Swamp Watch

country does not violate any law. The official White House account on Twitter also shared the message, and the quote from a president with his own ambitions appeared to come from that movie called Waterloo with the Rod Steiger as Napoleon.

the White House. So we know that Trump fired the heads of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, as well as the Director of Office of Government Ethics and the Special Council who oversees the office that investigates the whistleblower complaints. Some of those officials have said that Trump violates federal laws passed by Congress that created those agencies that limited the president to removing their members only for cause in cases of neglect or do

neglect of duty, or of malfeasance. Now, specifically, Hampton Dellinger is the head of the Office of Special Counsel. This is not special counsels appointed by the Justice Department. It's not Jack Smith, it's not those guys. It's called the head of the Office of Special Counsel. This agency is charged with safeguarding government employee whistleblowers and enforcing certain laws,

specifically ethics laws. And he had actually been fired in a one sentence email back on February seventh, but there was no reason for firing him, at least not in that email. And his argument was he has to be told of inefficiency, neglect, or of malfeasance in office, and that that never happened.

dissent in the court. We will continue to see news coming through sort of filtered through Washington d C. About the ongoing talk now that they have started between Russia and the United States concerning Ukraine. Now right now it's just US and Russia. That doesn't make Vladimir Zelenski happy, But at least the Trump administration by way of Marco Rubio, the new Secretary of State. They are trying to figure out what Russia wants, what it will take for them

to come to the table and talk about ceasefire. The hope is that they'll turn around and ask Ukraine the same things. Although we kind of know what Ukraine wants. Ukraine wants to join NATO, they want to know that the other countries in Europe will continue to defend it against Russian aggression. To be honest, I just on our side, on the United States side, nobody appears to be up for that. Pete Hegseth said that's unlikely. President Trump has

said that that's unlikely. Jd Vance said that's unlikely. Although all of them have said there's nothing that's off the table, but they've already given up that negotiating point. There are land disputes that need to be worked out. Russia has annexed regions in eastern Ukraine. Finger quotes annexed that may

be property that Ukraine has to give up. Ukraine may have to withdraw from the Kersk region, and then Russia potentially sees some of Crimea given back to Ukraine, possibly the European Union would be expected to fund a lot of the reconstruction and as far as a peacekeeping force, if there is such a thing that's required in the ceasefire, it's going to be made up mostly of Europeanian of Europeans.

Ker Starmer, the British Prime Minister, had suggested that British troops could be on the ground and would be glad to help, although they don't really have a great position right now. Their military has been hurting in terms of sheer numbers, and then the other sidelight issue to all of this is what's in it for the United States. There is a potential for the Ukrainian government to provide America with some of the critical minerals that they are

sitting on in exchange for continued aid. Maybe that's just a sales pipeline where we take some of those minerals, we write a few checks, and we continue to at least fund what is going forward in terms of their ability to self defend. But there's a lot of that stuff that's still going on. A lot of those talks are still going on. Like I said, in Russia, Saudi Arabia, I'm sorry in Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States

are supposed to meet for the first time Tomorrow. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with his counterpart on the Russian side, sergay Lavrov, for what will be the first.

and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the infrastructure there. Well, it's been about three years of living under constant threat of Russian airstrikes, and Ukrainians could see the end of the war soon, but they're afraid that it's going to come with unfavorable terms.

switch things up. Angels outfielder. I use that word intentionally. Mike Trout said he's going to switch positions. He said he just kind of threw everything on the table when he was talking with team officials as in what's best for him body wise to stay on the field. He said, the conclusion is, I'm going to go to right field. He's been a career center fielder since his major league debut at the Angels thirteen fourteen years ago. He's played

right field in that entire time, fourteen years. He's played right field just eleven time, sorry, seventeen times. So looks like that's where he's going to be.

he had a kill list of targets. He's now saying that that conviction should be tossed out as well, because he believes that the Trump pardon covers offenses related to events that occurred at or near the Capitol on January sixth. He says it extends beyond that. Other defendants have been arguing similarly that they should be absolved of other alleged crimes like illegal gun possession or you know, child pornography. Their argument is those things were discovered during the January

sixth investigation. Dozens of defendants have joined forces on social media to try to compile and publicize the names of at least one hundred and twenty four people who had a hand in their convictions, most of them prosecutors. There are a few judges' names in there, and FBI agents, and the post of names, with about sixty thousand views,

includes pictures and disparaging remarks and demands for accountability. Back on the twenty seventh of January, prosecutors down in Houston announced they were looking for Andrew Tacki, a January sixth defendant who was being looked for on a charge of online solicitation of a minor. Now that happened a long time ago. It was eight years ago that that charge came out. He had been serving a seventy four month

sentence after pleading guilty to violence at the Capitol. Prosecutors said he sprayed police officers with bear spray four separate times and hit one law enforcement officer with a medal whip. The Harris County DA's office that had asked federal prison officials to hold him, but instead he was let out of a Colorado jail back on January twentieth.

figure out should this be a long term ban. A district judge said, if this information is released, I think there's no question that it would put a number of FBI agents in significant and immediate danger. And like I said, some of these January sixth people who have been pardoned are taken it upon themselves to publicize those names. Timothy Lewis Hale Cosanelli is a guy from New Jersey served three years in prison for his role in the January sixth.

He created the post on Twitter that asked fellow defendants to name their prosecutors. He said, I'd like to see the judges exposed. One person responded, not sure what you can do about them, but they probably don't like their names out there after releasing a bunch of angry bees. Another one said take a names and kick an ass. Another one every time a name would be posted this Timothy Lewis Hale Quassanelli would write got him. He was

an army reservist at the time that he stormed the Capitol. He, they said, was among the first to enter the building and was ordering others to advance into the building. They said he made harassing and derogatory statements to police. He spoke of a coming revolution. Another woman who helped smash a window with a battering rams shouted through a bullhorn,

added her prosecutor's name to list. She accused the prosecutor of telling lies and called for consequences such as prison time or termination of the allegations as if they are substantiated. Things like murder plots and illegal gun possession and child pornography. Those better not be those better not be pardoned as

a result of what the President did. When we rebuild, and we will rebuild in the Palisades and the Altadena areas, there is a new plan that might take flight, and that is builders permitting their own projects be unheard of in a place like California, where they've got to have their fingers and everything. The La Times is out with the story today about how irreverend bumper stickers have taken over La we wanted to know what your what your favorites were.

Our friend Dean Sharp, host of Home with Dean Shark on the Weekends here on KFI, has done this, has dealt with permits, has had to deal with the bureaucracy that comes with the building or improving properties that you're on, Dean, is it a sweater day today?

proven to work. It's working in a lot of places already, places like San Diego, San Diego County. City of Bellflower has been doing this for like ten years now. I think it's gonna help. But just understand, streamlining the permit

process is way. It is a much bigger snake to wrangle than most people think, and so this is not going to be just a panacea, because there's so much more that goes into permitting, to your question than simple simply checking the plans against the building code, which by the way, is the easiest part of the entire thing. And you would think most home owners think, well, that's

the whole thing, right, No, no, it's not. Actually in my experience, and I do a lot of custom homes, obviously almost all exclusively custom homes, we get held up with the city when it comes to the planning department and zoning requirements and endless zoning ordinances. And let me tell you, the Palisades is an area where there are zoning requirements and ordinances overlapping on top of each other

in multiple ways. So the idea of hey, let's streamline the permitting process in plan check for just looking at your plans and asking the question do they comply with building codes? That's kind of plan check one oh one. That does not take very long to do with a

residential home. And so when you even if just a single house, you just lost your house in a house fire, everything else, all things being equal, you're going to have to jump back through the zoning hoops, all the regulations that have been laid on top of that, and also prove that the house that you're planning to build comports

with the building code. But like in the Palisades, you know, it's like, there's the Palisades Commercial Village Zoning Area, there's the Neighborhood Specific Plan, there's the Brentwood Palisades Community Plan. Parts of the Palisades are governed by the Brentwood Pacific Palisades Dual Coastal Plan Zone. Other parts are governed by the Mulholland Specific Parkway Specific Plan. There's the Hillside Ordans,

the relatively new anti mansioning Ordinance. And yes, some Pacific Palisades homes are subject to the dreaded California Coastal Commission. And everything I just mentioned has nothing to do with whether the plans for the house that you're submitting are in accordance with the building code. That's just zoning stuff. And I don't know how to cut through that stuff, honestly. Well, I mean it takes I don't want to say, a

bigger man than you. It takes a team effort of people in the right political position, I think to make that a priority. Because even Gavin Newsom, for example, Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order just last week that would loosen a building permit rule if you recently built your house and you still have the plans on file, I mean within the last I don't know what the limit was, but let's just say you built a house in the last four years and you live in the

palais Age and you lost it in that fire. His executive order would make it simple where you just go, I've already been approved for all of this stuff. You know, cuts basically to the front of the line because we've had everything approved. It's going to take that kind of creativity, I think, to get some of that stuff out of the way. But let me ask you quickly, I don't know if if you would even envision how this would work.

But one of the things that Rick Caruso had said was he wants to see AI used for permitting, where instead of days or weeks to get human eyeballs on some of these building plans, you shove them into AI. They basically tell you whether or not their code compliant and what changes need to be made, so that within hours you know and can make your you know your addendums or make your changes and then get that building permit process, you know, down five percent of what it

would have been otherwise. Have you heard much of that you if you, is that a real thing that exists or is he kind of pie in the sky so far? Well, I mean, you know, I don't know if it's a real thing that exists. That's not something we've experienced thus far. But then again, you know, two years ago, the amount of things that AI is involved in has just gone through the roof, so it's not outside of the realm of possibility. And again, I mean know, I don't really

have a problem with it. Why not run it through an algorithm first and then let it red flag things and then let a human being look at those red flags and resolve those things instead of having somebody to go through and pick through all the numbers and so on. There's a lot of infrastructure that would have to be built into that because like when, for instance, in your plans, it's not just looking at a plan set. The structural engineer has to submit along with their plans, they have

to submit their load calculation. So now we're going to tell a structural engineer that those calculations have to be put in a particular software format that AI knows how to read, to double check and so on. That's all

human checked right now. So theoretically sure, and again I don't have any problem with it, But still that conversation gear is still just about building code compliance and has nothing to do with all of the other things that we have to wrestle with when we're trying to build a place, a specific kind of house on a specific kind of lot anywhere in southern California.

The simple fact of the matter is there are a lot of people with a lot of money and a lot of influence in the Palisades, and you know, in the world that we live in, money talks, influence is effective. And because of that, I think this is probably going to be a reality and will end up betting fitting everybody else. But I think that's the I mean, there were none of these discussions when the entire city of

Paradise burnt to the ground a few years back. You know, it is the fact that it has hit a wealthy, influential area and people with influence. That's okay, fine, let's let's see it go through and thin out some of this bureaucratic red tape.

it again this week, they said. Between Maine and Montana and as far south as Oklahoma, people could see temperatures into below freezing for the most part. Couple small earthquakes hit Malibu Friday and Saturday. First one was a late Friday night registered at a three point seven, and then the second quake was about six thirty Saturday morning, measured about a three point five struck in roughly the same area. Some people in Ventura County say that it felt like

a pretty sharp jolt. Some car alarms went off. There was a third one, but it was way out to the east of US. The third quake measured about three point five near the San Jua Sindo Mountains in Riverside County. That would have been about two in the afternoon on Saturday. The epicenter near Idlewild, just south of Idlewild, Greece is dealing with a series of earthquakes.

on the island of Santorini. They have shut down schools, they have told everybody to stay away from the nearby islands. Now, no major damage has been reported, but scientists have said that this is unprecedented, even in a place like Greece where they do get earthquakes. They've not ruled out bigger earthquakes coming, saying that these all might be four shocks to.

able to dock in an emergency. So they said that the earthquakes themselves have kind of slowed the pace over the last couple of days. Local authorities did extend the emergency measures for a third week, and they've reiterated calls for people to stay away from coastal areas, stay away from the steep hillsides that might be prone to landslides. They said that Santorini took its current shape after one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, which was about

thirty seven hundred years ago. Seismologists have said that this latest seismic activity as the results of the tectonic plates in the magma and has pushed subsurface layers of the island upwards in some areas, and they're suggesting that the big one could still come, even though the last few days have been a little quieter.