Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six fortyfi AM six forty Bill Handle.
Speaker 2: Here it is a Tuesday morning, October twenty eighth.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: One of the big issues that we're dealing with, and
Speaker 2: that's coming up this election coming up November fourth.
Speaker 1: So it's right around the corner is the.
Speaker 2: Is Proposition fifty special election, and that's the only thing
Speaker 2: on the ballot, and it's two hundred three hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is a chunk of money to hold
Speaker 2: any kind of election in the state, statewide election. And
Speaker 2: Prop fifty, as you probably know, is in response to
Speaker 2: what Texas did at the urging of President Trump. President
Speaker 2: Trump picks up the phone and says to Republicans or
Speaker 2: Republican legislatures or companies, here's what I want you to do.
Speaker 2: And before where he actually puts down the phone, they're
Speaker 2: already doing it. He certainly does that with Congress, He
Speaker 2: certainly certainly does that with state legislatures. And that's what
Speaker 2: happened in Texas. Texas. Usually it has to do with redistricting,
Speaker 2: and generally redistricting is done by the legislature in many states,
Speaker 2: and it's done every ten years.
Speaker 1: Based on the census.
Speaker 2: Trump asked Texas to throw that away and mid census
Speaker 2: then redistrict. Redistricting mean they draw up a new map,
Speaker 2: and based on the map and the number of Democrats Republicans,
Speaker 2: things like if there is a democratic area, a state
Speaker 2: can redraft the entire map. So basically, all the Democrats
Speaker 2: are crowded in the one district that's a throwaway that
Speaker 2: becomes democratic, but the other ones, the swing areas around it,
Speaker 2: you can have them lean or Republican as opposed to
Speaker 2: let's say, even Stephen And that's what Texas did. Texas
Speaker 2: created effectively five new districts leaning Republicans and therefore changing
Speaker 2: what Congress is going to be made of. All Right,
Speaker 2: so California says, okay, we're gonna go this. We're gonna
Speaker 2: do the same damn thing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The problem in California is that by proposition, we have
Speaker 2: voted not for the legislature to read district but an
Speaker 2: independent commission, so no politics are brought into it. Equal
Speaker 2: number of Democrats, Republicans and at the same time some
Speaker 2: independent authorities.
Speaker 1: So what has happened is that.
Speaker 2: There is a special election saying we're gonna California's going
Speaker 2: to bring it in to the same way Texas is.
Speaker 2: That's the fight for Prop fifty except the differences. We
Speaker 2: have a we have a democratic legislature and we're going
Speaker 2: to add five new Democratic seats or move it around,
Speaker 2: so Democrats will probably prevail. Now that has to be
Speaker 2: done by proposition, because establishing the Independent Commission was done
Speaker 2: by proposition. So you can only undo a proposition by
Speaker 2: proposition or changing in the Constitution of California, which, by
Speaker 2: the way, no one has any doalua what it looks like.
Speaker 1: It's five hundred pages.
Speaker 2: There are things in the constitution that were passed twenty
Speaker 2: years ago that we've reversed and then reversed again, and
Speaker 2: then reversed back again.
Speaker 1: It's a god awful mess. So now we have this
Speaker 1: massive move in the state, and.
Speaker 2: Because it is a democratically led state, on the ballot
Speaker 2: it goes and the legislature put this on the ballot.
Speaker 1: Which way are we going to go?
Speaker 2: Well, there's the anti fifty movement out there, of which
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the head of it. He doesn't want
Speaker 2: Democrats prevailing. He only wants Republicans, which makes sense. He's
Speaker 2: a Republican president.
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 2: And also what he is doing is and this is
Speaker 2: against the wishes in the philosophy of the Republican Party
Speaker 2: in California, and that is to go against the mail
Speaker 2: in ballots. There have been more than four million of
Speaker 2: these mail in ballots already brought in. Eighteen percent eighteen
Speaker 2: percent of the people have already sent in their ballots
Speaker 2: I have. That is as of Friday, and Democrats outpace
Speaker 2: Republicans returning those ballots twenty eight percent. Those without a
Speaker 2: party preference that's me or any political party, twenty one
Speaker 2: percent of us have returned those ballots. So let me
Speaker 2: tell you this is really scaring Republicans, big time Republicans.
Speaker 2: Here's what Trump writes. No, this is with the San
Speaker 2: Diego GOP posted. It's simple, Republicans need to stop complaining
Speaker 2: and vote. We ask and ask and yes and ask.
Speaker 2: Yet turnout still lags. To win this one GOP turnout
Speaker 2: needs to be terially better than average.
Speaker 1: It's very doable, but it just won't happen. You have
Speaker 1: to work at it.
Speaker 2: Now. The president, for some reason, thinks that early voting
Speaker 2: hurts the party. Historically, early voting helped the Republicans. It
Speaker 2: was the Democrats who walked in on election day and
Speaker 2: voted that has reversed, and the GOP is saying, we've
Speaker 2: got to go back to those days, and the President
Speaker 2: not recognizing that, certainly at least in California, is pushing
Speaker 2: to get rid of mail in ballots. And now you
Speaker 2: have the fight or the argument between President Trump and
Speaker 2: the California GOP, the California Republicans. And if I'll tell
Speaker 2: you right now, if Trump prevails on this one and
Speaker 2: again this is this is not politics, this is just facts.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just looking at this sort of objectively.
Speaker 2: If Trump prevailed, the Republicans will lose because Republicans don't
Speaker 2: vote early. And the Republican Party in California says, we
Speaker 2: have to vote early, we have to vote early. We're
Speaker 2: going to lose if we don't vote early. The Democrats
Speaker 2: are and the President hates early voting, hates mail in ballots,
Speaker 2: always has and he's fighting like crazy and for the
Speaker 2: sake of the Republican Party here in California. And now
Speaker 2: I'm arguing for the Republican Party, I well, it depends
Speaker 2: on it doesn't matter what I hope happens. But I
Speaker 2: think what's going to happen is the Republicans are going
Speaker 2: to get hurt big time if they listen to President
Speaker 2: Trump on this one. All right, LA homeowners are among
Speaker 2: and this is Southern California in general. This is a
Speaker 2: story about LA because LA is sort of the poster
Speaker 2: child of all of Southern California. We're among the most
Speaker 2: house poor in the country. What is house poor? Well,
Speaker 2: first of all, a study published by Consumer Affairs and
Speaker 2: it's a finance terms. They did the study. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you about the stats in a minute. They did this study,
Speaker 2: and house poor is the finance term you used to
Speaker 2: describe someone who spends a disproportionate amount of their income
Speaker 2: on housing costs, with very little leftover for other expenses. Now,
Speaker 2: as of this report, it says that about a third
Speaker 2: of the cost of housing is what it's costing homeowners
Speaker 2: currently in Southern California.
Speaker 1: Now, it always used to.
Speaker 2: Be that renters would pay a disproportionate share. We always
Speaker 2: talked about renters and when you look at finance, your
Speaker 2: borrowing money, or you're looking at stats, you should only
Speaker 2: pay about a third of your income towards housing. And
Speaker 2: Amy said, Oh, Bill Amy, and how much did you
Speaker 2: say you paid. I'm sorry to interrupt you. How much
Speaker 2: do you pay as a percentage of your income towards
Speaker 2: your rent?
Speaker 1: Over half? See?
Speaker 2: And that is unfortunately more more usual than not in
Speaker 2: southern California. But I want to go to home ownership
Speaker 2: for a moment. Here's a stat The typical household in
Speaker 2: LA earns about almost eleven thousand dollars per month, spends
Speaker 2: more than thirty five hundred in a housing about thirty
Speaker 2: two and a half percent.
Speaker 1: LA monthly housing costs among the highest.
Speaker 2: And so what they've done, the consumer affairs folks, They
Speaker 2: have listed California or Southern California as number four in
Speaker 2: the nation as opposed to in describing the most unreachable,
Speaker 2: unaffordable houses.
Speaker 1: A couple of things.
Speaker 2: Inflation that affects all of us property tax double the
Speaker 2: national average. Because there's a million dollar home is nothing
Speaker 2: out there today a median in I think we're almost
Speaker 2: at a million dollars in median income, and that is
Speaker 2: outpacing what the homeowners are earning. Every year, housing costs
Speaker 2: increase almost four percent from twenty three to twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: incomes fell by zero point one percent. Houses are getting
Speaker 2: more expensive, income is dropping, and that is uh, it's
Speaker 2: a real problem. And this is a conversation I have
Speaker 2: with Lindsey all the time, and she is very angry
Speaker 2: that I'm a baby boomer. Why because I and that's
Speaker 2: you that are in the world of baby boom boom osity.
Speaker 1: Boomiosity that we are.
Speaker 2: We've taken all the good stuff pright when we bought
Speaker 2: for When we first bought houses, mortgages were low. Houses
Speaker 2: were two hundred and three hundred thousand dollars. Today houses
Speaker 2: are completely out of reach. When I sold the Persian Palace,
Speaker 2: and just before I sold it, I looked at it
Speaker 2: and we were listing it. Uh it was I say,
Speaker 2: I would tell myself, I could never afford to buy
Speaker 2: this house. Today, there is no way I could afford
Speaker 2: to buy this house. And I make a good living.
Speaker 2: And how did I have that house? I bought my
Speaker 2: first one in my twenties, then I sold it and
Speaker 2: bought another one in my thirties, and then another one
Speaker 2: in my thirties, and then in my forties I bought
Speaker 2: another one and just kept on climbing that ladder. You
Speaker 2: can't climb the ladder today, because you can't get on
Speaker 2: the ladder. I talked to my daughter, Pamela, and she said, Dad,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to be able to afford a house
Speaker 2: here in southern California.
Speaker 1: Am I Not a chance? Not a chance. Median price
Speaker 1: for a home is over a million dollars.
Speaker 2: Where does someone in their twenties or early thirties get,
Speaker 2: first of all, two hundred thousand dollars down payment and
Speaker 2: then pay six or seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: A month in mortgage payments? Can't be done.
Speaker 2: So why as I started this that I say, statistically,
Speaker 2: according to Consumer Affairs, we are number four as the
Speaker 2: most expensive city for housing.
Speaker 1: Why should we be number one? The only reason we're not.
Speaker 2: The most expensive is because we actually earn more money
Speaker 2: than in other cities.
Speaker 1: The earning gap is bigger.
Speaker 2: Southern Californians earn a lot of money, however, relative to
Speaker 2: the price of housing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's no fun. So I just want to make
Speaker 1: you feel better.
Speaker 2: So Amy, now that you're paying over fifty percent, I'm
Speaker 2: going to suggest you just kill yourself because there's there's
Speaker 2: no future for you.
Speaker 1: Well, I already have a house in Oregon. I'm holding
Speaker 1: on to that. Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just real quickly, I want to ask you this question.
Speaker 2: How how big is your house? How many square footage?
Speaker 2: How many square feets?
Speaker 1: Eighteen eighteen fifty?
Speaker 2: Okay, eighteen hundred eighteen fifty, which is you know it's
Speaker 2: small on the house front, big on the apartment size.
Speaker 2: But okay, let's say it's a moderately sized homes.
Speaker 1: It's a four bedroom house. Yeah, okay, what's your property tax?
Speaker 1: I have no idea? Wow? That helps?
Speaker 2: That helps me at this segment a lot. How can
Speaker 2: you have no idea what your property tax is on
Speaker 2: a house you own.
Speaker 1: Because it's all written into the mortgage, so I don't
Speaker 1: have to. I just don't even worry about it because
Speaker 1: it's just there. Okay, But the point is it's affordable.
Speaker 2: Boy, you didn't help me at this segment at all, Amy, Sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this was not good.
Speaker 1: I should Yeah, that one didn't work at all. Okay.
Speaker 2: Moving into politics now, Uh, the midterms are coming up,
Speaker 2: and then we look at the presidential because that's obviously
Speaker 2: the big one and it's going to be wide open,
Speaker 2: maybe unless President Trump wins a third term and the
Speaker 2: Constitution is amended.
Speaker 1: So do I think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2: I do not. As a matter of fact, We're gonna
Speaker 2: change Hail to the Chief to hail to the Trump Right,
Speaker 2: ain't gonna happen, Okay, I mean people have all kinds
Speaker 2: of wishes. Now what does happen is what happens during
Speaker 2: the primaries, right, And which state is first? We often
Speaker 2: hear about New Hampshire's the first state in the Union
Speaker 2: to have that primary. And it's one little town in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire where four people vote, and the influence that
Speaker 2: it has for people voting is extraordinary. It's covered just
Speaker 2: to a huge extent by the media because that sets
Speaker 2: the stage, and early early primaries mean that it looks
Speaker 2: like we're going to see.
Speaker 1: Who the nominee is where.
Speaker 2: Quite often, by the time California comes into it, we're
Speaker 2: on Super Tuesday, it's already been done, and we really
Speaker 2: don't have much influence.
Speaker 1: Forty million people. We're talking about primaries.
Speaker 2: We're talking about candidate for either the Publican ticket or
Speaker 2: the Democratic ticket. And there are four states that were
Speaker 2: always always there at the front, New Hampshire being one
Speaker 2: of them, North Carolina being another one, Iowa being another one.
Speaker 1: Now Iowa is the caucus.
Speaker 2: Now, usually primaries are run basically like general elections.
Speaker 1: Right, you vote in the booth, then there's your primary.
Speaker 2: The Iowa caucuses are fascinating because this goes way way
Speaker 2: back historically. And typically you'd have, for example, Republican Party
Speaker 2: members who were chosen to elect the primary candidate.
Speaker 1: They would meet in a gymnasium. For example.
Speaker 2: They would all meet in the gymnasium, and let's say
Speaker 2: there were four candidates over there. In that corner is
Speaker 2: Candidate A, the other corner is candidate B. And people
Speaker 2: were milling around and they just went to those corners
Speaker 2: and then those votes counted. That's how they put a
Speaker 2: candidate on the ballot in Iowa with the caucuses. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is completely crazy. The point is that you have
Speaker 2: these states that have relatively low populations have extraordinary influence
Speaker 2: on who the candidates are. Why, because they're early and
Speaker 2: you can say, oh, boy, Iowa, this candidate is substantially ahead,
Speaker 2: and here you go. Therefore we have a candidate that
Speaker 2: very well might win because that candidate is getting all
Speaker 2: the attention. Well, you now have the Democratic in this case,
Speaker 2: is the Democratic National Committee is saying no, it was
Speaker 2: a disaster last time with Iowa. So what they are
Speaker 2: doing instead of the big four that traditionally have gone first,
Speaker 2: they need permission from the Democratic National Committee. The lineup
Speaker 2: the dates are allowed by the Democratic National Committee. That's
Speaker 2: who sets up the date. And by the way, you
Speaker 2: know who owns a Democratic National Committe.
Speaker 1: Who controlled it the.
Speaker 2: President And Joe Biden was the one that was really
Speaker 2: pissed off last time around, so he told the DNCA,
Speaker 2: here's the way it should be done. And the president,
Speaker 2: the sitting president is always in charge of the party
Speaker 2: where he or.
Speaker 1: She comes from.
Speaker 2: And so what is the DNC doing. They're asking for invitations?
Speaker 2: Why don't you apply and see who goes first? Because
Speaker 2: now there is a run up. Every state wants to
Speaker 2: go first because every state wants to be more influential
Speaker 2: than the other state. So you have a little, tiny state,
Speaker 2: relatively little state, let's say Iowa, or let's say well
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire's ridiculous, has six people in the entire state.
Speaker 2: Or you have North Carolina. I mean there's a fair
Speaker 2: number of people, but certainly not California. Why do they
Speaker 2: want to go first because quite often if there's a
Speaker 2: front runner in those early states. The momentums now, the
Speaker 2: momentum now starts swinging and by the time we get
Speaker 2: to California, it's.
Speaker 1: Sort of all done. And frankly, you know, we're a
Speaker 1: powerful state.
Speaker 2: We should have a lot more say in what happens
Speaker 2: than we do, and New Hampshire should have a lot
Speaker 2: less say in what they do.
Speaker 1: You can put.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, you can put all of New Hampshire in
Speaker 2: well South Coast Plaza.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's their New Hampshire right there, both in terms of
Speaker 2: size and in terms of population. And can you imagine
Speaker 2: it actually can be argued New Hampshire has more influence
Speaker 2: than California does. And then Super Tuesday does it for everybody.
Speaker 2: I mean that wraps it all up. Quite often before
Speaker 2: Super Tuesday, the nomination has already done, so they're changing
Speaker 2: it around.
Speaker 1: Although I love the idea of the caucus.
Speaker 2: You guys who are voting for name candidate here, you
Speaker 2: go under the basketball hoop and will count you and
Speaker 2: the other ones. You go to the exit door or
Speaker 2: right next to the exit door, and we'll count you there.
Speaker 2: And then they mill around and they change because everybody's talking.
Speaker 2: You go to your neighbor go, no, no, you want
Speaker 2: this guy, So he walks across to the other corner.
Speaker 2: It's great fun. Now I love these stories. This one's
Speaker 2: about vaccines and the anti vaxers. And if you've been
Speaker 2: listening to this show at all, you know that I'm
Speaker 2: not a big anti vaxers. I actually believe in vaccines.
Speaker 2: I think it's real science. Okay, So this is the story.
Speaker 2: They came out of Statico, which is online publication, and
Speaker 2: it's an interview with doctor Kelly McGuire. And most of
Speaker 2: her career, vaccination she's a vet, was a routine, very
Speaker 2: unremarkable part of her works, just a small animal veterinarian,
Speaker 2: and it was just no big deal. You take your pet,
Speaker 2: end to get vaccinated, your dog. You know, you get
Speaker 2: the raby shot. I mean that's sort of a given
Speaker 2: matter of fact.
Speaker 1: I as law.
Speaker 2: But after the pandemic hit she was having really long
Speaker 2: adversarial discussions and altercations with pet owners about the safety,
Speaker 2: the necessity of vaccines, clients accuser of pushing vaccines so
Speaker 2: she can make more money. And over the last several years,
Speaker 2: the anti vaxx movement has of course exploded, fueled in
Speaker 2: part by COVID nine.
Speaker 1: The politicism, the politicis politicization of it.
Speaker 2: And then of course Robert Kennedy, who actually headed a
Speaker 2: created an organization to fight vaccines. Well, people are being
Speaker 2: vaccinated way less mistles have come storming back.
Speaker 1: Vice vaccine mandates are under fire.
Speaker 2: Last month, Floor announced plans to end all vaccine mandates.
Speaker 2: By law, any kid can go to school without any
Speaker 2: vaccination whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And so the question now is has it gone in
Speaker 1: the world of.
Speaker 2: Animals and veterinarians the anti vaxx movement, yes, it has
Speaker 2: no question about it. Now. There is there's no solid
Speaker 2: data on vaccination rates and American pets, so we don't
Speaker 2: have that information. But there are some recent studies suggest
Speaker 2: that there is a big or bigger share of owners
Speaker 2: that have concerns about vaccinations.
Speaker 1: One Ohio State University.
Speaker 2: Veterinarian veterinarian who has studied this as, are we going
Speaker 2: to start undoing mandates for rabies vaccinations, which is one
Speaker 2: hundred percent fatal when a dog has it. And by
Speaker 2: the way, when you get bitten by a dog that
Speaker 2: has rabies, that's a lot of fun. It really is, okay,
Speaker 2: so real quickly, because I want to get to this
Speaker 2: because this one is absolutely more fun than you can imagine,
Speaker 2: all right. Twenty twenty three survey fifty two of pet
Speaker 2: owners express some uncertainty about the safety, efficacy importance of
Speaker 2: pet vaccinations. Vaccine hesitancy among the veterinary crowd, like the
Speaker 2: human counterpart is going up.
Speaker 1: So here is my favorite, my absolute favorite.
Speaker 2: According to this article, some people worry that pets receive
Speaker 2: too many vaccination Lindsey does.
Speaker 1: She has a minimum, but she doesn't go all out
Speaker 1: like I do.
Speaker 2: And people believe it's better for pets to get immunity
Speaker 2: from the disease itself. There's that crowd too, right, You
Speaker 2: get the disease and you become immune rabies. How about
Speaker 2: this one? You die, boy, that's immunity. Once you're dead,
Speaker 2: you're not catching anything anymore. You are completely immune. And
Speaker 2: now my favorite. There's a growing group that express the
Speaker 2: express concern that vaccines could lead to cognitive and behavioral
Speaker 2: changes in their pets, including, drum roll please, autism autism
Speaker 2: in your dog. Now, I don't know what an autistic
Speaker 2: dog looks like. Maybe it looks down at the ground,
Speaker 2: doesn't bark, doesn't talk. It's not particularly social But when
Speaker 2: we've reached the point that, by the way, autism does
Speaker 2: not exist in any species other than humans, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're aware of that. Cats don't get autism,
Speaker 2: canaries don't get autism, antelope don't get autism.
Speaker 1: Ardvarks don't get autism. Humans get autism.
Speaker 2: When you have a movement that says they're concerned about
Speaker 2: autism in dogs and cats, you've just reached crazy to
Speaker 2: a level that is almost incomprehensible. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: crazy with a capital K. I'll tell you that right now.
Speaker 2: Boy KF I am six forty.
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