The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.28 Pronatalist Parent Slaps 2-Year Old, Claim Backlash is Racist, Sabrina Carpenter Drama, UAE Disinfo

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Go to http://www.vessi.com/defranco  for up to 35% off site wide until June 2nd. After the 2nd, you can still get 15% off!  Go to https://incogni.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO to get 60% off an annual Incogni plan.     New 3-Packs & Cyber Lime Collections NOW LIVE @ https://BeautifulBastard.com ==== ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩- – 00:00 - “Pronatalist’ Couple in Hot Water After Dad Slaps 2yo Son in Front of Reporter 04:30 - YouTube’s Adblocker War, Beast Games Apps Live, & Sabrina Carpenter Controversy 07:09 - Guardianship Laws Affect Millions of Americans but Desperately Need Changes 13:31 - Sponsored by Vessi 14:31 - UAE, American Professor Accused of Sweeping Disinformation Campaign  23:32 - Sponsored by Incogni  24:32 - Tech Staffing Firm Reaches Settlement Over Job Posting for “Whites Only” 26:47 - Gen-Z Is Saying No to Car Culture 28:38 - Minnesota Becomes Latest State to Try & Break ISP Monopolies 30:05 - Comment Commentary Beast Games application: https://beastgames.com/ ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on Guardianships: Brian Espinoza Associate Producer on UAE: Lili Stenn ———————————— #DeFranco #MrBeast #SabrinaCarpenter ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news. And we have so much news to talk about today that I'm just gonna hit you with that monkey and jump into it. This is a news show. We are about to see mass cultural extinction,

economic breakdown, and the collapse of human civilization. That is, unless y'all just start getting to baby making. We're talking baby making by the billions. Pump them out. All of that, that's the essence of the movement known as pro-natalism. It's this idea that's especially become very popular in wealthy Silicon Valley and venture capital circles. With probably its most famous proponent being who else but Elon Musk, father to 11 children that we know of. You know, they're terrified that declining birth rates in developed countries, namely the US, Europe, and East Asian ones like Japan and South Korea, that they're threatening to destabilize entire

populations, which I will say at its base is a legitimate concern. I mean, we've talked about the demographic problems in some of these places. There's been a big spotlight, especially on the Asian ones, but the pro-natalist solution, just mass producing babies, it's a controversial one, not least because it tends to be associated with a lot of right-wing politics, right? You see that, and then it gets looped in with restricting women's rights, opposing immigration, even promoting eugenics. Also, many pro-natalists don't just advocate pro-family public policy, with many of them wanting to repopulate the earth with their own children. Like, for example, this mid-30s Pennsylvania couple by the names of Malcolm and Simone Collins. They currently have three kids,

they plan for a minimum of seven, but... We're going to have more than seven if we can, basically, until my uterus is forcibly removed in a botched surgery, I'm going to keep going. Also, they believe in something called nominative determinism. Basically, that the name that you're given at birth influences the subsequent course of your life, such as the career you choose. And so Malcolm and Simone, they bless their kids with, let's call them interesting ones. You've got four-year-old Octavian George, two-year-old Torsten Savage, 16-month-old Titan Invictus, and their unborn fourth child they plan to name Industry Americus. And according to their parents' calculations, given the law of exponential growth, as long as each of their descendants commit to having at least eight children for just 11 generations, the Collins bloodline will eventually outnumber the current human race. But whether those kids, never mind their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids

follow the pro-natalist dream, that probably depends on how they're raised. Because with this kind of thinking, all it takes is one kid to be like, no, and you have hundreds of millions of potential offspring just gone. And unfortunately, the Collinses appear to be off to a rocky start. Because a journalist for The Guardian actually sat down at a restaurant with them for an interview, and they witnessed something that they said left her speechless. Writing, And Malcolm has done it in the middle of a public place, in front of a journalist who he knows is recording everything. And so naturally, not only did this shock her, but lots of people online who then accused the Collinses of child abuse. So there we saw the parents quickly shoot back saying what they did was not abuse. It was merely bopping. What happens during a bop? It is a light slap on the child's nose or face that is meant to shock and redirect and refocus attention. The reason we do the face is

because it requires much less pain to get the same reaction than doing something like slapping the wrist. With them explaining that they picked up this technique after observing what they said were animal parenting models, which apparently they find more credible than the now well-established scientific research showing that corporal punishment can damage children for life. I do not believe the research is relevant to the type of corporal punishment that we are enacting with our kids. With him explaining that most research

only looks at delayed ritualized punishment where pain is the purpose. With him claiming that the point of bopping is to shock or jar, not cause pain. And then we also see him to go on to accuse their critics of racism. According to a 2011 study by Gorshoff, 89% of black parents practice corporal punishment and 80% of Hispanic parents practice corporal punishment.

Which, you know, many have said they found a little ironic because pro-natalism, it's famously been espoused by racist ideology going back decades. Right from fascist regimes in Italy and Nazi Germany to the white supremacists today who fear that Jews are suppressing white birth rates to replace them with non-white immigrants. Notably, both Malcolm and Simone, they've distanced themselves from those kinds of ideas, saying they're actually in favor of cultural diversity and pluralism. But with that said, for the sake of time and also your sanity, especially because, I mean, we've really only scratched the surface of this movement, right, the Collinses and other pro-natalists, they believe a whole host of wacky stuff that could fill an entire show. But for now,

just keeping it with this specifically, I'd love to know your thoughts here. And then let's talk about a few pieces of quickie entertainment news. Starting with the news that YouTube is making more videos unwatchable as part of their ongoing war against ad blockers, which is a move that will very likely affect millions and millions of people. And that's because last month, YouTube announced it would be cracking down on third-party ad blockers, saying that they violate YouTube's terms of service. And that scene is not only them trying to get more ad revenue, but pushing people to pay for the YouTube premium ad-free subscription. But now, in the last day or so, we've seen a ton of people reporting that YouTube basically isn't working for them when they use ad blockers. People complaining about

videos skipping right to the end when they try to play them and then buffering forever when they try to click on the timeline. Others saying the videos they tried to watch automatically muted. Now, notably here, like all previous ad blocker crackdowns, users have found workarounds and loopholes. But then at the same time, we're seeing YouTube working quickly to close those gaps, countering changes that ad blockers make to get around the code. Then another YouTube YouTuber news, we got to talk about Mr. Beast officially opening up applications for the Beast Games. His upcoming competition on Prime Video said to have the biggest cash prize ever at $5 million. Honestly, that is such a big prize. I'm like, should I apply? Chance at $5 million, skip the chaos of an election year? Also, very notably here regarding

participation. While Prime Video initially said around a thousand people would be competing in a post sharing the signup link, Mr. B said they were looking for 5,000 participants. So that is way more than initially expected, but great news for people wanting to get their shot. And as far as if you're eligible, I'll link down so you can apply. But you need to be 18 or older, have a valid passport through April of 2025,

and be available in late June and potentially through September. But there are also being certain citizenship and visa requirements. But then going more mainstream entertainment, we have Sabrina Carpenter in the news. Right in that, because she's getting some backlash for the outro of her song Nonsense, which she performed at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend 2024 festival.

Because often, when she's performing the single live, she'll change the outro to be some kind of joke or a reference. And so here's what she did this time. BBC said I should keep it PG. BBC, I wish I had it in me. There's a double meaning if you dig deep. So that, seemingly in reference to when she performed the song last year on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, where she changed the outro to, I'm American, I'm not British, so BBC, it stands for something different.

And for those of you who have never been on the Hub, or maybe you asked your mom and she lied to you and she said, I don't know, what she means there is big, black, And so shocker, the BBC didn't like her talking about BBC. And so they took down the video of her singing, and they re-uploaded it without the joke. And so also with that on social media, we saw a lot of people criticizing Sabrina, with many calling it creepy or weird, writing things like, see how weird Sabrina Carpenter was

for sexualizing BBC on national live TV, knowing for a fact that this is a family event and kids are watching. Others also arguing that she's fetishizing black men. Though that is others push back saying it was just a joke. It's not that deep. And then we need to talk about guardianship laws. With this getting more attention recently because of a documentary about the talk show host Wendy Williams, with many saying they're just the perfect environment for abuse. And of course, this likely isn't the first time you've thought about something like this. I mean, Britney Spears was in a well-known decade-long legal battle to get out from under the thumb of her guardian.

But with everything that we've seen in recent years, things might actually be changing as lawmakers and activists across the country have been making serious efforts to overhaul the laws and put more safeguards in place. But to properly talk about this, we got to back up a little bit and ask the question of, well, what is a guardianship exactly? And well, there, I mean, it really depends on where you live. Sometimes they have slightly different names. Like here in California, they're called conservatorships. But the idea is that basically the courts decide an adult cannot make decisions for themselves due to a mental or a physical condition, and they put someone else in charge. But the most recent numbers showing that there are 1.3 million American adults that have been deemed unable to make decisions for themselves. Although according to the Center for Public Integrity,

we have woefully inadequate data in the United States on this issue. There is no national source of guardianship data. And adding many states are not keeping data on who's under guardianship, how many people are under guardianship, or why they're under guardianship. While exact numbers are hard to come by, judges that spoke to ProPublica claimed that most guardianships are because of dementia and Alzheimer's, such as in the case of Wendy Williams. And her situation is also a great example of why so many families are frustrated with the system and why many feel an over situation is also a great example of why so many families are frustrated with the system and why many feel an overhaul is needed. Right back in late 2021,

her bank petitioned the court to get her a guardian, claiming that her family was abusing her financially, which was granted in 2022. And at the time, she was living with her family in Miami, and the bank thought that her son, Kevin Hunter Jr., was using her money, which lines up with one of the most common ways older people are abused, for their financial assets.

In fact, according to MetLife's study of elder financial abuse, an estimated $2.9 billion is lost every year because of this. Sadly, though, that is also not the only way. In some instances, physical or sexual abuse happens. And there's a real frustration that the only person generally holding guardians accountable is a judge. When there are other agencies helping out, they're often severely understaffed and unable to adequately audit wards. But regardless, Hunter Jr. denies any and all accusations and claims. My mom made me power of attorney because at that time, the bank started accusing the family of doing things that weren't true

and saying that my mom wasn't fit to make choices. The court tried to frame it as though I was making all these charges for my own happiness. But even though her family has the means to take care of her, the courts decided otherwise and made attorney Sabrina Morrissey her guardian. And in this case, attorneys like Bernard A. Crooks, who specializes in elder law and special needs development, he suggested to the Hollywood Reporter that Morrissey was put in charge to avoid family infighting, saying, I've been doing this for almost 40 years, and I would say that what I'm

seeing in my practice is more fighting among siblings and family members, which has led to courts giving guardianship more to independent entities or entities that they believe are independent, like banks or other financial institutions. Now, as frustrating as all this is for Williams and her family, she's actually relatively lucky. Because in New York, most people who are in need of a guardian, they don't have one, either because they don't have family or friends at all, or because they're unwilling to take on that role. And in those instances, private attorneys are the go-to, but they also often refuse to do the job unless the client has substantial assets, meaning that thousands of more common people in New York are just left out to dry, which is why we saw the nonprofit Guardianship Access

New York asking legislators for just $5 million out of the nearly quarter of a trillion dollar budget to give these so-called unbefriended individuals better guardianship services. But that ended up getting denied and just a million dollars was allocated, which is hardly enough to manage the assets and take care of these people. Also, another major issue facing the state is how little oversight there is because of underfunding. Right, technically, the guardians of the roughly 17,000 people they are being watched over need to file reports detailing the finances

and care of their wards. But New York, they only have 157 people to audit those reports. And making matters worse is that these audits can take years to complete, which is more than enough time for some shady person to screw someone over. But there is some good news, though not for New York,

because they, they're not really doing much to change the situation, but other states are trying to make the system better. Over in Illinois, for example, Democratic Representative Tara Costa Howard has drafted legislation to try and tone down how much private firms are able to abuse the system, with her actually being inspired to do this after taking on the role herself and finding out that a private guardianship company and a law firm were working with hospitals to funnel would-be wards to their services. But they're going on to say what this little piece of legislation has uncovered is a huge problem. Eldercare is a big, big mess. In our chamber, in our legislature, this is an issue people are willing to fight for. People weren't paying

attention to this until I raised it. I brought it up and now we're going to go. Now with that, it is not a law yet, but it is a start. And hopefully it can get to the level that states like Pennsylvania and California are at, which, I mean, those is not a law yet, but it is a start. And hopefully it can get to the level that states like Pennsylvania and California are at, which, I mean, those are also imperfect. Or Pennsylvania, for example, just passed a major bill that makes it much, much harder for private firms to heavily profit off of taking care of those who have no one else. And it makes sense because there's this weird power dynamic going on if you're someone who needs a guardian but has no one but a private firm to go to.

Or even worse, if you're incapable of realizing you need a guardian. It's just an entire ecosystem that's ready to go to. Or even worse, if you're incapable of realizing you need a guardian, it's just an entire ecosystem that's ready to be abused. And with this, you know, California also updated its conservatorship laws back in late 2023 for the first time in 50 years with unanimous approval. And in that case, it actually expanded who could qualify as someone who needs a guardian to include those with substance abuse issues. Because in the past, the law tried hard to protect those with mental health issues or substance abuse issues from being forced into treatment, and this changes that. It'll also require updates on whether that person continues to need a guardian, which is something it also does for adults with developmental issues, which is something that advocates would be happy with, because one of the biggest complaints is that many

states, California included, often impose plenary guardianships. With that meaning, they're usually in perpetuity, like with what happened to Britney Spears. And in those cases, there's relatively little oversight once it's established, making it extremely difficult for someone to get out of one. Although at the same time, cases like Britney's are fringe ones because like we mentioned before, most guardianships are established

because of things like dementia, which you know, that's not a situation that's gonna get better for the victim. And after hearing all this, you might think, the whole thing, it sounds awful, but it's also really not the case. These are things that are super important and when done properly, generally help protect people.

Because of how much power they give to a guardian, it's an open invitation for abuse, which is why according to many advocates, the single biggest thing that can be done to help reform guardianships, data, more and more data. I touched on this at the start, but we have almost no single data point for all of this information.

Everything is different, state to state, many collect almost no data, which is why there's a real push to get a national database set up and the. Government Accountability Office has even pushed Congress on the issue. The most recent bill that was introduced in 2023 has stalled out. And in the meantime, without the data, it's going to be an uphill battle to make any meaningful changes in many states. It's not like this is an issue that just goes away. It is expected that the need for guardians is only going to expand, especially as we're now all getting older. And with that come

diseases and dementia. With all that said, I got to ask you your opinions in general, but especially I'd love to know your thoughts if you or someone you know has been in a situation like this. And then I'll get back to more news in just a second, but we've got to pay some bills and thank the fantastic sponsor for today's show, Vessi. Because if you haven't pulled the trigger yet and getting a pair of Vessis or adding to the collection that you have, listen up. Because our friends at Vessi are having their end of the season sale going on right now until June 2nd. Yeah, which means that you can get up to 35% off site-wide right now. So now is the time to pick up your own Stormburst, Low Tops or High Tops, the Weekender, the Astoria Sleek Backpack, Slingbacks, Jackets, you name it, you got it,

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Emirates, is being accused of orchestrating a massive influence campaign to manipulate Western public opinion by spreading false information that's ruined the lives of innocent people. And all so the regime can consolidate power and ensure the continuation of authoritarian control in the region. All that, that's what's been uncovered and alleged in numerous media reports, leaks, and now lawsuits. And one of those lawsuits directly links an American school, the George Washington University, and the director of its esteemed program on extremism as perpetrators. But also, like, I'm getting ahead of myself. The details are juicy. But before we get to the good stuff, we need to start at the very beginning. So all of

this starts with a just stunning bombshell report published by the New Yorker in March of last year. I mean, we could just do an entire show on the details of that 10,000 word article. But the bullet points version is that this investigation focused on a man by the name of Hazim Nada. He's an American citizen who lived in Italy and founded a Swiss-based oil trading business called Lord Energy. But Nada was forced to file for bankruptcy after a smear campaign linked him and his company to the Muslim Brotherhood,

or the Islamic organization that gained power in Egypt as an opposition group following the Arab Spring in 2011, and also has since been labeled a terrorist group by several authoritarian governments, with most of those regimes being concentrated in the Middle East, including the UAE. And the allegations against Nada appear to stem from the fact that his father, who emigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, had been part of the Brotherhood. But NADA himself, there was no connection. He was a secular,

proud American who had only visited Egypt once and didn't want to return. And in fact, when he started his company, he had to prove to every banker that he met that the business had no connection to his father. But between 2017 and 2018, news articles started coming out claiming that he and the company had ties to terrorism and the Brotherhood. And soon, Wikipedia articles started to reflect those allegations, and before long, he was blacklisted on key banking databases and had major banks pulling out of his business. Then, after months of emotional distress and panic attacks, Nada ultimately lost his company, his reputation, and eventually his marriage. And for years, the people and reasoning behind the smear campaign that ruined his life largely remained a mystery.

Then, in 2021, a group of anonymous hackers started to send him leaked internal communications from a Geneva-based private intelligence firm called Alp Services. And that was run by a man by the name of Mario Brero, who had a history of run-ins with the law, including a 2012 incident in France where he was convicted of illegally obtaining and disseminating information in an investigation. And over time, the hackers shared terabytes of stolen files from Alp, including emails, reports, memos, photographs, invoices, and even recorded phone calls. With all of it revealing that Brero had done intelligence work for a wide range of shady characters and foreign authoritarian regimes. And wouldn't you know it, that roster included the UAE, with the hackers

eventually showing NADA files that proved the smear campaign had been orchestrated by the company's leader, MBZ. Right, not to be confused with the Saudi leader, MBS, Mohammed Bonesaw. But this guy, not much better when it comes to mass human rights abuses and authoritarianism. And specifically, the hacked materials indicated that the UAE had hired Alp in its long-running feud with Qatar, which, you know, reached a boiling point in 2017 when the UAE and other Gulf nations

launched a blockade against the country, cutting off diplomatic and trade ties. And a big part of the reason for the blockade was that the UAE and its allies alleged that Qatar was supporting terrorism, with them explicitly pointing to its support of and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood among others. And as far as why MBZ and other Gulf leaders had such a vendetta against the Brotherhood, that could also fill a whole other show. But basically, it boils down to this. The Brotherhood helped overthrow autocrats during the Arab Spring and

emerged as a notable political force. MBZ views them and other religious opposition groups as a threat not only to his own authoritarian control, but really the control of other autocratic regimes in the Gulf as well. And as part of the blockade, the Gulf nations launched a massive influence campaign to convince the U.S. and other Western powers of Qatar's connections to terrorism. With that, in turn, kicking off an unprecedented lobbying frenzy, with the oil-rich nation spending obscene amounts of money on lawyers and PR firms in a battle to control the narrative in the West. And the hacked out vial showed that in August of 2017, Guerrero went to the UAE to get in on that insanely lucrative action, with him preparing 14 pages of talking points to try and get the Emiratis to hire

him in their fight against Qatar and the Brotherhood, writing, we would aim to discredit our targets by discreetly and massively diffusing the embarrassing and compromising information. In the eyes of the media, public, officials, they would appear as perverts, corrupts, or extremists. And even explicitly saying, the power of dark PR should not be underestimated. Many experts argue that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential elections due to fake news relayed on social media and non-traditional media. And promising that we would use similar tools against your opponents. And just to make sure you did not miss that, that is him literally offering to spread lies about the opponents of a full-blown authoritarian regime. So of course, the UAE is like, fuck yes, sounds great. They agree to an initial four to six month budget of

1.5 million euros. Now, very notably here, Brerow initially just proposed targeting people who were known Brotherhood sympathizers, but that later extended to others like Nada, who had incredibly tenuous ties to the group. So Alp just went to work trying to establish those connections, and the files show that this included drafting damning Wikipedia entries and paying journalists to publish hit pieces alleging his involvement with the group. Sometimes those stories were published under fake names, and at one point they even created a fake journalist who they billed as an expert. And as a part of this effort, Brero brought on Lorenzo Vidino, the director of GW's program on extremism. He had long argued against Islamic organizations, and Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative on Islamophobia had described him as an academic who, quote,

promotes conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood and is connected to numerous anti-Muslim think tanks. And according to partial records, Brerow paid Vadino more than 13,000 euros for his work, work that included a series of gossipy reports and a list of other suspected Islamists to go after. So then, after Lord Energy filed for bankruptcy, which Brerow bragged about and took credit for

in an update to the Emiratis, the government then agreed to pay him to go after other targets on that list. And that is where the shit really takes off, with internal ALP accounting showing that the UAE gave him at least 5.7 million euros between 2017 and 2020. While the leaked files given to NADA did outline some of Brerow's work, a few months after the New Yorker article, a group of European media outlets published an investigative series detailing how far-reaching this campaign was. Which at this point, I have to ask, are you ready? Because the shit is insane. According to the outlets, Alp gave the UAE the names of over a thousand people and 400 organizations in 18 European countries, all labeled as part of the Muslim Brotherhood

Network in Europe. Now, obviously, Alp didn't do smear campaigns on everyone, but for those who were targets, their lives were turned completely upside down. And one of those people was Farid Hafez, an Austrian scholar who specializes in Islamophobia. He was very well regarded in Austria, frequently being published in newspapers, doing engagements. And around 2015, he began to find himself the target of a whisper campaign spreading rumors alleging that he had some kind of vague connection to the Brotherhood. And so slowly, he stopped getting published in newspapers, and his reputation began to fall. Within all of this, culminating in Hafez, along with dozens of others, being raided by armed police in a 2020 operation called Operation Luxor. And a huge key thing here, Austrian authorities specifically cited a report

written by Vadino on the Brotherhood to obtain the search warrant used for the raid, with Vadino also serving as a witness against some of the targets. And very notably here, the operation failed to produce any evidence of terrorism, and literally no one was arrested or convicted. In fact austrian courts even ruled that the whole thing was illegal but like with nada this whole ordeal upended hafez's life his reputation was ruined his financial assets were frozen he and his young children they suffered stress and trauma from the armed raid and that is also part of the reason why we've spent so much time talking about these two men because now they've both filed lawsuits with With Nada's suit, which was filed earlier this year, it names the

UAE, MBZ, the state-run oil company in Alp, and asks for nearly $2.8 billion in damages. With the suit outlining a lot of what was already revealed in the leaked documents, accusing the defendants of spreading false narratives about Nada's ties to the brotherhood that destroyed his life. Also claiming that journalists and Vadino were paid to smear him and dozens of others, and asserting that MBZ himself played a key role, providing ultimate approval authority over the enterprise's disinformation operations. Beyond that, Nada also argues that this campaign wasn't just ideological, saying the UAE viewed his business as competition and wanted to kick him out of the market, right? And with that, noting that Lord Energy cost the state oil company around

$830 million in revenue in the years before, which is notably why he is suing them for antitrust violations as well as for fraud and racketeering. And as far as Hafez's suit, which was filed in late March, it shares some similarities, but it is a bit different. While he also makes many of the same allegations and accuses the defendants of racketeering and fraud, Hafez is asking for a much smaller $10 million in damages, and his suit mostly focuses on Bedino, GW, and Elm. And that's actually super significant because foreign governments have often been accused of giving big donations to universities to buy influence. But this suit also goes way further. It alleges that a top school and one of its staff were involved

in a shadowy disinformation campaign to damage reputations on behalf of an authoritarian foreign regime. With the lawsuit specifically stating GWU and Vadino engaged in a well-cloaked conspiracy to defraud authorities, academia, and the press, all while holding themselves out as independent and objective academic actors. And to that point, you have experts saying that this lawsuit is also very important because it shines a light on the possible influence that foreign money can have on American universities. With Benjamin Freeman, for example, the director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy Program at the Quincy Institute, explaining U.S. universities receiving millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars from authoritarian regimes are going to be a lot less likely to offer critical commentary of those regimes. And this is also

significant as this is coming as we've been seeing a lot of discussion about universities divesting from foreign money in conversations about the Israel-Gaza war. Though, of course, with that, I am not saying that is a direct one-to-one, but these two things definitely run parallel to one another. And like with many things, when you see something being done, when you see something being said, there is a conversation of, is there money behind it and where does it come from? But with now all of that said and broken down, I gotta pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? I'd absolutely love to hear from you in those comments down below.

And then, have you ever been notified about another big company being affected by a data breach and somehow your personal information's among the leaked data? And that's even if you never did business with that company? Well, sadly, with as little as a phone number, old address, or name to start them off, complete strangers can buy records containing an alarming amount of your sensitive information. When I signed up for Incogni, which, by the way, thank you for being a fantastic sponsor of the show, I immediately saw how many data brokers had my information. I was appalled. I felt a bit violated. But then I also saw that within a week, they had already started their reach out, and they were having them scrubbed out.

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and use code DeFranco to take your personal data off the market. And then, quats only. Those are the two words at the center of this scandal and now settlement for the Virginia-based IT company, Arthur Grand Technologies. Right, and that company's name, it may sound familiar because it was actually last year

where they gained national attention. You know, because they shared a little job posting, recruiting for a contract business analyst position on Indeed. With that then going viral because of a bolded note that read, only born US citizens, quat, who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, and then in brackets, don't share with candidates. Which my surface level reaction to that part of the news was, oh my God, I love this. Not the racism, not that part, but rather that seemingly racism was exposed by laziness because of fucking course it would be. Generally speaking, being a racist is so fucking lazy because I think so much racism can actually be overcome by looking into information and details and history.

But that seemingly wasn't the case here because the company responded in a series of statements saying the post wasn't authorized by Arthur Grant, claiming that an employee took an existing posting and added discriminatory language and then reposted it through his own account and adding that they had worked to remove it immediately and that the poster had been fired. With them then going on to deny the company discriminated against applicants and then emphasizing that it's actually minority owned and prides itself on diversity. But this whole mess got so big, it got the attention of the Departments of Justice and Labor and they launched investigations. And despite an employee seemingly going rogue, those agencies still found that the post violated the Immigration and Nationality Act,

and an executive order borrowing federal contractors from discriminating based on race, nationality, and other protected characteristics. And under the settlements with Arthur Grant, the company has to pay a civil penalty of $7,500 and $31,000 in compensation to 31 people who filed federal complaints about the posting. Also, in order to get and $31,000 in compensation to 31 people who filed federal complaints about the posting. Also, in order to get the $1,000 each, the complainants have to sign documents agreeing not to sue the company. Arthur Grand also agreeing to provide workplace training on federal discrimination laws, change its employment policies, and be subject to DOJ monitoring to ensure compliance with anti-discrimination laws. And all of this, even though the DOJ

acknowledged in its settlement that the firm denied authorizing the post and claimed that the advertisement was generated by a disgruntled recruiter in India and was intended to embarrass the company, which was also echoed by the CEO, Arthur Grant, and he claimed that it was posted by an upset employee on a performance improvement plan. So you have Arthur Grant kind of stuck in this damned if you do, damned if you don't limbo. Even if it was just a rogue employee like they say, they're still liable for the people they hire. So they basically had to decide between risking lawsuits and fighting their way through court or just settling for a small fee and agreeing to be more careful about who they hire in the future. And then when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, I would dream about getting

my license, getting my own car and just getting away from my shitty unsafe home. And I mean, even before I could legally work, I was working and saving money. And one day I bought, oh baby, a 1990 something periwinkle blue geoprism. It's possibly the lamest vehicle that's ever been created, but it took me places. But that experience, that is becoming less and less common because what we're now seeing in reports is that between 1983 and 2022,

the share of 16-year-olds with driver's licenses plummeted from nearly one half to about one quarter. Also, the share of 18-year-olds dropping from 80% to 60%. But then finally here, members of Gen Z who are now 24 or younger, they make up a historically low 12.4% of licensed drivers in the U.S., which shows us that what was once a rite of passage for teens, it's kind of now an afterthought. Which, you know, is a big change. Car culture has long been a cornerstone of Americanism. But this trend also reveals a lot about how different young people's lives are compared to their parents. Most obviously, people are driving less because they have access to ride-sharing apps like Uber

and Lyft, as well as even for, you know, food. You have DoorDash, Uber Eats, Seamless. More and more jobs have also gone remote, so you have Zoom meetings and the option of texting or FaceTiming rather than speaking in person. But also, of course, there's the financial stress of a car, as this girl in New York explained today. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in

as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash FinTech. All right, so for people like her, the freedom cars provide are worth less than the financial burden they put around your neck. And I will say there are a number of factors

that I relate to, but I'm also torn. You know, a large part of it is based off of my thinking of the regions. Like in LA, I cannot imagine not having a car. But in like New York City, I couldn't imagine having a car. Which is also why I gotta ask, if you have one, you don't have one, wherever you live, I'd love to know your thoughts on this situation.

And then, does your internet service provider suck? Would you like them to stop sucking? And well, I ask that because in the news, we're seeing states like Minnesota trying to take some action, with Minnesota now becoming the latest state to pass a law that would make it easier for municipalities to set up local networks. Right, and part of the change includes removing a nearly century-old rule that requires cities and counties to get 65% of voters to agree to build a new telecommunications network, which, you know, these days feels nearly impossible to get 65% of anyone to agree about anything. Also notably, it drops legal barriers that only let local networks be built if there was no such service provided, such as in remote parts of the state. You know,

these rules were originally meant to protect telephone companies, but when the internet came around, providers were quick to say that it was also covered under the law. And unfortunately, since then, it's turned into a situation where many people only have access to one internet provider. Or if they're really lucky, they might have two actual companies offering service alongside a few tiny satellite ones. You know, a really big issue with these laws is that they incentivize ISPs to unofficially avoid each other's territories, giving them de facto monopolies. But these new rules, they change that by allowing government-run ISPs to enter the picture, but at the same time trying to make sure that those government ISPs, they don't have an advantage.

And looking into this, locally-run ISPs are actually very rare across the US. Only 650 exist. And notably, 16 states still heavily restrict those kinds of networks, although it wasn't that long ago that most states had restrictions, which is why a lot of experts really believe

that it's just a matter of time before nearly every state allows locally-run ISPs with minimal restrictions. And so it's hoped that with all this, it's gonna speed up high-speed broadband internet access to Americans, which, you know, is a project the federal government has spent billions on with mixed results. And then, finally today, that brings us to comment commentary.

We dive into the comments on the last show and talk it out. Starting with the most popular comment, which was about, are movie theaters dead? With, you know, everything that we've seen, especially in this past weekend with Garfield and Furiosa. With Amari and E saying, let's correct the narrative here. People wanting to go to movie theaters isn't dead. People not being able to afford nearly $20 for a ticket plus concessions, especially for a large family, is what's dead. People aren't refusing to go to

theaters because of the actors or advertising. They're refusing because they can't fucking afford it. The only reason I still go is because there's an AMC near me with $8.50 tickets. Others replying to that saying, movies are too expensive, fast food's too expensive, rent's too expensive, groceries are too expensive. Quaid adding, I've lost trust in how movies are made too, saying I'm not risking 25 bucks for a movie that has a 15% chance of actually being decent. And with that, while I say I understand most of the reservations or the complaints about the movie theater experience, I do want to say that when people start talking about a $20 or $25 ticket, that is not the standard. Like, you don't have to watch the movie in 40X or IMAX.

Also, like, depending on when you go to a movie, that affects the price. Like, I live in LA. When anyone's talking about, like, how expensive shit is in America, they're usually using LA prices. If, say, today I wanted to go watch Babes or Hitman at the theater, I can get that ticket for $7,

whether it's a matinee or late night. But then, let's say I want to see Furiosa on or Hitman at the theater, I can get that ticket for $7, whether it's a matinee or late night. But then let's say I want to see Furiosa on Thursday at 7 p.m. For an adult, that's 16. And then I think on Fridays, you can go up to like 18.75. And so the numbers do get there. But it also depends on like

how often you go to the theaters. I'm going to say I am not in any way sponsored by this. Like I said in previous videos, I love going to the theater. I got a Regal Unlimited membership recently. As long as I go to like two movies a month, it pays for itself. I pay for their highest tier, which is $23.99 a month. That $16 ticket on Thursday for everyone else, that's zero for me. Though, where I will say people get fucked is the concession stand. I mean, the whole movie theater experience is built so you buy candy and popcorn. But again, I hear you,

though. I will be going to a movie theater until they just cease to exist. And separately, with more serious news, there was a lot of conversation about David McBride. A lot of it was focused on two things. One, people just disgusted by the government and the situation. And two, people thanking us for covering it. With that, you also have people like Matthew Evans saying, So to summarize, this Australian judge's decision that not only is the Nuremberg defense a valid argument, it is the opinion of the Australian government that if you are given the order to commit a war crime,

you must become a war criminal or become an Australian criminal. And Sappho Sheep saying, as a US Army special operations veteran, the Australian whistleblower story hit close to home. Without going into too much detail, the US Army is just as guilty. When I was in Afghanistan,

it really did feel like a black hole where terrible things happen and never get brought to light. Every coalition member country had the blood of thousands on their hands. I wish I had one-tenth the bravery of McBride. But that is where your Tuesday, evening, Wednesday morning show is going to end. For more news, you need to know, if you missed the Memorial Day show,

you can click or tap right here to watch that right now. But also, if you're all caught up, do not worry, because remember, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.