The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.4 Homeless Hero Saves Baby, The Truth About the iDubbbz Drama, Ed Sheeran Wins, & Today’s News

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today we're talking about what really happened with that heart-pounding runaway baby stroller video, this nasty creator clash iDubbbz drama, Clarence Thomas being a sugar baby, and so much more news. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show and let's just jump into it. Starting with, you may have seen this video over the last two days, but the details that we've now learned frame it in a whole new interesting light. So this happened in Hesperia, California, a powerful gust of wind blows a baby stroller directly into high-speed traffic, with the baby's great-aunt, who's in her 60s, collapsing to the ground twice, trying to scramble after it. But that's when, with no time to don a cape or even think about it,

Starting point is 00:00:32 Ron Nesman, a former truck driver who tragically lost his girlfriend back in 2018, who then spiraled into homelessness for years from the heartbreak, who just so happened to have recently moved back to Hesperia, California to reconnect with his family, and he just happened to be sitting outside a car wash after a job interview with Applebee's. Lept into action, dashing for that baby just moments before it would have been greeted by several tons of steel on the road. And then also another bystander running over to help the fallen woman and Ron escorting the child back to safety. And so now Ron is rightfully

Starting point is 00:00:57 being hailed as a hero by thousands of people online, though he said he doesn't need the fame. Saying all he really wants is to turn his life back around, and hopefully this moment is a pivotal one. But to Ron, I gotta say, that's too damn bad because you are our bamf of the day. People are calling you a hero because that's exactly what you are, sir. Because if we lived in a world without you, we'd live in a world without that baby. You're not one of the few people on the planet to know how the world would be different if you weren't here. So thank you, Ron Nesman. You are our bamf of the day and I'm rooting for you. And then, internet drama news. Let's talk about this iDubbbz situation. This is a pretty requested story, which makes sense. There's

Starting point is 00:01:28 a lot of different discourse, let's call it, online. And pretty much all of it has stemmed from a controversy around the influencer boxing event, Creator Clash. Creator Clash 2 happened a few weeks ago, by all accounts, seemed successful. But a few weeks prior to the event, there was this big controversy because iDubbbz, or rather I'll call him Ian, in the organization make what seems to be a last-minute decision to drop one of the fighters and creators, Froggy Fresh. And at the time, there was tons of speculation about why exactly this happened. Something it had to do with Froggy's beef with iDubbbz's wife and Nisa and her mom. Others wondering if it had to do with his ties to Sam Hyde,

Starting point is 00:01:54 who is a highly controversial personality, some describing him as an anti-Semitic troll or an alt-right Nazi. But the main thing is that it was just this public unknown. But now, we all have an answer, because Ian made a video listing his reasons why this happened. The main reason Froggy was kicked from the card was for collaborating with Sam Hyde. And for anyone who's been following the story,

Starting point is 00:02:12 that's fairly obvious. Items and playing clips of remarks Sam Hyde made about Anissa. I don't think so, Anissa. Bitch, hoe. Fucking Anissa. What an ugly piece of shit. Everybody hates him and his wife's a slut.

Starting point is 00:02:24 And with all that, saying why on earth would he want to associate with someone who says that, or anyone who supports those comments? Also saying that on top of all that, Froggy himself was involved in insulting people involved in the Creator Clash. And he ended up claiming that he initially tried to look past a lot of Froggy's indiscretions, and instead wanted to work with him on those issues. And saying he even asked Froggy just to wait until after Creator Clash to post Sam Hyde content. With that, you had Froggy saying he was upset, he thought that it was an inappropriate request, which iDubbbz responded.

Starting point is 00:02:45 Okay, you don't think it's appropriate that I set boundaries. I don't think it's appropriate that you are hanging out with a guy who doesn't think women are people. But Ian also going further, saying it's not just that Froggy worked with Sam Hyde, instead saying that Froggy also appears

Starting point is 00:03:00 to harbor some of those same misogynistic views. Even if you didn't do any of the Sam Hyde stuff, why would we want you at our event? Like, if you're just gonna blatantly disrespect sex workers and women and other fighters, I think it's just pretty clear that he holds similar opinions to Sam Hyde and similar opinions to Sam Hyde fans.

Starting point is 00:03:19 But even with all that, Ian's saying that this doesn't just have to do with him and Anissa feeling personally insulted by those remarks. There are a lot of people who don't want anything to do with Sam Hyde who are fighting on our card. There are a lot of people who are our fans who want nothing to do with Sam Hyde. So we're trying to protect them. We're trying to protect the environment that we're in. And depending on what part of the internet you went to, you saw drastically different reactions. Some watched that video and were like, that's an entirely reasonable explanation

Starting point is 00:03:45 of why you wouldn't want someone to be a part of your event. Or there's people saying that it looked like Ian and Anissa were trying to work with him, but he just didn't want to work with them. But then you'd go somewhere else and it was just people dogpiling Ian, calling the decision dumb or pathetic.

Starting point is 00:03:56 And so with all that, I want to pass a question off to you. What are your thoughts with this whole mess? For which camp, via Landon, and why? And also if you want a clearer picture of I'm trying to make this consumable, if you want to watch a full video, I'm gonna link to it down below, like I do with pretty much everything I cover on this show. Yeah, I'd love to know your

Starting point is 00:04:08 thoughts. And then, some bad news for weed smokers. According to a new study today published in Psychological Medicine, as many as 30% of cases of schizophrenia among men aged 21 to 30 could have been prevented had they avoided cannabis use disorder, with reportedly young men who use potent marijuana frequently having an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, with co-author Nora

Starting point is 00:04:24 Volkow, who's also the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, saying while the Danish population, which is the source here because they got 7 million Danish health records, doesn't have as much diversity as the U.S. and genetics play a role in schizophrenia risk, the findings should concern people of all ethnic backgrounds. Also calling the evidence sufficiently strong. And so strong that you should be cautious, especially if you have schizophrenia running in your family. Though notably, with all this, the data appears to show that women are less affected by the use, at least comparatively. Right, and this study is notable for a number of reasons, but one of them is also timing. Right,

Starting point is 00:04:51 currently, you have many U.S. cannabis companies increasing the potency of their product. In fact, so much so, that we're starting to hear more and more voices, whether it be in the U.S. or in other countries like Germany, saying, hey, maybe we need to put a cap on the potency. Which I will say, as someone that occasionally partakes, yeah, some of you smoking some crazy shit. What feelings are you running away from? I'm just trying to wind down after a stressful day. But some of y'all going to the moon nightly. But overall, concerning news,

Starting point is 00:05:14 especially as consumption has been on the rise. And it's something that we're gonna have to keep our eyes on with even the people behind this study saying we need more research on it. And then the Amazon labor union has become a shit show with us now having even more allegations of violence. With this time, the focus on Derek Palmer, the union's vice president, reportedly admitting to strangling his girlfriend last year on police body camera footage. With him reportedly back in October being indicted on two counts of second-degree aggravated assault.

Starting point is 00:05:35 And if he's convicted, obviously you're talking jail time, but also he would be barred from serving as a union officer. And this notably coming not a month after video emerged of union president Chris Smalls fighting a fellow organizer outside the Staten Island warehouse. And all that amid a deepening divide within the ALU over alleged mismanagement by Smalls and his leadership, whom members accuse of being more concerned about personal fame than actually running the union. And then it's a bad, no good day for the Ed Sheeran haters out there. Because Ed, he just won a copyright case over a song, Thinking Out Loud, meaning he won't be quitting the music industry after all. If you didn't know, here are the key details. He was accused of copying elements from Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On and the family

Starting point is 00:06:06 of Ed Townsend who co-wrote Let's Get It On sued Ed over the matter, specifically saying both songs shared similar chord patterns. But the New York Times noting that the case asked questions of originality in pop music and whether the use of basic musical elements like chord progressions and simple rhythmic patterns can be owned by a single creator or are free for any musician to use and adapt. And for his part, Ed maintained that he didn't copy Let's Get It On, even taking to the stand with his guitar to play part of thinking out loud to explain what the songwriting process was like. At one point, like I even mentioned, he went so far as to say that if he lost this case, he would just quit music. But of course, he doesn't have to do that with a jury now siding with him. So yeah, a bad, no good,

Starting point is 00:06:38 tough day if you run an Ed Sheeran hate account. But for a lot of people in the music and creative industries, people see this as a win. And that obviously including Ed, who says that, you know, musical chords are common building blocks that have been used to create music long before Let's Get It On was even written. Other supporting writing things like chord progressions are everywhere in music and rules typically govern how chords are ordered. So of course, there's overlap across an entire industry. And adding here that essentially a crisis has been averted. Because had Ed lost, moving forward, every musician has to use half their creative juices on making sure no one else has ever produced a similar sound. Plus, they get sued out the wazoo.

Starting point is 00:07:08 With one musician kind of making the comparison that the lawsuit and its implications are the musical version of saying to a painter, you'll have to pay to use red. And then, having multiple pairs of earbuds is almost a must nowadays. Be it a meeting running really long and your earbuds are dying, or you misplace a pair and you're heading out on a hike. And well, that's where the fantastic sponsor of today's show comes in, Raycon. Raycon's on a mission to prove that you shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for quality sound and essential smart tech listening features. And starting at half the price of other premium audio brands, you can get a pair and a spare. And they're really comfortable with optimized gel tips with the perfect in-ear fit, so they won't budge. And really, trust me, they will not budge. I've used and tested these for years. Plus, personally,

Starting point is 00:07:42 I choose the Pure Sound profile for when I'm listening to podcasts, Balance Sound when the music changes up. I absolutely love Bass Sound for when I'm getting really into it. The Noise Isolation Mode's great for when I'm flying, and I can quickly move to Awareness Mode when moving through the airport. So y'all, grab a pair and a spare by clicking the link in the description box,

Starting point is 00:07:57 or go to buyraycon.com slash defranco to get 15% off your Raycon purchase. And remember, they offer free shipping, free returns, and buy now, pay later options, plus a 30-day happiness guarantee. And then, Clarence Thomas is a whole-ass sugar baby at this point, except instead of sucking dick for money, he fucks a whole country for it, y'all.

Starting point is 00:08:13 How is there even more news coming out about him? So much had already recently been exposed, and there's more? When you have political institutions and government, you know that there's gonna be corruption. But to see it happening in the Supreme Court is especially concerning. Right, in the past, when you think about the different branches of government, you think about checks and government, you know that there's going to be corruption. But to see it happening in the Supreme Court is especially concerning. In the past, when you think about the different branches

Starting point is 00:08:26 of government, you think about checks and balances, one of the ones that people would hold in the highest of regards was the Supreme Court, thinking of it as the biggest check and balance. But what we've discovered in large part, thanks to billionaire Harlan Crowe, is that we all got it wrong. He writes checks to undo the balances. And what I'm specifically talking about is that ProPublica has now published another report on the sketchy-ass relationship between a high court justice and a billionaire real estate magnate and Republican mega-donor. And this notably coming just weeks after the absolutely stunning report that revealed that Thomas had been accepting incredibly expensive luxury gifts from Crow for over two decades without disclosing them. What we're seeing with

Starting point is 00:08:58 this latest report is like Crow is coming up with every possible way to throw money at this man. And in this case, a third person, Justice Thomas's grandnephew, Mark Martin. Because in 2008, Thomas decided that he was gonna send his grandnephew, Mark Martin, to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in Northern Georgia. Martin had lived with Thomas and his wife for years and was in their legal custody,

Starting point is 00:09:14 with the justice recently telling an interviewer he was raising him as a son. But the tuition at this boarding school was just insanely high at over $6,000 a month, which, hey, is a big spend, but seemingly something that the couple could afford. Thomas and his wife bring in combined incomes of more than $500,000 in 2006 and over $850,000 in 2007. But turns out, like with a lot of things that we've learned recently, the Thomases did

Starting point is 00:09:33 not foot the bill. Instead, according to a bank statement for Hidden Lake from July of 2009, Crowe's company paid for Martin's tuition that month. And Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school, said that it went beyond just that month. In fact, claiming that Crowe covered Martin's tuition the whole time he was there, which was around a year. But again, it doesn't just stop there. Grimwood also saying that Crow had told him that he had paid for Martin's tuition at another private boarding school called Randolph-Macon Academy that he had attended both before and after he went to Hidden Lake. And according to reports, the exact total Crow paid for Martin's education over the years remains unclear. But if he paid for all four years at the two schools, the price tag could have exceeded $150,000. And very notably, when Crowe's office responded to ProPublica's questions, they did not

Starting point is 00:10:08 dispute the facts presented, but said that Crowe has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth. And adding that he and his wife have supported many young Americans through scholarship and other programs at a variety of schools, including his alma mater, Randolph-Macon Academy. Going on to say, tuition and other financial assistance is given directly to academic institutions, and concluding, it's disappointing that those

Starting point is 00:10:28 with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political. To which I have to ask, to whoever or whatever group made this statement, did you do it like straight face? How is a child in the legal care

Starting point is 00:10:41 of a couple making nearly a million dollars a year? And that's just of what we know. Unfortunately, given all the unreported things that we're finding out, I have to add that clarifier. But how is that person less fortunate? Especially when you consider the fact that Martin also told ProPublica himself that he got to join in on some of the lavish trips that Thomas took with Crow. Revisiting Crow's Anorondax estate, two cruises on Crow's super yacht, or I'm sorry, is it a super yacht or is it a less fortunate yacht? Since we're apparently just slapping on descriptors that don't make any sense. Like if you said the honorable before Clarence Thomas. But also with this story, after ProPublica published their story, a longtime friend of Thomas

Starting point is 00:11:12 who has also served as a lawyer for the justice's wife released a statement confirming that Crowe had indeed paid for Martin's tuition at both private schools. Though also arguing that Thomas was not required to disclose those payments because Martin was not his dependent child as defined under disclosure law. But you have experts saying that the claim that Thomas didn't have to disclose Crowe's tuition payments to Martin is still bullshit because what minor pays their own $6,000 a month tuition to a fancy-ass boarding school? And noting, typically the legal guardian is responsible for the child's education. And this, as ethics law experts told ProPublica, they believe that Thomas was required by law to disclose the tuition payments because they appear

Starting point is 00:11:42 to be a gift to him. And what's more, Thomas himself has literally reported a similar tuition payment made by another friend on behalf of Martin in his financial disclosures. A fact that experts say could show that Thomas understood that he was required to disclose tuition aid given to him by friends, but just chose not to with Crowe. A man that experts and lawmakers say has shown a clear interest in the court. As we've talked about, he has given millions to efforts to move the judiciary to the right while also serving on boards of think tanks that promote conservative legal theories. But that's where we are with this whole sketchy-ass situation, and it feels like it's just a matter of time until we find out what else Sugar Daddy Crow did for little baby Clarence. And then,

Starting point is 00:12:14 are you on a secret government list right now? That may sound far-fetched, but a lot of people who thought they weren't are now finding out they are. And for the latest example of that, you can just ask Prospect Park Mayor Muhammad Karula. He's the longest serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey. He fled Syria with his family back in the 1980s, became a citizen in 2000, got elected to the Prospect Park Council in 2001, and then became mayor in 2005. And since then, he's grown to be a revered and influential figure, both in his local community and among New Jersey Muslims. Which is exactly why on Monday, the White House invited him and hundreds of other Muslims to a belated celebration marking the end of Ramadan, with Karula even helping the Democratic Party compile a list of Muslim American leaders to invite.

Starting point is 00:12:48 But when just minutes away from the White House, Karula got a phone call from the Secret Service abruptly disinviting him from the event without any explanation. So he talks to the Council on American Islamic Relations, and it turns out that his name is on a secret FBI terrorist watch list that got leaked earlier this year, saying that his name was added to it just a few years ago in 2019, which is exactly when he started getting harassed at airports seemingly for no reason. In 2019, I was held and interrogated at JFK airport for three hours. I also had my phone taken away and searched through at the time. This happened multiple times between 2019 and 2021. When I was returning from Canada by land, where I was held up in a glass holding area for my children to watch me and ask, why can't we be with you? So you had activists and politicians calling on the Biden administration to explain what happened on Monday, but still,

Starting point is 00:13:39 days later, spokespeople have refused to give anything meaningful. And with all this, Karula himself stresses that the problem isn't that he was disinvited, but instead saying the problem is that the secret list exists at all. Because with hundreds of thousands of names on it, there's no transparency about how or why names are added or removed, nor is there any recourse people can take to get their names taken off the list. Plus, a federal court already ruled the list unconstitutional back in 2019. And remember, we're only hearing about this story because it involves a high profile figure. Meanwhile, for everyone else on this list, it's probably going to go unnoticed. And then...

Starting point is 00:14:06 Saudi Arabia is saying that LGBTQ visitors are now welcome. But are they really? Because the country recently updated its Q&A of its tourism website, adding the question, Are LGBT visitors welcome to visit Saudi Arabia? And then answering, Everyone is welcome to visit Saudi Arabia, and visitors are not asked to disclose such personal details.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Now, from a business stance, it makes sense why they want to court this group. According to the CEO of the world's largest LGBTQ plus travel platform, research shows they spend more money in a destination than heterosexual couples and tend to travel more times a year. And saying it's a very interesting and lucrative demographic and countries are plowing major revenue into attracting it.

Starting point is 00:14:36 However, Brett and Gary, before you pack those bags, big asterisk, that's the only information they provide. Because while there are reports that at least in the tourist destinations, locals were relatively open to LGBTQ plus people, it does not change the fact that same-sex activity in that country is still prohibited and carries the possibility of death. Or if you're a lucky boy or girl, hundreds of lashes and years in prison. Yeah, if you want that adventure, you

Starting point is 00:14:56 want that adrenaline rush that comes from hiding from the authorities and possible death, Saudi Arabia, a fantastic LGBTQ plus destination. And that is actually where today's show ends. Thank you for choosing me to be your daily dive into the news. My name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you next time.

Your Ad Here

The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.4 Homeless Hero Saves Baby, The Truth About the iDubbbz Drama, Ed Sheeran Wins, & Today’s News

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.