The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.9 Hawaiians Flee As Maui Burns to the Ground, Massive Portnoy Barstool Buyback, Meg The Stallion &

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Go to https://pdsdebt.com/defranco to get our quick and easy debt assessment today!  https://beautifulbastard.com Drop Goes Live NOW! 30% OFF for the Next 36 Hours! Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/-KU0P6EaMgI 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 - Hurricane Winds Spread Wildfires in Hawaii  01:58 - Tory Lanez Sentenced to 10 Years 03:50 - Penn Sells Barstool Sports Back to Dave Portnoy  07:05 - Sponsored by PDS Debt 07:56 - Florida Schools Cut AP Psych, But Nutty PragerU Videos Will Be Shown in Class 11:14 - Ohio Rejects Issue 1, Setting Stage for Similar Fights in Other States 13:14 - Mexico Shutters 23 Pharmacies at Resorts After U.S. Warned of Dangerous Pill Sales  ——————————   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 #Barstool #Hawaii ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're talking about why Hawaiians are jumping into the ocean to save themselves from being burnt alive, little man Tory Lanez getting locked up for 10 years for shooting Meg the Stallion, why barstool sports being sold back is such a massive deal for the industry, and Ohio voters overwhelmingly fought back. We're going to talk about all that and so much more in today's brand new Philip DeFranco show, you daily dive into the news. But first, this is your friendly reminder that you only have 36 hours left if you want to get 30% off the brand new BeautifulBastard.com drop. You can click the link in the description, tap right there, or use the QR code. So grab yourself some summer awesomeness while you can.

That said, we got a lot of news to talk about today, so let's just jump into it. Starting with, if you haven't seen the videos coming out of Hawaii right now, they are downright apocalyptic. With the Hawaiian island of Maui getting burned to the ground by unprecedented wildfires. We've got so much dry brush and low humidity mixing to form this powder keg, and once lit, it grew out of control, partly because of Hurricane Dora. As well, passing 500 miles to the south, it whipped up winds reaching over 60 miles per hour

that helped spread the flames across the island. And it also knocking out power, rattling homes, and grounding firefighting helicopters. And as of early Wednesday, over 14,000 people in Maui were reportedly without power, and the downed power lines, as well as fallen trees, are blocking fire trucks from reaching inland blazes. And so with all that, you have Acting Governor Sylvia Luke

issuing an emergency proclamation, activating the Hawaiian National Guard to fight this thing. And we've seen them working tirelessly to save Lahaina, a tourist town with a population of 12,000 on the northwest tip of Maui, with much of it now utterly destroyed, and shocking videos showing a terrifying wall of fire ripping through Front Street, which is the heart of the town's economy. You also had the Coast Guard saying that it rescued at least a dozen

people who jumped into the ocean to escape the smoke and flames. Meanwhile, we're seeing others who weren't so lucky being airlifted to hospitals on the other islands to treat their burns. And this is more residents are looking to escape before it's too late, but now traffic is clogged as cars are all pouring onto the roads at once to evacuate. And then in West Maui, 911 services were down with officials telling residents to call the police department directly. And with all this, to pull back, it is too early to get any clear sense of deaths, property damage, or evacuees. Though there, several shelters have opened

at the largest reportedly contains more than 1,000 people. But after all of this eventually simmers down, the question remains, how much is gonna be left to go back to? And then, Tory Lanez's little ass is going to prison for 10 years, with his sentence coming down yesterday after he was found guilty back in December,

and all of that connected to him shooting Megan Thee Stallion back in 2020. And that sentence coming down after an emotional statement from Meg, who actually didn't attend the hearing to read it herself, instead having her attorneys do so because she simply couldn't bring herself to be in a room with Tori again. Since I was viciously shot by the defendant, I have not experienced a single day of peace. Slowly but surely, I'm healing and coming back, but I will never be the same. And prosecutors have been seeking for Tory to get a 13-year sentence. And with that, claiming that he used misinformation to launch a campaign to humiliate and re-traumatize men. But on the other side, you had his attorneys arguing he should just be given probation and instead be sentenced to a substance abuse program.

Saying in a memo that, assuming the allegations are true, his psychological, physical, and childhood trauma were a factor in the commission of the offense. And Tory himself speaking yesterday and telling the judge, I'm standing in front of you as a father to a six-year-old who needs me every step of the way. There's been this misconception about me being this monster, not having remorse. That's just not true. I truly am just trying to be a better person. If you allow me the chance, I'll prove that choice makes sense. But in the end, the judge gave him 10 years, likely because the I want to be a good dad stuff was outweighed by the reports that on the day of the incident, as Megan began walking away, she heard Lane shout, dance, bitch. And he began shooting a ninemm pistol at her feet, injuring her so that she dropped to the ground and crawled to safety. Firing five shots at Megan, who then was just on the ground bleeding in a random driveway.

And so with this, while you still had some people defending Tory Lanez, you had a lot of people calling this a victory for black women. You've also seen op-eds popping up saying those things. And it makes sense because, while understandably there is a conversation about the incarceration of black men, really one of the biggest stories here was how the world treats violence against black women. Meg Thee Stallion's one of the biggest stars in the world, and you saw people just spewing so much misinformation online. Which also really makes me wonder how many of the people that were carrying Tori's water, like the people that are news, who were reporting and then deleting blatantly false allegations, like, I wonder if there's gonna be lawsuits. Violence against her and the harassment that followed, like, not everyone would have been able to survive that. With all

that said, what are your thoughts regarding Meg Thee Stallion and Tory Lanez? And then, in huge business gambling and sports news, we got to talk about what just went down with ESPN, Penn Entertainment, and Barstool Sports. Because it's got a lot of people cheering and a lot of people ringing alarm bells. Because Penn Entertainment just sold Barstool Sports back to Dave Portnoy, the guy that started the whole thing. And that is Penn inked its own sports betting deal with ESPN. With Portnoy putting out an announcement video yesterday saying he never plans on selling the company again. And in that video having nothing but positive things to say about Penn Entertainment, but explaining that logistically it just didn't work. We're saying they had big ideas of how to grow together with Penn being a major casino and gambling company.

And with that, you had things like Barstool Sportsbook. But because of its ties to Barstool, Penn started facing scrutiny from regulators, with Dave explaining, And we underestimated just how tough it is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated world where gambling regulators, the New York Times, Business Insider, Hit Pieces, f***ed with the stock price.

Every time we did something, it was one step forward, two steps back. We got denied licenses because of me. You name it. And with that saying, the regulated industry is probably not where Barstool and its content belongs. For the first time in forever, we don't have to watch what we say, how we talk, what we do. It's back to the pirate ship. And when you look at all the details in this story,

it's kind of jaw-dropping what a massive win this whole situation has been for Portnoy. It's not a Mark Cuban selling Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion to Yahoo sort of historic, but it's still huge. Because for some background here, Pen first got a stake in Barstool a few years ago and then gained full control earlier this year for over $500 million. There's a day he joined the nine-figure club, and now he's essentially bought the company back for nothing. With outlets reporting that The Verge said the pen sold it back to him

in exchange for certain non-compete and other restrictive covenants. Right, that, and if Portnoy decides to resell Barstool, even though he said he's not, Penn gets half of the deal. Which is some saying that it sounds like Dave paid $0 to get Barstool back by agreeing to sign non-competes and giving up to 50% of a future sale. And explaining, so Penn paid $500 million plus for Barstool and might give it back for free if Portnoy never sells. That's crazy.

Though notably, you have other outlets like Variety reporting that financial details of Portnoy's buyback of Barstool weren't disclosed. Though notably, Portnoy himself has also seemed to suggest that he got it for nearly nothing. Writing a blog post this morning, primarily focused on calling out his staffers for being late to the office, but writing, no wonder Penn gave it back to me for pennies on the dollar. And so with all of that, you also have Barstool fans so incredibly happy, especially as they've been angry about a number of things, including certain employees that have been fired. But now, a day back in control, you saw some rehiring.

But on the other end, you have people going, this ESPN situation is sketchy, because Penn is now working with ESPN, and it's gonna be rebranded ESPN Bet. With Penn reportedly set to pay ESPN a total of $2 billion over the next 10 years in exchange for the media, marketing, and branding of this venture.

And ESPN Bet reportedly set to launch this fall in 16 states where Penn already has sports betting licenses. Though with this, we've seen a number of people in the space saying, isn't this a conflict of interest? Pointing out things like in the past, you've had people that actually work for sports books speculating about things that were going to happen, like people, like where they were going to be drafted, which notably was also something people could bet on with the sports books. It turned out to be absolutely bogus. And that sports book likely made a ton of money because of that reporting. So what happens when ESPN, the biggest sports news company out there in the world, has a connection to sports betting?

Can you trust that there's going to be some sort of walled garden before the content creation in the sportsbook aspect? And this, as social media companies like the website formerly known as Twitter, is paying people for engagement. You just throw out some bogus information or speculative bullshit, you get people commenting, boom, you get paid. With all of this happening in this space, I've got to ask, are your thoughts here? And then, now who hasn't felt the effects of the cost of living in recent years? And with credit cards, personal loans, and medical bills,

it's too easy to fall into or just further into debt. How many of you wish there was another solution for paying off your debt? Well, thanks to today's sponsor, PDS Debt, they have customized zero interest options for anyone struggling right now. If you're making payments every month on your debt and your balances aren't going down, listen up. PDS Debt rolls all your payments into one low 0% interest monthly payment. And everyone with over $10,000 or more in debt qualifies. And get this, there is no minimum credit score required. You can pay off your debt in a fraction of the time, saving thousands in interest and fees. And PDS Debt is giving you beautiful bastards a free debt savings analysis just for completing the 30-second online debt assessment at pdsdebt.com slash defranco. Yeah,

you'll receive a full breakdown on how to save on interest each month and the quickest way to take care of your debt. So just go to pdsdebt.com slash defranco and get your quick and easy debt assessment today because it's time to take back control of your life and live for you, not your debt. And then psychology is woke leftist garbage. Or at least that's the message coming out of Florida right now where several school districts have dropped their plans to offer AP psychology courses this year. And that after state officials told superintendents

they can only teach the course if material concerning sexual orientation and gender identity is removed. But with that, the College Board warned that if you took those materials out, the courses wouldn't be eligible for AP credit and couldn't use the AP label. And so what we saw was this sudden change a week before school was set to begin throwing educators across the state for a loop. Because hundreds of schools have already enrolled thousands of students in these classes and hired faculty to teach them those classes, and now they're scrambling to figure out what to do, with their choices being to either give up the AP credit risk,

violating state law, or finding some alternative that charts a middle path between those two. And so far, we're seeing eight of the 11 districts with the largest enrollments in the class switching to alternate courses, two still reportedly deciding, and only one keeping it, with this making AP Psych the second such course

to be effectively banned by Florida after AP African American Studies earlier this year. And even within classes, educators are restricting content so as to not run afoul of state law. With, for example, Hillsborough County Public Schools only exposing students to pieces of Shakespeare rather than the whole text, reportedly because of sexual content.

Several of his plays use suggestive puns and innuendo, and it's implied that Romeo and Juliet have premarital sex. But what students are now being shown instead has actually become far more controversial. That's because Florida's education department recently approved videos from PragerU, a conservative group co-founded by radio host Dennis Prager for use in the classrooms. Which, just to give you an idea of who these people are, one of their videos that has stirred up some uproar is a cartoon in which two children go back in time to interview Frederick Douglass. He was an ex-slave, an abolitionist who spearheaded the movement to end slavery leading up to the Civil War. And in the video of always pretending to be

Douglass is that our founding fathers knew that slavery was evil and wrong and they wanted to end it, but they just simply couldn't. With him explaining, I'm certainly not okay with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great, the making of the United States. Our system is wonderful and the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. With him finishing by advising kids to stay away from radical activists who aren't willing to work within the system and compromise. Then fast forward to the 20th century, and a video argues that MLK was replaced by pretenders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who turned the civil rights movement into an industry, if not a racket. And what have these racketeers accomplished?

A lot for themselves, and very little for their constituents. Racial gaps in income, education, and home ownership were narrowing in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. But after King was replaced as the spokesman for Black America by the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others, these gaps began to widen in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. And those are just things with race and slavery, right? The videos span a range of topics from history and economics to science and religion, with nearly all of them pushing a right-wing, if not far-right, perspective, sometimes even outright lies, like in their denial of climate change.

But if you ask PragerU, they just claim that they're trying to introduce balance to the classroom by countering its supposedly dominant leftist ideology. And arguing that the state isn't forcing teachers to include this content in their curriculum, it just gives them and their districts the choice to use the videos as supplemental material. But even Dennis Prager himself said in a speech last month that it's true that he indoctrinates kids, arguing that it's not a bad thing.

And with that, you have teachers fearing they could see parents or so-called parental rights activists demanding that the school boards insert PragerU content into their curriculums. Now, as far as this school year, it's unclear whether any of the videos are actually gonna make their way into the classrooms, but in the coming years, it looks like they may even spread outside of Florida, with PragerU's CEO saying 10 more states are in the

process of granting the same approval. So, you know, just more fun culture wars in school. And then, democracy prevailed in Ohio last night, with voters overwhelmingly rejecting Issue 1, which is a ballot initiative that would have increased the number of votes needed to approve a constitutional amendment from 50% to a 60% supermajority, which would have made it so much harder to pass constitutional amendments, including one that's on the ballot this fall that aims to codify abortion protections, which is exactly why Republicans were forcing this last-minute special election, despite the fact that they literally had banned August elections mere months before because they knew and argued they have historically super low turnouts. But because people got the word out,

that was not the case with yesterday's election. Because this thing gained widespread national attention and was largely seen as a proxy fight for abortion rights. And so it was reported that you saw an unprecedented number of Ohio voters for an August election. I mean, nearly 3 million people voted in this election, which is so much bigger than the 1.66 million who voted in the state's 2022 primary elections. And the margin here was not close. With nearly all the votes counted, the initiative was struck down by a margin of 57% to 43%. Of course, the fight is not over in Ohio, because voters will still have to decide the ultimate question of whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the Ohio Constitution this November. But also, it's believed that because Issue 1 has been so inherently connected to the upcoming abortion ballot initiative, pro-choice

advocates and Democrats have hailed this as a major victory. Victory that shows once again that American voters, even in conservative states, want to protect abortion rights. And abortion rights are massive mobilizers to get people to turn out at the polls. With the New York Times explaining, Ohio becomes the fourth red state along with Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana to have voted for the abortion rights side of a referendum since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer. But despite voters clearly showing Americans' majority views on abortion, Republican state lawmakers are still working tirelessly to try and restrict access. And notably, Ohio is far from the only state

set to vote on this issue this year, with a similar initiative expected to get enough signatures to make the ballot over in Florida. Though very notably there, Florida has already implemented that same law that Ohio just rejected, with 60% of the Florida popular vote being needed to pass a constitutional amendment

in the state. Because, you know, that is the state of Florida currently. Also, literally just yesterday, while Ohioans were still voting, a coalition of pro-choice groups officially launched a campaign to get abortion on the ballot in Arizona. So those two will probably be

the most watched measures moving forward, but there's also other efforts trucking along in Missouri and South Dakota as well as slower moving attempts in a handful of other states. And then Americans are having a crackdown effect on the drug business in Mexico right now, with the Mexican Navy now shutting down 23 pharmacies in the Cancun region

for selling Adderall, Oxycodone, and Percocet to foreigners without prescriptions. And that move, coming after a U.S. research report looked at 55 pharmacies and resorts across the region and found that nearly half were ignoring Mexican law and leading the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning about it. What was making matters worse was the fact that many of the drugs were found to have actually been expired, which matters because it can often make medications unstable or react unpredictably. Though the reality of the situation, if you look deeper into it, this is like hardly a tourist area problem. I mean, for example, at the start of the year, researchers from UCLA found that 68% of the pharmacies they visited in Northern Mexico sold Xanax, Adderall, and Oxy without a prescription,

and that 27% of them sold fake versions of those drugs. And when they were fake, they were often laced with illicit drugs or even fentanyl, which is already easy enough to overdose on when you know you're taking it, let alone when you have zero idea that's what you're putting in your body. And that, leading researchers to warn against buying drugs from places that aren't asking questions.

And notably, this is actually just the latest story about Mexico's medical industry often cutting quarters to make things cheaper and to attract Americans. Because while many Mexican hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies are completely legit options, it's very important to remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And that's where today's daily dive into the news is going to end for you. But friendly reminder, rush on over to beautiful bastard.com now to grab what you can while you can 30% off that sale will be done in the next 36 hours. And then for more news you need to watch right now, I got you covered right here or in those links down below. And if you've already seen everything, don't worry because

my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow with a brand new big old show.