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AM six forty Bill Handle. It is a Monday morning, October twenty. Some of the stories we're looking at in light of the King No Kings demonstrations across the country on Saturday. The President has just called for a Department of Justice investigation of the protests, trying to find out who funded it and how much George Soros paid for it. I was there, and would you do me a favor, contact the Sorows folks and ask where I can get a check because I wasn't paid, and damn it, I
was there and I want that money. I want some of that money. If they're paying, I want it that damn I can't believe I did it for free. Wow, doesn't stop, does it? The politics don't no matter what? Okay, talking about politics, and this is a fun one. George Santos, our favorite former congress person, has had his prison sentence commuted by the president.
He got eighty.
Seven months over seven years and did exactly eighty four days.
And he went on CNN.
He went on Fox and he slapped back, you have a problem with my release, too bad? And by the way, his release, the commutation by the president, and the presidents had this for the sole reason that he is a loyal Republican. That's it, nothing more, nothing less. He's a loyal Republican. Therefore I'm commuting his sentence. Now. Remember Santos was expelled from Congress in twenty twenty three. He pled guilty to wire fraud, identity theft, admitted lying to Congress,
stealing money from campaign owners, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. But hey, he's a loyal Republican. So now let's go on the other side. Joe Biden, right, he pardoned every member of his family, particularly his son Hunter Biden, who now, in reality, I don't believe that Hunter Biden did as did as
much damage as Santos did. I believe Santos took Congress and brought it to a new low level, and he should have been expelled and was what Hunter Biden did is he lied on his application for a gun.
No, I'm not a current drug user.
It turned out in his book he admitted that timeline that he was a current drug user like a moron.
What he should have been.
Done as convicted as being he should have been convicted for stupid and then there was some tax issues he had. And here's the problem is that during the course of the investigation and going after Hunter Biden.
And Biden was pretty good about that.
The President he let it go and he didn't commute the sentence or pardon his son until the very last David Mure ABC News interviewed Joe Biden, and there was an issue as to whether the president was going to pardon his son and asked him outright, are you considering pardoning your son if convicted? Absolutely not. I will not pardon my son if convicted. The law will be followed until he pardoned his son. Oh, okay, and then he pardoned his entire family and his entire staff preemptively.
You're done.
There will be no prosecution at all under any circumstances.
Can a president do that? You bet a president can do that.
Now.
His argument was that the Hunter would been.
Attacked and attacked luciferously when the Trump administration came in, which is true, by the way, because it's political attacks. I mean, there's no question in my mind that a lot of these commutations, a lot of these pardons are in fact political in nature. George Santos deserved every bit of his seven year sentence considering what he did. But loyal Republican, being a loyal Republican, we're going to pardon him.
We're commuted sentence.
And by the way, I'm going to go next segment, I'm going to go through some history of pardons and what presidents have done, because President Trump with Santos, doesn't hold a candle to what some presidents, both Republican and Democrats.
Have been in the world, have done.
In the world of pardons, what's the diver seen a pardon and a commutation. A commutation, you're still guilty, it's just you're out of prison. Sentence has been commuted. A pardon is a full pardon of what you've done. It never happened, done, finished, you've been pardoned, right, that's the difference. So with George Santos, this is a commutation with Hunter Biden, a pardon with the rest of Biden's family and his staff members who were going to be under the political
microscope of Donald Trump. And it was it was absolutely true. That was where the pardon took place. Hunter Biden completely guilty, by the way, no question about number one guilty. I mean, is it a big deal, I don't think so. You know, during the he lied, he was on drugs. Okay, I think a bigger deal is when he became the board of BuddhismA, which is the gas company that's owned by
the Ukraine government. And he was on the board and was getting half a million dollars a year from a government owned utility Ukraine.
And the only thing.
That Hunter Biden Biden knew about gas was he could turn his stove on and know how many BTUs that stove was.
That is his involvement in natural gas.
Now, big story about George Santos, the congress Person extraordinaire who was convicted and was given seven years in prison, seven and a half years in prison for lying to Congress and fraudulent tax returns and stealing campaign money. And it was just pardoned by the president after eighty four days in prison. And what was the reason of the pardoning. He is a loyal Republican.
There it is. He's a loyal Republican. Okay. As obnoxious as.
That is, Donald Trump's not alone as president. Presidents have done some really weird stuff and some extraordinary stuff.
When it comes to pardon.
First one out ready for this George Washington with the Whiskey rebellion. So the country was completely broke. The America Revolutionary War dead was going to destroy the country. Alexander Hamilton, Treasury secretary, said Okay, we're going to raise money by a tax on whiskey. Well, whiskey was pretty important to a lot of people, and so there were a lot of stills that were being done and people weren't paying taxes. So what he did is he came in with the
armed forces. He came in with the army and shut him down. And a bunch of them were convicted. A bunch of these whiskey people were convicted. And you know what he did, he pardoned them. Said it's done, it's over. Thomas Jefferson, he actually fought the Alien and Sedition Act, which, by the way, the president, this president is looking at and this was John Adams signed that into law. Even Johnson argued that. Johnson argued that, you know what, there's far too much power to suppress opposition.
You can't do this. So what did he do?
Well, Jefferson becomes president and another presidential power the pardon was issued over and over again. David Brown, a guy, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was convicted of sedition overthrowing the government, and guess what, he pardoned them, all of he pardoned him. There were a whole group of people that were saying that the government sucks and we want to overthrow them, and Jefferson did it. Now, one of the most famous ones was Abraham Lincoln, with a
pardon he made. Four presidents have given pardons to family members, first one being Abraham Lincoln. Why well, there was a woman by the name of Emily todd Helm, known as the Rebel in the White House, and she happened to be Mary Lincoln's half sister and the widow widow of a Confederate generate General Benjamin Helm. He was killed in September of eighteen sixty three. Lincoln asked him actually to join the Union, but he said no, went south and
became a Confederate. After his death, Emily todd Helm went through Union line stayed at the White House, which the rest of the country went, are you crazy? She was known as the Trader of the White House. Well, full pardon to all Confederates. Willing to take on an oath of allegiance to the United States. She was part of it. And that's what Lincoln was really at unifier man. He said, if you promised to give up your arms, I'm going
to pardon you. And now the big one, Andrew Johnson, who became president upon Lincoln's assassination, he pardoned fourteen thousand Confederates, including Jefferson David who was the President of the Confederacy. But let's get a little closer to our own history. The pardon of Jimmy Hoffa by Nixon. Nixon, for some reason liked Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa was the union leader, head of the Teamsters who then connected the Teamsters union.
To the mafia. No issue, and he had.
Been convicted going to was to go to prison, and he then disappeared. Jimmy Hoffa just disappeared. That not before the pardon took place. So that was one walked out of federal prison. Haffa two days before Christmas, out of because he was just beginning a sentence for jury tampering and mail fraud and conspiracy. All right, Carter Well, Ford and Nixon. That's that one is extraordinary. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon for the crimes that he was going to be
convicted of no question about it. Richard Nixon was going to be convicted of obstruction of justice straight out. He ordered the FBI to stop an investigation of the Watergate and a few other things with the Department of Justice. Can you imagine a president stopping well, you could imagine that, but a legitimate investigation of a crime. President can't do that,
especially when he's involved. President can't do that. And Gerald Ford pardon Nixon, and I must tell you on the pardon issue, and I was so angry with Jerald Ford. It cost him his presidency the election. Gerald Ford did not win the presidency, and I think he knew it when he ran for president on his own. And he's going to be given credit for basically healing the country. His legacy is going to be extraordinary what he did.
Carter and Vietnam Draft dodgers, that was one Ronald Reagan deep throat, remember deep throat, yep, that was Mark Felt and these Felton Miller another guy convicted of conspiracy to violate civil rights of friends and relatives of the Weather underground approving illegal searches.
And they were pardoned for that, having nothing to do with being deep throat.
The really good one that I like so much is Clinton's midnight pardons. I mean, thirty seconds before he leaves the presidency, he starts issuing one hundred and forty pardons, including former White House business partner, newspaper eras Patty Hertz, former CI chief John Deutsch. And then the two that I love the best is tax evaders Mark Rich and pink A Screen and I mean hundreds of millions of dollars of evasion and theft. And they left, they left
the jurisdiction. He didn't even know them, he wasn't close to them, he didn't do business with them. But there were friends who were close to Clinton who said, why don't you pardon these two guys? And he did. That is so obnoxious. I'm more upset about that than I ever will be about George Santos. These guys screwed the American people by evading taxes and stealing money from so many people that one just floored me.
I was just so pissed off at Clinton.
So the latest one, of course, is George Santos.
Being a loyal Republican.
By the way, the takeaway there, oh, don't forget the pardons by the president of all fifteen hundred of the patriots who overran the capitol, who were upholding the constitution.
What's the takeaway here?
You're on his side, You're fine, You're not, You're screwed, all right? Oh god, I love this story. And that is how many startups? Do you remember during when the internet first exploded?
I think someone has to mute up.
There, and you had these twelve year olds become billionaires. And you'd go with the startups and the startups, especially the beginning of Facebook for example, YouTube, where you would have these kids, young people come in work one hundred hour weeks. And if you ever saw the movie about Zuckerberg and it described how crazy it was. They all lived in one house. By the way, today you know what, they still have houses.
Do you know?
The startups are back to where it was where these supercomputer nerds, all of them teenagers are younger, are working at these startups. They work for very little money, but they get stock and they're demanded to work. It's demanding that they work seventy eighty hours week. It's the grind culture and it's coming back with vengeance. Seventy two hour weeks, eighty hour weeks. There's a San Francisco AI startup called Sonatic.
You get a meal, you get they give you food. Jim Pickleball matches all of it.
Yeah, well, there was a job posted on X for a job opening there. You've got to work seven days of work. You have to work seven days a week and at least ten hour days. But you get free housing in a hacker house and free food credits. And don't forget a free subscription to a dating service Raya as if you're ever going to be able to date. Frankly,
here's the bottom line with this one. You're never You're never able to get laid again if you start working for one of these startups until they sell or they.
Have their IPO. And guess what happens Now you have.
A fourteen year old billionaire that can do whatever the hell he wants. What you're seeing is there are job openings. There are plenty out there. They are available with startups, and imagine the amount of hours you have to put in.
There's a company called Rilla in New York City.
And straight out candidate should not work at the company if they're not excited about working about seventy hours a week in person.
What they call.
This is nine nine to six, which leads to burnout and a limited amount of time you're going to spend there, and nine nine to six basically what you work from nine to nine every day, six days a week, and that's at a minimum. And now you've got there's a
post that was up there. A co founder of one of the ai posted a post, posted an open call for new talent, and it was, as he said, simple, here's what the job title is, simple amazing salary hacker house in San Francisco, crazy equity six because everybody knows what that is in this world now. And then that post got fifty three thousand views and manned there were comments harsh on nine nine six nine nine six equals slaves with no life?
Would you that worked that way?
Well, let me ask you when Facebook first started, when Amazon early days first started, and Bezos and Zuckerberg and others demanded the kind of crazy, crazy hours and commitment you could take all the time off you want, all the vacation time you want. Guess what, no one took off a minute, seven days a week they worked, and it was they're all rich, they're all rich. We look back and I go Zuckerberg. Who is worth I don't know. Is he worth a hundred billion dollars? Now?
How old is he now? Early thirties? Maybe? All right?
All right, we're going to finish it up with a story or two about credit cards. First of all, we know that there is a disparity among rich and poor. It's not that the rich or rich and the poor are poor, that's a given, but that the disparity is widening. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Not that they're making less money, but inflation has hit and they're making less money if you look at the way economics work.
So the rich people are still spending like crazy.
Credit card companies are recognizing, recognizing now, and you know what they're doing. They want to attract people with money more so than they're doing now. And the problem is some people are worried that these additional rewards because they have to reward people to get them to use the
credit cards. Whichever company it is that basically the poor people and everyone else is subsidizing the wealthy because everybody pays the same price when you buy something, and the rich people get points, the poor people use the cards, don't get anything, but the companies still charge for the processing the credit card companies, and the merchants have to pay the credit card companies, so the prices have to
be included. And if you have a really neat card with a lot of perks, guess what you get a lot of perks and people who can't afford certainly the card you have are subsidizing, and I mean pretty expensive stuff. American Express and JP Morgan Chase just added luxury perks to their top reward cards. The AMEX Platinum Card two hundred dollars for an Aura ring two hundred dollars off, okay if you have an Horror ring. Now the Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with a credit of up to five
hundred dollars for high end hotels, airport lounges. Now, the Sapphire Reserve card costs eight hundred bucks. But if you use the perks, you save a lot of money, but you have to spend eight hundred dollars. Also, the miles are terrific, So I'm jumping on this even though I'm gonna pay eight hundred dollars. I travel, as you know, and man if I can upgrade for two trips for eight hundred bucks. I'll do it, but I've got to pay it. I've got to pay a thousand bucks for
it or eight hundred dollars. So the bottom line is people who can't afford it do it. And for the those of you that can't, thank you very much on behalf of rich people for subsidizing everything. Here's a stat before we go, about half of US consumer spending comes from people in the top ten percent.
That's a big one.
And a majority of households who make more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year prefer credit cards. Well, people who make less than that prefer in many cases cash. Cash is not king. Credit cards are king. We're done, we are finished. Tomorrow it's Tech Tuesday with Rich Tomorrow. Gary and Shannon are up next. In the meantime, boy, the week's almost over, isn't it. Monday is coming on
and we're almost there. So it starts again five am tomorrow with Amy and Will and then Neil and I come aboard, and of course Anne and Kono put all of this together as ridiculous and as marginal as it is.
Great, perfect and wonderful show. Yeah.
Oh, by the way, Amy, thanks for pointing out that Zuckerberg is worth two hundred and forty five billion dollars. I thought he was only worth one hundred billion dollars. And how old is he? Forty one forty wild case older than I thought he was. All right, have a good one, everybody. Uh. The Garyus Shannon Show are up next. We'll see you tomorrow. CHF 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