November 18, 2025 • 26 mins
Gary dives into SoCal’s relentless rain before breaking down the political shockwave from the indictment of Newsom’s former chief of staff, and how it’s spilling into Xavier Becerra’s run for governor. Then he unpacks the “Amazonification” of Whole Foods, revealing how robotic warehouses and off-shelf items are reshaping the grocery game. Finally, Gary turns to listener talkbacks to ask: Should workers ever be reachable after hours anymore?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio on app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We are watching what's going on in Washington, d C.
The House today is expected to take that big important
vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
So we do expect the.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Month's long effort to come down to this vote sometime.
It's going to start at least during swamp watch. We
know that Trump has said that Republicans should vote for
the bill. This will pass with an overwhelming margin. Mike Johnson,
the Speaker, came out in favor of it today, said
virtually everybody will be voting in favor of it. But
that's going to put some pressure on the Senate to
(00:44):
take up this bill and then move it on to
the President's test. The President, meanwhile, is sitting down in
the Oval Office right now with the Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed ben Solman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, arrived for
his first White House visit since the killing of the
Washington Post journalist Jamal Koshogji by Saudi agents. Intelligence agencies
(01:08):
determined that he's the one who probably directed the whole
thing that is MBS.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
But seven years later, all this has been cleared away.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The President the last night announced that we sorry the
United States, We're going to be selling F thirty five
jets to Saudi Arabia, which kind of changes the landscape
of potential military relationships there in the Middle East. So
all of that is going on a little bit Later
this hour, we're going to take some of your talkbacks
(01:38):
on the craziest calls you've gotten from the boss, whether
it was in the middle of the night, it was
on a holiday, somebody asking you to do something that
you probably didn't want to do.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The rain is gone for the most part.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Still a few places with some road closures as a
result of mud slides, which is incredible. But the expectation
is that we're going to get back to some somewhat
normal by this afternoon when it's in terms of any
debris flows or mudslides or trees falling over that sort
of thing.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But we're not out of it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It is November, so we will see another chance of
showers coming in through Thursday. It looks like probably about
a twenty twenty to thirty percent today depending on where
you are most of it. Most of the rain that
was falling this morning was way out east of Palm Springs.
But the cold front has moved away. That's a good thing.
(02:29):
It's still going to be chilly. Of course, La Coast
San Gabriel Valley is going to reach only mid sixties
today because of the rain, and the expectation is that
some places might not even get out of the fifties today.
Wednesday more sunny skies, but another storm expected Thursday in
through Friday. This is going to be a little bit
less than what we saw over the weekend. Thursday storm
(02:50):
anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of rain. That's
on top of the three quarters that fell yesterday.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Basically most of yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Storms have caused some mayhem, but at this point still safe,
you know, no severe, no life threatening damage in those
burn areas that we were expecting. On the five near
Highway fourteen between Silmar and Santa Clarita, there was some
flooding yesterday afternoon. There was an off ramp on the
ninety one at Carmenita. Also saw some flooding ten Freeway
(03:22):
in Almonte six oh five on the southern border of
Baldwin Park. All those places saw a lot of problems,
and listen, it's just a matter of we're not used
to it. Our infrastructure here does not handle that much
rain that quickly very well. If you're in Seattle, or
you're in Chicago, you're in all these other places where
rain is pretty common and pretty consistent, they just they
(03:43):
just work better. And we have a bunch of crap
that gets stuck in these storm drains and we don't
really know what to do with it, so that.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Ends up flooding these roadways.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Hey, a reminder, the fifteenth annual KFI Pastathon is just
around the corner. Chef Bruno's charity, Caterina's Club, provides more
than twenty five thousand meals every week to kids in
need here in southern California, and you are the ones
that make that happen. The absolute unequaled charity and generosity
of KFI listeners makes it happen. We are doing our
(04:15):
live postathon broadcast coming up on December second, that is
the Tuesday after Thanksgiving Giving Tuesday, from five in the
morning with Amy King and Wakeup Call all the way
through eight o'clock that night. We'll all be out at
the Anaheim White House. More details on that portion of
it coming soon, but you can actually start helping now.
(04:37):
You could donate anytime at KFI AM six forty dot com.
Slash Pastathon probably make a great stocking stuff for you.
Wanted to donate in someone's name and throw the receipt
in there. You can go to any Wendy's restaurant in
southern California and donate five dollars or more there at
Wendy's to Caterina's Club, you'll get a coupon book for
Wendy's goodies through December eighth. Or and this is a
(04:58):
cool one Yamava Resort and Casino. You go out there,
play the tables, play the slots, whatever you want to do.
When you cash in your winning ticket at the kiosk,
it will ask you if you want to donate the
change from your winnings.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You say yes.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You can actually pick Katarina's Club from those four options
on the screen. We'll tell you more about some of
the upcoming live broadcast. Conway is going to be out
somewhere on Friday. Neil Savager's going to be out on Saturday.
I'll tell you about those a little bit later in
this hour. But when we come back, political operatives. This
Dana Williamson story is a lot bigger, I think than
(05:33):
people are giving it credit for. She is the former
chief of staff for Governor Newsom, among other things, these
high profile jobs that she's had in Sacramento. This huge
hidden world of political operatives that are at work up there.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
We'll talk about that when we come back.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Again.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The House is expected to vote just about forty five
minutes from now begin the process of voting on the
Epstein files and whether or not to force the Department
of Justice to release them. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin et
Yaho's office has published a statement to congratulate President Trump
after the UN Security Council authorized the US led plan
(06:22):
for Gaza after the War. UN Security Council voted to
approve this resolution propping up Trump's twenty point Gaza Peace
Plan that would authorize an international force to stabilize that
region run by a Board of Peace, and that the
Board of Peace would be headed up, of course by
President Trump. Of course, next year is going to be
(06:43):
a celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of
the United States of America, and there is a minor
league baseball team. I believe they are a Yankees affiliate,
the Somerset Patriots.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's their normal mascot.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
They're going to take on a secondary mascot over the
next summer for four different games July, third, fourth, and fifth,
followed by another one in the middle of August, where
they will not be the Summer st Patriots. They will
be called the Summer Set Semi quinn Centennials. And instead
of a Patriot a guy as their mascot, they're going
(07:21):
to have a big, old bald eagle wearing an Uncle
sam Hat said that four engagements games will be filled
with jollification for the entire family and in high demand
arranged for your admissions. Now again, Somerset, New York. I
believe they are a Yankees affiliate. Last week we told
(07:42):
you about Dana Williamson. She is this political operative is
probably the best word to use up in Sacramento, who
has been indicted on twenty three counts, including conspiring with
two other figures to take money from a dormant political
campaign fund maintained by Javier Bisera, the former congressman, former
(08:04):
state attorney general, former Biden administration cabinet member oh and
current gubernatorial candidate. Now she has also been charged with
falsifying documents to justify a bunch of COVID loans, nice
lying to FBI agents and then falsely claiming some income
(08:24):
tax deductions as business expenses, things like big lavish vacations,
designer handbags, and things like that. There are political operatives
that work in every state capital across the United States,
in every capital of every country across the world, and
obviously in Washington, DC. And there are three main areas
(08:49):
that these political operatives work, and for a lot of them,
they kind of bounce between these three areas. On the
one hand, you've got some staff that's simply on the
government payroll, whatever that might be. You work in someone's office,
you work in a state assemblyman's office, or a state
senator's office, or the department of insert name of agency here,
(09:09):
and that's how you gain some of those connections. That's
one area is public public employee. The second is a
lobbyist for an interest group, think of the oil industry
or the farming industry, or even more specific like California nuts,
the Silicon Valley, lobbyists that are making money hand over fist.
(09:33):
Being a lobbyist for an interest group, after you've got
all those connections while you're on the public payroll can
benefit you. And then the third area is managing someone's
political campaign, whether it's a campaign for a proposition, a
statewide proposition, or a specific person that's running for a
specific office. So you've got those three areas government, interest groups, lobbyists,
(09:58):
I should say, and then political campaigns. And the thing
about Dana Williamson and the other two guys charged with her,
she was in all three of those. Sean McClusky is
a former chief of deputy in the California Department of Justice,
while heavy Orra Basera was there. And then a lobbyist,
Greg Campbell. Those two guys have pleaded guilty to the
(10:19):
charges against them. Part of the reason is the expectation
is they're going to flip on Dana Williamson and testify
against her. She continues to insist that she is innocent.
But this is the biggest deal politically, scandally, scandalously speaking,
the biggest deal in California in almost four decades. I
(10:40):
was a teenager. I don't remember anything about it, but
I do remember the name shrimp Gate. Some thirty seven
years ago, some legislators, some lobbyists actually went to prison
because of shrimp shrimp Gate up in Sacramento.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Now we've talked about this.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What impact does this have on Gavin Newsom as he
runs for president? Probably not much, because Dana Williamson resigned
from her post as chief of staff when she found
out that she was on under federal investigation, and whether
she did it out of the goodness of her heart
or she was asked to. She got out from under
Gavinussom and didn't want to taint whatever future he had
(11:21):
with this federal investigation. There is a strange question about that, though,
because the Biden administration had apparently floated the idea that
she helped them with an investigation into Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But we don't know what that was about, So that's
a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The other thing is what does this say about Javiar
Bisera And there are questions about a politician who has
taken advantage of like this, or is a victim of this,
or is just willing to look the other way while
a dormant bank account, dormant campaign account is just completely drained.
(11:56):
What does that say about that politician? Is there an
expectation we as vote can think? How did he not know?
Is he that stupid? Or is there something else to it?
Was he willing to say, Hey, I can't pay you
all the money that I think I should pay you,
but I'm going to leave the keys to the safe
deposit box on my desk. I hope nobody takes my
(12:18):
accounts and empties them out and goes on lavish vacations.
Javier Bissera has been at least touched by this because
obviously it's his name that's associated with it.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
We'll just see if it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Makes any difference as he gets as we get closer
to what's going on next year, which of course is
the election of the next governor of the Great State
of California, the Great State of California.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Up.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
In a few minutes, we're going to be talking about
should companies expect you to be reachable after hours. We've
had some great talkbacks so far about people who've been
called by their bosses at very inopportune times and ask
to do tasks that would otherwise not necessarily fall under
their scope of employment.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Shall we say so?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
If you have a story about that, leave us a
message on the talkback feature. If you're listening on the app,
it's just a little red button with a white microphone,
and you can leave us a quick message and we'll
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
The House votes on the Epstein files about a half
an hour from hours, we're going to start to see
some of those votes right into swamp Watch. We'll update
you on what's going on as we get closer to that.
If you shop at Whole Foods, you know that they
have developed over the course of several years, a couple
decades worth of shopping an interesting niche when it comes
(13:50):
to groceries. Customers are willing to pay premium prices at
Whole Foods because they trust the brand made a point
of trying to provide healthier alternatives than you might find
in other grocery stores. They had a culture that would
attract employees who believed in that mission, a clear point
(14:13):
of differentiation in what otherwise is a crowded marketplace. When
it comes to all the different places that you can
buy groceries, and then Amazon bought them. And Amazon has
come in and according to a couple of people who
watch that industry, have Amazon's kind of suck the fun
out of Whole Foods. Well, listen, in my mind, it
(14:34):
was never really fun. I felt quite put out every
time I've been into a Whole food So my wife
goes there a whole lot more often than I do
and said a lot of times, those people and Whole
Foods are just not friendly. Not necessarily the employees, just
the people who go to Whole Foods are not friendly. Well,
Amazon has rolled in, and there's a Whole food right
(14:57):
in fact, right across from the radio station here, there's
a Whole Foods. And I've been in there maybe a
half dozen times, and it's a well stocked It's got
everything you're gonna need. Right, It just may be in
behind brand names that you don't necessarily recognize. Well, Amazon
recognizes that aspect of it and is doing something in
(15:20):
a specific store in Pennsylvania, little town called Plymouth Meeting,
and at their Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, they
have built in the back a ten thousand square foot
automated micro fulfillment center. Think an Amazon warehouse right where
they got all those robots and people running around pulling
(15:41):
orders and sticking them in boxes to send them to
your house. But they do this with grocery items, and
it's grocery items that you're not going to find on
the shelf out in the front of the store. They're
trying to compete with the Walmarts of the world and
(16:03):
the Krogers of the world by bringing you some of
those same products that you might stop somewhere else to
get and then get your iceberg kale or I don't
know what kind of kales are there. You get a
special kind of kale and you get it from Whole
Foods or something like that. And what's interesting is that
(16:26):
it's not going well. Amazon since it took over Whole
Foods has struggled to kind of crack into the market
of grocery stores even I mean it existed and it
sort of its own niche area, but it hasn't really
advanced any more than that. Whole Foods has some brand
(16:46):
acute equity. I guess you could say that took forty
plus years for it to build, and a guy who
used to work. Chris Walton used to work for Target
and he was running specifically frozen foods for the Target
corporate and he talked about the analysis that they would
go through everything from patterns of shopping by their customers,
(17:09):
literally mapping out which products would be available on which
shelves and in which order in their stores to try
to maximize customer and uh, what would you call it
customer impact? I suppose, and what customers want and what
they don't want spells out very quickly in grocery stores.
It's very easy to figure out what we want and
(17:30):
what we don't want. And his argument is, if you're
going to Whole Foods, you don't want a bag of
hot Cheetos and talkies. You're just going to go to
Whole Foods to get your probiotic soda, some Greek yogurt
and kale. It won't wilt, which is funny because the
(17:52):
idea that you would go there for anything else is
a little bit strange. What I've never understood was grocery
is a local game. And again this is a guy
who's worked in the industry, so he's writing this out.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Grocery is a local game.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
He says, that's the reason why Whole Foods has existed
for as long as it has. As this is his quote,
as the beneficiary of a second planned gro trip. How
many times do you do this? How many times you
go to your local grocery store. Maybe you grab some produce,
maybe you pick up a I don't know of frozen
pizza something like that, but you know there are specific
(18:28):
products you want to get only from Whole Foods. That's
that secondary planned grocery trip. And he writes that if
Amazon wants to get into the primary trip game, they
have to displace the incumbents, think Walmart's and the other
big stores. But you also have to do it from
(18:48):
a place of strategic disadvantage in terms of store count,
because I mentioned Walmart. Walmart has more than four thousand,
five hundred stores across the Unit States, Kroger almost three
thousand stores, ald twenty five hundred stores, and Whole Foods
(19:10):
a tiny fraction of that. Whole Foods operates just over
five hundred stores throughout the United States. I mean, there's
another player in all of this that's kind of doing
an end around around Whole Foods, and that's Dollar General.
Dollar General's trying to get into the grocery business. And
I mean they're doing a pretty good job. They have
some pretty basic grocery staples that you could easily stop
(19:30):
by your local Dollar General in your tiny little town
and not have to drive forty miles to go to
Whole Foods to try to get something that's more packed
with what Jeremiah bread, no Isekiel bread sorry wrong, Old
Testament guy.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Is Ezekiel bread or something like that. That's really healthy?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I know, and that's not bad, but it can be
expensive and you got to go. You know, they're not
really good. You're not going to find it at a
Dollar General, I can guar into you.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
But sometimes you can find it at Target.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
At Target, yes, and I know at my Vaughn's and
Ralph's I have two of the well, they're kind of
equidistant from my house. They both carry that stuff, some
of that stuff, but they tend to mark it up
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
All right, we come back.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Should your boss expect you to be reachable after you
clock out after hours, we'll take some of your talkbacks
about some of the crazy things your boss has asked
you to do while you're not on the clock. That's
coming up next Gary and Shannon will continued, you're listening.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
To Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Well, we do, have, of course postathon coming out.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Oh what's up?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Hey, I was in the shower. I was in my
earthquake shower, big shout out to Southern Mark and I
heard something about a coupon book over that pastathon.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
What's that about?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, listen, you could donate any time at KFI AM
six forty dot com slash postathon. Also, you can go
to any Wendy's restaurant in southern California and if you
donate five dollars in more to Katerina's Club at the Wendy's,
you're going to get a coupon book for Wendy's Goodies
through December eighth. Again, any Wendy's restaurant in southern California,
(21:10):
you donate five dollars more to Katerina's Club, you're going
to get a coupon book for Wendy's Goodies through December eighth. Okay,
Reddit has a thread that ism ida hole, among other things,
and there are similar questions that show up at other
places about should I have done this? Differently. USA Today
answers this work question. Quote. My manager sent me a
(21:34):
text at ten thirty the other night. I didn't see
it until the next morning, and I responded. Then she
later asked me why I didn't reply that night. This
isn't the first time she's reached out after hours or
on the weekend and expecting an immediate response. I'm afraid
to push back too much for fear of being labeled.
Is constant availability a sign of dedication or dysfunction.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
This business?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We've been told, especially back in the day when news
director Chris Little hired both Shannon and I in two
thousand and four two thousand and five, basically, you're never
off the clock, and if that phone rings, you have
to answer it. So I mean, of course, there were
times where it would be an earthquake or there'd be
some breaking story and you'd have to get up early
(22:19):
or stay up late, or stay out overnight fires, you know,
all of those storms, all those things that we would cover.
And I asked for talkbacks about people who have gotten
those calls from bosses, Strange calls, strange hours. Maybe you're
doing strange things and the things that you have been
asked to do.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Hey, Gary and Shannon. The craziest time I ever had
a boss call me was sometime around ten You wanted
to write an email with me. So we stayed up
until almost one o'clock, all writing and editing and rewriting
that stupid email. Now, he was the greatest mentor I
ever had. That was the stupidest waste of time I've
(23:01):
also ever experienced. Anyways, let you show.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, that is one of those where I can't understand
why they have to be time is time is funny.
Why you need it at that time when you could
have written it first thing in the morning.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Hey Gary, Matt from Temecula. So in two thousand and
five I worked for a car stereo company in Arizona.
One of my coworkers had a brother who worked in
the Sinaloa cartel. At closing, he showed up with a
Ford Excursion and about three thousand dollars with obviously stolen
equipment and paid the three of us three thousand dollars
(23:40):
to install it. We were there till two am.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Be careful what you do. I'm okay.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I remember getting a call from my dispatch at one
in the morning when I was to sleep, and they
called me in to cover a route that ended up
taking fourteen hours to complete just because somebody called off
last second and it was driving down to San Diego
(24:09):
from rialto.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If it's if it's just a menial task that takes
a few minutes, that's one thing. Even if it is
you know, midnight, you can get back to bed pretty quick.
But if you're doing a full fourteen hour shift on
on the fly like that.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Ay, Gary, Lisa here. So one time I had to
have no surgery for a deviated septemb and I came
home that day all the packing in my.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Nose so I don't even speak, had to write.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
Down things to communicate, and my boss was texting me,
telling me that I need to get my ass to work.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
I sent him a picture and said, no, that's my story.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, thank you for your story. Hey, you guys, this
is Bob Hey. Regarding the being contact good while you're.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Off, it's a case by tasting.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
You know, if you want to be a team player
and you want to see at the table with the
big boys, you want to be available.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You don't always be there, but it starts getting taken
advantage of. Well, then you put your foot down, So
there you go.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
The way that the USA today handled this, by the way,
is they suggested this kind of a response to your boss,
I want to deliver high quality work and be responsive
when it matters most to make sure that I meet
your expectations. Can we clarify when responses are truly time
sensitive versus what can wait until regular business hours? They
described that as professional, not defensive, and that they wrap.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It up this way.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
At the end of the day, cultural clarity matters more
than calendar control. If you can't align your values in
your workplaces pace, no amount of boundary setting will fix
that mismatch. We'll do some more of these as we
get later in the show as well, some of the
craziest calls that you had from a boss late at night,
some of the weird tasks that you've been asked to
(25:58):
do when you're off the clock. When we come back though, Swamp,
watch the update on what's going on in the House
of Representatives Right now. You've been listening to The Gary
and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on
KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every
Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio on app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We are watching what's going on in Washington, d C.
The House today is expected to take that big important
vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
So we do expect the.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Month's long effort to come down to this vote sometime.
It's going to start at least during swamp watch. We
know that Trump has said that Republicans should vote for
the bill. This will pass with an overwhelming margin. Mike Johnson,
the Speaker, came out in favor of it today, said
virtually everybody will be voting in favor of it. But
that's going to put some pressure on the Senate to
(00:44):
take up this bill and then move it on to
the President's test. The President, meanwhile, is sitting down in
the Oval Office right now with the Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed ben Solman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, arrived for
his first White House visit since the killing of the
Washington Post journalist Jamal Koshogji by Saudi agents. Intelligence agencies
(01:08):
determined that he's the one who probably directed the whole
thing that is MBS.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
But seven years later, all this has been cleared away.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The President the last night announced that we sorry the
United States, We're going to be selling F thirty five
jets to Saudi Arabia, which kind of changes the landscape
of potential military relationships there in the Middle East. So
all of that is going on a little bit Later
this hour, we're going to take some of your talkbacks
(01:38):
on the craziest calls you've gotten from the boss, whether
it was in the middle of the night, it was
on a holiday, somebody asking you to do something that
you probably didn't want to do.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
The rain is gone for the most part.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Still a few places with some road closures as a
result of mud slides, which is incredible. But the expectation
is that we're going to get back to some somewhat
normal by this afternoon when it's in terms of any
debris flows or mudslides or trees falling over that sort
of thing.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
But we're not out of it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It is November, so we will see another chance of
showers coming in through Thursday. It looks like probably about
a twenty twenty to thirty percent today depending on where
you are most of it. Most of the rain that
was falling this morning was way out east of Palm Springs.
But the cold front has moved away. That's a good thing.
(02:29):
It's still going to be chilly. Of course, La Coast
San Gabriel Valley is going to reach only mid sixties
today because of the rain, and the expectation is that
some places might not even get out of the fifties today.
Wednesday more sunny skies, but another storm expected Thursday in
through Friday. This is going to be a little bit
less than what we saw over the weekend. Thursday storm
(02:50):
anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of rain. That's
on top of the three quarters that fell yesterday.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Basically most of yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Storms have caused some mayhem, but at this point still safe,
you know, no severe, no life threatening damage in those
burn areas that we were expecting. On the five near
Highway fourteen between Silmar and Santa Clarita, there was some
flooding yesterday afternoon. There was an off ramp on the
ninety one at Carmenita. Also saw some flooding ten Freeway
(03:22):
in Almonte six oh five on the southern border of
Baldwin Park. All those places saw a lot of problems,
and listen, it's just a matter of we're not used
to it. Our infrastructure here does not handle that much
rain that quickly very well. If you're in Seattle, or
you're in Chicago, you're in all these other places where
rain is pretty common and pretty consistent, they just they
(03:43):
just work better. And we have a bunch of crap
that gets stuck in these storm drains and we don't
really know what to do with it, so that.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Ends up flooding these roadways.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Hey, a reminder, the fifteenth annual KFI Pastathon is just
around the corner. Chef Bruno's charity, Caterina's Club, provides more
than twenty five thousand meals every week to kids in
need here in southern California, and you are the ones
that make that happen. The absolute unequaled charity and generosity
of KFI listeners makes it happen. We are doing our
(04:15):
live postathon broadcast coming up on December second, that is
the Tuesday after Thanksgiving Giving Tuesday, from five in the
morning with Amy King and Wakeup Call all the way
through eight o'clock that night. We'll all be out at
the Anaheim White House. More details on that portion of
it coming soon, but you can actually start helping now.
(04:37):
You could donate anytime at KFI AM six forty dot com.
Slash Pastathon probably make a great stocking stuff for you.
Wanted to donate in someone's name and throw the receipt
in there. You can go to any Wendy's restaurant in
southern California and donate five dollars or more there at
Wendy's to Caterina's Club, you'll get a coupon book for
Wendy's goodies through December eighth. Or and this is a
(04:58):
cool one Yamava Resort and Casino. You go out there,
play the tables, play the slots, whatever you want to do.
When you cash in your winning ticket at the kiosk,
it will ask you if you want to donate the
change from your winnings.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You say yes.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You can actually pick Katarina's Club from those four options
on the screen. We'll tell you more about some of
the upcoming live broadcast. Conway is going to be out
somewhere on Friday. Neil Savager's going to be out on Saturday.
I'll tell you about those a little bit later in
this hour. But when we come back, political operatives. This
Dana Williamson story is a lot bigger, I think than
(05:33):
people are giving it credit for. She is the former
chief of staff for Governor Newsom, among other things, these
high profile jobs that she's had in Sacramento. This huge
hidden world of political operatives that are at work up there.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
We'll talk about that when we come back.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Again.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The House is expected to vote just about forty five
minutes from now begin the process of voting on the
Epstein files and whether or not to force the Department
of Justice to release them. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin et
Yaho's office has published a statement to congratulate President Trump
after the UN Security Council authorized the US led plan
(06:22):
for Gaza after the War. UN Security Council voted to
approve this resolution propping up Trump's twenty point Gaza Peace
Plan that would authorize an international force to stabilize that
region run by a Board of Peace, and that the
Board of Peace would be headed up, of course by
President Trump. Of course, next year is going to be
(06:43):
a celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of
the United States of America, and there is a minor
league baseball team. I believe they are a Yankees affiliate,
the Somerset Patriots.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's their normal mascot.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
They're going to take on a secondary mascot over the
next summer for four different games July, third, fourth, and fifth,
followed by another one in the middle of August, where
they will not be the Summer st Patriots. They will
be called the Summer Set Semi quinn Centennials. And instead
of a Patriot a guy as their mascot, they're going
(07:21):
to have a big, old bald eagle wearing an Uncle
sam Hat said that four engagements games will be filled
with jollification for the entire family and in high demand
arranged for your admissions. Now again, Somerset, New York. I
believe they are a Yankees affiliate. Last week we told
(07:42):
you about Dana Williamson. She is this political operative is
probably the best word to use up in Sacramento, who
has been indicted on twenty three counts, including conspiring with
two other figures to take money from a dormant political
campaign fund maintained by Javier Bisera, the former congressman, former
(08:04):
state attorney general, former Biden administration cabinet member oh and
current gubernatorial candidate. Now she has also been charged with
falsifying documents to justify a bunch of COVID loans, nice
lying to FBI agents and then falsely claiming some income
(08:24):
tax deductions as business expenses, things like big lavish vacations,
designer handbags, and things like that. There are political operatives
that work in every state capital across the United States,
in every capital of every country across the world, and
obviously in Washington, DC. And there are three main areas
(08:49):
that these political operatives work, and for a lot of them,
they kind of bounce between these three areas. On the
one hand, you've got some staff that's simply on the
government payroll, whatever that might be. You work in someone's office,
you work in a state assemblyman's office, or a state
senator's office, or the department of insert name of agency here,
(09:09):
and that's how you gain some of those connections. That's
one area is public public employee. The second is a
lobbyist for an interest group, think of the oil industry
or the farming industry, or even more specific like California nuts,
the Silicon Valley, lobbyists that are making money hand over fist.
(09:33):
Being a lobbyist for an interest group, after you've got
all those connections while you're on the public payroll can
benefit you. And then the third area is managing someone's
political campaign, whether it's a campaign for a proposition, a
statewide proposition, or a specific person that's running for a
specific office. So you've got those three areas government, interest groups, lobbyists,
(09:58):
I should say, and then political campaigns. And the thing
about Dana Williamson and the other two guys charged with her,
she was in all three of those. Sean McClusky is
a former chief of deputy in the California Department of Justice,
while heavy Orra Basera was there. And then a lobbyist,
Greg Campbell. Those two guys have pleaded guilty to the
(10:19):
charges against them. Part of the reason is the expectation
is they're going to flip on Dana Williamson and testify
against her. She continues to insist that she is innocent.
But this is the biggest deal politically, scandally, scandalously speaking,
the biggest deal in California in almost four decades. I
(10:40):
was a teenager. I don't remember anything about it, but
I do remember the name shrimp Gate. Some thirty seven
years ago, some legislators, some lobbyists actually went to prison
because of shrimp shrimp Gate up in Sacramento.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Now we've talked about this.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
What impact does this have on Gavin Newsom as he
runs for president? Probably not much, because Dana Williamson resigned
from her post as chief of staff when she found
out that she was on under federal investigation, and whether
she did it out of the goodness of her heart
or she was asked to. She got out from under
Gavinussom and didn't want to taint whatever future he had
(11:21):
with this federal investigation. There is a strange question about that, though,
because the Biden administration had apparently floated the idea that
she helped them with an investigation into Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But we don't know what that was about, So that's
a weird thing.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The other thing is what does this say about Javiar
Bisera And there are questions about a politician who has
taken advantage of like this, or is a victim of this,
or is just willing to look the other way while
a dormant bank account, dormant campaign account is just completely drained.
(11:56):
What does that say about that politician? Is there an
expectation we as vote can think? How did he not know?
Is he that stupid? Or is there something else to it?
Was he willing to say, Hey, I can't pay you
all the money that I think I should pay you,
but I'm going to leave the keys to the safe
deposit box on my desk. I hope nobody takes my
(12:18):
accounts and empties them out and goes on lavish vacations.
Javier Bissera has been at least touched by this because
obviously it's his name that's associated with it.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
We'll just see if it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Makes any difference as he gets as we get closer
to what's going on next year, which of course is
the election of the next governor of the Great State
of California, the Great State of California.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Up.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
In a few minutes, we're going to be talking about
should companies expect you to be reachable after hours. We've
had some great talkbacks so far about people who've been
called by their bosses at very inopportune times and ask
to do tasks that would otherwise not necessarily fall under
their scope of employment.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Shall we say so?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
If you have a story about that, leave us a
message on the talkback feature. If you're listening on the app,
it's just a little red button with a white microphone,
and you can leave us a quick message and we'll
talk about that.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Coming up.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
The House votes on the Epstein files about a half
an hour from hours, we're going to start to see
some of those votes right into swamp Watch. We'll update
you on what's going on as we get closer to that.
If you shop at Whole Foods, you know that they
have developed over the course of several years, a couple
decades worth of shopping an interesting niche when it comes
(13:50):
to groceries. Customers are willing to pay premium prices at
Whole Foods because they trust the brand made a point
of trying to provide healthier alternatives than you might find
in other grocery stores. They had a culture that would
attract employees who believed in that mission, a clear point
(14:13):
of differentiation in what otherwise is a crowded marketplace. When
it comes to all the different places that you can
buy groceries, and then Amazon bought them. And Amazon has
come in and according to a couple of people who
watch that industry, have Amazon's kind of suck the fun
out of Whole Foods. Well, listen, in my mind, it
(14:34):
was never really fun. I felt quite put out every
time I've been into a Whole food So my wife
goes there a whole lot more often than I do
and said a lot of times, those people and Whole
Foods are just not friendly. Not necessarily the employees, just
the people who go to Whole Foods are not friendly. Well,
Amazon has rolled in, and there's a Whole food right
(14:57):
in fact, right across from the radio station here, there's
a Whole Foods. And I've been in there maybe a
half dozen times, and it's a well stocked It's got
everything you're gonna need. Right, It just may be in
behind brand names that you don't necessarily recognize. Well, Amazon
recognizes that aspect of it and is doing something in
(15:20):
a specific store in Pennsylvania, little town called Plymouth Meeting,
and at their Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, they
have built in the back a ten thousand square foot
automated micro fulfillment center. Think an Amazon warehouse right where
they got all those robots and people running around pulling
(15:41):
orders and sticking them in boxes to send them to
your house. But they do this with grocery items, and
it's grocery items that you're not going to find on
the shelf out in the front of the store. They're
trying to compete with the Walmarts of the world and
(16:03):
the Krogers of the world by bringing you some of
those same products that you might stop somewhere else to
get and then get your iceberg kale or I don't
know what kind of kales are there. You get a
special kind of kale and you get it from Whole
Foods or something like that. And what's interesting is that
(16:26):
it's not going well. Amazon since it took over Whole
Foods has struggled to kind of crack into the market
of grocery stores even I mean it existed and it
sort of its own niche area, but it hasn't really
advanced any more than that. Whole Foods has some brand
(16:46):
acute equity. I guess you could say that took forty
plus years for it to build, and a guy who
used to work. Chris Walton used to work for Target
and he was running specifically frozen foods for the Target
corporate and he talked about the analysis that they would
go through everything from patterns of shopping by their customers,
(17:09):
literally mapping out which products would be available on which
shelves and in which order in their stores to try
to maximize customer and uh, what would you call it
customer impact? I suppose, and what customers want and what
they don't want spells out very quickly in grocery stores.
It's very easy to figure out what we want and
(17:30):
what we don't want. And his argument is, if you're
going to Whole Foods, you don't want a bag of
hot Cheetos and talkies. You're just going to go to
Whole Foods to get your probiotic soda, some Greek yogurt
and kale. It won't wilt, which is funny because the
(17:52):
idea that you would go there for anything else is
a little bit strange. What I've never understood was grocery
is a local game. And again this is a guy
who's worked in the industry, so he's writing this out.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Grocery is a local game.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
He says, that's the reason why Whole Foods has existed
for as long as it has. As this is his quote,
as the beneficiary of a second planned gro trip. How
many times do you do this? How many times you
go to your local grocery store. Maybe you grab some produce,
maybe you pick up a I don't know of frozen
pizza something like that, but you know there are specific
(18:28):
products you want to get only from Whole Foods. That's
that secondary planned grocery trip. And he writes that if
Amazon wants to get into the primary trip game, they
have to displace the incumbents, think Walmart's and the other
big stores. But you also have to do it from
(18:48):
a place of strategic disadvantage in terms of store count,
because I mentioned Walmart. Walmart has more than four thousand,
five hundred stores across the Unit States, Kroger almost three
thousand stores, ald twenty five hundred stores, and Whole Foods
(19:10):
a tiny fraction of that. Whole Foods operates just over
five hundred stores throughout the United States. I mean, there's
another player in all of this that's kind of doing
an end around around Whole Foods, and that's Dollar General.
Dollar General's trying to get into the grocery business. And
I mean they're doing a pretty good job. They have
some pretty basic grocery staples that you could easily stop
(19:30):
by your local Dollar General in your tiny little town
and not have to drive forty miles to go to
Whole Foods to try to get something that's more packed
with what Jeremiah bread, no Isekiel bread sorry wrong, Old
Testament guy.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Is Ezekiel bread or something like that. That's really healthy?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I know, and that's not bad, but it can be
expensive and you got to go. You know, they're not
really good. You're not going to find it at a
Dollar General, I can guar into you.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
But sometimes you can find it at Target.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
At Target, yes, and I know at my Vaughn's and
Ralph's I have two of the well, they're kind of
equidistant from my house. They both carry that stuff, some
of that stuff, but they tend to mark it up
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
All right, we come back.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Should your boss expect you to be reachable after you
clock out after hours, we'll take some of your talkbacks
about some of the crazy things your boss has asked
you to do while you're not on the clock. That's
coming up next Gary and Shannon will continued, you're listening.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
To Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Well, we do, have, of course postathon coming out.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Oh what's up?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Hey, I was in the shower. I was in my
earthquake shower, big shout out to Southern Mark and I
heard something about a coupon book over that pastathon.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
What's that about?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, listen, you could donate any time at KFI AM
six forty dot com slash postathon. Also, you can go
to any Wendy's restaurant in southern California and if you
donate five dollars in more to Katerina's Club at the Wendy's,
you're going to get a coupon book for Wendy's Goodies
through December eighth. Again, any Wendy's restaurant in southern California,
(21:10):
you donate five dollars more to Katerina's Club, you're going
to get a coupon book for Wendy's Goodies through December eighth. Okay,
Reddit has a thread that ism ida hole, among other things,
and there are similar questions that show up at other
places about should I have done this? Differently. USA Today
answers this work question. Quote. My manager sent me a
(21:34):
text at ten thirty the other night. I didn't see
it until the next morning, and I responded. Then she
later asked me why I didn't reply that night. This
isn't the first time she's reached out after hours or
on the weekend and expecting an immediate response. I'm afraid
to push back too much for fear of being labeled.
Is constant availability a sign of dedication or dysfunction.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
This business?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We've been told, especially back in the day when news
director Chris Little hired both Shannon and I in two
thousand and four two thousand and five, basically, you're never
off the clock, and if that phone rings, you have
to answer it. So I mean, of course, there were
times where it would be an earthquake or there'd be
some breaking story and you'd have to get up early
(22:19):
or stay up late, or stay out overnight fires, you know,
all of those storms, all those things that we would cover.
And I asked for talkbacks about people who have gotten
those calls from bosses, Strange calls, strange hours. Maybe you're
doing strange things and the things that you have been
asked to do.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Hey, Gary and Shannon. The craziest time I ever had
a boss call me was sometime around ten You wanted
to write an email with me. So we stayed up
until almost one o'clock, all writing and editing and rewriting
that stupid email. Now, he was the greatest mentor I
ever had. That was the stupidest waste of time I've
(23:01):
also ever experienced. Anyways, let you show.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, that is one of those where I can't understand
why they have to be time is time is funny.
Why you need it at that time when you could
have written it first thing in the morning.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Hey Gary, Matt from Temecula. So in two thousand and
five I worked for a car stereo company in Arizona.
One of my coworkers had a brother who worked in
the Sinaloa cartel. At closing, he showed up with a
Ford Excursion and about three thousand dollars with obviously stolen
equipment and paid the three of us three thousand dollars
(23:40):
to install it. We were there till two am.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Be careful what you do. I'm okay.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I remember getting a call from my dispatch at one
in the morning when I was to sleep, and they
called me in to cover a route that ended up
taking fourteen hours to complete just because somebody called off
last second and it was driving down to San Diego
(24:09):
from rialto.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If it's if it's just a menial task that takes
a few minutes, that's one thing. Even if it is
you know, midnight, you can get back to bed pretty quick.
But if you're doing a full fourteen hour shift on
on the fly like that.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Ay, Gary, Lisa here. So one time I had to
have no surgery for a deviated septemb and I came
home that day all the packing in my.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Nose so I don't even speak, had to write.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
Down things to communicate, and my boss was texting me,
telling me that I need to get my ass to work.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
I sent him a picture and said, no, that's my story.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, thank you for your story. Hey, you guys, this
is Bob Hey. Regarding the being contact good while you're.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Off, it's a case by tasting.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
You know, if you want to be a team player
and you want to see at the table with the
big boys, you want to be available.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
You don't always be there, but it starts getting taken
advantage of. Well, then you put your foot down, So
there you go.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
The way that the USA today handled this, by the way,
is they suggested this kind of a response to your boss,
I want to deliver high quality work and be responsive
when it matters most to make sure that I meet
your expectations. Can we clarify when responses are truly time
sensitive versus what can wait until regular business hours? They
described that as professional, not defensive, and that they wrap.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It up this way.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
At the end of the day, cultural clarity matters more
than calendar control. If you can't align your values in
your workplaces pace, no amount of boundary setting will fix
that mismatch. We'll do some more of these as we
get later in the show as well, some of the
craziest calls that you had from a boss late at night,
some of the weird tasks that you've been asked to
(25:58):
do when you're off the clock. When we come back though, Swamp,
watch the update on what's going on in the House
of Representatives Right now. You've been listening to The Gary
and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on
KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every
Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
Gary and Shannon News
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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.