January 30, 2026 • 24 mins
(January 30, 2026)
Senate democrats and White House strike deal to avert shutdown and will continue ICE debate. Secret YS cyber operations shielded election from foreign trolls. Canada to report killing over 100,000 people with physician-assisted suicide… how does that compare to the US. Cracker Barrel wants its staff to eat one thing on work trips: Cracker Barrel.
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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. Let's make a deal to little how Dudy
AM six forty. Bill Handle here on a Friday morning,
and it's January thirtieth, tomorrow, of course, being the last
(00:24):
day of the month, as we're well into the year.
And a quick word about the rest of the show.
All of the show, because very few people listen to
all three hours. If you've missed any segment of the program,
go to the iHeartRadio app and you can check into
the podcast. I mean, we have some fun, fun segments
(00:44):
like today at eight o'clock, it's foody Friday, and then
ask Handle anything and I get hugely embarrassed by that.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Also, real quick before we get to what's going on
in terms of the shutdown, is the monarch butterfly population
that comes to California. There are no monarch butterflies left.
It's just it's just done. You know, I live near
San Juan Capistrano, and you know, the swallows of Santo
Capistrano this year, you know, thousands of people lined up
(01:14):
with binoculars to look at the swallows coming down, coming back,
one one, one bird. It's tough and they're not big either,
not enough to cook at all. You know, swallow meat
is just just not the same. Okay. Now, governmental shutdown,
(01:35):
which theoretically, well not so theoretically, starts tonight December, I
think it's tonight or tomorrow night where the government shuts down.
And the only way the government keeps on going every
year is to extend the budget, give itself the permission
to borrow money in order to pay the governmental bills,
(01:58):
because the government runs just in a deficit constantly. Matter
of fact, in the modern era, the only time there
was a surplus was during Clinton one year during Clinton,
and before that during the Eisenhower years. And so we
don't live in surplus in this country. So now huge
(02:19):
debate that went on and what's going on in Minneapolis
is now really affecting the budget. So the fight was
going on between Congress, the Republicans and the Democrats about
the budget, and the Republicans wanted just the continuation of
the budget and funding the Department of Homeland Security, which
(02:39):
oversees immigration enforcement. And because of the craziness that's happening,
the Democrats said, we ain't going to fund DHS because
of what's happening, and the Republicans say, you have to
fund DHS, and there was just a stop. I mean,
they could not agree, much like what happened with the
last shutdown last year thirty eight days, the longest shut
(03:02):
down in the history of the United States. And the
Republicans caved on this. Why because of Minneapolis. Here's what
the Democrats demanded. No more masks on ICE agents. They
need a warrant before they go into anybody's house. More
targeted approaches to this. They can't just arbitrarily pull people
(03:24):
out of cars and go in front of buildings, lows
and home depots and factories. And the Republicans fought it. Well,
guess what, they just caved. They just caved. They have
agreed to the democrats demands, the Democrats and the meantime, well,
they've agreed to talk about those demands, but in principle
(03:44):
agreed that those demands will be made. And the Democrats
then said, okay, we will allow the budget to the
partial shutdown to disappear for two weeks while we discuss
homeland security and ICE immigration tactics. And so they had
(04:06):
a deal, and then they didn't have a deal, and
so what ends up happening before this becomes law is
both houses of Congress, the Senate and the House, have
to vote agree to all the terms, and then take
this bill and send it up to the President for signature,
and the President will sign. He's already said he will sign,
(04:28):
and he's actually giving the Democrats some kudos for this
in terms of averting the shutdown. Problem is there was
a hiccup. It has not been signed. Congress has not
been called back. They're on recess. Mike Johnson has the
ability to call them back, but he has not done so,
(04:50):
and there's all kinds of question about that. And so
we may have a governmental shutdown. But the good news
is probably going to go for one or two days,
which is not going to affect paychecks. It is not
going to affect vendors who sell to the government. It
is not going to affect those in government who do
(05:12):
get paid. Now, some people in government get paid, come
hell or high water, members of the military get paid.
Social Security is still issued, but many many parts of
the government are not. They just shut down, and that's
why they call it a partial shutdown. Hey, here is
a story that I looked at this and I went
(05:34):
whoa wait a minute, and that is you know that
the future is going to be two wars are going
to be fought, one for water and the other one
cyber wars. And the US had military hackers that took
aim at computer servers and key personnel of at least
two Russian companies that were pumping out the propaganda in
(05:57):
the last two elections or the last elect certainly, oh no,
and then the first election with Donald Trump, and Trump
talked about how it was all a fake that none
of this happens. And boy has he proved his point
because he is saying that none of this really happened,
and he's not fearful. Why is this? These trolls were
(06:21):
trying to influence election results in swing states and Trump said, naw,
they didn't. They published fictitious news stories that attacked American
politicians who supported Ukraine. That was their big issue. In
one case, it's called the Cyber Command. What operatives and
(06:43):
our government planned to do was knock offline servers base
in some European country we don't know exactly one in
which Russian companies continue to create content through election day.
And it was well, the president said, none of that
is true because Russia. You know, Russia had really interesting
(07:07):
reaction to Donald Trump. Basically, Donald Trump had a pretty
good relationship with Putin and has historically as a matter
of fact, if you remember that one incident in which
the allegation by US government authorities, by the intelligence community
of the US government, seventeen agencies said that Russia was
(07:32):
a hacking us the computer world in the US and
was getting in the way of the elections, interfering with
our election results. And Putin denied it, and Trump actually
said I believe Putin more than I believe our intelligence community.
That was a scary moment. So here we are. We
(07:54):
have this military force, and it's a cyber force. We
didn't know this. This is not the civil aspect of it.
This is military that the government is using that deals
with the hacking, the interference that we have not only
in terms of elections, but in general trolling and just
(08:16):
issuing propaganda statements over and over again. Guess what happened
here We are a year into the second Trump administration,
and what the administration has done is just shut down
the military or a good part of the military program
that we have fighting the trolling, fighting the propaganda. So
(08:40):
government centers that previously were involved with repelling foreign influence
operations have been disbanded or downsized. And what's happening is
local governments are preparing to face this onslaught on their own. Now.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI,
(09:02):
and the State Department that helped warn us that China,
Russia in Iran targeting Americans with election related disinformation, they've
been slashed, just slash. The election security teams slashed, and
the Trump administration has accused those federal programs of censoring
(09:22):
Americans and conducting domestic interference in US elections. So not
only is Russia and it was all fake news that
Russia was doing this. The President has said there were
American intelligence forces that were trying to interfere with the election.
(09:42):
And I mean, it's just crazy. And this is all
under homeland security. There is a former election security specialist,
Mike Moser at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
I mean, we have so many agencies who they hell
knows what they do. He resigned because the agency froze
(10:04):
its election work last year. He says, you see these
partnerships dismantled. We're losing human and technological infrastructure that protects
our democracy. And here is the question, and a lot
of people are very very upset obviously about the Trump
administration and how it's Donald Trump is changing the United
(10:25):
States and how we do business and how we simply
exist as a society, changing it more than any president
probably in the history of the United States. Maybe FDR,
you can argue, was close to this, but I think
Trump blows past FDR in terms of changing America. And
(10:45):
that is Okay, we have the next president because Trump's
in for three more years, unless, of course, he gets
elected for life according to a couple of Republican congress
people who want him to be the Grand Puba for
the rest of his life and even beyond that. And
so a new president is going to come in and
(11:05):
unravel a lot of what this president is doing. Well,
the point that's being made is there are certain aspects
that are never going to come back. For example, in
this one, it takes years and years to train the
cybersecurity experts, and they're leaving. They've left, they've gone into
(11:27):
private business, they've gone into other industries, other ways of working,
you know, simply living in a different life. Well, they're
not coming back, and no one's being trained, so coming
back is going to be very, very difficult. Now, we
can rejoin NATO, that's not going to be a problem.
(11:48):
We can rejoin the World Health Organization. That's not going
to be a problem because we just rejoined at the
Paris Climate Accords. That can be rejoined. Although at this
point every but he is thinking, come on, you burned
us once, you're not going to burn us twice. But
organizations like this are going to be almost impossible to
bring back once they're disbanded. And this is a change.
(12:13):
This is where the change of this president is so profound,
is so visceral. America is a different place and it's
going to stay a different place because of what this
administration is doing and some good some bad. I don't
know which side of the coin. You may believe him,
(12:33):
you may not. You may think that he's doing good,
you may think that he's a disaster. It doesn't matter.
What we have to agree, all agree is that he
is changing fundamentally what the United States is about, defining
this country not only nationally domestically, but internationally. Okay, that's
(12:55):
the part that was a little depressing. Now let's have
a little bit of fun death. And this has to
do with Canada and physician assisted suicide. How does that work?
I want to share that with you. Death. Death is
among us now a topic that you know how much
(13:20):
I love death, and so this one has to be
with Canada physician assisted suicide, which we talk about but
very few people here in Well. First of all, California
is an assisted physician suicide state. And I think the
first one was I think Washington, maybe I don't remember,
but the point is it's very, very difficult here to
(13:44):
have a physician assisted suicide because the criterion is so difficult.
And once again, I remember, and I talk a lot
about my mother dying because that was something that I
was very involved with, and I remember going in when
she was basically a vegetable, and this is when I
(14:04):
thought physician assisted death would be fantastic. And I remember
going in and.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Screaming, Hey, can anybody help out here? Come on, crickets,
crickets nobody. The point is here in California very difficult.
How about Canada?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
One hundred thousand people in ten years, and that's how
quickly it expands and creates the culture of death once legalized.
Except the criteria is so difficult here, and Canada makes
it so easy. By the way, the first place in
the world that had assisted physician suicide was the Netherlands Holland.
(14:44):
So Alex Schodenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition,
estimates that in twenty twenty four, around sixteen five hundred
Canadians killed themselves via assisted suicide, increase of roughly seven
and a half percent over twenty three A couple days later,
(15:05):
when he was asked by CNN what he meant by
all of that, he couldn't help because they announced that
he had just killed himself the day before. Suicide. The
popularity shows no sign of decreasing at all, and here's why,
because they're so much easier to do it. It's still
(15:27):
not easy. There is strict quote eligibility criteria, but it
really isn't that strict. You have to be eighteen years
old and mentally competent. You have to have a grievous
and irremedial medical condition. Now that one is up for discussion.
Discussion here in California, doctors have to say you got
(15:47):
six months to live or less, and if you have
nine months to live, if they figure that one out.
You ain't killing yourself making a voluntary request for physician
assisted suicide, informed consent to receive it, and you're eligible
for health services funded by the province or territory or
(16:08):
the federal government. If you're not on the national plan, yeah,
you ain't doing it. And so here is the issue
with Canada. There are two tracks, and both of them
go to assisted physician suicide. Those that are above or
(16:29):
a doctor recommending it and another doctor qualifying that recommendation
and health insurance will actually do it. You imagine you
have health insurance that will help you, will help pay
for a doctor that then will give you the magic elixir.
And I happen to be a huge fan of physician
(16:51):
assisted suicide and all kidding aside. First of all, would
I do it? Yeah, okay, guys, calm down, Yes I would.
Why because sometimes the quality of life that is part
of longevity in my world, I mean, living to eighty
or ninety is kind of neat. However, living to eighty
(17:15):
or ninety with a quality of life that's worthless is not.
You know, again, I talk about my mother in all seriousness,
and you know I joke about my mother, you know, dying. Well,
I don't joke about it, but she lasted until she
was ninety eight, and the last five years of her life,
particularly the last three years for her life, it was
(17:37):
she was a vegetable. The problem is, and here is
the moral issue. I would have gladly put her down.
A matter of fact, I wouldn't even have a doctor
do it. I would have taken to her a vet
to save so much money. But it was how am
I going to make that decision? How are you going
to make that decision? How many of you on the
morning show would jump at the chance to help me
(17:59):
kill myself.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We've already, uh, we've already talked about this, and it's
between me and Kno very close with Anne, but she
needs more money in the pot.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And a cracker barrel breakfast this morning and a cracker
barrel dinner today and we're still here having cracker barrel done.
Oh that's cool. Where'd you find that? Cono? That's a
great song. It couldn't be better. How appropriate? Okay, this
is the story of cracker barrel, but it's more a
story of what's going on in corporate America. This is
(18:42):
just an example. So cracker Barrel is in a lot
of trouble financially, and the stores are still there and
they're still going to go on while it restructures. But
while that's happening, and this is part of what Cracker
Barrel is doing as well as company all over the country.
(19:03):
When you work, when you travel for work, when you
as an employee hits the road, here's where you eat
at Cracker Barrel. If there's anyone in the city, that's
where you eat. Don't place else. And if you're let's
(19:25):
say a sales management person, you're flying off and visiting
several Cracker barrels. That's lunch and dinner. Enjoy yourself. Employees
are expected to dine at Cracker Barrel for all or
the majority of meals while traveling. This is what the
company said in internal email. Whenever practical based on location
(19:46):
and schedule, it's called travel scrimping and man Corporate America
has jumped onto this one big time, and these changes
are stripping work trips of whatever shred of glamour they
ever had, which is now tough. And this is after
years of bell tightening, and it gets even worse if
(20:06):
you're working for Cracker Barrel. Even in pretty high management
one hundred dollars. Hotel rooms, you'll look for them preparing
grocery bought meals in your room, going to laundromats to
launder your shirts, as opposed to the hotel. Now inside
(20:30):
Cracker Barrel, they're saying that these changes are minor. Yeah,
you want to bet budgets are shrinking. And it makes
sense because expense account abuse is out there, and that's
one place where you can have costs a roll out
of control. It's much easier to control costs inside the
(20:51):
company manufacturing distribution, but when it comes to sales outside
the company, you can go nuts. So Amazon, for example,
they've long asked corporate workers to travel frugally, cheap seats
when possible. They do not want to hear you buying
(21:11):
for aisle seats or emergency exit seats. And one of
the debates in Amazon is what is cheap enough? And
no one really knows. And by the way, what does
the winner get traveling the cheapest possible, the cheapest way
(21:34):
Why a couple of free meals at cracker Barrel which
the salesperson has already had a dozen of them. Well,
some corporate travelers are saying they're going to the grocery stores.
Other ones are skimping on breakfast and lunch and saving
their allowance for dinner because usually it's a per diem
(21:56):
and it used to be you'd have plenty of money.
And European companies are even worse, even worse, so a
lot of European companies is even to get a meal
or get a beer that has to be okayed by
the way cracker barrel is also. In addition, all this
(22:20):
is cutting off the traveling workers from booze any booze,
any alcohol. Even taking people to lunch. You can't order booze.
Exceptions for special occasions. You can do it, but it
has to be pre approved by an E team member.
So can you imagine there is a salesperson executive who
(22:41):
is taking someone out to lunch, a purveyor, let's say,
of meat in that direction in that area. So he
goes to lunch and the guy orders a beer. Can't
pay for the beer. Excuse me a moment, I have
to make a phone call, calls a member of the
E team. They call it, Hey, my our guest wants
(23:01):
a beer. Is it okay? And it's four dollars and
fifty cents welcome to corporate America. See we're easy because
does anybody hear travel? I mean not just us, but
we used to do travel. When there were big stories
that were breaking, there would be they would send out
(23:23):
reporters to those stories. I remember when the Murrow Building
office building blew up. You remember that when the terrorist
attack blew up the building in one hundred and something
people died, they flew me out to report on it. Today,
if the same thing happened and I said, hey, I've
got to go out there. You can walk. It's Oklahoma,
(23:48):
all right, take an extra day. KFI AM sixty you've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my Show
Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and any
time on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty. Let's make a deal to little how Dudy
AM six forty. Bill Handle here on a Friday morning,
and it's January thirtieth, tomorrow, of course, being the last
(00:24):
day of the month, as we're well into the year.
And a quick word about the rest of the show.
All of the show, because very few people listen to
all three hours. If you've missed any segment of the program,
go to the iHeartRadio app and you can check into
the podcast. I mean, we have some fun, fun segments
(00:44):
like today at eight o'clock, it's foody Friday, and then
ask Handle anything and I get hugely embarrassed by that.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Also, real quick before we get to what's going on
in terms of the shutdown, is the monarch butterfly population
that comes to California. There are no monarch butterflies left.
It's just it's just done. You know, I live near
San Juan Capistrano, and you know, the swallows of Santo
Capistrano this year, you know, thousands of people lined up
(01:14):
with binoculars to look at the swallows coming down, coming back,
one one, one bird. It's tough and they're not big either,
not enough to cook at all. You know, swallow meat
is just just not the same. Okay. Now, governmental shutdown,
(01:35):
which theoretically, well not so theoretically, starts tonight December, I
think it's tonight or tomorrow night where the government shuts down.
And the only way the government keeps on going every
year is to extend the budget, give itself the permission
to borrow money in order to pay the governmental bills,
(01:58):
because the government runs just in a deficit constantly. Matter
of fact, in the modern era, the only time there
was a surplus was during Clinton one year during Clinton,
and before that during the Eisenhower years. And so we
don't live in surplus in this country. So now huge
(02:19):
debate that went on and what's going on in Minneapolis
is now really affecting the budget. So the fight was
going on between Congress, the Republicans and the Democrats about
the budget, and the Republicans wanted just the continuation of
the budget and funding the Department of Homeland Security, which
(02:39):
oversees immigration enforcement. And because of the craziness that's happening,
the Democrats said, we ain't going to fund DHS because
of what's happening, and the Republicans say, you have to
fund DHS, and there was just a stop. I mean,
they could not agree, much like what happened with the
last shutdown last year thirty eight days, the longest shut
(03:02):
down in the history of the United States. And the
Republicans caved on this. Why because of Minneapolis. Here's what
the Democrats demanded. No more masks on ICE agents. They
need a warrant before they go into anybody's house. More
targeted approaches to this. They can't just arbitrarily pull people
(03:24):
out of cars and go in front of buildings, lows
and home depots and factories. And the Republicans fought it. Well,
guess what, they just caved. They just caved. They have
agreed to the democrats demands, the Democrats and the meantime, well,
they've agreed to talk about those demands, but in principle
(03:44):
agreed that those demands will be made. And the Democrats
then said, okay, we will allow the budget to the
partial shutdown to disappear for two weeks while we discuss
homeland security and ICE immigration tactics. And so they had
(04:06):
a deal, and then they didn't have a deal, and
so what ends up happening before this becomes law is
both houses of Congress, the Senate and the House, have
to vote agree to all the terms, and then take
this bill and send it up to the President for signature,
and the President will sign. He's already said he will sign,
(04:28):
and he's actually giving the Democrats some kudos for this
in terms of averting the shutdown. Problem is there was
a hiccup. It has not been signed. Congress has not
been called back. They're on recess. Mike Johnson has the
ability to call them back, but he has not done so,
(04:50):
and there's all kinds of question about that. And so
we may have a governmental shutdown. But the good news
is probably going to go for one or two days,
which is not going to affect paychecks. It is not
going to affect vendors who sell to the government. It
is not going to affect those in government who do
(05:12):
get paid. Now, some people in government get paid, come
hell or high water, members of the military get paid.
Social Security is still issued, but many many parts of
the government are not. They just shut down, and that's
why they call it a partial shutdown. Hey, here is
a story that I looked at this and I went
(05:34):
whoa wait a minute, and that is you know that
the future is going to be two wars are going
to be fought, one for water and the other one
cyber wars. And the US had military hackers that took
aim at computer servers and key personnel of at least
two Russian companies that were pumping out the propaganda in
(05:57):
the last two elections or the last elect certainly, oh no,
and then the first election with Donald Trump, and Trump
talked about how it was all a fake that none
of this happens. And boy has he proved his point
because he is saying that none of this really happened,
and he's not fearful. Why is this? These trolls were
(06:21):
trying to influence election results in swing states and Trump said, naw,
they didn't. They published fictitious news stories that attacked American
politicians who supported Ukraine. That was their big issue. In
one case, it's called the Cyber Command. What operatives and
(06:43):
our government planned to do was knock offline servers base
in some European country we don't know exactly one in
which Russian companies continue to create content through election day.
And it was well, the president said, none of that
is true because Russia. You know, Russia had really interesting
(07:07):
reaction to Donald Trump. Basically, Donald Trump had a pretty
good relationship with Putin and has historically as a matter
of fact, if you remember that one incident in which
the allegation by US government authorities, by the intelligence community
of the US government, seventeen agencies said that Russia was
(07:32):
a hacking us the computer world in the US and
was getting in the way of the elections, interfering with
our election results. And Putin denied it, and Trump actually
said I believe Putin more than I believe our intelligence community.
That was a scary moment. So here we are. We
(07:54):
have this military force, and it's a cyber force. We
didn't know this. This is not the civil aspect of it.
This is military that the government is using that deals
with the hacking, the interference that we have not only
in terms of elections, but in general trolling and just
(08:16):
issuing propaganda statements over and over again. Guess what happened
here We are a year into the second Trump administration,
and what the administration has done is just shut down
the military or a good part of the military program
that we have fighting the trolling, fighting the propaganda. So
(08:40):
government centers that previously were involved with repelling foreign influence
operations have been disbanded or downsized. And what's happening is
local governments are preparing to face this onslaught on their own. Now.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI,
(09:02):
and the State Department that helped warn us that China,
Russia in Iran targeting Americans with election related disinformation, they've
been slashed, just slash. The election security teams slashed, and
the Trump administration has accused those federal programs of censoring
(09:22):
Americans and conducting domestic interference in US elections. So not
only is Russia and it was all fake news that
Russia was doing this. The President has said there were
American intelligence forces that were trying to interfere with the election.
(09:42):
And I mean, it's just crazy. And this is all
under homeland security. There is a former election security specialist,
Mike Moser at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
I mean, we have so many agencies who they hell
knows what they do. He resigned because the agency froze
(10:04):
its election work last year. He says, you see these
partnerships dismantled. We're losing human and technological infrastructure that protects
our democracy. And here is the question, and a lot
of people are very very upset obviously about the Trump
administration and how it's Donald Trump is changing the United
(10:25):
States and how we do business and how we simply
exist as a society, changing it more than any president
probably in the history of the United States. Maybe FDR,
you can argue, was close to this, but I think
Trump blows past FDR in terms of changing America. And
(10:45):
that is Okay, we have the next president because Trump's
in for three more years, unless, of course, he gets
elected for life according to a couple of Republican congress
people who want him to be the Grand Puba for
the rest of his life and even beyond that. And
so a new president is going to come in and
(11:05):
unravel a lot of what this president is doing. Well,
the point that's being made is there are certain aspects
that are never going to come back. For example, in
this one, it takes years and years to train the
cybersecurity experts, and they're leaving. They've left, they've gone into
(11:27):
private business, they've gone into other industries, other ways of working,
you know, simply living in a different life. Well, they're
not coming back, and no one's being trained, so coming
back is going to be very, very difficult. Now, we
can rejoin NATO, that's not going to be a problem.
(11:48):
We can rejoin the World Health Organization. That's not going
to be a problem because we just rejoined at the
Paris Climate Accords. That can be rejoined. Although at this
point every but he is thinking, come on, you burned
us once, you're not going to burn us twice. But
organizations like this are going to be almost impossible to
bring back once they're disbanded. And this is a change.
(12:13):
This is where the change of this president is so profound,
is so visceral. America is a different place and it's
going to stay a different place because of what this
administration is doing and some good some bad. I don't
know which side of the coin. You may believe him,
(12:33):
you may not. You may think that he's doing good,
you may think that he's a disaster. It doesn't matter.
What we have to agree, all agree is that he
is changing fundamentally what the United States is about, defining
this country not only nationally domestically, but internationally. Okay, that's
(12:55):
the part that was a little depressing. Now let's have
a little bit of fun death. And this has to
do with Canada and physician assisted suicide. How does that work?
I want to share that with you. Death. Death is
among us now a topic that you know how much
(13:20):
I love death, and so this one has to be
with Canada physician assisted suicide, which we talk about but
very few people here in Well. First of all, California
is an assisted physician suicide state. And I think the
first one was I think Washington, maybe I don't remember,
but the point is it's very, very difficult here to
(13:44):
have a physician assisted suicide because the criterion is so difficult.
And once again, I remember, and I talk a lot
about my mother dying because that was something that I
was very involved with, and I remember going in when
she was basically a vegetable, and this is when I
(14:04):
thought physician assisted death would be fantastic. And I remember
going in and.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Screaming, Hey, can anybody help out here? Come on, crickets,
crickets nobody. The point is here in California very difficult.
How about Canada?
Speaker 1 (14:21):
One hundred thousand people in ten years, and that's how
quickly it expands and creates the culture of death once legalized.
Except the criteria is so difficult here, and Canada makes
it so easy. By the way, the first place in
the world that had assisted physician suicide was the Netherlands Holland.
(14:44):
So Alex Schodenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition,
estimates that in twenty twenty four, around sixteen five hundred
Canadians killed themselves via assisted suicide, increase of roughly seven
and a half percent over twenty three A couple days later,
(15:05):
when he was asked by CNN what he meant by
all of that, he couldn't help because they announced that
he had just killed himself the day before. Suicide. The
popularity shows no sign of decreasing at all, and here's why,
because they're so much easier to do it. It's still
(15:27):
not easy. There is strict quote eligibility criteria, but it
really isn't that strict. You have to be eighteen years
old and mentally competent. You have to have a grievous
and irremedial medical condition. Now that one is up for discussion.
Discussion here in California, doctors have to say you got
(15:47):
six months to live or less, and if you have
nine months to live, if they figure that one out.
You ain't killing yourself making a voluntary request for physician
assisted suicide, informed consent to receive it, and you're eligible
for health services funded by the province or territory or
(16:08):
the federal government. If you're not on the national plan, yeah,
you ain't doing it. And so here is the issue
with Canada. There are two tracks, and both of them
go to assisted physician suicide. Those that are above or
(16:29):
a doctor recommending it and another doctor qualifying that recommendation
and health insurance will actually do it. You imagine you
have health insurance that will help you, will help pay
for a doctor that then will give you the magic elixir.
And I happen to be a huge fan of physician
(16:51):
assisted suicide and all kidding aside. First of all, would
I do it? Yeah, okay, guys, calm down, Yes I would.
Why because sometimes the quality of life that is part
of longevity in my world, I mean, living to eighty
or ninety is kind of neat. However, living to eighty
(17:15):
or ninety with a quality of life that's worthless is not.
You know, again, I talk about my mother in all seriousness,
and you know I joke about my mother, you know, dying. Well,
I don't joke about it, but she lasted until she
was ninety eight, and the last five years of her life,
particularly the last three years for her life, it was
(17:37):
she was a vegetable. The problem is, and here is
the moral issue. I would have gladly put her down.
A matter of fact, I wouldn't even have a doctor
do it. I would have taken to her a vet
to save so much money. But it was how am
I going to make that decision? How are you going
to make that decision? How many of you on the
morning show would jump at the chance to help me
(17:59):
kill myself.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We've already, uh, we've already talked about this, and it's
between me and Kno very close with Anne, but she
needs more money in the pot.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And a cracker barrel breakfast this morning and a cracker
barrel dinner today and we're still here having cracker barrel done.
Oh that's cool. Where'd you find that? Cono? That's a
great song. It couldn't be better. How appropriate? Okay, this
is the story of cracker barrel, but it's more a
story of what's going on in corporate America. This is
(18:42):
just an example. So cracker Barrel is in a lot
of trouble financially, and the stores are still there and
they're still going to go on while it restructures. But
while that's happening, and this is part of what Cracker
Barrel is doing as well as company all over the country.
(19:03):
When you work, when you travel for work, when you
as an employee hits the road, here's where you eat
at Cracker Barrel. If there's anyone in the city, that's
where you eat. Don't place else. And if you're let's
(19:25):
say a sales management person, you're flying off and visiting
several Cracker barrels. That's lunch and dinner. Enjoy yourself. Employees
are expected to dine at Cracker Barrel for all or
the majority of meals while traveling. This is what the
company said in internal email. Whenever practical based on location
(19:46):
and schedule, it's called travel scrimping and man Corporate America
has jumped onto this one big time, and these changes
are stripping work trips of whatever shred of glamour they
ever had, which is now tough. And this is after
years of bell tightening, and it gets even worse if
(20:06):
you're working for Cracker Barrel. Even in pretty high management
one hundred dollars. Hotel rooms, you'll look for them preparing
grocery bought meals in your room, going to laundromats to
launder your shirts, as opposed to the hotel. Now inside
(20:30):
Cracker Barrel, they're saying that these changes are minor. Yeah,
you want to bet budgets are shrinking. And it makes
sense because expense account abuse is out there, and that's
one place where you can have costs a roll out
of control. It's much easier to control costs inside the
(20:51):
company manufacturing distribution, but when it comes to sales outside
the company, you can go nuts. So Amazon, for example,
they've long asked corporate workers to travel frugally, cheap seats
when possible. They do not want to hear you buying
(21:11):
for aisle seats or emergency exit seats. And one of
the debates in Amazon is what is cheap enough? And
no one really knows. And by the way, what does
the winner get traveling the cheapest possible, the cheapest way
(21:34):
Why a couple of free meals at cracker Barrel which
the salesperson has already had a dozen of them. Well,
some corporate travelers are saying they're going to the grocery stores.
Other ones are skimping on breakfast and lunch and saving
their allowance for dinner because usually it's a per diem
(21:56):
and it used to be you'd have plenty of money.
And European companies are even worse, even worse, so a
lot of European companies is even to get a meal
or get a beer that has to be okayed by
the way cracker barrel is also. In addition, all this
(22:20):
is cutting off the traveling workers from booze any booze,
any alcohol. Even taking people to lunch. You can't order booze.
Exceptions for special occasions. You can do it, but it
has to be pre approved by an E team member.
So can you imagine there is a salesperson executive who
(22:41):
is taking someone out to lunch, a purveyor, let's say,
of meat in that direction in that area. So he
goes to lunch and the guy orders a beer. Can't
pay for the beer. Excuse me a moment, I have
to make a phone call, calls a member of the
E team. They call it, Hey, my our guest wants
(23:01):
a beer. Is it okay? And it's four dollars and
fifty cents welcome to corporate America. See we're easy because
does anybody hear travel? I mean not just us, but
we used to do travel. When there were big stories
that were breaking, there would be they would send out
(23:23):
reporters to those stories. I remember when the Murrow Building
office building blew up. You remember that when the terrorist
attack blew up the building in one hundred and something
people died, they flew me out to report on it. Today,
if the same thing happened and I said, hey, I've
got to go out there. You can walk. It's Oklahoma,
(23:48):
all right, take an extra day. KFI AM sixty you've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my Show
Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and any
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