November 26, 2024 • 26 mins
Why Jack Smith dropped his cases against Trump. Trump Tariffs: How his day 1 promise could complicate trade. This election’s ‘tough on crime’ message could spell disaster for California’s jails and juvenile halls. How Erik and Lyle Menendez spent their 34 years in prison.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty and good morning everybody. Bill Handle Here.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It is a Tuesday morning, November twenty six, and Neil
is out today Tomorrow. He's back Thursday the Thanksgiving show
that he does every year, filling in for me if
you will, six to nine. But it's his show where
he answers question to call in show and give you
(00:29):
tips on Thanksgiving cooking and eating. So that is this Thursday,
and then Friday. Filling in for me is Wayne Resnik,
and we're all back on Monday. And on Tuesday, we're
all at the Anaheim White House for Catarina's Club starting
at five am and at six am.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
The rest of the rest of us go aboard real
jew bagels at six.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Always very impressive, and pastries, coffee, et cetera starting at
five now. Yesterday a special council, Jack Smith, formally asked
that the criminal cases against Donald Trump be dismissed and
no surprise there so he dropped the twenty twenty election
(01:11):
subversion prosecution and the charges accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents,
and he stressed decisions not about the strength of his case.
He thinks Trump is still guilty, but his reasoning was
based on the Justice Department's long held belief the Constitution
prohibits prosecutions against sitting presidents. And by the way, even
(01:35):
if prosecutors had believed they could have kept the cases
on life support, which was never going to happen, the
President elect had already said he's got to fire Smith instantly,
and so the case is going to be dropped. Now
that usually that breaches the usual norms of a special
Council investigation. But then again, the current administration is following
(01:59):
the special norms, following procedure that the Justice Apartment has
the fire wall between a president and the DOJ.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Trump is blowing that wide open.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The Justice Apartment is simply going to be part of
the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
That's it. He'll be telling it what to do.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
There will be no separation, there will be absolutely no
firewall there.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So how did this happen?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, Trump's lawyers, who are very good, and clearly he
has the money to pay Trump's lawyers. The straw that
broke the Cammell's back was the slow walking courts. The
legal arguments, some of them are ridiculous by Trump's lawyers,
but still had to be heard and all of that.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It was delay that did it.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And the Supreme Court ruling in Trump's favor about immunity
for a sitting president if what he does is quote
as in a national as a national act by a
president president, and then we also have you what normally happens,
though it doesn't happen during a presidency.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Trump has said outright he is going to investigate.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Everybody who voted against him, who went as his prosecution,
straight out investigate. He said he will arrest those people
and he will put them in jail. And usually sitting
presidents don't say that. It's a very strange way of
doing it. And so the federal judge in Florida who
(03:34):
dismissed a lot of these federal cases is a woman
who's a Trump appointee. And I want to make something
very clear, is that he got this federal judge because
he pushed for it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And the judiciary allowed him to have it. That's not
the way it works.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How it works is there is a rotating panel and
it is by luck you get a judge or you
don't get a judge. And in federal court, depending on
who the judge, is you're gonna get nailed if you're
gonna have a hanging judge, or you're gonna have.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
A liberal judge.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Glorian for example, got the one judge that actually was
on his side when he argued that the federal government
set him up.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Why is that because this federal judge.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
As a kid, was in an internment camp during World
War Two as a Japanese American, he did not trust
the government a whole lot. So in the case of
this judge, and her name is.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I always forget.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I'm so horrible at names in any case, I'll come
up with it and start screaming at it. In just
a moment, she was so pro Trump, is so pro Trump,
that virtually every motion made before her by the Trump
team she granted.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And at the end of that process.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Where she was on Trump's side the whole time, she
dismissed the entire case. Judge Eileen Cannon is her name,
And it was simply the former president the new president
getting just the best draw the cards that he could.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So there's pure luck there in that case.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And in terms of Trump's position, you remember when he said.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
When he was running, I think the first time out.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I could stand on Broadway in New York high noon,
shoot someone and I would get acquitted.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know that's true. I am absolutely believing that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And there's going to be a presidency that is going
to be unlike any presidency we have ever seen.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And before we go, I want to ask Amy a
quick question.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Okay, because you're such a Disneyland fan, I'm digressing because how.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Unusual for this show.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
How much do you think it would cost to go
to Disneyland today if you looked at inflation from nineteen
fifty five when Disneyland opened till today, how much you
think would be the cost of actually going to Disneyland
if you adjust for inflation?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I have no idea eleven dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Now, granted, Disneyland is a very no, it's a very
different place. Yeah, and there's a twenty dollars twenty two
dollars minimum wage, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes, I'm not arguing that was a dollar minimum wage.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I'm not arguing that. All I'm all I'm doing is
asking that question. Okay, Okay, Disneyland.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
What year nineteen fifty five? Good? What month? Oh uh?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Where's Nick Poliochini When I need them?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I don't remember July. Oh, and it was super hot
and super hot. The pavement hadn't all the way that's right,
the asphalt people had said at Lottle heels, that's true.
Are you thinking into this cement? Who was it was televised.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I've done a whole history of that with ABC and
the connection. Do you know who the host was of
the of the televised broadcast?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Who was the host of artlind Cletter? Remember artlind Cletter?
I know the name. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
He was the most highly paid television star on television
at the time. Friends of Walt Disney. Walt Disney asked
him to host the television broadcast. He said, now you
can't afford me, you know, just.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I'll tell you what I'll do, Walt Disney, just give
me the concession for the Kodak booths selling the film
in Disneyland for ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Smart. He said, it was the best deal he ever
made in his life. There's a whole story there.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It's a fun story about the opening of Disneyland, which
now it's history.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I love history, as you know.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
All right, Day one tariffs are kicking in, according to
the President elect.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Who is is a group of people that are most
in favor of Donald Trump. We're going to get the
most nailed by Donald Trump. I'll explain that when we
come back. Bob Cummings also is there at Disneyland at
the opening. Who's Bob Cummings.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
He was a big television star. Oh at that time too.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, all these obscure people go figure, you know what
was Hitler's dog name?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Blondie? Blonde Blondie.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Okay, for those of you that don't care or think
I'm spending too much time or not looking into it,
you should because life is going to change dramatically under
a Trump presidency, because it has sort of been the
same both through Republican and through democratic administrations over the last.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Twenty thirty years.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
One of the things that the President lex said He's
going to impose tariffs on all products coming in the
United States from Canada, Mexico, and China his first day
in office.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What's that going to do is going to scramble supply chains.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's going to impose pretty heavy costs and companies that
were American companies that rely doing business with these economies.
On truth social he mentioned caravan of immigrants making his
way to the United States. He's done that before. And
he said that these tariffs that he is imposing will
(09:23):
remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular
fentanyl and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country.
So he's connecting the two and are they're not necessarily
connect the bull but there are some And in a
separate post, he threatened an additional ten percent on products
coming from China, although he has said one hundred percent.
(09:44):
We don't know it whether he's going to go one
way or the other. We know there's going to be tariffs,
so I think they're going to be tariffs. And this,
if you put them together, these threats, tariff threats, basically
an ultimatum against the three largest trading partner of the US,
and it's going to just create chaos and our diplomatic
(10:06):
economic relationships, probably even before it's already happening now before
January twentieth. The currencies of canaon Mexico are now sliding
against the dollar the Chinese embassy war.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
No one will win a trade war.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
There are some serious implications for American industry, auto manufacturers,
food packagers, particularly farmers, farmers are going to get nailed
because of the illegal alien situation.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Because the third of the farmers.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
According to a study done by the Wall Street Journal
and the New York Times, a third of the farm
workers are illegal migrants. Now, the people will own the farms.
Technically they're following the rules, but they're not. And it's
very easy to break the rules on that. And then
the argument's going to be who's going to pick the strawberries?
(11:05):
Right Conservatives say, well, it's Americans will pick the strawberries
because these illegal aliens are taking jobs. How many people
do you know pick strawberries or cabbage or oranges. I
don't know any even if it was twenty dollars an
hour would they do that. They won't work, and they
(11:27):
won't work at fast food chains, much less pick vegetables.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Off of the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Now, one of the things is that even during his administration,
prior Trump threatened tariffs and use them as a negotiating ploy.
And I want to say a word now about tariffs,
the threat of tariffs and dealing with foreign countries, particularly China.
Exports are more important to a country than imports. Balance
(12:00):
of trade, the healthier economy means that a company, a
country is exporting goods more than importing goods. We have
a balance of trade that is miserable. We have a
negative balance and have for years and years. And the
amount of money in terms of negative trade is it's
(12:23):
either three different levels insanely insane number. The second level
is a prohibitively punitive intergalactically number, and the third level
is gee.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I didn't even know we could do that number. And particularly.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
China, because they're not fair and previous presidents have rolled over.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's it. They've just rolled over with China.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
China exports to us in a huge way, far more
than they import. They have tariffs, they have rules, they
make it possible country for companies to do business there.
I mean, we have trade agreements that they breach constantly.
And the only president that we've had that will in
fact hold them to the fire, I think is Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Trump has balls that you have to give him.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Agree with him, don't agree with him, and I disagree
with him on so many issues. He's the only one
that had the guts to move the embassy in.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Israel to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since nineteen forty eight,
when it was declared a sovereign country when it said,
we are an independent country.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
This is our capital until Trump moved the capital to
Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, moved our embassy.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
No one else would do that. So we're in for
a ride. Farmers are going to get nailed. I'll tell
you that right now.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
They're going to end.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They're among the most supportive of the administration. They voted
in favor of Trump in massive numbers, overwhelmingly, and they're
they're gonna get nailed.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It's that simple. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I'm going to follow up on this one big time
and again I'm going to reiterate. If you think I'm
spending too much time on talking about what's happening or
what's going to happen during the Trump administration, mark my words.
It is going to affect us deeply across the board
in a way that I don't believe a president a
presidency has affected us. Okay, fair enough, Now, we passed
(14:42):
Prop thirty six overwhelmingly this past election, like seventy percent.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What Prop thirty six do?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It undid a lot of Prop forty seven, which we
pass to reduce the penalties for misdemeanor crimes or felony crimes,
especially in the shoplifting world, down to misdemeanors. And now
what that was during the movement of the anti police
movement that defund the police movement. Well those days are
(15:09):
gone and that's just dead as a doornail. Now we're
going the other way. Now we want to nail people
we don't like, criminals. And instead of blaming the police
and the courts, you know what, we're blaming criminals for
criminal acts. What a shocker, How novel is that? Well,
the problem is if we're making what used to be
(15:29):
felonies misdemeanors and bringing back to felonies, that means jail time.
And the problem with jails in La County is that
they suck.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Over crowding like crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Not enough money you spent. Doesn't really even matter how
much money you spent. Men's Central Jail has to be
torn up billions of dollars and you even have, for examples,
the Juvenile Hall, the largest juvenile facility that has to close.
And all of that is going to cost tons of money.
(16:06):
Peter Eliasburg, who is Chief Counsel of the Aslo of
Southern California, who was involved in filing a lawsuit against
the county, of which was settled, said, anyone who goes
into jails now, particularly men central, would be appalled to
the conditions. And if you add more crowding, that becomes crazy.
(16:27):
And he is effectively saying, you don't want what you
wish for what you want, you don't want.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Does that make sense, No, of course not.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
What Prop thirty six did was effectively, we make certain
crimes well more serious. That means more jail time. Adding
thousands of inmates to state prisons and county jails would
slow down the system, not only the case resolution but
trials court systems slow it down and actually cut available
(17:02):
funds for mental health and drug treatment and victim services
by the tens of millions of dollars every year. And
part of Prop thirty six was to increase money for
those services. The new DA is looking at them. He
has not said anything, and that's Nathan Hawkman. He doesn't
know how he's gonna deal with the new increases and
(17:27):
what is now considered serious crimes which used to be
and then was, and then did not and now is again.
How do you describes himself? Is he a conservative who
wants to punish inmate.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Who wants to punish bad guys?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Is he a liberal who thinks that there's no such
thing as a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's our fault.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's society's fault that creates bad people, that creates criminals.
He talks to himself. He described himself as having a.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Hard middle approach.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Doesn't like one, doesn't like the other, doesn't believe in
MOUs incarceration or dcarceration.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And his pledge is to ensure.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That LA Counties jails and juvenile halls are safe, constitutional, rehabilitative.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
They're not. They are not safe, they're not.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Constitutional according to a federal judge or two that has
ordered them to change. And they're certainly not rehabilia to
how does that pronounce rehabilitative?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Rehabilitative?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Very good with words, and he paraphrased the quote, which
was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You don't even usually hear a politicians say this.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
He quoted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky Russian novelists right Warren piece
who said you can judge the quality of a civilization
by the quality of its jails and prisons. Dan Hawkman said,
under that Lens La County has failed, and it has
(19:10):
so we don't know the outcome yet are we willing
to pay the.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Price which is very expensive to keep people in prison?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
If the United States has more prisoners than any country
in the world, both in terms of number and per capita.
Now China would have more prisoners, but they just kill people.
You get a traffic ticket in China, they either shoot
you by the side of the road or they shoot
you in jail. So other countries, well, you go to
(19:43):
Scandinavian countries, virtually no crime.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Certainly there are no.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Gun crime because we're the only country of the world,
that civilized country, that is first world country.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
We're just different that has gun ownership. We're just very different.
That's all. The problem is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
We have a huge number of criminals, more so per
capita than other countries, and more people in jail. And
under Prop thirty six, we're gonna have even more people
in jail.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
All right, yesterday, big news in the world of the
Menendez brothers.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
By the way, this story is being covered internationally all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's what internationally means.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I think, see, I gotta tell you, you listen to me,
you get the scoop It is a story of the
two brothers killing their parents and me, just as I said,
And it's a southern California story, so you could imagine
how it engaged. We are here and they were convicted
(20:49):
of killing mom and dad and sentenced to life imprisonment
without possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
This was thirty five years ago. There were two trials.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
First of when we had a hungary and a lot
of evidence was presented about the father raping Lyle.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I mean, sexual abuse of this kid.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Unbelievable, And the jury hung on this second trial and
the judge didn't let that information in, didn't let that
evidence in, so it was an easy conviction for the jury.
So here we are thirty five years later, and the
family members of the menandez brothers, I mean virtually all
(21:28):
of them are pleading with the court, pleading with the
judge to re sentence the brothers. Re sentencing them means
that they're walking out the door because they get credit
for time served. Also, the governor is being asked for clemency.
(21:49):
You know who asked them for clemency, George Gascon and others.
It's almost universal, all of us, and I put myself
in that category. Are on their side. One family members
against it, uncle and some prosecutors, but the rest of
(22:10):
the people out there, and if they took a poll,
it would be absolutely overwhelming. So we know what happened,
we know what's going on now legally. But I want
to share with you what these two have done in
their thirty five years in prison, not just model prisoners,
(22:30):
which means no disciplinary action, but have set up programs
to help other prisoners, and I mean a big, big way,
and not for publicity, not sake, not for the argument
that they should be resentenced, because they simply did this
to make their lives mean something. Lyle earned a BA
(22:55):
degree in sociology from UC Irvine this year, working on
his Masters and urban development. Eric is going to graduate
from UC Irvine with a degree in sociology this fall.
And one of the prisoners who we only have the
name Abro, said Eric gave me a sense of purpose.
By the way, Abro was sentenced to life without possibility
(23:16):
of parole. And what Abro said is that Eric gave him,
or Lyle gave.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Him a sense of purpose and was a mentor to me.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He and Lyle began a rehabilitation through the beautification project inmates,
worked on upgrades for the prison, creating green spaces, painting
a huge mural. Both of them have been involved in
setting up programs that simply help prisoners, even to the
point where not only did the prisoners admire them, but
(23:51):
the prison guards themselves think that these two should be released.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And why is it so different now? What has changed?
A couple things.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
First of all, a lot of publicity talking about the
kind of sexual assaults that happened upon Lyle during the
course of growing up by his father. That's one TV movie,
a few documentaries there's that, and we look at sexual
abuse in a very different way. During the second trial,
(24:31):
I mean, Lyle still testified as to what his dad
did to him. The problem is there was no corroboration
during the first trial. There are all kinds of corroboration.
People talked about it, they knew about it, but it
was all secondhand stuff and it was the judge simply
wouldn't let that in a trial, so he talked about
(24:52):
it in the second trial about the abuse. One of
the prosecutors has set out, right, there's this thing.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Is maile rape. It doesn't exist. Maile rape is just
not a thing. It's being made up. We know very
differently today.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
So if I had to guess, I think they are
going to be re sentenced, I think at the end
of January. And by the way, why did the judge
say we're going to wait till the end of January?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Two reasons.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
First of all, he has to look at the documents,
and there's boxes of documents. Also, he wants to know
what Nathan Hockman is going to say the new DA
coming in, because the Prosecutor's office have a lot of
say this and they'll make the motion. And Governor Newsom,
(25:38):
the gutless wonder that he is, won't grant clemency. He's
kicking it over to Hawkman and say and says, you guys,
deal with this, because he's not going to take the
political hit for giving clemency. So when you look at
these two, they were separated. I mean, these guys are
(25:58):
as close as brothers can be. They were separated for
thirty years, they couldn't see each other, and then in
San Diego a few years ago they were put together
in the same prison.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So at least that he could be together. It's been
brutal for them by the way they did commit murder.
They admitted that.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Their argument is it was self defense because we are
so afraid of what Dad was doing that we had
no choice. Unfortunately for them, after the murder, they took
the money from the estate and spent it on rolexes
and cars, and that didn't bode well.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Didn't bode well at all.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
So the ongoing story, all right, KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty and good morning everybody. Bill Handle Here.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It is a Tuesday morning, November twenty six, and Neil
is out today Tomorrow. He's back Thursday the Thanksgiving show
that he does every year, filling in for me if
you will, six to nine. But it's his show where
he answers question to call in show and give you
(00:29):
tips on Thanksgiving cooking and eating. So that is this Thursday,
and then Friday. Filling in for me is Wayne Resnik,
and we're all back on Monday. And on Tuesday, we're
all at the Anaheim White House for Catarina's Club starting
at five am and at six am.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
The rest of the rest of us go aboard real
jew bagels at six.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Always very impressive, and pastries, coffee, et cetera starting at
five now. Yesterday a special council, Jack Smith, formally asked
that the criminal cases against Donald Trump be dismissed and
no surprise there so he dropped the twenty twenty election
(01:11):
subversion prosecution and the charges accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents,
and he stressed decisions not about the strength of his case.
He thinks Trump is still guilty, but his reasoning was
based on the Justice Department's long held belief the Constitution
prohibits prosecutions against sitting presidents. And by the way, even
(01:35):
if prosecutors had believed they could have kept the cases
on life support, which was never going to happen, the
President elect had already said he's got to fire Smith instantly,
and so the case is going to be dropped. Now
that usually that breaches the usual norms of a special
Council investigation. But then again, the current administration is following
(01:59):
the special norms, following procedure that the Justice Apartment has
the fire wall between a president and the DOJ.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Trump is blowing that wide open.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The Justice Apartment is simply going to be part of
the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
That's it. He'll be telling it what to do.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
There will be no separation, there will be absolutely no
firewall there.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So how did this happen?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, Trump's lawyers, who are very good, and clearly he
has the money to pay Trump's lawyers. The straw that
broke the Cammell's back was the slow walking courts. The
legal arguments, some of them are ridiculous by Trump's lawyers,
but still had to be heard and all of that.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
It was delay that did it.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And the Supreme Court ruling in Trump's favor about immunity
for a sitting president if what he does is quote
as in a national as a national act by a
president president, and then we also have you what normally happens,
though it doesn't happen during a presidency.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Trump has said outright he is going to investigate.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Everybody who voted against him, who went as his prosecution,
straight out investigate. He said he will arrest those people
and he will put them in jail. And usually sitting
presidents don't say that. It's a very strange way of
doing it. And so the federal judge in Florida who
(03:34):
dismissed a lot of these federal cases is a woman
who's a Trump appointee. And I want to make something
very clear, is that he got this federal judge because
he pushed for it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And the judiciary allowed him to have it. That's not
the way it works.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How it works is there is a rotating panel and
it is by luck you get a judge or you
don't get a judge. And in federal court, depending on
who the judge, is you're gonna get nailed if you're
gonna have a hanging judge, or you're gonna have.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
A liberal judge.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Glorian for example, got the one judge that actually was
on his side when he argued that the federal government
set him up.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Why is that because this federal judge.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
As a kid, was in an internment camp during World
War Two as a Japanese American, he did not trust
the government a whole lot. So in the case of
this judge, and her name is.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I always forget.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I'm so horrible at names in any case, I'll come
up with it and start screaming at it. In just
a moment, she was so pro Trump, is so pro Trump,
that virtually every motion made before her by the Trump
team she granted.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And at the end of that process.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Where she was on Trump's side the whole time, she
dismissed the entire case. Judge Eileen Cannon is her name,
And it was simply the former president the new president
getting just the best draw the cards that he could.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So there's pure luck there in that case.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
And in terms of Trump's position, you remember when he said.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
When he was running, I think the first time out.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I could stand on Broadway in New York high noon,
shoot someone and I would get acquitted.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know that's true. I am absolutely believing that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And there's going to be a presidency that is going
to be unlike any presidency we have ever seen.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And before we go, I want to ask Amy a
quick question.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Okay, because you're such a Disneyland fan, I'm digressing because how.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Unusual for this show.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
How much do you think it would cost to go
to Disneyland today if you looked at inflation from nineteen
fifty five when Disneyland opened till today, how much you
think would be the cost of actually going to Disneyland
if you adjust for inflation?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I have no idea eleven dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Now, granted, Disneyland is a very no, it's a very
different place. Yeah, and there's a twenty dollars twenty two
dollars minimum wage, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes, I'm not arguing that was a dollar minimum wage.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I'm not arguing that. All I'm all I'm doing is
asking that question. Okay, Okay, Disneyland.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
What year nineteen fifty five? Good? What month? Oh uh?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Where's Nick Poliochini When I need them?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I don't remember July. Oh, and it was super hot
and super hot. The pavement hadn't all the way that's right,
the asphalt people had said at Lottle heels, that's true.
Are you thinking into this cement? Who was it was televised.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I've done a whole history of that with ABC and
the connection. Do you know who the host was of
the of the televised broadcast?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Who was the host of artlind Cletter? Remember artlind Cletter?
I know the name. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
He was the most highly paid television star on television
at the time. Friends of Walt Disney. Walt Disney asked
him to host the television broadcast. He said, now you
can't afford me, you know, just.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I'll tell you what I'll do, Walt Disney, just give
me the concession for the Kodak booths selling the film
in Disneyland for ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Smart. He said, it was the best deal he ever
made in his life. There's a whole story there.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It's a fun story about the opening of Disneyland, which
now it's history.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I love history, as you know.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
All right, Day one tariffs are kicking in, according to
the President elect.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Who is is a group of people that are most
in favor of Donald Trump. We're going to get the
most nailed by Donald Trump. I'll explain that when we
come back. Bob Cummings also is there at Disneyland at
the opening. Who's Bob Cummings.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
He was a big television star. Oh at that time too.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, all these obscure people go figure, you know what
was Hitler's dog name?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Blondie? Blonde Blondie.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Okay, for those of you that don't care or think
I'm spending too much time or not looking into it,
you should because life is going to change dramatically under
a Trump presidency, because it has sort of been the
same both through Republican and through democratic administrations over the last.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Twenty thirty years.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
One of the things that the President lex said He's
going to impose tariffs on all products coming in the
United States from Canada, Mexico, and China his first day
in office.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What's that going to do is going to scramble supply chains.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It's going to impose pretty heavy costs and companies that
were American companies that rely doing business with these economies.
On truth social he mentioned caravan of immigrants making his
way to the United States. He's done that before. And
he said that these tariffs that he is imposing will
(09:23):
remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular
fentanyl and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country.
So he's connecting the two and are they're not necessarily
connect the bull but there are some And in a
separate post, he threatened an additional ten percent on products
coming from China, although he has said one hundred percent.
(09:44):
We don't know it whether he's going to go one
way or the other. We know there's going to be tariffs,
so I think they're going to be tariffs. And this,
if you put them together, these threats, tariff threats, basically
an ultimatum against the three largest trading partner of the US,
and it's going to just create chaos and our diplomatic
(10:06):
economic relationships, probably even before it's already happening now before
January twentieth. The currencies of canaon Mexico are now sliding
against the dollar the Chinese embassy war.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
No one will win a trade war.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
There are some serious implications for American industry, auto manufacturers,
food packagers, particularly farmers, farmers are going to get nailed
because of the illegal alien situation.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Because the third of the farmers.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
According to a study done by the Wall Street Journal
and the New York Times, a third of the farm
workers are illegal migrants. Now, the people will own the farms.
Technically they're following the rules, but they're not. And it's
very easy to break the rules on that. And then
the argument's going to be who's going to pick the strawberries?
(11:05):
Right Conservatives say, well, it's Americans will pick the strawberries
because these illegal aliens are taking jobs. How many people
do you know pick strawberries or cabbage or oranges. I
don't know any even if it was twenty dollars an
hour would they do that. They won't work, and they
(11:27):
won't work at fast food chains, much less pick vegetables.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Off of the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Now, one of the things is that even during his administration,
prior Trump threatened tariffs and use them as a negotiating ploy.
And I want to say a word now about tariffs,
the threat of tariffs and dealing with foreign countries, particularly China.
Exports are more important to a country than imports. Balance
(12:00):
of trade, the healthier economy means that a company, a
country is exporting goods more than importing goods. We have
a balance of trade that is miserable. We have a
negative balance and have for years and years. And the
amount of money in terms of negative trade is it's
(12:23):
either three different levels insanely insane number. The second level
is a prohibitively punitive intergalactically number, and the third level
is gee.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I didn't even know we could do that number. And particularly.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
China, because they're not fair and previous presidents have rolled over.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's it. They've just rolled over with China.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
China exports to us in a huge way, far more
than they import. They have tariffs, they have rules, they
make it possible country for companies to do business there.
I mean, we have trade agreements that they breach constantly.
And the only president that we've had that will in
fact hold them to the fire, I think is Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Trump has balls that you have to give him.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Agree with him, don't agree with him, and I disagree
with him on so many issues. He's the only one
that had the guts to move the embassy in.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Israel to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since nineteen forty eight,
when it was declared a sovereign country when it said,
we are an independent country.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
This is our capital until Trump moved the capital to
Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, moved our embassy.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
No one else would do that. So we're in for
a ride. Farmers are going to get nailed. I'll tell
you that right now.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
They're going to end.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They're among the most supportive of the administration. They voted
in favor of Trump in massive numbers, overwhelmingly, and they're
they're gonna get nailed.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
It's that simple. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I'm going to follow up on this one big time
and again I'm going to reiterate. If you think I'm
spending too much time on talking about what's happening or
what's going to happen during the Trump administration, mark my words.
It is going to affect us deeply across the board
in a way that I don't believe a president a
presidency has affected us. Okay, fair enough, Now, we passed
(14:42):
Prop thirty six overwhelmingly this past election, like seventy percent.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What Prop thirty six do?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
It undid a lot of Prop forty seven, which we
pass to reduce the penalties for misdemeanor crimes or felony crimes,
especially in the shoplifting world, down to misdemeanors. And now
what that was during the movement of the anti police
movement that defund the police movement. Well those days are
(15:09):
gone and that's just dead as a doornail. Now we're
going the other way. Now we want to nail people
we don't like, criminals. And instead of blaming the police
and the courts, you know what, we're blaming criminals for
criminal acts. What a shocker, How novel is that? Well,
the problem is if we're making what used to be
(15:29):
felonies misdemeanors and bringing back to felonies, that means jail time.
And the problem with jails in La County is that
they suck.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Over crowding like crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Not enough money you spent. Doesn't really even matter how
much money you spent. Men's Central Jail has to be
torn up billions of dollars and you even have, for examples,
the Juvenile Hall, the largest juvenile facility that has to close.
And all of that is going to cost tons of money.
(16:06):
Peter Eliasburg, who is Chief Counsel of the Aslo of
Southern California, who was involved in filing a lawsuit against
the county, of which was settled, said, anyone who goes
into jails now, particularly men central, would be appalled to
the conditions. And if you add more crowding, that becomes crazy.
(16:27):
And he is effectively saying, you don't want what you
wish for what you want, you don't want.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Does that make sense, No, of course not.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
What Prop thirty six did was effectively, we make certain
crimes well more serious. That means more jail time. Adding
thousands of inmates to state prisons and county jails would
slow down the system, not only the case resolution but
trials court systems slow it down and actually cut available
(17:02):
funds for mental health and drug treatment and victim services
by the tens of millions of dollars every year. And
part of Prop thirty six was to increase money for
those services. The new DA is looking at them. He
has not said anything, and that's Nathan Hawkman. He doesn't
know how he's gonna deal with the new increases and
(17:27):
what is now considered serious crimes which used to be
and then was, and then did not and now is again.
How do you describes himself? Is he a conservative who
wants to punish inmate.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Who wants to punish bad guys?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Is he a liberal who thinks that there's no such
thing as a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's our fault.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's society's fault that creates bad people, that creates criminals.
He talks to himself. He described himself as having a.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Hard middle approach.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Doesn't like one, doesn't like the other, doesn't believe in
MOUs incarceration or dcarceration.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And his pledge is to ensure.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
That LA Counties jails and juvenile halls are safe, constitutional, rehabilitative.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
They're not. They are not safe, they're not.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Constitutional according to a federal judge or two that has
ordered them to change. And they're certainly not rehabilia to
how does that pronounce rehabilitative?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Rehabilitative?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Very good with words, and he paraphrased the quote, which
was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You don't even usually hear a politicians say this.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
He quoted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky Russian novelists right Warren piece
who said you can judge the quality of a civilization
by the quality of its jails and prisons. Dan Hawkman said,
under that Lens La County has failed, and it has
(19:10):
so we don't know the outcome yet are we willing
to pay the.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Price which is very expensive to keep people in prison?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
If the United States has more prisoners than any country
in the world, both in terms of number and per capita.
Now China would have more prisoners, but they just kill people.
You get a traffic ticket in China, they either shoot
you by the side of the road or they shoot
you in jail. So other countries, well, you go to
(19:43):
Scandinavian countries, virtually no crime.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Certainly there are no.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Gun crime because we're the only country of the world,
that civilized country, that is first world country.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
We're just different that has gun ownership. We're just very different.
That's all. The problem is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
We have a huge number of criminals, more so per
capita than other countries, and more people in jail. And
under Prop thirty six, we're gonna have even more people
in jail.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
All right, yesterday, big news in the world of the
Menendez brothers.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
By the way, this story is being covered internationally all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
That's what internationally means.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I think, see, I gotta tell you, you listen to me,
you get the scoop It is a story of the
two brothers killing their parents and me, just as I said,
And it's a southern California story, so you could imagine
how it engaged. We are here and they were convicted
(20:49):
of killing mom and dad and sentenced to life imprisonment
without possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
This was thirty five years ago. There were two trials.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
First of when we had a hungary and a lot
of evidence was presented about the father raping Lyle.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I mean, sexual abuse of this kid.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Unbelievable, And the jury hung on this second trial and
the judge didn't let that information in, didn't let that
evidence in, so it was an easy conviction for the jury.
So here we are thirty five years later, and the
family members of the menandez brothers, I mean virtually all
(21:28):
of them are pleading with the court, pleading with the
judge to re sentence the brothers. Re sentencing them means
that they're walking out the door because they get credit
for time served. Also, the governor is being asked for clemency.
(21:49):
You know who asked them for clemency, George Gascon and others.
It's almost universal, all of us, and I put myself
in that category. Are on their side. One family members
against it, uncle and some prosecutors, but the rest of
(22:10):
the people out there, and if they took a poll,
it would be absolutely overwhelming. So we know what happened,
we know what's going on now legally. But I want
to share with you what these two have done in
their thirty five years in prison, not just model prisoners,
(22:30):
which means no disciplinary action, but have set up programs
to help other prisoners, and I mean a big, big way,
and not for publicity, not sake, not for the argument
that they should be resentenced, because they simply did this
to make their lives mean something. Lyle earned a BA
(22:55):
degree in sociology from UC Irvine this year, working on
his Masters and urban development. Eric is going to graduate
from UC Irvine with a degree in sociology this fall.
And one of the prisoners who we only have the
name Abro, said Eric gave me a sense of purpose.
By the way, Abro was sentenced to life without possibility
(23:16):
of parole. And what Abro said is that Eric gave him,
or Lyle gave.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Him a sense of purpose and was a mentor to me.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He and Lyle began a rehabilitation through the beautification project inmates,
worked on upgrades for the prison, creating green spaces, painting
a huge mural. Both of them have been involved in
setting up programs that simply help prisoners, even to the
point where not only did the prisoners admire them, but
(23:51):
the prison guards themselves think that these two should be released.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And why is it so different now? What has changed?
A couple things.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
First of all, a lot of publicity talking about the
kind of sexual assaults that happened upon Lyle during the
course of growing up by his father. That's one TV movie,
a few documentaries there's that, and we look at sexual
abuse in a very different way. During the second trial,
(24:31):
I mean, Lyle still testified as to what his dad
did to him. The problem is there was no corroboration
during the first trial. There are all kinds of corroboration.
People talked about it, they knew about it, but it
was all secondhand stuff and it was the judge simply
wouldn't let that in a trial, so he talked about
(24:52):
it in the second trial about the abuse. One of
the prosecutors has set out, right, there's this thing.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Is maile rape. It doesn't exist. Maile rape is just
not a thing. It's being made up. We know very
differently today.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
So if I had to guess, I think they are
going to be re sentenced, I think at the end
of January. And by the way, why did the judge
say we're going to wait till the end of January?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Two reasons.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
First of all, he has to look at the documents,
and there's boxes of documents. Also, he wants to know
what Nathan Hockman is going to say the new DA
coming in, because the Prosecutor's office have a lot of
say this and they'll make the motion. And Governor Newsom,
(25:38):
the gutless wonder that he is, won't grant clemency. He's
kicking it over to Hawkman and say and says, you guys,
deal with this, because he's not going to take the
political hit for giving clemency. So when you look at
these two, they were separated. I mean, these guys are
(25:58):
as close as brothers can be. They were separated for
thirty years, they couldn't see each other, and then in
San Diego a few years ago they were put together
in the same prison.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So at least that he could be together. It's been
brutal for them by the way they did commit murder.
They admitted that.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Their argument is it was self defense because we are
so afraid of what Dad was doing that we had
no choice. Unfortunately for them, after the murder, they took
the money from the estate and spent it on rolexes
and cars, and that didn't bode well.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Didn't bode well at all.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
So the ongoing story, all right, KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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