BHS - 7A - Politicians are getting too old | Heavy Petting

Hey baby, I got a proposition for you. Mayor Bass is a Nimby. Why are politicians so old? Females are running what?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listenings KFI AM six forty theBill Handles Show on demand on the iHeartRadio
app. You are listening to theBill Handle Show. Here's Wayne Resnick.
All right, everybody, it's KFIAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. And that guy just toldyou what's going on. Bill's back on
Monday. I'm Wayne. Some ofthe stories we're watching for you here.

(00:25):
Hurricane burrows now a Category two stormand 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 ofthis storm. There are a lot of
people missing, and they're saying it'sgoing to get stronger again before it hits

(00:51):
somewhere. It could hit northeastern Mexicoor South Texas over the weekend. Jobs
report is in for June. Weadded 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,

(01:12):
well, I'm about to tell youabout all the propositions that are going to
be on the ballot in November becauseit is time we start to wrap our
heads around the things we're going tobe asked to vote on, particularly because
of some trends that I'm seeing inthese propositions. So here we go,
in no particular order, although it'skind of in the order that they're numbered.

(01:37):
You got Prop two. Now,why are we starting with Prop two
and not Prop one? Because Propone was that mental health proposition that was
voted on in March. So Proptwo borrow ten billion dollars to build some
schools. You know, these bondinitiatives are basically a government entity agreeing to

(02:01):
go into debt. And we havea massive budget deficit. You know,
newsem made a bunch of cuts tostuff because of this unprecedented deficit that we're
facing. And you will be askedto vote to borrow ten billion dollars to
build some schools. Prop three reaffirmthe right of same sex couples to get

(02:23):
married. It wasn't that long agoin the history of California. I think
it was two thousand and eight therewas a proposition that was passed that said
marriage is between a man and awoman. So you can you can see
how societies change over time, andit wouldn't be surprising to hear that one

(02:45):
hundred years ago they said marriage isa man and a woman, but now
we don't. But this was justin two thousand and eight that a majority
of voters said, yes, marriageshould be a man and woman. So
the problem is have to amend thestate constitution to fix that. So that's
what Prop three would do, andthen Prop four and we're right back to

(03:07):
borrowing ten billion dollars again. Andthis is for climate programs, wildfire,
forest programs, one point two billiondollars for sea level rise. There's drinking
water and groundwater money. Some ofthis I'm having trouble linking directly to the

(03:30):
issue of climate. But let's borrowten 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 yourlocal government wants to borrow money for say

(03:50):
housing or infrastructure bonds, they haveto get a super majority of the voters
to approve it. So Prop fivewould amend the constitution of the state to
make it easier for the local governmentsto borrow the money. Wow. So
it's still also it's about, Hey, the state is saying the state legislature

(04:10):
is saying, we want to borrowa lot of money for stuff, and
then they're saying, we also wewant to make it easier for your county
or your city to borrow money aswell. Prop thirty two will raise the
state minimum wage to eighteen dollars anhour. And this thing was proposed like
three years ago. And when itwas proposed, I don't know if you

(04:30):
remember, it was a big deal. Okay. The people who supported it
were like, this is the greatestthing that's ever happened. And the people
who didn't like it said they're goingto 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

(04:53):
dollars an hour. You've got thefast food minimum wage, twenty dollars an
hour. Healthcare our workers are onan already passed minimum wage plan that will
get them up to twenty five dollarsan hour, So eighteen dollars an hour
minimum wage doesn't seem quite as crazyin terms of the numbers. You will

(05:13):
be asked to vote whether you wantthat or not. Also would you like
rent control in your city or unincorporatedarea. Well, there's a state law
that, for the most part,says your city or county cannot put in
rent control. And Prop thirty threeis asking you to say, yeah,
I want them to be able toput in rent control. Great if you're

(05:35):
a renter, terrible if you're alandlord. 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 healthcareprovider. Certain health providers who get money

(05:57):
from a federal prescription drug program mustspend almost all the money on patient care
directly on patient care. You knowyou're gonna have to spend a little bit
on administrative costs, but if you'regetting money from this program, most of
it should go to actually provide thething that the money's for, which seems
like that's what should be happening withany government program. But in this case

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it seems to be aimed at oneplace, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. If
you follow the news, you knowthat the AIDS Healthcare Foundation does good work.
They also get involved a lot inhousing development and stopping developments from happening,

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and this sort of thing advocacy inthe area of housing, and they
will fund ballot measures and have fundedballot measures. I think they gave money
to that rent control proposition that Ijust told you about. So the idea
here is saying, hey, you'renot going to be able to use money
that you were given by the FEDSfor treating patients. We're not going to
be able to use it for yourpolitical goals. And those are the main

(07:13):
ones that you should know about.What's the difference between an initiative and a
referendum. A referendum is when wevote 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 wantto hear any bs about low information voters.

(07:35):
I just solved that problem. Speakingof housing, after we get some
news from Heather Brooker, who wouldhave thought that Mayor Karen Bass, who
was elected largely on a promise tobuild lots of affordable housing in LA and
make it easy to do so,would end up being a big nimby.

(07:59):
You're listening to Bill Handle on Demandfrom KFI AM six forty, Danny Trayjo,
actor, entrepreneur, public figure,was apparently involved in a fight at
an Independence Day parade up in theSunlintahunga neighborhood. He was in the parade,
riding in a very cool convertible,this old convertible car, and somebody

(08:24):
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 balloonthrower punched back and knocked down National Treasure
Danny Treyjo. Then other people gotinvolved, and I guess they're saying that

(08:50):
some woman ran over and tried tohold down Danny Trayjoe. But by the
time the cops got there, everybodyhad dispersed, nobody was arrested, and
there's no indication here that he wasseriously hurt. So thank goodness for that.
Waenne. Can I tell you somethingreally quick. I met Danny Trejo

(09:11):
here at iHeart a couple of monthsago in the in the elevator could not
have been nicer. We rode uptogether at least five floors, and he
was lovely and so kind and soI'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 startedit, there's no question, but I

(09:31):
don't I don't know if the smartestthing 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 withDanny Treyo. Oh no, I
would never want to mess with DannyTreyo. All right, So anyway,
let's hope that he's a totally fineand able to go oversee his empire of

(09:56):
taco restaurants, donut shops, coffeeshops, 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. Itwas some sort of a marital aid.
If my memory serves me, maybeI'll look it up during the break.

(10:18):
Also, in terms of the waythat Danny Treyhoe has been able to monetize
his uh celebrity, as long aswe're going on this detour, yeah,
I know there is a there's avideo game, a mobile game, it's
called this is all in everything I'mabout to tell you is so embarrassing.
It's called Guns of Boom and it'sone of these you know, cartoonish you

(10:45):
run around, you shoot people andthere's different guns or whatever. And some
years ago they had a special eventin this game called trey Ho Tournament,
and so he obviously they paid himmoney to be able to call it trey
Ho Tournament. And then instead ofthe regular announcer voice in the game like

(11:09):
kill, double kill, whatever,it was Danny Treyhoe's voice. That's amazing.
It was really really crazy. Sohe he he is a great,
you know, performer, and he'sa pretty savvy businessman. Yeah, legend
legendary. All right. Now,let's get to the main topic at hand,

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and that is changes that La MayorKaren Bass has made to the very
famous, very controversial Executive Directive oneED 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 thebasic idea was, we're gonna make it
much easier for developers to build onehundred percent affordable housing developments. If you

(12:01):
want to build an apartment building andit'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 isfantastic, no more screwing around, and

(12:24):
Karen Vass's office said over eighteen thousandunits 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 fromhomeowners from neighborhood groups who said, listen,
you can't. We don't want youto build lower income apartment buildings and

(12:48):
the like everywhere, like we definitelydon't want you building one next door to
me, and so they of coursestarted fighting back with all that got to
slow down or even completely kill theseprojects now. So if you're Mayor Karen
Bass, what do you do?Do you say, listen, I believe

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in a certain thing, and whatI believe in is we must build affordable
housing everywhere. Too bad, sosad 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 ExecutiveOrder, and the main change is this,

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if you live now in a historicdistrict, you will be protected from
having these fast tracked affordable housing developmentsbuilt in your neighborhood. Like for example,
I'm trying to think of one offthe top of my head. Windsor
Village is one. Windsor Village isin mid LA. It's like Wilshire.

(13:58):
I think it's will Sure at thenorth and crenshot of the right goes down
to Olympic and it's a designated historiczone. And the people who live there,
as you might imagine, don't wantto see some new low income apartment
building going up, and so nowthey won't have to worry about it.
Now this program already restricts building thelow income housing developments in single families owned

(14:24):
neighborhoods, which is over seventy fourpercent of the land here in LA.
They've taken away some more of theareas where you will be able to build
these things. And I'm not Idon't honestly, I don't have an opinion
about whether it's right or wrong.What cannot be denied is the availability of

(14:50):
locations to build affordable housing is shrinking. It's being taken away, and there's
some of these people. The housingadvocates are saying, you know, you
have historic district, but within thosehistoric districts, not all of it is
historic in any way. You've gotlike vacant lots that happen to be in

(15:11):
a historic district. Why shouldn't yoube able to throw up an apartment building
there? And then the other thingis 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 goodnessof their heart. I mean, habitat
for humanity, but you get whatI'm Developers build to make money, period,

(15:37):
and they don't mind including some affordablehousing if they can do other things
that'll make them some money. Soa lot of times they'll a developer will
present a proposal and will say,oh, yes, we will build affordable
housing. However, you know inthat area the height of the building would

(15:58):
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 allowus to have zero clearance from the property
lines. Also, normally there'd haveto be eighty parking spaces on this development,

(16:19):
would it be okay if we onlyhad thirty? And so what ends
up happening is you get a fewunits of affordable housing and then you get
traffic problems and parking problems and crowdingand blight. And apparently they're not going
to be able to get as manyconcessions, but they also won't be able
to build in as many places.So let's check in in another year or

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two or probably ten is a smarttimeline for this kind of thing, and
see how much affordable housing we havehere in LA and ten years. Okay,
let's get some news from Heather Brookerand then why are they so old?

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How can this be? Who amI talking about? Oh you'll find
out. You're listening to Bill Handleon demand from KFI AM six forty.
Over in Britain, the Labor Partyhas won the number of seats necessary to
make them in charge of their parliamentarygovernment and they will therefore have a new

(17:22):
Prime Minister in a few hours.This after the current leader, Rishi Sunak
called a snap election and his Conservativeparty lost Bigley over there, and we
got some good news on the jobfront, another two hundred and six thousand
jobs added in June. It wasa little bit less than in May.

(17:44):
May was two hundred and eighteen thousand, But almost all economists are saying this
is a sign of the economy beingstrong, even given the problems that we
have, like the interest rates stillbeing so high. For example. Okay,
politicians, they're old. This isnot news. This has been a

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main topic of discussion on KFI,in the news media, in interviews at
the water cooler at the July fourthweekend cookouts. Old old, old old.
Everybody's old. Biden is so old. Trump is pretty old too.

(18:32):
Also, the median age in theSenate is almost sixty six. Now.
It's not that sixty six is deathbedold, particularly not now in twenty twenty
four, with what we know aboutmedicine and prolonging life and everything. But

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it's old compared to the country asa whole. In fact, there are
a lot of people who call theUnited 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 Ithink it depends on what you know the

(19:18):
specific old person that we're talking about. But you have situations like I remember
Diane Feinstein who would not resign fromher Senate seat. She was coming up
on ninety there were tons of concernsabout her health. Mitch McConnell, I
think he's eighty two. There wasthe few incidences where it looked like he

(19:41):
was freezing up at some public appearancesand people said, what is going on
with him? And eventually he didsay, 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 ofDonald Trump seeming to lose his train of

(20:02):
thought at campaign events. So weknow that at least at the national level
that are representatives skew older than thepopulation at large. But why how did
this happen? Well, it istrue that the population of the country has

(20:26):
gotten older. The median age nowin this country is thirty nine. In
nineteen eighty it was thirty. Boomersare staying in the workforce, they're not
retiring at the same rate that theyused to, and this includes people in

(20:47):
politics. So that explains a littlebit why the politicians are getting older.
But if you look at the factthat the median age is thirty nine and
the media agent in the Senate isalmost sixty six, and about twenty five
percent of congress are over seventy,that doesn't match up. Another part of

(21:12):
the problem is the bar to accessrunning 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

(21:37):
the incumbent when you're running for reelection. Name recognition would be one of them.
Another would be if you've done agood job, you would have a
specific record that you could point toin your campaigning. But in this case
it is skewed so insanely. Forexample, let's go back to twenty eighteen.
That midterm, they're four hundred andthirty five congressional districts and there were

(22:03):
only forty four of them that wereconsidered a toss up. And a toss
up they if it's if it's decidedwithin five points. It's a toss up
forty four out of four to thirtyfive. Then let's go back a couple
of years to the twenty twenty two, thirty six elections for the House were

(22:25):
considered competitive out of four hundred andthirty five. Competition declines. There are
so many races now where there's noopponent, particularly at the primary stage.
There's no opponent. It's not thatthere's somebody running against the incumbent, but
they don't have as much money,and they don't have as much name recognition.

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Maybe they don't have as much accessto the media. There isn't even
one there. So as the competitiongoes down, the average age goes up,
because you stay. Once you're in, you stay and stay and stay
and stay. I mean Joe Bidenwas in the Senate for thirty six years
and then became Vice president. Guysin government a long long time. Another

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reason, and this has to dowith 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 isvery few split tickets anymore. It used
to be people would split their ticketsall the time. Meaning let's say they're

(23:30):
a registered Democrat and they go andvote in a national election, presidential,
general election, maybe they'd vote forthe Democrat for president, but they'd vote
for a Republican guy for state Senateor for House. That doesn't happen as
much anymore. People just go i'mthis, I'm an R, I go

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R R. That's it. Andso that means most congressional elections are decided
by the primaries, and as Ialready said, in a lot of primaries,
there's not even an opponent to theincumbent. So we've allowed the politicians

(24:11):
to gin up the system through jerrymanderingand also honestly by the fact that we
put up with their insane level ofrhetoric all the time, and we've allowed
them to make it harder and harderand harder for new blood to come in.
It's not that new blood never comesin, but it's very, very

(24:34):
difficult. So there's a big movenow that there should be age limits,
age limits to holding office. Infact, in North Dakota they passed a
ballot measure to amend the state constitutionthat would say you cannot run for Congress
in North Dakota. If you willbe eighty one by the end of your

(24:56):
term, it's not much of anage 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 whohappens to be over the age limit.
You wouldn't be allowed to elect themto represent you. It's giving us
more choice, though it's making itless expensive to run for office, and

(25:22):
honest to God, that alone woulddo a lot to help this issue.
You're listening to Bill Handle on Demandfrom KFI AM six forty. We're used
to the idea that men control everythingbecause of the patriarchy, but in the
animal kingdom, there are many animalswhere it is the women who control everything,

(25:44):
and let's talk about some of them. Also parental advisory for this segment,
because there's some information about the bodiesof some of these animals that you
might not want to explain to yourchild. Let's start with the African savannah
elephant, which is the largest elephant. It's also the biggest land animal on

(26:07):
the planet. Women call the shots. They roll around in these groups.
Family units usually like ten adults andall 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

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we sleep? When will we sleep? I'm going to take everybody to the
food and the water. And bythe way, being able to know where
to go to get enough food andwater for hundreds of elephants has got to
be a high level skill, becauseapparently one of these elephants needs three hundred
pounds of vegetation and fifty gallons ofwater every day as they're so big.

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Spotted hyenas, here's where I willrepeat 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 youcan get up to like ninety one hundred
hyenas all in a group led bythe females. The females are not much

(27:25):
bigger than the male, although they'rea little bit bigger, but they're way
more aggressive. See, we thinkof men as being the aggressive sex,
and it's true in a lot ofcases, but in some cases it's flipped
and the females are very aggressive andthe 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

(27:55):
genitals that we would think of ofa female. They have something that called
scientifically a pseudo penis. Now it'sactually it's actually the cleatorus, but it's
so long and big that it lookslike a penis. And also they don't
have a vaginal opening, so ifyou're just looking at a hyena, you

(28:19):
can't tell if it's if it's aman or a lady hyena. By looking
there, you can't tell. Thisalso 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 happenis when they decide I will reproduce with

(28:41):
this guy, this pseudo penis retractsand it forms an opening, and then
and only then can you know whathappen. Thenobos one of our closest living
relatives, I think banobos and chimpanzeesand bonobos live in these big social groups.

(29:07):
There's dudes there, there's women there. But the banobo communities led by
the ladies. And there's a veryinteresting thing, another parental advisory. I
didn't intend for this to be thisway. It just is so the female's
lead. That also means the femalesresolve conflicts because you know, the bonobo's

(29:30):
fight any anybody food fight, Iwant to sleep here? No, I
want to sleep here. They goat it. And what happens in these
banobo's communities led by the females iswhen there's a conflict, uh, the
female leader or one of the femaleleaders will will engage in sexual contact with

(29:57):
the bonobos that were involved in theconflict. 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

(30:18):
let's just say, they touch theprivate parts together. They don't actually have
like sexual intercourse or anything, butthey do a little bit and apparently it
regulates stress in the binobos and itmakes it does make them calm down.
So there you go. Ladies canlead. All right, that was heavy
petting. We're gonna get some newsfrom Heather Brooker and then a lawsuit has

(30:42):
been filed here in California, abouta new tax on guns and bullets,
and I'll tell you what they're thepeople behind the lawsuit are saying, and
it's all part of guns in thenews. When we continue. 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.