Latest / The Bill Handel Show / L.A County Pushing New Sales Tax | Social Media Safety Ratings
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
- 0:04Speaker 1: six forty.
- 0:08Speaker 2: Five AM six forty Bill Handle.
- 0:15Speaker 3: Here.
- 0:15Speaker 2: It is a Wednesday morning, February eleventh, and some of
- 0:20Speaker 2: the big stories we're looking at. Pam Bondy, the Attorney General,
- 0:24Speaker 2: is in front of the House Judiciary Committee, and this
- 0:27Speaker 2: is an investigative committee. As I said earlier, there's nothing
- 0:31Speaker 2: investigative about these hearings at all. So Pam Bondy is
- 0:36Speaker 2: sitting there being questioned. The Republicans on the committee are
- 0:40Speaker 2: telling her, you're wonderful, you are terrific. Under the president's leadership,
- 0:45Speaker 2: the DOJ is doing the best job that any DOJ
- 0:49Speaker 2: has ever done. And she goes, that's right, that's right.
- 0:53Speaker 2: The Democrats are ripping into her and going the other
- 0:56Speaker 2: way here, and that's typical.
- 0:58Speaker 3: But here's the difference. It is so contentious.
- 1:01Speaker 2: It used to be that the witness would sit back
- 1:05Speaker 2: and just allow this crapple that happened and not respond
- 1:11Speaker 2: very much or very well, and do some deflection. Now
- 1:15Speaker 2: it's I'm asking the questions. I don't care what questions
- 1:20Speaker 2: you're asking, And it's just I mean, it's just a fight.
- 1:24Speaker 3: It's that simple and it is just a show.
- 1:27Speaker 2: It's a dog and pony show of these congress people
- 1:32Speaker 2: just doing their statements and getting in front of the TV.
- 1:35Speaker 3: That's all in front of those cameras. That's all they
- 1:37Speaker 3: care about.
- 1:38Speaker 2: We get nothing from them, nothing now, I'll tell you, unfortunately,
- 1:41Speaker 2: what we might get from La County. We are being asked,
- 1:45Speaker 2: if you're La County voters, to and this is in June,
- 1:49Speaker 2: to increase the sales tax to by half a cent
- 1:53Speaker 2: to generate a billion dollars a year for healthcare service
- 1:57Speaker 2: that have been slashed by the Trump administration. And it's
- 2:02Speaker 2: the money is definitely needed, there's no question because the
- 2:06Speaker 2: Feds fund so many programs. If you look at education programs,
- 2:12Speaker 2: if you look at certainly health programs, you look at
- 2:16Speaker 2: housing programs, it's federal money that comes in. That's what
- 2:21Speaker 2: basically supports society. And the president having stretched the boundaries
- 2:27Speaker 2: of the presidency, simply says, ain't going to pay.
- 2:31Speaker 3: Not going to do it. Now. There have been.
- 2:33Speaker 2: Lawsuits filed forcing the President or forcing the administration to
- 2:39Speaker 2: release funds. For example, alternative energy. There is a wind
- 2:45Speaker 2: farm out in outside of New Jersey that was ninety
- 2:49Speaker 2: percent completed in the billions of dollars, and the governments
- 2:52Speaker 2: and the Trump administration shut it right down.
- 2:54Speaker 3: Lawsuit open it up again.
- 2:56Speaker 2: But when it comes to healthcare next year, doesn't look
- 3:01Speaker 2: like it's going to happen. And so under the One
- 3:05Speaker 2: Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to slash two
- 3:09Speaker 2: billion dollars for the county's budget for health services over
- 3:13Speaker 2: the next three years, the answer seems to be, well,
- 3:18Speaker 2: we've got to make it up, and the way we
- 3:20Speaker 2: make it up is with an additional tax restore healthcare
- 3:25Speaker 2: For Angelino's. A coalition of healthcare worker and advocates argue
- 3:30Speaker 2: that is absolutely necessary, just even just a ward off
- 3:35Speaker 2: layoffs of healthcare workers and even to keep emergency rooms open.
- 3:41Speaker 2: And one of the supervisors, Mitchell, said she was trying
- 3:46Speaker 2: to make sure supervisors learn their lesson from the closure
- 3:49Speaker 2: Martin Luther king.
- 3:51Speaker 3: Drew Medical Center in two thousand and seven.
- 3:53Speaker 2: If you remember that, they had to shut the hospital
- 3:56Speaker 2: down because it was decertified. They were doing such a
- 4:00Speaker 2: bad job, which ripped a gaping hole in the health
- 4:03Speaker 2: system for that area, and she said people died as
- 4:05Speaker 2: a result of that. I don't want to go back there. Absolutely,
- 4:08Speaker 2: She's right, So the voters are going to be asked
- 4:12Speaker 2: to approve the creation also of an oversight group. We're
- 4:15Speaker 2: not going to throw money at this. We have to
- 4:18Speaker 2: have a group to monitor how the money is spent.
- 4:21Speaker 2: And the supervisors voted for a spending plan for the
- 4:24Speaker 2: money if the taxes are voted for, and the largest
- 4:29Speaker 2: chunk of it would go to care for uninsured residents,
- 4:32Speaker 2: because that's a big hit too under the big beautiful plan.
- 4:37Speaker 2: As you know, insurance rates have exploded for those people
- 4:43Speaker 2: that are sort of on the edge and needed Obamacare.
- 4:46Speaker 2: So La County currently has a sales tax nine point
- 4:49Speaker 2: nine point seventy five percent and cities adding their own
- 4:54Speaker 2: sales tax on top of that. So you've got county.
- 4:58Speaker 2: The base in La County is nine point seventy five percent,
- 5:02Speaker 2: and you've got, for example, Palmdale and Lancaster, they would
- 5:08Speaker 2: have the highest sales tax of eleven point seventy five percent,
- 5:11Speaker 2: almost twelve percent sales tax on top of everything else.
- 5:17Speaker 2: And here's one of those where we're being taxed to death.
- 5:22Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's just that simple. And how far
- 5:26Speaker 3: do you go.
- 5:27Speaker 2: At the same time, what do you do with people
- 5:29Speaker 2: who heretofore did have healthcare. And then we go back
- 5:34Speaker 2: to what I've been arguing for ever since I've been broadcasting,
- 5:38Speaker 2: ever since I was able to look at this realistically,
- 5:43Speaker 2: and that is, we have to have some kind of
- 5:45Speaker 2: a national health plan the way they do in all
- 5:48Speaker 2: industrialized countries. We have the worst healthcare, We pay the
- 5:53Speaker 2: most for some of the worst healthcare, and now it's
- 5:56Speaker 2: going to get even worse. And to make a part
- 5:59Speaker 2: of the money that is being paid for health care,
- 6:02Speaker 2: we're looking at an increase in taxes.
- 6:08Speaker 3: Now, what is going to happen, I think is.
- 6:13Speaker 2: The next president, assuming it's a Democrat, and I think
- 6:16Speaker 2: it probably is based on what's going on today, You're
- 6:19Speaker 2: going to see income tax go up fairly dramatically. Sales
- 6:22Speaker 2: tax will never go down. And now this has a
- 6:25Speaker 2: five year sunset clause. It ends that at the end
- 6:29Speaker 2: of five years. Who are we kidding? These sunset clauses
- 6:35Speaker 2: of taxes never sunset because there's always a proposition to
- 6:40Speaker 2: keep them open. For example, the Prop ten tax which
- 6:45Speaker 2: we passed that went for special education for kids. And
- 6:54Speaker 2: here's what happens. So it passed, we were paying the tax,
- 6:58Speaker 2: and when it's about to sunset. The Teachers Union started
- 7:02Speaker 2: buying ads and saying, you want to extend this tax
- 7:08Speaker 2: and it won't and you won't pay a penny more.
- 7:13Speaker 3: Why is that?
- 7:15Speaker 2: Because you're already paying and it was going to go down,
- 7:19Speaker 2: but if you keep it going, you won't pay any more.
- 7:23Speaker 2: And of course we ended up buying that because we're
- 7:29Speaker 2: not really bright. And the way these propositions are written,
- 7:34Speaker 2: let me, we don't know.
- 7:36Speaker 3: What the prop is going to say. It's they're now
- 7:39Speaker 3: writing this thing.
- 7:41Speaker 2: But it is I guarantee you it will read the one.
- 7:47Speaker 2: The half a cent tax increase is actually a decrease.
- 7:52Speaker 2: Whenever you see a proposition, it's the exact opposite. If
- 7:57Speaker 2: it is citizens to eliminate taxes, it's to increase taxes.
- 8:03Speaker 3: Just read the opposite and you'll do just fine. All right.
- 8:07Speaker 2: Now, there is a lawsuit here in Los Angeles which
- 8:12Speaker 2: is massive, has huge importance, and it is about a
- 8:16Speaker 2: woman who is suing and one of the major platforms
- 8:24Speaker 2: I forget which one, saying that I've been on your
- 8:28Speaker 2: platform for years and now I have all kinds of
- 8:33Speaker 2: medical and mental issues and it's your fault and you
- 8:37Speaker 2: didn't do anything to protect me. You didn't do anything
- 8:41Speaker 2: to protect teens. And what you're actually doing is you
- 8:45Speaker 2: have developed your algorithms to in fact bring teens into
- 8:52Speaker 2: it and keep them in as long as possible, and
- 8:55Speaker 2: even if that includes body shaming, all kinds of mental accusations,
- 9:04Speaker 2: and you don't care as long as people stay on.
- 9:07Speaker 2: You don't have controls. Now their defense is, well, we do,
- 9:11Speaker 2: they don't have enough. Our intent is not to keep
- 9:15Speaker 2: teens on. We want to protect teams and children. I
- 9:19Speaker 2: don't believe it, and very few people do. It's that simple.
- 9:23Speaker 3: And then we are.
- 9:26Speaker 2: Shielded by the law that says we're not responsible for
- 9:30Speaker 2: what third party, what third party providers put on our platform,
- 9:35Speaker 2: it's not our problem.
- 9:37Speaker 3: There's liability that is not ours.
- 9:40Speaker 2: Well, this particular lawsuit doesn't have anything to do with
- 9:43Speaker 2: third party. It's these very platforms themselves that are being
- 9:49Speaker 2: attacked for simply not having enough safeguards. And so the
- 9:54Speaker 2: Mental Health Coalition collective organizations and individuals and governments who
- 10:01Speaker 2: focus themselves on destigmatizing mental health, what they want to
- 10:05Speaker 2: do is launch new standards, a new rating system for
- 10:08Speaker 2: online platforms. Now, you have a few of these platforms
- 10:11Speaker 2: that are already caved, caved, meaning we're going to set
- 10:14Speaker 2: up some safeguards, some guardrails to make sure that we
- 10:19Speaker 2: protect youngsters from the negative aspects of our platform meta tech, Talk, Snap, Instagram, etc.
- 10:28Speaker 2: And grading these platforms by this organization. It's called the
- 10:34Speaker 2: Safe Online Standards program SOS program. An independent panel will
- 10:39Speaker 2: evaluate companies on parameters safety, rules, design, moderation, mental health resources.
- 10:47Speaker 2: So it will provide the public with the meaningful way
- 10:50Speaker 2: to evaluate platform protections and hold companies accountable because these
- 10:56Speaker 2: companies have said, we are not doing what you accuse
- 10:59Speaker 2: us of doing.
- 11:00Speaker 3: Not at all.
- 11:01Speaker 2: Richard Murrow, we had him on yesterday. We talked about
- 11:04Speaker 2: are these companies are these platforms in fact do they
- 11:09Speaker 2: keep and not? Do they keep kids on and not
- 11:13Speaker 2: protect kids? He says absolutely, Well they're denying it. Nope,
- 11:17Speaker 2: absolutely not. In the meantime, doesn't that remind you of
- 11:21Speaker 2: the big tobacco. Tobacco is addictive, Nicotine is addictive and
- 11:27Speaker 2: it causes great harm to people. Nope, not at all,
- 11:31Speaker 2: Absolutely not not true. That's effectively fake news before fake
- 11:36Speaker 2: news was even a phrase, and then we had big
- 11:39Speaker 2: Pharma with the opiates. Nope, not addictive, just the greatest
- 11:45Speaker 2: stuff in the world, knowing that it was. And so
- 11:49Speaker 2: now you have the platforms, Nope, we are not designing
- 11:54Speaker 2: our platforms. So it's the maximum reach to kids, keep
- 11:57Speaker 2: on the maximum amount of time, and aren't any gone guardrails?
- 12:02Speaker 2: And you got parents, lawmakers, advocacy groups saying, oh yeah,
- 12:09Speaker 2: you are not.
- 12:10Speaker 3: Protecting the safety of our young ones.
- 12:14Speaker 2: You are allowing them to post, you are not moderating
- 12:19Speaker 2: harmful content about self harm, eating disorders, drugs, and a
- 12:23Speaker 2: lot more.
- 12:24Speaker 3: And so what is happening.
- 12:26Speaker 2: This lawsuit particularly, and already the administration of the groups
- 12:31Speaker 2: are really clamping down. And so we've already got some settlements.
- 12:37Speaker 2: TikTok Snap, they own Snapchat, they've already settled to avoid
- 12:44Speaker 2: that trial that's happening in Los Angeles. And you're going
- 12:46Speaker 2: to see more companies settling because if a jury comes back,
- 12:50Speaker 2: it's they're going to that those companies are going to
- 12:53Speaker 2: be nailed, and I mean nailed. There will be a
- 12:58Speaker 2: class action lawsuit filed on behalf of every kid who
- 13:03Speaker 2: has ever the parents and the family of every kid
- 13:06Speaker 2: who goes on Instagram, who goes on YouTube.
- 13:11Speaker 3: And I think they're going.
- 13:13Speaker 2: To settle they have no choice, So we'll see what
- 13:16Speaker 2: this trial does. All right, A quick word about a
- 13:20Speaker 2: thirty on Friday, and it's all about ask handle anything
- 13:24Speaker 2: segment we do when we need you for that one.
- 13:26Speaker 2: So it's ask handle anything designed to embarrass me. And
- 13:32Speaker 2: it's all about you calling in during the course of
- 13:36Speaker 2: the show and recording a question. And the way you
- 13:40Speaker 2: do is go to the iHeartRadio app and the show'll
- 13:43Speaker 2: be broadcast, and up in the right hand corner is
- 13:45Speaker 2: a microphone and feel free to click onto it and
- 13:49Speaker 2: record your question. And then Neil chooses the most embarrassing
- 13:52Speaker 2: ones and I answer them. If you don't have a chance,
- 13:55Speaker 2: for example, if you're busy and that's not a time
- 13:57Speaker 2: you listen, podcast it. You can podcast cast any segment
- 14:01Speaker 2: of our show. And there's a lot of stuff that
- 14:04Speaker 2: you're missing. For sure. I'm going to date myself for
- 14:10Speaker 2: a moment or two. There is an op ed piece
- 14:15Speaker 2: in the La Times and it's by this woman, Elena Rabinowitz.
- 14:20Speaker 2: And here's what I used to do as a kid,
- 14:25Speaker 2: you know, teenager. My friends and I would grab the
- 14:29Speaker 2: phone book, the white pages.
- 14:32Speaker 3: And for those.
- 14:33Speaker 2: Of you, if you're under fifty, you have no idea
- 14:36Speaker 2: what the white pages are or were CONO, you're the
- 14:40Speaker 2: youngest guy here.
- 14:42Speaker 3: Do you know what the white pages are about? I do?
- 14:45Speaker 2: Okay, Well that didn't help my my point.
- 14:48Speaker 3: So I don't know what. Oh you don't know what
- 14:52Speaker 3: the white pages are? Seriously, Yeah, I think I am
- 14:55Speaker 3: getting confused. I know what yellow pages are.
- 14:57Speaker 2: Okay, Oh makes my point, Thank you very much. The
- 15:01Speaker 2: white pages were only phone numbers and addresses. There were
- 15:07Speaker 2: no ads in the white pages, and so you had
- 15:11Speaker 2: you could go through and uh literally pick any number.
- 15:17Speaker 3: And just a quick sidebar.
- 15:19Speaker 2: When my uh my partner and I started practicing law,
- 15:24Speaker 2: he did evictions and you would uh and the people
- 15:29Speaker 2: who are being affected would never pay. So you go
- 15:31Speaker 2: into court and you're allowed attorney's fees. And it didn't
- 15:36Speaker 2: matter what number was it was, so you know what
- 15:39Speaker 2: number that was picked, we go in the white pages,
- 15:41Speaker 2: or he would and then just pick a number and
- 15:43Speaker 2: that was the number you asked for the damages, any
- 15:46Speaker 2: seven figure number and because it didn't matter anyway, so
- 15:49Speaker 2: you pick them from the white pages. In any case,
- 15:52Speaker 2: you what we used to do as kids, as teenagers
- 15:56Speaker 2: is we go through the white pages and just grab
- 15:58Speaker 2: a local number and then call.
- 16:01Speaker 3: These are total strangers.
- 16:03Speaker 2: And typically yes, and I would say things like is
- 16:08Speaker 2: your refrigerator running?
- 16:12Speaker 3: Well, either they.
- 16:13Speaker 2: Hung up on you or they go yeah, And then
- 16:16Speaker 2: the response was, well, you've.
- 16:19Speaker 3: Better catching before it runs away so you never see
- 16:21Speaker 3: it again. Jeez oh yeah I was. We were Gimius Prince.
- 16:29Speaker 2: Yes, we did all of that too, I mean, just dumb,
- 16:33Speaker 2: corny stuff and then laugh hysterically and then hang up. Well,
- 16:39Speaker 2: this piece that was written by Alana Rabinowitz, she talks
- 16:44Speaker 2: about how pranking that we did is actually not only
- 16:49Speaker 2: good for us, it was good for entertainers. It was
- 16:55Speaker 2: a rite of passage and we've lost it. I've completely
- 17:00Speaker 2: lost it. I'll explain why, and there is some depth
- 17:04Speaker 2: depth to this, but I want to give you some history,
- 17:08Speaker 2: and you probably don't know this. The prank call dates
- 17:12Speaker 2: back to the eighteen eighties, right after the phone was invented,
- 17:18Speaker 2: and it started with an undertaker that's the first one
- 17:21Speaker 2: that they can actually attribute a prank call to. And
- 17:25Speaker 2: the undertaker got a phone call to fetch the dead
- 17:30Speaker 2: body of someone who was not dead. Now that's funny stuff,
- 17:37Speaker 2: not so much for the non dead person. And around
- 17:41Speaker 2: the same time. And this was genius of Bell telephone
- 17:44Speaker 2: that handle it all. What they did to work as
- 17:48Speaker 2: switchboard operators were teenage boys because they were cheap. Well
- 17:57Speaker 2: you get teenage boys have a good time, so they
- 17:59Speaker 2: would disconnect people just to have fun.
- 18:03Speaker 3: I mean, today you.
- 18:03Speaker 2: Think about it, it's unimaginable for you to get together
- 18:07Speaker 2: with a friend spend an afternoon calling people, putting on
- 18:11Speaker 2: funny voices, shouting one liners, and then hanging up. Because
- 18:17Speaker 2: that's what prank calling is all about. So what's the
- 18:20Speaker 2: good side of prank calls? Well, think about this, and
- 18:24Speaker 2: this I paid piece made sense. It forced you to
- 18:27Speaker 2: learn how to improvise. One friend comes up with a
- 18:30Speaker 2: can jokes or a line that went on a try
- 18:34Speaker 2: and you had to add lib depending on who answer
- 18:36Speaker 2: the phone, and you had to be prepared for anything
- 18:39Speaker 2: if you were any good of it, good at it.
- 18:41Speaker 2: Most of the time it was a corny joke. But
- 18:45Speaker 2: here's another one. You know, you go into a restaurant,
- 18:49Speaker 2: it's sort of a prank call and you have Dick
- 18:53Speaker 2: Hurts being called calling Dick Hurts. Is Dick Hurts here?
- 19:00Speaker 2: Huh h? That was fun. I like to do history.
- 19:03Speaker 2: Mine is Bruno Hotman. Bruno Hotman, your table is ready. Now,
- 19:09Speaker 2: Who the hell knows that Bruno Hoptman was in fact
- 19:11Speaker 2: executed for the killing of the lind Bird baby. Uh
- 19:14Speaker 2: and he in fact did not kill the lind Bird baby.
- 19:18Speaker 2: So you have the crank call, and today you can't
- 19:21Speaker 2: do it. As a matter of fact, when technology kicked in,
- 19:24Speaker 2: you couldn't do it at all because there's something that
- 19:26Speaker 2: developed the Star six' nine where you knew who was
- 19:31Speaker 2: on the other end of the. Line oh, man that's
- 19:33Speaker 2: just uh, yeah and it was, yeah call back and
- 19:37Speaker 2: scream and it was. HORRIBLE i mean that ruined the
- 19:39Speaker 2: prank call BECAUSE i used to love prank calls and
- 19:42Speaker 2: today you, know you know who everybody is. Calling you
- 19:46Speaker 2: try Calling uber or uber eats and have something delivered
- 19:50Speaker 2: on a on a prank.
- 19:51Speaker 3: Basis you're not going to do. That.
- 19:53Speaker 2: Now what is fun is calling the police and swat
- 19:58Speaker 2: and telling them that there is an armed intruder in
- 20:02Speaker 2: your house or in the house next. Door that's, Fun
- 20:06Speaker 2: but that gets a little. Problematic that's not a prank,
- 20:09Speaker 2: call that's an illegal.
- 20:11Speaker 1: Act did you have so do you remember The Jerky
- 20:14Speaker 1: boys by any? Chance from the early. Nineties they are
- 20:17Speaker 1: about some of the funniest prank calls that you'll ever ever,
- 20:21Speaker 1: hear and they, would you, know push the. Limits BUT
- 20:25Speaker 1: i highly encourage anyone to look up The Jerky boys
- 20:29Speaker 1: back from the early.
- 20:31Speaker 2: Nineties all great fun as they, were so there the
- 20:35Speaker 2: good side of crank. Calls and those days are, GONE i,
- 20:38Speaker 2: know you, know we talk about those good old.
- 20:40Speaker 3: Days you.
- 20:41Speaker 2: Know for, example cars were built so much. Better you,
- 20:44Speaker 2: know there were. Steel let me tell. You cars didn't
- 20:46Speaker 2: last one hundred and fifty thousand miles and you had
- 20:49Speaker 2: to change oil every three thousand. Miles today's cars are,
- 20:52Speaker 2: better today's planes are. Better it's it's a better. World
- 20:56Speaker 2: but with prank, calls they don't exist. Anymore that is
- 21:00Speaker 2: a part of growing up that you. Know it's for,
- 21:05Speaker 2: me it was great and it made me this, fabulous
- 21:08Speaker 2: fabulously successful.
- 21:09Speaker 3: Human being THAT i.
- 21:10Speaker 2: Am And, neil you can shut up right there in
- 21:12Speaker 2: terms of the, Response, okay we're done with. That, okay
- 21:17Speaker 2: we are done with the. Show, actually tomorrow morning we
- 21:19Speaker 2: come back. Again it starts five am With amy And
- 21:22Speaker 2: will with the wake up, call and Then neil AND
- 21:26Speaker 2: i jump in at six am until just about. Now
- 21:30Speaker 2: and oh AND i Think, monday are we going to
- 21:32Speaker 2: have AND i don't know Where anne. Is we're gonna
- 21:33Speaker 2: Have Chris merrill And Michael monks on maybe just before
- 21:37Speaker 2: they start with our, show just before they start Their tuesday,
- 21:40Speaker 2: Show New day part from twelve to three with those.
- 21:43Speaker 2: Two and so it's gonna MAKE kfi even more. INTERESTING
- 21:48Speaker 2: i just had to read. That by the, WAY i
- 21:50Speaker 2: just want to let you, Know, okay this.
- 21:53Speaker 3: Is as it came from your. Heart Bill please PLEASE.
- 21:58Speaker 2: KF i am you've been listening to The Bill Handle.
- 22:03Speaker 2: Show catch My Show monday Through friday six am to nine,
- 22:06Speaker 2: am and anytime on demand on The iHeartRadio.
- 22:10Speaker 3: App