You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six fortyfi AM six forty Bill Handle.
Here it is a Tuesday morning, October twenty eighth.
All right.
One of the big issues that we're dealing with, and that's coming up this election coming up November fourth.
So it's right around the corner is the.
Is Proposition fifty special election, and that's the only thing on the ballot, and it's two hundred three hundred million dollars. I mean, it is a chunk of money to hold any kind of election in the state, statewide election. And Prop fifty, as you probably know, is in response to what Texas did at the urging of President Trump. President Trump picks up the phone and says to Republicans or Republican legislatures or companies, here's what I want you to do.
And before where he actually puts down the phone, they're already doing it. He certainly does that with Congress, He certainly certainly does that with state legislatures. And that's what happened in Texas. Texas. Usually it has to do with redistricting, and generally redistricting is done by the legislature in many states, and it's done every ten years.
Based on the census.
Trump asked Texas to throw that away and mid census then redistrict. Redistricting mean they draw up a new map, and based on the map and the number of Democrats Republicans, things like if there is a democratic area, a state can redraft the entire map. So basically, all the Democrats are crowded in the one district that's a throwaway that becomes democratic, but the other ones, the swing areas around it, you can have them lean or Republican as opposed to
let's say, even Stephen And that's what Texas did. Texas created effectively five new districts leaning Republicans and therefore changing what Congress is going to be made of. All Right, so California says, okay, we're gonna go this. We're gonna do the same damn thing.
Now.
The problem in California is that by proposition, we have voted not for the legislature to read district but an independent commission, so no politics are brought into it. Equal number of Democrats, Republicans and at the same time some independent authorities.
So what has happened is that.
There is a special election saying we're gonna California's going to bring it in to the same way Texas is. That's the fight for Prop fifty except the differences. We have a we have a democratic legislature and we're going to add five new Democratic seats or move it around, so Democrats will probably prevail. Now that has to be done by proposition, because establishing the Independent Commission was done
by proposition. So you can only undo a proposition by proposition or changing in the Constitution of California, which, by the way, no one has any doalua what it looks like.
It's five hundred pages.
There are things in the constitution that were passed twenty years ago that we've reversed and then reversed again, and then reversed back again.
It's a god awful mess. So now we have this massive move in the state, and.
Because it is a democratically led state, on the ballot it goes and the legislature put this on the ballot.
Which way are we going to go?
Well, there's the anti fifty movement out there, of which Donald Trump is the head of it. He doesn't want Democrats prevailing. He only wants Republicans, which makes sense. He's a Republican president.
I get that.
And also what he is doing is and this is against the wishes in the philosophy of the Republican Party in California, and that is to go against the mail in ballots. There have been more than four million of these mail in ballots already brought in. Eighteen percent eighteen percent of the people have already sent in their ballots I have. That is as of Friday, and Democrats outpace
Republicans returning those ballots twenty eight percent. Those without a party preference that's me or any political party, twenty one percent of us have returned those ballots. So let me tell you this is really scaring Republicans, big time Republicans. Here's what Trump writes. No, this is with the San Diego GOP posted. It's simple, Republicans need to stop complaining and vote. We ask and ask and yes and ask.
Yet turnout still lags. To win this one GOP turnout needs to be terially better than average.
It's very doable, but it just won't happen. You have to work at it.
Now. The president, for some reason, thinks that early voting hurts the party. Historically, early voting helped the Republicans. It was the Democrats who walked in on election day and voted that has reversed, and the GOP is saying, we've got to go back to those days, and the President not recognizing that, certainly at least in California, is pushing to get rid of mail in ballots. And now you have the fight or the argument between President Trump and
the California GOP, the California Republicans. And if I'll tell you right now, if Trump prevails on this one and again this is this is not politics, this is just facts.
Now I'm just looking at this sort of objectively.
If Trump prevailed, the Republicans will lose because Republicans don't vote early. And the Republican Party in California says, we have to vote early, we have to vote early. We're going to lose if we don't vote early. The Democrats are and the President hates early voting, hates mail in ballots, always has and he's fighting like crazy and for the sake of the Republican Party here in California. And now I'm arguing for the Republican Party, I well, it depends
on it doesn't matter what I hope happens. But I think what's going to happen is the Republicans are going to get hurt big time if they listen to President Trump on this one. All right, LA homeowners are among and this is Southern California in general. This is a story about LA because LA is sort of the poster child of all of Southern California. We're among the most house poor in the country. What is house poor? Well, first of all, a study published by Consumer Affairs and
it's a finance terms. They did the study. I'll tell you about the stats in a minute. They did this study, and house poor is the finance term you used to describe someone who spends a disproportionate amount of their income on housing costs, with very little leftover for other expenses. Now, as of this report, it says that about a third of the cost of housing is what it's costing homeowners currently in Southern California.
Now, it always used to.
Be that renters would pay a disproportionate share. We always talked about renters and when you look at finance, your borrowing money, or you're looking at stats, you should only pay about a third of your income towards housing. And Amy said, Oh, Bill Amy, and how much did you say you paid. I'm sorry to interrupt you. How much do you pay as a percentage of your income towards your rent?
Over half? See?
And that is unfortunately more more usual than not in southern California. But I want to go to home ownership for a moment. Here's a stat The typical household in LA earns about almost eleven thousand dollars per month, spends more than thirty five hundred in a housing about thirty two and a half percent.
LA monthly housing costs among the highest.
And so what they've done, the consumer affairs folks, They have listed California or Southern California as number four in the nation as opposed to in describing the most unreachable, unaffordable houses.
A couple of things.
Inflation that affects all of us property tax double the national average. Because there's a million dollar home is nothing out there today a median in I think we're almost at a million dollars in median income, and that is outpacing what the homeowners are earning. Every year, housing costs increase almost four percent from twenty three to twenty twenty four, incomes fell by zero point one percent. Houses are getting more expensive, income is dropping, and that is uh, it's
a real problem. And this is a conversation I have with Lindsey all the time, and she is very angry that I'm a baby boomer. Why because I and that's you that are in the world of baby boom boom osity.
Boomiosity that we are.
We've taken all the good stuff pright when we bought for When we first bought houses, mortgages were low. Houses were two hundred and three hundred thousand dollars. Today houses are completely out of reach. When I sold the Persian Palace, and just before I sold it, I looked at it and we were listing it. Uh it was I say, I would tell myself, I could never afford to buy this house. Today, there is no way I could afford to buy this house. And I make a good living.
And how did I have that house? I bought my first one in my twenties, then I sold it and bought another one in my thirties, and then another one in my thirties, and then in my forties I bought another one and just kept on climbing that ladder. You can't climb the ladder today, because you can't get on the ladder. I talked to my daughter, Pamela, and she said, Dad, I'm never going to be able to afford a house here in southern California.
Am I Not a chance? Not a chance. Median price for a home is over a million dollars.
Where does someone in their twenties or early thirties get, first of all, two hundred thousand dollars down payment and then pay six or seven thousand dollars.
A month in mortgage payments? Can't be done.
So why as I started this that I say, statistically, according to Consumer Affairs, we are number four as the most expensive city for housing.
Why should we be number one? The only reason we're not.
The most expensive is because we actually earn more money than in other cities.
The earning gap is bigger.
Southern Californians earn a lot of money, however, relative to the price of housing.
Well, it's no fun. So I just want to make you feel better.
So Amy, now that you're paying over fifty percent, I'm going to suggest you just kill yourself because there's there's no future for you.
Well, I already have a house in Oregon. I'm holding on to that. Yeah, you have to.
Yeah, just real quickly, I want to ask you this question. How how big is your house? How many square footage? How many square feets?
Eighteen eighteen fifty?
Okay, eighteen hundred eighteen fifty, which is you know it's small on the house front, big on the apartment size. But okay, let's say it's a moderately sized homes.
It's a four bedroom house. Yeah, okay, what's your property tax? I have no idea? Wow? That helps?
That helps me at this segment a lot. How can you have no idea what your property tax is on a house you own.
Because it's all written into the mortgage, so I don't have to. I just don't even worry about it because it's just there. Okay, But the point is it's affordable.
Boy, you didn't help me at this segment at all, Amy, Sorry, Yeah, this was not good.
I should Yeah, that one didn't work at all. Okay.
Moving into politics now, Uh, the midterms are coming up, and then we look at the presidential because that's obviously the big one and it's going to be wide open, maybe unless President Trump wins a third term and the Constitution is amended.
So do I think that's going to happen.
I do not. As a matter of fact, We're gonna change Hail to the Chief to hail to the Trump Right, ain't gonna happen, Okay, I mean people have all kinds of wishes. Now what does happen is what happens during the primaries, right, And which state is first? We often hear about New Hampshire's the first state in the Union to have that primary. And it's one little town in New Hampshire where four people vote, and the influence that
it has for people voting is extraordinary. It's covered just to a huge extent by the media because that sets the stage, and early early primaries mean that it looks like we're going to see.
Who the nominee is where.
Quite often, by the time California comes into it, we're on Super Tuesday, it's already been done, and we really don't have much influence.
Forty million people. We're talking about primaries.
We're talking about candidate for either the Publican ticket or the Democratic ticket. And there are four states that were always always there at the front, New Hampshire being one of them, North Carolina being another one, Iowa being another one.
Now Iowa is the caucus.
Now, usually primaries are run basically like general elections.
Right, you vote in the booth, then there's your primary.
The Iowa caucuses are fascinating because this goes way way back historically. And typically you'd have, for example, Republican Party members who were chosen to elect the primary candidate.
They would meet in a gymnasium. For example.
They would all meet in the gymnasium, and let's say there were four candidates over there. In that corner is Candidate A, the other corner is candidate B. And people were milling around and they just went to those corners and then those votes counted. That's how they put a candidate on the ballot in Iowa with the caucuses. I mean, it is completely crazy. The point is that you have these states that have relatively low populations have extraordinary influence
on who the candidates are. Why, because they're early and you can say, oh, boy, Iowa, this candidate is substantially ahead, and here you go. Therefore we have a candidate that very well might win because that candidate is getting all the attention. Well, you now have the Democratic in this case, is the Democratic National Committee is saying no, it was a disaster last time with Iowa. So what they are doing instead of the big four that traditionally have gone first,
they need permission from the Democratic National Committee. The lineup the dates are allowed by the Democratic National Committee. That's who sets up the date. And by the way, you know who owns a Democratic National Committe.
Who controlled it the.
President And Joe Biden was the one that was really pissed off last time around, so he told the DNCA, here's the way it should be done. And the president, the sitting president is always in charge of the party where he or.
She comes from.
And so what is the DNC doing. They're asking for invitations? Why don't you apply and see who goes first? Because now there is a run up. Every state wants to go first because every state wants to be more influential than the other state. So you have a little, tiny state, relatively little state, let's say Iowa, or let's say well in New Hampshire's ridiculous, has six people in the entire state. Or you have North Carolina. I mean there's a fair
number of people, but certainly not California. Why do they want to go first because quite often if there's a front runner in those early states. The momentums now, the momentum now starts swinging and by the time we get to California, it's.
Sort of all done. And frankly, you know, we're a powerful state.
We should have a lot more say in what happens than we do, and New Hampshire should have a lot less say in what they do.
You can put.
Excuse me, you can put all of New Hampshire in well South Coast Plaza.
That's it.
That's their New Hampshire right there, both in terms of size and in terms of population. And can you imagine it actually can be argued New Hampshire has more influence than California does. And then Super Tuesday does it for everybody. I mean that wraps it all up. Quite often before Super Tuesday, the nomination has already done, so they're changing it around.
Although I love the idea of the caucus.
You guys who are voting for name candidate here, you go under the basketball hoop and will count you and the other ones. You go to the exit door or right next to the exit door, and we'll count you there. And then they mill around and they change because everybody's talking. You go to your neighbor go, no, no, you want this guy, So he walks across to the other corner. It's great fun. Now I love these stories. This one's
about vaccines and the anti vaxers. And if you've been listening to this show at all, you know that I'm not a big anti vaxers. I actually believe in vaccines. I think it's real science. Okay, So this is the story. They came out of Statico, which is online publication, and it's an interview with doctor Kelly McGuire. And most of her career, vaccination she's a vet, was a routine, very unremarkable part of her works, just a small animal veterinarian, and it was just no big deal. You take your pet,
end to get vaccinated, your dog. You know, you get the raby shot. I mean that's sort of a given matter of fact.
I as law.
But after the pandemic hit she was having really long adversarial discussions and altercations with pet owners about the safety, the necessity of vaccines, clients accuser of pushing vaccines so she can make more money. And over the last several years, the anti vaxx movement has of course exploded, fueled in part by COVID nine.
The politicism, the politicis politicization of it.
And then of course Robert Kennedy, who actually headed a created an organization to fight vaccines. Well, people are being vaccinated way less mistles have come storming back.
Vice vaccine mandates are under fire.
Last month, Floor announced plans to end all vaccine mandates. By law, any kid can go to school without any vaccination whatsoever.
And so the question now is has it gone in the world of.
Animals and veterinarians the anti vaxx movement, yes, it has no question about it. Now. There is there's no solid data on vaccination rates and American pets, so we don't have that information. But there are some recent studies suggest that there is a big or bigger share of owners that have concerns about vaccinations.
One Ohio State University.
Veterinarian veterinarian who has studied this as, are we going to start undoing mandates for rabies vaccinations, which is one hundred percent fatal when a dog has it. And by the way, when you get bitten by a dog that has rabies, that's a lot of fun. It really is, okay, so real quickly, because I want to get to this because this one is absolutely more fun than you can imagine,
all right. Twenty twenty three survey fifty two of pet owners express some uncertainty about the safety, efficacy importance of pet vaccinations. Vaccine hesitancy among the veterinary crowd, like the human counterpart is going up.
So here is my favorite, my absolute favorite.
According to this article, some people worry that pets receive too many vaccination Lindsey does.
She has a minimum, but she doesn't go all out like I do.
And people believe it's better for pets to get immunity from the disease itself. There's that crowd too, right, You get the disease and you become immune rabies. How about this one? You die, boy, that's immunity. Once you're dead, you're not catching anything anymore. You are completely immune. And now my favorite. There's a growing group that express the express concern that vaccines could lead to cognitive and behavioral changes in their pets, including, drum roll please, autism autism
in your dog. Now, I don't know what an autistic dog looks like. Maybe it looks down at the ground, doesn't bark, doesn't talk. It's not particularly social But when we've reached the point that, by the way, autism does not exist in any species other than humans, I don't know if you're aware of that. Cats don't get autism, canaries don't get autism, antelope don't get autism.
Ardvarks don't get autism. Humans get autism.
When you have a movement that says they're concerned about autism in dogs and cats, you've just reached crazy to a level that is almost incomprehensible. I mean, this is crazy with a capital K. I'll tell you that right now. Boy KF I am six forty.
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.