The Root Causes of Homelessness

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want to talk about homelessness and the difference between
immediate causes versus long term causes. And there's a Fresno
Bee story about homelessness in the valley. Homeless population in
Fresno in Madera up three percent, why that number will
likely grow.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
It's written by Thaddeus Miller.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now the main thrust of the story, so that the
title is up three percent. You get into the story,
it says the number of people living unsheltered in the
region has grown by ten percent over the last count.
The Fresno Madera Continuum of Care said this week the

(00:44):
entire homeless population, which includes those in shelters, rose by
three percent. Okay, so our unsheltered numbers grow by ten percent.
But the entire homeless population, so that includes people who
are in fact have some shelter at least for the moment,
but they're living in they're living in homeless shelters, rose

(01:06):
by three percent from the last count in twenty twenty three. Officially,
there were four hundred ninety three homeless people as of
January twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, in the last count
in the Fresno and Madera tally. A full report on
this year's tally will be released after the numbers are
reported to the US Department of Housing in Urban Development

(01:26):
in June. So, no matter how you slice it, it
seems as though the number of homeless people is increasing
in Fresno and Madera. And yet the story Now, there's
a part of me that's a little skeptical about this.

(01:47):
I'm not sure how reliable these stats are, like.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
That they give.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
You know, the number they give is four four hundred
and ninety three, not four four hundred and ninety two.
We're counting skinny Pete, but we're not counting you know,
Bob who's uh, you know, living on his sister's.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Couch or something. You know.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I I feel like it's really hard to actually survey
the area and actually find out exactly how many homeless
people there are.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's a moving target.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
The whole nature of homelessness is that you're a little
bit off the grid. You're you're not residing somewhere, you
don't have a mailbox to respond to a survey of
are you homeless? So it seems like this is a
moving target. However, to whatever extent they have metrics, the
metrics are not looking good, they're all pointing in the

(02:42):
direction of more homelessness. Well, then the story takes a turn.
It takes a turn towards criticizing the Trump administration. So
the news of a growing homeless population Thttius Miller writes
in Fresno in Madera Counties comes as the Fresno Housing
Authority raised concerns about proposed federal cuts that could affect

(03:03):
housing security for many families. Then it goes on to
sort of have the normal Fresno be complaint about the
no camping ordinance. Fresno b hates the no camping ordinance.
On top of that, the city of Fresno has taken
a more aggressive stance on dealing with homelessness, including making
arrests of the unhouse if they decline.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
To accept help. Blah blah, blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Officials said the growing number is difficult to pin down
anyone factor, with the lack of affordable housing, low incomes,
mental health challenges, and substance abuse disorders all contributing to
the rise of the same old story. All right, So
here's the turn. The federal budget proposed earlier this month
showed significant cuts to programs related to homelessness. After twenty

(03:47):
twenty five, the Fresno Housing Authority will no longer receive
funding to support two hundred and sixty Fresno families with
Federal Emergency housing vouchers, a program that started in twenty
twenty one. Officials from the Fresno Housing ASTHA already said
that said that the program was originally intended to continue
through twenty thirty and was funded by the American Rescue
Plan Act of twenty twenty one. Slashing those five years

(04:09):
would amount to a fifteen million dollar cut, according to
the authority. All right, now, this is purely the Fresno
Bee relaying what the Fresno Housing Authority is complaining about
about the Trump budget. That the Trump budget is cutting this. Now,
this would be a little bit of surprise to me.

(04:30):
The Trump budget, the Reconciliation Bill, the one big Beautiful Bill,
as they call it, is.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
A spending nightmare.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
I mean it's it's yet another example of Republicans talking
a big game about fiscal responsibility and spending when they
are out of power, and then as soon as they
get into power, they don't do anything to control spending. However,
so I guess I'm a little surprised that there's going

(04:58):
to be these massive cut in homelessness. Now, this is
where I get into the differences between immediate problems versus
root problems. The Fresno Bee wants to take a little

(05:20):
potshot at Donald Trump, the Trump administration, Trump's budget. So
they see, oh, this federal program is getting cut. This
federal program provides funding for this reresne housing authority. It's
going to endanger the ability of the PRESNOE Housing Authority
to provide housing to some of these they say, families.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Not sure what that means. Does that mean households?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Does that meaning seemingly I don't know, does that mean
single people at homeless people like you don't see too
many homeless families out on the street.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
That strikes me as a little odd that that way
of expressing it. And therefore it's Trump's fault because we're
cutting funding for homelessness. Let's ignore the fact that the
state of California has spent billions and billions of dollars

(06:20):
on homelessness to seemingly no effect. In fact, it's a
massive scandal that the Newsom administration has spent billions of
dollars didn't really track outcomes very well and seemingly has

(06:41):
had no improvement on homelessness. Here's a CBS News story
from a year ago. Audit finds California spent twenty four
billion dollars on homelessness in five years, didn't consistently track outcomes.
California spent twenty four billion dollars to tackle homelessness over
the past five years, but didn't consistently track whether the
huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation. According

(07:03):
to the state audit released again. This was back in
April of twenty twenty four, and estimated one hundred and
seventy one thousand people are homeless in California, which amounts
to roughly thirty percent of all the homeless people in
the US. Despite the roughly billions of dollars spent on
more than thirty homeless in housing programs during the twenty
eighteen to twenty twenty three fiscal years, California doesn't have

(07:25):
reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn't
improve in many cities, according to the state auditor's report.
This report concludes that the state must do more to
assess the cost effectiveness of its homelessness program, state auditor
Grant Parks wrote in a letter to Governor Gavin Newsman lawmakers.
The audit analyzed five programs that received a combine thirteen

(07:45):
point seven billion dollars in funding. It determined that only
two of them are likely cost effective, including one that
converts hotel and motel rooms into housing and another that
provides housing assistance to prevent families from becoming homeless. Under
the three point six billion dollar program to convert hotels
and motel rooms, which is a lynchpin in Newsome's almostness planed,
the average cost of a room is at least two

(08:06):
point five times cheaper than building a new home, the
audit found. Blah blah, blah blah. Anyway, the remaining three programs,
which received a total of nine point four billion dollars
since twenty twenty, couldn't be evaluated due to a lack
of data. So this is the problem with California has

(08:31):
spent a lot of money on band Aids. I think
that's the conclusion we should we can maybe draw here.
California is spending a lot of money on band aids,
you know, because even I mean, even this idea of
converting hotel rooms into housing. That's not necessarily a long

(08:56):
term solution. It's not really addressing the root causes. It's
getting people off the street, which is good, that's great,
But I then wonder.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, are you really addressing the root causes? And again
I have my sort of limited window for dealing with this.
A home was housing into the setup shop right across
the street from my office at Blackstone. And you know
I'm at Blackstone and Griffith. That's where the Right to
Life office is.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
And it's the old Motel six at Blackstone in Ashland,
and the back of its parking lot is right across
the street from me. And they turned that back fence
of the parking lot for some reason, they turned it
into a security checkpoint that allows people to come on
and off the campus to walk on Griffith Avenue. And
what happened a ton of drug dealers just set up

(09:49):
shop on Griffith to sell to anybody and everybody from
the homeless shelter. So what I was realizing looking at
it was okay, well if this is allowed to continue,
And I mean I made such a huge stink on
in the city, calling the cops et cetera, that it

(10:11):
seemingly is not continuing. If this is just allowed to continue,
these people have a drug problem, which majorly contributes to
their homelessness to begin with. They're allowed to maintain their
drug problem the whole time that they're living in this shelter.

(10:32):
And this is not a permanent shelter. I think it
was like it's like a twenty eight day kind of
temporary housing deal. As soon as they leave the shelter,
they're still going to have a drug addiction problem. So
what is that accomplishing.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Nothing? Here?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
We are we're spending all this money for this particular
housing project. I don't know exactly what it's funded by.
I don't know if maybe they're trying to take more
measures to cut down on people using drugs. They were
responsive to me when I said, hey, you gotta I'm

(11:16):
not gonna allow this. I'm not gonna allow your residents
just to sit on my stoop and litter and all that.
But if that's how a lot of these homeless shelters
are maintained, where like drug dealers just kind of roam
around the perimeter of them to sell drugs to residents,

(11:39):
I mean, I don't know how much money was spent
to convert that motel six into homeless housing. It's got
to be a lot. It's got to be a lot
to buy it. It's got to be a lot to
retrofit it. It's gotta be a lot of construction costs.
I'm I don't know who funded it. I know it's
not a city funded thing. I talked with some city

(12:00):
council members. Nope, Nope, that's not a city thing. So
I presume it's some kind of state grant. Millions of
dollars were probably spent on that shelter. And if that
shelter is not able to do anything to deter any
of their residents from maintaining a drug problem the whole time,
that's just going to be money flushed down the drain.

(12:22):
And that's why I'm a little skeptical of these stories
about oh, Trump Administration's cutting a homelessness program and that's
going to lead to people being homeless?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Is?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
It? Really? Is? I sort of wonder.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
I sort of wonder if we're so focused on the
after the fact band aid that we're not getting the
root of the problem. We're not really addressing the root
of the problem. The root problems.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Are drug use.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
The root problems are the unaffordability of housing in the
first place. And it feels like that this is a constant,
this is a constant California thing. We subsidize the demand
rather than increase the supply. We can't afford to build

(13:19):
housing for lower income people.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
So what do we do.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Well, you give a bunch of government subsidies for building
low income housing. We don't do anything to address the supply,
Like if you had more supply, the cost would go down. No,
we don't do any kind of supply side response. Everything

(13:42):
is subsidizing the demand. That's the case with housing and
with so many other problems housing or lower income people
can't afford mortgages. Oh, we have the Rench, We have
mortgage assistance programs with more federal subsidies for it, more spending,
more spending, more spending, more subsidies, more subsidies, more subsidies.
And I think it's nuts. I think it's an after

(14:09):
the fact way of addressing problems. It's not getting to
the root. So I guess I'm I'm a little leery
to say, and especially.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Because I don't know all the details and and blah blah.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Blah, I'm a little leery to say, oh, yes, the
Trump administration, what a bunch of evil jerks for cutting
this homeless this housing program.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Maybe it was wise, maybe it wasn't. I don't know,
but I'm.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
A little loath to say, oh, this cut of money,
that's the problem. I don't think money is the problem.
We were spending Jack, we were spending zilch on homelessness,
you know, thirty years ago, and we had way less
homelessness in California. Why because it was more affordable to
live here. So I'm you know, drug proliferation of drugs

(15:03):
wasn't quite as bad. Maybe I don't know. Maybe it
was just as bad thirty years ago as far as
drug problems, but we weren't spending that much thirty years ago,
and we didn't have the same problem with homelessness. Clearly,
there is something wrong with our state, and it's with
our state, with our state and Oregon and Washington and
New York and Illinois.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Hmm. Maybe the problem is purely just.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Electing Democrats all the time. That's the one connective thread
between everything. So in short, I think this is another
kind of classic example of making liberal lawmakers feel better
about themselves by saying we spent fifteen billion dollars to

(15:52):
address homelessness without actually looking at one, Does that actually
fix the problem in two?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Is this not really a.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Root problems solution. This is just a band aid to
cover up what's going on when we return how this
is yet another feather in the cap of good old
Gavin Newsome. That's next on the John Girardi Show. Homelessness
is one of the many reasons I just don't see

(16:19):
Gavin Newsome credibly winning, credibly winning the presidency, credibly even
winning the Democratic nomination to be president. The state has
spent under his watch tens of billions of dollars. In
twenty twenty four, they had this audit come out and say, hey,

(16:40):
you know how we spent like twenty four billion dollars
over five years on homelessness, and it seems like we
have no.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Data to ensure that this was effective at all.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
We didn't even have metrics for ensuring it was effective.
And by the way, it doesn't seem like it was effective.
It's it's one of like five or six huge issues
that I don't see how he recovers from. And my
mind always goes to the same place the hypothetical CNN

(17:14):
or MSNBC Democrat primary debate that presumably will be held
in probably the first one will happen in December of
twenty twenty seven, November December of twenty twenty seven. And
he's gonna be up there with maybe Kamala maybe maybe not,
we'll see, but certainly with Pete Boodagig. He'll be up there,

(17:42):
maybe JB. Pritzker, Newsom's overweight Illinois twin, maybe Josh Shapiro,
maybe John Fetterman. Uh, you know, there'll be a smattering
of god knows, maybe even AOC. The AOC wild card

(18:02):
is really something to think about, because I think she's
got some options right now. There are a lot of
people thinking she could challenge Chuck Chuck Schumer for his
Senate seat.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Or she could run for president. So that's the wild card.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Anyway, you'll have all these other ambitious Democrats up there.
AOC is ambitious as hell, Josh Shapiros seemingly he is
ambitious as hell. And I don't know how Newsome is
able to stand up there and say, oh, I was
a governor and someone's like, what are you doing here?
You've been saying you're gonna fight homelessness and address the

(18:40):
problem of homelessness. You've only been saying it for the
last eight eight seven, so that's twenty three years. You've
had twenty three years as a major public official to
combat homelessness, where you had seven years as mayor of
San Francisco, eight years as lieutenant governor, eight years as governor,
and by every metric, homelessness got worse. You spent tens

(19:04):
of billions of dollars, much of it was spent improvidently
because you didn't have metrics for ensuring its success or
ensuring that that it was or wasn't effective even and
by every metric, homelessness got worse under your watch. And now,
you know, six and a half years into his governorship,

(19:27):
Newsom's in this sort of bitter spot where he's sort
of like now trying to shift the blame to local
governments because he knows he spent all these billions of
dollars and it didn't do jack. So he's now trying
to blame local governments for improvidently administering the money that
he had the state sent because a lot of these
programs got administered by you know, counties and cities and

(19:49):
stuff like that. So he's trying to do all these
like tough, getting tough, like I'm not going to increase
public union employee salaries for like county and city governments
unless they demonstrate, you know, that they're using state money well,
and that's ticking off. That's something that's in his current

(20:10):
may revision to the budget, and the boy that's really
ticking off the public sector unions right now.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
They are not happy with that.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
So Newsom has to do this like blame shifting game,
and there's no way the problem is going to get
better at some point in the next year and a half.
So I don't know how he's again do I feel
like I do this every show. I don't know how
Newsome stands up there during a Democrat primary debate and

(20:43):
looks over at.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Josh Shapiro and have Josh Shapiro or.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
AOC to say to him, you know, you've allegedly been
the governor of California for eight years and you said
you were going to tackle homelessness and every metric homelessness
got worse, and you spent tens of billions of dollars
to no effect. How how do you come up here
and lecture the rest of us about what it means

(21:06):
to be a good leader. How can you dare to
say that you should take your track record of governing
one state and expand it to the whole country.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
You are a fraud. I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Don't And by the way, homelessness is not even the
worst of these issues. Homelessness is one of like five
issues that are like that for Newsome where I don't
know what his response will be other than some kind
of slick used car salesman kind of dodge that he's
going to try to pull on everybody. But he can't
do that that long. Eventually he's gonna get nailed to

(21:42):
the wall by somebody. Someone is going to roast him.
And that's why I kind of wonder if his I
wonder if he knows it. I wonder if he realizes
that he's not really in a good position to run for president,
but news stories keep coming out that he's interested. When

(22:06):
we return another episode in people flying enormous flags on
the side of El Capitan somehow and federal employees pretending
to have no idea about it, That is next on
The John Girardi Show. Some of you may remember this
story from February. It was San Francisco Chronicle reported on

(22:28):
and a bunch of people reported on it that a
group of Yosemite National Park staffers hung a big American
flag upside down on the face of El Capitan in
Yosemite as a protest to the Trump administration laying off
a bunch of National Park employees. And at the time

(22:52):
I remembered feeling that, wow, what a great illustration of
why these people should be fired. And there was like
the story came and went and all these questions were
left lingering.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
So questions such.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
As did federal employees do that on their work time? Like,
we're paying you to be forest rangers and you're up
here protesting the Trump administration.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Did you do that on work time?

Speaker 1 (23:23):
You certainly did it on work land, I mean in
the National Park where you're supposed to be working. How
did you get a big old flag to the top
of El Capitan? That's another thing I wanted to know.
How logistically was that supposed to work? Also, like, did you,

(23:43):
as a Yosemite Park employee have special access that allowed
you to get to the top of El Capitan to
fly an American flag upside down? Not to mention the
whole idiocy of remember how the New York Times for
because Missus Alito flew a American flag upside down because her

(24:05):
neighbors started yelling at her after January sixth, then basically
tried to act as though it was Sam Alito's fault
that January sixth happened for some reason.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
And her neighbors were being mean to her.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
So Missus Alito flew an American flag upside down, and
this led to all these problems for Justice Alito.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
People saying, oh, the.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Upside down flag was a symbol of for the stop
the Steel movement. Now all of a sudden, when it's
people protesting trumpets, Oh well, it's just kind of a
generic American symbol for distress.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Anyway, that whole story came and went.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
I had all these questions that led me to think, well, maybe, yeah,
if this is what the staff at the National Park
is and does and has time to do apparently, then yeah,
maybe they probably should have been fired. Well we've got
another one, folks, We've got another large flag being flown

(25:04):
on the side of El Capitan. It's written by Abigail
Anthony and National Review find it odd. I didn't see
this anywhere in local media. On May twentieth, activists raised
a massive transgender pride flag on El Capitan in Yosemite
National Park on Tuesday to protest the Trump administration's LGBTQ

(25:28):
related policies. I will note it's only the T. The
Trump administration seems totally the hunky dory with the L
and the G and the B, possibly the Q.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
They just don't like the T.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
By the way, the greatest marketing UH coup of all
time was how transgender activists whatever managed to stick the
T in with the L and the G and the B. Because, look,
I think maybe there are some philosophical reasons why it

(26:05):
kind of makes sense for them to be together. But frankly,
just at the level of American public opinion, Americans are
probably at this point for the most part, don't really
care that much about the L and the G. Wait
a minute, the L the B. Yeah, the L, the
G and the B. Americans don't care too much about it.
They are mostly accepting of it. The T is like

(26:31):
a whole different ballgame. Though the T sort of inherently
involves beyond like social stuff. It involves hormonal treatments, and
surgeries and all kinds of things like that that I
think a lot fewer people are okay with, and the
idea of that the left treats them all as of

(26:53):
a piece when the American people have very different views
about the leg, the G and the B versus the T.
It's really one of the great sort of marketing coups
of all time to act as.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well you're opposed to LGBT people.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
When someone's like, hey, I don't think that we should
give a permanent life altering surgery to a twelve year
old who.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Is kind of confused.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, it's an amazing coup that they had, although it
doesn't seem to be working as the Trump administration is.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Basically, I think what this is in response to is
the One Big Beautiful Bill, the OBBB as I call it,
which my wife hates that name.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
She thinks it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
It is kind of ridiculous, but I think it's a
little catchy.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
The Reconciliation Bill that the Trump administration just passed includes
cutting off various forms of federal funding, I think chiefly
Medicaid and possibly Medicare funding.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
For transgender interventions.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
So that's not going to be covered by Medicare Medicaid
at least Medicaid, And that was kind of a point
that was a little bit up in the air with
the OBBB, was would it cut those things? Would it
only cut it cut those kinds of interventions for miners,
but still cover it for adults.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
No.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Actually, the final version that was passed by the House
includes cuts for everyone, for adults, children, et cetera. It's
not The federal government is not going to be in
the business of funding transgender interventions, which I think is great.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I don't think they are healthcare.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
I don't think they have much evidence behind them that
they actually help improve any outcomes for people. In fact,
that's why the United Kingdom has stopped doing those interventions
for miners, because the data was not there that it
was helpful. This is my sort of insight. This is
like the one advantage of a socialized medicine setup that

(29:00):
the UK has in America doesn't well. With the socialized
medicine setup. You're not as driven by the almighty dollar,
You're not as driven by the direct profit motive for
a given service. Individual doctors are not so incentivized, so,
as a result, the urge to do a procedure that

(29:23):
will make you a ton of money but doesn't actually
have any long term benefit. That urge isn't as much
there in the UK as it is in America. In America,
those kinds of surgeries, those kinds of interventions, make bank,
and so the docs who do them, I think, are
more willing to overlook the evidence, spin the evidence to

(29:46):
say that it's good and useful, when really the evidence
is indicating it it's not doing anything. I mean, you're
doing these interventions seemingly for someone's mental health, which is
already a bit dicey to do a surgery for somebody's
mental health, and to do a surgery on a healthy
body for someone's alleged mental health problems, and it's not

(30:08):
even really helping those mental health problems. The outcomes are
just not there as a positive. But of course, the
way that the pro transgender left acts is if you
don't provide children with these kinds of hormonal interventions.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Or surgeries, this child will kill him or herself. That's
the kind of fear mongering they do.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
In the UK, they stop doing it because the profit
motive isn't quite as much there for doctors or professional
Associations of doctors and they just looked at the data
and said, Nope, we're not doing it. So in the
UK they don't do intervention. They don't do trans interventions
on kids in the UK.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
So in this case with the flag, this is the
again the pro transgender pride flag, which if you're not
up to speed on your L and G and B
and T flags, this is the one that's blue and pink.
It's a blue horizontal stripe, pink horizontal stripe, white horizontal stripe,
pink horizontal stripe.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Blue horizontal stripe.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
You know, because there's boys and there's girls, and you
can switch and then maybe there's white that's sort of
in the middle. Who knows, which, by the way, is
a classic symbol for the transgender movement, which is basically
boiled down what it means to be man, what it
means to be a woman, to stereotypes like if you've

(31:31):
got a boy who plays with a Barbie doll a
little bit too much, they'll start thinking that this boy
is transgender. If you've got a girl who's like, you know,
a tomboy, they might start thinking that that girl is transgender,
even though it's like This is a very surface level
concept of what it means to be a man or

(31:52):
what it means to be a woman, which you know,
thirty years ago people would have said was horribly outdated
and sexist, that yes, you can be a girl and
be rough and tumble and a tomboy and like sports
and getting in the mud and playing with frogs and stuff,
and you know, still be a girl, still be a woman.
You can be a boy and enjoy you know, I

(32:15):
don't know, things like ballet or the fine arts or
poetry or whatever.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
And yes you can still you are still a boy.
That doesn't mean you're not a boy.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Now we've got this Pride flag raised on the side
of El Capitan. This time it doesn't seem like it
was done by Yosemite National Park staff, which at the
very least seems like an improvement. It was a protest

(32:49):
done by let's see the demonstrators raise the flag claim
it is fifty five feet by thirty five feet. It
was hung fifteen hundred feet up El Capitan on the
Heart ledges between eight am and ten am Pacific time.
It remained on display until about noon. Images shared by
some of the activists show that statements like free Palestine,
b gay do crime, trans people Save lives, and trans

(33:12):
is beautiful were written on the flag in black marker Ah. Yes,
the Palestinians notably accepting of transgenderism. With this historic unfurling,
climbers reclaim space in the heart. Literally, the flag hangs
on the recognizable heart ledges on l Capitan Wall in Yosemite,

(33:33):
said the activists in a press release. The nonprofit organization
called the Outdoorist Oath, which promotes an action based commitment
for planet inclusion and adventure. The organization says asks members
to take an oath which includes acknowledging climate change, committing

(33:56):
to advocacy for environmental justice, and recognizing the systemic oppression
in real that that systemic oppression is real, and that hatred,
discrimination and biases marginalized people the hatred and discrimination biases
of those evil Christian right wingers whom were allowed to

(34:18):
hate with all of our fury.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Marginalized people.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Don't think that your marginalize is a Christian By acting
like that, the Outdoorist Oath organization raises awareness about conduct
like microaggressions in the outdoors. What is an outdoor microaggression?
If I pee behind a tree? Is that a microaggression anyway?
It hosts activism workshops those sound like a real blast
called Stretch sessions, including sessions on white supremacy.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Boy, I'd love to sign up for one of those.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
One of their members is a drag queen named Patty Gonia,
who was named by National Geographic as one of it's
nine Travelers of the Year in twenty twenty four. So
I continue to wonder, though, Okay, you got this humongous
flag on the side of El Capatan?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Was there?

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Did did Yosemite Park staff help at all? Did they
get more access to it as a result of maybe
being friendly with the Yosemiti Park staff? The park staff
said they took it down as soon as they could.
It was up there for four hours, so was it
as soon as they could. They don't have anyone on
the top of El Capitan who could, like maybe tell people, hey,

(35:32):
don't do this, stop it.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Maybe not, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yet again, flying your flag from the side of El
Capitan influencing basically nobody? All right, when we return, something
interesting happening at Buchanan High School next weekend high school
Track and Field Championships in which a boy is going
to win a bunch of the girl events.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Next on the John Girardi Show.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
So next weekend at Buchanan High School is going to
be the CIF the California Interschalactic Federation statewide Track and
Field Championships, and so you'll have kids doing all kinds
of track and field events. There are a couple of

(36:23):
these events, the high jump, the long jump, and the
triple jump, in which a male athlete who identifies as
a female has dominated the Southern California sort of run
up events to these championships, and there will be this
biological male competing in the female events, a biological boy

(36:48):
who goes by a b Hernandez. He is in some
of these events completely dominantating the girls. And it again,
it's this ridiculous situation that that's going to be on

(37:09):
display right here in Buchanan. And again this is just
to reinforce to maybe Clovis Unified parents, A lot of
close Unified parents seem to think that Clovis Unified is
immune to the liberal absurdities that we see in California
public education all up and down the street. And I
guess they think that the ghost of Doc Buchanan, Saint

(37:31):
Doc hovers over close Unified to protect it from all liberalism.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
And he doesn't cloves. Unified is.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Every bit as required to comply with state laws about
transgenderism and transgender participation in sports and blah blah blah
blah blah as any other school district in the country.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
And it'll be on display at Buchanan High.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
School next week where there's going to be a who's
gonna kick everyone's butt in long jump high jump events?

Speaker 2 (38:05):
That'll do it. John Girardi Show, see y'all next time
on Power Talk