You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty. There's a lot of bomb bast in what Trump does. We are not going to buy Greenland, we are not going to have Canada as our fifty first state. We are not going to take over the Panama Canal. But is it going to change? You got the ultra wealthy. You bet they're going to do better. It's a different philosophy. We elect Democrats who are super liberal, and now we elected a Republican who's not you know, Welcome to America
and now handle on the news, ladies and gentlemen. Here's Bill Handle. All right, good morning everybody. It is Friday, January seventeenth, is a foody Friday without the foodie part. Neil is still under the weather and he is not joining us today and he will be here on Monday. So Neil has a couple of choices. He can come or he can die, and we'll see which one. It is a matter of fact, you know, we ought to do. We ought to do like a football pool. Alive or
not alive. Let's not that is the question. And what odds ooh odds that Neil comes in or Neil survives the weekend. You know, God, can you imagine, God forbid if NEO actually did.
Tank, you might actually feel bad for a few minutes a.
Few yeah, during when nine to eleven hit and it was six o'clock in the morning. When the first was it six o'clock or five o'clock I remember because we started at five o'clock in the morning. But anyway, I was broadcasting live as we do. And when the airplanes hit the first tour we were watching it a few minutes that was we didn't see it live, but people were recording it and we got it a few minutes
later as major news outlets. We're releasing that. And then forty five minutes later when the second plane hit Tower number two, we were watching and it was live, and man, what a day that was. Now, Rich Murata was our Wayne Resnik, and he was our at Neil Savadra and Rich Murad a very interesting guy and he was a sports guy, so we we'd do sports, which we gave up when Rich left. Rich that morning before the planes hit. Based on what he said, we were talking about Kama
Kazi pilots during World War Two. I mean, you talk about if you listen to the tape, which we play every year two years. At the nine to eleven we edited down, so it's about I don't know, ten minutes, eleven minutes, you'll hear the conversation about Kamakazi pilots and then you know, half an hour later, really strange. So I don't know where I went with that. By the way, it was a complete digression. Where were we before I lost track? Which I do on the Dying Neil Dying
nine to eleven. Yeah, and we're taking odds horrible if okay got it anyway, Good morning everybody. Let's start with Kno Good morning, Cono, good morning, Bill, and and good morning, good morning, and Neil those I'm dying and Neil okay
excellent and Amy, Hi, Bill, good morning. We started off on a wonderful note this morning, and it will be just Amy and Moua this morning like we did yesterday, the two of us handling the show, with Cono throwing in the music and and telling him you what to do because she's the produce, and throwing my name up on the board. This is your name, Bill because otherwise I get confused, and tell and tells me what the next segment is and I blow that one too. Basically, Yeah,
that's how we do it. Okay. It is a Friday, January seventeen, and we go right into handle on the news with Amy, the hopefully alive Neil and me late story cease fire. Well, got it. Ceasefire came into being. I thought it wasn't gonna happen. I thought it was gonna be delayed. But the deal has been closed. Now was this going to Basically, is this the death knell for the Natanyahu government? Maybe maybe we'll talk about more. Is what's happening over the next week two weeks. But
here's how it works. And Amy and I were talking about it. In Israel, it's very strange as to how the government works. The prime minister is not the commander in chief. He is not. He cannot make the decisions like our president, who can send troops, who can send
troops and begin conflicts or respond to conflicts. The Prime Minister of Israel has to go to, in this case, a war cabinet, which is comprised of people who are insanely in favor of war and some who are not, some who don't believe in a Palestinian state at all, some who are basically strong beliefs in the Palace, a two state solution, and this is how the government is put together. It's hard to get a government in Israel.
And so instead of the prime minister in Natagnana who's saying, okay, fine, I'm signing the peace treaty, I can do it just simply by declaration. It goes to the war cabinet, and then it goes to the fold cabinet that has to vote. It's a really weird way of doing it. And then the cabinet does not work for Netanyahu. It's really not his people. It's not like our presidency where the president
chooses a cabinet. The cabinet members are heads of parties that are elected by their own constituents, and some are completely diametric, diametrically opposed to the government being but they join the government and they'll ask things like okay, will join and allow you to be the prime minister, but I want defense, will take defence, or will take housing
dealing with the Palestinians. So they cobble together these governments, you know, for example, the supernationalistic there's some very nationalistic super kosher parties. Some are political and some are just straight we don't care about any politics. We want the world to be kosher. That's all we care about Jewish laws, which is why, as I said yesterday, there are It used to be you couldn't go to a hotel that wasn't kosher in Israel, couldn't do it strict. It's looser now. Oh,
there's another story I'll tell you about all airlines. I'm digressing, but I'm just having too good a time and explaining this. And I had one of my best friends who flew for the IDF. You flew fighter planes and then you retire and went to l All airlines as a pilot, and a lot of them do that. And the law is you can't work or fly on Friday night. Friday
night Shabbat, the Sabbath, everything stops. So every airplane in the el Al fleet had to be on the ground by sunset anywhere in the world they had the land and could not fly again until the fall the next evening Saturday night. So okay, what did they do. They created another airline that leased the airplanes from el All had their own pilots, which happened to be l Al pilots and had different uniforms and flew for this other airline that could fly on Friday. This is how crazy
those laws were because of the super religious parties. And then it got to the point they got so tired of changing uniforms that it's only it was only the name tag in the name of the airline. So on Friday night they just tamed the airline. You have the least airplane that they're flying, and then on Saturday night they go back to La crazy crazy making. Okay, I know I digressed on that one, but that I purposely digressed. That was not me losing my placeholder. Here. We are
going to come back and we'll continue on. Amy. You're giving me a look, Yeah, it's sort of this. I'm doing a lot more than just news on that one. I was doing. I was doing a lot of splain in Lucy. No.
I think it's it's actually fascinating one that you know all of that and that things, you know, to see how other governments run and don't run, and that kind of stuff.
I mean, it's just I think it's interesting.
Yeah, it is, well, I find I find it fascinating. I mean that's me, you know, that's my wheelhouse. Okay, let's go ahead. And take a break, and we're going to come back and actually go through the news. By the way, ceasefires in place. That was the headline, and the hostages are going to start being returned probably next week.
They're saying it could happen as soon as Sunday, okay, at least the start of it.
And it's thirty six I believe, thirty three or thirty six hostages to exchange for fifteen hundred Palestinian prisoners. And that's another thing that a lot of Israelis are bitching at. Legitimately, these a lot of these prisoners are terrorists. They have killed Jews, they have killed Israelis, and they're being released
sin war. You know, the guy who was killed the head of the guysa government to get Hamas was in prison for twenty years in Israel and was released in imprison prisoner exchange and then came back to excuse me, had the government and was the mastermind of the October seventh attack.
All right, Amy, the TikTok deathwatch is on.
The White House is looking into options they say might keep TikTok accessible to you know, one hundred and seventy million people in the US who use it, but if they can't find an option, the ban is set to
go into effect Sunday. But White House officials say the problem is even though Biden doesn't want to enforce the ban, they don't think he has the authority to defer enforcement of the law he signed in April that hired the parent company of TikTok, Byte Dance, to sell it before the January nineteenth dead or.
Shut it down, which they haven't done. And the politics of this one is so weird because you have major political figures as well as President Trump, who hated TikTok, wanted it gone, pushed for it to be either sold or shut down in the United States, and now it's changed his mind, as have both And by the way, both sides, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have turned around and said no, no, we like byte Dance, We like TikTok, even though it's owned by byt Dance, a
Chinese company that has connections with the Chinese government, which means that they can get information from us because any of these apps know everything about us and what interesting sidelights story here The reason that Trump and he said I have a warm place for TikTok. TikTok was a fairly big fan in him getting elected because he got so many utes, he got so many young people in
a major way. And you know who made him who made that happen, his son Baron, who said to him, you have to use social media to go after people like me. An eighteen year old kid, gave him better advice than all of his advisors. So it's really this TikTok story is just weird.
Don't mess with California. That's the word from California Attorney General Rob Bonta. He says the hammer will come down on those who try to take advantage of the victims of the wildfires in La County. He was on KTLA yesterday morning and he announced a task force being created by his office, which will put more resources toward investigating things from looting to arson, to theft, to scams, to flying drones illegally in the wildfire areas.
So if you decide to loot and you take less than nine hundred and fifty dollars, it's a misdemeanor. Now, I don't think looting is in the new I don't think the new laws that make it tougher for smashing grabs, but I think under is still correct. Me if I'm wrong on that, Amy Under nine hundred and fifty dollars.
Didn't the new law that passed revise that.
I don't think in terms of money. It's just the second conviction is or the third conviction that ends up being a felony. I'm good and ends looking that up and you're looking that up. I think I have that right.
Okay, like a good neighbor, State Farm won't be there. State Farm has decided to pull its Super Bowl commercial. They say they want to focus firmly on support to the people of Los Angeles. Last Super Bowl they ran the commercials that started Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I can't say it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito and it was USA Today's Annual Popularity Contest number one spot.
And that makes sense on a pr level that you have State Farm that is bounced back and forth. Let's see if I'm right on that. Califer proposed making looting during emergency of felony. It is not a felony, and they should make it. If they should make it, twenty five years to life on looting. So in any case, State Farm saying we're not going to do a Super Bowl commercial. And it makes all it makes a lot of sense.
I like the State Farm guy. Do you know who that is? Is that familiar with you?
The State Farm? No, he's yeah, the guy E. J. Rowlings. Is that who it is? Or is it the other guy? You?
No, it's the younger guy. He's really cute.
Oh yeah, I can't remember. Yeah, he's an actor and woit what a gig he has?
I know, right, Okay, A lot of convicts now love Joe Biden. Biden has pardoned nearly twenty five hundred non violent drug offenders, and with these latest commutations, he has now pardoned more people than anybody in presidential history. He says that these twenty five hundred were serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would get today under current law, policy and practice.
Which is absolutely true.
Yeah.
Remember the laws crack cocaine, for example, I got you ten years, where power cocaine you would get three years. And it made no sense, no sense at all. And Blacks were disproportionately nailed because for some reason, African Americans liked crack cocaine more than powder cocaine. I've never been able to figure that out. And the laws were crazy Texas. At one time. You got caught with one joint and you would do years in prison. And Texas governors do
not tend to pardon criminals. So Biden said, it's just not fair. These are non violent drug offenses, personal use. I'm not going to keep them in jail. That makes sense.
Keeping cops in line La County, New DA. Nathan Hockman has hired a special prosecutor for cases of police misconduct. He had fired George Gascone's special prosecutor, who was appointed shortly after he took office last month.
The new guy is Michael Jenaco. He will be the man tasked with prosecuting law enforcement officers who are accused of misconduct, including police shootings.
And that's right. I think that's appropriate because as soon as there is a police shooting and the authorities get involved, I think there's a conflict of interest that minute, and you go to special prosecutor that is completely independent and that doesn't have any skin in the game at all.
Millions will be chilling in the US. Bone chilling temperatures are developing across much of the United States forecasters say basically anywhere from the Rockies east will see below normal temperatures over the next several days, some of them minus thirty to as low as minus forty or minus fifty by this weekend.
Yeah, that's the index. I mean, it's not the actual temperature.
It feels like, right, it's the wind chills.
Yeah, but if you hit minus thirty wind chill factor, it is still really cold. What is it? Ten degrees a difference between actual temperature and the wind shill.
Well, it depends on how fast the winds are blown.
And all that stuff. But I mean it is crazy.
I used to live in Colorado. It gets cold when those wind shills dipped out on that low.
I mean it's I mean, this is scary stuff. This is dangerous. You go outside for ten minutes exposed skin, frostbite hits.
Well, they're saying the inauguration on Monday in Washington, DC is going to be the coldest in years and years.
I think twenty degrees actual temperature. I read that, don't know, Yeah, I think it is. I think it's twenty degrees so and this polar vortex, I mean, you tell me about climate change. I mean it is hitting us so hard, and scientists are still saying climatologists are still saying, we
haven't hit critical mass yet, where we can't. We are only trying to slow down the climate change, slow down the temperature of the Earth, which last year was the hottest ever, and this year is going to be the hottest ever if the last three four years it has been the hottest ever. This is crazy stuff. I mean, we've hit critical mass. I mean it's over now. Just get really warm clothes or buy a lot of sunscreen and bathing suits, depending on where you are in this country.
Time to make Hollywood great again. President elect Trump is named John Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson as Special Ambassadors to Hollywood. He said that they're going to be a special envoys and we'll report back to him with the on the ground knowledge of the industry to bring Hollywood back bigger, better and stronger than ever before.
Amy, would you please explain to me what a special ambassador to Hollywood is?
I don't know.
Yeah, and I don't either.
Okay, Yeah, Well, there was farm aid and now unfortunately there is fire Aid. There's going to be a huge conference, conference, conference, concert. In fact, so big that it's going to be at both the Into It Dome and the Key of Forum, happening on January thirtieth. We knew it was coming, and now they've announced some of the performers. So there are Billy Eilish.
Yeah, go, let's go through the list. You know, we still have about twenty minutes left on handle on the news, so let's spend some time talking about this list.
Well, we're just going to name a few of them.
But Billy Eilish, she's a native of La Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Gracie Adams Abrams Rather along with Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Earthwind and Fire, Jelly Roll, my personal favorite, Joni Mitchell, Little Baby, Rod Stewart, Stings, Stephen Stills and Stevie Nicks, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Everybody's going to be there day and this is just some of them. Yeah, and they're said, oh, we're going to announce more later. So it's happening on January thirtieth. Tickets
go on sale on the twenty second. If you're not going, you're gonna be able to watch it kind of everywhere because They are going to be streaming it on Apple TV, on Max KTLA's going to erit Netflix, Paramount Plus Prime Video, and it's also going to be broadcast on eight hundred and sixty iHeartRadio stations across the United States.
And are you going to see a crawl across the bottom of the screen. Please donate, Please donate absolutely, And this is going on. It's for two days, and I mean two days, like a straight forty eight hours with no bathroom breaks. Enjoy yourself. I mean this lineup is insane.
It's crazy.
They'll have shorter sets, but I think it's amazing and I hope they raise a ton.
Yeah, good, I mean good for them, Good for them.
If you have crypto, you're going to have to report it to the IRS. Most Americans are going to be focusing on getting tax documents together in the next few months, But if you buy or sell digital assets like bitcoin, twenty five will mark the first texture that your crypto transactions will be subject to third party reporting requirements. That means information on them will be sent to the IRS.
Yeah, this is you not going directly with crypto. If you're still buying crypto directly or selling crypto, directly. No one knows. But these are basically brokerage firms that deal with crypto, and there are entire you know, it's like Schwab is a brokerage firm, or Fidelity is a brokerage firm that handles stocks assets. This is another one of those companies, but it deals in crypto and there if you go through them, then any gains are going to be reported to the IRS.
I don't get it though, I've had a report the last three years.
All your crypto sales. Yeah, how does the government know?
So Coinbase has like a not a W two, but they do the same thing as like a brokerage firm. They give you a print out of your gain their losses, and it may be just that one company that does it. And Turbo tax is what I go through and they always ask them.
But let me ask you. So you go through when you buy crypto. You can't just do it directly. You have to go through a third party. And I don't know, I don't do crypt.
Yeah, I would say, like a person like me, that's not millions and billions of dollars. Yeah, you have to go through Coinbase, which is just the fidelity of.
Okay, So, but what if you did it directly? Because you can do it directly, right, there is a way to do it directly, and that you there's the way the government's ever going to know that you did or didn't do because it's all totally secret private. I don't know. Have you made money with crypto?
By the way, my brother always told me, you're not making money unless you pulled the money out, So I'm.
Okay, let me put it this way, or I have you seen your investment go north? Yes? On crypto? Correct?
And I mean substantially over double Okay, over what period of time. I've been in it for five years and you've done your money? Yeah, that's impressive. That is impressive. I have to tell you.
Okay, A twenty let's see not twenty three two hundred and thirty million dollars slap on the wrist. American Expresses agreed to pay two hundred and thirty million dollars to settle a federal investigation into deceptive marketing practices and civil fraud allegations. Apparently, they engaged in sales practices that provided consumers with incorrect tax advice and also deceptively marketed credit cards and wire transfer products.
Yeah, it sounds like what Wells Fargo did a little bit, you know, manufacture accounts and make sure they get money if I have this correctly, among other things.
Oh yeah, because remember Wells Fargo, they were just adding accounts that you didn't try to add yourself.
Yeah, lovely, because the CODA system was so harsh at those banks that tellers and people that work there. You have to open new accounts X number of accounts per month, and if you can't do it legitimately, let's make some up. They didn't say that, but everybody sort of knew that was happening. Yeah, Wells Farg got d nail pretty good. Now it's American Express.
How much is two hundred and thirty million dollars to American Express?
I think not much. It depends on how much American Express, how big a company is it? And it's in the billions. Hey Siri, go, hey siri. What's the revenue of American Express forty two billion dollars?
So two hundred and thirty million is not a lot.
No, not a lot.
So here's what they were doing too. One of the things employees allegedly told consumers their wire transfer fees were tax deductible, but they weren't, so they got.
Busted for that. Lovely Okay, all right.
Rudy has made a deal.
Rudy Julian, he has reached an agreement with those two election workers from Georgia that he defamed to settle the nearly one hundred and fifty million dollar judgment against him. In the deal, he's going to get to keep his properties and his most valuable possessions, like several New York Yankees World Series rings.
He was going to have to forfeit.
All of them. Yeah. I don't get this at all.
Like, why there's a settlement now?
Yeah, why he settled And because they already have the judgment, they are entitled to everything he has minus a few exemptions, and World Series rings are not part of exemptions. The only thing that was an issue is his place in Florida because under federal law or under law Florida year, where you live Florida residence is exempt from either bankruptcy laws or picking this up in lawsuits. And they just I think they just got tired of it. I think these two workers just got tired.
Of it, like, oh, and we're never going to see this as yeah.
And just let it go. And I love this because he posts on X this resolution does not involve an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any of the parties. You've already been convicted of wrongdoing. You've been held that you've done wrong, that you defame these women. So he says he kept the rings. He says he keeps both his properties both in New York and in Florida, and his other stuff. So I don't get it why they didn't keep on going. But they did say we had
death threats, we couldn't use our names. One of the ladies that I can't even go to the supermarket because of the threats. Because there are supporters of certain political people out there, Donald Trump who are nuts. That's not to say he is, by the way, I've never said Trump has asked people to do that. But his followers, his crazy, crazy followers, are threatening. Very few people who believe who are on Joe Biden inside made threats, just the different way of thinking.
China is shrinking, not in size, but in the number of people. The population of China fell last year for the third straight year. Officials are panic panicking a bit, saying that the country is now faced facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people. But still they have one point four zero eight billion people.
Yeah, and they're down one point thirty nine million. Okay, that's what tiny percentage going down. But the issue in Japan has this problem big time.
Japan or China.
Japan, Oh also has this problem, and it's even more serious in Japan.
Isn't Japan too crowded?
It depends. Yeah, it's very dense, very dense. But you go to Shanghai, you go to Beijing, I mean it's just as those cities are jammed with people, what twenty five million people in Beijing alone, And what happens is an aging population. You live longer, Fewer people are being born, and it takes people to support those old people. And if you don't have enough, that's what happens to our social security why our social security taxes, and it go up like crazy, and it's not going to be solvent
in ten years. We're living longer, not enough people out there because we have a declining younger population. I can see that. You know what they call you know what they call Chinese food in China food, Yes, precisely it's food and they don't believe in refrigeration in a lot of those places.
Okay, Elon's epic fail was a spectacular show, at least if you ask Elon. SpaceX launched its super heavy Starship Mega rocket. It was its seventh test flight, launched Texas last night, but.
About nine minutes in it froze.
The engines shut down, and then it broke up and fell back to Earth.
There was falling debris.
They had to divert some flights in Miami and Turks and Caicos for a little bit. And then Elon Musk tweeted and said success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed.
Yeah, you know he is on this issue and with SpaceX, guy's a visionary. I mean, forget about the craziness. First of all, did you see the video of the pieces of that rocket coming down in broad daylight. It looked like meteors that were coming down, meteorites that were falling from the sky, you know those. It actually looks like asteroids, little asteroids coming in. And that's exactly his philosophy from day one is you send a spacecraft up, it falls apart,
it doesn't work. You look next one collapses, you'll learn and eventually we have a good one. The first, the Falcon Rocket, I think it finally made it on its fourth go. Elon Musk had no money for that fourth test. No money he put the he put everything he had into that last test. And he's absolutely right. This company that believes in failure to learn, and then they make it work, and then he goes crazy on.
Us all aboard.
The Biden administration has ordered twenty seven million dollars in federal grants to add more Surfliner service between LA and San Diego. The federal funds will allow the Rail Corridor Agency to add three new daily round trips between LA and San Diego, so now there will be thirteen trips available each day.
Have you ever taken that train trip.
Not the one, not the Surfliner from LA to San Diego, but I have taken it from here up to San Luis Obispo.
And I occasionally take it to Orange County because the drive can be a couple of hours in traffic, or you take the train. It stops at every single station. Everyone and what should take you? I don't know. Forty minutes, takes two.
Hours and it's beautiful.
Well, that's true. However, from LA to San Francisco, if they put in the train, you will be able. It takes more time to take a train ride between those two cities than it does to fly to New York twice.
Oh, you're talking about the high speed ram. Yeah, well were not so high speed?
Yeah yeah, we're never gonna do that. I'm talking about the train as it is right now, because that's all it's gonna happen, is you take a train from LA to San Francisco after spending twenty billion or thirty billion dollars. Talk about boondoggle. A matter of fact, I think that's the name of the train itself, is the boondoggle.
Wouldn't it be fun to see that.
Wouldn't that be great? Al Right, guys, we're done. This is KFI AM sixty. 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.