December 23, 2024 • 27 mins
Congress avoids a holiday shutdown; the winners and losers. They banned Elf on a Shelf from their homes… then came the questions. L.A. City officials use disappearing Google chats… now the City Attorney is investigating. The tourist attractions around the world you won’t see in 2025.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI. I Handle here. It is a Monday morning,
de number twenty three. What do we have? What thirty
seven days left before the new administration comes in, and
(00:21):
we are looking for some big changes, not only with
President Musk in charge, but also Vice President Trump. It's
going to be a fascinating, fascinating new administration. By the way,
did you read Trump already came out and said I
am in charge, not Musk. I make the decisions. How
(00:41):
long do you think Musk is going to last? Are
you asking me in general? In general? Yeah, I'm asking
all of you. How long do you think Musk is
going to last? In his influence, his position of power,
his public persona relative to the administration.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, we know from experience that President Trump's feelings towards
someone can change rather quickly and quite intensely. I don't
know that he's ever dealt with someone who is just
as important.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So this is going to be a clash of the titans.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Whenever it happens, I know Trump's going to win it
because he's the president and he can just shut down
Musk and Musk only has X to deal with. Of course,
must can always buy the United States, but that he's
buying a losing proposition business wise. Now here's what's going on.
And I want to take you back a little bit
in history that prior to the election of Joe Biden,
(01:40):
when Trump was running for his second term, he was
and the Republicans were pushing, pushing like crazy for reform
on the border. We want some reform. We have to
shut down the border. We have to have some security.
And under Biden it was open arms, it really was.
He just didn't do enough. The last few months. He decided, whoops,
(02:04):
I'm going to be running. I'm pretty cynical here. I'm
going to be running. Therefore, let's sit down and talk
about a border deal. So they knocked out a border deal.
I mean, Republicans, Democrats, bipartisans sat down and came up
with a much much more better border deal. It had
passed Congress, or was about to pass Congress, and Trump
(02:27):
stopped it. He shut it down, And the question was why,
And he made it very clear, I want this to
be part of my campaigning. I want to say that
under the Biden administration, there was no security and I'm
going to make that argument, so I can't have a
deal in Congress. I mean he actually said that. So now,
the same thing happened with this debt ceiling. Where what's
(02:50):
round is square, square is round. So the Republicans have
always argued, we don't want the debts to be increased, increased, increased,
because that just means deficit spending, deficit spending. Now it's
gone the other way. Trump, in fact, is demanding a
(03:11):
premature increase, so when he comes, the increase will already
have happened and he can attack it and say this
was Biden on Biden's watch. And it's really weird when
you think about it. First, the whole concept of deficit
spending and debt ceiling. Now the Congress has to vote
(03:32):
debt ceiling. It has to allow itself to borrow more money.
That's the law. And that came in after World War
One when it just cost a fortune to run the
war and they were selling liberty bonds. Liberty bonds is
borrowing money and Congress has to allow itself to do so,
that's the law. Well, a lot of economists are saying,
(03:53):
wait a minute, why do we even bother? Why do
we have to say, okay, we have to borrow money.
Our deficits are in saying they're gonna be two trillion
dollars this year alone. I mean, can you imagine remember
when deficits were three four hundred billion and it was
like that exploded the national debt. Obama comes into power,
(04:16):
comes into the presidency with a twenty trillion dollar deficit
or national debt twenty trillion dollars. It is thirty four trillion. Now,
it's beyond comprehension. And I have said for years and
years saying, wait a minute, you know this is unsustainable.
You can only keep on borrowing more money than you spend.
(04:39):
You can't keep on doing that forever. Well I've changed
my mind. You can do it forever. That's it. There's
no limit now, you and I. You know, let's say
you know your family income is one hundred thousand dollars
a year of both of you working, all right, So
you spend one hundred and twenty five thousand, and then
next year you're still making one hundred you spend one
hundred and seventy five thousand. Then you spend two hundred
(05:01):
and fifty thousand dollars because of course you're borrowing the
rest it used to be. At some point it all
collapses on you. Nope, not with a federal government. Did
you know that states can go bankrupt, States can actually
file for bankruptcy under the bankruptcy law of the United States.
Federal government can't. We've already Orange County went bankrupt. I
(05:21):
mean the County of Orange went bankrupt twenty something years ago.
Utility up in Washington, whoops, Washington something whatever utility program
they went broke. Federal government doesn't go broke. So this
was a political football, and it was Mike Johnson, the Speaker,
(05:42):
who finally cut the deal to increase the debt ceiling
and to keep the government going. Because what happens is,
we talked about this, the shutdown. If Congress does not
give itself its permission, you have Republicans and Democrats fighting
each other. Usually Republicans don't want to increase the debt
(06:05):
sealing Democrats due and this one is completely turned around,
is completely crazy. What happens is people don't get paid anymore.
Federal workers don't get paid now. By law, certain Social
Security is still get your checks, the military still gets
their checks. That's law. But the reality is that what
if there's no money to pay for it? And that's
what happens when you have the increase the national debt,
(06:29):
you borrow more and more and more money. So we'll
see what happens is going to be fascinating. By the way,
Trump is also called even though he's asking for an
increase now, he's also called for abolishing it. And a
lot of people do say it should be abolished. Why
do if we're going into debt, why do we have
to allow our why do we have to vote to
(06:50):
go into debt? And there's the argument, we just go
into debt, more and more debt, and it doesn't stop.
Doesn't stop. By the way, the last two times when
the government really went into debt, Civil War the government
went into insane debt, but that was paid off, and
then World War One that started the deficit spending. Two
(07:10):
times in modern history where the budget was balanced, forget
about going to doubt, I mean just balanced, right. The
income was the outgo was the same as the income,
once during the Bill Clinton years when the economy was
on fire, and then once since World War Two during
one year of the Eisenhower administration. After that, it has
(07:34):
gone crazier and crazier and crazier. Okay, by the way,
that makes sense, because it didn't to me. We follow, okay,
thank you? That makes This is why, this is why
I do what I do, Because I try to explain
even stuff that I had no idea what I'm talking about.
It all works out. Just say it with a lot
(07:56):
of verb, verb, and sound like you know you're talking
about and network. So okay, in any case, I want
to do a story that's kind of fun, and that's
the story of Elf on the Shelf. And what has
happened to the concept of Elf on the shelf. It
has screwed up kids so badly that psychologists are spinning
(08:19):
and kids are scared to death. So the concept of
Elf on the shelf. Actually it's become a holiday fixture
since two thousand and five. It was a picture book
called the Elf on the Shelf, a Christmas tradition came
out and it was meant to keep an eye on
your kid's behavior before Santa comes to town. You know
(08:39):
who's naughty, who's nice sort of thing. So how do
Santa know? Because you know, I remember as a kid, well,
as a kid, I grew up in a Jewish home.
There wasn't a lot of Santa there. But what happens?
How does Santa know that you are nice? All you
know is you have the list. Well, I'll tell you
how Santa knows, and that is that elf on the
(09:01):
shelf tell Santa. And by the way, that elf on
a shelf just doesn't hang there because here's the tradition.
You put the elf on a shelf in different places
every day or every night before Christmas, and that becomes
the game. Except it becomes a game where the kids
are scared to death, especially those that believe in Santa Claus.
(09:25):
My kids did, and they were sort of like their
mid twenties. They believe in Santa Claus and they don't
want to be stuck on that knotty list. Well, let
me tell you what's going on. First of all, kids
are getting really screwed up on this. They're not happy,
especially when they have no idea. I mean, there's no
(09:45):
place for them to hide. It's basically a big brother,
the elf on the shelf always looking at you, always
figuring out what you're doing. You don't even know where
the elf on the shelf is. You have to find it.
And what parents doing hiding these elves on the shelves,
because that's become the big thing is every night it's
(10:06):
a different place and kids get to either figure out
or they're told. So it's now not only become a tradition,
it's become a sort of a social media challenge. You
have people that are hiding these elves and going on
TikTok or going on YouTube and showing the world Instagram
(10:31):
showing the world where they're hiding those elves on shelves.
And let me tell you with what's going on with
psychologists and people who deal with kids, this is not
going well in many cases because parents are creating these
elaborate scenarios for their elves and sharing all of this
(10:56):
on social media. Now there's a new crop of parents
who are saying, hang on a minute, you know, we
don't want to get trapped in this holiday routine because,
I mean, it can get really bad. There was an interview,
i mean an article done in the Wall Street Journal
where they interviewed parents and some of them and this
was on social media. What you do is you get
(11:18):
rid of them. You have to explain the kids why
there's no elves on shelves anymore, Well, because it's only
for the bad families, or then it just gets wonderful.
We wanted our cats at home not to get eaten,
and the elves on a shelf, that's how dangerous they
can become. So that's like telling can you imagine basically
(11:41):
somehow Santa Claus then becomes this evil purveyor of social justice.
So there's a story about who's interviewed this, Lasanne Skinner,
and she presented this scenario for her kids. Her son asked,
why don't we have an elf on a shelf because
we used to have it? And first thought that came
(12:04):
to her head is she's thinking why And people do
this all the time, to think why why don't we
have the elf on the shelf anymore? Because it turns
out not a good idea, But the kids who've had
it for years wonder why not. Well, she came up
with her cats, and the cats might make the elf
their next target and the elf might get eaten. So
(12:29):
at this point the kids in home were all in
agreement it's best that the elves shouldn't be at home
because they they're going to be killed by the cats.
Twenty one million of these elves have been sold since
two thousand and five, and now what's being described as
a Klaus couture. You have pets for the elves. I
(12:50):
mean you actually can buy pets for your shelf on
the elf. There's a float in the Thanksgiving Day parade
they've had since nineteen twelve. There was a stage musical
in twenty nineteen, and there's an app that offers parents
ideas of where to hide their elves at home and
(13:12):
can set reminders for when to move them. One of
the ideas is to put it in the bathroom. Put
one of these elves sorted in the corner of a
bathroom so your kids don't notice. Now, let me ask
you this. You are six years old and you're going
to the bathroom and you find out there's someone looking
at you, a little elf up in the corner. You
(13:33):
think that's worth a few years of therapy. You think,
next time your kid goes into a restroom, either public
or private, looks around. What's going on? I'm looking for
the elf. Why don't they call them elves instead of elves?
(13:54):
I thought they were elves, weren't they? But this is
elf on a shelf. I love this stuff. I love
it when totally benign, wonderful traditions turn out to be
not only dangerous, but it screws up kids for thirty years. Okay,
(14:15):
that's why I got it. We didn't celebrate Christmas, but
my parents did put little Nazis on the mantle and
I just did doban. That was a mess for me
for decades and decades. All right, now I want to
do a story about you. There's an La Time story
and it has to do with La City Attorney's office
conducting an internal review of what of city department city
(14:40):
employees using Google Chat messages that are automatically deleted after
twenty four hours. This started in twenty twenty three when
a house was going to be built in the hills
Mount Washington, and there had to be a hearing, and
the coalition that is fighting this, the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition,
(15:05):
which tried to stop the building of this claimed that
the suit has filed saying that their appeal of the
construction project because a project was in fact granted, and
the coalition said, no, you can't because of all of
these circumstances involved in putting this hill on a hillside,
(15:26):
the home on a hillside and then city city and
planning and everything. I mean, in general, it's not easy
to build in the City of Los Angeles. Well, the
appeals didn't get a fair hearing. Why because closed door
meetings and confidential reports circulating among city employees, including council members,
position on these projects what their position is prior to
(15:52):
a public hearing. And here's the problem, big deal. So
messages turn around, messages are deleted after twenty four hours. Well,
that's probably in violation of the law because there's a
city ordinance that says these records, all records, all techs
have to be kept for two years. And these disappear
(16:16):
after twenty four hours. And you think, oh my god,
how is this going on because that's clear violation. And
all the secret stuff going back and forth between council
members and construction people and lobbyists and none of that
is available. Could all disappeared in twenty four hours. You go, okay,
so I just had to just start Yeah, since twenty ten,
(16:41):
this has been going on when the city contracted with
Google for email other services, and you've got state and
local laws. According to a lawyer for a Common Cause,
which is a public watchdog, he said the laws. State
law is pretty clear on the public's right to access
(17:02):
most things that are relevant to the public's business, and
the city isn't retaining messages long enough to even determine
whether they're subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act,
for example. So let's say I am accusing the city
council or people within the City council, this whole thing
being rigged. I'm talking about a project, right, whether it's
(17:23):
a commercial building in this case, it was a house
that was going to go up on the hillside. And
I'm arguing that there are shenanigans going on between everybody,
and I want a I file a disclosure Act Public
Records Disclosure Act. Well, there are no public records. All
(17:45):
the discussions were deleted within twenty four hours. So what
the city does is we'd be more than happy to comply,
but there's nothing to comply with because all those conversations
have disappeared. Now, the LA Times and investigating this show
(18:07):
that the use of Google Chat disappearing within twenty four
hours those messages by city staffers was widespread. Public business
was discussed on the platform, and none of that should
have happened. And it's not as if the city council
has been deemed corrupt. Not in the city of Los Angeles.
(18:30):
How many of city council people have gone to jail,
have gone to prison in the last few years, more
than a few, and the accusation of misdeeds have in
fact been leveled. But how do you prove it, Well,
you can't with chat messages that you can't have happened. Now,
(18:51):
sometimes there are emails that go back and forth, and
there were conversations that go back and forth that maybe
were recorded, testimony from witness who are there at a meeting.
That can get council people, can get people we're in
management of the city, even just straight out employees in trouble.
But when it comes to this kind of use of
(19:13):
Google Chat, well that's why this lawsuit has been filed.
And it's kind of important. I mean, usually you know
these gadfly groups I'm not a big fan of. But
what was it about the ACLU that I once heard?
Because the AHLU, and it was described perfectly to me,
ACLU being this kind of an organization that is a
(19:37):
watchdog group that files lawsuits against the government, that represents people,
even reprehensible people, it represents based on constitutional issues, and
someone described the ACLU, much like these various organizations, as
ninety five percent of the time they are a pain
(19:58):
in the ass. They are impossible to deal with, they
get in the way of business, they get in the
way of government. Five percent of the time. They are
invaluable five percent of the time. You have to have
them because they are the last protection in terms of rights.
(20:19):
All right, Okay, here's a great story by the way
that I love, and it is about tourist attractions next year.
And usually we talk about new attractions that are opening
and what the current attractions are going to do with
how big a deal are going to make. For example,
Disney at Disneyland every year has their holiday, their Christmas
(20:41):
business with the parade, and I've been there one year
where they do this candlelight thing. I think they do
it every year. So that's kind of up, you know,
that's kind of neat. How about the tourist attractions that
have closed that you're never going to see again, those
that have closed and are done by next year, that
(21:04):
is a week and a half from now. We're a
week from now Las Vegas, the Tropicana and the Mirage
both disappearing now The Tropicana has been around since what
Las Vegas started in the nineteen forties. I think the
Flamingo was the first one of the Tropicano was right
(21:24):
up there during the Mob years, and it's right there
on Las Vegas Boulevard. The Mirage. I remember when it
opened in nineteen eighty nine, and that I think was
the first high end luxury hotel casino hotel or hotel casino,
and it was a big deal. It's going down. It's
(21:45):
replaced by a new hard rock hotel shaped like a
giant guitar. The Tropicana pulled down in October to make
state space for a stadium for the Oakland A's which
is coming, which are coming to Las Vegas. In twenty
twenty four, the Sphere transformed the Vegas Strip. I have
(22:08):
not been there but for the Strip. I don't know
if you've been there. The Sphere this huge ball. I mean,
it's hundreds of feet across and it's all led and
what they can do with it is incredible. And it
was kicked off with a series of concerts by you
two and everybody who's seen it says it is unbelievable. Well,
that's there now and that's certainly not closing down. I
(22:32):
don't know if you've ever been to Paris. There is
a drag club club j Missu or Mischue. I mean,
it's probably the most famous drag club in the world.
It's done the death of its owner, Michael Mischau Katie
or Caddie on twenty twenty. Since then, for some reason,
(22:54):
it started going downhill and it's almost well among the
gay crowd, even the non gay crowd. This is like
the Mulan Rouge. So that's done. The Ruben Museum of Art,
New York City, one of the world's largest collections of
Himalayan art, is closing its physical space and becoming a
(23:17):
museum without walls. And you know, that is a shaker because,
as you know, Himalayan art is one of those popular
forms of art in the world. Because I wake up
every morning looking at a picture book of Himalayan art.
Sure it's gone, and some of those works, including the
(23:38):
popular Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Yeah, that's a big one.
By the way, I don't know if you've ever been
to the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Yeah, I haven't either.
That may move to other museum New York City. They're
closing a museum.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
The photo Grassfiska, the Photograsfiska. It's a Stockholm base photography
museum and it's closing down. That's kind of neat, though,
you know, Stockholm Photography is kind of neat. September twenty
ninth was its last day, although the owners say they
(24:13):
may move to another location now, something close to us.
The Wayfarer's Chapel National Historic Register listed glass church designed
by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, and unfortunately
it's closing down. It's iconic, not because people don't go there,
(24:34):
it's because landslides in the area. So what the trustees
did is they took it apart. They literally disassembled it
piece by piece, and it's all in a storage facility
and they're looking for another home.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Giyan Kyoto in Japan, these are places that are really
neat and they're closing down. I mean, are they iconic
in the sense of, you know, you know, Notre Dame
and the Louver iconic, of course not, but if you
still go there. So these streets and gion Kyoto training
traditional geishas, but they become all the tourist attractions and
(25:15):
the buildings where they live is part of it. You know,
they're tearing those down because you got the Geisha paparazzi
And what the Geon local Council did was just simply
block off the streets, so no more visiting there. You
go to Houston. The Rothko Chapel in Houston fourteen artworks
(25:35):
by painter Mark Rothko, one of the greatest of the
painters of the modern area. Was he cubist or it
was I'm trying to remember what kind of where they
described the modern art of Rothko very so like I
think Kodinski and it's like, I'm trying to remember what
they call it. But anyway, his painting, you're talking forty
(25:58):
eighty million dollars for his paintings. That's done why because
Hurricane Barrel came in and wiped it out in Houston.
So now there are other roth Co rooms and they're
going around. Paul Allen founded the Museum plus Labs in
Seattle from his own personal collection of vintage computers tech devices,
(26:20):
and it actually encouraged people to use touch play with
everything there. He dies in twenty eighteen. The pandemic hits
two years later, and the museum closes in twenty twenty
four and the objects from the museum will be auctioned off.
And then one of the nature's great iconic visuals, the
(26:44):
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the Double Arch. If you
remember the Double Arch, and it collapsed Navajo sandstone dating
back one hundred and ninety million years, erosion, water level charge,
that changes, and it just came down, and oh it
was horrible that it did. But hey, life continues on.
(27:04):
Climate change is here, so if you want to go
to any of these places, you can't. Fortunately, the big
placers are still around, which is good news. Notre Dame
Cathedral now coming back. It already has come back five
years after it was burnt. It was grievously damaged in
(27:25):
that fire. And all the big ones other than the
ones I mentioned, still probably around all right. KFI AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI. I Handle here. It is a Monday morning,
de number twenty three. What do we have? What thirty
seven days left before the new administration comes in, and
(00:21):
we are looking for some big changes, not only with
President Musk in charge, but also Vice President Trump. It's
going to be a fascinating, fascinating new administration. By the way,
did you read Trump already came out and said I
am in charge, not Musk. I make the decisions. How
(00:41):
long do you think Musk is going to last? Are
you asking me in general? In general? Yeah, I'm asking
all of you. How long do you think Musk is
going to last? In his influence, his position of power,
his public persona relative to the administration.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, we know from experience that President Trump's feelings towards
someone can change rather quickly and quite intensely. I don't
know that he's ever dealt with someone who is just
as important.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So this is going to be a clash of the titans.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Whenever it happens, I know Trump's going to win it
because he's the president and he can just shut down
Musk and Musk only has X to deal with. Of course,
must can always buy the United States, but that he's
buying a losing proposition business wise. Now here's what's going on.
And I want to take you back a little bit
in history that prior to the election of Joe Biden,
(01:40):
when Trump was running for his second term, he was
and the Republicans were pushing, pushing like crazy for reform
on the border. We want some reform. We have to
shut down the border. We have to have some security.
And under Biden it was open arms, it really was.
He just didn't do enough. The last few months. He decided, whoops,
(02:04):
I'm going to be running. I'm pretty cynical here. I'm
going to be running. Therefore, let's sit down and talk
about a border deal. So they knocked out a border deal.
I mean, Republicans, Democrats, bipartisans sat down and came up
with a much much more better border deal. It had
passed Congress, or was about to pass Congress, and Trump
(02:27):
stopped it. He shut it down, And the question was why,
And he made it very clear, I want this to
be part of my campaigning. I want to say that
under the Biden administration, there was no security and I'm
going to make that argument, so I can't have a
deal in Congress. I mean he actually said that. So now,
the same thing happened with this debt ceiling. Where what's
(02:50):
round is square, square is round. So the Republicans have
always argued, we don't want the debts to be increased, increased, increased,
because that just means deficit spending, deficit spending. Now it's
gone the other way. Trump, in fact, is demanding a
(03:11):
premature increase, so when he comes, the increase will already
have happened and he can attack it and say this
was Biden on Biden's watch. And it's really weird when
you think about it. First, the whole concept of deficit
spending and debt ceiling. Now the Congress has to vote
(03:32):
debt ceiling. It has to allow itself to borrow more money.
That's the law. And that came in after World War
One when it just cost a fortune to run the
war and they were selling liberty bonds. Liberty bonds is
borrowing money and Congress has to allow itself to do so,
that's the law. Well, a lot of economists are saying,
(03:53):
wait a minute, why do we even bother? Why do
we have to say, okay, we have to borrow money.
Our deficits are in saying they're gonna be two trillion
dollars this year alone. I mean, can you imagine remember
when deficits were three four hundred billion and it was
like that exploded the national debt. Obama comes into power,
(04:16):
comes into the presidency with a twenty trillion dollar deficit
or national debt twenty trillion dollars. It is thirty four trillion. Now,
it's beyond comprehension. And I have said for years and
years saying, wait a minute, you know this is unsustainable.
You can only keep on borrowing more money than you spend.
(04:39):
You can't keep on doing that forever. Well I've changed
my mind. You can do it forever. That's it. There's
no limit now, you and I. You know, let's say
you know your family income is one hundred thousand dollars
a year of both of you working, all right, So
you spend one hundred and twenty five thousand, and then
next year you're still making one hundred you spend one
hundred and seventy five thousand. Then you spend two hundred
(05:01):
and fifty thousand dollars because of course you're borrowing the
rest it used to be. At some point it all
collapses on you. Nope, not with a federal government. Did
you know that states can go bankrupt, States can actually
file for bankruptcy under the bankruptcy law of the United States.
Federal government can't. We've already Orange County went bankrupt. I
(05:21):
mean the County of Orange went bankrupt twenty something years ago.
Utility up in Washington, whoops, Washington something whatever utility program
they went broke. Federal government doesn't go broke. So this
was a political football, and it was Mike Johnson, the Speaker,
(05:42):
who finally cut the deal to increase the debt ceiling
and to keep the government going. Because what happens is,
we talked about this, the shutdown. If Congress does not
give itself its permission, you have Republicans and Democrats fighting
each other. Usually Republicans don't want to increase the debt
(06:05):
sealing Democrats due and this one is completely turned around,
is completely crazy. What happens is people don't get paid anymore.
Federal workers don't get paid now. By law, certain Social
Security is still get your checks, the military still gets
their checks. That's law. But the reality is that what
if there's no money to pay for it? And that's
what happens when you have the increase the national debt,
(06:29):
you borrow more and more and more money. So we'll
see what happens is going to be fascinating. By the way,
Trump is also called even though he's asking for an
increase now, he's also called for abolishing it. And a
lot of people do say it should be abolished. Why
do if we're going into debt, why do we have
to allow our why do we have to vote to
(06:50):
go into debt? And there's the argument, we just go
into debt, more and more debt, and it doesn't stop.
Doesn't stop. By the way, the last two times when
the government really went into debt, Civil War the government
went into insane debt, but that was paid off, and
then World War One that started the deficit spending. Two
(07:10):
times in modern history where the budget was balanced, forget
about going to doubt, I mean just balanced, right. The
income was the outgo was the same as the income,
once during the Bill Clinton years when the economy was
on fire, and then once since World War Two during
one year of the Eisenhower administration. After that, it has
(07:34):
gone crazier and crazier and crazier. Okay, by the way,
that makes sense, because it didn't to me. We follow, okay,
thank you? That makes This is why, this is why
I do what I do, Because I try to explain
even stuff that I had no idea what I'm talking about.
It all works out. Just say it with a lot
(07:56):
of verb, verb, and sound like you know you're talking
about and network. So okay, in any case, I want
to do a story that's kind of fun, and that's
the story of Elf on the Shelf. And what has
happened to the concept of Elf on the shelf. It
has screwed up kids so badly that psychologists are spinning
(08:19):
and kids are scared to death. So the concept of
Elf on the shelf. Actually it's become a holiday fixture
since two thousand and five. It was a picture book
called the Elf on the Shelf, a Christmas tradition came
out and it was meant to keep an eye on
your kid's behavior before Santa comes to town. You know
(08:39):
who's naughty, who's nice sort of thing. So how do
Santa know? Because you know, I remember as a kid, well,
as a kid, I grew up in a Jewish home.
There wasn't a lot of Santa there. But what happens?
How does Santa know that you are nice? All you
know is you have the list. Well, I'll tell you
how Santa knows, and that is that elf on the
(09:01):
shelf tell Santa. And by the way, that elf on
a shelf just doesn't hang there because here's the tradition.
You put the elf on a shelf in different places
every day or every night before Christmas, and that becomes
the game. Except it becomes a game where the kids
are scared to death, especially those that believe in Santa Claus.
(09:25):
My kids did, and they were sort of like their
mid twenties. They believe in Santa Claus and they don't
want to be stuck on that knotty list. Well, let
me tell you what's going on. First of all, kids
are getting really screwed up on this. They're not happy,
especially when they have no idea. I mean, there's no
(09:45):
place for them to hide. It's basically a big brother,
the elf on the shelf always looking at you, always
figuring out what you're doing. You don't even know where
the elf on the shelf is. You have to find it.
And what parents doing hiding these elves on the shelves,
because that's become the big thing is every night it's
(10:06):
a different place and kids get to either figure out
or they're told. So it's now not only become a tradition,
it's become a sort of a social media challenge. You
have people that are hiding these elves and going on
TikTok or going on YouTube and showing the world Instagram
(10:31):
showing the world where they're hiding those elves on shelves.
And let me tell you with what's going on with
psychologists and people who deal with kids, this is not
going well in many cases because parents are creating these
elaborate scenarios for their elves and sharing all of this
(10:56):
on social media. Now there's a new crop of parents
who are saying, hang on a minute, you know, we
don't want to get trapped in this holiday routine because,
I mean, it can get really bad. There was an interview,
i mean an article done in the Wall Street Journal
where they interviewed parents and some of them and this
was on social media. What you do is you get
(11:18):
rid of them. You have to explain the kids why
there's no elves on shelves anymore, Well, because it's only
for the bad families, or then it just gets wonderful.
We wanted our cats at home not to get eaten,
and the elves on a shelf, that's how dangerous they
can become. So that's like telling can you imagine basically
(11:41):
somehow Santa Claus then becomes this evil purveyor of social justice.
So there's a story about who's interviewed this, Lasanne Skinner,
and she presented this scenario for her kids. Her son asked,
why don't we have an elf on a shelf because
we used to have it? And first thought that came
(12:04):
to her head is she's thinking why And people do
this all the time, to think why why don't we
have the elf on the shelf anymore? Because it turns
out not a good idea, But the kids who've had
it for years wonder why not. Well, she came up
with her cats, and the cats might make the elf
their next target and the elf might get eaten. So
(12:29):
at this point the kids in home were all in
agreement it's best that the elves shouldn't be at home
because they they're going to be killed by the cats.
Twenty one million of these elves have been sold since
two thousand and five, and now what's being described as
a Klaus couture. You have pets for the elves. I
(12:50):
mean you actually can buy pets for your shelf on
the elf. There's a float in the Thanksgiving Day parade
they've had since nineteen twelve. There was a stage musical
in twenty nineteen, and there's an app that offers parents
ideas of where to hide their elves at home and
(13:12):
can set reminders for when to move them. One of
the ideas is to put it in the bathroom. Put
one of these elves sorted in the corner of a
bathroom so your kids don't notice. Now, let me ask
you this. You are six years old and you're going
to the bathroom and you find out there's someone looking
at you, a little elf up in the corner. You
(13:33):
think that's worth a few years of therapy. You think,
next time your kid goes into a restroom, either public
or private, looks around. What's going on? I'm looking for
the elf. Why don't they call them elves instead of elves?
(13:54):
I thought they were elves, weren't they? But this is
elf on a shelf. I love this stuff. I love
it when totally benign, wonderful traditions turn out to be
not only dangerous, but it screws up kids for thirty years. Okay,
(14:15):
that's why I got it. We didn't celebrate Christmas, but
my parents did put little Nazis on the mantle and
I just did doban. That was a mess for me
for decades and decades. All right, now I want to
do a story about you. There's an La Time story
and it has to do with La City Attorney's office
conducting an internal review of what of city department city
(14:40):
employees using Google Chat messages that are automatically deleted after
twenty four hours. This started in twenty twenty three when
a house was going to be built in the hills
Mount Washington, and there had to be a hearing, and
the coalition that is fighting this, the Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition,
(15:05):
which tried to stop the building of this claimed that
the suit has filed saying that their appeal of the
construction project because a project was in fact granted, and
the coalition said, no, you can't because of all of
these circumstances involved in putting this hill on a hillside,
(15:26):
the home on a hillside and then city city and
planning and everything. I mean, in general, it's not easy
to build in the City of Los Angeles. Well, the
appeals didn't get a fair hearing. Why because closed door
meetings and confidential reports circulating among city employees, including council members,
position on these projects what their position is prior to
(15:52):
a public hearing. And here's the problem, big deal. So
messages turn around, messages are deleted after twenty four hours. Well,
that's probably in violation of the law because there's a
city ordinance that says these records, all records, all techs
have to be kept for two years. And these disappear
(16:16):
after twenty four hours. And you think, oh my god,
how is this going on because that's clear violation. And
all the secret stuff going back and forth between council
members and construction people and lobbyists and none of that
is available. Could all disappeared in twenty four hours. You go, okay,
so I just had to just start Yeah, since twenty ten,
(16:41):
this has been going on when the city contracted with
Google for email other services, and you've got state and
local laws. According to a lawyer for a Common Cause,
which is a public watchdog, he said the laws. State
law is pretty clear on the public's right to access
(17:02):
most things that are relevant to the public's business, and
the city isn't retaining messages long enough to even determine
whether they're subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act,
for example. So let's say I am accusing the city
council or people within the City council, this whole thing
being rigged. I'm talking about a project, right, whether it's
(17:23):
a commercial building in this case, it was a house
that was going to go up on the hillside. And
I'm arguing that there are shenanigans going on between everybody,
and I want a I file a disclosure Act Public
Records Disclosure Act. Well, there are no public records. All
(17:45):
the discussions were deleted within twenty four hours. So what
the city does is we'd be more than happy to comply,
but there's nothing to comply with because all those conversations
have disappeared. Now, the LA Times and investigating this show
(18:07):
that the use of Google Chat disappearing within twenty four
hours those messages by city staffers was widespread. Public business
was discussed on the platform, and none of that should
have happened. And it's not as if the city council
has been deemed corrupt. Not in the city of Los Angeles.
(18:30):
How many of city council people have gone to jail,
have gone to prison in the last few years, more
than a few, and the accusation of misdeeds have in
fact been leveled. But how do you prove it, Well,
you can't with chat messages that you can't have happened. Now,
(18:51):
sometimes there are emails that go back and forth, and
there were conversations that go back and forth that maybe
were recorded, testimony from witness who are there at a meeting.
That can get council people, can get people we're in
management of the city, even just straight out employees in trouble.
But when it comes to this kind of use of
(19:13):
Google Chat, well that's why this lawsuit has been filed.
And it's kind of important. I mean, usually you know
these gadfly groups I'm not a big fan of. But
what was it about the ACLU that I once heard?
Because the AHLU, and it was described perfectly to me,
ACLU being this kind of an organization that is a
(19:37):
watchdog group that files lawsuits against the government, that represents people,
even reprehensible people, it represents based on constitutional issues, and
someone described the ACLU, much like these various organizations, as
ninety five percent of the time they are a pain
(19:58):
in the ass. They are impossible to deal with, they
get in the way of business, they get in the
way of government. Five percent of the time. They are
invaluable five percent of the time. You have to have
them because they are the last protection in terms of rights.
(20:19):
All right, Okay, here's a great story by the way
that I love, and it is about tourist attractions next year.
And usually we talk about new attractions that are opening
and what the current attractions are going to do with
how big a deal are going to make. For example,
Disney at Disneyland every year has their holiday, their Christmas
(20:41):
business with the parade, and I've been there one year
where they do this candlelight thing. I think they do
it every year. So that's kind of up, you know,
that's kind of neat. How about the tourist attractions that
have closed that you're never going to see again, those
that have closed and are done by next year, that
(21:04):
is a week and a half from now. We're a
week from now Las Vegas, the Tropicana and the Mirage
both disappearing now The Tropicana has been around since what
Las Vegas started in the nineteen forties. I think the
Flamingo was the first one of the Tropicano was right
(21:24):
up there during the Mob years, and it's right there
on Las Vegas Boulevard. The Mirage. I remember when it
opened in nineteen eighty nine, and that I think was
the first high end luxury hotel casino hotel or hotel casino,
and it was a big deal. It's going down. It's
(21:45):
replaced by a new hard rock hotel shaped like a
giant guitar. The Tropicana pulled down in October to make
state space for a stadium for the Oakland A's which
is coming, which are coming to Las Vegas. In twenty
twenty four, the Sphere transformed the Vegas Strip. I have
(22:08):
not been there but for the Strip. I don't know
if you've been there. The Sphere this huge ball. I mean,
it's hundreds of feet across and it's all led and
what they can do with it is incredible. And it
was kicked off with a series of concerts by you
two and everybody who's seen it says it is unbelievable. Well,
that's there now and that's certainly not closing down. I
(22:32):
don't know if you've ever been to Paris. There is
a drag club club j Missu or Mischue. I mean,
it's probably the most famous drag club in the world.
It's done the death of its owner, Michael Mischau Katie
or Caddie on twenty twenty. Since then, for some reason,
(22:54):
it started going downhill and it's almost well among the
gay crowd, even the non gay crowd. This is like
the Mulan Rouge. So that's done. The Ruben Museum of Art,
New York City, one of the world's largest collections of
Himalayan art, is closing its physical space and becoming a
(23:17):
museum without walls. And you know, that is a shaker because,
as you know, Himalayan art is one of those popular
forms of art in the world. Because I wake up
every morning looking at a picture book of Himalayan art.
Sure it's gone, and some of those works, including the
(23:38):
popular Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Yeah, that's a big one.
By the way, I don't know if you've ever been
to the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Yeah, I haven't either.
That may move to other museum New York City. They're
closing a museum.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
The photo Grassfiska, the Photograsfiska. It's a Stockholm base photography
museum and it's closing down. That's kind of neat, though,
you know, Stockholm Photography is kind of neat. September twenty
ninth was its last day, although the owners say they
(24:13):
may move to another location now, something close to us.
The Wayfarer's Chapel National Historic Register listed glass church designed
by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, and unfortunately
it's closing down. It's iconic, not because people don't go there,
(24:34):
it's because landslides in the area. So what the trustees
did is they took it apart. They literally disassembled it
piece by piece, and it's all in a storage facility
and they're looking for another home.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Giyan Kyoto in Japan, these are places that are really
neat and they're closing down. I mean, are they iconic
in the sense of, you know, you know, Notre Dame
and the Louver iconic, of course not, but if you
still go there. So these streets and gion Kyoto training
traditional geishas, but they become all the tourist attractions and
(25:15):
the buildings where they live is part of it. You know,
they're tearing those down because you got the Geisha paparazzi
And what the Geon local Council did was just simply
block off the streets, so no more visiting there. You
go to Houston. The Rothko Chapel in Houston fourteen artworks
(25:35):
by painter Mark Rothko, one of the greatest of the
painters of the modern area. Was he cubist or it
was I'm trying to remember what kind of where they
described the modern art of Rothko very so like I
think Kodinski and it's like, I'm trying to remember what
they call it. But anyway, his painting, you're talking forty
(25:58):
eighty million dollars for his paintings. That's done why because
Hurricane Barrel came in and wiped it out in Houston.
So now there are other roth Co rooms and they're
going around. Paul Allen founded the Museum plus Labs in
Seattle from his own personal collection of vintage computers tech devices,
(26:20):
and it actually encouraged people to use touch play with
everything there. He dies in twenty eighteen. The pandemic hits
two years later, and the museum closes in twenty twenty
four and the objects from the museum will be auctioned off.
And then one of the nature's great iconic visuals, the
(26:44):
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the Double Arch. If you
remember the Double Arch, and it collapsed Navajo sandstone dating
back one hundred and ninety million years, erosion, water level charge,
that changes, and it just came down, and oh it
was horrible that it did. But hey, life continues on.
(27:04):
Climate change is here, so if you want to go
to any of these places, you can't. Fortunately, the big
placers are still around, which is good news. Notre Dame
Cathedral now coming back. It already has come back five
years after it was burnt. It was grievously damaged in
(27:25):
that fire. And all the big ones other than the
ones I mentioned, still probably around all right. KFI AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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