You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI A six forty.
And this is KFI Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, August one. Or gold medals that are being won by Americans, which they do.
The metal count.
That's so important, right, we have to know how many gold medals we win and how many medals in general. And we're not at the top of the heap with gold, but we are at the top of the heap with medals, which means that our athletes are more second rate than not. That's a horrible thing to say, and that's not true, but it's really important, isn't it.
All Right? I want to move God. That was not well said or well described at all. Good for you, Bill.
All right, Now I want to talk about something that you probably didn't even know existed, and that is, you know, when they talk about social workers going out so the police don't have to deal with non violent issues, right, someone is out there screaming or mentally ill. You know the mantra at this point, get social workers out there, don't call the police, or have the social workers with the police. Well, there's also something called or a group called interventionists.
What the hell is that?
Interventionists are paid by the city. They're city employees and they're sort of social workers slash mediators slash life coaches. And what they do is deal with gang members. By the way, most of them are former gang members, and it's to bring down the crime, lower the temperature among gang members. And if you look at what the city is saying, they're delivering results steep crime reduction over the past year in the twenty three gang reduction zones, and
this is where intervention is are active. They actually go into those areas. I'll explain that in a minute. By the way, the crime rate is actually dropping. I mean, you're going to hear the politics that it's out of control.
It's not. It's actually going down.
If you look statistically, unless you happen to be the victim of a burglary or someone shoves a gun in your head, then the crime is not going down. Particularly And here is the problem. They get paid forty thousand bucks a year. Last summer, actually the minimum salary was raised, but you have to have special training to sixty thousand dollars a year, which is still at least it's not poverty level, which forty thousand dollars a year is and so the city is being really talks to and lobbying for.
Come on, this is working. Help us out.
One of them, who was interviewed for an LA Tames article, said, it's just flat out wrong. I make a dollar more than a person who work at McDonald's, two dollars less than a person who works at in and Out. And that is the problem. Is that we just don't pay our teachers enough. We certainly don't pay our public service workers enough. But man, what this is on a whole different level, because this is.
This is I guess you know, front of the line workers. This is to bring down gun violence. People die.
This is gang banger violence they want to bring down. The problem is why it's no big deal. How many people care if gang bangers kill each other.
I don't care as far as I'm concerned. Not your socks off.
It's the innocent people get caught in crossfire that I'm upset about.
It's the people who.
Are not connected they get harmed. It's what they do to neighborhoods. Although the argument is where else does the kid go when you have no opportunity? And the heroes are the pimps and the drug dealers. They don't have many kids coming out of the inner.
City who end up being CEOs of major corporations. And here's what interventionists do.
They go in and interestingly enough, it's not just calming down gang members. It's tamping down rumors because in that world there are so many rumors and we just a conflagration can be ignited with one rumor a fight.
Hey, or.
How was that story about the kid who was deaf and was making trying to talk in sign language in front of a group of gang bangers and was killed because they thought that he was throwing gang signs. That's what interventionists do. They calm all of that down. And they also connect those that want with social services because they don't know. At the height of pandemic, they frontline healthcare workers in their neighborhoods, passing out masks, educating people
about the coronavirus. And here's what's going on. The job is getting tougher and tough tougher. One thing you may not think about, and I didn't think about this. When we think of gangs, we think of this group of people that hang out together, and they're gangs the way we know them but did you know that gang membership changes a ton. There's a lot of attrition, and it's different people and the cops. Even though the cops on these task forces sort of have an idea, interventionists are
in that community. They know exactly what's going on, and they are there to well to say, hey, you misunderstood, let's do some mediation.
I mean, it's a pretty important job. And they ain't getting any money.
And then the argument goes, how much money where does the money go that a city has? And here is the argument that I've always made when dealing with a homeless Okay, homelessness is the number one problem in the city, in the county, in the state, then that's certainly the way that voters think about it. Gavin Newsom ran on homelessness. Karen Bass ran on homelessness. That was her platform when she became mayor. Paul Caruso, her opponent, ran on homelessness.
That was his primary platform. Do you take money that you would pay interventionists or give them a raise and then move it over to the homeless problem. Do you get rid of the interventionist program because let's say you're spending thirty five million dollars or forty million dollars for a program you can build, well eight houses or eight units of shelter. Where does the money go? I mean, this is first responder stuff. And at the same time, there's no money. There is no money never is you know.
You think with the taxes we pay, and here, particularly in California, the city of Los Angeles, I mean we're probably the I would guess if you are in La City of La or La County, you are probably in the most taxed jurisdiction in the United States. And there's never enough money to go around.
Ever.
Okay, today the rules change about bringing dogs in the United States.
CDC just came.
Up with a bunch of new rules and effective to day. So if you're bringing in dogs today, certainly it was easier yesterday. And this is aimed at preventing the spread of rabies. And boy, this is a huge problem. The spread of rabies, that's all what this is about. So let me give you a stat about the spread of rabies. The number of dogs entering this country that have rabies have skyrocketed, and how many have there been Since twenty fifteen,
four four dogs that have rabs have entered the United States. Okay, now the government gets to work the CDC.
By the way, are these.
Requirements are so stringent that a bunch of airlines are simply not allowing dogs to travel to the US with their.
Families at all?
I mean military families, diplomats, pet shippers, animal rescue organizations are all up in the air.
What the hell do we do here?
Is an effective Today? Dog owners who want to bring their dogs in the United States have to complete a new form. All dogs entering must be over six months old. No, puppies have to be micro chipped and appear to be healthy upon arrival. What the hell does that mean? Who decides if a dog looks healthy or not. Also, requirements are depending on where the dog was vaccinated and if the dog has been in one of more than one
hundred countries identified as high risks for rabies. One hundred countries, and the dog might have to pass a blood test or be forced quarantined for twenty eight days in a CDC registered facility, all at the owner's expense.
Yeah.
Now, the CDC is saying this aligns with the World Organization for Animal Health standards for international movement of dogs from countries with a high risk of dog rabies. Okay, four Dogs Society since twenty fifteen, and they're saying, we've seen the CDC, We've seen some radius and challenges, international dog importers, fraudulent documentations, dogs housed in unsafe conditions, and there are only six ports now where a dog can enter the United States where there's an animal care facility.
In the event it has to be it has to be quarantined. Yep, the airline will be required to create an airway an airway bill for each dog transported. Usually that was only required for dogs in the cargo hold, but not for dogs that you were taking, for example, in the cabin in that little container a little dog create you would put him in.
Rabi's was completely eliminated in the United States in two thousand and seven.
Done Raby's done. And I mean is Raby still around?
Yeah? You can go to Appalachia and you can go to.
You know, go to a restaurant and order up some squirrel and you can get it with or without rabies.
Got it.
You can go to Hunan and China, Kentucky Fried Bat and you could order bats with rabies.
That is an issue, but eliminated in the United.
States in two thousand and seven, and the influx has been astronomical for cases since twenty fifteen. And good luck now bringing in a dog from overseas. All right, you know how what it can cost three thousand dollars even with all the requirements. Now I didn't know this, And you have military folks are overseas, and let's say they
get a dog. Service members can be reimbursed fro up to two thousand dollars worth of expenses for moving a dog internationally, which is kind of neat, But I mean, come on, you know, you test for rabies and you're done. Maybe it's an automatic test and that's it, and you're done, and you do it at the port, you do it at where you take off entering the United States, it could be a lot easier, I think.
Yeah, all right, so much for that. Dog lovers, look what happens to you guys, okay.
Jd Vance has criticized the Democrats, particularly Kamala Harris, as one of the childless cat ladies who run the country. And if you don't have kids, there's something inherently wrong with you, and he dug in that same twenty twenty one he criticized Democrats being led by childless figures, and of course the memes, the outrage, sometimes the agreement, and he dug it again and said that he believes democrats, especially those who aren't parents, are anti family and anti child.
Now, is he completely out of his mind? Of course?
I mean, come on, guys, really, are you really going to go there? Well, it seems so, you know, I'm wondering about the political moves that are being made between former President Trump arguing that Kamala Harris really isn't black or she just now pretends to be black or identifies herself as black and didn't historically, which of course she did.
And so you got that one, and he's not taking that back. And then you have JD.
Vance who said that the country was being led by childless figures and the best the line, I like the best childless cat ladies, by the way, I think he also he was talking about Harris and included Pete Buddhagic who didn't have kids, which he does now he and his husband. He and his husband have adopted a kid.
And so what's going on with that? I mean, is that crazy? Enough? Let's go back into history for a moment.
Can we can we do some a little bit of historical analysis here?
Did you know for the first part.
Of our history in the United States, a third of our first fifteen presidents, a third of them, including George Washington, had no children, or at least biological children.
No kids.
Now that was actually considered a virtue. Having kids was actually a detriment. And how is that possible? Where would you think that would go? Where would you think that someone running for president? And we're talking about early days of the country, actually right through I would guess the early nineteen hundreds, it was a good thing not to
have children, starting with George Washington. And this has to do with this twenty twenty one clip of jd Vance, now the vice presidential nominee, and he's criticizing childless people, and then he targets now he targets Kamala Harris as one of the childless cat ladies who run the country. He just keeps on doubling down. And I don't know what else he could say. I mean, he could try to deflect. Oh, I didn't mean I'm in dog ladies instead of cat ladies. I mean, I don't know how
you come back from that. But he keeps on doubling down. In an interview he just did, he says that he believes the Democrats, especially those who aren't parents, are anti family an anti child.
Okay, where do you go from there?
Is it almost like someone is writing statements to Trump and advance to alienate as many people as possible. Well, let's just say there's a lot of pushback on this one. Now, let's go into history a little bit, because historically it was to your benefit running for president if you didn't have children.
It was a good thing.
A third of our first fifteen presidents, including George Washington, had no biological children. Now, he had a stepchild from his wife, Martha. When he married Martha, she had a daughter. And by the way, their daughter died at seventeen. She was epileptic. And that was fifteen years before Washington became president. And I'll tell you why it was such a virtue because when Washington was elected president, there was talk about the establishing a monarchy King Washington. A lot of talk
because we had just come out of a monarchy. And even though we were very anti monarchy, there was a good percentage of people that wanted our monarchy. An American monarchy, and thank goodness, Washington shut that down. He was responsible for saying no, no, no. He's the one that first number one came up with, you call the president mister president, not your excellency.
I mean, they were throwing all sort.
Of statements out there about your excellency, your highness, literally that no one knew. And he's the one that says it's mister president. To this day, of course, that's what we call the president. And here's why it was so important, or it was important not to have kids in those early days because of the establishment of a monarchy, then its hereditary, it goes to children, and if there are no kids, then that cuts that avenue off.
Kings are replaced by their sons.
Kings are replaced by their children, and if there are no children, then that issue is put to rest.
Matter of fact, seventeen eighty.
Eight, there was a newspaper article praising Washington as America's first president, partly on the ground that he had no son and we would not be running the risk of exposing us to the danger of a hereditary successor. Even Washington considered this point. There's a draft of his first inaugural that he didn't put in there, but.
He said he.
Not had my blood transmitted or my name perpetuated. I have no children for whom I could wish to make a provision, no family to building greatness upon my country's ruins.
I mean, he said, you know it's a benefit. I don't want kids.
Also, there was a letter that John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson worry that European powers is when John Adams was Secretary of State, worry that European powers may want to build alliances with the children of presidents. We're going to cozy up to president's kids, and therefore we're going to take advantage.
So early on, no kids, no advantage. You're done and so Hunter, was that the Hunter Biden clause or uh yes. Now keep in mind, here's the difference.
Okay, and I agree with you being a president's kid is a good thing, but not in terms of running for president. That's the difference. I think the only people will have been a couple. George George W. Bush being the son of George H. W. Bush.
Is that hereditary.
We talk about a family dynasty, but it's not hereditary in the same sense.
If it's automatic, it's not.
You for example, Chelsea Clinton is not automatically the president when Bill Clinton dies or Bill Clinton no longer is, it's a very different concept. Being connected is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, for God's sake, you know, if my dad were president of the United States, I too would want to go to the gas company of Ukraine and say I'd like half a million dollars or what do you know about the gas industry? I know how to turn on my gas stove.
Okay, that's worth.
Half a million dollars, thank you. So I'm not saying there aren't advantages or disadvantages. But what I am saying is that the history of no kids is actually good for potential presidents and presidents. We just were fine with that historically.
And also the other issue that people who are a little upset.
With vance what is no kids? Explain that one to me, step kids are those kids? Adopted kids? Are those kids? Buddhajic has an adopted kid? Does he not have kids? How about kids that you're raising? How about nephews and nieces that you're raising?
Are those kids?
When I was teaching law school, I know it's hard to believe. I taught seminars in third party reproductive law. And this was when surrogacy and IVF was just starting, and I would ask the students, tell me what a mom or dad is, Tell me what a parent is. And I would start putting up on the board step parent, adopted parent, biological parent, intended parent, spermed downer, contractual parent.
Which exists in the world of surrogacy and third party.
And then I pointed to the class and I had like seven different versions, and I said, so you tell me who's mom and dad. Just go ahead, point it out and you tell me who is mom and dad in those seven configurations. And this is where I think jd. Vance is not only off the mark.
He said, it's just dumb. It's just stupid. It's just it makes no sense.
You know, for those of you that have no children, I'm assuming none of you have dogs because you all have to have cats.
Is that automatic? No children equals cats? All right?
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