You're listenings KFI AM six forty the Bill Handles Show on demand on the iHeartRadio
app. You are listening to the Bill Handle Show. Here's Wayne Resnick.
All right, everybody, it's KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. And that guy just told you what's going on. Bill's back on
Monday. I'm Wayne. Some of the stories we're watching for you here.
Hurricane burrows now a Category two storm and is sending winds, rainfall. Dangerous
storm searches over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. At this point, at least ten people
have been identified as deceased because of this storm. There are a lot of
people missing, and they're saying it's going to get stronger again before it hits
somewhere. It could hit northeastern Mexico or South Texas over the weekend. Jobs
report is in for June. We added two one hundred and six thousand jobs,
a little bit less than in May, but still pretty good, especially
given that interest rates are still high. Now I'm about to proposition you,
well, I'm about to tell you about all the propositions that are going to
be on the ballot in November because it is time we start to wrap our
heads around the things we're going to be asked to vote on, particularly because
of some trends that I'm seeing in these propositions. So here we go,
in no particular order, although it's kind of in the order that they're numbered.
You got Prop two. Now, why are we starting with Prop two
and not Prop one? Because Prop one was that mental health proposition that was
voted on in March. So Prop two borrow ten billion dollars to build some
schools. You know, these bond initiatives are basically a government entity agreeing to
go into debt. And we have a massive budget deficit. You know,
newsem made a bunch of cuts to stuff because of this unprecedented deficit that we're
facing. And you will be asked to vote to borrow ten billion dollars to
build some schools. Prop three reaffirm the right of same sex couples to get
married. It wasn't that long ago in the history of California. I think
it was two thousand and eight there was a proposition that was passed that said
marriage is between a man and a woman. So you can you can see
how societies change over time, and it wouldn't be surprising to hear that one
hundred years ago they said marriage is a man and a woman, but now
we don't. But this was just in two thousand and eight that a majority
of voters said, yes, marriage should be a man and woman. So
the problem is have to amend the state constitution to fix that. So that's
what Prop three would do, and then Prop four and we're right back to
borrowing ten billion dollars again. And this is for climate programs, wildfire,
forest programs, one point two billion dollars for sea level rise. There's drinking
water and groundwater money. Some of this I'm having trouble linking directly to the
issue of climate. But let's borrow ten billion to build schools. Let's borrow
ten billion dollars to save the planet. And let's also do this with Prop
five. Right now, if your local government wants to borrow money for say
housing or infrastructure bonds, they have to get a super majority of the voters
to approve it. So Prop five would amend the constitution of the state to
make it easier for the local governments to borrow the money. Wow. So
it's still also it's about, Hey, the state is saying the state legislature
is saying, we want to borrow a lot of money for stuff, and
then they're saying, we also we want to make it easier for your county
or your city to borrow money as well. Prop thirty two will raise the
state minimum wage to eighteen dollars an hour. And this thing was proposed like
three years ago. And when it was proposed, I don't know if you
remember, it was a big deal. Okay. The people who supported it
were like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened. And the people
who didn't like it said they're going to destroy the state. An eighteen dollars
an hour minimum wage is insane. Well, here we are three years later,
and there have been some changes already. The minimum wage is already sixteen
dollars an hour. You've got the fast food minimum wage, twenty dollars an
hour. Healthcare our workers are on an already passed minimum wage plan that will
get them up to twenty five dollars an hour, So eighteen dollars an hour
minimum wage doesn't seem quite as crazy in terms of the numbers. You will
be asked to vote whether you want that or not. Also would you like
rent control in your city or unincorporated area. Well, there's a state law
that, for the most part, says your city or county cannot put in
rent control. And Prop thirty three is asking you to say, yeah,
I want them to be able to put in rent control. Great if you're
a renter, terrible if you're a landlord. Here's an interesting one, because
this one's personal. Prop thirty four. If I just tell you what it
requires, it doesn't seem personal healthcare provider. Certain health providers who get money
from a federal prescription drug program must spend almost all the money on patient care
directly on patient care. You know you're gonna have to spend a little bit
on administrative costs, but if you're getting money from this program, most of
it should go to actually provide the thing that the money's for, which seems
like that's what should be happening with any government program. But in this case
it seems to be aimed at one place, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. If
you follow the news, you know that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation does good work.
They also get involved a lot in housing development and stopping developments from happening,
and this sort of thing advocacy in the area of housing, and they
will fund ballot measures and have funded ballot measures. I think they gave money
to that rent control proposition that I just told you about. So the idea
here is saying, hey, you're not going to be able to use money
that you were given by the FEDS for treating patients. We're not going to
be able to use it for your political goals. And those are the main
ones that you should know about. What's the difference between an initiative and a
referendum. A referendum is when we vote to change a law or get rid
of a law that already exists, And of course, an initiative is when
it's a new idea. All right, Hey, everybody is now a super
informed voter, so I don't want to hear any bs about low information voters.
I just solved that problem. Speaking of housing, after we get some
news from Heather Brooker, who would have thought that Mayor Karen Bass, who
was elected largely on a promise to build lots of affordable housing in LA and
make it easy to do so, would end up being a big nimby.
You're listening to Bill Handle on Demand from KFI AM six forty, Danny Trayjo,
actor, entrepreneur, public figure, was apparently involved in a fight at
an Independence Day parade up in the Sunlintahunga neighborhood. He was in the parade,
riding in a very cool convertible, this old convertible car, and somebody
threw a water balloon at him. Now Danny Treyjo is eighty years old.
He got out of the car, he went over and he threw a punch
at the balloon thrower. The balloon thrower punched back and knocked down National Treasure
Danny Treyjo. Then other people got involved, and I guess they're saying that
some woman ran over and tried to hold down Danny Trayjoe. But by the
time the cops got there, everybody had dispersed, nobody was arrested, and
there's no indication here that he was seriously hurt. So thank goodness for that.
Waenne. Can I tell you something really quick. I met Danny Trejo
here at iHeart a couple of months ago in the in the elevator could not
have been nicer. We rode up together at least five floors, and he
was lovely and so kind and so I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm
glad he's okay. Yeah. Now, look, it's sort of like,
I mean, the balloon thrower started it, there's no question, but I
don't I don't know if the smartest thing is to get out of the car
and go escalate it. Yeah, I mean, even at eighty, I
had no idea he was eighty. I mean, he's really in good health.
I would not want to mess with Danny Treyo. Oh no, I
would never want to mess with Danny Treyo. All right, So anyway,
let's hope that he's a totally fine and able to go oversee his empire of
taco restaurants, donut shops, coffee shops, sex toys. You weren't here
at KFI when he came in. He was promoting Man. I don't want
to google it right now. It was some sort of a marital aid.
If my memory serves me, maybe I'll look it up during the break.
Also, in terms of the way that Danny Treyhoe has been able to monetize
his uh celebrity, as long as we're going on this detour, yeah,
I know there is a there's a video game, a mobile game, it's
called this is all in everything I'm about to tell you is so embarrassing.
It's called Guns of Boom and it's one of these you know, cartoonish you
run around, you shoot people and there's different guns or whatever. And some
years ago they had a special event in this game called trey Ho Tournament,
and so he obviously they paid him money to be able to call it trey
Ho Tournament. And then instead of the regular announcer voice in the game like
kill, double kill, whatever, it was Danny Treyhoe's voice. That's amazing.
It was really really crazy. So he he he is a great,
you know, performer, and he's a pretty savvy businessman. Yeah, legend
legendary. All right. Now, let's get to the main topic at hand,
and that is changes that La Mayor Karen Bass has made to the very
famous, very controversial Executive Directive one ED one. You may remember this was
a huge part of her campaign. In the first weekend office she signed Executive
Directive one and this was basically the basic idea was, we're gonna make it
much easier for developers to build one hundred percent affordable housing developments. If you
want to build an apartment building and it's all affordable housing, then you can
get your approval within a few weeks. Previously, and I think still for
most developments months, sometimes years, it takes to get approval. And so
housing advocates were like, this is fantastic, no more screwing around, and
Karen Vass's office said over eighteen thousand units of income restricted housing have been proposed
so far because of this executive order. However, as you might imagine,
there was immediately yelling and screaming from homeowners from neighborhood groups who said, listen,
you can't. We don't want you to build lower income apartment buildings and
the like everywhere, like we definitely don't want you building one next door to
me, and so they of course started fighting back with all that got to
slow down or even completely kill these projects now. So if you're Mayor Karen
Bass, what do you do? Do you say, listen, I believe
in a certain thing, and what I believe in is we must build affordable
housing everywhere. Too bad, so sad for you? Or do you compromise?
And apparently there has been a compromise, and the mayor's office say that
she has made changes to this Executive Order, and the main change is this,
if you live now in a historic district, you will be protected from
having these fast tracked affordable housing developments built in your neighborhood. Like for example,
I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head. Windsor
Village is one. Windsor Village is in mid LA. It's like Wilshire.
I think it's will Sure at the north and crenshot of the right goes down
to Olympic and it's a designated historic zone. And the people who live there,
as you might imagine, don't want to see some new low income apartment
building going up, and so now they won't have to worry about it.
Now this program already restricts building the low income housing developments in single families owned
neighborhoods, which is over seventy four percent of the land here in LA.
They've taken away some more of the areas where you will be able to build
these things. And I'm not I don't honestly, I don't have an opinion
about whether it's right or wrong. What cannot be denied is the availability of
locations to build affordable housing is shrinking. It's being taken away, and there's
some of these people. The housing advocates are saying, you know, you
have historic district, but within those historic districts, not all of it is
historic in any way. You've got like vacant lots that happen to be in
a historic district. Why shouldn't you be able to throw up an apartment building
there? And then the other thing is apparently she's clamping down on the number
of concessions that developers will get because, let me tell you something, nobody
builds affordable housing out of the goodness of their heart. I mean, habitat
for humanity, but you get what I'm Developers build to make money, period,
and they don't mind including some affordable housing if they can do other things
that'll make them some money. So a lot of times they'll a developer will
present a proposal and will say, oh, yes, we will build affordable
housing. However, you know in that area the height of the building would
normally be restricted to this Hi, we want to go higher. Can you
please give us an exception? Also, normally there'd be this much open space
that would be required in the development. Will you please allow us not to
have it? Will you please allow us to have zero clearance from the property
lines. Also, normally there'd have to be eighty parking spaces on this development,
would it be okay if we only had thirty? And so what ends
up happening is you get a few units of affordable housing and then you get
traffic problems and parking problems and crowding and blight. And apparently they're not going
to be able to get as many concessions, but they also won't be able
to build in as many places. So let's check in in another year or
two or probably ten is a smart timeline for this kind of thing, and
see how much affordable housing we have here in LA and ten years. Okay,
let's get some news from Heather Brooker and then why are they so old?
How can this be? Who am I talking about? Oh you'll find
out. You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Over in Britain, the Labor Party has won the number of seats necessary to
make them in charge of their parliamentary government and they will therefore have a new
Prime Minister in a few hours. This after the current leader, Rishi Sunak
called a snap election and his Conservative party lost Bigley over there, and we
got some good news on the job front, another two hundred and six thousand
jobs added in June. It was a little bit less than in May.
May was two hundred and eighteen thousand, But almost all economists are saying this
is a sign of the economy being strong, even given the problems that we
have, like the interest rates still being so high. For example. Okay,
politicians, they're old. This is not news. This has been a
main topic of discussion on KFI, in the news media, in interviews at
the water cooler at the July fourth weekend cookouts. Old old, old old.
Everybody's old. Biden is so old. Trump is pretty old too.
Also, the median age in the Senate is almost sixty six. Now.
It's not that sixty six is deathbed old, particularly not now in twenty twenty
four, with what we know about medicine and prolonging life and everything. But
it's old compared to the country as a whole. In fact, there are
a lot of people who call the United States of America a gerontocracy where the
power is concentrated among the old people, and it's a concern. It's a
concern for a lot of people I think it depends on what you know the
specific old person that we're talking about. But you have situations like I remember
Diane Feinstein who would not resign from her Senate seat. She was coming up
on ninety there were tons of concerns about her health. Mitch McConnell, I
think he's eighty two. There was the few incidences where it looked like he
was freezing up at some public appearances and people said, what is going on
with him? And eventually he did say, Okay, I'll step down from
my role as Minority leader. Then, of course Biden's performance at the debate
Trump. There's fifty million videos of Donald Trump seeming to lose his train of
thought at campaign events. So we know that at least at the national level
that are representatives skew older than the population at large. But why how did
this happen? Well, it is true that the population of the country has
gotten older. The median age now in this country is thirty nine. In
nineteen eighty it was thirty. Boomers are staying in the workforce, they're not
retiring at the same rate that they used to, and this includes people in
politics. So that explains a little bit why the politicians are getting older.
But if you look at the fact that the median age is thirty nine and
the media agent in the Senate is almost sixty six, and about twenty five
percent of congress are over seventy, that doesn't match up. Another part of
the problem is the bar to access running for office. It heavily, heavily,
heavily, heavily, heavily favors heavily, heavily. They're not I could
say heavily for the next twenty minutes, and it would not be enough to
emphasize how heavily it favors incumbents. There should probably be some advantage to being
the incumbent when you're running for reelection. Name recognition would be one of them.
Another would be if you've done a good job, you would have a
specific record that you could point to in your campaigning. But in this case
it is skewed so insanely. For example, let's go back to twenty eighteen.
That midterm, they're four hundred and thirty five congressional districts and there were
only forty four of them that were considered a toss up. And a toss
up they if it's if it's decided within five points. It's a toss up
forty four out of four to thirty five. Then let's go back a couple
of years to the twenty twenty two, thirty six elections for the House were
considered competitive out of four hundred and thirty five. Competition declines. There are
so many races now where there's no opponent, particularly at the primary stage.
There's no opponent. It's not that there's somebody running against the incumbent, but
they don't have as much money, and they don't have as much name recognition.
Maybe they don't have as much access to the media. There isn't even
one there. So as the competition goes down, the average age goes up,
because you stay. Once you're in, you stay and stay and stay
and stay. I mean Joe Biden was in the Senate for thirty six years
and then became Vice president. Guys in government a long long time. Another
reason, and this has to do with why the incumbent almost invariably wins,
is because of how polarized we are. We're very polarized now politically, and
what that means in practical terms is very few split tickets anymore. It used
to be people would split their tickets all the time. Meaning let's say they're
a registered Democrat and they go and vote in a national election, presidential,
general election, maybe they'd vote for the Democrat for president, but they'd vote
for a Republican guy for state Senate or for House. That doesn't happen as
much anymore. People just go i'm this, I'm an R, I go
R R. That's it. And so that means most congressional elections are decided
by the primaries, and as I already said, in a lot of primaries,
there's not even an opponent to the incumbent. So we've allowed the politicians
to gin up the system through jerrymandering and also honestly by the fact that we
put up with their insane level of rhetoric all the time, and we've allowed
them to make it harder and harder and harder for new blood to come in.
It's not that new blood never comes in, but it's very, very
difficult. So there's a big move now that there should be age limits,
age limits to holding office. In fact, in North Dakota they passed a
ballot measure to amend the state constitution that would say you cannot run for Congress
in North Dakota. If you will be eighty one by the end of your
term, it's not much of an age limit. But that's something I don't
know that age limits are the answer, because if you have an age limit,
you might have a dynamite candidate who happens to be over the age limit.
You wouldn't be allowed to elect them to represent you. It's giving us
more choice, though it's making it less expensive to run for office, and
honest to God, that alone would do a lot to help this issue.
You're listening to Bill Handle on Demand from KFI AM six forty. We're used
to the idea that men control everything because of the patriarchy, but in the
animal kingdom, there are many animals where it is the women who control everything,
and let's talk about some of them. Also parental advisory for this segment,
because there's some information about the bodies of some of these animals that you
might not want to explain to your child. Let's start with the African savannah
elephant, which is the largest elephant. It's also the biggest land animal on
the planet. Women call the shots. They roll around in these groups.
Family units usually like ten adults and all the children, and then those units
will get together and form big clans, several hundred elephants all working together with
a single elephant lady as the boss. Where are we going? Where will
we sleep? When will we sleep? I'm going to take everybody to the
food and the water. And by the way, being able to know where
to go to get enough food and water for hundreds of elephants has got to
be a high level skill, because apparently one of these elephants needs three hundred
pounds of vegetation and fifty gallons of water every day as they're so big.
Spotted hyenas, here's where I will repeat a parental advisory. The spotted hyena.
They're very smart, they're very social, and females lead the clans that
they hang out in, and you can get up to like ninety one hundred
hyenas all in a group led by the females. The females are not much
bigger than the male, although they're a little bit bigger, but they're way
more aggressive. See, we think of men as being the aggressive sex,
and it's true in a lot of cases, but in some cases it's flipped
and the females are very aggressive and the men are very docile, and that's
the case with the spot at hyaena. There's also another thing, one more
parental advisory. You've been warned. Female spotted hyenas don't have the kind of
genitals that we would think of of a female. They have something that called
scientifically a pseudo penis. Now it's actually it's actually the cleatorus, but it's
so long and big that it looks like a penis. And also they don't
have a vaginal opening, so if you're just looking at a hyena, you
can't tell if it's if it's a man or a lady hyena. By looking
there, you can't tell. This also gives the female total control over who
they mate with. They choose, and they choose because there's no other way
to do it. What will happen is when they decide I will reproduce with
this guy, this pseudo penis retracts and it forms an opening, and then
and only then can you know what happen. Thenobos one of our closest living
relatives, I think banobos and chimpanzees and bonobos live in these big social groups.
There's dudes there, there's women there. But the banobo communities led by
the ladies. And there's a very interesting thing, another parental advisory. I
didn't intend for this to be this way. It just is so the female's
lead. That also means the females resolve conflicts because you know, the bonobo's
fight any anybody food fight, I want to sleep here? No, I
want to sleep here. They go at it. And what happens in these
banobo's communities led by the females is when there's a conflict, uh, the
female leader or one of the female leaders will will engage in sexual contact with
the bonobos that were involved in the conflict. That's that's how the leader comes
in and says, hey, hey, everybody, everybody calm down here,
it does us no good to fight. They specifically they hug and they just
let's just say, they touch the private parts together. They don't actually have
like sexual intercourse or anything, but they do a little bit and apparently it
regulates stress in the binobos and it makes it does make them calm down.
So there you go. Ladies can lead. All right, that was heavy
petting. We're gonna get some news from Heather Brooker and then a lawsuit has
been filed here in California, about a new tax on guns and bullets,
and I'll tell you what they're the people behind the lawsuit are saying, and
it's all part of guns in the news. When we continue. You've been
listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six
am to nine am, and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.