You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty. Yep,
you are, and this is KFI Handle here morning crew or up till nine
o'clock every single day. I don't think I've ever said that, by the
way, this early in the show, just lam okay, never mind.
Let me tell you about AT and T, my absolute favorite carrier in the
whole world. For those of you that have AT and T cell service,
you hate it, all right? I had it. I hated it.
But then again, that's not saying much because I've had a bunch of other
ones that I hate all of them too. I get calls every Saturday about
how horrible cell phone service is. But a lot of people have cell phones,
and a lot of people, I would say most people, the vast
majority of people, use the Internet as the source of their ability to communicate.
There is something called a landline service, and it has changed landline service,
and I made sure when I started, when I moved into the Persian
Palace twenty five years ago, I made absolutely sure I had a landline.
A landline being a copper wire that goes to your phones to your house.
And early on we had VoIP voiceover using the Internet in early days, and
the technology is just ramped up to the point where everybody's using the Internet or
cell phones, cell towers. But here's where the landline makes absolute sense.
And this is what I always thought. If the cell phone tower goes out,
if the internet goes out, you can't make a phone call. How
often does the internet go out. I've had to go out a bunch of
times. I've had various areas where cell phones don't work very well. But
at my house, I always had a landline. I always had a copper
landline. Well. At and T, which provides the company that provides copper
landlines southern California. Once out, they're saying it's expensive to maintain, it's
expensive to support, and we want out. And they went in front of
the Public Utility Commission to get out of it, arguing that it's impossible to
maintain, it's too expensive to install or to support, therefore we want out.
Here's the problem AT and T has it's considered a carryer of glast resort
requires the company to offer basic phone service to anyone who wants it basic phone
service, and this since nineteen ninety six and remains one of the only companies
in the state, actually in the country to offer traditional copper based landline service,
and they're saying, you know what, we really can't afford it,
like DSL lines that we used to use, which we don't use now.
We broadcast with the internet, and if the Internet goes down, well we've
got a real problem talking to each other. I mean, we can still
transmit, but we can't get any information. You can't get anything on the
internet. You can't pull any information out. You're screwed. You're just talking.
So AT and T goes in front of the PUC and argues, let
us out of this thing. It's costing too much money. A lot of
backlash, especially among older people, people that don't have computers. If you
ever listen to Handle on the log you know how many times or I have
said, just use your computer and you can research this or that, and
people go, I don't have a computer. I'm old, I'm decrepit.
And I asked, you know what a computer is, because I'm very gracious
to people, and sometimes they say no, and they have the only way
they can communicate with the phone is either via cell phone, which they don't
have, or that copper line and it's basically the last emergency way of communicating
and by law, AT and T has to maintain it because it is considered
a carrier of last resort. So they just went in front of the PUC
and the PU said, PUC said, no, you're not leaving, No,
thank you. You're still the carrier of last resort. Now I don't
even know because in my new place, which I haven't moved in yet and
so I really haven't set up anything other than Wi Fi, I don't even
know if I can get a land line a copper land line. Now they
call a land line that you can get but it's Internet supported. I go,
wait a minute, that's not a land line. A land line goes
through the land. It doesn't go through the air, it doesn't go on
a satellite. It's it's a landline. And I don't even know, Neil,
you're our techno, Maven. Can you even get a landline? Now?
That is a copper wire that goes through the land. In certain areas
they still have that wiring, but we've been told that they're going to be
getting rid of it. Yeah, that's what and that's what I buy landlines
because I was a big proponent of keeping one for emergencies. Right, everything
has switched to VoIP basically, right, and that is the problem. And
here's my question. They have to maintain it. But if you, for
example, I'm moving, I have to set up a phone coverage, if
I want a landline, if i'm if I'm ordering one, will they give
it to me. I have to look that up because that's one of the
things I want to look at out. Maybe they have to as a last
resort because when the internet goes out and when the cell service goes out,
let's say there's an earthquake, the last ability to communicate is with a copper
landline. That's the last one standing, last man standing. And so AT
and T wanted out. The PUC said no, thank you. AT and
T says it costs us money to maintain. The PUC said no, thank
you. AT and T keeps arguing. The PUC said, good luck,
it's not going to happen. It was the nanosment's unanimous decision which just happened.
And of course I'm going to read you the quote from AT and T.
We remain committed to keeping our customers connected to voice service and will continue
working with State leaders on policies that allow us to bring modern communications to Californians.
Any idea what that means other than complete hogwash? It's it's your typical.
Our customers are our most important part of our business. Airplane falls out
of the sky. We continue to maintain safety as the most important feature of
our company. Sure all right. One of the big issues that we're going
to see where I think Joe Biden is in a lot of trouble this election
coming up is the issue of immigration on a couple of levels. Simple immigration,
or simply put, immigration is something we're concerned about. Too many illegal
migrants coming over the border and asking for asylum, and by law they have
to be given a court hearing, and there's all kinds of controversy about that.
The other thing that is so important in this discussion are the politics.
Donald Trump is running on immigration as one of his platforms one of his big
issues. Is there a little hitocracy there? Of course there is. Finally,
Joe Biden came to the table a few months ago in a non partisan
or bipartisan deal. A bill was introduced that both Republicans and Democrats wanted to
pass, and Biden was prepared to sign it. Donald Trump calls the Speaker
Mike Johnson and says, kill that bill. That bill, by the way,
is exactly what the Republicans wanted. Why did that happen? Donald Trump
wants to win, wants to run on immigration, and an immigration bill that
Biden signs as bipartisan just cuts him off at the knees. That's the horrific
politics of this. The other side of it is Joe Biden pandering because all
of a sudden he has accepted immigration as a major issue. He comes into
his presidency and he is Emma Lazarus. There's a plaque at the base of
the Statue of Liberty, give me your wretched, give me your poor yearning
to be free. Okay, that means every immigrant coming in now. When
the Statue of Liberty was put up, we wanted immigrants to come in.
Now not so much, not so much because a number of illegal immigrants.
Numbers are astronomical, And so the Democrats have gone from open arms and all
of a sudden their arms start closing because you can't say give us everybody you
have. There's still some liberals that say there should be no borders. We
want everybody you can for Cynthi Fox, who was President of Mexico maybe twenty
five years ago, set it out right. There is no border. It's
just a line. Much like when you go to Nevada. The only thing
you know that you're going to Nevada is a sign that says welcome to Nevada.
That's it. That's the border between states. And that's what he wanted
as a border between the United States and Mexico. That's a problem. And
so now you have immigration could really sway congressional seats in the House. Here
in California. It can swing both ways, which means it's not just another
one or two congress people going one way or the other. It is the
control of the House we're talking about. And I can't wait to see the
debate where Trump is going to attack Biden on immigration policy, and I think
rightly so, I think Biden is wrong the wrong side of history on that
one. And then Biden is going to come back and say, but you
killed the bipartisan bill. Why did you do that? Who wins on that
one? I don't know, I don't know. You know, I'm pretty
liberal in many aspects LGBTQ rights and you know, abortion, etc. But
when it comes to the border, I got to tell you, you reach
a point when it comes to insane taxes, we reach a point where no,
thank you. You know you can't do that when it comes to spending
public money, my money, your money, and just throwing it at problems
and all the money just disappears into the abyss. You know, Conservatives have
a very good point. Let private enterprise run these companies. The problem is
private enterprise is so corrupt there there's no way to win on this. And
I think the same thing with immigration. So we'll see what happens with the
congressionals on this one, because that is really really important. And I think
the congressional the congressional races are going to be decided based on immigration policy.
I think that is the number one issue. All right, coming up,
and Neil's gonna join me on this one. Dress code are they discrimination?
Are they discriminatory in restaurants? Since you can't see below the waist and you're
sitting down, can I go commando and still maintain address code? Much like
I'm broadcasting now from home, so you know, we're zooming each other and
so you can't see below the waist. Got us what pretty close on that
thing. Yeah, this is Jeffrey Tubin broadcasting live and this news literally came
down just a couple of minutes ago. And that is a decision by the
Supreme Court, which, as I told you yesterday, the last part of
June, it's decision after decision that comes down all the major cases we hear
about, and we'll see over the next few days more and more cases that
are decided, or at least they haven't decided. We're told about it.
And there was one Second Amendment case that was really important to the Second Amendment
advocates and there is a federal law and we talked about this that bans guns
for domestic abusers, and the gun advocates said that is a violation of Second
Amendment rights. Keep in mind, the gun advocates go nuts when it comes
to any restriction of firearms ownership. You know, for example, assault weapons
are not really assault weapons, they're sports weapons. And to keep assault weapons
being sold, they are saying that Second Amendment rights are violated. It's kind
of crazy, it really is. I mean, there is no limitation in
their argument. Slippery slope. That's it. You allow something and down it
goes. Well, the slippery slope just happened. The Supreme Court upheld the
law barring domestic abusers from owning guns. Federal law said, you know what,
there are certain people that can't own guns. One of those are felons,
which, by the way, that's being attacked by the Second Amendment because
if you are a felon and you get popped for anything not involving a gun,
you should be able to own a gun. How about if you got
popped four using a gun to murder someone. Okay, Second Amendment folks will
say, okay, we'll give you that one. Not a problem. It
is wide open. And so the argument. And by the way, anytime
there's a federal law prohibiting anything dealing with guns, Second Amendment folks are going
to hit it because their philosophy is very simple, and that is, you
can't pass laws restricting the ownership of guns. And by the way, the
argument with the assault weapons literally, even though they are designed to kill people,
that is it. They are not designed for sport. They are not
designed for example, protection of your home. Well at least that's certainly what
the manufacturers are going to say, that they're designed for everything. I like
the sports argument by the way, that one I really like. It's like
hunting rifles. So the Feds pass this law. Domestic abusers are so dangerous
that we're not going to let them have a weapon. Why not? Well,
it really isn't there's no connection. You can abuse and beat your wife
or your husband to a pulp, but you know you're not using a weapon
to do it. You're only using a frying pan. And therefore, what
do they have to do with your right to bear arms? What does they
have to do with your right to have a weapon. The two are not
connected at all. And the issue is the argument that I find astounding.
Now I am biased, you know, I believe in gun control, although
I suggest to gun control people just give it up because it'll never happen.
And that is that the premise that the Second Amendment should be universal, allowing
anybody, virtually everybody from having a gun or any ban should be unconstitutional.
The argument is, the only people that shoot up shopping centers, schools,
any place where, bars, they're all mentally ill. And that is the
problem. We have to deal with the mentally ill, because if we deal
with all mentally ill people who could get a weapon, we wouldn't have this
problem, not at all. So to the US government and to the state
government, and to the county government, stop with the weapons, go to
the mentally ill, deal with all the mentally ill people in this country,
and that will stop the problem. Then we will not have shootings. Then
we will not have people shooting up schools. It simply wouldn't happen. And
you go, wow, how many mentally ill people are there in this country
that have mental ill issues? How many people have mental ill issues that we
mental ill issues, that mental illness that we don't even know they're out there
with mental illness, and we discover after the fact, we discover they're squarely
and crazy because they post the shooting either live on YouTube or you see these
crazy posts after the fact. So what we should do is, well,
let's make sure that we have everybody's posts and we have some kind of an
algorithm or AI that then determines what mental illness is. A wait, a
sec mental illness is a legal proposition. In order to stop mentally ill people
from having a weapon, It's going to take a judge, it's going to
take a legal process. Someone has to decide how far mentally ill is what
if you are all you're doing is you're hurting yourself, right, What if
you're cutting yourself up with a knife? Is that enough? Well you have
to figure this out, because that's going to take it. That's going that's
what's going to stop people from shooting it up. That's how crazy that argument
is. So the Supreme Court just said no to the Second Amendment folks on
this one. That law that barred domestic abusers from owning guns is legitimate.
It is not a violation of Second Amendment rights. It's a fairly big win
for the gun control people. Okay, I didn't think court was going to
go that way. And by the way, it was an eight to one
decision. I thought Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito would go by way of the
gun folks only Clarence Thomas. Did you know, there's a problem when a
Supreme Court justice walks in on the Supreme Court wearing a bandolier that has ammunition
and carrying a few weapons on him, that becomes problematic. You sort of
know which way it's going to go, don't you. Dress codes. I'm
bringing Neil in here because dress codes. It is being argued in and of
themselves are discriminatory. First of all, of course they're discriminatory. You don't
if you wear shorts, you're not coming into our restaurant. Certainly, that's
the discriminatory against people that want to be casually dressed, and both goes both
ways. Interesting book. A guy with the named Richard Ford wrote Stanford Law
School professor, and he wrote the book dress Codes, How the Laws of
fat and made History. And he says, you can look at it two
ways. Number one, perfectly reasonable for people for restauranteurs to have dress codes,
or restauranteurs agree to that, or many of them do upscale saying,
hey, this is an upscale restaurant. We don't want people look like slobs.
We want people to enjoy our restaurant. And it's not only the quality
and the price of the food, but it's also the ambience. And if
you're wearing shorts and flip flop, there goes the ambience now. And by
the way, things like baggy pants so you look like a gang banger,
or grills on your teeth so you smile, and all of a sudden you
have diamonds and all that stuff, and their restaurants say no, thank you,
and their restaurants to say coat and tie. And I have gone to
restaurants where I didn't take them very seriously because most restaurants will let you in
anyway, because you know, the enforcement is ridiculously low. Where I was
given a coat and a tie, they said here and they offered that.
Neil, let's talk about that. Legitimate makes sense. Is it discriminatory?
Yes, and yes it is legitimate when used legitimately, but it can be
abused. So I believe that if you are creating a vibe an atmosphere there's
white cloth and fresh flowers on the table, then yeah, you have to
control it. If you are at a clubhouse where people are going to be
coming off of the tennis courts or the golf course or something, then it's
going to accommodate that particular crowd. Yeah, there's no dress code there.
They accommodate. But the minute you start and I think, you know,
baseball caps and certain baggy clothing and bandanas and like, I get that they
don't want anything representing a gang lifestyle there. But when you get into like
large gold chains or even the grills, then you start getting into something that
is I think specifically targeting a group, and that would be problematic. But
there are certain places. For instance, I was a member of the Magic
Castle for many, many, many years, and they have a dress code.
They relaxed it for a while and then they brought it back because it
didn't feel right in the context of the club. Do I love throwing on
a tie in a suit, not in particularly, but it was important to
that atmosphere to have that. Now there's some I read some there's a dress
code at a place that says you can't have an undershirt. A sleeveless undershirt
I don't wear. For the most part, I don't wear T shirt undershirts.
I wear a cuts a cut undershirts, and that wouldn't be allowed in
certain places. I don't find that discriminatory. Toy all right, let me
make a point of discrimination. When you're talking about baggy clothes, you're talking
about twelve pounds of gold hanging off your neck grills, for example, on
your teeth. You think a restaurant tour would want those people because they're the
ones that have a pile of money. If you've got twelve pounds of gold,
let me tell you you bought it unless you stole it. You've got
a ton of money, and you would want those people in because they're going
to spend money and lots of it. Yeah, and trends change and style
changes, and I understand that, but creating a vibe. They don't want
people in T shirt and jeans in a place that it that they want,
you know, sexy people. No, right, but it's life. Yeah,
I get that, but it's more sort of coat and tie and relaxing
that and to a place. And I think I mentioned this on the Era
a couple weeks ago. I went to a place in New York to a
speak easy and you needed to be wearing leather shoes, and a guy behind
me was wearing Prada tennis shoes and they wouldn't let him in. I could
see that it didn't matter that they were proud of or it's right. It
is a dress code. It's that simple. Now, I don't know how
many people actually go on the website or call and say, is there a
dress code? You know, I've been on cruises before and they say,
it's real simple. Dining room certain times, certain places you have to wear
a coat and tie, you have to people show up in shorts and they're
allowed in and it's just a question of enforcement. And that's the other thing.
The enforcement of dress codes. Has that fallen apart over the last few
years, you know, it's become a problem. When I was in management
at the station, there were times we had to enforce certain dress codes.
Is that I don't discriminatory? Yeah? Yes, So I remember how pissed
off I was when you told me I had to wear pants. It was
the people were squinting a lot and bumping into walls. So let's okay,
we had to end that. Of course, we have to end with stupidity
of every segment, even if it's a serious segment. Okay, and we
start with it too, And that's correct the middle. So that's absolutely correct.
Fair enough. KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
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.