- Wait, is that, is that real?
Megan Fox disrespected Christianity
by taking a sexy communion?
That is horrible.
Show me.
So I can truly be disgusted and angry.
There's video?
Oh, this is not okay.
Oh, it's rep replaying again.
So, a number of celebrities are currently under fire
for their Halloween costumes this year.
This photo dump getting a lot of hate
from people saying it mocked Christianity,
because while it received 3.4 plus million likes,
a lot of the top comments are saying, "How dare you."
Though I will say, and you will rarely ever hear me say this
in MGK's defense, if he was actually a priest,
this is the least worst thing
a priest who has come under fire has ever done.
But also that said, I would nod my head in agreement
with the, what are the top comments that read?
"Imagine the outcry
if they mocked literally any other religion."
And, "Notice how Christianity is the only religion
that is openly mocked and people find it comical."
And personally as a dirty, evil non-believer,
I think being fun of any faith should be fair game.
But you know the reaction would be different
if MGK wasn't dressed as a priest or the Pope
but instead was dressed as a different religion's leader.
There are plenty of examples on it,
but for me the most meaningful is
I remember when the Charlie Hebdo shooting happened
and I had friends that
actively would dunk on Christians and Christianity
and they were like, "Well, what did those artists expect?
They crossed a line."
Which just as a side note,
if you think that justifies murder,
you're a fuckin' psychopath.
But yeah, main thing is there is a double standard
and also don't worry, if Megan Fox deletes that video
I saved it as evidence.
You also had Kim Kardashian getting some heat
for her daughter North's Michael Jackson costume because
North wore Michael Jackson's actual "Smooth Criminal" hat.
Side note, and I feel like this
just is not talked about enough.
Do you remember that Michael Jackson had a video game?
It was called Moonwalker,
you could play one or multiple Michael Jacksons,
and your job was to save children.
Like, I played that shit on the Sega Genesis.
Like sometimes I feel like we live in weird times,
but stuff's always been weird.
Anyway, you also had Billy Eilish and Jesse Rutherford
in the news, who went as an old man and a baby,
some seeing this as a joke about
the age gap in their relationship.
He's 31, she cannot legally buy alcohol.
You also had the view doing a segment
with kids and news and pop culture costumes,
people getting angry there
because they did a take on the Will Smith Oscars slap,
with people finding it to be offensive, saying
they were turning violence and assault into entertainment.
Others saying that a red handmark across the face
specifically around the mouth
is used to raise awareness about
missing and murdered indigenous women.
But yeah, that's what people are angry about.
No one's gonna remember it in 24 to 72 hours.
And then absolutely shocking and heartbreaking news.
Takeoff was shot and killed this morning.
Some just learning from tweets,
others because people have been sharing
insanely graphic video of his dead body online.
And for those who don't know him,
he was a member of the group Migos.
As far as this incident,
it happened at a bowling alley in Houston
with reports saying the fellow Migos member Quavo
was also there, they were attending a party
and two other victims were injured
and taken to the hospital.
As of recording, their names have not been released,
but as far as what happened, sources told TMZ that
an altercation broke out during a dice game,
with the Hollywood reporter saying that
no arrests have been announced yet.
And while we wait to find out more,
hopefully get some answers,
one of the big aspects that people are discussing right now
is the footage of the incident
that's been floating around online.
It appears to show the aftermath of what happened
where Takeoff's body is visible,
as well as people saying
you can see and hear Quavo in shock, grieving.
So of course you have people
calling the circulation of the footage disrespectful.
Others saying, "I don't know,
but seeing a video floating around
of Takeoff's lifeless body and a screaming Quavo
isn't something any of us needed to see.
Are we so desensitized
that we have to record absolutely everything?"
The people also slamming TMZ
for including that video in some of its coverage.
But yeah, that's where we are right now
with this horrible story.
We're obviously gonna keep our eyes and ears open
to see what comes next, but in the meantime
of course I'd love to know your thoughts.
And then Elon Musk may have just broken Twitter.
It's been an interesting less than a week
where he bought the company, dissolved the board,
a promoted politically charged misinformation, deleted it,
then made fun of the people that were calling him out
for promoting the misinformation.
Then we started seeing reports that he was going to
start charging people for the blue check mark.
But people were like, maybe that's not gonna happen.
And then today as I was recording,
Elon announced from the top of his hill,
"Twitter's current lords and peasant system
for who has or doesn't have a blue check mark is bullshit.
Power to the people, blue for $8 a month."
And then going on to add, "In addition to the check mark,
you'll get priority in replies, mentions, search,
which is essential to defeat spam and scam,
ability to post long video and audio, half as many ads,"
noting "This will also give Twitter a revenue stream
to reward content creators."
Well, of course the reaction to anything Elon tweets
is mixed.
This seemed to be getting a lot more pushback.
You have people like Marques Brownlee tweeting,
"My number one rule on the internet
that's never been successfully broken
is to charge for something that was previously free."
Charlie Moise critical, writing,
"Blue check marks on here are already silly,
but imagine paying $8 a month for it.
You get more value flushing $8 down a toilet.
You're basically just paying for a badge
that lets people identify you as an idiot."
Cody Johnston writing
"'Power to the people' if people pay for it."
Dolan Dark tweeting, "Anyone who willingly pays for this
should be pointed and laughed at."
You also had Graham Stephan asking, "
How will you protect against impersonators
who pay $8 a month for a similar username
that appears indistinguishable from the real person,
especially if they both have blue check marks."
Which I think is a very important question.
I'd have to imagine there'd be
some sort of ID verification system change.
Now for me, I'll just add to this,
I think Twitter's current system for the check marks,
it's stupid, it's too restrictive,
but this, at least how it's been pitched,
genuinely feels like it's just a perfect setup
for chaos and confusion.
Now more than ever in the age of misinformation
it feels like check marks are more about security.
I mean, I just think of
how fuckin' horrid the YouTube system is.
There's so many people in every one of my comments sections
that are like trying to scam people posing as me,
and literally one of the only defenses I have at this scale
is the fact that I have a check mark.
But hey, I will say, in the interest of fairness,
one, I'd love to hear more about this plan
if there is more to be fleshed out,
and two, at the end of the day it is a private company,
he bought it and it is his to build
or burn down to the ground.
Granted, Twitter is a huge part of international discourse,
it is something that has real world impact as well,
but it is what it is.
While we wait to see whatever the fuck this is going to be,
I'll pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on this?
Do you see this as a good idea, a bad idea?
Are you somewhere in the middle,
that it's the idea of, you know, equalizing everything,
but it's really just so he can make money?
Any and all thoughts, I'd love to hear from you.
And then, you know, online banner ads, sidebars, popups,
they're everywhere, from mainstream news sites
to less than legal torrent hubs.
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And then, TikTok will be banned in America
if federal communication commissioner Brendan Carr
has his way,
with him bluntly stating,
fter seeing how China can access American data via TikTok
that, "I don't believe there is a path forward
for anything other than a ban,"
and saying he believes there's no way
to put enough protections in place to ensure that
the data isn't finding its way back
into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
With this being the most forceful language to date
by anyone at the FCC about the platform.
Although, key thing, they have no actual power
to ban the platform,
but that's why he's trying to get
the Council on Foreign Investments in the US
to take action against the platform.
Now with as big of a deal as that is, TikTok seems right now
to not be concerned about Carr's comments,
pointing out that he, quote, "has no role in
the confidential discussions with the US government
related to TikTok,
and appears to be expressing views
independent of his role as an FCC commissioner."
And another key thing here is that Carr is
just one of four commissioners currently at the FCC.
But something that doesn't help TikTok is the fact that
Carr does seem to have some political weight here,
because the last time
he made a move against a Chinese tech company
was Huawei and it's now banned most of the West.
Also, the timing of Carr's comments is notable
because right now TikTok is trying to figure out
if it can be divested from ByteDance to an American company
as part of an ongoing negotiation with the CFI US.
But easily the biggest roadblock there
for some senior DOJ officials
is that the deal currently in place
doesn't provide enough distance between TikTok and Beijing.
And that's gonna sound familiar to you because
the Trump administration actually tried to force TikTok
to be sold to a US company as well.
But that push ended up falling apart
and was widely criticized by progressives at the time.
But there's also been a big shift happening
and a lot of Dems are also on board with banning TikTok now.
For example, you had Democratic Senator Mark Warner
saying last week, "This is not something
you would normally hear me say,
but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago.
If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok,
the ability for China to have undue influence
is a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat
than any kind of actual armed conflict."
And with there being a statistically strong possibility
that the Republicans win the midterms,
they could then block any deal
that's seen as too soft on China,
paving the way for TikTok to actually die.
So this may be one of the biggest changes on social media
that we're gonna see in a while.
And I mean, Elon Musk just bought Twitter.
And he just so happens to be talking about
bringing back Vine
right as one of the biggest platforms in the world, TikTok,
seems to be hanging by a thread in the US.
I guess the main point of the story is
whoo! I'm really glad I started embracing YouTube shorts.
(Phil chuckling)
Both here and on the PDS News Clips channel
which I'll link in the description.
And then the election security versus voter intimidation
debate and chaos is well underway
with a major battle being waged right now
in Harris County, Texas, which houses Houston
and is also the state's largest jurisdiction.
And this clash centers around
a push by state and local Republicans
to send election monitors
to watch how ballots are handled in the county
which is a Democratic stronghold
with a majority non-white population.
Republican officials for their part argue
this is necessary to protect election security
and ensure ballots are properly managed,
with Texas's Republican Secretary of State announcing
in a letter last month
that monitors would be sent to conduct randomized checks
and oversee ballot counting,
and the top election official claiming that was necessary
because a Trump-backed audit of the 2020 election
in Harris County found alleged security breaches
with the handling of 14 machines that stored vote tallies.
But local Democratic leaders and voting right advocates say
this is just a clear attempt to intimidate and scare
both voters and election workers in a Democratic-held area
where Republicans desperately wanna make inroads.
With Harris County officials also denying the accusations
that came out of the so-called audit,
this including the Harris County attorney who noted that
while there were some problems with the 14 machines,
the issues were properly recorded
and witnessed by election judges from both parties.
So the tallies were always accounted for.
He also told the Washington Post that
he and other top officials have responded by requesting that
the Justice Department's civil rights division
send federal election monitors
to polling and counting locations in the county.
And the outlet noting there the result could be
a partisan showdown in which
two different sets of monitors face off on election day
in this giant metro region.
And that's not including
the thousands of partisan poll watchers who are expected to
fan out at voting locations across Texas.
So that on its own is a situation
we have to keep our eye on.
But there's also discord being spread by third party groups
on both sides of the aisle.
For example, some voters in five states received texts
with false information on how to vote,
but unlike past campaigns
that had intentional misinformation,
the organization behind these messages said in a statement
that had sent them out in error,
that group being Movement Labs,
which designs political text message campaigns
aimed at progressive voters.
And in a statement to the media yesterday,
it said the three campaigns that used its services,
Voter Latino, Black Voters Matter, and Voting Futures,
had sent out mistaken texts in Kansas, New Jersey,
Illinois, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Explaining, "In some of our texts,
we sent addresses and images of dropbox locations
when we intended only to include
in-person early vote locations.
We didn't specify in our texts
that we were trying to encourage voters to vote early.
Some voters familiar with their election day location
thought we were telling them to vote on election day
at an early vote location."
So that's just one example of
the accidental things that we're seeing.
But on the the complete opposite end of the spectrum,
we've also seen some far right groups creating chaos
in a very different way.
Extremely violent rhetoric.
Just yesterday, an extremist gun rights group
called the American Firearms Association
asked supporters to donate money so the organization can
figure out, quote, "How much firepower we have to unload
on gun-grabbing candidates
in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio
as we head into next week's election day."
You know, just some fun gun language
as politicians are being attacked.
But notably this comes just days after US security agencies
reportedly warned a heightened risk of
violent domestic attacks by political extremists
in the lead up to the midterms.
The agency specifically flagging political candidates
and election workers as possible targets of attacks.
But with all that said, the note that I wanna end on here
is while you should absolutely be careful out there,
do not let these tactics intimidate you into not voting.
And remember November 8th, yes, it is election day,
but technically it is the last day to vote.
So if you can where you live, get in on it now.
And then, tensions remain high in Brazil
as outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro
is taking his sweet ass time to admit that
he lost to President-elect Lula de Silva.
And as many feared, his silence is being taken
by many of his supporters is a sign to fight.
So for two days now, truckers and other supporters have
blocked off over 200 roads and highways
across more than a dozen states to protest Sunday's results,
which isn't the most surprising thing,
as Bolsonaro has long enjoyed the support of trucking groups
and this form of protest is nothing new for them.
But those roadblocks have already had
some significant effects,
like near Sao Paolo, you had a ton of flights
having to be canceled due to the protests.
On top of that, a major port was blocked
and grocery stores are already reporting shortages.
The Supreme Court also is not a fan of the protest,
with one justice ordering federal officers
to clear the blockades
and threatened fines of $19,000 per hour per vehicle.
Whoever the head of the Federal Highway police is
is a Bolsonaro ally.
So there are fears he may drag his feet
in actually implementing this order.
But as far as if things are really set to go off
or if things are gonna calm down,
we should know relatively soon.
Because actually, as I was recording this,
Bolsonaro came out and spoke to the nation.
Notably, he never conceded defeat in the election,
but at the same time, his administration agreed to
a peaceful transfer of power.
So it looks like things are going forward
whether Bolsonaro wants to or not.
And it's being reported that
he may have come to this decision to not concede but concede
after speaking with his ministers
and heads of the military this morning.
It's also not too surprising that Bolsonaro took this route
as it seemed pretty clear that
he was becoming increasingly isolated.
Even his son who's a senator seemingly accepted the results
when he tweeted out his thanks to all their supporters
and promised not to give up on Brazil.
And as far as Lula,
he has yet to make any comment about the protest
and is focusing on setting up his transition team.
But that's the show, thanks for watching.
I love yo' faces and I'll see you tomorrow.