March 16, 2025 • 35 mins
Michael Monks kicks off the hour by discussing new LA Times/UC Berkeley polls on Mayor Bass’s performance and what they reveal about her handling of the fires. He then delves into Ezra Klein’s analysis of how Democrats have sustained a dysfunctional government in California, highlights a poll showing that 10% of LA County residents are planning to leave in the wake of the fires, and wraps up with his take on the potential designation of the dingy Hollywood Premiere Motel as a historic landmark—and what it means for preserving LA's heritage.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Michael Monks Reports. I'm Michael Monks from KFI
News with you for another hour here on this cool
Saturday night in southern California. Thanks for being with us.
If you hear anything that you want to chime in on,
you can always join our conversation by opening up that
iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button and we'll play
(00:27):
some If you want to talk about dead birds, dead Eaglitz,
dead crows, dead condors. If you want to talk about
that new homeless department at La County we discussed last hour.
If you want to talk about where I'm supposed to
buy pants now that the Macy's downtown is closed, just
open up the app, click on the talkback we'll play
some of those during this hour. I've got some topics
I think you're gonna want to talk about as well.
(00:49):
This hour, there's a new poll out co sponsored by
the Los Angeles Times and UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies,
and they ask registered voters about how Mayor Bass is doing,
how the La City Council is doing, how the LA
Board of Supervisors is doing, how Governor Newsome is doing.
And the numbers here locally are just not good. And
(01:13):
it plays into what I've been talking about as it
relates to Mayor Bass's performance. I'm not offering a position
on her performance. It's just an observation that she is
clearly just powering through a lot of the negative headlines,
a lot of the criticism. I mean, there's now a
burgeoning recall campaign against her. Certainly there have been calls
(01:34):
from others that for her resignation, and she is still
appearing at press conferences, sending out social media not just
about the fires and the recovery and all of that
everyday mayor stuff. She's going to be at the LA
Marathon tomorrow morning to kick that thing off in the
six o'clock hour like a mayor does, without really acknowledging
(01:56):
the political ramifications that may be associated with the assessment
of her performance so far. You know, last year a
poll came out from these same folks that said about
half thought Mayor Bass was doing a good job. That's
not the case anymore. These fires, the Palisades fire in particular,
(02:17):
of course, in the city of la really have done
some damage to her right now, less than twenty percent
of respondents said that Mayor Bass had been doing an
excellent or a good job, while more than forty percent
(02:38):
of registered voters in the city said that she was
doing a poor or very poor job in responding to
the fires. So if you've only got twenty percent support
among registered voters, that is not a good place to
(02:58):
be really before a re election campaign anyway. But you
know that stuff's already starting. We're voting next year. You
know how campaigns are in America. They take forever, and
this is somebody who needs to start raising significant money,
generating support, and right now it looks like an uphill battle.
(03:25):
There's not been a declared opponent. She's got that going
for her, but those are bad numbers. A lot of
it has to do with the fact that she was
in Ghana when the fires broke out, and that really
seems to be the bulk of it. When you hear
(03:48):
her press conferences recently, she is laying out what appears
to be facts that the recovery process in the Palisades
is moving faster than it was expected to be. The cleanup,
getting aid to folks, But it was specifically people who
(04:10):
make over one hundred thousand dollars a year that gave
her the worst numbers. And if you're thinking about where
the wealthier people in the City of Los Angeles live,
certainly the Palisades would be one of those areas. So
if she's doing a good job, as she says, in
getting the Palisades on the path to rebuilding, the type
(04:31):
of voter that would live in that community certainly does
not share her optimism. When we think back a couple
of weeks ago, following the mayor's dismissal of the fire Chief,
I had anticipated that more than two city council members
(04:54):
would go against the mayor and vote to reinstate the
fire chief at that hearing. But all expire Chief Crowley
could muster was two city council votes in her favor,
council Woman Monica Rodriguez from the Valley and Councilwoman Tracy
Park from the Palisades. What I was looking for was
(05:15):
to see whether any members of the city council saw
any political opportunity to separate themselves from the mayor's declining popularity.
And you really didn't. You didn't see anybody really wanting
to step away from the mayor, except for Rodriguez and Park.
(05:39):
But it turns out the performance of the city council
was also a question in this poll. Twenty one percent
of city voters say the fifteen members city council's fire
response has been excellent or good. That's about the same
as the mayor and council members weren't even in Ghana
(06:02):
when the fire broke out. So if you are part
of a legislative body with a low overall performance rate,
evaluation anyway from the voters, should you be thinking about
a way to establish yourself as independent of the disaster,
(06:23):
independent of the negative outcomes, independent of the political baggage
carried by other politicians like Mayor Bass.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
At this point.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
LA County Board of Supervisors also got a bad report
card in this poll. Nineteen percent, same as the mayor,
say that the fire response has been excellent or good.
I mean, people are not happy about what happened in
this city. But it was negativity towards Bass that was
(06:58):
higher than the supervisors or the city council because they
did offer some options here. Do you think the performance
is poor or do you think it's very poor? And
it was Bass who got forty one percent combined of
poor versus very poor.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
When asked whether the council.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Did a poor or very poor job, they're rating as
twenty seven percent, so it's close to their excellent or
good right twenty one percent say excellent or good, twenty
seven percent say very poor or poor, whereas Mayor Bass
only as nineteen percent saying excellent are good and forty
(07:44):
one percent saying poor are very poor. And the same
is true for the Board of Supervisors. Their numbers are
closer too, only twenty eight percent saying poor or very poor.
Governor Newsom, on the other hand, has managed to come.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Out of this more favorably.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
With this poll, thirty five percent say they thought he
did a good or excellent job, only thirty two percent
thought he did a poor or very poor job. Sixteen
percent say fair, sixteen percent also say no opinion. Locally,
in the city of La, forty percent of La residents
(08:24):
approved of the governor's response to the wildfire, as opposed
to twenty six percent who say he had done a
poor or very poor job. So somehow, Governor Knewsome is
comparatively the more popular politician in the aftermath of these wildfires,
(08:46):
there is a group that has a very high favorable rating.
According to this poll, the Los Angeles Fire Department. Seventy
three percent of county residents say the LA County fired
apart has done an excellent or good job, and seventy
one percent said the same for the LA City Fire Department.
(09:07):
So the firefighters very popular in the wake of the wildfires,
the politicians not so much. And speaking of politicians and
their level of popularity, we're going to talk about Democrats
in California, Republicans in California, and some commentary that I
found very fascinating and I.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Hope you do too.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There's a new book coming out about the politics of abundance.
Not sure I completely understand what that means, but the
commentary about Democrats in California struck me as important and accurate.
I want to play some of those clips for you next,
and I always want to hear from you. Open up
the iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button. We'll play
(09:49):
some of those comments coming up, and that segment is next.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
KFI AM six forty everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. This
is Michael Monks Reports on Michael Monks from KFI News.
We get another half hour or so forty minutes with
you going till nine o'clock tonight. There's a dingy motel
in Hollywood, East Hollywood, to be exact, that may soon
be named a historic cultural landmark in the city. I'm
(10:21):
going to tell you about that coming up. You're gonna
want to hear the defense of the architecture on why
this very low rated one and a half star on
trip Advisor may become a designated part of Los Angeles history.
But first I told you before we went to break
every now and then you scroll social media, your eyes
(10:43):
fall out of your head, your eyes bleed, your ears bleed.
You're hearing so much ridiculous commentary. So much of it
is either wrong or just incendiary. People are mean. There's
not a lot that makes you better for having read
it or heard it. But occasionally you do find something worthwhile,
(11:03):
And I personally think I found something worthwhile scrolling earlier
this week. It was an opinion piece from journalist Ezra Clined.
He does opinion pieces for the New York Times now,
but he's been up and down the dial and national
media scene. And he has a new book out with
journalist Derek Thompson of the Atlantic. It's called Abundance, And
(11:24):
despite its title, it's not like The Secret, it's not
manifesting and all of that. It is about politics and
government and how there should be enough for all of us.
And it analyzes the differences right now between the Democrats
who are often defending government. They're in the position of
(11:45):
defending government even when it's not delivering the goods the
way we were promised, even when it cost too much.
And then the Republicans, who are basically at this point
burn it down, burn it all down. And then you find,
you know, IRS workers or National Park rangers and today
(12:07):
Voice of America journalists saying, oh, well, that cost does
our jobs. So is there some better way. I pulled
some clips from Ezra Kline's New York Times commentary, which
he says he adapted from this book Abundance, and he
specifically talks about blue states and blue cities like California
(12:28):
and Los Angeles and why it's not a place that
working people can live anymore. Let's hear the first one.
The cost of living is too high. It is too
expensive to get childcare.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It's almost like saying another mortgage.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
It is too expensive to buy a home.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Very unrealistic to be able to put a down payment
on a two million dollar home with two kids surviving.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
You end up having to live too far from your work.
And so they're going to places where all of that
is cheaper.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Every day someone is moving to the Florida area.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
She got an apartment three times the sillies of the
ones she had in Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Plus there's a wrap around that. Yeah, yeah, I can
definitely understand.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Get that you four bedroom, free bath house I had
in Texas.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, I know these families. These families are my friends.
I've lived with them in these places, and I've watched
many of them move away from the place they love,
the city they wanted to raise their children because they could.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Not afford to live there.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
You cannot be the party of working families when the
places you govern or places working families cannot.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Afford to live, cannot afford to live. I mean, we
hear that all the time here, and then the answers
don't appear to make it any better. The answers presented
by the government that is at this point dominated locally
by Democrats, and this could be a problem for Democrats
nationally because as people leave blue cities and blue states,
(13:56):
they're often moving to other states that do not vote
the same way Texas, Florida, and this could have serious ramifications,
particularly in the electoral college.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Let's hear the next one.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The states of Kamala Harris won in twenty twenty four
will lose House seats and electoral college votes the states
a Trump.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
One will gain them.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So in that electoral college, a Democrat could win every
single state Harris won in twenty twenty four and also
win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still lose the presidency.
There is a policy failure haunting blue states.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
It has become too hard.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
To build and too expensive to live in the places
where Democrats government. Our politics is split right now between
a left of defense government even when it doesn't work,
and a right that wants to destroy government even when
it is working. What we need is a political party
that actually makes government work. Democrats can be that party,
They should be that party, but it requires them to
(14:58):
confront what they have done to make government fail.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And one example that asraclined points out as what Democrats
have done to make government fail. Is something you've heard
a lot about right here on KFI AM six forty
over the past two or three weeks, and it is
the high speed rail project that was supposed to five
years ago connect Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It has not.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
We have no trains moving on this high speed rail
line yet, and the price is extraordinarily expensive. And apparently
folks have known that this was not going to be
happening for quite a while.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Let's hear the next one.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
By twenty eighteen, it was brutally clear that nothing was
going to be rideable by twenty twenty, and the cost
estimate it wasn't thirty three billion dollars anymore. It had
risen and risen and risen by twenty eighteen of seventy
six billion dollars.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
Next, next level, let's let's level about the high speed rail.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The next year, twenty nineteen, Gavin Newsom, who had served
as Browns lieutenant governor, succeeded him as governor.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Right now, there simply isn't a path to get from
Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to
La I wish there were, However, we do have the
capacity to complete a high speed rail link between Merced and.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Bakersfield Merced and Bakersfield, a line no one would have
authorized if it had been the plan that was presented
in the first place. The latest estimate just for that
line is thirty five billion dollars, as much as the
entire La to ESF line was estimated to costs in
two thousand and eight. And even as we're said in
Bakersfield line, it's not predicted to begin carrying passengers until
(16:42):
some time between twenty thirty and twenty thirty three.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And so the argument that we're hearing in this editorial
is that you have an idea that people thought was good. Yes,
voters approved high speed rail, but it's been delayed significantly.
The caw have ridden extraordinarily to the point where the
whole system would be over one hundred billion dollars and
(17:06):
the only stretch being worked on right now would connect
Merced and Bakersfield. And that's a stretch no one would
have voted to support if that's all we were going
to get out of this. And yet Democrats are found
in a position to defend the project in spite of
all of the cost overruns and the delays, whereas Republicans
(17:27):
are coming in now and saying scrap it all together?
Is there a medium? Is there some better way to
do this where government dollars are managed effectively, projects are
delivered as promised. That seems to be the question that
we'll be exploring. This forthcoming book by As Recline and
Derek Thompson. It's called Abundance. I've got some more clips
(17:48):
that I want to share with you. I want to
hear your comments on this. Open up the iHeartRadio app,
click on the talkback button. We'll play some of your
reactions coming up. And you can also tweet at me
or up on Instagram if you want. Mike Monks La
at MI C m O nks LA.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Michael Monks. This is Michael Monks Reports. We're going
till nine o'clock on this beautiful and cool Saturday night
in southern California. We've been talking about this forthcoming book
by national journalist Derek Thompson and Ezracline.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
It explores whether there's a better way for this country
to be governed.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And I know a lot of you out there have
got to be asking yourselves the same thing as we
find ourselves. With a democratic party that is often on
the side of having to defend and push for spending
money on things that sound great but are never delivered
the way they're supposed to be, always end up costing more,
or don't do the job that they say they will,
(18:56):
basically defending government waste, and a republic party currently that
appears to see everything as government waste. Is there a
way to govern society fiscally responsibly, socially responsibly. Is there
enough for everyone? And I don't think they mean this
(19:17):
in the communist sense. This is a very practical guide.
From the reviews, I'm saying, I can't wait to read
this book. These are two journalists I respect very much.
I don't necessarily always have to agree with what they
have to say, but I know they're smart. You know,
you know how you can see some commentary online on
occasion you think I don't really agree with that, but
(19:38):
I can. I can tell that it's thoughtful, it's not
just incendiarya and nasty. As reclined, the co author of
this book. Is also an opinion writer for The New
York Times, and he put out a really cool fifteen
minute long video that you can watch it in its
entirety on his social channels at as Reclined Easy, r
k L ei N, and he adapts this commentary from
(20:01):
the book, and a lot of it targets California, Los
Angeles and how poorly governed the state has been, and
how democrats here have been forced to basically dig themselves
deeper with the policies that have led to some messy
situations here. Before we went to break, I played a
clip from this commentary that took aim at the high
(20:23):
speed rail project that is an absolute mess right now.
Years behind, we were supposed to already, by the way,
be riding this train from Los Angeles to San Francisco
at a cost of about thirty three billion dollars. Voters
wanted this, they approved it. But it's twenty twenty five
and there are no trains moving at all, and right
now the only stretch that is being actively constructed is
(20:44):
between Mercet and Bakersfield, and the project, by the way,
in its entirety, will eventually cost over one hundred billion
dollars according to the latest estimates. Democrats here want to
keep moving forward with it. We've seen the Trump administration
the Republicans swoop in and say maybe we should stop
this thing. Let's hear more from Ezra Kleine number four
(21:07):
about why is apparently taking so long?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
The environmental review process began in twenty twelve, and by
twenty twenty four, twelve years later, it still wasn't done.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
What has taken so long on.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
High speed rail is not hammering nails or pouring concrete.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Good morning all, Welcome to the California High Speed Rail
Finance and not at committee meeting.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
It's process. It's negotiating.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Would like to go over
some important information for members of the public. Speakers will
be called upon in the order that their hands are ray.
Speaker 8 (21:36):
Good morning, elmhen that's already here on behalf of the
California Labor.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Federation International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
My question is why don't we have to wait almost
a whole year later to find out that they're not in.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Compliance negotiating with courts, with funders, with business owners, with homeowners,
with pharm owners, with other parts of the government. Those
negotiations cost time, which costs money. Those negotiations lead to
changes in the route or the design or the construction, and.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
That cost money, and that cost time.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Those negotiations of the product of decades of liberal policies,
meant to protect against government abuses, and they may do that,
but they also prevent government from building quickly or affordably
in a time California spend failing to complete it's five hundred.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Mile high speed rail system.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
China's built more than twenty three thousand miles of high
speed rail.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Now, he does go on to say that he doesn't
want the US to be like China. Right, that's an
authoritarian government there. But surely with people as smart as
we have in America, we should be able to build
this high speed rail line without all of this red tape,
without all of these delays. And by the way, we
are seeing the same thing with the attempts to rebuild
(22:47):
after the fires. There's been a lot of talk about permitting,
there's been a lot of talk about environmental reviews. It
is layer upon layer upon layer. A housing crisis, as
they call it in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County
don't have enough housing and then when you try to
build something, it takes ages. That's what he's getting at
here in this commentary. In fact, he talks about housing
(23:09):
in this state in the next.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Clip, California has the worst housing problem in the country.
In twenty twenty two, the state of twelve percent of
the country's population, It had thirty percent of the country's
homeless population, and it had fifty percent five zero of
its unsheltered homeless population.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Has this unfathomable.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Failure led to California building more homes than was building
a decade ago. No, it hasn't. In the last few decades,
Democrats took a wrong turn. They became the party that
believes in government, that defends government, not the party that
forces government to work.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And there he reiterates it again, that's what you see
here in LA all the time. We just had an
interview last hour with Supervisor Lindsay Horfat. Now they're making
a pivot, right. They want to take away the way
they're funding homelesss currently and move it into a different
silo where they say more accountability will be available. But
(24:06):
that was after years of spending billions and billions of
dollars to address homelessness crisis. In Los Angeles and Los
Angeles County and only finding out in the past year
or so with all of these audits that not only
are we not seeing improvements at the rate that we
need to be seeing, they're not even properly accounting for
(24:29):
the money. But because the homeless population count went down
like half a percent last year, or being told to
stay the course often. So I'm going to play one
more piece from Ezraklin's commentary, and again I highly encourage you,
(24:51):
just as a Californian who wants some insight on why
the government situation is the way it is. In this date,
I just think he really nailed it. Go watch the
whole thing. It was published by New York Times Opinion,
but I think you can also find it still on
Ezra Klein's social media channel.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Let's hear the last clip politics.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
It asks what it is that people really need and
then organizes government and markets to make sure there is enough.
Event that doesn't give you the childishly simple divides that
has so deformed our politics. Government is not simply good
at all times, it is not simply bad at all times.
Sometimes government has to get out of the way, like
in housing. Sometimes it has to take a central role,
(25:33):
like in creating markets or organizing resources for technologies that
do not yet exist and that we need and that
are too risky for markets to fund.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
So that sums it up. That's his politics of abundance.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
That's the definition of what he and his co author,
fellow journalist Derek Thompson of The Atlantic, have to say. Again,
I'm looking forward to reading this book. They're smart guys.
I want to hear more about their analysis and whether
there might be a path forward to figure out how
to make government work without burning it down or without
bloating it. Maybe we'll see on the other side of
(26:08):
the current state of things if we manage to survive it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
I hope we do.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
If you have something to say about what you just heard,
open up the iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button.
We're gonna play the comments we've received coming up in
the next segment.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
That's also what I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
If you were traveling to Los Angeles and I said,
boil boy, do I have the motel for you? It's
got a one and a half star rating. People's reviews
basically say don't would you stay? Yeah, you're adventurous well,
there is such a motel in East Hollywood. Doesn't look great,
(26:48):
doesn't have good reviews, but it might be LA's next
historic cultural landmark. We're gonna hear the guy who nominated
this motel and why he thinks it's historic.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
on Michael Monks. This is Michael Monks Reports. Got a
few more minutes with you. We went and get to
some of your talkbacks filed through the iHeartRadio app. We
got a caller curious about the eagles, made some observations.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Let's hear from Lisa.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Hi, this is about the eglet. I was watching this
afternoon when they were feeding, and actually you can now
see the little baby eglet who has passed away. He's
he's in the nest and you could only see because
you can see a little furry for fluff and his
beak sticking up and part of his body, and so
(27:45):
he is in that nest, but he has passed away
and the other two were being fed, so I guess
you haven't.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh, Lisa, thanks for the call. It's brutal nature is brutal.
We're going to keep an eye on that. I know
thousands and thou thousands and thousands of you are also.
We're all little eglet detectives now as we watch for
any signs of what has happened to that poor little
guy who has apparently died in the nest. And now
let's hear from Jamie Monks.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What's up.
Speaker 9 (28:14):
You know I called you during day three of the
fires and I said, where's the military?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
And I don't know.
Speaker 9 (28:22):
It didn't work out that I expect it, but the
military ended up stepping at day four or five.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
That's great.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
More importantly, you had one of the best stories of
the month tonight about accountability.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You introed it this week.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
It was great, and then you had your own story phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Cheers to you, bro.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Have a great weekend, Jamie, thanks so much for listening.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share those
thoughts with us. We do appreciate that very much. And
now we've got some comments on the Ezra clined piece
that I was sharing.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
It's from Steven. Let's hear from him.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
I understand, my friend, the Demarcrats. I've become of such
a lying a ball of crap. They care not about
American citizens. They only care about the illegal aliens that
they've allowed into this country. Please open your eyes and
(29:15):
see the obvious.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
We'll do Steven, thanks so much for taking the time
to send the message. We appreciate you listening. And then
we have one more comment to share with you from Will.
Speaker 9 (29:26):
Hey, Monks was great.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Great.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I love that show.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Monks.
Speaker 9 (29:29):
Whatever he was doing, that was pretty good. Listen, Monks,
stay on top of them. Like White on rice, bro
stay on top of that. They're moving a new agenda
spending to some new homeless center. Maybe they should set
its mental health from them. I don't have a job
or lost their job an accident, or the people that
(29:49):
are on seers drugs.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Appreciate that Will very much. You can bet that we
will stay on top of that and keep an eye
on them. Or like white on rice and they don't
get whiter than me, So I will stay on top
of that for you. So stay tuned for that. Appreciate
you all listening tonight. Hey, before we leave, you know,
if you've happened to listen to me on Saturday nights
or caught some of my news reports over the past
(30:12):
year plus, here at KFI, you know that I've got
a special place for covering historic preservation issues. I try
to tap into the meetings where they're approving these things.
I want to know the history of them. And sometimes
you find interesting landmarks and you can do a story
about them. But one that was approved just last week,
not for the official designation. There's a few more steps,
but it has taking a step towards being a historic landmark.
(30:36):
Is the Hollywood Premiere Motel. It's in East Hollywood. It's
got a great location, but everything else about it, according
to reviews, it's terrible. So trip Advisor, for example, has
one hundred and eighteen motels listed in the city of
Los Angeles. This one ranks one to twelve, only six
(30:58):
worse than this one one and a half as star rating.
The reviews say, don't you dare? Bed Bugs bloodstains are
mentioned in the reviews of this motel trash.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
They call it run down dirt bag.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Some of these are old, like ten year old reviews,
but it doesn't look like it gets any better as
we get closer to the present day. However, this location
came up before the LA Cultural Heritage Commission, which is
the first step where nominations are reviewed. And these people
who review these items are smart. They are in architecture,
(31:33):
they are in preservation, they know their stuff. And a
man named James Tstoli, who has presented before, presented about
this has a beautiful sign, a beautiful old sign. When
this hotel was built nineteen sixty it's still there, so
there is some value to it. But I want you
to first hear the reaction from the Chairman of the board,
Barry Mulawsky.
Speaker 11 (31:53):
In my initial response look at the nomination was really
I think it's worth taking a look at it, sort
of seeing where it's in the history of Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And he says it's worth looking at because of the
passionate nomination by James Astoli, and he explains why this
thing matters.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Let's hear the first one.
Speaker 8 (32:14):
It's very close to the one on one. It is
on the Hollywood Boulevard, so you know, obviously Hollywood Boulevard
is going to be a place that people want to
come from all over to visit, and the idea of
taking a road trip earlier it would have been along
Route sixty six, but then eventually it becomes the freeways
have been built and here we have this location right
(32:36):
off the one on one is going to give you
access to things like the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Sign,
the Grift of the Observatory, Universal Studios.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And of course the Walk of Fame.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
So excellent location right and you know, if you're driving
in the mid century, there are significant developments in the
way families look for accommodations because the car is a
important and so mister Destoli also explains that connection in
this next clip.
Speaker 8 (33:04):
By the time you get to nineteen sixty, the Hollywood
Premiere is not hiding the relationship to the automobile at all.
So it's telling us that from the late nineteen forties
up to nineteen sixty, the idea of well, what would
a family on a road trip expect, how would they
want to spend the night on the right side. There
(33:26):
you're basically in this sea of asphalt. It's like you
never even left the freeways, like you're practically sleeping on
the road. And that's what car culture was by nineteen
sixty in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
So even though you might drive past this place and
think never in a million years, it has had a
lot of years and it does have this unique connection
to Los Angeles history.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
We're known for our cars here right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
This was also a long route sixty six when that
was a thing, and as hospitality was trending towards peace
in cars, this was an early representation of that. The
Hollywood Premiere Motel still has its beautiful old sign out there.
Apparently it does still light up. Not sure if they
do light it up. The motel itself just looks like
(34:13):
a motel, right, mid century architecture. It's fine, but we'll
follow that. We'll let you know if it makes it.
This was the first step. Ultimately, the city council votes
on these. It's usually no comment, you know, it's just
something that they just usher through. It's already gone through
the vetting process. They allow the experts to make their
presentations and consider it. This would be the first motel
(34:36):
on the list of Historic Cultural Landmarks in the City
of Los Angeles. This is a long list. I'm a
preservation guy, love old buildings. There are a lot of
gorgeous old buildings on this thing, but not a single motel.
The Hollywood Premier Motel one and a half stars on
trip Advisor could become the first. I tell you who
(34:57):
you will never see at the Hollywood premiere Moteil Hell.
Getting up to no good, getting up to mischief. Is
the team here at Michael Monks Reports. Whom I want
to think tonight. That's our board operator Raul Cortez, who
probably would be shooting dice out there somewhere get in
some trouble if I know H'm well enough. Our producer
is Matthew Toffler, and our news anchor is Brigitta Agostino.
(35:17):
All little angels, All little angels here at KFI always
appreciate you spending a little bit of your Saturday night
with us. Hope to catch you again next Saturday for
another edition of Michael Monks's Reports. And of course I'm
with you all week long here giving you the news
and talking with all the other show hosts throughout the week,
keeping you informed here on KFI AM six
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Ft, KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Michael Monks Reports. I'm Michael Monks from KFI
News with you for another hour here on this cool
Saturday night in southern California. Thanks for being with us.
If you hear anything that you want to chime in on,
you can always join our conversation by opening up that
iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button and we'll play
(00:27):
some If you want to talk about dead birds, dead Eaglitz,
dead crows, dead condors. If you want to talk about
that new homeless department at La County we discussed last hour.
If you want to talk about where I'm supposed to
buy pants now that the Macy's downtown is closed, just
open up the app, click on the talkback we'll play
some of those during this hour. I've got some topics
I think you're gonna want to talk about as well.
(00:49):
This hour, there's a new poll out co sponsored by
the Los Angeles Times and UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies,
and they ask registered voters about how Mayor Bass is doing,
how the La City Council is doing, how the LA
Board of Supervisors is doing, how Governor Newsome is doing.
And the numbers here locally are just not good. And
(01:13):
it plays into what I've been talking about as it
relates to Mayor Bass's performance. I'm not offering a position
on her performance. It's just an observation that she is
clearly just powering through a lot of the negative headlines,
a lot of the criticism. I mean, there's now a
burgeoning recall campaign against her. Certainly there have been calls
(01:34):
from others that for her resignation, and she is still
appearing at press conferences, sending out social media not just
about the fires and the recovery and all of that
everyday mayor stuff. She's going to be at the LA
Marathon tomorrow morning to kick that thing off in the
six o'clock hour like a mayor does, without really acknowledging
(01:56):
the political ramifications that may be associated with the assessment
of her performance so far. You know, last year a
poll came out from these same folks that said about
half thought Mayor Bass was doing a good job. That's
not the case anymore. These fires, the Palisades fire in particular,
(02:17):
of course, in the city of la really have done
some damage to her right now, less than twenty percent
of respondents said that Mayor Bass had been doing an
excellent or a good job, while more than forty percent
(02:38):
of registered voters in the city said that she was
doing a poor or very poor job in responding to
the fires. So if you've only got twenty percent support
among registered voters, that is not a good place to
(02:58):
be really before a re election campaign anyway. But you
know that stuff's already starting. We're voting next year. You
know how campaigns are in America. They take forever, and
this is somebody who needs to start raising significant money,
generating support, and right now it looks like an uphill battle.
(03:25):
There's not been a declared opponent. She's got that going
for her, but those are bad numbers. A lot of
it has to do with the fact that she was
in Ghana when the fires broke out, and that really
seems to be the bulk of it. When you hear
(03:48):
her press conferences recently, she is laying out what appears
to be facts that the recovery process in the Palisades
is moving faster than it was expected to be. The cleanup,
getting aid to folks, But it was specifically people who
(04:10):
make over one hundred thousand dollars a year that gave
her the worst numbers. And if you're thinking about where
the wealthier people in the City of Los Angeles live,
certainly the Palisades would be one of those areas. So
if she's doing a good job, as she says, in
getting the Palisades on the path to rebuilding, the type
(04:31):
of voter that would live in that community certainly does
not share her optimism. When we think back a couple
of weeks ago, following the mayor's dismissal of the fire Chief,
I had anticipated that more than two city council members
(04:54):
would go against the mayor and vote to reinstate the
fire chief at that hearing. But all expire Chief Crowley
could muster was two city council votes in her favor,
council Woman Monica Rodriguez from the Valley and Councilwoman Tracy
Park from the Palisades. What I was looking for was
(05:15):
to see whether any members of the city council saw
any political opportunity to separate themselves from the mayor's declining popularity.
And you really didn't. You didn't see anybody really wanting
to step away from the mayor, except for Rodriguez and Park.
(05:39):
But it turns out the performance of the city council
was also a question in this poll. Twenty one percent
of city voters say the fifteen members city council's fire
response has been excellent or good. That's about the same
as the mayor and council members weren't even in Ghana
(06:02):
when the fire broke out. So if you are part
of a legislative body with a low overall performance rate,
evaluation anyway from the voters, should you be thinking about
a way to establish yourself as independent of the disaster,
(06:23):
independent of the negative outcomes, independent of the political baggage
carried by other politicians like Mayor Bass.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
At this point.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
LA County Board of Supervisors also got a bad report
card in this poll. Nineteen percent, same as the mayor,
say that the fire response has been excellent or good.
I mean, people are not happy about what happened in
this city. But it was negativity towards Bass that was
(06:58):
higher than the supervisors or the city council because they
did offer some options here. Do you think the performance
is poor or do you think it's very poor? And
it was Bass who got forty one percent combined of
poor versus very poor.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
When asked whether the council.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Did a poor or very poor job, they're rating as
twenty seven percent, so it's close to their excellent or
good right twenty one percent say excellent or good, twenty
seven percent say very poor or poor, whereas Mayor Bass
only as nineteen percent saying excellent are good and forty
(07:44):
one percent saying poor are very poor. And the same
is true for the Board of Supervisors. Their numbers are
closer too, only twenty eight percent saying poor or very poor.
Governor Newsom, on the other hand, has managed to come.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Out of this more favorably.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
With this poll, thirty five percent say they thought he
did a good or excellent job, only thirty two percent
thought he did a poor or very poor job. Sixteen
percent say fair, sixteen percent also say no opinion. Locally,
in the city of La, forty percent of La residents
(08:24):
approved of the governor's response to the wildfire, as opposed
to twenty six percent who say he had done a
poor or very poor job. So somehow, Governor Knewsome is
comparatively the more popular politician in the aftermath of these wildfires,
(08:46):
there is a group that has a very high favorable rating.
According to this poll, the Los Angeles Fire Department. Seventy
three percent of county residents say the LA County fired
apart has done an excellent or good job, and seventy
one percent said the same for the LA City Fire Department.
(09:07):
So the firefighters very popular in the wake of the wildfires,
the politicians not so much. And speaking of politicians and
their level of popularity, we're going to talk about Democrats
in California, Republicans in California, and some commentary that I
found very fascinating and I.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Hope you do too.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There's a new book coming out about the politics of abundance.
Not sure I completely understand what that means, but the
commentary about Democrats in California struck me as important and accurate.
I want to play some of those clips for you next,
and I always want to hear from you. Open up
the iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button. We'll play
(09:49):
some of those comments coming up, and that segment is next.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
KFI AM six forty everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. This
is Michael Monks Reports on Michael Monks from KFI News.
We get another half hour or so forty minutes with
you going till nine o'clock tonight. There's a dingy motel
in Hollywood, East Hollywood, to be exact, that may soon
be named a historic cultural landmark in the city. I'm
(10:21):
going to tell you about that coming up. You're gonna
want to hear the defense of the architecture on why
this very low rated one and a half star on
trip Advisor may become a designated part of Los Angeles history.
But first I told you before we went to break
every now and then you scroll social media, your eyes
(10:43):
fall out of your head, your eyes bleed, your ears bleed.
You're hearing so much ridiculous commentary. So much of it
is either wrong or just incendiary. People are mean. There's
not a lot that makes you better for having read
it or heard it. But occasionally you do find something worthwhile,
(11:03):
And I personally think I found something worthwhile scrolling earlier
this week. It was an opinion piece from journalist Ezra Clined.
He does opinion pieces for the New York Times now,
but he's been up and down the dial and national
media scene. And he has a new book out with
journalist Derek Thompson of the Atlantic. It's called Abundance, And
(11:24):
despite its title, it's not like The Secret, it's not
manifesting and all of that. It is about politics and
government and how there should be enough for all of us.
And it analyzes the differences right now between the Democrats
who are often defending government. They're in the position of
(11:45):
defending government even when it's not delivering the goods the
way we were promised, even when it cost too much.
And then the Republicans, who are basically at this point
burn it down, burn it all down. And then you find,
you know, IRS workers or National Park rangers and today
(12:07):
Voice of America journalists saying, oh, well, that cost does
our jobs. So is there some better way. I pulled
some clips from Ezra Kline's New York Times commentary, which
he says he adapted from this book Abundance, and he
specifically talks about blue states and blue cities like California
(12:28):
and Los Angeles and why it's not a place that
working people can live anymore. Let's hear the first one.
The cost of living is too high. It is too
expensive to get childcare.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It's almost like saying another mortgage.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
It is too expensive to buy a home.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Very unrealistic to be able to put a down payment
on a two million dollar home with two kids surviving.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
You end up having to live too far from your work.
And so they're going to places where all of that
is cheaper.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Every day someone is moving to the Florida area.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
She got an apartment three times the sillies of the
ones she had in Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Plus there's a wrap around that. Yeah, yeah, I can
definitely understand.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
Get that you four bedroom, free bath house I had
in Texas.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, I know these families. These families are my friends.
I've lived with them in these places, and I've watched
many of them move away from the place they love,
the city they wanted to raise their children because they could.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Not afford to live there.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
You cannot be the party of working families when the
places you govern or places working families cannot.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Afford to live, cannot afford to live. I mean, we
hear that all the time here, and then the answers
don't appear to make it any better. The answers presented
by the government that is at this point dominated locally
by Democrats, and this could be a problem for Democrats
nationally because as people leave blue cities and blue states,
(13:56):
they're often moving to other states that do not vote
the same way Texas, Florida, and this could have serious ramifications,
particularly in the electoral college.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Let's hear the next one.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The states of Kamala Harris won in twenty twenty four
will lose House seats and electoral college votes the states
a Trump.
Speaker 5 (14:18):
One will gain them.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So in that electoral college, a Democrat could win every
single state Harris won in twenty twenty four and also
win Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still lose the presidency.
There is a policy failure haunting blue states.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
It has become too hard.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
To build and too expensive to live in the places
where Democrats government. Our politics is split right now between
a left of defense government even when it doesn't work,
and a right that wants to destroy government even when
it is working. What we need is a political party
that actually makes government work. Democrats can be that party,
They should be that party, but it requires them to
(14:58):
confront what they have done to make government fail.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And one example that asraclined points out as what Democrats
have done to make government fail. Is something you've heard
a lot about right here on KFI AM six forty
over the past two or three weeks, and it is
the high speed rail project that was supposed to five
years ago connect Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It has not.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
We have no trains moving on this high speed rail
line yet, and the price is extraordinarily expensive. And apparently
folks have known that this was not going to be
happening for quite a while.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Let's hear the next one.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
By twenty eighteen, it was brutally clear that nothing was
going to be rideable by twenty twenty, and the cost
estimate it wasn't thirty three billion dollars anymore. It had
risen and risen and risen by twenty eighteen of seventy
six billion dollars.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
Next, next level, let's let's level about the high speed rail.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The next year, twenty nineteen, Gavin Newsom, who had served
as Browns lieutenant governor, succeeded him as governor.
Speaker 7 (16:04):
Right now, there simply isn't a path to get from
Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to
La I wish there were, However, we do have the
capacity to complete a high speed rail link between Merced and.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Bakersfield Merced and Bakersfield, a line no one would have
authorized if it had been the plan that was presented
in the first place. The latest estimate just for that
line is thirty five billion dollars, as much as the
entire La to ESF line was estimated to costs in
two thousand and eight. And even as we're said in
Bakersfield line, it's not predicted to begin carrying passengers until
(16:42):
some time between twenty thirty and twenty thirty three.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And so the argument that we're hearing in this editorial
is that you have an idea that people thought was good. Yes,
voters approved high speed rail, but it's been delayed significantly.
The caw have ridden extraordinarily to the point where the
whole system would be over one hundred billion dollars and
(17:06):
the only stretch being worked on right now would connect
Merced and Bakersfield. And that's a stretch no one would
have voted to support if that's all we were going
to get out of this. And yet Democrats are found
in a position to defend the project in spite of
all of the cost overruns and the delays, whereas Republicans
(17:27):
are coming in now and saying scrap it all together?
Is there a medium? Is there some better way to
do this where government dollars are managed effectively, projects are
delivered as promised. That seems to be the question that
we'll be exploring. This forthcoming book by As Recline and
Derek Thompson. It's called Abundance. I've got some more clips
(17:48):
that I want to share with you. I want to
hear your comments on this. Open up the iHeartRadio app,
click on the talkback button. We'll play some of your
reactions coming up. And you can also tweet at me
or up on Instagram if you want. Mike Monks La
at MI C m O nks LA.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Michael Monks. This is Michael Monks Reports. We're going
till nine o'clock on this beautiful and cool Saturday night
in southern California. We've been talking about this forthcoming book
by national journalist Derek Thompson and Ezracline.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
It explores whether there's a better way for this country
to be governed.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And I know a lot of you out there have
got to be asking yourselves the same thing as we
find ourselves. With a democratic party that is often on
the side of having to defend and push for spending
money on things that sound great but are never delivered
the way they're supposed to be, always end up costing more,
or don't do the job that they say they will,
(18:56):
basically defending government waste, and a republic party currently that
appears to see everything as government waste. Is there a
way to govern society fiscally responsibly, socially responsibly. Is there
enough for everyone? And I don't think they mean this
(19:17):
in the communist sense. This is a very practical guide.
From the reviews, I'm saying, I can't wait to read
this book. These are two journalists I respect very much.
I don't necessarily always have to agree with what they
have to say, but I know they're smart. You know,
you know how you can see some commentary online on
occasion you think I don't really agree with that, but
(19:38):
I can. I can tell that it's thoughtful, it's not
just incendiarya and nasty. As reclined, the co author of
this book. Is also an opinion writer for The New
York Times, and he put out a really cool fifteen
minute long video that you can watch it in its
entirety on his social channels at as Reclined Easy, r
k L ei N, and he adapts this commentary from
(20:01):
the book, and a lot of it targets California, Los
Angeles and how poorly governed the state has been, and
how democrats here have been forced to basically dig themselves
deeper with the policies that have led to some messy
situations here. Before we went to break, I played a
clip from this commentary that took aim at the high
(20:23):
speed rail project that is an absolute mess right now.
Years behind, we were supposed to already, by the way,
be riding this train from Los Angeles to San Francisco
at a cost of about thirty three billion dollars. Voters
wanted this, they approved it. But it's twenty twenty five
and there are no trains moving at all, and right
now the only stretch that is being actively constructed is
(20:44):
between Mercet and Bakersfield, and the project, by the way,
in its entirety, will eventually cost over one hundred billion
dollars according to the latest estimates. Democrats here want to
keep moving forward with it. We've seen the Trump administration
the Republicans swoop in and say maybe we should stop
this thing. Let's hear more from Ezra Kleine number four
(21:07):
about why is apparently taking so long?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
The environmental review process began in twenty twelve, and by
twenty twenty four, twelve years later, it still wasn't done.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
What has taken so long on.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
High speed rail is not hammering nails or pouring concrete.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Good morning all, Welcome to the California High Speed Rail
Finance and not at committee meeting.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
It's process. It's negotiating.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Would like to go over
some important information for members of the public. Speakers will
be called upon in the order that their hands are ray.
Speaker 8 (21:36):
Good morning, elmhen that's already here on behalf of the
California Labor.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Federation International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
My question is why don't we have to wait almost
a whole year later to find out that they're not in.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Compliance negotiating with courts, with funders, with business owners, with homeowners,
with pharm owners, with other parts of the government. Those
negotiations cost time, which costs money. Those negotiations lead to
changes in the route or the design or the construction, and.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
That cost money, and that cost time.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Those negotiations of the product of decades of liberal policies,
meant to protect against government abuses, and they may do that,
but they also prevent government from building quickly or affordably
in a time California spend failing to complete it's five hundred.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Mile high speed rail system.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
China's built more than twenty three thousand miles of high
speed rail.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Now, he does go on to say that he doesn't
want the US to be like China. Right, that's an
authoritarian government there. But surely with people as smart as
we have in America, we should be able to build
this high speed rail line without all of this red tape,
without all of these delays. And by the way, we
are seeing the same thing with the attempts to rebuild
(22:47):
after the fires. There's been a lot of talk about permitting,
there's been a lot of talk about environmental reviews. It
is layer upon layer upon layer. A housing crisis, as
they call it in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County
don't have enough housing and then when you try to
build something, it takes ages. That's what he's getting at
here in this commentary. In fact, he talks about housing
(23:09):
in this state in the next.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Clip, California has the worst housing problem in the country.
In twenty twenty two, the state of twelve percent of
the country's population, It had thirty percent of the country's
homeless population, and it had fifty percent five zero of
its unsheltered homeless population.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Has this unfathomable.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Failure led to California building more homes than was building
a decade ago. No, it hasn't. In the last few decades,
Democrats took a wrong turn. They became the party that
believes in government, that defends government, not the party that
forces government to work.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And there he reiterates it again, that's what you see
here in LA all the time. We just had an
interview last hour with Supervisor Lindsay Horfat. Now they're making
a pivot, right. They want to take away the way
they're funding homelesss currently and move it into a different
silo where they say more accountability will be available. But
(24:06):
that was after years of spending billions and billions of
dollars to address homelessness crisis. In Los Angeles and Los
Angeles County and only finding out in the past year
or so with all of these audits that not only
are we not seeing improvements at the rate that we
need to be seeing, they're not even properly accounting for
(24:29):
the money. But because the homeless population count went down
like half a percent last year, or being told to
stay the course often. So I'm going to play one
more piece from Ezraklin's commentary, and again I highly encourage you,
(24:51):
just as a Californian who wants some insight on why
the government situation is the way it is. In this date,
I just think he really nailed it. Go watch the
whole thing. It was published by New York Times Opinion,
but I think you can also find it still on
Ezra Klein's social media channel.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Let's hear the last clip politics.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
It asks what it is that people really need and
then organizes government and markets to make sure there is enough.
Event that doesn't give you the childishly simple divides that
has so deformed our politics. Government is not simply good
at all times, it is not simply bad at all times.
Sometimes government has to get out of the way, like
in housing. Sometimes it has to take a central role,
(25:33):
like in creating markets or organizing resources for technologies that
do not yet exist and that we need and that
are too risky for markets to fund.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
So that sums it up. That's his politics of abundance.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
That's the definition of what he and his co author,
fellow journalist Derek Thompson of The Atlantic, have to say. Again,
I'm looking forward to reading this book. They're smart guys.
I want to hear more about their analysis and whether
there might be a path forward to figure out how
to make government work without burning it down or without
bloating it. Maybe we'll see on the other side of
(26:08):
the current state of things if we manage to survive it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
I hope we do.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
If you have something to say about what you just heard,
open up the iHeartRadio app, click on the talkback button.
We're gonna play the comments we've received coming up in
the next segment.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
That's also what I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
If you were traveling to Los Angeles and I said,
boil boy, do I have the motel for you? It's
got a one and a half star rating. People's reviews
basically say don't would you stay? Yeah, you're adventurous well,
there is such a motel in East Hollywood. Doesn't look great,
(26:48):
doesn't have good reviews, but it might be LA's next
historic cultural landmark. We're gonna hear the guy who nominated
this motel and why he thinks it's historic.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
on Michael Monks. This is Michael Monks Reports. Got a
few more minutes with you. We went and get to
some of your talkbacks filed through the iHeartRadio app. We
got a caller curious about the eagles, made some observations.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Let's hear from Lisa.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
Hi, this is about the eglet. I was watching this
afternoon when they were feeding, and actually you can now
see the little baby eglet who has passed away. He's
he's in the nest and you could only see because
you can see a little furry for fluff and his
beak sticking up and part of his body, and so
(27:45):
he is in that nest, but he has passed away
and the other two were being fed, so I guess
you haven't.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh, Lisa, thanks for the call. It's brutal nature is brutal.
We're going to keep an eye on that. I know
thousands and thou thousands and thousands of you are also.
We're all little eglet detectives now as we watch for
any signs of what has happened to that poor little
guy who has apparently died in the nest. And now
let's hear from Jamie Monks.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What's up.
Speaker 9 (28:14):
You know I called you during day three of the
fires and I said, where's the military?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
And I don't know.
Speaker 9 (28:22):
It didn't work out that I expect it, but the
military ended up stepping at day four or five.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
That's great.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
More importantly, you had one of the best stories of
the month tonight about accountability.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
You introed it this week.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
It was great, and then you had your own story phenomenal.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Cheers to you, bro.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Have a great weekend, Jamie, thanks so much for listening.
Thanks so much for taking the time to share those
thoughts with us. We do appreciate that very much. And
now we've got some comments on the Ezra clined piece
that I was sharing.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
It's from Steven. Let's hear from him.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
I understand, my friend, the Demarcrats. I've become of such
a lying a ball of crap. They care not about
American citizens. They only care about the illegal aliens that
they've allowed into this country. Please open your eyes and
(29:15):
see the obvious.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
We'll do Steven, thanks so much for taking the time
to send the message. We appreciate you listening. And then
we have one more comment to share with you from Will.
Speaker 9 (29:26):
Hey, Monks was great.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Great.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I love that show.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Monks.
Speaker 9 (29:29):
Whatever he was doing, that was pretty good. Listen, Monks,
stay on top of them. Like White on rice, bro
stay on top of that. They're moving a new agenda
spending to some new homeless center. Maybe they should set
its mental health from them. I don't have a job
or lost their job an accident, or the people that
(29:49):
are on seers drugs.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Appreciate that Will very much. You can bet that we
will stay on top of that and keep an eye
on them. Or like white on rice and they don't
get whiter than me, So I will stay on top
of that for you. So stay tuned for that. Appreciate
you all listening tonight. Hey, before we leave, you know,
if you've happened to listen to me on Saturday nights
or caught some of my news reports over the past
(30:12):
year plus, here at KFI, you know that I've got
a special place for covering historic preservation issues. I try
to tap into the meetings where they're approving these things.
I want to know the history of them. And sometimes
you find interesting landmarks and you can do a story
about them. But one that was approved just last week,
not for the official designation. There's a few more steps,
but it has taking a step towards being a historic landmark.
(30:36):
Is the Hollywood Premiere Motel. It's in East Hollywood. It's
got a great location, but everything else about it, according
to reviews, it's terrible. So trip Advisor, for example, has
one hundred and eighteen motels listed in the city of
Los Angeles. This one ranks one to twelve, only six
(30:58):
worse than this one one and a half as star rating.
The reviews say, don't you dare? Bed Bugs bloodstains are
mentioned in the reviews of this motel trash.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
They call it run down dirt bag.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Some of these are old, like ten year old reviews,
but it doesn't look like it gets any better as
we get closer to the present day. However, this location
came up before the LA Cultural Heritage Commission, which is
the first step where nominations are reviewed. And these people
who review these items are smart. They are in architecture,
(31:33):
they are in preservation, they know their stuff. And a
man named James Tstoli, who has presented before, presented about
this has a beautiful sign, a beautiful old sign. When
this hotel was built nineteen sixty it's still there, so
there is some value to it. But I want you
to first hear the reaction from the Chairman of the board,
Barry Mulawsky.
Speaker 11 (31:53):
In my initial response look at the nomination was really
I think it's worth taking a look at it, sort
of seeing where it's in the history of Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And he says it's worth looking at because of the
passionate nomination by James Astoli, and he explains why this
thing matters.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Let's hear the first one.
Speaker 8 (32:14):
It's very close to the one on one. It is
on the Hollywood Boulevard, so you know, obviously Hollywood Boulevard
is going to be a place that people want to
come from all over to visit, and the idea of
taking a road trip earlier it would have been along
Route sixty six, but then eventually it becomes the freeways
have been built and here we have this location right
(32:36):
off the one on one is going to give you
access to things like the Hollywood Bowl, the Hollywood Sign,
the Grift of the Observatory, Universal Studios.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And of course the Walk of Fame.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
So excellent location right and you know, if you're driving
in the mid century, there are significant developments in the
way families look for accommodations because the car is a
important and so mister Destoli also explains that connection in
this next clip.
Speaker 8 (33:04):
By the time you get to nineteen sixty, the Hollywood
Premiere is not hiding the relationship to the automobile at all.
So it's telling us that from the late nineteen forties
up to nineteen sixty, the idea of well, what would
a family on a road trip expect, how would they
want to spend the night on the right side. There
(33:26):
you're basically in this sea of asphalt. It's like you
never even left the freeways, like you're practically sleeping on
the road. And that's what car culture was by nineteen
sixty in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
So even though you might drive past this place and
think never in a million years, it has had a
lot of years and it does have this unique connection
to Los Angeles history.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
We're known for our cars here right.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
This was also a long route sixty six when that
was a thing, and as hospitality was trending towards peace
in cars, this was an early representation of that. The
Hollywood Premiere Motel still has its beautiful old sign out there.
Apparently it does still light up. Not sure if they
do light it up. The motel itself just looks like
(34:13):
a motel, right, mid century architecture. It's fine, but we'll
follow that. We'll let you know if it makes it.
This was the first step. Ultimately, the city council votes
on these. It's usually no comment, you know, it's just
something that they just usher through. It's already gone through
the vetting process. They allow the experts to make their
presentations and consider it. This would be the first motel
(34:36):
on the list of Historic Cultural Landmarks in the City
of Los Angeles. This is a long list. I'm a
preservation guy, love old buildings. There are a lot of
gorgeous old buildings on this thing, but not a single motel.
The Hollywood Premier Motel one and a half stars on
trip Advisor could become the first. I tell you who
(34:57):
you will never see at the Hollywood premiere Moteil Hell.
Getting up to no good, getting up to mischief. Is
the team here at Michael Monks Reports. Whom I want
to think tonight. That's our board operator Raul Cortez, who
probably would be shooting dice out there somewhere get in
some trouble if I know H'm well enough. Our producer
is Matthew Toffler, and our news anchor is Brigitta Agostino.
(35:17):
All little angels, All little angels here at KFI always
appreciate you spending a little bit of your Saturday night
with us. Hope to catch you again next Saturday for
another edition of Michael Monks's Reports. And of course I'm
with you all week long here giving you the news
and talking with all the other show hosts throughout the week,
keeping you informed here on KFI AM six
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Ft, KFI AM six forty on demand
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com