Zelenskyy on the Oval Office | Oklahoma: ‘America First’ Test for Teachers

(August 18,2025)
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy headed to the Oval Office today. Why Los Angeles can’t back out of hosting the 2028 Olympics. Oklahoma public schools will require any teachers from ‘blue states’ to take ‘America First’ test before they are allowed to teach in the state. Why short-term AirBNB rentals are dropping in Los Angeles.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings k I AM six forty the bill Handle
show on demand on the iHeartRadio f y AM six
forty bill Handle. Here it is a Monday morning, August eighteenth.
All right, big doings today at the White House, and
that is h Zelensky. President Zelensky is going to be

(00:24):
meeting with President Trump at the Oval Office. Remember last
time the two met, it wasn't so pleasant. Trump laid
into Zelensky. Jd Vance laid into Zelensky even more, and Zelensky, well,
the meeting was canceled and Zelensky was thrown out of
the White House goodbye. And there's a sign right there

(00:48):
if you notice, at the front entrance, we have the
right to reserve, to refuse service to anyone, and that's
exactly what they did with Zelensky. Okay, So this meeting today,
of which not only is Alenski's going to be there,
but also virtually every major company in a major country

(01:08):
in Europe's certainly the G seven plus the European Union
are part of this group. And I don't know if
they're a meeting at the same time they maybe they
may not be. And they are coming to back up
Ukraine and here's what happened. It looks like and it did.
It happened that President Trump, prior to meeting Putin, said

(01:30):
I'm going there with a ceasefire in mind. If I
don't get it, I'm walking out in two minutes. That's
what's going to happen. He completely reversed himself. He walked
out of that meeting saying that I basically I agree
with Putin. The only way peace is going to be
accomplished if Ukraine gives up the land that has been

(01:52):
occupied by Russia after the invasion. Twenty percent of Ukraine
is in Russian hands. And the deal is, here's the swap,
as the president, and that's in quotes. The President has said,
you give up all that land and they'll be peace.
That's what Putin has always said. You give up the land,

(02:13):
and by the way, more than what the Russians are occupying,
we will then give you peace. And what's and land swap?
How much of Russia is being given up? Zero? And
so the president is now advocating exactly what Putin wants.
I mean to the t and what is Ukraine getting

(02:36):
security from the United States. Steve witt Wikoff was at
he was interviewed by CNN over the weekend, and he
said he was asked about the security. Well, it's going
to be like Article five of the NATO Charter. Article
five says, if one country belonging to NATO is attacked,
then all are attacked and must defend. Likov said, we're

(03:00):
going to give a sort of kind of Article five,
and Jake Tapper said, you mean Article five. No, no,
kind of like Article five. By the way, what exactly
are we talking about. What deal was cut or what
was the specific terms that Trump and Putin had over
the weekend. Well, I'm not saying, we're not saying okay, great,

(03:26):
So in the meantime, I'll tell you what my thought
is on this. And I don't know why we're not
hearing about this. Going back a little bit in history,
let's go back to nineteen thirty eight where Hitler demanded
the Sudan land of Czechoslovakia, that is the Germans speaking

(03:46):
the eastern part I see southeastern part of Czechoslovakia, where
a lot of industry was the biggest industrial company in
Europe or certainly in Czechoslovakia, the Skoto works. And what
Hitler said, you give me that and I will not
invade and I will not take any other Countri's geography.

(04:08):
I will not take any other country's land. That is
my guarantee. Give it to me, and I will not
attack other countries. And of course what do the Allies
do now? Well, Chamberlain, head of the British government, right
and what does he do? He comes off the airplane
with a treaty in his hand, Peace in our time

(04:30):
and caved to Hitler. And of course a year later
Hitler invades Poland and World War two starts. So what
Putin is saying, you give me that land and I
will not attack any other lands. Boy, that seems just
like nineteen thirty eight. And of course we have to

(04:51):
trust Putin, and certainly the President does, because the President
trust Putin far more than he trusts our intelligence agencies.
And keep this in mind too. Putin right now is
a pariah leader of a pariah country after the invasion

(05:12):
of Ukraine, and he can't go to Europe because there
is an arrest warrant against him for war crimes. But
he goes to Alaska and the President invites him and
gives him as much credence and honor as any other

(05:33):
head of State, as a matter of fact. More so,
he meets him in Alaska. There's the red carpet, and
then the president, our president gets into the presidential limousine
and he invites Putin to join him in the limousine,
which is never done with another world leader. And he

(05:55):
ended up calling Putin Vladimir, and he's met with him,
and he considers him a good guy. And it is
I don't understand why the comparison is not being made
with what happened in nineteen thirty eight with Czechoslovakia, because

(06:15):
it smells exactly the same. Just talk about different leaders.
The only difference is a major difference is that Hitler
didn't have to invade Czechoslovakia. It was just given to
him by the Western Powers. Oh and Czechoslovakia wasn't even
it wasn't even talked to, Like Ukraine is not being

(06:37):
part of this agreement. It's being crammed down Ukraine's throat.
And this time, at least the Western leaders are fighting
it or trying to fight it, but the President is
holding the cards. Why so, because the President can say
to Ukraine, either you cut this steel and give up

(06:57):
the western or the eastern part of and hand it
over to Russia, or we will stop all aid to you,
all military aid will be cut. That will do it
without American aid. This thing falls apart. Ukrate has a
very difficult, if not an impossible time to fight Russia.

(07:20):
It is despicable. It is completely despicable. And Trump and
Zlynsky's relationship at least that has improved after being kicked
out of the White House a few months ago. All right,
let's talk about Olympics for a moment, because the twenty
twenty eight Olympics are quickly approaching here in LA and

(07:43):
there are a few things that should be discussed. One
of the big ones is should the Olympics be here anyway?
And should we bail wildfires, immigration raids, the call for
withdrawing from the twenty twenty eight Olympics. Have in testify,
I have in testified and testified. Now it has happened already,

(08:09):
Yeah that too, Yes, it has already happened in modern times.
And this is when Denver was awarded the Olympics and
then the Olympics were pulled. And why is that? Because
Denver lied? Denver told the Olympic committee, oh, we've got
plenty of venues, and it turns out there would be

(08:30):
no snow at those venues. They were close, but they
sort of miscalculated the snowfall, although I can't imagine the
International Committee wouldn't have figured that one out. And the
Olympics have been moved. Nineteen sixteen they were canceled. They
were supposed to be in Berlin, so they went to
nine thirty six. World War two two Olympics were canceled,

(08:55):
and one was nineteen forty the other one nineteen forty
four because of World War I too. But other than that,
the Olympics move forward. And it doesn't really matter pandemics,
it floods, I mean, it doesn't matter. They move forward.
In what LA twenty eight, which is the organization, the
local organization that is leading the leading the call, leading

(09:19):
the group of people that are actually putting this together
and it's a private organization, has say that the federal
government has promised foreign athletes and their delegation will be
able to travel to LA. But there's still questions why
is that? Because the government has said that, and guess what,

(09:40):
they've said no to a couple of teams and will
not give visas. And the problem is that during the
course of the Olympics, all international conflicts are put aside
in terms of the athletes getting together. So the call
for La Olympics to bail out is there and it's

(10:01):
becoming more persistent. So what happens, Well, there's a contract
straight out and a breach of contract that puts LA
into a wheel predicament. Now the contract doesn't allow the
city to bail out, but it allows the International Olympic
Committee to bail out, and the contract calls for the

(10:22):
city to still pay the expenses. For example, La the
budget runs over, is responsible for the first two hundred
million dollars, give or take. It is going to be
a very interesting time. So why did La get the Olympics. Actually,
La is probably one of the best country cities in

(10:43):
the world to get the Olympics. Is the number one
costs for any city hosting Olympics is infrastructure and putting
in new subways, putting in new transportation lines. We actually
did that for nineteen eighty four with the worst designed
airport egress and ingress that exists. Lax is one of

(11:05):
the worst airports on the planet, and a lot of
that is the infrastructure that was done for the eighty
four Olympics, and LA really is an advantage because it
has virtually all the infrastructure. It has Sofi Stadium, it
has the coliseum, it has venues, the swimming venues have

(11:27):
already been built, the velodrome's bicycle races, it's all here.
So the amount of infrastructure that has to be built
is minimal. And the International Committee looks at that. They
look at what a city can bring to the table,
and it can cost a country, a city a fortune.

(11:48):
Look at the Beijing Olympics and the amount of money
that Beijing spent sixty billion dollars something along those lines,
that Big birds Nest, major stadium that was so incredible,
where opening ceremonies took place. It's empty, they've never used it.
After that, it's falling apart. So La is a good

(12:12):
place to do this. However, there is talk about bailing out,
and as I said, the only city that has bailed
as a matter of fact, that was a decision by
the International Olympic Committee that Denver was done with the
winter Games. Winter games are harder to pull off because

(12:34):
you have to have snowfall, and if you don't have
snowfall or enough snowfall, it really makes it difficult. So
she had that problem in near Tokyo. Of course Denver does,
so they moved it to Innsbruck, where the Games have
taken place before. In Innsbrouck, Austria has snowfall, there is

(12:57):
not a problem to see what happens. It's going to
be here of course. Oh and opening ceremonies will be
at two locations in Los Angeles. The other big one
the last Olympics was along the Sane River and it
went on for I don't know how many miles and
it was really strange. I remember all those crazy dancers

(13:20):
and the makeup and it was just weird, just weird.
They had guys on stilts. They brought him in from
circus acts to go and walk up and down the Seine.
So strange. But it looks like la. Well, first of all,
the number of athletes has never been a number of athletes.
It's going to be over eleven thousand, and there's never

(13:42):
been the security that they're going to have. And the
Paralympic Games are going to be in Los Angeles at
the same time, so the amounts of money are huge. However,
on the other side of that coin is for the
first time the International Olympic Committee has allowed the naming

(14:03):
of venues before. It wasn't this event sponsored by but
the actual venue like Sofi Stadium for two weeks, will
not be so Fi Stadium. It'll be the name of
some corporation that is paying to have the venue naming.
It could be so Fi. I have no idea. It
would help with the signage over there. And La, the

(14:27):
La Olympics, the Olympic Committee has already said that seventy
percent of their budget in terms of naming rights have
already been sold. So it's going to happen in La.
And the people that arguing that it shouldn't go Pound Sand, Okay,
we're done with that one. Now, if you're a teacher,

(14:50):
Oklahoma may be a great place to go. There's a
teacher shortage all across the country. Oklahoma has said we
want and we'll give you fifty thousand dollars to come here.
And all of a sudden, you know, with Oklahoma being
a very inexpensive place to live and fifty thousand dollars, okay,

(15:12):
not a bad deal. And Oklahoma says, we got some
winners here and that's not a problem. Accept The state
Department of Education is implementing a new certification test. Teachers
have to prove they share the state's conservative political values,

(15:33):
one of them being that they know the biological difference
between females and males. They agree with the state's American history, Sanders,
which includes conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the
twenty twenty presidential election. Part of the acceptance of being
a teacher, you have to say, yes, I agree with

(15:55):
the twenty twenty stolen election concept. I mean, come on,
And the state Department of Education is doing this from
only two states that have to take the test, just two,
New York and California. No other state, no other teacher

(16:15):
from any other state has to take this certification test. YEP,
sounds good to me. And the Department of Education superintendent
says the reason it's California, for example, got to give
the credit to Gavin Newsom. He said, California under this
governor has implemented lessons on gender theory that won't be

(16:38):
allowed in Oklahoma schools. And guess what I mean. Here
in California, we do teach gender theory, and we do
teach that same sex relationships happen and are positive. Or not.
It's up to the teacher to say they do, and
on and on. So the nonprofit is conservative Media Praguer University.

(17:03):
That's well, you know mister Prager, who is a talk
show host, pretty conservative. He started this company and it's
helped develop the state's new high school history curriculum standards,
which includes the secting the twenty twenty stolen election, learning
about mail in voter fraud, unforeseen record number of voters,

(17:25):
security risks of male in balloting, also teaches that COVID
emerged from a lab leak in China, certainly not from
an animal, and removed proposed lessons about the outcome of
the George Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter movement.

(17:46):
And the superintendent said, these reforms will reset our classrooms
back to educating our children without liberal indoctrinization. So therefore
we're going to effectively have a patriot patriotic tests. Sounds
like Joseph McCarthy in the fifties, doesn't it just a

(18:09):
little bit? Oh, Kansas, I love this one. A couple
of decades ago, Kansas, the Board of Education lay down
a curriculum where whenever a science teacher or any other
teacher even mentions evolution at the same time, at the

(18:30):
same level, with the same degree of certainty. Creationism has
to be mentioned. If you teach evolution, you must teach creationism.
Religiously based creationism that says God created man in the
seven days or six days, and on the seventh day

(18:53):
he rested. And it's straight out religion, which of course
was held on constitutional I don't know if it would
have held that way today. I mean, this is crazy stuff.
It really is effective. You have to swear allegiance if
you go to Oklahoma and you're a teacher from California.

(19:15):
It's not crazy out there at all? Is it? Not
even a little bit? Now? And this is in La
story right now, and that is airbnb rental short term
airbnb rentals are dropping like crazy. One factor is the
city is finally going forward with the fines that were

(19:38):
set up in twenty eighteen. There's a home sharing ordinance
and it's big fines too. I mean housing. The shortage
is very big long term rentals. People moving in or
wanting housing, they can't because short term rentals make so
much money. And this is a story out of the

(20:01):
La Times. And I had no idea there are numbers
like that, all right, short term rentals. A three bedroom,
two bathroom house in a good neighborhood. You know how
much that brings in a month. Ten thousand dollars a
month is not unusual for a three bedroom house. Now,

(20:24):
if you go medium range, right, then you're gonna get
twenty percent less, only eight thousand dollars, But the turnover
is less and you're gonna get maybe eight thousand dollars. Now,
short term rentals have always been a problem. Airbnb and
Verbo offer income for homeowners options for tourists, so it's

(20:46):
good stuff. But home sharing removes those long term rentals
from market, and that is a huge problem. And so
far the regulation have worked. Listings dropped seventy percent from
twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three, but a lot of

(21:06):
it is the pandemic and the fires haven't helped. And
there has to be a license, but thousands of people
still host a short term without a license or fake
license numbers. There is no enforcement. That's the problem. You

(21:27):
can have all the laws you want, but if there
is no one out there to enforce the law, then
what happens. Well, of course, people skirt it, so a
new plan calls for eighteen staffers to monitor violation and
increase fines based on square footage you get caught renting
without a license for any kind of violation. It's one

(21:52):
thousand bucks for renolds less than five hundred square feet.
Sixteen thousand dollars is the top end for homes bigger
than twenty five thousand square feet, and then the fines
double and quadruple on the second and third violation. Wow,
not bad. So here we are two months after all

(22:13):
that was announced and ain't gonna happen. We have a
fourteen billion dollar budget and it's been We're at a
budget deficit here in Los Angeles. So out of those
eighteen new hires, none have been hired. And the plans,
a lot of those plans have yet to be implemented.

(22:33):
It just doesn't happen. So medium term rentals are well,
let me go to Neil. Neil does a rental with
his property or your property in Big Bear? Do you
do short term? You do short term? You do medium term?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Short term only?

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Short term only? And how much would you get I
don't know if you want to talk to about number specifically,
but what percent would you get if you did a
long term rental versus your short term? How much more
do you get on short term? You think?

Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know, we're not super aggressive about it. We have
a company that handles it for us that is expensive.
You know, they take twenty eight almost thirty percent of
all of it, so they probably make more than we
do audit. But you know, it could vary. It could
be one hundred and fifty dollars to rent it, but

(23:32):
you have other fees. It's one hundred and fifty dollars
for cleaning fees. None of that the cleaning fees don't
go to us. That goes to the company that oversees it.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
So we don't.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
We don't make a ton of money off it. It's
just one of those things we do to sort of
supplement the cost of mortgage. Okay, but it doesn't you know,
we're paying it regardless.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
All right, Well, thank you for that. Thank you, because
that didn't help one iota towards the story I did
and I shouldn't have exactly. KFI AM six. 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,