The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 1.22 The Billionaire "Problem", Black Panther Makes History, SCOTUS Allows Ban, & Venezuela

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've been a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're going to talk about today is some money news. The anti-poverty charity Oxfam released their annual report and according to their report, billionaire fortunes increased by 12% last year or $2.5 billion a day, while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11%. Also adding that the number of billionaires has almost doubled since the financial crisis, with a new billionaire created every two days between 2017 and 2018. And then adding, yet wealthy individuals and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades.

Pointing out specifically, in some countries such as Brazil, the poorest 10% of society are now paying a higher proportion of their incomes in tax than the richest 10%. And as far as that gap between the world's richest and the poorest, last year when we talked about this, the top 43 people in the world own the same as the bottom 3.8 billion people. That number now in this latest report is 26 people to the poorest 3.8 billion people. And it also appeared in this report that they were calling for a wealth tax to be introduced, saying getting the richest 1% to pay just 0.5% extra tax

on their wealth could raise more money than it would cost to educate the 262 million children out of school and provide healthcare that would save the lives of 3.3 million people. Which I guess on that note, I did want to ask a question that, it's a little bit of a simple question for a complex issue. What are your thoughts around the situation that's grabbed a lot of headlines for actually a little while now? Where you have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposing a 70% marginal tax. Which, just to clear up any confusion, because I've seen a lot of confusion around this issue, some people have seemingly understood the proposition as if you made $10 million,

the government gets $7 million of it. That's not how the tax rate would work. It would be 70% on money made after the $10 million. Right, that's the difference between a flat tax versus a marginal tax. I think a graphic that explains it pretty well is this one that was released by Axios earlier this month. It gives you a situation of a person

making $11 million in a year, and it shows what that would look like if it was a flat tax, which once again is not what is being proposed. And then the other shows what would happen with a marginal tax. And since this isn't a fully developed plan, it uses the existing brackets,

and then adds a 70% tax on money made after $10 million. What are your thoughts on that? I've looked at polls. Recently I saw there was a poll from The Hill and Harris X. They reportedly found that 59% of people supported this, with 71% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 45% of Republicans. Is that something that's appealing to you?

Do you think that makes sense? Or no, you're against it? Maybe because you feel like it's putting an artificial ceiling on potential success. I'd love to know your thoughts on this. And also, the reason I say this is a simple question to a complex situation, I personally have the belief that the immensely wealthy, you know The 1% of the 1% that they will always find a way to shelter their money. Then in a story

That's kind of an update to this morning's Extra Morning News deep dive. This morning We learned who and what is nominated for an Oscar. The nominees for Best Picture include Vice, A Star is Born, Roma, Green Book, The Favourite, Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Klansman, and Black Panther. And in this category, obviously, the big thing people are talking about is that Black Panther actually got nominated. It is the first superhero movie to get this nomination, which is crazy since The Dark Knight is a movie that was made. But also, this morning, we saw a few posts take off, critical that Black Panther was picked, some saying, what about this other movie? Stuff like this one, reading unpopular opinion. Avengers Infinity War should have been nominated over Black Panther was picked, some saying what about this other movie, stuff like this one, reading unpopular opinion. Infinity War should have been nominated

over Black Panther. Infinity War was a better movie and Black Panther was overrated. But a question I'll ask at this part is, what do you personally think was the best movie of the year? As far as my favorite, and this might be because it's still the most fresh in my mind, it's actually Spider- Into the Spider-Verse.

It is just truly a stellar movie. It is nominated for Best Animated Film, but I say just hands down It was my favorite thing But yeah Let me know what your favorite was this year because I think I'm actually more interested in what you think rather than a select group But also another story I saw popping up around these nominations the conversation around who was nominated for directing and the reason for that is This morning we saw a post like this one from the Hollywood Reporter reading Hashtag Oscars the Academy again failed to nominate any women for Best Director

An award that only five female directors have only been nominated for With Kathryn Bigelow remaining the only winner for The Hurt Locker in 2010 And I'll let the rest of the internet argue about that Personally, I'm just shocked that Won't You Be My Neighbor was not nominated for Best Documentary You want to have some feelings for a little bit? Watch that movie But that said, ultimately where I want to end this story I guess if you're kind of just a passerby-er with this story, what are your thoughts regarding Best Picture, the Black Panther comments, and for those more heavily invested in the Oscars,

who do you think was snubbed? In what category? Who shouldn't even be up there? Love to know your thoughts on that. Then let's talk about an update on the transgender military ban here in the United States. And with this story, you may be like, yeah, what happened with that? I remember something happened and that's because it's been a while. It was back in July of 2017 when Trump announced a sweeping ban on transgender people's military service via Twitter and his tweets read, After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow

transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the US military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with a tremendous medical cost and disruption that transgender and the military would entail, thank you. Although people have pushed back on his assertion that transgender service members medical costs would be a burden, and this is because, according to the RAND Corporation, allowing trans-inclusive medical care

would increase costs by between 2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, which ends up being only a.04 to.13% increase in active component healthcare expenditures. But Trump's announcement was massive news because it was only just back in 2016 when the Obama administration had lifted the previous ban allowing transgender men and women to serve openly.

Specifically on June 30th, 2016, then Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter said, "'Effect of immediately transgender Americans "'may serve openly. "'They can no longer be discharged "'or otherwise separated from the military "'just for being transgender.'" The policy was meant to come into

effect in July of 2017 and the Pentagon would update its medical standards to include people who have a history of gender dysphoria, which is the medical term for wanting to transition gender. But in June, then Defense Secretary James Maddich, Trump's first defense secretary, delayed the plan to allow transgender recruits to join the military by another six months pending the results of a study. And then a few weeks later we got those tweets from Trump that we talked about earlier. Then the following day we saw Marine General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, release a memo, this effectively stopping the military from making any changes until a new policy was adopted.

And the new policy would take effect in March of 2018, but the ban would then be challenged in federal courts. Groups representing transgender individuals sued. And in early cases we saw the Trump administration lose, with courts issuing nationwide injunctions against the implementation of the ban. And so as a result, openly trans service members were able to join the military starting January 2018.

Then in March of 2018, the Trump administration revealed a second version of the plan. This version stating, quote, "'Transgender persons with a history "'or diagnosis of gender dysphoria, "'individuals who the policies state "'may require substantial medical treatment, "'including medications and surgery,

"'are disqualified from military service "'except under certain limited circumstances. And the prohibition included people who had already transitioned. So now, with all of that background information out of the way, we fast forward to today, because earlier today, the Supreme Court decided to lift those early injunctions.

And so what this means is that the court ruled that the restrictions on transgender people serving in the military will go into effect while legal battles continue in lower courts, and while the court decides whether to consider the merits of the case. And this was decided with a vote of five to four. But ultimately with this story,

that's where we are right now. It is not the complete end of the road. The Pentagon can now start enforcing the ban, but we have to kind of wait to see if they're actually going to do it. And even if the Supreme Court does grant the case moving forward, they wouldn't hear it until next year. And so right now the situation is still developing,

but it's developing over a long period of time. But with this story, I did wanna to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts on this? And then let's talk about what's happening in Venezuela. According to reports, a group of soldiers attempted an uprising against President Nicolas Maduro causing violent protests in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. And we've talked about this in the past, but to kind of give you a quick recap, Maduro won another six-year term in office on May 20th, 2018,

reportedly winning 68% of the vote, the largest percentage ever. And for those wondering why I've been using air quotes, it's because the election has been widely considered rigged. And in part, this is believed because voter turnout was much lower. Voter turnout in Venezuela has historically been around 80%, but then in 2018, it was only around 46%, but with Maduro receiving only 1.5 million less votes

this year than when he was elected back in 2013. And this is also largely because the opposition boycotted the vote, with the largest opposition party being barred from participating, and many popular opposition candidates being banned from the election. The presidential elections were unconstitutionally

called early by the pro-Maduro constituent assembly, even though it's not their job to call elections. As you might remember, this assembly was formed back in 2017, when Maduro issued a presidential decree calling for an election of a new legislature to replace the existing Congress, the National Assembly. Maduro doesn't technically have this power, but did this maneuver in order to remove his opposition decree calling for an election of a new legislature to replace the existing Congress, the National Assembly. Maduro doesn't technically have this power, but did this maneuver in order to remove his

opposition from the National Assembly by replacing it entirely. And keep in mind, this is just a TLDR of everything. These are just only some of the tactics used by Maduro to secure the election. Also as a reminder, Venezuela has been dealing with a huge amount of political and economic instability in the last few years. The annual inflation is now over 1 million percent, making it the world's highest inflation rate in 2018. This also caused rampant poverty and malnutrition with extreme food medicine shortages making the price of food medicines too high for most people to obtain. And so also because of this many Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries like Colombia and Brazil, some even fleeing as far as the United States.

The United Nations back in 2018 reporting that the number of refugees and migrants had reached three million. And all the while political unrest has been widespread. There's also been heavy crackdowns on protesters. As far as Maduro is concerned, he's blaming an economic war waged on Venezuela by the United States, though economists have said it's pretty clearly due to years of poor government management and corruption.

But all of that said, it takes us to yesterday. Reportedly this coup, or mutiny if you wanna call it that, was led by a man named Sergeant Alexander Bandres Figueroa. According to reports, he marshaled a small team of soldiers who were members of the Venezuelan National Guard at approximately 2.50 a.m. local time, leading soldiers to a government special security unit headquarters.

This was something that was filmed on a cell phone and posted on social media. In the video, the soldiers said that they were there to reestablish the constitution. Video also showing Figueroa speaking to the camera, telling Venezuelans to take to the streets. And we saw a small number did, with anti-government demonstrators protesting

in the neighborhood of Cotiza. These protesters clashed with security forces and were eventually contained with tear gas and rubber bullets. Venezuela's national defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, said that the assailants had been detained, stating, "'The Bolivarian National Armed Forces "'categorically reject these types of acts,

"'that with all certainty are motivated "'by dark interests of the extreme right right and are contrary to the elemental laws of military discipline, honor, and traditions of our institution." With Padrino saying that the soldiers stole military vehicles and weapons and actually kidnapped four people. Also stating that the full weight of the law would be exercised on the individuals at hand.

And following the protest, Venezuela's Supreme Court, which is led by Maduro-Luellis, issued a ruling that the National Assembly is invalid. going as far to rule that any agreement made by the leadership of the Assembly after they were sworn in on January 5th would be null and void. But also I think of note that the protests and this action, they're not coming out of nowhere. All of this comes as Maduro was sworn in for his second term last week. And after that ceremony, Juan Guaido, the head of the National Assembly and the opposition leader of the Popular Will Party, said that he was prepared to take over as interim president in a caretaker Government and hold fair election and as far as who Guaido is he's a 35 year old industrial engineer

He's recently emerged as a popular leader in Venezuela Although I mean he really wasn't well known before he was sworn in but that ended up changing a few days later where he gained International attention because masked agents from Venezuela's intelligence service grabbed him at gunpoint and held him in custody Guaido telling the New York Times that the intelligence service questioned him on his plans to assume the country's leadership and call a new election and then let him go. And since then Venezuela's opposition controlled National Assembly called for national demonstrators to take to the street this coming Wednesday. With the National Assembly saying that it does not recognize Maduro's second term and have called for him to step down so they can have new elections. And just this last Tuesday the

assembly directed by Guaido declared Maduro illegitimate, a move which they had hoped would trigger a constitutional mechanism which would allow the head of the assembly to take over the leadership. And they also hoped that the demonstrations they called for would show widespread support for the replacement of Maduro. And also with this move, they offered amnesty to members of the armed forces, which is a move

that is widely believed to have sparked yesterday's uprising. And so as a result of all of this, Guaido is now seeking international recognition as Venezuela's leader. The thing is, leaders in the international community have widely embraced him. Last Tuesday we saw Vice President Mike Pence tweet, honored to speak to Juan Guaido, president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, a courageous man standing up for freedom and democracy. Then last Wednesday we saw Pence say this, We've imposed tough new sanctions on Nicolas Maduro's sham of a government.

Just this week we unequivocally condemned the arrest of imposed tough new sanctions on Nicolas Maduro's sham of a government. Just this week, we unequivocally condemned the arrest of Juan Guaido, the president of the National Assembly, after he invoked protections under Venezuela's constitution and declared Maduro's presidency illegitimate. I spoke with Juan Guaido just yesterday. I told him the United States will continue to stand strong with the people of Venezuela until Democracy and liberty are restored and in fact today in a message to the people of Venezuela

Mike Pence called Maduro a dictator which to insert my opinion into this very quickly I agree with Pence here also White House National Security Advisor John Bolton tweeting, "'The US will not recognize the Maduro dictatorship's "'illegitimate inauguration. "'We will continue to increase pressure "'on the corrupt regime, "'support the Democratic National Assembly, "'and call for democracy and freedom in Venezuela.'" But given the current state of affairs,

it seems incredibly unlikely that Maduro will step down as president. Also given his past actions against protesters, it is safe to say that there is likely more violence to come. And right now we're in a situation to wait and see, you know, what happens with the demonstrations, what happens with the international community. That's where I'm going to end today's show.

Remember, if you liked this video, you like the daily dives into the news, hit that like button. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button, maybe ring that bell to turn on notifications. But with 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.