The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeart Media or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KENI. Amy Demboski. The show starts now. Our lines are open at 907-522-0650. This is The Morning Drive on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Good morning. It is Thursday, January 9th, 2025. 11 days, Daryl. 11 days.
That's all we have. Are you looking at the countdown timer? Is that what you're doing? I am not. No? I'm just doing basic math. I'm just doing, you know, today's the 9th. On the 11th, I mean, on the 20th is the ceremony to swear on the new president. Well, if it makes you feel better, 10 days, 13 hours, 53 minutes, and 10 seconds. See, because they have the, like, actual clock countdown. The 20th cannot come fast enough. Oh, you're not kidding.
They're doing what I do. You don't count the day once it comes here. So I shouldn't be counting the night. I think the president's sworn in at noon. I think it's like right around there. Somewhere around there. I do believe you're correct. I can't wait. Remember, that's any of our times and we get it a little early. Oh, it'll be sensational. It'll be sensational. I cannot wait. Weather is relatively mild this morning. What did you say your temp's at? 35 degrees this morning here in Anchorage.
Oh, not bad. Kenai's got to be 36 degrees and windy. It looks like it's down there. Right now we're sitting at 38 degrees and Palmer and a little breezy. In Palmer terms, it means, you know. What, 30 miles an hour? Somewhere in that range? It means make sure you hold on to your door when you get out of your car. Well, I was thinking make sure you tie your dog down, but okay. Yeah, that's what that means.
It's a little gusty as I'm sitting in my office. I can hear it outside. So, you know, it'll be a good day. It'll be a good day. There's not a lot of public meetings, you know, as I'm looking at the calendar right now. There's not a lot.
But let's get right into it because we're going to have a great show. We have all kinds of stuff we're going to talk about. So we'll get into that. We'll, of course, take your calls, 522-0650. But first, let's get into some of our public announcements that are happening. The Butte Fire Service Area, number two, Board of Supervisors has a meeting today at 10 a.m. at the Butte Fire Department, Station 2-1. The Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission has a meeting today, 4 p.m.
That meeting will, it looks like, let me see, that meeting is going to be at the conference room of the borough building. It will be in conference room 203. So over there, big white building in Palmer. At 6.30 p.m. tonight, the Greater Talkeena Road Service Area Board of Supervisors has their meeting. Looks like this is a Zoom meeting. I don't see any other public locations, so it's going to be a Zoom meeting. If you need that link, just go to matsugov.us.
U.S., look down at the calendar and you'll find it there. And last but not least for the Mat-Su borough, the Point McKenzie Community Council board meeting has been canceled for tonight. So that is not happening. So easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Nothing that I see on the calendar for today for just double-checking. We do have a special city council meeting in Wasilla today. They're going to be discussing the fiscal year 2026 goals and initiatives.
in an ongoing discussion fashion and developing their plan of action. That meeting is scheduled today from 6 to 9 p.m. at Wasilla City Hall in the council chambers. If you want more information, just go to cityofwasilla.gov, and you'll be able to find it there. As I look at the city of Palmer today, The only thing I see on their calendar today is a Board of Economic Development regular meeting that's scheduled for...
6 p.m. tonight. I'm just pulling up the agenda here. Of course, that's going to be in the city council chambers located at 231 West Evergreen Avenue in Palmer. Discussion on Palmer's 2025 Economic Development Strategic Plan. 2024 Update and Work Plan. Again, a lot of places right now are formulating their plan for this year. If you want more information, just go to palmeraka.org, and you'll be able to find it there.
As I look at the municipality of Anchorage for today, the 9th, we have a couple different things going on. What is ACCEE? Oh, you figured that out one time. You figured it out, but I can't remember what it was. Okay, I got to think. I haven't had coffee yet this morning. I got to think about this. The ACCEE Fund Board meeting. It's going to be today City Halls, and it's going to start at 10-15. It's scheduled from 10-15 to 12-15, 632 West 6th Avenue in the Mayor's Conference Room, ACCEE.
Anchorage something economic. No. Anchorage. You'll continue. I'll look it up and see what I can find. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I know we did figure it out once. I don't remember. All right. So that is one of them. Let me go back to my calendar here.
Municipal events, of course, boards and commission events. Let's click in. This is what happens when you click out of your screen. The Budget Advisory Commission has their meeting. Again, I said, and the mayor's conference room is going to be at 1130 this morning. How do they have it? They have it at both places. Okay, the ACCE Fund Board meeting is going to be... This makes no sense to me.
They have two meetings that kind of overlap. Okay, the ACCE fund board meetings at 1015 in the mayor's conference room, and at 1130 is the Budget Advisory Commission meeting. So back-to-back, I guess. The Board of Ethics does have a meeting today as well, but it's going to be virtually only. So if you want to attend that one, you can do that. You just need the link. It's going to be at 5 o'clock tonight. Also tonight, the Public Transit Advisory Board has their meeting.
That's going to be at City Hall in room 155 at 530. And that's it really for boards and commissions for today. Did you figure it out yet, Daryl? No, I'm actually having a hard time on this. That's all right. Daryl will find it. He is tenacious when it comes to this stuff. The Community and Economic Development Committee has a meeting today, Thursday, January 9th, 9 a.m. at the Permit Center over there at 4700 Elmore.
At 1 o'clock today, the Anchorage Assembly Rules Committee has a meeting, and that's going to be in Conference Room 155 right there at City Hall downtown. If you want more information on any of these meetings, just go to muni.org, and then if you're looking for boards and commissions, click on the menu. Mayors tab, then the Events tab. If you're looking for the Assembly, just click on the Assembly tab and it'll bring you right to their home landing page.
Okay, I found it. It is the new Anchorage Child Care and Early Education Fund Board. Oh, okay. Boy, I'm not going to get started on this. I'm going to be called. Oh, this AQD contract triggers zero every time. Anchorage. Okay, wait. I have to write it down so I can remember it. Anchorage, child care, and early education. Yeah, this is why I couldn't remember is because it's not one that I've actually dealt with. That's just because it was created July 17th.
So, you know, I mean, newly created just for certain people in the hierarchy. Let's be honest. This is not the role of government. Sorry. Not at all the role of government, but they're taking your taxes for it. Remember, they've now taken the marijuana tax is now going to be. dedicated at least five million of it to this.
Oh, good Lord. I can't even. I can't even with these people. All right. Let's move down to the Kenai Peninsula borough because, you know, we've got to go to a place where there's a little sanity. South Kenai Peninsula Hospital Service Area Board has their meeting today. from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. And this is going to be at the South Penn Hospital Conference Room. If you need more information, just go to the Kenai Peninsula Borough's website. It's www.kpb.us.
and you'll be able to find it there. When we move over to the city of Kenai, there are a couple meetings today. The Council on Aging has their regular meeting at 3 p.m. which will be followed by a work session at 3.30 p.m. And then the Airport Commission has their regular meeting at 6 p.m., and that's all for the City of Kenai. If you need more information on any of those meetings, just go to kenai.city, and you'll be able to find it there. As far as the City of Soldotna goes...
My page is loading, so I'm... I'm stalling. I can sing. They do have a Parks and Rec Advisory Board meeting today in Saldatna. That one is going to be at 5.30 p.m. tonight at the Saldatna City Hall. or city council chambers. As I'm looking at their agenda, it looks like they're going to be selecting their chair and vice chair tonight, so that's going to be their big action item tonight.
It probably doesn't look like it's going to be that long of a meeting. It looks like it's a pretty late agenda. But if you do want to get more information, just go to Saldana.org, and you'll be able to find it there. I had to double check and make sure I was telling you the right web address. Then moving down to the city of Homer, we only have one thing on their calendar today, and that is the ADA Advisory Board meeting at 4 p.m.
It's going to be at the Cal's Council Chamber, Homer City Hall, 491 East Pioneer Avenue. You can also attend via Zoom or phone. If you want more information, including their meeting agenda, just go to cityofhomer-ak. That really does it for our public announcements for local governments for today. If you have an announcement of a meeting that's going on that we missed that you think people should know about or just something fun, we're always happy to plug.
that too. All you have to do is give us a call at 522-0650. We're going to go ahead and take our first break of the morning. When we come back we will take your calls and then get into the headlines of the day. Amy Demboski, 6 to 8, mornings on NewsRadio 650, KENI. Call now, 907-522-0650. Welcome back. Current time is 6.20 on this Thursday morning. The funeral of President...
Jimmy Carter is now underway. It's currently going on. I'm watching it happen on Fox News. You know, as I see all the former presidents standing there together, It is interesting to me. President, the vice president, you see Clintons, you see the Bushes, then Obama standing there. Interesting. Michelle Obama's not there. She's the only spouse that doesn't look to be present. She couldn't get her hair done.
Something. Something. Maybe she has a cold. I don't know. But then Trump and Melania are standing there, too. So there you see it. You know, it's always newsworthy when all the former presidents get together. obviously is for a somber reason, but that is happening right now. We're going to go to the phones before I get into the headlines of the day, but let's start with my favorite, Mr. Randy. Good morning, sir.
good morning miss sunshine and dear um i'm questioning whether i should go for a joke um because there's a lot to discuss i'm really thankful that you advertised or PSA rather, on a Butte Fire Department gathering. Everybody should go if you possibly can and meet and greet your local firefighters. As we'll discuss your egress, because you've got one road in and one road out on many of those places. Yeah, you're right. I was trying to call yesterday.
as well as today, is your insurance agent is not your friend. And the reason why I say that, both in California as well as here, You need to look on your, get your policy out without asking your agent and see what the definition of having a house. fireproof, so to speak. Some friends of mine in California lost their house and they had to fight for two years to get somebody to pay for it. It was that electrical fire.
from uh uh they like to like or like a community no i get i get you i get where you're going No, you're exactly right. I mean, look, understanding what your policy does and doesn't cover and being diligent and getting the insurance company to actually pay when it's time. But, you know, before a house has an issue, especially...
In Alaska, right, we have wildfires all the time. You know, it's important to be fire-wise, as they say. That's why Anchorage has that fire-wise program. It's because they will actually have somebody come out to your house and show you. talk to you about the fuel sources near your house, buffer zone, you know, what vegetation is good and less fire retardant that you can plant. There's all kinds of... information out there if you go looking for it but
You know, to your point, you know, Randy, it's really good to have, you know, educate yourself, meet the people that are going to be responsible for making, you know, investment decisions or response decisions. So like the Butte Fire Service Area Board. when they meet tonight. If you live in Butte and you've never gone out and seen one of these meetings, it's a good thing to attend. Absolutely. And the insurance companies use the U.S. Forest Department.
guidelines because that's what they fell on the insurance people in California and that's what I have my address to here as well. Thank you. Well, that's a good reminder. Thank you, Randy. I appreciate your call this morning. Have a blessed day.
All right, you too. Thank you so much. All right, well, as Randy was talking about being fire-wise, why in part is this conversation coming up? It's because of the massive wildfires that are happening right now in California. I mean, some of the video we're seeing come out of California. I mean, it looks like the gates of hell have opened, and unbelievable. And part of the reason it's so devastating, the winds are significant, and they just wreak havoc on any time you have a wildfire.
any sort then you kick up the winds it's going to spread very quickly and that's what's happening and we it's such a populated area in la county where these uh fires have broken out it's such a populated area it's just i'm surprised frankly more people haven't died daryl so surprised that they haven't passed away that that is one of them um my thought is on this
is why haven't they, I mean, this is a rich area. We know this. I mean, it's extremely wealthy. Why wasn't there fire mitigation done in these areas? Well, that's exactly what we were talking about yesterday. And, you know, the priority of... Some of the stuff that you need to do to prepare for an emergency or a disaster, it's time-consuming, it takes effort, it takes money, and you have to prioritize it. And unfortunately...
A lot of communities, they only think about it when the emergency is there and not before the emergency is there. You know, here's a thought for some of the Californians who are sanctuary cities. Maybe get some of these illegals to... Clear the brush. Oh, my gosh. What a good work program. Good work program. Well, you know, it's interesting, too, because the mayor of L.A. right now is under a lot of public scrutiny. Number one, she was in Ghana when this happened. She wasn't there?
She was not there. So she was gone now. Okay. So bad. So bad. But number two, in her budget this year, she cut $20 million from the fire department's budget. But Suzanne has an interesting take on this. an interesting article up in must read alaska la la on fire hydrants stolen
Mayor cut fire service budget and left for Ghana on taxpayer dime. According to this article in Mustard, Alaska, hundreds of fire hydrants were stolen from the ground for scrap metal in advance of the blazes raging across Los Angeles. highlighting the local government's challenges in maintaining basic order and infrastructure. So again, see, we've had issues with obviously different wire, copper, all that kind of stuff being stolen.
Because they will then scrap it and sell it, right? So we've had issues like that in the past that we've seen here in Alaska. But when your crime level is to the point where people are stealing fire hydrants for scrap metal, I would say your criminal justice system has completely broken. Well, A, your criminal justice system is completely broken, but also your basic services must have, because generally all those fire hydrants are connected to a water supply that has got a large amount of...
power charging it. You can't just take a fire hydrant off and nobody noticed in a normal situation. In a normal situation, yeah. There are dry hydrants where they're not actually charged depending. in situations but they're huge i mean i used to work in a place where they would
you know, sell these kind of things when I was very, very young. Very heavy. And, you know, it's like it takes a bit of equipment to put these suckers in. I mean, they're very heavy. They're not, like, it's not like, you know, going through one. Walmart and stealing mouthwash off the shelves. You know, I mean, they're not. It takes a little effort, to your point. You'd think a neighbor would notice, hey, look, they're removing it instead of.
I mean, I mean, I know it can be done, but it goes on to say in this article, the Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hutchman was quoted as saying these fire hydrant thefts are yet another sign of how crime is out of control in Los Angeles County. Thieves know they'll face little or no consequences if they're caught, so they're willing to risk the public safety for a small profit, end quote. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
who was away on a taxpayer-funded trip to Africa as a member of the Biden administration delegation, recently cut the fire department's budget by $17.6 million. All right, other reports I'm saying 20 million, but it's close. Upon her arrival back to the United States, Sky News, my fave.
asked Bass whether she regrets cutting the fire department's budget and if she feels she owes the citizens an apology for being absent as the city burned. Bass ignored the questions, her eyes glued on the ground as she proceeded through the airport. Days before Bass left for Ghana, the National Weather Service's Los Angeles Bureau warned of extreme fire weather conditions. The day before the fires broke out, Bass shared...
An NWS warning suggesting she may have been aware of the fire before her departure. Here's a quote from... Bass's post. There is an expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm starting Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon. Stay safe, LA. End quote. Drop mic. Boom. I'm out. I'm going on vacay. Actually, it was...
taxpayer-funded trips, so technically she was working. She was an ambassador of sorts. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. We need an ambassador from L.A. to Ghana. Yeah. on wednesday fire hydrants in the pacific palisades lost their water pressure entirely all water storage tanks in the area were dry water reservoir projects promised by the state government for years Have not been built, Gavin Newsom. What's up? That's crazy. As of Wednesday evening, the fires had 0% containment.
So there you go. I mean, unbelievable. But, you know, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, you know, President Biden was boots on the ground. President Biden. flew over to California to see the devastation, to meet with Gavin Newsom, and they held a press conference, and he had some incredible words of wisdom, sarcasm intended. You'll get to hear those when we come back. Reach out to Amy now. 907-522-0650. That's 907-522-0650. It's Amy Devosky on News Radio 650 KENI.
Welcome back. Current time 635 on this Thursday morning. You know, Daryl. It is devastating no matter where you have these horrific fires, when you have, you know, landslides, when you have tornadoes and hurricanes. I mean, some of these natural disasters are just horrific. Some of them are absolutely. absolutely unpreventable, but some are. And, you know, California for years has been, you know, under...
critique for their lack of wildfire mitigation efforts. President Trump has talked about it multiple times before these fires happened. He was talking about the lack of uh wildfire mitigation for for them but you know whenever this happens it's it's common for a president to go and survey the damage and go and you know reassure the governor of the state and the people of the state that the federal government is here to help and assist and rebuild and to help with emergency
response, you know, it's typically the federal government's role is typically funding. It's to access emergency funding, sometimes through loans to the government, sometimes through, you know, grant awards through the government. But they will often... through FEMA and through, you know, sometimes Homeland Security, but mostly FEMA, they will help. So President Biden goes to California, has a press conference, and this is what he says. Thank you for being here
The 10-acre fire less than 24 or so hours ago. Deep gratitude. It's astounding what's happening. With only one piece of good news, my son lives out here and his wife. They got a notification yesterday. was probably her on the ground. Today, it appears that it may be still standing. We're not sure. But the good news is I'm a great-grandfather as of today. I'm a granddaughter. Oh, so cringeworthy. Okay, that's enough. I know the audio is not the greatest.
But Joe Biden, so Gavin Newsom is doing the governing thing, right? He's like, thank you, President, for being here. You know, this happened less than 24 hours ago. You're already here. Gavin Newsom's really, like, pumping it up. You know, doing what every... governor would do is saying, you know, thanking the president for being there in person, you know, yada, yada, yada. And Biden, this shows you how absent-minded the guy is.
You know, you have 80,000 people that have been displaced, that have had to evacuate their homes, leave their belongings behind. It's not like they leisurely, they got a bang on the door. You've got to get out. You've got to get out. 80,000 people had to evacuate. And Joe Biden, instead of reassuring the American public, like, oh, there's a lot of good news here, though.
You know, the good news is, you know, we thought my son's house burned down, but maybe it hasn't. But as of today, I have a great-grandson or a great-granddaughter. He doesn't know what it is. He can't figure out what it is. But he's like, and people start, like. Awkwardly clapping like oh, I mean, it's just embarrassing at this point. I mean
Totally inappropriate. And for me, a big part of this is the simple fact that, you know, Newsom, man, it's less than 24 hours. You've responded to us. You are so awesome. The only reason he responded is because Hunter Biden has a house in the area and he thought it was on fire, which means Hunter is going to need help with his insurance and his scams coming up. That's it.
I just, it's so cringeworthy. When Daryl sent me that audio clip, it's just so cringeworthy. I heard it and I thought, don't care about your grandkid. Don't care. Not appropriate time. Not appropriate time. All you say when you go to a natural disaster, the only focus is on the people.
that have been affected and how the federal government can help those people and help their government and you know their local governments how can we support you it is that's it that's all we want to hear out of your mouth
You know what a lot of the news agencies right now are doing also? They're doing this comparison of how President Trump treated Gavin Newsom versus how Biden treats an emergency. And they pull up the clips of Trump saying, you know, it's your fault. You guys didn't mitigate this.
You guys did this wrong. You did this wrong. You know, so in other words, chastising him and President Biden within 24 hours showing up to assist with it. But they all cut that part of the clip out where he talks about his kid and everything. Yeah. And that's the thing. That's why media is.
dishonest let's be honest let's just come on now like every time we start watching these clips media has cut this out that that portion of it out because it's so cringeworthy but if we want to juxtapose president trump and president biden How long did it take for President Biden to go visit the hurricane victims of Helene? Crickets. That's right. It wasn't 24 hours, that's for sure.
You know, how long did it take the federal government to actually get down there to help the people in North Carolina? What about East Palestine? I mean, just exactly. Exactly. This is my point. But it's California. So he's there with. Within 24 hours. Well, California, and like I said, his son has a house. That's his number one important thing. Well, we found out my son's house might be on fire. That is it. You know, I can, in my.
This is just driving me crazy. My thought when I'm hearing him talk is his brain is saying, I'm trying to find a way to relate to the people there. Right. So my son has a house here. I know what people are going through. We feel your pain. We're here with you. We're going to help you pick up. We're going to help you rebuild. We're going to our first our first mission is to protect.
the health and safety of the people that are here we want to make sure we preserve life i mean that's what a typical governor president mayor that's your first thought right so when i heard him first say about his son's house i thought okay that's where he's going, right? But in typical Bumbling Joe fashion, he's going to bumble his way there. Nope. Nope. Nope.
In Dementia Joe fashion, he immediately starts going off about his, oh, but there's good news today. I'm a great-grandfather. You know, I have a grandson, a granddaughter, a grandson, a granddaughter. He has no idea. It was just so cringeworthy. All right, let's go to the phones. We'll start with Dawn. Good morning, Dawn. Are you there, Dawn?
Don is not there. Okay, so we're going to go to Jim. Good morning, Jim. Yes, good morning. Of course, California is known as the land of milk and honey, and Hawaii is a paradise. And they do attract a lot of immature people to live there. And California is so close to Hawaii, you'd think they'd be a little less complacent.
And for years, I've noticed that immature people are naturally complacent. And then you'll see that in a teenager. I mean, I was a teenager, and I'm laughing at it, but the seriousness of this. problem they have in California. You can see how the land, configuration of land, you've got a problem. You can have a problem really seriously. Now they are facing the same thing as people in Hawaii did. I hope they have money because they don't need it.
It's unbelievable. I'm looking right now. I'm on the New York Post website, and they have drone footage showing a stretch of L.A., and it is just row after row after row of neighborhoods. absolutely charred and burned to the ground. I mean, it is... Unbelievable, but now we're hearing reports of fire hydrants that have been stolen. We're hearing reports of fire hydrants that have run dry. They didn't secure enough water.
frankly, through infrastructure projects to actually deal with the fires that they had. And apparently this wasn't a one-off. This wasn't like a surprise. I mean, this has been talked about is their water supply and the... redundancy, and they didn't get it done. Instead, we're prioritizing DEI. We're prioritizing funding illegal immigrants and getting all these ridiculous liberal policies in place.
You have a city that people are stealing fire hydrants. You know you have a crime problem. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be a savant to figure this one out. Like, it's pretty obvious. So, you know. Great call, Jim. Thank you so much for the call this morning. All right, let's go to Ken. Good morning, Ken. Hey, you know, this is tragic. I live down there, and when we put a house in, the fire marshal and I became pretty good friends.
And he was dismayed by how many people did not take the requirements for firewise safety and everything that they do seriously. And when you watch the footage of those neighborhoods exploding, you can see they're just crammed with trees and bushes. And I'm not disparaging these poor folks who lost everything. It's just I'm just saying, look, I'm trying to relate to the hillside right now. Anchorage is the same way.
That thing is going to blow up one of these days. There's nothing the fire department can do to help you if you don't clear that stuff off now. Yeah. Exactly. Look, it helps me being married to a fireman because, you know, near our cabin and stuff, you know, we have cleared out trees. And I don't think we've been as aggressive, frankly, as we should have. But, you know, we've had lots of discussions about, you know, what do we do if this happens?
and you know so we have been very conscientious about you know around our house we probably still have some more to do but but you're to your point look i mean if you have trees right up to the edge of your house i i went on a fire call when i worked for the city um after the the fire had you know been put out uh i went up and i looked at because we were specifically talking about
It was on the hillside. We're specifically talking about fire mitigation and whatnot. And so we went up there, and a few of us took a look around. And I'm not kidding. These bushes were like...
Right up to the edge of the house. I mean, I'm surprised he was no If you watch the footage, you'll see the bushes catching fire, and you'll start to see the attic vents start to smoke off because that heat is going up in the attic, and then once it reaches 451 degrees, the entire house explodes in a ball of fire. Wow.
Yeah, it was unbelievable to me. It was a great stop by the Anchorage Fire Department, honestly. And that was one of the fires where we had a bit of wind and they had a whole, like, aerial operation going on. And it was one of the fires where they were afraid, like, the whole hillside could go. And it was a great stop, but here we had, you know, a couple of miles away, you know, half a mile away, all of a sudden you're having spot fires pop up because the embers are flying around. And, you know.
i gotta you know the paradise fire in california my stepmom's that's where she grew up and uh her family home was burned to the ground you know and it was like people were reporting with that fire it was almost like the wind was extensive and as it was like fire tornadoes coming out like it was just everywhere and I can't imagine living through something like that I saw the fires north of Willow not too you know a few years ago I drove through up there
Because, yeah, I have a cabin, obviously, up there. But it was intimidating. You know, when you're driving down the road and you've got trees that are cresting 70 feet of fire and you're like, I mean, you're just looking at these flames. I mean, it was intimidating. Yeah, we evacuated friends from there, and as I drove through the neighborhood, I was outraged because it's a crisis because they didn't want to say what we just talked about.
And then the tragedy comes, and yes, I'm going to admonish people. You've got to go do this. If you're out in Willow right now, you've got to wait with it because when I went through there and helped evacuate them, they got called in a rage, can you help us get our stuff? We all fly out there.
and go grab all their junk and trailers and everything. And as I'm driving by everyone's homes, they, up to that point, didn't give a rip about clearing out the brush, didn't clear it to the trees, no firewise considerations at all. And I'm just going to ask, I hate regulations, but sometimes people have common sense. How much do you have to sit there and go, oh, man, poor you? I don't know.
Look, look, I got to tell you, when this happened, when the fire was up in Willow, I was at my cabin sleeping in the recliner, tending our hoses, our generators, and our pumps, right? Throw the pump in the lake. I mean, because you only... your your your sprinklers are only going to work as long as your generator has fuel and as long as you have or if you have electricity right so you know it was it was intimidating you know but I was there you know
doing the best I could with what I had. You know, I didn't stay the whole time. You know, there was a time when the troopers came through and told everybody to get out, and I sort of kind of listened.
entirely but um but but the point was you know we were prepared we had all the stuff at the house already it just all needed to be set up and then you give your you give your cabin the best chance it can have or your house the best chance it can have so to your point people really need to think ahead and and be fire wise especially here in Alaska I mean we should this we've gone through this what they've gone through it's just this is a massive urban area so the the I'm like I said I'm expecting
the death toll to be much higher than the two that have been reported i don't know if they've updated the number since yesterday but um You know, it's just it's really a sad situation. So, of course, you know, I think there needs to be support and whatnot for the people in California. But this should be a very big lesson learned for not just people of California, but everybody.
in the country that you have to plan for these emergencies and you actually have to prepare for them. All right, we're going to go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we'll continue with your phone calls. Now back to the boss, Amy Demboski. Call 907-522-0650 and be a part of the show on News Radio 650. KENI. All righty, we're going to go straight to the phones. And John is with us. Good morning, sir.
Good morning, John. Can you hear me? All right, we're going to go ahead. There you are, John. I hear you. Go ahead, John. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. Okay, good morning. Yeah. Happy New Year to start it off. But anyways, I listened to that little audio clip of Biden, bumbling Biden. Yeah. And what really... really struck me was that after he announced that he's got a great grandchild he said it's a day to remember for all the wrong reasons or something like that yeah
I got to tell you, John, did you cringe at that clip as much as I did? It was, ooh. Oh, terrible. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this is a day to remember for all the wrong reasons. I mean, the whole audio clip was cringeworthy to me. You know, Gavin Newsom sounded fine, but Joe Biden sounded terrible. Yeah. John, thank you so much for your call. I appreciate you. All right, let's go to Lady. Good morning, Lady.
Well, good morning. How are you? I am great. Happy New Year. Yeah, back at you. Hey, honey, this isn't what I originally called in about, but to start it out... I've got this thing I want to put out there. It's going to be silly for a lot of folk. But I lived camp life for like 13 years. And I had an outhouse in Woodstove.
We might be living in the age of electricity and stuff, but the way that things are being going stupid, after we get on breakout, maybe people might want to go out there and dig themselves a nice little outhouse. Not a bad idea. Look. We have to be, you know, I think about this a lot. You know, we've had a lot of talk about energy and what do you do in Alaska if the power goes out? Look, you have to have redundancy. You have to think about these things. What do we do if we have a major event?
and our supply chain gets interrupted. What do we do? I mean, to your point, we have to make sure we're self-reliant. Yeah. You know, we've got to be prepared. We've got to be thinking ahead, you know. There's a lot of time on the radio that we've talked about these spruce trees with all this spruce beetle kill. And this has been going on a while. The Miller Reach Fire.
all over, burning out all the homesteaders. And it's like, why doesn't the governor or somebody get like some of these prisoners that are Alaska-hardy? that are trustees, that know how to do a chainsaw. And maybe they can, like, have some coin waiting for them when they get out. And in the meantime, maybe they could be working off some of their jail time.
Yeah, I think work programs are a good idea. I think there is a segment of the prison population that are appropriate for different types of work programs, and I know there are some types of work programs out there, but... I know the governor also, when I worked in the governor's office and at Commerce, too, I know they were in discussions with different people, different contractors to come in and potentially. I don't know where that went. I don't know if that got any traction.
But your idea of, you know, work programs, I think, is something that should be explored. I think a more robust effort at mitigating some of the spruce bark beetle kill is probably a good idea. The challenge with... That is when we go to a contractor, can they make it a viable product that's worth going in and getting the product? I know there's been a lot of discussion out here in the Matt Subaru about it, but I'm just not up to date on it.
Maybe somebody else knows. They can call and tell us. 522-0650. We're going to go ahead and take a quick break. We'll be right back. The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650, Katie and I. Welcome back to live, local, and... insightful morning drive radio on news radio 650 ken i welcome back to hour two of the amy doboski show broadcasting live and local every weekday morning daryl and i
Daryl has Anchorage covered. I have the Mat-Su covered. But together, through technology, we feel like we're in the same room. Oh, yeah, absolutely. By the way, lovely outfit today. Thank you very much. I have my checker going on. It's like it reminds me of a picnic tablecloth.
Not really. Ours were always a lot more brighter. I just thought it was a very nice state and, you know, for the funerals going on, it looked very comfortable. I'm all in black. I dressed all in black for the funerals today, so. You know, I got to tell you, I'm generally like Johnny Cash.
Anybody who knows me, I generally wear black on black on black. But today my shirt is black and white checkered. So there you have it. So that's why I feel like a tabber cloth. But I am here. Daryl and I are here every weekday morning from 6 to 8 a.m. You can hear us live on the radio. If you just turn your radio dial to 650 AM, or if you'd like to stream, there's many ways you can stream the show. You can go to our website, 650keni.iheart.com.
Or you can download the iHeartMedia app, either at the website or on the app. You can find us live and stream us. But you can also find the podcast. And you can find us on Spotify, the Amazon app. There's all kinds of places you can find us.
And I am so grateful to all the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people that listen to the show every day. So thank you so much. We appreciate being able to bring local content to you. We also obviously talk about national and state news. But to me, it's important to be able to.
have a community voice. And that's what the point of the show is. It's to be interactive and to talk about things that we care about and that will impact our lives. So we try to do that every weekday morning from 6 to 8 a.m. If you'd like to call in, be part of the conversation. The number is 522-067. And I just want to give an update because as we were going into the top of the hour, we were talking about, Lady brought up a really great point about.
not just fire mitigation, but the spruce bark beetle kill issue. And I had remembered the governor really talking about this issue, and there was different efforts being made to... Come up with partnerships and ways to mitigate some of those dead trees because we're talking probably hundreds of thousands. I don't even know. There's a lot. But a friend of mine who is in the know.
sent me an update and said, you know, the fire mitigation for the screw spark beetle kill is happening in Alaska, and it has been funded for future clearing part of the supplement. supplemental budget last year so you know legislators the governor is all over it so that's good to know that is good no another thing i forgot to mention myself is that because of the funeral today um president biden had made this a national day of
on the 30th December. Federal offices, most of them are closed today. I do believe banks will still be open, but federal offices are closed. There was something else that was closed. The U.S. Postal Service. Postal Service is closed. Federal courts and Supreme Court. And NASDAQ is closed. Stock market is closed also. Yes, the stock exchange. So just wait, if you had any of those things, especially the post office in your to-do list today.
Not happening. Yeah. Not happening. Not happening. So it's that. There you go. That is a very good reminder for you, Daryl. You know, I have to go back to John's phone call. And, you know, John heard the same thing that like. All of us heard, I think, when we heard that Biden audio clip that we played in the earlier segments. You know, when you go to a place that has been absolutely decimated by a natural disaster.
I don't care what has happened in your family. I don't care if you just won the megabucks. I don't care if your daughter just had triplets. Your really focus is supposed to be on the victims and the people that have been devastated. It's nice that nice things have happened in your family.
But that entire audio clip, especially the last part of it that John pointed out to us, like, it was just so cringeworthy, Gerald. Oh, yeah. It was so cringeworthy. But, you know, here we go. I mean, I think it really does show.
Honestly, I think it shows Joe Biden's cognitive decline. It shows that his comments were out of place. He was kind of just... there but oh it was it was so painful it was so painful but in typical liberal fashion switching gears a little bit about these fires you know when we talk about the lack of funding
for the L.A. Fire Department, when we talk about the nearly $20 million that was cut out of their budget this year, when we talk about all the fire hydrants that have been stolen in this area, when we talk about the...
lack of adequate water supply and infrastructure to supply waters to be able to battle these types of wildfires that California clearly knew about and just didn't prioritize. When we talk about all these policy decisions, And, you know, the lack of mitigation that had happened that has obviously left the fuel there to fuel this fire. When we talk about all of these policy decisions, because mind you, choosing not to address it is a policy decision. Ignoring something is a policy decision.
When we talk about the combination of all these events, you can say, yeah, I mean, it was like a ticking time bomb, right? Not surprising that this has been this devastating. And what's so devastating... In addition to this happening, whether it happened in a rural region that lost 10 houses or an urban region that loses 20,000 houses, it's equally devastating for the families that lose their homes or their loved ones.
But of course, do you know who the liberals are blaming for the California wildfires? Well, of course they're going to blame the great and grand Donald. It's Trump's fault. It's Trump's fault. I can't even make this up, y'all. I cannot make this up. Uh-oh, this other name is coming out.
My dad's family is from Kentucky. It used to drive my mother crazy because I would spend my summers in Kentucky when I was a child, and I'd come back, and it would take me three months to lose an accent. I didn't even realize I picked it up, but it would drive my mother crazy. So every now and then. And when I'm around my Kentucky family, it just comes right back out again. I can't even help it. But liberals are blaming the California wildfires on, you guessed it, Trump.
According to this Daily Caller article, when things go wrong and you're a liberal, your first instinct is to find a Republican, any Republican, but usually Donald Trump, and point a figure at them. It's your fault because I hate you.
That is exactly what some liberals appear to be doing in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. The Bulwark's managing editor, Sam Stein, appear to blame trump for the fires claiming that he quote threatened publicly to cut wildfire aid to the state end quote
When you start, I'm not even kidding. His post goes on to say, the swift devastation of the Palisades fire is horrible. And then it dawns on you that Trump, set to take office in 13 days, has threatened publicly to cut wildfire aid to the state. Okay, how could this be Trump's fault when Trump's not even the president right now?
I mean, I can't even with these people. Trump only threatened to pump the brakes on the FEMA money if California officials continue to act grossly incompetent with regard to fire prevention. Quote, here we go. This is from Quote. He said this in 2019, okay? So Quote says, billions of dollars are sent to California for forest fires that with proper forest management would never happen unless they get their act together.
ordered fema to send no more money so trump is telling them use the fire mitigation money we're giving you for what fire mitigation right i mean right like okay The unfiltered Amy would have some words to say right now. Come on, this stuff isn't hard. Like, if FEMA is sending you money, and FEMA does this for different type of disaster preparedness things, not just in response, but for disaster preparedness things.
If you're not spending your money for those things that are outlined in your grant, in your allocation of money from the federal government, It is a misuse of funds, and you should not get those funds. Ladies and gentlemen, here's an easy one for this. You send your kid to school with $10 for lunch, and he doesn't buy lunch every single day. Instead, he buys comic books, cigarettes, whatever.
Are you going to keep giving him $10 a day for lunch? Are you going to say, no, you're not eating it? Fine, you're cut off. Exactly, exactly. Trump made similar remarks on the campaign trail in 2024, but that is entirely beside the point. Liberals like Stein.
would rather dwell on Trump's passing digs, according to this Daily Caller article. And Trump says a lot of things and makes a lot of threats, frankly, that, you know, it's meant to get their attention. But here's the thing. There has to be consequences for the people that you elect. If you elect people that constantly misappropriate money, abuse money, don't prioritize, and frankly flaunt federal law,
Yes, I am all in favor for stopping federal funds to go to those communities and those governments until such time they choose to follow the law. Period. Whether we're talking about illegal immigration, whether we're talking about housing offenders, like, you know, let's see. Illegals that commit multiple property crimes, multiple violent crimes, and they refuse to cooperate with ICE to let them know, hey, we just let this foreigner that has...
you know, done this, this, and this crime out back on the street. You know what? I got to tell you, there has to be consequences for their actions. At the end of the day, the people have to rise up and put people in place that are going to follow the law. And if you're refusing... to follow the law or you're misappropriating funds, yes, I do believe you probably shouldn't get any more until you get your act cleaned up. So if people are triggered by that, too bad.
I mean, the reality of the situation is this is not a surprise to California. California knew their fire hydrants were being stolen. California knew that the fire department's budget was cut and that the resources were allocated to other programs. were prioritized by their elected officials. Period. That's what happened. California knew that they didn't have adequate water supply. Clearly, because this has been talked about as far as capital improvement projects for the last decade.
So, again, if your elected officials are not prioritizing essential services and essential programs, at some point it comes back on the people who voted for them. Now, am I blaming the people who live in California for these fires? No, I am not. They have to be mindful and watch over the shoulder of the elected officials to ensure that basic priorities are met.
At the end of the day, if elected officials aren't prioritizing public safety, a national disaster, a natural disaster like this is going to happen. And it's just unfortunate. You know, we can't predict when these things are going to happen, but they are certainly going to happen, just like Alaska is going to get hit with another earthquake. Will it happen in my lifetime? I don't know. but you know what are we prepared for it we should be we should be
We should be talking about food security. We should be talking about emergency management. We should be talking about natural gas, heating your homes like Lady was, redundant sources of energy. We should be talking about those things, and we should be planning for them, and those plans not only should be written down on paper, but they should be implemented. Because you don't know when these disasters are going to happen, but they're going to happen.
Whether it is a tornado in different parts of the country, a hurricane, a fire, an earthquake, they're all going to happen. So you have to plan for it. And this day and age that we live in, We should probably prepare for a nuclear bomb to go off somewhere in the U.S. Whether it's a nuclear missile. I mean, look.
You should be looking into, what do I do if a nuclear attack happens? Now, am I saying it's going to happen in our lifetime? No. But when you have crazy people, like North Korea, Iran that are very very close to being nuclear armed if they are not already very very close to it and they have expressly said
They want to, you know, death to America, like in Iran. Like, you have to look at it and say, look, we live in a very dangerous time, and we have to be prepared for natural disasters, but we also have to be prepared for man-made ones. which potentially could be anything. What do you do if an EMP hits? I mean, these are all things that we should be thinking about. So, again, I just look at this, and, of course, where do the liberals always go? It's Donald Trump's fault.
It's Donald Trump's fault. That's where they're going to go, because they're insane. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to live, local, and always insightful Morning Drive Radio with Amy Demboski on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Get on the show now by calling 907-522-0650. Welcome back. Current time, 722.
You know, Daryl, one of the things we were talking about yesterday, and I wanted to follow back up, and I just didn't. This happens to me a lot where I'm like, I want to talk about this, and then I get on a rant or a roll, and I forget. But as we were talking yesterday, a lot of people, including my dad, specifically my dad, he wants to know where to go where he can actually track.
Nick Begich III, Lisa Murkowski, and dan sullivan's votes he wants to know how our delegation is voting and i that's a great question and i knew yesterday you gave us a couple great sites and you said you'd look them up and you gave them to me off air and i forgot to say sam so i want to plug them so one of them is government track dot us gov track dot us gov track dot us was one the other was clerk house dot gov
Forward slash votes. Now, the clerk.house.gov one is specifically for Nick Baggage. Well, I shouldn't say specifically Nick Baggage. It's specifically for congressmen. It's got all your 438 congressmen in there. Nick, you can pull up or whoever our congressman is.
For the Senate side, you can actually go to the same thing in the government one, but there's a Senate section. And so you can pull it up to find out how our senators voted. The other one, the .gov one, the first one that you put out there, is literally a beautiful one. That's actually like usually the...
first one I go to because it's not as confusing. The one for the clerk of the house gets a little bit confusing. They go into the weeds on a lot of the stuff and you kind of have to, you get the complete picture. You'll have the entire core. Exactly. You get the complete picture. So if you really want to go in depth, that's the one you go to.
But if you want just a general overview, go to the first one that I gave you there. It is the one that literally lets you just type in your senator or your congressman's name or just your state, and it'll give you directions and how they're voting on everything. GovTrack.us. That's it. That's the easiest one to go to. Well, speaking of our delegation, Congressman Begich has signed on as a co-sponsor to a firearm state reciprocity bill. Yes. Yes.
I think this makes sense. If you have a concealed carry permit, I think you should be able to carry in all 50 states. Any state that allows concealed carry, I think you should be able to carry in. Congressman Nick Begich, according to Mustard, Alaska, the third has signed. Signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 38, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. In Alaska, Begich said, firearms are fundamentally a way of life. Here's a quote.
fade away as you cross an imaginary line. That's why I'm proud to be an original co-sponsor of HR 38, and I encourage my colleagues in the House to support this important piece of legislation, end quote. Hey, Alaska NRA!
Do you regret your choice yet? Probably not. They knew he was going to do this. They knew he was going to do this anyway. Like, let's be honest, with or without their support, you know. Look, I've got to be honest with you. Fantastic. Congressman Hudson of North Carolina led over 120. of his colleagues in introducing HR 38, the legislation provides national
reciprocity for concealed carry license holders and for residents of constitutional carry states. Hudson introduced the bill in previous years. It did actually pass the House in 2017, but it was never taken up in the Senate shocker shocker so this is good I'm excited about this one another one that I'm I'm I'm looking forward to is you know there's a couple different
legislators that are talking about introducing bills, or Representative Rick Scott, I think, is introducing a bill to end daylight saving time, or Senator Rick Scott, I should say. And daylight savings times. That was another one I saw this morning. I know I saw it this morning. I want to know something. If we've been saving this daylight for, what, almost 100 and some years, how come we can't withdraw any of it? I want to withdraw all of this daylight. I want X.
Well, Alaska, we do get a little bit extra in the summertime, but... Uh-oh. There we go. No worries, Amy. No worries. We got this covered. You know, daylight savings time was one of those things that was put in to save energy. Way too long ago. We don't need it anymore. Particularly up here, it gets irritating that we have to swap it. And then certain states in the lower 48 don't necessarily do it. Like, oh, let's say Arizona. So it makes it a lot of fun to figure out how far you are.
away from the different people you know I'm two hours up this time and then you call your let's say brother and oh wait it's only an hour difference so now I'm early so yeah I hear you. Look, I'm all about ending Daylight Savings Time. You know, I just, I don't know. It's not something that I'm, like, super passionate about. Like, if it doesn't happen, I'm not going to die or anything. But I'm totally pro. Let's just get rid of it. Let's just scrap it.
How about we do Moonlight Savings Time? No? Okay. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Well, it was another... It was another eventful day in Anchorage yesterday, switching gears just a little bit, coming back to Anchorage. According to an article from the ADN, Anchorage police fire on man as he shoots homeowner in Government Hill. Good on you, APD. APD say two officers shot a man as he opened fire on a homeowner at a duplex in Government Hill.
Early yesterday morning, both the shooting suspect and the homeowner survived and are hospitalized. The shooting is the second involved. A police officer involved shooting in less than 24 hours in Anchorage. On Tuesday, obviously, AFD, or APD, rather, shot and wounded a man who was involved in a robbery in Midtown. But you know, it sounds crazy. It says the initial calls came from a man and a woman in the home.
but in homes but in different locations, reporting gunfire. The officers who arrived at the scene provided a description, who were provided a description of the suspect, Solomon, ended up, when he came outside, The man was armed. And at some point they engaged the suspect. Here's a quote from Chief Case. The suspect then appeared in front of the house as well and fired at the victim, striking him multiple times as that was happening.
officers immediately responded and fired rounds at the suspect, striking the suspect multiple times. So, yeah, I'm just going to give out life advice from Amy. Here, I should have like theme music for this, Daryl. You didn't have any ready. This is life advice from Amy. If you shoot somebody in front of APD, more than likely they're going to shoot you back. I mean...
Let's just throw it out there. That's probably going to happen. Yeah, I'd say so. And rightfully so. So good on APD for neutralizing the threat. And I hope the victim in this case survives and is okay. Obviously, he's in the hospital now. Don't really care what happens to the perp.
you know whatever you know we're hoping that the the victim is okay um but you know you one thing people don't talk about these APD officers or troopers, law enforcement in general, when they have to engage in these situations and they have to make that split-second decision to save somebody's life by taking the life of another. I'm sure it's traumatic for them. I'm sure it's something that they carry with them.
But as a citizen of this state, I am thankful that law enforcement officers are willing to put themselves in the position at the time and live with it for the rest of their lives. So thank you to those APD officers who responded in that situation. It's always just unfortunate because, you know, again, somebody made a bad decision, and because of that, multiple lives will be impacted. So, again, there's our second officer-involved shooting in Anchorage. But what it tells me is...
In both of these situations, APD has men and women that are willing to protect the community and doing so in such a great fashion. So thank you. All right, we're going to go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we will continue with the headlines. give you an update on this la fire stay with us amy demboski six to eight mornings on news radio 650 kd and i call now 907-522-0650 Welcome back. Current time 737 on this Thursday morning. We have made it to 2025.
On the 20th of this month, we will have a new president in time. It cannot come fast enough, Daryl. 10 days, 12 hours, 21 minutes and 58 seconds. There's my ticker. Bring it on January 20th. I'm ready for 47 and takeover. You know, I got to tell you, this whole... This whole Biden thing, you know, now I'm laughing, Daryl, because we played the audio clip a little bit earlier.
of Joe Biden when he goes to California and he's with Gavin Newsom. And we weren't really seeing. Yesterday, a lot of the media clipped out that part. Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't see it anywhere. They clipped it out. I had heard he made, you know, some sort of, like, inappropriate comment. But I was like, okay, what did he say? And Daryl found it. And we played it earlier in the show, so if you missed it, you're going to go on and go back and listen. It was so cringeworthy.
But now there's a couple places that are public. picking up that that article so now the daily color just a few minutes ago posted an article biden drops joyous personal news as deadly wildfires rage down the street and that's specifically referring to You know, the audio clip that we played earlier. But I look at it and I think, there's no words. There's just no words. It's not often that I'm speechless. I can't even with this guy. It's unbelievable to me.
Well, and the cover-ups by the press is part of what also gets me. So yesterday, what triggered me on this or got me on this was is I'd watched part of that news conference and... They'd clipped it. Like I said, I'm like, what'd he say after that? What was going on after that? And then I found another part of the news conference.
But again, it was clipped before. I'm like going, what is going on here? So I hunted down and like I said, bad audio, but I found it and then I'm like, oh, now I know why. Yeah, Daryl wakes me up with this audio clip this morning. Actually, I was already awake. But that was one of the first things I listened to this morning, and I was like, oh, it's so cringeworthy. But let's give you a quick update on California fires. Right now this update is coming from NBC.
Fierce wildfires burning out of control in the greater Los Angeles area have killed at least five people now and forced 100,000 people from their homes. At least five fires are burning, covering more than 45 square miles, sparked by dry conditions. and powerful winds causing unprecedented scenes in areas not known for fires. The Palisades Fire has burned through more than 17,234 acres, almost 27 square miles. structures and is entirely
Uncontained, making it the most destructive fire in L.A. history. The latest blaze, the Sunset Fire, started shortly before 6 p.m. in the Hollywood Hills and has grown to 60 acres while threatening iconic land. More than 350,000 energy customers are without power as of early today, including 200,000 in L.A. County.
which is the most populous county in the country. The intense Santa Ana winds have eased compared to the past two days, but wind gusts are still forecasted to be 40 to 50 mph today and 50 to 70 mph. miles per hour tonight and tomorrow morning. Clearly this is still a very, very intense situation in California and I suspect it will be
It's going to be just incredibly devastating. I'm glad to see the loss of life isn't higher, but it's such an urban area, I can't imagine that the number won't grow. You know, Suzanne just popped an article up. And I'm not going to read the whole article to you, but she makes some excellent points about this. We were talking in the last segment about priorities, right? And the reality is you have to plan for emergencies, even though it may not be the most sexy legislation that you carry or...
the most titillating headline that there will be. You have to plan for emergencies, whether it's earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, whatever it is, whatever your region potentially could be impacted by. You've got to plan for it. In this day and age, you have to plan for an EMP. You have to plan for the potential of terrorist attacks. These are just the reality of the worlds we live in. And to Suzanne's point,
You know, the headline is how it started. How's it going? In November, Gavin Newsom called a special session to Trump-proof California. That's where his priority was, seeking $25 million to fight the Trump administration. Remember the headlines. It was sexy, right? The headlines are out there because, look, we all know Gavin Newsom wants to run for governor in 2028.
Yeah, president. I mean, yeah. Governor Newsom wants to run for president in 2028. We all know this, right? So now he's going to become the ceremonial, I'm showing all the libs, all the lefties. I want to be, you know, their little. their little messiah, their little one that's taking the fight to Trump, right? Maybe instead of trying to Trump-proof California, maybe you should have been trying to fireproof California.
Maybe you should have been focused before calling a special session to fight Trump. Now who is it you're going to need the help from in 10 days' time? It's going to be Trump. Not only that. Go ahead. Sorry. I was going to say Trump will help him because I don't think he is the retribution type when it comes to the citizens. I think, look, people need help no matter what side of the political aisle they're on, and it's appropriate.
for the federal government to help during national disasters but the reality is this is how short-sighted Gavin Newsom is Because, you know, a month and a half ago, he was trying to fight Trump and California-proof Trump. But now he's going to need Trump's help. So, I mean, how's that going to work out for you? Maybe you should have focused on what your local needs were. than politicizing
the allocation of funding from California, because that's really what he did. Well, this is a whole giant thing you've got going on here, because so you had Gavin Newsom doing that right after the election. OK, but even worse or along the same lines, you've got Congress, all the Democrats.
finding ways and biden finding ways we're gonna block trump's agenda we're doing everything everybody is doing everything they can to block our next president and what he's going to do that is not how politics and how our countries are supposed to work that would be like saying you know
My wife's taking over the finances next month. I'm going to change all the bank accounts. I'm going to spend all the money. I'm going to do all this. Why? So my wife fails. Exactly. This is like the Clinton administration taking all the W's off the keyboards. But worse. it's like on steroids right so it wasn't you know Newsom has made himself the martyr to battle Trump
Rather than doing his job as governor of the state of California and preparing for natural disasters, this, again, is not a surprise to people that California has wildfires. Like, again. It's not that long ago they had a really bad one in Paradise. It happens in California. And that's why California has been under scrutiny about their lack of wildfire mitigation and misuse of funds related to wildfire mitigation. Again.
I can't even. I can't even. All right. We're going to go ahead and take a quick break because we're hitting the 45, and then we'll come back, and I'll go straight to the calls because we have a couple callers that are in queue. So we will go straight to the phones when we come back. Stay with us. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on NewsRadio 650 KENI.
Good morning, if you're just waking up. It's going to be a great Thursday. Just a few days from now. Ten days, I don't know how many hours, but Daryl has it down to a science here. President Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. It is 10 days, 12 hours, 11 minutes, and 4 seconds.
Bring on 47. All right. We've been talking a lot about policy today and prioritization and the devastation that is happening in California right now. And somehow some liberals think it's Trump's fault. He's not. The president. So I think I think it's not Trump's fault, but that's just me. Maybe I'm a little biased. Let's go to the phones. And Deborah is with us. Good morning, Deborah. Hello.
Happy New Year. Hello, my friend. Hey, I hear that you have a connection to California. Yeah, my son, he's there. He's coming home today. And then his roommates may be... coming and living with me until whenever. The last time he came back, it was COVID, and he was kind of locked in his home, you know, and locked down in his home. And so he came back for... I think nine months. And it has to do with policy. And all I care about is my kid. And I read Suzanne's article and I was just...
made my blood boil, that we're talking life and safety. And they're blaming... So I haven't been online today, but they're blaming Trump. I remember Trump with Gavin Newsom after a fire. So I don't know what the plan was after that. Here we are, and my son's escaping L.A. again. Yeah, it's pretty outrageous.
It's crazy to me. You know, I didn't realize to what level. You know, I hadn't heard about the fire hydrants in L.A., but now that the story is coming out, I mean, these local officials were woefully underprepared. I mean.
clearly i mean if you know people are going around your city stealing fire hydrants where is your local council immediately coming in with swift legal repercussions for that happening that's like that's like somebody's stealing the tires off police cars i mean it's like an essential public safety item or somebody going and you know steal is stealing equipment off of fire trucks like if you know this is a trend that is becoming a reality in
your local community local officials have a responsibility to act but the reality is is left coast liberals what do they do they're soft on crime you know it took the people of california to push back on their soft on crime legislation to stop the bleeding when it came to retail stores and theft and all these things. Again, weak policy, and you're going to have absolute chaos in your community.
You have to not only have the policy, you have to enforce it. But when you look at California right now, I can't even imagine what the community members that live there are going through, the sheer terror they must feel. I'm seeing these parents. And it's just utter devastation in L.A. So for two days, I've been just getting, dealing with my son and his roommates and just kind of settling down.
And Newsom's policies could have killed my kid. It's terrible. I'm kind of like, F off. That's where I'm at now. Yeah, this is basic policy. I'm a mom. This is mom talking. F you. Yeah. I have to tell you, Debra, you know, I know exactly how you feel. I mean, it is a scary prospect to go through, and it is not, you know, as we look at this, and this is why I say the most important thing that any elected official...
can deal with is public safety and basic infrastructure. Basic infrastructure is public safety. I used to say this when I was first running for the assembly because I got really involved in AWWU issues. Water is life safety, right? Whether we're talking about building reservoirs in Eagle River, which AWWU has done. to ensure redundancy in the water supply in case there is a wildfire, or whether we're talking about ensuring there's fire hydrants on corners.
This is basic, basic stuff. And if your local officials don't deal with basic infrastructure stuff, you know that's a major failure and if the governor of the state recognizing that there's major infrastructure issues relating to water and they've been talking about this for a long time but they never did anything instead they put 25
million dollars towards fighting trump and calls us you know this is not acceptable because bad things are going to happen and you have to be prepared for them and clearly they were not So, you know, it's just shameful when we see this. It's absolutely shameful. Deborah, thank you so much for calling this morning, and I will be right there. If you need anything from me, we're friends. Just let me know.
But I'm hoping that your son and his friends get out quickly and they're able to come home and let, you know, the dust settle. And hopefully he'll be on to his next adventure. All right, let's go back to the phones. And John is with us. Good morning, John. Oh, good morning. I was just talking to Daryl. He shipped me over before. I can't feel a fire hydrant.
That's what I was trying to say earlier. Like, how do you do that? I used to put those in. I ran pipe and water line and stuff. They're hooked up to the water. You can't take it apart because... water will come out. I said the same thing, John. I know, John, some fire hydrants are charged and some are not, and I don't know the difference between the mechanism that makes the water flow in a dry one.
I don't know, but I've seen them in the lay-down yard. They're big. I mean, they're not small. If you know where the cutoff is, yes, you can go turn them off. So that's pretty much an inside job there. And then you've got to have big equipment to dig one up.
That's what I thought. I was like, it's not, because it's like a whole thing. I used to, when I was young, I worked at Western Utilities and we sold these kind of things. And so I remember seeing them in the lay down log. Like I was trying to figure out how do you steal fire hydrants?
And obviously, it's been prevalent enough that it's been reported in the news. Like, wouldn't you think local officials would say, hey, something's going on. We should do something about this. This whole stealing fire hydrants thing has me baffled. Well, yeah. If you go cut the water off upstream, which there are valves that do that, you might get kind of the top that's sticking out of the ground.
But those things go way down in the ground and hook up to the main. I don't know what it is. It sounds like a fake story to me. I don't know. It's being reported all over the place. So I don't know. But we will continue to watch it because something isn't adding up. I think you're absolutely right, John. I appreciate your call. See, Daryl, I told you I'm so baffled by how you steal a fire hydrant. I don't even know. I didn't know it was a thing, but there you go.
Well, that does it for our show for today. We appreciate everybody calling in very much. We want to thank everybody for listening. Again, on deck, don't go anywhere because you'll get some great news. It is becoming entertaining on the national. level when it comes to what's going on in Congress. So we will continue to monitor that as the days and weeks come forward.
Stay tuned on this channel. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton are on deck, followed by Sean Hannity at 11. And, of course, the great Mike Piccaro and Crash. are on live and local from 4 to 6 right here on this radio station. Daryl and I will be back with you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Until then, stay safe. God bless.