So unfortunately I have to start today’s show off with bad news for you. Right before uploading today’s show I had to remove several minutes of a whole story because it was just too horrific. And unfortunately, the way that YouTube works they would’ve killed that video instead of getting to 850,000 to one point whatever million, it would’ve gone to like maybe 300, 400,000. But I’m not gonna let YouTube and their system dictate what news gets out to you because I still wanna get important news out to you. But it is their platform so I have to play by their rules which is why tomorrow morning, in addition to the Tuesday “PhilipDeFranco” Show,** tomorrow morning I will be uploading that story and video.
So this way I can let as many people as possible know to come back in the morning to see that.
But with that said, I still got a great show for you today. So buckle up, hit that like button to help support some common sense news coverage and let’s just jump into it. First up today another award show, another scandal though this one not involving Will Keep My Wife’s Name Out Your Mouth. Smith, but rather Louis CK and James Charles.
Initially sounds like an odd pairing, but it’ll make sense. So starting with Louis, as you might remember back in 2017. he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, later admitting that the allegations were true. He then kind of disappeared from the public for a while though, he ended up testing new material ultimately releasing new specials in 2020 and then 2021. With all that leading to last night where a special “Sincerely Louis CK,” won best comedy album at the Grammy’s.
And so with that, you saw a range of reactions getting thrown out onto the internet. Over here you had people disgusted and outraged that you have someone that admitted to sexual misconduct being rewarded just a few years after.
With people arguing that this is yet another example that cancel culture doesn’t actually exist for famous people and actually those who accuse powerful people of those kind of wrongdoings often face more consequences. With people tweeting things like, “I wonder if the careers of the women comedians Louis CK forced to watch him masturbate who were allegedly threatened by CK’s manager have recovered from the stigma of coming forward. Louis CK’s own career seems to have bounced back very well.” Though regarding the conversation around cancel culture we saw people like associate editor for reason Liz Wolfe tweeting, “Louis CK winning a Grammy after more than four years of being mostly sidelined, does not in any way prove that “cancel culture” isn’t real. It proves that his offenses weren’t broadly considered egregious enough to permanently disqualify him from a career.” And then going on to write in a thread, “And of course they weren’t! Masturbating in front of women, women who said “yes” but meant “no” is not a particularly trauma inducing thing.
Those women aren’t survivors, having someone masturbate near you isn’t tough to survive which is what that term implies.” And those tweets kind of hit at the core of a number of defenses that people have for Louis CK. That they even believe that Louis CK was in the wrong but also not at a level that he should permanently not be able to make money or create. While you had that argument happening you had people saying, “hey, this is an example of a double standard.” People bring up the Will Smith of it all. Because after he slapped Chris Rock, we had a ton of comedians saying that they now fear for their safety, that someone might slap them on stage.
With comedian, Jen Kirkman tweeting, “Remember when male comedians this week were like, ‘Chris Rock got slapped! Comedy is in danger!’ They never gave a fuck about those of us in comedy who were always in danger. They’re silent tonight on Louis CK winning a Grammy for an album where he jokes about his assaults.” And then for those that are like, okay, well how does James Charles fit into this situation, right?
Louis CK is over the age of 18.
Well, yeah, that’s why people are outraged that James Charles has seemingly been able to rehab his image that he’s still going to the Grammy’s, with him having been in the past accused of sexual misconduct, of sexting underage fans and grooming. With people tweeting, getting a lot of support for saying things like how is James Charles everywhere other than prison. But to finish this story with Louis CK. I was really wondering, what do people think about this?
So I put out a poll, well, just from a small section of the internet the results were interesting. So the question, how do you feel about Louis CK winning a Grammy last night? The response was 29% don’t like it with 15% really not liking it. 10% liked it with 5% really liking it. And finally, 62% saying they don’t care that he got a Grammy.
And looking through the comments if I was to condense and try to paraphrase, it appeared that a lot of the thinking for this majority was, hey, talk or say what you want about “cancel culture,” or just being held responsible for your actions.
At the end of the day we get to decide on an individual level. Though some of the pushback from the 29% seem to be, well it sends a horrible message and so it could actually impact others. But hey, that was also just a poll of under 40,000 participants. So now I’ll pass the question off to you, what are your thoughts here?
Then in massive business and social media news that people are freaking out about right now. We should talk about Elon Musk buying 9.2% of Twitter at about $3 billion worth. For comparisons sake, Jack Dorsey, who was one of the founders of Twitter was previously the CEO only has a 2% stake in Twitter. Unsurprisingly, this news sent Twitter shares skyrocketing, as I’m recording, it’s up 30%.
One of the big things that people are talking about right now is Elon Musk’s timing.
Per the SEC report made public today lists the date Musk made the purchase as March 14th and very notably here the SEC requires anyone who buys more than 5% of the company’s common shares and disclose the purchase in 10 days. But according to CNBC Musk didn’t make that filing for 21 days which is significant for two reasons. First, because it shows that he is kicking off his massive decision but kind of giving the SEC a middle finger, though those fines are pretty much gonna be nothing for Elon Musk.
Historically there’re around a hundred thousand dollars.
And second, because on March 25th after he was already supposed to have disclosed his new state he tweeted at a poll saying, “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” Also adding, “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” with the results showing 70% said no.
And around 30% said yes and later writing in another tweet “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?” And adding, “Is a new platform needed?” And so now following the news breaking that Elon Musk bought so much of the company, there are people in two camps, one you have people saying, oh he’s going to try to take control over this company or at the very least get his will done.
But on the other hand, you have some arguing this is just a smart business move.
That with the tweets, he was planting seeds then the news broke, oh my God Elon Musk bought so much stocks something must be about to happen, it then sends his shares through the roof with people noting, yes this is a massive shareholder position but it’s also unclear if he’s going to ask or be invited to join Twitter’s board.
Also the securities document Musk signed indicates that he intended for the investment to be passive so he doesn’t plan to take control of the company but things can change, things can be (indistinct) and this is Elon Musk we’re talking about. Like, it wouldn’t be surprising if he bought the company just for the meme of it all but where I will end this is that in this uncertainty I mean, this could be a massive and significant move.
Because as places like Bloomberg have noted, Twitter is particularly vulnerable to outside pressure because unlike Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Snap the company’s founders don’t have special voting control over its future. And adding the company has just recovered from activist pressure by Elliot Management that started in 2020.
Which led Dorsey who was serving his second stint as CEO of Twitter to set a succession plan. And as we wait to see, is this a small part of a much larger move to drastically change Twitter or it’s just an investment and smart business move to drive the stock price up, Everyone’s having big reactions.
We’ve seen a lot of people including prominent conservatives cheering this move as a win for free speech, many calling on Musk to bring back people who were banned on Twitter including Trump but also on the other side you have people expressing concern over what this might mean for the platform especially if Musk tries to expand his role. And on the note of reactions, I’ll ask you yours. What do you think here?
And then in news, that starts with a question when you are in school, or if you still are did you ever fake being sick to get outta going to school? Personally? Yes, of course. But this woman in California took it to a whole nother level from school to prison. Back in 2019, Ashley Lynn Chavez pled guilty to embezzling more than $160,000 from a former employer.
And while she was permitted to live in the public until her sentencing she was more than likely going to face prison time. However, on the eve of her sentencing she reportedly pulled a doctor’s note out like a kid trying to skip class with a note reading that a doctor had found cancerous cells in her uterus but the whole thing was 100% forged, but still according to the justice department, her attorney believed that it was genuine and it was submitted to court.
The next day Chavez was sentenced to a year in prison. but because of this note, the judge overseeing her case allowed her to stay out of custody for another three months while she received treatment. Over time, Chavez began submitting more notes to try to get her sentence pushed back even more.
Those notes reading a mix of things, that her cancer had progressed to stage two, that she was in too vulnerable of a state to be exposed to COVID. Eventually the doctors or rather the doctors, they began recommending that she serve her sentence at home with one note saying, “A year in prison could be a death sentence for my patient, I highly recommend the chance to allow home confinement or anything else that you deem appropriate rather than a year in prison but ultimately all of it came crashing down when the government finally did its job and investigated these claims. And finding that while one of the doctors whose signatures she forged had actually seen her as a patient they never diagnosed her with any form of cancer.
Meanwhile, the second doctor claimed he hadn’t even seen her and had no idea how or why his identity had been stolen and his signature repeatedly forged. And so I think I’m using the right terminology here because she was such a dumb fuck, in her effort to not go to prison for one year she is now facing up to 10 more years in prison with her set to be sentenced in June after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
Which is why Ashley, I wanna leave you with two things. One don’t be stupid, stupid, and two you are our douchebag of the day.
But from that, I wanna take a second to thank the fantastic sponsor of today’s show, Squarespace. I’ve been partnering with Squarespace for years now, and I have to say if you’re getting your business off the ground or creating a place to share your homemade goods, a new favorite hobby, current obsession, or even a personal blog to get all those thoughts out of your head no matter what you’re doing, Squarespace is there to help. And it’s all so easy, there’s nothing to install patch or upgrade ever.
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And when you realize you love it make sure you enter an offer code Phil to get 10% off your first purchase. And then over the weekend, there is a big possibility that you saw this clip. – We wanna thank Jeff Bezos for going to space ’cause when he was up there, we were signing people up (crowd cheers) – What that man Chris Smalls is talking about is an absolutely historic union vote. It is a David versus Goliath story and depending on what happens from here this could have massive implications.
And because of all that I wanna get into the details. So at the center of this, on Friday you had the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island voting to unionize, creating what’s been called the “Amazon Labor Union” or ALU. Over 2,600 voting in favor 2100 plus against at a facility compromising of 8,325 workers and this made them the first Amazon warehouse ever to do so in the United States, making this one of the biggest victories for labor in decades. And to make it all even more impressive, the ALU pulled this off independently without the legal or financial backing of any more established union.
But even the simple fact that they stood up against this giant and they won that’s crazy.
Because Amazon has successfully and aggressively stamped out any and all efforts to organize its workers for the past two decades with similar efforts finding little success in places like Chicago, Sacramento, and Minnesota, and for a while Staten Island was no exception where you had the company desperately trying to convince its workers to vote against unionizing, doing things like plastering banners around the warehouse proclaiming vote no ,creating a website that says “About the ALU, they think they can do a better job speaking for you than you can do for yourself”. Even holding captive audience meetings where workers are forced to listen to anti-union propaganda with audio last month from one in Staten Island capturing two managers, giving a slide presentation and being derided by their workers with another worker accusing a manager of union busting, then being asked to leave for being disruptive. And so after all that work, Friday’s union victory sparked an explosion of righteous celebration from the workers themselves.
People on social media like Daniel Denvir tweeting, “Amazon Labor Union not only beat Bezos, they cleanse my timeline of the slap.” Now with this, as far as Amazon, they responded on their blog saying it’s disappointed because it believes a direct relationship with its employees is best.
Which led to people like this guy, Rafael on TikTok, translating that statement for the people – [Woman AI] We’re disappointed with the outcome of the election because we believe having our workers divided is best for our fat stacks. – Now, as far as the ALU they’re demanding pay raises appropriate to the high cost of living, actual paid sick days, job security so we can’t be fired at will, a shuttle service for workers from all five boroughs and more. Adding that they wanna be quote treated as human beings and not mere replaceable appendages to the robots and algorithms that run the warehouses. And over the weekend, preemptively slamming any attempt by Amazon to delay their right to collective bargaining requesting negotiations by early May as well as the immediate halting of any changes to employment policies in the meantime. And as I mentioned in all of this Chris Smalls has emerged as a leader for this movement because this whole thing has been going on for years now.
Chris was a former rapper and Amazon employee, he’s now the interim president of the ALU having then worked for Amazon since 2015 and transferring to the Staten Island warehouse in 2018 with the ALU story then beginning in March of 2020 when one of the workers tested positive for COVID leading Smalls to organize a strike and protest over unsafe working conditions. With Amazon then firing him that day ironically, claiming that he violated social distancing rules. But even after being fired he refused to give up, continuing to organize the warehouse and piss off the company, leading Amazon’s general counsel David Zapolsky to write in a leaked email, “He’s not smart or articulate and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers.” with the email going on to add, ” Make him the most interesting part of the story and if possible, make him the face of the entire union slash organizing movement.
And that my friends completely fucking backfired.
One, you have people saying that not smart or articulate comment felt very racist but it also led Smalls in that moment to know he was going to continue taking on this retail behemoth. Recently recalling “When I read that memo that motivated me to start an organization.” And so with zero background in union activism he and the ALU co-founder Derek Palmer began waiting at a bus stop near the warehouse, talking to workers on their way home, making smores at a bonfire, inviting them to cookouts. With Smalls later recalling, “We had over 20 barbecues giving out food every single week, every single day whether it was pizza, chicken, pasta, home cook.” And ultimately after the first attempt at a petition failed, Smalls finally met the 30% threshold needed to trigger a union vote in February.
With that leading to later in the month, Amazon intensifying its pressure against the fledgling union, police even arresting Smalls and two other organizers for allegedly trespassing while they were delivering lunches to warehouse workers during their break.
– [Lady] Why are you arresting them? – [Man], Oh yeah. Look, throw me against… – [Lady] Why are you arresting them? – [man] Throw me against the car – [Policewoman] Trespassing. They said… – [Lady] We’re workers here, why are you arresting us? – And so with all of that said it’s going to be very interesting to see does this begin to spread? For example there’s another smaller warehouse on Staten Island that also has a union vote set to begin on April 25th. Then there’s also this warehouse in Bessemer Alabama where the workers voted about two to one not to unionize last year but the NLRB ordered a do over election after ruling that Amazon improperly interfered in the tally.
With that vote wrapping up last week, 993 no votes, 875 yes votes. But there’s still reportedly more than 400 contested ballots. So it could go either way, but I mean, it could swing in the favor of the union once the NLRB holds a hearing on it in a few weeks, but yeah, ultimately time will tell was this a drop in the bucket? Or a first step to something much bigger. But that’s it for today’s show click here for more news and I’ll see you tomorrow.
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