Freaky Friday: Earthquakes, Wildfires, Wrist-Slaps And The Importance Of Preparing For Emergencies
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Welcome to The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore. It is Friday, January the 10th, 2025. On this edition of The Politocrat, Freaky Friday, an earthquake, a sentencing, and the wildfires continue to rage. It is quite a Friday already. All of that, coming up next.

Dear listener, welcome to this edition of the Politocrat Daily Podcast. Happy Friday to you wherever you may be across the world. My name is Omar Moore. It's a great pleasure to have you listening. Thank you so much for taking the precious time out of your busy life to do so on this Friday or whenever you happen to be listening to this particular episode of the Politocrat Daily Podcast. Always nice to have you aboard and you know this by now. You are a highly respected and very much appreciated listener and I do hope that whatever you're going through,

right now in your life, whatever you are experiencing that is causing some adversity for you, for your family, the people you really care about in general. Remember that tough times do not last. Tough people like you do.

So on this, what I call Freaky Friday, there's already been an earthquake here in San Francisco. We've just had that happen to us earlier today. And yeah, it's just, you know, just a month after the tsunami warning. And after that, of course, those two massive earthquakes that were 200 miles north of here and the evacuation out of here. Now we've got this earthquake that happened earlier today.

And of course, we have the Los Angeles wildfires, the deadliest wildfires, the most dangerous wildfires, the largest, most devastating wildfires in L.A. history that are taking place still continue to burn out of control. We have no containment at all. We've had 10 people die so far in these fires. The Pacific Palisades fire.

is the deadliest, is the most dangerous and the largest, most devastating wildfire in the history of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. So that's where we are now here in California. It's one of the prices you pay, I guess, for this living in such a beautiful state. Of course, I'm not saying that that's that people shouldn't be living here. You know, you can live where you can afford to.

It's just that wherever you live in the world, there's always one thing or something that is beyond your control that can happen at any moment, whether it's a wildfire, a mudslide, an earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, some kind of other storm, flooding, you know, whatever it is, you know, snowfall, that's really, you know, all these things that can really be an impediment wherever you are across the planet. So, you know, this is something that's

is really, you know, and it rains, it pours. You know, it's really, it's something that can happen at any time, which is why a couple of episodes ago, dear listener, I talked about the importance of being prepared in advance in the event of an emergency.

And I talked very much, as you remember, if you were listening a couple of episodes ago, back on Wednesday, I made it very clear that we all need to, wherever we are across this planet, wherever we are on planet Earth, we need to have an emergency package or emergency luggage or an emergency kit ready.

Whether it's putting a few of your belongings, your most precious belongings, away in a bag or a cart or something small and portable that you can carry. Whether it's some photos, some photos that you have. Whether it's some framed items that you have. Whether it is your passport, your IDs. Your passport, obviously, is not something you use every day. You use your IDs pretty much every day. But your bank cards, credit cards, etc.,

your laptop, your radio with batteries in it, you should really, as I've said, write down a list of those items that are precious to you

Grab those items, put them away right now in some makeshift bag or whatever it is so that God forbid if there is some kind of an emergency down the line, you've already got your things together. So it's literally a five minute or less evacuation for you. You just put your hand on those things that you've packed away in advance and

And boom, you're good to go. You're out of there. You evacuate your family. You're out of there. And so this is very, very important. And I saw a message on Instagram from D-Nice. And you may or may not know who D-Nice is. A DJ, a writer, a musician who has been doing a lot of different things with music, music

for the last four decades or so at least. And so he said something, because he is a resident of Los Angeles, and he said something on Twitter, social media, just a day or two ago, and he wrote this, and this I think is really important. This experience, and he lives down in Los Angeles, has taught me an important lesson. In case of an emergency, I need to be properly prepared for

to leave my home at a moment's notice. When we received the evacuation order, he writes, I stood there for a good five minutes trying to remember where my important documents were. That will never happen again. The word never is capitalized in his message. 2025 is going to be a year of organization for me. I plan to keep a bag ready at all times. That's my emphasis, not his.

California living is definitely different from living in NYC. That's New York City. And it's time to ensure I'm always prepared. Thank you all for your love and support. I'm praying for the safety of everyone out there. That's from D Nice, who you can find on Instagram. And that was his message from a day or two ago. Actually, I think it was yesterday that message was sent. And

He reiterates what I said to you a couple of days ago, as I said on this podcast, which is wherever you are in the world, you may be someone living in a place. Oh, well, this doesn't happen to me. I don't have to worry about earthquakes or I don't have to worry about wildfires or I don't have to worry about mudslides. I don't have to worry about, you know, insert your message here.

But you actually do have to worry about these things. Why? Because something can happen at any moment. It might not be a natural disaster. It might be something else, God forbid. But look, there were lots of people in Los Angeles, in the Pacific Palisades in particular, in places like Malibu, in places, you know, in the Angles National Forest, in places like San Francisco, in places like

across the world who didn't have to worry, right? Who weren't thinking about these things before three days ago. Who weren't thinking about a wildfire. If you were in Maui last year or the year before, when the Maui fires in Hawaii, you know, the Maui

Hawaii is the big island, but Maui, the smaller island, one of the smaller islands, you weren't thinking about that prior to a year or two ago. I'm sure if you were living in Maui, you weren't thinking about the prospect of wildfires. And then all these people were killed in Maui with that wildfire that happened. I think it was in 2023. So, you know, this is the thing. We cannot afford to not be prepared. And I think this is a bitter lesson.

And I am not blaming anyone. Obviously, what's happening in Los Angeles is absolutely awful. And when it happens anywhere across the globe, I feel the same way about it. I think the only reason why I am talking about this a whole lot more is obviously because it's basically in my backyard, 400 miles south of here.

And so I think that that's the reason why you will definitely see me or hear me, I should say, talking a lot more about this particular event. And also because, again, I know people who've lost their homes. And I'm sure that perhaps you have. You know someone down in the Los Angeles area in Pacific Palisades, in Malibu, wherever, who have lost their homes.

And so it resonates with me when you actually know someone, when you actually know people who've lost their homes, have lost everything. Yeah, that will resonate with you if you have some kind of soul or some kind of humanity. And so, yeah, this is why I am going to talk about this again, because it is very important. And this applies, I guess, to say to anyone across the planet and also climate change, which, again, is something that.

People pretend it doesn't happen. Like the corporate news media and even the local news, KTLA 5, when I was watching it a couple of days ago, never did they mention climate change. Not once. Not once.

Nothing about global warming, nothing about climate change, nothing, nothing. Oh, it's just wildfires. And this would be at the same time that they'd be saying, it's very unusual to have wildfires in January because January isn't typically fire season. January is not the time for this. It's usually in June, July, August, September, October, maybe, but not January. Well, maybe the reason why it's happening in January...

Is because of climate change, global warming, these winds being as severe as they are? But no, you know, nobody clues into that. That somehow the reason why you've got these record high winds, these gusty winds that are going up to 80, 90, 100, 100 plus miles an hour, might just, could, might just, could, might, might, might, maybe, be...

Because of freaking climate change and global warming, you might want to kind of put two and two together there. News reporter, news anchor on KTLA, Channel 5, you might want to just think about that. But it's very deliberate, of course, why they don't think about it, why they don't talk about it. Very deliberate indeed.

Because we don't want to get those corporates who are responsible in part for the global warming in this world to stop sponsoring our newscasts, stop advertising on our news stories, stop advertising during our news hour. We don't want that money to disappear. We don't want them to yank their advertising. So why would we ever talk about that? Because we want the money from these ads that the companies who pay us to put their ads on the air.

um are given us it's what this is it's all about straight out greed rank out you know just rank greed and so you know they get the edict these employees of these news stations not to talk about these kinds of things you know and and i'm talking locally now you hear about it sometimes but it was astonishingly obvious but not surprising once you i was following this coverage locally

on KTLA channel 5 in Los Angeles and no you couldn't hear anyone say the words climate change or global warming you you didn't hear a single syllable of that uttered by anybody even as I said they talked about it's very unusual in January to have forest season you know it's it's

It's actually not unusual because fire season doesn't exist in Los Angeles, in California. It doesn't exist. Fire season is year-round fire.

Fire season is perpetual. There isn't a month on the calendar. This is not a Bugs Bunny cartoon or an Elmer Fudd cartoon or Daffy Duck cartoon. Duck season, rabbit season, duck season, rabbit season. There is no season in California. There is no season. I mean, maybe there's a rain season, but this was supposed to be the rain season.

From December through February was supposed to be rain season. Late November through to February is usually, quote unquote, rain season in California. Where was the rain the last week or so? Where was the rain the last couple of days? Where was the rain this whole week that people in Los Angeles could have used? People in the Pacific Palisades could have used. People in Malibu could have used. Where was that rain? Climate change, people. Climate change.

And these news broadcasts need to actually open their yappers and start to utter those words. Repeat after me. Climate change. Global warming. It really is kind of like a Sesame Street episode of pronunciations. I think Sesame Street would have absolutely been much more clear on this. I really think so. I told you who was absolutely clear about this apart from the governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, both mentioned it during a briefing that they gave yesterday at the White House around the California fires in Los Angeles, down there in Los Angeles. And I'll be playing you parts of a very important briefing that you probably have not heard anything about or saw any of right after this.

Breaking news on the Bay Area's news station, KCBS. You are waking up to word of an earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey pinpoints that at about 5 kilometers northwest of San Francisco Zoo, magnitude about 3.7 people in the city and as far down as the peninsula felt it this morning.

Yeah, that was KCBS radio this morning here in San Francisco, uh, breaking the news about this earthquake. And, uh, one of the things I did when this thing was rattling away for the three, like two seconds that it did maybe three seconds tops that it did. Yeah. I'd say two seconds that it did. And it was a fairly sharp rattle. Um,

I called KCBS radio immediately and let them know. The person who answered the phone has said to me, well, you know, I thought she she said she said, I thought it was only me. I started to laugh. No, it's not only you. So people did feel this. It was really quick response.

Thankfully, but this is what we get so used to here in California and anywhere else in the world where you have earthquakes. In Japan, for example, that's a fairly frequent area for activity for earthquakes. Chile, parts of South America, you know, a lot of South America has this. You know, we had there was a massive earthquake in Chile yesterday.

about what, five years ago, that was something like eight point something, nine something on the Richter. Hawaii has them, of course. So we've had that happen. Of course, we have them here all the time, as I said, in California, all over the state. We had one again a month ago that was 7.9, you know, 7.1, I should say, on the Richter scale, on the scale

you know, that was 200 miles north of here. We had, you know, we have these earthquakes, although even New York had an earthquake last year.

or the year before. So, you know, these things are very common, you know, New York is not a place where these things happen regularly, but they do happen. And New Jersey's had, I think New York and New Jersey have had earthquakes. We've seen this happen all over the country and all across the globe. Um, you know, uh, there have been some, a lot of flooding in, in Germany, um, in India, uh,

Spain has some issues with this. The UK has, where I'm from, the UK had a lot of issues with flooding over the last year or two or three, down to climate change and global warming. These things happen. And again, I just wanted to say this to reiterate, please have a plan. I think we here in the United States are so isolated.

under the illusion that nothing's going to happen to us, that we're not going to go through any kind of major issue, and that we take it for granted here in this country. We really, really do. I think across the globe there's a certain level of this, but I think particularly here, we tend to think that nothing's really going to happen to us. We're in the most powerful nation on earth.

And it's, yeah, we are, but it doesn't mean that things can't happen. It doesn't mean that you can't, I'm not trying to be a doomsayer. It just is something that we need to be alert to and we need to stop, I think, we need to stop being so,

lackadaisical and lax about these things. I mean, when the evacuation that we had here a month ago for the tsunami warning, which turned out not to be as serious because, you know, within 20 minutes of being evac, of evacuating, you learned the news that, oh, you know, the National Weather Services has said that the tsunami warning is no longer in effect.

But it's best to evacuate and learn that 15 minutes later than it is to stay in your home. And then you suffer some really dangerous consequences. And at the time of evacuation, I noticed there were so many people just lackadaisical. They're just sticking around. You know, nobody's packing up. And then you see people, some people driving away. And there were lots of cars and whatnot around that were driving away. But then there were so many people as well who were just

lollygagging. And I just think that that's a really dangerous thing. We become so complacent and so apathetic.

And we, in that kind of position, we leave ourselves ever more vulnerable. And it's a very, very dangerous place for us to sit. It's a very, very dangerous place for us to be. And so the reason I talk about this is just to remind you once again, dear listener, wherever you are across the world, please, please, please start to think about your emergency plan

In the event of an emergency. And I don't mean just think about it. I also mean write down the belongings that you think are the most valuable things that you can put your hands on. And actually put your hands on them and actually put them away to the extent that you can do that, right? Because you may need these valuables now.

But I really would urge you to actually put together a kit now and do that. Put it in a place that you can put your hands on it. And so that, God forbid, you may never, and I hope you never have to do this, but so that you are already aware of what you need to do, right? You don't have to be running around like Dean Ice wondering where his most important documents were. You know, that's...

You know, please heed these lessons, heed these warnings. We need to be a bit more concerned about this and let's not take things for granted. I'm not saying that you personally are doing that, but I am saying that we really do need to heed these warnings and

Let these things be an example. Let these, unfortunately, these horrible tragedies be a warning to us all that we cannot take things for granted and we cannot afford to be complacent about any of these things. Because again, at a moment's notice, you may have to evacuate. You may have to whatever it is. You may have to find yourself doing something.

an emergency evacuation, you've got to locate people that you know, your family members, you know, if you're not living in the same part of the state, the city, whatever, you need to have a plan in place, you need to have a portable radio with batteries in it, you know, you need to be able to listen to local news on your radio, because your cell phone may not work.

You've got to have some kind of backup plan because cell towers might be out. You have no idea. What if there's a power outage? You know, that's another emergency. There's a power outage that goes out and your electricity is out and you've got no power. Do you have a battery-powered radio? Do you have a fully charged phone? Do you have some kind of alternative communication? Do you have some kind of...

battery or a lighter or do you have perishable uh non-perishable goods like you know things in in cans you know soups and things like that do you have that i mean these are really important things i really cannot stress it enough so that's what i wanted to say about that

What I want to do right now, dear listener, is start to orient you back to these wildfires here in California. And forgive me for sounding so regional and for being so regional. But this is one of the most devastating fires that California has ever seen. What you're seeing in these multiple fires, the Palisades fire in particular, where now

You have over, what, 10,000 structures destroyed, at least 15,000 acres burnt and counting. You know, people have lost their lives in these fires. Ten people in total, their lives have been claimed, at least ten people now from these fires. Lots of people have lost their homes. People I know have lost their homes. People you know have lost their homes.

A load of these celebrities have come out and talked about how they've lost their homes. The head coach of the NBA team, the basketball team, the Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, he's talked about how his mother, who is 90, nine zero years of age, lost her home. She's safe, most importantly, and his family is safe. But right there in the Pacific Palisades, where someone I know lost their home, lost

Steve Kerr's mother lost her home, you know, the whole thing. 90 years old. I mean, just think about trying to evacuate someone who is that age. And think about evacuating people who aren't able to move so quickly, who may not be fully body abled, able bodied, as you say. Think about that. So these are the kinds of things that these stories are.

And I talk about this a lot. Mental health. I've talked about this a lot on this podcast, especially over the last couple of months. But I've talked about it throughout the time I've had this podcast. Mental health is so critically important. I've talked about mindfulness. I've talked about doing things in your routine daily that can help you control and get in touch with mindfulness. Very, very important to do this. And so...

Mental health, this year is the year of mental health. Every year is the year of mental health. But this year in particular, I think, is the year of mental health because you're going to see things that are really going to test you, whether it's here in the United States with who's coming into the White House in 10 days time, whether it is these natural disasters that we've been experiencing already in the first week.

of this brand new year, whether it is some other situation that happens, this is going to be a testing year. It just will be. I mean, I, you know, we already seen that, that that is the case. And so this is something that is going to be really demanding for our mental health. And so we need to do the things to take care of ourselves. And, um,

Obviously, what's happening down in Los Angeles right now is a mental health crisis because you have lost your home. And let's say you don't have another home to go to. You're not fortunate enough. You're not economically well off, financially well off.

that you can do that. Lots of people in the Pacific Palisades, many of them have the luxury of having a second home or can at least go and stay at someone's place for a couple of months so they can stop by, they start to figure things out. But there's lots of people on this planet who don't have that luxury. Of course, even if you do have another place to go, it still doesn't take away the pain and the hurt of losing your home in that part of the world. But

One of the things that someone in that situation can do is that at least they know they've got another residence that they can go to. But what if you're someone who doesn't? What if you're someone who cannot stay somewhere else? What if you don't know anyone else in the area where you can stay? What do you do? How do you pick up those pieces? Insurance, that's another thing. That's going to be the next big battle because these insurance claims, we're going to see how...

nice and friendly your friendly neighborhood insurer will be when they have millions of people, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in that part of the Los Angeles area claiming insurance claims. You know, that's something that's very, very, can be a very big issue. Now on the federal level, by the way, if you're someone who is affected by

before I get to President Biden and Vice President Harris, if you have been affected by this disaster,

And you're someone in the area, in Pacific Palisades, in Pasadena, with the Eaton Fire as well, with the Sylmar Fire, the Hearst Fire, or any of the other fires. The fire in the Hollywood Hills that happened, I think is now contained. I think that's the only fire that has been contained in the Hollywood Hills. If you're in that area at all, you need to go to this website, disasterassistance.gov.

That's disasterassistance.gov. Or you can call 1-800-621-3362. That's 1-800-621-3362. 1-800-621-3362. Now, those two numbers and websites are connected to the federal government. That's FEMA.gov.

That's assistance. You just need to go through or have someone do this for you. Go through the application. I know that can be mentally stressing as well. The application to get assistance, things that you can find that the federal government will help you with. For those people who keep saying that, oh, we don't want any of these Republicans, or we don't want government involved, then when your house burns down,

The first thing you are crying for is government to help you. The first thing you complain about is where's the government? Where's the government? You know, this is another thing that's a problem with what you're seeing now is a lot of lies and misinformation and BS being spread about what's happening down in Los Angeles or what's not happening. And these newscasters are also repeating it, which is just, you know, pathetic. And so there was an article that I posted, by the way,

And I need to get on social media and really castigate the new republic that talked about budgets being cut by the mayor and the city council. Well, again, that's actually not accurate. And I will later on in this episode conclusively prove that to you. And so all of this BS now, that's the thing now with these Republicans and these Democrats

news story people and these newspapers that repeat these lies is to just politicize every single thing on the planet now i know politics is involved in everything and decisions you make are political and what you wear is political what way you buy it from is a political choice in some ways but i'm talking about when i say politicizing everything that's that's a there's a difference between

Saying things like, well, politics figures in your everyday life versus someone who politicizes everything. Very, very different things. You may think that there's a fine line there, but there really isn't. Because whenever there's a Democratic mayor or a Democratic governor or a Democratic president and something happens, you get these Republicans and these racists who come out there and spread lies and misinformation.

Whereas when a Republican does something disastrous, you don't have people spreading lies and misinformation. You have people criticizing their abject failures, like George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina.

You know, like Michael Brown, who was head of FEMA, and George W. said, Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. And Brownie was doing Jack all and Jack, you know what, beginning of S. And so these kinds of things are poisonous. These kinds of lies about what's happening down in Los Angeles and there's supposedly no resources. There are resources, but

It's just that you can't use them all when the winds are going at 100 mile an hour. I think it requires people to think instead of just react. And that's what we do now. You know, and I'm going to curse for the first time this year on this podcast. We are being fed bullshit. We really are.

by a lot of people on social media which is why I really stress to you that we need to really decrease our time spent on social media and be very critical and discerning of what it is we are reading on social media and do our own research even some of these articles that get written by written by so-called publications like the new republic you know that is seemingly above the fray

Or not. They've got agendas too. Like everybody has an agenda. I don't know if you want to be cynical to the utmost here, as I am being, but we have to be more critically discerning readers and we have to be more critical thinkers. We have to be much more careful about what we are reading and reacting to. And I got duped by this because again, I will talk about this later on, how

This idea that there was this cut in the budget is just false. It's completely untrue. And when you look online at this, you will notice that all the publications that are saying this have right wing leanings or are downright outright right wing publications saying this.

You know, there's no evidence of this in newspapers that you might look at as more highbrow. And even though the New York Times and the Washington Post are definitely not what they used to be, I have not seen that in those publications. This is all from right-wing media and social media goons who are right-wingers who are spreading these lies. And it's dangerous. It's just like what happened with the hurricanes in North Carolina and Virginia and California.

Alabama and Florida. Remember those just a few months ago? And these lies were being spread that FEMA wasn't helping people. And if they come to your door knocking on it to help you, don't answer the door because they're helping illegal immigrants and all this bullcrap that was being floated. And you literally had FEMA people being attacked.

In these states, especially these Republican-controlled states, they were being attacked, FEMA people, who were trying to help those who had suffered from the devastating hurricanes that were happening in these areas of the country. North Carolina, remember that was just like September, October of last year.

And these hurricanes had destroyed the place. And he had that orange felon down there lying and spreading lies and saying that Biden and FEMA weren't doing anything. I mean, this is the kind of evil that exists out there. And you've got a lot of empty-headed people who follow that evil. And they just follow all the lies and they don't think anything.

Because all they do is react. It's like a pinprick on steroids. And so there's no thought. There's just blah, blah, blah. Just reacting to everything without thinking. And that's what we are now. We've become a society that just reacts and reacts. And so...

That's why I want to stress to you, it's so important for us to be critically discerning about what we're reading, even in publications that we're comfortable with. We need to engage in critical thinking. It's so very important. It really makes a difference.

And it's so easy to be duped. I was duped by these stories about so-called monies being cut from the budget. And then there's another thing. There's a difference between budgets and actual expenditures, what actually has been spent. You can do anything with a budget, but it's about the spending.

There's a big difference between budgets and actual spending. And budgets can be changed. We've seen this. President's budgets can be changed. Governor's budgets can be changed. Mayor's budgets can be changed. We've seen this because what happens, whatever the mayor, the governor, or the president proposes in the budget,

doesn't always stay the same. In fact, for the most part, it never, ever, really, ever stays the same. Why? Because it's subject to legislative review, i.e. the legislature votes on the budget. In the president's case, it's Congress. In the governor's case, it's the state legislature. In the mayor's case, it's the city council. And you know what I've just said there implies?

You have to know how government works. That's the key. And most Americans do not know how government works. Most Americans have no idea of how government works. They think it's one person that does everything. And we've been socialized to think this because of all the emphasis on one person, i.e. the president, or one person, i.e. the governor, or one person, i.e. the mayor. But they don't make all the decisions. They don't make all the decisions.

And any decision they make is not done off the cuff by themselves in isolation. It's done after multiple rounds of consultation with officials in the administrations they're in. It's not just them by themselves. It's not some dictatorship. I know this guy coming in wants that and he'll bring that. But even he has people around him.

None of these decisions gets made in a vacuum, is my point. And so we need to be much more critically discerning about what we're reading and be much more critical thinking and be critical thinkers about all of this and start to understand how government works and how process works. We are now awash in a technology society that throws process out of the window.

And just is all about react, react, react. I want it now, now, now. I'll be talking about this when I talk about Amazon in the next few days. I promise to get to that. I was going to do that this week, but because of these fires, obviously, and what's happened in the funeral for Jimmy Carter, that was just not going to happen this week. But I'll be talking about Amazon and how this culture has really gone off on that and how Amazon has really sparked this. These billionaires...

With some of the stuff that's going on, I'll get into that hopefully next week because I really think there needs to be a proper accounting of it, but not just an accounting about what we can do to really...

counteract a lot of this. But again, process is important. Process is about how we really learn and understand and wrestle with things. Conversations are so important, which is why I think that social media, having conversations on social media is a horrible idea. Horrible. And yet we do it every day. You know, I try to avoid it for the most part.

You know, because I spend much, much less time on social media. My mental health is very thankful for that. You know, because why spend even 10, 15 minutes on social media getting in at 10 minutes, getting into a back and forth with someone. A, you don't know that they're real. They could be some troll or bot. And B, what's the point of that? You wasted 10 minutes of your life when you could be doing something that's more productive, you know? And...

You can have an actual conversation with somebody in person instead, which is more fruitful and better for your soul than getting into a back and forth on some electronic platform with someone you've never seen and never will meet. And so these are the things that I think are critically important. Goodness me, I've talked a lot about this, so much to the point of which I think it'd be better to, as I've said before on this podcast, start now.

A clean start with the briefing that happened yesterday that you probably haven't heard or were even aware of. Donald Trump will be entering the Oval Office again in just 10 days. He was sentenced today to an unconditional discharge, so he will not serve any jail time at all, which is really not a surprise at all.

But again, it underscores that this is a country of men, not laws. Anybody else who is someone who's not white and not male would have been sentenced in this case. And of course, anyone who is not white, male and rich would have been sentenced in this case. But Donald Trump gets to get away with it, although he is and will always be a convicted felon from New York. Dear listener, welcome back. And today,

I'm going to talk a whole lot less in the remainder of this podcast episode. And you're going to be hearing a lot more from government officials. The importance of government in our lives is critical. You know, forget what Reagan said. Oh, the 11 worst, most dangerous words that we want to hear in the government. Oh, you know, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Remember all that from the 1980s, if you're of a certain age?

Well, government is very important on the local level, especially I'll be talking about our need to organize locally as the year begins. We've had a new mayor here in San Francisco sworn in a couple of days ago. And that's one template for what I want to do and for what people need to do in their own cities as mayors and governors get sworn in this month.

But government, whether it's local, state or federal, are a very key component in our lives, especially local government. What you're going to hear for the remainder of this podcast episode are really important examples of why government is absolutely indispensable in our lives. It can't solve every problem.

But certainly without the kinds of infrastructure on a government level, we would be nowhere. It would be anarchy. It would be chaos. It would be complete libertarianism and one for everyone for themselves, which is what these billionaires would love and these libertarians would love and these Republicans would love.

But you're going to be hearing from several people. You're going to be hearing from Randy Moore, first of all, from the Global Moore family. Randy Moore, the U.S. Forest Service chief. He'll be talking about the climate implications. You'll then hear from Robert Farmer, the acting deputy asset FEMA administrator. He'll be talking about the mental health component.

of all of what's happening in Los Angeles. You'll then, after that, hear from Laurie Moore Merrill, another member of the Global Moore family. She is the U.S. Fire Administrator. She'll be talking about the implications of what's been going on and what she's doing. And then you'll hear from President Biden more expansively. You'll hear from him in some of these clips previous. But I'm just...

I want this to run continuously. I don't want to keep interrupting them. That's why I'm giving you the names of the people you'll be hearing from. First, Randy Moore, then Robert Farmer, then Laurie Moore Merrill, the U.S. Fire Administrator. And then you'll hear in more depth from President Biden. You'll also hear from Vice President Harris. And you'll hear from the Deputy Energy Secretary, David Turk. Now,

In that final audio, which is going to be that last piece of audio that I've just described, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk, that's about a 13 and a half minute audio piece.

And in that order, you're going to hear them talking about why there are supposedly water shortages, why things happened the way they did in Los Angeles over the course of the last few days during these wildfires. And also a very important point to be made about the politicization of all of these things that are going on when you've got these natural disasters that really, quite frankly, you can't do everything about.

And people have to understand that now. So I wanted to just lay that foundation because now for the rest of this episode, until my closing thoughts, you're going to be hearing from government officials who explain why things have happened, what they're doing about them, and how things go from here. Explanations, context,

process. That's what you're going to be hearing about. Those things are what we don't hear about on the local news, what we don't hear about on social media, and what we don't hear about from these right-wingers who just keep spreading lies. Now you're going to hear facts for the next roughly 20 minutes. Randy, tell me about the conditions that we're dealing with on the ground. What's most concerning to you?

Well, what's concerning right now is the wind, because the wind has limited our ability to put aircraft in the air. Aircraft will not put that fire out, but it gives our firefighters, our boots on the ground, a really good opportunity to put the fire out with a little help from retardant and water drops.

With these Santa Ana winds, you know, what's interesting about this part of California, these Santa Ana winds comes off the ocean usually in the mornings, and then you have the sundowner winds in the afternoon pushing the wind back the other way. And so while you're fighting to stop the fire this way in the morning, you're also fighting to stop the fire from coming back at you in the afternoon.

The sundowner winds are not significant as we speak, but those are the challenges we have in that part of California. And so again, our firefighters are doing just an outstanding job of working in that type of environment, which their lives are really at risk pretty significantly under these conditions. Thank you. What do you think the biggest challenge is? Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is going to be the mental health stress that is put on individuals that have lost everything. Fires are so drastic, they destroy everything very quickly. Individuals don't have a lot of notice to leave in. So I think there's gonna be a significant mental health strain followed by a need to help individuals recover and rebuild.

And the Vice President is exactly right. I suspect that many have insurance, many are underinsured. And insurance is difficult to get and some might have lost their insurance or been canceled by insurance companies. And I think that's something we need to continue to work on as a government at all levels.

but something where there'll be gaps in assistance that we will need to bring in not only federal agencies, but nonprofits, private sector to help meet those needs. - I think you're gonna have to do, we're gonna have to do that in addition. The fact is that the two declarations we signed, I signed, provide for, for example, the rebuilding of churches and schools and certain, but not businesses, not business centers.

And so that's going to be a gigantic cost as well. But the debris removal is a big deal. And that's going to take a long time, isn't it? Yeah, it will take some time to remove the debris. In California, unfortunately, we've had a lot of

experience with fighting fires and removing debris. And so it will take months to a year. This is a very widespread with significant damage to infrastructure. And we want to not only immediately remove the hazards, things like cocaine tanks, some of the power cells that are there and other

contaminants that may be in households and make sure that they're safe to reenter and we look for personal effects. But then the second part is removing that ash and what we've done before is help people with the removal so that we can get down on the grade and then immediately start rebuilding. - All right, I appreciate what you're doing. And like you said, 360,000 people have been evacuated so far. Chief, you wanna add anything to this?

I will, sir. Thank you very much. And as you might know, I've been here, got here last night. It was important to get in here on the ground with the fire chiefs and the firefighters that are here. So I've been with L.A. County, L.A. City fire chief since last night. We're at the Palisades EOC right now as a...

Regional Administrator Fenton just said, with the governor, with the FEMA administrator getting the brief, the coordination of resources, it helps for us to be here, U.S. Fire Administration, as part of the response because we're on the ground. We're able to explain ground truth and coordinate resources, streamline the communication between federal. We are also here checking on the firefighters on the front lines, and I really appreciate

What you and the Vice President both said about the boots on the ground because these are their communities and nobody wants to fight the fire and save these communities more than these firefighters who are boots on the ground from the very moment the ignition began. So we're checking on them. I will tell you they're exhausted. Obviously, many of them have been more than six hours on this now. They are able to...

take a quick nap sometimes in the truck, but they are on the job. And they keep fighting. And so they need to know that they matter. And so it's important that I show up with them.

to see them, to say thank you, and to let them know that we are watching, that we know what they're doing. We want to make sure that we're here when injuries happen. And so we did have an injured firefighter in L.A. County fell through a three-story roof just about two hours ago. So several major injuries in the hospital. I'll be going to check on him shortly.

And it is, it's about the response too, because often while we're in the midst of the response, these chiefs can't explain everything that is happening. And there's a lot of questions, as you might imagine, and are addressing. And so it's important that we're here to help explain why the fire's moving the way it is, the fire dynamics, helping people understand. And when they're

There's questions, as you know, about the response or about the water to help people understand that it's not just, it's not over if there's not water in the hydrants. We have tenders, we have tankers, they're doing rescue. So there's a lot of work to be done and controlling these perimeters. There's so much work that these firefighters are doing beyond the direct suppression on these fires.

and so that's why we're here and to continue to learn because every one of these tragedies unfortunately is a lesson uh to how to prevent the next and so it's important that we do that as well so we're going to remain on the ground here sir on your behalf for a couple other days to make sure that we are part of this conversation part of the conversation that's why i went out

California yesterday I met with those firefighters and met with those police officers because there's also worry about looting and a number of other things. So they are really incredible people. They're making such sacrifice. But I think you're right that we have to provide them all that is humanly possible for them to be able to do their job.

And there's going to be a need. I want to say it again. We all know around this table, there's a need for some help in terms of the psyche of these folks. There's going to be real problems regarding the mental health issues. And we've got to make sure we're prepared to deal with it.

Local leadership didn't care. I mean, explain how this works and why it makes sense what's happening. So this is an issue actually, Secretary Granholm was on the phone with the CEO of Southern Cal Edison to talk exactly about this and make sure we were doing everything we can on that front. And it's both the power issue, and you mentioned generators and other ways that we can try to help solve the problem there, but it's also the pressure and making sure that we're thinking of these things holistically and

And certainly my experience over the last four years under your leadership is it's not one department, it's not one slice of your federal government that is responsible. Energy and water issues overlap in a lot of different ways. So we work with our EPA colleagues and others to make sure that we're bringing all of our expertise and explaining it to our fellow Americans. It's important that we give transparent information and information they can rely upon. Well, I think it's just people don't know how it functions. And for example...

Since I've been president, I've been in an aircraft flying over more territory where there have been wildfires from Arizona all the way up to Idaho and beyond. And that make up an area larger than the entire state of Maryland, burned to the ground.

And one of the problems has been that people don't understand that when these high winds occur, what happens is, or when these storms occur, these utility poles, these whole big lines, you see where all the lines are on, they fall to the ground in the middle of the forest. It's not just about raking the leaves under the trees. It's about the fires that that causes.

And so utilities have to shut down the ability to continue to transmit on those lines. And the consequence of that, I don't think most people think, no matter how well educated they are, unless they're in the area, that there's a direct correlation between the utility company and the ability to pump water out of a hydrant. And so it allows for a lot of uninformed people to make decisions

assertions or concerns or accusations about the local officials not caring or not working. So as I understand it, the vast majority of the circumstances

where the water resource has been diminished is because of the utility company not being able to maintain the electric transmission because they're getting knocked down or shutting down so they don't cause more fires. But now what is happening is

Are we getting cooperation with utility companies to bring in generators and others to bring in generators to generate the energy to allow that fire hydrant to function? I mean, explain that a little bit. So this is the pragmatic can-do attitude and folks who've been literally doing this, our civil servants and others, for their careers and making sure that we're solutions oriented. We sometimes call our department.

the solutions department, as Liz knows from having been deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. And so whatever gets the power on to allow the water, whatever gets the job done, a lot of times it's working with our defense colleagues who have terrific assets that can be brought in quite quickly. The other point I'd like to make, Mr. President, to thank you and the vice president's leadership and our folks in Congress, your bipartisan infrastructure legislation

actually provided $10 billion. It's a grid program for grid resiliency to improve the resilience of our grids so that when the grids do go down, they come back on quicker. That's $10 billion that we've already gotten out the door and it's being invested in communities all across the country. We need more of that. We need to continue to focus on infrastructure, but infrastructure matters. It matters a great deal because, for example, one of the things that I knew, but I didn't know, I didn't put a number on it,

It'd be a lot easier if these electric lines are running underground.

and contained vessels. So in the middle of forest, so there's nothing to, I mean, but it costs what, six times more? It can cost six times more and we're doing a lot more undergrounding thanks to your leadership on the infrastructure funding. It's not cost effective everywhere and some places it's necessary. It's absolutely necessary and we need to have the funding and support to do that as quickly as we can. Well, I think we're moving in the right direction. I know it, look, this is

Really, really, really difficult for families to have to deal with it. I mean, you know, I have a family member who lives out there and the area where he lives, I'm not going to get into detail, but where he lives, I think there are something like 240 or 260 homes that burned to the ground, all but 14 or 15 of them.

And everybody has to evacuate. People are going, when do I get back? When do I, will I ever find that picture album? Will I ever find the jewelry that my mom, my grandmom gave me? Will I ever, I mean, there's so much anxiety that's generated. And I think that we've been through this once before in Hawaii where the fires occurred and

And we're trying to build back up the community so they could open up and things be running. But it's really, really, really hard. So I'm going to make an appeal right now to the United States Congress. They're going to have to step up when we ask for more help, more help to get these people the kind of shelter they need, to get the kind of help they need, because it really does matter. And you guys do, I'm not being solicitous, you all do a hell of a job. And we've learned, unfortunately, so much today.

And there is, in case you haven't noticed, there is global warming. It does change weather patterns. And as you explained, Randy, wind's going in, wind's coming out. You get the one going in, but you don't want the one coming back out. And so my point is that I think the more we can explain to the American people in plain, straightforward, honest English or whatever language that we misunderstand,

what exactly is happening, the more likely we're likely to get the kind of support and not make a political deal out of this. I'm leaving this office very shortly, but it's not about the politics. It's about giving people some sense of security that we're going to be able to get this under control, but it's going to take time and it's going to take time. And like I said, in the next little bit, we're going to be going back to Congress asking for some more help on some of this stuff.

And I hope they're ready to step up because we can afford it. And like I said, we have a little infrastructure bill that's over a trillion dollars. It's going to be able to help a little bit. We have done a lot in terms of what we're going to do in terms of providing for this rebuilding of communities. And so I think the most important thing we have to do, those of us sitting around this table and on the screen, is explain in simple, straightforward language

what the capacity we have is, how we're using that capacity, and what capacity we don't have that we need. And in order to keep things from just all these, in crisis, rumors and fear spread very quickly. And the most important thing is to just bring this down in an area, be honest with people, what's at stake, but be straightforward with them. What can be done and how we're going to get it done.

So I thank you all very much. I'm proud of the job you're all doing. And I'm, quite frankly, proud of the job a local official in California are doing. I spent a lot of time with the governor and the mayor of Los Angeles and others. You know, they're doing everything that we ask of them and beyond. And so we're stepping up as best we can. Any of my colleagues around the table or on the screen want to add anything before we close this out?

Well, as the Californian at the table, thank you for all of the leadership that everyone here has provided, starting with our president. We're beyond the point of calling it fire season.

That's right. We really, and we're saying this around the country, that whereas years before we would talk about a particular season of extreme weather, we are saying that it doesn't matter what month of the year, we should be ready. The work that our administration has done in particular on the issue of infrastructure...

together with the Inflation Reduction Act and the attention we are paying to the climate crisis is so important because we have got to invest as a country in adaptation and we have to invest in resilience. And that is about homeowners, that is about families, that is about cities and local governments, state governments. And we have to adapt to this changing climate.

For example, fire hydrants are pretty much built to deal with an individual house fire, not with a wildfire that is taking on entire residential communities where these homes are providing the fuel for that fire to grow. We have to put more resources into our fire departments.

and firefighters, understanding that we are asking a lot of them that traditionally they never had to do. And because of their commitment to their profession, they're attempting to rise to the moment of crisis. But we need to put more resources into those individual professionals

and into the departments that sustain that work with the mission that is such an important mission in times like this. So, Mr. President, I thank you for your leadership, your foresight to understand what over these last four years we could do to leapfrog in front of what we know to be a changing climate to meet these types of moments. And God bless all of the people who are on the ground right now in California doing that work.

I thank you for your comments. I think I totally agree with you. It will not surprise anybody. Look, there is an expression from a famous Irish poet. He said, all has changed. Changed utterly. Terrible beauty has been born. All has changed in the weather. Climate change is real. Fundamentally altering, not just here, but around the world. Around the world. What's going on? And we've got to adjust to it.

We've got to adjust to it. And we can. It's within our power to do it. We've got to acknowledge it to begin with. Just acknowledge that there's a change taking place, that we're not going to be able to legislate away. It's real. There is global warming. It's real. It's having a profound impact. And where it goes from here, I don't know. But I know one thing. We have the capacity to respond to it if we, in fact, exercise our good judgment.

So thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Do you trust that California will get the aid they need in the next administration? I'm not in a position to answer that question. I pray God they will. Mr. President, do you have a sense of how much this is going to cost in the end? No, the truth of the matter is no one can tell you that. For example, just clearing the debris

You saw what happened when we were dealing with the hurricanes that occurred from North Carolina to Florida. The cost of the debris cleanup is gigantic, gigantic. The cost of replacing the housing is almost exponential.

I mean, we don't know what it is. We know one thing we have to do. We have to stay with it. We have the capacity to do it. But we don't know that anybody gives you a number now, they have no idea what the hell they're talking about. It's a big, big, big number. So for the last 20 minutes there, you've heard from a number of government officials, including President Biden and Vice President Harris.

And that last portion of audio, this is all interrupted. The last portion of audio you heard were, I think, really salient, very important. I hope you listened to that in its entirety. Now, that was part of what was a 55 or 56 minute, roughly one hour press. It was not really a press briefing, but a briefing that was open to the press around the White House table.

around the table in the White House. And they, you know, this was a really important briefing. I'm going to link to the entirety of the briefing, which you can see on C-SPAN, but I'll link to it in the line of notes for this episode, as well as provide the phone number and website link as well for federal disaster assistance that you can get. If you're someone in California, particularly in that area, obviously, Pacific Palisades, Malibu,

Sylmar, all of these places in the greater Los Angeles area that were affected by these wildfires and still are being affected by these wildfires down there in Los Angeles, please dial 800-621-3362. Or you can go to the following website, disasterassistance.gov. That's disasterassistance.gov.

dot g-o-v d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r a-double-s-i-s-t-a-n-c-e dot g-o-v

What President Biden said there is really important. And I've said this earlier, that all the lies and the nonsense get spread in these situations by these people. And it doesn't help anybody. It really does not. It causes confusion. It causes fear and anxiety. It adds to the fear and anxiety already of being displaced from your home, of having your home destroyed. And so in these times, more than ever, we have to have rational decisions.

and not these knee-jerk reactions with these sound bites and spitballs of lies. We need to have much more educated, focused, measured responses and responses born out of process and planning. Just as I said earlier about the importance of being prepared for an emergency and having an advanced plan and having your team

essential belongings put into a box or into a bag and located easily so that you can just grab them if, God forbid, an emergency happens. We also need to have that in our thinking. We also need to have that in government. And President Biden talked about that.

and underline some things as did the other officials, that these things are not straightforward. You can't just get rid of these fires. There's all these little things at play. These are massive things that may be little things, but they are big things. Turning off electricity. That's why there were power outages. And KTLA Channel 5 the other day was saying, oh, power outages. But the reason why the power outages were happening is because utility companies like Southern California Edison were...

We're turning off the power because the power actually gives you the risk of more fires happening and starting. So you have to turn off the power. So these power lines that get downed don't then strike some match or some brush rather, some leaves or some brush or some tree and set yet another fire off.

Although that's why you have the power out and that affects water situations as well. And then you have to be careful about how that's done. And then the water...

is not made, as you heard the Vice President say, for disasters in these hydrants. They're not equipped to deal with some major, major event like this. This is an event that's the worst fire in LA history. These fires are the worst. The Pacific Palisades fire specifically is the worst in Los Angeles history. These fire hydrants, even in the 21st century, are equipped to do one house, one house on fire.

It's not equipped to do a whole block. It's not equipped for a whole neighborhood. These fire hydrants have water pressure power typically for one house, maybe two at the most. They're not equipped to do entire blocks. And people think that you just turn on a fire hose and everything is done with. They couldn't get in the air.

to drop all of that red mist, that water, gallons of it, because the winds are too dangerous for people to fly in. You can't fly through 110 mile an hour winds. If you try to do that on a commercial airliner, your flight would be canceled. You wouldn't be able to get into the air. It's extremely dangerous. But people don't think about these things. They just see the fires and they just go, blah, and just react to that. And don't think about the structural things

and the implementations that have to happen. That's why, thank goodness that we had the infrastructure bill in this country. Thank goodness that this administration did that because you wouldn't have even had the resources that are being provided by the federal government now had it not been for that infrastructure bill being passed. This is so important. You have to understand, people have to understand how government works, how these pieces work, and how fighting these fires works.

and how utility companies play an enormous role in this. People complaining about their power being out. Well, if your power is not out and a downed power line falls near your home and your home is intact and then that power line hits some grass or some brush and sets it on fire, then what? Another fire and your house is gone. Your house is gone. These winds were wreaking havoc with people's houses.

I saw something on KTLA the other day down there in Los Angeles. They were interviewing someone who was standing in front of his home that had some smoke around it, but the home was still intact. And they were praying that the wind wouldn't come over there and destroy it. Ten minutes later, you turn around, the house is gone. It's up in flame entirely. These winds were going left, right, center, up and down, north, west, east and south. There's nothing that a firefighter can do about that.

And then that fire catches a fire to another house next to it and another one across the street. The embers are flying. The firefighters can't do anything about embers that are flying through the air above them. They can't put a hose on those and spray it, take out the embers while they're flying in the air. Come on, people. And this is the thing that we really don't think about as a populace. We don't use critical thinking. It's the embers carried by the wind.

that are largely responsible for how these fires spread out of control. That's how the fires spread. How's a firefighter or a fire truck or a fire hose or a fire hydrant gonna deal with an ember that flies from one fire and then over the street to another group of houses and set them on fire? How is a fire engine or any resource gonna have any control over that? It's the wind. So again,

I just wanted to play all that audio for you because I really stress to you the importance of understanding what's going on here. A lot of this is way beyond the control of the people who are professionals to even deal with this, and they're still putting their lives on the line as it is anyway. I want to come back to you, listener. I'm going to talk about debunking this lie, debunking this garbage about, oh, there was a budget cut for the fire in L.A. I'm going to get to that

right after this. I've talked a lot about the devastation of the fires but I need to talk more about the people who lost their homes and who lost loved ones. One of the people who lost their homes this week in the Los Angeles area was Walt Butler, an 83 year old man who has had a long history of helping people in his neighborhood of Altadena, a predominantly black

area of Los Angeles. Altadena is a community that really did welcome black families, black middle-class families. And Walt Butler, who lost his home this week, a very helpful man, is now without a home. I will put a link to his GoFundMe page. It's an authentic page in my line of notes for this episode. Here now is Walt Butler in his own heartbreaking words.

I was going home, going up lake, and I see this person sitting on the bench shaking.

which I knew him anyway because I coached him when he was in high school. He says, "Where's your jacket?" He says, "Coach, I don't have one." I said, "Okay, good." Now I know, giving all of my jackets away, a lot of people helped me when I was a kid. So I used to have a sporting goods store. Then I started giving away shoes because when I was going to elementary school, I prayed many days because my shoes had holes in them that they wouldn't break. So it's short of money.

That was Walt Butler.

Again, I will be posting a link to his official GoFundMe page. Please donate whatever you can to 83-year-old Walt Butler, who lost his home in the Eden Fire in Altadena, California.

You are going to hear now, dear listener, from Recy Colbert, who can be heard on Sirius XM Radio, channel 126, The Urban View, on Saturdays between the hours, I think, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. or something like that on the East Coast time. She can be heard on the Recy Colbert Show, R-E-C-I-E, Colbert, C-O-L-B-E-R-T, the Recy Colbert Show. And

This is really important to listen to. And I got duped with this whole thing about, oh, well, the mayor and the city council of Los Angeles, they cut $17.6 million from the budget, as if that really has something to do with these fires. Well, here's the other thing. That really doesn't tell the story. It's not entirely true, as I was saying earlier. There may have been an initial cut.

But you're going to hear from Recy Colbert right now, who has 20 years of experience in budgets, preparing budgets. She knows exactly what she's talking about. And she's a really important source. This is what the corporate news media needs to be telling people.

And this is what the New Republic needs to be telling people as well, because that's where I got my information from about this nonsense. Because again, we react on the surface. We never look deeper. A lot of us do not look deeper. And this audio you are about to hear is an example of doing what I was talking about earlier, becoming much more critical in your thinking and your discernment and actually doing the research and hear information.

is the research that Recy Colbert did that you must listen to around the budget for Los Angeles, for the fire department, and everything else. Take it away, Recy. I did additional investigating into the city of Los Angeles financial records, and I now have the receipts to show that the $17 million budget cut that everybody has been talking about from the fire department is now forecasted to be an increase of $72 million in expenditures worldwide.

when compared to the fiscal year 23-24 budget. Now, I will remind you all that the budget is simply a measuring stick and a snapshot in time. You do not change your budgets throughout the year, but you do track your expenditures and you make forecasts for what kind of differences, we call it in budgeting terms, deltas or variances between the budgeted and the forecasted expenditures. So what we've seen now

with two financial status supports from the city administrative officer is that there is an additional $36 million forecasted to be spent compared to the budget amount for fiscal year 24-25 in salaries and expenses. And as a result of a memorandum of understanding with the fire department union, there is an additional $53 million.

of expenditures forecasted for this fiscal year. Let this be the last time anybody mentions anything about a $17 million budget cut because the cut is overcome by events, which is expenditures, and the expenditures are now $90 million over the budget and $72 million over the prior year budget.

Thank you, Recy Colbert, for your information. I mean, this is so important. And we need to be really well informed. We need to do our own research. And since the story of the fire, supposedly being the budget being cut, which it really wasn't, I've come across what Recy Colbert did. And again, you can follow Recy Colbert on social media. At Recy Colbert, I think is the exact address.

I'll get that to you in a moment on Recy, but I really do thank Recy Colbert for, and full disclosure, on X, we follow each other. I don't usually go on X very much these days, but I just want to make sure that I give you that full disclosure. But I just want to add something.

That it is so important to do the research because after I came across what Recy has said and what I played for you, I also did my own research. You go to Los Angeles Daily News, which you can find, and I'll put a link to this story I'm about to read part of to you.

Dailynews.com is the location, but I will link this in the line of notes for this episode. The article title is fact check. Was the LAFD, meaning fire department, LA fire department budget cut? No, it actually increased. Here's how. That is the report. That story came out this week.

And this is why it's so important not to listen to these idiots on social media, these right-wingers and these liars and these racists who have another agenda, which is to attack the black woman mayor of Los Angeles and to attack DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is what their whole agenda is, and they do it with lies. How else can they do it? Because they ain't got no facts.

This is a staff report from January the 10th. That's today, right? January 10th, 2025. Critics on social media have alleged that Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, cut the city fire department's budget by $23 million this year. The accusation has spread quickly with many looking to cast blame for the devastating wildfires that have destroyed thousands of buildings in Los Angeles County this week and resulted in at least four deaths. In her story on criticism of Mayor Bass during this crisis, reporter Lynn Tatt addressed the budget question.

Quote, on Thursday, a spokesperson for L.A. City Council member Bob Blumenfeld, who was budget chair last year, said the city increased the fire department's overall budget by approximately $53 million in the current fiscal year. However, $76 million intended to...

$76 million, intended to pay for fire department personnel was placed in a trust, in a fund rather, separate from the fire department's regular account when the budget was adopted because contract negotiations with department employees were still taking place at the time. So that's just a portion of that story. The bottom line is that there was no budget cut. It was not cut. It wasn't.

The budget was not cut because, of course, it's the expenditures you look at, as Recy said. This is about doing your due diligence and understanding how these things work. That's how you have to do it.

You have to understand how these things work. @ReeseeColbert is the location to find Reesee Colbert on social media, on X and elsewhere. @ReeseeColbert, R-E-E-C-I-E-C-O-L-B-E-R-T. I'll put a link to her page as well on X so that you can look at that and look at the video there. I'll put a link to that too. This is the thing that people need to understand and people just fly off at the handle and do not respond.

and do not think rather. They just respond and react, but they don't think and they don't do the analysis or the research. Process, again, dear listener, is under attack. Process analysis is under attack. You are living in an automated world now. You are living, we are all living in a misinformation world. I said that this is the misinformation age. I've said this over and over and over. We are living in a society that does away with process and wants instantaneous results.

Instant, instant, instant. Everything people want, they wanted it yesterday. That's where we are. And it's a very dangerous society when you want something yesterday. You don't even want to have a driver in your car anymore. You want automated vehicles. You jump into a vehicle where there's no human being driving it. And then you go around being led around by some invisible thing, some robot.

That's where we are now. We are actually distrusting ourselves as human beings. We are distrusting our own thought processes. We are being gaslit.

That is where we are now. We are being completely gaslit. And it's terrifying to think that that is what's happening, but that is what's happening. We've taken complete leave of our senses, some of us. A lot of us have in this country. And this is what you get. A convicted felon entering the White House in 10 days' time. If that's not an example of taking complete leave of your senses, I don't know what is. It is so important to do the research now.

And you can do this online. You don't even have to go to your local library like I used to do way back when. You now have, if you're fortunate enough to have internet access and a laptop of some kind, you now have tools and materials where you can do this research readily on your phone as well. If you have one of those. So please, please, please. When you see something like what I saw in the New Republican, this is a lesson for me too.

Make sure you get corroboration. And if you do a search online about this so-called $17 million being cut from the fire department, and you notice in your online search results that all the publications who have this kind of lie are right-wing media, and they all state this, you might want to do more digging. And that might be a clue to you that what you're reading is absolute bunk.

Dear listener, thank you very much indeed for your patience on this episode of the Political Great Daily Podcast. You can find me, of course, on numerous podcasting platforms, this podcast on numerous podcasting platforms, such as Spotify and Apple, as well as others. You can find me on social media as well on sez.us.

You can also find me, of course, on Spoutable, spoutable.com, as well as fanbase.app. Join the fanbase revolution now on social media. It is the great platform.

by Isaac Hayes III. It's one that's going to have even more great capability in the next few weeks and months. I promise you that. Invest in the fan base today. Startengine.com forward slash fan base. And of course, don't forget, you can find me on Blue Sky, popcorn, R-E-E-L dot bsky dot social. Thank you very much for listening to this edition of The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore.

Well, you may have felt the earth move a few times this morning at a little after 7 o'clock. We had a 3.7 magnitude earthquake three miles northeast of the San Francisco Zoo. It was 3.7. There have been some aftershocks most recently. One at 3.0, the other at 2.5. Again, three miles northeast of the San Francisco Zoo. No one has been injured in these quakes, but you may have felt them.