Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-13-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Prov is putting Profits over Patients, according to a union spokesperson...is that helpful? (No) Dr. Carole Lieberman MD joins me from Malibu, she evacuated from the fires and still has not completely rebuilt fom the 2018 blazes.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning and welcome to Monday the 13th of January 2025. Very, very cold this morning. Very slippery on the roads and sidewalks. Just to watch that. Remember we had a little bit of rain yesterday, just a few sprinkles. And then it got cold overnight, about 29 at my car. My car doors were kind of frozen in. And it's kind of funny.

People were still driving the regular speed that they normally would. And then just for fun, you know, I just was trying to test how easily the cars would slip. And all you have to do, for me, I was just going back and forth with the um the steering wheel just doing a little bit of rapid and you know how you could feel like all of a sudden it feels like your steering wheel has been extra greased right you're like yeah this is bad right and then walking across the parking lot this morning coming into the radio station it was one of those things where I was doing the old man walk, trying to make sure that I didn't slip and slide. So it is deceptive.

So it is literally the Black Ice kind of talk that we have going on this morning. Okay? Joining the conversation at 770-563-3770-KMED. My email, Bill, at Bill billmeyershow.com. The Providence strike, of course, is now into day three now. And I found it really interesting that the guy who is, let me see. I think I had that down here. We're into day three and I am,

I have such mixed emotions about this and I don't know if you do too. And I ended up putting up some social media posting about this over the weekend. And some people, obviously there's some nurses on there, really, really angry, just totally PO'd. And then I'm thinking, okay, why are you still working for Providence anyway, if you think that the people that you're working with are that badly? And then other people are saying, oh, those nurses just need to get back to work, et cetera, et cetera. You know, and there was one person who who posted on my on my Facebook account that any of the nurses that crossed the picket line or any of the workers that would have gone to work anyway were being selfish. And we're not thinking about the long view of things. They were, you know, being very selfish.

And I was thinking to myself, I never want to be one of those guys that says, you shouldn't be going to work. I would be the last person to say something like that. And that comment really surprised me because how do you know what the situation is of that particular Providence nurse or that doctor or whoever it might be? Maybe they wanted to be there and just help the patients. I don't know. I know there's a whole bunch of traveling nurses and apparently traveling doctors that are helping fill in the breach here. But I'm going to be the last person to say, hey, you know, don't go to work.

Don't go to work. And I don't know. It's – that must have been someone who was obviously, you know, in favor of what the nurses were doing, et cetera. And yet there are still patients that are needing their care and maybe some people decided they just didn't want to support the ona i don't know and there's another aspect of this too what if this nurse is the sole source of support for the family no money you know and can't afford to take that kind of financial hit i know it hurts the uh the bargaining position if you want to call it that but you know you don't know what that nurse or doctor is up to or what their personal

situation is in maybe they're not even particularly uh happy with the the ona i don't know i was looking at the uh the rogue valley times article this morning over the weekend they uh put a piece out there james sloan ended up writing for it. Let's see. The most recent proposal had included a $20,000 year one raise for nurses, mandates on nurse to patient ratios in accordance with House Bill 2697 passed in the 2023 legislature and other incentives. Now, this fellow who is the chief executive at Providence, Christopher Pizzi, says, The offer is very generous, and for us, economically, it has to be sustainable, Pizzi says. This is what is on the table. We hope ONA accepts that proposal. Of course, that appeared in doubt because they ended up going on strike anyway.

And then you have Peter Straczynski, who is the Deputy Director of Communications for the Oregon Nurses Association. The quote, and to me, this is the money quote, they are more focused on profits than patient care. They have spent time listening to their C-suite executives instead of the people on the front lines of health care who understand health care the most and understand how to make health care work. Now, if you were listening to my show on Friday, you'll understand why I would look at this particular quote and just start laughing out loud

because Peter Starzinski, once again, this is the representative, Deputy Director of Communications for oregon nurses association they are more focused on profits than patient care that is one of the issues providence does have to be focused on profits because providence hasn't been making any profits remember what i was talking about that on friday that in 10 of the last 12 quarters, they have lost money, and that in 2024, they lost $100 million alone. That's real money, even for a big multibillion-dollar company. You know, to lose $100 million is a lot.

So they are more focused on profits than patient care. Well, the nurses need to make sure that Providence is focused on profits too, even though it is technically a non-profit. The thing about a non-profit is that you can't lose money. You don't want to lose money because you're just going to run through your cash reserves. You know, it's this same kind of thing. Essentially, Providence has been running mostly at a loss for a long time. Asante probably for that matter too. I'm not sure. I'm just talking a little bit sideways. But when you have Providence itself reporting that they've lost money,

10 out of 12 quarters, and they lost $100 million last year, and the Oregon Nurses Association thinks that they're making, well, of course, I don't know. Maybe the Oregon Nurses Association does make points with the economically illiterate, let's say, mainstream news consumer, that sort of thing. They're focused more on profits than patient care. Well, if they don't have profits, they aren't going to be in business to be able to provide patient care. I guess that's where I was trying to go with this.

And Sisters of Providence, you know, the whole Providence Corporation has to stay in business. And between that, then we got the big Providence Corporation has to stay in business. And between that and we got the big lawsuits against Asante, all these other things, you know, that's adding and subtracting is a very important thing. So I don't know. The Oregon Nurses Association representative saying more focused on profits than patient care. You have to have some profit or at least you can't be losing money in order to stay in business and i'm hoping that people are going to come together on this thing because like i said i know that the the work the nurses have had rough scheduling they've had long hours and i am aware of this i've taken my mom into providence

a few times over the years and there were times i would go into the emergency room there were long waits and everybody was always was always good and well treated there but you can tell the things were a little bit thin you know and we're seeing more of that in the health care system in general yeah uh let's see oh this is the other thing they use providence is a 30 billion dollar corporation billion with a b and their ceo last year made 12 million dollars and they don't want to offer competitive wages to nurses it's absurd well see once again this is another example of first of all you know to run a 30 billion dollar corporation you're probably going to have to pay someone

that's getting $10, $12 million or maybe even more. That's the reality these days. It's not me that sets the wages for these CEO types. It's the market, apparently. And remember, Providence is still losing money. Providence lost $100 million last year. This is a big deal. And I wish people would understand.

Well, I guess people just don't understand the economics of running these businesses. Made $12 million. The CEO, yeah, it does sound bad. Except that even the CEO, let's say that you were to take the CEO and cut the $12 million pay in half let's just say you did that what is that about, okay let's say $6 million $6 million would be what? Maybe

the total compensation of 40, 45 nurses out of tens of thousands of employees many many thousands of employees so the CEO while well paid, is not that many employees' salaries, right? You know, it's like all of a sudden if we cut the pay of the Providence CEO, then all of a sudden the nurses will be able to get $40,000 a year raise instead of a $20,000 raise.

Another interesting aspect of this in the Road Valley Times story, a key aspect of the contract nurses and caregivers are demanding to include is lower costs for their own health care coverage. Boy, buddy, get in line here in the private sector. Wow. Man, I don't know how much sympathy they might be getting in the private sector when you see anywhere from $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 deductibles for, let's see, what is it? Even for me, I think it's $5,000. Whatever it is, they're pretty high deductibles.

That's the whole idea. It's the only way you can afford the Obamacare insurance. That's the whole idea. It's the only way you can afford the Obamacare insurance. That's the way it goes. So you pay high premiums, and then you have to pay a high deductible. And I think the insurance company, maybe they're hoping that we just die, and then, you know, they just get to keep the money. I'm just kidding around, all right? But please.

They're saying, we're asking for a fair and just contract that includes paid time off and lower health care costs. Some of us are paying $6,300 in deductibles. That is exorbitant. We have the highest health care cost in the state for nurses, and it's the employer's own insurance, said Vicki Knutson, the executive committee chair for Providence Medford Center ONA. Well, boy, the highest health care costs are the highest deductibles and man i don't know in these days is 6300 deductible for health insurance all that unusual or does the sante

just have a much better deal i don't know i don't work in the medical world i don't um if anybody wanted to comment on that and and set me straight please do the number is 770-5633-770-KMED all right so we have that yeah you can tell that uh you're thinking that i'm just all on the you know in in the tank for providence no i'm not i'm not there has to be there has to be a meeting of the minds, and I'm hoping they get this back together. But when you have the union people talking about putting profits before patients, well, you have to have some profit or else you're not able to pay the people so that you can take care of the patients. And that seems to be lost on some of the people. But, you know, that is the kind of rhetoric that sounds really good to someone who's not that bright, that's watching mainstream and reading mainstream news.

Yes, they're putting profits before patients. Yes, that's right. Gosh darn it. They shouldn't have to worry about profits at all. Except that if they lose money, then the whole place shuts down. You know, so much Marxism has been inculcated even into the so-called land of the free America that when you see these kind of union strikes coming out there, people start automatically siding with it. Yeah, they're putting profits before patients.

Everybody has to make a profit before you're able to take care of something. If you lost money going to work, if you lost money going to work every day, could you go to work? Probably not. And it's the same thing for actually having any kind of a business. Now, this is a non-profit. I think Providence is a non-profit business. Most of the hospital systems are considered non-profit. That doesn't mean that you can lose money.

It means that you spend all of the money that you have on your various expenses, and maybe you have some reserves, et cetera, et cetera. I don't want to get into the weeds about the non-profit world, but you can't lose money. You can't lose money for a long, long time and expect to stay in business. Yes, even a nonprofit business. And then to have the union people say, you're importing profits ahead of patients. Well, Providence hasn't been making profits.

And so they have to look at that reality too as they're negotiating a pay raise for the nurses. And by the way, raises for the nurses is not going to help Providence bottom line. They're still probably going to be losing some money maybe this quarter. I don't know what it's going to be like in the first quarter of 2025. But increasing expenses certainly will not help. Now, they also might be looking at this thing where you look at traveling nurses, which are more expensive than the stock nurses, the nurses that are in town. And, you know, eventually that will probably push some sort of settlement. But Providence is not in great financial shape right now.

And, you know, it just kind of, I don't know, it kind of astounds me to have a company that's not in great financial shape, is arguably not in great financial shape, has made no bones about the fact that it has been strained financially, like many other hospital systems, and yet there's just a pile of magic money that is there to take care of everybody and hire more nurses and give the nurses that are there a much better deal. I'm just hoping that both sides can see one another's challenges. I'm sure Providence certainly sees the challenge of its nurses. At least I certainly hope they would. I'm hoping that the ONA understands that there is no magic pile of money within Providence either.

And even if you were to eliminate the CEOo's salary even if you were to say no salary for the ceo instead of the 16 million or the 12 million or whatever it said in the rove valley times story it would only fund a handful of nurses a handful of nurses it's the same kind of um a thought process that goes through regular people who don't understand numbers and aren't all that, aren't all into the math and stuff like that, in which they say, well, like Bernie, like Bernie Sanders, all we have to do is tax the millionaires and they will be rich.

There aren't nearly enough millionaires to tax to make is tax the millionaires and they will be rich there aren't nearly enough millionaires to tax to make up for the fact that most of the money comes from the middle class and smaller taxpayers because there's more of us way more of us and it's kind of the same thing even within the corporate structure the ceo may make a lot of money but there's only one or two of him or her you know he's there's only he or she's's. Only a handful of those people making that kind of money. And the rest of everybody else is like, what? What's the total compensation for a Providence nurse right now? Anywhere from $100,000 to $120,000 right now.

Probably even more, depending on if you have lots of experience. Yeah, just a lot more of those. Mathematics is hard, I know. This is the Bill Myers Show, and you're on KMED 99.3 KBXG. Dr. Carol Lieberman joins me. She's going to be checking in from Malibu. Fires into being in her neighborhood. Wanted to find out how people are holding up this morning.

We're also going to be talking to Mike O'Neill. Mike O'Neill from Landmark Legal on TikTok. Is TikTok going to go down after what Scott has said? We have Oregon OSHA making it harder for farmers to actually have workers, hire workers. Why would that be? We'll talk with a member of the Oregon Farm Bureau about that. Dr. Powers will also join me, too. And naturally, your calls and opinion, too, whatever happens to be on your mind. 770-5633. The purchase of another gutter manufacturing

machine has spurred speculation at the offices of Fontana Roofing. Yes, we'll custom fabricate. That more at clouserdrilling.com. Hi, I'm Lisa with Pacific Survey Supply and I'm on KMED. 629. I appreciate you waking up here this early Monday morning and remember, be very slow. Take it easy when you're out there. Take it easy on the roads. Much more slippery than it would appear. That little bit of rain we had yesterday, it froze.

Okay? All right. New York Post reporting over the weekend. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has denied rebuffing an offer by the Fire Department of New York City to try and help contain the area's fires, even though California officials have said they don't have enough firefighters themselves. New York City Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker made that helpful overture to Bass in recent days as five blazes rage around Los Angeles and its suburbs, killing many people, destroying thousands of homes.

JetBlue even offered to pay for the city firefighters' flights across the country from the Big Apple, but the offers apparently fell on deaf ears as no orders had been issued to send New York City crews out west, sources said. Can't help but think that one of the reasons they didn't want the New York firefighters, of course, the New York firefighters are hardcore, right? And I'm wondering if that was one of the reasons why they said no by Bass, even though Bass claims she didn't want them. I'm wondering if that's why Bass didn't want them, because, you know, the firefighters come in and say,

Yo! And, you know, they're kind of, you know, loud East Coasters, and they weren't going to get along with all of the Island of Misfit Humans that seem to be running the L.A. Fire Department, right? They seem to be more concerned about, you know, which boxes are they checking. I can't help but think that that might be a little bit of that and you wouldn't want la residents actually seeing real firefighters showing up could there be a little bit of that you know in other words people that are actually you know big enough to uh to hoist a husband that was caught in a fire remember that one quote i'll

have to play that bite a little bit later i I don't know. But Captain, Dr. Carol Lieber will join me. We'll talk a little bit more about that and the other mental craziness going on here in the world. This is the Bill Myers Show, and we're going to have news with Bill London coming up here in just a moment. And then, like I said, Dr. Carol. Quality fences doing it right for you. Postmaster steel posts are engineered to have the strength of steel without sacrificing the natural beauty of wood. Our posts offer longevity and is not insurance, but can be used instead of insurance, including Medicare and other federal and state funded programs. You're hearing the Bill Myers show on 106.3 KMED. 636 Dr. Carol Lieberman, MD,

is joining me right now. She's a Malibu resident, and she's known as America's Psychiatrist, board-certified Beverly Hills psychiatrist. And, Doctor, you are evacuated right now, aren't you, from the L.A. area fires. Welcome back to the show. Thank you. Yes, I evacuated on Tuesday night. And is your house still there, or have you had any reports on what's happened at this point, do you know? It is still there, as far as I know. But my house was damaged severely in the Woolsey fire, which was in 2018, and I am still in the

process of restoring it. So it's, you know, I was getting close to being finished, and now this fire came. Aye, aye, aye. My gosh. Well, I pray for a good outcome for you and your family and everyone else because it's an amazing human tragedy. How many people are you aware of at this point that have been evacuated be

besides yourself you seem to be in pretty good company from the sounds of it well i mean i don't know the exact number but um uh you know people mean there were evacuation um there would there were mandatory evacuations and there were evacuation warnings. So they kept showing the different zones or telling you. But they did it in such a confusing way. They had these numbers for zones. So you had no clue what the zones really were. And then there were some mistakes where they would tell people the wrong information. They would get out as a mandatory evacuation.

I mean, it's been a mess. This whole thing is a disaster. I mean, it's not just, I mean, of course it's a disaster, the number of houses that were burned and businesses and people, you know, displaced and insurance companies that aren't going to pay and all of that. But it's an even bigger disaster because there are some really nefarious possibilities here. I mean, more than possibilities. There's a whole bunch of things.

I mean, just like the Maui fire, which was essentially started and or encouraged by globalists who then took over the land, there is that same kind of... There's that suspicion. I hesitate to say more than suspicion because I don't have proof, but certainly that is the theory that a lot of people are realizing is the likely situation here.

I was just looking at a video that showed three fires, three of the fires started at the same time originally. And, you know, things that point to the you point a weapon at a spot and you can set it ablaze. And there have been, in addition to that, or, you know, as part of that, there have been arsonists that have been caught. I know that they caught one last week who was, and of course, you know, and an illegal alien with the propane fire thrower, you know, that sort of thing. And do you know they let him go for lack of sufficient evidence? I mean, can you believe this?

This is, you know, the main people behind this or the way that it's been able to happen is through our Governor Newsom, who is a disaster, and through our Mayor, Karen Bass, who is also a disaster. They are twins. Not literally. But they are twins in terms of their beliefs. And Karen Bass was out of town when this started. We knew, it was known that there was going to be this wind event, strong wind event, Santa Ana wind. And she went to Ghana anyway, right?

It was an interesting time to go. Yes. And when she came back, she was interviewed, and she was, like, mute. They kept asking her questions, and she had literally nothing to say. She just stared at the reporter. And I mean, that's it. That's beyond, you know, how could someone who's a mayor think that they don't have to say something in that kind of an interview? And then the next day she came back. She had a press conference and she was hardly any better.

She did talk. But she said, you know, for everybody who needs help, go to URL. In other words, that was where they were supposed to put the website, you know, that you were supposed to go to for help. But apparently she didn't do that. They didn't do that. Whoever was supposed to do it didn't. And so she just read URL. Now, URL is, you know, a place saver for the website. I mean, it's like Biden, you know, who reads things like, turn to your right now, reads the instructions. So, but, you know, it's really between the, there not being the reservoirs that years ago, Trump told Newsom what to do, you know, how to make these reservoirs. And Newsom decided not to do it because he wanted to save a fish, a smelt kind of fish. Yeah, the delta smelt, and then I was reading an article in Gateway Pundit over the weekend

how the delta, they flushed, you know, billions of gallons of water down these waterways to supposedly help the delta smelt, and yet the delta smelt has not been seen for 15, 20 years. I mean, it's already essentially extinct, but I guess that doesn't matter. It was more important to at least hope to help the extinct fish, right? That kind of thing. Yes, it was just totally an excuse. And so we didn't have water. The fire hydrants didn't have water. There were not enough firefighters. I mean, I've been saying this for years, actually, because I've seen the pattern. It's never been as bad as this. But when a fire breaks out, they wait way too long to call in firefighters.

I mean, they don't call in enough firefighters from the very beginning. So the fire grows, of course. And for example, we had a fire recently, the Franklin fire, and they didn't call in enough firefighters from the beginning when it was a small fire. And so ultimately, there were 1500 firefighters who had to deal with that fire as it grew. So if they would have called in 500, let's say, at the beginning, or 1,000, it wouldn't have grown that much. I posted in our Malibu emergency group, so I posted, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. And that was what they keep doing. So now you have to kind of, I must say, up until this one, though, I did not think of it as being something purposely set.

But this one does kind of show that there is this nefarious, whether it's just the globalists to get land. I mean, already Newsom is talking about how they're going to rebuild, and he has this plan. I mean, the idea is they want to build 15-minute cities. And so your opinion then, or the narrative then, seems that this is the opportunity to build the 15-minute city or the climate, what we call them here in Oregon, climate-friendly, equitable communities. And did I ever tell you how we also endured a massive firestorm event that killed a number of people, destroyed 2,300 homes here in Southern Oregon? We're a much smaller area than you, you know, that sort of thing. But in Phoenix, Talent, Oregon, south of Medford, and it has reshaped the landscape. And you hear all this talk now about going to the climate-friendly, equitable community from the progressive governors, right?

Same sort of thing you're hearing from Newsom then, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, this is not a coincidence. You know, there was one arsonist who, a woman, a 60-year-old woman, started a fire in an area of Malibu that wasn't burning yet. Unfortunately, they saw it quickly, somebody saw it quickly and called it called it in and they were able to stop it before it got to because at that point um airplanes were able to to drop water you know if it had been at a time when airplanes weren't flying because a lot of the time airplanes with the winds airplanes weren't able to fly yeah when it's over about 20 miles an hour so you're not going to get a lot of air cover up there for that kind of stuff. Sure.

For 20 mile per hour winds or above, really, because, you know, the water doesn't land where you want it. The retardant doesn't land where you want it to go. It just becomes a very difficult situation to deal with. By the way, I'm speaking with Dr. Carol Lieberman, who was evacuated in the Malibu area. And, by the way, are you doing okay in spite of being evacuated? I mean, most of us, when we evacuate, it's because we're going on vacation. This is not exactly a vacation for you, you know? No. Well, I mean, I'm fortunate in that it's a nice hotel and it took cats.

I have one dog and two cats with me and my daughter. Okay, very good. So, you know, in that sense, but of course, I have a horse and he had to be evacuated too. So, you know, it's like, you can't exactly enjoy being at a hotel or being, you know, being away from home. I mean, it's not a vacation because every minute we have to be checked. Well, first of all, we get get these alerts you know um from an app an alert comes to to say the news on each of the different fires so i mean you know because i know that this is not just this is not just natural and that there are all these arsonists around and other you know man-made ways to help the fire grow um

you know it's it's every second i, your stomach is in knots, you know, because you're just expecting something bad. I mean, I try to tell myself, no, you cannot expect something bad because, you know, you put that out into the universe and something bad happens. Right. I go through all those kinds of, you know, machinations. But really, bottom line, you're still sitting there terrified that your house is going to go or your horse is going to go you know uh from a psychiatric viewpoint doctor

you know your main stock and trade i just um kind of wondering you know is um this talk of directed energy weapons because uh you know i hear this kind of talk every time we have a big fire. This is the sort of stuff which comes up now. And I remember hearing about it in the campfire, the campfire that took out Paradise. And then it was Malibu. And then people were making those kind of claims in our Southern Oregon fire there, too. And yet we did have an arsonist that started it who has never been caught they've never been able to do it but it was once again starting a fire in a 60 mile an hour wind event that's what happened with us and very similar things is uh you know from a psychiatrist

point of view is there almost an innate need for humans to think that there is some more nefarious cause for something like this, even if we don't have a whole lot of evidence, rather than the fact that maybe just bad stuff happens? And then there's incompetent people around us. How do you see that as a psychiatrist? I always want to be careful on these things. Well, there's certainly, I mean, we certainly do have the two incompetent people newsom and bath um but uh and yes there certainly were wins santa and a wins that's a thing you know that is a thing of every year yeah but every year those come every year those come in southern or southern california

pardon me yes but you know you kind of have to look at where the fires are oftentimes they're Every year those come. Every year those come in Southern California. Pardon me. Yes. But, you know, you kind of have to look at where the fires are. Oftentimes they're in very desirable locations, shall we say, you know, where people would like to come in and buy the land by people. I mean, like the globalists. I don't know whether it's more comforting to think that this is just a natural event and, you know, this is fate or that did it. I don't know that that's more comforting. Well, no, I was thinking if it was more comforting that it's the directed energy weapon. In other words, this is when the, you know, the conspiracy theories come every time, you know, something like this happens. That's what I was getting at.

Yeah, but I don't think it is more comforting to think that it's the directed energy weapons or an arsonist because that means that it could flare up anywhere at any time. So that is scarier than just the, you know, Santa Ana win. I wanted to ask about your home yourself, because you said that you are still rebuilding or repairing from a 2018 fire. So you had fire insurance. Do you still have fire insurance? Or are you one of those people that they've talked about that had had their coverage canceled a few months ago? To my knowledge, I do.

But, you know, it wasn't all that helpful the first time around. We also sued Southern California Edison because at that point, you know, part of the cause was at least in part related to the poorly kept up system of Southern California Edison. Now what they do, Southern California Edison turns off the power because they don't want to have to pay out, you know, millions of dollars. Pacific power here in Southern Oregon does the same thing. Same sort of situation because of the, you know, millions and millions or billions of dollars in some cases of lawsuits which ended up coming in. And then, though, I also read, and I was talking about this with our fire guy, Mr. Outdoors, on Friday, is how the power was cut off to the pumps that were filling some of the hydrants because of the fire, too. So it's like, boy, talk about adding insult to the injury, right?

Yes, here too. I've heard reports about that here too. I mean, you know, people are trying to blame each other. Newsom and Bass don't want to take the blame, so they blame the power company. I mean, you know, first of all, I mean, I guess it's a good thing, other than it's very inconvenient, you know, when you're out of power, it's very inconvenient to continue to do work or to have your refrigerator going or whatever. But, you know, it really, I mean, I'd rather that they do that and protect some land from fire than that they not do that. But I mean, really, I'd rather they keep their equipment in better shape so that it doesn't contribute to fires yeah yeah indeed but of course

you know we've been facing an entire uh you know we of decades of lack of investment in infrastructure including the electrical grid too and you look at what california and oregon were were a little bit behind you in California, but pretty much the same thing. We're not going to maintain the grid, but we are going to require you to get wind and solar power because climate change. And I know that your folks are all in on that down there, aren't they? Climate change nonsense is, you know, and that's the main thing, of course, that they're blaming it on, just climate change. Well, you know, climate change is a convenient, is something which I think all our communists are using, the communists in charge in the bureaucracy, to make up for the fact that

they haven't been doing their job, in essence. I think that's what's going on. And spending money on so called climate change you know operations rather than on on the fire protect prevention and and uh things like that you know our money whatever and in california we pay huge huge taxes especially huge property taxes so i mean that makes it even worse that they, with all this money, and some of it was supposed to go to building new reservoirs. And so all this money, and instead a lot of the money went to, I don't even know what they do for supposed climate change, but they just waste the money is what they do. Doctor, are you aware of whether people will actually be allowed to rebuild their homes? Because I'm thinking of the California Coastal Commission and all the various other bureaucracies

that the moment there is any kind of environmental question whatsoever, it just doesn't happen. And what do you know? That's interesting that you bring that up, because that is another part of it. You know, after the Malibu fires, like, let's say, the Wolfie fire in 2018, a lot of people still haven't gotten permission to rebuild their house, which is absurd. But now it makes sense, because the same thing happened in Maui. They don't want people rebuilding their house, you know, especially if it's a they want to do these cities these climate cities you know um which of course feeds the uh the opinion or the concern that these disasters are more man-made and more intentional than otherwise might be thought or at least it lends credence to it, I guess, or the theory.

Right. I mean, because there was no reason why people shouldn't be able to build back at least the house that they had. You know, maybe if they wanted to add some things that might be dangerous for some reason, I don't know. But certainly to build back the house that they had, there's no... So what happened is um newsom trying to uh relieve himself of some or trying to be the good guy trying to seem like a good guy um he has said that there's not going to be any problem with being able to uh build back to get permission to build back from the from the coastal commission i'm not sure coast commission has agreed well well gosh isn't that big of them, right? Yes, yes. And the thing is, people who have lost everything and who aren't covered sufficiently,

and they haven't really, even if you have insurance, they're not covering it sufficiently. So it's a nice idea to be able to build back, but how many people are going to be able to afford it? It'll be interesting to see what happens with a lot of this land. If a lot of this land ends up being taken over by the, or bought up relatively cheap by the BlackRock types, that'll tell you much, won't it? Yes, exactly. Dr. Carol Lieberman, MD, with me this morning.

Doctor, before we take off, and I appreciate you sharing a few moments, and what, have you talked to anybody that may have actually suffered loss of life or had loss of life in their family, or is it mostly just trying to escape the fire and property at this point, property destruction? Well, I mean, I don't personally. Well, you know, actually, like I was referring to a group, a Facebook group, you know, of Malibu people, an emergency Facebook group for Malibuites. And there has been some reports on there about some people who died. I mean, it's such a sad, it was an interesting story about, you know, and also firefighters are refusing, there has been at least this one firefighter, but I'm sure she's not alone, of refusing to pick up people.

There was a man who couldn't walk, and this firefighter, to be honest, I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. She was a member of the Island of Misfit Humans. Okay, I can assure you of that. And she refused to pick him up to help him get out of the burning fire. I mean, crazy things are happening. Another story was almost as bad. There was a man, and someone knew that there was a property nearby where there was an elderly man and his caretaker. And the firefighters told the caretaker to take off,

and the elderly man, I don't know what happened to the elderly man, whether he died or whether, oh, I think the neighbors saved him. I don't even know. But there are these stories where people aren't being saved, and in Malibu, I think the number is six people so far who died something like that five or six in the in the pasadena fire there were more it was 14 the last time i heard um you know a lot of it i'm sure is uh elderly people who you know couldn't couldn't get out of their home didn't have the mobility i know there was a child star who had suffered from cerebral palsy, who was not able to, his mother had a broken arm and couldn't get him

out. And then she went and took it to get some help. And then by the time they came back, the fire had just completely, you know. That was such a sad story, yes. And then there are people also who have stayed, who stayed. I know of at least one man who stayed to try to fight the fire himself with a hose and he got swallowed up by the fire. I mean, yes, there are all these disastrous stories, cases, you know, that that that are just so sad i think doctor i pray for a uh as soon as possible you getting to go back to your home and continue rebuilding from the last fire and hopefully you don't have much or any damage from the uh from the current one and uh so far your home seems to be okay but i am concerned because the santa anas are kicking up again today from what i'm reading. Is that what you're hearing? Yeah. Okay.

Today through Wednesday night. Yeah. I imagine you're not able to do the podcast and everything else right now, being out, right, and evacuated. To do my podcast? Yeah, all your podcasts, everything else that you do on web, right? Well, yes, I haven't really been able to do it yet, but I hope to get back

to it soon we hope that you can get back to it also we always appreciate your take and uh godspeed i i'm going to pray for a good outcome for you and your family and your neighbors too for that matter okay thank you very much thank you dr carol lieberman md mph and of course america's psychiatrist. She's board-certified Beverly Hills psychiatrist and a resident of Malibu and sharing her experience. This is the Bill Maher Show. Looking for your next adventure? From the rugged Subaru Outback to the versatile Subaru Forester, Southern Oregon Subaru has the perfect vehicle for you.

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Tick-tock. On the bubble. We'll talk a little bit about that in the other legal news here too. And Mike O'Neill will be joining me here a couple of minutes after the Hannity update and so much more. We're going to have town hall news coming up here next. And then try to get to the bottom of why it is that the state of Oregon doesn't seem to want farm workers actually working for farmers. An interesting rule that came out from Oregon OSHA. And we'll dig into that and so much more along with your calls. Dr. Powers, after 8 o'clock this morning with Where Past Meets Present, some local history and analysis of the news of the day, too.