February 5, 2026 • 24 mins
(February 05, 2026)
Mayor Karen Bass directed watering down of Palisades fire after-action report, sources say. 30% of pretextual stops by Los Angeles officers net evidence of other crimes, according to LAPD. The modern-day space race is taking over central California, and not everyone is. Mexicans deported from U.S return to find hometowns controlled by narcos.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty am six forty bill Handle.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here it is a Thursday morning, February fifth. Some of
the big stories we are looking at. Rick Caruso, who
ran for mayor against Karen Bass last time out, is
reconsidering his decision. He had decided not to run for
mayor and now he is looking down at running for
mayor and why is that? Well a story that broke
(00:35):
in the La Times about Karen Bass, and the Times
quotes sources, and now that's always a tough one because
who are sources? And when you have news, outlets are
generally not going to tell you sources unless they want
to go public. And so immediately one question sources, huh,
(00:56):
especially in this day and age, what the hell is
is who is a source? So anyway, there are two
sources here. But I'm going to go ahead and you
can take this with a grain of salt if you will.
Sources told The Times that Mayor Karen Bass concerned about
legal liabilities for failures in combating the Palisades fire. She
(01:19):
wanted key findings in the report about the La Fire
Department shortcomings in during before and after the fire.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
She wanted those shortcomings removed or.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Softened, and the most significant changes in the report involved
a failure not to fully staff up and pre deploy
all available engines ahead of the high winds. And that's
been very controversial that that didn't happen. Now, keep in mind,
she was also in Ghana as the fires broke out,
and normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but she
(01:58):
knew about the winds or her office did, or she
denies it, and how dangerous they would be and the
Saint Anna's we're going to kick up and well a
lot of deaths could occur and it but you're not kidding.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
They did.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
And also she had promised that she wouldn't take these
trips in her campaign during the campaign, and so that
in and of itself is fairly controversial. Now to her point,
and we're going to talk or I'm going to talk
a little bit about right or wrong, is there any liability?
The argument is, according to the sources, the reason that
(02:35):
she changed that report or had the report changed to
either soft pedal or simply remove any blame on the
fire department is because of the liability issues. And guess what,
when you have an entity in the municipality admitting they
screwed up.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It was our fault, this is what we should have done.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You bet the liability is going to be astronomical because
then that's used in court. So what ends up happening is,
here's the lawsuit of which can you imagine how many
homes were destroyed? Six thousand, nine thousand homes and businesses,
sixteen thousand structures, A number of people dead, how many injured?
(03:21):
So the lawsuits are completely crazy, the number. And the
last thing the city needs is a report that the
city wrote, here's what we should have done, ABC and D,
and we didn't do it. BOYD does that look good
for a plaintiff? So the argument for soft pedaling the
report makes sense. However, soft pedaling the report by a
(03:45):
senior member of LA read the mayor on this one.
They're saying she did, she outright did, and she denies it,
and they're saying she lied, just straight out about it.
And there's a fair amount of controversy because of course
she's denied she ever did. And again the Times opened
(04:06):
up an investigation and found two sources that corroborated that
statement and that report. And by the way, the source
added that both of these confidences say they were prepared
to testify under oath if this goes to a legal proceeding, which.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Of course it's going to. And so the entire issue
is reported.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
It was altered to deflect the attention from the fire
department's failure to pre deploy crews to Pacific Palisse before
the fire, and then the issue did they have the information?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
No, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Karen Bass's office said, oh, we had no idea that
the winds were coming. We had no idea it was
going to be this extensive. Anybody looking at a report
or a broadcast from the local local television or radio station.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
We knew that the winds were coming for days.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You had the weather people say, hey, the wins are
coming and they're coming big time. Well, according to Bass,
nobody on her staff watches the news. I guess no
one pays attention to local news. The rest of us do.
(05:22):
And do I look like a weather person although I
play one on radio, I'm not. So that's one issue
that sort of defines her credibility and what she did,
according to Bass, is she merely sent the report back
for refinements and to be rewritten. Well, what are refinements,
(05:50):
She's saying, her off saying, the only thing we asked
for is fact checking. What were the wins, how strong
were they, how many units, how many people the LA
the Fire Department had And we had nothing to do
with altering whether or not deployment happened, whether or not.
And one of the allegations is a battalion chief ordered
(06:14):
the crew off of a fire the next day or
off of smoldering rush the next day, which is contrary
to what policy is.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
This is a big political push and I think that
Rick Caruso this time around may actually have some legs
and say I voted for him last time, I would
vote again this time because the only reason that Karen
Bass won this race is she is part of the
Democratic political machinery, which is immensely powerful here in the Southland.
(06:48):
If you're part of the machinery, you have a full
backing of the Democratic Party and the Democratic conchos. And
Rick Caruso is out there on his own as it's
a billionaire and very successful businessman arguing, you know, LA,
it's a bureaucracy, it's a multi billion dollar business, is
what it is and that's what government is. It is
(07:12):
a business. Money comes in, money is spent. How do
we make it as efficient as possible? I mean, do
you have a politician do it?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well? Yeah, so we certainly have one.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Now, although there's certain things that she is doing that
makes some sense, like for example, cutting homeless services because
there just ain't any money.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Now here is a story that's i would say, hugely
controversial and something I've been talking.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
About for many, many years.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And this is something called a pretextual stop. And this
is LAPD And there is a nine page report that
was released by LAPD about pretextual stops.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And what is that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's when an officer uses a minor vehicle code violation
as a legal pretext to investigate a hunch about a
more serious, unrelated crime. And what is the hunch. Well,
the argument is that the hunch that someone who is
driving is more likely to be a criminal than someone
(08:23):
else because he or she is black or hispanic, straight
out racism. And this accusation has been made against the
LAPD for many years. In twenty twenty two, the LAPD
implemented a new policy does not allow officers to use
(08:45):
these pretextual stops based solely on a hunch.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And there is the other.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Part of it is that cops after period of time
can just sort of smell there's a problem. And third
percent of these pretextual stops by the LAPD did net
evidence of other crimes. The problem is more than thirty
percent or blacks or Hispanics. And so cops are saying, no,
(09:15):
we don't do that. Well, I'm saying, cops do that.
And if you're African American, the phrase is driving while
black DWB And do I.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Think that happens? Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm
about as pro cop as they come.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And yet at the same time, when police officers told
me no, no, we don't do that, yeah, yeah they do.
Now can a cops stop a car, Yeah, let's say
tail it is out swerving, driving too slowly, seeing someone
in the driver's seat or passenger seat, particularly driver's seat,
(09:59):
look really nervous as a police officer passes, although I
would argue anybody, everybody is nervous when a police officer
passes and looks at you through the window. So let
me tell you a story about this station and a
previous general manager, Howard Neil, who was I'm assuming still
(10:22):
is African American. And by the way, I know what
driving while black is like because when I was a
black man, I was stopped more often than not.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And so Howard.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Being a African American, and he would drive from the
station to his home in Baldwin Hills and that's through
Beverly Hills. And Howard did very well. He had investments.
He was general manager of a very successful station, so
he had really nice suits. He was spend a couple
(10:55):
of thousand dollars on a suit, and he had a
Mercedes late model Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And he said that a couple of times a.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Week he would be pulled over by a police officer
and asked, very politely, you know what are you doing here?
Where are you going? And it would happen to him often.
Now I've driven through Beverly Hills hundreds of times and
I have never been stopped. Now that's an anecdotal story,
(11:30):
but I think it raises the question is does this
really happen? And so with the LAPD is looking at
and doing a lot of investigating because from April one,
twenty twenty two, through November thirty, twenty twenty five, LAPD
officers stopped nearly seven hundred and ninety thousand people, almost
(11:52):
seventy five thousand of them, about ten percent were pretextual
stops and seventy percent resulted no evidence found. But thirty
percent did I mean that is a really high figure,
and when evidence was discovered as drugs for the most part,
and twenty percent of these stops resulted in vehicle searches.
(12:13):
Because again, if a police officer finds that there is
evidence that person is nervous, furtive, looking, tail light out,
et cetera, he can pull the police.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
He can pull the driver.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Over and then if smelling, for example, marijuana, the driver
looking particularly nervous can then continue on with police activity. Now,
in reality or as time the policy was implemented, Since then,
the total number of traffic stops had really declined from
(12:51):
seven hundred and thirteen and twenty nineteen to three hundred
and thirty one thousand three years later, more than half
why COVID reduced personnel policy changes. So we're still looking
at this and the bottom line. Do I think that
driving while black is something that's real?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I do.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Do I think the driving as a hispanic is that true?
Do you have an advantage if it's d W driving
wild white, Yes, you have less of a chance of
being pulled over. And this whole argument about hunches too,
hunches are real. I mean, there's just something accomplisment around
(13:38):
for a while. Can as I was explained to by
a police officer. You know, you can sort of taste
and smell when something is hinky, meaning there's something not
quite right here. But you can't stop based on that.
There has to be real evidence, and now you have
to have bodycam evidence and you have to be very
(14:00):
specific as to why the police officer is stopping the motorists.
All right, the space race has come back to Southern California.
During the Moon landing and the Apollo and the Gemini
missions mission, Southern California was at the forefront of all this.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
The engineering took place here.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
A lot of the construction of pieces of the rocket
and the capsule were built here, and a lot of
the engineering is here because we have the engineers. I mean,
the technological expertise of people in Southern California is extraordinary
relative to the rest of the country, which is why
(14:43):
people come here, and which is why the technological level
of folks who.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Were in that field are very high here. So then
it disappeared.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Then the space program basically blew up, done and our
aerospace industry collapsed. Well it's coming back with a just
a vengeance. Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base
is at the forefront is the poster child of what's
(15:14):
going on. It's about one hundred thousand dollars acre Santa
Barbara County and in the sixties was a testing ground
for the early generation ballistic missiles. Today it's a launch
site for satellites and classified missions and other payloads, and
it's been marked by well today it's a sharp jump
(15:35):
in flights and it's a military facility. In twenty one,
SpaceX started sending star link in Internet satellites up in
to space for the dealing with their version of the Internet,
and the military considers those Internet satellites critical to national security.
(15:59):
So now is aiming higher. It's the space port of
the future. I guess too many politicians watch the jetsons
and the federal government is making plans for a nearly
nine hundred million dollars makeover of the base, roads, buildings,
launch pads because there's going to be a large surge
(16:22):
in launches. Last year, seventy one rockets blasted off, most
of them SpaceX this year one hundred or more could
take off. And aerospace companies are also sprouting up around
Vandenburg and in southern California because space is the new
frontier coming back. We're looking at satellites, we're looking at
(16:46):
putting man on the moon. And you've got SpaceX and
Elon Musk, who is probably the hancho in the world
of space right now with I think he has eighty
percent of the market it for spacecraft and he is
He's dead set. We're putting someone on the moon, and
if anybody can do it, it's going to be Elon Musk.
(17:08):
The problem is is that the rocket that's going to
take men women to the Moon is going to be
and is the most powerful, biggest rocket that has ever
been built.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That means noise like you cannot believe. And Vandenburg, even
though it is out in the desert, still you've got
marine mammals offshore, you got birds, I mean, you have
all kinds of animals who are at risk. And let's
not forget the noise, the sonic boom that all of
this causes, so the environmentalists are going absolutely berserk. The
(17:44):
community pushback as to the number of launches has increased,
because at twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
There were seven. Well there are a lot more now.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So SpaceX has been blasting it's workhorse, the Falcon nine rocket,
and it is now just received actually approval to launch
the bigger Falcon heavy rocket, and that hasn't even it
hasn't compared to the super duper crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Rocket, and that's the Falcon four hundred and ninety. I
don't know what the name of it is.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
In southern California, defense startups are receiving millions in funding.
You have venture capital firms jumping in, tech giants jumping in.
And as a matter of fact, the problem that the
environment environmentals are environmentalists are pointing to is a Space
Force in December invited rocket companies to build and operate
(18:42):
that super heavy launch and they're building the launch pad
for exactly that. Well, it's becoming hugely controversial. There'll be
lawsuits filed, environmental impact lawsuits filed, which did not happened
in the sixties, and it really hasn't happened with the
(19:04):
military flights that have occurred over the last few years,
and a lot of UFOs are reported as rockets go
up from Vandenberg.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
But no, those are smaller rockets.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
They're not the super heavy rockets that you can literally
hear from one hundred miles away, and we don't hear
when we had the Space Shuttle, Amy, do you remember
the sonic boom that would come in overhead?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It was a double spanic. It was a double sonic boom.
I remember that they do that. They happen sometimes. I've
never actually heard one.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Oh they're neat. It's a double shot. It's a boom
boom and that way you know, boom. It was a
boom boom. It wasn't just a boom. It was a
boom boom. And now it's back again. And I'm a
big fan, and I really like the idea of these
rockets doing what they're going to do, especially going to
(20:00):
the Moon and to Mars.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And one of the reasons I.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Like it is because, first of all, I love the
technology part of it. I've been a space fan for
since I'd been a kid. And I don't live anywhere
near Vannenburgh, So you put all of that together and
I'm fine. With all this, it couldn't be better. Okay.
Now here is one of the issues that we don't
(20:23):
talk a whole lot about in terms of the deportations,
and that is Mexicans. This story about Mexicans the La Times,
written by two of the Times writers followed some people
who had been deported and went back to Mexico. And
so there they are returning home and a couple of
them hadn't been there for twenty years. So they spoke
(20:47):
to these migrants who had been deported. And by the way,
tens of thousands have been deported into Mexico, and so
these migrants returning migrants have discovered that Mexico is certainly
not the Mexico. So that they knew. Criminal groups are
better armed, they're better organized. These groups control about a
(21:09):
third of the Mexican territory. Can you imagine that the
cartel controls a third of Mexico. Gangs have branched out
beyond drug trafficking. They're extorting money from small businesses, completely
dominate entire industries, the avocado industry, the line trade, and
in some reasons, criminals charge taxes on everything tortillas, chicken, cigarettes, beer,
(21:35):
someone selling little old ladies selling Tamali's on the street
corner just to live on. Because they make no money,
they have to pay at tax to the cartel. Also,
let's talk about their language, Spanglish, not Spanish, not English, Spanglish.
And the reason that these returning migrants are really pointed
(21:59):
out and are really given a lot of grief by
the cartels is that they're perceived to have money, so
they're set up for kidnapping or extortion. And this is
really tough for these returning migrants. And so who's going back, well,
tens of thousands. Now the deportation issue, I mean, the
(22:23):
way that ICE is dealing with migrants is fairly controversial
a lot, although according to the Trump administration, they're kicking
back and the worst of the worst, no one has
any problem with the problem is is a lot of
not worse of the worst. But in reality, the law
is the law, and if someone is here illegally, and
(22:46):
it doesn't matter if someone has been here twenty years illegally,
then they are liable for deportation. That is the law. Now,
how they get deported, how they're picked up is a
whole different story, and there is the contraby, but going
back is almost impossible. And to give you an idea
of how dangerous it is, I've been telling you about
(23:09):
one of Lindsay's best friends, her son in law, was deported.
I had been overrunning his visa and was and Barry
and been here for years and had a business photographer,
and he was picked up and deported to l Salvador.
He came here and was going through the system, had
asked for asylum, going through the system, because one of
(23:31):
the basis for asylum is when you go back home
or where you live. It is so dangerous that the
United States recognizes how dangerous it is and will grant asylum.
And the reason he and his mother had to leave
is because his aunt was picked up by one of
the cartel, one of the Narco terrorists, and she was
(23:52):
murdered and her tongue was cut out and then dumped
on the front porch of their home because she had
somehow gotten on the other side of these narco traffic
condes and obviously gotten someone angry.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So he came here, he could, he had to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Okay asylum process going on. Still gets deported and that's
happened to so many people, and going back, My god,
can that be a nightmare? And so we're gonna hear
more and more of those stories. This is KFI AM
six point forty.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
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 am six forty bill Handle.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here it is a Thursday morning, February fifth. Some of
the big stories we are looking at. Rick Caruso, who
ran for mayor against Karen Bass last time out, is
reconsidering his decision. He had decided not to run for
mayor and now he is looking down at running for
mayor and why is that? Well a story that broke
(00:35):
in the La Times about Karen Bass, and the Times
quotes sources, and now that's always a tough one because
who are sources? And when you have news, outlets are
generally not going to tell you sources unless they want
to go public. And so immediately one question sources, huh,
(00:56):
especially in this day and age, what the hell is
is who is a source? So anyway, there are two
sources here. But I'm going to go ahead and you
can take this with a grain of salt if you will.
Sources told The Times that Mayor Karen Bass concerned about
legal liabilities for failures in combating the Palisades fire. She
(01:19):
wanted key findings in the report about the La Fire
Department shortcomings in during before and after the fire.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
She wanted those shortcomings removed or.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Softened, and the most significant changes in the report involved
a failure not to fully staff up and pre deploy
all available engines ahead of the high winds. And that's
been very controversial that that didn't happen. Now, keep in mind,
she was also in Ghana as the fires broke out,
and normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but she
(01:58):
knew about the winds or her office did, or she
denies it, and how dangerous they would be and the
Saint Anna's we're going to kick up and well a
lot of deaths could occur and it but you're not kidding.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
They did.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
And also she had promised that she wouldn't take these
trips in her campaign during the campaign, and so that
in and of itself is fairly controversial. Now to her point,
and we're going to talk or I'm going to talk
a little bit about right or wrong, is there any liability?
The argument is, according to the sources, the reason that
(02:35):
she changed that report or had the report changed to
either soft pedal or simply remove any blame on the
fire department is because of the liability issues. And guess what,
when you have an entity in the municipality admitting they
screwed up.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It was our fault, this is what we should have done.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You bet the liability is going to be astronomical because
then that's used in court. So what ends up happening is,
here's the lawsuit of which can you imagine how many
homes were destroyed? Six thousand, nine thousand homes and businesses,
sixteen thousand structures, A number of people dead, how many injured?
(03:21):
So the lawsuits are completely crazy, the number. And the
last thing the city needs is a report that the
city wrote, here's what we should have done, ABC and D,
and we didn't do it. BOYD does that look good
for a plaintiff? So the argument for soft pedaling the
report makes sense. However, soft pedaling the report by a
(03:45):
senior member of LA read the mayor on this one.
They're saying she did, she outright did, and she denies it,
and they're saying she lied, just straight out about it.
And there's a fair amount of controversy because of course
she's denied she ever did. And again the Times opened
(04:06):
up an investigation and found two sources that corroborated that
statement and that report. And by the way, the source
added that both of these confidences say they were prepared
to testify under oath if this goes to a legal proceeding, which.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Of course it's going to. And so the entire issue
is reported.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
It was altered to deflect the attention from the fire
department's failure to pre deploy crews to Pacific Palisse before
the fire, and then the issue did they have the information?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
No, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Karen Bass's office said, oh, we had no idea that
the winds were coming. We had no idea it was
going to be this extensive. Anybody looking at a report
or a broadcast from the local local television or radio station.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
We knew that the winds were coming for days.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You had the weather people say, hey, the wins are
coming and they're coming big time. Well, according to Bass,
nobody on her staff watches the news. I guess no
one pays attention to local news. The rest of us do.
(05:22):
And do I look like a weather person although I
play one on radio, I'm not. So that's one issue
that sort of defines her credibility and what she did,
according to Bass, is she merely sent the report back
for refinements and to be rewritten. Well, what are refinements,
(05:50):
She's saying, her off saying, the only thing we asked
for is fact checking. What were the wins, how strong
were they, how many units, how many people the LA
the Fire Department had And we had nothing to do
with altering whether or not deployment happened, whether or not.
And one of the allegations is a battalion chief ordered
(06:14):
the crew off of a fire the next day or
off of smoldering rush the next day, which is contrary
to what policy is.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
This is a big political push and I think that
Rick Caruso this time around may actually have some legs
and say I voted for him last time, I would
vote again this time because the only reason that Karen
Bass won this race is she is part of the
Democratic political machinery, which is immensely powerful here in the Southland.
(06:48):
If you're part of the machinery, you have a full
backing of the Democratic Party and the Democratic conchos. And
Rick Caruso is out there on his own as it's
a billionaire and very successful businessman arguing, you know, LA,
it's a bureaucracy, it's a multi billion dollar business, is
what it is and that's what government is. It is
(07:12):
a business. Money comes in, money is spent. How do
we make it as efficient as possible? I mean, do
you have a politician do it?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well? Yeah, so we certainly have one.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Now, although there's certain things that she is doing that
makes some sense, like for example, cutting homeless services because
there just ain't any money.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Now here is a story that's i would say, hugely
controversial and something I've been talking.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
About for many, many years.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And this is something called a pretextual stop. And this
is LAPD And there is a nine page report that
was released by LAPD about pretextual stops.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And what is that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's when an officer uses a minor vehicle code violation
as a legal pretext to investigate a hunch about a
more serious, unrelated crime. And what is the hunch. Well,
the argument is that the hunch that someone who is
driving is more likely to be a criminal than someone
(08:23):
else because he or she is black or hispanic, straight
out racism. And this accusation has been made against the
LAPD for many years. In twenty twenty two, the LAPD
implemented a new policy does not allow officers to use
(08:45):
these pretextual stops based solely on a hunch.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And there is the other.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Part of it is that cops after period of time
can just sort of smell there's a problem. And third
percent of these pretextual stops by the LAPD did net
evidence of other crimes. The problem is more than thirty
percent or blacks or Hispanics. And so cops are saying, no,
(09:15):
we don't do that. Well, I'm saying, cops do that.
And if you're African American, the phrase is driving while
black DWB And do I.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Think that happens? Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm
about as pro cop as they come.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And yet at the same time, when police officers told
me no, no, we don't do that, yeah, yeah they do.
Now can a cops stop a car, Yeah, let's say
tail it is out swerving, driving too slowly, seeing someone
in the driver's seat or passenger seat, particularly driver's seat,
(09:59):
look really nervous as a police officer passes, although I
would argue anybody, everybody is nervous when a police officer
passes and looks at you through the window. So let
me tell you a story about this station and a
previous general manager, Howard Neil, who was I'm assuming still
(10:22):
is African American. And by the way, I know what
driving while black is like because when I was a
black man, I was stopped more often than not.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And so Howard.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Being a African American, and he would drive from the
station to his home in Baldwin Hills and that's through
Beverly Hills. And Howard did very well. He had investments.
He was general manager of a very successful station, so
he had really nice suits. He was spend a couple
(10:55):
of thousand dollars on a suit, and he had a
Mercedes late model Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
And he said that a couple of times a.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Week he would be pulled over by a police officer
and asked, very politely, you know what are you doing here?
Where are you going? And it would happen to him often.
Now I've driven through Beverly Hills hundreds of times and
I have never been stopped. Now that's an anecdotal story,
(11:30):
but I think it raises the question is does this
really happen? And so with the LAPD is looking at
and doing a lot of investigating because from April one,
twenty twenty two, through November thirty, twenty twenty five, LAPD
officers stopped nearly seven hundred and ninety thousand people, almost
(11:52):
seventy five thousand of them, about ten percent were pretextual
stops and seventy percent resulted no evidence found. But thirty
percent did I mean that is a really high figure,
and when evidence was discovered as drugs for the most part,
and twenty percent of these stops resulted in vehicle searches.
(12:13):
Because again, if a police officer finds that there is
evidence that person is nervous, furtive, looking, tail light out,
et cetera, he can pull the police.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
He can pull the driver.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Over and then if smelling, for example, marijuana, the driver
looking particularly nervous can then continue on with police activity. Now,
in reality or as time the policy was implemented, Since then,
the total number of traffic stops had really declined from
(12:51):
seven hundred and thirteen and twenty nineteen to three hundred
and thirty one thousand three years later, more than half
why COVID reduced personnel policy changes. So we're still looking
at this and the bottom line. Do I think that
driving while black is something that's real?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I do.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Do I think the driving as a hispanic is that true?
Do you have an advantage if it's d W driving
wild white, Yes, you have less of a chance of
being pulled over. And this whole argument about hunches too,
hunches are real. I mean, there's just something accomplisment around
(13:38):
for a while. Can as I was explained to by
a police officer. You know, you can sort of taste
and smell when something is hinky, meaning there's something not
quite right here. But you can't stop based on that.
There has to be real evidence, and now you have
to have bodycam evidence and you have to be very
(14:00):
specific as to why the police officer is stopping the motorists.
All right, the space race has come back to Southern California.
During the Moon landing and the Apollo and the Gemini
missions mission, Southern California was at the forefront of all this.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
The engineering took place here.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
A lot of the construction of pieces of the rocket
and the capsule were built here, and a lot of
the engineering is here because we have the engineers. I mean,
the technological expertise of people in Southern California is extraordinary
relative to the rest of the country, which is why
(14:43):
people come here, and which is why the technological level
of folks who.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Were in that field are very high here. So then
it disappeared.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Then the space program basically blew up, done and our
aerospace industry collapsed. Well it's coming back with a just
a vengeance. Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base
is at the forefront is the poster child of what's
(15:14):
going on. It's about one hundred thousand dollars acre Santa
Barbara County and in the sixties was a testing ground
for the early generation ballistic missiles. Today it's a launch
site for satellites and classified missions and other payloads, and
it's been marked by well today it's a sharp jump
(15:35):
in flights and it's a military facility. In twenty one,
SpaceX started sending star link in Internet satellites up in
to space for the dealing with their version of the Internet,
and the military considers those Internet satellites critical to national security.
(15:59):
So now is aiming higher. It's the space port of
the future. I guess too many politicians watch the jetsons
and the federal government is making plans for a nearly
nine hundred million dollars makeover of the base, roads, buildings,
launch pads because there's going to be a large surge
(16:22):
in launches. Last year, seventy one rockets blasted off, most
of them SpaceX this year one hundred or more could
take off. And aerospace companies are also sprouting up around
Vandenburg and in southern California because space is the new
frontier coming back. We're looking at satellites, we're looking at
(16:46):
putting man on the moon. And you've got SpaceX and
Elon Musk, who is probably the hancho in the world
of space right now with I think he has eighty
percent of the market it for spacecraft and he is
He's dead set. We're putting someone on the moon, and
if anybody can do it, it's going to be Elon Musk.
(17:08):
The problem is is that the rocket that's going to
take men women to the Moon is going to be
and is the most powerful, biggest rocket that has ever
been built.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That means noise like you cannot believe. And Vandenburg, even
though it is out in the desert, still you've got
marine mammals offshore, you got birds, I mean, you have
all kinds of animals who are at risk. And let's
not forget the noise, the sonic boom that all of
this causes, so the environmentalists are going absolutely berserk. The
(17:44):
community pushback as to the number of launches has increased,
because at twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
There were seven. Well there are a lot more now.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So SpaceX has been blasting it's workhorse, the Falcon nine rocket,
and it is now just received actually approval to launch
the bigger Falcon heavy rocket, and that hasn't even it
hasn't compared to the super duper crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Rocket, and that's the Falcon four hundred and ninety. I
don't know what the name of it is.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
In southern California, defense startups are receiving millions in funding.
You have venture capital firms jumping in, tech giants jumping in.
And as a matter of fact, the problem that the
environment environmentals are environmentalists are pointing to is a Space
Force in December invited rocket companies to build and operate
(18:42):
that super heavy launch and they're building the launch pad
for exactly that. Well, it's becoming hugely controversial. There'll be
lawsuits filed, environmental impact lawsuits filed, which did not happened
in the sixties, and it really hasn't happened with the
(19:04):
military flights that have occurred over the last few years,
and a lot of UFOs are reported as rockets go
up from Vandenberg.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
But no, those are smaller rockets.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
They're not the super heavy rockets that you can literally
hear from one hundred miles away, and we don't hear
when we had the Space Shuttle, Amy, do you remember
the sonic boom that would come in overhead?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It was a double spanic. It was a double sonic boom.
I remember that they do that. They happen sometimes. I've
never actually heard one.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Oh they're neat. It's a double shot. It's a boom
boom and that way you know, boom. It was a
boom boom. It wasn't just a boom. It was a
boom boom. And now it's back again. And I'm a
big fan, and I really like the idea of these
rockets doing what they're going to do, especially going to
(20:00):
the Moon and to Mars.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And one of the reasons I.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Like it is because, first of all, I love the
technology part of it. I've been a space fan for
since I'd been a kid. And I don't live anywhere
near Vannenburgh, So you put all of that together and
I'm fine. With all this, it couldn't be better. Okay.
Now here is one of the issues that we don't
(20:23):
talk a whole lot about in terms of the deportations,
and that is Mexicans. This story about Mexicans the La Times,
written by two of the Times writers followed some people
who had been deported and went back to Mexico. And
so there they are returning home and a couple of
them hadn't been there for twenty years. So they spoke
(20:47):
to these migrants who had been deported. And by the way,
tens of thousands have been deported into Mexico, and so
these migrants returning migrants have discovered that Mexico is certainly
not the Mexico. So that they knew. Criminal groups are
better armed, they're better organized. These groups control about a
(21:09):
third of the Mexican territory. Can you imagine that the
cartel controls a third of Mexico. Gangs have branched out
beyond drug trafficking. They're extorting money from small businesses, completely
dominate entire industries, the avocado industry, the line trade, and
in some reasons, criminals charge taxes on everything tortillas, chicken, cigarettes, beer,
(21:35):
someone selling little old ladies selling Tamali's on the street
corner just to live on. Because they make no money,
they have to pay at tax to the cartel. Also,
let's talk about their language, Spanglish, not Spanish, not English, Spanglish.
And the reason that these returning migrants are really pointed
(21:59):
out and are really given a lot of grief by
the cartels is that they're perceived to have money, so
they're set up for kidnapping or extortion. And this is
really tough for these returning migrants. And so who's going back, well,
tens of thousands. Now the deportation issue, I mean, the
(22:23):
way that ICE is dealing with migrants is fairly controversial
a lot, although according to the Trump administration, they're kicking
back and the worst of the worst, no one has
any problem with the problem is is a lot of
not worse of the worst. But in reality, the law
is the law, and if someone is here illegally, and
(22:46):
it doesn't matter if someone has been here twenty years illegally,
then they are liable for deportation. That is the law. Now,
how they get deported, how they're picked up is a
whole different story, and there is the contraby, but going
back is almost impossible. And to give you an idea
of how dangerous it is, I've been telling you about
(23:09):
one of Lindsay's best friends, her son in law, was deported.
I had been overrunning his visa and was and Barry
and been here for years and had a business photographer,
and he was picked up and deported to l Salvador.
He came here and was going through the system, had
asked for asylum, going through the system, because one of
(23:31):
the basis for asylum is when you go back home
or where you live. It is so dangerous that the
United States recognizes how dangerous it is and will grant asylum.
And the reason he and his mother had to leave
is because his aunt was picked up by one of
the cartel, one of the Narco terrorists, and she was
(23:52):
murdered and her tongue was cut out and then dumped
on the front porch of their home because she had
somehow gotten on the other side of these narco traffic
condes and obviously gotten someone angry.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So he came here, he could, he had to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Okay asylum process going on. Still gets deported and that's
happened to so many people, and going back, My god,
can that be a nightmare? And so we're gonna hear
more and more of those stories. This is KFI AM
six point forty.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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