Ep. 3 - Interview with California State Senator Melissa Melendez

Interview with California State Senator Melissa Melendez

Episode Transcript

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This is the FCB Radio Network,Real Talk worldwide online at FCB radio dot
com. Kick the tires and lightthe fires, being dot Go Way Riding.

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When everything else sounds wrong, thisis sounds right with Jen and Scott.
Good morning, This sounds right withJen and Scott. I'm Scott hounsel
Over there in her very beautiful corneris Jennifer Vanlar. Jen, how are
you doing? Wonderful? It's agreat day because the Dodgers are in the
World Series. Dude, I can'tget over it. Last night out that

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when Bellinger hit that Homer. Ohso beautiful, so beautiful, very so
much fun to say the least.But we've got a great show today,
and as much as we want totalk about the World Series and things like
that, we've got plenty of timefor that later on the show. Right
now, we want to get rightin because we have an awesome guest here
this morning. We are thrilled andhonored to have a guest with us this

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morning. I'm gonna let Jim bringher in right now. Okay, So
we have a powerful woman from theCalifornia Legislature newly elected in a special election
this year, Senator Massa Melendez andshe represents an area down around Lake Elsinore.
If you're familiar with California, sowere southern California, and she's in

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one of the lead voices for trueconservatism in California for at least the past
five years that I've really been payingattention to what she's been doing. And
this past week, as we referredto in an earlier show, the California
Gop put out some private ballot boxesthroughout the state to basically do pandemic friendly
ballot harvestings, how I like torefer to it. And the California Attorney

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General and Secretary of State, we'renot very happy about that at all,
even though they're doing the same thingat least in one district, and tried
to call them illegal ballot boxes,sent a cease and desist letter, and
the California Goop told them to poundsand and I was so proud of them.
But Senator Melendez did a really greatjob on Twitter of articulating all of

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the problems with this law, andso I wanted to have her on to
explain to our listeners because even inCalifornia, a lot of Democrats even were
saying that can't possibly be the law, and it is the law. So
I will turn it over to SenatorMelendez and thank you for coming on our
show today. Oh thank you verymuch for having me. Guys. I
really appreciate it because every opportunity Iget to get the word out about this

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I take because there are a lotof people who cannot believe that this law
is allowed. I will just gothrough for your listeners what the ballot harvesting
law allows in California. And I'mnot making this up. Trust me,
I could make this up even ifI wanted to. But ballot harvesting,
you know, it used to bewhere it was your immediate family, your

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spouse, maybe a child or somethinglike that could turn in your ballot and
you would sign the envelope. Theywould sign the envelope and they could turn
it in for you. For somereason, you weren't able to do so
yourself. The ballot harvesting law,it now allows anyone, and I mean
anyone, to collect as many ballotsas they possibly can and turn them in.
I mean I could bring in aU haul truck full of ballots if
I wanted to. The law allowsthat. It's the vote by mail ballots

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collected by a ballot harvester do nothave to include the name or signature of
the person harvesting that ballot on theon the envelope in order for it to
be ballots. In other words,there's a spot on there where the person
collecting the ballot the harvester is supposedto sign it. But if they don't
sign it, that ballot still getscollected. So there's nothing in the law

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that you know, there's no enforcementof that particular element of the law.
The ballot harvester doesn't have to documenthow many ballots they've collected. There's no
chain of custody. They don't evenhave to tell the person who they're working
for. It It could be anSEIU member, it could be um,
you know whoever, they don't haveto tell the vote or who they're working
for, or that they're being paidto collect those ballots. Because a lot

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only says you can't be paid ona per ballot piece. You can.
They can pay you for a dayof collecting ballots. They just can't pay
you per ballot, but they canstill get paid um. And the election
officials don't have to get any identifyinginformation from the person collecting the ballots.

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So again the signatures there the envelope, but you don't have to sign it.
And we asked our registrar that questionvery specifically. You know, what
happens if someone shows up with tenboxes of ballots and drops them off at
the registrar's doorstep, what do youdo? And she said, well,
by law, we have to countthem. And we asked, well,
do you I mean, do youhave something in place to question the person

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and perhaps you know, I don'tknow, notify law enforcement. There could
be some broad going on. Andshe just kind of shrugged her shoulders and
said, no, the law doesn'trequire that. So non California residents,
illegal immigrants, big nationals, anyentity can go out and collect these ballots
anyone. So you can imagine thatRepublicans voted against this particular law. However,

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Democrats with their supermajority, past it. So now what we're doing as
Republicans is we're operating within the lionsof the law. If Democrats can ballot
harvest, then so are we.And that's where we have the problem.
Enter Alexpedia and the Attorney General,Savior Bisara, who said, oh no,
no, you can't do this,and we said, actually we can,
because you guys passed the law.So they sent their cease and desist

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letter. They tried to threaten people, They tried to intimidate and scare them
with the long rum of the law, which didn't work because we're legal.
What we're doing is absolutely legal,and we're going to continue doing it.
We are continuing to do it.In fact, I'll be out collecting ballots
this afternoon, so they can windabout it all they want, but it's
their law. I think that that'swhat's so funny about this is that they're

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the ones that codified this. Imean, I remember working in state elections
for the last decade where we weretrying to come up with creative ways around
ballot harvesting laws to be able tocollect ballots from voters, and did everything
from you know, encouraging you knowthem to go around and get their family,
you know that have them all theirfamily fill out their ballots, or

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the stamp program like we were usingup in the Central Valley on Andy vid
X rays, these things that we'retrying to get around. Now they've passed
the law. They've changed the lawso that they can balot harvest, and
that now they're mad that Republicans areusing the law to their advantage. I
mean, that's all comes down to. And it is kind of funny that
they actually thought we would never takeadvantage of this law too. I mean,

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that's kind of I guess speaks towhat their impression is of us as
an organization for them to think thatwe wouldn't get in on the game too,
But there's no reason for us notto. Unless Democrats want to go
back and reverse this law that theyput into place, then we have every
right to exercise our ability to collectthese ballots as well, which we are

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going to do. And we havebeen talking about doing this really since the
last election, of how we're goingto organize and how we're going to make
this work for us, because typicallyRepublicans are not going to hand their ballot
over to some stranger that just showsup at their doorstep, but they will
take it to other places that theyfeel comfortable with or they have an affiliation
with. So that's what we're doing. It's all perfectly legal. And you

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know, there's still some people whowere tentative about doing this, and to
them, we say, that's fine. You know, you can mail your
ballot in. You can go votein person, you can drop it off
personally at the registrar, whatever yourpreference. We're just trying to give you
another option to make sure that theseballots get turned in. And I will
tell you just a personal story.We had the East Valley Republican women out

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in the desert were collecting ballots.They weren't using one of the GOP's boxes
that we have deployed. They hadtheir own box and they went to turn
them in at the registrar's office andwe're told that they would need extra scrutiny
because they were using, you know, a collection box. And we said,
no, no, no, no, no, hold on, that's
incorrect because first of all, theballot boxes it's GOOP deployed are perfectly legal.

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And you saw that the Secretary ofState did decide to walk it back.
But they don't get to decide thatcertain ballots need extra scrutiny because we
don't even know what that means.But you can see how these registrars are
already trying to kind of get inline behind the Secretary of State in the
general either because they agree with themor they're afraid. You know, I'm

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not sure, which my guess it'sprobably the former rather than the latter.
But people have to be vigilant aboutthis when just because somebody in an official
capacity says you can't do this,it doesn't mean you don't have the right
to question and say, really willprove it, because that happens a lot,
right. People just think, well, they're in charge, so they
know, and there's nothing I cando. But there actually is something that

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you can do. That was themost maddening part about all of this over
the last week was when they firstcame out I think it was last Monday,
talking about how it was illegal andthey were going to shut this down.
I was tweeting back at them,cite to me the law that says
or the code where it says that, because I don't see it. And
then in their cease and Assist letter, the links that they gave or what

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they cited didn't say what they saidit was saying. And so they're in
charge of this law and they're they'reputting out misinformation to voters for their own
purposes. And but the other thingthat's maddening too is that the news came
out over the last week or twoabout these emergency regulations that Paedia put in
place without public comment on the election, to where you can have multiple ballots

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in one envelope return People could evenmark up their sample ballot and return it.
You could even just write on anote or letter it says in the
regulation who you want to vote forand put that in there, so you
could potentially have an envelope with twelvequote unquote ballots in there, whether it's
official ballots, sample ballots, notecards, and as long as every voter

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has signed the outside of the envelope, they have to count it. And
to me, that's so insecure,and why isn't the press talking about that,
right? It's ridiculous. I mean, at this point, all you
have to do is write on asticky note and sign it with the big
X who you're voting for, andthat seems to be something that's going to
be counted. I mean, atthis point, why don't they just let
people, you know, dial itin, just call in, and you

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can just call on a day longand cast your vote over and over and
over again. Because that's basically thepoint of which we ride. This is
God dancing with the stars. Callthis number for right? No, really,
that's that's basically what it is.I mean. And then they still
have the commercials that they're running withthat thirty five million dollar contract that they
gave to a by Team Biden company. They're still running those ads even though

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the money hasn't been approved. Sothis is all kind of part of the
big strategy for them, I think, and that is to erode the integrity
of this election. The problem is, you know, they are the ones
running the state, so it's thefox guarding henhouse. You know, who
are you going to get. Ordinarilyyou would get the state attorney general involved
to put a stop to this,but you can't even do that because they're

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all in the bag together. Singlesingle party rule has obviously affected the state
negatively. I mean, if youif you look at the point of view
that they were going out and sayingit was it's even almost comical, like
the op said, we're not changinganything. Go pounds in and so the
the the election officials come out andsaid, oh, you know what,

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they changed their boxes, and sothey agreed to change some things and we'll
we'll do this in Californy. Goopslike we're not changing anything. Well,
they've agreed to change it and theyand so they're trying to spike the football
like somehow they didn't get scared offthis by with the law that they just
had that we happened or the Californiagoop happened to to allow for some changes

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or any of the rest of it. And it's just so funny to be
that they make it sound like wechanged our policy when it's considering that they
just simply got owned with the law. Yeah, I mean, I expect
that. You know, they're notgoing to outright come and say, oh,
they were right and we were wrong. You know, they're never going
to do that, but it wouldbe nice if the press would report it

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accurately. Um. You know,I see a fine line there between them
trying to suggest that, yes,we did change our policy when we didn't.
And that's disappointing because the media's jobis to inform people, not form
their opinion. But it is whatit is in California. We're going to
continue and there is nothing they cando about it. I love that now

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we're fighting back and using their owntactics against them because part of this there's
been a portion of the party thatsaid, well, we have our principles,
and just because they fight that way, we're not going to fight that
way. And I understand that toan extent. Obviously, I'm not endorsing
anyone doing something untruthful or immoral oranything like that. But if they've set

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basically the ground rules of the game, for us to put a higher standard
on those ground rules for ourselves isjust stupid. Well. Yeah, I
mean, I aim to win.In any Republican in office and Republican voters
out there, your goal should beto win, and you should use every
means available to you to win.As far as taking the high ground,

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I don't even know if I youknow, I don't consider it taking the
high ground by not taking advantage ofthe laws of Democrats put in place.
That would be stupid. That wouldbe yeah, I mean, I don't
know who would do that, tojust decide that somehow that makes them more
morally superior, while you'll be amorally superior loser if you do that.
So get in the pain and getit done. Yeah, you took the

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words right out of my mouth.I mean I just I play to win,
you know, That's it. That'swhat everybody should be doing. And
if Democrats want to put laws inplace like this that allow us to do
that, then that's fine. Imean, my personal preference, honestly,
is that we would revert back tothe old days where it was just a
spouse or a child or an immediatefamily member who could turn in your ballot.

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I think that's more secure. Thatwould be my preference. I don't
know if that's going to happen.What I think is going to happen is,
you know, the very first thingthey're going to do when we get
back to session in January is introducesome sort of bill that says you can't
use any boxes to collect ballots.I mean, you know, by all
means, go use a backpack orthe trunk of your car, but don't

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use a box. I mean,will certainly try to target us or weaponize
union employee, right exactly. AndI mean the fact that they well and
the fact that they allow you tobe paid to go collect these ballots makes
it hyperpartisan, which they should havenever done. So they can't they can't
try to act like you know,they're the ones that really they just want

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to make sure everybody gets an opportunityto vote, because we know exactly what
they're doing. Judging by the waythey wrote the law, it's it's to
me, it's it's just I mean, it borders on assinine that you can
literally sit there and go, wait, these are the laws that you guys
have been I mean even before welet's not pretend like prior to the law

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passing in twenty seventeen that they weren'tout doing these activities. We know that
they were. They just didn't wantto have to go out and justify their
legal actions. So they legalize theactions, and now all of a sudden
that Republicans are taking advantage of it, they're like, no, no,
no, no, that law wasonly for us, is basically the way
that they're trying to make it sound. And it's again, it's so frustrating

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because having worked in the field preobviously and gone to the lengths that I've
gone to to comply with election law. I mean again, the stamp program
in twenty thirteen in the Andy Vidachspecial election, where we went out and
said no, no, no,we can't touch your ballot, but we
can give you a stamp to returnit. And so you fill it out
right now and we'll hand you astamp. You put the stamp on,

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you put it up for the mail. But I mean that was as close
to to harvesting as we could getat the time. And now we're looking
back at the situation and going,well, now that it's so open and
in legal in twenty eighteen, thevery issue that you talked about, there
were there were there were precincts inLos Angeles County that had fifteen hundred,

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two thousand ballots dropped at their precinctson election day. And we're just supposed
to shrug our shoulders and go,oh, hey, no problem, Yeah,
where did those fifteen hundred bots comefrom? No, let's not ask
those questions. Let's not ask whythat person had fifteen hundred ballots in their
possession. Let's not ask whether ornot those ballots wherever turned over not fully

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completed, or or that they weren'tstolen out of mailboxes or whatever the situation
may be. Let's just turn themin. And we looked at it in
like CD twenty five, eighty thirtyeight, all the all the races that
came down to mail ballots literally iswhat decided the race, especially eighty thirty
eight. Now you hear, Nowyou have all of a sudden looking back

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on it, going oh, okay, that's how that happened. And now
Dems are mad that we're taking advantageof the law to combat against their use
of the law. It's it's crazy, Yeah, would you be introducing go
ahead? Well, I was justgoing to say that again. The hypocrisy

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is just kind of laughable because Ireally don't know why they thought we wouldn't
take advantage of it will continue todo so until they decide to change the
law. Well. I think thatthe reason that they thought that is because
a lot of Republicans over the assprobably twenty years around since time Schwarzenegger was
in office, has been pretty compliantwith whenever the Dems wanted and kind of

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acted had like a what's that termStockholm syndrome type mentality and like kind of
asking permission for things instead of justdoing what we needed to do. And
so I think that they just expected, well, they're not going to fight
back. We haven't given them permissionto fight back. Well, and it's
hard, right, But it's hardto fight back again when they hold every

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office from the governor on down.As for a state constitutional opposite, the
news hard to get it. Imean, you're not going to get the
Attorney General on our side to lookinto any any corruption or fraud, because
you know he's right there along withthem giving them a nod for what they're
doing. But even look at what'sgoing on with the ballots in general,
not just the ballot harvesting, buthow many people have you heard from who
have said they've received a ballot attheir home for someone who doesn't live there,

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or they've received two ballots for themselves, Or I just got an email
from someone who doesn't even live inthis state anymore, it hasn't lived in
this state for probably five years,got the California ballot mailed to them in
Florida. I mean, the Secretaryof State's office is a complete mess,
and he doesn't do anything about it. They don't care. Yeah. I've

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friends that have moved probably four yearsago to one in particular, to Arizona
and has voted there twice as aregistered Arizona voter, but still got a
ballot for La County. Right,And there's nothing to keep them from voting
in two different states. Right.That's the problem. And you can,
however many ballots you get, Isuppose is how many you can mail in

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and vote. I mean, that'sridiculous. Or look at the fact that
there's no way to even check.While there is a way to do a
California chooses not to do it.But you know, if you have someone
who registers to vote, okay,well, obviously you have to be legally
permitted to vote in this state.There's no they don't have anything in place

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to check to make sure the personwho registered is actually legally allowed to vote.
State of Texas does because they checkwith the federal database to make sure
who this person is is actually legallyresiding in the state legally allowed to vote.
Of course California doesn't do that.So when I remember when this bill
passed and we brought that up andthey said, well, no, no,
there's you know, when you feellike your voter registration card it asks

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you very clearly on your tour legallyand so if anyone you know, marks
that improperly, well that would beagainst the law. Okay, well we're
going to look into that. Exactly. There's there's no enforcement of that law
because you guys refuse to consult withthe federal database to make sure people who
are voting are indeed allowed to vote. In addition, that's in addition to
fact, like you talk about AgiBassa, I'd go to Agi Bassara and

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say, how many times has thisbeen enforced? Then? Since then?
How many times has either a countylevel at the statewide level, have you
prosecuted someone for flying on the voterregistration card? How many times? Well?
I believe, but I believe theydid try to prosecute an elderly woman
in northern California the last election cyclebecause of she was doing phone banking or

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something, and they tried to saythat. I don't remember the circumstances,
but I do remember him trying toprosecute a Republican woman that I do remember,
right well. I mean, that'sthat's essentially there. They're directive right
now, is that it's right.The question is have they found anyone.
You can't tell me, for onefor one minute that there isn't some uh

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you know, undocumented immigrant in thestate of California who filled out a voter
registration card instead screw it, comecatch me, and you can't tell me
that that hasn't happened. You can'ttell me that of all the people that
have reported these additional ballots being sentaround LA County or LA County and not
just anybody in the state of Californiathat the only people are reporting it are
conservatives. So you're telling me thatonly conservatives are getting these additional ballots,

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right If Democrats are getting them,either they're not reporting it, which is
which is should be either should beshouted from the rooftops, or they have
nefarious you know of goals and notreporting it. Oh well, I got
these extraditional ballots. Who I knowmy grandmother died five years ago. Well,
I guess I'm voting for and andand again there's no We've had cases

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here in alec Kenny that I've thatI'm personally aware of of people whose parents
have been dead for a decade andthey got ballots this year. I mean,
this is this is this is notjust There's at some point where I
have to say that gross incompetence ends, and willful negligence or compliance in uh
some sort of nefarious act UH starts. So either the people that have been

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done dead for ten years not comingoff voter rolls can can be you know,
UH can be gross in competence foryou know, five seven seven months.
Well, okay, we screwed upwhen everything else, But when it
goes on for years and years andyears and years, then that becomes okay,
what why won't you remove them?Why won't you comply with the court
orders? Right? I think themost moment that they see that all of

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these ballots are going out to peoplewho are dead or have moved. Once
they see those ballots start turning Republican, that'll be the day they suddenly clean
up the voter rolls. That's justa hunch on my part. I think
it's a good hunch. Yeah,And like Scott said, they are under
a court. They made a settlementwith judicial watch to clean up the voter

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rolls, and I think angels though, right, I think that's The Secretary
of State within the settlement said thatthey would send updated procedures to all of
the counties reminding them a federal votingRights Act that I think with if they
don't vote in two federal general elections, which considering the date of the settlement,

(23:44):
were technically from what I could tell, not where they've we have passed
that federal general elections. So that'sprobably the guideline that they're going by to
still not clean up the roles untilthey absolutely have to under that uttlement.
So you think they want free andfair elections since that's what they're always screaming
about. I'm not exactly sure that'swhat their goal is, but i will

(24:10):
say this that you know Republicans whoare concerned about putting their ballot in the
mail, which a lot are,for a number of reasons, one of
which being they're concerned about the timeit's going to take to get to the
registrar. I mean, keep inmind, they can still count vote seventeen
days after election day because there's goingto be more mail going through. But

(24:33):
people have concerns that their ballot isnot going to get there in time.
It's not going to be a counted. I've been encouraging people to sign up
for ballot tracks so that they canactually get a notification as to when their
ballot was received and whether or notit was accepted or rejected. Because if
your ballot is rejected, for instance, because of your signature, you have
time to fix that. You knowyou have time to cure that, but

(24:55):
if you don't know your ballot wasrejected, you will never be able to
fix it. Encouraging people to signup for that so they can see what's
going on. But if they haveconcerns about putting it in the mail,
there's there's a lot of options,and one of those options is putting them
in one of the GOP's ballot collectionboxes, which are legit and legal and
no one needs to have any concernabout that. Will make sure that your

(25:17):
bellet gets to the registrar within thethree days that is required, probably sooner
than that. We've been telling them, you know, you really should turn
those ballots in every day, justto be on the safe side. And
you know people want to get theirballots in there. But you know,
you can always go vote in person. I mean, my daughter, she
turns eighteen this week. She'll getto vote in her first election, and
she doesn't want to do it bymail. She wants to go vote in

(25:38):
person. So I'm going to takeher so she gets that experience. That's
how I like to vote. Idon't like to vote by mail. I
I've always gone to the polls.I've never been an absentee voter. So,
but there's a lot of options forpeople out there, but just now
giving your ballot over to someone whoknocks on your door, probably not a
good idea unless you know them,right. Especially with the voter data that's

(26:00):
out there, it's a very veryavailable for them to use the voter data
for nebulous or for nefarious purposes,that is, going out in and collecting
ballots that they know they don't wantto have returned. And so they could
go out and collect a couple ofthousand Republican ballots and just toss them in
a dumpster or Burnham and you know, Burnham in the fireplace or whatever the

(26:22):
situation is. So I think,like I said, it's it's a pretty
good safe bet to make sure thatyou're the one returning the ballot, make
sure you're delivering it to a toa ballot drop off location, whether it's
a GOP ballot drop off location ora or a county one one in your
local county. But again, it'sit's very important that we start getting these

(26:44):
ballots in and that everything's up.So agreed, everybody, please please please
make sure you get out there andvote totally. Your vote does count,
even in California. It's especially trueeven if we think that Biden will take
the state. Your downballot races arecrucial, and especially city council and school
board county supervisors. That's where thebench is built for the state party on

(27:08):
either side. So it's extremely important, even if you don't vote for president,
to vote for those Amen, sister. So whether can people find you
Senator Melendez on social media or website? Well, so I am on Twitter,
and so under Twitter it's under SenatorMelendez. You can find me on

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Instagram, which is c A sendMelendez, sen Melendez. I'm on Facebook
as well. That's about all thesocial media I can handle, you know,
because I do all my own socialmedia, so that's kind of like
a warktime job. I am onParlor, although I would admit I don't
use Parlor as often because that Parlordidn't seem like it's taken off the ground

(27:52):
just yet. But I'm staying onthere, you know, I'm keeping an
eye. I'm hoping it would benice if Parlor could replace Twitter. But
I do make sure that I postall of the pertinent information as I can
on all of these different platforms becauseyou know, I feel like there's a
lot of legislators out there who justdon't engage directly with their constituents that way,
and people really want to hear directlyfrom their representatives, not from their

(28:15):
staff members. You know, youcan't rely on the media to get them
all the accurate information that they need, so I try to do that as
best I can. So if peoplewant to follow me on there, whether
you live in my district or not, we welcome you there. In that
way, at least you know you'regetting the right information in the timely manner.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday, and hopefully we'll have some

(28:36):
good news on election night. GodI hope so thank you guys. I
really appreciate you having me on noproblem, Thanks so much again, and
we will be right back after wehear from some of our sponsors. Do
you feel like everyone is yelling ateach other, but no one is listening
to each other or themselves. I'mCura Davis, host of Just Listen to

(28:59):
Yourself weekly exercise and critical thinking anddrawing our talking points all the way out
to their logical conclusions, because Ibelieve when we picked the time to examine
our own talking points, we canrealize we're not always saying what we think
we're saying. Download Just Listen toyourself with Kia Davis on iHeartRadio, Apple
Podcasts, or wherever you get yourpodcasts. This is Sounds Right with Jen

(29:22):
and Scott the fc being Radio Network. Welcome back to Sounds Right with Jen
and Scott. We just had agreat conversation with California Senator Melissa Melendez,

(29:47):
who has been pretty vocal lately aboutthe state GOP's private about collection box activities.
And I think it's a great thingthat they're doing that. I don't
we didn't ask her, Scott,but I don't know if it is the
only intent of using this boxes wasjust to do what the same thing that
Democrats are already doing and we knowthey're doing in Harley Route Is District at

(30:07):
least, or if there was kindof a dual purpose of kind of baiting
the the state elected officials into antagonizingthem about it, which is what happened.
I don't know if that was justa happy benefit or part of the
strategy. What do you think?You know, I think that it could
be a little bit of both.Sometimes you say, well, i'll do

(30:33):
this, and if they do this, You've always heard me general we're talking
about political strategy. I'm like,well, if they do this, then
we can respond this way. Notthat we knew that they were going to
be reacting a certain way, butif they did, we were going to
be able to have a response ofX, Y, and Z. So
I'm thinking that they said we're gonnado these boxes. If someone brings it

(30:53):
out, this is what we're goingto say, and this is how we're
going to defend it. But whetheror not that's actually what's going on is
is uh. I don't think thatit was a prime, upfront example of
something that they were planning on.I think that it was it was a
secondary or tertiary benefit. Yeah.And obviously, like you said, you

(31:18):
can't ever control someone's response to something. But one thing that we both also
tell clients when we're doing political consulting, which is hardly ever for me these
days, is to always think throughwhat are all of the responses that can
happen to whatever staateming you give toa journalist, to something you use in
messaging, so that you can tryto think through all of those some of

(31:40):
them possibly negative consequences, and howyou would respond. So, yeah,
I think they were definitely ready forthat blowback. Yeah. No, I
think that they like I said,I think that they were that it was
a canned response. They were availableand recognized it. But I don't think

(32:00):
that it was I don't think itwas necessarily a super highlighted thing. I
think that there was a part ofthem that thought that they would probably get
away with it with little to nothing. But if they did, they were
ready and they were ready. Wow, what a quick response that was,
right. And I think I'm prettysure I know that they did want to
do some ballot harvesting, because evenafter twenty eighteen, and this is something

(32:22):
that I didn't want to take theconversation there and we had snetor Melinda's on
the phone, but I had workedas a communications consultant on a congressional race
up in Santa Barbara in twenty eighteen, and because I know you would know
the work that you had done inthe stamp program. I remember, probably
the week after the primary that yearand we got through the primary, we

(32:42):
were on a conference call with allthe other consultants in the California GOP,
and I brought up, what dowe have in place for ballot harvesting because
it's legal this year and we knowthat, I mean, you have to
assume that the Democrats are going touse it to its extreme. What do
we have in place to do this? And because I know people we can
that could do that kind of stuff, we just need to get our act

(33:05):
together. And the guy from theCalifornia Jupe said, Oh, I don't
think they're really going to do thaton a large scale. You know,
they're just going to do what they'vedone before we do. You know,
we don't need to go there.Like, but if you guys, is
a campaign just want to do yourown thing, go ahead. Well,
obviously, you know, one campaigndoesn't have the resources to do something like
that without having the state party behindit or other fenders. So in my

(33:27):
mind that all directly led to thatBlue wave of twenty and eighteen. The
party just wasn't ready and the partyleadership at that time wasn't ready. But
in the days after that election,and I'm sure you saw this too,
her Meet Dylan, who's the RNCcommittee woman from California, said, if
you don't think that ballot harvesting isgoing to just keep going this way,
and if you hire consultants that don'tthink it's a big deal, like,

(33:51):
you're gonna lose and you just youdon't even need to be involved and reunning
for office, right. That's that'sthe big thing that I keep saying,
is that if you're going to ignorethis, you're going to lose. You've
got to You've got to alter yourgame. One of the things that I've
done for you know, every year, and you know this gen is that
every time we the laws change orthat they introduce a new strategy, I'm

(34:15):
always trying to figure a way toout strategize that strategy to go and try
to find what a way around itor a way to combat against it.
If they're going to be out pickingup ballots with trash bags and dumping them
in at polling places on election day, what can we do to make sure

(34:37):
our ballots are there at there ina way that is one legal and two
in compliance you know, two pointfive or one point five in compliance with
the law, and that and thatis effective. And you know, you
can go out and spend you know, ten dollars picking up a ballot,
if you can do it for tencents or fifteen cents, or in some
cases, like I've done previously,as few as little as a postage stamp,

(34:59):
cast then then why aren't you outthere doing it right? And it's
kind of infuriating too some of theRepublicans shouting from the rooftops, do not
turn your ballot over to anyone,which yes, like like the under said,
you don't just want to give yourballot to someone that you that came
to your door or saying you knowyou have to vote in person, don't

(35:21):
and going, well, if thecounty has official boxes, like in my
city they have an official drop boxinside city hall so that you can go
inside and you know that it's indoorsall day and there's not any chance that
someone's going to come in and messwith it. Like last night in Baldwin
Park, California, there was someoneput pieces of paper that were on fire

(35:45):
into the ballot box. It burnedballots. Yes, they think a dozen
more than a dozen ballots were affected, right, and so they should definitely
be cleaned out every night. AndI prefer ones that are indoors. But
the advantage we have if people turnin their ballots when they get them,
or you know, before the electionis then, at least in California and

(36:07):
I'm sure other states too, it'scounted on PDI political data how many ballots
have been returned, and the partiescan get those lists of who returned their
belts. So then your name hastaken off the list of people that are
going to mail, people that aregoing to call, people are going to
text, people are going to sendto the door, so that they can
use those resources to get those truepeople that really maybe won't vote. And

(36:30):
so I think it's helpful for thepeople that do vote all the time to
go ahead and get them in,take them, take them and hand it
in face to face to the countyregister if you're that concerned about it,
or put it in an official boxthat's inside. I don't trust the mail
for my ballot and I never have, so I would discourage that. But

(36:51):
then you're able to get your nameoff that you're not getting those flyers clogging
up your mailbox every day, you'renot getting text, you're not getting phone
calls, and the versus that arepretty scarce on the Republican side can be
used more effectively. Right. It'sum that's again going back to use the
uses of the resources. So obviouslywe can go around and try to tell,

(37:14):
you know, tell this to everyappsity voter in the state, But
will it be cost effective and willwill you see a return on it?
Republicans are inherently distrusting. They don'tlike people or government, and so if
a person right and a person representinggovernment, a random person that they don't
know representing government at their doorstep,is usually pretty hard for them to to

(37:36):
to trust. And so that's theinherent advantage for Democrats and ballot harvesting is
that Democrats will just hand their ballotover to anyone. I cannot tell you
how many Democrats we'd contact during previouscampaigns and they would just walk back and
be ready to hand us an emptyballot. Oh, here you go,
Yeah, you guys, just takecare of it for me. And it
was like, no, no,we can't do that. You've got it.

(37:59):
You've got to fill it out,you've got to take care of it.
But I mean, out of tendoors we may hit, you'd probably
have three voters that were ready tohand over empty ballots Democrat voters. I
mean, that's that's thirty percent ofthe ballots that we were picking up.
They were ready to just oh,yeah, you guys, take care of
it. I don't even know whoto vote for, so you guys just

(38:19):
take care of it. I wouldsay it was probably one out of every
thirty or forty for Republicans that someonewas willing to do that. So it's
it's a much different game when itcomes to Republicans versus Democrats, And it
says so much about the mindset ofeach right whether or not you're trusting or

(38:45):
believing of someone's true interests. AndI think that that's again going back to
the fact of why Republicans are doingbetter as of latest because the trust that
people have putting government for so longfor decades has been abused and now all
of a sudden, people are wakingup and going, wait a second.
So even I think Democrats are questioningwhether or not they can I mean,

(39:07):
they're questioning whether or not they cantrust the US Postal Service to return their
ballots. That's so funny. Ita whole different topic about just how funny
the Trump arrangement syndrome is that hecan get them to distrust the post Office
right after they were talking about hownecessary the post Office is. I couldn't
imagine him a quicker turnaround in mylife. Like in early September, we

(39:30):
were all hearing about how Trump wasdestroying the US Postal Service and how it's
integral and everything else, and we'veall got it, you know, we
needed to return ballots. And thenall of a sudden, there's articles footing
around now mid mid eight, midOctober whatever. We are forty five days
later, and they're going, oh, you can't trust the US Postal Service.
You can't trust them to return theballot, right Like, Okay,

(39:52):
you know another thing you said aboutpeople being more distrustful of the Democrat government,
especially in the state right now,I think they're really looking for a
real option and not just a dilutedversion of the same. And that was
something that you and I spoke withSenator Melendez about before we went on the
air. There was a timesh wasit I can't remember, was sixteen,

(40:12):
It had to be twenty seventeen aboutthe carbon credit, the Chad May's bill
or Chad May's endorsed stuff. Ican't remember all of the the ins and
outs of that one because there's beenso many things since then. But basically
what happened is there was a groupof about six or seven Republicans that voted

(40:34):
with the Democrats on keeping around someof these carbon credit type of schemes.
And to me it was infuriating becauseChad Mays was part of an Assembly leadership
on this and just has all thesepictures impelling around with Gavin and all of
the other huge and viral lefties onthis issue, and it was something that

(40:55):
was just so antithetical to all conservatismabout government and a relationship with government and
government interference in business, and especiallywith something that doesn't even really affect anything
positively anyway. All it is issome kind of a money grab of more
regulations. So I remember at thattime I called you in this all past
and said, I can't believe thatRepublicans went along with them to pass this,

(41:17):
Like we have to fight our ownparty before we can fight the Democrats
have the civil war within the party. And Senator Rollandz was an assembly woman
at that time, and she stoodup about it, and a lot of
Republicans did, and Maize was eventuallystripped of his um of his leadership position,
but she got she got punished forstanding up to it. She got
moved to some little crappy office inthe capital the close of a way to

(41:40):
yeah, a closet basically to kindof put her in her place. Well,
luck who's a senator now, right? I think I think that that's
that That's one of the most glaringissues with the whole thing was that they
they forsook that is that the pastsense of forsake. I think so they
forsook the the conservative principles that gotthem elected in order to uh, you

(42:05):
know, get to padle around withDemocrats for a couple of weeks while the
bill got finalized and everything else.They gave him the votes they needed and
and here we are looking back onit now, Oh well, it was
it was a compromise. It wasn'ta compromise. It was a sellout and
grabbing your ankles, right, Acompromise would have been we got these things
removed from the back from the bill, we got the bill changed in a

(42:29):
way that's favorable to us. Hedidn't do any of that. He just
got it where they they put thisthis bill up and they got the votes
together for him. I mean,Chad mays Is has the principles of a
tub of jello. I mean,right right, He this idea that that

(42:49):
somehow he was doing his Republican electoratea favor. And again, it wasn't
just a fact of his own peoplethat he was elected by. But he
was also minority leader at the time, and so he could have said,
hey, Democrats, go pound Sam, come back to us as something,
or we're not going to give youthe votes, right, because it was

(43:09):
one of those issues where because weweren't as deficient in the Assembly at that
time, they couldn't have done itwithout because they needed I think I think
on that well, there were someDemocrats that couldn't vote for it because of
the district that they lived in.It would have harmed them, right,
So they needed to get Republican votesto get it past. So you actually
had a position where you had negotiatingpower, correct, And not to mention,

(43:32):
what couldn't you have run on youif you ran on the fact of
like the ABY thirty two enforcements,the the carbon credits, the additional gas
taxes, all these things that weretold are truly regulation and taxation. These
things are truly Republican principles. Lowertaxation, reduced regulation, reduced aside of

(43:55):
the government. And he votes toincreased tax is growths as a government and
increase regulation in one vote, andthen somehow Triers tries to justify as of
it and gets other Republicans to doit too, Right, that's not that's
that is the Benedict Arnold of actions, not some brave Oh we're moving forward

(44:17):
on this or in the rest ofit. He he sold us out and
uh, and I hope they neversee him in government again. Yeah.
I hope he's up for reelection andas because he actually left the party,
became no party preference and has aRepublican running against him this year. So
hopefully that that guy gets out thevote and we get Chad May's out.

(44:39):
But I think, like Senator Rlindasaid, you know, why did they
think that we're not going to usethis against them? Why? Why did
they the Democrats think we're not goingto fight. Well, there's example exhibit
A right of why. Well,and then paper tigers. They've been paper
tigers in the state for years.You've you're you're hitting it on the on
the head. And I think youboth you and I know this is that
the Republicans have just been completely ineptand impotent on this on these issues,

(45:05):
They've been enable to act on anything. And the finally that they're able to
stand up, that's where I wouldgive you know as much as I opposed
her becoming chairperson, give Jessica Pattersonthe credit she deserves, and that is
she fought this issue. And one, I don't care what anyone else says.
I don't care what anyone else hints. I do not. I was

(45:29):
not a supporter of her. Idid not support her for chairperson. But
I don't think you would have seenthe same results from either a Travis Allen
or a Steve Frank chairperson. Shit. I think that this was unique to
Jessica, and I think that Jessicawas willing to take the hit. It's
harder to go after her or twoas a minority woman than it would be
to go after Steve Frank or TravisAllen, both white guys. So it's

(45:52):
it's it's a very interesting play thatshe made, and I think it ultimately
paid off exactly. And I didn'tsupport her for tear either. And I've
been pretty vocal criticizing or even duringthis because I didn't feel like the State
Party was fighting back against Newsome's executiveorders as as much as they should and

(46:14):
not taking that action. But Ithought last weekend, I thought, you
know, if I needed maya Kulpaon her then that I'm going to do
because like Senator Rollandez says, Ijust want to win and you can't win.
Um, you can't have a seatat the table to change these things
unless you win and get in there. And gosh, I had another thought
on that while you were talking,and now it went away. I'm sorry,

(46:38):
but yeah, yes, yes,And remember I have add so I
need to keep a note pad righthere so that I can write down when
you're talking. But I'm just gladthat they're fighting now. And oh I
remember so when when they actually foughton this, and then when Visarah and
and Padia were having their press conferencelast week and they were still trying to

(47:00):
equivocate and say, well, youknow, they agreed to change or we're
still gonna be monitoring this because weneed to make sure that there's not ballot
fraud. But of course they're notlooking at their own side. But I
tweeted out, I've never been soproud to be a member of the California
Goop like in ever, and andthat's it, like we need it.
We need people to stand up andlead people on the Conservatives in California.

(47:22):
A lot of them haven't voted ina long time because they didn't feel like
they had a leader or someone whowas going to fight. And we learned
in twenty sixteen that people when theyelected Donald Trump, they want a fighter.
They want someone who's going to standup and fight for them. And
before it seemed like I was justshouting into the wind when I was fighting
talking about the different things happening inCalifornia, and the party wasn't standing up,

(47:44):
and they were even on Friday,the state party account tweeting out,
no, this is not what happened. You could have just said sorry and
saved yourself a whole lot of apress conference. And they were even still
fighting back against that. So ifthis is the California g OP we're going
to have for the next while,I'm all on board with helping that right,
taking the fight to the Dems,making sure that they realize that they

(48:05):
can't just go out and say anddo things without some sort of recourse or
some sort of being challenged on it. That's important, exactly. Well,
I like to you know, it'sWe're going to continue on with our in
our third segment, more discussion aboutthe coming election and the fallout, but
that we need to take a breakright now. We'll be back in just
a short minute with some more SoundsRight with Jen and Scott. This is

(48:30):
Sounds Right with Jen and Scott onthe FCBING Radio Network. Welcome back to
this Sounds Right with Jen and Scott. We had a great those first few

(48:52):
sessions this morning with Wilson. Oneis we're fantastic. Always great to talk
to her always. I mean,I mean, obviously when we're talking about
the GOP ballot box situation in Californiaand how they defended it, we have
to talk about like other places inthe country that may have had some issues
with their ballots. And fortunately enough, I've been writing some of this stuff

(49:14):
over at Red State and we havecovered a couple of these stories, including
one out of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. So to go back in Westmoreland County,
Trump won that county in two thousandand sixteen by thirty one points.
It was a trouncing and someplace inthe range of about sixty five fifty five

(49:40):
sixty thousand ballots he won by votes. He won by that in that county,
and out of coming out of thatcounty recently was the story that the
vendor, the ballot vendor, hadlost sixty thousand ballots in that county.
Remember, Remember the discussion was thatTrump only won that county by by a

(50:04):
small margin, or not a smallmargin, by a sizeable margin, but
by a married margin smaller than theamount of ballots that were lost. And
when you're talking about Howry Clint gota total of sixty thousand votes in that
county in twenty and sixteen and sixtythousand ballots disappeared, that's a significant,
significant, significant problem, very significant. A lot of people don't remember that,

(50:28):
and especially in these swing states andsixteen that were so few votes sometimes
that decided that state, like outof the whole big grand scheme of things.
So like you said, like thatthat amount could swing the entire election,
right it again and wide. Itjust comes down to the yeah,
right, So if if we hadsuddenly that Trump lost Pennsylvania due to vote

(50:52):
or fraud and the twenty electoral votesdecide the election. Literally, this is
this is not a joke of like, oh, it's no big deal,
a few people lost their ballots.This is a much bigger, larger issue
on the whole. So it's justyou know, Twitter said that voting by

(51:12):
mail is safe and secure. Theystarted this whole thing this week where when
you log in, you have thisbig announcement talking about election results might be
delayed and because of the vote bymail things. So don't don't listen to
people that on election night claim thatthey won. And then you have to
click on these other things to seewhat else they say. And one is
this resource page where they're assuring youthat the experts claim and say that voter

(51:36):
fraud has never been proven in amail election and we can trust this and
the postal service is totally up togetting everything in. But sorry, that's
just an aside, no way,but it actually placed directly into my next
My next example is that in ButlerCounty, Pennsylvania. This is another article
that is as at RedState dot comnow in Butler County, Pennsylvania county that

(51:58):
want Trump won by thirty five pointstwenty sixteen, election officials made a stunning
and infuriated, infuriating discovery. Theyfigured that an unknown number of mail mail
in ballots were lost by the postalservice. So one trust, how do
you even come up with that?How do you say, yeah, what
evidence do we have of that youknow what I'm saying, Like the people

(52:22):
the doubters bike, well, anunknown number, how did you? How
do you know any number? That'sexactly My point is is that to say
an unknown number one that doesn't helpanyone. Are we talking five or five
hundred or five thousand two lost bythe postal service? Are we trying to
to uh get away from vote bymail? There is something that Democrats have

(52:45):
been pushing this entire time. Weall have to vote by mail. We
all have to have these these mailballots. But now they're saying, well,
uh, it's it's it's up toyou. And that's exactly what the
county said. I mean, ifyou look here, the it says in
the meantime, the county Butler County, a Bureau of Elections director is urging
those voters to go to the Bureauof Elections or fill out provisional ballot at

(53:07):
their polling place on election day.Well, and then if we have to
determine which provisionals are at or legit, that's going to take so much time.
And in addition, dumb ass,what is the point of ordering a
mail ballot if you're going to haveto go and in vote. Now,
so what about the elderly? Whatabout those that can't go? This is
exactly what we get back to,this idea of opt in mail ballots versus

(53:30):
forced mail ballots. So people whodon't want to get mail ballots or getting
them anyway sometimes two and three,and now we have a problem where people
who do want mail ballots aren't gettingthem. So I just don't understand with
a with a party who has aparty of choice and I use air quotes
around that want to remove people's choiceof whether or not they receive a ballot,

(53:51):
or whether or not they can geta mail ballot if they want one.
I mean, this is this isso asinine. At this point,
I just can't get over the act. Again, the US Postal Service lost
an unknown number. What does thatmean? Right? Is that just designed
to make people doubt the results ifit comes out Trump. That's exactly my

(54:15):
point, O, you lost theballots, well, the US Postal Service.
And again this is remember the endof August's earliest September, we had
this chorus from the left of sayingto us, hey, everyone needs to
get on board, everyone needs totea needs to help fight this this shutdown
of the US Postal Service, thedisarming of the US Postal Service. They're
dismantling these these sorting machines and allthe rest of it. Yet when they

(54:38):
do have the resources they need,they're incompetent, not all of I do
have one friend that is a whatwould you call it postal worker mail deliverer,
and she takes her job extremely seriously. And because we were watching baseball
the other night and she was havingto get up really early, and they're
working really long hours here in Californiaright now, my mail doesn't come till

(55:00):
six or seven o'clock at night regularlyright now. And she said, with
the volume of election mail, it'sjust crushing. And so another one of
our friends is just dumping on theside of the road. Isn't that what
what's supposed to be happening here?And she was joking, of course,
and my friend would never do that, but yeah, again, it's just
to me, it's it's infuriating thefact that we've been told to believe something

(55:22):
and now they're saying switch away fromit. I mean, if you go
on Twitter now and you look atall the Hollywood stars, you're saying,
no more mail ballots. No moremale ballots. Everyone vote in person now,
when for so long they were sayingthey shouldn't be any voting in person,
it should all be all way doneby mail. Yeah, we're going
to kill people if we send themout there. Now they want to They
want you to stand in line forhours. I mean, I guess the

(55:45):
little there the official ballot boxes aren'tgood enough for them anymore. I mean
it all changes daily depending on whatthey think Trump is doing or how they
think Trump might win. And sothat's why there's no consistency. Well,
consistency would be something that you'd expectfrom someone who had adults, someone had
principles. Well, I know thatI'm going well in La County, early

(56:07):
vote centers are already open, sothey people can go in there, and
I would suggest that bring your mailballot with you to exchange that out the
site, or even just turn yourmail ballot in there. I know in
my county, inventor always start onSaturday morning, and so I'm going to
go on up to the Reagan Libraryfirst thing Saturday morning and turn in my

(56:27):
mail ballot and vote. Right.It's it's it's important to get it in
to make sure that you're delivering it. I actually dropped mine in the or
my wife dropped mine in the mailballot drop box here in Sana Clarita,
and I was a little leary aboutit. But I've since checked the website.

(56:50):
There's an ability to check your website, your local watching officials websites to
check to see if your ballot hasbeen accepted. Mine has been accepted,
so I was excited. They seethat and know that I didn't have to
go on election day to vote provisional. So good. It's again, it
comes down to the fact, likeI said, that this is all about
trying to maintain a certain level ofcredibility with both the elections and the postal

(57:15):
service, and when there's so muchincompetence, so much finger pointing, it's
not It's not like any one personcame out and said this was my bad
or this was my problem and theirinability to fix it. I mean,
look at there's another case coming outof Texas where they are going to have

(57:36):
to reprint the ballots. Uh thiscase again twenty thousand ballots in Texas because
there's a bar code issue on theballot. So get this the election officials,
because they know that these are theseare ballots that have come back,
they've been returned, filled out,So they're not about to send them back
out to voters and say, hey, refill these ropes back out and get

(57:58):
them back to us. So whatTarrent County elections officials are going to do
is they're going to open these ballotsand transfer the votes from the old ballot
that was returned to the new ballotwith the correct barcode so that they can
be counted to the machine. Soagain they we're supposed to not only trust
them now because they screwed this uponce, now we're supposed to trust these

(58:19):
county officials in Tarrent County, Texastoo, to somehow go back and redo
these ballots, filling them out ontheir own. I mean, that's just
completely crazy. Wow. If wecome through this with Trump winning, which
I think that that's the will ofthe country, I really do, I

(58:42):
will be astounded. Because they're throwingeverything they can at this right. It's
to me, it's just funny thatthey that they have this idea that they
can't they can we can't touch it, we can't even look at it.
That the it's it's all completely onthe up and up. We cannot question
the credibility of mail ballots. Butyet, time after time, twenty two

(59:06):
thousand ballots in Texas. We're nottalking about five or seven or a couple
hundred. We're talking about entire populationsof towns that have their ballots rejected as
a result of a misprint on thepart of the county elections officials. Don't
people prove these things? One don'tthey prove it? And two once they

(59:29):
prove it, don't they suggest achange? Aren't they going to run a
simulation of their election system in themonths leading up to the election or are
they just going to kind of letit sit and hope that everything goes according
to planned come election Day? Well, we know what the answer in La
County is to that, right,as are totally messed out. Super Tuesday

(59:50):
was this year? Right? Again, they just don't ever and again they
it's never like they actually accept thatthere could be a possibility of malfeasance or
incompetence or even the potential for fraud. So when or all of the above,
right, So, when La Countysends ballots to people that they don't
belong, La County shrugs their shouldersand says, well, it was brought

(01:00:10):
to our attention, and it's like, yes, this case, this one
case was brought to your attention.What about all the cases that aren't brought
to your attention? That's the Imean, this is this is what's so
maddening, is like, well thesystem worked here, Yeah, because a
voter who received the system didn't workbecause the voter shouldn't be having to bring

(01:00:31):
it to your attention, right Andin addition, in like another article that
I wrote, it reads, state, there was a case where the voters
had been bringing it to the attentionof the county for years. They've been
getting these ballots for years, andthat every time they'd send them back not
at this address. They'd get notificationcards about voting rights and stuff, and

(01:00:52):
they'd send it back not at thisaddress, not at this address. So
they've received numerous, numerous examples ofthis is not this person's not at this
address. But so it's not justthe people at the DMV that are sleeping
and we're paying them to do that. Some people at the elections boards as
well. It's the same caliber peoplethat you'll find it the DMV and the

(01:01:13):
postal service. I mean that's exactlywhat we have to remember is that it's
not like there's a firewall between alot of these government entities that keep out
incompetence. I mean, it's themagnet of incompetence right exactly exactly point you're
it's not like suddenly like, ohwell, where where it's it's the elections
office. So those all that incompetenceyou'll find at the DMV and the postal

(01:01:37):
service, you aren't going to findhere like it's just again or again.
This goes back to government in itsentirety. It inherently, inherently fails.
It has to because if it succeeds, people would there would be no need
for government any longer. Government isin the business of keeping it self in

(01:02:00):
business. If they suddenly were resolvingproblems, it would eliminate the need for
government. So if we had socialworkers go out and eliminate social issues through
things, we wouldn't need have theneed for as many social workers. Government
is in the business of keeping itselfin business. That's all it comes down
to. Yeah, they don't wantthat pie to shrink at all, so

(01:02:21):
they have to not ever really fixthe problem, which a quick aside there's
the Rodney Smith, the lawnmower man. Yes, so's he defined himself as
a social worker, and he's teachingthese kids service first of all, because
they go out and they mow lawnsfor elderly people or disabled people fifty lawn
challenge I think it's called. Andthen he helps get them set up with

(01:02:44):
their own business doing lawnmowing. Now, my oldest son, when he was
fourteen and fifteen, we lived inNorth Carolina where people actually did mow their
own lawns like southern California, andwe had large lots of people lived on
half acre to acre things. Hemade two or three thousand dollars a summer
doing that, and we kind ofdid the same thing like Rodney, but
we bought him the lawnmower, buthad him pay back over time and had

(01:03:07):
him pay for the maintenance on itso that he learned how to run a
business. And that's what he RodneySmith does for these kids. And of
course the government wants to deny hima green card, saying that what he's
doing isn't exceptional enough to get agreen card. Right, that's government at
work, trying to have true socialwork, effective social work kicked out of

(01:03:29):
the country. It's again, itjust to me. It goes back to
the fact that they just they cannever be about resolving a problem. It's
just about like patching the hole inthe Titanic, water is still going to
come in, think the ship's stillgoing to continue to think we're just going
to slow the rate, which itdoes because if we've actually fixed the problem,

(01:03:50):
we wouldn't be necessary any longer.So it's it's it's maddening. But
unfortunately, Jen, we're at atime We've had a great episode today with
Center Melendez and and talking about this. Uh, it's it's an issue that
we all need to be aware ofand keep our eye on as we move
closer towards election day. Jen,where can people find you? Well,

(01:04:13):
first, I want to quickly justsay I don't want to end it on
a sad or depressed note, butjust get out and vote. Just I
want to encourage you to all govote asap. They can find me on
Twitter at Jen van Laar Jen vA n l a a R and at
red state dot com. Sweet youcan find me at Hound Sizzle and also
over at red State Until the nextepisode. We Love Yeah by the FCB

(01:04:51):
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