January 16, 2026 • 25 mins
(January 16, 2025)
Judge dismisses DOJ lawsuit demanding California voter rolls. Welcome to Greenland, an economy reliant on subsidies and shrimp. The U.S. military can’t do everything. California’s dead malls have become magnets for blight and vandalism.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
JFI AM six forty Bill Handle. Here, Am I pressing
the right button? Kno, you press it the right one sometimes. Okay,
it's the one that is something I can't see the
problem is it's not labeled clearly. I'm always yeah, that's
the problem. Is it the bottom button or the left button?
Thirty two years? Everybody, okay, it's the hot button.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Got you realize everyone else sits at that same place
to host a show and they don't have this problem.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Okay, all right, Well I'm special.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
You know, when I was in charge of promotions bazillion
years ago, Handle would show up late, flustered, going the
directions you gave me, and everything else was horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I couldn't fight anything. It was horrible.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I go look around everyone else using those same directions.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Got there, okay, everyone else there you go? There you go?
Special needs? Okay. Now, as I have said many times,
we are looking at a president who is stretching the envelope,
whether you agree with him or not, because this isn't
(01:13):
a political move, although certainly politics are part of it.
The point is that the power of the presidency, which
is somewhat limited. Our president at this point doesn't think
there are any limits to what the president can do,
and things like that pesky constitution get in the way
and he has a hard time with that. For example,
(01:34):
birthright citizenship, where he wants to make sure that people
that are born in the United States of undocumented parents
are not citizens in the United States. Well, there's that
old fourteenth Amendment getting in the way. It says natural born.
Anybody who's born in the United States is a citizen.
And on this one he had there's another one where
(01:57):
this the city of California. Okay, first of all, let's
start with Trump issued a directive to the state of
California to turn over all the voter records to the Feds,
to the Department of Justice. We want to see all
the voter records. And the California said no, absolutely not.
(02:17):
And so the Department of Justice sued California to turn
over the voter records. And why is that Because Assistant
Attorney General harn Meat Dylan, this is of the US
heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said she was
proud of her office effort to clean up voter rolls nationally.
(02:38):
Here's the problem. There are no voter rolls nationally because
there are no national elections. The Feds have nothing to
do with elections. It's the state. How do I know that? Well?
Article one of the Constitution says specifically the state shall
(03:00):
control the election as to place and time and as
to how elections are run. Well, we don't want the
states to do that, even if it says that in
the Constitution. Why that constitution gets in the way, and
we really hate it, don't we unless we agree with
it or certainly the Second Amendment is great. We think
(03:21):
that one's fabulous, but the rest of it not so much.
For example, freedom of assembly and no freedom of speech. No,
I mean, you have those five congress people that issued
as senators and congress people who are in the service.
Remember the video they said, you cannot if you're in
the military, you cannot or you should not follow illegal orders.
(03:45):
It's in the Constitution, both the First Amendment, right, and
on the books in the Code of the Criminal Justice System,
which the military I'm sorry, the Code of the Military
US Code of the Military. And that's that doesn't matter. No, No,
(04:06):
we don't agree with that. Na, No, that doesn't work
for the Trump administration. So the lawsuit was filed. Department
of Justice filed a lawsuit against the head of the
Department of Justice in California, and the federal judge said no, no,
and he went beyond that. This is David o'carter, who
(04:27):
has been involved in the homeless issue for years and years,
and he said that central voting data would chill voter registration,
cause Americans to fear misuse of their personal information, which
is probably true, and it is unconstitutional and attack on democracy.
I mean, that's going pretty far. But here's another one
(04:51):
of the stretching of the powers of the presidency beyond
anything the Constitution says. And certainly congres is letting him
do that because there's a Republican majority in Congress, and
what the President says, Congress jumps how high as far
as the Republicans are concerned, and the Democrats can't do
(05:12):
much about it because the majority is held by the Republicans.
I wondered during the midterms it may really change. I
think it's going to big time. All right, Okay, story
of Greenland. You know when Donald Trump first said we
should have Greenland. I want Greenland. The United States wants Greenland.
(05:33):
I want to buy it or will and then the
hint of invading it. I was one of those that
justa come on, you know, It's like when he went
down the escalator. Please. That was his third go round
for the presidency, and frankly he was thought of as
a joke. And now of course he is not. And
I thought some of the stuff he says so bombastic
(05:57):
that either he is out of his mind or there's
a method to his madness, which I think is part
of it. And also it of course stretches what the
presidency can do. So he wants Greenland, a sovereign country
or part of a sovereign country, was a territory that
is owned by Denmark, and the president wants it. Now,
(06:19):
so let's say we get Greenland and we're not going
to invade Greenland. I mean, that's not going to happen.
So we kind a deal to buy it from Denmark
or Greenlanders. Let's say, well, Denmark gives Greenland a billion
dollars a year. Greenland's almost entire economy is one of
(06:42):
two things, the money they get from Denmark and shrimp,
not fishing shrimp, just shrimp. Now, I happen to like shrimp.
So that is I think reason enough to go and
live in Denmark or live in Greenland, because they have
(07:04):
lots of it. And the problem is the economy has flatlined.
And if you look at the billion dollars a year
for the fifty seven thousand people that live in Greenland, man, woman, child, child,
that is approximately seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars per person annually.
(07:26):
That's how much is spent in Greenland, where believe me,
the government does not spend seventeen thousand dollars a year
for US. Maybe big picture, but no. The Marshall Islands,
for example, is sort of the same. Marshall Islands used
to be part of US territory, now has become independent,
but we're really connected. And the US supplements or pays
(07:49):
for the Marshall Islands every individual that lives in the
Marshall Islands. That comes to about twenty three hundred dollars
per person. Similar deal in terms of financial impactference would
be However, seventeen five hundred dollars per person not such
a great deal. Okay, So why do we want Greenland?
(08:11):
Why is the president so adamant about Greenland? Because of
its natural resources is one reason it has enormous amounts
of for example, rare earth elements that you dig out
as like it's mines. The problem is there's only one
(08:32):
mine on Greenland and it's very small. You want to
know why, because it's under three hundred feet of ice.
It's almost impossible to get through because how do you
get to the mines from the capitol. Now, keep in mind,
Greenland is as big as Mexico and it has one
hundred miles of paved road. One hundred miles of paved
(08:54):
road for a country as big as Greenland. Now it's
small population fifty seven thousand, So roads have to be built,
Infrastructure has to be put into place, mining operations have
to be established. It is a huge deal economically, totally
(09:15):
unfeasible at least now. No one's jumping up and down
to do this. No company. Okay, how about its strategic
value up in the Arctic, because as the President said,
if we don't get Greenland, then China and Russia are
going to get Greenland. China has not had a ship
near Greenland for ten years. Russia is so bogged down
(09:39):
in the Ukraine it has nothing up there. They're not
very interested. So that part of the world as of
right now, Yeah, no, it's not. There are another would
they go about getting who Russia or China. They'd have
to invade or they'd have to cut a deal and
(10:00):
buy it, just like the United States the bike. Can
you imagine a bidding war. Can you imagine the three
countries playing poker? I'll call you Greenland. Well, here's the Ukraine.
So that part of it doesn't make any sense now. Commercially,
Greenland is is pretty strategic, there's no question. And in
(10:21):
terms of defense, it is pretty strategic because it isn't
a place of the world where our defenses are. We
have a military base there and it's mainly to defend
ourselves from missiles that are flying from Russia because they
fly over Greenland, and so it's an easy way to
determine that we've got missiles because have you been to Greenland? No,
(10:45):
what does one do in Greenland? You eat shrimp apparently,
and subsidies and subsidies and you enjoy subsidies. I mean,
what else can you do? You hike and it's only
during the summer because man, that's it is cold. You
go to Greenland is not green and Iceland is far
(11:06):
greener than Greenland. Wow. Yeah, and they have the York Yeah.
It's very it's very, very strange. It's like Republicans and
Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. Right. Liberals want
you to have unlimited access to abortion, right, and then
(11:31):
they take care of you for the rest of your life.
Conservatives want to do have that right. Want to quote,
trying to quote George Carlin, I am, I am, And
it's not working. No, it's fun to watch though, Yeah,
it's not working. It's not working, all right. George used
to be a big fan of this show, by the way,
George Carlin, that's huge. Yeah, he was. He's been honored
a few times. You know. I had it was he
(11:53):
had my home phone number and I and I had his.
He would call me about once a week and go
something that I said, and he would rip it apart
and say that wasn't funny. Okay, what we all do?
I know, I'm just like George Carlin, It's true. Okay.
Some of the stories, the big stories we're looking at
is opposition leader Maria Coriina Machado of Venezuela, who's surrogate
(12:20):
actually ran or ran for president against against the president.
Oh my god, did I just lose his name? Maduro? Yeah,
my mind just went. And anyway, she he in stepping
in for Marina Maschado, got seventy percent of the vote,
(12:41):
of which Maduro just immediately eliminated and effectively just said no.
And he still remains a dictator. Anyway, she got the
Nobel Peace Prize, and she was at the White House
yesterday and gave the Peace Prize to President Trump and
said here, it's yours, and the president who has coveted
and begged for the peace price ice, I don't what
do you do with someone else's peace prize? Cross out
(13:04):
her name, put yours in Uh with one of those markers.
I have no idea, And then the flu is going
crazy all over the place. We've got a lot going
on in the meantime. Here is what's happening internationally and
and nationally. The US military is asked to do a
whole lot of stuff right now. Uh that two billion
(13:28):
or two trillion dollars were spent in Afghanistan. We've got
troops in a rock. We have all kinds of military
issues going on with ym and Iran, as you know,
Somalia and US military commanders are used to having whatever
they need their their budget. The military's budget is almost
a trillion dollars. But Pentagon officials are privately warning the
(13:54):
President and the White House, you know what, we may
not be able to do at all, you know, Bret
in Venezuela. Support protesters that toppling into or seeking to
top of Iran's government, protect our interests in the Asia
Pacific area without being completely overstretched. I mean, keep an eye.
(14:16):
Keep in mind. What did the president do? He sent
a carrier task force from the Mid East to the
Caribbean outside of Venezuela. I mean a carrier task force
is eleven ships in this case, eleven ships and submarines
and the cost of moving them it's about sixteen I'm
(14:37):
gonna's about two weeks to move the task force from
the Mid East to Venezuela. Can you imagine the cost
of what it took to pick up Maduro. I mean,
it's just unbelievable. You know what it costs to run
an aircraft carrier alone. And so there isn't enough. We're
(15:00):
stretched too thin. Now. This is the most assets that
have been in this part of the world since the
Cuban missile crisis. I mean, this is a big deal,
and that's to capture one guy. What's it, capture Maduro
and leave the government in place, the Maduro government in place.
(15:20):
Now again, is there a method to his madness? Because
originally he started about drugs, Right, We're going to do
this for drugs and the drug boats. Have you noticed
that the drug conversation of drugs is over? What is it?
It's about oil And that's always been the case with
the president, and the drug issue has really been sort
(15:43):
of just a cover for what he always wanted.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Isn't it always about oil? No, I've been hearing that
since I was a kid. It was always oil.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Because over here for oil, there and over there for oil. No,
because there's plenty of places that there is no oil.
Afghanistan wasn't about oil. You've got Serbia wasn't about oil.
Cuba isn't about oil now, people in the countries in
the Middle East. Yeah, it's about oil and Venezuela because
that has the world's largest oil reserves, much larger than
(16:15):
the US Saudi Arabia, which have enormous The problem is
is the Chavez slash Maduro government came into power and
simply didn't have the resources and just let it all
fall into the toilet to where production is ten percent
of what it used to be. And oil is the
biggest revenue for Venezuela. So going back to the president
(16:40):
started with drugs and it really is about oil. He
wants that oil and he recognizes that Venezuela, the country
cannot produce the oil. Cannot it doesn't have the ability
to pump the oil and refine the oil. And so
here's what he did. He captured Maduro and lets the
(17:02):
next president, who is the vice president and again this
the Maduro regime is still in place, and tells the
vice president, here's what I want you to do, and
she is doing it, and took all the oil that
was in storage that Venezuela had because no oil is
being shipped out. He has put a stamp. I mean
(17:23):
he it's that that blockade is in place. It that
oil is going no place, that Venezuela is pumping. That
little oil that Venezuela is pumping and then selling on
the black market. This shadow fleet that goes around the
world and picks up oil and sells it under the
table and goes to various countries and sells the oil.
(17:44):
He stopped that cold. So what is the country of
Venezuela doing? What is the vice president who is now
the acting president listening to Donald Trump? Frightened that Trump
is going to really invade men Asa. And by the way,
when he says it, he means it. This is imposturing
on his part. He doesn't posture at least when it
(18:07):
comes to this sort of stuff. So he grabs half
a billion dollars worth of oil, sells it, sells the oil,
and the money is moving in an account account for
the people of Venezuela. And it can be argued, and
I thought he was out of his mind, he can
be argued that what he's doing is the best thing
for the people of Venezuela, where the oil money is
(18:29):
going back to them as it should. And he wants,
of course, the infrastructure to be built, and he wants
American companies to build the infrastructure because America first. You know, what,
is there a method to all of this madness? There
seems to be fascinating stuff. Boy, They're going to be
(18:50):
studying this presidency forever. And I will tell you right now,
there has never been a president like President Trump, and
there never will be a presidentlike Donald Trump. All right, Okay,
So moving over to malls in southern California, we have
lots of them, and the economy, especially after the Great Recession,
(19:12):
kind of tanked. And what's been going on also is
retail stores are not doing well. Very few are doing
really well. Sacks just is going under chapter eleven. Target
is not doing as well. You've got Costco of courses, Costco,
but you have majors that are just going down. Why
(19:32):
because it's kind of old. The internet shopping has exploded,
so there are malls that have simply been abandoned. I
mean they're still owned, of course by the owners, but
there are no renters. For one, for example, the Westminster
Mall considered just iconic in that part of the city
(19:54):
in Westminster, and it closed last year. People were so upset.
It was even a funeral that was held for this
Orange County relic. But that was just the beginning. If
you go to social media, there are videos that are
being circulated about the rampant vandalism and destruction inside these malls.
(20:17):
These are huge structures and if you look at the images,
which really angered and saddened the locals who spent their
youth there. I mean, this is where he hung out.
This was the mall in Westminster where you just went.
Sorry about that. And that's my phone going crazy here
it honks it had honks it hanks when I get
a text.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Okay, anyone in particular, what who's with the honk noise?
What does it do when I call you a honks
h Yeah, I'd like La cucar Utcha to play point.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's a honking horn. Anyway, back we are to the
malls that have literally been destroyed by the vandals, destroyed
by the homeless people who are living inside. The Westminster Mall,
for example, it will first open in nineteen seventy four.
JC Penny was there, gone, Victoria's Secret was there. I
(21:16):
don't know are they still in business Victoria's Secret. But
they've closed a lot of stores Anti Auntie and no Idea.
What that is like a pretzel? Yeah, it's like a press.
They have a lot of like Wetzel's pretzels and a
lot of those stores and what they're being used for
is eventually they're going to be transformed into the mixed
use development. They'll be retail space, housing. But that's hideously expensive. Right.
(21:40):
The malls have closed, as I said, do to consumer
shopping habits going just gone. Also, the land itself has
become so valuable in many cases that the develop the
opportunities are great, and the owners just shut them down
and say we'd rather develop them or sell them because
of the land. And it's really expensive. You have to
(22:03):
level them all and then you have to build something new,
and that takes years and costs tons of money. But
if you look at the videos there, they are people
tagging the storefronts, skateboarding, riding bicycles inside, just destroying them all.
The Hawthorn Plaza, for example, closed nineteen ninety nine and videos,
(22:24):
music videos were shot in there, and a lot of them,
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Travis Scott. Because it is desolate, it
has a lot of trash in there, and it's just
one of those backdrops that a lot of these Hollywood
stars and major music acts tend to go. Now, you know,
(22:45):
I've always wondered about that. You get someone who's worth
a billion dollars, Taylor Swift, it then does a video
in the mall that is being destroyed. Valley Plaza in
North Hollywood. I grew up in North Hollywood. I remember
going there constantly. It was once the largest shopping center
on the West Coast. Ten years has been abandoned and
the hot spot for fires and criminal activities. It was
demolished last year. In San Bernardino, the Carousel Mall has
(23:10):
now become a center for criminal activity, meth labs, that
dot every store. That's not true. That was for Kno's sake,
that's close. I know, I know fires. There was a
shooting there. There was an electrocution there. Now that's entertainment.
When someone gets electrocuted. Does that happened with a gnawing
(23:31):
through wires? I don't know, I don't know. There must
have been there must have been a live wire there
and someone got hit with a nice big jolt, And
I mean, that's really entertainment. That was demolished in twenty
twenty three and there it is empty. Now there's some
that are doing pretty well. The West Sidevilion. It closed
(23:54):
in twenty nineteen and was later purchased and it was abandoned,
but it's doing great as a building because it was
later bought by UCLA, which is transforming it into a
Research Center, so that one is doing well even though
close closing. So you know, what do you do with
(24:14):
malls in southern California that have closed and they're now
I sores and they now have become playground for vandals.
You shut them down and a lot of them put
fences up. Of fences don't stop people from going over
there because security. But that's a loss. So you take
them down, and we're going to see the loss of
(24:36):
the mall. Now. Neil and I have talked about this before,
and that is the only way any kind of retail establishment,
especially malls, can survive, is to make it an experience
to go there. Yeah, and you know, for example, I'm
off to next I think March April and taking on
(24:58):
vacation and I happen to be going to Dubai Go
Figure and Dubai they have a mall, one of the
biggest in the world, and they have a full ski
they have a full ski parsh portion of the mall.
It's one hundred and twenty degrees outside in Dubai and
(25:19):
inside there's a whole section there's a whole part of
it that have been sectioned off and they put a
slope in there. And you can ski inside. That's destination.
The Mall of America in Minnesota has a full Disneyland
type of amusement park in there. Rides that's in the mall,
(25:40):
so that's what you have to do. We don't have
anything like that, but we do have is a break.
This is KFI AM six forty. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show. Catch my show Monday through Friday
six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
JFI AM six forty Bill Handle. Here, Am I pressing
the right button? Kno, you press it the right one sometimes. Okay,
it's the one that is something I can't see the
problem is it's not labeled clearly. I'm always yeah, that's
the problem. Is it the bottom button or the left button?
Thirty two years? Everybody, okay, it's the hot button.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Got you realize everyone else sits at that same place
to host a show and they don't have this problem.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Okay, all right, Well I'm special.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
You know, when I was in charge of promotions bazillion
years ago, Handle would show up late, flustered, going the
directions you gave me, and everything else was horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I couldn't fight anything. It was horrible.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I go look around everyone else using those same directions.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Got there, okay, everyone else there you go? There you go?
Special needs? Okay. Now, as I have said many times,
we are looking at a president who is stretching the envelope,
whether you agree with him or not, because this isn't
(01:13):
a political move, although certainly politics are part of it.
The point is that the power of the presidency, which
is somewhat limited. Our president at this point doesn't think
there are any limits to what the president can do,
and things like that pesky constitution get in the way
and he has a hard time with that. For example,
(01:34):
birthright citizenship, where he wants to make sure that people
that are born in the United States of undocumented parents
are not citizens in the United States. Well, there's that
old fourteenth Amendment getting in the way. It says natural born.
Anybody who's born in the United States is a citizen.
And on this one he had there's another one where
(01:57):
this the city of California. Okay, first of all, let's
start with Trump issued a directive to the state of
California to turn over all the voter records to the Feds,
to the Department of Justice. We want to see all
the voter records. And the California said no, absolutely not.
(02:17):
And so the Department of Justice sued California to turn
over the voter records. And why is that Because Assistant
Attorney General harn Meat Dylan, this is of the US
heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said she was
proud of her office effort to clean up voter rolls nationally.
(02:38):
Here's the problem. There are no voter rolls nationally because
there are no national elections. The Feds have nothing to
do with elections. It's the state. How do I know that? Well?
Article one of the Constitution says specifically the state shall
(03:00):
control the election as to place and time and as
to how elections are run. Well, we don't want the
states to do that, even if it says that in
the Constitution. Why that constitution gets in the way, and
we really hate it, don't we unless we agree with
it or certainly the Second Amendment is great. We think
(03:21):
that one's fabulous, but the rest of it not so much.
For example, freedom of assembly and no freedom of speech. No,
I mean, you have those five congress people that issued
as senators and congress people who are in the service.
Remember the video they said, you cannot if you're in
the military, you cannot or you should not follow illegal orders.
(03:45):
It's in the Constitution, both the First Amendment, right, and
on the books in the Code of the Criminal Justice System,
which the military I'm sorry, the Code of the Military
US Code of the Military. And that's that doesn't matter. No, No,
(04:06):
we don't agree with that. Na, No, that doesn't work
for the Trump administration. So the lawsuit was filed. Department
of Justice filed a lawsuit against the head of the
Department of Justice in California, and the federal judge said no, no,
and he went beyond that. This is David o'carter, who
(04:27):
has been involved in the homeless issue for years and years,
and he said that central voting data would chill voter registration,
cause Americans to fear misuse of their personal information, which
is probably true, and it is unconstitutional and attack on democracy.
I mean, that's going pretty far. But here's another one
(04:51):
of the stretching of the powers of the presidency beyond
anything the Constitution says. And certainly congres is letting him
do that because there's a Republican majority in Congress, and
what the President says, Congress jumps how high as far
as the Republicans are concerned, and the Democrats can't do
(05:12):
much about it because the majority is held by the Republicans.
I wondered during the midterms it may really change. I
think it's going to big time. All right, Okay, story
of Greenland. You know when Donald Trump first said we
should have Greenland. I want Greenland. The United States wants Greenland.
(05:33):
I want to buy it or will and then the
hint of invading it. I was one of those that
justa come on, you know, It's like when he went
down the escalator. Please. That was his third go round
for the presidency, and frankly he was thought of as
a joke. And now of course he is not. And
I thought some of the stuff he says so bombastic
(05:57):
that either he is out of his mind or there's
a method to his madness, which I think is part
of it. And also it of course stretches what the
presidency can do. So he wants Greenland, a sovereign country
or part of a sovereign country, was a territory that
is owned by Denmark, and the president wants it. Now,
(06:19):
so let's say we get Greenland and we're not going
to invade Greenland. I mean, that's not going to happen.
So we kind a deal to buy it from Denmark
or Greenlanders. Let's say, well, Denmark gives Greenland a billion
dollars a year. Greenland's almost entire economy is one of
(06:42):
two things, the money they get from Denmark and shrimp,
not fishing shrimp, just shrimp. Now, I happen to like shrimp.
So that is I think reason enough to go and
live in Denmark or live in Greenland, because they have
(07:04):
lots of it. And the problem is the economy has flatlined.
And if you look at the billion dollars a year
for the fifty seven thousand people that live in Greenland, man, woman, child, child,
that is approximately seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars per person annually.
(07:26):
That's how much is spent in Greenland, where believe me,
the government does not spend seventeen thousand dollars a year
for US. Maybe big picture, but no. The Marshall Islands,
for example, is sort of the same. Marshall Islands used
to be part of US territory, now has become independent,
but we're really connected. And the US supplements or pays
(07:49):
for the Marshall Islands every individual that lives in the
Marshall Islands. That comes to about twenty three hundred dollars
per person. Similar deal in terms of financial impactference would
be However, seventeen five hundred dollars per person not such
a great deal. Okay, So why do we want Greenland?
(08:11):
Why is the president so adamant about Greenland? Because of
its natural resources is one reason it has enormous amounts
of for example, rare earth elements that you dig out
as like it's mines. The problem is there's only one
(08:32):
mine on Greenland and it's very small. You want to
know why, because it's under three hundred feet of ice.
It's almost impossible to get through because how do you
get to the mines from the capitol. Now, keep in mind,
Greenland is as big as Mexico and it has one
hundred miles of paved road. One hundred miles of paved
(08:54):
road for a country as big as Greenland. Now it's
small population fifty seven thousand, So roads have to be built,
Infrastructure has to be put into place, mining operations have
to be established. It is a huge deal economically, totally
(09:15):
unfeasible at least now. No one's jumping up and down
to do this. No company. Okay, how about its strategic
value up in the Arctic, because as the President said,
if we don't get Greenland, then China and Russia are
going to get Greenland. China has not had a ship
near Greenland for ten years. Russia is so bogged down
(09:39):
in the Ukraine it has nothing up there. They're not
very interested. So that part of the world as of
right now, Yeah, no, it's not. There are another would
they go about getting who Russia or China. They'd have
to invade or they'd have to cut a deal and
(10:00):
buy it, just like the United States the bike. Can
you imagine a bidding war. Can you imagine the three
countries playing poker? I'll call you Greenland. Well, here's the Ukraine.
So that part of it doesn't make any sense now. Commercially,
Greenland is is pretty strategic, there's no question. And in
(10:21):
terms of defense, it is pretty strategic because it isn't
a place of the world where our defenses are. We
have a military base there and it's mainly to defend
ourselves from missiles that are flying from Russia because they
fly over Greenland, and so it's an easy way to
determine that we've got missiles because have you been to Greenland? No,
(10:45):
what does one do in Greenland? You eat shrimp apparently,
and subsidies and subsidies and you enjoy subsidies. I mean,
what else can you do? You hike and it's only
during the summer because man, that's it is cold. You
go to Greenland is not green and Iceland is far
(11:06):
greener than Greenland. Wow. Yeah, and they have the York Yeah.
It's very it's very, very strange. It's like Republicans and
Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. Right. Liberals want
you to have unlimited access to abortion, right, and then
(11:31):
they take care of you for the rest of your life.
Conservatives want to do have that right. Want to quote,
trying to quote George Carlin, I am, I am, And
it's not working. No, it's fun to watch though, Yeah,
it's not working. It's not working, all right. George used
to be a big fan of this show, by the way,
George Carlin, that's huge. Yeah, he was. He's been honored
a few times. You know. I had it was he
(11:53):
had my home phone number and I and I had his.
He would call me about once a week and go
something that I said, and he would rip it apart
and say that wasn't funny. Okay, what we all do?
I know, I'm just like George Carlin, It's true. Okay.
Some of the stories, the big stories we're looking at
is opposition leader Maria Coriina Machado of Venezuela, who's surrogate
(12:20):
actually ran or ran for president against against the president.
Oh my god, did I just lose his name? Maduro? Yeah,
my mind just went. And anyway, she he in stepping
in for Marina Maschado, got seventy percent of the vote,
(12:41):
of which Maduro just immediately eliminated and effectively just said no.
And he still remains a dictator. Anyway, she got the
Nobel Peace Prize, and she was at the White House
yesterday and gave the Peace Prize to President Trump and
said here, it's yours, and the president who has coveted
and begged for the peace price ice, I don't what
do you do with someone else's peace prize? Cross out
(13:04):
her name, put yours in Uh with one of those markers.
I have no idea, And then the flu is going
crazy all over the place. We've got a lot going
on in the meantime. Here is what's happening internationally and
and nationally. The US military is asked to do a
whole lot of stuff right now. Uh that two billion
(13:28):
or two trillion dollars were spent in Afghanistan. We've got
troops in a rock. We have all kinds of military
issues going on with ym and Iran, as you know,
Somalia and US military commanders are used to having whatever
they need their their budget. The military's budget is almost
a trillion dollars. But Pentagon officials are privately warning the
(13:54):
President and the White House, you know what, we may
not be able to do at all, you know, Bret
in Venezuela. Support protesters that toppling into or seeking to
top of Iran's government, protect our interests in the Asia
Pacific area without being completely overstretched. I mean, keep an eye.
(14:16):
Keep in mind. What did the president do? He sent
a carrier task force from the Mid East to the
Caribbean outside of Venezuela. I mean a carrier task force
is eleven ships in this case, eleven ships and submarines
and the cost of moving them it's about sixteen I'm
(14:37):
gonna's about two weeks to move the task force from
the Mid East to Venezuela. Can you imagine the cost
of what it took to pick up Maduro. I mean,
it's just unbelievable. You know what it costs to run
an aircraft carrier alone. And so there isn't enough. We're
(15:00):
stretched too thin. Now. This is the most assets that
have been in this part of the world since the
Cuban missile crisis. I mean, this is a big deal,
and that's to capture one guy. What's it, capture Maduro
and leave the government in place, the Maduro government in place.
(15:20):
Now again, is there a method to his madness? Because
originally he started about drugs, Right, We're going to do
this for drugs and the drug boats. Have you noticed
that the drug conversation of drugs is over? What is it?
It's about oil And that's always been the case with
the president, and the drug issue has really been sort
(15:43):
of just a cover for what he always wanted.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Isn't it always about oil? No, I've been hearing that
since I was a kid. It was always oil.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Because over here for oil, there and over there for oil. No,
because there's plenty of places that there is no oil.
Afghanistan wasn't about oil. You've got Serbia wasn't about oil.
Cuba isn't about oil now, people in the countries in
the Middle East. Yeah, it's about oil and Venezuela because
that has the world's largest oil reserves, much larger than
(16:15):
the US Saudi Arabia, which have enormous The problem is
is the Chavez slash Maduro government came into power and
simply didn't have the resources and just let it all
fall into the toilet to where production is ten percent
of what it used to be. And oil is the
biggest revenue for Venezuela. So going back to the president
(16:40):
started with drugs and it really is about oil. He
wants that oil and he recognizes that Venezuela, the country
cannot produce the oil. Cannot it doesn't have the ability
to pump the oil and refine the oil. And so
here's what he did. He captured Maduro and lets the
(17:02):
next president, who is the vice president and again this
the Maduro regime is still in place, and tells the
vice president, here's what I want you to do, and
she is doing it, and took all the oil that
was in storage that Venezuela had because no oil is
being shipped out. He has put a stamp. I mean
(17:23):
he it's that that blockade is in place. It that
oil is going no place, that Venezuela is pumping. That
little oil that Venezuela is pumping and then selling on
the black market. This shadow fleet that goes around the
world and picks up oil and sells it under the
table and goes to various countries and sells the oil.
(17:44):
He stopped that cold. So what is the country of
Venezuela doing? What is the vice president who is now
the acting president listening to Donald Trump? Frightened that Trump
is going to really invade men Asa. And by the way,
when he says it, he means it. This is imposturing
on his part. He doesn't posture at least when it
(18:07):
comes to this sort of stuff. So he grabs half
a billion dollars worth of oil, sells it, sells the oil,
and the money is moving in an account account for
the people of Venezuela. And it can be argued, and
I thought he was out of his mind, he can
be argued that what he's doing is the best thing
for the people of Venezuela, where the oil money is
(18:29):
going back to them as it should. And he wants,
of course, the infrastructure to be built, and he wants
American companies to build the infrastructure because America first. You know, what,
is there a method to all of this madness? There
seems to be fascinating stuff. Boy, They're going to be
(18:50):
studying this presidency forever. And I will tell you right now,
there has never been a president like President Trump, and
there never will be a presidentlike Donald Trump. All right, Okay,
So moving over to malls in southern California, we have
lots of them, and the economy, especially after the Great Recession,
(19:12):
kind of tanked. And what's been going on also is
retail stores are not doing well. Very few are doing
really well. Sacks just is going under chapter eleven. Target
is not doing as well. You've got Costco of courses, Costco,
but you have majors that are just going down. Why
(19:32):
because it's kind of old. The internet shopping has exploded,
so there are malls that have simply been abandoned. I
mean they're still owned, of course by the owners, but
there are no renters. For one, for example, the Westminster
Mall considered just iconic in that part of the city
(19:54):
in Westminster, and it closed last year. People were so upset.
It was even a funeral that was held for this
Orange County relic. But that was just the beginning. If
you go to social media, there are videos that are
being circulated about the rampant vandalism and destruction inside these malls.
(20:17):
These are huge structures and if you look at the images,
which really angered and saddened the locals who spent their
youth there. I mean, this is where he hung out.
This was the mall in Westminster where you just went.
Sorry about that. And that's my phone going crazy here
it honks it had honks it hanks when I get
a text.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Okay, anyone in particular, what who's with the honk noise?
What does it do when I call you a honks
h Yeah, I'd like La cucar Utcha to play point.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's a honking horn. Anyway, back we are to the
malls that have literally been destroyed by the vandals, destroyed
by the homeless people who are living inside. The Westminster Mall,
for example, it will first open in nineteen seventy four.
JC Penny was there, gone, Victoria's Secret was there. I
(21:16):
don't know are they still in business Victoria's Secret. But
they've closed a lot of stores Anti Auntie and no Idea.
What that is like a pretzel? Yeah, it's like a press.
They have a lot of like Wetzel's pretzels and a
lot of those stores and what they're being used for
is eventually they're going to be transformed into the mixed
use development. They'll be retail space, housing. But that's hideously expensive. Right.
(21:40):
The malls have closed, as I said, do to consumer
shopping habits going just gone. Also, the land itself has
become so valuable in many cases that the develop the
opportunities are great, and the owners just shut them down
and say we'd rather develop them or sell them because
of the land. And it's really expensive. You have to
(22:03):
level them all and then you have to build something new,
and that takes years and costs tons of money. But
if you look at the videos there, they are people
tagging the storefronts, skateboarding, riding bicycles inside, just destroying them all.
The Hawthorn Plaza, for example, closed nineteen ninety nine and videos,
(22:24):
music videos were shot in there, and a lot of them,
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Travis Scott. Because it is desolate, it
has a lot of trash in there, and it's just
one of those backdrops that a lot of these Hollywood
stars and major music acts tend to go. Now, you know,
(22:45):
I've always wondered about that. You get someone who's worth
a billion dollars, Taylor Swift, it then does a video
in the mall that is being destroyed. Valley Plaza in
North Hollywood. I grew up in North Hollywood. I remember
going there constantly. It was once the largest shopping center
on the West Coast. Ten years has been abandoned and
the hot spot for fires and criminal activities. It was
demolished last year. In San Bernardino, the Carousel Mall has
(23:10):
now become a center for criminal activity, meth labs, that
dot every store. That's not true. That was for Kno's sake,
that's close. I know, I know fires. There was a
shooting there. There was an electrocution there. Now that's entertainment.
When someone gets electrocuted. Does that happened with a gnawing
(23:31):
through wires? I don't know, I don't know. There must
have been there must have been a live wire there
and someone got hit with a nice big jolt, And
I mean, that's really entertainment. That was demolished in twenty
twenty three and there it is empty. Now there's some
that are doing pretty well. The West Sidevilion. It closed
(23:54):
in twenty nineteen and was later purchased and it was abandoned,
but it's doing great as a building because it was
later bought by UCLA, which is transforming it into a
Research Center, so that one is doing well even though
close closing. So you know, what do you do with
(24:14):
malls in southern California that have closed and they're now
I sores and they now have become playground for vandals.
You shut them down and a lot of them put
fences up. Of fences don't stop people from going over
there because security. But that's a loss. So you take
them down, and we're going to see the loss of
(24:36):
the mall. Now. Neil and I have talked about this before,
and that is the only way any kind of retail establishment,
especially malls, can survive, is to make it an experience
to go there. Yeah, and you know, for example, I'm
off to next I think March April and taking on
(24:58):
vacation and I happen to be going to Dubai Go
Figure and Dubai they have a mall, one of the
biggest in the world, and they have a full ski
they have a full ski parsh portion of the mall.
It's one hundred and twenty degrees outside in Dubai and
(25:19):
inside there's a whole section there's a whole part of
it that have been sectioned off and they put a
slope in there. And you can ski inside. That's destination.
The Mall of America in Minnesota has a full Disneyland
type of amusement park in there. Rides that's in the mall,
(25:40):
so that's what you have to do. We don't have
anything like that, but we do have is a break.
This is KFI AM six forty. 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.
The Bill Handel Show News
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