John Ziegler's California Chronicles & Diana Furchtgott-Roth's Electrifying Insights: Navigating Policy Pitfalls and EV Mandates
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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web. With a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam is out of town on a job project. Today, we start with John Ziegler. He is a fantastic...

reporter, columnist, political commentator. He also hosts the podcast Death of Journalism, which I highly recommend everybody subscribe to. Mr. Ziegler, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, Chuck. So let's first talk about, on Monday was enacted in California a $20 minimum wage for

Fast food. I was actually, it was funny the week before on a project, I was talking to a young couple who had opened a franchise in California and about a year ago, and they were at wit's end. Just, they just weren't sure they were going to be able to survive. What are you hearing from small businesses out there? And is this something that,

free market conservatives are just overreacting to, or is this really going to pay a price for people, school cafeterias at public schools, because now everybody has to compete with the $20 wage? Okay.

Well, my question about it is why stop at 20? I mean, if we're looking for a living wage, why don't we do 35 or 50 or 100? I mean, think about how awesome life would be if we could live in a world where fast food workers were making $100 an hour. I really don't understand why stop at 20. It sounds kind of cruel, actually, because in most of California, $20 is not a living wage per hour.

of course i'm being facetious but it shows the absurdity of the entire concept it goes against everything that we know about basic economics everybody knows that when you do this year gonna cause at least two things to happen you're gonna cause prices to increase and employment levels to go down

and that's exactly what's going to happen here we've already seen some signs of it with regard to price increases prices are already insanely high after the cove at panic and so uh... i think i just think the part about this situation bothers me the most here in california and as a guy who hosts a a podcast about journalism when the inevitable actually does happen

the media here which is just completely broken i mean the california media is more broken than even the national media is which is really horrendous to begin with but when this occurs they'll either just ignore it or they'll be mystified as to why it happened and they'll blame corporate greed and and at that point i think eventually i don't know how long it's gonna take i think eventually and this is the really dangerous part if people like gavin newsom in the california communists

We'll look at this and go, okay, well, clearly the free market doesn't work, so now we have to step in and dictate prices and employment levels, which, of course, then you have Marxism. And so that's where we're headed with this, and that's why it's important to everybody, not just people in California. John, how long have you lived in California?

Amazingly, I've lived here almost, actually just more than 20 years now. I just passed the 20-year mark, which is remarkable to me because I never dreamed I would live in California. Now I've lived in California longer than I've lived anyplace else in the country. I've lived almost everywhere in the country. I've lived in like 10 different states and the District of Columbia. I know the country pretty well, but I'm pretty much stuck here because my wife is a California girl and her family lives here.

I've been trying to lobby her for us to at least buy a property in Florida for when California falls, but I have been vetoed so far in that effort. I was born and raised in California. My question for you, being a two-decade resident now,

Where do you think it just went south on California regarding the ideology, regarding the bad reporting? I mean, it just took a turn left. Remember, this is a state that gave us Reagan, Duke Major, Nixon, you know, and then just like the snap of the finger, it just seemed to turn. And it's been an amazing thing to watch. And I would like to know what you think happened.

Well, it's an important question. It's an interesting question. I think there were two seminal moments. I think the moment that everything broke, that they could have turned the tide completely if things had turned out the way they should have, was the passing of Proposition 187, which related to

the benefits that illegal aliens or immigrants could get from the government. It banned that. And that was back when California was still conservative, but the handwriting was on the wall that it was drifting further to the left. And there were people that were smart enough to realize that this was a key issue, and it passed.

and it wasn't even that close and yet then the courts completely just ignored and eviscerated it and had that stood I think you would see a very very different California today now would it still be the California Reagan probably not but it would not be the California Gavin Newsom and then the last chance to save it so that was when the you know the damn opened up but when the damn broke

for good, in my opinion, was when Arnold Schwarzenegger won the recall election against Gray Davis. And it's insane to think that Gray Davis was recalled as governor about 20 years ago simply because he raised a car tax against the promise. That's nothing compared to what Gavin Newsom got away with in the first week of COVID, for heaven's sakes. And Newsom was attempted to be recalled, but there was no chance of doing it because California had changed

demographically so much in the next twenty years, almost twenty years at that point. And so I am a person who believes that Arnold Schwarzenegger sold the state out. He pretended to be a Republican for about six months until

they he called a special election and he had all these propositions on the ballot and he lost everything and literally the next day he held a press conference i i believe with maria shriver is a very liberal kennedy white next to him and i'd declared on the air k_f_i_ radio in los angeles that arnold schwarzenegger was no longer a republican he was going to govern

like a left-wing democrat in order to ensure his reelection and because he did not want to be embarrassed and humiliated as a less than one term governor and he completely sold out the republican party he'd be at facilitated an electoral system that makes it impossible for republicans to compete

going forward and and when you and on top of that the demographic ships continuing to go in the left wing direction that was the last chance to save california arnold schwarzenegger was really the last shot and when he blow it and became a left-wing democrat it was all over at that point

I literally had a chief of staff for an assembly member of California about three years ago. I was asking this person about the pension crisis that, you know, they have these just hundreds of billions of dollars of pensions. And I said, how do you pay for it? And this person's response was, oh, we just go bankrupt and let the judges handle it. And I said, that's I said, that's your plan. He goes, it's the only plan will work.

And I just scary. That is that is beyond scary. I mean, if anybody's followed the Detroit fiasco financially saying that to California, what is a top five economy in the world and just saying, well, you know, we'll just go bankrupt and let a judge handle it. I mean, that's frightening. And that's just the lack of leadership.

well i mean there's so many things going on but i think one of the problems is that california has been bailed out um... by a couple things that cannot be duplicated uh... they were bailed out by the silicon valley boom right which created a massive flood of of tax money and they've been we've been bailed out now really twice by massive property value booms and

you know what happens when that reverses what happens when you know we're already seeing problems in silicon valley and you know i i can't believe the property values are going to maintain themselves you know into into perpetuity i'd like for sure i don't think we can possibly have another big boom because people just can't afford

to pay these prices especially when more people leaving the state that are coming into the states i i just it just basic mathematics i don't understand how prices can continue to go up when you have uh... a population problem where people are more people leaving in our coming in and so eventually that's all going to come home to roost already is we already have now massive deficit a couple years ago we had massive surpluses

and newsom decided to literally hand people checks before an election of the this is like third world stop before actually just added people checks for nothing based upon the fact that there was a temporary surplus and you know now now that we have a uh... the massive deficit no one's holding him accountable to me

Wait a minute, why did you just hand out checks to people for nothing? We might not be in a deficit situation if you hadn't done that because there's no accountability because the media is totally broken. And to me, as a property owner in the state, I actually sold a rental property in Los Angeles County in the middle of COVID because...

it was clear to me that the the state and the county was telling me through their covert rules that i didn't really on the property that they think they did not view that i was a rolling the property because of the we had all sorts of insane that you is like you you didn't necessarily have to have the right to to get rent from your tenant during cove it which was just utterly asinine to me uh... and and so i sold it now in the short run was probably a bad economic decision but in the long run

I think it was probably the right move because certainly in the liberal elements of California, they don't believe that you own the property. You're just basically a caretaker of the property. Well, I mean, John, isn't that basically the whole premise of the squatting thing? I mean, I keep telling people the squatter thing is more than an interesting story. This is really the left saying it's really not your property. This is community property.

That's how I view it. And I don't like to walk around with aluminum foil on my head, but I just think that's what this really is about. Am I wrong? Chuck, I couldn't agree with you more. I think the COVID rules regarding rental properties and other rules combined with the squatting thing is a tell. It is a tell that the left does not view your property as your property. It is community property. And I think...

both from a national perspective as well as a state standpoint i think this is where we're headed the only way this debt with a bang on how you define it can ever be paid off is if the government

takes for all intents and purposes the property now how they do that we've seen this happen in eastern europe and other places in the past where effectively the government just taxes the property to the point where only the super rich can afford to to still own it everyone else effectively becomes a renter from the government for their property and that that i mean this is it this is the

core issue. And I actually, I don't know if you've thought about this all the way through, but I actually think that this issue is why America will eventually split apart. I agree. No, I agree. I agree. It's fundamental. It's just so fundamental that you've been able to own your property and make those decisions. John, we have one minute until this segment ends. We're going to have you back. I have a question for you. You've been there 20 years. How many friends or business associates do

Over the 20 years, have you had leave, move out of California the last four to six years? Oh, many. And I don't, I mean, I'd have to think about how the number, but it's a significant number. And I can't think of anybody new that's come into my life that's moved into the state. We're with John Ziegler. He is a host of The Death of Journalism. He's one of the finest reporters and journalists out there, been doing it for many decades.

And you can also find him, folks, on Twitter at Zygmunt Freud, Z-I-G-M-A-N-F-R-E-U-D. Follow him. He has a lot of interesting takes. This is Chuck Warren at Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to continue our conversation with John Ziegler, esteemed journalist. He's the host of a podcast, Death and Journalism, two-decade resident of California. You can find him on Twitter at Ziegman Freud. And, John, I want to go back to you on this question here about California math. And math's a real important thing that both parties seem to not understand anymore.

So two days ago, you have articles, are tax hikes the solution to California's ballooning budget deficit of $73 billion? And then 20 hours ago, you have California Democrats agree on a plan to reduce the budget deficit $17.3 billion. I mean, that's still $50 billion plus short. I mean, how do they solve this? Do they just cook the books like Enron but don't go to jail?

Yeah, I wish I had a good answer to that. I mean, you know, liberals aren't particularly good at math or economics, as we already referred to in the previous segment regarding the minimum wage increase. I'm amazed that we even still adhere to an allegedly balanced budget because they don't seem to care. But, you know, as a guy who hosts this podcast, The Death of Journalism, I always go back to the media.

What the media's job is to hold people accountable. And when they're not held accountable, guess what they're going to do? They're like children. They're going to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. And they're going to try and get away with it. And liberals are able to get away with it. One, because the main problem with the media here is it's unbelievably frivolous. I mean, and it's unbelievably left-wing. And the vast majority of people aren't even paying attention in the state. So, you know, it's...

media coverage is just pathetic. And we saw it a hundred times over during the entire COVID panic. And to this day, Gavin Newsom's never been held accountable for any of the insane things he did during that. And so there's a lot of reasons why this is happening. But to me, the core problem is, one, the populace is ignorant and not paying attention in a large part of the reason why they're

ignorance because the news media has not done their job in trying to educate people uh... some about california senate racial quick they want to talk about journalism briefly here uh...

What is Steve Garvey's high, 43 percent? Yeah, I think that's probably a pretty good number as far as the highest he could possibly do. I mean, I think I've been outspoken. I think I was one of the first people to really pinpoint what was going on in that primary. It was one of the most ingenious and insidious strategies I've ever seen in modern politics where Adam Schiff,

the Democrat clearly chose Steve Garvey as his general election opponent. It was brilliant. I mean, it was almost hysterical. Oh, no, it is political chess, higher education level. I mean, look, Adam Schiff, I think, is a disgusting human being, but saying he's dumb would be a lie. He understands politics. But just, I don't know how much you were following it, but your listeners might find it hilarious to know that what Schiff did was,

was he had a race where he was facing two very liberal democratic females and the republican uh... element of the population had not coalesced around any particular candidate so he picked steve garvey of the guy with by far the the highest name recognition being a former los angeles dodger in san diego padre and he started running commercials as if he was running against steve garvey

and he used the best pictures of steve garvey you could possibly find and he can keep saying steve garvey is too conservative for california and he ran them on fox news channel and golf broadcasts and in other places where you know republicans in california on the espn where people would know him as a as a former baseball player where republicans michael my gosh well steve garvey's running out we had a run up the week we have to

rally around him knowing that even though republicans only make up thirty five percent of the state but that's enough in a primary to make sure that at least garvey gets into the top two perfect and and that's the way we do our stupid system here where the top two vote getters regardless of party image in the primary go on to the general election so right shift shows garvey and there's no chance that garvey has

of winning especially with trump on the ballot i think i mean there's no chance anyway but with trump on the ballot it's going to ensure that ship gets his vote out because that's what trump is easy he is uh... a boat getting machine both for him and against him he's a turnout machine and so ship will win it'll be somewhere in the sixty forty two as you say maybe it'll be a little bit closer than that it

There's no chance of it being any closer than, say, 15 points in my opinion. Well, the only thing we can really take away from this is may we all look as good as Steve Garvey when we're 75, right? I mean, may we all be blessed with that. All right. We have about three and a half minutes left here. And I want to ask you – I want to bring you back on another time to talk more about journalism and focus on that.

But how has journalism changed since you started in talk radio to today? What has seen the change and why is it? It feels like now we just have a lot of journalists say, I'm going to go change the world. And it's not about reporting. It's not about calling balls and strikes. It's simply about I want to do this this way. I mean, what have you seen over your long career?

Well, I think what you just said happened maybe longer ago than 20 or 30 years ago in the post-Watergate era. I think that's what brought in a lot of liberals who wanted to change the world. I think the biggest change in the last couple of decades has been that the business model broke.

That's the core cause of everything, everything that has happened in the news media. There's a lot of reasons why, but the core, the core is their business model broke. Owning a radio station or a newspaper or a TV station used to be a license to print money.

until, say, 20 years ago. And then it started to dramatically change. And now you can barely stay afloat. When it was a license to print money, that allowed owners to not care how much money they spent on journalism, because journalism, good journalism, costs a lot of money. Correct. And did not care about the content of

Because there was a belief in journalism by owners, because they were generally not corporation-owned. They were owned by actual human beings who went into this because they believed in journalism. Well, now it's all corporate, and now it's all about the bottom line. And now that the business model has broken and the commercial business model has broken, there's no chance for journalism to survive in this day and age.

John, we have a little less than two minutes left with John Ziegler. He is the host of the podcast Death of Journalism, longtime radio host. You can find him at Ziegman Freud at X, not Twitter. Tell our audience, what do you feel for a right of center person such as you and I? What are the newspaper publications and what are the podcasts you feel people should listen to or stay in consistent touch with?

You know, I get asked this all the time, and I don't know that there's anybody that I fully trust anymore. You know, I used to really like The Blaze. The Blaze News is, I think, good, but Glenn Beck, who I used to be friends with, has so sold out to Donald Trump that I think it's corrupted...

a lot of their coverage uh... the daily wire is good but can and ben shapiro i think is generally good although i thought he was he's been weak uh... with regard to trump and i have dot and i know frankly i i was a dissent this guy during the primary i think it's an absolute abomination that the sanders did not win the primary and that were somehow going to do this again with trump uh... and so i think trump has corrupted all the right wing sources

to the point where none of them are fully trustworthy. So what I try to do is to get a good variety of voices and then make my own decision. And generally, since I have quite a bit of experience and have a very good BS detector, I'm usually able to discern what the truth is and what it's not. Thank you, John. With our 20 seconds left here, tell everybody where they can follow you, just not on X, but where else can they follow you?

Well, the best place to go is the Death of Journalism podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us there. And my Twitter feed is, as you said, Zygmunt Freud. John Ziegler, thank you so much. We hope you'll join us again soon sometime. All right, thank you. Have a great weekend. Folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can follow us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We are honored to have with us Diana Furchgott-Roth. She is the director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation. She also used to work for Presidents Reagan, President H.W. Bush, and President George Bush.

and she is just a wonderful author of books, columns, and you need to follow her on Twitter, DFR-Economics. Diana, welcome to the show. Great to be with you. And by the way, it's DFR underscore economics. Oh, underscore, underscore, underscore. Ignore me, everybody. It's underscore. All right. Let's first talk about the following. Which presidential administration did you enjoy working for the most?

Let me see. Well, it was a great honor to work in all of them. And it's hard to compare them because I got more senior with each one. And it's always more fun working in a senior role than a junior role. But one of the highlights was meeting President Reagan the day before I got my U.S. citizenship.

because the entire Council of Economic Advisers staff went over to meet him. And I said, Mr. President, tomorrow I'm going to become a U.S. citizen. And he asked what country I was a citizen of, and I said Britain. And he said how much he admired Margaret Thatcher.

and how the French president had called her a fisherwoman, but that wasn't true. So it was a great honor to work there. One of the other wonderful things about the Reagan administration is that they did not have the communications folks in the room. No one said, "Oh, you can't have a meeting on this the way it happened in some subsequent administration."

As long as it was cutting taxes or cutting spending, we could talk about it, we could discuss it. Whether it was privatizing the post office, charging to go to the national parks, anything we wanted. And that kind of disappeared. In future administrations, there would be people who would come in and say, well, this doesn't look too good to talk about. The environmentalists will get mad at you if you have a meeting on this. But in the Reagan administration, anything goes.

Anything went. How did you, what brought you to America? You're obviously not from the South by your accent. So how did you, what brought you to America? Well, my father's job, and funnily enough, it was one reason was energy related. He came to interview for a job in Washington and he called back to my mother and said, we have to move to America. In America, they heat the bathrooms.

So we lived in a beautiful, we lived in a, you know, a nice house in London that every night my father would go around and fill up these kerosene heaters, which we call paraffin heaters, make sure they were full and that the wicks were trimmed. Because if the wicks were not trimmed, you would wake up and there would be soot all over the walls.

So we moved from that house, which probably now has been renovated with central heating, but we moved to a ranch-style house in Maryland that had central heating, central air conditioning, and the bathrooms were heated. So energy does bring a great deal of comfort, as well as fuel for manufacturing, for factories, for economic growth.

It reminds me of that line from Ted Lasso in the finale where he was telling his fellow coach, he goes, and I've learned that air conditioning...

is a privilege, not a right. But in America, I think we very much view it as a right. And I like that right a lot. So it's been interesting. Let me ask you one more question about you before we get on to policy. You're the co-author or author of six books. What do you find is the, how do you go about the writing process? Are you a person say, I need to get up in the morning, start writing right away? Are you a night owl? How do you do it? How do you write a book?

Well, first of all, you have to think of an idea where you feel really enthusiastic about it. So after that,

Yeah, so what I like to do is actually write a particular column or an op-ed on a particular chapter of the book. And that way it gets it straight in my mind and I get criticism of it, which allows me to refine it, make the argument stronger. And then once I have this particular column, it becomes a chapter or grows into a chapter of the book. And I prefer to write at night because it's quieter, there aren't as many emails coming at me, and I have more time to think.

With all the current administration's policies on climate change and environmentalism, do you feel more of an urgency to write more now and get the message out about here's the alternatives and here's what they're doing wrong? Absolutely. I mean, this week I have had about three columns that came out all on this energy issue because the administration is trying to take away our right to a car. Is

is attacking drivers. So I had one op-ed on electric trucks, which would have to have 25% electric trucks by 2032. I had another on New York's congestion charge, which would charge drivers $15 to come into Manhattan and use that to subsidize public transit. And I had a third one on bike lanes in California. Again,

Again, taking away space from parking and cars. There's an attack on personal transportation, Chuck, and we need to fight back because personal transportation is the backbone of the American economy. Thank you. We're with Diana Furchcott-Roth. You can follow her on X at DFR underscore economics. She is the director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment.

at the Heritage Foundation and we'll be right back to talk more about her about climate policy and what Americans need to do to stand up for their rights. This is Chuck Warren. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back.

At Overstock, we know home is a pretty important place, and that's why we believe everyone deserves a home that makes them happy. Whether you're furnishing a new house or apartment or simply looking to update and refresh a few rooms, Overstock has everyday free shipping and amazing deals on the beautiful, high-quality furniture and decor you need to transform any home into the home of your dreams. Overstock, making dream homes come true.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren, and we're honored with us on this segment to have Diana Furch-Scott Roth. She is with the Heritage Foundation and has worked for Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and

The last Bush 43. Let me start with a little story. So years ago, during the Winter Olympics, I was invited to a private concert with Josh Groban. And there's about 30 of us. And he played the piano and sang. I mean, it was a wonderful experience. And a couple years later, my chief of staff said, hey, do you want tickets for this concert? I said, no, I like things a little more intimate. And she knew I was referring to this Josh Groban thing. And she said,

Good Lord, you're a snob. That was her comment to me. And it made me think of what your comment was recently about luxury beliefs. And I feel like what the Biden administration is doing, and you have said this, is that it's a luxury belief system for people who can afford it. You know, you can afford these electric cars. You can afford to live your life this way because you can afford it. Am I off base on that, that this is basically what their environmental policy is?

No, Chuck, you're absolutely right on target. And for people who don't know about luxury beliefs, it's the idea that you can say defund the police. Well, if you live in a nice suburb with maybe private police cars going around or in a gated community, defund the police doesn't change your life.

If you live in one of these urban ghettos where crime is more common, then defund the police means you have more crime. Or, for example, legalize drugs. If you can make sure that your kids are not on drugs, or if you don't have any kids, it doesn't make any difference to you. But if you're in one of these areas where there's constantly people trying to force drugs on your kids, and your kids might very well succumb to peer pressure, then it makes a big difference.

So a luxury belief is that you can mandate EVs and it's not going to make any difference because you have a garage. You can charge your EV in the garage. Correct. You can afford that extra money for the EV. Correct. But other people can't do that. No. You wrote a great article this week in the National Review called New York's Crazy Congestion Charge. I remember reading that and talking to my co-host who's not here today and we were just like,

This just makes no sense. I mean, I mean, who's going to afford this? Would you tell people a little bit about what New York going to do and will this do what they say that's going to do? I know other cities like London have tried it and hasn't changed anything. It just only does is just raise the cost of living for people. Could you talk a little more about New York's congestion charge?

Yes, New York City has just voted to impose a $15 charge on drivers who come into lower Manhattan. That's Manhattan below 60th Street. And this would hold drivers.

most times during the week and the weekends. And that means that if you go into New York City, you have to pay this $15 charge. A camera would capture your license plate and you would be charged $15 for it. That means, say, if you live...

above 60th Street, you want to go pick up somebody, take them to the doctor, that's a $15 charge. If you want to go pick up a sick person or an elderly person, take them home to lunch, above 60th Street, that's a $15 charge. Small businesses who have to go in to make deliveries, $15 charge.

So this basically discourages personal transportation at a time when New York City is trying to attract more people in. New York City has lost about half a million people over the past couple of years. They've moved to lower tax areas, areas with less crime. This is not going to help New York rejuvenate.

Well, it's also, you know, they keep pushing this is going to help the congestion. And, you know, I've been to London about over a half a dozen times. And I remember I was there last summer and I literally made the decision one day and the person I was with decided to take a taxi. I decided to walk the two and a half miles. They took the taxi. I beat them. I mean, the congestion in London is crazy. And how they even, I mean, is there any example where they've done a congestion tax and it's reduced congestion? No.

Well, there are some places, the idea is that you want to reduce congestion, but you also want to improve the roads. So if, for example, you had a congestion charge and it went to making roads smooth or it went to expanding roads, then that would make driving more pleasant. It would help drivers. But this isn't supposed to help drivers.

MTA, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, says that the $1 billion to $3 billion of revenue is going to the public transit system. It's going to failed subway and bus systems.

because those are in trouble because more people are working from remote, more people don't want to come into New York, and that's why they have this particular charge. So it's not going to make driving easy. It's not going to reduce congestion. If New York wanted to reduce congestion, it could do so. It could take out these bike lanes that are mostly empty.

It could take out the docking stations in the roads. It could have more curbside parking, more empty spaces in the curbside parking so delivery trucks wouldn't have to double park. It could take away some of the roadside dining that's taking up the lanes. Use that for deliveries, for example.

But no, what this is is a tax on drivers to bail out the public transit. And there's very nefarious reasons for doing that, if you don't mind me. Well, no, it's very true. It's very similar to what Biden's doing in Israel right now because of Michigan electoral votes. And for me, this is just simply a way to make sure the union keeps getting money and getting donations. Am I being too crass?

No, no, that's exactly it. Because the Transportation Workers Union, which represents the public transit workers, they get money from these workers. So if instead of taxing drivers to bail out public transit, New York were to shrink the amount of public transit or replace some of these buses that go around with one or two people in them in the middle of the night with some kind of rideshare scheme using superchargers,

smaller vehicles. If they were to do that, if they were to restructure public transit, that would make financial sense. But it would also mean fewer jobs for these workers, less money for the union. And if you look under opensecrets.org, you can see that the Transport Workers Union is giving money to democratic political action committees, to the governor of New York, to the attorney general of New York, who is prosecuting President Trump.

I mean, this is just a money laundering scheme to take money from drivers. You give it to public transit workers. Public transit workers pay the union and the union pays politicians.

It's all available online on theopensecrets.org. Folks, we'll publish that column up on our social media. And the other one we're going to post I want to talk about is you wrote an article called This Election Year, Your Energy and Appliance Prices Are on the Ballot. And Diana...

I think it's the one thing the media just seems to want to ignore is that people say they're hurting. They think, you know, they have jobs. Jobs are fantastic. But when you're paying 20, 30 percent more for the basics of life and your income's not increasing that much, that's a real problem. And your point was these pricing, this price for energy is going to be part of people's decision on the ballot. And explain to people why you think that is.

So the Biden administration, one of the priorities is electrification with the stated goal of reducing emissions to help the planet.

But even if all fossil fuels were abolished in the United States, this would only change global temperatures by two-tenths of one degree centigrade by the year 2100, according to government models. And electrification isn't going to necessarily reduce fossil fuel use because electricity is made right now with fossil fuels.

So instead of an electric, instead of a natural gas stove, you might have an electric stove. Okay, so you don't use natural gas, but you turn on the electricity. The electricity is made with coal and natural gas and a little bit of nuclear power because you've already used up all the solar and wind you can for other sources. You use that up first.

So this makes absolutely no sense in terms of climate change, but it does raise your electricity cost. It'll raise your electricity bills. And it means that you are paying more, not just for the appliances, but also for the cost of running that. What happens if the USA just eliminates all fossil fuels? How does that change things in the world? If just we do it and let's just say we do it in Europe does it? What does that change in the world?

It doesn't change anything because you have Russia, China, Asia, Africa, they are all consuming more fossil fuels. China's building two coal-fired power plants a week. And yes, it's building more solar and wind power too, but the share of electricity in China that's generated

is about the same for fossil fuels as it was 10 years ago. It's about 5% for renewables. But meanwhile, they're adding 5,000 million metric tons over the past 15 years to carbon emissions, whereas U.S. carbon emissions have gone down by 1,000 million metric tons. That's because we are using our resources of natural gas. They are using their domestic resources.

which are coal. So it doesn't help us wiping out all fossil fuels because other countries are producing more. But we're not even talking about wiping out all fossil fuels. We're talking about just some. In other words, some in transportation. It makes fractional differences to temperatures in the year 2100 or even the year 2050. Tiny fractions of one degree centigrade.

That's just amazing. I don't think people realize that. Diana, we got about three minutes left. If you were going and giving advice to a political candidate about these issues, what are things that you think conservatives, Republicans should be promoting that is pro-environment but doesn't damage the economy, doesn't put us at a disadvantage with the rest of the world? What are the things you say, these are things we can do? For example, go in the inner cities and clean up the water systems. I mean, what are things they can do in your mind?

Well, I think people are concerned about prices. People are concerned about their personal transportation. So we can encourage them to buy, for example, non-plug-in hybrid vehicles. There's no tax credit for these non-plug-in hybrids, but they're flying off dealers' locks because they expand fuel mileage to 40 or 50 miles per gallon.

So those are really popular. That's something that someone could do. You use less gasoline, but you don't have to stop and charge up because your battery is powered by the braking system and the engine.

Another thing we could do is produce more natural gas. President Biden put a stop on new exports of natural gas. He stopped export terminals of liquid natural gas. But doing that, producing more and exporting more to our allies means that they don't have to rely on Russian gas and they don't have to use so much coal.

So another thing we could do is producing more natural gas. A third thing we could do is see if we could take some of these regulations off nuclear power stations, have more nuclear power stations because that produces emissions-free energy, dense emissions-free energy.

And that's what people need around the world. That's what we need here in the United States. But right now, there's so many regulations on nuclear power that companies are discouraged from producing it. So there's three things people could be doing. How many nuclear plants do you think we would need to play a significant role in reducing these carbon emissions that they scream about?

Well, it's difficult to say because nuclear power plants come in different sizes. But, you know, even a few more would make a difference. Then there's more modular reactors that are easier to deal with. But what we need to be doing is looking at countries in Africa. Africa is the fastest growing continent on the planet.

People need energy to get to Western standards of living. And small modular reactors are perfect for some of these villages and out-of-the-way places, as well as larger power plants. So we need to be focusing on global emissions and where are these emissions going to come from and how do we help reduce those. More nuclear power, more export.

of natural gas would be helpful, but the World Bank will not lend for nuclear power plants in Africa or Latin America. They have a hard time lending for natural gas. We need to change that. We're the biggest donor to the World Bank. We need to be saying that this is important if we want to reduce global emissions. And global poverty as well.

I mean, you can't do anything without power. But a lot of these people have more of a focus on saving the planet than helping the poor. The poor are with us right now. That's a fact. Global climate change, that's a risk to be managed in the future. We need to focus on poverty. And unfortunately, that's not taking a front seat in the policymaking debate, and it should.

Diana Fershgott-Roth, thank you so much for visiting with us today. You've been fantastic, and I hope you'll join us again soon in the future. Folks, you can follow her on X at DFR underscore economics and follow her writings on National Review and elsewhere. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. Have a good weekend. The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the Web.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, the podcast edition, the bonus segment. And we have with us, as always, our great Kylie Kipper of Kylie's Corner. She has taken the adventure of driving across our great country this week to move to Boston to be with her husband and just got in last night, rolled in last night. How was the trip, Kylie? You know, the trip was pretty good. It went by fast. There was a little mystery along the way, though. What's that?

There was two women. So we had to go through. We went through Albuquerque and then up through the panhandle of Oklahoma through Texas up there. And on the road, just intersecting the road that we were on, two women went missing the day before. Their car was found abandoned and they did not. They were going from Kansas to Oklahoma to pick up one of the girl's children. And now both of them are missing and have not been found.

Oh, my goodness. That's horrible. I know. We merely escaped. It's amazing how many people go missing in this country. It's just like they disappear. And I know probably half don't want to be found, but the other half, I don't think they did this on their own. No, no. I think there's also, weirdly, a lot of males going missing. Yeah. It's just, it's odd. It's really an odd thing. I don't know. Fascinating. So what have we got this week on Connelly's Corner? Talk to us.

Tell us. Well, being in Boston, I turned on the news this morning, and they were talking about the Karen Reid case. And I talked about that a few months ago. Yes, yes, yes. And they delayed the court case. It now is going to the trial, sorry. And that's starting April 18th. So, you know, I'm in Boston. I'm going to have a front row seat. So we'll get some good updates along the next few weeks after that about the case. So I'm excited about that. Sam's hot on that one. He wants to know more. So you've got to keep us up on it.

I will. I will. The delay is because the lead investigator, which for those that don't remember, this is Karen Reed is accused of killing her boyfriend, who is a Boston police officer. And she's saying she's being framed by the Boston police. And so an investigation has since opened up from the FBI looking into the lead investigator of the case on the police side. So that was the delay. They tried to appeal and get it, you know.

Kicked off, no case, but the judge denied that. So she is still on trial for murder. Well, let's follow up on that, especially for Sam. And now that you're up there, this is a big deal in the community, right? Absolutely, yeah. What else you got for us today? So something you and I were talking about a few days ago was on Easter, the largest cash heist occurred in Los Angeles history. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Go ahead. Off with $30 million in a San Fernando Valley money storage facility. And this facility is used to store cash from businesses in the region. It's handled and stored there. The police say that very little people have knowledge that the cash is here and that this was they broke through the roof and they they ticked off one alarm system, but that did not notify the police. So

they're indicating or they're, you know, this is definitely an inside job if I have anything to say about that.

Well, you know, and I sort of hope they don't find out who did it for at least a year or two so we can get a Netflix series out of this. I think if you talk to most people, most people always get they're enamored with a jewelry heist or something heist like this. Right. I mean, it's just for some reason there's something to it. It's just so much money. And, you know, who's putting 30 million dollars in this cash vault that not many people know about. Right. I mean, it's just it's sort of different.

Yeah. The FBI did say -- they're obviously looking into this, and they have to look all over the world for cases similar to this -- but they're saying that the money is so traceable now that they will eventually catch them. It's just a matter of when they start either using the money or finding a fingerprint on once they use the money. But everything had serial numbers and was being tracked in there. So, it's really just a matter of time and

until they use it, I guess. But what surprised me was when I was looking into this to try to find out more information about how many robberies this large that there are in L.A. So the largest prior to this of cash was $18.9 million, and that happened in 1997. All in L.A.? All in L.A.? Yes. All in L.A., yes. But last year...

The largest wine heist occurred where a crew broke through the ceiling of a wine specialist in Venice, stealing 800 bottles of wine worth $600,000. And then in July of 2022, $100 million in jewels and valuables was stolen from a Brinks big rig.

Oh my goodness. All in LA. All happening. Yeah. Well, there's a great movie. If you've not seen it from Gerard Butler called the den of these about a big cash heist in Los Angeles. And I highly recommend it for everybody. It's one of his better movies. Um,

Didn't do well at the box office, but it's a keeper. You'll enjoy it. And it's a movie you can watch again five years later and still think this is fresh and wonderful. So it's interesting. I got to tell you an interesting story this week. So a good friend of mine went and took her son and husband to the Diamondbacks game.

And the little boy's four years old and just loves the Diamondbacks. So as they are walking out to go home, and this is the night that the Diamondbacks just killed the Yankees, one of the ushers gave him a foul ball that he caught. And, you know, the little boy's in heaven. He slept with the ball that—he literally slept with the ball that night and was very excited to go tell his friends, right? Yeah.

Well, you know, look, he's four, right? So the four-year-olds are like, you know, it's a ball. It's play catch, right? They didn't care. So he went and told his teacher. And the teacher goes, well, did you get assigned? This is in a public school, right? And, you know, he's just like, he's four. Like sort of looking at her like, what are you talking about? Did you get assigned? She goes, well, I got mine signed. So she was there and got assigned. And then so the mom, my friend, just sort of is like,

you know, what on earth lady? She goes, well, you know, tells her son, tell them where you were sitting. They were sitting right behind catcher, right? And the teacher goes, oh, well, I was, I was on the field. And I just like, and I told her, I said, you have to write the school. I mean, this, this woman's teaching preschool. What is wrong with her? And she just keeps one upping the child. One upping the child. And I hope she went home and felt fantastic about herself. She probably did. Yeah.

That's so weird. And then the same day this happened, so she's shocked by this, right? She's still stunned by this. This is a public school, you know, the one upping her four-year-old who's so excited about the baseball, right? I remember as a little kid sleeping in my Oakland A's baseball hat, right? You love it. This is a very important moment, right? And then she goes to the day and she's teaching a fitness class at a high-end resort here, and she has a water bottle with a Trump sticker on it. And...

One of the guests came up to the manager and says, I don't feel safe with that sticker on the water bottle. So the management just sort of pulled Autumn in, sort of rolled her eyes and said, I guess some guests are touchy. Here's a new water bottle to use for the next class. So she had a fantastic day. Long story short. Wow. She's like, I'm going to go home and then start over tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. The whole message of this is,

People suck. That's the message for this podcast today, portion of this today. Yeah. And Bowie did well on the road. By the way, Bowie is her dog, folks. Bowie did well on the road. Yes, he did amazing. He's a little angel boy. He's a world traveler now. He's a world traveler. He's seen the whole country now. Yeah.

Well, Kylie, we look forward to talking to you and look forward to seeing you back here in Arizona in May. And folks, this is BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can catch our podcast wherever you pull up a podcast or just visit BreakingBattlegrounds.vote behind on behalf of Kylie Kipper and myself. We hope you have a fantastic weekend and share the show and we would love your comments and we'll be back next week. Have a great weekend.