The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.24 The Disturbing Truth About Jamie Foxx, Barbenheimer, Israel's Democracy Crisis, & Today's News

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Check out the Vessi Boardwalk and their other styles at http://www.vessi.com/defranco.  Get the style and size you want now for 15% off your entire order! Free shipping to CA, US, AUS, NZ, JP, TW, KR, SGP. Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/6MF6r8RtHXE Check out our daily newsletter! http://dailydip.co/pds  Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillydefranco/?hl=en  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - Conspiracies Swirl After Jamie Foxx Addresses Hospitalization 03:25 - Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter to X 05:46 - Barbenheimer Brings in Record-Breaking Box Office Numbers 07:38 - Ubisoft Faces Backlash For Wiping ‘Inactive’ Accounts 09:09 - Sponsored by Vessi 09:57 - Oklahoma Judge Caught Texting, Browsing Social Media During Trial 10:56 - Republicans Propose Child Tax Care Credit for Unborn Fetuses 12:00 - Study Shows Wealthy Kids More Likely to Get Into Elite Universities 16:15 - Israel Passes Controversial Judicial Overhaul Bill  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #Barbie #JamieFoxx ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're talking about the disgusting situation around Jamie Foxx right now, the true impact of Barbenheimer, Elon officially killing Twitter, Israel is in crisis as people take to the streets. We're talking about all of that and so much more in today's brand new Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, I hate this whole Jamie Foxx situation. As you might remember, there were headlines back in April saying that he was hospitalized, but there were very few details given and for many weeks He and his family kept things private giving almost no updates and as a result people were just kind of speculating left and right

Somehow it's trying to reach for clickbait publishing stories claiming that his family was preparing for the worst Even though he had actually left the hospital and it's just conspiracy and misinformation fodder But now over this last weekend, he posted a video addressing the situation for the first time Well, I didn't give details about his medical situation or his condition He thanked his family fans doctors in the public for their support time. While he didn't give details about his medical situation or his condition, he thanked his family, fans, doctors, and the public for their support. And as for why he didn't give any earlier updates, he explained, I just didn't want you to see me like that, man. You know, I want you to see me laughing, having a good time, partying,

cracking a joke, doing a movie, television show. I didn't want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was gonna make it through. And they are giving a shout out to his family for keeping things private, but also adding that by keeping things quiet, people started jumping to conclusions and making things up. And so with that, he wanted to address some of the rumors he saw.

Some people said I was blind, but as you can see, as you can see, the eyes are working. Eyes are working just fine. Said I was paralyzed. I'm not paralyzed. But I did go through, I went to hell and back. And my road to recovery had some potholes as well. And then, you know, somebody was talking about I'm cloned.

Well, check this out. Just kidding. Not cloned, man. With Jamie adding that he's bouncing back and that he's grateful that he's able to work now. But of course, with all that, none of that has stopped the conspiracies from growing even more.

And this even specifically with the one Jamie joked about where people said he was a clone. Right, which to a certain degree, you're like, are people kind of joking around because he just came out with that Netflix movie called They Cloned Tyrone. But also in reality, you had tons of people comparing how he looked in this video

to how he's looked on red carpets. With people suggesting something suspicious is going on, there's something off with his appearance. But that also resulted in a lot of people going, uh, I'm lost as to why people are asking why Jamie Foxx might not physically look the same after battling an illness. I mean, the man just told you he's been through hell and back. He was tubed up. So maybe don't comment on the guy that seems to still be recovering's appearance. And with that, you had people adding, I'm glad Jamie Foxx didn't share an update with us until he was good and ready because some of y'all have said

the most ignorant things about his appearance. It's completely uncalled for and you wouldn't want anyone to do it to you. The likes of Ice-T also chiming in, people would rather believe that Jamie is now a clone or AI than the man was just seriously sick and damn near died because he doesn't look exactly the same. You look different after a bad cold.

Shaking my head, weirdos. And I'll say personally, like part of the reason I hate this is it's like no one fucking learns. How many times do we see the cycle repeated of like everyone sounding off on like someone looking different or maybe acting a little bit different. And then the news breaks around that person and the same fucking people that were saying the shit before posting some like Instagram looking text bullshit about like, you never know what someone's battling with in private. Like with the whole Chadwick Boseman situation, everyone was like, oh, this is a learning experience,

except apparently fucking not. And I get that we're talking about a famous person. People are interested, but those people also deserve privacy. And the idea, or really not the idea, the fact that because someone wants to even try to have privacy, all of a sudden they're then dealt

all these conspiracy theories and harassment is insane. But that's a story and my feelings on it. And then Twitter is dead. Elon officially killed the bird with his cold, awkward hands. In his latest, and according to the people who pay him $8 a month, greatest move, Elon rebranding the platform X. With as of this morning, that blue Twitter bird, one of the most recognizable logos ever, being replaced with a stylized X.

And this is after Elon pinned the new logo to his page on Saturday and saying in a tweet, if that's what they're still called, and soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually all the birds. And last night, Elon and CEO Linda Iaccarino each sharing photos of the new X logo projected on their headquarters building. And Linda saying,

X is the future state of unlimited interactivity, centered in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking, creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we're just beginning to imagine. And Elon reportedly saying that tweets will now be called Xs, though that won't apply to retweets, with Elon saying that the quote concept should be rethought. And while this is seemingly out of nowhere, if you actually look into it, this is not a surprise move. Because Musk has been talking about Twitter becoming X, the everything app, for almost a year.

According to court filings, the company started transitioning back in April by changing their name from Twitter Inc. to XCorp. A name that, honestly, in a movie sounds too on the nose for an evil corporation. You know, with this, the rebrand has faced its fair share of criticism. With creators like Moist Critical speaking out, saying, Taking one of the most recognizable brand names in the world and changing it to X is unfathomably dumb. Sounds like a porn site, and the logo looks like the emblem to a bad Call of Duty game battles team from 2008. You also

have others saying, I'm not going to use the new name. People saying things like just like the Willis Tower in Chicago will always be the Sears Tower. X will be Twitter. Or imagine how like in LA people are like, oh, crypto.com arena, scoff, scoff. But you know, as of now, the domain x.com leads you to Twitter's homepage. Though the domain twitter.com is still alive as well. But also, even further than this last year, Elon's fascination with the letter X is actually well documented. In fact, this isn't even the first x.com that he's created. If you look back to 1999, he co-founded an x.com, which later merged to become PayPal. I'm also buying the domain back in 2017. Then, of course, there's SpaceX. He also recently launched an artificial intelligence startup called XAI. But with all that said, you know, uh, who knows? Are we witnessing one of the

richest men in the world just doing an exceedingly number of just chaotic, stupid things? Or are we just early days on the road to him creating like America's version of WeChat? Granted, everything we've witnessed from Musk over the past year does not make me feel confident in that second option. You know, weirder and dumber things have happened, so let's wait and see. And then, Barbenheimer dropped over the weekend, and it was even more explosive than expected, with both movies making box office history, which in post-COVID times is a massive, massive deal. For Barbie, it marked the highest opening weekend for a film this year so far, as well as the highest opening weekend ever for a female director, with the film grabbing a massive $162 million domestically, which puts Greta Gerwig's Barbie well ahead of Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman,

which was the previous record holder. Notably, Barbie's audience was also 65% female. But as the Washington Post noted, as far as box office history is concerned, movies that open over $100 million often have a majority male audience, including both Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. You also had Oppenheimer surpassing box office expectations, bringing in $82 million domestically, which, yeah, sounds like a lot less than Barbie, but still very super impressive. I mean, we're talking about a rated-R three-hour movie that I know that it's about, you know, the nuke, but is largely a movie about a bunch of men in a small room talking for three hours. And to someone who watched it, it's still fantastic. I will say with all this, I do wonder what these movies would have grossed if, like, they didn't happen to fall on the same weekend.

Because while I do not doubt that either movie would have been successful, there was a very special weird buzz around Barbenheimer. Obviously leading to a lot of ticket sales for people actually wanting to do the double feature, or at the very least, just leading to so much more free promotion. The memes were everywhere and getting millions, if not tens and hundreds of millions of impressions. And all of this leading to the box office having the biggest collective weekend since the pandemic. And not just that, it's also the fourth biggest weekend in history with over $300 million made, with it only falling behind weekends led by massive franchises like Avengers, Endgame,

Avengers, Infinity War, and Star Wars The Force Awakens. And then when you look internationally, Barbie did $337 million and Oppenheimer did $174. But yeah, that's the news around this. And if you went to see the movies, I'd love to know your thoughts on them or just even the experience. I'm going to actually try and catch Barbie this week. I was only able to see Oppenheimer, but it was very cool to see the theaters packed again. And I will say it was also so interesting to see like Barbie set up as this event that people actually got dressed up to go to. I don't know. It just felt like there was a good energy at the theaters this weekend.

And then Ubisoft is deleting your games. At least that's what users are saying. After an email from the company went viral warning users that their accounts could be purged for inactivity. The user recently sharing that email on Twitter, with it appearing like the user was given 30 days to cancel the closure or they'll permanently lose access to their account, including their purchased games. And this thing blew up with people furious, saying things like either refund every dollar people paid for the games you are removing access to or abandon this policy. If they don't, I can't wait to see the litigation. They'll be taken for everything they're worth. And hey, Ubisoft, this is really messed up. You should

never, and I mean never, delete someone's account for inactivity. Now, currently, it's not clear how long would be too long to be inactive for Ubisoft, with it in 2021 being reported that company officials claimed that only accounts inactive for over four years were at risk of closure. But, according to their terms of service, it could be as little as six months. Now, with this, Ubisoft responded to the initial tweet that went viral reminding users that they had 30 days to cancel the account closure and offering resources to users to prevent the loss of their games.

Also, someone on Twitter said that Ubisoft may be required to close inactive accounts under data protection laws. Well, I think for a lot of people, this is kind of like a non-issue. To me, it really does highlight one of the pitfalls of going digital instead of physical when it comes to video games. And keep in mind, I say that as someone

that I think 98% of the games I've played in the last, at least five years, have all been digital been digital. For the most part, the convenience outweighs all other things for me. But we're also living at a time where people are worried about the preservation of video games, especially digital-only games. Because for example, earlier this year, Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS eShop, it closed. And with that, around a thousand other digital-only games just disappeared, which has also led some users to say, hey, I'm not pirating video games. I'm like a video uh, video game historian preserving history. That said to the three gamers that watch this show,

what are your thoughts here? And then, Yo, the summer in full swing, many of you beautiful bastards out there are gearing up for vacation, or perhaps you're taking more time to explore your surroundings. But the weather and the elements shouldn't be a hurdle, whether you're traveling or you're traversing your hometown. And that's exactly where the fantastic sponsor of today's show,

Vessi, comes in. Vessis are your whatever life has in store store for you sneakers. They're lightweight, waterproof, and snowproof, so you can enjoy the outdoors anywhere in any weather. With great choices like the weekend sneaker or the laceless boardwalk sneakers, you won't be disappointed. They really do feel like you're wearing a sock, so you barely notice that you're wearing them at all. With a wide assortment of colors and styles to choose from, they're great for the whole family. And I do think it's very cool that the Vessi team helps support freshwater programs around the world with over 22 million liters of drinking water

provided by clean water projects funded by the Vessi community. So join the movement today and check out Vessi and all their styles at vessi.com slash DeFranco and get 15% off your entire order. Go get your style and size now. And then, you know what's really boring?

Murder trials, apparently. Because last month, an Oklahoma jury convicted a man for second-degree manslaughter after he beat his girlfriend's two-year-old son to death in 2018. And after that trial had wrapped up, the Oklahoman got its hands on security footage of the district judge there, Tracy Soderstrom, and they found her sneaking time on her phone under the bench. But they're spending hours sending text messages, watching GIFs, and scrolling through social media throughout the seven-day

trial, and doing this for minutes at a time during jury selection, opening statements, and witness testimony. She even checked her phone in the middle of a tearful testimony by the victim's mother. And so you have the district attorney saying in response, jurors are banned from using cell phones in the courtroom during trials because we expect them to give their full time and attention to the evidence being presented. I would expect and hope the court would hold itself to the same standard required of the jurors, regardless of the type of case. Now in her defense, though it's barely a defense, the judge was only sworn in on January 9th, and this was reportedly her first case. But also, she appears to be a massive hypocrite

because she herself instructed the jury to turn off their phones so they could concentrate, indicating she knew the rules. And so now you have a judicial ethics panel that's investigating this whole thing, and we're gonna have to wait to see what happens to her and the defendant in the trial. And then, Republicans in Congress

are now proposing legislation that would expand the child tax credit to unborn fetuses. According to reports, the move is part of a package of bills in the House called the Providing for Life Act that's being led by Republican Representative Ashley Hinson. And among other measures, it would expand the refundable child tax credit to a $3,500 cap for kids five and under and to $4,500 for children six to 17. Though notably, parents would be required to be employed to get the tax credit. One of the wildest parts of the bill is that it would also extend the tax credit to fetuses retroactively. Specifically, the proposal makes

it so that once a baby is born, parents can claim the child tax credit for the year before that during the pregnancy on top of the tax credit for the current year. And this isn't just some one-off thing. Senator Marco Rubio has also introduced a companion bill in the Senate. And with this, you have many saying it's like a weird situation, arguing it's great that low-income families in need are able to get some extra money to cover pregnancies and births, which are so expensive here. You also have people saying it doesn't go nearly far enough to help compensate people who are either forced to carry out pregnancies or risk their time, money, and livelihoods to travel for an abortion because of restrictive state bans supported by these same Republicans. And some

saying Republicans are doing this as a roundabout way of saying, hey, life starts at conception. This is considered a child. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens here. And then Martin Luther King Jr. once said, one of the problems that we had in this country is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. And over the years, we've seen that Wall Street, banks, the auto industry all bailed out. Meanwhile, you Joe Blow, go fuck yourself, pull yourself up by those bootstraps. And well, now you have people saying, well, there's no more affirmative action for minority students, thanks to the Supreme Court. Hey,

at least there's still affirmative action for rich kids. And this as a a new bombshell study, was just released today by Opportunity Insights, a group of Harvard economists that studies inequality. And a very key thing here is that this kind of study has actually never been done before. It's the first of its kind in several different ways. First of all, the researchers here drew from a vast wealth of resources, ranging from admissions information and standardized test scores to data from the IRS, with a study specifically zeroing in on what it refers to as the Ivy Plus colleges, which are the eight Ivy League schools, as well as Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago. You know, it's not a shock that these elite universities have a lot of rich kids, right? Because it's already been established that one in six Ivy

League students have parents in the top 1% of income earners. But part of the reason this study is so monumental is that it shows that these kids aren't necessarily being admitted because they have better grades, test scores, or academic qualifications than other applicants who don't come from as much money. In fact, economists found that kids from the richest 1% of families making more than $611,000 a year are twice as likely to get into the 12 Ivy Plus schools than kids with the same test scores from a family earning between 83 to 116K a year. Which, I mean, that alone is pretty fucking wild given how rich kids already have a huge leg up in the admissions process. Right, given things like their access to the best prep schools and SAT tutors, or as NPR's Planet Money put it,

it's pretty shocking when you consider how much harder it is for a less well-off kid to measure up academically to a rich kid who, from a young age, has benefited from tremendous resources aimed at bolstering their academic credentials. But also, here's the thing. We knew that rich kids already have a massive advantage. But with all this, researchers say their study shows that just being rich gives kids such an extreme boost. It's essentially its own kind of affirmative action. With one of the economists explaining, I think implicitly what we're finding in the data is that whether intentionally or not, we currently have a system that appears to have affirmative action for kids from the richest families, the top 1% in particular, which gives them a substantial leg up in admissions relative to other kids. The thing is they have data that specifically backs

that up, right? According to the study, part of the reason more rich kids attend these elite schools is due to the fact they are simply more likely to apply and enroll in those universities, which is a whole other problem. But the largest factor by far is that these 12 colleges are just more likely to accept rich applicants. And there are three overarching reasons for this. The first and single biggest reason wealthy students are admitted at a higher rate stems from the preference given to applicants whose family members attended the school, with the economists finding that a whopping 46% of the rich kids' admissions advantage comes from legacy admissions programs, with researchers also finding that the same legacy kids did not see an advantage

when they applied to schools their parents did not go to, with one explaining that this strongly suggests that it's not that these kids are just kind of stronger applicants in general, it's actually about literally being a legacy at this college. Secondly, you have athletic recruitment, with nearly one in four getting a boost from the fact that they're good at some sport. And that's likely due to the fact that rich kids are more likely to play expensive and elite sports that are played at fancy colleges, things like fencing, tennis, or rowing. And the third factor driving 30% of the rich kids'

admissions advantage is the fact that they received higher non-academic ratings that stem from things like extracurriculars, volunteering, and recommendation letters from guidance counselors. With one of the economists saying that the students who were given boosts from higher non-academic ratings were disproportionately from elite private high schools. And understand, all of this has a serious real-world impact beyond just bragging about getting into Harvard. It perpetuates intergenerational class privilege and power in society.

Or to put it in a simpler way, it maintains the status quo and keeps out the normies. Because while this study, like many others, found that the school someone attends doesn't really affect their average earning, they do give you a huge advantage for what the researchers call upper tail outcome, which are the person's likelihood of becoming part of the 1% or assuming positions of power and leadership. With a study finding that while

less than half of 1% of Americans actually go to Ivy Plus schools, those 12 colleges account for more than 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs, a quarter of US senators, half of all Rhodes scholars, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half century. Or in other words, access to those schools directly translate to access to power. And the richest 1% of kids have much more access. And one of the crazy things here is that this study was done before affirmative action was thrown out by the Supreme Court.

Because unfortunately in this country, wealth is highly connected to race, the under-representation of middle-class students could get even worse in coming years. So that's why with all this, the economists are urging for reforms to this broken process. But also, I wouldn't expect

any real meaningful change to happen because money loves money, both in accruing it and in the company it keeps. And so my bet is that these elite institutions aren't going to want to shake up the status quo. Call me a cynic all you want, it doesn't change the situation. And then, very interesting news coming out of Israel. Because despite there being an obscene amount of opposition, Israel's ruling coalition just passed its judicial reform bill. Right, to give you the SparkNotes version, version, the way the system has worked is the Supreme Court has the ability to

overrule unreasonable government actions. Kind of the same thing we see in Canada, the UK, and Australia. It allows the court to take a proactive approach to blocking government action. But that's something that Bibi and his allies have argued is increasingly being used inappropriately and that the bill fixes that issue. With the bill significantly limiting the Supreme Court's ability to review government decisions. And this was a bill that was passed 64 that issue, with the bill significantly limiting the Supreme Court's ability to review government decisions. And this was a bill that was passed 64 to 0, though don't take that as a landslide victory. The opposition just boycotted the vote,

not that it would have mattered because they would have lost anyways. But what's also concerning is that this is just the first of three bills that the right-wing government has planned, with the other two looking to give the government more power to appoint judges as well as remove independent legal advisors from ministries.

With Axios reporting President Isaac Herzog, who had warned Monday that the country faced a national crisis, attempted to get some kind of compromise between the government and the opposition. But the talks collapsed after Netanyahu refused to accept the opposition's demands to pass a law that would suspend any further judicial overhaul legislation for a year.

With an opposition leader saying of Bibi and his allies, they want to dismantle the state. And all of this seeming like a transparent power grab by Netanyahu that's threatening their democracy. Which is also why these bills have not only been extremely controversial in Israel, it has caused massive protests. And this at the same time where internationally, many of Israel's allies have pressured the government not to adopt these measures, and that including the United States, which is also kind of funny because Bibi has claimed that his bills put Israel closer to

America's judicial system, where elected officials control judicial appointments rather than the judiciary itself. But as we've seen, it's not like that system is particularly popular here in America. But either way, there's likely going to be serious fallout from all this. Labor unions are holding meetings about whether to call a general strike. Many military reservists there have threatened to refuse to serve, although the former opposition prime minister asked them to continue to do so until the Supreme Court is ruled on the law. Which actually, speaking on that, there is a real chance Israel's on the verge of a constitutional crisis. But what happens if the court rules that the law is unreasonable, even if the law says that they can no longer do that? You know, you'll find out as soon as we do,

but you can probably expect more scenes like this. And that is where today's daily dive into the news ends. But for more news you need to know, I got you covered right here or in those links down below. Or if you've already seen everything, don't worry, because my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.