October 28, 2024 • 25 mins
Foreign threats to the US election are on the rise, and officials are moving faster to expose them. L.A. teachers’ union support blocking sales of U.S. weaponry to Israel. As the housing affordability crisis deepens, AirBNB and VRBO face backlash. Cyber attacks on critical US infrastructure keep happening. How worried should we be?
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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 Handle Here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Morning Crew on a Monday morning, October twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And oh, do we have a day to day?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Do we have a week this week to talk about
what's happening? Because week from tomorrow is the election. And
if we thought the twenty twenty election was scrambled and
just a mess was made out of it in terms
of who was elected and who was not, let me
(00:36):
tell you what's going to happen next Tuesday. First of all,
all the problems that we had within the election process
are going to be multiplied, and I'm going to talk
more about that probably tomorrow. You know, there already been
one hundred lawsuits already filed, have already been filed, a
hundred of them by Republicans, and I'll talk more about
(00:58):
that tomorrow. Also, what's really going up there is the
hacking President former President Trump's phone was hacked. A false
video is running around the internet showing ballots being burned
in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
National security officials.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Saying that US adversaries may incite violence protests after the
election day. We're not talking about Republicans versus Democrats. We're
not about pro Trump versus pro Harris. We're talking about foreigners.
The Russians, particularly Chinese not so much, but really the
Russians are the bad guys here. And this shows how Russia, China,
(01:43):
to a smaller extent, Iran big Time have increased the
pace of their efforts to meddle in our politics, just
the way intelligence officials have said, that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Well, at the same time, since we.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Know about it, you've got the officials, tech companies and
researchers are already in a much more aggressive defensive mode,
and they're exposing quickly these foreign election threats, highlighting what's
learned in the last few elections, particularly the last one.
Now officials say the US election is secure, so secure
(02:20):
that no foreign nation could actually alter the results at
a scale necessary to change the income.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It doesn't matter because you know the lawsuits, you know
what's going to happen. But what you have is adversaries.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
US advertaries have leveraged disinformation, cyber espionage to target target
campaigns and voters. And I'm talking about both sides, not
just Trump or Kamala Harris. Depending on the interests of
a foreign country. It is both sides. Iran hates Trump
and is doing everything you can and pushing into cyber
(02:55):
attacks and disinformation and memes in favor of Harris because
Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal does not like Iran.
Harris is much more of a peacenick. And that's in quotes. Russia,
of course loves Trump. And why well, because Trump likes Putin.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Trump genuinely feels that United States, the services, the intelligence
services for example, and the deep State are far more
dangerous to the US than is Putin and Russia.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So it goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And so you see the Kremlins disinformation program, what are they? Immigration, crime,
the economy, the disaster relief which the Trump folks are
attacking like crazy. If you look at the anti Harris
Biden Harris campaign and how they've handled this disaster relief,
(03:56):
and you know that the administration has been attacked over
over again. Money isn't flowing for disaster relief. The money
has been taken and gone for illegal immigration. A lot
of that is from Russia. A lot of that is
from Russia. So you have a situation, Well, let me
give you an idea. Let me give you an example.
(04:16):
A couple of examples. Russia staged a video and this
is been confirmed by US intelligence officials that accuses Harris
of paralyzing a woman in a car crash years ago.
Another one is making allegations against Tim Walls. The FBI
confirmed Russia created a third video that just came out
(04:41):
showing the destruction of male ballots in Pennsylvania. You see
that with a guy tearing up Trump literally tearing up
Trump votes, and local election officials debunked it as false,
But it doesn't matter because people believe it, because how
many people believe in what they see on the internet
(05:01):
versus any news because news is false, news is fake,
but Joe Rogan is true, and that's what we're getting.
Russia has also tried to pay American influencers. By the way,
that is not just an allegation, because we know that
two Russian state media employees funneled ten million dollars to
(05:24):
an ascent to a Tennessee company to create pro Russian content.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
That company then paid some right wing.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Influencers, and the influencers, when they were told, said they
had no idea that their work was being supported by Russia,
which I believe, because I believe Russia is that slimy
and I'll take them at their word. Now, Iran is
(05:54):
accused of, and it's true, hacking the Trump campaign, offering
stolen communications to media organizations and Democrats. And there is
a story out there that the Russians were sending emails
dirt about about Trump, well dirt about yeah, about Trump,
(06:18):
to people associated with the Biden campaign. That was back then,
and at this point they didn't accept it. We don't
know if that's true, but I'm taking them at their word.
So we're looking at not only an election where it's
homemade memes and videos that purport to show crazy, crazy
(06:41):
stuff on both sides of this, but you got Russia, Iran,
China to a lesser extent, jumping into So our election
is not just among candidates in the United States. It's
all about Russia and Iran specifically. And we'll talk more
about this coming up, and then next few days a
(07:01):
little bit about what's going on in the world today.
The LA Teachers Union has weighed in. They voted last
Wednesdays to support a congressional effort to block the sale
of weaponry to Israel twenty billion dollars worth on the
grounds that these arms were being used against civilians and
(07:21):
they are now the issue is and it goes far
deeper than just you're using arms. Israel of course says, yes,
civilians are dying. Yeah, we feel horrible about it. That's
their position. But when Hamas invents itself in civilians, what
do you expect us to do? So you have the
United Teachers of LA voting to pledge their support, and
(07:43):
this was calling for California centers Alex Padilla and Lafonza
Butler to pledge their support for a government action called
a joint resolutions Resolutions of disapproval. Bernie Sanders is heading
this one, and it's to halt the sale of some
armaments Israel, and that's supposed to be taken up by
(08:07):
the Senate after the election. And here is the reasoning
behind it, and this is union materials prepared for the
Board of Directors meeting in which they voted to support
this measure coming up, and it says that taking the stand,
the arms named in the resolution are.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Being used to indiscriminately.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Kill large number of civilians, many of them children, which
again is absolutely true. As educators, we've watched for a
year as Israel has decimated the education system for current
and future Palestinians, destroying every university in Gaza. True, forcing
kids to attend schools and refugee.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Camps or not at all.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
That's also true, and the union says it's our duty
of educators to speak up for the protection of education
and all young people and their families, especially when it's
our tax dollars fueling this discretion destruction and our government
providing the arms.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know what, I'm okay with this, you know there,
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Okay with the position, but I'm okay with a union
resolving saying we're on one side or the other of
this political issue. And also the union says it affects
our members, many of them have loved ones who have
lost their lives or livelihoods in Gaza due to this conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Of course, Israel is blaming.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Hamas for all of the destruction, saying, hey, if you
had an attacked us October seventh, and if you here's
the other way. If Hamas decides tomorrow afternoon, okay, we
recognize Israel and we guarantee there will be more, no
(09:52):
more attacks that forces israel I believe to sit down
and have some serious negotiations, but Comas won't do that.
The destruction of Israel is still primary.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The issue of.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Hostages are still primary, and so that's the difference between
the two parties.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
This is why nothing is happening.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And as nothing is happening, Gaza is getting more and
more destroyed by the day. Another attack just killed thirty
three Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend, and a lot
of those were kids, and it is horrific. Now, how
far has the union gone? You're ready for this? There
(10:34):
was a resolution that was introduced by and voted by
a majority of UTLA members or the board criticizing the
Jewish state and not condemning the Kammas atrocities. They just
wanted to come out and say, Israel is that fault
(10:55):
here and they're killing people and not even mentioning October seventh.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, there's a member of the board who I'm assuming is.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Jewish and that is anti Semitic, and he says, if
this motion passes, not only will we lose many Jewish
and Israel supporting members, but the negative pr will that
results will be tremendous.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And that's absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
In September twenty twenty one, the Teacher's Union shelled that
resolution that would have condemned Israel and supported Palestinians, and
of course not even mentioning October seventh. Well, a substitute
motion was then put into play, saying that we'll leave
it open. We have to have discussions about the union's position.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And by the way, that union isn't the UTLA is.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Not alone in promoting these resolutions and saying that Israel
has to stop. The Association of Flight Attendants, the American
Postal Workers Union, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades,
National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, United Auto Workers,
(12:10):
the United Electrical Workers. So the unions seem to be well,
at least the ones I talked about, seems to be
pretty much on the side of what's going on in
the Palestinian side. And it's not hard. And by the way,
you know where I sit. I have friends in Israel.
I've been to Israel half a dozen times. I had
(12:31):
family members that live in Israel. Of course, I am
of the Hebrewic American persuasion, so there are a bunch
of reasons that I am pro Israel, but at the
same time, you know, in terms of humanitarian aid that
Israel is not allowing to go into Gaza and claiming
that they are allowing to go into Gaza, and as
(12:52):
a matter of fact, claiming they are helping the humanitarian
aid go into Gaza and being distributed. That kind of
hippocracy is stunning. That is horrific. And upon international pressure,
I do believe the more humanitarian aid is coming into Gaza,
they've opened up those passageways. But the attacks and guys
(13:17):
that keep on going. And then we have Lebanon, that
war is going, and then we have the attack on Iran,
which I'm going to talk about later.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And is it going to be a three front war
for Israel.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't think with the Iran, But frankly, I was
kind of surprised that Lebanon unleashed all those A missiles
just in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's it, not.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Because Israel is attacking, not because Israel leaves Beirut alone.
Israel is not interested in taking over that part of Lebanon.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
But you've got Hezbollah and the.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Whole northern part of Israel has been evacuated because of
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So, I mean it is crazy, It really is.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
You know, it's gotten to the point now where I
think that those Arab countries have to be a little careful.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They have to take into consideration what Israel is prepared
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Gaza is gone, it's been decimated. It will take generations
to bring Gaza back. Southern Lebanon, be Root included, is
on its way to being decimated.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It's a tough way to go, all right. I want
to do a story about housing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I always jump into housing because it's just one of
those things that I'm interested in. And this has to
do with Airbnb and Verbo vrbo and facing backlash against
cities that are passing new ordinances saying you know what.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You can't have, You can't use Airbnb. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Short term rentals are not going to be allowed. It
has to be over thirty days, and very few people
rent or go to airb or Verbo over thirty days.
And this is a story in CNN about Irvine, which
passed ordinances saying short term rentals off the table.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And they're not alone, by the way.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
A lot of cities are doing that because the argument
is the more of these that are around the less
there is housing available for people.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Because it's real simple. Here's the equation.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
You take housing, affordable housing, or any kind of rental
housing off the market long term housing, what do you get?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You get short term housing, which gets in.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
The way, and therefore it lends itself to the issue
of just simple not only housing affordability, just the number
of houses are available.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, it goes two ways. Number one. Irvine says, yeah,
it works fine, no problem.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
We've had an increase in housing rentals as we decreased
and eliminated Airbnb for short term rentals, so that makes sense.
On the other hand, it goes the other way too,
tell you right, Colorado, for example, did the same thing,
and they didn't get any more housing because people have
(16:12):
places and they're not going to give them up for rental,
long term rental, just simply because they bought places. Neil,
for example, has house up in the mountains somewhere. I
don't know, you know, the mountains of Big Bear or
the Rockies or the Appalachians.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I have no idea where it is.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
But Neil, here's the question. If you couldn't rent it
out for short term, which you do, would you rent
it out at all for long term? Would you want
to be a landlord with it?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Probably not. That's the whole point. That is what Airbnb
is saying.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Because we're not allowing because Irvine doesn't allow us to
now short term rent the property. That doesn't mean that
the property is going to be available for long term rent.
Because people bought second homes. They buy vacation homes, and
that's what they're primarily about, as in Neil's case, and
(17:07):
Neil is not alone.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Now let's go to tell your Ride Colorado.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
All right, no more Airbnb, no more Verbo or any
of those other platforms. Therefore, housing is now going to
be more affordable, there'll be more.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Units out there.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Well, people bought their places as vacation homes.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And so they haven't gone on the market.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And I'll tell you what did happen with the Airbnb
being tossed out. Tourism went down. It affected the tourism industry.
And tell your Ride, which is their industry. So it
goes both ways. This is pretty complicated stuff. I mean,
it's easy for us to say, Okay, Airbnb is gone,
(17:53):
no more short term rentals. Therefore it immediately equates to
longer term rentals.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Michael Seller, a professional of finance and real estate, saying,
you look at an area's economy in terms of whether
you have short term rentals, you have to look at
all the factors, the local housing market, the geographic location,
the appeal to tourists.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And we're not doing that. And in some cities it's working.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
In other cities it is not working, and so and
we tend to look with a broad stroke. And sometimes
city councils, and these city council are not the most
sophisticated political organizations that exist, and there are too many
people that are willing to look long term and look
at the studies. Not in the city council, matter of fact,
(18:48):
not even in the US Senate or the House. There
are a lot of people that just react. Matter of fact.
Long term planners, I think are in the minority. And
that's important stuff, all right, So much for that. I
want to spend a minute talking about cyber attacks on
US infrastructure and how worried we should be about it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Well, you know what, let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Do you remember there was a storm that knocked out
the largest gasoline pipeline in the country that was from
Texas to New York and nearly seventeen thousand gas stations
went dry.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
There was another one that happened.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
A couple of years ago, actually twenty twenty one, and
it was the Colonial gas pipeline that went out.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Half of all the.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Fuel consumed on the East Coast was disrupted for four days.
It couldn't get gas. It was your typical gas lines, etc.
Do you remember how bad that big that story was.
Amy covered it and we were talking a lot about it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
It was Russia that did it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Russian hackers shut down a pipeline for four days that
produced oil for half the oil on the.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Eastern seaboard, and Russia did it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And the US cyber warriors that are working on our side,
of course, say that's just a taste of things to come.
Foreign governments, gangs working under the protection foreign governments read Russia, Iran,
China are getting into our system and not so much
(20:34):
shutting down our systems now.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Because they're not.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
What they're doing is getting ready to shut down our systems.
There are plenty of hacks and they have not transferred
into shutting down entire sections of our US infrastructure. What
they're doing is they're basically doing dry runs. Earlier this year,
(21:01):
Chinese hackers breached Verizon AT and T other telecoms, not
to shut them down, but understand how these companies cooperate
with authorities to track criminals, particularly the Chinese actors. Recent months,
there has been an update, not only an update, but
(21:22):
an uptick, but a steady drumbeat of these high profile
cyber attacks, most minor distractions. Not much has happened except
that we know now the cyber experts know that they
are simply practicing These are all dry runs.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
There is a guy who is an expert on this.
His name is Clark. What's his first name?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I think Stephen Clark, and he is a professor and
studies infrastructure at tennio's president of Security, Risk and April,
and he goes hacking as old as the Internet itself.
But the contest has evolved into a key front. It's
just another theater of war. It's that simple air, land.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Sea, space.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Of course, we know space is going to be another
point of warfare and cyber wars. And the cyber wars
are actually the scariest because it's not just a front
that we have to fight, it's our entire infrastructure system.
Now can it all come down in a crash. Probably not,
(22:36):
but a lot of it can. And are we doing enough?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
No? But here is the good news. Okay, I'm going
to now share with you.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Actually there's a silver lining here which I never share
because I only give you the crap, and that is,
as these foreign governments are hacking into our infrastructure, we're
hacking into their infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
And it's back to the Cold War mutually.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Assured destruction mad when we had thirty thousand nuclear weapons.
Russia had thirty thousand nuclear weapons, which you need about
a dozen to wipe out the entire planet. And the
bottom line was, Okay, you attack us, we're going to
attack you, and there'll be nothing left of this planet.
(23:30):
And the same sort of philosophy is going you take
out our infrastructure, we're going to take out your infrastructure.
And since the entire world is based on the internet,
other than you know in Yemen, South Sudan, where they
eat sand for dinner and they don't have much going
and their telephone lines are two cans with a string
(23:50):
between them and there or smoke signals or whatever the
hell they do. Short of that, it's mutually a shured destruction. Okay,
we're not gonna blow it. We're not gonna blow each
other up, but we're certainly not gonna be able to
call each other. There'll be no phones, there'll be no computers,
there'll be nothing. Do we really want to be in
a world like that? Uh? And the answer is probably
(24:15):
not unless you get some crazy people in charge. And
even the craziest at this point Kim Jong Lunn, for example,
who's about as nuts as they come, except he is
pretty smart. I mean he was able to take over
North Korea at the age of twenty eight. You know
(24:35):
he can't be that dumb. Even he won't go that far.
Will putin go that far? Well, actually he's gone further.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Is it going to happen? I don't think so. But
we're back to those days. And I thought we thought
those days.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Were over when the Cold War was done. It's just
another Cold war. It doesn't stop.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Boy, are we doing well?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Society has done so well When I was a kid,
that was gonna be peace.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
There'll be food for everybody, There'll be cars flying around
like the Jetsons were there by the way, everybody's gonna
love one another. And then I stopped doing LSD and
then I got a reality check. Okay kf I am
six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
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 Handle Here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Morning Crew on a Monday morning, October twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And oh, do we have a day to day?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Do we have a week this week to talk about
what's happening? Because week from tomorrow is the election. And
if we thought the twenty twenty election was scrambled and
just a mess was made out of it in terms
of who was elected and who was not, let me
(00:36):
tell you what's going to happen next Tuesday. First of all,
all the problems that we had within the election process
are going to be multiplied, and I'm going to talk
more about that probably tomorrow. You know, there already been
one hundred lawsuits already filed, have already been filed, a
hundred of them by Republicans, and I'll talk more about
(00:58):
that tomorrow. Also, what's really going up there is the
hacking President former President Trump's phone was hacked. A false
video is running around the internet showing ballots being burned
in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
National security officials.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Saying that US adversaries may incite violence protests after the
election day. We're not talking about Republicans versus Democrats. We're
not about pro Trump versus pro Harris. We're talking about foreigners.
The Russians, particularly Chinese not so much, but really the
Russians are the bad guys here. And this shows how Russia, China,
(01:43):
to a smaller extent, Iran big Time have increased the
pace of their efforts to meddle in our politics, just
the way intelligence officials have said, that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Well, at the same time, since we.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Know about it, you've got the officials, tech companies and
researchers are already in a much more aggressive defensive mode,
and they're exposing quickly these foreign election threats, highlighting what's
learned in the last few elections, particularly the last one.
Now officials say the US election is secure, so secure
(02:20):
that no foreign nation could actually alter the results at
a scale necessary to change the income.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It doesn't matter because you know the lawsuits, you know
what's going to happen. But what you have is adversaries.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
US advertaries have leveraged disinformation, cyber espionage to target target
campaigns and voters. And I'm talking about both sides, not
just Trump or Kamala Harris. Depending on the interests of
a foreign country. It is both sides. Iran hates Trump
and is doing everything you can and pushing into cyber
(02:55):
attacks and disinformation and memes in favor of Harris because
Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal does not like Iran.
Harris is much more of a peacenick. And that's in quotes. Russia,
of course loves Trump. And why well, because Trump likes Putin.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Trump genuinely feels that United States, the services, the intelligence
services for example, and the deep State are far more
dangerous to the US than is Putin and Russia.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So it goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And so you see the Kremlins disinformation program, what are they? Immigration, crime,
the economy, the disaster relief which the Trump folks are
attacking like crazy. If you look at the anti Harris
Biden Harris campaign and how they've handled this disaster relief,
(03:56):
and you know that the administration has been attacked over
over again. Money isn't flowing for disaster relief. The money
has been taken and gone for illegal immigration. A lot
of that is from Russia. A lot of that is
from Russia. So you have a situation, Well, let me
give you an idea. Let me give you an example.
(04:16):
A couple of examples. Russia staged a video and this
is been confirmed by US intelligence officials that accuses Harris
of paralyzing a woman in a car crash years ago.
Another one is making allegations against Tim Walls. The FBI
confirmed Russia created a third video that just came out
(04:41):
showing the destruction of male ballots in Pennsylvania. You see
that with a guy tearing up Trump literally tearing up
Trump votes, and local election officials debunked it as false,
But it doesn't matter because people believe it, because how
many people believe in what they see on the internet
(05:01):
versus any news because news is false, news is fake,
but Joe Rogan is true, and that's what we're getting.
Russia has also tried to pay American influencers. By the way,
that is not just an allegation, because we know that
two Russian state media employees funneled ten million dollars to
(05:24):
an ascent to a Tennessee company to create pro Russian content.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
That company then paid some right wing.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Influencers, and the influencers, when they were told, said they
had no idea that their work was being supported by Russia,
which I believe, because I believe Russia is that slimy
and I'll take them at their word. Now, Iran is
(05:54):
accused of, and it's true, hacking the Trump campaign, offering
stolen communications to media organizations and Democrats. And there is
a story out there that the Russians were sending emails
dirt about about Trump, well dirt about yeah, about Trump,
(06:18):
to people associated with the Biden campaign. That was back then,
and at this point they didn't accept it. We don't
know if that's true, but I'm taking them at their word.
So we're looking at not only an election where it's
homemade memes and videos that purport to show crazy, crazy
(06:41):
stuff on both sides of this, but you got Russia, Iran,
China to a lesser extent, jumping into So our election
is not just among candidates in the United States. It's
all about Russia and Iran specifically. And we'll talk more
about this coming up, and then next few days a
(07:01):
little bit about what's going on in the world today.
The LA Teachers Union has weighed in. They voted last
Wednesdays to support a congressional effort to block the sale
of weaponry to Israel twenty billion dollars worth on the
grounds that these arms were being used against civilians and
(07:21):
they are now the issue is and it goes far
deeper than just you're using arms. Israel of course says, yes,
civilians are dying. Yeah, we feel horrible about it. That's
their position. But when Hamas invents itself in civilians, what
do you expect us to do? So you have the
United Teachers of LA voting to pledge their support, and
(07:43):
this was calling for California centers Alex Padilla and Lafonza
Butler to pledge their support for a government action called
a joint resolutions Resolutions of disapproval. Bernie Sanders is heading
this one, and it's to halt the sale of some
armaments Israel, and that's supposed to be taken up by
(08:07):
the Senate after the election. And here is the reasoning
behind it, and this is union materials prepared for the
Board of Directors meeting in which they voted to support
this measure coming up, and it says that taking the stand,
the arms named in the resolution are.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Being used to indiscriminately.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Kill large number of civilians, many of them children, which
again is absolutely true. As educators, we've watched for a
year as Israel has decimated the education system for current
and future Palestinians, destroying every university in Gaza. True, forcing
kids to attend schools and refugee.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Camps or not at all.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
That's also true, and the union says it's our duty
of educators to speak up for the protection of education
and all young people and their families, especially when it's
our tax dollars fueling this discretion destruction and our government
providing the arms.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know what, I'm okay with this, you know there,
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Okay with the position, but I'm okay with a union
resolving saying we're on one side or the other of
this political issue. And also the union says it affects
our members, many of them have loved ones who have
lost their lives or livelihoods in Gaza due to this conflict.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Of course, Israel is blaming.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Hamas for all of the destruction, saying, hey, if you
had an attacked us October seventh, and if you here's
the other way. If Hamas decides tomorrow afternoon, okay, we
recognize Israel and we guarantee there will be more, no
(09:52):
more attacks that forces israel I believe to sit down
and have some serious negotiations, but Comas won't do that.
The destruction of Israel is still primary.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The issue of.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Hostages are still primary, and so that's the difference between
the two parties.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
This is why nothing is happening.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And as nothing is happening, Gaza is getting more and
more destroyed by the day. Another attack just killed thirty
three Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend, and a lot
of those were kids, and it is horrific. Now, how
far has the union gone? You're ready for this? There
(10:34):
was a resolution that was introduced by and voted by
a majority of UTLA members or the board criticizing the
Jewish state and not condemning the Kammas atrocities. They just
wanted to come out and say, Israel is that fault
(10:55):
here and they're killing people and not even mentioning October seventh.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, there's a member of the board who I'm assuming is.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Jewish and that is anti Semitic, and he says, if
this motion passes, not only will we lose many Jewish
and Israel supporting members, but the negative pr will that
results will be tremendous.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And that's absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
In September twenty twenty one, the Teacher's Union shelled that
resolution that would have condemned Israel and supported Palestinians, and
of course not even mentioning October seventh. Well, a substitute
motion was then put into play, saying that we'll leave
it open. We have to have discussions about the union's position.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And by the way, that union isn't the UTLA is.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Not alone in promoting these resolutions and saying that Israel
has to stop. The Association of Flight Attendants, the American
Postal Workers Union, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades,
National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, United Auto Workers,
(12:10):
the United Electrical Workers. So the unions seem to be well,
at least the ones I talked about, seems to be
pretty much on the side of what's going on in
the Palestinian side. And it's not hard. And by the way,
you know where I sit. I have friends in Israel.
I've been to Israel half a dozen times. I had
(12:31):
family members that live in Israel. Of course, I am
of the Hebrewic American persuasion, so there are a bunch
of reasons that I am pro Israel, but at the
same time, you know, in terms of humanitarian aid that
Israel is not allowing to go into Gaza and claiming
that they are allowing to go into Gaza, and as
(12:52):
a matter of fact, claiming they are helping the humanitarian
aid go into Gaza and being distributed. That kind of
hippocracy is stunning. That is horrific. And upon international pressure,
I do believe the more humanitarian aid is coming into Gaza,
they've opened up those passageways. But the attacks and guys
(13:17):
that keep on going. And then we have Lebanon, that
war is going, and then we have the attack on Iran,
which I'm going to talk about later.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And is it going to be a three front war
for Israel.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't think with the Iran, But frankly, I was
kind of surprised that Lebanon unleashed all those A missiles
just in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's it, not.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Because Israel is attacking, not because Israel leaves Beirut alone.
Israel is not interested in taking over that part of Lebanon.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
But you've got Hezbollah and the.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Whole northern part of Israel has been evacuated because of
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So, I mean it is crazy, It really is.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
You know, it's gotten to the point now where I
think that those Arab countries have to be a little careful.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They have to take into consideration what Israel is prepared
to do.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Gaza is gone, it's been decimated. It will take generations
to bring Gaza back. Southern Lebanon, be Root included, is
on its way to being decimated.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It's a tough way to go, all right. I want
to do a story about housing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I always jump into housing because it's just one of
those things that I'm interested in. And this has to
do with Airbnb and Verbo vrbo and facing backlash against
cities that are passing new ordinances saying you know what.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You can't have, You can't use Airbnb. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Short term rentals are not going to be allowed. It
has to be over thirty days, and very few people
rent or go to airb or Verbo over thirty days.
And this is a story in CNN about Irvine, which
passed ordinances saying short term rentals off the table.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And they're not alone, by the way.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
A lot of cities are doing that because the argument
is the more of these that are around the less
there is housing available for people.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Because it's real simple. Here's the equation.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
You take housing, affordable housing, or any kind of rental
housing off the market long term housing, what do you get?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
You get short term housing, which gets in.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
The way, and therefore it lends itself to the issue
of just simple not only housing affordability, just the number
of houses are available.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, it goes two ways. Number one. Irvine says, yeah,
it works fine, no problem.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
We've had an increase in housing rentals as we decreased
and eliminated Airbnb for short term rentals, so that makes sense.
On the other hand, it goes the other way too,
tell you right, Colorado, for example, did the same thing,
and they didn't get any more housing because people have
(16:12):
places and they're not going to give them up for rental,
long term rental, just simply because they bought places. Neil,
for example, has house up in the mountains somewhere. I
don't know, you know, the mountains of Big Bear or
the Rockies or the Appalachians.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I have no idea where it is.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
But Neil, here's the question. If you couldn't rent it
out for short term, which you do, would you rent
it out at all for long term? Would you want
to be a landlord with it?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Probably not. That's the whole point. That is what Airbnb
is saying.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Because we're not allowing because Irvine doesn't allow us to
now short term rent the property. That doesn't mean that
the property is going to be available for long term rent.
Because people bought second homes. They buy vacation homes, and
that's what they're primarily about, as in Neil's case, and
(17:07):
Neil is not alone.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Now let's go to tell your Ride Colorado.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
All right, no more Airbnb, no more Verbo or any
of those other platforms. Therefore, housing is now going to
be more affordable, there'll be more.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Units out there.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Well, people bought their places as vacation homes.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
And so they haven't gone on the market.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And I'll tell you what did happen with the Airbnb
being tossed out. Tourism went down. It affected the tourism industry.
And tell your Ride, which is their industry. So it
goes both ways. This is pretty complicated stuff. I mean,
it's easy for us to say, Okay, Airbnb is gone,
(17:53):
no more short term rentals. Therefore it immediately equates to
longer term rentals.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Michael Seller, a professional of finance and real estate, saying,
you look at an area's economy in terms of whether
you have short term rentals, you have to look at
all the factors, the local housing market, the geographic location,
the appeal to tourists.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And we're not doing that. And in some cities it's working.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
In other cities it is not working, and so and
we tend to look with a broad stroke. And sometimes
city councils, and these city council are not the most
sophisticated political organizations that exist, and there are too many
people that are willing to look long term and look
at the studies. Not in the city council, matter of fact,
(18:48):
not even in the US Senate or the House. There
are a lot of people that just react. Matter of fact.
Long term planners, I think are in the minority. And
that's important stuff, all right, So much for that. I
want to spend a minute talking about cyber attacks on
US infrastructure and how worried we should be about it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Well, you know what, let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Do you remember there was a storm that knocked out
the largest gasoline pipeline in the country that was from
Texas to New York and nearly seventeen thousand gas stations
went dry.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
There was another one that happened.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
A couple of years ago, actually twenty twenty one, and
it was the Colonial gas pipeline that went out.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Half of all the.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Fuel consumed on the East Coast was disrupted for four days.
It couldn't get gas. It was your typical gas lines, etc.
Do you remember how bad that big that story was.
Amy covered it and we were talking a lot about it.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
It was Russia that did it.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Russian hackers shut down a pipeline for four days that
produced oil for half the oil on the.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Eastern seaboard, and Russia did it.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And the US cyber warriors that are working on our side,
of course, say that's just a taste of things to come.
Foreign governments, gangs working under the protection foreign governments read Russia, Iran,
China are getting into our system and not so much
(20:34):
shutting down our systems now.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Because they're not.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
What they're doing is getting ready to shut down our systems.
There are plenty of hacks and they have not transferred
into shutting down entire sections of our US infrastructure. What
they're doing is they're basically doing dry runs. Earlier this year,
(21:01):
Chinese hackers breached Verizon AT and T other telecoms, not
to shut them down, but understand how these companies cooperate
with authorities to track criminals, particularly the Chinese actors. Recent months,
there has been an update, not only an update, but
(21:22):
an uptick, but a steady drumbeat of these high profile
cyber attacks, most minor distractions. Not much has happened except
that we know now the cyber experts know that they
are simply practicing These are all dry runs.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
There is a guy who is an expert on this.
His name is Clark. What's his first name?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I think Stephen Clark, and he is a professor and
studies infrastructure at tennio's president of Security, Risk and April,
and he goes hacking as old as the Internet itself.
But the contest has evolved into a key front. It's
just another theater of war. It's that simple air, land.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Sea, space.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Of course, we know space is going to be another
point of warfare and cyber wars. And the cyber wars
are actually the scariest because it's not just a front
that we have to fight, it's our entire infrastructure system.
Now can it all come down in a crash. Probably not,
(22:36):
but a lot of it can. And are we doing enough?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
No? But here is the good news. Okay, I'm going
to now share with you.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Actually there's a silver lining here which I never share
because I only give you the crap, and that is,
as these foreign governments are hacking into our infrastructure, we're
hacking into their infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
And it's back to the Cold War mutually.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Assured destruction mad when we had thirty thousand nuclear weapons.
Russia had thirty thousand nuclear weapons, which you need about
a dozen to wipe out the entire planet. And the
bottom line was, Okay, you attack us, we're going to
attack you, and there'll be nothing left of this planet.
(23:30):
And the same sort of philosophy is going you take
out our infrastructure, we're going to take out your infrastructure.
And since the entire world is based on the internet,
other than you know in Yemen, South Sudan, where they
eat sand for dinner and they don't have much going
and their telephone lines are two cans with a string
(23:50):
between them and there or smoke signals or whatever the
hell they do. Short of that, it's mutually a shured destruction. Okay,
we're not gonna blow it. We're not gonna blow each
other up, but we're certainly not gonna be able to
call each other. There'll be no phones, there'll be no computers,
there'll be nothing. Do we really want to be in
a world like that? Uh? And the answer is probably
(24:15):
not unless you get some crazy people in charge. And
even the craziest at this point Kim Jong Lunn, for example,
who's about as nuts as they come, except he is
pretty smart. I mean he was able to take over
North Korea at the age of twenty eight. You know
(24:35):
he can't be that dumb. Even he won't go that far.
Will putin go that far? Well, actually he's gone further.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Is it going to happen? I don't think so. But
we're back to those days. And I thought we thought
those days.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Were over when the Cold War was done. It's just
another Cold war. It doesn't stop.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Boy, are we doing well?
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Society has done so well When I was a kid,
that was gonna be peace.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
There'll be food for everybody, There'll be cars flying around
like the Jetsons were there by the way, everybody's gonna
love one another. And then I stopped doing LSD and
then I got a reality check. Okay kf I am
six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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