The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.7 WOW! Kamala Harris EXPOSED! Drake Grammys Boycott, Texas Gerrymandering & Will Our Democracy FAIL?

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Use code PHIL for $20 off your first order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL More PDS: https://youtu.be/vFzZgqjbS6s TEXT ME! [phone] Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco -- 00:00 - S.F. Bay Area Homeowner Sues Appraiser For Alleged Racial Discrimination 02:38 - Drake Withdraws Grammy Nominations 05:52 - Politico Slammed For Piece Criticizing VP Harris For Not Using Bluetooth 08:04 - Sponsor 08:54 - Man Claiming to Be Bitcoin Inventor Wins Lawsuit Over $57 Billion in Crypto 10:51 - DOJ Sues Texas Over Redistricting Maps, Alleging Voter Discrimination -- ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ S.F. Bay Area Homeowner Sues Appraiser For Alleged Racial Discrimination: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/06/black-couple-home-value-white-washing/ Drake Withdraws Grammy Nominations: https://roguerocket.com/2021/12/07/drake-withdraws-his-2022-grammy-nominations/ Politico Slammed For Piece Criticizing VP Harris For Not Using Bluetooth: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-bluetooth-politico-criticism-b1971493.html Man Claiming to Be Bitcoin Inventor Wins Lawsuit Over $57 Billion in Crypto: https://roguerocket.com/2021/12/07/craig-wright-btc/ DOJ Sues Texas Over Redistricting Maps, Alleging Voter Discrimination: https://roguerocket.com/2021/12/07/doj-texas-redistricting-maps/ —————————— Executive Producer: Amanda Morones Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright Art Department: Brian Borst, William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Cory Ray, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Neena Pesqueda Production Team: Zack Taylor, Emma Leid ———————————— #DeFranco #Drake #KamalaHarris ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Y'all, covering news in 2021, soon to be 2022, it's so weird. Like, for example, you have the very serious news. Maybe you saw headlines like, Biden warned Putin on specific consequences if Russia invades Ukraine. With that, following reports from earlier this week that Russia's planning a 175,000 troop military invasion or offensive. And you know how Ukraine responded? They posted this meme.

That's their real account. This is an official Ukraine statement, which is just kind of legendary. Also, it feels so ridiculous. I feel like we're in a simulation, but still just legendary. Anyway, fuck Putin. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show. Hit that like button if you agree with that statement

I just said a second ago. What is this show? But yeah, let's just jump into it. And the first thing that I want to talk about today is this story and news out of Northern California focused on this black couple where you have Paul Austin and his wife, Tanisha Tate Austin. They're trying to sell their home

in the San Francisco Bay area. And if you're unfamiliar with the process, you have to get an appraisal. They had their home looked at by Miller and Perotti Real Estate Appraisals. They show off the more than $400,000 worth of improvements they've made to the property. And they end up completely shocked

when the appraiser values their home, which once again is in the San Francisco Bay area at $995,000, which is far below previous appraisals. So the Austins, they see this, they go, okay, this doesn't make sense, let's try something. And so this time around, they enlist the help of a white friend who pretended to be the homeowner for a new appraiser,

with them also whitewashing the home by removing family photos and stripping the walls of their African themed art, instead adding in photos of their white friend's family. And I'll pose the question to you, what do you think the second appraisal came in at? Right, was it the same number? Did it go up like 20% to 1.2 million?

No, the new appraisal came in around 50% higher, $1.48 million, which notably was also the median home value for a single family home in their county. And so following that, you had Paul Austin telling the State Reparations Task Force in October that he believes the property was devalued, quote, "'Because we are in a black neighborhood and the home belonged to a black family.'"

So now with the help of a nonprofit, the couple suing over this low ball valuation, yes, seeking financial damages, but also they're asking the court to order the defendants to ensure that they will not discriminate when appraising homes. Because they're not the only black homeowners who've had these experiences.

In fact, just this last year alone, we've seen headlines of black owners in Indiana and Ohio calling out the same issue. 2018 study by the Brookings Institution also finding that homes in black neighborhoods in US metropolitan areas were undervalued by an average of $48,000, amounting to $156 billion in losses. With the leader of that study, Andre Perry, saying, It's almost like when people see black neighborhoods, they see twice as much crime than there actually is. They see worse education than there actually is.

I think this is what happens when appraisers, lenders, real estate agents see blackness. They devalue the asset, they devalue the property. Now, with all that said, the appraisers in this story have not publicly commented on the lawsuits, so we're gonna have to wait to see what happens here. And so until I get an update that I can report here, I'd love to know your thoughts on this story and situation.

Then, in entertainment news, we should talk about Drake, the Grammys, award show culture in general. Right, over the years, many have said, you know, Drake has this love-hate relationship with the Grammys. He's been nominated 47 times. He's only won four. Very notably, one of the times he won, he even said this. If there's people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don't need this right here, I promise you. You already won.

Right, Drake directly saying what he's insinuated in the past, that the Grammys do not matter. Though probably his most direct hit against the award show came last year when he was responding to the weekend's famous Grammy snubs on social media by writing, "'I think we should stop allowing ourselves "'to be shocked every year by the disconnect

"'between impactful music and these awards "'and just accept that what once was the highest form "'of recognition may no longer matter to the artists "'that exist now and the ones that come after. It's like a relative you keep expecting to fix up, but they just can't change their ways. With him even calling for an institution or show that could replace the Grammys for future generations.

And so all of that takes us to the 2022 Grammys where Drake actually got two nominations, one for best rap album, another for best rap performance. And the big news is that Drake's reaction to those nominations were, nah, I'm good, with him withdrawing his nomination saying, "' don't even try to give me the award. Though, Drake has not yet made a statement specifying why he made this choice. Which one, means that those categories now only have four nominations instead of five, right, the Academy not going to replace Drake with the artist with the next most votes.

And two, so many people asking the question of why, right, to even get the nomination to potentially get the award he and or his team had to submit. Which in part is why I don't think it's a, some people believe that it's him trying to kinda disconnect himself from any media attention following what happened with Astroworld and Travis Scott. He's got other stuff scheduled, so I don't think that's the case. So to me, it very much seems like he's just making good

on what he said last time and what he wrote down. Rather than him pulling the move before he got the nomination where people could go, you know, maybe he wouldn't even get the nomination. He now gets all this free attention that shows that he's kind of a man of his word. Really from here, it's just a question of, is there a snowball effect?

Do we see people boycotting the Grammys or pulling their nominations? Drake is such a big name and artist that it is possible, but the cynic in my head says, no. You're talking about the entertainment industry, the music industry, the egos need to be fed. And I say that from my much smaller place in the entertainment world. Like I think in general award shows are silly, silly bullshit pageantry.

But I'd be lying if I told you it didn't feel good when I got some of those guys in the back. Getting that outside love, attention, and praise that we didn't get as children. But still, the whole situation does highlight something that is true about award shows, but also so many facets of life. Things only matter when we decide as a group that they do coming back to this I mean how many of us have watched award shows in the past and we're like rooting for people We didn't even know who's voting bring it back to Drake's point in the Grammys Like why allow this little this little award so much control over if you think that you're valid and you're legitimate when you're you You know how many people are buying you know how many people are, you know how many people are buying, you know how many people are streaming,

you know how many people are showing up to your shows. Meanwhile, there's a part of your brain that's trying to get validation from a bunch of people you probably don't fuck with. And that, I think especially because of the rise of social media is a universal thing that we should all kind of look inward on. We often give too much power about how we think

about ourselves to people that shouldn't have it. And that is my Christmas gift for me to you. If any of this resonated with you, try and figure out why and what you should do about it. Sorry, Drake, I know you were supposed to be the point of this story, but we're moving on. Then move over Obama's tan suit, a new ridiculously stupid controversy is here to play.

And that's because this morning Politico ran the headline, "'Kamala is Bluetooth-phobic.'" I guess because Kamala Harris is racist against Bluetooth, question mark, exclamation point, was a little bit too crazy even for Politico ran the headline, "'Kamala is Bluetooth-phobic.'" I guess because Kamala Harris is racist against Bluetooth, question mark, exclamation point, was a little bit too crazy even for Politico. With this either veiled hit piece or just absolutely lazy story that I'm guessing these authors needed like to hit a quota

before the end of the year maybe, explaining that according to three former aides, Harris is worried about possible security breaches from using wireless headphones and prefers to keep her cables. Also going through the piece, it kind of feels like the authors realize this is a kind of a ridiculous relatively weak story

so they try to insert some humor. With the three reporters on the piece writing things like, Should someone who travels with the nuclear football be spending time untangling her headphone wires? The American people deserve answers. It's all just so stupid and it hurts my brain that three professional journalists put out this garbage and I, some fucking random schmuck on the internet, I'm gonna end my show today talking about the very serious issue of gerrymandering, talking about the future of democracy in our country.

Why is that happening? And luckily, at least for my own sanity, it appears that I was not the only one, many just mocking Politico and the piece in general, with some writing things like, "'Is this sort of nonsense masquerading as journalism that got us the hyperbole of the tan suit, mustard, and cooking pot, quote, controversies?'

While ignoring real fourth estate responsibilities like reporting on emoluments, money laundering, corruption, obstruction, cults, coups, et cetera." As well as a number of cybersecurity experts coming out and saying, hey, whether it's a hit piece or just like lazy reporting, she's actually right. Being concerned about her Bluetooth security is absolutely the correct thing to do as the vice president.

With some saying this all felt like widespread hypocrisy with the media for mocking Harris's Bluetooth aversion while also blasting Hillary Clinton in the past for poor cybersecurity practices. Which is also why I wanna say to the commenters, curators, to the actual other outlets that talked about this piece, but mocked it, thank you because it's fucking stupid and what always ends up happening is you have a few assholes

doing a stupid thing and then everyone gets kind of painted with this broad brush. Yeah, that's all I'll say about that. And to Alex, Tina and Ruby who wrote this piece, I'm very much looking forward to your next piece of if Biden replaces the toilet paper when he's done, or if he just puts it on top of the holder like a monster. You know, really put those degrees to work.

But from that, I want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's show, SeatGeek. Most of you know I've worked with SeatGeek for a long time now, and I'm super excited to be working with them again. Stuck wondering what to get someone for the holidays? Trust me, tickets are the perfect last minute gift. You'll be giving the gift of an experience that they'll love

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and give the gift of live events this holiday season. So click that link, download the app and get started today. And then let's definitely talk about this story involving Bitcoin, the mystery behind its creator and $50 billion. Right, so this begins back in 2018 when the estate of a man named Dave Kleiman sued Australian computer scientist

and businessman Craig Wright. Now notably, the two were business partners, however, Kleiman died back in 2013. And so you had his brother bringing the brunt of this lawsuit and alleging that Wright plotted to swindle Kleiman out of intellectual property rights to a number of blockchain technologies as well as half of the 1.1 million Bitcoins

they had mined together between 2009 and 2013. And at that time, that was worth around $5 billion. However, today that would be worth well over 50 billion. And as the AP noted, these were among the first Bitcoin to be created through mining and could only be owned by a person or entity involved with a digital currency from its beginning,

such as Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Satoshi Nakamoto isn't a real name. It's just a pseudonym for Bitcoin's creator who to this day is still a mystery. While the original filing itself states that it's unclear whether Wright, Kleinman, or the two together were responsible for the cryptocurrency's creation, Wright actually began claiming he was Satoshi back in 2016. Though, to be clear, much of the crypto community believes that is a heaping pile of dog shit and that he doesn't actually have access to any of the 1.1 million Bitcoin. But still, during this trial you had prosecutors arguing that Kleinman was in fact co-creator of Bitcoin alongside Wright,

meaning that Kleinman's estate is entitled to half of Satoshi's assumed fortune. But ultimately what we ended up seeing yesterday was a federal jury in Florida largely siding with Wright and saying that he doesn't have to hand over any Bitcoin to Kleinman's estate, which if he isn't actually Satoshi is a major blessing for him, given that he now doesn't have to fork over the money that he might not have.

But that said, the jury did decide that Wright needed to pay $100 million in damages related to IP rights at W&K Info Defense Research, LLC, which is a joint venture between him and Kleiman. And look, this story still isn't over. During the trial, Wright said that if he won, he would prove his ownership of these coins and donate a sizable amount of them to charity.

So now you have a lot of people wondering if he's gonna make good on his word, especially since many have repeatedly called for him to just simply move a fraction of the 1.1 million coins to prove his ownership. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see if any of that happens. And all we really know for sure is that Wright got off here with a major win.

And then let's definitely talk about the incredibly important news around redrawing voting maps, redistricting and gerrymandering. So here in the United States, we have a representative democracy with that representative being a good and a bad thing, depending on who you are.

And when you look to the Senate, every state no matter the population gets two representatives. California with around 40 million people, Rhode Island with one equals. But then you look over to the House of Representatives that has 435 seats split up between the states based on population. Every ten years the number of representatives can actually change based on the results of the census. Well, the results of the census are incredibly important, right? Some states could actually lose or gain representatives. What follows is arguably even more important, the redrawing of districts. What does the representative actually represent

in the House of Representatives? And because of the way that these districts are cut up, what should be representative of the entire population doesn't actually become that in a lot of places. Just as a quick example of what that can look like, we look to Wisconsin. Biden won Wisconsin in a very tight race in 2020, but the way the state looks like it's going to be cut up for the next 10 years would skew voting demographics. So Republicans would more than likely

win six of the state's eight congressional seats. But with all of that said, right, Wisconsin's not the focus of today's story. I just wanted to use that as an example of what's supposed to be representative, not necessarily being representative based on some factors. Instead, the focus today is on the Justice Department now suing Texas over its plans to redraw voting maps, arguing that they discriminate against black and Latino voters while giving more power to white people. Specifically, the DOJ claiming that Texas's redistricting maps violate the Voting Rights Act by essentially diluting the influence of voters of color who have driven population growth in the state. According to the lawsuit, 95% of Texas's 4 million person population growth over the last decade has been attributed to minorities, and specifically Latinos,

resulting in Texas being the only state to gain two new congressional seats in the last census. But with that, you have the DOJ claiming that not only have Texas Republicans given those two new seats to predominantly white communities and preserved seats held by white GOP members, they claim that the Republicans have intentionally crafted its maps

to dilute the increased strength of minorities' voices in the voting process that should have come with the demographic shifts. This by either eliminating minority districts altogether or redrawing lines in a way that concentrates power for white voters. For example, the suit outlines multiple instances where the districts were redrawn to group minority voters

in urban areas to also be counted in the same districts as rural predominantly white areas to ensure white voters are the majority. One instance, the DOJ claiming that Texas, quote, "'surgically excise minority communities from the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth area "'by grouping their neighborhoods "'with heavily white rural counties,

"'including some that were more than 100 miles away.'" You also had the agency arguing that Texas intentionally eliminated a Latino electoral opportunity in a West Texas-based congressional district where courts had previously found Voting Rights Act violations in the last two redistricting cycles. With a complaint going on to say, "'This is not the first time Texas has acted "'to minimize the voting rights of its minority citizens. "'Decade after decade, Texas has two redistricting cycles with a complaint going on to say, "'This is not the first time Texas has acted

"'to minimize the voting rights of its minority citizens. "'Decade after decade, Texas has enacted redistricting plans "'that violate the Voting Rights Act.'" But also beyond redistricting, this is the second lawsuit the DOJ has filed against Texas over voting rights in the last few weeks. Just last month, they also sued the state over its new restrictive voting law,

arguing that it will disenfranchise voters with limited English proficiency, voters with disabilities, elderly voters, members of the military deployed abroad. But one of the biggest things here is this latest lawsuit goes beyond Texas. Yes, it marks the first legal action the DOJ has taken to challenge redistricting maps and states began redrawing them after the latest census.

But also according to FiveThirtyEight, 18 states have now finalized their new congressional maps this year. And already we're seeing insane gerrymandering. With some of the most heavily biased maps this cycle being enacted by Republicans in North Carolina and Ohio. Notably there, both states have already been sued for racial or partisan gerrymandering,

but it's also unlikely that those challenges will play out before the midterm elections in November. Which I mean, the same also goes for the DOJ's case against Texas, though the agency has asked a federal court to block the state from holding its upcoming March primaries using the challenge maps. But even if all of that got magically resolved,

as the New York Times reports, restrictive voting laws in place in key battleground states could be in effect for multiple election cycles before the courts decide whether they're constitutional or not. And that's without us really focusing on what's happening on the state legislature level. I'm gonna try and cover that

in one of the last two shows of the year. Because everything that we just talked about today, this is kind of just the surface stuff. This is the stuff that we expected. What's happening at the state legislature level and what's happening with like, who gets to count what vote. I genuinely, and you can call me an alarmist like people did before the election,

like they did before January 6th. I genuinely have concerns about if we're gonna be a democracy, a real repre, even a representative democracy three plus years out. Like I said, I'll expand on that either tomorrow or on the Thursday show. But ultimately that is the end of that story and actually today's show.

And of course, as always, thanks for watching. I love yo faces. I appreciate you and I'll see you tomorrow.