July 17, 2025 • 26 mins
(July 17, 2025)
Senate votes to cut federal funding to PBS, NPR, and public stations. After 80 years, Trinity Test victims are eligible for reparations. Are diamonds even a luxury anymore? 20 states (including California} sue the Trump administration over ending FEMA funding for disaster mitigation. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the program to talk about tickets going on sale for a certain movie that won’t be released for another year… what’s up with that?
Senate votes to cut federal funding to PBS, NPR, and public stations. After 80 years, Trinity Test victims are eligible for reparations. Are diamonds even a luxury anymore? 20 states (including California} sue the Trump administration over ending FEMA funding for disaster mitigation. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the program to talk about tickets going on sale for a certain movie that won’t be released for another year… what’s up with that?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six FORTYFI.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, July seventeenth. Some
important doings today, and it has to do with the
Senate voting to cut federal funding to PBS, NPR public
stations across the board. And this one is truly controversial.
The President has asked that the bill pass now already
(00:30):
passed the Senate in a very close vote, and now
it goes to the House, and once it passes the House,
then the bill becomes law. And the President has given
a date tomorrow. And so far when the President has
asked for a certain date that something must be passed, boom,
it is passed. So no surprise. So this had to
(00:52):
do with spending cuts as part of the Doge plan
to recind one point one billion dollars from public media.
And well it's going to and the word is devastating
and I'll buy that PBS, NPR and the entire.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Public station ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
The vote in the Senate was fifty one eight. Senator
Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the two of the most
liberal Republicans actually in the Senate, joining all the Democrats
and now the bill goes to the House for final passage,
and the deadline is tomorrow. And this was part of
(01:34):
the nine billion dollar with Sessions package. And this is
all about the Republicans at the behest of the President
voting to slash foreign aid and health programs. When you
see these massive cuts that the President and the Republicans
has asked for, it's real simple. Where do the cuts
(01:56):
come from? They come from social programs that it doesn't
come from the military. It certainly doesn't come from immigration enforcement.
Those two areas. The number increases pretty dramatically when it
comes to social programs or anything approaching a political program
(02:18):
in which the administration of the Republicans view and as
anti them.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Boom the cuts happen.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And public media has faced a bunch of legal battles
throughout its history, going back to the nineteen sixties when
it was created, but so far it's won every single
time bipartisan support finally came through. This time, the administration
has threatened to withhold support and endorsement from any lawmaker
who doesn't vote for the cuts. See this is kind
(02:46):
of interesting. This was different in a couple of senses.
First of all, it is the same in this administration.
The president says, this is what I want.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
If you vote.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Against me, I will make sure you are not re elected.
I will primary you out. No president has ever had
this kind of power, and what the president of getting
is basically everything and anything he wants, because every Republican
is scared to death of voting against the president. And
in this case, I think not only is that the case,
(03:18):
but also you have Republicans who believe in this and
why because they perceive the public media PBS ANDPR as biased,
which it completely is. There is no question that public
broadcasting is biased. Now the issue is is it okay
(03:42):
to havesed programs with the government funds? Are there any
conservative programs or programming that is funded by the government.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I don't think so because the conservative programming sort of
on its own and does just find the kind of
stuff that NPR does, the PBS does.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's stuff that doesn't sell commercially.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It just doesn't. I mean, you know, you've got Big
Bird in Sesame Street. How many commercials can you sell
on that? And you've got other programs, documentary programs, you
have a conversation, you have debates, and that stuff just
doesn't sell. So it takes federal funding in order to
(04:33):
maintain these programs. Now, some of the money, in fact,
still went through the various programs, various stations, local stations,
because the cutting of PBS really hurts rural America and
particularly Native American locations. And you had Murkowski, who is
(05:01):
Murkowski is Alaska. I always get confused between Collins and Murkowski.
Murkowski is Alaska, and there are a lot of there's
a lot of Native population, not late Native Americans.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And she said to the Senate instead of the administration.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Hey, you are screwing the only way these folks, my
constituents get information. This stuff is critical to us. So
they rolled back and said, okay, and that case, that's fine.
We'll let that go. And she had at, for example,
(05:38):
tsunami warnings are up there, given to spread through PBS stations.
That is their main way of dealing with these kinds
of natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
She said, you're not going to cut that. And so
the Senate said okay. And she had written earlier, we
are lawmakers.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Our responsibility is to legislate, not to shrug our shoulders
and take direction from the White House. And there is
the difference. And I've said this over and over again.
I will continue to say this. The Speaker of the
House probably the second most powerful person in the United States,
(06:19):
or House or Senate majority leader. You can decide which
one is which the Speaker, Mike Johnson has said effectively,
I'm going to paraphrase, we are not here to legislate.
We are here to pass the agenda of this president.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That is our main goal is to simply do what
our president wants us to do.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
That's unprecedented.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So you're going to see the House go ahead and
vote on this, and you will see will PBS still
remain alive, Well, NPR will still remain alive. Yeah, but
in a much more limited sense. They're always asking for donations.
How every once in a while they do these donation
(07:06):
programs every once in a while, like every other week,
where they have one of their favorite programs, and then
they cut every five minutes too. We need your money,
we need your money, please need we need your money.
And those those are horrible. But you gotta see more
of those because they're going to be desperate for donation
and grants from private institutions, major corporations, and the federal
(07:31):
government was part of it, part of the grants done
finished all right, a little bit of history, okay, and
a little bit of a handle of history.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I don't know if you saw Oppenheimer or Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
One of the terrific movies of all time and the
end and the history of the atomic blast. It was
the Trinity Blast. And this has to do with reparations.
And I've talked about reparations for a long time. The
US does engage in reparations. For example, Japanese Americans who
were interred during World War Two received represent reparations, but
(08:07):
only those who were there. There was a move among
African Americans that there should be reparations from anybody who
is a progeny of slavery, which is half of America,
American blacks. So I mean that went no place, nor
should it go in place any place. Well, let me
tell you about the Trinity test in New Mexico. It
(08:29):
was five thirty am July sixteenth, nineteen forty five. This
is a story about a fourteen year old Jesse Gland,
who was there at his family's ranch twenty seven miles away,
and he didn't know it. He saw that huge blinding light.
But he didn't know that the world's first ever nuclear
weapon had just been detonated, and they didn't tell him.
(08:52):
Government basically never admitted it or until years and years later.
And in the hours and the days after the blast,
radio active dust would begin to come down on roofs
and clotheslines and crops and animals and the ground near
the farm, And as the years passed, almost every member
of his family and neighbors became sick, and often with
(09:15):
rare forms of cancer.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The government never warned them about the bomb, never.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Evacuated them after the blast, or advised them about the
potential health consequences of nuclear fallout, which they knew was
going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That was not a surprise.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So here we are eighty years later, and you've got
generations of New Mexicans from New Mexico who have suffered
health problems from that nuclear fallout are going to be
eligible to receive compensation. And this is the Trump administration
who is adding people to this list that is enabling
(09:58):
them to receive compensation. This isn't the Biden administration. This
is the Trump administration that is saying, hey, more people
are eligible.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
For federal aid.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And the recently enacted text bill expands the pool of
Americans eligible for a program that compensates people have had
health problems linked to the radiation exposure from atomic weapons program,
including uranium mining and what they call down winders, because
nuclear fallout goes can go hundreds of miles.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
All you need is a good wind and.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That radio aptic radioactive dust goes really far. Now, the
Trinity test was at the Almagordo Bombing Range with the government.
The US Army chose because of seclusion, predictable winds and
would limit the spread of radiation. Well, it did not
(11:00):
for the people who got nailed, because thousands of people
live within a forty mile radius of the test, and
the government had prepared emergency evacuation plans, and the radioactive
dust did come down, and they never used the evacuation plans.
(11:20):
And after the test, what did the government say happened? Well,
it was an accident involving ammunition and pyrotechnics. Of course,
did not admit it was a nuclear blast, never admitted
the real cause, even in the area who had watched
the mushroom cloud. And a month later the atomic bomb
went off in Japan, and oh that is the test
(11:44):
that happened here. That's when they found out, but by
then everyone living near the test site had already ingested
this radioactive material. There was a twenty fifteen letter from
a guy who was eleven years old at the time
of trin He talked about watching watching a cloud of
black ash fall across the entire town, including the clothing
(12:08):
his mom had hung out to dry.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
In the hours after the explosion, the.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Filth landed all over our town, covered our village with
this dust, and the government kept on downplaying the potential
potential consequences. So what the government now did is say
that we're expanding the number of people who have been
were in fact affected, even the kids of those people
(12:37):
who were affected of cancers, of sickness from radiation that
can be connected, and it's well so far, the estimate
now is ten thousand people have had health impacts related to.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
The Trinazy test.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Between and then on top of that, between nineteen fifty
one and fifty eight, one hundred and eighty eight new
tests were conducted at the military's Nevada test site.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
This is just north of Las.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Vegas sixty five miles but underground tests between sixty three
and nineteen ninety two were literally dozens. And then uranium
was mined thirty million tons of it from the Navajo
Nation land. The Navajo Nation was exempted. They could not
collect under the bill that was passed in nineteen ninety. Well,
(13:30):
now you've got people who are not only part of
the Navajo Nation, but also in areas that heretofore folks
lived were not allowed to receive compensation. Good for the
government on this one, Okay, kudos to the Trump administration
because people were grievously affected and the government knew it
was going to happen and didn't tell them and had
(13:53):
an evacuation plan and did nothing about it. Because I'm
assuming it was so secret that even mentioning an evacuation
plan or moving people away as a result of this blast,
it wouldn't take a genius to figure out, especially in
times of war.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Look what happened, all.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Right, let me tell you what just happened, and that
is the Trump administration went forward on its decision to
shut down this multi billion dollar grant program, and it
had to do with FEMA and the program. The grant
program given through FEMA aimed at protecting communities from flood hurricanes,
(14:34):
natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
So guess what happens.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
A lawsuit immediately hits the Trump administration. Now, so far,
in the first six months of the administration, over two
hundred and fifty lawsuits from state governments, local governments, individuals,
organizations had been filed against the administration.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So here's one.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Okay, this was filed in federal court in Boston, and
an acute This is FEMA of unlawfully terminating something called
the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program BRICK without the
approval of Congress, which set up BRICK.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And there's a.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Huge fight between the president and everybody else as to
the powers of the presidency.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And so far the court has been good to the president.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And this is two days after the rains inundated New
York and New Jersey, two weeks after the floods hit
Central Texas, the devastating flood that killed so many people,
and a lot of them children. The BRICK program was
established in twenty eighteen, during President Trump's first term, replacing
a similar FEMA program that helped communities protect infrastructure from
(15:47):
extreme weather, raising roads and flood prone areas, upgrading stormwater
management systems.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I mean big money was spent.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
In the past four years, FEMA actually selected nearly two
two thousand projects, receiving four point five billion dollars in
these BRICK grants, and it has been estimated over the
past two decades these programs have saved taxpayers over one
hundred and fifty billion dollars that would have been spent
(16:17):
on rebuilding property that was damaged by natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
This according to the lawsuit the plaintiffs.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
FEMA announced in April it was shutdering shutting down the
Brick program as part of the efforts to eliminate waste, fraud,
and abuse. It's interesting that every program that has been
shut down by the government is wasteful and fraudulent and abusive.
Kind of interesting, and the agency said. FEMA said the
(16:47):
Brick program was yet another example of a wasteful and
ineffective FEMA program. This was a news release that the
agency had and has since been taken down from the website,
and the plaintiffs say that it's more concerned with political
agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disaster. By the way,
(17:12):
that news relief talking about wasteful and in effective FEMA
funds did not come up with examples, it's just a
general overriding.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
This is wasteful and abusive and fraudulent.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So days into a second term, literally days, President Trump
suggested eliminating FEMA, calling the agency bloated ineffective. But after
the deadly flooding in Texas, the thought of eliminating FEMA
was not very palatable.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
So it switched to overhauling.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The agency instead of eliminating completely. But again, social programs,
and we talked earlier about eliminating very in terms of
the government helping to determine the risk of natural disasters,
eliminating the concept of climate change, which the social scientists,
(18:12):
the climate scientists want to incorporate, saying, we now have
to incorporate climate change as part of the formula, not
just whether, not just other factors in determining the risk
of natural disasters floods, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
We have to look at climate change.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And the administration said, Nope, shut that one right down.
Climate change will not be incorporated or it will not
influence any decision or any program that the government's involved
with or influences. Okay, I don't know what to tell you.
(18:51):
Climate change is not big with this administration, for sure,
but look at the amount of money that has been
increased for defense, and certainly immigration has gone crazy. We
just look at the priorities. It's that simple, you know
this administration. Social programs are a very low priority or
(19:13):
should be eliminated completely.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Defense.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
By the way, there is no fraud or waste or
abuse in defense nine hundred billion dollars and they have
yet to find a fraudulent program. Okay, all right, Monday
through Friday from seven to ten pm, Mo Kelly has
a show cleverly entitled Later with Mo Kelly. Now, we
(19:39):
used to do this segment with Mo Earlier with Mo Kelly,
but that sound is so moronic. We decided to eliminate
that completely. So with that in mind, Good morning Mo.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Good morning Bill, and congratulations on thirty two years.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh, thank you greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
If you had come early yesterday, you could have had
some locks and bagels.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, I'm good, but thank you for at.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Okay, nice to let you know it's a true thing. Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And Amy tried it and thought it was slimy, and
I go, oh, come on, really, I.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Said it tasted good. Just the consistency was a little slimy.
I'm not even good.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I'm not going to get into that at all, Okay,
but I will tell you it is an acquired taste. Now, moe,
a movie tickets go on sale for a movie that's
not going to be released for another year. Number one,
what's the name of the movie? And two has this
happened before?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
No, it has not happened before, especially not in this way.
The name of the movie is The Odyssey, something we
probably all studied or read in high school and college.
It talks about Odysseus coming home from the ten year
Trojan War in the ten years after the war for
his journey home. It's directed by Christopher Nolan, who we
all know from Oppenheimer or Interstellar. He is known Tenant.
(21:03):
He's known for these big epic pictures. And what's interesting
about this You mentioned that it's going to be not
released for another year. A year from today, it will
be released, but they're selling tickets specifically to the IMAX
screenings in seventy millimeter. And if you don't know about
seventy milimeter, that's a much higher resolution. It's shot and
presented in a horizontal format, and it gives you a
(21:25):
much more immersive experience. So they are promoting the Imax
release seventy millimeter in advance.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
First of all, the Imax business, it originally started with
those space movies. NASA did those, and those were insane.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
They were so good.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It was what the museum in downtown LA, a museum
of Science, and it was just insanely wonderful. And then
they expanded it and frankly, I saw, I've seen a
few movies in imax. Eh, you know, it doesn't add
that much to it.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Now, this is thirty five milimeters or seventy milimeter, that's
the difference.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, they don't have Imax in thirty five millimeter. I mean,
obviously it's it's a big screen.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's a big screen, but it also speaks to how
the movie was shot and how it's going to be
presented on that big screen.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, I mean they have to shoot it in seventy
milimeters if they're going to show it in seventy millimeter.
I'm assuming you get any clarity, And I'll tell you
what's a and MO will back this up.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
The best place to be at an Imax theater is.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
A front row, yeah, looking straight up, right straight up. Yes, Yeah,
I don't even know why you put those rows there.
When you talk about the film Odysseus, it reminds me
of the nineteen fifties movies that were the spectacles with
guys who used to be mister universe I forgot their names,
(22:51):
that were so horrible that you could barely watch them,
or now they're so campy that they're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Right, But movies now caught up to where the technology
matches the spectacle and the presentation aspect, where if you
want to see a movie of on this epic level,
then you want to see it on as large a
screen format as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So let me ask you, I mean, is this simply
just a publicity stunt to generate some buzz or is
this thing going to be that big successful word of
mouthfish as it makes it it reasonable, it makes sense
(23:34):
to sell tickets a year in advance.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yes, it's both a publicity stunt, and yes the hype
is there and justifies it.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
They're only maybe I.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Don't know, three dozen IMAX theaters which are capable of
showing the seventy millimeter films, so it's more hype. It's
not like they're all these tickets that they can sell.
But the anticipation and expectation of Christopher Nolan doing a
movie on this scale with the type of talent attached.
As absolutely this is going to be the biggest movie
(24:03):
and it's going to be released one year from today.
So all of this is very intentional and all of
it is justified a.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Little bit of history.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The first movie that was in Cinerama where they had
three different projectors and you had that split screen business
that didn't quite work was How the West Was Won
at the Cinerama Dome and there is I don't know
if you know this mode, but those three projectors are
still there and it was I think a couple of
(24:32):
years ago or a few years back where I was
invited to see How the West Was Won. I think
there's one print left, and to watch that movie in
the original Cinerama version of it was just spectacular. If
you ever have the chance, go for it. I don't
know if the equipment is even less left, but you
(24:55):
particularly would just go crazy with it. Okay, for the tidbit, Yeah,
a little bit of a little factoid for you, Okay,
mo Kelly tonight seven to ten pm, as he is
every night throughout the week right here on KFI a
social address at mister Mo Kelly Mo. You have a
good one, all right, catch you tonight, all right, coming up.
(25:17):
It's Gary and Shannon. And do we do phone numbers today?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay? I am taking phone calls.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was a sort of up in the air for
a minute. I am taking phone calls for a handle
on the law. Marginal legal advice where I give you
marginal legal advice off the air and you we go
through them very quickly as you can imagine, no breaks,
no commercials, news or any of that, no traffic will
because we don't want to hear it off the air.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
From nine o'clock on.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
All right, The number is eight seven seven five two
zero eleven fifty eight seven. So I was just joking,
will we love it? Eight seven seven, No, we don't.
Eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty eight seven
seven five two zero eleven fifty starting in just a moment,
marginal legal advice off the air. Okay, Tomorrow morning, five
(26:11):
am to six wake up call with Will and Amy
or Amy and Will's that's the proper yeah, I understand,
that's the billboard. And then Neil is not here, so
it'll be I join at six right up until now,
Gary and Shannon, this is KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
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 FORTYFI.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning, July seventeenth. Some
important doings today, and it has to do with the
Senate voting to cut federal funding to PBS, NPR public
stations across the board. And this one is truly controversial.
The President has asked that the bill pass now already
(00:30):
passed the Senate in a very close vote, and now
it goes to the House, and once it passes the House,
then the bill becomes law. And the President has given
a date tomorrow. And so far when the President has
asked for a certain date that something must be passed, boom,
it is passed. So no surprise. So this had to
(00:52):
do with spending cuts as part of the Doge plan
to recind one point one billion dollars from public media.
And well it's going to and the word is devastating
and I'll buy that PBS, NPR and the entire.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Public station ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
The vote in the Senate was fifty one eight. Senator
Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, the two of the most
liberal Republicans actually in the Senate, joining all the Democrats
and now the bill goes to the House for final passage,
and the deadline is tomorrow. And this was part of
(01:34):
the nine billion dollar with Sessions package. And this is
all about the Republicans at the behest of the President
voting to slash foreign aid and health programs. When you
see these massive cuts that the President and the Republicans
has asked for, it's real simple. Where do the cuts
(01:56):
come from? They come from social programs that it doesn't
come from the military. It certainly doesn't come from immigration enforcement.
Those two areas. The number increases pretty dramatically when it
comes to social programs or anything approaching a political program
(02:18):
in which the administration of the Republicans view and as
anti them.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Boom the cuts happen.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And public media has faced a bunch of legal battles
throughout its history, going back to the nineteen sixties when
it was created, but so far it's won every single
time bipartisan support finally came through. This time, the administration
has threatened to withhold support and endorsement from any lawmaker
who doesn't vote for the cuts. See this is kind
(02:46):
of interesting. This was different in a couple of senses.
First of all, it is the same in this administration.
The president says, this is what I want.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
If you vote.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Against me, I will make sure you are not re elected.
I will primary you out. No president has ever had
this kind of power, and what the president of getting
is basically everything and anything he wants, because every Republican
is scared to death of voting against the president. And
in this case, I think not only is that the case,
(03:18):
but also you have Republicans who believe in this and
why because they perceive the public media PBS ANDPR as biased,
which it completely is. There is no question that public
broadcasting is biased. Now the issue is is it okay
(03:42):
to havesed programs with the government funds? Are there any
conservative programs or programming that is funded by the government.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I don't think so because the conservative programming sort of
on its own and does just find the kind of
stuff that NPR does, the PBS does.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's stuff that doesn't sell commercially.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It just doesn't. I mean, you know, you've got Big
Bird in Sesame Street. How many commercials can you sell
on that? And you've got other programs, documentary programs, you
have a conversation, you have debates, and that stuff just
doesn't sell. So it takes federal funding in order to
(04:33):
maintain these programs. Now, some of the money, in fact,
still went through the various programs, various stations, local stations,
because the cutting of PBS really hurts rural America and
particularly Native American locations. And you had Murkowski, who is
(05:01):
Murkowski is Alaska. I always get confused between Collins and Murkowski.
Murkowski is Alaska, and there are a lot of there's
a lot of Native population, not late Native Americans.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And she said to the Senate instead of the administration.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Hey, you are screwing the only way these folks, my
constituents get information. This stuff is critical to us. So
they rolled back and said, okay, and that case, that's fine.
We'll let that go. And she had at, for example,
(05:38):
tsunami warnings are up there, given to spread through PBS stations.
That is their main way of dealing with these kinds
of natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
She said, you're not going to cut that. And so
the Senate said okay. And she had written earlier, we
are lawmakers.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Our responsibility is to legislate, not to shrug our shoulders
and take direction from the White House. And there is
the difference. And I've said this over and over again.
I will continue to say this. The Speaker of the
House probably the second most powerful person in the United States,
(06:19):
or House or Senate majority leader. You can decide which
one is which the Speaker, Mike Johnson has said effectively,
I'm going to paraphrase, we are not here to legislate.
We are here to pass the agenda of this president.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That is our main goal is to simply do what
our president wants us to do.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
That's unprecedented.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So you're going to see the House go ahead and
vote on this, and you will see will PBS still
remain alive, Well, NPR will still remain alive. Yeah, but
in a much more limited sense. They're always asking for donations.
How every once in a while they do these donation
(07:06):
programs every once in a while, like every other week,
where they have one of their favorite programs, and then
they cut every five minutes too. We need your money,
we need your money, please need we need your money.
And those those are horrible. But you gotta see more
of those because they're going to be desperate for donation
and grants from private institutions, major corporations, and the federal
(07:31):
government was part of it, part of the grants done
finished all right, a little bit of history, okay, and
a little bit of a handle of history.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I don't know if you saw Oppenheimer or Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
One of the terrific movies of all time and the
end and the history of the atomic blast. It was
the Trinity Blast. And this has to do with reparations.
And I've talked about reparations for a long time. The
US does engage in reparations. For example, Japanese Americans who
were interred during World War Two received represent reparations, but
(08:07):
only those who were there. There was a move among
African Americans that there should be reparations from anybody who
is a progeny of slavery, which is half of America,
American blacks. So I mean that went no place, nor
should it go in place any place. Well, let me
tell you about the Trinity test in New Mexico. It
(08:29):
was five thirty am July sixteenth, nineteen forty five. This
is a story about a fourteen year old Jesse Gland,
who was there at his family's ranch twenty seven miles away,
and he didn't know it. He saw that huge blinding light.
But he didn't know that the world's first ever nuclear
weapon had just been detonated, and they didn't tell him.
(08:52):
Government basically never admitted it or until years and years later.
And in the hours and the days after the blast,
radio active dust would begin to come down on roofs
and clotheslines and crops and animals and the ground near
the farm, And as the years passed, almost every member
of his family and neighbors became sick, and often with
(09:15):
rare forms of cancer.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
The government never warned them about the bomb, never.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Evacuated them after the blast, or advised them about the
potential health consequences of nuclear fallout, which they knew was
going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That was not a surprise.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
So here we are eighty years later, and you've got
generations of New Mexicans from New Mexico who have suffered
health problems from that nuclear fallout are going to be
eligible to receive compensation. And this is the Trump administration
who is adding people to this list that is enabling
(09:58):
them to receive compensation. This isn't the Biden administration. This
is the Trump administration that is saying, hey, more people
are eligible.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
For federal aid.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And the recently enacted text bill expands the pool of
Americans eligible for a program that compensates people have had
health problems linked to the radiation exposure from atomic weapons program,
including uranium mining and what they call down winders, because
nuclear fallout goes can go hundreds of miles.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
All you need is a good wind and.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That radio aptic radioactive dust goes really far. Now, the
Trinity test was at the Almagordo Bombing Range with the government.
The US Army chose because of seclusion, predictable winds and
would limit the spread of radiation. Well, it did not
(11:00):
for the people who got nailed, because thousands of people
live within a forty mile radius of the test, and
the government had prepared emergency evacuation plans, and the radioactive
dust did come down, and they never used the evacuation plans.
(11:20):
And after the test, what did the government say happened? Well,
it was an accident involving ammunition and pyrotechnics. Of course,
did not admit it was a nuclear blast, never admitted
the real cause, even in the area who had watched
the mushroom cloud. And a month later the atomic bomb
went off in Japan, and oh that is the test
(11:44):
that happened here. That's when they found out, but by
then everyone living near the test site had already ingested
this radioactive material. There was a twenty fifteen letter from
a guy who was eleven years old at the time
of trin He talked about watching watching a cloud of
black ash fall across the entire town, including the clothing
(12:08):
his mom had hung out to dry.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
In the hours after the explosion, the.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Filth landed all over our town, covered our village with
this dust, and the government kept on downplaying the potential
potential consequences. So what the government now did is say
that we're expanding the number of people who have been
were in fact affected, even the kids of those people
(12:37):
who were affected of cancers, of sickness from radiation that
can be connected, and it's well so far, the estimate
now is ten thousand people have had health impacts related to.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
The Trinazy test.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Between and then on top of that, between nineteen fifty
one and fifty eight, one hundred and eighty eight new
tests were conducted at the military's Nevada test site.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
This is just north of Las.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Vegas sixty five miles but underground tests between sixty three
and nineteen ninety two were literally dozens. And then uranium
was mined thirty million tons of it from the Navajo
Nation land. The Navajo Nation was exempted. They could not
collect under the bill that was passed in nineteen ninety. Well,
(13:30):
now you've got people who are not only part of
the Navajo Nation, but also in areas that heretofore folks
lived were not allowed to receive compensation. Good for the
government on this one, Okay, kudos to the Trump administration
because people were grievously affected and the government knew it
was going to happen and didn't tell them and had
(13:53):
an evacuation plan and did nothing about it. Because I'm
assuming it was so secret that even mentioning an evacuation
plan or moving people away as a result of this blast,
it wouldn't take a genius to figure out, especially in
times of war.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Look what happened, all.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Right, let me tell you what just happened, and that
is the Trump administration went forward on its decision to
shut down this multi billion dollar grant program, and it
had to do with FEMA and the program. The grant
program given through FEMA aimed at protecting communities from flood hurricanes,
(14:34):
natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
So guess what happens.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
A lawsuit immediately hits the Trump administration. Now, so far,
in the first six months of the administration, over two
hundred and fifty lawsuits from state governments, local governments, individuals,
organizations had been filed against the administration.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So here's one.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Okay, this was filed in federal court in Boston, and
an acute This is FEMA of unlawfully terminating something called
the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program BRICK without the
approval of Congress, which set up BRICK.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And there's a.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Huge fight between the president and everybody else as to
the powers of the presidency.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
And so far the court has been good to the president.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And this is two days after the rains inundated New
York and New Jersey, two weeks after the floods hit
Central Texas, the devastating flood that killed so many people,
and a lot of them children. The BRICK program was
established in twenty eighteen, during President Trump's first term, replacing
a similar FEMA program that helped communities protect infrastructure from
(15:47):
extreme weather, raising roads and flood prone areas, upgrading stormwater
management systems.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I mean big money was spent.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
In the past four years, FEMA actually selected nearly two
two thousand projects, receiving four point five billion dollars in
these BRICK grants, and it has been estimated over the
past two decades these programs have saved taxpayers over one
hundred and fifty billion dollars that would have been spent
(16:17):
on rebuilding property that was damaged by natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
This according to the lawsuit the plaintiffs.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
FEMA announced in April it was shutdering shutting down the
Brick program as part of the efforts to eliminate waste, fraud,
and abuse. It's interesting that every program that has been
shut down by the government is wasteful and fraudulent and abusive.
Kind of interesting, and the agency said. FEMA said the
(16:47):
Brick program was yet another example of a wasteful and
ineffective FEMA program. This was a news release that the
agency had and has since been taken down from the website,
and the plaintiffs say that it's more concerned with political
agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disaster. By the way,
(17:12):
that news relief talking about wasteful and in effective FEMA
funds did not come up with examples, it's just a
general overriding.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
This is wasteful and abusive and fraudulent.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
So days into a second term, literally days, President Trump
suggested eliminating FEMA, calling the agency bloated ineffective. But after
the deadly flooding in Texas, the thought of eliminating FEMA
was not very palatable.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
So it switched to overhauling.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The agency instead of eliminating completely. But again, social programs,
and we talked earlier about eliminating very in terms of
the government helping to determine the risk of natural disasters,
eliminating the concept of climate change, which the social scientists,
(18:12):
the climate scientists want to incorporate, saying, we now have
to incorporate climate change as part of the formula, not
just whether, not just other factors in determining the risk
of natural disasters floods, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
We have to look at climate change.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
And the administration said, Nope, shut that one right down.
Climate change will not be incorporated or it will not
influence any decision or any program that the government's involved
with or influences. Okay, I don't know what to tell you.
(18:51):
Climate change is not big with this administration, for sure,
but look at the amount of money that has been
increased for defense, and certainly immigration has gone crazy. We
just look at the priorities. It's that simple, you know
this administration. Social programs are a very low priority or
(19:13):
should be eliminated completely.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Defense.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
By the way, there is no fraud or waste or
abuse in defense nine hundred billion dollars and they have
yet to find a fraudulent program. Okay, all right, Monday
through Friday from seven to ten pm, Mo Kelly has
a show cleverly entitled Later with Mo Kelly. Now, we
(19:39):
used to do this segment with Mo Earlier with Mo Kelly,
but that sound is so moronic. We decided to eliminate
that completely. So with that in mind, Good morning Mo.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Good morning Bill, and congratulations on thirty two years.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh, thank you greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
If you had come early yesterday, you could have had
some locks and bagels.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, I'm good, but thank you for at.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Okay, nice to let you know it's a true thing. Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And Amy tried it and thought it was slimy, and
I go, oh, come on, really, I.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Said it tasted good. Just the consistency was a little slimy.
I'm not even good.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I'm not going to get into that at all, Okay,
but I will tell you it is an acquired taste. Now, moe,
a movie tickets go on sale for a movie that's
not going to be released for another year. Number one,
what's the name of the movie? And two has this
happened before?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
No, it has not happened before, especially not in this way.
The name of the movie is The Odyssey, something we
probably all studied or read in high school and college.
It talks about Odysseus coming home from the ten year
Trojan War in the ten years after the war for
his journey home. It's directed by Christopher Nolan, who we
all know from Oppenheimer or Interstellar. He is known Tenant.
(21:03):
He's known for these big epic pictures. And what's interesting
about this You mentioned that it's going to be not
released for another year. A year from today, it will
be released, but they're selling tickets specifically to the IMAX
screenings in seventy millimeter. And if you don't know about
seventy milimeter, that's a much higher resolution. It's shot and
presented in a horizontal format, and it gives you a
(21:25):
much more immersive experience. So they are promoting the Imax
release seventy millimeter in advance.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
First of all, the Imax business, it originally started with
those space movies. NASA did those, and those were insane.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
They were so good.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
It was what the museum in downtown LA, a museum
of Science, and it was just insanely wonderful. And then
they expanded it and frankly, I saw, I've seen a
few movies in imax. Eh, you know, it doesn't add
that much to it.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Now, this is thirty five milimeters or seventy milimeter, that's
the difference.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, they don't have Imax in thirty five millimeter. I mean,
obviously it's it's a big screen.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's a big screen, but it also speaks to how
the movie was shot and how it's going to be
presented on that big screen.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, I mean they have to shoot it in seventy
milimeters if they're going to show it in seventy millimeter.
I'm assuming you get any clarity, And I'll tell you
what's a and MO will back this up.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
The best place to be at an Imax theater is.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
A front row, yeah, looking straight up, right straight up. Yes, Yeah,
I don't even know why you put those rows there.
When you talk about the film Odysseus, it reminds me
of the nineteen fifties movies that were the spectacles with
guys who used to be mister universe I forgot their names,
(22:51):
that were so horrible that you could barely watch them,
or now they're so campy that they're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Right, But movies now caught up to where the technology
matches the spectacle and the presentation aspect, where if you
want to see a movie of on this epic level,
then you want to see it on as large a
screen format as possible.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So let me ask you, I mean, is this simply
just a publicity stunt to generate some buzz or is
this thing going to be that big successful word of
mouthfish as it makes it it reasonable, it makes sense
(23:34):
to sell tickets a year in advance.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yes, it's both a publicity stunt, and yes the hype
is there and justifies it.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
They're only maybe I.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Don't know, three dozen IMAX theaters which are capable of
showing the seventy millimeter films, so it's more hype. It's
not like they're all these tickets that they can sell.
But the anticipation and expectation of Christopher Nolan doing a
movie on this scale with the type of talent attached.
As absolutely this is going to be the biggest movie
(24:03):
and it's going to be released one year from today.
So all of this is very intentional and all of
it is justified a.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Little bit of history.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
The first movie that was in Cinerama where they had
three different projectors and you had that split screen business
that didn't quite work was How the West Was Won
at the Cinerama Dome and there is I don't know
if you know this mode, but those three projectors are
still there and it was I think a couple of
(24:32):
years ago or a few years back where I was
invited to see How the West Was Won. I think
there's one print left, and to watch that movie in
the original Cinerama version of it was just spectacular. If
you ever have the chance, go for it. I don't
know if the equipment is even less left, but you
(24:55):
particularly would just go crazy with it. Okay, for the tidbit, Yeah,
a little bit of a little factoid for you, Okay,
mo Kelly tonight seven to ten pm, as he is
every night throughout the week right here on KFI a
social address at mister Mo Kelly Mo. You have a
good one, all right, catch you tonight, all right, coming up.
(25:17):
It's Gary and Shannon. And do we do phone numbers today?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay? I am taking phone calls.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was a sort of up in the air for
a minute. I am taking phone calls for a handle
on the law. Marginal legal advice where I give you
marginal legal advice off the air and you we go
through them very quickly as you can imagine, no breaks,
no commercials, news or any of that, no traffic will
because we don't want to hear it off the air.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
From nine o'clock on.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
All right, The number is eight seven seven five two
zero eleven fifty eight seven. So I was just joking,
will we love it? Eight seven seven, No, we don't.
Eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty eight seven
seven five two zero eleven fifty starting in just a moment,
marginal legal advice off the air. Okay, Tomorrow morning, five
(26:11):
am to six wake up call with Will and Amy
or Amy and Will's that's the proper yeah, I understand,
that's the billboard. And then Neil is not here, so
it'll be I join at six right up until now,
Gary and Shannon, this is KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The Bill Handel Show News
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