You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty KFI AM six forty Bill Handle.
Here it is a Thursday morning, May fifteenth, as we basically start the show after Handle on the news.
Sorry about that.
Governor Gavin Newsom super I would say super liberal, not crazy liberal, but pretty liberal.
A little slick for me, definitely.
Everything he is doing now is anticipation of his run for the nomination of the presidency in twenty twenty eight. There's very little doubt about that. So we start with that premise. Now let's move to another premise. I'm going to connect the two. Pardon me, and it is it's tough being poor in the United States. Not easy, it's tough being poor in many parts of the United States.
If you're going to be poor, probably California is the best place to do it, especially if you are an undocumented person and you've got some medical issues going on. And why well, because Governor Newsom and California being the first date offering free medical to everyone who can't afford it, including undocumented. You can't ask ge do you have your papers or not? And the problem is is that's breaking the state. We just don't have the money to pay
for it, and someone's got to give. So are you going to not give free medical to American citizens or people who are here legally?
Are you going to.
Include illegal immigrants to the point where illegal doesn't even matter anymore? And there are a lot of people who argue there's no such thing as illegal, it doesn't exist.
The concept is irrelevant.
Vicenti Fox, when he was president of Mexico, said it perfectly. The line between the United States and Mexico is just that a line. The two countries are really one country when he was referring to immigration going north like crazy, because it's only a line in the sand, like when you go to Nevada, when you go to Arizona and you're now entering Nevada, it's a line.
It's just it's a billboard, and that's it.
There's no difference in terms of traveling back and forth. So what the governor has done is said, Okay, we really can't afford to give medical care underdic medical which is our version of basically Medicare or Medicaid, which is a federal government. We have our version in California called a medical and the premise is poor people get free medical if you can't afford it, if you're below the poverty line or whatever that line is, you get free
medical and included everybody. Well, there ain't enough money for everybody now, so where do you cut it? Well, I'll tell you where now Newsom is cutting it, and that's at the line of illegal immigration, which by the way, is pretty popular today. You know there are illegal immigration. First of all, it is both a legitimate issue. It's also an issue that is there just for public consumption, and it's a scapegoating issue. Truly, illegal immigrants are getting
the brunt of the blame for almost everything. Look at the ads that they're running right now. Nao, what's her face the Department of Homeland Security. What's her name, Christy Naomi. I'm very bad with names, but Christine there, it is Christine Olam and she is talking about the horrors of illegal immigration, and she mentions three horrible crimes were committed by illegals and therefore we should kick all of them
out and you've got to get out of here. And I mean, just all in all, I mean there's a lot of scapegoating, escapegoating going on. So what the governor did yesterday is he came up with his budget which cuts medical payments to illegal immigrants. Now there are different kinds of illegal immigrants, well, at least financially and at
least age wise. Okay, the first time illegal immigrants were given the right to have health care covered by the state, it was Jerry Brown actually did it, but it was only for kids.
That was in the seventies, and then.
It became for people fifty years and older, and now it's everybody, including the undocumented.
Well guess what those days are a changing for.
Both political reasons because again, and I'm a cynic when it comes not that I'm in general not a cynic anyway, but when it comes to Newsom, I think he is as sleazy a politician as is out there. I mean, everything he now does is anticipation of his rent for president.
I'm convinced of that, and.
So politically it makes more sense because he has to move towards the middle. He has to now look at all the voters. And the easiest political path is to say, if we have to cut, let's cut and not affect people who are here legally American citizens who pay the taxes, Because the argument is illegal aliens don't pay taxes, which is a crock.
Of course they do.
And so we have a new budget, and why are we going broke? Well, the state goes up and down. Because that's the other thing about California. The state of California, its revenue is based primarily on income taxes, state income tax.
A lot of states don't have in KIP tax at all.
I mean, you go to the state of Washington, you go to Nevada, you go to Florida.
There's also sing as income tax.
Well, California not only has income tax the highest in the country, but it relies on that income tax for the majority of its revenue. And here's the problem with relying on income tax when you have a graduated tax system, which we do, is that the wealthier people pay the taxes. That's the reality. This myth about the middle class paying the taxes. The middle class doesn't pay the taxes. It's the wealthy that pay the taxes. Now, whether you agree
with it or not, different issue. But if the wealthier paying the taxes, how do the wealthy do financially? Well, when the economy is up, they make a lot more money. The wealthy are not at an hourly they're on investments. There are high paid jobs. And when the economy does great, they do great, they make more money and the state gets more money. When the economy doesn't do great, they make less money. Investments are worth less. Incomes drop, which means there's less money for California.
And it is so volatile in this state that from.
Year to year you really don't know. We are at the vagaries of the market. We are at the vaguers vagaries of the economy more so than any other state.
So now we're in.
A position where, oh, we're looking at deficits of tens of billions of dollars. You know, we were in surplus twenty five billion dollars a few years ago, annual surplus of twenty five billion dollars. Well, those days have changed, and so illegal immigrants are going to get nailed on this. You're not going to see them get free healthcare. Then the issue, of course becomes free. I happen to believe
in socialized medicine, you know that. And frankly, oh, I just had an experience with and we were in Italy and she had an issue going on, she had some breathing issues, and we went right to the emergency room. Non citizens, right, we're on American passports. They didn't ask if we're here legally or not legally. They went ahead and did the treatment. It was first class, world class medicine.
And I'm on the way out.
I'm taking out my credit card and I say, so, where do I pay?
You don't pay.
We don't have a mechanism for you to pay. We do it through taxes. Different model, different system, different model. All right, here's the story I want to share with you. And this has to do with parental leave. And that's going back to what I said before. Some places, the United States is not the greatest place in the world in certain areas. Okay, I'm not an exceptionalist. So and
you they have the greatest country in the world. Okay, yes, now in terms of medical care and maybe not so much in terms of the the entire concept of parental.
Leave, not so much. You go to Europe, you go to Scandinavia.
Do you know that in Sweden and Norway parents can get a year off with pay.
When a newborn comes into the what comes into their family, and that's both mother and father.
And pay for a new baby coming in an adoptive baby.
It doesn't matter well here in California and here in the United States not so much.
Okay, Now, teachers are in a different category. State employees are in a different category than private sector employees. In California, the employees do not have access to the state's paid family leave or state disability insurance program. They're on their own program. Also, teachers don't pay in Social Security. It's a different program they have. Now, keep in mind, seventy three percent of teachers are women, which means that a
whole lot more of them are having babies. Then in areas where there's a lot of men, we're talking about parental leave, we're talking about maturity leave. Now, teachers' jobs are protected for twelve weeks, can't get canned. But a lot of people can't afford to take those twelve weeks because the jobs are protected, but they are not paid for.
So what the teachers do is plan a pregnancy around summer vacation, because if they take off during the year, right non summer, they're basically having a baby when it's not summer.
They have to go through their sick leaf as part of it. It's just this.
Weird loophole, and one English teacher said, it seems a crazy time to have reproductive choice around your work schedule. So a new resolution was passed by the LA Unified School District Board this week unanimously, and it's going to bolster paid family leave for teachers and other district workers and improve parental support in trying to attempt to make LAUSD a quote district of choice.
What does that mean, Well, so people can teach.
So the school board actually has teachers that want to come to LAUSD. Now you can go to other school districts where teachers get sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars a year and have great benefits, not so much LA Unified. So these bills have passed. What they're trying to do is make up for that. There were two bills that would have given paid family leave by the way at birth in the state. The first one was passed vetoed by Jerry Brown when he was governor in twenty seventeen.
The second one passed in twenty nineteen, vetoed by Gavin Newsom because he cited costs. There's a third one now going through the Assembly. So what the bill is saying, this is the package that there's two issues, the state issue in LA unified both of them working in concert, and this is my fun one. The bill going through is called Parental Package LAUSD as an equitable Employer of Choice for Thriving Families and the acronym for that cleverly enough is Eketif boy, they're clever, aren't they?
Wow? Not bad?
And what it includes is infertility support services, fair enough, paid time off, childcare, lactation spaces.
Now what am I missing here? Amy?
And aren't lactation spaces basically between your waist and your neck?
And they have to define that in the law. I think they mean a place. The place go oh oh, okay said that private place? Got it all right?
I knew that something wrong there when I read that, And so you know, I get so confused sometimes.
That breast can do that to you. I can do at a time too. That's the other thing. You've ever seen.
A bar misfit with conjoined twins. They use a bra as a Yamaica. Oh I got plenty more, I bet you do. Anyway, bottom line is teachers get screwed. Parents get screwed because we don't have the concept of paid family leave, which we should have but the costs again, the costs become astronomical. You can't have it all, and we want it all. So we just have this entire litany of what we have to spend money on, what we want to spend Bunney want money on.
It's not easy. So this one is new.
This is going to be paid pregnancy leave, and it's it's a good thing if.
You're a parent.
All right, we're doing that one Tonight, the Dodgers take on the Athletics at the Dodger Stadium, with.
The first pitch at seven o'clock.
Listen to all Dodger games AM five seventy LA Sports live from the Gallpin Motors Broadcast.
Booth and stream all Dodger games and HD.
On the iHeartRadio app. The keyword is AM five seventy LA Sports. And what a perfect time to put that plug for the Dodger game in because I want to introduce you to a gentleman by the name of Travis Chock. And first of all, Travis, thanks for taking the time.
Always appreciated, No, really appreciate you guys having made this is super exciting.
Yeah as well, you should.
Okay, this is and I didn't know about this until number one I read about it. Oh, by the way, the success from scratch segment, which we're doing right now is brought to you by net Suite, by Oracle.
That's important. They make this happen.
And I didn't know much about baseballism at all until Cono and and and my producer, the producer Cono, our board operator. Just love what you do, and especially CONO have gotten very involved in quote the business of baseballism, or at least buying from your company. Explain what this is, because you know baseball is that's a weird name for a company.
So we are a baseball lifestyle title brand that allows fans to kind of give an outlet to what they wear and show their passion for the game. So I slogan is Bill Football Players one by all, We're a baseball inspired lifestyle brand.
Okay, so what does that mean? Just clothing is what you offer? Do you do anything else? Do you do jerseys?
Pants? I mean normal clothing, hoodies, that sort of thing.
Yeah, so we're you know, we're T shirts, hoodies, you know, Polos, caps, shorts, jogger as well. We like to call ourselves like the Lula element of baseball okay, and.
I'm assuming obviously you have licensing with all of Major League Baseball.
I would I would.
Guess that, yes, we got the major League license, I want to say, four years ago.
Okay. How difficult was that?
It was a process. It was also, you know, a decision making a thing by us because we were a brand that was for the love of the game, and we didn't know if we wanted to go to the MLB route. But as you know, we grew bigger, we kind of warmed up to the idea because we saw that people were buying our stuff from different regions and they had the passion for Major League Baseball. So we just had to pull the trigger.
In twenty twenty one, all right, let's start about how I start talking about how this started, because that's a whole story onto itself. I know, you and a bunch of buddies. Let's just go through from the beginning. How did baseballsm come to be?
Yeah, it's a pretty wild story. So myself and three other teammates we started a youth based camp at University Oregon and we played college baseball there and we started a youth baseball camp. I didn't know what we wanted to call it, but I was looking online trying to find domains, and I found that the domain baseballism dot com was not taken, so we went with that name for the camp name. We ran the camp for two years out of college, and then we went our separate
ways and I was coaching. I had another friend who was a lawyer, and other guy was a finance manager, and another guy was in sports sales. But everywhere we went we would wear our old camp shirt and people would ask us, where'd you get that shirt? Where'd you get that shirt? So I made a run of shirts. So this was in twenty and twelve. I made a run of shirts. They sold out in a week at the baseball academy I was working at and I said, guys, I think we got something here. Let's try to relaunch
this thing as a clothing brand. So we launched our website in twenty thirteen as baseballs in dot Com. Kind of rebranded ourselves from a camp to a lifestyle parle brand, and it's been pretty crazy ever since. So we went from a youth baseball camp to one of the largest baseball parl brands country.
So when I think in terms of a sports branded clothing line. I'm thinking uniforms. I'm thinking straight out jerseys and caps. This goes beyond that in that you're talking about what sports wear and jerseys in addition to jerseys, but also jacket sweater.
Is that sort of thing.
Yeah, So we that was one of the biggest challenges for us as we started our company is that people would come into our store and be like, can I get a helmet? Can I get a bat Can I get a pair of batticcles? And like, we don't do that. You know, we we stay off the field for the most part. The only main piece of a pair that we sell those on the field is the baseball cap.
But we wanted something that we could wear around, you know, around town, out to dinner that made us feel like, I still feel like baseball people, even though we didn't play the game anymore, in a subtle way. And so that's kind of how Baseballism was born, is like I used to wear you know, Polo, I used to wear LACA, and I looked up those logos and I don't play polo,
I don't play tennis. I want to represent baseball. And so we wanted to go that route of just being a brand that baseball people could wear and express their love for the game without you know, wearing a jersey, you know, or wearing like, you know, an obnoxious MLB shirt or something like that.
Yeah, how what's your price point for this stuff? Where would you put yourself in the expense list?
I would say we're high qualities, so we're in upper middle. Our T shirts are anywhere from twenty nine to forty dollars, and our hoodies are from sixty to ninety five dollars.
And how much are your clothing actually is license and has names of teams on there or Major League Baseball MLB.
I don't even know if anybody does that, but.
Yeah, I mean so, I mean, we didn't start MLB licensing until twenty twenty one, so I want to say right now, it's kind of like a growing part of our business. It's maybe five to ten percent of our business is MLB licensed stuff on the ret This is just lifestyle stuff, our own.
Brand in line got it all right? What a story?
I love it, Travis, Thanks for spending time with us. Also, people want to get hold of you. It's baseballism dot com.
It's that simple, right.
Baseballism dot com. We got something for you if you love the game.
Take care, greatly appreciated, Take care, Travis. Great story, Thank you all right, great great story.
Success from Scratch brought to you by Netsweet by Oracle get the cfo's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash.
Handle and we're going to be bringing weekly stories bringing it back. That's kind of neat.
Not only are these great fun stories, we got a sponsor for it too, which is a double win. So this is where sales actually pays attention to the show.
Okay, now here's a fun topic.
Oh man, I love this when I first saw it, and that has to do with a Katari jet. It's a seven forty seven Dash eight. It's four hundred million bucks. I don't know if you saw a pick of it. It's kind of a nice plane to have. It's about as high end as you can go. Four hundred million dollars, you know. I don't know what they normally go for retail price, the seven forty sevens. I'm assuming they go up a bit if you like put in tinted windows or put really new.
Rims, you know, on the wheels, they can go up a little bit, but for the most part, this is about as high end as you can get.
So what the Katari government, actually the royal family of the Qatar is doing is there they want to donate it to the president, not specifically, but it's going to the way it's worked out or the way Trump has is going to be donated to the Pentagon, and then when he is out of office, it goes to the Presidential Library.
Okay, that gets kind of interesting.
And the reason is it's going to be a temporary Air Force one because you have the two new ones that are now being built. First of all, you know how old Air Force one is right now, it's forty years old. Look at the cockpit, it's all analog. It's you don't see TV screens in the cockpit. You see dials.
I mean, it is that old.
And when you look at the kitchen, which is you know, it's a small kitchen for the airplane where they actually cook.
What you do is you see wear and tear.
You see the stainless steel, for example, has marks on where it's been rubbed away.
For all of the years that it's been being used.
It's it's I mean, it's maintained beautifully I mean, there's no question to his safety.
But it's just old.
And so there are two new ones that are being built. Interesting story about President Trump and Boeing. The first two were going to be built, and the President canceled it because Boeing wanted too much money.
And then he just canceled the order.
And then they found a couple of seven forty sevens in a boneyard, which Trump bought for a lot less money.
It's a great story.
That now went back to Boeing to be re retrofitted as air Force one. Well, air Force one is a flying white house, communications, anti missile defenses.
I mean, this is pretty nuts.
So let's say you spend three hundred and fifty million dollars for a seven forty seven right off the rack, it's going to cost another two billion dollars to retrofit it. They take it down to the studs, they rewire the entire airplane with hard wiring in case there's a nuclear blast. That doesn't, you know, blow up the airplane. It's the anti radiation so it still works. I mean, this is
crazy stuff. Boeing is way behind. Boeing is way over, way overrun on its cost, which was I believe a fixed costs and so now they've lost a couple of billion dollars on it.
And then the issue, because the practical issue.
You take an airplane, you spend two years retrofitting it for a temporary Air Force one at the cost of billions of dollars, at least hundreds of millions of dollars, while the other two are being built right now. There's two coming online. There's always two air Force ones. There's air Force one and then there's Force one one A because there's always a backup, and both fly incidentally to wherever the president goes. Can you imagine how much that costs?
And we'll never know how much that costs because it's under the air Force. They don't give you the budget of what we as taxpayer spend.
For this stuff.
And so just the practical application of this. So some of his staunchius supporters in Congress going, wait a minute, this is a foreign government giving the US an airplane that is going to be used as Air Force one. G. You think that's a good idea. And a lot of people say, no, why don't we keep it in house? Now a foreign Now it's not I want to bring that down to reality because it's not wasn't.
Built and cutter.
It was built by Boeing, so it was bought from Boeing. If it's going to be retrofitted, it'll be retrofitted by Boeing. So as far as anybody outside of the United States physically working on an employment, it's all going to be US workers. But just the very concept of the Katari government giving an airplane like this and then there's all kinds of legal issues. Can the president on behalf of the country accept it?
I think so.
I think the government can accept gifts and use those gifts, and the government can give.
Whatever equipment it has. Does it all the time.
The LAPD got all kinds of used military equipment for a period of time. A lot of that goes confiscated drug for example. Money can go to various police departments.
Happens all the time.
It's just the it's just it's mind boggling that. Can you imagine if Joe Biden had done this and cut a deal with a foreign government for a donation of a jet for Air Force one until ours are being the new ones being retrofitted, they'd go nuts, They would go out of their minds.
The Republicans, they'd be frothing at the mouth.
And this one, you know, we have to see if it's legal or not. But I think this one, this one may be a line too far, or a bridge too high, or water under the bridge at the tip of the barrel.
KFI Am six you've been listening to Wake Up Call with me Amy King. You can always hear Wake Up Call five to six am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.