You're listenings KFI AM six forty the bill Handle Show on demand on the iHeartRadio f KFI AM six forty bill Handle Here. It is a Monday morning, December twenty third. It is my last day here for the year, coming back the first Monday in January. Neil is out today, Amy is out all week, Michael Monks is filling in. And it's sort of going to be a modified week. For example, Gary and Shannon will not be here. They
will be playing the best of Gary and Shannon. You know, there was a discussion of when I am not here various times of the year to play the best of the bill Handle Show. Then I was told there's no such thing as the best of the bill Handle Show.
It doesn't exist. Okay, Well, the answers that question, doesn't it. Now.
A story about a former Republican congressperson out of Florida, Representative Matt Gates. Matt Gates interesting guy. He's been in Congress for eight years, probably the most unliked congressperson across the board by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress than we have seen in many, many years. He was the leader of the group that ousted Kevin McCarthy hated and does hate Joe Biden, one of two people that heckled Joe Biden during his State of the Union address, the
other one being Marjorie Taylor Green. I mean screaming at the President during the State of the Union, calling him a liar.
I mean just it was just crazy.
I mean the State of the Union, just the way government is running used to be that the President was at least his State of the.
Union address was sakra saint.
That is one of the high lights of the year for presidential delivery of news or rhetoric or where he.
Wants to go. That's all gone because of people like Matt Gays.
So the Ethics Committee of Congress has been investigating him for years, and there were rumors out there that he paid women, including a seventeen year old girl, for sex purchase, used illegal drugs, including in his Capitol Hill office, and as a result of those allegations, the investigation went forward. There was an argument as to whether or not they should even release that report, why because he's no longer a member of Congress member that he was nominated as Attorney General.
That fell apart very very quickly, and.
Then he resigned well, because he was going to be censured, probably because of the Ethics Committee. What's kind of interesting about this is there are more Republicans than Democrats on the committee because Republicans control Congress. It was a secret vote to release this this report. And by the way, an argument is, and it makes sense to me, the guy's no longer in Congress, he's no longer in government, in office, in government, and under any circumstances, what good
does it do to release the report. That's how that's how much he's hated. And it was a secret vote, and we have no idea who voted for. What we know the majority voted for the release of this report from the Ethics Committee. Now was it a close vote. I'm willing to bet no, because this guy was hated so much to this day, he denies any of that happen, even though they have emails, they have texts, payments, Venmo payments made to these women, like a dozen of them
from him. Witnesses, none of that happened. It's all lies, and what is it. It's a political witch hunt, that's what it was. All of these claims of improper conduct were simply a smear campaign invented by his political enemies read the Democrats and even some members of the Republican Party in Congress.
Now it gets even better than that.
First of all, when he resigned from Congress, and he had to resign in order to run for Attorney General, although I don't know or he had to be vetted by Senate. I don't know if you had to actually resign until you're actually nominated and confirmed.
Don't know the answer to that.
But he quit Congress, and I think for a lot of this reason, and then was going to be vetted by the Senate, who was vote whether he used to be confirmed or not as Attorney General.
That was never going to happen. So he withdrew.
And when he did resign, he said that he plans to spend the coming years fighting for President Trump. I think eight years is probably enough time in the US Congress, though, last week on x he posted the idea of returning to Congress as House Speaker. Now, how is it possible that you don't have a congress person as House speaker? Has it ever been in the history of United States a House speaker that was not in Congress?
No, is it possible? You bet?
You you don't need to be a member of Congress, to be the speaker according to the rules. Do you know that there's only one position in the United States where you don't have to be a judge or have any legal background to be.
On the bench.
You know what that position is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. You need no legal background whatsoever to be a prior judge.
Every other judge you need.
A legal background, Appeels court, district court, state court, you all have to. Everybody's got to be a lawyer, not the US Supreme Court, speaker, not a member of Congress, although that's never going to happen. So Matt Gates going down and not really. I mean, it's just who didn't know that he was a pig? You know, paid women for sex, lots of them, had sex when he was doing drugs, you know.
I mean that's not necessarily.
Bad because I did that when I was in my twenties, had sex high.
I'm not going to go through that story. I think I think we're going to leave that one alone. What do you think? Okay?
Now, every year I do something about Santa Claus because I find Santa Claus one of the more interesting historical figures because it has gone all the way from ancient Turkey to modern day commercialism and the politics, and there are a lot of politics involved with Santa Claus and going back to the Civil War and statements in favor
of the North. So really where Santa Claus started. And when we talk about the beginning of our Santa Claus, sort of the myth of Santa Claus, it's the modern day Santa Claus that we think of going to the malls and seeing at a store. Mall actually started in AD two eighty near Petera and Turkey, where the first mall that was ever created came up in the first two hundred years of the common era. That's not true, by the way, they didn't have eighteen hundred years ago, but it's.
A nice thought.
So the legend of Saint Nicholas, and we know Saint Nicholas is Santa Claus, except wow has it changed. And he was known he came up as a saint as a protector of children and sailors and then he morphs by and incidentally, this feast day of his not Christmas, December sixth, was the anniversary of his death. Because remember he's a saint and saints are revered and the anniversary of their deaths are really the holidays. Well, by the Renaissance, Saint nick is now the most popular saint in Europe.
Saint Nicholas, even after the Protestant Reformation, where you know, we don't want saints very much, we don't like him, he still.
Had a positive reputation. How about America.
When did he become a deal in America? Well, you literally go back to the beginning of our country. December of seventeen seventy three, and the next year New York newspaper reported that a group of Dutch families were there to honor the anniversary of his death. Now, how did he get his name Santa Claus? Well, his nickname in Dutch is Center Claus. In eighteen oh four, there was a member of the New York Historical Society distributed woodcuts of Saint Nicholas at the society's annual meeting.
Again, this was not very much Christmas, but.
The engraving included images of Saint Nicholas filling stockings with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. Okay, now we're getting it together. Where Saint Nicholas becomes Santa Claus. In eighteen oh nine, Washington Irving helps popularize this when he writes the history of New York and then gift giving, which was part of the old celebration of Saint Nick, becomes a Christmas celebration. The holidays rejuvenation starts in the
early nineteenth century. Stores begin to advertise Christmas shopping in eighteen twenty. In the eighteen forties, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday ads, offering now features of the newly popular Santa Claus. That's when it morphed. In the early eighteen nineties, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for their Christmas meals they provided for needy families.
They started to dress up. There actually homeless people at that time.
Homeless man dressed to Santa Claus ringing the bell today.
I just went to a store. The other day.
I went to a rouse and there was this little old lady ringing the bell asking for donations. I started screaming at her, why aren't you dressed as Santa Claus.
What's all this about? Oh, we don't do Santa Claus anymore. Come on, give me a break.
And then it goes on, I don't have much more time. We should have done this for two topics. At least. In eighteen twenty two there was a minister Clement Clark Moore wrote a poem for his kid, His daughter's an account of a visit from Saint Nicholas, that is, the night before twas the night before Christmas. And then we have Thomas Nast during a civil war dresses up a
Saint Nick that's going back. And then in the United States, Santa Claus now is flying from his home on Christmas Eve to deliver toys to children all over the world, his sleigh, of course, led by his reindeer Dasher Dancer, Pranson, Vixen, Comet, Cupid,
Donner and Blitzen, which is a law firm that's very famous. Rudolph, of course comes into being years later with the red nose, actually because originally Rudolph was depicted as an alcoholic reindeer with that glowing red nose, and that disappears where now it's.
Simply a beacon. It's like a headlight. Isn't the Rudolph's nose a headlight? I don't know.
I don't know this story. It's just I just like the historical part of it. And I was trying to be stupid and it worked beautifully. Cono, was that like a bad attempt at humor? Yeah, I know, I'm embarrassed.
I am.
I am humiliated by the segment. I just did stupid moronic.
The jokes didn't work.
Okay, talking about stupid moronic and the jokes didn't work. Hey thirty on a Monday? Do they have a case with Wayne and me?
Good morning Wayne, Good morning sir.
So the way, did you ever did you ever figure out what they call Rothko paintings?
That style? No, what I believe Are you thinking of color field?
No, I'm not, because I believe that is the discipline that he is.
Yeah, I don't you know, I don't know. I know it's very modern modernistic, it's but I don't know what the school is, you know, Impressionism, Cubism, I don't know.
It's abstract art.
And anyway, okay, I made for you today a theme. Do they have a case? Both cases have the same device in common. It is an ankle monitor case. One right here in downtown LA in federal court. This woman's on trial for selling some meth and part of her release conditions is she wears an ankle monitor that monitors her location at all times, and there's certain places she's not allowed to go. So they're in court for jury selection.
Her ankle monitor keeps beeping, and the defense attorney says, you know, her thing's beeping, and if jurors are sitting there, they're gonna hear it beeping, and then they're gonna know, and then they'll be it'll it'll prejudice her in the front of the jury, just like if you had somebody in shackles. And the judge goes, all right, I get it. I hear what you're saying. So let's do this. The next time we take a break, we'll just cut the
thing off of her. We'll just cut it off of her, and we'll tell pre trial services what happened, and then after they.
Could put another one on her.
So they bring in the jury and it's beeping again, and the judge goes, hey, let's have a recess right now, doesn't tell the jury why, and then cut the thing off and they proceed with the trial per normal.
She's convicted.
Now, she appeals and says that the beeping of her ankle monitor, as brief as it was, tainted her trial prejudiced her in the eyes of the jury, that it's the same thing as if she was in shackles and the jury saw the shackles, which would be unconstitutional under existing law, and therefore the trials should be thrown out. And the government says, shackles and an ankle.
Monitor are not anywhere near the same thing.
The reason you don't let people in shackles be seen by the jury has to do with First of all, it was because you don't want the person to be in pain, because they need to defend themselves, not so much because the jury might think ill of them, but also because shackles. The jury would look at a person in shackles and think, oh, they must be dangerous. An ankle monitor is down on your ankle. People don't think you're dangerous because you're wearing an ankle monitor. It's certainly
not causing you pain. They're too different for her to have a case. What does Bill Handle.
Say, Ooh, Actually, the court could have gone either way on that very easily, simply by saying that the beeping of the ankle mind does tell the jury that there is an ankle monitor there, and therefore the connection is there is something wrong especially when what other reason would there be for an ankle monitoring. My question is did the jury know that it was an ankle monitor that was beeping?
That's question number one. Question number two.
If they did know that an ankle ankle monitor was beeping, is that enough to cross the threshold of prejudice against the defendant?
And I'm guessing you know, it could go either way.
It really depends on the appeals court, which you know, are they pro defendant are they pro prosecution.
I am going to say.
That the court said that it didn't cross the threshold, that it did not meet the level of.
Prejudice that was necessary to undo the trial. That's my guess.
I'll answer your first question. They all agree. Everybody agree read to proceed on the theory that the at least one juror heard the beeping and knew it was an ankle monitor.
Okay, Now the crux of.
The case is your second question, And so you youth, what do you The appeals court said that that I think crossed the line.
I would say that it did not cross the line, and therefore the defendants case, she's not going to get a new trial.
That's right.
I think they said it a different way, but I think you're both saying the same thing. What they said is she could not show that there was any prejudicial effect.
On her okay.
Over over the possibility or the likelihood that a juror knew she was wearing an ankle monitor, and she does not get a new trial. Okay, all right, yeah, right, she got she got a lenient sentence.
By the way, so because because of the argument come back or in general, she got a lien.
No, no, no, she got a They had the trial, she was convicted, she got a lenient sentence, and then appealed on the ankle monitor beeping thing. Huh, Okay, it gets to keep her lenient sentence because it doesn't come back down to the judge who might feel like, hey, I did you.
A solid, I did you two solids.
I made them cut your ankle monitor off right away, and then I gave you a lenient sentence, and then you appeal and now you're back.
But that didn't happen. Was there any argument?
Did the judges the appeals court talk about the possibility that the jurors were under the impression that she had a smoke detector in her purse?
Uh?
No, that didn't that didn't come up? Okay, just wondering, Just want to stand the case.
Again, just to see if I missed it though. All right, both of these cases involve an ankle monitor. Here's the case. It's very different than the last one. So this on trial for illegal gun possession, and one of his conditions is also that he wear an ankle monitor. Yet he is able to elude monitoring to go kill a rival. How could this have happened? You may ask yourself, Well, this gentleman has uh let me find it in the in the opinion, because it's funny the way.
It's worded here.
It is he has one natural leg and one removable prosthetic leg.
And what do you think happened? He took off his leg.
They put it on the wrong leg. They put it on his fake leg. And you're exactly right. He took off that fake leg, left it at his house.
He has a spare, and he wasn't hopping, so he wasn't He didn't hop out of the house.
No, he put on.
His spare and he went to the part of town he was specifically forbidden to go to because his rival was there, and he killed his rival. So now the family is suing the United States government over this grievous error. Here's the thing you need to know. It was not any government employee that put the thing on the wrong leg. It was a contract company called Sentinel, and it was somebody at Sentinel that put it on the wrong leg. But the family is suing the United States government, and
the government says, you can't sue us over this. Now, you might think it's just because you can't sue the US government. Normally, what do you have to have to sue the US government? Permission from the US government. That's normally how it works. They have to give you permission
to sue them. There is an exception, though, and it's this Federal Tort Claims Act, where in certain circumstances you can sue the government, but you still can't sue them if the thing you're suing about was a discretionary act. You could sue them if they're doing something they have to do and they screw it up and you get hurt, but not if it's discretionary. So here's what you're gonna
have to decide. They're suing the government. They're not suing Sentinel, the private company that contracted with the government.
And the theory of the suit is negligent hiring.
By hiring this company and entering into the contract, that the US government was negligent in the hiring of Sentinel. Wow, so here's the thing. The government says, that's a who to hire is a discretionary decision. We just side who to hire or contract with or who not to, So it's discretionary. You're not allowed to sue us for this. And the plaintiffs say, well, there's a lot of rules
and regulations about government contracting. There's even the Federal Acquisition regulations that have all kinds of policies and procedures and stuff you got to do. So we say it's not discretionary because it's subject to so many rules. And the US government says, well, we say it's discretionary because there are a lot of rules, but the ultimate decision who to contract with is discretionary.
It's interesting, say.
Yeah, you, that's an interesting, interesting case in the sense that I wouldn't have even filed. I would have filed straight out. The screw up was the government because Sentinel is an agent agency rules applies here where you know, you hire someone and they screw up. They're doing it on your behalf.
So I you know, that's where I would have gone.
And as far as discretion and not discretion, is the court ordering ankle bracelet or an ankle monitor?
Is that discretionary, Well it is on the judge. Was that taken into account? I don't know. I am guessing that.
And again these are guesses because they're I mean, it's pretty close. As far as I'm concerned that the government's argument about the discretionary part is not going to fly because there's enough out there that puts the government at risk for being sued.
That's where I would go on this one.
As far as the other cause of action, I would have filed on that on that cause of action.
But what did the appeals court say?
Well, they said that there is still enough discretion in government hiring, in contracting, that who to hire is a discretionary act and therefore you cannot sue.
Okay, So I got that one.
You brought up some Once again, this happens, and people, folks, it's not something that happens constantly, but from time to time. Bill Handle is smarter than any of the judges or lawyers in these cases. And This is one of those occasions because you talked about that once Sentinel is working for the government under a government contract, that they are in essence agents of the government.
And wouldn't that mean.
When they are ordered to put an ankle monitor on somebody, that's not a discretionary act for them.
That's a required act. And that's where I would have gone, which they screwed up.
Yep, And therefore there would be an opening to sue Sentinel.
That's where go through the government. Yeah, That's that's where I was going.
Yeah, And so I don't know why they only sued the government.
I don't know why they are not as smart about it as as you just work. Thank you for that.
I guess this probably doesn't stop them.
Hopefully they're listening to this show.
And you would think that they would have gone with both theories and hope one sticks.
And that's usually the case.
If A doesn't work, then we're still arguing A and B, and if that doesn't work, here's theory C. Hopefully something sticks. And I'm surprised that it didn't go that way.
Wayne. Thank you. We'll catch you next year when we start doing this. I'm sorry.
In six one six January sixth. That's it, guys, we're done. It has been a very pleasant year maybe, and it's time.
To say goodbye. I do you know what. It's almost like a eulogy here.
Right, uh so, Happy Christmas as they say in England, Happy Hanukah as they say here.
It's going to be a.
Fun year next year as we look at a new presidency coming in President President on Musk. Yeah, President Musk, Yeah, pretty much. I was gonna I was almost going to say President Trump, but who are we kidding? All Right, guys, have a good one. I'll catch you at the beginning of next year. Coming up, Gary and Shannon, except it's best of Gary.
And Shannon because we're already in that week.
This is KFI AM six forty more stimulating talk radio.
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