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AM six forty bill Handle. Here it is.
A Friday Foody Friday, February twenty one, and today at thirty another segment of Amah and that's handle Anything, Ask Me anything, some of the big stories.
We're looking at the story.
Of Yolanda Murdi, suspect in the stabbing death of her wife, who is a San Diego cal Cal Fire Captain San Diego Fire Captain Becky Morodi.
So that's a big, big story.
And then Israel officials say one of the four bodies handed over by Hamas, who was one of them, was supposed to be Shery Bibis, is not and she's the mother of the two young children who were killed, whose bodies were returned, one nine years old, when four years old. Now in a case of nimbi, big nimby case, not in my backyard. Yesterday I reported on the cry for the residents of Palisades and the Altadena fire to ask FEMA to do toxic testing on the debris that's being removed,
which the government has done virtually every single time. As matter of fact, every single time, whenever there's a major disaster of this kind of debris has to be removed. FEMA said, no, not going to do it this time. We are not going to do it. You want to do it, you do it yourself. And one of the arguments was that FEMA used is just going to slow everything down.
Well argument number two.
Now, Southern California residents are protesting the decision to take that toxic ash and debris from the Eaton and Palisades fires and put them in the landfills right near occupied areas where there is a population.
And so a protest took place in Calabasas.
Landfill in Grenada Hills near the Sunshine Canyon landfill. Why because the argument is toxic chemicals could drift into the neighborhood airborne dust or leech into the groundwater.
And all of these.
Landfills or populations or cities near these landfills proposed landfills that are being used, are really upset about it because they don't want to They want to know is the groundwater going to be affected, is the air quality going to be affected as the wind blows.
They don't know. They don't know.
Because the federal government won't do the testing now, FEMA said of the state, everyone wants to do it.
God bless you. If you want to do it, go ahead and do it.
In the meantime, we are carting away all of this debris at our cost. This is what the government is saying. And that's a big that's a big chunk of money to do it on your own. So what's happening is they're simply contracting with and going into various landfills with all of this debris. And as you can imagine, you've got the protests going all over the place. So the
protests aren't not just people. A matter of fact, in one case in Calabasas or about a dozen or two dozen people that stood in front of a dumb truck of a huge eighteen wheeler that debris was being put into and was going to be carted off to the local landfill.
They should have just stood right in front of it.
Sheriffs came out this unincorporated area sheriff's came out and said you got to move over were and to arrest you. You they just stood pat They said, go ahead, arrest us.
Well, it was a standoff.
They weren't arrested, and after about an hour the truck turns around, sort of their version of the Cuban missile crisis. And so the number of these land fills that are burying being used include let me get this list here because I think it's important for you to know.
For those of us that don't live near these landfills.
Stories not so bad Semi Valley Landfill, the Calabasas Landfill, Azuza land Reclamation Area, Sunshine Canyon Landfill, the el Sobrante Landfill, and Corona expected to receive the disaster debris. The Lamb Canyon and Badlands landfills in Riverside County have requested emergency waivers for an increase in tonnage, which they are going to get.
So the demonstrations is going to go.
Oh by the way, county government and city government all are lining up on behalf of the protesters, and the city La City Council passed a unanimous motion to instantly investigate what the level of the toxic city is. It is FEMA going to cooperate, I think they will. You go ahead, knock your socks off. We don't care. It's not gonna It's not gonna stop us from doing what
we're doing. And as I said when I opened up the monologue, the argument that FEMA is using is, hey, we're going it's going to slow down if number one we do the testing, and number two, if we have to cart the debris away to landfills far away. There
are hazardous way sland fills out there. What they are they are lined with a rubberized or a silicon tarp, I don't know which one, and there are motion and there are sensors in the landfill itself to detect methane and other toxic gases, but they are not local, and the local people are saying that's where you go, and FEMA is saying, if we do that, that means the trucks have to drive a lot further, which is going to slow down the removal of the debris.
So it's another stand off, no kidding, okay.
Going to what is happening on a federal level, and the firing of tens of thousands of federal employees to begin with.
So there have been a couple of blips.
And as I promoted this segment just before coming just before the break, I said, if you ever watched the Apprentice, which most of us at least know what the apprentice is. And the tagline Donald Trump used, you fired. Maybe you didn't use such a heavy New York accent. Michelle would do that, and he never said, excuse me, I just changed my mind, come on back. Well, that's exactly what's
happening with the National Park Service. The National Park Service just fired a bunch of people, I mean just cleaned out. Didn't clean it out in the sense of firing. What happens as seasonal workers are hired every summer because that's when people go to the National parks, and these seasonal people collect the entrance fee. Example, when you go to the park, the person they are at the park interest seasonal. They clean the trails, they clean the restrooms, they're part
of the rescue teams that rescue injured hikers. Well, they all received emails that their normal job offers for the twenty twenty five season ain't going to happen rescinded.
Well, this week a memo is sent out from the Department.
Of Interior saying that never mind that the agency is going to hire seventy seven hundred seasonal employees, up from the sixty three hundred who normally are fired. I mean, it's going to go up fourteen hundred. Well, you talk about an exception to what's going on today. Now there's a hiring freeze going on across government, and this one is, for some reason a big exception. Don't know why National Parks Service it was. Now there's been a couple of never minds. Now is it a make or break if
you don't go to a national park? You know, I don't go. So it's not the end of the world for me. Some people it's important. I'll tell you what was really important is that there were people at the Nuclear Agency whichever nuclear agency is involved in keeping our safeguarding our nuclear weapons facilities. They were fired until someone pointed out, wait a minute, they're the guys who safeguard our weaponry? Are nuclear weaponry? Do you really want to
fire them? That was an oops, Well, okay, maybe we don't. And so they were fired and the next day they were rehired. And I was talking to one of the real pro Trump is here at the station yesterday and who is thrilled about the fact that the government is cleaning out the quote, the waste and the fraud.
Now is there a waste and fraud.
There has to be two point three million employees and entrenched to bureaucracy that goes for back for decades.
Of course, there's gonna be waste.
Of course there's gonna be fraud, and there's a lot of bureaucracy that can be eliminated. I'm assuming with the government as large as it is. However, do you really start cleaning out before you investigate. I mean, look at the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. Here, a couple of instances here. You're gonna see many more of these. I'm fine with the investigation, but first let's find out
what happens or what has happened. One of the big Trump slash Elon Musk's talking points is and you saw this for days fifty million dollars being used to buy condoms for Hamas or Palestinians. Two days later it was one hundred million dollars were used to buy condoms. Now one hundred million dollars for two thousand people, of which some may not use condoms, women, children, the elderly. It's a lot of condoms for the people that are left in a population of a couple of million. The point
I'm making is okay, you make that allegation. I haven't seen the proof. Where is the proof? Now, there's two ways that they're doing this, except they're only doing it one way. One is to investigate and then to fire. Two is to fire and either investigate or not investigate. And that is exactly what's going on. It's peremptory firing across the board. Well it to the extent. The Musk has the kind of influence that a lot of people had that he is the puppet master of the Trump administration,
which I don't buy for a second. He has said I am going to cut one third of the budget of the United States two trillion dollars.
How do you do that?
Well, one claim is that he saved what was it eight billion dollars up to this point, and then the next day it was it was really eight million dollars that he has saved. Heretofore and I think it was one agency he was talking about. So there were a few zeros missing, and he argued it's full transparency. Well not really, there isn't a lot. So do I agree in principle, of course I do, But at some point, and I'm the one who shoo shoots from the hip man do that's the accusation has made about me. And
I'm right there. I mean, I react and act a lot quicker than I should. And I'm saying, come on, guys, really, maybe we got to slow this down. Now. I'm going to give you a little bit of handle history. In nineteen seventy eight, when I was I think first year, second year of law school, a decision came down the US Supreme Court ruled that this guy by the name of David Baki will be going to medical school at UC Davis. He had been turned down. He applied, and the school said nah, nah, and why.
Well, they had a quota that.
Certain number of African Americans were to be allowed into the medical school. And he argued that wait a minute. Number one, I'm white, but I have better qualified cations that was per school, per the school, better GPA, better test scores on the MCAT, and I deserve to have that spot that you gave to this African American who didn't meet those qualifications. Well, the numbers were the numbers. They had to have x percent of African Americans and they were going to put that in. So he sued
and that was amazing. That was one of the first lawsuits of reverse discrimination.
White people suing saying.
I'm being discriminated against because I'm white, and that went up through the courts and the Supreme Court ruled, yeah, he has a case, and the school reinstated him. The next year he got in. But this started a whole slew of cases of reverse discrimination. Now, the Supreme Court didn't eliminate the racial factor completely. What the court did say is you cannot use race solely as a basis for determining who gets into school. In this case, it
was the medical school because that's what was happening. When you have a when you have a quota system and X number have to go in, it is race.
That's it. It's race.
So the court said, no, you can't do that, but you can use race as a factor in determining whether someone is given entrance to the school.
You have to look at everything else.
You have to You have to look at the GPAs, you have to look at the test scores. You have to look at what they have done in the world out there to make them uh, to make the the people, the application people look at you in a more positive light today.
If you want to get into a majority school.
If you want to get into an Ivy League school and you happen to be white man, you had better start a charity, raise several million dollars and win the Nobel Peace Prize. It takes that much. And as for anybody to get into one of the big ivy leagues. So he wins, and it starts all of those cases, and it got to the point where the Supreme Court narrowed down the race factor to the point where now race cannot be used.
As a factor at all.
However, we talk about the advantages that minorities have. If you are Hispanic, if you are black, if you're a Pacific islander, frankly, you're going to have an advantage.
It's that simple. Not Asians.
Even though Asians are a legitimate majority, they don't get the benefit of the doubt.
Why because go to UC.
Berkeley, Okay, go to Hastings, Lag, go to Stanford. You will see the number of Asians far outnumbers their population. So they're doing all right anyway, So they're not considered a minori. So how is the end around done? How do the schools get away with, in fact giving preference to in some cases African Americans or Pacific Islanders, Well, they look at things like how many siblings do you have? Are you the first person to have gone to college, or you're going to college.
Where do you live?
Are you living in a socioeconomic area that is poor and particularly minority populated. So they sort of play that game to where it's virtually guaranteed that a minority still has the upper hand, and it does. And the argument is, let's have a level playing field, because it used to be that minorities never were able to get in because they were minorities, particularly blacks African Americans or sort of the poster child the discrimination. And legitimately so in this country,
slavery is the original sin of this country. Absolutely straight out separating out African Americans as being particularly oppressed absolutely holds water. And so the argument is you screwed us or we screwed them. We being the white population, wasn't me. I never owned a slave, I've never determined if someone should go to college or not.
And now we're going to go the other way.
And then there are people that argue, okay, now let's make it a level playing field. I remember once I interviewed Jesse Jackson, who argued, yeah, yeah, blacks should get advantages. They should be determined as more apt to get into school because the level playing field means you have to take into account what happened before.
Okay, So that is the rule going in.
So now I'm going to move forward to a Supreme Court case where this week or next week, the Court is going to hear arguments in another white discrimination case. But it's not because a minority person as to a race was involved. Oh no, No, it's a whole different
avenue they took. When when I was in law school, a case came down in nineteen seventy eight about a white guy who was denied a place in medical school at University of California and a black man African American got his spot, even though he argued the white guy that he had better qualifications, which he did according to the school, and there was a quota system straight out, you know, certain number of blacks come in and we're putting him in no matter what. That was the quota system.
And he sued for reverse discrimination and he won. Us Supreme Court said, oh to the UC system, oh no.
He goes to medical school and the next year he did.
Well, there is another case a brewing, and this has to also do with reverse discrimination. But I'll tell you the difference. This is a woman who's arguing that she is white and straight and the discrimination here is because she is straight, and that is illegal.
Her name is Marlene Ames.
She worked for the Ohio Youth Correction System, got all kinds of promotions and evaluations, and then in twenty nineteen she was she was demoted and denied a promotion at the same time. And the demotion she took a forty thousand dollars pay cut. And according to Ames and this lawsuit, that wasn't all. She had a gay supervisor at the time. She was passed over for promotion in favor of.
A gay woman.
She was demoted in favor of a gay man, both of whom were less qualified than she was, according to the lawsuit. Well, next Wednesday, US Supreme Court is going to hear that case. They're going to hear arguments in her civil rights lawsuit against the Department of Youth Services. After the law courts throw it out, she wants money, by the way, from the state, a ruling in her
favor by the court. Remember it now has a six to three conservative majority is going to make it a lot easier for non minorities, including white people and straight people, to argue claims of illegal bias reverse discrimination under the federal anti discrimination law. Now this gets a little wonky, so I'm going to try to explain it, Okay. In nineteen sixty four, under Lyndon Johnson, Congress passed Title seven
of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. No Discrimination prohibits discrimination on the base of race, religion, national origin, and sex, including sexual orientation.
This is what she's saying, So how does this even go to court?
The lower court ruled against her, The appeals court ruled against her. I mean, isn't discrimination discrimination, that's what she's arguing. Well, it gets a little more complicated than that, because a requirement that is used by most courts is that plaintiffs from majority groups read white and straight people have to provide more evidence than minority playmants claimants to make a prima facia case, which means that on its face is
a case. In other words, a white person, straight person has to provide more proof of reverse discrimination then a minority person has to provide that there is discrimination.
As we see it isn't that discrimination on its face. I mean, come on, guys, and.
There has to be well, it's as I said, it's a little bit wonky that it has to be argued that there is a pattern of discrimination.
You have to go deeper into it. There has to be a.
History, and it's it is easier in one sense to argue racial discrimination. You know, if I'm being sued by a straight person, I'm gay and I choose a choose someone who is gay for a promotion over you, I can say I had nothing to do with it, even though that person was gay. It's kind of hard to argue I didn't know that person was black. Gee, I
never noticed. It doesn't fly usually. But the argument's going to be this is straight out discrimination, and so what can be used, and what is used is the history of racial discrimination in this country as a basis for those minorities suing. You can't argue, well, you can argue
if you're straight. And I think she's gonna make the argument I haven't read the case, so I haven't read the Obviously, the papers here is that there has now recently been a history of anti white, anti straight bias in the workplace, and in education, and the other side's going to go, hey, it's been there. You may argue that, but you don't have a four hundred year history of this of discrimination.
You don't have a two hundred year history of discrimination.
You don't have a system where it was impossible for someone to get into school, or get a job, or get this kind of a workplace environment because he or she was a minority. It's going to be an interesting case, it really is.
Is that going to change everything? You know?
Based on this court? I think she may have a case. By the way, she has since been promoted back. She was a supervisor. She was making one hundred thousand dollars year when she was demoted by a gays purpose person in favor of a gay person. By the way, the lower courts and the appeals court said no, no, no, because the supervisors could have interfered and they were straight, and
they didn't. So there are a couple of little wonky parts of it, but the basis of the main premise here is I'm straight, I'm white, and you're discriminating, yes mee in favor of the gay community. That is discrimination. Okay, KF I am six point 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