The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.01 It's Getting Worse...

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  https://wakeandmakecoffee.com We Just RESTOCKED! Up to 50% OFF Your First Bag! Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/EIJaYsrdVvU?si=AWXH5m4zj4X-uFyR –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - HBO Execs Accused of Orchestrating Burners to Attack Critics 02:57 - Joe Rogan Posts Pod to Twitter, Netflix Triples Ad-Supported Users 06:12 - Federal Jury Awards $1.8 Billion in Case Against Real Estate Brokers 08:29 - 1 in 4 Medical Students are Considering Quitting Field  09:18 - Sponsored by Squarespace 10:02 - Poll Finds that 40% of Americans are Creationists, Including Mike Johnson 11:34 - Flint Criminal Prosecutions Close Without Convictions 14:07 - FBI Warns Of Rise in Antisemitism Amid Israel, Gaza War  18:49 - Yesterday, Today ——————————   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 #JoeRogan  #ElonMusk ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm feeling nostalgic today. Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news. We got a lot to talk about today, so buckle up, hit that like button, otherwise I will punch you in the throat, and let's just jump into it.

Starting with, do the higher-ups at HBO lead secret social media campaigns to harass TV critics? Because at the very least, that is what's being argued right now. With Rolling Stone putting out a report this morning at it all stemming from a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former HBO staffer. So that staffer, Sully Tamori, filed the suit back in July against HBO. That is what's being argued right now. With Rolling Stone putting out a report this morning at it all stemming from a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former HBO staffer.

So that staffer, Sully Tamori, filed the suit back in July against HBO, a few executives and producers of the show, The Idol, including The Weeknd. And in that, the suit claiming that while working for HBO, he was harassed and faced discrimination after revealing a mental health diagnosis. But then also further alleging that some of his bosses asked him to do menial tasks like creating fake online

accounts to respond to and antagonize critics. With Rolling Stone obtaining documents and text showing that on at least six occasions between June of 2020 and April of 2021, the network's senior VP of drama, Kathleen McCaffrey, and then president of original programming, Casey Bloys, discussed using a secret army to attack TV critics who posted negative reviews of HBO shows. With Rolling Stone suggesting that Bloys, who's actually since been named CEO of HBO and Max Content, was the one who approached McCaffrey about starting this effort. Well, the two didn't always end up sending online attacks every time they discussed it. On several occasions, they did. With McCaffrey going to Tamori, the staffer who filed the suit, saying that Blois always wants to pick fights on Twitter and then asking,

Is there a way to create a dummy account that can't be traced to us to do his bidding? So Tamori made an account. And in one case, he went after Rolling Stone critic Alan Sepinwall. Because Alan gave Joss Whedon's The Nevers a two and a half star review. And McCaffrey asking Tamori, "'Can our secret operative please tweet at Alan's review? "'Alan is always predictably safe "'and scared in his opinions.'"

And then we have to delete this chain, right? Oh my God, I just got scared, LOL. So Tamori came up with an account for a fake woman named Kelly Shepard, who responded just that to the critic's post about the show. Kelly's account also going after the same critic's review of Mayor of Easttown, saying, Allen missed on Succession and totally misses here

because he is busy virtue signaling. Also taking aim at another negative review of The Nevers, accusing two male critics of shitting on a show about women. Right, so this whole effort was started by a man who orchestrated a fake female account to accuse other men of misogyny in their reviews. And this notably also didn't take place just on Twitter. It was also focusing on the comments section

of articles posted on Deadline, coordinating anonymous accounts to respond to negative comments, not just defending HBO in general, but also his own reputation, with, for example, one anonymous account responding that Blois is the future of HBO. And as far as HBO's response regarding these specific messages, HBO didn't deny their legitimacy to Rolling Stone, but also said it would not, quote, comment on select exchanges between programmers and errant tweets. But then, regarding the wrongful termination lawsuit as a whole, the company said it denies each and every allegation and intends to vigorously defend itself. And while I personally love this story,

because I know there are a lot of people out there, both in the online space and in the mainstream space that have burners, that really just highlights like how petty people can be, how insecure people can be. Tamori's lawyer argued, you know, this whole situation, yes, it's an example of HBO's very petty company culture, but also adding, first and foremost, I think this lawsuit is about HBO's culture and how it fosters a dynamic of ongoing harassment and discrimination in the workplace. They joke about people outside of HBO. They joke about people within HBO. You suffer through some

bullying until you can't suffer anymore. And then, can Twitter ever become the go-to place for video content? Because Elon Musk obviously has that as one of his goals, and he took a big step forward yesterday with Joe Rogan posting a chunk of his podcast on the platform, which is actually pretty standout because, I mean, Joe Rogan has a massive deal with Spotify. But yesterday, he did an episode with Elon Musk that totaled two hours and 41 minutes, with the first two hours being posted on Twitter. And as of this morning, the publicly available Twitter metric set it at over 27 million views, though a big note there. We don't know how accurate those numbers are, and it is widely, widely believed that those are incredibly inflated numbers that you see when Twitter shows

metrics. But this move, of course, is notable as Elon is very actively trying to make Twitter the everything app that can compete with YouTube, LinkedIn, fucking dating apps, even banking platforms. And we've seen him try to make big moves with video, like getting Tucker Carlson on Twitter, even recently begging Taylor Swift to post music videos directly to Twitter. And all that, of course, in the face of new reports coming out talking about the current value of Twitter slash X. He bought it for $44 billion. There were reports coming out this week saying X says that it's now valued at $19 billion. Notably, in the podcast with Rogan, when he asks Elon, you know, what is it actually worth? Musk responds simply, everything, which is really

beautiful, especially when you consider what revisionist history it is. Like, we all remember when he tried to get out of the deal, right? Like, he just fucked himself so much, his lawyers couldn't get him out of it. But also, you know, just because things have been trending downwards since he took control, that doesn't mean it's gonna stay that way. You've seen pretty big creators in the space, like Dr. Disrespect, saying he'd consider growing the space out with Elon if the opportunity arose. If you were to approach me with,

hey, let's build this platform, let's get some, I want streaming to be taken to the next level, because that's what we do, we take things to the next level. We always have and we always will. As of right now, I'd be yes. Because really, at this point, it's just a question of like, can they innovate out of this tailspin? Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it,

they've kind of teased certain features, like, oh look, you can make a video call on X. And of course, in the meantime, there are going to be a lot of creators out there that are more than willing to take a check from us. But as far as if it will result in any meaningful growth or change, that remains to be seen. But with that, I got to ask you, what are your thoughts on the situation in general? And also, if you are someone that has used Twitter, you use it now, or whatever your experience may be, how has it changed over the last year? If at all, for some of you, it might be business as usual. Also, in quickie business news regarding companies changing things up, seeing how it's playing out, in the

video space, Netflix's ad support here is absolutely taking off. With the company announcing today that it now has 15 million monthly active users on just that one, which is a huge number. I mean, that is triple the figure it released back in May. And all of this for Netflix, of course, a drastic change because historically they resisted commercials for years. But all of that now seems to be working, especially amid its password crackdown, which then seems to have landed them a ton of new subscribers on that cheaper ad tier.

And in fact, it's been so successful, Netflix is also gonna be expanding its options within the ad tier. Reportedly by the end of the week, members of the ad version will also get access to upgraded video quality, concurrent streams, and downloads. And then also those advertising on the platform will have more flexibility in the lengths of their advertisement, and they'll be able to target the platform's most popular shows via Netflix's top 10. But the company also saying in 2024, they will have a

binge ad format, wherein after watching three consecutive episodes, you'll get the fourth ad free. So I mean, I think with that, it's a great example of why you have to wait and see. Because initially, when a lot of these things were first announced, it sounded like nobody was interested. Everyone was angry about password crackdowns. It was going to result in full boycotts. And here they are now, seemingly thriving. And then, this is wild. We're about to see a shakeup of the entire real estate industry. Because a federal jury in Kansas City just unanimously ruled that the National Association of Realtors and some of the largest real estate brokers in the country conspired to artificially inflate commissions on home sales. And with that, they were ordered to pay $1.78

billion to the plaintiffs, which include the sellers of hundreds of thousands of homes in Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. And to fully understand all of this, I've got to give you a little background. Because this case has actually been rolling through federal courts since 2019, when a group of sellers accused the NAR and several others of colluding to keep real estate commissions artificially high. But specifically, the plaintiffs pointing to the NAR's rule that requires sellers to make a non-negotiable commission offer before the home is listed on the property database, the multiple listing service. And that commission usually hovers between 5% and 6% paid by the seller and split between the

seller's agent and the buyer's agent, with the NAR referring to this as the cooperative compensation rule. And it's incredibly important to note here that many other countries have real estate commissions that average actually half of that. We're talking usually between 1% and 3%, including the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia, and Belgium. For example, under the current rule, a seller in the US trying to sell their $1 million home could pay as much as $60,000 in commissions, 50% to their agent and 50% to the buyer's agent. And if the sellers don't agree to those ridiculous terms, their properties are shoved into a dark corner and rarely seen by buyers. And so the plaintiffs argue that this rule constitutes a conspiracy because buyers'

agents can direct them to homes that offer more of a commission, because that would mean a bigger paycheck for themselves. And so also notably with this situation, we're still waiting for the final judgment from the judge overseeing the case, because they could outright ban the cooperative compensation rule across the country. And if that happens, we could see a completely different system for commissions emerging. We're talking about potentially saving sellers tens of billions of dollars. And one analyst predicting back in October that a change in this system could reduce the $100 billion consumers pay in commissions by 30%. Now, for their part, the NAR and other defendants have said that they plan on appealing the verdict. With Mantle Williams, the NAR's vice president of communications, saying that the organization

stands by the rule and plans on asking the court to reduce the damages awarded by the jury. Also going on to add, it will likely be several years before the case is finally resolved. But even if that ends up being true, we're already seeing the effects of this ruling across the real estate industry. I mean, when the jury's decision broke yesterday, we saw real estate stocks, especially those of online real estate companies, drop. At one point, Zillow saw a 7% drop. Open Door's stock dropped over 9%. We've also, unsurprisingly, seen many in the real estate industry speaking out against the ruling, expressing their disappointment with the NAR for the defense in court, and saying, this verdict will just make it harder on buyers and sellers. Also, since the ruling, we've already

seen similar lawsuits with similar allegations quickly emerge. And then if you live in the United States and you have a good doctor, just give, just say, I love you to your doctor. Give him a consensual hug. Hey, good job, buddy. Because we have a doctor problem right now that is not going away anytime soon. Because it's been well established that there is a shortage of physicians in America. And now, according to a new report, there aren't going to be many new ones coming into the field. With this new report that surveyed over 2,000 medical students around the world finding that 25%, a quarter of medical students in the US are considering quitting. Many of them citing mental health concerns and a lack of study life balance. But it's also not

just quitting. More than half of the medical students surveyed are determined to push through their education in order to take on jobs in healthcare that don't involve treating patients. And then, even those that don't plan on quitting or moving behind the scenes have the same concerns. With 60% saying they were concerned about their mental health, another 60% saying they were concerned about how the clinician shortage would affect them in the future, and 69% saying they were worried about their income. And then, for any of you focused on getting your business off the ground, creating a place to share your homemade goods, or even a personal blog, I got a great solution for you. And it comes from, and I want to thank the fantastic

sponsor of today's show, Squarespace. You know, I've been partnering with Squarespace for years now, and I have to say, it is just so easy. There's nothing to install, patch, or update ever. Plus, creating a beautiful website with Squarespace's Fluid Engine is so easy. You just drag things where you like, no coding necessary. And if you need a starting point, Squarespace has a bunch of great professional templates. I mean, you can even sell custom merch easily. Squarespace handles all the production and shipping. Plus, with Squarespace, you get access to all their marketing tools and analytics and their award-winning customer care team via email or live chat 24-7. So, y'all, go check it out.

See why so many others love it. See why you're going to love it. And start your free trial today over at squarespace.com. Hey, make sure you enter an offer code fill to get 10% off your first purchase. And then, with the current state of the internet and social media, it's very easy to get inside of your own bubble, these echo chambers. And you think, oh, well, everyone obviously believes, hey, this is a fact. This is a truth. No one really disagrees. Maybe there's a few people, but not a lot. Like if I asked you, what percentage of Americans believe that God created the earth only several thousand years ago and today's diversity of life doesn't come from evolution? What would you say? One out of 10,

two out of 10, four out of 10, six out of 10. I'll give you a second. It is nearly four in 10 Americans. That's what they believe. They accept young earth creationism. And among those is none other than new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. Because after he suddenly rose to his leadership post, people began digging into his past to figure out who the hell he was. When his name was first put up, people thought it was like a made up name. What people discovered is that over the past decade as both a lawyer and a politician, Johnson has advocated for some of the biggest young earth creationists in the country. This including Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, the group behind the Creationist Museum and the

Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky, where children and educationally deficient adults can learn that dinosaurs were actually passengers on Noah's Ark and lived alongside humans. And Johnson actually helped the Ark Encounter secure millions in state tourism subsidies while defending its right to hire people based on religion. With him saying in a 2021 interview with Ken Ham, the ark encounter is one way to bring people to this recognition of the truth that what we read in the Bible are actual historical events. And blaming the teaching of what he referred to as atheistic evolution for corrupting the youth and turning them away from the church. With him also blogging on the group's website and speaking at a conference it hosted last year. And in April of 2024, he and his wife are slated to appear at another one of

its conferences titled Overcoming the War on Women for the Glory of God. But anyway, yeah, I guess just a fun fact about the guy who's leading the House Republicans in Congress right now. And then I've got bad infuriating news for you. And that is that after a decade, Flint, Michigan's search for justice has finally come to an end. Right. And of course, all of this actually started back on April 25th, 2014, when state officials switched the city's water supply to the Flint River to save money. Then, of course, because of that decision and other errors, lead from the pipes seeped into the water. People started complaining that it smelled bad, it tasted bad, it looked fucking brown.

But then officials at the time reassured everyone the water is safe. And then by the time the crisis actually blew open, 12 people had died and thousands more were poisoned, including children, leaving many of them with permanent neurological damage and behavioral issues that they'll never recover from. So then in 2016, Michigan's Attorney General charged a slate of former officials for their complicity in the disaster.

With those cases making progress, a district judge ordering former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter. Then in 2019, shortly after the new Attorney General Dana Nessel took office, her special prosecution team threw out the previous AG's charges,

citing problems with how evidence was gathered. Though then her team bringing their own charges against nine former officials. And those nine, including former Governor Rick Snyder, Nick Lyon, Snyder's top aide, Richard Baird, and others who are allegedly culpable in the water poisoning. But then those cases all floundered after the state Supreme Court ruled last year that prosecutors messed up by having a circuit judge act as a one-man grand jury for the charges. And after that, lower courts dismissed the cases and every appeal to reverse the dismissals failed over and over. With all that leading us to yesterday when the state Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal

on the case against Rick Snyder, effectively ending the entire effort to hold anyone accountable for poisoning the entire city. So now you have some residents blaming the attorney general and her appointees for bungling the cases, with the president of the board for the environmental transformation movement of Flint saying,

this process has been dragging on for so long that frankly, a lot of us were wondering if what the AG was really looking for here was some kind of an out. And if that's what they're looking for, that's what this is for them. But then you have the prosecutors pointing the finger at the state Supreme Court because one man grand juries have been used in the past for violent crime cases where people are afraid to snitch or public corruption cases where witnesses won't cooperate. So the fact that it wasn't allowed in this case leads some to believe there's a two tier justice system, one for black and brown people and one

for wealthy, powerful white men. And with this, the executive director of Flint Rising say, all these folks can go off and live their life, bounce back with jobs and salaries, whereas Flint residents will be forever living with the consequences of those actions through their bodies, through the impairment of their health. And another activist saying, if they had done a fair trial and had all the evidence presented, had there been a verdict that people in the community were not happy with, at least they would have been able to say we had a fighting chance. The evidence was heard. The facts are out. The residents are in a position right now where we aren't even able to see the evidence that was presented to the one-man jury. Meanwhile, the corroded lead waterline still

haven't been replaced nearly a decade since the crisis. You know, it just leaves me thinking, like, if things ever get French Revolution-y, I guess is how I'd say it, you can look to situations like this and so many others of powerful people not being held accountable as to why. And then the updates out of Gaza and Israel are still coming as this conflict continues to shift and evolve. And we'll start with some of the big picture stuff, such as the death tolls. Israeli officials haven't updated their death toll of 1,400 killed and 5,400 injured in weeks, although we know it is going up as there are increasing reports of Israeli soldiers dying during the ground invasion of Gaza. And then within Gaza, you have Hamas health officials claiming that about 8,800 people have been killed and 22,000 injured. While you have people sharing

doubts with that specific number, even if it is in the ballpark, that is a horrific number as most of those casualties would be civilians. In the mass, civilian casualties have also put Israel into hot water with major international organizations such as the UN, with its agency helping Palestinian refugees tweeting out, in the last 24 hours, three UNRWA staff were killed in ongoing strikes while in their homes with their families, bringing total to 67 UNRWA colleagues killed in Gaza since October 7. On top of that, many governments around the world have lodged formal complaints against Israel, and some of them have even shut down embassies or cut diplomatic ties, especially in Latin America. Brazil has condemned the airstrikes on Gaza, while Bolivia moved to cut diplomatic ties with a minister saying,

We demand an end to the attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has so far claimed thousands of civilian lives and caused forced displacement of Palestinians. And the country's foreign minister adding that the move was, quote, a repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and its threat to international peace and security. Then just hours later, Colombia and Chile both recalled their ambassadors from Israel. And notably, most of these countries are run by left-leaning parties that have long been critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Like with Bolivia, they cut off ties with Israel back in 2009

to protest the last invasion of Gaza, only to then re-establish it in 2020 under the presidency of a right-wing government. And in the case of Chile, it is the largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle East by a sizable margin. So those decisions really are not a huge surprise. And so it's because of pressure like this, as well as from steadfast allies like the U.S., that Israel has made some concessions in Gaza. Notably, the Biden administration announced that it was pressuring Israel to allow more aid trucks to enter Gaza,

with National Security Spokesperson John Kirby saying, we're not going to let it go. We're not going to drop it. We're going to continue to see what we can do to increase that volume. And it appears it worked, at least according to U.S. officials, with Israel agreeing to let 100 aid trucks into Gaza per day. Although a key thing is that we need to actually wait and see if that actually ends up being the case. Then, of course, we have to talk about the people stuck in Gaza, because unfortunately, everyday Gazans are still fucked right now. There are no real plans to get them out. Even then, where would they go? I mean, the only feasible place nearby is Egypt, and they have made it abundantly clear that they do not want them. In fact, they have gone as far as to put more

military units in the region to make sure of that. But there is more hope for a lot of foreign nationals and dual passport holders who are stuck there. For a while, Hamas wasn't letting them out, but that seems to have changed with Hamas's interior ministry releasing a massive list of foreign passport holders who would be allowed to leave. Although notably, it seemed to lack many of the 400 Americans who are stuck there, with only five American NGO workers having been confirmed to have actually gotten out so far. But also, just as I was recording today, there was an update, with President Biden tweeting,

But again, until we actually see it happen, words are just words. As we've seen many times already, things in this situation change and fall apart at the drop of a hat. But if things actually turn out that way, it would be a great start. And then hopefully we would see more and more actually be able to leave rather than be stuck in a war zone. Which is also something I really want to emphasize.

Gaza is increasingly becoming more and more dangerous. Which is really saying something. I mean, this is Gaza. It was already a rough place to be. But with Israeli troops increasingly entering the territory, there's likely gonna be fighting in the urban center, which will also leave less places for Hamas's leaders to hide, which will likely further push them to hide among civilian populations.

And we've already seen that Israel has few issues bombing civilians if it means getting at Hamas. I mean, if you watch yesterday's show, you saw that IDF spokesperson continually being hounded and asked by Wolf Blitzer, like, but you knew that there were innocent men, women, and children there. And it being abundantly clear that those deaths and those killings are things they're comfortable doing to achieve their goal. And then internationally, you see a lot of people not separating Jewish people from the actions of the Israeli government. And that likely being one aspect of anti-Semitism

increasing around the world, though bigots didn't need an excuse in the first place, those people are always there. And it's become especially notable in the United States, and that's also likely because outside of Israel, the U.S. is by far the largest Jewish population by a huge margin. So there are a lot more chances for it to happen, and according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, this is a threat that is reaching, in some ways,

sort of historic levels. But I'm also going on to emphasize, though, that this isn't just like Muslim on Jewish hate crimes like some people were talking. As unfortunately, quote, the Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum. And saying, in fact, our statistics would indicate that for a group that

represents only about 2.4 percent of the American public, they account for something like 60 percent of all religious based hate crimes. And to that point, Ray also explicitly warned about the threat of extremist violence in the U.S. and abroad, targeting Jewish and Muslim communities at a time when both are already seeing upticks in hate crimes. With the men going on to say that if you see or hear about any potential hate crime, regardless of who it is targeting, please report it as the FBI is, quote, pursuing those threats and leads as vigorously and responsibly as we can. And then let's talk about yesterday today, where we take a look back at yesterday's show. We dive into those comments and see what stories stood out to you. What are you commenting on? What are you giving your opinion

on? Why do you have that opinion? With yesterday's show being so big, there were so many stories. People were sounding off on everything. Regarding Selena Gomez coming under fire for her comments on the Israel-Hamas war. Embarrassing that we have reached a dystopian point where people turn to celebrities' words as if they can stop an ongoing war. And seeing artists such as Selena seemingly getting berated for not having a cookie-cutter

tweet on an issue that is halfway across the globe is saddening. She gave her thoughts, which were vividly against any form of hate. End of story. People have differing perspectives on things. We're all throwing our thoughts into a stew. She's not a selective activist. She's a human who lived life, felt joy and pain, and speaks against what she has felt in her life personally. Letters speak her mind. We're all just trying to make sense of the world around us. As well as people saying that shows a disgusting aspect of today's society. She stays silent. She gets hate. She makes a neutral post. She gets hate. If she would

have made a post going slash supporting either way, she would have gotten hate. There was no possible situation where she would have come out without problems. The people calling her out to make a statement were just out for blood and nothing more. Then on the pharmacy news, or people calling it Pharmageddon, some of y'all shared comments like, as someone who's worked in retail pharmacy for about five-ish years, this walkout was way overdue. The working conditions that retail chains put on you were so exhausting and frustrating. I've worked 14 to 16 hour days as a tech with one pharmacist trying to count slash answer phone slash type scripts and sell meds. I really hope that this makes some waves and actual change will happen before something bad

happens and they're forced to change how they run things. And I worked at Walgreens just shy of five years and left a year into the pandemic. It was the worst job I have ever had. The toll it took on me mentally, physically, and emotionally. There are really amazing people working there and they are trying their best with little to no support. I could literally write on and on about all the bad stuff working in pharmacy. Please be very kind and patient to your local RX staff. There were also a lot of interesting stories and opinions connected to the homeschooling story. In fact, so much so that I can't even get to all of them in this one video. But just to share a few, some described their situation saying, I was homeschooled all throughout middle school due

to medical necessity. And to this day, I feel like I'm still playing catch up socially. I do feel that it can work if done right, but there needs to be more resources and guidelines for homeschooling. In fact, as a Florida resident, lack of faith in where the educational system is going has led me to consider this for my children in the future while keeping in mind how to work around the issues I faced at that time. Which I will say, this is anecdotal, but when I moved to Florida with my family, I was like a year and a half ahead of where the schools were there. That's actually how I first ended up in like the more advanced classes because the school system there was just so fucked. But again, that could have just been that school that could have

been just that district. That was my experience. Some here also sharing troubling stories coming from schools. Fifth grade, my kiddo was getting notes from other kids encouraging him to harm himself in the school brush it off because the teacher said the notes were put there by her quote, good kids. His IEP goals for his autism weren't being met by the school even after repeated meetings and the bullying only compounded the issue he had in public school. For us his mental health was so bad that it was homeschool or lose my child to the impacts of bullying and homeschooling was literally the life-saving choice. But I also recognize the privilege in us getting to homeschool. Not everyone who needs slash wants to can. Also we had multiple teachers preaching to him in public

school. Here I feel like when we pull kids for ideological differences, it's because the public school is too religious. And I will say, in general, it felt like a lot of people were like, I love the idea of homeschooling, right? Parents should have control. But then there was also an acknowledgement of not all parents are created equal, right? Some parents are worried about their kids getting bullied and the school's not doing enough. Others are worried that schools aren't religious enough or they teach evolution or they talk about climate change. I mean, it's such a complicated issue. Some of y'all were sharing like fucking essays

on this in the comments. Saying things like, Jesus, hearing that homeschool statistic makes my stomach clench. It's great that people are able to find alternatives for harmful situation that Phil mentioned, i.e. bullying, school shootings, special needs, et cetera. But the lack of oversight in homeschooling laws

creates an environment where the concealment of abuse and neglect can easily occur. And going on to say, I'm sure there are lots of homeschooling parents who genuinely care about their kids and are doing all they can to fully educate them. But arguing, the flip side of abusive parents using homeschooling as a front for isolation and neglect is too high a cost to allow current legislation to continue. And adding with the rising rates of homeschooling in the U.S., I am terrified of how many more kids are going to end up like me, uneducated and totally unprepared for the world at 18. Then going on to describe that their mom's form of homeschooling

didn't include much education beyond teaching us how to read and giving us blank math books, saying I had no classes, schedule, or curriculum during my entire childhood, saying the majority of my language skills came not from any class, but because I loved to read,

so I was constantly reading fiction. And you can pause to read the full comment here. But that is where I'm gonna end yesterday, today, today. Thank you, of course, to everyone that takes part in the conversation. Thank you to everyone that shared their stories. But ultimately, that is also where your daily dive into the news is going to end today. Of course, for more news, you need to know that you might not have seen yet. You can click or tap right here, or I got links in the description for you. But remember, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow to break down more news and that's it I messed up the final line goodbye