The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.15 "HE'S RACIST!" Baby Storme Slammed Over "Entitled Whining", MoistCritikal vs Twitch, The Blindside

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Go to https://trueclassictees.com/phildefranco  to get 25% OFF Go to https://shopbeam.com/defranco  and use code DEFRANCO to get 35% off your first month’s subscription and 20% off all your following orders. You can pause or cancel any time, so there's no risk! Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/lB3DMOEP3qA 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 - Baby Storme Criticized After Calling Target Employee “Racist” 02:16 - “The Blind Side” Subject Michael Oher Files to End Tuohy Family Conservatorship 06:12 - Moistcr1TiKaL Leaves Exclusive Streaming Deal With Twitch 08:43 - Sponsored by True Classics 09:44 - Trump Indicted (Again) in GA Probe 13:46 - Emergency Meetings Held to Stabilize Russian Ruble After Crash 15:16 - Sponsored by Beam 16:08 - The Rise of Tenant Unions Resources for Trump’s GA indictment: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/15/politics/takeaways-trump-indictment-georgia-election/index.html https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4153476-5-takeaways-from-trumps-georgia-indictment/ KC Tenants Organizing Toolkit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ex-KZYIlhZ0-yB1RNA8_VJWzJP8OiiF2rXFe6PNItR0/edit  ——————————   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 #MoistCritikal #MichaelOher ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about how the blind side may have actually been a huge lie and scam, massive backlash following a creator calling a target employee racist, people are banding together after feeling like they're getting screwed by their landlords, more bad news for Twitch, Russia's fallen apart, and why Trump's new RICO charges pose the biggest threat to him yet. We're going to talk about all that and so much more on today's extra-large Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news, so hit that like button if you like him big, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, this baby's storm situation is an absolute

dumpster fire. Right, if you've never heard of her, she's a musician with over a million TikTok followers. She has an indie single called This City is a Graveyard. She'd actually been in some hot water before drawing some criticism because she filmed her music video in a real graveyard, a decision that some people found very disrespectful. But her now latest controversy took place in a Target, where she organized dozens of people into a flash mob and blasted her music in the middle of the store. And almost immediately, you hear this employee tell them they can't film there, that they'll have to call the police.

So they then turn the music down, but then this happens. What are you doing? What are you doing? Everybody, you're starting. We've got to say, if we all just start and multiple people record, they can't block it. Right. So next you see them dancing anyway, singing the song together as a chorus.

The city is a graveyard. I'm haunted by your love. The Baby Storm then posting that video with the caption, This racist Target employee called the police on us for dancing in Target. So we danced anyway. And in general online, the biggest reaction was, What the fuck are you talking about? People absolutely ripping her apart in the replies. With some of those people pointing out that the employee was only doing his job by enforcing

store policy and saying she should have asked for permission to film there first, as well as others arguing that she was doing a disservice to people who have actually been victimized by racism and saying things like, people getting killed daily for just existing with darker skin. Meanwhile, you're crying racism for this nonsense. They shouldn't have called the cops. But expecting to get accepted when y'all didn't get permission is wild. Them not wanting 40 people randomly singing and dancing in the store isn't racism. You know you're wrong when accounts whose main purpose on this app is to support and uplift black women aren't on your side. But she also defended herself in later tweets, saying, this employee literally called the police on us before we even entered the building. It was 9.30,

there was no one in the store. Don't try to tell me, a black woman, what racism is. She was also responding to people saying they're trying to paint her as a terrible person for organizing a flash mob and speaking on what she believed was her experience. But with all that said, regarding what we've seen here, I'd love to know your thoughts on this situation. And then we have all been blindsided. At least that's what Michael Orr, the retired NFL player who inspired the 2009 movie The Blindside, is saying right now. Which, if you don't remember, the movie was a dramatized version of Michael's life. He was pulled out of poverty and adopted by the Toohey's, a wealthy white family. He starred Sandra Bullock as Leanne Toohey. It was a huge box office success. It made $300 million. Sandra Bullock won an Oscar. But yesterday,

Michael completely flipped that narrative upside down. And in a petition filed in Shelby County, Tennessee's probate court, Michael alleges that the Toohey's never adopted him, but rather tricked him into signing a conservatorship right after he turned 18. With that petition reading, Since at least August of 2004, conservators Leanne and Sean have allowed Michael, specifically in the public generally, to believe that conservators adopted Michael and have used that untruth to gain financial advantages for themselves and the foundations which they own or which they exercise control.

Now, because of the whole Britney Spears ordeal, I think most people are kind of somewhat familiar with what a conservatorship is. But in this case, specifically, Michael says he signed the conservatorship while under the impression that it was part of the adoption process. With the petition explaining, at no point did the Toohey's inform Michael that they would have ultimate control of all his contract. And as a result, Michael did not understand that if the conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself. With Michael saying that he only learned in February of this year that the conservatorship that he signed did not legally make him a part of the

Toohey family. So in a petition filed yesterday, Michael is seeking to end that conservatorship, and he's also seeking an injunction preventing Leanne and Sean from using his name and likeness. Also in regards to the movie, Michael's petition claims that he never saw a dime from it. Meanwhile, the Tooheys negotiated a $225,000 contract and 2.5% of the future defined net proceeds for themselves and their biological children. So the petition is asking for the couple to pay Michael his fair share of the profits as well as an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages, accusing the twoies of making millions while not offering him anything for a story that wouldn't exist without him. It also feels important to note here that Michael has long spoken out about his

displeasure about the movie's portrayal of him, saying that it betrayed him as unintelligent and dependent and saying in a 2015 interview, people look at me and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That's why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field. Now that said, on the other side of this story, you have Sean Tuohy saying their family actually didn't make any money from the movie, saying to the Daily Memphian that Michael Lewis, the author of the book The Blind Side, gave the family half of his share, and saying that was split five ways, including Michael, with Sean saying that the headlines claiming they made millions off of this aren't true, saying we're devastated. It's upsetting to think we would make money off of any of our children, but we're going

to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16. And he defended the conservatorship saying that it had nothing to do with the movie, but rather it was necessary to appease the NCAA about Michael playing at Sean's alma mater, saying they said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. If you're planning to go to Ole Miss or even considering Ole Miss, we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that legally. Adding we contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn't adopt over the age of 18 and that the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up and up that we made sure the biological mother came to court. With Sean going on to say that if Michael does want to be released from the

conservatorship, the Toohey's would do so without question. You also had S.J. Toohey, one of the Toohey's biological children, doing an interview with Barstool Sports regarding the whole situation. And there, he just echoed his dad. I'm going to preface by saying that I loved my kid at 16. I love my kid now. He's, what, 16 and a half years old at 37. And I love him at 67. So there's not going to be any legal dossier or thing that happens that's going to make me, gonna make me go like, screw that guy. Though notably also going on to say that he himself made between 60 and 70 grand over the last several years

from checks from the Blindside movie. With him also mentioning that 2.5% number that Michael brought up in the petition. With SJ saying that he wasn't sure if Michael's claim of only learning about the difference between a conservatorship and adoption as recently this year is true. If he says he learned that in February,

I find that hard to believe. I went back to my text today to look at, I was curious today randomly to go back to look at our family group texts and text to see what things have been said. And there's things back in 2020, 2021 that were like, you know, if you guys give me this much, then I won't go public with things. And so I don't know that's true. I think everyone learned in the past year about the conservatorship stuff because of Britney Spears. So maybe that's the case.

But ultimately, that is where this mess is right now. And of course, with it, I got to ask you, what are your thoughts? And then, is Twitch dying? Like, is the platform done for? That's been this ever-growing question. As more and more of their top creators go to other platforms. Prior to this year, you had people going to places like YouTube. Now you got people going over to Kik.

Signing these reportedly massive, massive deals. And the most recent name to announce that he's parting ways with Twitch is Moist Critical. In addition to being pretty huge on YouTube, he's very big on Twitch, with him actually having had an exclusivity contract with a platform. But now he's actually getting out of it before it expired, with him announcing this in a video in which he used this analogy to describe his future with Twitch. Think of this as we're no longer married. Now we're just friends with benefits, I guess. We're not monogamous.

Right, and saying that he still plans on streaming on Twitch, but he also wants to venture out and stream elsewhere, like on YouTube. And explaining this all went down with Twitch amicably. A huge thanks to Twitch for being so willing to do that because I did still have a lot of time remaining on my Twitch contract, but I wanted to be able to have flexibility to stream elsewhere,

and Twitch fully understood and gave me that firm pat on the ass and said, you go get them, champ. And part of the conversation we're seeing around this story are paid guarantees from platforms versus fan funding, with Even Critical himself noting that he's a big advocate for streaming contracts. Streamers not having to rely on donations, I think, is just a great win-win across the board because unfortunately there are times where someone gives more money than they should to someone that is financially far better off than they are. Of course, it's not like his feelings for all contracts in the space are positive, especially when it comes to deals like what Twitch is doling out.

If you ask anyone who's currently under Twitch contracts, you'll know, they'll tell you, it is the lowest possible offer across any of the other streaming platforms that have ever offered contracts. And honestly, it didn't sound like it makes sense for him to be chained to Twitch when he hasn't been a fan of their decisions. The platform's kind of been making some horrible decisions over the last couple of years. I do think they're starting to get a little bit better. Like, I think they're starting to get it a bit more, but not much. So now Moist Critical says he's just looking forward to the flexibility to stream different content on different platforms.

But you still have to wonder if any platforms are going to try to open up their checkbook to him. Right, Kik, possibly a top contender. They've been throwing around crazy money. But also with that, there's a question of how long can they keep it up? Because the numbers getting thrown around are huge. Of course, given their state connections, they do have deep pockets. I'm glad to hear it. Or they're not your average startup.

And ultimately for Twitch, it feels like a question of can they weather this storm or are they going to sink or change things up? And as far as I'm concerned, I hope as many platforms as possible are at least moderately successful. Because when you have so much competition at the platform level, usually the people that can benefit the most are the people at the creator level. Because if there's just one or two top players in a space, they can take creators for granted. And then, you know, I can't say enough about the quality and comfort of these tees that you see me wearing all the time. Like, no joke, True Classic is the real deal. And now, for my 9-to-5ers out there, today's sponsor, True Classic, has something special for you. It's almost

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Last night, Trump was indicted for the now fourth time, this time for his attempt to overturn the election in Georgia. We gotta talk about why experts say this one is different, because otherwise, you kinda, your eyes glaze over. But looking into it, this case is different than his other three indictments for a few reasons. First of all, 18 other people were also charged in this scheme, with that including many of Trump's top advisors, such as his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as five of the six people widely assumed to be the unindicted

co-conspirators listed in the federal case against Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, with those people being Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell, as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump-aligned attorney Kenneth Cheesebrook. And all in all, 41 charges were brought in this indictment, including 13 against Trump, which for those keeping score at home, raises the total number of charges against Trump to 91. And again, I understand why it is so easy to get indictment fatigue. I have it. But I really cannot do you the disservice of underselling the severity of all this. Because while this case is similar to the federal charges against Trump, it has also been described as far more encompassing in detail

than Smith's ongoing federal investigation. And at the core of this case is a racketeering charge originally designed to prosecute mob bosses heading criminal enterprises. And all 19 defendants are being charged under George's RICO Act, though notably not all 19 are being charged with the same counts. But George's RICO Act allows prosecutors to connect a range of different crimes committed by different people by arguing that they were acting together to achieve a joint criminal goal. And that goal here being a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.

What's more, prosecutors are also able to use actions taken in other states to show criminal intent in Georgia. And to that point, the indictment specifically notes that the enterprise also operated in other states, including but not limited to Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and in the District of Columbia.

Now, because there are so many different counts, I cannot touch on every single one, though I will link to explainers down below. But still, I'm going to give you some very broad strokes. Because at the very top level, the indictment outlines 161 different acts that prosecutors say were taken to further the alleged conspiracy. And those acts fall into several baskets, with the indictment specifically spelling out eight different methods that defendants use to further the goals of the enterprise and to achieve its purposes. With those being, lying to state legislatures and high-ranking state officials with a purpose of persuading both to illegally change the outcome of the election, creating and distributing false

materials related to the electoral college, harassing and intimidating an election worker in Fulton County, corruptly asking high-ranking DOJ officials to make false statements about the election and soliciting Mike Pence to overturn the election, illegally accessing election equipment to steal data including ballot images, voting equipment, software, and personal voter information that was then distributed to election deniers all over the country. And then engaging in obstructive acts to further the conspiracy and cover-up, including by filing false documents, making false statements to investigators, and committing perjury. And as far as Trump himself, he's charged in connection to many of those eight buckets. Because in addition to the racketeering charge all 19 defendants are facing, he's also been charged with three counts of soliciting a violation of oath by public officer,

two counts each of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and making false statements and writings, and one count each of conspiracy to commit filing false documents and filing false documents. But with all that, as far as what happens next,

Fulton County's Fannie Willis, who led this investigation, has given Trump and all other defendants until August 25th to surrender. And also, very notably here, unlike Trump's past indictments, Atlanta officials have said that he will have his mugshot taken and there is also a possibility a potential trial would be televised. So a lot of big departures from what we've seen

so far. But then also another key thing that's different about this case compared to the other indictments is that it poses a unique threat to Trump. As Axios explained, many close to Trump have long thought if one case could bring him down, it's this. Unlike the other state level charges brought against him in New York, the Georgia charges actually carry the possibility of jail time. And most importantly, unlike the federal charges against Trump, he cannot pardon himself for the Georgia charges if he was convicted and also elected as president in 2024. Whereas one report published by Time put it, in other words, the Georgia case may be the most durable, most threatening, and most important headache facing Trump because he can't pay a fine or pardon

himself. And as far as how Trump has responded to all this, it's kind of been the usual. Saying this is a politically motivated witch hunt. You know, kind of just the bullshit that he has said so many times before. Though in addition to that, he also promised to hold a news conference next Monday where he promised to release an irrefutable report that he says will prove his false claims of election fraud in Georgia. Like I say, anytime anyone says that Donald Trump may be held accountable, I'll believe it when I see it. But for now, we'll have to wait, watch, and continue to live through history. And then, Russia's economy is on the brink of disaster, with their central bank currently scrambling to avoid that disaster

as its currency's value continues to crash, with their ruble yesterday briefly breaking 100 to the US dollar, marking its worst performance since the war in Ukraine began, which at that time, it had crashed briefly before skyrocketing again on the back of oil and gas sales despite massive sanctions. However, over the past few months, its value has been steadily dropping by over 25% due to fuel prices slumping and restrictions on sending money abroad loosening, which has led to people dumping their rubles when they can. And so when you add all those things together, it means that the ruble is at serious risk of really bad inflation.

And for the central bank, that 100 to the $1 mark seems to have been a red line as it quickly moved to try and correct the problem. Speculating interest rates from 8.5% to 12.5%, which, I mean, that alone would be a dramatic change. But what's even crazier is that 8.5% rate was set just last month. Without helping increase the currency's value against the dollar, the central bank has said that they're ready to push another hike if needed. But also what's especially interesting with the situation is it's one of the few times that we've actually seen open criticism between branches of their government. For example, in an op-ed, Putin's economic advisor blamed the central bank for the situation, saying, The source of the weakening of the ruble and the acceleration of inflation is soft monetary policy.

Now, with all that said, does this mean that Russia's on the verge of collapse? Probably not, with Russian officials still thinking that the country will run a budget surplus in the third quarter and meet its 2% GDP growth target. However, it's important to remember that most of that is still being propped up by dwindling oil and gas prices. But for everyday Russians, this is having an effect of making everything more expensive. I mean, your money devaluing 25% across just a few months, that's tough. But as far as what this means for the long term in Russia, we're gonna have to wait to see because there are a number of variables at play. And then, oh, sleep. It is quite possibly the best thing ever, but only when you can actually get it. You know, busy with work,

kids, life's typical stressors, I don't always sleep well. And that's even when I get to go to bed on time, and that is exactly where the fantastic sponsor of today's show comes in, Beam. Right by now, you've probably heard me talk about Beam's delicious hot cocoa with five natural ingredients that put me right to sleep and helps me wake up feeling amazing. And I love that they're always coming out with new flavors, like their new mint chip dream powder. Not only is it delicious, it contains five powerful natural sleep-promoting ingredients like nano hemp, reishi, mushroom extract, magnesium, L-theanine, and melatonin. And it's all third-party lab tested, contains no THC, and is trusted by top athletes to help them get their best sleep and recovery. If you find your sleep regimen to be lacking,

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But instead of coworkers organizing against their bosses, neighbors organize against their landlords. And to turn up pressure, they even do things like hold rallies and protests, sometimes lobby the government, or hit the nuclear option, a rent strike. And so I really wanted to look into this growing movement, and so we spoke to Tara Ragovere, who notably co-founded KC Tenants, the union in Kansas City, Missouri, with three other women back in 2019. What they're saying, tenant activism exploded nationwide once the pandemic shut everything down. And this had to do in part with the economic shock suddenly forcing people to come face to face with the possibility of eviction for the first time. Though that fear was largely calmed down for the time being by government eviction moratoriums, rent caps and rental assistance programs. And so with that, another factor Tara points out is just how much more important the home became for people's survival. We were told to stay home, right? We were told to shelter in place. Our housing was the vaccine

before the vaccine. It was the way that we were told to keep ourselves and our communities safe. But for many people, that shelter was simply unaffordable, or at least the lockdown made the miserable quality of their home life impossible to ignore, whether it's because their apartment was in disrepair or they were living with an abuser. And so there was this growing sense that something was wrong. But as for who to blame, Tara spoke to a lot of people who were kind of confused. We met people who felt alone and oftentimes had internalized a lot of shame about what was going on for them. We've got a hotline where people call from a place of crisis. And one of the first things we tell them is you're not alone.

What's happening to you is not your fault. You can actually do something about it if you organize with your neighbors. And she adds that often people don't even understand what a tenant is, much less what a union is. So the first step is to build up that class consciousness. With Katie Goldstein, director of the housing and health care campaigns of the Center for Popular Democracy, explaining. But I think that the housing market in general has been pretty depoliticized. You know, I think that people often think that housing,

you know, what kind of housing they have is based upon an individual choice, not actually a structural market that's operating in all kinds of ways that we don't have control over. But that is really beginning to change across the country as tenants become more organized and politicized. Now, Goldstein says we don't have exact data on the number of tenant unions nationwide, but their membership is in the tens of thousands. There's really no limit to the kinds of housing that can be organized, whether it's single family homes, multifamily homes, senior living, student accommodation, even trailer parks.

With that last one being surprisingly common, I mean, hell, I was even a trailer park kid. There's an estimated 22 million households, or at least 1 in 15 Americans, living in mobile homes. And often, unlike with traditional housing, mobile home park landlords only own the land, not the actual home sitting on it. So that means they don't have to pay for all the typical maintenance and upkeep for those structures, which the tenants pay for themselves. Plus, the mobile and mobile home really doesn't mean much when it costs $5,000 or $6,000 to move one, which is why over 90% of them never budge once after their first installation. And so these landlords have a ton of leverage to raise rents because if tenants don't like it, there's not a lot they can do about it. Nevermind if they get

evicted, in which case they may have to say goodbye to the property they've invested thousands of dollars and years of their lives into, all of which is why mobile home parks yield some of the highest returns in real estate, right? And it's that promise of a reliable revenue stream that inspired Frank Rolfe, who owns 250 such parks, to proclaim, we're like a Waffle House where everyone is chained to the booths. So it's not a surprise that big investment firms like Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, and Stockbridge Capital Group have scooped up large shares in this market. But they don't always just sit on the property and collect rent, right? Sometimes the investor sells the land to a developer, which kicks everyone off of it en masse and builds multi-million dollar properties there instead. And often because these parks have been stigmatized by a number of things, I mean, hell, even including shows like Cops and Trailer Park Boys, often depicting the occupants as white trash,

there's little support in government for zoning more mobile parks, let alone protecting existing ones. But if they band together under a tenant union, they might actually have a fighting chance, and some have actually done so in states across the country. Plus, their inclusion in organizing efforts has the potential to bridge racial and geographic divides. Our mobile home parks, mostly rented by rural white people in apartment buildings, often rented by black and Hispanic people, are both owned by the same motherfuckers at the top. And it just takes the right organizer to help people realize that. Though do understand that's not to say that all tenants are equally easy to organize.

With Tara saying that it's most difficult to rally the people who have become stuck in this constant churn of instability. They have multiple evictions, very low incomes, and seemingly no way out. Which leaves them with nowhere to turn except what Tara calls the landlords of last resort. And those are the only property owners who will take them in given their record, credit score, income, etc. Those tenants, I think, are the hardest to organize in part because the forces of capital keep them moving, right? By design, the business model of the landlords who rent to tenants like that is predicated on those tenants' instability. So it's hard to organize a building union when half the building is turning over within six months or a year because they're getting evicted, they're

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And then she also told us about one of the most egregious cases she's ever had to fight. With that happening at a building that KC tenants began organizing in late January because it lost heat during one of the coldest weekends of the year. The school district called us. They had students who were living in that building whose families were getting sick. And there was a risk that especially some of the older people in the building, some folks who were already sick, might have frozen to death that weekend. The building is entirely Burmese refugees and Mexican immigrants, and almost no one at the property spoke English.

We had to get the city involved because there were so many property violations. The city, to their credit, came out, kind of turned the whole health department inside out to make sure that folks were on site all weekend. And then by Monday, we got the heat and other utilities reinstated for the building. Trouble is, two days later, the local slumlord who owned the property when we were organizing sold it to an out-of-town landlord. And that landlord, two weeks after that, filed 30-day notices against all of the tenants in the building and said, you all have until the beginning of April to move out of this property. We're going to flip it and start renting these units that were rented for $350. We're going to rent them for $1,200. And all these tenants are

poor, right? They're on fixed incomes, many working multiple jobs. And so with basically nowhere else to go that they can afford, they're like, we literally cannot leave. We will not leave. And so they do the only thing they can. They reach out to KC tenants. And the union bombards his cell phone with hundreds of tax after only getting his number because he went to the city to get tax incentives for another deal. Then he finally relents and negotiates with them, cutting a deal to let the tenants stay in their homes. And while they would only pay $400 in rent, the city would cover another $450, and that coming with strings attached. So now we can't evict them or raise rents for two years, and formal notices have been translated into their native languages.

Batara is saying that this story is nowhere near unique, though fortunately in this case, they had a tenant union to back them up. But also saying she wants to see more arrangements like this on the federal level as well, where the government makes loans and subsidies conditional on landlords not raising rents more than a certain amount, say 3%. And one way it can do that is through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where these government-sponsored enterprises help institutional investors obtain hefty, low-interest mortgages with few strings attached. But ironically,

while their ostensible purpose is to help subsidize affordable housing, they arguably do the opposite, especially with mobile home parks. Because when the landlords raise the rents, it boosts their cash flow, and that makes the land more valuable on paper and allows them to borrow more money against the property. And then, with that extra cash, they buy even more property and just repeat the process. So Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just supercharge the corporate conquest of housing markets. But in theory, they could make their loans conditional on the landlords not raising rents or evicting tenants. And notably, those are two things corporate landlords are more inclined to do because of the financial pressure they feel

to maximize profits for their shareholders. Right, in one study, for example, of single-family rentals in Fulton County, Georgia in 2015, institutional investors proved far more likely to pursue eviction than other landlords, with them filing evictions on 20% of tenants, a rate more than three times that of so-called mom-and-pop landlords. And subsequent studies in markets from Boston to Vegas have reached similar conclusions. And on the eviction front, the same logic applies, with investors often buying up rent-controlled apartments, then pressuring residents to leave, and then selling those units at market rate instead. And that pressure can come in many forms. Often through a so-called tenant relocator hired by the landlord to persuade tenants to accept a cash payout in exchange for moving. They'll also do things like threaten to

evict or deport you, claim the building is being demolished, or lie about other tenants taking the money, all of which is especially frightening to immigrants who often speak very little English and are undocumented. So if they're going to have any hope in a defense, it's through a tenant union. But Tara says that corporate landlords are almost impenetrable to organizers. First of all, it's so difficult for a tenant to know who their landlord actually is when private equity owns their home because private equity will cover its tracks through a whole myriad of LLCs, a whole maze of property management companies and other contractors. And the tenant is left with really no clear path to the landlord. And that's by design, right? Private equity is shielding the owners and the investors from any kind of real accountability with the human beings on the other side of their investments.

But also, none of this is to say that mom and pop landlords are a perfect alternative or they can be a less aggressive version of the same thing. But Tara argues that even they often function like corporations. Even those, quote, mom and pop entities have LLCs that shield their actual ownership from their tenants. They might even contract with property management firms. A lot of the way that they do their business has adapted to follow the model of corporate landlording, which is much more dominant today than it was even a decade ago. And so she says that KC Tenants is up against a tough political challenge, but by slowly growing their power and exerting constant pressure on the city, they've made some legislative gains. Things like passing a tenant's bill of rights, for example, or a guaranteed right to an attorney for tenants in eviction court. With that one not just giving them a fairer shot at keeping their homes, it also disincentivizes landlords from hitting the evict button in the first place.

Because with a guaranteed lawyer on the other side fighting for the tenant, evicting them becomes much more of a legal headache. And so you have one attorney who represents Kansas City landlords saying last October that the cost of an eviction had risen by a factor of five, and saying the process now took from three months to a year, up from a month or so before. Though part of that was also due to KC tenants' activism, right? In July of 2020, for example, after the local eviction moratorium ended, they tried to delay virtual eviction court hearings by logging onto Zoom calls and chanting every every eviction is an act of violence over and over so nobody could actually hear each other. Then in October, they chained themselves to the courthouse doors, even taking their protests to the front yard of a judge. And all these methods reaching a fever pitch and what the union dubbed zero eviction January when they prevented 90% of scheduled evictions across two counties that month.

But again, as Tara explains, it is an uphill battle when you're fighting the powers that be in local politics. Our city is bought and sold by private developers and landlords in many ways, right? This is not unique to Kansas City. This is the truth everywhere. Real estate capital is the most potent political force

in local elections and in local governance. That hasn't stopped her from trying, like with an eye-catching protest at the Starlight Theater in August, where Mayor Quentin Lucas, a Democrat, had a cameo in a local play, but a half-dozen hecklers from KC tenants berated his housing plan from the audience, a plan where he proposed issuing $50 million in bonds to fund low-income housing. But at the same time, he wanted to loosen regulations on a program

previously encouraging affordable housing and otherwise market-rate projects. So in effect, developers would be able to replace units meant for low-income families with those meant for middle-income. And so two days after the protest, KC Tenants members filed into the city council chambers for the vote, which favored the proposal 9-4. Causing one member to yell, How dare you! And security hauling her out with her hands behind her back.

Then another member yelling, Not another penny for the slumlords, which promptly got her not only kicked out, but arrested and taken to jail. So if it wasn't clear by that point, the union knew that it really needed some political power. And actually to that end, its sister organization, KC Tenants Power, got a union leader elected to city council last month. And actually four of the six candidates they endorsed won. So while progress is slow, Tara says they ultimately want to see Kansas City invest in municipal social housing. It's outside the private sector, backed by public funding, and democratically controlled by the tenants who live in it. And actually on the federal level,

Biden's early plans for infrastructure included a proposal to invest $40 billion in public housing. Though by the time his 2021 infrastructure bill and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act were signed into law, the proposal had vanished. And so I guess with all that said, if you are interested in learning more or doing some work yourself, DARS Union has an organizing toolkit online

that you can read for tips and strategy. I'm gonna link to it in the description. And for everyone else, I know this was a beefy story. And so I wanna pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts and experiences with this? But that is where today's Daily Dive into the news is going to end, though do not worry, because after you hit that like button to support today's show,

I got you covered for more news you need to know right here or in the top links in the description. Or if you're all caught up, 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 for more news tomorrow.