Handel on the News

You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KF I am six forty.

Because they look like the nicest guy in the world. Though, yeah, it totally does.

I know he you know, it's almost like you look at sloths, right, the smile they have and they just, you know, they look so sweet. In the meantime, they have these claws that will rip you to shreds slowly.

And now handle on the news, ladies and gentlemen.

Here's Bill Handle.

Okay, and good morning everybody.

Handle here. It is a someone doesn't have mute on. It is a what day is it?

It's a Wednesday.

It's a humpday, April ninth, six days away from tax day.

Very exciting as we.

Move ahead, I can't wait to talk about what's going on. I'm trying to get my partner on phone call into him because, as you know, he and I both have or involved in this Cookwaar business Cookwaar import business. And you know where we get our cookwear China, China, and we are reeling well, he's the one that handles it and talking to factories, our factories, not our factories, the

In the meantime, let me say a quick hello to one an All.

Neil.

There you are, Willie Wolf, Good morning.

Yes there, Will, I can see you with the best haircut in the world.

How you doing Will here on this head?

Yeah? Will has no hair either. Actually Neil has no hair either. No, Will has a head, just doesn't have hair. Very very good. Anyway, good morning and good morning.

Hi. Hi, well said Amy, Good morning, Hi Bill, and Cono, good morning, Good morning. You're not on zoom Cono, so I can't see you working on it as you're in the other room.

And we believe in when did you start working just a few minutes ago? It just came on. Yeah, I just came on. I was able to and I'm no computer techo.

So I was. I was able to play with it.

I pressed some buttons, I went to certain places, I went back and forth because Lindsay also just walked in the room.

And fixed it.

Oh, okay, there's the truth.

Yeah, there's the truth.

All Right, guys, I don't know what's new with you, but we have plenty that's new with us.

Let me get the stories. And you know.

Also, I'm very very excited because Neil finally, after low these many months, what am I going to get? I'm going to get the big Green Egg which Neil has at his house. And it is a grilling mechanism. It is a grilling machine, which is not much of a machine. There aren't very many moving parts. I don't think there are any, are there? Well, the lid opens.

Okay, that's a moving part, thank you very much.

That's like, that's like mechanized bathrooms because the toilet paper roll actually works.

No, it's thousands of years old. The tech.

Yeah, it's fabulous.

And we're putting together a broadcast at my house for the Folk Report Show, and it's going to be neat and we are going to have a contest where listeners will absolutely not be able to come because if you think I'm gonna have listeners show at up my house, you are out of your mind.

Okay, it will.

We'll fly over and get aerial shots. It'll be great, Yes, sure it will. Yeah, it'll be a whole thing.

Yeah.

So, because this is radio, and because this is Handle trying to arrange free food, trying to arrange.

Well, I'm gonna try to get We're trying to get the free food.

We're gonna have chefs there, we get the green egg people showing up.

I wonder what else I can get for free?

Hey, I just wanted to take a minute and thank you for breaking all the stereotypes.

It's very good at you.

Well, you know my philosophy with radio, and what is my philosophy?

You can't get it for free, you don't need it.

That's correct. It's that simple.

Okay, guys, why don't we move ahead and go right into Handle on the news on this Wednesday morning, April ninth, Amy, did I say hello to you? Amy?

By the way you did?

Okay, and I've already forgotten you tell me that I don't have early on set?

Huh? Amy and Neil and me late story. I'm ready for a fight. This is warm.

Oh yeah, Well, China's doing it back and forth. Retaliatory tariffs are coming back. So Trump, as we know a few days ago, said thirty four percent tariffs because it's an unplaying it's an unfair playing field.

Which it is, by the way. And but the problem is.

Trump is going at this as a with a very fast bulldozer. And so China comes right back and says, okay, thirty four percent on you. Trump comes back and says one hundred and four percent. China comes back, I mean within a matter of hours, back and forth.

Now it's eighty four percent.

Uh.

And while other countries are really sweating bullets. According to the Trump administration, seventy countries have contacted the United States saying, okay, let's talk about this tariff business. WHOA, we want some kind of negotiation.

China is not.

And China is a big gorilla gorilla in this fight. And so we're going to see how this pans out. In the meantime, Amy, what the what are the futures?

The market opens up in half an hour?

The stock futures right now? The Dow off five seventy three one on nine down for Nasdaq fift so right around between one and two percent for the indexes right now.

All right, So we are just a hair skip and a tear and the hair off of a tooth. Use I'll get that at some point, I am, I am, I'm getting there.

Time to buy well, like here, it.

Is trying to figure here, it is trying to figure out the market. We're about to go into a bear market straight in, and then the talk of recession is just getting more and more. It's I gotta tell you, we're into some real interesting times. As I've said, Trump gets elected, we're looking at a roller.

Coaster ride in this country. And it is absolutely true.

One of the things about Donald Trump man, there's no hidden agenda with this man. He said, this is what I'm going to do. We elected him. This is what he is doing. A lot of people didn't think to the extent he's doing it, and how rapidly he's doing it. I mean, there are a lot of business folks that are going, WHOA, wait a minute, Maybe we didn't want this quickly. You know, you be careful what you wish for. Okay, let's move on.

Where did all that money go? The newly appointed US attorney for Los Angeles' surrounding areas says they're forming a criminal task force to investigate potential fraud and corruption involving local homelessness funds. Bill Saley cited millions of dollars in federal funds that have been allocated to address homelessness, and yet the problem is getting worse and a recent court ordered audit that found major flaws in homeless services and.

Our seven I'm gonna do this for I'm going to dive more into it and then you'll let, you know, throw your two cents in. And the response has been, you know, there have been scathing reports on this of what's going on with this homeless money in La County shut off the La City Housing Authority and so money is disappeared. It is horrible, and you know what the city is saying, Oh, but we've gotten homeless people off

Ah.

I can't wait for this one to pan out more. Neil, you were going to say.

You know how many private jets you can take to Ghana? The money that's missing a.

Lot, Yeah, but there were no private jets. You can't argue. You can't argue.

A friend of mine, Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, last year, I think maybe even the year before, started uh, you know, sounding the alarm on this, and no one gave her any attention, and she got pushback from City Hall, and now it's coming out exactly what she was saying. There was no accounting for the money at all.

Well, you're going to see with the new US Attorney for Los Angeles appointed by Pam Bondi, a staunch Republican. He comes from the state I think, state Senate, no Assembly here in California. And keep in mind, the administration hates California, hates La County, hates the city, hates Democrats, all of which this is controlled by the Democrats. I'm talking about the programs here. This thing is going to blow up, and it should. It should if there is

On my the way I do it, all right. One thing I know is that tax Day is coming. One thing we don't know is who will be the IRS Commissioner during that time, because it keeps changing. Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krauss is expected to resign. According to two administration officials, this agency's top leadership is rocking. She's the third person to lead the IRS since January. Acting Commissioner

The IRS is changing commissioners about as often as you change your underwear, Neil once a week.

Moving on that.

Confused, Oh, no, score.

Win for the First Amendment. A federal judge has ordered the White House to restore the Associated Press is full access to President Trump, saying that the effort to ban Associated Press because of objections of its coverage violated the First Amendment. So it was a pretty clear case of a violation. This was a Trump appointed judge who made

Yeah.

Now think about this, and the judge said this, there is absolutely no reason other than pure retribute to ban the AP. All they did was say we are going to use the internationally known UH term for the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, which has been the Gulf of Mexico for oh, I don't know, four hundred years maybe, And because AP wouldn't do what Trump said, and that is this is what we're going to call it.

They're banned and Judge said, no, no, no, no, you can't do that.

Uh.

It's first of all, press involvement and press access to the presidency and the government is way too important to have you just arbitrarily say that.

Come on, wasn't Trump just offended that they were dead naming the Gulf of Mexico?

They were what dead naming?

Okay, I don't.

Refer to somebody trans as their old name.

Huh.

Never n the death poll of the roof collapse at a popular nightclub in the Dominican Republic. It claimed the lives of people, you know, former athletes, politicians, climbed to one hundred and thirteen on Wednesday. As rescue workers were searching obviously very desperately to find survivors. More than one hundred and fifty five people were taken the hospitals via ambulance after this massive incident at the jet Set nightclub in Santa Domingo.

You know, don't we hear of these every once in a while.

Where they're like a roof collapse or a balcony or something at a nightclub.

But look at the bad luck here.

Unless there were people on the roof or there was an extraordinary weight on the roof during the course of one of the nightclub's big nights, this thing could have collapsed during the day when no one was there. It could have collapsed at another time. It collapses in the middle of it being jammed during an evening when the festivities were going on.

You talked the weight had something to do with it.

Wait the roof. Well, who was on the roof?

Oh, I thought they Well, I thought it was a rooftop establishment.

Well, no, it was the roof that collapse in on it. No, it was on the it was No, it was a building that was on the ground. It wasn't up on up in the air at all. The roof just collabs. If you collapse, and if you look at video, my god, it is horrific.

It really is.

All Right, forget the cavalry, let's call in the drones. The Drump administration is considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as part of its effort to fight criminal gang trafficking and drugs across the southern border. The administration hasn't made any final decision and has not reached a definitive agreement about countering the cartels without Mexico's consent. There could be some issues, but they are calling it

We've worked before.

I mean, do you have these joint tasks for task force forces and you have the DOJ working with the equivalent in Mexico. It happens all the time. The cartel is no fun for anybody. But usually if the United States says this unilaterally, which it has done these countries, Mexico gets really pissed off.

Drones for drugs love it.

Chevron is in the process of moving its corporate operations to the Houston area, which means they're laying off about six hundred employees based in California.

Looks like it may go up again.

The company plans lay off about twenty five percent of its workforce during the next two years. Is it restructures operations, more cuts likely to come.

As they said, we'll see how it changes.

But officials in the companies say they're making the move from California because Texas offers more business friendly environment.

No crap, Yeah, Texas is kind of fine. You go to Houston and build. I don't know if there are any zoning restrictions in Houston, for example, Southern California. California in general, it's impossible to do anything. It's impossible to build, it's impossible to develop, and it's possible to do business.

So guess what.

Everybody moves, Yet our population does not go down, and that's because of immigration. Questionable as to the legality. Also, I'm sorry, Amy.

Go ahead, Oh that's fine. Administration has to walk it back again. Hag Seth has to walk back a ban on he she and they them, And here's why. The Air Force says that hag Seth announced a pro nine ban, but then they realized that it we're in counter to a Biden Area era defense policy that bars the Pentagon from establishing any pronoun policies. So the ban was announced in February. It ordered the Air Force to immediately stop

Don't you find it surprising that the Pentagon is actually paying attention to a policy instituted instituted by the Biden administration, as opposed to just ignoring it and saying, take me to court.

But how about the policy?

Who cares about people's pronouns?

Oh?

Really? Who cares?

Oh?

I don't know. How about this administration? Who's going nuts?

But if somebody wants to be referred to is.

Not in the military, not in the military.

I guess it's tough to say yes sir, no sir.

Oh that's that's actually a good one, because you know you would you would say to a female officer, you would say yes, ma'am.

Yes you would a male.

Officer you would say yes sir. So if you had a non binary officer, what would you say?

Yes them, yes them?

Or yes they yes they and in the South yes y'all.

Interestingly enough, in the Star Wars universe, the people that are higher up are referred to as yes sir, even if they're female.

Huh okay, good to know. Huh yeah.

Yeah, if you're into Star Wars.

Yeah, I understand.

Is this me?

Yeah, that's you.

Okay, I was thinking about Star Wars.

Ukrainian President of Vladimir Zelenski said two Chinese nationals fighting in the Russian Army have been taken prisoner in East during Ukraine. They found you know, national documents, bank cards, personal data, all this stuff, and they say they have information that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupiers units than just these two. We've known about that for a while, but they're starting to see it on the front lines and now they've captured some.

Yeah, usually it was North Koreans. Now it's Chinese that they're finding.

I mean, these two denied they were Chinese, and then it was well, then what are you doing with egg rolls in your pocket? Couldn't deny that?

Oh?

I just got a friend of mine, Greg just texted me said you would refer to their rank?

Say yes, general, Oh all right, that makes sense. That that makes sense.

Oh, here's an interesting factoid.

If you have an enlisted person as low as you can go in the military who has received the Medal of Honor, General's Chief of the the Joint Chiefs salute that soldier. Did you know that they actually you'll have a general salute and enlisted man wearing the medal of Honor.

Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty impressive stuff.

You'd think they know better and do better by now. A Roman Catholic priest is facing five felony counts of child molestation and has been removed from his parish in Downey after being arrested by Ellie Kanta Sheriff's deputies. Father Jamie Ariaga Blood not guilty on Monday to assault with intent to commit a felony against a person fourteen to fifteen years old. This is the only person involved, but officials say there may be more victims.

Yeah.

A couple of things about this, and this is where I'm going to give the Catholic Church actually some creds here, some kudos. First of all, the story LA Time story starts with the arch diocese has been hit the largest settlement and been hit with the largest legal issues in I think the United States maybe the world. Eight hundred and eighty million dollars civil settlement with victims now one point five billion dollars, so when they passed the plate.

If you're in church, this is a lot of this is going to pay off victims and victims families.

But where the church used to protect these child molesting priests and transfer them into other parishes and hide them knowing they were child molesters. Now the church has gone the other way. Now the Catholic Church will not stand for it. And they're going balls to the wall part in the phrase, in this particular circumstance, but they're going balls to the wall to make sure that these guys

All right.

Elon Musk use one of Bill Handel's favorite words and referred to someone truly as truly a moron. So Elon Musk took another job at President Donald trump senior trade advisor Peter Navarro just yesterday calling him a moron on social media. As the Tesla CEO further splits from the White House Tariff's plan, it's like becoming a soap opera now as the stomach turns.

And no, I think it's I think is great. I think it is just terrific that this is happening.

I mean, but this is this is actually this is the fun part of the Trump administration.

The name calling, the vitriol.

If it doesn't transfer into real policy that hurts people, this is just name calling.

That's just kind of fun. It really is.

Here Let's make to Tesla as a car assembler rather than a manufacturer, and that set Elon off going crazy.

And Tesla is the most made in America car that exists in terms of the parts and what's going on. Although a huge number of parts, of course they're bought from overseas, from Canada for Mexico as all as all the manufacturers are. I'm sorry, Amy, the batteries, right, battery technology comes in. Although there's a huge battery manufacturing plant that Tesla has in Reno. I think maybe it's the biggest many battery plant in the world.

So I hope you're taking very good care of the phone that you currently have and don't break it. Because a prominent tech analyst has warned that the price of an Apple iPhone could soar if they have to be made in the US. Currently most of them made in China. Dan Ives is the global head of technology research at financial services firm web Bush Securities. He says that US made iPhones are possible, but they could cost more than

Well, and here's why it's never going to happen, because if you look at the numbers here, let's say Apple says, okay, we are now going to manufacture in the US. All right, forget about the costs of of course building the factories and the cost of labor, which is going to be five times as much. But according to the story, it thirty billion dollars three years to move into an American factory. That's ten percent of the number of Apple phones that

It's just no.

I was talking to a buddy yesterday and I never thought about this, But this is another switch. The vast majority of stainless steel comes from China. Yeah, we do have some in the States that are made. So companies are switching trying to switch over to the American maid stainless steel, and guess what happened.

Supplying demand shot up and the costume.

As a matter of fact, here's what we're gonna do to your point is we're gonna have my partner, Savile on in a moment and talk about talk about our business.

We import cookware from China and.

It's made of stainless steel, and we're caught up right in the middle of it, and Savile is sweating bullets on this one. We've been talking about this for days and he's gonna join us and we're going to talk about a small American company dealing with the tariffs. Well that's and it's ours, So that's coming right up. This is KFI A M six.

You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.

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