The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.4 THEY WERE RIGHT! Zombie Swarms Taking Over America After Emergency Alert Goes Wrong & Today’s News

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Go to https://buyraycon.com/defranco and use code BIRTHDAY to get 20 to 40% off sitewide!  Go Buy http://WakeandMakeCoffee.com 50% OFF select orders! This new batch won’t last long. Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/7PQ6Sx4pYMc?si=ZwnwS_9NHTUECP9j Check out our daily newsletter! http://dailydip.co/pds  Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillydefranco/?hl=en  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Conspiracy Theorists Spiral Over Emergency Alert Test 04:15 - iShowSpeed Treated by Medics Elephant Toothpaste Challenge 07:11 - Hasan Faces Backlash for Comments on China & Tibet 09:32 - Sponsored by Raycon 10:29 - LA is Using AI to Predict Who Might Become Homeless & Help Before They Do 12:08 - Kevin McCarthy Ousted As Speaker of the House 16:08 - Journalists at India News Site Critical of Government Deal With Home Raidings 17:52 - What You All Thought About Yesterday’s Stories ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #iShowSpeed #Hasanabi ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about the secret government conspiracy to turn us all into zombies starting today. Creators Hasan Piker and I Show Speed have found themselves in controversy. We break down the Kevin McCarthy disaster in the house and talk about what happens next. AI is being used to fight homelessness. We're talking about all that and so much more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news, all made possible by beautiful bastards like you who buy Wake and Make Coffee. Y'all, if you haven't already, it is time to ditch that burnt, bitter, and overpriced coffee that you got used to. And I'm so confident that you're going to love this.

When you go to wakeandmakecoffee.com to buy your first bags, you can get them for up to 50% off. I mean, you're looking at like, what, 50 cents for an amazing cup of coffee compared to what, $3.50 to $6 at the coffee shop? But that said, we got a lot of news to talk about today, so let's just jump into it. Starting with, if you're watching this, it is probably already too late. The zombie apocalypse has begun. Because if you were near a cell phone, a TV, or a radio at around 2.20 p.m. Eastern today, you heard what they said was an emergency alert. What they said was FEMA conducting a routine test of its nationwide alert system. Something they justified as something they've done every few years for a long time,

as it's legally required to do. With them claiming that even the part that pinged all cell phones having been tested once before, and that none of this was new. But in the months leading up to today, true patriots knew what was going on, with him spreading the word on social media and it exploded. With, for example, the Telegram channel called the Patriot Voice telling its 50,000 followers that the vaccine contains sealed pathogens, including E. coli bacteria and the Marburg and Ebola viruses, all of which can be released by an 18 gigahertz 5G frequency. So people start spreading the word that the Marburg virus is going to turn people into zombies. But then you also had a spirituality influencer with 170,000

followers each on Instagram and YouTube saying the signals would activate graphene oxide or other nanoparticles put inside your body by the vaccine. Now, scientists and non-crazy people say that graphene oxide is not in the COVID vaccines. And saying even if somehow there was, it's unclear how you would activate it. As far as the nanoparticles, they said those are just lipids or fats using a coated material. And again, they weren't sure what activating would actually entail. But luckily, we also had some radical independent thinkers and people who researched themselves saying, hey, this test is going to do something with an RFID tag inside of your body. Because Bill Gates put microchips in the vaccines.

And luckily, as all our brothers and sisters were getting the truth out there, Patriot Glenn Beck got to a microphone and suggested that the FEMA test and a rumored Russian nuclear evacuation test coincided at the same time. And others like this pastor in Hawaii with 300,000 YouTube subscribers

vaguely suggested that a created crisis would follow the simulated crisis. And I'm gonna stop there because my brain's hurting from trying to talk like these people aren't crazy. I mean, you had conspiracy theorists having a field day. That's really what we're seeing here. Though, even the conspiracy theorists

weren't all doom and gloom. With, for example, one user on Truth Social pointing out that the military times were the start and end of the test, 1420 and 1450. That added up to 17, and the 17 letter in the alphabet is Q, meaning QAnon is behind all this.

And then another user adding, if anything, these vibrations will be healing frequencies, so I'm told. And adding, I, for one, am not taking any measures to hide my phone. But actually, more often you heard stories like the ones posted on the QAnon casualties subreddit, with titles like, My Family Believes The End Is Near. One person writing, My QMom Just Told Me In A Panic That On October 4th, Joe Biden Will Use Cell Phones To Attack The Whole Population Of The United States, Something About A Frequency That Can Harm And Kill. in a panic that on October 4th, Joe Biden will use cell phones to attack the whole population of the United States, something about a frequency that can harm and kill. She told me that I need to wrap my cell phone

in aluminum foil and place it in the microwave for the day. I shit you not. And yeah, if you look, that tinfoil and microwave idea was passed around a lot, with some even taking advantage of people's stupidity to make money. Like for example, the survivalist retailer, MyPatriotSupply, which advised people to buy bags

that block electromagnetic fields to protect their devices. All of which was especially strange, given that all you had to do to turn off the alert was to simply turn off your phone or turn on airplane mode. And unfortunately, this whole story gets to be yet another example of no matter how absurd conspiracy theories are, people will believe it. And then for some reason, no matter how many times none of these things come true, they go, yeah, but the next one, because remember the 5G is going to activate something on the vaccine. That's just the latest thing. They've been saying the people that got the vaccine,

they're going to be dead in three months, six months, 12 months. Fuck. 5G signals? No, it's the next eclipse. No, actually, they've been trying to activate it through space lasers, but the space lasers are broken and they just start in these forest fires by accident. Oh, it's just all so ridiculous. I'm so thankful that I don't have close family members that are like this.

And for those of you that have them, oh my God, my heart goes out to you. Like I have to deal with the internet every day because it's my job. And so I see people like this existing, but if they were part of the family line, I don't know what I'd do. And then is iShowSpeed encouraging

dangerous behavior online? That is a question that's being debated right now after his latest online stunt resulted in him needing medical attention. I also, I just got to preface this and I say this with no ill intent. Speed is getting exactly what he wants out of this because, you know, I mean, what's his job? He is a professional overreactor and doer of stupid things, right? He does one of or a combination of those two things. People clip it. People then write articles about it. It gets to me. We go blah, blah, blah. Like, who's surprised

by any of it? Like, that's the job. That's the gig. I mean, he's not a victim of it. Like he didn't apply for the job. He's just doing what the boss said. He is the CEO of Do Stupid Shit Inc. Stuff like this will only continue to happen and grow if the platforms allow it. And I say all that before we get into this story, which is speed, I guess, going, you know, it's old news for me to set off fireworks in my room. What if I did an elephant toothpaste experiment in my room? Nothing's going to go terribly wrong and people are gonna clip it

and I'm gonna get more views, oh no! Because for those of you unfamiliar, the elephant toothpaste experiment is an at-home science project that makes a big foam reaction by combining hydrogen peroxide dish soap and a catalyst like yeast or potassium iodide. Now generally, it's considered family friendly,

you can do it with your kids, but like with anything, you have to take basic safety precautions into account and you gotta follow the instructions. But when iShow Show Speed did this and he put the ingredients together, this happened. It didn't work! It didn't work! It didn't work!

Yo! Yo! Oh! What the is going on? Oh my God. Oh my God. I can't breathe, I'm not out of that. I can't breathe. Speed then steps out of the room.

You can hear an alarm going off. He later comes back into the room with snot basically dripping down his nose. He then quickly leaves again. And there then being a note in the jet explaining that firefighters had given him oxygen to help him breathe. But his cameraman also later posting an update

saying that he was okay. And with all of this, it's worth noting that in the YouTube upload of it, they put a disclaimer warning saying, do not try this at home and saying that it was done with medics on scene. But still, you had tons of people shocked that it went this wrong

since it's a relatively kid-friendly experiment. I mean, even places like Scholastic have guides on it. But you also have others saying this must have been staged or he botched it on purpose reviews. But ultimately, it looks like most people are kind of just taking this at face value and they're just concerned. They think it's only a matter of time

before he hurts himself or someone else because he constantly does bits like this. Slamming him for not wearing protection, like goggles, saying kids shouldn't be allowed to watch him. But ultimately, with this story, I gotta pass the question off to you. When you look at this content, is it something that you like? Do you think it's just kind of stupid nonsense, or do you think it's dangerous? Now, for me, I see the potential risks of his content, but I'm kind of just unbothered and bored by it, personally. I don't, once again, I don't mean that with any sort of ill intent, right? Like I say that as some fucking boring, talentless hack on the internet. It's just that, and it might be more

like the context and comparison of everything. I'm personally less bothered by this than, you know, influencers out there that are like platforming fucking Nazis or they're harassing people in public and calling it pranks. And if what Speed is doing bothers you, I'm not negating that. I'm not saying, hey, that's not valid. As someone that just has to look at all the news, I don't have enough energy to feel as strongly about every single story equally. And then political commentator Hassan Piker has found himself in some hot water.

That's because a clip's been circulating online showing him and podcaster Ethan Klein talking about Tibet. That's because Hassan was pretty clearly defending China's ongoing occupation of the region, saying, Okay, Ethan, but like- Go ahead, go ahead. Tibet was literally a f***ing feudal, slave mandate,

like, autonomous zone. China did them a favor. That was one, I mean, in America, when I say something like this, people get very upset, you know, we talk about the Dalai Lama saying, suck my tongue or whatever, but like, that's not far from the norm

in f***ibetan existence before the communist party came in and and china unilaterally took over tibet like these are their culture they basically are trying to you know homogenize the culture if your culture they're trying to squel the religion and the identity the part of the part of warlords and slavery, abolishing that, yes, I do think that that is good. But the two then getting into how Hassan would equate Tibet in the 40s and 50s with the South during the Civil War, which, just a few things first. Historically speaking, Hassan is correct that a lot of us don't really understand what Tibet was like. For the average Tibetan, it wasn't good.

Slavery was rampant. Both bad things. We can all agree on that. But for many, they said their issue with Hassan was that he was painting it as if China went in for a noble cause rather than just blatant imperialism, with comments like, Hassan defends colonialism and genocide as long as it's the good tribe he supports that are committing it. What else is new? Or people saying, by this logic, essentially all colonialism done by the British post their abolition of slavery is completely justified and acceptable. And then finally, for this section, the one that got the most traction,

probably because Hassan actually responded to it, was Hassan with the standard tanky racism, where you treat East Asians like some magical race of superhumans who aren't doing the exact same imperialism we do in the West. He just wants the U.S. with a communist flag on it. With him talking a bit before saying, It's racist to say that there is a, like, any kind of liberation that could exist in an Asian country? Like, what the f***? But that person then going on to argue and point out that the problem wasn't that slavery was getting abolished, but that it was used as an excuse to stick around and annex the place.

Such as when Japan took over Korea in the early 1900s, only to then try and kill off Korean culture. Kind of like what China is doing in Tibet now. Right, so for them, they're saying that it feels disingenuous for Hassan to say that he's anti-imperialist, but then go pro-imperialism when a communist or non-Western country does it under the guise of changing a culture. But with all that said, for everyone out there, and especially you history nerds that watch the show, what are your thoughts on this topic? And then, y'all know I've been telling you about Raycons

for years now, but did you know that they're turning six this year? And they've done a great job at making a name for themselves in the premium audio space during that time. And they're a fantastic sponsor of this show, so happy birthday, Raycon. And check this out. To thank everyone who's shown them support these past six years, Raycon is offering 20% off everything on their site with select products 40% off. Also, Raycon has expanded its entire business this past year with the introduction of Raycon Home and Raycon PowerTech. So needless to say, there's a lot to celebrate. And they've really paved the way with their everyday earbuds known for delivering high quality audio and thoughtful features. Things like a 32-hour battery life and a comfortable, perfect in-ear fit for all

day wear. And all this at half the price of other premium brands. And so it's no wonder they've already racked up 78,000 five-star reviews. For me, you know, they're great for listening to podcasts, riding on my bike, when I'm hiking, when I travel. So celebrate Raycon Turning 6 with their biggest sale of the year going on now. Just go to buyraycon.com slash DeFranco and use code birthday to get 20 to 40% off site wide. And remember, they offer a 30 day free return policy. And then can AI help prevent people from slipping into homelessness? That is a very real question that Los Angeles is hoping to answer with this pilot program that does just that. It uses AI to try and predict who might become homeless and help them before they actually do. With a program which has been described as a first of its kind experiment being run by the LA County Department of Health Services

to try and limit the ever-growing homeless population. Because while an average of 207 people in the county exit homelessness each day, that's being outpaced by the 227 falling into homelessness. In fact, LA is actually housing people more than ever before and building a ton of low-income housing, but it's still not enough to meet the demand.

And so the goal of this pilot program is to try and address the problem head-on and prevent things from getting worse. And so the first step is to identify these folks with NPR explaining. The program tracks data from seven county agencies, including emergency room visits, crisis care for mental health, substance abuse disorder diagnosis, arrests and signups for public benefits like food aid. And then using machine learning, it comes up with a list of people considered most at risk for losing their homes. And once the at-risk people have been flagged by the AI, the focus shifts to actually getting them

into the prevention program. Case managers are tasked with reaching out through letters and cold calling to try and enroll them. And once they actually are enrolled, the at-risk Angelenos are given financial aid and access to other services to help them keep their housing. With single adults getting as much

as either $4,000 or $6,000 in assistance that they do not have to pay back. So you've got this very ambitious program, but right now it's unclear if a few months of assistance and a few thousand dollars can actually keep people housed for the long term, or if it's even effectively targeting the right people. And this notably is experts who helped develop the AI expect to publish a study with comprehensive results in 2026, which also happens to be when the program's funding runs out. Though obviously they hope that the results are going to

show this is a successful program and that with the help of the data, they can urge other policymakers to scale up the program and use it as a model. And in fact, already that's something that we're seeing elsewhere in California with San Diego County also voting to approve a similar program. And then, y'all, we got to talk about this McCarthy shit show. You've seen it right now. For the first time in US history, the House has voted to remove a speaker with a final vote against McCarthy coming in at a narrow 216 to 210. And very notably there, while Matt Gaetz was the Republican that put all this into motion, only eight Republicans ended up voting in favor of ousting McCarthy,

with him joining all the Democrats who were in attendance. And that's very, very notable because there had been some speculation before the vote that the Democrats might just vote present or not vote at all, which would then leave enough room for the rest of the Republican caucus to save McCarthy. But in the end, the Democrats ultimately went, why are we going to protect the guy who's publicly pissing on us? I mean, first looking back, for much of his tenure as Speaker, McCarthy has only further and further isolated himself from Democrats, often just refusing to negotiate

in good faith, frequently caving to the far-right faction of his party and pushing totally partisan bills. But really, it's the actions that we've seen in recent weeks that put the final nail in the coffin. I mean, he launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden. Despite there being a lack of evidence, he went back on the spending deal that he made with the White House, and then he blamed Democrats for trying to shut down the government. Even though, ding, ding, ding, he was literally the one who went back on the deal to fund it, refused to bring a stopgap bill to extend the budget for a vote, and repeatedly tried to appease the members of his party holding the government hostage. I mean, the guy played it really the worst way he could have played it. But now, as far as what actually happens next,

we're really in unprecedented and uncharted territory. You have Representative Patrick McHenry being named as the interim speaker pro tempore, and that after being hand-selected by McCarthy under a rule that requires a Speaker to make a succession list in case of a vacancy. But really, McHenry's main role is to oversee the election of the next Speaker, and until then, business in the House will functionally come to a standstill. And there are a few ways that things could go, and it's unclear what actually is going to happen. I mean, the House is currently set to adjourn for the week and return next Tuesday with members telling reporters that they plan to have a candidate forum that same day.

So potentially they could hold a vote on Speaker as soon as next Wednesday. But even if they move that fast, of course, there's the big question of who actually can be Speaker. Right, I mean, you have Democrats saying they'll nominate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, but that's basically dead on arrival. Right, I mean, unless he magically turns into a Republican over the next few days, Republicans control the House, I'm not going to vote for him. And right now, on the Republican side, there's really not any obvious successor to McCarthy. Or pretty much anyone else going up for the job is going to face the same obstacles McCarthy faced in trying to unite their party. Because while McCarthy was generally liked by his Republican colleagues, there were those same far-right hardliners, and they're not going anywhere. And so because the GOP has such a slim majority, they basically have two choices.

One, pick someone who is supported by enough far-right members to get them on board. Or pick someone that enough Democrats support to confirm someone without the support of the full GOP. But both options have downsides. If they pick a member the far-right just outright supports, it's likely to be some crazy asshole who doesn't represent the full party, and that would likely make partisanship and GOP divisions even worse. But then choosing someone the Democrats support would likely require major concessions to get that support. That, and unless it's a very unique situation, that would likely be career suicide for that speaker, as well as for the Republicans who voted for that person. I mean, we're talking about a situation

that would be 10 times uglier than what McCarthy was having to deal with. But with all that said, there have been a few names that have been floated around. In fact, as of this morning, two of the names we're seeing the most are Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, the chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee,

with notably both of those men being more hardliners and they may have a hard time getting enough support from moderates. Plus, you already have people saying they're concerned whether Scalise is actually up for the job as he's currently in treatment for blood cancer. Though as of today, both men formally announced they are both officially throwing their hats in the ring. But this is because there are also other names that have been thrown around, like Tom Emmer, the number three Republican and

the majority whip, with notably Emmer being among those mentioned by Matt Gaetz. Although Emmer also recently signaled he wouldn't run. Meanwhile, a more moderate member like House Rules Committee Chair Tom Cole has been flagged as someone who could potentially get bipartisan support. It was unclear if the far right would get behind him. And then, of course, you have some of the crazies that say they want Trump to be the Speaker, which brings up the fact that actually

the Speaker of the House doesn't actually need to be a member of the House. So there, there might also be a small problem. With Representative Sean Caston tweeting, I would direct your attention to Rule 26A of the House Republican Conference Rules for the 118th Congress. With that rule reading, a member of the Republican leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years

imprisonment may be imposed. And of course, there, Trump has been indicted on 91 felony charges. But hey, ultimately, for now, grab some popcorn because it's really not clear what's going to happen, which of course is something that sometimes happens with our government and our Congress, but especially something that happens when you elect non-serious people. And then, India's government is getting closer to being authoritarian. That is an accusation that has been growing and growing, especially after police raided the offices of an outlet that is fiercely critical of Prime Minister Modi. And to make matters worse, officers also raided the homes of some of the journalists working there. So the site is Newsclick, and it's one

of the few outlets actually willing to openly criticize Modi as often as it does. Well, the reason this is probably so rare being that this is hardly the first paper to be targeted by authorities. Back in February, Indian authorities raided the BBC's New Delhi and Mumbai offices, claiming there was tax evasion going on. But notably, that only happened after they published a documentary critical of Modi, and quite a few other papers have been similarly investigated over alleged financial irregularities. However, Newsclick got it even worse because the raids against them were under an anti-terrorism law. And with this, you should know this law has been absolutely blasted for being extremely broad and allows charges and searches to be done against people or groups engaged in what they call anti-national activities.

And in the past, it's actually been used against critics of Modi and landed many of them behind bars for years. And the worst part, because of the nature of this law, they had to sit in jail for years while their cases went through the court system. Now, that being said, it's not like Newsclick doesn't have ties that might get them some scrutiny. A few months ago, the New York Times claimed that the site had gotten money from an American millionaire who allegedly has a history of pushing Chinese propaganda. With Newsclick denying that, but considering India's longstanding feuds and diplomatic issues with China along their border, it's not a total shock that the government was swooping in. But some think this is just a convenient excuse for officials to target a paper critical of them. And it adds to India's worsening reputation regarding their freedom of the press, with Reporters Without Borders ranking it 161st in its press freedom rankings. Which, I mean, India was already kind of low, but it went from problematic to very bad. And so with all this

going down, you have local groups like the Press Club of India saying that it was deeply concerned about the multiple raids conducted on the houses of journalists and writers associated with News Click, saying the PCI stands in solidarity with the journalists and demands the government to come out with details. And this is fortunately for the NewsClick team. No one has been arrested so far, but also with the way things have been going, anything could change at any moment. And then let's talk about yesterday, today, where we look back to yesterday's show, where we covered a lot of news. We dive into those comments and see what stood out to you the most, what your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings and experiences are. And unfortunately, one of the stories that really connected with a lot of people was this extortion story.

Because while you had a lot of people sharing their opinions on it, a lot of the things connected to the opinions were experiences. With comments like, I'm the father of a 16-year-old who was a victim of an attempt. And saying, I was lucky enough, my son and I have a relationship where he came to me as soon as it happened. He was terrified and crying, so scared. It is disgusting and so painful for a child to go through it all. Hopefully, some legal paths start taking a toll on these scammers. There was really no shortage of parents talking about this, people sharing their own experiences. Others sharing heartbreaking stories of others, saying,

My own small hometown had a high school football and basketball player who everyone loved take his life over the ramifications of it. Going on to say, was a rare extradition process of multiple men during the whole investigation, an accountability process, and super painful for our entire small rural upper Michigan town. And for some, that story brought back actually a different story that we covered a few weeks ago, with people saying it reminds them when those cops said they'd have to arrest that girl when her dad called the cops to help her. Also, I will say in those comments, we had a number of people chiming in on the Liberty University situation. And again, what made those comments interesting were personal experiences, where there being comments like, the Liberty University piece made me literally seethe? In a former life, I attended LU online. However, there were several times I had to go on campus to attend a week-long intensive. As a

single female, I never felt safe. And adding, I have friends who attended LU campus who would corroborate what the article said. LU, as an evangelical entity, does everything it can to protect its image. While I'm horrified by the initial fines from the Clary inquiry, I am not surprised. For decades, evangelicals have done everything to blame women for causing men to stumble. LU is affiliated with Southern Baptist Convention, an entity that for decades has created and kept a list of known sexual abusers in leadership positions with their churches. There were 750 on the list that was released. And that is where your daily dive into the news is going to end today. Now, for more news you need to know, I got you covered right here. You can click or tap,

or I got links in the description down below. And of course, as always, my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here for more news tomorrow.