This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to kf I am six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Have you with you?
Katla Fox eleven et cetera ran for Senate that little thing you're pregnant? What were you thinking?
I don't know, birthd like two weeks after the election. Now she timed it well, well if.
Could you imagine did you ever think about going in a little early and inducing just for the you think you would have gotten a.
Bump, the dramatic effect.
Yeah, like, well I watching a legend on debate stage and my water would break.
That would have been and you know, that's a movie.
Maybe maybe next time.
That's a movie. You can always leave us a message on the talkback feature on the iHeart app. When you're listening on the app, just hit that little microphone button and send us a message.
I am so excited you have Christina on because when you guys were talking about Adam Shift and the baseball legend debate, she should have been on that stage.
Ah.
She was the voice of us younger folks and as normal folks.
There you go.
Oh, I love her.
Thanks for saying that. You know, I agree, that's a whole other story. That's a whole other radio show.
Did you watch did you watch this recent debate to Yeah, you just get frustrated.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's what I thought of all along.
There is.
There are a few reasons I decided to throw my hat in the ring. And even though it was you know, I was the last one to join the race, I knew it was a heavy lift, and I know he was going against one of the most entrenched political people in the country, Adam Schiff, And.
Well, I thought, you're talking about Katie Porter, you know.
I mean, I think the reason I even wanted to try or go for it is because I was interviewing him and I just felt like the answer I was getting was so disingenuous, and so that was one of three reasons I decided to run.
But watch this debate.
You know, ten million dollars was spent on ads to elevate Steve Garvey so that he would be in the final two. Because Adam Schiff knew that if Steve Garvey was in the final two, he would have mathematically zero shot of winning in this state as a Republican. Now, I do think people are leaning more and more red. We're seeing more people register as Republican. There's been a shift towards the right as we've had all these issues
we've been dealing with as a state, rent immigration and crime. However, the numbers just aren't there still, And I don't think Garvey has the chop like he doesn't really when you see him debate, you're not particularly inspired.
I wasn't inspired by him. I felt like that his heart's in the right place. But we need more than that for somebody to be a candidate, especially to beat somebody, like you said, politically entrenched the way Adam Schiff is with the support of the National Party, the way he has, right, you gotta have somebody who's going to be sharp as attacked, sharper than attacked.
And unfortunately he doesn't know much policy.
I know in a previous debate they said, can you name one regulation you would change if you were elected to the US Senate And he couldn't name it. And you know, I was screaming at the television sequa, it's sequa, you know, just you know it's a he doesn't really know.
So you've turned it into my grandmother and started yelling at the time.
That's where I'm at in my life.
Yeah, but I must say he was very spicy in this recent debate. He had one quote where Schiff was talking about Diane Feinstein and Garvey goes, well, you're no Dianne Feinstein.
So he said yes. Now, that moment actually was kind of funny because I felt like it was a to use a baseball analogy, it was a foul ball, like Adam Schiff tied that thing up, and Steve Garvey knew that that like he could see it coming right, but he couldn't quite put the ball in play. And then he said, you're no Dianne Feinstein. And then Adam Schiff was like, oh, he left it on the field. Maybe I can pick it up. And he said, well, I
knew Diane Feinstein. I was friends with Diane Feinstein. But then he couldn't land the punchline either, because it didn't work that way.
He said something like, you know, I remember when California used to be the heartbeat of America and now it's just a murmur. And his delivery was actually kind of funny, but.
He practiced that. He did quite a bit.
Hey guys, good morning. I just started listening a little late this morning, so I'm taking a shot in the dark here, but I want but the say congratulations on I shouldn't get in Christina's Pascucci to fill in with U with Gary today for Shannon. I love Shannon, but a big fan of Scooch. Well done, and I look forward to hearing the rest of the show to hear the thanks guys.
There you go.
That is so nice. We got two nice calls. Thanks for not playing the wines. I said, why what is it going on?
Well, back to Hurricane Milton and what's left of the clean up there in Hurricane in Florida. I should say, this storm itself is now out in the Atlantic making its way farther away from us, thankfully, but Saint Petersburg was one of those areas that was inundated overnight and joining us now to talk about it. Family friends, Shelley and George Rosenberger, my.
Best friend's in laws who are in Saint Pete. So good to have you guys on the show with us.
Thank you in the midst of you know, I know you've been kind of monitoring the damage, and Shelley, when we spoke last night and this morning, you said, You've been in Florida your whole life, and you've never seen a storm this bad.
No, never, never. This is the first time that I've ever been scared during a storm. True, I mean really like really scared, really nervous. Every other time it's like, Okay, well it's going to come and it'll go and nothing's going to happen. But yeah, we were very anxious.
We were in the cone on the north side of the Eye and it was just relentless seven plus mile an hour wind and gusts and constant rain for six or seven hours. The backyard was flooded, but no damage to the house for fortunately.
George had to empty the pool about seven or eight times in the pouring young rain.
Oh my gosh.
Not a wise move. And I won't do it that again.
Well, you gotta do it, you gotta do And you know, for us southern California folk, who I consider sixty degrees a weather event, I think it's important for people to know, you know, when you're on that right front, it's particularly dangerous. You have the risk of not only the winds, the surge we've been talking about, the flooding, but tornadoes. I had never realized how big of a part of a
storm a hurricane tornadoes are. Was this more active than what you had seen in the past in terms of the tornadic activity.
Uh, we were fortunate here Toanellas County that I don't recall seeing one tornado warning in Tanellas County, which is Saint Pete Clearwater all the way up to tarp and Springs. The tornado activity seemed to be east of us, in areas like Hillsboro and Polk County, and there were many, yeah, many of them serious uh tornadoes, but I don't know what the damage was.
More than one hundred tornado warnings and I think twenty twenty at least confirmed sightings of tornadoes, and unfortunately a few people died as a result.
What is what is the city or the county told you in terms of if you need to reach out for help, how, how how available is it to you?
As far as we know, there was non stop uh from that came over the local news news stations.
Uh.
The weathermen here were great.
Uh.
The information and the ticker that at the bottom of the screen always told you where the shelters were, which ones were open, when to leave, and UH just so much information was coming at us that it was it was really quite calming actually in the face of all of this.
Uh. And government in DeSantis he was amazing. I mean he pre planned and preset all these emergency emergency vehicles and he was he was amazing. He was great.
And they they were well prepared. And as you as you know that we knew the hurricane was headed somewhere near us for for days and days, and the sheriff here in Panellas County, Bob well Thierry, Uh, he took charge for the county and uh, I mean everything went as smoothly as it could. The first responders stayed out on the street until the wind gusts got to where it was dangerous and they were ordered to themselves seek shelter. Uh. It really Yeah, a lot of time to plan and
really great response. The law enforcement and fire department rescue people here in this county are wonderful.
That's incredible to hear when government works as intended.
You know, yeah, yeah, sure here, no problem. And you know, we had so much devastation from Helene just just a short while ago, uh, that people weren't allowed back on the beach for days and restaurants and famous landmarks were crushed, and I mean we haven't even recovered from that. Uh,
and then this happens. But they allowed the people back on the beaches actually today, as early as this morning, so there was no delay for those people to go back on the beach and get back busy again to their homes.
That's good, all right, Well, Shelley, George, we wish you the best of luck. And it sounds like once you get that pool cleaned out, George, then you can you can just sit back and relax. Yeah, get a cocktail time.
I will tell you we have a wonderful lunai and pool situation. And believe me, listeners, this is really paradise here.
Except for hur.
Little details, and you know, the Luni is still standing.
Good.
It's just amazing. So hey, guys, thank you.
Yeah, I can't wait.
I'm glad you guys are safe. I was really worried.
Thank you again, Shelley and George Rosenberg there family friends from from Saint Petersburg. It is funny there is so George mentions it's paradise with the exception of hurricanes. Franklin Graham said, the weather's been great this week. I mean, he's in the Carolina, so it's different. But I wanted to point out, well, there was a Category four hurricanes.
Yeah, but anyway, Well it's crazy how I mean, Helene just you know, ravaged the area and it's almost a distant memory like Helen West.
Still three point four million people without power in the state of Florida. Roofs of roofs, roofs have been what's the plural of roof I think he got it. Roofs ripped off from coast to coast. One of one of those was the roof that's over trop againa Field Baseball Stadium in Saint Petersburg.
Yeah, it's crazy.
A lot of places, Sarasota, Fort Myers, all their Gulf Coast communities under water, flooded by up to a six foot storm surge. In some areas, they're talking about tornadoes that touch down. One of them leveled the Saint Lucy Sheriff's Department facility. The death toll the last I saw was four. They're saying at least four because they still have some people that are unaccounted for that they're concerned
a fall. I guess. Follow up to Hurricane Helene a couple of weeks ago, Remember it wasn't that long ago. A North Carolina man lost eleven family members killed in a landslide that was caused by that hurricane. This thirty five year old guy, his name is Jesse Craig. He lost his parents, he lost aunts and uncles, a great aunt, and several cousins died in an area of his town that everybody known as everybody knows as Craig Town because his family had been there for so long.
Imaginable.
Yeah, and I think that's an important reminder of just how people are grappling with Hurricane Helene. Still we had on in the first hour the president of Smaritan's Purse, an organization that's doing incredible work there on the ground to still aid in recovery efforts. Are still so many people missing, and the news cycle moves on to Milton, and so you kind of forget the tragedy of Helene. It is not even close to being over, and then you hear stories like that one you just shared it,
and it breaks your heart. So it's important to support the people who are on the ground, like Samaritan's Purse, who were doing that good work.
Samaritanspurse dot Org. So you can do that, Lieutenant Dan. Obviously we all remember Gary Sinice's character from from Forrest Gump, right, missing both legs. This guy's not missing both legs, but Lieutenant.
Dan, he's missing one leg.
Is Joseph Malinowski, fifty four year old guy did not want to leave. By the way, he survived. I mean, spoiler alert, he's alive and he's fine. He made it through the night. But this is a guy lives on his sailboat, and he did not want to leave Tampa, and it looked like he was gonna. I mean, it looked pretty sketchy there for a while, him living on a sailboat overnight, banging up against the dock that he
was moored up to. And and he's fine. This is just an idea of what they were dealing with yesterday.
With you right now, I'm right now.
Don't get me wrong. If I start bouncing around and I start hearing things crack and break, I'm getting the hell out of here. I don't fear the storm, I don't hear anything but the government, the police, the mayor, everybody's trying to get me to leave in the worst way. I wish they would leave me alone. If nobody saw me on TikTok, I'd be out here by myself right now doing the same thing I'm doing right now, just
sitting here. They don't do anything to help you. They just tell you that you have to leave, that it's a blood zone or whatever, and that you have to evacuate. Well, where am I supposed to go and how am I supposed to get there? I don't have a car, I don't have anywhere to go. And then you tell me you're going to put me in a shelter. I'm not going to a shelter. I've beenish shelters and I see
what goes on, and I'm doing my own thing. And if I'm merging my life and so be, I'm again I'm in God's hands.
Mayor Jane cast There in Tampa had yesterday said in her attempts early in the day to get everybody that's going to if you're going to stick around, please go to one of our shelters. That's probably the safest place to be. She had said, Lieutenant even Lieutenant Dan is going to be in a shelter. And he didn't go.
He did not go there. Was a reporter for Fox thirteen out of Tampa who last night at about eleven o'clock, I mean, we're talking pretty close to the absolute worst of the storm, had eyes on Lieutenant Dan in his little sailboat banging up against the dock and said, he's still in there. I guess he's going to ride this thing out well.
As I mean, let me tell you something. I'm in this family group chat and from my Florida side of the family, and Lieutenant Dan was the number one topic that people repeatedly brought up, and my sister in law who kept sharing TikTok videos because everyone, I mean, there were people across the nation invested in the outcome and well being of Lieutenant Dan, whose real name is Joseph Melanowski, and in fact, there's a GoFundMe that is reportedly raised
over one hundred thousand dollars for him. I mean, he's been homeless for ten years, and so you know, people wanted to rally to help him and do what they can, and they call him a national hero.
The Internet is weird.
And I think it's this. I think it's that if you say the entire state of Florida is under hurricane watches and warnings, and seven million people have been told to evacuate. That it's almost it's too big for us. I mean, especially if we're out here and if someone like me, I don't have anybody in Florida that I'm particularly concentrating on, hoping that Aunt Susie gets you know,
safe to a safe place. It's that you now have an investment in you know, you see Lieutenant Dan, you can you can give to his go fund me page, like you care enough about that guy. That's why you're going to pay attention to that, to that event, whatever it is. Otherwise, it's just it's too much to fathom. You can't you can't imagine a twelve foot storm. I mean, imagine twelve foot storm, Surgeon Burbank. We can't wrap our heads around it because we've never had to live through it.
People in Florida they've heard. I mean, you heard George earlier say, you know, this is what we're used to.
This.
I mean, you know, we have to do this every once in a while. This is paradise except for the hurricanes.
Jim Laws laugh at me when I say, wait, what you're staying while at hurricanes? I mean it's hard for me to that than being a southern California girl.
But other people also, I'm sure people, relatives, friends from around the country are like, how could you live with the possibility of an earthquake every day?
Right?
And it's not for us in California, it's not that big a deal. They're fun to some degree. Yeah, there's a point where we'll stop being fun. I should, I assume.
But the thing is here, you have a huge earthquake every decade, you know. There, you have hurricanes every season, right, and so to me it seems different. And then I went tornado chasing ones and that is scary. I can't imagine being an hurricane and then having the chance at tornade. I mean, how do you even wrap your mind around one hundred mile per hour wins Win Gus and then.
Around a tornado but you don't know which way it's gonna go.
Yeah, I mean our car actually got hit by a little mini tornado when we were tornado chasing, and they just they formed so suddenly, And.
That seems was it loud? That seems loud. It was just in the car when it hits the car.
H I don't I just remember all of a sudden, my car was facing east instead of.
The direction I thought I was going this Joseph Malinowski character. By the way, Lieutenant Dan, as much goodwill as he has, does have a criminal record. I mean, who doesn't. I don't tell what's about that. He spent six months behind bars for allegedly punching a police officer when he was arrested last year over allegations that he tried to set
a woman on fire with gasoline. Oh Gosh also reported that Lieutenant Dan has an October court date coming up sometime soon in a dispute over whether the sailboat that he was in is actually his sailboat.
Oh see, this is when well intended people and those who have been part of one hundred thousand dollars donation to him are actually doing more harm than good.
Yeah, so we'll see, we'll see whatever becomes of this, you know, fifteen minutes of fame for Lieutenant Dan. We will get more updates on what's going on with Hurricane Milton and the aftermath of Hurricane Milton across Florida come up a little bit later. In fact, ABC's Jim Ryan we talked to him yesterday as he was preparing for Hurricane Milton. He lasted through the night. We believe we will check in with him. He was stuck. Stuck, would you say, stuck in his car.
That's where he chose sheltering in play.
Sheltering in his car. That's a probably a better way to put it. One of the Kennedy matriarchs has died. Ethel Kennedy has died at the age of ninety six. They made the announcement just before the show today. That's rfk's widow. She suffered a stroke last week and then passed away, they said today, surrounded by family in a
hospital in Massachusetts. The big deal out of the DC area today, Bureau of Labor Statistics came out and said consumer prices were up two point four percent from a year earlier, higher than expected, but still ticking down just a little bit. And then Ditty is expected in court again today. He is going to demand that he'd be let out on bail. I don't think that's going to happen. Maybe it's just me.
That story makes me mad every time I hear it.
It gets It's weird because the allegations that have been made against some of the other people that are supposedly involved, or the names of people that are in this sphere involved, maybe not even necessarily part of the criminal network. I mean you mentioned Denzel Washington supposedly got in some sort of a shouting match with Ditty at one of the parties and stormed out. Is it because of what Denzel saw and didn't want to have any part of it?
Or why didn't? I mean, he's Denzel Washington. He could have hit he could have punched Ditty, he could take him out, Yeah, or he calls out a hit on him, just like he did on Biggie or Tupac. I guess it was.
This is taking a turn. Well, listen, it's all got to go in the movie at some point, right, It's true. So, and then the Justin Bieber connection, too, I think has
been that's been a worrisome to me. I've not paid attention to Justin Bieber ever, but the idea that that kid, and again this is all speculation, it's it's all tangential, tabloid the stuff right now, But if he was a victim of Ditty, because he hasn't come out and said that he wasn't, and there's a lot of speculation that they spent a lot of time together.
Yeah that, I mean that it breaks my heart.
I mean I think of you know, obviously, been talking off air a lot about our kids today and my six month old daughter. I don't know, just thinking of how young he was Bieber when he was introduced. I think to do he was what eleven, twelve thirteen? Yeah, really really young, and he spent a lot of time with him. So I'm hoping for the best for his sake.
But I hope it's not true. I mean, I just hope it's like But I don't know. I mean that I unfortunately will come out at some point. Portland. We talk a lot about Portland and there's an interesting thing going on. Portland is a beautiful place. I thought you were going to say something else. No, No, I've been to Portland a handful of times, and I really like Portland. It is beautiful. It's a beautiful place. It's like Seattle's cute little brother. I mean, it's kind of like it.
It has some great old parts of town, great history in terms of the just the logging communities that grew up around Portland. It's quirky. It is quirky, it's weird. I mean, there's there's that too, super weird.
I think they have the highest rate of taco trucks and stripper places that why can't I think of that word? I'm having mom brain strip club, strip clubs.
I knew you'd know. Wait a minute, you've been a strip clubs in Portland. There's a lot of bruises. The one hundred days of often violent protests, fentanyl crisis, homelessness crisis, COVID crisis. They said that this was arguably the nation's boldest progressive policy experiment in recent history, which was the decriminalis Decriminalization of all Drugs Measure one to ten. All drugs were decriminalized. It was backed by seventy four percent
of voters in Moltnoma County, which is incredible. And then they realized doesn't work so well. Well, and it's funny because they used the term unintended consequences about what was going to happen. Well, it seems like it's not even if they're not unforeseen consequences. You know exactly what's going to happen if you legalize all drugs.
And in their case, it was very clear drug you shot up, homelessness got way worse, and a lot of tax payers got the heck out of there.
Everybody wants to fix this. Now there are nineteen people running for mayor of Oregon, of Portland, I should say, ninety eight people who are vying for seats on the city council, nearly all of them campaigning on the left of center political stance. Perhaps, I mean, it is, after all Portland, but at the same time, those who may be sort of I mean, I think we saw this in San Francisco as well, where Mayor London Breed had to do something because she was losing her city. And
in Portland it's bigger than that. In Portland, it's even more destructive, and it's been even more crippling to the economy of the city, to the economy of the entire county and arguably the state, because Portland is such a large portion of it.
Well, we've seen this trend happening in cities across the nation. Seattle got rid of their ultra progressive city council members and they did a whole revamp and now things are starting to get a little bit better there. But you know, clearly these policies don't work. What is surprising to me in this news story is that some of the people who are running left of center, as you put it, are blaming unexpected circumstances like the fentonl crisis, and they're
blaming the implementation of these policies. So I think there are still those who are running who are going to try to perpetuate the policies that have not been working, kind.
Of like what we're seeing in our Los Angeles County.
DA race, DA's race. The state level. I mean, one of the things that I get frustrated about when it comes to the political environment, I guess in the state of California is an We've had a Democratic super majority in the legislature for years. We've had now twelve years of democratic governor. I mean the last Schwartzenegger's the last Republican governor, and even that is kind of a waffler.
But you can't continue to blame Republicans for problems when they have zero control in Sacramento, right, And that's what that's kind of the theme that keeps coming up.
And what's frustrating to me, which, as we've said during this show, and some might know, I ran for US Senate earlier this year, and what I saw as a journalist and continue to see, is the repeated effort to address the.
Or not treat the root cause.
They treat the symptom, they slap a band aid on the problem rather than getting to the root cause of it.
And clearly it's not working.
I mean, even when you look at how we've tried to address homelessness in the state, spending twenty billion dollars with nothing to show for it's because we keep trying to stand.
We have something to show for it. Twice as many homeless people as we have twenty years ago.
Yeah, and you would think that the approach would change, but we I mean, don't get me started.
Gary Shannon will continue right after this. You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio ap