- Sup, you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to "The Philip DeFranco Show."
Buckle up, make sure you're subscribed,
because I'm splitting $10,000
across 10 lucky subscribed beautiful bastards this month.
And let's just jump into it.
You know, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today
is this Ariana Grande situation
that's been absolutely blowing up online,
and it's really focusing on how girls
under the age of 18 are portrayed in media.
Now Arianna Grande, of course, now over the age of 18,
but a lot of people have been looking back
to her time at Nickelodeon, I think, in part,
because of Jennette McCurdy's memoir, right?
It's called "I'm Glad My Mom Died."
It was released last week and has absolutely taken off,
copy selling out online,
dominating a lot of online conversation.
I just personally finished it yesterday.
And like we talked about, Jennette faced a lot of abuse
at the hands of her mother.
She details that.
But also, she reveals some disturbing
behind-the-scenes happenings at Nickelodeon.
Jennette talking about someone she referred to
as the creator, who is largely believed to be Dan Schneider.
With Jennette saying that she was sexualized on set
by the creator,
that he pressured her to drink alcohol at 18,
and massaged her shoulders.
And in those Nickelodeon parts,
Ariana Grande is mentioned, right?
She was her co-star.
And so now post memoir,
you have of a lot of people looking back
on that era of Nickelodeon,
and looking at it through a different lens.
And so with that, we saw people sharing clips
from Ariana Grande's time at Nickelodeon,
where she appeared to be heavily sexualized.
And according to "The Independent,"
those videos came from TheSlap,
which is a website Nickelodeon made
to go along with the show "Victorious"
where viewers could watch bonus footage.
Footage that was apparently written and directed
by Dan Schneider.
And in this montage,
Ariana is reportedly just 16 years old.
And in it, it appears that he has Ariana
stick her finger all the way down her mouth,
sucking her own toes, trying to juice the potato
while making grunting noises.
At another point, this happens is.
- It possible for a teenage girl to drink water upside down?
Mm. I'm thirsty.
(Ariana squealing)
It's not possible.
(Ariana gurgling)
(Ariana squealing)
- Others also sharing a video
where Ariana Grande was wearing a bikini
while a bunch of boys stand around her
and shoot her with a water gun.
With people also noticing that there seemed to be a trend
with foot content.
With all this racking up millions and millions of views
and tons of people saying things like,
"Everyone keeps bringing up Ariana Grande for stan drama
against Jennette, and I don't know why.
Let's not forget, Ariana is a victim herself
from the creepiness of Dan Schneider.
This is why she doesn't talk about
the role of Cat Valentine anymore.
They sexualized and infantalized her."
As well as, "We should be shouting at the top of our lungs
about the child abuses that goes on at Nickelodeon,
Disney and other networks
that have a lot of child actors.
There are too many similar stories.
The industry needs to change."
But also at the same time,
you have people pushing back on that,
pointing to things like in 2019,
Dan Schneider and Ariana Grande
are in the same photo together.
Though, there you have people pushing back
saying it only speaks to possibly their relationship
and this is public facing, so who knows what's real.
And arguing that doesn't change the content
that was made when Ariana Grande was 16.
And I will say, the thing that's most concerning for me
is like, this is just the stuff that we know about now,
thanks to McCurdy's book,
as well as whatever the content was
that was released publicly.
And I'm just left wondering,
how many other stories are there?
And part of the reason is that,
in McCurdy, in her book,
said that Nickelodeon actually offered her $300,000
to not speak about her time on the show with Dan Schneider.
And so I'm just left wondering,
how much money did Nickelodeon spend
to keep these kids quiet
and what are they being quiet about specifically?
Right? How deep does this go?
But while we wait to see if anything else comes out
in the meantime, of course,
I'd love to pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on this?
And then I told you to buckle up today.
I meant really fucking buckle up
because forget Justin Trudeau.
I wanna introduce you to our new leader of the North.
- My fellow Canadians,
I address you today as you're queen commander in chief
and head of government.
- Bow down before you knew queen, Romana Didulo,
because she announced a royal title early last year,
saying, the actual Queen Elizabeth II had been executed.
She hasn't, she is alive and well.
I mean, she's alive. I don't know how well you can be at 96.
But Romana also claiming that she was appointed
by none other than Donald Trump himself,
as well as the US military,
and the people she says sees the assets of the Vatican,
the fake Royal family in the UK,
and most other European royalty.
And once again, just to be careful here,
none of this is true, just so we're all on the same page.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
She also claims that she is an alien-adjacent being
who's willing to share advanced medical technology
with her supporters.
Now, based off of that description, 10 years ago,
you'd have been like, "Oh, this is a crazy person
shouting into the void.
No one cares."
But it's 2022, and you're like, "Okay.
So how big of an audience has she gotten?"
Well for over a year,
she has rounded up a devoted following,
counting at least 70,000 just on Telegram.
With some concluding, "She's the real deal,
because her name is an anagram for I am our Donald."
What the fuck is happening?
And so with that kind of impeccable logic,
it's not surprising that she's become a star figure
in the QAnon movement.
Which really isn't the one kind of crazy
that people think that it is, right?
It's more of like an umbrella ideology
encompassing tons of bizarre conspiracies.
And one of them, in addition to thinking
that Satan-worshiping cannibal pedophiles,
who control the world
and harvest the blood of young children,
are engaged in a secret war against Donald Trump,
is also of course being anti-vax.
So naturally, Queen Romana has led a crusade
against vaccines, declaring Canada a vaccine-free nation,
calling the injections a crime against humanity.
- Know this, inside the Republic,
the penalty for crimes against humanity,
treason, economics sabotage, and bioterrorism is death.
- And in November, she got more explicit,
telling her followers on Telegram
to shoot to kill anyone who tries to inject children
under the age of 19 years old
with the Coronavirus-19 vaccines.
With her, then a few days later,
changing the wording from shoot to kill to arrest.
But shortly after, she said she was detained
by Canadian authorities for the post,
given a search warrant,
and sent to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.
Also among the things we saw the prior summer,
she organized her followers into groups
that began sending hundreds of cease and desist letters
to businesses, governments,
and police ordering them to halt all measures
combating the pandemic.
With one group even visiting a K-8 school
while children were present.
But one of the weirdest,
most consequential parts of this story
is Queen Romana's decrees.
As of June, she has announced 79 Royal decrees,
with some of these being just kind of head scratching.
Like declaring Victoria the true capital of Canada,
raising the age of consent to 24,
though some of her followers didn't like that one.
Or one stating that, "Publishing slanderous articles
concerning Queen Romana Didulo of the Kingdom
will results in an immediate 30-year prison sentence."
Of course, most of these are paper thin.
She's got no real authority, right?
It hasn't had real-world impact.
But there have been some that has had a real-world impact.
For example, Decree 23, declaring water bills now illegal.
Decree 24 declaring that electricity become free.
Decree 79 stating that,
"Rent prices had reverted to rates from 1955."
And once again, she is not speaking into the void.
Many of her followers actually took all of this seriously
and just stopped paying their bills.
Which, I don't know if you've done this in the past
voluntarily or involuntarily like myself,
that led to their utilities getting shut off
and putting some of them in debt.
With one of her followers commenting,
"Dear Queen Romana, when will the service companies
stop shutting off our services for nonpayment?"
To which she replied
that the bills were being sent by robots.
But even this hiccup did not stop her rise,
because after months of touring Canada in her RV,
which by the way, she calls the Mobile Government,
she has officially declared herself queen of the world,
announcing this in a campground parking lot.
And with this newly expanded authority over the weekend,
she went even further
than issuing meaningless cease and desist orders
or getting people to stop paying rent.
This time leading a group of around 30 followers
in an assault on the Peterborough police station in Ontario,
where they reportedly hoped to conduct citizen's arrests
on the entire police force there
for enforcing COVID safety restrictions,
like mask mandates and business closures.
Now, the cops probably knew this was coming,
given that she had been hyping this up for weeks
on her Telegram and even a website they created.
And so when they marched down to the station
Saturday afternoon,
they encountered the kryptonite of QAnon on queens,
a locked door.
With some banging it, shouting through a megaphone
that they're gonna get arrested.
Others, actually, this is my favorite,
calling 9-1-1 and asking them to come outside.
But the cops are like, "Fuck that noise."
They don't budge, so they just sit there for hours.
They're waiting while the queens handing out
the most generous of snacks, veggies and sardines.
With then eventually, some of the group
wandering around looking for other entrances
and discovering a restricted area
where the vehicles are stored.
Which is when the police do show up,
and spoiler alert, it did not go well.
- You guys are involved in the COVID crime
and we're placing you all under arrest.
- [Police] Actually, you're getting arrested.
- No, we're not!
- [Videographer] Hey, oh, oh, oh, oh.
- [Bystander] What the fuck?
- [Videographer] Oh, oh!
(people chattering)
- [Supporter] Fuck you, guys!
(people yelling)
- [Officer] Okay. - They were bullying.
- [Bystander] That was bullying.
- So that little circus goes on for a while,
with the queen followers commanding the police
to stand down.
And oddly enough, because I mean, this is the queen here,
the cops don't listen.
Instead making a mockery of this guy here.
- [Bystander] Oh, oh, oh! Hey!
I suggest you stand down!
Stand down, please. Stand down.
- In the end, you had two men being arrested
for assaulting police, resisting arrest and mischief.
Which by the way, I think the mischief charge
needs a new name.
It sounds like an adorable crime.
But it looks like this is not over,
because that same day,
Queen Romana made a historic post on Telegram announcing,
"Please Advise.
Comms from Fort Dietrich indicate that 4 XR-0001
CRISPR genetically-modified super soldiers
are being pulled from cold storage
and will be deployed within the hour.
Formed by crossing the Y-DNA of white rappers and Filipinos,
we have created the strongest race known to man.
Within them..." (laughs)
"Within them is a life force and power
never before seen on this plane.
May the Lord have mercy on anybody who dares cross them."
And that, as of now, is the story.
And as weird as it is, it kind of makes sense.
In a world that feels
more and more disconnected from reality,
that's powered by algorithms
that enables niches to go mainstream,
it just makes sense that crazy also went mainstream.
And understand, this is not a problem
that is a million miles away.
These people are among us.
And so you, I guess, can just do
with that information as you will.
I've got no good lesson or advice for you. Wish I did.
But from that, I wanna take a second
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Then, we should talk about two bits
of interesting public health news.
The first being good news,
if you're an adult who has trouble hearing.
With the FDA making moves this morning
to make hearing aids available over the counter,
without needing a prescription
for people with mild and moderate hearing loss.
Also, detailing a bunch of new rules
manufacturers need to follow,
such as allowing users to adjust the volume
or how deep the device can go in the ear canal.
And the agency justifying the decision
by pointing to the study showing
that about 30 million Americans experience hearing loss
in some form, but only one-fifth actually get help.
And that discrepancy of 24
out of around 30 million Americans not getting help
is partially driven by cost.
As the test for hearing aids
are time consuming and expensive.
And that's before considering the cost
of the product itself, which can range from 1400 to $4,700.
And with seeing this news, if you're like,
"Why does it look so familiar?"
It's because multiple efforts been made for this to happen.
Since 2016, the agency has received recommendations
from various groups to open up the market
to over-the-counter hearing aids.
And in 2017, senators Chuck Riley and Elizabeth Warren
actually put out a bill
recommending the FDA approved over-the-counter hearing aids,
which was actually signed into law.
But it was still never fully implemented.
And for some reason,
it wasn't until President Biden
issued an executive order last July
that pushed the agency to make more moves.
And by fall, it did release the text for this rule.
Now with that, like all things federal agencies do,
there was a huge waiting periods
so the public could give their thoughts on any changes.
And now, today's final rule on these hearing aids
is in the home stretch and there's a final 60 day wait
before the rule finally takes effect.
Which is also supposed to give manufacturers time to prepare
products for the market
and update labels as required by the new rules.
So you have that as far as nationwide news.
And then as far as more of a state focus,
you know, yesterday, we talked about Mr. Beast
and the family struggling
to afford back-to-school expenses this year.
But today I wanna talk about another rising cost
that we will increasingly see kids facing
as a school year kicks off, and that is lunches.
Just like everyday Americans,
school cafeterias are also impacted by rising food costs
from sky-high inflation,
continued supply chain issues and labor shortages.
For example, in Prince George's County, Maryland,
home to one of the largest school districts in the country,
officials say that the cost of food and supplies
for their schools
has increased between 12 to 20% on average
just in the last two years.
With those schools also around 200 employees short,
meaning that they have to buy more prepackaged foods
further driving up costs.
And while we're seeing different things state to state,
this is something we're seeing all over the country.
With "Time" magazine reporting that in some districts,
the cost of lunch may be close to $5 a day,
which for just one student is $900 over a school year
and nearly twice as much as it cost
just a few years ago in 2017.
So unsurprisingly, because I mean,
we're talking about schools here,
we're seeing teachers online,
like, begging the general public to give money
or buy school supplies because they're not being provided.
Many schools have had no choice
but to pass those expenses off to parents,
who may already be struggling to make ends meet.
A fact that also raises concerns about nutrition,
especially for low-income districts.
And beyond that, all of this is coming
as a pandemic-era program
that removed income requirements for lunches
and allowed all students access to free food
has now expired.
This has had a big impact.
Experts say that an additional 10 million children
were given free lunches under that program.
But now millions of families will have to pay.
Now with all this,
some places have found ways to ensure kids are fed.
For example, and I apologize to those
that just love trying to dunk on California,
last summer, California became the first state
to pass a law mandating free school lunches
for all K to 12 students, regardless of income.
Shortly after that, Maine approved a nearly identical law.
And both of those are set to go into effect
this school year.
We're also seeing a number
of more localized efforts as well.
Just yesterday, the Auburn School District,
in Auburn, Washington,
was approved to participate in a federal program
called the Community Eligibility Provision.
And that will provide students
with a free breakfast and lunch through 2026.
Meanwhile, other school districts have gotten more creative
with more grassroots solutions.
Like East Hampton public schools in Connecticut,
which is working with local vendors
to purchase cheaper produce
and cut back on supply chain issues.
With the school official there noting
how much money can actually be saved on a day-to-day basis
with items like apples.
The school had been spending $65 a day
for the previous vendor, now, just 35 a day.
Some districts also launching efforts
to make their own meals instead of using pre-made items
with some making bread from scratch
or growing their own produce.
Certain districts are even making the matter
a topic of education,
like the Glendale Elementary School District
in Arizona.
They've outlined plans to educate kids and families
about food waste and how to minimize it.
And so with this, you know, we're hopping around,
this place is doing that, that place is doing this.
I mean, there are some good ideas and policies.
Unfortunately, they only cover certain parts of the country.
And this is likely going to be a growing issue
as more students return to school.
And so for now,
we're gonna have to wait to see what happens.
But if you, or anyone you know,
is in need of resources,
or you wanna donate to food programs,
I'm gonna provide some links down below.
And then finally, you know, there's been a lot of focus
on the investigation of Trump in Florida.
But today, I wanna talk about the investigation
of Trump in Georgia.
Very fun times for America.
You've got multiple criminal probes
under the former president.
But actually, the major news involving the Georgia probe
doesn't focus on Trump himself,
but rather, his right-hand attorney and human cockroach,
Rudy Giuliani.
With Giuliani's lawyers telling reporters
that they were informed yesterday,
that Giuliani is a target of the sweeping probe
into alleged election interference in the state.
And so this is being described as massive,
because being identified as a target typically means
that prosecutors believe that he could be indicted
as the case moves forward,
based on the evidence they have so far.
It's also very significant because,
as Axios notes with this news,
Giuliani is now the highest-profile figure
to be publicly revealed as a target of the investigation,
as well as the closest figure to Trump.
And according to a lawyer,
who was special counsel during Trump's first impeachment,
identifying Giuliani as a target is also bad news for Trump,
with him explaining, "There's no way Giuliani is a target
of the DA's investigation and Trump doesn't end up as one.
They're simply to entangled factually and legally
in the attempt to use fake electors and other means
to overturn the Georgia election results."
Well, Giuliani has always been known
as one of the main ring leaders orchestrating the effort
to overturn the election.
And recently, it became clear
that he's also a key figure in the Georgia probe,
which was initially launched
after Trump called Georgia secretary of state
and asked him to find enough votes
to overturn the results of the election.
In a petition seeking Giuliani's testimony,
the Fulton County district attorney specifically noted
his appearance before Georgia state legislative panels
in December of 2020,
where he spent hours spewing lies
about secret suitcases of ballots and other bull shit.
With the petition also noting that the evidence shows
that Giuliani's testimony there
was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan
by the Trump Campaign to influence the results
of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.
Now Giuliani, for his part, has denied all wrongdoing
and his lawyers have said that he's willing to cooperate.
This, even though they've been doing all they can
to prevent him from testifying in person,
claiming that he had a medical procedure
earlier this summer that prevented him
from traveling to Georgia.
- What's going on with you? What are you talking about?
- Prompting and extended back and forth with prosecutors
that ultimately resulted in a judge ruling last week
that he needs to go to Georgia and testify.
And while the testimony is officially set for tomorrow,
it's unclear how much it's actually going to achieve,
because he's made it clear that he's going to cite
attorney-client privilege with Trump.
But regardless, experts to know that this shows
that Georgia's probe is moving forward aggressively
with some very high profile-figures.
I mean, because also just yesterday,
a federal judge ruled that Senator Lindsay Graham
also must testify before the grand jury in the inquiry.
With the judge having rejected Graham's argument,
that he had immunity from testifying,
and denying his request to toss out a subpoena
that he had been issued.
With Graham also, of course, denying any wrongdoing,
and his lawyer saying
he's not a target of the investigation.
But prosecutors have said that Graham is of interest to them
for a number of reasons.
This including multiple phone calls he made
to Georgia's secretary of state and his staff
after the 2020 election,
urging them to reexamine certain absentee ballots to quote,
"explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome
for former President Donald Trump."
But for now, that is where we are.
We're gonna have to wait to see what comes
from these testimonies and the probe itself.
But ultimately, that is where that story
and today's show ends.
As always, thank you for watching
and being subscribed for these daily dives into the news.
Also, if you're looking for more news,
I got you covered here.
But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.