The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 144 - Scam Artists (Michael Avenatti) Get Their Comeuppance

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

Michael Avenatti is charged with domestic violence. A GoFundMe scam is exposed. Also, Detroit is removing Ben Carson's name from a school of science and medicine, despite the fact that Carson is one of the greatest medical professionals in American history. Date: 11-15-2018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Walls show, Michael Avanotti is arrested for domestic abuse. Also, the city of Detroit wants to take Ben Carson's name off of a school of science and medicine, even though Ben Carson is one of the greatest medical professionals in American history. And a viral GoFundMe campaign has been exposed as an elaborate conspiracy and hoax and scam. So what should that teach us about donating to GoFundMe campaigns? We'll talk about all that coming up. Well, it's snowing here. I don't know if you can see.

I guess you probably can't see it in the camera. It looks like I'm broadcasting from the gates of heaven from the glare. But no, it's snowing. My kids are going nuts over it, of course. I mean, they're going absolutely insane, running around the house, screaming that it's snowing over and over and over again and reminding me in case I forgot. Nothing shows the sad disparity between childhood and adulthood quite like snow. Because I can remember being a kid.

kid and seeing how my parents were usually pretty bummed about snow. And I remember thinking just how sad and pitiful they were, that how could you, how could you, it's like the time when my dad told me, I never forget this. My dad told me once, I don't know how it came up, but he said that if he had a choice between going to Disney World or taking a nap, he would rather take a nap. And I was so scandalized by that as a child for so long I could, because I just thought, is that really what it's like to be a grownup? I mean, you'd rather take a nap than go to Disney World, but now I'm a grownup. And yeah, I would definitely take a nap over going to Disney World. And it's kind of the same thing with snow, even though I always thought, because here I am as an adult. And I do, I like the look of

snow, at least when it's falling, but it's not worth the shoveling in the icy roads and so on and so on. but my kids right now, and this is what I wish that they would understand, what I try to tell them, they're at the perfect age right now for pretty much everything, because they're old enough to enjoy things, to go out and have fun, but they're not old enough to have any real responsibility yet. So that is a very small window of time. That's a window of time that's like, I don't know, three, four, five years or something, where you've got this window of time where you can really enjoy your surroundings and you can enjoy activities, but you don't really have any responsibility.

And that's that right there. That window of time, that's when you basically are going to have all of your fun in life is right there. So just squeeze it all in because it's just, it's downhill from there. And I think that's probably why kids, why kids at a certain age, they never walk,

they run everywhere because they really are just trying to fit in all of. They hate sleeping, they hate sitting down. and they hate sitting down for meals because they just want to get all the fun. I guess they realize at some level that this is that right now is the time to have fun. And then pretty soon they're going to have sidewalks to shovel and bills to pay. Okay. I'm going to do things a little bit differently today.

I have several stories I wanted to talk about. So I'm going to go through each and talk about each of them briefly. First, this thing with Michael Avanotti. Michael Avanotti has been arrested on felony domestic violence charges. now there's there's been a lot of a lot of a spiking of the football by conservatives over this uh over this news and you know that's that's that's understandable um at a certain level because avonati is of course a low life but we should remember that apparently a woman was hurt uh here she she was according to the charges she was abused and so it's a sad story because of that

so it's not something we should react gleefully to because of the fact that somebody was was hurt, apparently. But as far as Avanotti himself is concerned, look, here's the thing. I'm a believer in the presumption of innocence. That is a bedrock principle of our justice system. It is a bedrock principle of justice itself, justice in general. You have to have the presumption of innocence. But at the same time, I know that Avanati is not personally a fan of the presumption of innocence. So I feel like it's only fair to abide by his preferences and assume that he's guilty as hell. Okay. Because that's what he wants. That's what he would want, right? He's made it very clear. He made it clear when he was representing Julie Swetnik that he really,

really doesn't believe in presuming innocence. He's not a fan of that. He's also made it clear that we should believe all women. So again, out of respect to him, I mean, out of deference to his wishes, I feel like we should assume he's guilty. It's only fair. It's the respectful thing, okay, to do, to look at this according to his own preferences. So that's what I'm going to do here. For his own sake, I will assume that he's guilty. Another story from yesterday, the city of Detroit, apparently moving forward or moving toward taking Ben Carson's name off of the off of the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine in Detroit. Now, why are they going to take it off?

Well, because, of course, he's a Republican, he's a conservative, and he works for the Trump administration. So that's why they're going to take the name off. Why was his name ever on the school to begin with? Well, that's because he's a Detroit native, and he also happens to be one of the most accomplished surgeons in American history. So that seems like a really good reason to have his name on a school of science and medicine. The fact that he's one of the most accomplished, one of the greatest medical professionals in the history of the country, so you've got his name on the School of Medicine. That makes a lot of sense.

how many success stories like Carson does Detroit really have to its name in recent decades? It would seem like they don't really have the luxury to be picky-chusy, right? I mean, you had one of the greatest medical professionals in history graduate from your school system in Detroit. You should be trumpeting that fact everywhere. You should name the whole city after him just to simply survive the Detroit school system. is impressive enough, but to do, but to survive it and then go on and do what he did, well, you're not going to find very many who can match up to what he accomplished. Yet his name is coming off the building. So there are two things to notice here. First of all, once again, we see how,

and this is the way it works now in society, we see how a person's entire identity, their worth as a person, is judged by their political and ideological leanings. Ben Carson had a whole career, a historic storied career in medicine before he dipped his toes into politics. Nobody can ever take that away from him. That will always be there. But now we say, well, unless you agree with me on politics, unless we have the same ideological opinions, then everything else you've done in your life is meaningless.

That's essentially the strategy now. And I think it's horrible. And the second thing, of course, we see is this effort to rewrite history. which which now is reaching absurd heights. I mean, it was bad enough when they were going and they were, they were going back to, uh, they're tearing down the Civil War monuments and people, taking people's names off of buildings who were alive back in that era.

But now, I mean, Ben Carson is still alive and we've got to rewrite history. And in Detroit, they're going to pretend this is, this should be one of their, this is, this is one of their greatest sons of Detroit, and they're going to pretend now that he doesn't exist. I think it's a, I think it's just a, a horrible trend, but there's no end in sight to it. Okay, here's a cautionary tale that I think we need to talk about. Reading now from the Daily Wire, it says,

the couple who raised nearly half a million dollars for a homeless man And after he gave his last 20 to the woman will face criminal charges, as will the homeless man for making up the entire story. You probably remember this story. Mark D'Amico, Kate McClure, and Johnny Bobbitt will face charges, including conspiracy and theft by deception because they apparently conspired or allegedly conspired one other to make up a false story in order to raise more than $400,000. dollars. D'Amico and McClure turned themselves into Burlington County authorities on Wednesday after prosecutors said that they, along with Bobbitt, intentionally prevented those who donated to the GoFundMe page from accessing relevant information that would affect their judgment about solicited contribution to the fundraising effort. The three gained national attention last year after the couple claimed that Bobbitt gave his last $20

to help McClure purchase fuel after she ran out, ran out of fuel while driving on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. and then the story goes on from there. If you've been following this, you know that, so they raised all this money, and then almost immediately there was a dispute between the homeless man and the couple because he was claiming they didn't give him all the money that was earmarked to them.

And next thing you know, this couple, they're buying a B&W, they're going on these fancy vacations. And it's just, I mean, this isn't really the point here, but the the absolute stupidity of the people involved in this scheme. I mean, you, so you come up with this, with, you conspire to make up this story, and then you start suing each other and backstabbing each other, like it wasn't going to all fall apart. Not only that, but it, I mean, if you really, you know, you could have, there's no reason to even make up the story.

You could have covered your tracks just if the, if the woman, if, if the woman, if, if, if, if, if, if the homeless guy had actually just given $20 to the woman, then they could claim that the story wasn't really made up. In other words, maybe there was some conspiring, but if she had actually just had the guy physically give her $20, then legally maybe she could say, hey, look, I'm clear, he did give me $20. But apparently they didn't even do that much. And then they immediately started stabbing it. No honor amongst thieves, I guess, is the is the lesson we learn. But there are other lessons as well.

And the obvious lesson is that we shouldn't give our money to a GoFundMe campaign just because a viral story tugged our heartstrings. And I think we could be a little bit more specific than that. First of all, I become very uncomfortable. I have become uncomfortable with this go-fund me stuff because people tend to give the campaigns without stopping to think whether a whole boatload of cash is really what the person in question needs. In this case, I made this point even before we knew the whole thing was a scam or is allegedly a scam. But in this case, even if the whole story was legitimate, it wouldn't be a good idea even then to give 400 grand or homeless.

guy. It is almost a certainty that a homeless man will have a drug addiction, an alcohol addiction, or severe mental health problems, or also very likely all three. That's why he's homeless. You know, there just aren't very many sober, mentally healthy homeless people. I'm not saying there aren't any, some do exist, but the vast majority are going to have drug problems and mental problems, which is very sad, of course, and that's why we should help people in that situation. And those people need help and they should receive it. But hundreds of thousands of dollars is not the kind of help.

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That should be given in those situations. You give $400 grand to a heroin addict and you've basically killed him. Now, I don't know that this man's a heroin idea. I'm just trying to illustrate my point. That whatever his issue is, however he ended up homeless, it's probably going to be, it's not going to be solved with a whole, bucket of cash. Those problems will probably be made worse. And there's a lot of this kind of thing on GoFundMe. People asking for money, even though it's not at all clear that money will actually

really solve their problems, or you'll have a GoFundMe where someone goes viral for doing something nice. And even though they aren't homeless, we all just send them money anyway, even though money has nothing to do with anything. or someone suffers a tragedy of some kind, and we feel very badly for them for good reason. But then we start giving them money, even though maybe money has nothing to do with the tragedy and won't help address the issue whatsoever. I just don't think it's a smart way to go about things. I also think that one of the problems with GoFundMe, and I've donated to GoFundMe campaigns plenty of times,

and there are legitimate uses for them, there are good uses for them. I think, for instance, when someone's having a, you know, with medical issues, when someone needs help with medical bills, that kind of thing. I think that's a good use for GoFunding because in that case, you know where the money is going and it's easy for the person who's asking for the money to prove that they did, you know, that they did give their money towards this, towards the, towards the medical bills. So I think that could be a good use for it. But I think so often you have these problems. And one of the other problems with GoFundMe is that it just, it makes it way too easy, I guess, for people to ask for money. Because you can just set up a page on GoFundMe

and you have it on the internet separated from you. And then you just sit back and wait for people to donate from it. So you don't have to go through that actual human interaction of asking someone face-to-face for money. I'm not saying that everyone who needs money should have to go through the face-to-face thing so that they're humiliated. But I do think that there should be that human...

It's just... It's too easy. And that's why if you go and go funny, you're going to find all kinds of people who are not really poor, are not disadvantaged, but they're just asking for money. Like, can you help pay for my college tuition? Can you just give me some money for groceries,

even though I'm not poor? Because it's like, why not? You might as well just put it up there if people give you money great. But I just, it's, it's, it's, it's, that is not an uplifting and kind of human way to go about soliciting help from people. And then the third thing is, yeah, the third problem with GoFummi for me is, um, that I think we should be looking more locally, uh, for people to help. Again, it doesn't mean that we should never give to GoFummi campaign. But there are people in our local communities who need help. And I think that we should be

we should be looking there first. It's the principle of subsidiarity. It's, if there's a problem, that problem should be solved, should be addressed by the most local authority possible before you go. So if there's someone in the community who needs help, that problem should be, their own community should address that problem first before you go to the entire nation and solicit help. So I just think it's something we need to be careful with when it comes to these GoFundee campaigns. One other especially outrageous story, a physical education teacher in Florida has been punished for refusing to oversee a biological female middle school student who while she's getting undressed in a boy's locker room. Did you catch that? Does that make sense? So you've got a female student who now has decided that she wants to be a bull.

And so she wants to use the boys locker room and and two things happen. First of all, the boys in the school who as as as were as the Federalist reports were were caught literally with their pants down and you know as as they were getting undressed in a locker room and this girl walks in and they felt they felt embarrassed and they were they were concerned about the fact that they've got this girl observing them getting undressed. and then on top of that you've got a male gym teacher who is supposed to be the one who oversees the boys the boys locker room but now he's saying well I can't I'm not going to I can't be in there as there's as a girl is getting changed and now he's in trouble for that he was reprimanded and he was told that that he would be transferred to a different school

a letter says with a gag order school administrators forbade teachers from talking about the change and ordered a male PE teacher to supervise the potentially undressed girl in the Chasco Middle School locker room. Chasco or Casco Middle School, I'm not sure to pronounce that. When he refused to knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise at a state of undress, administrators told him he will be transferred to another school as disciplined for not doing his job in the locker room. this is well look there's there's there's not a lot um that can be said about this because it's so

clearly insane um and now we see again how the me too thing has has come full circle and now a man now a grown man just think about this for a second a grown man is getting in trouble for respecting a minor girl's privacy and refusing to be in the room while she gets changed, while she gets changed. So again, this is a grown man who is in trouble for not being in the room with a girl as she gets changed. And then on top of that, you've got all these boys

who, of course, their wishes don't matter. The fact that they feel uncomfortable, that they feel embarrassed, that makes no difference whatsoever. because this is the way things work on the left now. You've got, you know, you've got competing claims of rights and, and this, because this girl is the victim, she's in the victim category as a quote unquote transgender. So her right claim trumps everyone. And the fact that everyone is made to feel extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed, that

does not matter. Their feelings don't matter. all that matters is is her. Which goes back again to, you know, the point that I'm always making is that, you know, when we see all this gender identity stuff and we see how it's how it's much more common now than it used to be, and that tells us that this is obviously not a natural phenomenon, and it's not just mental illness either. It's a cultural thing.

It is a trend as well. And some people see this trend and they find something appealing in it. And what do they find appealing in it? What they find appealing is that it is so self-serving. It is so egotistical and arrogant where you get to say that only my feelings and opinions matter. And everyone else just has to deal with it. Because I'm going to do what's comfortable for me. And if it's not comfortable for you, it doesn't matter.

And that mentality is being encouraged. We are fostering that mentality in kids and encouraging it. When, you know, this girl's parents, I don't know what our parents are doing or who they are, but however they feel about the transgender thing, what they should be saying to their daughter is, you know what, I know it maybe it would make you feel more comfortable to be changing with the boys, but it makes them uncomfortable, and it makes your teacher uncomfortable. And so there are a lot of people who feel, reasonably uncomfortable and feel like their private space is being invaded. So you should respect

that. You should have respect for other people. The left tells us so much, oh, we have to, you know, if someone has gender identity issues or they're transgender, we have to respect them. Okay, well, can we tell them to respect us? Does the respect ever go the other way? Why is the respect only ever going one way? Shouldn't they also be told to respect other people? Where is their respect for other people. Finally, just want to mention, I can't wrap this up without mentioning this because it's very important. A new study published this week proved scientifically that bearded men are more attractive than non-bearded. Over 8,000 women were surveyed and most rated bearded men as most attractive and clean-shaven men as least. Now, this, of course, comes as no surprise to me,

though I do feel bad for my baby-faced brothers because it's hard enough for them to walk around every day with the faces of preschoolers, but then to be told that they are repellent to women as well, well, that's just, I mean, that's just a, that's a tough break. So I'm sorry, guys. I really am. But, you know, maybe you should think about having the face of a man.

Because that's obviously what women want. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.