Speaker 1: You're listen Saints.
Speaker 2: I Am six forty the bill Handle show on demand
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Speaker 1: AM six forty bill Handle. Here it is.
Speaker 2: A Friday Foody Friday, February twenty one, and today at
Speaker 2: thirty another segment of Amah and that's handle Anything, Ask
Speaker 2: Me anything, some of the big stories.
Speaker 1: We're looking at the story.
Speaker 2: Of Yolanda Murdi, suspect in the stabbing death of her wife,
Speaker 2: who is a San Diego cal Cal Fire Captain San
Speaker 2: Diego Fire Captain Becky Morodi.
Speaker 1: So that's a big, big story.
Speaker 2: And then Israel officials say one of the four bodies
Speaker 2: handed over by Hamas, who was one of them, was
Speaker 2: supposed to be Shery Bibis, is not and she's the
Speaker 2: mother of the two young children who were killed, whose
Speaker 2: bodies were returned, one nine years old, when four years old.
Speaker 2: Now in a case of nimbi, big nimby case, not
Speaker 2: in my backyard. Yesterday I reported on the cry for
Speaker 2: the residents of Palisades and the Altadena fire to ask
Speaker 2: FEMA to do toxic testing on the debris that's being removed,
Speaker 2: which the government has done virtually every single time. As
Speaker 2: matter of fact, every single time, whenever there's a major
Speaker 2: disaster of this kind of debris has to be removed.
Speaker 2: FEMA said, no, not going to do it this time.
Speaker 2: We are not going to do it. You want to
Speaker 2: do it, you do it yourself. And one of the
Speaker 2: arguments was that FEMA used is just going to slow
Speaker 2: everything down.
Speaker 1: Well argument number two.
Speaker 2: Now, Southern California residents are protesting the decision to take
Speaker 2: that toxic ash and debris from the Eaton and Palisades
Speaker 2: fires and put them in the landfills right near occupied
Speaker 2: areas where there is a population.
Speaker 1: And so a protest took place in Calabasas.
Speaker 2: Landfill in Grenada Hills near the Sunshine Canyon landfill. Why
Speaker 2: because the argument is toxic chemicals could drift into the
Speaker 2: neighborhood airborne dust or leech into the groundwater.
Speaker 1: And all of these.
Speaker 2: Landfills or populations or cities near these landfills proposed landfills
Speaker 2: that are being used, are really upset about it because
Speaker 2: they don't want to They want to know is the
Speaker 2: groundwater going to be affected, is the air quality going
Speaker 2: to be affected as the wind blows.
Speaker 1: They don't know. They don't know.
Speaker 2: Because the federal government won't do the testing now, FEMA
Speaker 2: said of the state, everyone wants to do it.
Speaker 1: God bless you. If you want to do it, go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we are carting away all of this
Speaker 2: debris at our cost. This is what the government is saying.
Speaker 2: And that's a big that's a big chunk of money
Speaker 2: to do it on your own. So what's happening is
Speaker 2: they're simply contracting with and going into various landfills with
Speaker 2: all of this debris. And as you can imagine, you've
Speaker 2: got the protests going all over the place. So the
Speaker 2: protests aren't not just people. A matter of fact, in
Speaker 2: one case in Calabasas or about a dozen or two
Speaker 2: dozen people that stood in front of a dumb truck
Speaker 2: of a huge eighteen wheeler that debris was being put
Speaker 2: into and was going to be carted off to the
Speaker 2: local landfill.
Speaker 1: They should have just stood right in front of it.
Speaker 2: Sheriffs came out this unincorporated area sheriff's came out and
Speaker 2: said you got to move over were and to arrest you. You
Speaker 2: they just stood pat They said, go ahead, arrest us.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a standoff.
Speaker 2: They weren't arrested, and after about an hour the truck
Speaker 2: turns around, sort of their version of the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 2: And so the number of these land fills that are
Speaker 2: burying being used include let me get this list here
Speaker 2: because I think it's important for you to know.
Speaker 1: For those of us that don't live near these landfills.
Speaker 2: Stories not so bad Semi Valley Landfill, the Calabasas Landfill,
Speaker 2: Azuza land Reclamation Area, Sunshine Canyon Landfill, the el Sobrante Landfill,
Speaker 2: and Corona expected to receive the disaster debris. The Lamb
Speaker 2: Canyon and Badlands landfills in Riverside County have requested emergency
Speaker 2: waivers for an increase in tonnage, which they are going
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 1: So the demonstrations is going to go.
Speaker 2: Oh by the way, county government and city government all
Speaker 2: are lining up on behalf of the protesters, and the
Speaker 2: city La City Council passed a unanimous motion to instantly
Speaker 2: investigate what the level of the toxic city is. It
Speaker 2: is FEMA going to cooperate, I think they will. You
Speaker 2: go ahead, knock your socks off. We don't care. It's
Speaker 2: not gonna It's not gonna stop us from doing what
Speaker 2: we're doing. And as I said when I opened up
Speaker 2: the monologue, the argument that FEMA is using is, hey,
Speaker 2: we're going it's going to slow down if number one
Speaker 2: we do the testing, and number two, if we have
Speaker 2: to cart the debris away to landfills far away. There
Speaker 2: are hazardous way sland fills out there. What they are
Speaker 2: they are lined with a rubberized or a silicon tarp,
Speaker 2: I don't know which one, and there are motion and
Speaker 2: there are sensors in the landfill itself to detect methane
Speaker 2: and other toxic gases, but they are not local, and
Speaker 2: the local people are saying that's where you go, and
Speaker 2: FEMA is saying, if we do that, that means the
Speaker 2: trucks have to drive a lot further, which is going
Speaker 2: to slow down the removal of the debris.
Speaker 1: So it's another stand off, no kidding, okay.
Speaker 2: Going to what is happening on a federal level, and
Speaker 2: the firing of tens of thousands of federal employees to
Speaker 2: begin with.
Speaker 1: So there have been a couple of blips.
Speaker 2: And as I promoted this segment just before coming just
Speaker 2: before the break, I said, if you ever watched the Apprentice,
Speaker 2: which most of us at least know what the apprentice is.
Speaker 2: And the tagline Donald Trump used, you fired. Maybe you
Speaker 2: didn't use such a heavy New York accent. Michelle would
Speaker 2: do that, and he never said, excuse me, I just
Speaker 2: changed my mind, come on back. Well, that's exactly what's
Speaker 2: happening with the National Park Service. The National Park Service
Speaker 2: just fired a bunch of people, I mean just cleaned out.
Speaker 2: Didn't clean it out in the sense of firing. What
Speaker 2: happens as seasonal workers are hired every summer because that's
Speaker 2: when people go to the National parks, and these seasonal
Speaker 2: people collect the entrance fee. Example, when you go to
Speaker 2: the park, the person they are at the park interest seasonal.
Speaker 2: They clean the trails, they clean the restrooms, they're part
Speaker 2: of the rescue teams that rescue injured hikers. Well, they
Speaker 2: all received emails that their normal job offers for the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five season ain't going to happen rescinded.
Speaker 1: Well, this week a memo is sent out from the Department.
Speaker 2: Of Interior saying that never mind that the agency is
Speaker 2: going to hire seventy seven hundred seasonal employees, up from
Speaker 2: the sixty three hundred who normally are fired. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's going to go up fourteen hundred. Well, you talk
Speaker 2: about an exception to what's going on today. Now there's
Speaker 2: a hiring freeze going on across government, and this one is,
Speaker 2: for some reason a big exception. Don't know why National
Speaker 2: Parks Service it was. Now there's been a couple of
Speaker 2: never minds. Now is it a make or break if
Speaker 2: you don't go to a national park? You know, I
Speaker 2: don't go. So it's not the end of the world
Speaker 2: for me. Some people it's important. I'll tell you what
Speaker 2: was really important is that there were people at the
Speaker 2: Nuclear Agency whichever nuclear agency is involved in keeping our
Speaker 2: safeguarding our nuclear weapons facilities. They were fired until someone
Speaker 2: pointed out, wait a minute, they're the guys who safeguard
Speaker 2: our weaponry? Are nuclear weaponry? Do you really want to
Speaker 2: fire them? That was an oops, Well, okay, maybe we don't.
Speaker 2: And so they were fired and the next day they
Speaker 2: were rehired. And I was talking to one of the
Speaker 2: real pro Trump is here at the station yesterday and
Speaker 2: who is thrilled about the fact that the government is
Speaker 2: cleaning out the quote, the waste and the fraud.
Speaker 1: Now is there a waste and fraud.
Speaker 2: There has to be two point three million employees and
Speaker 2: entrenched to bureaucracy that goes for back for decades.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's gonna be waste.
Speaker 2: Of course there's gonna be fraud, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of bureaucracy that can be eliminated. I'm assuming with the
Speaker 2: government as large as it is. However, do you really
Speaker 2: start cleaning out before you investigate. I mean, look at
Speaker 2: the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. Here, a
Speaker 2: couple of instances here. You're gonna see many more of these.
Speaker 2: I'm fine with the investigation, but first let's find out
Speaker 2: what happens or what has happened. One of the big
Speaker 2: Trump slash Elon Musk's talking points is and you saw
Speaker 2: this for days fifty million dollars being used to buy
Speaker 2: condoms for Hamas or Palestinians. Two days later it was
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars were used to buy condoms. Now
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars for two thousand people, of which
Speaker 2: some may not use condoms, women, children, the elderly. It's
Speaker 2: a lot of condoms for the people that are left
Speaker 2: in a population of a couple of million. The point
Speaker 2: I'm making is okay, you make that allegation. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen the proof. Where is the proof? Now, there's two
Speaker 2: ways that they're doing this, except they're only doing it
Speaker 2: one way. One is to investigate and then to fire.
Speaker 2: Two is to fire and either investigate or not investigate.
Speaker 2: And that is exactly what's going on. It's peremptory firing
Speaker 2: across the board. Well it to the extent. The Musk
Speaker 2: has the kind of influence that a lot of people
Speaker 2: had that he is the puppet master of the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: which I don't buy for a second. He has said
Speaker 2: I am going to cut one third of the budget
Speaker 2: of the United States two trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, one claim is that he saved what was it
Speaker 2: eight billion dollars up to this point, and then the
Speaker 2: next day it was it was really eight million dollars
Speaker 2: that he has saved. Heretofore and I think it was
Speaker 2: one agency he was talking about. So there were a
Speaker 2: few zeros missing, and he argued it's full transparency. Well
Speaker 2: not really, there isn't a lot. So do I agree
Speaker 2: in principle, of course I do, But at some point,
Speaker 2: and I'm the one who shoo shoots from the hip
Speaker 2: man do that's the accusation has made about me. And
Speaker 2: I'm right there. I mean, I react and act a
Speaker 2: lot quicker than I should. And I'm saying, come on, guys, really,
Speaker 2: maybe we got to slow this down. Now. I'm going
Speaker 2: to give you a little bit of handle history. In
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight, when I was I think first year,
Speaker 2: second year of law school, a decision came down the
Speaker 2: US Supreme Court ruled that this guy by the name
Speaker 2: of David Baki will be going to medical school at
Speaker 2: UC Davis. He had been turned down. He applied, and
Speaker 2: the school said nah, nah, and why.
Speaker 1: Well, they had a quota that.
Speaker 2: Certain number of African Americans were to be allowed into
Speaker 2: the medical school. And he argued that wait a minute.
Speaker 2: Number one, I'm white, but I have better qualified cations
Speaker 2: that was per school, per the school, better GPA, better
Speaker 2: test scores on the MCAT, and I deserve to have
Speaker 2: that spot that you gave to this African American who
Speaker 2: didn't meet those qualifications. Well, the numbers were the numbers.
Speaker 2: They had to have x percent of African Americans and
Speaker 2: they were going to put that in. So he sued
Speaker 2: and that was amazing. That was one of the first
Speaker 2: lawsuits of reverse discrimination.
Speaker 1: White people suing saying.
Speaker 2: I'm being discriminated against because I'm white, and that went
Speaker 2: up through the courts and the Supreme Court ruled, yeah,
Speaker 2: he has a case, and the school reinstated him. The
Speaker 2: next year he got in. But this started a whole
Speaker 2: slew of cases of reverse discrimination. Now, the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: didn't eliminate the racial factor completely. What the court did
Speaker 2: say is you cannot use race solely as a basis
Speaker 2: for determining who gets into school. In this case, it
Speaker 2: was the medical school because that's what was happening. When
Speaker 2: you have a when you have a quota system and
Speaker 2: X number have to go in, it is race.
Speaker 1: That's it. It's race.
Speaker 2: So the court said, no, you can't do that, but
Speaker 2: you can use race as a factor in determining whether
Speaker 2: someone is given entrance to the school.
Speaker 1: You have to look at everything else.
Speaker 2: You have to You have to look at the GPAs,
Speaker 2: you have to look at the test scores. You have
Speaker 2: to look at what they have done in the world
Speaker 2: out there to make them uh, to make the the people,
Speaker 2: the application people look at you in a more positive
Speaker 2: light today.
Speaker 1: If you want to get into a majority school.
Speaker 2: If you want to get into an Ivy League school
Speaker 2: and you happen to be white man, you had better
Speaker 2: start a charity, raise several million dollars and win the
Speaker 2: Nobel Peace Prize. It takes that much. And as for
Speaker 2: anybody to get into one of the big ivy leagues.
Speaker 2: So he wins, and it starts all of those cases,
Speaker 2: and it got to the point where the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: narrowed down the race factor to the point where now
Speaker 2: race cannot be used.
Speaker 1: As a factor at all.
Speaker 2: However, we talk about the advantages that minorities have. If
Speaker 2: you are Hispanic, if you are black, if you're a
Speaker 2: Pacific islander, frankly, you're going to have an advantage.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. Not Asians.
Speaker 2: Even though Asians are a legitimate majority, they don't get
Speaker 2: the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: Why because go to UC.
Speaker 2: Berkeley, Okay, go to Hastings, Lag, go to Stanford. You
Speaker 2: will see the number of Asians far outnumbers their population.
Speaker 2: So they're doing all right anyway, So they're not considered
Speaker 2: a minori. So how is the end around done? How
Speaker 2: do the schools get away with, in fact giving preference
Speaker 2: to in some cases African Americans or Pacific Islanders, Well,
Speaker 2: they look at things like how many siblings do you have?
Speaker 2: Are you the first person to have gone to college,
Speaker 2: or you're going to college.
Speaker 1: Where do you live?
Speaker 2: Are you living in a socioeconomic area that is poor
Speaker 2: and particularly minority populated. So they sort of play that
Speaker 2: game to where it's virtually guaranteed that a minority still
Speaker 2: has the upper hand, and it does. And the argument is,
Speaker 2: let's have a level playing field, because it used to
Speaker 2: be that minorities never were able to get in because
Speaker 2: they were minorities, particularly blacks African Americans or sort of
Speaker 2: the poster child the discrimination. And legitimately so in this country,
Speaker 2: slavery is the original sin of this country. Absolutely straight
Speaker 2: out separating out African Americans as being particularly oppressed absolutely
Speaker 2: holds water. And so the argument is you screwed us
Speaker 2: or we screwed them. We being the white population, wasn't me.
Speaker 2: I never owned a slave, I've never determined if someone
Speaker 2: should go to college or not.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to go the other way.
Speaker 2: And then there are people that argue, okay, now let's
Speaker 2: make it a level playing field. I remember once I
Speaker 2: interviewed Jesse Jackson, who argued, yeah, yeah, blacks should get advantages.
Speaker 2: They should be determined as more apt to get into
Speaker 2: school because the level playing field means you have to
Speaker 2: take into account what happened before.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that is the rule going in.
Speaker 2: So now I'm going to move forward to a Supreme
Speaker 2: Court case where this week or next week, the Court
Speaker 2: is going to hear arguments in another white discrimination case.
Speaker 2: But it's not because a minority person as to a
Speaker 2: race was involved. Oh no, No, it's a whole different
Speaker 2: avenue they took. When when I was in law school,
Speaker 2: a case came down in nineteen seventy eight about a
Speaker 2: white guy who was denied a place in medical school
Speaker 2: at University of California and a black man African American
Speaker 2: got his spot, even though he argued the white guy
Speaker 2: that he had better qualifications, which he did according to
Speaker 2: the school, and there was a quota system straight out,
Speaker 2: you know, certain number of blacks come in and we're
Speaker 2: putting him in no matter what. That was the quota system.
Speaker 2: And he sued for reverse discrimination and he won. Us
Speaker 2: Supreme Court said, oh to the UC system, oh no.
Speaker 1: He goes to medical school and the next year he did.
Speaker 2: Well, there is another case a brewing, and this has
Speaker 2: to also do with reverse discrimination. But I'll tell you
Speaker 2: the difference. This is a woman who's arguing that she
Speaker 2: is white and straight and the discrimination here is because
Speaker 2: she is straight, and that is illegal.
Speaker 1: Her name is Marlene Ames.
Speaker 2: She worked for the Ohio Youth Correction System, got all
Speaker 2: kinds of promotions and evaluations, and then in twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: she was she was demoted and denied a promotion at
Speaker 2: the same time. And the demotion she took a forty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars pay cut. And according to Ames and this lawsuit,
Speaker 2: that wasn't all. She had a gay supervisor at the time.
Speaker 2: She was passed over for promotion in favor of.
Speaker 1: A gay woman.
Speaker 2: She was demoted in favor of a gay man, both
Speaker 2: of whom were less qualified than she was, according to
Speaker 2: the lawsuit. Well, next Wednesday, US Supreme Court is going
Speaker 2: to hear that case. They're going to hear arguments in
Speaker 2: her civil rights lawsuit against the Department of Youth Services.
Speaker 2: After the law courts throw it out, she wants money,
Speaker 2: by the way, from the state, a ruling in her
Speaker 2: favor by the court. Remember it now has a six
Speaker 2: to three conservative majority is going to make it a
Speaker 2: lot easier for non minorities, including white people and straight people,
Speaker 2: to argue claims of illegal bias reverse discrimination under the
Speaker 2: federal anti discrimination law. Now this gets a little wonky,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to try to explain it, Okay. In
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four, under Lyndon Johnson, Congress passed Title seven
Speaker 2: of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. No
Speaker 2: Discrimination prohibits discrimination on the base of race, religion, national origin,
Speaker 2: and sex, including sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: This is what she's saying, So how does this even
Speaker 1: go to court?
Speaker 2: The lower court ruled against her, The appeals court ruled
Speaker 2: against her. I mean, isn't discrimination discrimination, that's what she's arguing. Well,
Speaker 2: it gets a little more complicated than that, because a
Speaker 2: requirement that is used by most courts is that plaintiffs
Speaker 2: from majority groups read white and straight people have to
Speaker 2: provide more evidence than minority playmants claimants to make a
Speaker 2: prima facia case, which means that on its face is
Speaker 2: a case. In other words, a white person, straight person
Speaker 2: has to provide more proof of reverse discrimination then a
Speaker 2: minority person has to provide that there is discrimination.
Speaker 1: As we see it isn't that discrimination on its face.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, guys, and.
Speaker 2: There has to be well, it's as I said, it's
Speaker 2: a little bit wonky that it has to be argued
Speaker 2: that there is a pattern of discrimination.
Speaker 1: You have to go deeper into it. There has to
Speaker 1: be a.
Speaker 2: History, and it's it is easier in one sense to
Speaker 2: argue racial discrimination. You know, if I'm being sued by
Speaker 2: a straight person, I'm gay and I choose a choose
Speaker 2: someone who is gay for a promotion over you, I
Speaker 2: can say I had nothing to do with it, even
Speaker 2: though that person was gay. It's kind of hard to
Speaker 2: argue I didn't know that person was black. Gee, I
Speaker 2: never noticed. It doesn't fly usually. But the argument's going
Speaker 2: to be this is straight out discrimination, and so what
Speaker 2: can be used, and what is used is the history
Speaker 2: of racial discrimination in this country as a basis for
Speaker 2: those minorities suing. You can't argue, well, you can argue
Speaker 2: if you're straight. And I think she's gonna make the
Speaker 2: argument I haven't read the case, so I haven't read
Speaker 2: the Obviously, the papers here is that there has now
Speaker 2: recently been a history of anti white, anti straight bias
Speaker 2: in the workplace, and in education, and the other side's
Speaker 2: going to go, hey, it's been there. You may argue that,
Speaker 2: but you don't have a four hundred year history of
Speaker 2: this of discrimination.
Speaker 1: You don't have a two hundred year history of discrimination.
Speaker 2: You don't have a system where it was impossible for
Speaker 2: someone to get into school, or get a job, or
Speaker 2: get this kind of a workplace environment because he or
Speaker 2: she was a minority. It's going to be an interesting case,
Speaker 2: it really is.
Speaker 1: Is that going to change everything? You know?
Speaker 2: Based on this court? I think she may have a case.
Speaker 2: By the way, she has since been promoted back. She
Speaker 2: was a supervisor. She was making one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: year when she was demoted by a gays purpose person
Speaker 2: in favor of a gay person. By the way, the
Speaker 2: lower courts and the appeals court said no, no, no, because
Speaker 2: the supervisors could have interfered and they were straight, and
Speaker 2: they didn't. So there are a couple of little wonky
Speaker 2: parts of it, but the basis of the main premise
Speaker 2: here is I'm straight, I'm white, and you're discriminating, yes
Speaker 2: mee in favor of the gay community. That is discrimination. Okay,
Speaker 2: KF I am six point you've been listening to the
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