Handel on the News

You're listening to camp I Am six forty the Bill Handle show on demand on the iheartradiop.

It does not matter.

I have often said this, and I believe it to be true. If Charles Manson were alive and nominated him as Attorney General, he would be confirmed.

Swastika carved into his.

Forehead with a razor blade and all and now handle on the news.

Leave this here's Bill Handle. Good morning.

Yo, Bill Handle here and the morning crew Yo. I don't know why I started that way. I don't know.

Yeah, it's just.

I don't use the word yo.

But hey, what can I tell you? All Right, good morning to everybody. The A team has arrived. Okay, we'll start with you morning, Good morning.

All right.

Billy, No, no, no, I'm not a billy. I'm not a billy, Bob, I am not a Willy. Two people on the planet call me William Wolf and Sable and then Neil co opted that. Let me tell you how happy is homage?

But the rest of it is, uh hey, Willy.

Can you imagine being serious with Willy? You know, you go, let's say you get a PhD and you go across uh dias across the stage and now a PhD for Willy No dare you?

There have been uh people in political office with that very name.

No one has ever had Willie.

I'm trying to think of which famous political office had a Willie.

Didn't we have one?

I don't know who's slick Willy Jefferson and Clinton.

I don't think he was slick Willie.

I don't can't. We can look that one up any Good morning.

Amy, Willie Brown.

There you go.

Yeah, you're right, Willy Brown.

Yeah, that will thank you.

That's true.

Willy Brown. Yeah, and Willy Brown, for those of you that don't know that, was probably the second most powerful Speaker of the California Assembly that ever lived, first one being Jesse Unru who invented California politics. He's the one that invented money is the milk of all politics.

I think that was the phrase.

In any case, Willie Brown was speaker for I think thirteen fourteen years and had enormous, enormous power. He ran it with an He ran the Assembly with an iron fist. So yes, you are absolutely right.

In a little Willie Nelson.

Oh god, you're looking it up, Okay, yeah, all right, of course you are all right? Amy. What is that you have on your sweatshirt. I can't see it. Your hairs are in the way there.

It says, magical.

Oh yeah, wait a minute.

And do I see the Disneyland castle as an a you do? Yeah?

It was a Christmas present for my brother. It was a birthday present from my brother.

No, that's sweet, that's sweet.

Uh. And then there's uh of course, Neil and I don't know where Anne is. She's running around someplace. Okay, Oh, real quickly before we get into handling the news. Yesterday, as you know, I just moved into my new place a year remodeling it. Thank you very much. What a disaster, Well, wasn't a disaster. It just took a long time. A lot of may as well's uh, in the construction may as well as being while we're doing this, we may as well do that. Yeah. And then if we're doing that,

Meat person there, I want to get I want. Yeah, that's what they call him.

I asked, what is I want to get a really good quality steak and he pointed me to a package of steak. I put it in my into the cart not paying attention until I went to the checkout counter and it was twenty five ninety nine a pound.

Yeha, Phil A Mignon didn't notice that you.

Could buy a carton of eggs for that.

Oh you as well, said, And I ended up grilling it. And of course I was on the phone with Neil what three times?

Yeah, I was up the mountain. I was in Big Bear and got a call from Handle. He goes, I got these steaks. I've got people here. How do I cook them?

Yeah?

And so Neil told me how to do it with the Thermo where to go. You cook them low and slow and then very hot, very quick for the seer.

Anyway, they turned out perfect.

I'm proud of you, I mean perfect, and so very pleased, very pleased.

That's exactly like doing a great steak.

Yeah, oh no, this was to cook a great Yeah, this was insane.

Now you know this.

You can either buy this steak or take a vacation to Disneyland. I mean, it's pretty pricey stuff. But you know what was it a package of four? I put two away because there's big steaks about two and a half inches thick. It was like seventy three dollars for a package of four steaks.

Well, if you went out to eat that would yeah, you won and cooked for you.

Yeah, it ended up being it ended up being what was it thirty six eighteen dollars per steak.

At all?

No, and that is a huge Well that was two out of the four, but they were massive. So in any case, all right, enough of that making people feel good who are at the end of the month, are approaching the end of the month, and will they and they'll be eating ramen for a bucket cup, all right, just to make people feel good.

Hey, and good morning, good morning, there you go.

All right, are you ready to do it?

You bet you.

It's a Monday, February seventeenth. Handle on the news, Amy Neil and me lead story, oh Man, international relations are going crazy in Europe.

There was the Munich.

It was an annual meeting of Europeans and Americans. Vice President Vance ripped into Europe and said the problem is not China or Russia. The problem is with you guys that are stopping the right wing from either forming or creating parties or in any way furthering their agenda.

I mean, we're talking about far right, far far right wing, where.

The governments are stamping down on it, and they don't have First Amendment, by the way, in most of Europe. And all of a sudden, Europe is reeling with that, and so Putin and the President, our president talking about ending the war in Ukraine with a summit without Ukraine. There of course, Ukraine will have nothing to do with the peace between Russia and Ukraine.

That'll be done by US and Russia.

And the bottom line is, as Zelenski said, you can kiss goodbye the United States being our friend Europe relying on the United States, We're gonna have to do it ourselves.

And that since World War two, actually.

Was it actually since before World War two, before Pearl Harbor, when America first, America firsters led by Charles Charles Lindberg I had argued, no war, we don't want to deal with we don't want to deal with Europe. We don't want to help Europe. By the way, FDR really wanted to, and he couldn't politically, and then Pearl Harbor hit and I just all blew up. And now we're involved in Europe helped win the war. Europe probably couldn't have done

We'll see what happens.

I've said over and over again, the next four years are going to be fastening, and I have a couple of stories by the way about the next four years. I can't get away from it, even though I've been told over and over again, Bill, you're spending too much time. Willie, you're spending too much time on what's going on with the Trump administration.

I'm not. I'm not.

It is that far reaching, and it is changing our live the lives around the world that much because of the influence the US has.

All Right, Rubios in Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia. It's going to be talking about the futures of both Gaza and Ukraine. He flew to RhoD from Israel and is expected to press the Saudi leadership on a post war Gaza vision. Of course, President Trump said he wants to redevelop it as the riviera of the Middle East, but that would mean moving

When you think there's going to be a representative of Trump, the Trump organization going up and down Gaza and saying we'll put a hotel here, a Trump hotel here, and a Trump resort there. Over there is Amara Gaza, and it's going to be oh here, I'll tell you. I'll tell you one thing. The Trump organization knows how to run a hotel. I mean they are good at what

Where you know, it was beautiful. But were you the one that set that up?

No? I didn't set that up.

It happened.

I think somebody did it as a joke.

No, no, no, no, I don't think so.

I think it was Oh, you know what, it was.

It was right near the venue that we were at where we could walk.

It was a block and a half walk and it was.

Just, if not one of it was probably the if not the it was one of the best run properties I've ever seen.

Really well now, really well run.

Don't you think it would get bombed or something if he tried to build in Gaza?

Are you kidding? It's going to get bombed if you set up a hot dog stand in Gaza.

Well there's that, Okay, Well that seems racist or somebody.

No, No, it's it refers to let's say, a bombing or two that would occur in that part of the world. I want to another story, another story.

This tape measure, all right, Trump administ administration wants the Supreme Court to permit the firing of the head of the federal agency. This is dedicated to protecting whistle blowers. So, according to documents obtained Sunday, that would mark the first appeal of the just assistance he took office. So this is to start the start of what will be steadily streaming lawyers and going back and forth. Is going to be four years of a lot of.

Banks.

Yeah, but you know a lot of the stuff that's going on makes no sense. For example, whistle blowers are protected from being prosecuted, et cetera.

Sew.

So you have a whistle blower that comes in and whistle blows on some governmental program which fraud and waste, right, because they're going after fraud and waste. Okay, And the people that the very people that will point their fingers at that are not protected anymore.

Well, if you get rid of the head of the department, they're not protected. Aren't they still protected?

Well it's on the way.

We don't know, but it's on the way to changing it up completely. It's like the IRS, the very notion the IRS collects money. We desperately need money. Hundreds of billions of dollars are left on the table. More IRS agents are needed, and they're being cut.

Wait a second, but isn't is it Elon Musk a whistle blower on all the money that's being spent.

No, he's not a whistleblower. He is buying that portion of the federal government. Is that right?

Yes?

For it. I hope he gets a good you know, good deal.

Yeah, there's work left to be done. That's the word from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He says that they're ready to finish the job against Iraq, and they can do Iran Iran. I can't believe I said Iraq, probably because I'm watching a show that has an Iraqi on it. Okay, but Iran, And he says they'll do it with the

Okay, this is Rubio who is talking.

That was oh yes, get it.

And Rubio said there could never be a nuclear Ron.

He backed it up.

Okay.

So a quick one here, and that is Israel does not move without American permission. America is that influential. As I said earlier, Israel cannot probably not even survive without American intervention, supplying of arms, etc.

And you had Biden, for example.

Israelis were not particularly happy with because oh no, You're not going to go after the Iranian nuclear facilities. Oh no, we have to be more objective. We can't deal one way or the other. It's just not fair. It's just not right. Trump comes in and he goes, oh, no, we screw fairness if you call it that, we cannot let Iran have nuclear weapons.

It's that simple.

He's always said that, by the way, and he has said and we know the second that they build a nuclear weapon or close to it, boom, Israel attacks. Now they have the backing of the.

United States.

That agrees that Iran having nuclear weapons changes everything.

It changes everything.

And Nettigao, who says ain't going to happen, and the Trump administration says ain't gonna happen, and I happen to agree with that. Can you imagine Iran having a nuclear weapon and backing up every terrorist organization in the world. So it won't be a rn that is going to detonate a nuclear weapon, which now can be put in small packages.

It'll be one of the terrorists organizations.

It will be someone who's radicalized. In the United States, we just had a stabbing in Germany where a radicalized I think it was Hisserian refugee killed a fourteen year old kid.

I mean that was yesterday.

So you know Israel, yes.

Palestinians or Iranians no.

The average price of gas in California has skyrocketed recent weeks. It continues to go up and up and up, and it is winking at that dreaded five dollars.

This is all according to Triple.

A and the average price of regular gas in California was four dollars and eighty four cents on Saturday. That number was up about twenty five cents from last Saturday, and it continues to go up from there. But this apparently has to do with that. And I love this. We hear this all the time. Refineries begin to transition to summer blends of fuel. And another thing we have here in southern California and that there's a routine maintenance in northern California going on.

You know, the last time a refinery was built in California was forty two, forty three years ago. Now there are seven major companies that are here. One of them goes down, one refinery goes down for maintenance for whatever reason.

We're in a world of hurt.

And so I'm going to do that story coming up at seven point fifty. And the question is should California consider consider basically taking over the refineries as a governmental process. It's already done in many countries. All right, one more before we take a break.

NAACP is looking to cancel companies that cancel DEI. The group says they want Black Americans to steer their buying power toward corporations that haven't pulled back from DEI policies. They put out a spending guide. It was released on Saturday. They say it's needed because diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives promote the social and economic advancement of all Black Americans and DOUBLEACP president Derek Johnson said diversity is better for the bottom line.

White uvas. No, now that's pretty obscure. I just want to point that out. No, No, I'm going to explain this one, because this is pretty obscure. You have white raisins as opposed to dark raisins. Yeah, yes, clearing you know. And so white raisins, if you buy white raisins, you're called golden.

Yeah, golden raisins, but they're white. Okay.

And it used to be where the boycott of the grape growers actually worked. That was Caesar Chavez. So golden white raisins. No, now is.

The newest protest. See you get that.

I mean that went through a couple of very nuanced it made sense. I'm telling you very good. You have funny but very subtle and very good.

Nice job.

Yeah no, no, I'll take credit.

For that one.

White UVa's no. Okay.

Well, the Trump administration is sticking with Trump's very famous line, you fired. You started firing hundreds of FAA probationary employees. And I guess that means what have they been nailed for less than a year or less than a year, So this is not about them being on probation for something they did.

This just means they're in right trial. Okay.

For example, a lot of companies ninety days and they can fire you for any sort of any reason. Far leowbjections.

We don't know the exact number, but the head of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists said that several hundred workers started getting firing notices on Friday and they could actually be barred.

From facilities as of tomorrow after the holiday today.

By the way, I don't disagree in looking at quote everybody. Every administration goes after fraud and waste, and when you have two point three million employees, you're going to find some stuff that well, let's just say shouldn't shouldn't happen.

But here's an example.

You have a case that a few hundred security workers were fired from nuclear facilities to guard our weapons systems.

Oops.

So they fire them and then they unfire them the next day. It's just it's moving too quickly, is what it is. And then oops, that's exactly what they said.

Oops.

And then there are are great.

Stories of, you know, the ridiculous money that's being spent for insane stuff. And the administration came out with a list saying fifty million dollars for condoms for Palestinians. Two days later it was one hundred million dollars. Now, keep in mind, we have yet to see fraud and waste. We have yet to see a pointed finger and saying, look, what's happening.

It's firings right now.

And what it is is reducing the workforce. To reduce the workforce, that's what's happening now. And they're only there haven't been all that many. There've been I think a few, a few thousand relative to two point three million.

And it's just head count at this point.

I think it is.

I think it is well. The people that hand out the condoms in Gaza one hundred million of dollars worth.

What is that?

That's two one hundred and eighty six for a man, woman and child in Gaza. Those six year olds really need him. I have no idea what the numbers are. By the way, I'm just making that up.

More hostages are free. Three more hostages were released from Hamas over the weekend in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. It's part of the ceasefire agreement that appeared to have been in jeopardy last week but appears to be back on track again. The hostages were released in communis in southern Gaza. It's the sixth release of hostages under the current agreement.

Look at the pr here paganda. The hostages are released on this stage and they are surrounded by Hamas fighters, all in brand new crispy uniforms, big signs coming out. The announcement by Hamas we have won. We have prevailed. Prevailed means that they were not forced to leave Gaza.

They still had power, so they won.

Of course, No, they are not released in any area where entire neighborhoods, entire parts of cities were destroyed.

But it's a win it's a win.

And if the hostages are not released per the agreement, Natagnan who is itching to get back and destroy the rest of Gaza.

So we'll see. And it's always that case where you have three.

Hostages, two hostages released, four hundreds, if not thousand. It was Do you remember that that corporal that was picked up, he was captured Gilad Shali or Shali guilt, just an ordinary corporal picked up by Hamas. Six years, six years the negotiations went on. Eleven hundred Palestinians were released for one Israeli, one Israeli soldier, and the release included yeah, yah Sinwar, who masterminded the attack on Israel October seventh. And that's what happens.

All right, go ahead, this one, this one got past me.

I did not know there was an Amazon employee captured by Hamas. But Amazon CEO now is relieved after Hamas released employee that was taken hostage on October seventh.

Yeah, these when these negotiations happen, When an American is captured and finally released, it's very very quiet. Amazon was told do not talk about it, do not say anything, and that's exactly what they did. And now whether it was because of what Amazon did behind the scenes.

We don't know, but you're right.

For the first time we have an Amazon employee who was captured.

Well, it's not unusual to thank supporters. What is unusual is who these supporters are. Remember the guy who killed or is it alleged to have killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi Mangioni is in jail, being held as they're putting the case together against him, and he's getting supporter letters, and so they posted on a website set up by his defense that, hey, you know, really appreciate this.

Yeah, all these guys get support letters, women who want to marry them.

I interviewed the wife of the nightstalker.

Who she was one of hundreds of people that wanted to connect with a Nightstalker and ended up marrying him in prison behind the clear plastic separation, I mean, they couldn't touch each other and they got married. And I interviewed her and she maintained number one his innocence and number two she was she was a lucky one that got to him to marry her after hundreds of proposals.

There you go, we're all we're all nuts. Oh yeah, we show was out so I could a kill the ball for you.

Yeah, I mean just completely insane.

All right.

The US Department of Agriculture last week issued a conditional license for an avian flu vaccine. I heard this this morning on wake Up Call with Amy King. And they can use this in chickens, which makes sense. The outbreak is obviously causing massive problems with the poultry flocks, and this effects egg laying hens much more than it does what we call roasters or roasted the chickens we eat. So that's why egg prices are going up. Yet the price of chicken isn't necessarily.

Although I just I went to rals and yeah, Lindsay wants these pasture pastured chickens to get run around and have, Yeah, to buy eggs, and it was seven ninety nine for a carton. No, it was really good because I have to like eggs with chickens that can't move, you know, they're sort of completely other claws go through and they're connected to the cages and they can't move.

I find those eggs tasteier.

Do you have any miserable eggs, ma'am great, I'll take those.

Yeah, and those are what four ninety nine only, and a couple of weeks ago, I paid twelve dollars for the same one happy eggs is then that's the name of the the uh of those eggs and pasture raisers.

Paid nine bucks for extra large eggs for a carton.

Yeah, no, one's yeah.

And I just paid eight dollars seven eight dollars for the you know, and the and they're great eggs. I mean the shells are hard, and they're thick, and the oaks are this deep yellow.

I mean they're really good eggs.

Okay, okay, clothing chickens.

Yeah.

Blocked by the White House. The White House has stopped a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from getting on Air Force one Friday to join him for the weekend trip because AP won't say the golf of Mexico is now the golf of America.

Boy.

And this is not the first time. They've also blocked the AP from covering a handful of events in the White House, including a news conference with India's leader and also some gatherings in the Oval office.

Yeah. And one of the big stories today is Marco Rubio is coming back from Saudi America and he is we'll have a press conference today.

Okay, did you hear?

I think this is actually serious that somebody said if we took control of Greenland, they wanted to rename it red, white and blue Land.

Oh that's very strong, very strong.

Wow, where are we? You know?

Since its inception launched in two thousand and five, Reddit has always been free the social media site all kinds of free access to great information and some not so great information. While now there's a new feature coming to Reddit potentially in twenty twenty five this year that put some of its content behind paywalls. And I'm curious how this is gonna go over because you have to pay.

It's like x charging for content or the additional content.

I mean, it's happening all the time.

Look at podcasts or look at that are normally free, but you can get in and subscribe for the additional podcasts, things behind the scenes everything to make money. You can't how about this cable or subscription TV right platforms Peacock, which I have.

I have a lot of them.

I gotta tell you, more and more commercials are on there, and I start screaming, come on, the whole point of these platforms is no commercials. It's getting very depressing. You can still do it, just pay an extra three bucks.

Oh no, it's ridiculous. It always goes back to the original model. No matter how how much they tell us, hey, we're going to revolutionize things, they go back to the model advertising charging us everything.

Well, thank goodness, we're not losing CBS. Google's YouTube and Paramount Global have come up with a new distribution contract which stops a threatened blackout of CBS and other TV channels for nearly eight million YouTube TV customers.

Yeah.

I'm a YouTube user and it's I would be sorely disappointed if I didn't have CBS because I watched CBS. Any of you guys are YouTubers, that's my go to.

I'm a premium user, but I'm not. I don't use them as my amy.

Do you do YouTube?

Not much?

Just every once in a while.

Do you have it?

I have YouTube TV, but I don't pay for it. I've got whatever the free thing is. I don't use that as a streaming service.

I do.

That's my go to for network's local news. Yeah.

Absolutely, Okay, So you don't have direct TV or.

No, I don't have direct TV?

No, oh I got I get calls from direct TV all the time. Hi, you're a customer. Yeah, until eighteen years ago when I canceled direct TV.

That's correct. And YouTube.

No, she's shaking her head, and uh, of course, CONO can't afford any of that.

Cono. You still have rabbit ears on your TV, don't you.

That is correct.

Okay, we're done, guys.

A box with a cutout like a screen and he got.

Yeah, he still has the cathode ray TV.

Right, get a hanger and she just holds it up.

That's what they did for you know. That's what they did for the Super first Super Bowl, which.

Was blacked out in Los Angeles nineteen sixty three and you couldn't get it and people would be making these antennas literally out of coat hangers.

You're right, Oh god, those days, it was so great, those days, Oh were the days?

All Right, This is KFI AM six point 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.