiots
(24:40):
and Santa Monica because it is the people's fault. They
vote for all these jerk politicians who implement these vagrant
loving policies, all the dysfunction, all the aberrant, deviant behavior
that's apparently got full approval of the people. But hey, no,
weimo beeping. You know that everybody's got their limits.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
What did I do here? I had a story and
it oh hey, I just well, in all the news
about Newark Airport over the last few weeks, they were
down to one air traffic controller when they were supposed
to have fourteen. You had the audio connection to the
(25:27):
pilots going out, you had the screen, the radar screen's
going out, and so the one guy who was sitting
there had no radar screen to look at. He had
no radio connection to listen to or speak speak on.
So finally, the federal government and this is now, you know,
Trump's baby. The Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, a new
(25:51):
fiber optic cable is going to be installed to fix
all the chaos at Newark Airport. Because Newark Airport is,
for I'm ungodly reason, run by air traffic control in Philadelphia,
which is about ninety miles away. Why nobody does so
(26:12):
the one guy in Philadelphia has to direct the traffic
ninety miles to the northeast. And I'd read that they
were having copper wire problems and that they needed to
install fiber optic cables, which I think became popular in
the nineteen nineties. I remember when people were getting Internet
(26:34):
systems and there were companies that had DSL Internet and
they were advertising I remember doing commercials for fiber optic cables. Well,
they find the federal government has discovered them and they're
in place between Philly and New York. Should be ready
by July. Look how fast they're doing that, Huh? They're
running ninety miles a fiber optic cable a cable and
(26:54):
they did it in a month. Are they going to
do it a month? And that's where the communication are
being caused along the line. It's already been laid. We're
doing some of the connections right now, and then we
have to test it, he says, I don't want to promise,
over promise and under delivered. And if all goes well,
we should be able to turn over this new fiber
(27:15):
line at the start of July. And there have been
four rounds of outages and sometimes they've been up to
ninety seconds long, either no audio or no radar screen.
And they have cut hundreds of flights to Newark Airport
(27:37):
over the next few months. They're also doing runway construction.
And Newark Airport is the hub for you, the hub
for United Airlines, and it's caused huge disruptions. And we
might go back east this summer to go visit friends
and family. And I was told at home, no way
We're going to Newark Airport. Uh uh, not going to happen.
(28:00):
So now tomorrow on the show, two things, we are
going to have Jamie Page back on from the sena
from the West Side Current dot com and get some
information if Karen Bash really testified in court today before
that Federal Judge David Carter, who's investigating the fiasco, the
(28:24):
homelessness fiasco and all the billions of dollars that had
been lost, And we're also going to have Chris Legras
on and this you're going to want to pay attention to.
Holy Moly, there is a bill coming out of Sacramento,
and Chris Lagra is a journalist and it's a well
(28:44):
he describes it as an all out assault on our neighborhoods,
on single family homes. It would require cities require cities
to approve buildings as tall as ten stories or even
in single family neighborhoods if the development is within a
(29:05):
half mile of a bus stop, that's the law. And
Chris has provided a map showing Sherman Oaks, for example,
and there's a lot of bus stops every couple of
blocks along Ventur Boulevard and some Pulvita Boulevard and Oxnard
(29:25):
and burd Bank, and there are a lot of half
mile red circles on this map that will overlay on
thousands of homes in the valley. And all of a sudden,
there's going to be ten story apartment buildings in your
single family neighborhood. So you know, developers are going to
come and buy up, buy out a lot of people,
(29:47):
and then put these ten story monstrosities, and then they're
going to stick vagrants and mental patients in a portion
of them, you know, affordable housing. And wow, So that
that'll just troy suburban life in Los Angeles. It'll destroy
suburban life in the vast majority of California neighborhoods. And
(30:08):
guess guess who filed this evil bill, That depraved weirdo,
Scott Weiner, Scott Wiener, excuse me, Winer works too. Scott Wiener.
He is really malicious and he hates families, He hates
(30:29):
suburban neighborhoods, he hates modern life. He hates your lawn,
your pool, your dog, your driveway because it has cars
in the driveway. And he's trying to dismantle, single handedly
suburban life in California with these idiotic bills, and he's
getting them through committees even though some Democrats are trying
(30:51):
to oppose it. So it's quite a story that we're
going to have tomorrow. You want to be listening and
if you missed any of today's show, that will posted
online the podcast John Cobalts Show on demand coming up
in the four o'clock hour. Hey, you've been listening to
the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from one to
(31:11):
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome, Where have
you been? You miss so much? We're on every day
from one until four o'clock. You should be getting here
at one. Don't give me this work stuff one to four,
and then after four o'clock if you missed it John
Cobelt's show on demand, it's the podcast. We had a
(00:23):
couple of really outstanding things today. Already we had Jamie
Page from the West Side Current on who told us
about how La City and County poured over a billion
three hundred million into buying old hotels and motels and
apartment complexes and it was supposed to be for homeless
(00:44):
people and most of the units are still vacant and
the money's been blown. They way overpaid in a lot
of cases for the property and they never filled them
with homeless. So you want to hear Jamie in the
first hour and then last hour. The return of Michael mcchee,
the USC professor. His studies that we've talked about about
(01:05):
the price of gas being the fault of the California
government has gained a lot of traction and his prediction
that gas might hit eight p fifty by the end
of next year, had several Democrats scared and pushing back
on the California Air Resources Board chairwoman. And so that
was in the two o'clock hour. You ought to hear
that with Michael mcche and the video TV report that
(01:29):
we played from Ashley's of OLLA. Now we continue with, Uh,
we're gonna talk about Ritchie Greenberg. We discussed this briefly
yesterday because the story just broke yesterday afternoon and I couldn't.
I'm really I look at things sometimes it's like, is
this a prank, is this from a one of the
(01:51):
you know, the the Onion site, like a parody news story,
or is it some AI joke. I can't trust anything anymore,
and I don't, but this turned out to be real.
The San Francisco School District, for about twenty four hours,
had a policy that students would be graded on a
(02:11):
new scale, and if you scored a twenty one out
of one hundred, you'd pass. You'd get a D, a
forty one you get a C, and anything between eighty
and one hundred would all be great at the same
as an A. So you got one hundred. It's an
A eighty is an a boy? Oh boy? This really
would destroy the motivation of most kids, and there was
(02:33):
so much blowback that they reversed the decision. Richie Greenberg,
he's a writer and a commentator and is very politically
connected and active in San Francisco, and we use him
kind of as an anthropologist to explain that strange tribe.
It's pretty screwed up here. But some of the stuff
out of San Francisco. Well, you know, Richie, how are you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm doing great, Thanks for having me on this tomorrow today.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, explain this a twenty one out of one hundred
and you pass in the San Francisco school district.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, well, you know, we have come to learn that
parents get infuriated. Don't mess with our children, right, and
that's exactly what's happening here. And you know, we've got
to applaud some of the investigative journalists and others that
leaked out this information Tuesday late afternoon that this whole
(03:29):
plan on equity grading even was under consideration, because if
it wasn't for that, this might have just been implemented
with barely a whimper. And suddenly there's this. You know,
we always go back to the DEI, right, the diversity
and equity exclusia, So this is another one of those,
(03:50):
one of the letters, right, there's the equity involved with this.
And yeah, there's a bit of disinformation though, and I
think we have to acknowledge that because some people got
really enraged when this program was exposed. But yeah, it
looks like what they were trying to do ultimately is
(04:10):
to ensure and I'm looking at some of the quotes here,
to ensure that every student would receive a SEA or
better each marking period. So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And how does I don't know if you know how
they think if you decode, if if nobody after they fail,
if no child is told, hey you've sailed at this,
we got to do it again. We've got to go
for you know, extra classes. If you don't know you failed,
how are you ever going to accomplish anything in life?
If they won't even tell you any more that you failed?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Exactly And again, this is like a participation trophy, right,
you're as lung as you're enrolled in the class, you're
going to succeed. You're going to get your medal or
a certificate on the wall that will be potent actually
good for your future. But we know that that's not
the case, because then it is not setting up these children,
(05:07):
these students for success when they go on to higher education.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Do you know anybody in real life who actually believes
in this crap?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, how about the author follow this whole thing that
Joe Feldman, the one who came up with this. He's
this founder and CEO of the Crescendo Education group based
in Oakland. He's the one that came up with a plan.
He's the one that wrote books on this, and he's
(05:42):
the one that apparently fully believes, firmly believes that what
he is proposing to make vast changes in the and
the grading system of public schools, that he's doing something good.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, if you skate by by getting a twenty one
and every single assignment for twelve years, right, you get
a twenty one every time you get a diploma? What
does that prepare you for? What college are you going
to be able to compete in?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Exactly, But you know, beyond that, what's going to happen
with the admissions departments of these different collegers that know
that these school districts might have some problem with their
grading system and may not even want to accept these
students because of the dubious nature.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I don't know much about the San Francisco school district.
Is it mostly minority students that go there? I mean,
I can't imagine with all the rich people in San Francisco,
all the tech people, that they would put up with
this kind of stuff, because the tech industry is all
about merit, regardless of their politics. It's all about merit
(06:59):
when you're you know, on the field.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yes, correct. The thing though, is that those who have
financial means have their children in private school and there's
a lot, a pretty high percentage of kids are in
private and private schools, and others that are coming, like
new couples that are expecting a child within the first
(07:24):
couple of years, they raise them here in the city.
But we have a very high what's a good word
at attrition rate. The couples leave because they know the
quality of education is just not up just enough, it's
not what they want, so they leave.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Who's left to be taught in the schools?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Then, well, you do have there's a lot of Asians.
It's a pretty high percentage. And this is what has
caused over these years, that that fight, that resentment, that
argument saying that the white and.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Asian school children population right, you see, so they're the
ones that have the privilege, and so we have to
do something to bring down rather than although the rising
tide brings up all boat rises all.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Boats or whatever however that goes. And so that's you're
seeing that in play here as well.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Equity is about equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. Equality is
about equal opportunity. Equity is equal outcomes no matter what.
So you have to drag down the kids who were smart,
the kids who were driven and work hard, the kids
whose parents put in a lot of resources. You got
to drag them down with the kids who maybe the
(08:34):
parents don't care at all, and maybe they weren't born
with those particular gifts or they just don't care.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, yep. And you know, we had another situation here
a few years ago with one of the premier public schools,
but it was by you had to test well to
get into this school. It's called low O High, and
they made this controversial change and say we're taking away
merit and instead we're just going to open up to
(09:01):
a lottery system and that outraged all of these parents
who had their kids already in the school, and it
wound up. Part of this is the whole reason why
there was a recall against three of the school board
commissioners back in twenty twenty two. And so we're fighting,
we are seeing this, we are fighting. Many of us
(09:24):
are so thankful that this particular issue with the equity
grading program got exposed so quick and it went national
and we saw all over all over the country picked
up on that almost immediately, and the blowback against the
superintendent who went ahead. And Maria Sue is her name.
(09:44):
She is under fire. Now we're agreeing to bring in
this program.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Means there a way to fire her. How do you
remove the superinten?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, there is, Yeah, the superintendent is not an elected position,
so we have seven elected school board commissioners. They can
vote to toss her out.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
She ought to be tossed for us. This is unforgivable,
absolutely too. Yeah right, oh, I bet all right. Hey listen, Richie,
thank you for coming on with us again.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Hey, my pleasure anytime.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Richie Greenberg, writer and commentator up in San Francisco about Yeah,
Maria Sues her name. Superintendent said, Hey, if you score
at twenty one, you pass in San Francisco's schools. And
you know a lot of the Asian parents did revolt
several years ago and removed three of the school board members.
And I'm surprised anybody would want to take that contingent
(10:38):
on again. But I guess that's just shows you how
stupid Maria Sue must be. I mean, what did you
think was going to happen? All country thinks this is ridiculous.
When we come back, Mayor Bass is such a failure
when it comes to homelessness that it looks like some
of the city council wants to end her emergency power.
(11:01):
Tell you about it. When we come back.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Man moistline It's last call here eight seven seven Moist
eighty six eight seven seven Moist eighty six, or you
go to the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. Mayor
Bass is such a failure when it comes to homelessness,
and I think everyone is starting It's interesting now Democrats
(11:31):
are having an awakening a little bit throughout the state.
Like Gavin Newsom realized having men compete in girls sports
is deeply unfair, right that ruckus this week. And then
you have several Democrats on the Assembly Energy and Utilities Committee.
They started pushing back with the California Air Resources Board
(11:55):
chair saying, hey, hey, wait a second. You know we're
looking at you know what, ten dollars a gallon gas here?
What are we doing? What's going on? People can't afford this?
And then here in Los Angeles, you know, we've been
under a homeless emergency for two and a half years.
It was the first thing that Karen Bass did. She
(12:16):
invoked a city emergency on homelessness, and that gave her
all the power. She could give out no bid contracts
to all those predatory, parasitic nonprofit groups and they were
supposed to rent hotels and motels for interim housing. It
(12:36):
was also going to allow them to buy these organizations
to buy apartment buildings. She was going to waive regulations.
And after two and a half years, well, we told
you earlier in the show, a billion, three hundred million
have been spent by the city in county on hotels
(12:56):
and motels and apartment buildings, and there's very little to
show for it. In the city forty four percent of
what they purchased is still vacant. The county seventy one
percent of the rooms vacant. They way overpaid for a
lot of properties, and a lot of the properties that
(13:17):
needed to be renovated and upgraded are still sitting and
rotting behind chain link fences. So it's a big failure.
And maybe the city council everybody saw this report that
the West Side Current did, because now you've got some
some city council people saying, well, maybe maybe we should
(13:38):
end this emergency here because nothing's getting better. In fact,
there's one activist, Sam Yebry, who says that pass is
going around claiming that there's ten percent fewer homeless on
the streets, and he says, well, that ten percent accounts
(14:02):
for the twenty five hundred vagrants who died in the streets.
If there are fewer homeless, it's only because twenty five
hundred of them died last year. That's why. Then and
then here's this Tim McCosker. He replaced, He was the
(14:28):
councilman from San Pedro. He replaced Joe Bisquano. Tim mccoskar
says he wants to return city government to its normal
process the way it's spelled out in the city Charger
Charter and Bass his power toward no bid contracts. Well,
(14:49):
that should be cut off here. Let's go back to
why these processes exist. Mccscar said, they exist so the
public can be made aware of what we're doing with
public dollars. Hey, why didn't this guy say this two
years ago he watched billions of dollars disappear. We now
have a federal court investigation, we have a federal criminal investigation.
(15:14):
You realize what's going on here. You got the Judge
David Carter doing a federal investigation from the bench with
an audit, threatening to put everything into receivership the county
and the city management of the homelessness. Then you have
Bill A. Saley, the US attorney who's has launched a
(15:35):
federal investigation because if federal money's involved in all this
money laundering and all this theft, then people are going
to go to federal prison. And now Tim McCosker woke
up from his two and a half year nap and said, well,
maybe we ought to take the power back from Karen Bass. Really,
the city needs to address the remainder of this crisis
(15:58):
because you now have all these hotels we paid for,
these motels, these apartment buildings with vacant apartments and vacant
rooms everywhere, and the hotels and motels, the ones that
were dilapidated are still in ruins and nothing was done
to fix them. Now today, Karen Bass was supposed to
(16:22):
testify at Judge Carter's hearing, and we will address this tomorrow.
We don't know what's been going on the inside yet.
All right, we got more coming up.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI Am
six four.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Just not enough of you, I know, I know, five
and a half hours every single day.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Now we're getting highlights of debor from yesterday.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Yes, well no it was from today.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well it was today. Okay, it's all the stuff you
just did old news. But if you didn't hear her
the first time.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Here, we want you to know what you might have missed,
because we're on top of everything here at KFI that
in eight.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Minutes, she's just she's going to tell you again, So
get it through your head listen, or she won't stop.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
No, I'm like the energizer bunny. Just keep going and
going and.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Going KFIM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock
John Cobelt Show on demand the podcast, and if you
miss the show or most of it so far, then
well that's the makeup exam you get after four o'clock and.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
You'll get an A.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And you'll get an A. Right even if you listen
to just twenty one percent of.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
The show, we're going to say it was one hundred percent, you.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Are graded as an A listener. Did a lot on
the homeless disaster here in Los Angeles in the last segment,
and some of the highlights are One political activist has
calculated Karen Bass claims that there are ten percent fewer
homeless in the streets. Well, if that's true, be it's
(17:53):
because ten percent of the street homeless died last year. So,
I mean, she might be right, but it's not because
she helped them, it's because they died. Well, we also
find out that the county and city has blown a
billion three hundred million on motels and hotels and apartment
buildings and much of those many of those buildings are
(18:17):
empty still. Now, you would think since the County pulled
out a LASA. The Housing Services Authority basically defunded LASA.
The city may do it soon. The federal judge is
investigating what's going on there. The head of it has resigned,
(18:39):
and there's a huge budget problem that the city and
the county have, especially the city. LASA, LA Homeless Services
Authority has over seven hundred employees. With all this turmoil, right,
all this failure, all the money it's been spent, all
(19:01):
the layoffs that are going on, how many how many
loss of workers are actually getting laid off losing their jobs?
You get to guess there's no eric toa You're close,
You're amazing. Eleven eleven out of more than seven hundred.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
I'm surprised.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I have surprises that. I yeah, the last week everybody
got an email asking everyone to consider voluntary separation, voluntary
separation to minimize involuntary layoffs. And then after all that,
they only got rid of eleven people. That's pretty good.
(19:43):
You know, when ninety nine percent of your staff survives
a big layoff, when you are one hundred percent of failure,
and LASA is a one hundred percent failure, that's that's
something else. Now in Santa Monica. In Santa Monica's gotten
really really disgusting. It's really out of control. There are
so many mental patients, vagrants, drug addicts running around, criminals.
(20:10):
They're terrorizing everybody. Stores are empty and boarded up all
over the place. Most people are afraid to walk the
streets because somebody might club you over the head. Do
you know what the Santa Monica residents are upset with?
Though Weimo vehicles getting recharged. Residents have been so angry
(20:40):
that the Weimo robotaxis they are bending together. There's fifty
six vehicles in the Santa Monica fleet and they all
show up and you know, in a parking lot, and
they pull up and they get recharged. But when they
(21:01):
back up out of their recharging slot, they beep, you
know the way delivery trucks are trash trucks beep, you know, beep, beep, beep. Well,
it goes on all day. If you live in the neighborhood,
it drives them crazy. And I read this, It's like
I understand the beep, beep, beep all day. But the
homeless people screaming, vobbiting all over the place, taking their
(21:23):
fecal dumps, assaulting, assaulting you. That doesn't that doesn't upset
you enough to organize. But the beep beep beep of
the Weimo taxis well, that's it. I can't live here anymore.
Residents are blocking the way moos from entering the parking
(21:44):
lot themselves. They use cones cars and sometimes they stand there.
So now Waimo has called the cops on the residents,
says Darius Boom Darius Bourne, I want the noise stopped.
I thought it was cool, and then those freaking noises started,
and then I thought, oh no, this can't be happening again.
(22:06):
Does he get aggravated with all the mental patient drug
addicts screaming in the streets, It's gotten so bad that
the Weimo company has called the cops on the residents
a half dozen times. City officials are surprised. They had
no idea Waymos set up charging stations in their backyard.
(22:30):
Oh the bozos who run the city, the mayor and
the city council. Yeah, they have no idea what's going on.
They don't know there's a waymo charging station. They don't
know there's crazy people roaming the streets and criminals terrorizing anything.
They barely opened their eyes and they all got Joe
Biden disease. One guy named Christopher Potts lives near one
(22:53):
of the lots. Uh, this is not what we signed
up for. They opened up two charging stations. Santa Monica
is a base of operations. And at first everybody thought
it was cool because you have that little rotating device
on the roof and wow, look at it going round
and round. They must all be stoned in Santa Monica.
(23:16):
They all thought it was cool, but the beep, beep
beep is driving them out of their minds. And the
company apologized, said they would do something about it, but
they'd never done anything about it. The city staff checked
sound levels and they said, well, it's within city noise limits.
Speaker 5 (23:36):
You know, I still have not seen an autonomous car
in la Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
They're every day I see them.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
I have not seen a single.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
One, sometimes multiple times. You saw that story of the
way most stopping just short of running over a little dogs.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I know I did that story today. I thought that
was amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Of course, if it if it was just a couple
of more inches, but it wasn't, people would have been
torching Waimo headquarters. Yes, so now people are fighting back
with orange cones. Yeah, waymos can't handle orange cones. They
if they drive up to an orange cone. Or there's
one guy I think up in San Francisco who would
put the cones on their hood and it would paralyze
(24:18):
the car. It's like kryptonite. An orange cone. One resident
was so effective that parking lot workers called the police
on him six times and the company saw a temporary
restraining order. Wow, that's what That's what animates the idiots
(24:40):
and Santa Monica because it is the people's fault. They
vote for all these jerk politicians who implement these vagrant
loving policies, all the dysfunction, all the aberrant, deviant behavior
that's apparently got full approval of the people. But hey, no,
weimo beeping. You know that everybody's got their limits.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
What did I do here? I had a story and
it oh hey, I just well, in all the news
about Newark Airport over the last few weeks, they were
down to one air traffic controller when they were supposed
to have fourteen. You had the audio connection to the
(25:27):
pilots going out, you had the screen, the radar screen's
going out, and so the one guy who was sitting
there had no radar screen to look at. He had
no radio connection to listen to or speak speak on.
So finally, the federal government and this is now, you know,
Trump's baby. The Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, a new
(25:51):
fiber optic cable is going to be installed to fix
all the chaos at Newark Airport. Because Newark Airport is,
for I'm ungodly reason, run by air traffic control in Philadelphia,
which is about ninety miles away. Why nobody does so
(26:12):
the one guy in Philadelphia has to direct the traffic
ninety miles to the northeast. And I'd read that they
were having copper wire problems and that they needed to
install fiber optic cables, which I think became popular in
the nineteen nineties. I remember when people were getting Internet
(26:34):
systems and there were companies that had DSL Internet and
they were advertising I remember doing commercials for fiber optic cables. Well,
they find the federal government has discovered them and they're
in place between Philly and New York. Should be ready
by July. Look how fast they're doing that, Huh? They're
running ninety miles a fiber optic cable a cable and
(26:54):
they did it in a month. Are they going to
do it a month? And that's where the communication are
being caused along the line. It's already been laid. We're
doing some of the connections right now, and then we
have to test it, he says, I don't want to promise,
over promise and under delivered. And if all goes well,
we should be able to turn over this new fiber
(27:15):
line at the start of July. And there have been
four rounds of outages and sometimes they've been up to
ninety seconds long, either no audio or no radar screen.
And they have cut hundreds of flights to Newark Airport
(27:37):
over the next few months. They're also doing runway construction.
And Newark Airport is the hub for you, the hub
for United Airlines, and it's caused huge disruptions. And we
might go back east this summer to go visit friends
and family. And I was told at home, no way
We're going to Newark Airport. Uh uh, not going to happen.
(28:00):
So now tomorrow on the show, two things, we are
going to have Jamie Page back on from the sena
from the West Side Current dot com and get some
information if Karen Bash really testified in court today before
that Federal Judge David Carter, who's investigating the fiasco, the
(28:24):
homelessness fiasco and all the billions of dollars that had
been lost, And we're also going to have Chris Legras
on and this you're going to want to pay attention to.
Holy Moly, there is a bill coming out of Sacramento,
and Chris Lagra is a journalist and it's a well
(28:44):
he describes it as an all out assault on our neighborhoods,
on single family homes. It would require cities require cities
to approve buildings as tall as ten stories or even
in single family neighborhoods if the development is within a
(29:05):
half mile of a bus stop, that's the law. And
Chris has provided a map showing Sherman Oaks, for example,
and there's a lot of bus stops every couple of
blocks along Ventur Boulevard and some Pulvita Boulevard and Oxnard
(29:25):
and burd Bank, and there are a lot of half
mile red circles on this map that will overlay on
thousands of homes in the valley. And all of a sudden,
there's going to be ten story apartment buildings in your
single family neighborhood. So you know, developers are going to
come and buy up, buy out a lot of people,
(29:47):
and then put these ten story monstrosities, and then they're
going to stick vagrants and mental patients in a portion
of them, you know, affordable housing. And wow, So that
that'll just troy suburban life in Los Angeles. It'll destroy
suburban life in the vast majority of California neighborhoods. And
(30:08):
guess guess who filed this evil bill, That depraved weirdo,
Scott Weiner, Scott Wiener, excuse me, Winer works too. Scott Wiener.
He is really malicious and he hates families, He hates
(30:29):
suburban neighborhoods, he hates modern life. He hates your lawn,
your pool, your dog, your driveway because it has cars
in the driveway. And he's trying to dismantle, single handedly
suburban life in California with these idiotic bills, and he's
getting them through committees even though some Democrats are trying
(30:51):
to oppose it. So it's quite a story that we're
going to have tomorrow. You want to be listening and
if you missed any of today's show, that will posted
online the podcast John Cobalts Show on demand coming up
in the four o'clock hour. Hey, you've been listening to
the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI AM six forty from one to
(31:11):
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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