The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.26 Kendall Jenner Afro Outrage Ridiculousness, Hero Mom BAMF, & Voter Suppression

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Friday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. And just a quick note before we get started. We did it, we got to the end of an eight video week test week. Five Philip DeFranco Shows, three morning news videos. If you missed any, you want to catch up. Also, I want opinions on the pieces because obviously this is part of a test. Link to any and all of those down below.

I'll also put it in a playlist to make it really easy. I hope you've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed doing it and testing it. But that said, let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is our BAMF of the week. And that person is a New Jersey mother by the name of Cobra Lee Bull. And the way this story starts

is she gets a Facebook Messenger notification. And what she finds is she received a horrible, disgusting, racist message. The message focuses on both her and her three children who are in her profile picture. And reportedly the message read, "'You wanna be an N-word so bad There's no such thing as white privilege. Do you fucking autistic fuck?

I hope your black children gets hung for you being so stupid you and your monkey children go die And then you can fill in the rest yourself and so bull sees this reportedly she has no idea how he found her You know she sees this message. She looks at the profile picture. It's a guy holding a gun So she decides to call Kentucky State Police with a complaint. Bull telling the media after the fact, "'Something in the back of my head was like, "'this isn't right, like something's not sitting well.'" And so the Kentucky State Police drive out

to where this guy lives, and according to reports, they got there just as he was trying to pull out of the driveway and not to embrace the meme. What happened next will shock you. Kentucky State Police said they found on him a firearm, over 200 rounds of ammunition, a Kevlar vest, a 100 round high-capacity magazine, and a detailed plan of attack. They were discovered in the possession of the subject. Then after the authorities got and executed a search warrant, they searched through his internet history and there they found a search on how to carry out a school shooting. And as

far as how serious this situation was, you had Commissioner Rick Sanders saying, There is no doubt in my mind that as a result of this investigation, we saved lives. This young man had it in his mind to go to schools and create havoc. He had the tools necessary, the intents necessary, and the only thing standing between him and evil and doing evil is law enforcement. As far as what happens next, he's currently being held in a detention center. As of right now, he's been charged with two counts of second-degree terroristic threatening and one count of harassing communication. He has pled not guilty to those charges. And as far as what ends up actually happening to him We're gonna have to wait to see but where I want to end this story is with a congratulations and praise both for the mother

That decided to report this and the Kentucky police for taking it seriously for responding and very likely saving who knows how many lives I consider you all heroes and just thank you and then let let's talk about the story that's a non-story so it is a story and oh my goodness at the center of it you have Kendall Jenner and Vogue. You may have actually already seen part of this but it's the story as a whole that stands out to me. And so where it starts is Vogue uploads a post to Instagram featuring Kendall Jenner to honor the Council of Fashion Designers of America and following this story coming out you saw headlines popping up that there was outrage and reportedly you had commenters saying that Kendall Jenner's hair was an example of cultural appropriation. She had, as USA Today wrote,

voluminous teased curls. That had people claiming cultural appropriation, others just called it an afro. And seemingly these were the two posts that caused controversy. And reportedly both did so to varying degrees. The first one featuring Jenner and model Iman Hammam. The second featuring just Jenner promoting the Brock collection. We saw a variety of complaints in the comments. One writing, For years we have been penalized about our looks and especially our hair. It is a slap in the face when non-blacks try to imitate our look.

We have heard how unprofessional braids and locks are to how ethnic our hair is, to our thick lips and big butts. Now all those things are a fashion statement for non-blacks. We refuse to be marginalized because now some of our looks are considered fashionable on people that are non-black. Also among these comments, one of the most common complaints was that they chose to not use a person of color. One writing, Why did you use a white celebrity for this shoot instead of a person of color who rocks this hair naturally? Maybe give an actual ethnic model a chance.

And following the reaction and the reports that came out, Vogue ended up responding, issuing a statement saying, The image is meant to be an update of the romantic Edwardian Gibson girl hair which suits the period feel of the Brock collection, and also the big hair of the 60s and the early 70s. saying, But here's the thing that I want to hit on, and this is not always the case for outrage stories, but really, other than the above examples, finding examples of people upset about cultural appropriation with these pictures was difficult. Out of the hundreds of comments and tweets that we were looking through, only a handful were actually claiming there was an issue. And in fact, the vast majority of users thought

there was no cultural appropriation because Jenner wasn't even rocking an afro. Many either called it a perm, something many people rocked in the late 70s, early 80s, or said the same thing Vogue said, that it was a callback to the Gibson Girl look. And something that really hits hard on how much of a non-story this initially was,

even The Root, a place known for being hyper-vigilant and calling out perceived instances of cultural appropriation, said that this shoot wasn't an issue. Writing for their beauty and fashion-focused site, Glow Up, Maisha Kai wrote, Beloveds, we know cultural appropriation is an insidious issue that must be called out at every turn so as to nip it in its arrogant bud. But we've got some news for you. Everything a member of the Kardashian-Jenner clan participates in doesn't automatically fall into that category. So please hear this, because we're saying it with love, we've got to start doing our research before we scream appropriation all over the interwebs. Because while many cases exist, and they are often egregious, others are simply a reach. And if we want our legitimate claims to be taken seriously, we seriously have to know what we're talking about.

And ultimately, that's where the story ends. It was a story that was a non-story and because of that it ends up being a story. And if there is a note to end on, I do think it's that last one. If we are going to be angry about something, whether it be this story or something else that you find way more valid, it is incredibly important,

at least if we want something positive to come out of it or some sort of actual change to happen, that we are educated about what the thing actually is. I think with a lot of things, people actually genuinely want to have a conversation about things and not just scream and shout. Yeah, that's where I'm gonna end that one. And then let's talk about voting rights news. And a big part of this starts in Georgia. Right now in Georgia, you have one of the most polarizing gubernatorial elections in the country between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams. Abrams is the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives

and is the first African-American female gubernatorial nominee of a major party in U.S. history. And Kemp is Georgia's Secretary of State, who was endorsed by President Trump during the Republican primary. And as Secretary of State, Kemp is in charge of overseeing elections and voter registration in the state of Georgia.

And for months, as part of a multi-year investigation into voter suppression, you had an investigative journalist by the name of Greg Palast trying to get Kemp to release a list of people that were moved from the Georgia voter rolls in 2017. For those who don't know, in order to vote in an election, your name has to be registered on an official list known as a voter roll. According to Palast, after he stated that he'd be filing a federal lawsuit against Kemp over the list,

Kemp finally complied and released the names. And so earlier this month, Greg published the list and he set up a website so you can see if your name's on it, if you've been removed from the voter roll. Also, in addition to that, he's released lists of removed voters in several other states, including Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, and Nevada. But that Georgia list, it's pretty massive. Reportedly it has nearly 670,000 names and that's just from what was dropped in 2017.

I mean, to give you an idea of how many people that is, that number represents 9.7% of the nearly seven million registered voters in the state. And so with that, you have the obvious question of, okay, why are these names being removed from voter rolls? Well, officially it's because the state can cancel your registration if you are an inactive voter. And in Georgia specifically, an inactive voter is considered someone who hasn't voted or had any contact with the state election system for three years.

And once that three year mark is hit, the state's allowed to remove your name from the voter rolls if you do not respond to a confirmation of address notice within 30 days or vote in the next two general elections. And an analysis by American Public Media found that an estimated 107,000 people were removed just because they didn't vote in previous elections. And according to Palace, some of the removals were legitimate but many are not, saying, quote, "'200,000 people have left the state, "'have died or have moved out of their congressional district "'that we're fairly certain of, "'or have been imprisoned and can't vote in Georgia.'"

They're legitimate, they're definitely legitimate cancellations from the voter rolls, no question. But what we are finding is that Kemp has conducted an illegitimate process and which seems to be furthering his interest in running for governor. And as evidenced, Pallas said that by using commercial mailing databases, his team discovered more than 340,000 people on this list.

They are still living at the address where they are registered even though the state believes they moved. Pallas also claimed that Kemp used a multi-state system called Crosscheck to remove voters from their roles. And reportedly Kemp only stopped using it when Pallas notified Kemp that he was filing a lawsuit against him. This Crosscheck system essentially checks if a person is registered to vote in more than one state

by matching names and birth dates. However, an analysis by the Washington Post of how the system was working in Iowa found that it identified a false positive 99% of the time. This because it was flagging common names, names like James Brown as being the same person, even though it was different people who just happened to share the same name and birthday. There have also been allegations that voters are not being informed that they are being removed from the rolls when this happens. In addition to the inactive voter law and the alleged cross-check program, Kemp's office has implemented an exact match policy when it comes to voter registration. This exact match measure means that the information

about a voter must perfectly match the information about the person on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. But it's also important to note here that this could be something as small as a missing hyphen and a person's last name. If it's not an exact match, then the state can put the voter's registration on hold.

But also on that note, it's not completely devastating. Voters have 26 months to fix their application before the registration is officially cancelled, and they can still file a provisional ballot. With a provisional ballot, that just means the voter has to provide more identifying information about themselves at a later time so their vote can count. But at the same time, this is still meaningful because according to the AP, there are currently 53,000 registrations on hold in Georgia, which was only recently discovered because of a public records request. Furthermore, an analysis by the AP of the names on hold found that nearly 70% of them belong to African Americans, which is an incredibly large percentage considering Georgia's population is only 32% black. And while this situation is significant on its own, it's also especially significant because of how close the race is in Georgia right now.

Recent polls show Kemp and Abrams in a dead heat and a few thousand votes could sway the result. And so unsurprisingly, there's been a lot of talk about potential conflict of interest since you have a guy who's overseeing his own election deciding who's removed from the rolls. And on that note, Pallas confronted Kemp about the voter roll issue while he was campaigning. Sir, why are you purging voters from the voter rolls?

There's 200- I'm from the party, please. Okay. I had some business to do. Sir, why aren't you answering my questions? Sir, why do we have to sue you to get the names of voters who've been removed? And while Kemp didn't directly answer then, he has since responded to the multiple allegations against him. In response to the cross-check situation he said earlier this month,

Georgia has never used data from the cross-check program to conduct list maintenance in any capacity. Zero voters have been removed from the rolls based on cross-check data in this state. Greg Palast is completely blind to this indisputable fact in his pursuit of a sensationalist headline. Also, as far as the disparity in the number of black voters on the hold list, Kemp actually blamed a voter registration group called the New Georgia Project, which is extra notable because it was actually founded by Abrams in 2013. Kemp's office saying that the organization was sloppy in how they registered predominantly black voters and the organization, quote,

did not adequately train canvassers to ensure legible complete form. Also of note, since the initial allegations against him and Kemp's response, we've seen Rolling Stone magazine release a recording of Kemp at a private campaign event. And here's what he said about Abrams' campaign. And as worried as we were going into the start of early voting with the literally tens of millions of dollars that they are putting behind to get out the voted efforts for their base. A lot of that with absentee ballot requests. They have just an unprecedented number of that, which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote, which they absolutely can, and mails those ballots in. We gotta have heavy

turnout to offset that. And according to Rolling Stone, the issue with Kemp's remarks wasn't that he was worried about his opponent's effectiveness in getting the vote out, but more that it's seemingly concerning to him if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote. And while Kemp's office confirmed that the event took place, they didn't respond to questions from Rolling Stone about the comment. Also in addition to this, we've seen the NAACP filing complaints with state election officials in Georgia this week. This because they're claiming that voting machines in at least four counties are registering the wrong votes during early voting. One of the complaints stems from a woman named Pamela Grimes from Bartow County who claims that when she voted,

she tried to select Abrams, but the machine selected Kemp. And according to Grimes, she tried to clear the selection several times until eventually it finally let her vote for Abrams. Grimes saying, I was not going to leave until everything was the way I wanted it. If I had not been focused, my vote would have went for him.

But before we go full blown conspiracy, according to Dexter Benning, a Democratic board member on the Bartow Board of Elections and Registration, he doesn't think there's a systemic problem with the voting machines, but that older voting machines may have a problem with their calibration, which of course is still an issue, but not something super nefarious.

We've also seen reports this week that more than 4,700 vote-by-mail applications have gone missing in Georgia's DeKalb County as well. Also, it's important to point out that the fight over voting rights isn't just affecting Georgia. Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court ruled on an interesting voter eligibility case in North Dakota, and there the court ruled 6-2 to uphold a lower court ruling. A

ruling stating that a 2017 law signed by North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum was constitutional. And as far as a law in question, it was a law that required all North Dakota voters to have a residential street address on their ID in order to vote. If you don't have that on your ID, you can also use a supplemental document such as a bank statement or utility bill. And while the law didn't apply in the recent primaries in North Dakota because of the legal challenges surrounding it, it will apply in these upcoming midterms. And according to the complaints,

the issue with the law is that in North Dakota, there is a large population of Native Americans that live on reservations. And many Native Americans that live on reservations don't have traditional street addresses, so they use P.O. boxes as their mailing address, and P.O. boxes don't count as residential addresses under the law.

And according to an analysis by the Native American Rights Fund, 48.7% of Native Americans who are eligible to vote in North Dakota otherwise do not possess a document that would allow them to vote. Also, it's affecting non-natives as well. It's estimated that 26.2% of non-native citizens lack a document that would make them eligible to vote. But still, with all of that said, the state has argued that this law is necessary to prevent voter fraud and ensure that voters receive correct ballots. So there's that, and there are also several other cases that I couldn't even get to today.

But with all of that said, I am very interested in your thoughts around voting. Right, for the most part, there seems to be two major arguments. In general, you see Democrats saying that Republicans are trying to crack down on the vote. They're trying to suppress the vote, because when more people vote, Democrats win.

But on the other side of it, you often see Republicans saying, no, we're not trying to suppress legitimate voting, we are trying to stop voter fraud. "'We wanna make sure that whoever is voting, "'they are legally allowed to and we can verify that.'" And President Trump has even said that illegal voting is a major concern for him. In fact, he even formed a commission

to investigate election integrity in May 2017 after claiming that millions of people illegally voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. But what you may not be aware of is that commission was disbanded in January of 2018 and there was no report released. And in fact, according to a former member of the Commission Maine's Democratic Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap The Commission found no evidence of widespread voter fraud

Although at the same time on the other side of this you had the leader of the voting fraud Commission Kansas Secretary of State Chris Koba and he countered that previous claim saying the Commission found evidence of more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000 and 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states. But countering that you had Dunlap responding saying the commission only received one report about a thousand instances of voter misconduct and that it dated back to 1948. And as far as the claim of double voting Dunlap said the commission never received any evidence of that. And as far as my opinion on that commission and the findings or lack of it, I mean I end up looking to Donald Trump with how heavy he hit this point. Millions of people, a commission was made, and it feels like if anything meaningful

was actually found, he would blast it out there. Once again, this is my personal opinion, but I don't know if there is anything President Trump likes more than being able to say that he was right about something. And going even further, although it doesn't address the 2016 election, 2014 study published by the Washington Post found that between 2000 and 2014,

out of the one billion ballots cast, there were reportedly only 31 cases of voter fraud. But with all of that said, I still wanna pass a question off to you regarding all of these voting rights issues. I'd love to know what you're thinking in those comments down below. And that's where I'm going to end this Friday show.

Of course, with this being the PDS, whether it be this big last story, the first one, anything in between, let me know what you're thinking in those comments down below. In addition to finding your comments interesting, just seeing the back and forth and discussions been really interesting. Also, while you're at it, if you like today's show, you like these dives into the news, hit that like button.

If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. Also, if you missed yesterday's Philip DeFranco show, you want to catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch that. It'll also throw you into this week's PDS playlist, or if you want to watch last morning's show and throw you into the morning show playlist, you can click or tap right there. But that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in, I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow Monday. Monday, I'm taking the weekend off. Don't even think about following me on Twitter at atphillyD and tweeting me about where is the Saturday Sunday video. Okay, I love you, bye, I'm tired and sick.