Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: Casey Wasserman said, Los Angeles is defined by its resilience
Speaker 2: and determination. Actually it's more defined by the traffic, the
Speaker 2: lack of clean air, and the number of people who
Speaker 2: don't have green cards. That's really the definition of Los Angeles. Also,
Speaker 2: resilience is thrown in there.
Speaker 1: We're going to certainly see and now handle on the news.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. Here's Bill Handle. Good morning, everybody.
Speaker 3: Bill Handle here and the morning crew, well, most of
Speaker 3: the morning crew. It's a Thursday morning, January sixteenth, or
Speaker 3: four days out until the inauguration of our new old president.
Speaker 3: And that's only happened I think once or twice in
Speaker 3: the history of this country. Where president finishes a term
Speaker 3: comes back the following term after.
Speaker 1: The next term. Did that make any sense? Probably not?
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Neil is out today, is not feeling very very good.
Speaker 2: So it is today. There's no fill in for Neil.
Speaker 2: Usually we have it so amy, it's just you and me.
Speaker 4: Okay, we'll do it just us.
Speaker 2: And however, the other crew is here an always here. Yes,
Speaker 2: I am, and I don't even know how many times
Speaker 2: you have not been here you are?
Speaker 1: Have you missed any days?
Speaker 4: I've never called in Sika.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think you ever have I have. I
Speaker 1: have been late.
Speaker 2: Twice since I started a KFI in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's count
Speaker 1: on me. Yeah, no, I do.
Speaker 2: I do. And Cono, well, con I was young and stupid,
Speaker 2: so he's always here.
Speaker 1: I'm young. Yeah, it's not that's not okay.
Speaker 2: I'm now going to give you some some creds here. Okay,
Speaker 2: young and stupid is a phrase as opposed to a
Speaker 2: description of what you are.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, Yes, but we can change it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you're young, vibrant, smart, Yeah nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's not forget a huge direction because you're
Speaker 2: young and stupid.
Speaker 1: That believe me. How old are you? I'm thirty six.
Speaker 1: It'll fall apart.
Speaker 2: You're very very close, Amy, Yeah, good morning, Hi, how
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 1: It's just fine? Al right? Oh do we have a
Speaker 1: lot going on today?
Speaker 2: The big story, Well, Joe Biden last night with his
Speaker 2: farewell on a great speech, and the country is going
Speaker 2: to be destroyed with Donald Trump as president. So that's
Speaker 2: one thing we're going to talk about and The other
Speaker 2: thing is the Hamas is Ray cease fire is kicking
Speaker 2: in ostensibly on Sunday, and they finally come came to
Speaker 2: a deal. And I'm going to go seven am and
Speaker 2: seven twenty a. I'm going to spend two segments giving
Speaker 2: you a little bit of history, some musings, the way
Speaker 2: I feel about it, if you're all interested, and if
Speaker 2: you're not, I'm still going to tell you how I
Speaker 2: feel about it, and then probably what's going to happen,
Speaker 2: and how crazy Hamas is, how crazy Israel is, how
Speaker 2: nuts that entire region is, and what the future may
Speaker 2: or may not hold for that region. So a whole
Speaker 2: lot on the plate today, and then some LA fire stuff.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about insurance stuff, which is pretty important.
Speaker 2: Also what else we've got Joe Larsgard coming aboard. We
Speaker 2: have that press conference today at eight o'clock, and Amy
Speaker 2: explain why today it's important because the winds are down,
Speaker 2: They've got fires under control.
Speaker 1: Why are we in the middle of a press conference Because.
Speaker 5: The winds are down, but there are still some red
Speaker 5: flag warnings and mountain areas and the fires are not
Speaker 5: under control. They're gaining control of them, but they're still
Speaker 5: there's still hot spots. They're still fighting them and people
Speaker 5: are not in their homes. Twelve thousand buildings, formes, businesses,
Speaker 5: they can't go back in.
Speaker 2: Yet, that's fair. That's three minutes of a press conference.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You just gave the press conference.
Speaker 4: You got it.
Speaker 1: I'm here to help and we're going to hear what
Speaker 1: usually it's half an hour?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Is that what we do? Or we bail out after
Speaker 1: half an hour.
Speaker 5: We'll see what the critical information is and likely bail
Speaker 5: out when the politicians start talking.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Kumbai Ya, we love you. Let's all
Speaker 2: hold hands.
Speaker 5: Oh chrisys mayor. Beth said anything of consequence?
Speaker 2: Yet no, no, And Chris told me yesterday and he's
Speaker 2: going to bring in the information. When Bass was this
Speaker 2: was I don't know, six eight years ago. She said,
Speaker 2: if she is elected may she's been wanting to be
Speaker 2: mayor for a long time.
Speaker 1: She would never leave the country. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2: Now you give her a pass for going to the Olympics,
Speaker 2: Olympics and accepting the flag. I'll give her a pass
Speaker 2: on that one. And she said she would go to
Speaker 2: Washington and Sacramento. Okay, that's fair, But Ghana she's been
Speaker 2: to South Africa a bunch of times. She's been to
Speaker 2: Europe a bunch of times. Let me tell you, it's
Speaker 2: good to be a politician. When you're in a major city.
Speaker 2: You get a lot of junkets. And I don't think
Speaker 2: they fly coach, I really don't. And when they fly
Speaker 2: over there and they're doing these junkets, I don't think
Speaker 2: they pay for dinner. Just guessing maybe they do. I
Speaker 2: have no idea. You know, that's just me speculating. All right,
Speaker 2: let's do it. It's time for handle on the news
Speaker 2: with Amy and me lead story.
Speaker 1: All right, we got it. Ceasefire.
Speaker 2: Finally, a year and a half, eighteen months, nineteen months
Speaker 2: after the attack on Israel by Hamas, twelve hundred people
Speaker 2: killed in Israel. Now, one of the facts, twelve hundred
Speaker 2: people seem to be not a whole lot when you
Speaker 2: think of the numbers relative to the number of Palestinians
Speaker 2: who have died over forty five thousand, which about a
Speaker 2: third are militant, so you don't count those. But thirty
Speaker 2: thousand were not militants, and it is men, women and
Speaker 2: children who were killed. So what's big twelve hundred versus
Speaker 2: what thirty thousand, Yeah, come on, give me a break.
Speaker 1: Twelve hundred.
Speaker 2: That was the worst attack on Israel and more Jews
Speaker 2: died in one attack since the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: That's why Israel got did what it did.
Speaker 2: In addition to some other things coming up at seven o'clock,
Speaker 2: I'm going to start doing some history explaining why and
Speaker 2: what's going to happen and how does Biden get credit?
Speaker 1: Yes? Does President Trump get credit? Yes? Does NATA Yahoo
Speaker 1: get credit?
Speaker 2: No? All right, let's go ahead and move on. That's
Speaker 2: coming up at seven o'clock after the news.
Speaker 5: Bye bye, bye, bye, bye bye bye. President Biden gave
Speaker 5: his farewell address to the nation last night from the
Speaker 5: Oval Office. Instead of an upbeat, happy message, it took
Speaker 5: a rather ominous dark turn as he delivered stark warnings
Speaker 5: about an oligarchy of the ultra wealthy taking root in
Speaker 5: the country and a tech industrial complex infringing on Americans'
Speaker 5: rights and the future of democracy. This will probably be
Speaker 5: his last opportunity to address the country before he leaves
Speaker 5: the White House on Monday.
Speaker 2: Now it's pretty stark. Is it going to be as
Speaker 2: bad as he describes it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't think so, Because Trump there's a lot of
Speaker 2: bomb bass in what Trump does. I mean a lot
Speaker 2: of bombas. We are not going to by Greenland. We
Speaker 2: are not going to have Canada as our fifty first state.
Speaker 2: We are not going to take over the Panama Canal.
Speaker 2: There will not be the tariffs that Trump is proclaiming.
Speaker 2: But is it going to change? You got the ultra wealthy,
Speaker 2: you bet they're going to do better. You bet they
Speaker 2: are businesses, you bet they're going to do better.
Speaker 1: And it's just, you know, it's a different philosophy.
Speaker 2: We elect Democrats who are super liberal, and now we
Speaker 2: elected a Republican who's not you know, welcome to America.
Speaker 1: Now that was a legitimate election.
Speaker 2: And now it's a different view of the United States.
Speaker 1: That's what happens.
Speaker 4: State Farms stay input for now.
Speaker 5: So as you know, State Farm has been canceling or
Speaker 5: not renewing policies in California, and they had planned to
Speaker 5: drop policies in the Pacific Palisades area. But now say
Speaker 5: Or says that it will offer renewals to residential policy
Speaker 5: holders affected by the fires in Los Angeles County. The
Speaker 5: figures of who they're going to offer renewals to about
Speaker 5: eleven hundred of the sixteen hundred residential policies still in
Speaker 5: place in Pacific Palis Sades and thousand more in other
Speaker 5: neighborhoods in the county. So the deal is, if you
Speaker 5: had coverage as of January seventh, they're going to offer
Speaker 5: you to be covered for the next cycle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think that has anything to do with the
Speaker 2: governor saying you can't stop the policies, you must renew?
Speaker 1: Think they Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think by the way, I had State Farm insurance
Speaker 2: and it canceled. It's Persian Palace last November and no
Speaker 2: November before that year ago November, and they just canceled me.
Speaker 2: They dropped out, and I had to scramble to find
Speaker 2: new insurance. I was bere for two and a half weeks.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what it's like waking up in
Speaker 2: the morning and knowing you have no home insurance. That
Speaker 2: was a pleasant two and a half weeks. And finally
Speaker 2: found a policy twice as much, one hundred percent increase.
Speaker 2: So you've got I'm going to tell you a little
Speaker 2: later on about at seven point thirty about the insurance.
Speaker 2: And you have insurance in the California Fair Plan, and
Speaker 2: let me tell you we as consumers are going to
Speaker 2: get screwed, and I'll explain exactly how it's sort of
Speaker 2: not in the.
Speaker 5: News, not so fast in order prohibiting cleanup or removal
Speaker 5: of debris in the fire areas, including of course Specific
Speaker 5: Palisades and Altadena.
Speaker 4: Pasadena can't do it.
Speaker 5: You're cut off and not allowed to remove anything until
Speaker 5: a hazardous materials inspection has been completed. That's according to
Speaker 5: the Ella County Health Officer, doctor Moontoo Davis. He says
Speaker 5: fired debris and ash and dirt from the fires could
Speaker 5: have asbestos or heavy metals and other hazardous substances in it.
Speaker 5: They need to check those areas make sure they're safe
Speaker 5: before they let people start clearing the space.
Speaker 2: Makes sense, and people desperately want to go back to
Speaker 2: the house see what they have, especially in areas where
Speaker 2: the house sort of survived. Was it, Amy, did you
Speaker 2: report this morning about how a house has survived just
Speaker 2: split right in half.
Speaker 5: That was in Pacific Palisades. Yes, it survived the wildfire,
Speaker 5: but then there was a mud slide and it came
Speaker 5: down split the.
Speaker 4: House in half. Perfect for a divorce that's already done.
Speaker 1: The divorce.
Speaker 4: No, the splitting of assets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, half and half. You get half the house, I
Speaker 2: get half the house.
Speaker 1: Works.
Speaker 5: Getting money from go fund me, as several people have
Speaker 5: set up goal fundme accounts could affect what you get
Speaker 5: from FEMA. So over one hundred million dollars has been
Speaker 5: raised for California wildfire victims on go fund me. But
Speaker 5: victims have to be careful when using crowdsourcing to raise
Speaker 5: money because it could affect the money they get from FEMA.
Speaker 5: FEMA basically says, if you've already been paid for something,
Speaker 5: you can't get paid again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Two things wrong with go fund me. First of all,
Speaker 2: the scammers out there using GoFundMe like crazy. You got
Speaker 2: to be super careful. We've been hearing that a lot. Also,
Speaker 2: I love this story where, I mean, it's being reported
Speaker 2: by ABC.
Speaker 1: Do you know where it did come from? Any idea
Speaker 1: amy the original story? I mean, it's a I do
Speaker 1: not know.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's legitimate news source, but it's a new source
Speaker 2: that's telling us.
Speaker 1: Here's how to screw FEMA.
Speaker 2: Make sure your go fundme, Paige or were The GoFundMe
Speaker 2: is very vague, so FEMA can't nail you and say
Speaker 2: you got that money to replace this part of your house.
Speaker 2: This is I've never seen this before, coming from a
Speaker 2: new source.
Speaker 1: It's great. So there's the rule.
Speaker 2: If you get paid by any other source FEMA doesn't pay,
Speaker 2: you have to deduct what FEMA would normally give you.
Speaker 4: The clock is ticking down on TikTok.
Speaker 5: One hundred and seventy million people in the US have
Speaker 5: TikTok on their phones, but a federal ban on the
Speaker 5: social media platform, which of course is owned by a
Speaker 5: Chinese company, goes into effect Sunday unless there's a last
Speaker 5: minute reprieve. President elect Trump has been considering issuing an
Speaker 5: executive order that would suspend enforcement of the law for
Speaker 5: sixty to ninety days.
Speaker 2: Which you can't do. By the way, he does not
Speaker 2: have the power. This is a law that was passed
Speaker 2: by Congress and signed by the president. You can't just
Speaker 2: as president arbitrarily say oh you know what, I don't
Speaker 2: like that law.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 2: Now, does he have the power not to enforce Yeah,
Speaker 2: he sort of does.
Speaker 1: But even to.
Speaker 2: His Republican allies in the Senate and the House this thing.
Speaker 2: Does he say, I don't care what you did, I
Speaker 2: don't care what you pass I'm going to decide what happens.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to go over very well.
Speaker 2: So this now is sitting with the Supreme Court, which
Speaker 2: I don't think has yet ruled whether or not the
Speaker 2: Court is going to say that that law is unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: It's First Amendment issue versus national security. And we'll see
Speaker 2: how far the Court goes on this one.
Speaker 5: Well, the people on Wall Street must have heard something.
Speaker 5: They liked stocks surge yesterday. The Dow was up by
Speaker 5: about seven hundred points in early trading. I think it
Speaker 5: was up five or six hundred points by the end
Speaker 5: of the day. The consumer price index slowed for the
Speaker 5: first time in months, and there were some better than
Speaker 5: expected wholesale inflation numbers, and that that apparently did it.
Speaker 5: The Dow again up by almost seven hundred points in
Speaker 5: morning trading. The SMP was up by more than one
Speaker 5: and a half percent. The Nasdaq was up by more
Speaker 5: than two percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good news.
Speaker 2: Inflation is coming more and more in control, not yet
Speaker 2: at the two percent that the Fed wants, but pretty
Speaker 2: good stuff.
Speaker 5: Newsom is following Trump's lead on this one. Lots of controversy.
Speaker 5: You know, the fly flags are flying half staff around
Speaker 5: the country because of former President Carter's passing.
Speaker 4: There, they're going to fly that way for thirty days.
Speaker 5: But the Trump team said, actually it was Mike Johnson
Speaker 5: said that we're going to raise the flags to full
Speaker 5: staff on Monday for inauguration Day and then bring them
Speaker 5: back down to half staff. And Democratic Governor Newsom says, Yep,
Speaker 5: we're going to do that in California too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When's the last time Newsom was an ally of Mike
Speaker 2: Johnson and Donald Trump? But on this one he is
Speaker 2: joining the We're going to raise the flag on our
Speaker 2: inauguration day, which, by the way, I think is super
Speaker 2: appropriate to have the flag flown on inauguration Day. Here's
Speaker 2: the problem. The law says there's thirty days of morning
Speaker 2: when a president a next president dies, and the law
Speaker 2: says that a flag or the flag has to be
Speaker 2: flown at half staff.
Speaker 1: So what Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 2: And Mike Johnson are doing are saying, screw the law,
Speaker 2: We're not going to follow what US law is.
Speaker 4: And who's going to come after in the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2: A good point, Yes, Department Justice is going to by
Speaker 2: the way, bringing a flat Remember the cavalry when someone
Speaker 2: was holding the flag and they were marching down or
Speaker 2: they going down on horses.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you think you think it's okay?
Speaker 1: No, I have mixed feelings about that.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think inauguration Day is a very
Speaker 2: important day in US and US history because how many
Speaker 2: inaugurations day?
Speaker 1: Inaugurations? Do you have?
Speaker 4: Forty seven or forty six so far?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for that number. But do you follow
Speaker 2: the law? No, it's that simple. Here's what the law says.
Speaker 2: Do you say screw the law? Well, that's what Gavin
Speaker 2: Newsom is saying. This is exactly what Mike Johnson is saying.
Speaker 2: And you know, I have mixed feelings, but if i
Speaker 2: had to go one way or the other, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go for the law.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: Pam Bondi gets grilled on Capitol Hill. Pam Bondi is
Speaker 5: President elect Trump's choice to be the next Attorney general,
Speaker 5: and she was in the hot seat yesterday and Dick
Speaker 5: Durbin kept asking her whether Trump won the election or
Speaker 5: actually whether Biden won the election. And she wouldn't specifically
Speaker 5: say Biden won the election, but she says President Biden
Speaker 5: is the president of the United States.
Speaker 4: He was duly sworn in. He is the president of
Speaker 4: the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Will, that's say the word elected, just statement of fact.
Speaker 1: He is the president. Yes, that's a fact. He was
Speaker 1: sworn in.
Speaker 2: That's a fact. He is in the White House. That's
Speaker 2: a fact. Was he elected. He's in the White House.
Speaker 2: That's a fact. That's just code for nope, he was
Speaker 2: never elected. That's what That was her position. She was
Speaker 2: part of his team that argue the election was fraudulent,
Speaker 2: and you know's she believes that. I mean, there are
Speaker 2: people to this day that say this whole thing was
Speaker 2: a fraud. I'm not talking about just people walking down
Speaker 2: the street. I'm talking about people, for example, like the
Speaker 2: next attorney general. And she will get confirmed. Now on
Speaker 2: her side, she actually has credentials. She was the Attorney
Speaker 2: general of Florida. She actually has some credits. Then you
Speaker 2: have heads give or I always mispronounce his name. HEGSA
Speaker 2: Yeah him too, both those guys and man, there is
Speaker 2: zero experience or credentials. Zero, So where do you go
Speaker 2: with that? So she'll she'll get confirmed. Okay, Marco Rubio
Speaker 2: and there's stuff there. You know, he's got it. You know,
Speaker 2: he's he has the crazy He was on the Foreign
Speaker 2: Relations Committee forever.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a move to make smokes less potent. The
Speaker 5: Biden administration has put up a proposal to cut the
Speaker 5: level of nicotine in cigarettes. The proposal would require cigarette
Speaker 5: makers to significantly reduce levels of nicotine to try to
Speaker 5: make smoking less addictive and less satisfying. Apparently, research has
Speaker 5: suggested the move would result in fewer people starting to
Speaker 5: smoke in the first place, and then also would help
Speaker 5: the nation's roughly thirty million smokers quit or switch to
Speaker 5: less harmful alternatives like e cigarettes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not gonna happen, because you you have a
Speaker 2: new president who is a big fan of big business,
Speaker 2: and cigarettes are big business, and they donated to his campaign.
Speaker 2: I think they're already donating also to his inauguration. Did
Speaker 2: you know on inaugurations are not paid for it by
Speaker 2: the government, private donor private donors.
Speaker 5: Oh that's right, because remember like Bezos and Zuckerberg, they've
Speaker 5: donated a million dollars, which is probably why they're going
Speaker 5: to be at the inauguration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, inauguration simply is whoever I can think it can
Speaker 2: be any judge by the way, who swears in a
Speaker 2: president any judge? Remember when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in
Speaker 2: on Air Force one.
Speaker 4: Not specifically, pardon, not specifically?
Speaker 2: Okay, when Linden yeah, okay, nineteen sixty three. November twenty two,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three, Linden Johnson was sworn in as president
Speaker 2: while JFK's coffin was sitting in the back of the airplane,
Speaker 2: air Force one, and they're in this sweltering, sweltering cabin
Speaker 2: of Air Force one. It was a federal judge, Sarah Hughes,
Speaker 2: who swore in Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 1: It was not the Chief Justice.
Speaker 2: Now do you find that weird that I actually know
Speaker 2: the name of the judge and I don't know what
Speaker 2: I had for breakfast?
Speaker 1: Say I you this morning? No? Okay, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: said we're used to it.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that's it. According to law, it's just a
Speaker 2: swearing in. It's basically two people and you're done.
Speaker 5: Protections for porn are before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: The justices.
Speaker 5: We're listening to arguments yesterday about the legality of a
Speaker 5: law in Texas that requires pornographic websites to verify the
Speaker 5: age of users. But The justices were also apparently concerned
Speaker 5: over the burdens imposed on adults to view constitutionally protected material.
Speaker 5: They seem to agree the states can try to keep
Speaker 5: the adult material from minors, but said the free speech
Speaker 5: implications could be kind.
Speaker 4: Of to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just you got a First Amendment versus
Speaker 2: the ability of people to view porn, and porn is
Speaker 2: perfectly legal to view, and the issue is keeping kids
Speaker 2: away from it.
Speaker 1: But I think it was who said.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: I think it's the next story.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: One of the justices said, I think she has kids.
Speaker 1: I don't remember which justice had. You know, I personal experience.
Speaker 1: You know, I have kids, and no matter what you do,
Speaker 1: they're going to see porn.
Speaker 4: Would that be Amy Cony Barrett, I think it would
Speaker 4: be younger kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it would be her. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Is part of a state for sale. A Republican senators
Speaker 5: says he wants to make Minnesota Iowa again and is
Speaker 5: introduced a bill that would allow Iowa to buy nine
Speaker 5: counties in Minnesota. Minnesota borders Iowa to the north, and
Speaker 5: Senator Mike boselat.
Speaker 1: I think it's Bosslot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whatever wants to I don't know what it wants.
Speaker 5: The state to enter into negotiations with its neighbor that
Speaker 5: would allow it to purchase nine southern Minnesota counties.
Speaker 1: Now, who sells nine counties? Is the state? Is it
Speaker 1: the state that sells nine.
Speaker 4: Counties or did the counties sell themselves?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And who buys nine counties? I guess the State of
Speaker 2: Iowa buys the counties.
Speaker 1: And will there be a vote? I don't know.
Speaker 2: This is some of the crazy stuff that it's going
Speaker 2: to be happening with this next administration. Can you imagine
Speaker 2: any administration that was coming in where a senator says,
Speaker 2: we want to buy some counties from that state over there,
Speaker 2: or Greenland or the Panama Canal or Canada. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're in for a ride. We really are in for ride.
Speaker 2: None of that is going to happen, of course, but
Speaker 2: still it's just great fun seeing what's attempting to happen.
Speaker 5: Glenn's Gone supersonic Blue Origin officially.
Speaker 4: Is kind of in the space race.
Speaker 5: The New Glen, which is the company's first rocket that's
Speaker 5: powerful enough to launch satellites into space, launched this morning
Speaker 5: from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The rocket was safely taken
Speaker 5: into orbit, but Blue Origin didn't get its next goal.
Speaker 4: They wanted to do two things.
Speaker 5: They wanted to get the rocket up into orbit, and
Speaker 5: then they also wanted to bring the rocket first stage
Speaker 5: booster back down to land on a platform, kind of
Speaker 5: like SpaceX does all the time.
Speaker 4: That didn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so boy, they're jumping right in it.
Speaker 2: SpaceX has been doing this basically by twenty fifteen, or
Speaker 2: started in twenty fifteen, and so Blue Origin is only
Speaker 2: ten years in behind SpaceX. If you go back in
Speaker 2: history in the space race with Russia and the United States,
Speaker 2: by the time John Glenn, who this rocket is named after,
Speaker 2: who was the first American to orbit the Earth, Russia
Speaker 2: had already orbited the Earth a dozen times, had sent
Speaker 2: I think at that point they sent a man rocket
Speaker 2: to Jupiter and back.
Speaker 1: You know, they were pretty well advanced.
Speaker 2: But now you have Blue Origin now competing with SpaceX
Speaker 2: that has the entire market. SpaceX now has eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the world market for rocket tree. You know, one
Speaker 2: thing about Elon Musk, You cannot argue that he is
Speaker 2: not a visionary crazy, but a visionary.
Speaker 5: Going international to crack down on some deadly drugs. Two
Speaker 5: Chinese citizens are standing trial in New York. The trial
Speaker 5: actually started yesterday. It's tied to fentanyl and it's considered
Speaker 5: a landmark case because we haven't tried Chinese nationals before.
Speaker 5: These two were picked up in a sting operation in Fiji.
Speaker 5: They were kicked out of the South Pacific, and then
Speaker 5: they were arrested in the US. They were among the
Speaker 5: first prosecutions against Chinese nationals and Chinese based companies for
Speaker 5: trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals as they are called, into the US.
Speaker 5: The guys are charged with shipping more than two hundred
Speaker 5: kilograms of illicit fentanyl related chemical precursors into the US.
Speaker 2: We're not talking the cartel doing this. These are companies,
Speaker 2: real companies in China, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing companies that ship
Speaker 2: this stuff out. Also, I have a question about how
Speaker 2: bright these guys are. They are arrested in Fiji, expelled
Speaker 2: from Fiji, and end up in the United States.
Speaker 1: They're Chinese nationals.
Speaker 2: Why in God's name would you come back to the
Speaker 2: United States for.
Speaker 4: That first flight out? Hey, let's go to the US.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Usually you're expelled to your country of origin. So they
Speaker 2: can't be really bright.
Speaker 4: Oh Canada.
Speaker 5: Canada's outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says nothing is off
Speaker 5: the table when it comes to responding to proposed tariffs
Speaker 5: by President elect Trump. But he also said that not
Speaker 5: just one of the provinces should pay or should basically
Speaker 5: bear the brunt of the tariffs, and it needs to
Speaker 5: be spread out among all of Canada's provinces. The Premier,
Speaker 5: doug Ford said they need to band together in their
Speaker 5: response to the threats of tariffs, and the retaliatory tariffs
Speaker 5: need to be hard, and he said Canada is not
Speaker 5: for sale.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: This is Canada caving to Trump's request or demand more
Speaker 2: like it that the tariffs are going to be huge.
Speaker 2: And what Canada is saying, Okay, the tariffs are going
Speaker 2: to be huge. What we're going to do is spread
Speaker 2: them out. For example, tariffs on car parts, which and
Speaker 2: I don't know which province does most of the car
Speaker 2: the car parts. Let's say it's Ontario, and so it's
Speaker 2: going to be hit harder with tariffs than any other
Speaker 2: part of Canada. And Trudeau is saying, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to spread all of that out and spread the risk.
Speaker 2: It's sort of an insurance policy. This is Canada straight
Speaker 2: out caving. And that's how much power of the United
Speaker 2: States has.
Speaker 5: It's caving because they're basically saying yeah, it's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, or anticipation of it happening. As I said,
Speaker 2: what Trump is doing, there's a lot of bomb bass
Speaker 2: in what he says. But he's getting what he wants
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: He goes back.
Speaker 2: So you have the threat of twenty five percent tariffs,
Speaker 2: so you have the threat of forty percent tariffs.
Speaker 1: Is he actually going to do that?
Speaker 2: I don't think so, and most economists don't think so
Speaker 2: because one of the things that happens with tariffs, I mean.
Speaker 1: It goes through the roof, Inflation goes crazy.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't you know, you know why we
Speaker 2: don't buy electric cars here in the United States from China.
Speaker 2: You cannot buy an electric car from China. It's not
Speaker 2: because they're banned, it's because tariffs are one hundred percent
Speaker 2: for evs coming in from China. Well, so you buy Uh,
Speaker 2: my EV was made in Germany. Germany happens to be
Speaker 2: an ally and I have no idea what the tariff is.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're done, KF. I am sixty you've been
Speaker 1: listening to the Bill Handle Show.
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