Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: AM six forty Bill Handle. It is a Monday morning,
Speaker 2: October twenty. Some of the stories we're looking at in
Speaker 2: light of the King No Kings demonstrations across the country
Speaker 2: on Saturday. The President has just called for a Department
Speaker 2: of Justice investigation of the protests, trying to find out
Speaker 2: who funded it and how much George Soros paid for it.
Speaker 2: I was there, and would you do me a favor,
Speaker 2: contact the Sorows folks and ask where I can get
Speaker 2: a check because I wasn't paid, and damn it, I
Speaker 2: was there and I want that money. I want some
Speaker 2: of that money. If they're paying, I want it that
Speaker 2: damn I can't believe I did it for free. Wow,
Speaker 2: doesn't stop, does it? The politics don't no matter what? Okay,
Speaker 2: talking about politics, and this is a fun one. George Santos,
Speaker 2: our favorite former congress person, has had his prison sentence
Speaker 2: commuted by the president.
Speaker 1: He got eighty.
Speaker 2: Seven months over seven years and did exactly eighty four days.
Speaker 1: And he went on CNN.
Speaker 2: He went on Fox and he slapped back, you have
Speaker 2: a problem with my release, too bad? And by the way,
Speaker 2: his release, the commutation by the president, and the presidents
Speaker 2: had this for the sole reason that he is a
Speaker 2: loyal Republican. That's it, nothing more, nothing less. He's a
Speaker 2: loyal Republican. Therefore I'm commuting his sentence. Now. Remember Santos
Speaker 2: was expelled from Congress in twenty twenty three. He pled
Speaker 2: guilty to wire fraud, identity theft, admitted lying to Congress,
Speaker 2: stealing money from campaign owners, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. But hey,
Speaker 2: he's a loyal Republican. So now let's go on the
Speaker 2: other side. Joe Biden, right, he pardoned every member of
Speaker 2: his family, particularly his son Hunter Biden, who now, in reality,
Speaker 2: I don't believe that Hunter Biden did as did as
Speaker 2: much damage as Santos did. I believe Santos took Congress
Speaker 2: and brought it to a new low level, and he
Speaker 2: should have been expelled and was what Hunter Biden did
Speaker 2: is he lied on his application for a gun.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not a current drug user.
Speaker 2: It turned out in his book he admitted that timeline
Speaker 2: that he was a current drug user like a moron.
Speaker 1: What he should have been.
Speaker 2: Done as convicted as being he should have been convicted
Speaker 2: for stupid and then there was some tax issues he had.
Speaker 2: And here's the problem is that during the course of
Speaker 2: the investigation and going after Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: And Biden was pretty good about that.
Speaker 2: The President he let it go and he didn't commute
Speaker 2: the sentence or pardon his son until the very last
Speaker 2: David Mure ABC News interviewed Joe Biden, and there was
Speaker 2: an issue as to whether the president was going to
Speaker 2: pardon his son and asked him outright, are you considering
Speaker 2: pardoning your son if convicted? Absolutely not. I will not
Speaker 2: pardon my son if convicted. The law will be followed
Speaker 2: until he pardoned his son. Oh, okay, and then he
Speaker 2: pardoned his entire family and his entire staff preemptively.
Speaker 1: You're done.
Speaker 2: There will be no prosecution at all under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: Can a president do that? You bet a president can
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: His argument was that the Hunter would been.
Speaker 2: Attacked and attacked luciferously when the Trump administration came in,
Speaker 2: which is true, by the way, because it's political attacks.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no question in my mind that a
Speaker 2: lot of these commutations, a lot of these pardons are
Speaker 2: in fact political in nature. George Santos deserved every bit
Speaker 2: of his seven year sentence considering what he did. But
Speaker 2: loyal Republican, being a loyal Republican, we're going to pardon him.
Speaker 1: We're commuted sentence.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I'm going to go next segment,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go through some history of pardons and
Speaker 2: what presidents have done, because President Trump with Santos, doesn't
Speaker 2: hold a candle to what some presidents, both Republican and Democrats.
Speaker 1: Have been in the world, have done.
Speaker 2: In the world of pardons, what's the diver seen a
Speaker 2: pardon and a commutation. A commutation, you're still guilty, it's
Speaker 2: just you're out of prison. Sentence has been commuted. A
Speaker 2: pardon is a full pardon of what you've done. It
Speaker 2: never happened, done, finished, you've been pardoned, right, that's the difference.
Speaker 2: So with George Santos, this is a commutation with Hunter Biden,
Speaker 2: a pardon with the rest of Biden's family and his
Speaker 2: staff members who were going to be under the political
Speaker 2: microscope of Donald Trump. And it was it was absolutely true.
Speaker 2: That was where the pardon took place. Hunter Biden completely guilty,
Speaker 2: by the way, no question about number one guilty. I mean,
Speaker 2: is it a big deal, I don't think so. You know,
Speaker 2: during the he lied, he was on drugs. Okay, I
Speaker 2: think a bigger deal is when he became the board
Speaker 2: of BuddhismA, which is the gas company that's owned by
Speaker 2: the Ukraine government. And he was on the board and
Speaker 2: was getting half a million dollars a year from a
Speaker 2: government owned utility Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And the only thing.
Speaker 2: That Hunter Biden Biden knew about gas was he could
Speaker 2: turn his stove on and know how many BTUs that
Speaker 2: stove was.
Speaker 1: That is his involvement in natural gas.
Speaker 2: Now, big story about George Santos, the congress Person extraordinaire
Speaker 2: who was convicted and was given seven years in prison,
Speaker 2: seven and a half years in prison for lying to
Speaker 2: Congress and fraudulent tax returns and stealing campaign money. And
Speaker 2: it was just pardoned by the president after eighty four
Speaker 2: days in prison. And what was the reason of the pardoning.
Speaker 2: He is a loyal Republican.
Speaker 1: There it is. He's a loyal Republican. Okay. As obnoxious as.
Speaker 2: That is, Donald Trump's not alone as president. Presidents have
Speaker 2: done some really weird stuff and some extraordinary stuff.
Speaker 1: When it comes to pardon.
Speaker 2: First one out ready for this George Washington with the
Speaker 2: Whiskey rebellion. So the country was completely broke. The America
Speaker 2: Revolutionary War dead was going to destroy the country. Alexander Hamilton,
Speaker 2: Treasury secretary, said Okay, we're going to raise money by
Speaker 2: a tax on whiskey. Well, whiskey was pretty important to
Speaker 2: a lot of people, and so there were a lot
Speaker 2: of stills that were being done and people weren't paying taxes.
Speaker 2: So what he did is he came in with the
Speaker 2: armed forces. He came in with the army and shut
Speaker 2: him down. And a bunch of them were convicted. A
Speaker 2: bunch of these whiskey people were convicted. And you know
Speaker 2: what he did, he pardoned them. Said it's done, it's over.
Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson, he actually fought the Alien and Sedition Act, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, the president, this president is looking at
Speaker 2: and this was John Adams signed that into law. Even
Speaker 2: Johnson argued that. Johnson argued that, you know what, there's
Speaker 2: far too much power to suppress opposition.
Speaker 1: You can't do this. So what did he do?
Speaker 2: Well, Jefferson becomes president and another presidential power the pardon
Speaker 2: was issued over and over again. David Brown, a guy,
Speaker 2: a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was convicted of sedition
Speaker 2: overthrowing the government, and guess what, he pardoned them, all
Speaker 2: of he pardoned him. There were a whole group of
Speaker 2: people that were saying that the government sucks and we
Speaker 2: want to overthrow them, and Jefferson did it. Now, one
Speaker 2: of the most famous ones was Abraham Lincoln, with a
Speaker 2: pardon he made. Four presidents have given pardons to family members,
Speaker 2: first one being Abraham Lincoln. Why well, there was a
Speaker 2: woman by the name of Emily todd Helm, known as
Speaker 2: the Rebel in the White House, and she happened to
Speaker 2: be Mary Lincoln's half sister and the widow widow of
Speaker 2: a Confederate generate General Benjamin Helm. He was killed in
Speaker 2: September of eighteen sixty three. Lincoln asked him actually to
Speaker 2: join the Union, but he said no, went south and
Speaker 2: became a Confederate. After his death, Emily todd Helm went
Speaker 2: through Union line stayed at the White House, which the
Speaker 2: rest of the country went, are you crazy? She was
Speaker 2: known as the Trader of the White House. Well, full
Speaker 2: pardon to all Confederates. Willing to take on an oath
Speaker 2: of allegiance to the United States. She was part of it.
Speaker 2: And that's what Lincoln was really at unifier man. He said,
Speaker 2: if you promised to give up your arms, I'm going
Speaker 2: to pardon you. And now the big one, Andrew Johnson,
Speaker 2: who became president upon Lincoln's assassination, he pardoned fourteen thousand Confederates,
Speaker 2: including Jefferson David who was the President of the Confederacy.
Speaker 2: But let's get a little closer to our own history.
Speaker 2: The pardon of Jimmy Hoffa by Nixon. Nixon, for some
Speaker 2: reason liked Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa was the union leader,
Speaker 2: head of the Teamsters who then connected the Teamsters union.
Speaker 1: To the mafia. No issue, and he had.
Speaker 2: Been convicted going to was to go to prison, and
Speaker 2: he then disappeared. Jimmy Hoffa just disappeared. That not before
Speaker 2: the pardon took place. So that was one walked out
Speaker 2: of federal prison. Haffa two days before Christmas, out of
Speaker 2: because he was just beginning a sentence for jury tampering
Speaker 2: and mail fraud and conspiracy. All right, Carter Well, Ford
Speaker 2: and Nixon. That's that one is extraordinary. Gerald Ford pardoned
Speaker 2: Nixon for the crimes that he was going to be
Speaker 2: convicted of no question about it. Richard Nixon was going
Speaker 2: to be convicted of obstruction of justice straight out. He
Speaker 2: ordered the FBI to stop an investigation of the Watergate
Speaker 2: and a few other things with the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine a president stopping well, you could imagine that,
Speaker 2: but a legitimate investigation of a crime. President can't do that,
Speaker 2: especially when he's involved. President can't do that. And Gerald
Speaker 2: Ford pardon Nixon, and I must tell you on the
Speaker 2: pardon issue, and I was so angry with Jerald Ford.
Speaker 2: It cost him his presidency the election. Gerald Ford did
Speaker 2: not win the presidency, and I think he knew it
Speaker 2: when he ran for president on his own. And he's
Speaker 2: going to be given credit for basically healing the country.
Speaker 2: His legacy is going to be extraordinary what he did.
Speaker 2: Carter and Vietnam Draft dodgers, that was one Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: deep throat, remember deep throat, yep, that was Mark Felt
Speaker 2: and these Felton Miller another guy convicted of conspiracy to
Speaker 2: violate civil rights of friends and relatives of the Weather
Speaker 2: underground approving illegal searches.
Speaker 1: And they were pardoned for that, having nothing to do
Speaker 1: with being deep throat.
Speaker 2: The really good one that I like so much is
Speaker 2: Clinton's midnight pardons. I mean, thirty seconds before he leaves
Speaker 2: the presidency, he starts issuing one hundred and forty pardons,
Speaker 2: including former White House business partner, newspaper eras Patty Hertz,
Speaker 2: former CI chief John Deutsch. And then the two that
Speaker 2: I love the best is tax evaders Mark Rich and
Speaker 2: pink A Screen and I mean hundreds of millions of
Speaker 2: dollars of evasion and theft. And they left, they left
Speaker 2: the jurisdiction. He didn't even know them, he wasn't close
Speaker 2: to them, he didn't do business with them. But there
Speaker 2: were friends who were close to Clinton who said, why
Speaker 2: don't you pardon these two guys? And he did. That
Speaker 2: is so obnoxious. I'm more upset about that than I
Speaker 2: ever will be about George Santos. These guys screwed the
Speaker 2: American people by evading taxes and stealing money from so
Speaker 2: many people that one just floored me.
Speaker 1: I was just so pissed off at Clinton.
Speaker 2: So the latest one, of course, is George Santos.
Speaker 1: Being a loyal Republican.
Speaker 2: By the way, the takeaway there, oh, don't forget the
Speaker 2: pardons by the president of all fifteen hundred of the
Speaker 2: patriots who overran the capitol, who were upholding the constitution.
Speaker 1: What's the takeaway here?
Speaker 2: You're on his side, You're fine, You're not, You're screwed,
Speaker 2: all right? Oh god, I love this story. And that
Speaker 2: is how many startups? Do you remember during when the
Speaker 2: internet first exploded?
Speaker 1: I think someone has to mute up.
Speaker 2: There, and you had these twelve year olds become billionaires.
Speaker 2: And you'd go with the startups and the startups, especially
Speaker 2: the beginning of Facebook for example, YouTube, where you would
Speaker 2: have these kids, young people come in work one hundred
Speaker 2: hour weeks. And if you ever saw the movie about
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg and it described how crazy it was. They all
Speaker 2: lived in one house. By the way, today you know what,
Speaker 2: they still have houses.
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 2: The startups are back to where it was where these
Speaker 2: supercomputer nerds, all of them teenagers are younger, are working
Speaker 2: at these startups. They work for very little money, but
Speaker 2: they get stock and they're demanded to work. It's demanding
Speaker 2: that they work seventy eighty hours week. It's the grind
Speaker 2: culture and it's coming back with vengeance. Seventy two hour weeks,
Speaker 2: eighty hour weeks. There's a San Francisco AI startup called Sonatic.
Speaker 1: You get a meal, you get they give you food.
Speaker 1: Jim Pickleball matches all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there was a job posted on X for
Speaker 2: a job opening there. You've got to work seven days
Speaker 2: of work. You have to work seven days a week
Speaker 2: and at least ten hour days. But you get free
Speaker 2: housing in a hacker house and free food credits. And
Speaker 2: don't forget a free subscription to a dating service Raya
Speaker 2: as if you're ever going to be able to date. Frankly,
Speaker 2: here's the bottom line with this one. You're never You're
Speaker 2: never able to get laid again if you start working
Speaker 2: for one of these startups until they sell or they.
Speaker 1: Have their IPO. And guess what happens Now you have.
Speaker 2: A fourteen year old billionaire that can do whatever the
Speaker 2: hell he wants. What you're seeing is there are job openings.
Speaker 2: There are plenty out there. They are available with startups,
Speaker 2: and imagine the amount of hours you have to put in.
Speaker 1: There's a company called Rilla in New York City.
Speaker 2: And straight out candidate should not work at the company
Speaker 2: if they're not excited about working about seventy hours a
Speaker 2: week in person.
Speaker 1: What they call.
Speaker 2: This is nine nine to six, which leads to burnout
Speaker 2: and a limited amount of time you're going to spend there,
Speaker 2: and nine nine to six basically what you work from
Speaker 2: nine to nine every day, six days a week, and
Speaker 2: that's at a minimum. And now you've got there's a
Speaker 2: post that was up there. A co founder of one
Speaker 2: of the ai posted a post, posted an open call
Speaker 2: for new talent, and it was, as he said, simple,
Speaker 2: here's what the job title is, simple amazing salary hacker
Speaker 2: house in San Francisco, crazy equity six because everybody knows
Speaker 2: what that is in this world now. And then that
Speaker 2: post got fifty three thousand views and manned there were
Speaker 2: comments harsh on nine nine six nine nine six equals
Speaker 2: slaves with no life?
Speaker 1: Would you that worked that way?
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you when Facebook first started, when
Speaker 2: Amazon early days first started, and Bezos and Zuckerberg and
Speaker 2: others demanded the kind of crazy, crazy hours and commitment
Speaker 2: you could take all the time off you want, all
Speaker 2: the vacation time you want. Guess what, no one took
Speaker 2: off a minute, seven days a week they worked, and
Speaker 2: it was they're all rich, they're all rich. We look
Speaker 2: back and I go Zuckerberg. Who is worth I don't know.
Speaker 2: Is he worth a hundred billion dollars? Now?
Speaker 1: How old is he now? Early thirties? Maybe? All right?
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to finish it up with a
Speaker 2: story or two about credit cards. First of all, we
Speaker 2: know that there is a disparity among rich and poor.
Speaker 2: It's not that the rich or rich and the poor
Speaker 2: are poor, that's a given, but that the disparity is widening.
Speaker 2: The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
Speaker 2: Not that they're making less money, but inflation has hit
Speaker 2: and they're making less money if you look at the
Speaker 2: way economics work.
Speaker 1: So the rich people are still spending like crazy.
Speaker 2: Credit card companies are recognizing, recognizing now, and you know
Speaker 2: what they're doing. They want to attract people with money
Speaker 2: more so than they're doing now. And the problem is
Speaker 2: some people are worried that these additional rewards because they
Speaker 2: have to reward people to get them to use the
Speaker 2: credit cards. Whichever company it is that basically the poor
Speaker 2: people and everyone else is subsidizing the wealthy because everybody
Speaker 2: pays the same price when you buy something, and the
Speaker 2: rich people get points, the poor people use the cards,
Speaker 2: don't get anything, but the companies still charge for the
Speaker 2: processing the credit card companies, and the merchants have to
Speaker 2: pay the credit card companies, so the prices have to
Speaker 2: be included. And if you have a really neat card
Speaker 2: with a lot of perks, guess what you get a
Speaker 2: lot of perks and people who can't afford certainly the
Speaker 2: card you have are subsidizing, and I mean pretty expensive stuff.
Speaker 2: American Express and JP Morgan Chase just added luxury perks
Speaker 2: to their top reward cards. The AMEX Platinum Card two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for an Aura ring two hundred dollars off,
Speaker 2: okay if you have an Horror ring. Now the Chase
Speaker 2: Sapphire Reserve comes with a credit of up to five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for high end hotels, airport lounges. Now, the
Speaker 2: Sapphire Reserve card costs eight hundred bucks. But if you
Speaker 2: use the perks, you save a lot of money, but
Speaker 2: you have to spend eight hundred dollars. Also, the miles
Speaker 2: are terrific, So I'm jumping on this even though I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pay eight hundred dollars. I travel, as you know,
Speaker 2: and man if I can upgrade for two trips for
Speaker 2: eight hundred bucks. I'll do it, but I've got to
Speaker 2: pay it. I've got to pay a thousand bucks for
Speaker 2: it or eight hundred dollars. So the bottom line is
Speaker 2: people who can't afford it do it. And for the
Speaker 2: those of you that can't, thank you very much on
Speaker 2: behalf of rich people for subsidizing everything. Here's a stat
Speaker 2: before we go, about half of US consumer spending comes
Speaker 2: from people in the top ten percent.
Speaker 1: That's a big one.
Speaker 2: And a majority of households who make more than one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year prefer credit cards. Well,
Speaker 2: people who make less than that prefer in many cases cash.
Speaker 2: Cash is not king. Credit cards are king. We're done,
Speaker 2: we are finished. Tomorrow it's Tech Tuesday with Rich Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Gary and Shannon are up next. In the meantime, boy,
Speaker 2: the week's almost over, isn't it. Monday is coming on
Speaker 2: and we're almost there. So it starts again five am
Speaker 2: tomorrow with Amy and Will and then Neil and I
Speaker 2: come aboard, and of course Anne and Kono put all
Speaker 2: of this together as ridiculous and as marginal as it is.
Speaker 1: Great, perfect and wonderful show. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, by the way, Amy, thanks for pointing out that
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg is worth two hundred and forty five billion dollars.
Speaker 2: I thought he was only worth one hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2: And how old is he? Forty one forty wild case
Speaker 2: older than I thought he was. All right, have a
Speaker 2: good one, everybody. Uh. The Garyus Shannon Show are up next.
Speaker 2: We'll see you tomorrow. CHF I am six forty. You've
Speaker 2: been listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch my show
Speaker 2: Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and anytime
Speaker 2: on demand on the iHeartRadio app