(Philip speaks Spanish)
I downloaded Duolingo and did that for like two hours,
and I'm pretty sure I just mastered a language.
I didn't.
Also, I did realize that I have to,
I can't use my American voice to say Spanish.
(Philip speaks Spanish with American accent)
(Philip laughs)
This is just for fun.
Do not expect a Philip DeFranco show en Espanol,
but I really do have a good show for you.
So buckle up, hit that like button,
and let's just jump into it.
And to start today off,
let's talk about this Florence Pugh body shaming controversy
that you might have seen.
So she is an actress.
She's in Rome.
She wears a pink Valentino dress for a fashion event.
So, I can't show you the photo here on YouTube,
because they're fascists.
They're not,
they're not fascists.
I also, we shouldn't overuse that word,
since there are actual fascists
trying to take over the country right now.
What I mean is I can't show it,
because the top of her dress is sheer.
You can see her chest, including her nipples, through it,
which of course as science has shown us,
very dangerous.
As we know, if you look directly at too many nipples
during the course of your life,
your brain explodes.
A bad day for you
and an unfortunate mess for someone else to clean up.
It's rude.
But for Florence, not long after she posts the photo
of her wearing the dress on Instagram,
she follows it up with a second post
addressing all the comments that she received for it,
saying that when she wore it,
she obviously knew that it would drum up some reactions,
but adding what's been interesting to watch
and witness is just how easy it is
for men to totally destroy a woman's body publicly,
proudly for everyone to see.
It isn't the first time,
and certainly won't be the last time
a woman will hear what's wrong with her body
by a crowd of strangers.
What's worrying is just how vulgar some of you men can be.
And adding she's come to terms with
all the elements of her body,
even the parts that she used to have trouble accepting,
but noting that so many people were aggressively
letting her know that she has a small chest,
or that she should be embarrassed by being so flat chested,
but Pugh saying there,
"I've lived in my body for a long time.
"I'm fully aware of my breast size,
"and I'm not scared of it.
"What's more concerning is why are you so scared
"of breasts? Small? Large? Left? Right?
"Only one? Maybe none?
"What is so terrifying?"
And adding that it just makes her wonder
what happened to all these people
that they feel so comfortable saying these things online,
and arguing, "Grow up.
"Respect people. Respect bodies.
"Respect all women. Respect humans.
"Life will get a whole lot easier, I promise."
And personally, here's what I'll say about this story.
I do not doubt that Florence Pugh received some hate,
or just like horrible comments after posting this photo.
She is a woman on the internet.
That it doesn't excuse it,
but it's expected.
But the positive is as far as all the top reactions
and comments to this,
they're all positive.
You really have to search and scroll to find those comments,
but also as someone that puts content out,
it's very easy to just kind of hone in on those.
And personally, I found myself agreeing with comments like,
"Funny how a culture who is obsessed with porn
"can find anything offensive."
And, "So men can wank over porn and objectify women,
"no worries,
"but when a woman takes control over her body,
"sexuality, and beauty, it's shameful."
And here's the thing:
that is kind of an all encompassing statement.
You know, you can't,
you can't talk about all men,
but yeah, I do believe that many men who watch porn,
they pay for OnlyFans, right?
They're turning Belle Delphine and Amouranth
and all these other people into multi multimillionaires,
which in a quickie side story news,
both of those creators have recently revealed
how much they've made from OnlyFans alone
since joining the platform,
and holy shit.
It's in excess of $30 million each.
Yeah, some of these guys,
despite feeding this massive, massive industry
will also then go on to just slut shame random women.
At that point, it becomes very obvious
that this is really more of just like a power dynamic thing.
Right, and at that point,
I think it just becomes a question of like
were you raised and brainwashed to think a certain way?
Or is this really just you kind of exposing yourself
as being a tiny, empty little person?
Yeah, also I just don't think that nipples are a big thing.
For a woman, you know,
I understand society has historically like sexualized them,
but they, you know, they feed babies.
They're sexual in the same way
that that kissing a neck can be sexual.
I think it's fucking insane
if you try to equate female nipples
with like straight up shots of genitals.
But I also understand that not everyone kind of sees
the world like me.
I just think that it's a part of society
that's kind of stupid,
but hey, whether you agree or disagree with me,
let me know your thoughts in those comments down below.
And then Elon Musk had quite the weekend.
Friday night he backed out of the deal to buy Twitter,
which is a breakup fee of $1 billion,
though how much this is actually going to cost,
we don't know,
because not long after Twitter announced
that it would be taking Elon to court
to force him to buy the company.
You know, while many people have seen
and talked about this situation
as kind of a left wing versus right wing situation,
with Elon Musk getting more and more political
over the past few months,
out of nowhere over the weekend,
you had Donald Trump coming in from the top rope.
- He's got himself a mess.
You know, he said the other day,
"Oh, I've never voted for a Republican."
I said, "I didn't know that."
He told me he voted for me.
So he's another bullshit artist.
- But as far as why Musk is backing out,
he claims that the company had breached their sale agreement
and was not providing information about spam accounts
with Musk, as he does, posting a meme about this on Twitter
using photos of himself laughing about the fact
that by trying to force the merger in court,
Twitter would also be forced to disclose bot info.
But for their part, Twitter has claimed
that they're sharing that information
with Musk per their agreement.
This news also notably is seeing Twitter's share prices drop
after closing on Friday
with that downward trend continuing this morning,
when Twitter fell roughly 6%,
bringing it to a two month low
and notably to a 36% decline from what Musk agreed
to purchase the company at in April.
Tesla stock also has a record in this,
taking about a 4% dive today.
And as far as what actually happens from here,
it appears that there are a number of paths.
The places like CNBC noting, hey,
one option is that the deal just ends.
It's clean.
There's no litigation,
and Musk just has to pay a billion dollar termination fee.
There's also the case that this goes to court,
Twitter wins,
meaning that Musk could be forced to either buy the company
or just pay damages,
or Musk could win in court,
and walk away with fully clean hands
and not have to pay the termination fee.
Or we might see something like a settlement,
or maybe a new negotiation for Musk to buy Twitter
at a different price.
But yeah, ultimately for now
we're going to have to wait to see what happens.
And I mean that in a few ways,
one from a legal standpoint.
You know what actually happens with Twitter
and Elon going to court,
as well as what is the public reaction fall out
to Donald Trump saying this?
'Cause a lot of people who see Trump
as like their God king have looked at Elon Musk
as like "This is the guy.
"He's actually on our side.
"He's going to bring Trump back."
They're boys, but now Trump's shitting on Elon.
I'd love to know your thoughts,
but no matter what,
it's going to be interesting,
'cause that seems primed for someone,
I don't know who,
to have a very bad time.
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And then do y'all remember when we were kids
and they taught us cheaters never prosper?
And then we like lived our lives,
and we were like, "Wait a second.
"The opposite of what you said is true."
Almost exclusively,
the worst people in society succeed.
But I'm mentioning this today,
because the Uber news that just came out
just further confirms it.
More than 120,000 documents were leaked to The Guardian,
and they detail the legally questionable,
morally bankrupt methods that they used
to become a global ride sharing empire.
The confidential documents dubbed the Uber Files
spanning a five year period from 2013 to 2017,
when the company was run by its co-founder, Travis Kalanick,
whom the board successfully pressured to step down
back in 2017 following a number of scandals,
including revelations of a culture of sexual harassment
in the workplace.
And now after all the previous articles, the books,
they have a fucking series about how ridiculous
the rise of Uber was,
we have now gotten a further glimpse
into how the leadership skirted around laws and regulations
to pry open international markets
and crush competing taxi services.
But first, we should definitely talk about the lobbying,
because the files show Uber discreetly recording
prime ministers, presidents, billionaires,
oligarchs, and media barons from around the world
spending tens of billions of dollars on lobbyists
and organizing face-to-face meetings
between its executives and then US Vice President Joe Biden,
then French Economy Minister, Emmanuel Macron, and more.
And with these,
at least six meetings with British Tory cabinet ministers
were undeclared,
which falls in kind of this legal gray area.
Also with Macron, he personally texted Kalanick
and secretly helped the company
by brokering a deal with his opponents in the cabinet.
We also know that Uber artificially lowered its prices
to drive competitors into the ground in foreign cities
before raising them again,
doing that by providing subsidies to drivers
in some places paying as much as 90%
of their hourly earnings,
which basically rendered its service free,
which we saw in response to this protest
erupting from taxi drivers in Paris back in 2016.
And we've now learned in response,
Kalanick ordered executives to encourage Uber drivers
to stage a counter protest.
And when his team warned him
that extreme right thugs might attack their drivers,
Kalanick persisted saying, "I think it's worth it.
"Violence guarantee success."
And one former senior executive telling The Guardian
that was part of a strategy of weaponizing drivers
and exploiting violence to keep the controversy burning,
but that seemingly repeated across Europe
in countries like Belgium, Spain, Italy,
the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
We also saw the company taking advantage
of one particular incident
in which masked men turned on Uber drivers
with knuckle-dusters and a hammer in Amsterdam,
with Uber trying to use that to earn concessions
from the Dutch government.
You've also got the files revealing
how Uber played a game of legal cat and mouse
with the authorities,
because in the documented words
of one of the senior executives who wrote an email,
"We are not legal in many countries.
"We should avoid making antagonistic statements,"
and another commenting,
"We have officially become pirates,"
and the head of global communications adding,
"Sometimes we have problems,
"because, well, we're just fucking illegal."
And so you had authorities in many countries
clamping down on Uber, impounding unlicensed drivers,
cars, and even raiding company offices.
But it's been revealed that Uber devised tactics
to evade the police,
one of which was dubbed the Kill Switch.
When an office in one country was raided,
executives would frantically cut off that office
from main data systems to prevent law enforcement
from accessing evidence,
with that move being made at least a dozen times in France,
the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary, and Romania.
Now with all that,
as far as responses,
you had a spokesperson for Kalanick saying
that he never authorized any actions or programs
that would obstruct justice in any country,
and adding that he never suggested
that Uber should take advantage of violence
at the expense of driver's safety,
saying, "The reality was that Uber's expansion initiatives
"were led by over a hundred leaders,
"and dozens of countries around the world,
"and at all times under the direct oversight
"and with the full approval of Uber's robust
"legal, policy, and compliance groups,"
also going on to question the files' authenticity
and pointing out that many of the reporters
behind the investigation probably use Uber themselves.
But as far as Uber's official statement,
they seemed more like,
"Well, everyone kind of knows Uber is a fucked up situation,
"but we're a new Uber now."
With Uber's senior vice president of public affairs
responding with,
"There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber's mistakes
"prior to 2017.
"Five years ago, those mistakes culminated
"in one of the most infamous reckonings
"in the history of corporate America.
"That reckoning led to an enormous amount
"of public scrutiny, a number of high profile lawsuits,
"multiple government investigations,
"and the terminations of several senior executives.
"It's also exactly why Uber hired a new CEO,
"who is tasked with transforming every aspect
"of how Uber operates,"
and noting that, "The CEO was guided from the start
"by the recommendations of Eric Holder,
"a former US attorney general hired by the company
"to investigate and overhaul our business practices.
"When we say Uber is a different company today,
"we mean it literally.
"90% of current Uber employees
"joined after Dara became CEO."
So essentially they're saying,
"Hey, yeah it's still the same ship,
"but over the last five years,
"we've replaced piece by piece of the ship,
"where 90% of it's now new,
"so is it really the same ship?
"Yes and no,"
but ultimately that's where the story ends for now,
though more details could emerge,
but let's be honest.
Nothing's going to happen,
because they lied to us as children.
Cheaters never prosper, dot, dot, dot,
if it's a small cheat.
The bigger the cheat gets,
the more money that's involved,
the more likely that person is to prosper.
Bernie Madoff types are the exception,
not the rule, right?
We live in a country where the people who made
the opioid crisis will never spend a day in jail.
They just got to give people in government
some of that sweet, sweet blood money.
But you know this.
You see this.
You've got eyes and ears.
And then let's talk about Texas power and weather,
'cause right now it looks like some of Texas
is going to be sweating buckets
in the dark this week, right?
Just today, the heat index there was forecast
to surpass a hundred degrees Fahrenheit,
even 110 in some places,
which threatens to strain the power grid
and potentially cause rolling blackouts,
leaving the state's electricity regulator
to instruct businesses and residents
to reduce their power usage,
and saying you should turn up the thermostat
at least one degree and not use major appliances
from 2:00 to 8:00 PM central time on Monday,
and adding that they expect demand for electricity in Texas
to exceed capacity Monday afternoon.
One of the really notable things here is that
last week they easily surpassed the projected peak
for this season,
and that wasn't supposed to happen for another month.
And so regulators are warning
that if demand spikes more than forecast,
and power reserves could run dangerously low
with no market solution,
because telling people to reduce usage
is just the first precaution to prevent blackouts,
but if the power supply drops lower,
more could come.
Things including the regulator tapping
other power grids nearby,
and if that's not enough,
they could order transmission companies
to cut off electricity to industrial customers
and residential consumers,
and all this caused by a massive heat wave
that began last week.
It's put about 50 million people under heat warnings
or advisories over the weekend.
And this is happening while Texas' wind turbines
in particular are struggling to generate power.
The regulators projecting that it will only hit
less than 10% capacity on Monday,
which is normal for daytime in the summer,
especially ones this hot,
though more wind power is expected to
become available on Tuesday.
Now, of course, with this,
you have Democrats skewering Governor Greg Abbott
for not fixing the state's power grid
after a devastating winter storm last year,
or you probably remember millions of people
were left in the freezing cold without power,
leading to hundreds of reported deaths.
And so with this, you've got Beto O'Rourke,
who's running for the governorship, saying,
"After that crisis,
"Abbott took millions in campaign checks from energy CEOs
"that he allowed to profit off it.
"Helps explain why he won't fix the grid,"
and adding, "The governor of the ninth largest economy
"on earth, the energy capital of the world,
"can't guarantee the power will stay on tomorrow.
"We need change."
And no matter what side you're on here,
who you agree with,
this is scary, right?
Understand, there will be suffering
and potentially deaths from this blackout.
And that's just this one.
What about future infrastructure failures?
Literally hundreds of Americans
die from heat exhaustion every year.
Not having power for air conditioning, fans,
or refrigeration literally kills,
and that's why you have so many who are warning
that what's happening in Texas,
this could just be a small taste of a summer
of exhausted power grids around the world
as global fuel supplies run low,
and climate change turns up the heat.
And so that's why with this story, of course,
I'd love to know everyone's thoughts,
but especially right now,
if you're in Texas, Arizona, Alabama,
or any place that is feeling the heat right now,
how are you doing?
What are your thoughts right now?
And what are your thoughts about the future?
But ultimately, that is where that story
and today's show ends.
Thank you for watching.
If you want more news,
I got you covered right here,
but my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo' faces and I'll see you tomorrow.