Handel on the News

You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from kf I am six forty and now Handle on the news. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Handle.

And good morning everybody, Bill Handle.

Here it is a Wednesday day, Wednesday, December eleventh. Some good news in the world of the fire, and that is that doesn't seem to have exploded anymore.

And only it's like four or five homes have gone up in flames.

Now for those four or five people that own those homes, obviously it was a disaster, but not bad. It could have been a whole lot worse. Okay, let us say hello to the crowd right now. My computer screen is not working for some reason, and I am broadcasting out of the studio.

So what I am looking at.

Is a home screen of Joshua trees sitting in a desert. So let's start with Joshua Tree all the way to the left.

Amy, good morning, Bill.

Oh there you are, the talking Joshua.

Tree, talking Joshua Tree, apparently.

You are, and then moving towards the center.

Neil, you confuse me, but good morning, Willy Wolf.

Yeah, I mean I confuse me.

This is and I'm pressing buttons like crazy and I had everybody on zoom and then I lost everybody on my phone and it was perfect. I know here it is, join meeting, hold on a minute, A meeting ID I have no idea?

What the hell our meeting idea is? I know? And then I went Then I went to print.

Then I went to print up our number two and yeah.

Oh my god, this is so yourself. I didn't you myself? Don't I am I coming off mute? Yep, I am muted, or I'm not.

You are not muted?

My god, that is a problem. Now I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.

It must be what it's like to work for President Joe Biden.

Oh it's the one that doesn't say nuclear weapon on it, sir.

Okay. So here's what I'm going to do.

In the next break, I'm gonna go ahead and wake up Lindsay and have her come in and try to fix this. Usually this thing works in the morning. And I just the fact that I've gotten as far as I have and and will tell you how far I haven't gone. In the world of a computer savvy although I don't know if I use the word savvy.

Well, it's sad to say that he's impressive. Yeah, this is impressive.

I know it really is on there. Yeah, that's the other thing.

I mean, I've tried everything, so uh cono, How disconcerting is this.

With the mute right now?

From our end, not from an it's annoying because you can hear her iPads.

Ok all right, but how about I have a question to ask you. How about on the air?

Does this sound crisp?

Oh? Then who gives a damn? I sound crisp.

I'm fine, Well your voice sounds crisp. Your mental different.

You know that's a that's a completely different issue. Uh Okay, Neil I said hello, and Neil.

And Amy yeah, hello again?

Hello again? So that was number two, and is this number one?

I am number one?

Yes, okay? And I got.

And I'm the Joshua Trees.

Yeah. Well here's the problem. I've got one, two, three, four.

Five Joshua Trees up in front of me, and I'm losing track.

Of which Joshua Tree is?

Who is whom's the wallpaper on your desktop?

That's correct?

Okay, So you minimized. I don't think minimizes. So let's not let's not go into danta.

Let me tell you them.

The only minimization I know is just getting a little older. You know that that I understand minimize. All right, Uh, what do we have going on today? First of all, it's a Wednesday. We're gonna be reporting on the fire. Uh, there is some news about the economy. Jim Keeney is joining us today and we're going to talk about the Anthem Blue Cross policy that is stopping you from ever having anesthesia again.

The new anesthesia as far.

As Anthem Blue Cross is their supplying sticks for you to bite on during surgery. Uh, saving a lot of money. And so there was a huge backlash on that one. And then baby boomers, we're gonna do that at seven twenty and here is and this is I'm right in the middle of this that I'm going to talk to you because today is a very big thing in my life relating specifically to the issue of baby boomers are aging. When we know that and I'm a boomer, but most of us want to stay in the same home forever

Story stand next to you.

Well, the Franklin fire has destroyed seven structures. I've always wondered about structures. What's the different between a structure.

And a house?

As far as the fire department is concerned, Amy, what's the what the difference between a structure and a house?

I know, structure might be like shed in the back.

Who keeps? So let me ask me?

You keep this little crappy shed that you buy at Malibu?

It's probably four thousand square feet.

Well, but you always hear structures. I mean I think of structures as being outhouses.

Probably not a lot of outhouses in Malibu.

But that is Trey. Yeah, you don't hear homes. I've always wondered about structures. But in any case, do we know out of the seven how many were homes?

No, they haven't said, see there you go structures?

Yeah, okay, and you buy them for two hundred bucks? Were their lawnmowers in them?

And we know there were homes?

Yeah, there were homes and those were That's pretty bad. Obviously, the eastern half of Malibu is still under an evacuation order. More than fifteen hundred firefighters were on the ground yesterday. Air tankers dropping water even able through the night. That's the new technology. They're able to send up water dropping aircraft at night, not when the wind is blowing the way it was blowing. I mean, if you're talking fifty sixty mile an hour gus, they're not going up.

But still they've done a really good job.

We had Chuck Lovers on yesterday and that's worth listening to again on demand.

And what time did we listen with Chuck on? You remember?

I believe that seven thirty?

Yeah, I think it was.

And it's worth a Chuck friend of mine thirty years La County fire he fought these This was his wheelhouse and he explained a lot of inside baseball, what you're looking at, what's going on behind the scenes, how they view this, how they prepare, how they attack, and that is it gives you some give you a very good view in understanding what was happening.

All right, Well, there's a whole pile of evidence here. Investigators are looking for a motive in the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The person who's been charged with his murder as Luigi Mangioni. He's fighting extradition to New York from Pennsylvania, that's where he was caught at

Yeah.

I don't know how he's I mean, he's going to lose the extradition hearing, of course, but I don't know where he's going. His attorney says he got the wrong guy, and they're piling the evidence.

Seven o'clock. I'm going to do the story because this is a weird story. This story about.

Mangioni is really strange as to who he was and his motivation, and he's become a hero to some people.

I'll do more about that at seven am.

It's crazy, by the way, if you do a deep dive on social media, the conspiracy theories already and they're measuring the space between his eyebrows and saying it's not the same guy, it's not balls Anyways, you've got speaking of which police found the words deny, defend and depose if you remember, printed on the shell casings near the site where Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO, was gunned down. And now everywhere online you've got merchandise popping up. It

Yeah, those were on the shell casings.

Also, McDonald's is getting one star reviews for being McDonald's and a lot of negative for use part of that calling the workers who turned him in say, hey, that's the guy calling them rats and snitches.

He's become a hear of he's been coming here.

I'll do more about that at seven o'clock because this is, as I said, a very strange one.

So Israel is making some preemptive strikes in Syria. The collapse of the Asad regime has prompted Israel to launch a punishing military response. They've launched four hundred and eighty

Yeah, because the new government is ISIS. Effectively it was connected to ISIS. There's a little bit more moderation talk, but there are a bunch of terrorists. So you had a sod. Then you have the terrorists who've taken over the Syrian government. Israel's not even waiting boom off it goes, took out entire air force, decimated it, no airplanes left. Syria has a bunch of military targets. This says about

It is simply unacceptable.

Now do you think the second they are either close to or announce that Iran has nuclear weapons what is Israel going to do? Israel has two hundred of these or three hundred of these nuclear weapons, which of course they deny having, but everybody's known for forty years they have it. What is going to happen. It's gonna really be interesting. I have no doubt that there'll be a virtual war. And if Roan comes close to even sending off a tactical nuclear weapon, it's going to be completely

We had a lot to talk about later on.

Go on, not to be outdone by American crazy politics. You have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nett Yahoo taking the stand just yesterday in his long running trial for alleged corruption. It sets off what's expected to be weeks long spectacle that will draw unwelcome detention.

This is his legal woes.

He's in the middle of fighting in Gaza, and it just seems like American garbage with Trump on the stand in the middle of running for president.

But oh Nisana is going down.

I mean that the war puts everything on hold, and a lot of people are arguing the reason he's continuing with the war is to make sure that he isn't tried. But at this point it doesn't matter. He's now in court. He's been delaying it for years. Fraud, breach of trust, accepting gifts from major Paul peticians and business interests so they could get better treatment from the authorities. Straight out fraud, just like what we had with the City council, except it's a national scale.

God is so complicated over there. All right, let's do one more and we'll take our break.

Crobertson's is an o go. Albertsons has scrapped its planned merger with Kroger. That's just announced a few minutes ago. Albertson's has accused Kroger of failing to overcome government objection to the proposed twenty five billion dollar merger. A federal judge put a block on the merger between Kroger and Albertsons yesterday, and that basically kills the deal. It would have been the largest grocery store merger in US history.

Now, this was the FTC that sued Kroger and Albertson. You know the way it works in antitrust to keep companies from merging because they become too big with the monopolize whatever we and two big market share. It takes the federal government to come in and sue to stop the merger. The government just doesn't automatically say no merger, So the FTC has to sue. The FTC has sued, a federal judge said no merger. What do you think is gonna happen after January twentieth. I will bet you

So would they have to start all over because Albertson says it's done.

Yeah, don't you know what, I think that the FTC.

Would have to start all over again. This hasn't been dismissed. This is a temporary halt on this case. So we'll see what happens after January twentieth. And this is one of those not oh my god, he's crazy. Whatever, it's strictly a philosophy. It's a pro business or you know, anti business philosophy.

That's it.

And we'll see what the FTC does. Same thing with regulations. Gonna see regulations fall by the by the fallout side you know whatever, because of a different philosophy administration fall by the wayside.

Thank you very much.

Handle.

Damn, I'm good at this stuff. Sometimes I impress myself.

You should have a show, you know what, I.

Should have a show. And it's just frightening.

Bill, Handle.

And monarch butterflies could soon be designated a threatened species under the new US proposal.

So you have the US Fish.

And Wildlife Service announced just yesterday announcing just yesterday this proposal that puts this migratory monarch butterfly on the Endangered Species Act list.

Have you ever gone to see the monarch the butterfly when they go to wherever placed and then they go to Mexico. They actually fly into Mexico. It's a long flight and there used to be millions of them. Last time, I think there was a film crew that went to the one of those central places.

Hundreds of people showed up, three butterflies showed up.

That was it. Well, that'll do it.

That'll do it.

The western migratory population is declined more than ninety five percent sinus. Yeah, and those are neat. Yeah, the monarch butterflies are really neat. You ever been bitten by one? You don't get that's correct. You never have that's my point.

Okay, okay, let'sten break.

Oh no, we just started. Let's go on.

Oh my lord, you'll have to be messing with us, please.

Okay, Biden's not the only one falling all over the place. GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell took a little fall yesterday. Apparently he tripped after lunch, sprained his wrist and cut his face. He's eighty two years old. He has been cleared to resume his schedule, said a McConnell spokesperson.

Yeah, he can't seemed to keep standing up.

A lot of the work he's going to do now will be on the floor on his back, because the guy just keeps on falling and falling and falling.

And he's retiring.

He's done, he has and he's left his position as the Senate Majority leader. I think he is the longest Senate Majority leader in.

History, if I'm not mistaken.

He has seen he's the one who comes to the podium and then forgets what he's saying.

He forgets who he is, forgets where you know, he just freezes.

Okay, yeah, well, and he's only frozen twice.

Okay, well that's a politician. That's not so bad.

I guess so.

Los Angeles County's largest juvenile detention center has failed a critical inspection. This puts it in a unique situation because now it's unprecedented. It's sitting there with two hundred and sixty youth locked up in this facility that legally is required close by tomorrow, and there's nowhere to put these.

Now, what do they do? Yeah? What do you do with that? You have to let them go.

Because it's no longer the facility is safe and there's no place to put him.

How big is your new backyard?

Yeah, precisely, we'll see. It's almost likely to be around an airplane. Does anybody volunteer to get off the airplane for a voucher to fly?

We got some pressure on the president. President Biden facing mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers and some of his allies. They want the president to extend some more protections to illegal immigrants because of President elect Trump's promise of mass deportations when he takes office. So now apparently they're kind of struggling with that. They want to see if any more can be done to allow certain illegal immigrants to stay in the US while trying to avoid overreaching on

Yeah, I'm going to talk a little bit about that too, because, yeah, the Democrats are trying to figure out, what did we do? How did we blow this? As matter of fact, well, we looked at the election. It was sort of up in the air. It was a fifty to fifty that Kamala Harris was going to win some of those states, some of those battleground states, and the Democrats are looking back and saying.

We lost every single one. What happened?

Well, well, I'll talk more about this because this is as soon as President Trump comes into office and an immigration becomes a huge, huge story.

I'm going to jump into this.

But right now there's a lot of pressure for Biden to do whatever he can to help immigrants, anything he can do.

All right, all right, GM is pulling the plug on its robo taxi efforts. Apparently they just are no longer interested too much competition right now, and they gave, you know, looked at all the time the resources that would need to scale the business, and so they're saying we're done.

No fleet.

Yeah, this is getting pretty expensive stuff. Now you do have Weimo out there that's going.

Balls to the wall.

So there is it's on its way, and there are plenty of I think driver less taxis out there right now. You can get them in LA, can't you. Yeah, at this point I have not been. I have not been in one. Have any any of you been in a driverless taxi?

I haven't.

Well.

We talked to rich Damiro this morning during wake up call and he says he has up in San Francisco.

He said it was great.

Okay, I'm willing to try that.

But anyway, GM is out of it, so they're no longer watching the jetsons.

Drones are making some deadly attacks. An armored vehicle belonging to the UNS Atomic Watchdog was hit by a drone strike on its way to inspect a Ukrainian nuclear power plant in an attack President Zelensky has blamed, of course, on Russia, trying to figure.

Out who would get the who gets the benefit of this.

No posture benefit if Zaparichi a nuclear power plant explodes.

Right, and again, does Russia want these things to explode? I mean they could hit these nuclear power plants and decimate them in two seconds. But the last thing they want is another sure nobyle and they get blamed for it.

Humhm, all right, let's move on.

Supreme Court may be about to sharply limit the reach of so called environmental impact statements.

You know, we hear about those all the time.

You want to build something and it's large, you have to put this all together before the project even starts. So for more than fifty years, federal law has required agencies to take kind of a hard broad look at anything that they see that's reasonable in the foreseeable future dealing with environmental effects.

But that may be loosening up a little bit.

Yeah, and they may be focused on the projects themselves.

Hey, by these er reports are not reasonable in many cases. Not only do you have to file or whatever organization or builder or developer has to file the er, which means this is the impact, it's what might be the impact. What could happen if a road is put five miles away, that could be that could affect it.

And here's what we would do in light of that. I mean, it gets pretty restrictive.

And so the Supreme Court may say that's just too much regulation. Huh not going to let that happen again. We're moving towards what we have a very conservative Supreme Court that is really nailing down regulations. They want to open up society and think that our system is too regulatorian. Not a lot of people disagree with that, or a lot of people disagree with that, and so it's a different way of looking at life. Let's do one more story and then we'll bail out of here.

Finally, Fox talks.

Jamie Fox is talking for the first time about what happened. To remember, he landed in the hospital for like twenty days. Nobody knew what was happening, whether he was going to live or die. Well, he has opened up about it on Jamie Fox. What happened was he was hospitalized while filming his movie Back in Action. He told a group of friends that it started with a bad headache on April eleventh and asked a friend for something to treat his headache, and then he said he was gone for

I have a question here, A huge deal is being made of. This is this story, that big a deal?

Well, like everybody wanted to know what was going on here was in the hospital. He wouldn't say, he wouldn't.

It was yeah, okay, big deal. Okay.

So now you have a celebrity, a movie slash TV comedian celebrity, who has some kind of a medical issue that we really don't know about. It becomes national news when he said, oh, I had a stroke, I had a brain bleed. Well, I mean, this isn't Robert Kennedy, who run This isn't Robert Kennedy running for president with worm in his brain.

Which, by the way, explains a lot about Robert Kennedy.

This is a guy who does movies and it's a big that big a deal.

I don't get it. But then that's me. Oh, let me ask you. This amy big deal for you?

Uh, not a huge deal, but interesting because we didn't know and it was all very hush.

Hush, neil, big deal for you.

Yeah, they said there were a lot of speculating people speculating that he had died, and big deal for you. On the social media, A big.

Deal for you.

Yeah, I definitely piqued my interest.

Okay, Kono, big deal for you. Yes, doesn't anybody around here have a life?

No?

No, clearly.

Kf I am six 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