You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty and this is KFI AM six forty Bill Handle.
It is a footy Friday, November eighth. Quick reminder, Neil and I will well. Neil will be broadcasting The Fork Report tomorrow. I'll be joining him as guest host co host, and it's from two to five o'clock in the afternoon at the Wild Fork in Laguna Neguel. Some great giveaways. They'll be grilling. They're going to give away a green egg, the barbecue green egg, Zelman's minty Mouth Mints will be there and Neil and I will be there, So stop by, say hello, get some free food.
Maybe we didn't buy Costco and have them do some of their samples there.
I went to Costco yesterday and man, they were doing nuggets. And as soon as the nuggets came out of that little oven and were put on.
The tray, there was some mad dash.
It looked like a soccer match in which your team lost and.
People were killed.
Now, Governor Newsom, our governor is calling a special session of California lawmakers. Let me tell you how pissed off lawmakers are, because December second, everybody gets sworn in. Thank you, Yeah, swore on the Bible. Yeah, pull a constitution, YadA, YadA, YadA, and you're a new assemblyman or a assembly person or a senator state senator. And then everybody goes home and hangs out for the fan with the family until the
beginning of January when the normal session starts. The governor can call a special session, which he did so folks, No December second. There he has asked for special session to increase state funding for litigation against the incoming Trump administration.
Why because Governor Newsom and others and I anticipate that Trump is going to seek limit to seek to limit access to abortion, dismantle environmental protections, which he is going to do, and to shield California from the Trump White House. Donald Trump and California have been in a war for a very long time.
Trump does not like California. Why is that?
Because California are the elitist Democrats California. Do you know why they come out? California is a non issue politically, It is the bluest of the blue state. It always goes to the Democrat automatically. So why would nominees come out because of fundraising?
Because of Hollywood, because.
Of the zillions of dollars that are given to campaigns, and every one of those except for very very few, where do you think they go. They went to Kamala, they go to the Democrat. And so Trump does not like California. And he has said that he's going to do everything he can to make life here in California hard. He only had he already did that in his first administration. Where it used to be that our state income tax was deductible, our insanely high income tax was deductible.
Well, under the Trump administration and.
The irs rules were changed to where you can only deduct up to ten thousand dollars in state income tax. Now these are for the high earners. These are for people who give money to the Democrats. And then the same issue goes with it used to be it was unlimited deduction for.
Your property taxes.
That's now ten thousand dollars, and you pay more than ten thousand dollars.
Let me tell you.
You buy a house here in Burbank, a two bedroom, one bath houses a million dollars just down the street. So you buy a two million dollar house and you're paying twenty thousand dollars in property tax. I know that's insane, but not here in southern California. Well, instead of a twenty five thousand dollars reduction, you get ten thousand dollars deduction.
That was Trump and now it's going to be crazy because here is the fear.
The fear is that Trump is going to withhold money for firefighting, fire mitigation.
Yeah, he probably will.
He is going to certainly reduce the regulations for environmental protection.
Absolutely. The move that the.
Governor has said, I'm sorry the governor Newsom.
I think it was to.
Make California neutral in terms of fossil fuel use by twenty thirty five. There have to be all electric cars. Now, how much money do you think comes in to create alternative forms of energy? Federal money comes in to help grants research projects, Loans come in to the state from the fa he Chow baby all gone. And then the governor is asking lawmakers to provide additional funding to the California Department of Justice and other agencies, which is really
weird to begin litigation against the Trump administration. You know, there were one hundred lawsuits filed one hundred during the first Trump administration by California. Now, does this really do anything. No, it's not going to change anything. Lawsuits, But what do they need extra money to file lawsuits? One hundred lawsuits during the first Trump administration.
Of course not.
And it's a given. And so the fight continues. Now, is there a legitimate lawsuit. Let's say you do have fire mitigation and other states, depending on their population, get X dollars from the federal government, and California does not file a lawsuit.
What do the judges do? Well, Trump's put enough federal judges up there. Where are they gonna say? No, thank you. It's gonna be a fight. It's gonna be a war, and a big one.
Be prepared for a fight. If you are a liberal, if you are a moderate, be prepared for a fight with the Trump administration. If you are an illegal immigrant, you've already lost because you're going to be deported. If you are in favor of anything dealing with the environment or dealing with fossil fuels, you've lost because you now have a different administration going the other way. That's all welcome for four years. Welcome to America, Welcome to democracy.
That's how it rolls, all right. Now, a couple of things are going to happen in the aftermath of the Trump election on Tuesday, and one of the questions is what happens to Trump's criminal and civil cases? President Trump's president elect Trump, what his criminal and civil.
Cases now that he's being re elected.
And he had said that as soon as he has sworn in, within the first two seconds, he's going to fire Jack Smith, who's.
A special prosecutor.
The biggest case against Trump criminally was the classified documents case, in which the former president and now newly elected president took those boxes of classified documents and there was no way he was getting out of there because they are the boxes. His defense was, I'm president and I can do whatever I want.
And there was a Supreme.
Court decision that, well, would it be appropriate under these circumstances that would be an issue.
So there he is.
President Trump saying, within two seconds, I'm going to fire Jack Smith, the prosecutor.
He's not. He's not going to fire him because Jack Smith is quitting.
You can't fire me. I'm quitting first. No, no, I'm firing you. No, I'm quitting. No, No, I'm firing you. He has already wrapped it up. The second the election announced Jack Smith that was already making plans to wrap up the investigation. It's not just you dismiss it. Now you have the issue of a sitting president. You also have an issue of a sitting president accused of that crime. And the special prosecutor was looking into that, and he can do one of two ways, and obviously he's gonna
do one. Just shut down, shut down the prosecution. Okay, just order the special prosecutor shut it down. Fire the special prosecutor. Jack Smith's going to quit and it disappears. Now there could be a conviction and he pardons himself, which of course is not going to happen. So those are gone. All the federal cases are gone. How about
the state cases. He cannot order those stopped. If he is convicted, he cannot pardon himself because it's a state jurisdiction and he can't get excuse me, he can't get out of a civil judgment. And there's a beauty sitting there of four hundred million dollars against Jane Carroll or that Jane Carroll has against him for defamation, four hundred and fifty four million, And that was a civil case that was brought by the New York Attorney General.
And that's a lot of money. Is he gonna get out of that. No.
The other one that's really interesting is the payoff the hush money case. While he was running for president, Stormy Daniels was going to go out there and talk about the affair that she had with Donald Trump. She is a porn actress, actress that what they call them, adult actress. She's basically a woman who has sex in front of a camera as opposed to sex on a street corner. And Trump is alleged to have sex with her, and she says it happened.
He denies it. I don't know how many people believe him, but he denies it.
And then it was Michael Cohen who paid her one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to shut up. And Trump was convicted did of falsifying business records because what he did is he ducted the money that he paid Michael Cohen as a business expense and then it was actually used as a payoff.
That's a falsification of business records.
Convicted thirty four counts of it, and he's going to be sentenced at the end.
Of this month.
And now the question will be of course, appeals will be filed instantly.
Canna sitting president even be sentenced.
Well, the judge, merchant has well, he's given himself until what next week to figure out whether he's going to sentence Trump or not. But let's say, since he is sentenced, could there be jail time?
There could?
Is there going to be jail time? And how does a judge order a president to.
Go to jail? Of course he doesn't.
And by the way, I don't know if this would be jail time for anybody else that don't know the rules of the state of New York. What I do know is that if there is a sentencing, what's going to happen is going to be held off until Trump leaves office because the entire issue of a sitting president being sentenced is so.
New, it's such an outlier case.
Well again, when's the last time we had a convicted felon, a womanizer, just outright womanizer, a liar, And he has lied numerous times, just right out there now. Most of his followers just don't care. But when you put it all together, you wonder. And I have friends who truly are flabbergasted. Not that Donald Trump is Donald Trump, and he ran for office, but that he won the election, and he won it handily. He took all seven of the battleground states. He won the popular vote. And here
I am and Instagram posts. I mean, people are very very upset, crying way beyond just a political win.
So we'll see what happens. So my guess is.
Sentencing will be I held off until after he is out of office.
That's the way I think Merchant is going to go.
He could just dismiss the case. I don't think he's going to dismiss the case. They're not friends. I mean, Trump just ripped into him and said horrible things about Merchant.
Huh.
I can't wait for that. It's going to be very interesting what's happening. The two are not friends. One of the things that Donald Trump does, he's very good at making enemies, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump. He's very good at making enemies, and he's very good at winning against enemies. And that's the other issue we're going to see in the presidency.
Is he actually going after those people? Is he actually going to order the investigation of the January sixth Committee of those who voted to impeach him. Is he actually going to start an investigation of Joseph Biden for crimes that Biden may have committed in dealing with Ukraine. It's going to be fascinating, it is. Maybe it'll be so busy with tossing.
Out every illegal migrant that that is going to fill up his day. I don't know. I don't know. It's fascinating stuff.
And as I said, we are in for such a roller coaster. And I want to thank Donald Trump for being elected because it's a guarantee that those of us in the talk radio business have you're going to have a lot to talk about. I mean a whole bunch. Boy, what a week this has been. Of course, the big story the election of Donald Trump is our forty seventh president, so he's number forty five and forty seven.
Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the only.
Other president that ever happened to that, and that was a late eighteen hundreds, and so a lot of preparation is going on. Things are changing, for sure. One of the big issues that Trump really believes in is the issue of immigration. There are certain things he really doesn't care about. Immigration is one he does care about, and so his allies.
And some people in the private sector.
Are preparing for the massed attention and the deportation.
Of illegal aliens, illegal migrants. It's gonna be huge.
We'll see what happens practically and real quickly. Neil and I are gonna be broadcasting tomorrow with the Wild fork In going to.
Miguel giving away. They'll be grilling, there'll be party yours. Who's a big boy?
Yeah yeah, We'll be giving away a Mini Max big Green Egg. It's their only portable unit. It's a thing of beauty and great to cook on. The folks from Green Egg will be out there, including Craig Fritz, Craig the Egg. He's gonna be out there grilling up wing lamb. My buddy from Wahoo's Fish taco is gonna be grilling. You will have me allens out.
I just said we're going to be out there. Yeah, okay, thank you.
No.
Neil was so excited about this he could take I know you are. I am too. All right, let's move into the topic for a long time. All right, let's move into the topic.
And this is a CNN topic and it talks about atheist chaplains, which is kind of interesting because how can an atheist be a chaplain? And an interview with Jason Callahan, who is a chaplain in a palliad palliative care unit of a hospital center cancer center.
What he does is he is an atheist and he is a chaplain.
Now let's say if I were an atheist and I'm not a big believer, that's fair to say. And what he does is does what other chaplains do? How will I cope with the pain and suffering that a company's advanced illness? The answer is drugs, lots and lots of drugs. There's your answer. Did I do right by my dying family member?
How the hell do I know? What do I look like?
Did I accomplish that I experience everything I wanted to do? Probably not? What will happen after I die? What will happen after I die? Two words? Worm food?
That's what happens after I die?
Or look at your fireplace, a lot of ashes there.
So now this is why I'm not a chaplain. So could be I'm still trying to do and Nil's a producer. I'm trying to do.
Marginal spiritual advice on The Jesus Show and to this day, you don't let me do that, Neil.
No, no, because you know there's no place in spirituality Macha Filipino for doing karaoke.
Yeah, there is. How do you know Jesus didn't have a sense of humor? Let me tell you.
The Old the Old Testament, the Old Testament, God, he had a sense of humor. Okay, Abraham and Isaac, kill him, kill your son, stab him in the heart.
There goes a knife. Hey, just kidding. I Oh, you were gonna do it too, What a dummy.
No, there's two reasons I know Jesus, Jesus or God has a sense of humor. One, the duck build Platypus. Two you have a star on the Walk of Fame and Marconi.
Uh yeah, pretty much.
Now it's nothing though. The term chaplain is a spiritual term.
Yeah, that's where we're gonna go. That's where I want to listen.
They're a therapist or a counselor, that's fine, but your I've always said atheism is an emotional decision, not an intellectual one. I after years and years of talking with atheists, I also believe that when you use terms spiritual terms, basically what you're doing is you want a faith and I think a theism does have faith involved in it. You want to faith without consequences, And that's fine if that's what you want to do, and I think it's a noble cause to want to help people.
Well, let me ask you this. I know, I know that you are a man of faith. Uh, and I am I know you are. We've had this discussion many times. Uh.
Do you see uh, someone who is an atheist being a chaplain?
Uh?
And our people Christians and Jews uh and Wickens uh willing to accept a chaplain who does not believe in God as a chaplain, not as a counselor uh, just someone in the chaplain.
It's a it's a it's a game of words.
It's like saying an atheist priest or listen, all chaplains are pastors. Now, not all pastors are chaplains, but all chaplains are pastors. And in this case, you're trying to shoehorn into a religious body, a religious structure with non religious you know, terms or.
Whatever, and a lot of people don't. It's they can't meld the two. For example, one of the things that I have talked about counselor. There are plenty of Christians specifically who base morality on the belief in God and Jesus, or even just the belief in God. If you're non Christian, and you cannot be moral unless you are religious. In other words, morality if you're a an atheist doesn't fly well.
You have a hard time explaining why something would be that or worse than something else if there is no if there's no transcendent. It's like trying to say, I'm a carpenter, but I don't believe in rulers or any form of measurement. I mean, where do you get the measurement from if you don't believe in an ultimate measuring guide that is universal because you.
Got because I think someone knows what is social.
Norms and what is good and what is bad.
Social norms well, social norms in Germany in nineteen thirty five.
I understand.
But there again, but that didn't make the generation of social norms. For example, the other day, I'm driving and I see a kitten on the road, and I actually swerve my car not to hit that little kitten. Surprisingly, that is a morality call. I believe, what all right?
What would have happened. If this is the kitten, I would have hit a kitten. Okay, but there's no there's no morality there. You had morality in making the decision, But where does that come from?
Okay? This is the stuff. This is the stuff that.
Neil and I talk about on a regular basis, and it's always fun and we'll pray you know what, Let's do that while we're cooking on the big green egg. And what came for here is when you cook, what are you going to cook on the egg?
What are you gonna grill?
I'm not going to be grilling anything.
Are they going to be grilling? Are they going to be grilling chicken? Yes? Okay? So what came first? The chicken or the egg? The chicken? Okay.
Now there is a story AP came out with AAP News and it's about returnless refunds. You don't like a product where it's not working and you want to return it, and the seller, Amazon, Target, whatever says, you know, we'll send you another one. Keep it, just keep it. Now, that just happened to me. I bought one of those rolling carts with the maple top, the cutting board top, you know, just to put stuff in obviously, and they sent me one where the doors don't close, and so
it's from Wayfair. Called them up and said we have to return it, and they said, no, not worth.
It, keep it. We'll send you another one. So now I have two of those.
By the way, the door doesn't open with the second one either, So I have two of these where the door doesn't open.
I'm wondering if I go for the hat trick.
More and more retailers are using this returnless refunds to keep online shoppers happy and then they don't have to pay shipping fees, processing time, ballooning costs from return of products.
And it's simply a question of money.
Is it worth it for the retailer to take it back, ship it and send it back to the manufacturer in most cases where in many cases no. But here's why they can do it. Here's where they can get away with it.
It's not policy.
It's on a case by case basis, and that gives the retailer enormous power. So a product that you don't like and you call up and you say I want to return it, Okay, return it.
Someone else calls up a few minutes later with the.
Same product and has the same complaint, wants to wants to have a new one. Yeah, you got to return it first. So what's the difference. Who makes that decision? How is that decision made? Well, they look at who the shopper is, They look at is there a pattern? And now with AI that becomes easy to figure out whether fraud is happening or not.
Now, I just bought a new printer.
Not inexpensive, by the way, My other two printers all I mean, they just went south. So I have a brand new printer sitting next to me, and it was a pricey printer. Now let's say in the next week, two weeks, it goes south, right, it doesn't work, So I call up It happens to be an epsin by the way, So I call up Epsoen or I call best Buy.
I think we got it, and I say, you know what, this thing doesn't work, go ahead and keep it. We'll send you another one.
You think that's gonna happen, No, it's for goods that would cost more.
To ship and process. That's it. It's strictly numbers.
And they keep you honest because they figure out who you are. Have you done this before, how much shopping. Do you do if you're a big shopper on this platform, on Amazon versus Walmart? They want to keep you happy. So the I'm gonna find out if I get a new one, I'm gonna call you know what. I'm gonna call Best Buy and say, hey, I'm not happy with my printer.
It's not work.
Well, why don't you send me another one? What do you think is gonna happen? And I don't want to ship it back.
No, they're they're gonna go, is this bill handle? And you'll go yes, and they'll go it's user error, you idiot.
Uh yeah, I was, Uh oh yeah, that's but no ask an.
Now.
I'm very good at setting getting the printing all on my own.
It used to be I needed someone here. I actually used to hire someone when.
I had I had a studio in Orange County. Still do, but I actually do the work myself. So there, Neil, I actually know how to print. She sends me a PDF. I look at it, I press the button, I go down to print, and then go up to print, press that button, and the son of a gun prints.
Oh boy, yeah.
And by the way, that's not that's not me doing shtick. That is legitimate. I actually used to pay someone and now I have Lindsay here, and she used to do it, and she actually taught me how to do it because she actually wants to sleep.
God that what I said. You can't blame her for that? Yeah I can? Okay, all right, I'm done.
KF I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch my Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
