The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.31 "It Might Be Time For Me To Quit" Why The Internet is Freaking Out, & Today's News

Starting point is 00:00:00 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, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, you know, a lot of the time we talk about violence happening, it involves guns, which makes sense. We're America. I mean, hey, this will be a fun little game. In America, when someone is 1 to 18 years old and they die, what percentage of those deaths do you think involve a firearm? I'll give you a second. Blurt out the first number you think. It's about one in five, about 19%. That's what the data showed us in 2021. Thank you for playing Phil's Sad Trivia. The story that I want to talk about out of California today involves a different weapon, because this specific dollar store in California has been dealing with

Starting point is 00:00:34 a chronic thief. They just keep ignoring the warnings. They keep coming back. And so after one of the incidents, the cashier says that she asked the manager for permission to pursue the man if he came back. But they're saying they gave her the green light to do so. So sure enough, she says the guy comes back. He leaves the store carrying flowers, chips, donuts, bread, cheese, bologna, and other items without paying. So she hops into her car. She chases him down. He supposedly says, fuck you, bitch. And a ring doorbell caught what happened next. With a swerving left into his bike, knocking him to the ground and scattering the allegedly stolen goods all over someone's front yard. And so while he's threatening to press charges,

Starting point is 00:01:12 she's scooping up the goods. She's trying to put them in her car, also tossing his bike. And then after she claims in an interview with TMZ that she merely pulled up in front of him to make him stop, but he kept going and hit her. But they're also getting emotional about the injustice of it all. Every bone in my body hurts just from working so hard and you've got this person just stealing stuff I loved my job at dollar general. I did I took it seriously. It's like everybody said I did I didn't have to go after him But he just kept he's gonna keep doing it. He's gonna keep doing it But for now, she's reportedly been fired from that dollar general

Starting point is 00:01:42 She's also had to take up a job with doordash instead though That might be for the best because clearly her talent's behind the wheel. But for now, we'll have to wait to see if there's any further fallout. And I'll ask you, what are your thoughts with this? Because I know we've talked a lot recently about security and what to do and not to do and the laws around it. And then, AOC thinks Elon Musk is her soulmate, wants American citizens to print their own money, and she believes she's the modern-day Marilyn Monroe.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Rather, you might think that she thinks that because of a viral Twitter account that's parodying her. An account that has now amassed over 277,000 followers and one that AOC is not happy about. Because even though it has parody at the very, very end, the account name's so long, you can't always see that clearly. It looks near identical to AOC's actual account. Because of Musk's changes for just $8 a month,

Starting point is 00:02:20 it has that blue check mark. AOC technically has a gray check mark. But in addition to the people that are loving what's really just trolling at the end of the day, are a number of people who are being tricked into thinking this is a real account. I mean, even the fucking likes of MrBeast was like, not gonna lie, I actually thought this was real at first. Not to mention that the account got a ton of visibility when Elon Musk himself interacted with it.

Starting point is 00:02:37 With him responding to a tweet where fake AOC said she had a crush on him with a fire emoji. And it feels like since then, that parody account's just been plastered all over my For You page. So with how much this account has blown up, AOC wasn't pleased, writing, FYI, there's a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see. And again, with that, nonpolitical people like Mr. Beast wondering, how is Elon letting this slide? And so now you have AOC on blue sky, a Twitter alternative, seemingly debating leaving Twitter altogether. Asking, really wondering about

Starting point is 00:03:08 where the line is to leave the other place. I am concerned about next year's election, given Musk putting his finger on the scale in Turkey, et cetera. There is a line where the harm of unchecked disinfo exceeds the benefits of direct authentic communication. It's really sad. And saying, you know, this goes beyond harassment and trolling. Writing, right now, many of these folks are sending up test balloons. Trump's use of AI in the DeSantis video. Musk's censorship in Turkey for the election. All of it is precedent setting and testing waters ahead of 24. It will get worse.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Question is how to respond when the government overall won't or may not in time. And then, writers and actors from Lost are alleging that there was a toxic and racist work environment on the show's set. Yes, we're talking about that show Lost, the show that ended 13 years ago. The show I got into a fight over with one of my best friends at the time because I was like trying to convince myself that I was fine with the finale. I didn't waste all that time for a bullshit ending. But these reports are just surfacing now as Vanity Fair published an excerpt from the book Burn It Down, Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood. Which comes from writer Maureen Ryan and for this book several writers and actors spoke to her including Harold Perrineau. He played Michael on the show and also if you're unfamiliar with Lost, it had this massive ensemble cast, with it often

Starting point is 00:04:07 highlighting one character in each episode, and as Harold argued, the story quickly began focusing more on the white characters and pushing the characters of color to the side, saying, it became pretty clear that I was the black guy, Daniel Dae Kim was the Asian guy, and then you had Jack and Kate and Sawyer. With this, he said he tried to reach out to showrunner Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse about this, or To say, hey, I think my character deserves more. Saying, if you're going to use me, let's work. I'm here to work. I'm good at my job and I'll be anything you want except be, quote, the black guy on your show.

Starting point is 00:04:32 But by the time that season two was wrapping up, Harold was told that his character wouldn't be returning. With Carlton allegedly saying, well, you said you don't have enough work here, so we're letting you go. And some sources claiming that after Harold was let go, Damon said that the actor, quote, called me racist, so I fired his ass. And that, of course, is one of the allegations. There are other allegations about people from the show, like when one staffer was adopting an Asian child, one person said, quote, no grandparent wants a slanty-eyed grandchild. High-level writers would also allegedly speak fake Korean gibberish that they pretended was Korean, and then they would laugh about it. On top of that, people allegedly joked about putting a whites-only sign in the office

Starting point is 00:05:01 bathrooms because the cleaning staff would use them. You also had writer Monica O'Subrine seemingly corroborating Harold's claim, saying the show's staff really didn't like the characters of color and adding that the environment was just toxic overall, saying, I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel, and I've never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career. Saying she had to speak up to Carlton Cuse because he was talking about writing the death of the character Mr. Echo by saying, I want to hang him from the highest tree. God, if we could only cut his dick off and shove it down his throat. So Monica said she was clearly very angry about those remarks and said, You may want to temper the lynching imagery lest you offend.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Other sources saying they felt sick that this death was being discussed in this way and there was this gleeful sense about it. Monica also adding that after this conversation, she and her writing partner were fired from loss. Also with all this, for their part, both Damon and Carlton did issue responses included in the book's excerpt. Regarding his treatment of Harold, Damon said he did not recall ever saying the remark about firing his ass because he said he was racist, but also adding, what can I say other than it breaks my heart that that was Harold's experience, and I'll just see that the

Starting point is 00:05:55 events that you're describing happened 17 years ago, and I don't know why anybody would make that up about me. With Damon even adding that Harold was right to point out that the white characters were getting better, deeper stories, and he regrets all that in hindsight. Further adding, my level of fundamental inexperience as a manager and a boss, my role as someone who was right to point out that the white characters were getting better, deeper stories, and he regrets all that in hindsight. Further adding, My level of fundamental inexperience as a manager and a boss, my role as someone who is supposed to model a climate of creative danger and risk-taking, but provide safety and comfort inside of the creative process, I failed in that endeavor. And adding, I have significantly evolved and grown, and it shouldn't have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on loss. Carlson also saying that it broke his heart to hear of people's bad experiences and he didn't know that they felt that way at the time. And so with all this, I'm going to leave you with two things. The first being that I'm going to link

Starting point is 00:06:29 to the full excerpt below where they had much longer responses overall. There are also more allegations. I'm just trying to give you the condensed version. And two, especially if you were a fan of the show, what are your thoughts hearing these allegations? And then we're seeing labor movements in every facet of society right now. In addition to things like the writer strike that's going on, you have workers everywhere from Amazon to Starbucks moving to unionize and make demands. And it turns out, esports is no different. Because right now, we're seeing a huge dispute play out between Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends, and the players of its North American tournament series. With all of this leading to a player walkout and the possibility of the whole

Starting point is 00:06:57 thing just getting canceled. Also, for those of you unfamiliar with the gaming space, let alone the competitive gaming space, do not worry, I'm not going to leave you behind. Right, so League has become one of the most popular games worldwide and its LCS tournament seasons get hundreds of thousands of views per match. But lately we've seen esports as a whole taking massive hits as investments have dried up, leaving many teams and leagues to reconsider how they want to approach the space. And in League's case, you had teams wanting a requirement that was in place to be dropped, specifically that they had to work with amateur teams and Riot agreed to that. And so as expected, the pro teams dropped their amateur squads, and then players from the LCS Players Association overwhelmingly

Starting point is 00:07:27 voted to walk out in protest, demanding that Riot reinstate the amateur requirements, but also issuing a list of five demands, most of which were denied. Those including things like demanding that there be a better structure for amateur players to actually get into the pro league if they win in the lower division series. For those of you familiar with different things, like think of what the English Premier Football League does, or what Riot does with Valorant. There, Riot flatly told them no, citing the teams in the LCS pay $10 million per year just to get a spot. With really the only arguable win being that Riot promised to give $300,000 to the Amateur League in order to help jumpstart it. But that being only a single increment, which is a far cry from the $300,000 per team per year that players demanded.

Starting point is 00:08:01 And so that's why with this, Riot has delayed the season by two weeks to give the two sides a chance to negotiate. But at the same time, hanging over the head of all these players is the threat of losing their spots to scabs, with Riot reportedly still requiring LCS teams to field a squad that will play and lifted all restrictions on who qualifies, which led to people supporting the LCS Players Association to beg other players not to take those spots. But also on top of that, Riot has the ultimate trump card by threatening to just cancel the entire summer season, which would be absolutely massive because that would mean that none of the North American teams would be able to qualify for Worlds, which is the massive tournament that ends the year and has the largest prize pool. You know, with this, we've seen a lot of reactions from people in this scene,

Starting point is 00:08:34 both people who are a part of it and people who watch. With people like Brandon Collimer, a caster and analyst for amateur leagues in the circuit, tweeting, Not sure it needs to be said, but if you're a player who ever hopes of making LCS, don't be a scab. The league is still dependent on player vouchers and opinions, and you'll ruin your reputation amongst your fellow players. While Ashley Kang, who's deeply involved in the Korean league scene, made fun of the fact that teams are now scrambling to find players, saying seven LCS orgs opted out of Academy, a solution for investing, developing, scouting for new NA talent. Now, the very same teams are running around trying to find any upcoming NA talent they can. The irony does exist. We also

Starting point is 00:09:04 have some a little skeptical of the LCS Players Association's motivations. Like Christian Rivera, for example, who makes league content and used to be part of the North American Amateur to Pro Pipeline tweeted, just remember that the director of the LCSPA didn't even know how many teams were in NACL even after this whole talk of a walkout started, and saying he refuses to believe that their actions are genuine. Though looking through all this, most of the reactions against the players really haven't come from people heavily involved in the industry. But instead, it looks like fans having takes like, LCS players are not hypocritical here. I mean, they stopped Challenger Series because of lack of money, but they don't have money because LCS players are mostly overpaid.

Starting point is 00:09:34 And some saying LCS has become a paradise of overpaid pros. They want guaranteed everything with zero results. But hey, with that, whether you're an outsider like myself or you're someone that loves League, you're super engaged in this stuff, let me know your thoughts on what we're seeing go down. And then, you know, something that I'll admit is that doing the news, it often gets me wound up. You might not be able to tell on camera sometimes. But what I have found is that very few things actually help me unwind after the show like a salad cup of tea. High quality teas not only benefit my physical health, the ritual of preparation and consumption, it helps my mental state as well. That's where today's sponsor, Art of Tea, comes in to upgrade my and now your daily routine and overall mood. Art of Tea blends and custom

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Starting point is 00:10:41 No pesky monthly fees. Step up your tea game today. Use code DEFRANCO for 10% off site-wide and get your Tea of the Month subscription at artoft.com slash DEFRANCO. That's artoft.com slash DEFRANCO. And then in political news, we need to talk about the debt ceiling bill and Kevin McCarthy. Because with such a narrow split in the House,

Starting point is 00:10:58 it's been a fascinating thing to watch. It's the bill which includes a range of spending caps and cuts, but also falls far short of what Republicans had initially asked for past a key hurdle yesterday. Barely squeezing through the House Rules Committee with a 7-6 vote. And leading up to the vote today, you had Democratic and Republican leadership both saying they believe they have enough votes to pass the measure. It just requires a simple majority of 218 yeses. But at the same time, we were seeing there was an increasing stream of GOP defections, especially for more far-right members who think that the

Starting point is 00:11:23 deal doesn't have enough spending cuts and is too favorable for Biden. Though leading up to the vote, there were no fully locked down numbers. According to a whiplist from The Hill, you had about 30 Republicans saying they will not vote for the bill. You also had Axios reporting yesterday that GOP leadership has rejected as many as 60 defections, which is why so much of this has been seen as a life or death situation for McCarthy. Because not only are we talking about votes that actually impact a real piece of legislation, there's a war of optics happening. The more support he gets from Republicans, the better it is for him. It makes him look like a strong party leader who has the support of his caucus. He negotiated a good deal.

Starting point is 00:11:50 But on the flip side of a lot of his party defects, it makes him look like a weak leader. And if you have a situation where there's an outsized number of Democrats supporting the bill, it gives more power to the argument among those defectors that this is a weak deal and Biden got off with a great break. This even though progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have said they will not support the deal because of the concessions. So in the lead up, you have a number of Republicans saying, if this bill passes with more votes from Democrats than Republicans, McCarthy's gonna have hell to pay.

Starting point is 00:12:12 With multiple far-right members even floating the idea of taking away his speakership entirely. So some very high stakes here. We're gonna see how it plays out tonight. But obviously, with whatever happens, we're gonna talk about it and break it down tomorrow. And then, in the past 24 hours, you may have seen the headline

Starting point is 00:12:23 that Trump's promising to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants if he's elected president again, with that being the automatic citizenship for any child born in the United States. With him even releasing a video saying he would make the move by executive order on the first day back in office. But here's the thing, if you're getting a sense of deja vu, like did this already happen? Well, that's because it did. He promised this same thing when he ran back in 2016, with him then proceeding to over the next four years, not do that. Or once he got elected, he just kind of dropped the issue for a while, with him only bringing it same thing when he ran back in 2016. With him then proceeding to, over the next four years, not do that. Or once he got elected, he just kind of dropped the issue for a while. With him only bringing it back up when he was gearing up for the 2020 fight.

Starting point is 00:12:50 And according to Trump himself, there's no excuse that he didn't do it. With him telling Axios back in 2018 that his advisors had informed him he could do this via executive order. And he promised, it's in the process, it'll happen. But then like with a lot of things Trump said, it just didn't. Instead, he just continued to float the idea in speeches, on Twitter even as a last-minute move after he lost the 2020 election. You know, looking into this, that's likely in large part because legal experts widely agree that the president can't just use an executive order to scrap birthright citizenship because it's literally enshrined in the Constitution. It was established under the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, and

Starting point is 00:13:18 explicitly states, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. And in addition to that, 125 years of Supreme Court precedent have established that the amendment includes children born in the U.S. regardless of their parents' immigration status. And while, yes, precedent really hasn't mattered with this specific Supreme Court, many experts say that even with the Supreme Court, we're talking about an insanely high bar. Because, again, in addition to the over a century of precedent, it is literally a constitutional amendment. And then, there are two ways to look at this. One, the Federal Court of Appeals just upheld the longstanding American tradition of protecting the uber wealthy.

Starting point is 00:13:50 Or two, a multi-billion dollar settlement has finally been approved to help those suffering from the opioid crisis. Right, and that's because yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the Sackler family of Purdue Pharma will contribute $6 billion to the company's settlement in exchange for immunity from current and future lawsuits regarding the opioid epidemic. But for those unfamiliar with this specific blight on humanity, the Sackler family owns Purdue Pharma, which introduced OxyContin, a very potent painkiller back in the 90s, and notably, advertise it as non-addictive. But of course, since then, the opioid overdose epidemic has absolutely exploded, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Starting point is 00:14:19 And with that, many pointing an accusatory finger at Purdue, along with other manufacturers and pharmacy chains. So you had thousands of lawsuits against Purdue starting to roll in, claiming the company was misleading in its advertising of the drug, with Purdue declaring bankruptcy back in 2019, which put a temporary hold on lawsuits and other creditors against the company. But a very key note there was that individuals in the Sackler family did not declare bankruptcy. So then in September of 2021, a bankruptcy judge ruled the Sackler family must contribute $4 billion to the settlements and gave

Starting point is 00:14:42 the family extensive legal protections. But that pissed off a lot of people because they were saying the Sacklers received $10 billion in payments from Purdue and they were getting the protection of bankruptcy without actually filing it themselves. So a couple of months later in December, a U.S. district judge threw out that proposal. Purdue then appealed that decision and it brings us to now, with the court arguing that the Sacklers needed to be shielded to, quote, ensure the fair distribution of the settlement money. But notably, the family now has broad legal protection from civil lawsuits regarding the opioid epidemic. Though I would say a very key thing here is the legal protection does not extend to criminal charges should any be brought against the Sackler

Starting point is 00:15:11 family. Which again, if the government actually wants to hold people accountable and make people not do certain things, there shouldn't be fines, there shouldn't be settlements, you should go to fucking jail. This is a fine, not a punishment. Now as for what's next, the settlement money is set to go to victims, survivors, and state and local governments. Are the money meant to be used to fight the overdose epidemic? And you had to produce, saying in a statement, our focus going forward is to deliver billions of dollars of value for victim compensation, opioid crisis abatement, and overdose rescue medicines. Our creditors understand the plan as the best option to help those who need it most. However, understandably, there are those that are not happy, including the

Starting point is 00:15:43 Connecticut AG, saying the Sackler family used the bankruptcy code, quote, to escape justice and shield their blood money. With that going on to add, our settlement was both significant and imperfect, and saying there will never be enough justice to match the depths of pain and suffering the Sackler family caused. But we recognize that we had pushed this as far as we could and that it was necessary to get communities, victims, and their families the resolution and billions of dollars of funding desperately needed to save lives and fight the opioid epidemic. And so with there being two drastically different reactions to this news, I got to ask you, what camp are you landed in and why? And then Delta Airlines is lying to you. That is what a new California class action lawsuit is saying.

Starting point is 00:16:15 Because Delta announced their goal of carbon neutrality a couple of years ago. A statement that makes you go, but fucking how? You're planes. How can you be a carbon neutral airplane company? And the way they were pursuing this was by purchasing carbon offsets. That's when companies buy the right to emit more carbon by investing in green programs. And so Delta began advertising as the world's first carbon neutral airline. But here's the thing, the carbon offset market isn't wholly accurate, and according to the lawsuit, usually over promises and under delivers on their carbon impact. Meaning that, according to the suit, Delta has not been carbon neutral since making the promise back in 2020. So Mayanna Barron's suing Delta for misrepresenting itself to consumers and encouraging them to pay higher prices.

Starting point is 00:16:48 And so with that, arguing that Delta should pay damages to customers. And her attorneys accusing Delta of greenwashing, saying consumers can't make informed, eco-friendly choices if companies are misleading them. And adding, we're not guessing about the science. The fact is that it has been well documented, especially abroad, that there are severe issues with the offsets that Delta relies upon. Though with that, it should also be noted that Delta is not the only one at play here. With last week, for example, research from a nonprofit watchdog said that 93% of the offsets bought by Chevron between 2020 and 2022 were worthless. And reports noting that another investigation this year, it said that 90% of rainforest offsets approved by Vera, the world's leading carbon

Starting point is 00:17:20 credit certifier, and notably used by major companies like Disney and Shell were worthless. And they could actually be increasing global heating. So when you pair that with the fact that this market is absolutely booming right now, we're seeing more and more calls for this market to get regulated. But in the meantime, you have companies like Delta trying to dispute the claims, saying, hey, we actually plan on achieving net zero by 2050, and they've transitioned their focus to decarbonizing their operations rather than carbon offsets. And that is where today's show ends. As always, thank you for being a part of my daily dive into the news for you. My name is Philip DeFranco.

Starting point is 00:17:47 You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.31 "It Might Be Time For Me To Quit" Why The Internet is Freaking Out, & Today's News

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