Join John Rush and his co-hosts as they discuss the intricate details of a shocking international crime that brings to light the multifaceted operations of organized crime groups. John Koufis shares his expertise in gang and organized crime law, revealing the taxing and diligent efforts of law enforcement agencies in preventing weapons-grade uranium from reaching terror-sponsoring nations. Prepare to be informed and, potentially, alarmed by how deep the tentacles of the drug and arms trade reach beyond our borders.
SPEAKER 18 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 14 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 15 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 18 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did! Get a job, Turk! You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference!
SPEAKER 12 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 14 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we’re back. Hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Andy Pate, Charlie Grimes, of course, and our next guest, John Koufis, joining us. John, welcome. How are you? I’m well.
SPEAKER 16 :
Good to be with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good to be with you as well. And this is a story that until I learned of you and had a press release on you wanting to come on air, I knew nothing about. And this is this Japanese gang leader that has pled guilty to trafficking nuclear materials to Iran. I bet most people don’t know anything about that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, you know, it was a shock, I think, to everybody. So in the Southern District of New York, the Drug Enforcement Administration had initiated just what I would say is a run-of-the-mill cartel investigation into fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine trafficking. And what they found was there was so much more there. So the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime gang, who are well-known for human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc., began to represent that they could get nuclear material that could be enriched into weapons-grade uranium from Burma to Thailand and over to Iran to make a nuclear weapon. Okay.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, why run it through here? I don’t understand.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, the issue was that the nuclear material itself didn’t necessarily cross American borders in that way. Yeah, the transactions came here. But the scary part in this, the really scary part here, is that, again, we have the Drug Enforcement Administration really doing a bang-up great job on this. Remember, the Drug Enforcement Administration is there to interdict drug cartels, drug trafficking. But time and time again, they find themselves foiling terrorism plots. So let’s go back a couple of years, if you remember the Victor Boot case. Remember Victor Boot, the merchant of death, the Russian? Yeah, arms dealer. Yep, arms dealer was traded for the basketball star.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, we traded him for Griner.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, exactly, exactly. So that also began. We lost that deal.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that was not a good deal, John, just so you know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Not a good deal. But continue.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. I agree. But in that case, what had happened was the DEA was investigating drug cartels in Colombia, and then they learned they wanted all these military-grade weapons. But let me tell you this. The fascinating part about this, the nuclear part is obviously the big part, going to Iran, who’s been a sponsor of terrorism since 1984. But when you talk about the laundry list of weaponry that was purported for sale to these Iranians, We’re talking about 5,000 AK-47s, 1 million rounds. I think 2 million rounds. Another 5,000 M16s, 20 portable surface-to-air missiles, but only if they’re reloadable. 1,000 rockets, I’m reading right from the indictment right now, and at least 20 mortars. And actually, if you count up the different size of the rockets, it’s 3,000 rockets. So the Yakuza was ready to arm a great enemy of America. And I think that as a country, what I think this really reinforces for us is sometimes people think, well, why are we fighting the war on drugs, right? At least at the cartel trafficking level. And I’m not talking about marijuana on the street or something like that. I’m talking about large-scale professional shipping companies that are cartels. And it’s because these cartels are time and time again involved in things that are just so much worse than heroin itself, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, these guys, as you know, John, and I don’t think that, you know, the movies even depict some of this stuff as accurately as they could. I mean, these guys are in the money business. And if they can make money moving something other than drugs and, for example, human trafficking and the like, they will move whatever they can. They are not immune from any of that, are they?
SPEAKER 16 :
No, they’re not. And the fascinating part is that the gentleman, Takeshi Ibasawa, who was the Yakuza leader who was arrested for this, his knowledge of uranium enrichment was borderline Albert Einstein science level. He knew exactly how much you had to hit. He added 5% to 20% enrichment. He knew exactly how it would be enriched. He knew exactly how the Geiger counters would go. So that’s got to tell me that this isn’t the first time he’s tried to make a sale like this. You know, at least that would be my guess. And I’ll tell you, the one thing that is really sort of I can’t figure out in this case is so, you know, it looks like the government has him dead to rights. And when you look at what he was charged with versus what he pled out to, there’s one charge missing, and it’s the conspiracy to acquire, transfer, and possess surface-to-air missiles. And ironically, gentlemen, that’s the only one of those crimes with a mandatory minimum of 25 years. The rest are mandatory minimums of, say, 10 to life if you took his whole reign.
SPEAKER 03 :
So why’d they take that off?
SPEAKER 16 :
I can’t figure that part out. I got to be honest with you. I don’t know. Maybe that was just to avoid a trial. And, you know, because remember, if Ebisawa goes to trial, right, he’s going to want to know who all the confidential sources are and really try to disclose identity undercover. But if it’s not something like that, I mean, I just I don’t know, because why would you plead the guy out to, you know, to something that will put him behind bars for a minimum mandatory of 25 years? And for your listeners, You know, in the federal system, when you have charges like this, you do about 86%, 87% of that time. There’s no parole in the feds, and it’s not subject to the first step back. So you’re talking about day for day on 25 years, whatever, 19 years or so a day. Right. And with these charges, he’s probably going to your neck of the woods out in Florence, Colorado.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, John, if I can look at the other end of the transaction here, Iran, where’d they get all that money? Gee, I thought Trump froze those assets because this was a lot of money that they needed to buy this.
SPEAKER 16 :
They sure did. I mean, the first 50 metric tons, they were talking about six point eight five million for that. And then they were talking about many, many, many multiples of that. You know, you know, in this indictment, you know, it’s it’s it’s it’s not clear. It’s purposely not clear to cover up confidence, not cover up, excuse me, to not make sure we don’t disclose confidential sources. Right. Who was from Iran and who was one of our confidential sources posing as an Iranian general? Right. But make no mistake, the money was there and the transaction was ready. And in fact, they were hiding yellow cake, the byproduct, which is really uranium oxide that comes when you want to prep uranium for enrichment. They had the yellow cake stored in an office in Bangkok, Thailand. When the Thai police go in there, imagine if you’re the guy renting the office next to them and you find out there’s a bunch of yellow cake in there. But they go in and they take the yellow cake Then they determined that it was absolutely weapons-grade for Iran, who, as you know, sponsors everyone who hates us, they sponsor.
SPEAKER 07 :
And for all of you listening, too, John, you’ve got quite a history when it comes to just gang-related organized crime and so on. Give folks a little bit of your background in all of that as well.
SPEAKER 16 :
Sure, sure. So for about 10 years, I was a gang and organized crime lawyer in New Jersey, my home state, which, you know, I’m sure your listeners have lots and lots of jokes about any kind of gang lawyer from New Jersey. They probably figure everybody from New Jersey must be a gang lawyer, given our poor reputation in that way. But I spent I spent a career defending John really quick here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Do you do you count your trunk as seating for your car? It depends. Only for clients that didn’t pay.
SPEAKER 16 :
Ah, gotcha.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Just checking.
SPEAKER 16 :
But, yeah, I mean, I did a lot of wiretap cases, some international cases, et cetera. So, you know, this is just something I was these kind of things heavily involved in. And I’ll tell you. You know, as a defense lawyer, the DEA cases, the DEA cases of this magnitude were always the hardest as a defense lawyer. I mean, those guys really have their act together. And when they put it together on you, it’s usually tight.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, okay, just a side note. How do you defend against all of that? You just have to find where the holes are, or what do you do there?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, so it depends. Like, you know, in many cases, wiretaps are used, right? So there’s a whole procedure to knock out the wiretaps. But I think in most of these cases, you know, when they have you on camera or they have you recorded, what you’re really the only strategy you have almost is to draw the thing out and hope that they relied on confidential informants who then, you know, some of these confidential informants, in fact, many of them are, you know, involved in illicit activity.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, they’re criminals themselves.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. So you hope they step in it, as they say, in some other fashion, and it gives you some leverage here or there. Got it. But I think that, yeah, what you’re doing is usually try to handle the electronic evidence. What’s really interesting to me, gentlemen, is that there’s only two defendants in this indictment, right? There’s three unindicted co-conspirators. But they only named two, Ebisawa and a gentleman named Sompop Singasiri, who was involved more in the drug aspect. So since the Yakuza is moving nuclear material with Ebisawa, where are all the other people that helped, right? Where are all the other people in this transaction? So that tells me they’re either the unindicted co-conspirators, they rolled, or they had some other level of cooperation. And the important part was to take out the head, which sounds like the D did.
SPEAKER 07 :
Given the fact that you’ve been inside the Trump administration in the past, what do you predict are some of the first things Trump does, not just in general, but along these lines when it comes to protecting America? What do you think some of the things he does right off the bat?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, I think border security is going to be number one. And candidly, cases like this really underscore that, right? Because if the drug cartels can come through an open border, so can everybody else. And who knows who they’re going to bring, right? And so I think that is number one. And I think that’s why a strong border and drug trafficking policy go hand in hand. You can’t separate the two. I think you’re going to see that really front and center. I think there is talk of declaring some of the drug cartel or organized crime organizations as either as material supporters of terrorist terrorism or terrorist groups. I think in the broader criminal justice perspective, I think we’re going to see a lot of clemencies, candidly. It has nothing to do with the case we’re talking about. But Trump has talked extensively about using the power of clemency to… remedy some of the wrongs he perceives may have happened through the court system. And I think now he knows, obviously, what it’s like to be a defendant in a case, and I think he has a unique perspective on governmental overreach.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good point. John, it’s been a joy. How do folks find more about you?
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, you can go on my website, which is cottage4.com, or find me on Twitter at JGCupos.
SPEAKER 07 :
Awesome. John, I appreciate it very much. Thanks for your insight.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks for having me. You’re very welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Appreciate it very much. Wow, that was insightful.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, very much so.
SPEAKER 07 :
I could talk to him for a long time. Yeah. He’d keep going down some of the rabbit holes. That’s fascinating.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it’s so funny. I mean, just to see how all of this is actually comes back to actually funneling nuclear material to Iran.
SPEAKER 07 :
All the reason why you said it earlier as well. One of the first things he’ll do is shore the border up. Yep. Good for him. Absolutely. Flesh laws coming up next, folks. We just talked to somebody involved in the legal end of things. And if you need some help, whether it be criminal or civil, give Kevin a call today. 303-806-8886.
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SPEAKER 07 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive. This is John Rush. All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Okay, going to local politics real quick. We’ve got a lot of things we want to cover, but I think, Andy, I’ve been talking off air about a few things. And locally with our Colorado GOP, you guys know my feelings on… Dave Williams and the cadre of individuals around him. I have been talking about and highlighting some of the what I feel is just downright corruption on the state GOP level for over two years now. And the reality is we started talking about things with Dave shortly after he rolled into office. Right. And I’ve been hammering that ever since. And a lot of people now have jumped on that same bandwagon. But there’s been some developments of late. And I’ll give Andy credit. I did not look at it this way. There’s been some people that have thrown their hat in the ring to run for chair coming up here in about roughly six weeks or so, Andy, I want to say.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, there are three that jump out right away. Britta Horne, of course, Kevin McCarney, and Darcy Shanning.
SPEAKER 07 :
She’s the newest.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and she is a Dave loyalist.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. To the extreme. Died in the wall.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
And so initially when I first saw that, I looked at that because that came out late last night. The announcement was made. I was on air, even saying, Andy, the little blurb as soon as it came out, and we kind of went back and forth with a couple of text messages. And at first I’m like, okay. What’s the real angle here? Because why would a loyalist throw their hat in the ring to be GOP chair? And then Andy said, well, because you don’t think Dave’s running. Right. Which, by the way, I’ve not heard anybody else say yet.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don’t believe she would run against Dave.
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree with you.
SPEAKER 04 :
And Dave Williams. And so the question is, well, what is Dave only cares about Dave?
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, this is the most self-interested person politically I have ever seen in Colorado. And boy, is that saying something.
SPEAKER 07 :
I would almost go as far as to say anywhere.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, this is somebody who his entire world revolves only around himself.
SPEAKER 07 :
And he has everybody around him duped into thinking that he’s helping them, when in reality he’s not. They’re helping him.
SPEAKER 04 :
Dave only helps people insofar as they are beneficial to him. They are chess pieces. That is it. Absolutely. And Darcy Shaining is absolutely devoted to… to dave williams i won’t go any further than that we’ve had personal conversations let’s just put it that way but i’ll simply say she is 100 percent uh loyal to dave williams so you know what does that mean for dave how is he going to get his income he’s not going to win office folks i don’t know anywhere that he could get elected at this not in colorado No, no, my goodness, no. He’s unelectable because of statements he has made, things he has done. Correct. You know, he may well be getting a lower position with the Trump administration. Administration? Administration, yeah, because… Because he’s a Trump loyalist. Well, not only is he a Trump loyalist, he convinced the state party to endorse Trump in a primary.
SPEAKER 07 :
True.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good point. And Trump, this was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen, and I love my president-elect, but this was ridiculous. Trump actually put out a press release thanking Dave Williams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, thanking Dave Williams for helping deliver Trump… Colorado in the primary. Right. Not that Trump needed him. But what a thing to say. He’s the state chair. He’s supposed to be unbiased. OK, he’s not supposed to favor you over Nikki Haley or anybody else. Anyway, setting that aside, because the only and and Dave Williams, in my opinion, doesn’t care at all about Trump. OK, keep in mind, he’s from the group that used to look at Trump as not good, not pure enough. And they were for Ted Cruz back in the day. Dave Williams goes for whoever, wherever the power is. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Because that’s where whatever is going to benefit him.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. So might Dave be getting some position in the Trump administration? A little lower position. OK. It’s possible.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that would make sense.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. I don’t know. Or could Dave be reading the tea leaves and saying, I am not going to win the chair again, but I believe Darcy can.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, he’s trying to fix the voting and such to where it’s almost a shoe-in, though, Andy. Well, he is fixing the voting. Am I right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, he’s trying to put through bylaw changes that are literally going to eliminate a good number, a few dozen of the votes on the SEC that would be against him.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct. So if that happens, isn’t the issue in any ways?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know. Darcy is more electable than he is. Because most people don’t know Darcy. They don’t know Darcy Shaining.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, they know her on the front side of what she’s done in the party in regards to the communication aspects and some of the things that she’s done to help get candidates elected and so on. And to her credit, she’s done well in a lot of those areas. I’ll give credit where credit’s due.
SPEAKER 04 :
Darcy has done a lot more of the work. By the way, Dave is a lazy person. He hasn’t done any actual work.
SPEAKER 07 :
She’s done, by and large, most of the work.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Darcy has actually worked in the trenches, working for various candidates, not just ones who supported Dave.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct. And really quick, prior to that, she’s been very involved in, quote-unquote, cleaning up some of the utter nonsense that goes into a lot of our school districts, not only in certain areas of the state, but really statewide. She’s led a lot of the endeavors to help clean up things school board-wise in the schools, correct?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and because of this, and I agree with her on those things, and because of this, Darcy Shaining is a Trojan horse candidate.
SPEAKER 07 :
She’s become very well known.
SPEAKER 04 :
If they elect her as state chair, which I don’t think is likely, but it’s possible, if they do that, they’re re-electing Dave Williams.
SPEAKER 07 :
She is Dave Williams. She’s the female version of.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah. Darcy Shaining, for instance, she runs the Colorado Republican Meetup, a big Facebook page. She, I noticed, was banning a lot of my posts. OK, and I had tried to, you know, get she would not be able to debate with me any of my points that I would come out against Dave. She and I had a private discussion. I will not reveal all of that discussion. Right. But I’ll simply say this. She made it very clear. And she even apologized. That she had done wrong in some of the posts that she had posted and not posted. Basically hobbling your posts. Yeah, banning them. Because she was protecting, she said, the chairmanship. She was protecting the state party office from my posts. And I said, Darcy. Not your job. Yeah, but I said, Darcy, look, I understand if I’m being obscene or vicious. That’s one thing. But everything I’ve been posting is factual. And you guys can’t debate against any of it. Right. Okay? It’s all factual. I’m not one of these trolls. I said that. I’m not some troll just throwing out nastiness. Okay? I’m putting out factual posts piece by piece by piece. And none of your people, Dave… They have all – what Dave and Hope and Darcy and all of them have done is absolutely stopped responding on any of my posts because they tried early. I defeated their points very quickly, and I called on them. I said, come on. Keep it coming. Let’s do it. And they ran, and they absolutely stopped. So then what they did is in any group where they run the leadership –
SPEAKER 07 :
You’re not allowed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And they will allow a number of Dave’s opponents, but it is opponents, and I don’t know how to put this any other way. It is opponents who don’t debate nearly as well as I do. So it is opponents who throw out angry posts that they can counter. Okay? My posts, they have been banning. So what Darcy Shaining does is censor the posts of any effective critic of Dave Williams. Correct. Okay, so like an Eli Bremmer. She’ll censor any post from someone like that. She’ll censor my posts. From what I see, I’m the number one that they censor now. And I went to Darcy, and she said she would loosen it up. Then I came out with a series of posts. She allowed one or two and then must have gotten a talking to by Dave or someone because then she started stopping them because the people in their group had no answers. They couldn’t answer any of my points. And it was making Dave look very bad. Got it. Okay, bottom line. Darcy Shaning is Dave Williams. She is totally devoted to him. If people elect her, they are electing more of Dave Williams. And by the way, Dave Williams will thereby, through her, have power in the new administration of the Colorado Republican Party.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I think you’re on to it, Andy. I think you’re on to it. Because really, last night, literally, I was trying to really understand what’s the angle here? Because it has to be one. This is politics. Yeah. There’s definitely an angle. What’s the angle? Why? Because I knew she wouldn’t run against Dave. There’s not a snowball’s chance of that happening. No. So I think you’re on to something whereby you’re going to hear it here first, because I doubt if anybody else in town has even caught on to this or even thought through this like we have. I think this is a pretty good indicator that Dave’s not going to throw his hat in the ring for a reelection of GOP chair.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. And if he does, and I stand corrected, but I don’t think he will.
SPEAKER 07 :
I think you’re right on. And the only other thing it could be.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Would be to run somebody against him. Very like-minded to where he’s saying, see, I’m keeping things open and fair.
SPEAKER 04 :
Then they drop out and endorse.
SPEAKER 07 :
Uh-huh. That’s the only other angle I could think of, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. At some point, she drops out and endorses Dave. That’s possible. We don’t know yet.
SPEAKER 07 :
I like your idea better, though.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And because, look, Dave would look at Darcy as a puppet. OK, this is my puppet. And Darcy is not capable of debating. Darcy is not capable of countering points. She cannot provide point counterpoint. She cannot. And I’m not ripping on her. Everybody’s got their strengths. She has some very fine strengths. I do not dislike Darcy. Shaning never have. OK, nothing against some great work for the party. Yeah. Yeah, and I have, you know, praised her for that.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I will tell you right now, I can just see through, you know, read the tea leaves. She has great aspirations politically speaking. She would love to go on and do more. The chairmanship would be a step up in that direction. Right. I could see all of that fitting in very well to her overall master plan, and I won’t see any more than that, but I guarantee you she has huge aspirations along those lines.
SPEAKER 04 :
But when you think about Dave Williams, when you think about Rhino Watch, when you think about all the worst people… who have wielded power in all the worst ways, she is them. She’s an extension of them.
SPEAKER 07 :
I can’t argue that. All right, we’ll take a quick break. Don’t go anywhere. High Five Plumbing and Electrical is up next. Again, with a storm coming in this weekend, make sure you’ve got things in your home all dialed in and ready to go because the last thing you want is to be caught with a problem and then have to make a phone call when things aren’t working right. Give High Five a call today, 877-WE-HIGH-FIVE.
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SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
Back to Rush to Reason, presented by Hi-5 Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, John Rush, together with Andy Pate. John, quick question here. On the wider issue, what do you think of leadership that feels the need to silence dissent? I mean, we’re talking about a person. She bans anybody who makes the point too well against the state party.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s one of two things. They’re either afraid they can’t defend themselves, which is part of it. But then you look at the left because that’s what they do constantly. And you have to wonder whose side are you really on?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think it goes beyond that with her. She’s doing their bidding. She’s afraid they can’t defend themselves. So she bans any kind of criticism on her. And by the way, it’s not just her. There’s a couple other people who have various. There’s Mark Hampton, who runs the Parker Conservatives. You know, when they own a platform, they ban anyone who makes intelligent arguments against the state party. And Mark Hampton, of course, works with Rhino Watch. Right. What do you think, though, of having, I mean, because Dave Williams definitely bans other voices. Absolutely. Power moves. When you silence dissent, that’s a power move. To literally make it so other people can’t see opposing arguments within your party.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s what the left does, Andy. Now you’re becoming just like the other side. That’s my view. I agree. You literally are becoming the other side now. Del, what’s going on? Hi, John. How you doing? We’re good, sir.
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t know if you heard about it or not. I’ve heard it from several different people that’s heard it. I haven’t had a chance to verify it, but supposedly the state of Oregon sent down some fire trucks to In California, they wouldn’t let them in because they didn’t meet the state’s EPA laws or whatever. They’d let them in, but they had to pass.
SPEAKER 07 :
It wasn’t an emissions issue either. There’s a lot of confusion around this. It wasn’t emissions-driven. It was a safety thing to where they had the California Department of Transportation wanting to inspect the trucks, make sure that they were all… handled correctly, that they would pass inspection. If not, things had to be fixed before they would allow them to proceed. Bottom line, it took three hours, plus the inspection, it took three hours out of each truck’s time in doing this. Some of the trucks had to get some things fixed before they could proceed. That’s the true part of the story, not the emissions side like you see so many people on social media posting.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, but it delayed them getting to the hot spot.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, bottom line, kind of the same result in the end, Del, but I want to make sure we’re clear on this because it wasn’t an emissions issue. They had to pass a safety inspection through California. Well, I wasn’t sure, and that’s why I said I hadn’t been able to… I’m glad you asked, because there’s a lot of misinformation that even our side is perpetuating, and I hate when we’re wrong. I want to make sure that we’re accurate, and the accuracy of it is they had to pass a California Department of Transportation, you know… commercial truck inspection, basically, to be able to pass through and come down into the state.
SPEAKER 04 :
But still, in an emergency like this, you waive those rules and you send them down.
SPEAKER 07 :
You just keep going. Go to the fire. It’s the dumbest thing ever.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, incredibly dumb.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you wave all of that. You just let them in and say, go to this fire, go to that fire, go here, go there, station here, station there. I mean, let’s face it, Del. They drove from Oregon there in the first place. How bad could the trucks be?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Duh. And it ain’t like they said for six or eight months, doing nothing.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, there’s not a single official in California that could come on this program with me having the technical background I’ve got in vehicles and defend that decision. Yeah, I agree. Period. Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. That one, by the way, Del… is as infuriating even if – and I knew it wasn’t – here’s, again, where I knew our side was wrong. I knew the emissions thing wasn’t correct when I first read it. I’m like, no, no, that can’t be true because emergency vehicles don’t have emissions anyways because that’s a voided thing across the country. you’ll rarely go to any fire department anywhere in the country and see a vehicle that actually passes emissions like their commercial counterpart would do. There’s not a fire engine out there that passes emissions like a regular commercial truck does. So I knew that most likely wasn’t the case, but I also knew there had to be some truth to it or it wouldn’t be getting perpetuated.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, they were just saying they got to pass, but it’s safety standards.
SPEAKER 07 :
Not emissions.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Does that help? Well, I’m glad I called.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m glad you did, too. And by the way, that clears up a lot of things for a lot of others, because there’s probably others that don’t quite understand how all that works. But there’s the skinny on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Still awful.
SPEAKER 07 :
Still awful. No, Del, I appreciate that. Thank you so much for the call. And that clears some things up. And yeah, to your point, Andy, when you have an emergency. and your neighboring state has agreed to send vehicles to help, you say thank you and go here and there and here and there, and you avoid all that other nonsense they just went through.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Dumbest thing ever. But that’s California. Yeah. Hey, when we come back… Going back to your original comments to Jordan Goodman in hour one about putting stipulations around money that would even go to California, this is a great example of that. Unless you guys grow a brain, we’re not sending you any money.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Well, when we come back, or now, if you want, I wanted to talk about, really quick, the L.A. Water Chief. Go for it.
SPEAKER 07 :
We’ve got time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Go for it. Okay, really quick. She earns three-quarter of a million a year. I know.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s huge.
SPEAKER 04 :
This lady, Canones is her name, they almost doubled. her pay from the man that she replaced, okay? And here’s the kind of thing that has to go out the door if we’re gonna send a ton of money to California. Here’s what she said. What attracted me most to the role, was social equity. Forget the fact that you’re managing the water for a drought area. Okay, that should be very important. You’re handling people’s lives. No, no, no. What attracted me most to the role was social equity. It’s important to me that everything we do is with an equity lens and social justice and righting the wrongs that we’ve done in the past. Everything we do is with an equity lens. This is the person who knew that they had an empty reservoir when they had high winds coming that could blow fire. Okay? She knew they had an empty reservoir, John. And then their fire hydrants wouldn’t put out water and people were dying and losing their homes. Yep. Look, if I’m Trump, I say you get all the money in the world, but this person’s fired. People like her are fired. And you cannot, look, we can’t give you a ton of money to rebuild the system and then have you run it with DEI into the ground.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’ve got to save people’s lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m going back to hour one, Andy. Not your agenda. I think there needs to be a laundry list of requirements that have to be met prior to one ounce of federal money being funneled into California.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, the initial emergency funds you have to. But yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
If you’re going to rebuild things and give them money to do so, loans, bonds, whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER 04 :
This whole, we’re going to rebuild all of LA. You can’t do that if you’re not going to fix all the problems that perpetuated this in the first place. I mean, that’s ridiculous, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Agree. Absolutely agree. I would hope that the next administration coming into play in a week, which I guarantee you because they do have a brain and they’re pretty smart, I guarantee you they’re looking at some of this thinking, and Trump’s even said some of this. He’s even called Gavin out on the carpet saying, you’ve run this thing into the ground, literally. Yeah. You have no idea what you’re doing, and you’ve done nothing but run it in the ground.
SPEAKER 04 :
They’ve got a ship with holes in it. And they want us to fix everything on the ship and leave the holes. They want us to bail all the water. Yeah, they want us to bail all the water and leave the holes. No.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, Andy, again, I’m with you. We need some heavy stipulations or requirements around what would have to happen to receive X funds. And I don’t know if Trump can even go back and redo some of what Biden promised in the 100%. You know, we’re going to make sure things are dialed back in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Since when do we ever do that? We didn’t do it in Florida. We didn’t do it in North Carolina. Why are we doing it in California?
SPEAKER 04 :
I agree. And by the way, Biden doesn’t control all the money after a week from now.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 04 :
For these things.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. We’ll be right back. Golden Eagle Financial is next. Al Smith wants to help your financial future. Speaking of finances, call Al today. Find him at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 15 :
It’s time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Myself, Andy Pate, and you had a question.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I got a question for you, John. If you look at the statements from LAPD, LA Fire Department, the LA Mayor, this lady from the Water Department, John, as you know, California leads the country in people leaving.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exodus, yep.
SPEAKER 04 :
How much of that exodus do you think is white men fleeing racism, overt racism? Look, it is hard to get a job in this place, this place, this place, this place, this place. A lot.
SPEAKER 07 :
A lot.
SPEAKER 04 :
White men and their families.
SPEAKER 07 :
I even saw a little bit with Megyn Kelly the other day. And she’s got friends, of course, out there because of where she’s been in life and so on. And she was saying how she really feels like this may be maybe not a total turning point, but definitely may be a turning point for a lot of Californians where in the past all they’ve done is vote blue. But some of the friends that she’s got that are blue through and through are absolutely fed up with everything that’s gone on. Of course, these are people that have lost their entire home belongings and so on. And they are literally fed up with the current policy saying this is a real wake up call for us.
SPEAKER 04 :
It sounds a little like what’s happening amongst the black community in Chicago. People have had it. Yeah, they’ve had it. You know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Everything that California just went through was preventable, by the way.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, totally. I mean, not the fire itself. These were very high winds.
SPEAKER 07 :
The handling of was.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, how about the handling of homelessness, which causes about half the fires there in California, okay? I mean… They’re not handling homeless. Look at it. Let’s add it up. They’re not handling homelessness at all. They’re not handling the undergrowth in their forests at all. Fire mitigation. They’re not handling their water at all. They’re just letting it go right out to the sea, as Donald Trump said. They’re not listening to anybody. They’re listening to environmentalist wackos.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who know nothing about any of what we just said.
SPEAKER 04 :
Who know nothing about any of what we said.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, frankly, Andy, really quick. Let’s make sure we’re clear on this. Yeah, go. Everything that just happened to an environmentalist, they love. They love it. Yeah. We… We are a virus. We are a scourge on Earth. Right, we are a virus. Those houses are a scourge along the coastline. Get rid of them. Yeah, that was cleansed. That’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
That area was cleansed.
SPEAKER 07 :
They love that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just listed those. Let’s add to it. They don’t care about… quality of their employees nope they don’t care you’ve got to fit quota quota quota quota quota quota they are bigots yep okay so you’ve got an entire state run by a straight white man by the way you got an entire state that is run by bigotry And basically looking away from every kind of preventative measure you possibly can put in place. And now they want us to pay to fix it all. Now, by the way, I’m fine with paying to fix it all, but I want strings attached. I think that’s basically been the thrust of today’s show. I want strings attached. I want LA built, rebuilt with strings attached. Rebuild it now. Look, they can’t rebuild it right because they’re insane, but rebuild it much better than it was. What do you think?
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree. And there has to be some sort of accountability that’s held into this. And, you know, it’ll also be interesting to see. And I think Democrats have done a really bad job of handling all sorts of things. In fact, keep in mind, folks, that, yes, we talked a lot prior to the election of Donald Trump getting elected, that it was a lot of men in general that were just tired of where things were. Keep in mind, though, Andy, the other thing that we talked about that factored into that was not only immigration, but the way they handled some of the natural disasters we had prior to the election. North Carolina, specifically, these things that they are not handling well are not boding well for them as a party. And now they just piled another one on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, what they did with North Carolina was horrifying.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. And it’s still not fixed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. But what they did with California is different because they’re swooping in to fix everything with endless money, which they didn’t do for North Carolina.
SPEAKER 07 :
No.
SPEAKER 04 :
But with California, it’s how they ran everything to begin with.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, this has been nothing but a parade of failure for the Democrats. One after another. Trump is ushering into… He’s coming into office… I mean, politically speaking, on a high note. On that high wave. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, on that high wave. You always want to follow a lousy act when you go out on stage. If he does things well, and by the way, the administration now is trying everything possible to make sure that he doesn’t do well. Some of the policies and things they’ve done, the executive orders, the money spending and so on. They’re doing everything possible to make sure he does fail because they don’t want to see him win at all. Because the reality, Andy, is if he has several wins between now and 2026, we still win the midterm.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. We’ll hold the Senate. The Senate’s the biggie because then you have four full years of appointing judges. That’s huge.
SPEAKER 07 :
Getting other things done.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. I want the House, too.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. Absolutely. But if you do well in the things that we’re talking about and he does well and he garners more support and brings more people over to, you know, quote unquote, our side of the fold, that’ll happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, really quick here before we go to break. This is why taking the Colorado GOP in a better direction is so important. Had they gotten their way last time, we wouldn’t have the house.
SPEAKER 07 :
Nope, you’re correct. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning is up next. Again, I keep saying the big storm’s coming in this weekend. Cold weather. If your furnace is not working like it should, get that handled now. Find Cub Creek at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back again. Myself, Andy Pate, have enjoyed today very much. And I know I keep talking a lot about the weather coming in this weekend, but it never fails. You mention these things, you talk about it, you try to get it into people’s minds as to what’s happening. And yet, Andy, we’ll get into the weekend and you’ll hear stories about people not being ready and prepared and wondering where did this weather come from?
SPEAKER 04 :
I hope nobody gets hurt.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that’s the last thing we want to have happen. It’ll be cold enough to where that could potentially happen, and I just want people to be aware that, hey, watch. And this goes to even those of you that are very responsible. Look around for your neighbors, your family, your friends, and so on. Make sure they’re all dialed in as well. Andy, thanks again. I’ll see you Friday. Guys, have a great night. This is Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
