Speaker 1: You're list Saints.
Speaker 2: I am six forty the bill Handles show on demand
Speaker 2: on the iheartradioff I AM six forty bill Handle here
Speaker 2: on a Thursday morning, November thirteenth. Some of the stories,
Speaker 2: a few of the stories were covering it's going to
Speaker 2: be a weather story over the next few days, because
Speaker 2: it looks like the rain is coming in tonight and
Speaker 2: it's going to be a big one, that atmospheric river,
Speaker 2: which no one understands what that is. And then the
Speaker 2: other big story, this is the government reopening. We know
Speaker 2: it's a matter of time, but it went forty three
Speaker 2: days of a government shut down. And the government shutdown
Speaker 2: is not just shut down. You can't do business. One
Speaker 2: of the things about the United States budget is Congress
Speaker 2: has to vote itself a budget where it cannot do
Speaker 2: business unless it accepts the budget. It's like if you
Speaker 2: have a business and you need a budget by the
Speaker 2: end of the year, you can't go beyond unless you've
Speaker 2: accepted the budget. For example, California, you have to have
Speaker 2: a balanced budget otherwise everything stops.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: The United States has much the same thing where the
Speaker 2: US government Congress says okay, and the president they sign off.
Speaker 2: We now have a budget, but it's very weird. Doesn't
Speaker 2: stop the government completely. There are certain parts of the
Speaker 2: government that are exempt the policing power. For example, you've
Speaker 2: got the Secret Service, and you have Congress stays in
Speaker 2: session and everybody gets paid, so it's certain parts of
Speaker 2: the government don't get paid. This really shuts down air
Speaker 2: traffic controller controllers, for example. And there's two kinds of
Speaker 2: there are two types of employees with the government, those
Speaker 2: that just don't get paid period and those that have
Speaker 2: to go back to work and don't get paid air
Speaker 2: traffic controllers. So we now have a budget in place,
Speaker 2: everything goes back to normal theoretically. The politics of this
Speaker 2: have been incredible, incredible. I've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 2: The accusations are amazing. Republicans blaming Democrats, the Democrats blaming Republicans.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, each side calls the shut down,
Speaker 2: the Democratics shut down, or the Republicans shut down. Now
Speaker 2: as of right now, it looks like the Republicans are
Speaker 2: getting more blamed than the Democrats. No matter what Carol
Speaker 2: Levitt is saying, no matter what the President is saying,
Speaker 2: the Democrats did this. The Democrats did this to an
Speaker 2: extent they did, because what President Trump and the Republicans
Speaker 2: wanted is a continuing revolution resolution. Let's just say everything
Speaker 2: the same while we figure out your issues. The problem
Speaker 2: is that the issue at hand is the continuation of
Speaker 2: the ACA subsidies, the Obamacare subsidies. The continuation they they
Speaker 2: end at the end of the year. They were put
Speaker 2: in place ten porarily because of COVID by Joe Biden
Speaker 2: and the Republicans saying it's over. Democrats are saying, hey,
Speaker 2: do you know how many people are going to lose
Speaker 2: their medical insurance or they're going to be priced out
Speaker 2: of their medical insurance by the tens of millions. And
Speaker 2: therein lies the philosophy the Republicans say, you pass this resolution,
Speaker 2: will talk about this crisis in medical care, particularly insurance.
Speaker 2: What's covered, what's not. Frankly, the Democrats don't believe them.
Speaker 2: I don't believe them. I don't believe the Republicans. They
Speaker 2: haven't committed anything. They've committed to talking about it. This
Speaker 2: is an administration that does not like social services. It's
Speaker 2: that simple. That's a philosophy I mean. And by the way,
Speaker 2: that's not a value judgment I'm making. I'm telling you factually,
Speaker 2: because when you have a democratic administration, they love social services.
Speaker 2: You know, when you look at every one of these
Speaker 2: Democrats that are in power, every one of them share
Speaker 2: exactly the same epitaph. Epitaph their tombstones will read much
Speaker 2: like real Will Rogers, who said I never met a
Speaker 2: man I didn't like on his tombstone, theirs will read
Speaker 2: I never met a tax I didn't like. So we
Speaker 2: have two ways of of doing government. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: the cutting of social programs, energy programs is going balls
Speaker 2: to the wall with the Trump administration. How much you
Speaker 2: think they're spending on border enforcement. It's unbelievable how much
Speaker 2: money is being poured into that. So the Democrats said,
Speaker 2: this was the line that couldn't be crossed. We're done now.
Speaker 2: We're not going to let the government move on. We're
Speaker 2: not going to let this government be funded until we
Speaker 2: get some kind of a deal on the extension of
Speaker 2: Obama Care subsidies allowing tens of millions of people to
Speaker 2: be insured. So one of two things are going to
Speaker 2: happen now, and this is where the politics come back in.
Speaker 2: The Republicans are absolutely going to win this one. There's
Speaker 2: no question about it, because lack of insurance happens at
Speaker 2: the beginning of next year. Lack of your groceries are
Speaker 2: happening right now, and right now, it's a little bit
Speaker 2: more important to feed the family than it is to
Speaker 2: worry about medical insurance. Okay, government is in continuing resolution
Speaker 2: has been passed only until January thirty one, and then
Speaker 2: it starts all over again. The difference is is that
Speaker 2: those people will not have medical insurance who have it
Speaker 2: now or will not be able to afford the premiums
Speaker 2: which are going to double in certain cases. And so
Speaker 2: it's going to be a very different animal. It's not
Speaker 2: going to be the it's not going to be proactive.
Speaker 2: It's going to be happening at this moment. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about January thirty one, and so the politics are going
Speaker 2: to go I think the other way. The Republicans are
Speaker 2: going to be blamed for the lack of subsidies, There's
Speaker 2: no question about it, and they should because that's their position.
Speaker 2: And you've got a whole lot of millions of Americans
Speaker 2: who are not going to be very thrilled with a
Speaker 2: lack of insurance or is so expensive they have been
Speaker 2: priced out, so as of right now, government's back and action.
Speaker 2: It's gonna take a little bit of time. The snap
Speaker 2: payments are going to be back.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing.
Speaker 2: How much are the Republicans going to get hit? How
Speaker 2: much is the Trump administration going to get hit in
Speaker 2: terms of approval rating? Stopping trying to stop snap payments,
Speaker 2: even partial stamp payments from being made. They went to
Speaker 2: court to stop it. Once the lower court said you
Speaker 2: have to make those payments. Once that decision is made,
Speaker 2: Carolyn Levitt got up on that lectern in the White
Speaker 2: House press room and said, we are releasing those payments.
Speaker 2: This administration wants to pay those people. But you said
Speaker 2: no a week ago, and all you're doing is following
Speaker 2: the court order. Well, see, everybody takes advantage of everything
Speaker 2: that's happening. You know, you take the blame for nothing,
Speaker 2: You take the credit for everything.
Speaker 1: Good. Okay, enough of that.
Speaker 2: The Epstein files come back and back and back again
Speaker 2: to haunt the president. And as everyone knows, Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 2: complete cockroach is dead. He committed suicide in prison on
Speaker 2: his second go round of child molestation charges. His first time,
Speaker 2: he was given the sweetheart deal of all time. Did
Speaker 2: one year in prison, a federal prison, and it was
Speaker 2: no one could believe it. And the other part of
Speaker 2: no one can believe it Jelaane Maxwell, who is Epstein's
Speaker 2: right hand and his buddy, a pimp, pimped for him,
Speaker 2: who was convicted of child molestation, also sex with minors.
Speaker 2: We've got twenty years in prison. Strangely got transferred to
Speaker 2: a club met actually a club fed where minimum security prison.
Speaker 1: What is sick? Sexual offenders like this don't get transferred
Speaker 1: to places like this. How did it happen? Well, there's
Speaker 1: a whole story there.
Speaker 2: But as far as these emails that were just released,
Speaker 2: I tell you it doesn't bode well for the president.
Speaker 2: And I have said and I think it's panning out,
Speaker 2: and I've said this for months, is I don't think
Speaker 2: the president is going to be tagged with doing anything
Speaker 2: wrong being part of the sexual exploitation.
Speaker 1: What I think he's going to.
Speaker 2: Be tagged with is having a whole lot closer relationship
Speaker 2: to Epstein than he has said. And any close relationship
Speaker 2: to Epstein is toxic under any circumstances. And there are
Speaker 2: a whole lot of people that are there in that category.
Speaker 2: Because Epstein, it was a real player socially, he has
Speaker 2: a lot of money, had big parties. Look what happened
Speaker 2: to Prince Andrew So anyway, in an email he wrote
Speaker 2: to himself on February first, twenty nineteen, This was a
Speaker 2: few months before he was arrested on the sex trafficking
Speaker 2: charges the second time and was in jail and he
Speaker 2: killed himself. This is a quote from that email. Trump
Speaker 2: knew of it, referring to the sexual misconduct. And he
Speaker 2: came to my house many times during that period. He
Speaker 2: never got a massage. And this was part of this
Speaker 2: whole tranch of documents. And Trump said he had a
Speaker 2: falling out in the mid two thousand with Epstein, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like it. And Trump in twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: said I had no idea referring to Epstein and the
Speaker 2: sexual misconduct. I haven't spoken him in many, many years.
Speaker 1: Well, it looks like he did.
Speaker 2: And on Wednesday, of course, Trump accused the Demo crats
Speaker 2: of resurfacing the scandal to distract from the forty three
Speaker 2: day government shutdown. The Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 2: hoax to try to deflect from their massive failures. In particular,
Speaker 2: the most recent one, the shutdown. Well, here's the problem.
Speaker 2: The shutdown is over and the Republicans won, Yet the
Speaker 2: Epstein emails and files continue to haunt the president and
Speaker 2: they will. This is why the administration has fought like
Speaker 2: crazy to not have the entire file release. Department Justice
Speaker 2: is holding on to this stuff. They have all of it,
Speaker 2: and the Oversight Committee wants it. In Congress, even Republicans
Speaker 2: want it because this is we're talking about raping fourteen
Speaker 2: year olds. I mean, this is something Republicans are saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: you know what. We have to find out everything about this,
Speaker 2: every bit of it. And the Trump administration is fighting
Speaker 2: it like crazy. Why not because I think Trump did
Speaker 2: anything wrong. I don't, but because of the radioactivity of
Speaker 2: being anywhere near Epstein. And then the argument did Trump
Speaker 2: actually know of the sexual misconduct? And I don't know
Speaker 2: about that. That one's up in the air, but I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure that he never participated, but he was a
Speaker 2: lot closer. And of course Mike Johnson is naturally doing
Speaker 2: exactly what Trump wanted, and he is doing everything he
Speaker 2: could to keep the file secret.
Speaker 1: And what he wouldn't do is swear in Grivalja.
Speaker 2: Who is the congressman, I think from Arizona who just
Speaker 2: got elected, wouldn't swear her in for thirty days. He's
Speaker 2: because she is the vote that puts it over the
Speaker 2: edge to demand that the Department of Justice turn over
Speaker 2: those files. Johnson fight said, But there's a procedure which
Speaker 2: you can bypass the speaker and demand it. And that's
Speaker 2: exactly what is happening right now. So how toxic is
Speaker 2: this going to be? You know, even if it goes
Speaker 2: no further than this, I think the President can yell hoax, hoax,
Speaker 2: hoax all he wants. You know, some stuff just sticks
Speaker 2: no matter what. All right now, what I do want
Speaker 2: to get into is what we do with our maritime
Speaker 2: fleet the United States. And this is where President Trump
Speaker 2: is saying, hey, let's revive us shipping. We don't do
Speaker 2: enough of it and we don't. Let me give you
Speaker 2: a statistic that kind of floored me, and that is,
Speaker 2: in the last ten years, the United States manufactured thirty
Speaker 2: eight large commercial vessels US shipyards.
Speaker 1: Thirty eight of them.
Speaker 2: China over seventy five hundred of these commercial vessels. The
Speaker 2: way the law works in the United States is horrific.
Speaker 2: The American law says that for international commercial shipping on
Speaker 2: American vessels and flying under the American flag, that means
Speaker 2: it's register in the US, follows the Coastguards regulation, employs
Speaker 2: only American citizens.
Speaker 1: That means it's not happening. So what is the answer.
Speaker 2: And I think the administration is right on because this
Speaker 2: is an area that has been ignored and that is
Speaker 2: working as a mariner, building more ships and working as
Speaker 2: a mariner right now as an American city, and you
Speaker 2: can go and work for well almost any fleet.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 2: Mariners earn over one hundred thousand dollars a year six
Speaker 2: months of paid leave a year.
Speaker 1: Who is not going to do that.
Speaker 2: There are seven maritime academies in the US, seven of them,
Speaker 2: six state and the US United States Merchant Marine Academy
Speaker 2: that's in New York. Now, the federal academy perfectly free
Speaker 2: to attend. The other ones, the state ones are they
Speaker 2: cost money. And let me give you another stat that's
Speaker 2: kind of just mind bending. The number of students graduating
Speaker 2: with Coastguard qualifications, okay, which all the academy give last
Speaker 2: year was eight hundred and ten. How about that eight
Speaker 2: hundred and ten. Now, there is an organization called the
Speaker 2: Military Sealift Command. These are a fleet of ships that
Speaker 2: supply the US Navy. Those supply ships that you see
Speaker 2: with fuel and goods and material are usually civilian ships
Speaker 2: crewed by civilians.
Speaker 1: They can't find mariners, they can't find people to work.
Speaker 2: How about this a first officer two hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars along with a seventy one thousand dollars signing bonus,
Speaker 2: and you can't get enough of them? Well, first of all,
Speaker 2: you got to go to school. Okay, it's one of
Speaker 2: these four year degree things. But I don't know how
Speaker 2: many jobs out there. Right out of college you go
Speaker 2: for what two hundred grand a year? Now, the fleet,
Speaker 2: the Military Seelift Command, it took vessels out of regular service.
Speaker 2: They didn't have enough civilian employees. They didn't have enough
Speaker 2: people to run these ships. I mean, it is kind
Speaker 2: of crazy. So why do they have so few? Because
Speaker 2: when you look into it, the work is brutal. If
Speaker 2: you don't have enough mariners on a ship, which means
Speaker 2: the ones that you do have are working twice as
Speaker 2: hard and the burnout rate is unbelievable. One of this
Speaker 2: is what this was a wall Street Journal New York
Speaker 2: Times article, and one of these guys was interviewed, Nathan Weimoth,
Speaker 2: a chief engineer on a tramper, which means it went
Speaker 2: from place to place, not a specific route that was
Speaker 2: hired for. He said he had six months of paid
Speaker 2: short leaves, but he works so long when he was
Speaker 2: at sea that we actually look at the hours work
Speaker 2: there longer than the six months he had off twelve
Speaker 2: hours a day, six or seven days a week.
Speaker 1: And it's total burnout.
Speaker 2: But if you're willing to not see your family for
Speaker 2: six months at a time, which is I'd be thrilled
Speaker 2: to do that. If you're willing to not be anywhere
Speaker 2: near your home and be on a ship. The pay
Speaker 2: is pretty high and I'm assuming the benefits are pretty good.
Speaker 2: And it's just one of those fields that not enough
Speaker 2: people were going to and.
Speaker 1: It pays huge money. So what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: Is, occasionally, as unemployment explodes and you're going to see
Speaker 2: it die, I believe because of AI etcetera is getting
Speaker 2: worse and worse, I'm going to be throwing in these
Speaker 2: jobs occasionally. Where it's good money, it's not very well.
Speaker 2: These are not very well known and I just love
Speaker 2: talking about employment. Okay, okay, there is a something called
Speaker 2: college direct admissions. Now you can pre register for college.
Speaker 2: They have early admission, but you have to apply direct admissions.
Speaker 1: You don't apply. An email goes.
Speaker 2: Out from the schools, from the four year colleges to
Speaker 2: kids who are kids you know, who are out of
Speaker 2: high school, who meet the criteria, and it says you've
Speaker 2: been admitted. And the theory is it's going after those
Speaker 2: kids who are disenfranchised, are on the lower socioeconomic ladder.
Speaker 2: They're lower on the ladder because it's just more difficult
Speaker 2: for them. You have to know how to work the system.
Speaker 2: An application to college is not an easy thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have to obviously take the tests, and then you
Speaker 2: get to write the essay as to why you want
Speaker 2: to go to school and you come up with some
Speaker 2: complete lie and what you want to do for the
Speaker 2: rest of your life, and then you're in front of
Speaker 2: a admissions officer or at least the application.
Speaker 1: Is and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Well, with these direct admissions, it is not a lot
Speaker 2: of work. Now, California has just started it. Six other
Speaker 2: states or seven other states have already done this and
Speaker 2: it looks like it's fairly successful because the number of
Speaker 2: people that are wanted, and that is first generation or
Speaker 2: second generation Americans coming from the first people to go
Speaker 2: to college in their families. I mean that, you know
Speaker 2: the story of people who it's just not easy to
Speaker 2: go to college. Well, they're getting more and more of them.
Speaker 2: They've almost doubled those figures with a direct admission. So
Speaker 2: who is in this case, it was the cal State
Speaker 2: system that by law is now involved in direct admissions
Speaker 2: after the pilot program. I think it was at cal
Speaker 2: State Riverside. I don't even know if there is a
Speaker 2: cal State Riverside. It was one of the schools.
Speaker 1: Is there a cal State Riverside?
Speaker 2: I don't, Okay, I don't even know. Yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I understand. But this is not for uc The ucs
Speaker 2: are exempt from this. It's not there. Yes, this is
Speaker 2: only cal State and it's cal State. San Luisbispo, for example,
Speaker 2: is exempt. They're not doing this because frankly, well it's
Speaker 2: a high end school. That's what that's about. For example,
Speaker 2: it's impossible impossible to get into UCLA, right, you can't
Speaker 2: do it, give it up. You want to go to
Speaker 2: UC channel islands you can get in. So the cal
Speaker 2: State system is saying, and this, I guess is some
Speaker 2: kind of a pilot program or full time. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's ever going to go to the UC system.
Speaker 2: But the schools are the entire is the entire system
Speaker 2: except two schoolers or exempt one of San Luis Obispo.
Speaker 2: And strangely enough, cal State Northridge is not involved with
Speaker 2: this program because there was a huge move to move
Speaker 2: cal State Northridge into the community college system and remove
Speaker 2: it from California State University because Northridge gives you such
Speaker 2: quality education. Having graduated from cal State Northridge, I can
Speaker 2: see why it should be a junior college, right Kono?
Speaker 1: Sure? Bill? Yeah? Uh? Amy didn't go off. Also, Amy
Speaker 1: didn't go to cal State Northriach. I did not. I
Speaker 1: went to Oregon State University. Yeah. I was onto cal
Speaker 1: State San Bernardino and cal State Fullerton. Yeah. Likes college. No,
Speaker 1: I do you know what I have? Actually? Are you
Speaker 1: ready for this?
Speaker 2: I am looking at cal State Long Beach, uh for
Speaker 2: some histories. I'm thinking of getting a master's degree in
Speaker 2: history because I like history so.
Speaker 1: Much about it.
Speaker 2: I do because I'm just and and and well and
Speaker 2: my life is different now. I mean I used to
Speaker 2: be you know all, I used to be the surrogacy center.
Speaker 2: I work all day after the show and uh uh
Speaker 2: now I get do you I guess you call a
Speaker 2: semi retired. Does that make sense? Where I do the
Speaker 2: show and then basically by noon, Now what do I do?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna do it? From student union? You'll do
Speaker 1: the show? Uhout be wild?
Speaker 2: But anyway, it's uh, this directed mission thing seems to
Speaker 2: be working.
Speaker 1: And it is designed for.
Speaker 2: People, first of all, to make it easier to go
Speaker 2: to college, to apply for college, and to try to
Speaker 2: get those students that were just difficult to apply. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've applied well, cal Staton Northoris was not that difficult.
Speaker 2: My law school, for example, that was a tough one.
Speaker 2: I remember going in and seeing the admissions counselor at
Speaker 2: my law school, what your law school? And I was wondering,
Speaker 2: why was the admissions person putting mirrors under people's noses?
Speaker 2: And it turned out that if you had condensation, you
Speaker 2: were admitted to the school. That was the requirement. By
Speaker 2: the way, that school is no longer there. Just to
Speaker 2: let you know, my law school is no longer It's
Speaker 2: just out there. I think Starbucks is in the building,
Speaker 2: and then I think they also have maybe an Amazon
Speaker 2: warehouse there. Okay, we're done, all right, Joe Larsguard is
Speaker 2: coming up and we're going to talk about some how
Speaker 2: the money news and there's some fun stuff fifty year
Speaker 2: mortgage that the President just pitched and we was talking
Speaker 2: about with Joel. Does that make sense, as well as
Speaker 2: other topics, So don't go away.
Speaker 1: This is by the way, I'm just.
Speaker 2: Kidding about cal State northridget It really is a superb
Speaker 2: institution of higher learning. It's called Harvard of the West.
Speaker 2: All Right, KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2: Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
Speaker 2: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.