May 12, 2025 • 25 mins
(May 12,2025)
China and U.S slash tariffs for 90 days while trade talks continue. Report on faulty alerts during L.A fires calls for more regulations. Who counts as Christian?
China and U.S slash tariffs for 90 days while trade talks continue. Report on faulty alerts during L.A fires calls for more regulations. Who counts as Christian?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to bill handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty bill handle here on a Monday morning,
May twelfth, is Oh, what a weekend it is. And
one of the big stories. I mean, there are a
couple of massive stories, and probably in terms of business
the United States. You just notice Heather reporting that the
stock market is up the now he's up a thousand points.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, because over the weekend, China and the United States
have agreed to lower tariffs on goods from each other's
countries for ninety days. And let me tell you, business
is reeling in a positive direction.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
And this is a temporary reprieve in that trade war.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That threatens that I'm saying, almost guarantees of global recession.
And it was I mean, the fight between China in
the United States could have been.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Just enormous, just enormous.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So what Treasury Secretary Scott Descent and US Trade Representative
Greer said that after weekend talks in Geneva with a
Chinese delegation, US tariffs will be reduced from one hundred
and forty five percent to thirty percent, on top of
the already in place ten percent. Now we're talking forty percent.
(01:31):
Forty percent for a lot of companies is doable. It's tough,
but it's doable. And as you know, I talked to
my partner every single day about these tariffs because they
totally affect our business. And we were at one hundred
and eighty one percent. Tariffs couldn't move now forty percent,
(01:52):
you know what, we can deal with it, not well,
but and Beijing said that its blank of terrific on
American products for as one hundred and twenty five percent
now drops to ten percent, and this kicks.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
In on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
By the way, one hundred and forty five percent and
the one hundred and twenty five percent forget about a
percentage of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It is a complete embargo. It's a total embargo of American.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Products being sold in China, Chinese products being sold in
the United States. That comes to a screeching halt. There
is no business being done between the two countries at
that kind of tariff rate, and so stock markets across
Asia already are up here in the US one thousand
points and we have a ninety day pause and a
(02:49):
joint statement released by both countries. We have agreed on
the ninety eight pause and the spirit of mutual opening,
continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, I would argue cooperation.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And mutual respect is a big word which defines perfectly
our relationship with China. One of the problems with the
Trump administration is not even so much the tariffs themselves.
It's that it changes day today. And here is the
problem you're going to see right now. Short term, there
(03:27):
goes the stock market up through the roof a thousand
points today, and then if tariffs kick in after ninety days,
it's going to drop a thousand points.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
But long term, here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The President has said trillions of dollars have been announced
by various companies to be invested in the United States,
new factories, new distribution systems, and what he is saying works.
The problem with business is what business wants more than
(04:01):
anything else is stability. The markets want stability, and what
does a major company do. So you've got a major company,
let's pick a company, General Motors, who has agreed to
invest X number of dollars in the billions into a
factory in the United States, moving it from Mexico. Well,
(04:22):
the President has arbitrarily and individually decided on the tariffs
because remember, Congress gives him anything he wants.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's a Republican Congress.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And therefore, the next president, who is a Democrat, for example,
goes the other way and reduces terrorists, and all of
a sudden, the twenty thirty forty billion dollar factory that's
being built in the United States doesn't make sense anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It becomes too expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Why because the average worker that works in a auto
plan in the United States makes twenty five twenty six
dollars a day. In China, the average worker makes under
two dollars a day or under two dollars an hour.
I'm sorry, twenty five dollars an hour for the average
worker in the United States, and an auto plant versus
(05:16):
two dollars an hour can't compete. And at the same time,
China dumps money subsidizes their big manufacturing firms. So it's
just it's you can't rely on anything. And let me
tell you the decision for a major company to invest
(05:37):
billions of dollars into a manufacturing plant in the United
States and move it from Mexico, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
No small deal. That takes years.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So right now, the trade surplus with the US was
one hundred billion dollars. Last year, China sold more products
to the US than US bot from sin by one
hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
President Trump says it was in the trillions of dollars.
It's not you know. One of the things about the
numbers are kind of outrageous.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So we're going to see what happens. So the trade
war is continuing to a smaller extent the way during
his first term, there was a twenty percent tariff issued,
and this had to do with the fentanyl related chemicals
(06:32):
coming into the country, which China does do or allows.
It allows fentanyl products, and this is the products that
manufacture fentanyl. They don't actually sell fentanyl. What they do
is they settle in materials to make fentanyl. So that
makes sense in one sense, But the same tariffs are
going against Canada because of this massive amount of fentanyl
(06:55):
materials is coming from Canada.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Not also the immigration issue.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
While China does have an immigration issue with Chinese nationals
coming in United States, how many Kate Canadians are sneaking
over the border.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And so it's all mixed up.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Everything is put into a blender, mixed up No one
knows what's happening at this point. All we know is
we're gonna get a smoothie. And so as the government
has said the Alicia Garcia, ro Chief Economists for Asia Pacific,
it's an investment bank.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
The deal is not a solution.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's simply a smoothing of the impact of the bifurcation,
the splitting up of our relationship. But it's certainly better
the news than was happening Friday or last week, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay, let's get local for a moment. And this has
to do. This story has to do.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It's the La Time story about the faulty alerts that
happened during the La fires. And this was after an
investigation into La County's faulty emergency alerts during the January fires.
US Congressman Robert Garcia, who was investigated this, issued a
report calling for more federal oversight of the nation's patchwork.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And it privatized the emergency alert system.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Right now, it's privatized, and it's under contract with the
county or the city.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And here's what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
The investigation was launched by Garcia in more than a
dozen members of the Congressional delegation LA's congressional delegation after
La County sent a whole series of faulty evacuation alerts
on January ninth, urging people to evacuate, now not just
in the fire areas or where the fire was moving,
(08:56):
but all over the metropolitan region of ten million people.
Go evacuate ten million people, a lot of which had
no issue. As a matter of fact, this alert came
two days after the firestorms erupted in Pacific Pales days
in Altadena, and the alerts, which were intended for a
(09:18):
very small group of residents near Calabasas, has had to
do with the Calabasas.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Fire which was happening.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Not much burned in Calabasas, it turned out to be
those folks were very lucky. So they were intended for Calabasas,
and they were blasted repeatedly to communities as far as
forty miles away in which the fire had zero chants
(09:48):
of going to.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And engulfing those homes.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And so the report is titled Sounding the Alarm Lessons
from the Kenneth Fire False Alerts, and this talks about Genesis.
This is the software company that contracted with the county
to issue wireless emergency alerts.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Now they're saying a technical.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Error is what caused it to happen, That this was
a faulty alert that went across the entire metro region.
And according to Genesis, oh there goes my printer again,
the software did not upload the correct evacuation area.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It was. Well, they're saying it was human order, human error.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The report found that contrary to accounts of La County officials,
multiple echo alerts went out as cell phone provider's experience
overload due to high volume and the long duration of
the alerts, even when not only were they false, they
went on for minutes and minutes, and confusion was compounded
and it was all kinds of vague wording in the
(10:58):
original alert.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Garcia said, it's clear there's so much reform needed.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We have to have operating systems that people can rely
on and trust in the future. That's scary stuff when
you think about emergency alerts that are either false or
somehow in error. They don't do it in an area
which they should. In this case, they were broadcast. They
(11:25):
were sent to people over cell phones in a much
broader area cos panic in areas that had no chance
of being engulfed in flames. Garcia said, we're talking about
the loss of life and property, people's confidence in our
emergency notification systems.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Now, do you rely on emergency notification systems? I do.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You know? If I'm looking at an alert, get out
of Dodge. I'm getting out of Dodge, even if I
don't live in Dodge. Are there any towns named in
southern California? I don't think so. But it's really scary stuff,
Garcia said. People need to be able to trust that
(12:11):
if there's a natural disaster, they're going to get an alert,
which we do get, and it's going to have.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Correct information which we didn't get.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So the report makes some recommendation more federal funding, like
we're going to get it right for funding, planning, equipment, training,
system maintenance. The FEMA has an Integrated Public Alert and
Warning System national system that provides emergency public alerts through
(12:43):
mobile phones using wireless emergency alerts privately owned and it
goes to radio and TV via the.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Emergency Alert System. Now we get those all the time.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Amber alerts, we get those even if the phone is
turned off, we get these.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Is that right, by the way, Uh, if you turn
the phone off. Do you still get the emergency alerts
or does it not come in? No matter what you know,
I don't know the answer, they still come in. It
may not make a sound, but you see a visual
pop up.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, I hate that emergency alert. I mean my ears
blow off, blowout, and you go, come on, Really, so
you have some kids getting kidnapped? I mean, is that
worth it to blow my ears out?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So the report presses the FCC to established performance standards
and develop measurable goals for monitoring, and we've.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Got to have it. It's that simple. So big failure
in government.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And this is one of those non privatized businesses services
that you know, maybe the government should be involved. Now
a lot of people are not happy with the government
being involved, but once in a while you do want them.
For example, I'm okay with the FCC the FAA establishing
(14:13):
minimum standards. I like the idea of when I get
on an airplane, the airplane maintenance people the airlines have
to report to the FAA their maintenance record, as opposed
to the market deciding how safe an airplane an airplane
is going to go. So if you're flying on an
(14:34):
American carrier of some kind and they have planes falling
out of the sky. The market will tell you go
to another airline. Love it, Okay, Neil, this is for you.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
All right. Here's a question for you. And I love this.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
And this has to do with the religion and government,
separation of church and state, and one of my favorite
topics to talk about. And here's the question, who counts
as a Christian?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Now I don't. I know Neil does, right.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Neil is in the majority in this country because there
are a whole lot more Christians than any other religion,
although that number has decreased dramatically. So during his campaign,
Trump told Christian supporters that if he became president, they
would never have to vote again because we'll have it
(15:31):
fixed so good. And I don't think he was talking
about they'll never have to vote again because he's going
to run again.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I don't buy that.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I think it had to do because remember he's telling
Christian supporters it's going I'm having it fix so good,
And I think that has to do in most people.
And based on what he said, is bringing back Christian
values and eradicating anti Christian bias, because that seems to
(15:59):
be an ongoing thing among Christians that there is now
anti Christian bias, and he set up a task force
to somehow decide what exactly constitutes authentic Christian belief and practice.
I don't get that. So President Trump is in fact
(16:22):
a Christian Christian fault.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Well, maybe Christian followers have no problem with the fact
that he was a complete.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Womanizer and has violated many many Christian beliefs, But then
again you have to turn the other cheek. Interesting how
the politics work on this, because frankly, anti the pro Christian,
the Christians belief it was abortion that was the number
one thing an abortion has taken care of. So this
(16:51):
is an executive order creating the task force and dealing
with the examples that the Trump administration considers to be
unacceptable discrimination against Christian Christians, including prosecutions during the Biden
era of Christian anti abortion protesters.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
There is a law the Freedom.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
To Access Clinical Interests that were passed, and the FBI
sent out a letter a memo that was later retracted
big time, referring to radical traditionals Christians as potential domestic
terrorism threat and the designation of Easter Sunday twenty twenty
four as the year's Transgender Day of Visibility, and this
(17:40):
is not something that this administration particularly likes. So where
you had, I mean, it's completely turned around. This is
no longer freedom of religion where everybody practices and the
government has nothing to do with religion nothing, because under
the concept of separation of church and state. And here
(18:02):
where is where the interpretation of the Constitution comes in.
This is where you have the Supreme Court deciding how
far a provision of the Constitution goes. For example, Second Amendment,
the Court has decided the language of the militia. In
order to basically have freedom in this country, you have
(18:22):
to have and organize militia.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
That disappears, it's just the freedom to bear arms.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
The Court also ruled that, and this is in the
past that freedom of religion and separation of church and
state was absolute. The state cannot get involved in any
way in religion.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
In other words, no prayer in school at all.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Can't mention God in classrooms, can't have the Ten Commandments
on public buildings, just not allowed, because that is a
state building, a a state classroom. And separation of church
and statement. You can't mix the two up. Well, that
has changed, Boy has that changed, and so conservative Christians
(19:14):
are saying we are being discriminated against big time. For example,
the Freedom to Access the Clinical Entrances Act, which they
have attacked. And these are protesters that go to abortion
clinics and protest, and they were actually blocking women from
going in the door and harassing them and calling them murderers.
(19:39):
And the court was pretty clear in terms of upholding
the Freedom to Access Clinical Interests Act. You can protest
all you want, you just can't protest in front of
the clinic. You cannot stop someone from going into the clinic.
You cannot harass people, you cannot.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yell murder all. That's a different issue. You probably we can.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Well, it's changed because now under freedom of religion, how
can you stop someone from advocating a non abortion position
based on religious grounds.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
It has switched completely.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I'm going to come back and finish this up because
this is I mean, we're changing big time. When I
talk about Trump changing the United States in terms of philosophy,
in terms of the way we're going and trade presidential power,
this one. I think this is one of the most
problematic issues of the day. And they have to determine
(20:39):
who's a Christian.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I don't know. Do you know who a Christian is?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Does anybody who believes in Christ a Christian? If God
tells you to block someone from entering a or being
in front of an abortion center and stopping women from
coming in because of your religious belief, are you allowed
to do that? Well, there are arguments up and down
(21:05):
the sidewalk on that one. Now there's also anti Semitism
that the White House has come down really hard and
deporting people and stopping the quote anti Semitic, and having
presidents of major university's tossed they had to resign. Harvard
(21:25):
got nine billion dollars cut from the government grants for
its medical research, et cetera because of the alleged anti semitism.
So it's not just anti Christian Semitism. It's also anti
Jewish Semitism. And for some reason, we don't have much
out there of anti Muslim sentiment other than not letting
(21:50):
them in the country and exporting them right exactly goodbye.
So it's a basic tenet of belief. But the big
one is Christians. And why is the big one Christians?
Because there are so many Christians. Although although in nineteen
eighty ninety percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian today,
(22:15):
sixty two percent say there are followers of Christ much
less organized religion. So someone who is a Muslim, that's
fairly easy to determine. Someone who is Jewish, that's fairly
easy to determine. All you have to look at is
(22:35):
bank accounts, and then.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's easy to determine who a Jew is. Christians are
all over the board.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Why because christian is a more all encompassing religion.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Oh, Neil is shaking his head. Is basic? Let me
ask them? Is basic Christianity just a belief in Christ? Period? No,
it's not.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Well, that's the point I believe in you have to
believe in the trinity. Now, there's gonna be people that
argue this. Jehovah's Witnesses believe differently, and there's those that
would argue that they aren't. They don't fall under the
fundamental tenets of Christianity.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Okay, but is it self described if you believe in Christ,
for example, Jehovah witnesses, if you pass a law saying
that you can't go up to people's houses and stay
in their doorways and knock on doors, is that anti
Jehovah witness.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
But there are things that make you a Christian. I'd
never understand why people think that it's just like I
like Jesus.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Okay, you're in.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That's not really how it works. There are tenants to
understand who the person of Christ is, the hyposthetic union
between the dual nature of his godhood and his humanity.
There are things that you have to believe to be
a Christian. You can't just go yeah, he seems like
a good guy to me.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
All right, So let me ask you there.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You are committed all kinds of horrific acts, non Christian acts,
and as you die you have genuine remorse, and you
say I want in because.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I really believe in you. Does the door open up?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
No chance in hell. You're not getting in just on
personality traits. Well, this is what people don't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You ask about.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
The standards of right and wrong are not man made.
Those are your laws. The standards of God are different.
And everyone fails that you smash a mirror, the whole
mirror is broken. You don't get a piece of the
mirror broken, the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So are we born in sin? See we're moving over
to a whole different issue. Yes, And you are born
in sin becose I was not born in sin.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I developed my sin with a lot of work. It
took a long time for me to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It was a sin for you to be born.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yes, I'm not arguing the.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well. The point is that I know we've gone off
on a tangent here. The point is there is a
solid move with this administration effectively saying separation of church
is out the door.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
We now want. But people misunderstand it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
The separation of church and state, not in the Constitution,
by the way, is to protect the church from the state,
not the state from the church.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Which is no, It's to protect individuals.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's to protect individual and you don't protect the state
from the church. You know, it is the individuals because
the Constitution deal with your rights, not the state's rights,
but individuals' rights.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
And we are out of time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And I love getting the last word in Neil, because
that's what this show is about. Whether I'm right or wrong,
name not mine, Whether I'm wrong or right.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Okay, kfi am six you've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty bill handle here on a Monday morning,
May twelfth, is Oh, what a weekend it is. And
one of the big stories. I mean, there are a
couple of massive stories, and probably in terms of business
the United States. You just notice Heather reporting that the
stock market is up the now he's up a thousand points.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
And why is that?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, because over the weekend, China and the United States
have agreed to lower tariffs on goods from each other's
countries for ninety days. And let me tell you, business
is reeling in a positive direction.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
And this is a temporary reprieve in that trade war.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
That threatens that I'm saying, almost guarantees of global recession.
And it was I mean, the fight between China in
the United States could have been.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Just enormous, just enormous.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So what Treasury Secretary Scott Descent and US Trade Representative
Greer said that after weekend talks in Geneva with a
Chinese delegation, US tariffs will be reduced from one hundred
and forty five percent to thirty percent, on top of
the already in place ten percent. Now we're talking forty percent.
(01:31):
Forty percent for a lot of companies is doable. It's tough,
but it's doable. And as you know, I talked to
my partner every single day about these tariffs because they
totally affect our business. And we were at one hundred
and eighty one percent. Tariffs couldn't move now forty percent,
(01:52):
you know what, we can deal with it, not well,
but and Beijing said that its blank of terrific on
American products for as one hundred and twenty five percent
now drops to ten percent, and this kicks.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
In on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
By the way, one hundred and forty five percent and
the one hundred and twenty five percent forget about a
percentage of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It is a complete embargo. It's a total embargo of American.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Products being sold in China, Chinese products being sold in
the United States. That comes to a screeching halt. There
is no business being done between the two countries at
that kind of tariff rate, and so stock markets across
Asia already are up here in the US one thousand
points and we have a ninety day pause and a
(02:49):
joint statement released by both countries. We have agreed on
the ninety eight pause and the spirit of mutual opening,
continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, I would argue cooperation.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And mutual respect is a big word which defines perfectly
our relationship with China. One of the problems with the
Trump administration is not even so much the tariffs themselves.
It's that it changes day today. And here is the
problem you're going to see right now. Short term, there
(03:27):
goes the stock market up through the roof a thousand
points today, and then if tariffs kick in after ninety days,
it's going to drop a thousand points.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
But long term, here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The President has said trillions of dollars have been announced
by various companies to be invested in the United States,
new factories, new distribution systems, and what he is saying works.
The problem with business is what business wants more than
(04:01):
anything else is stability. The markets want stability, and what
does a major company do. So you've got a major company,
let's pick a company, General Motors, who has agreed to
invest X number of dollars in the billions into a
factory in the United States, moving it from Mexico. Well,
(04:22):
the President has arbitrarily and individually decided on the tariffs
because remember, Congress gives him anything he wants.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It's a Republican Congress.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And therefore, the next president, who is a Democrat, for example,
goes the other way and reduces terrorists, and all of
a sudden, the twenty thirty forty billion dollar factory that's
being built in the United States doesn't make sense anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It becomes too expensive.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Why because the average worker that works in a auto
plan in the United States makes twenty five twenty six
dollars a day. In China, the average worker makes under
two dollars a day or under two dollars an hour.
I'm sorry, twenty five dollars an hour for the average
worker in the United States, and an auto plant versus
(05:16):
two dollars an hour can't compete. And at the same time,
China dumps money subsidizes their big manufacturing firms. So it's
just it's you can't rely on anything. And let me
tell you the decision for a major company to invest
(05:37):
billions of dollars into a manufacturing plant in the United
States and move it from Mexico, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
No small deal. That takes years.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So right now, the trade surplus with the US was
one hundred billion dollars. Last year, China sold more products
to the US than US bot from sin by one
hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
President Trump says it was in the trillions of dollars.
It's not you know. One of the things about the
numbers are kind of outrageous.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So we're going to see what happens. So the trade
war is continuing to a smaller extent the way during
his first term, there was a twenty percent tariff issued,
and this had to do with the fentanyl related chemicals
(06:32):
coming into the country, which China does do or allows.
It allows fentanyl products, and this is the products that
manufacture fentanyl. They don't actually sell fentanyl. What they do
is they settle in materials to make fentanyl. So that
makes sense in one sense, But the same tariffs are
going against Canada because of this massive amount of fentanyl
(06:55):
materials is coming from Canada.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Not also the immigration issue.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
While China does have an immigration issue with Chinese nationals
coming in United States, how many Kate Canadians are sneaking
over the border.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
And so it's all mixed up.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Everything is put into a blender, mixed up No one
knows what's happening at this point. All we know is
we're gonna get a smoothie. And so as the government
has said the Alicia Garcia, ro Chief Economists for Asia Pacific,
it's an investment bank.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
The deal is not a solution.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's simply a smoothing of the impact of the bifurcation,
the splitting up of our relationship. But it's certainly better
the news than was happening Friday or last week, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay, let's get local for a moment. And this has
to do. This story has to do.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It's the La Time story about the faulty alerts that
happened during the La fires. And this was after an
investigation into La County's faulty emergency alerts during the January fires.
US Congressman Robert Garcia, who was investigated this, issued a
report calling for more federal oversight of the nation's patchwork.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And it privatized the emergency alert system.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Right now, it's privatized, and it's under contract with the
county or the city.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And here's what happened.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
The investigation was launched by Garcia in more than a
dozen members of the Congressional delegation LA's congressional delegation after
La County sent a whole series of faulty evacuation alerts
on January ninth, urging people to evacuate, now not just
in the fire areas or where the fire was moving,
(08:56):
but all over the metropolitan region of ten million people.
Go evacuate ten million people, a lot of which had
no issue. As a matter of fact, this alert came
two days after the firestorms erupted in Pacific Pales days
in Altadena, and the alerts, which were intended for a
(09:18):
very small group of residents near Calabasas, has had to
do with the Calabasas.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Fire which was happening.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Not much burned in Calabasas, it turned out to be
those folks were very lucky. So they were intended for Calabasas,
and they were blasted repeatedly to communities as far as
forty miles away in which the fire had zero chants
(09:48):
of going to.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And engulfing those homes.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And so the report is titled Sounding the Alarm Lessons
from the Kenneth Fire False Alerts, and this talks about Genesis.
This is the software company that contracted with the county
to issue wireless emergency alerts.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Now they're saying a technical.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Error is what caused it to happen, That this was
a faulty alert that went across the entire metro region.
And according to Genesis, oh there goes my printer again,
the software did not upload the correct evacuation area.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It was. Well, they're saying it was human order, human error.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The report found that contrary to accounts of La County officials,
multiple echo alerts went out as cell phone provider's experience
overload due to high volume and the long duration of
the alerts, even when not only were they false, they
went on for minutes and minutes, and confusion was compounded
and it was all kinds of vague wording in the
(10:58):
original alert.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Garcia said, it's clear there's so much reform needed.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We have to have operating systems that people can rely
on and trust in the future. That's scary stuff when
you think about emergency alerts that are either false or
somehow in error. They don't do it in an area
which they should. In this case, they were broadcast. They
(11:25):
were sent to people over cell phones in a much
broader area cos panic in areas that had no chance
of being engulfed in flames. Garcia said, we're talking about
the loss of life and property, people's confidence in our
emergency notification systems.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Now, do you rely on emergency notification systems? I do.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You know? If I'm looking at an alert, get out
of Dodge. I'm getting out of Dodge, even if I
don't live in Dodge. Are there any towns named in
southern California? I don't think so. But it's really scary stuff,
Garcia said. People need to be able to trust that
(12:11):
if there's a natural disaster, they're going to get an alert,
which we do get, and it's going to have.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Correct information which we didn't get.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So the report makes some recommendation more federal funding, like
we're going to get it right for funding, planning, equipment, training,
system maintenance. The FEMA has an Integrated Public Alert and
Warning System national system that provides emergency public alerts through
(12:43):
mobile phones using wireless emergency alerts privately owned and it
goes to radio and TV via the.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Emergency Alert System. Now we get those all the time.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Amber alerts, we get those even if the phone is
turned off, we get these.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Is that right, by the way, Uh, if you turn
the phone off. Do you still get the emergency alerts
or does it not come in? No matter what you know,
I don't know the answer, they still come in. It
may not make a sound, but you see a visual
pop up.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, I hate that emergency alert. I mean my ears
blow off, blowout, and you go, come on, Really, so
you have some kids getting kidnapped? I mean, is that
worth it to blow my ears out?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So the report presses the FCC to established performance standards
and develop measurable goals for monitoring, and we've.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Got to have it. It's that simple. So big failure
in government.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And this is one of those non privatized businesses services
that you know, maybe the government should be involved. Now
a lot of people are not happy with the government
being involved, but once in a while you do want them.
For example, I'm okay with the FCC the FAA establishing
(14:13):
minimum standards. I like the idea of when I get
on an airplane, the airplane maintenance people the airlines have
to report to the FAA their maintenance record, as opposed
to the market deciding how safe an airplane an airplane
is going to go. So if you're flying on an
(14:34):
American carrier of some kind and they have planes falling
out of the sky. The market will tell you go
to another airline. Love it, Okay, Neil, this is for you.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
All right. Here's a question for you. And I love this.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
And this has to do with the religion and government,
separation of church and state, and one of my favorite
topics to talk about. And here's the question, who counts
as a Christian?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Now I don't. I know Neil does, right.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Neil is in the majority in this country because there
are a whole lot more Christians than any other religion,
although that number has decreased dramatically. So during his campaign,
Trump told Christian supporters that if he became president, they
would never have to vote again because we'll have it
(15:31):
fixed so good. And I don't think he was talking
about they'll never have to vote again because he's going
to run again.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I don't buy that.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I think it had to do because remember he's telling
Christian supporters it's going I'm having it fix so good,
And I think that has to do in most people.
And based on what he said, is bringing back Christian
values and eradicating anti Christian bias, because that seems to
(15:59):
be an ongoing thing among Christians that there is now
anti Christian bias, and he set up a task force
to somehow decide what exactly constitutes authentic Christian belief and practice.
I don't get that. So President Trump is in fact
(16:22):
a Christian Christian fault.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Well, maybe Christian followers have no problem with the fact
that he was a complete.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Womanizer and has violated many many Christian beliefs, But then
again you have to turn the other cheek. Interesting how
the politics work on this, because frankly, anti the pro Christian,
the Christians belief it was abortion that was the number
one thing an abortion has taken care of. So this
(16:51):
is an executive order creating the task force and dealing
with the examples that the Trump administration considers to be
unacceptable discrimination against Christian Christians, including prosecutions during the Biden
era of Christian anti abortion protesters.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
There is a law the Freedom.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
To Access Clinical Interests that were passed, and the FBI
sent out a letter a memo that was later retracted
big time, referring to radical traditionals Christians as potential domestic
terrorism threat and the designation of Easter Sunday twenty twenty
four as the year's Transgender Day of Visibility, and this
(17:40):
is not something that this administration particularly likes. So where
you had, I mean, it's completely turned around. This is
no longer freedom of religion where everybody practices and the
government has nothing to do with religion nothing, because under
the concept of separation of church and state. And here
(18:02):
where is where the interpretation of the Constitution comes in.
This is where you have the Supreme Court deciding how
far a provision of the Constitution goes. For example, Second Amendment,
the Court has decided the language of the militia. In
order to basically have freedom in this country, you have
(18:22):
to have and organize militia.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
That disappears, it's just the freedom to bear arms.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
The Court also ruled that, and this is in the
past that freedom of religion and separation of church and
state was absolute. The state cannot get involved in any
way in religion.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
In other words, no prayer in school at all.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Can't mention God in classrooms, can't have the Ten Commandments
on public buildings, just not allowed, because that is a
state building, a a state classroom. And separation of church
and statement. You can't mix the two up. Well, that
has changed, Boy has that changed, and so conservative Christians
(19:14):
are saying we are being discriminated against big time. For example,
the Freedom to Access the Clinical Entrances Act, which they
have attacked. And these are protesters that go to abortion
clinics and protest, and they were actually blocking women from
going in the door and harassing them and calling them murderers.
(19:39):
And the court was pretty clear in terms of upholding
the Freedom to Access Clinical Interests Act. You can protest
all you want, you just can't protest in front of
the clinic. You cannot stop someone from going into the clinic.
You cannot harass people, you cannot.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yell murder all. That's a different issue. You probably we can.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Well, it's changed because now under freedom of religion, how
can you stop someone from advocating a non abortion position
based on religious grounds.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
It has switched completely.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I'm going to come back and finish this up because
this is I mean, we're changing big time. When I
talk about Trump changing the United States in terms of philosophy,
in terms of the way we're going and trade presidential power,
this one. I think this is one of the most
problematic issues of the day. And they have to determine
(20:39):
who's a Christian.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I don't know. Do you know who a Christian is?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Does anybody who believes in Christ a Christian? If God
tells you to block someone from entering a or being
in front of an abortion center and stopping women from
coming in because of your religious belief, are you allowed
to do that? Well, there are arguments up and down
(21:05):
the sidewalk on that one. Now there's also anti Semitism
that the White House has come down really hard and
deporting people and stopping the quote anti Semitic, and having
presidents of major university's tossed they had to resign. Harvard
(21:25):
got nine billion dollars cut from the government grants for
its medical research, et cetera because of the alleged anti semitism.
So it's not just anti Christian Semitism. It's also anti
Jewish Semitism. And for some reason, we don't have much
out there of anti Muslim sentiment other than not letting
(21:50):
them in the country and exporting them right exactly goodbye.
So it's a basic tenet of belief. But the big
one is Christians. And why is the big one Christians?
Because there are so many Christians. Although although in nineteen
eighty ninety percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian today,
(22:15):
sixty two percent say there are followers of Christ much
less organized religion. So someone who is a Muslim, that's
fairly easy to determine. Someone who is Jewish, that's fairly
easy to determine. All you have to look at is
(22:35):
bank accounts, and then.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's easy to determine who a Jew is. Christians are
all over the board.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Why because christian is a more all encompassing religion.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Oh, Neil is shaking his head. Is basic? Let me
ask them? Is basic Christianity just a belief in Christ? Period? No,
it's not.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Well, that's the point I believe in you have to
believe in the trinity. Now, there's gonna be people that
argue this. Jehovah's Witnesses believe differently, and there's those that
would argue that they aren't. They don't fall under the
fundamental tenets of Christianity.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Okay, but is it self described if you believe in Christ,
for example, Jehovah witnesses, if you pass a law saying
that you can't go up to people's houses and stay
in their doorways and knock on doors, is that anti
Jehovah witness.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
But there are things that make you a Christian. I'd
never understand why people think that it's just like I
like Jesus.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Okay, you're in.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That's not really how it works. There are tenants to
understand who the person of Christ is, the hyposthetic union
between the dual nature of his godhood and his humanity.
There are things that you have to believe to be
a Christian. You can't just go yeah, he seems like
a good guy to me.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
All right, So let me ask you there.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
You are committed all kinds of horrific acts, non Christian acts,
and as you die you have genuine remorse, and you
say I want in because.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I really believe in you. Does the door open up?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
No chance in hell. You're not getting in just on
personality traits. Well, this is what people don't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You ask about.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
The standards of right and wrong are not man made.
Those are your laws. The standards of God are different.
And everyone fails that you smash a mirror, the whole
mirror is broken. You don't get a piece of the
mirror broken, the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So are we born in sin? See we're moving over
to a whole different issue. Yes, And you are born
in sin becose I was not born in sin.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I developed my sin with a lot of work. It
took a long time for me to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It was a sin for you to be born.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yes, I'm not arguing the.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Well. The point is that I know we've gone off
on a tangent here. The point is there is a
solid move with this administration effectively saying separation of church
is out the door.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
We now want. But people misunderstand it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
The separation of church and state, not in the Constitution,
by the way, is to protect the church from the state,
not the state from the church.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Which is no, It's to protect individuals.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's to protect individual and you don't protect the state
from the church. You know, it is the individuals because
the Constitution deal with your rights, not the state's rights,
but individuals' rights.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
And we are out of time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And I love getting the last word in Neil, because
that's what this show is about. Whether I'm right or wrong,
name not mine, Whether I'm wrong or right.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Okay, kfi am six you've been listening to the Bill
Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
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