Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Friday! Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show
And if you're new here, on Fridays we do things a little bit different.
I try to cover more viewer requested stories, stories we were going to include,
but for times sake to try and get out even remotely on time, we had to cut.
So with that said, let's just jump into it
and the first thing I want to talk about today is a very strange update around the Parkland, Florida shooting.
It's one of the things we mentioned yesterday
Is that there were reports that the shooter in this school shooting was actually connected to a white nationalist organization--an organization called Republic of Florida.
It was all over the place, The Associated Press tweeting, "Breaking leader of white nationalist group has confirmed suspect in
Florida school shooting was a member of his organization," and that person they're talking about is a guy
by the name of Jordan Jereb. According to reports, he gave statements to multiple media outlets
We also saw reports that there were first-hand confirmations from former students that he was a part of this organization
So we had that, but then we got new information.
Lieutenant Grady Jordan, who is a spokesperson for the Leon County Sheriff's Office in Tallahassee
He said that his officers arrested militia leader Jordan Jereb at least four times since January 2014. They've been monitoring the group's membership,
saying he has very solid information on the group
There's no known ties that we have that we can connect the shooter with the group.
So now we have law enforcement saying we're very knowledgeable of this group,
we've been monitoring them, but we can't confirm any connection as of right now.
So the question becomes how can we have Jordan Jereb doing all of these interviews and so when we have one part of the story
and then we're supposedly getting confirmation that former students are saying yes
He was a part of the organization
Well, according to new reports
Jordan Jereb is now walking back his claims. An account attributed to Jordan Jereb on the social network, Gab, writing, "Those of you calling me a
Fake white nationalist go fuck yourselves. There was a legit misunderstanding because we have multiple people name *omitted* in ROF.
And I got a bunch of conflicting information, and I have not slept for like two days, and so when (((They)))
[and also by the way if you ever see something with three parenthesis, they're talking about Jewish people]
call me up and ask me yes-or-no questions, it's easy for them to misrepresent what I say.
Are you really going to blame ME for the lying Jew media? We know they're liars. Fuck 'em."
And as far as the other sources from ABC News
That there are also reports that maybe that was just people on 4chan fucking with ABC News.
So at least for this part of the story it looks like it's a mixture of people that were trying to fuck with the media,
as well as someone that either was confused, or was just purposefully lying.
Also, it appears that the reason journalists even reached out to Jordan in the first place
is because the anti-defamation league saw conversations on 4chan, but this explanation really doesn't make sense to me
I mean I wouldn't be shocked to find out a white nationalist was a fucking idiot. Either that he was actually
Confused which once again really does seem like a lie because there are several
Statements that he reportedly gave to several media outlets or that he was a fucking idiot and that he thought this was a great way
to get promotion for his organization
or for himself which actually based off of other reporting from his past it does seem like he would do anything to get some attention
although that still feels weird because you would think connecting a mass murderer to yourself or your
organization would be bad news even with Jordan saying we didn't say to do this
We don't support this,
still looks bad but many a point I am still incredibly skeptical of all information around this specific aspect of the story,
but I felt it incredibly important to update you guys because as I've stated before, I will always try to make sure the information I
get in front of you is as accurate as possible and when we come across things that it turns out the reporting was bad or
it was incorrect, or was part of a hoax
I want to always make sure we update clarify and correct that and still for some reason this morning
there are some outlets still running with the story despite the new information that has since come out now with that said I think it's
incredibly important that we talk about the other updates around this story because while the republic of Florida angle the Jordan Jereb angle is
actually an important part of the story now because it shows the potential pitfalls in
reporting, the people knowingly trying to mislead the media
and thus the public. Ultimately, the big reason why it was being reported on in the first place is to answer the question of
why, and also who knew, also why did this happen could this have been stopped? Well, according to a new FBI
statement that came out today...
Maybe. The FBI released a statement today saying, On January 5th
2018, a person close to the shooter contacted the FBI's public access line tip line to report concerns about it. The caller provided information about
the shooter's gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts as well as the potential of him conducting a school
shooting. Under established protocols, the information provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life. The information then should have been
forwarded to the FBI Miami field office where appropriate
investigative steps would have been taken. We have determined that these protocols were not followed for the information
received by the PAL on January 5th. The information was not provided to the Miami Field Office and no further investigation
was conducted at that time. FBI director Christopher Wray's saying we are still investigating the facts
I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter as well as reviewing our
processes for responding to information that we received from the public
It's up to all Americans to be vigilant and when members of the public contact us with concerns,
we must act properly and
quickly. We have spoken with victims and families and deeply regret the additional pain this causes all those affected by this horrific tragedy
All of the men and women of the FBI are dedicated to keeping the American people safe and are relentlessly committed to improving all that we
do and how we do it. And so with this new information I want to pass the question off to you
What do you feel about this? What do you think? Then with the daily outrage news
We had people angry at YouTube over this tweet reading "Roses are red, Violets are blue,
Subscribe to black creators" and in response to this there were people supporting and retweeting and people saying yes,
this is great, the promotion of people subscribing to channels for an underrepresented community awesome
We also had a lot of people saying this is racist, it's ridiculous, and some saying it's pandering. People are saying
why are you telling people to subscribe to someone because of the color of their skin?
Some of the people annoyed by this tweet included black YouTube creators like Skye Williams Skye essentially calling bullshit tweeting
"I am a black creator. When I made a video discussing black issues, you flagged it, claimed
I was quote
Inciting racism against people of color struck my channel and took everything from me. Then your staff pretended to care by setting up a meeting
that was due four months ago. Delete this." Adding. "You don't care about black creators,
you care about docile black people who see a dumbass tweet like this and think it actually means something. You're creating your own black friends
so you can prove you're not racist at dinner parties
Delete this. We black readers are fucking fantastic with or without you and your soapbox.
Don't tell people to fucking sub to me because I'm black I want people to sub to me because I'm a fucking excellent content creator.
This shows you don't even watch black creators. Delete this, also hitting a note
that a lot of other content creators hit as well tweeting
"Subscribe to creators who make you laugh, who make you experience emotion, who value you as a fan, who
challenges your way of thinking, who helps you cope when things get rough, who you relate to who inspires you and none of the
aforementioned reasons are specific to race. Now, as far as my opinion on this, I kinda just didn't care.
I just saw this is YouTube continuing their Black History Month push
I mean head on to their Twitter page with hash tag create black history, their bio subscribe to black creators check the link in our
profile for a new feature channel every day this month. It is in general
I've always looked at YouTube as kind of one of those organizations that seems to be competing in the woek Olympics
and they're always going for gold and the cynical part of my brain thinks that the person that thought of this campaign feels like Khaleesi and
that one memed scene. Also, from a marketing standpoint
I think you'd got a lot less push back if you just featured creators
and you didn't say just subscribe to this creator because of the color of their skin. One, racial groups already do that especially if they're
underrepresented in mainstream media, I mean, just look at the Asian on YouTube
It is thriving. It is just gonna happen naturally so to YouTube saying do it for this specific reason,
it's not really gonna be helpful, but I also do understand
why some people may be bothered by this,
especially the Skye Williamses of the world. If I was in his position,
I would 100% see this is an empty fake gesture, but that said I do want to pass a question off to you
What is your takeaway from this whole situation? I'd love to know your thoughts and those comments down below. But from that,
I want to share some stuff
I loved today and today and awesome brought to you by shop DeFranco comm shop DeFranco of course the place to get all your merch
that help support the show your shirts, your hoodies, your pillows, your whatever. We also just launched these two new designs in the past week
All the think you're important life motto shirt is a stay humble hustle hard shirt
and the your only limit is you shirt and hoodie. So if you want to snag one, or some of the new ones, or an
old design like the sports! or the defranco shirt link down below shop DeFranco dot com. And the first bit of Awesome
we got is a new trailer for Ready Player One, then I didn't get to mention it yesterday,
but we got a sneak peek at the
Incredibles 2 we have Hannibal Buress on Hot Ones and a movie that I'm excited about because it seems really
just unique is Uncle Drew and I want to ruin it for you watch the trailer and we got a brand new trailer for Pacific
Rim Uprising, then I had a lot of requests of people asking me to talk about this Boston Dynamics
video and simple enough the video shows us their spot mini robot another spot mini with a claw of doom
grabs the door handle opens the door and and keeps it open for its buddy
and then they both pass through the door potentially to kill a human being
because the next step for these robots is obviously to take over humankind.
And you know, my response to this video is I think it's awesome
I showed this to a lot of people and they were freaked out, but THIS IS FANTASTIC
I mean sure, it's easy getting freaked out when you see this, and then you watch metal head from this season of Black Mirror
Yeah
well
We've got what like 50 years before we get to that point. Between now and utter destruction,
there's gonna be a lot of ways to use these things for convenience.
Well, that said, I do pass the question off to you
What did you feel when you first saw this and also are you excited or?
freaked out by it? I'd love to know where you're at and if you want to see the full versions of everything
I just shared the secret link of the day anything at all links are always in the description down below.
Then let's talk about South Africa's President Jacob Zuma who has stepped down this week.
To give you some background,
he's been in power for nine years out of a 10 year term. Zuma has been a longtime member of the African National Congress
Party (ANC) and he is very well known for being charismatic. He's a huge populist
He's been very active in almost all aspects of his party from the militant wing in the early 60s
which eventually led with him serving on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela all the way to become intelligence chief of the ANC under Mandela. From
there, he eventually became the deputy president of South Africa,
but then lost the position in
2005 after being implicated in a fraud trial. Those fraud charges would end up being dropped in just two weeks after
Zuma was elected president in 2009 and so with his nine years,
he's actually the longest-serving president in the country so far
Now since the end of apartheid, South Africa has only elected ANC members and many have had scandals,
but not quite like Zuma. Aside from the 2005 fraud charges, there were a bunch of other charges and allegations. In 2006,
he was charged and eventually acquitted of raping a family friend. During his presidency, the state Ombudsman said that 20 million dollars in security upgrades
to his home were excessive and obscene. There's also been
controversy that his government was essentially paid to play. One of the prominent examples is the Gupta family. They're wealthy Indian immigrants. There,
we saw emails link that implicated that the Guptas were actually using Zuma to help them get political appointees and better contracts for their businesses.
And actually just this, week police raided their residence, which actually led to concerns that there was more damning evidence
that would be popping up soon against Zuma.
But actually, one of the biggest things to happen came in October of 2017
Because that's actually when the Supreme Court ruled that Zuma would need to face corruption charges because of a sketchy arms deal around two decades
ago and from this to see many people in ANC just had enough with Zuma and in fact in November of 2017 they tried to
vote him out of office though the president in South Africa is elected more like a prime minister. The parties vote for him into office
not the people. Now, that said, Zuma ended up surviving that vote,
but just barely. We then saw a rival faction in the ANC push forward Cyril Ramaphosa
as the new head of the ANC. Cyril also has a long history with the party.
He's actually seen as the real protege of Mandela by many.
The ANC gave an ultimatum to Zuma: step down or we are going to vote you out of office and so Wednesday he announced his resignation
in a speech saying, "No life should be lost in my name and also the ANC should never be divided in my name.
I have therefore come to the decision to resign as president of the Republic with immediate effect even though I disagree with the decision of
the leadership of my organization, I have always been a disciplined member of the ANC. As I leave,
I will continue to serve the people of South Africa as well as the ANC, the organisation
I have served all my life." And after his resignation, the Parliament broke out into song and dance and seemingly the reaction wasn't just from
his opposition.
One analyst for the BBC in South Africa saying this: "The resignation of President Jacob Zuma
marks the end of an era an era of one corruption allegation after another, an era of divisions, infighting, and public
squabbles. There are many people who are
celebrating now and not just from the opposition benches. Also, the question of well who will be president now
Well if you've been paying attention it should come as no shock - Cyril Ramaphosa.
He's already been sworn in and right now things are looking hopeful although South Africa of course has a long road ahead of it
But just looking at the reaction in general,
it looks like people are
celebrating this change and are very hopeful. And for those of you that thought that maybe DACA would be handled this week...
Nope! Yesterday, all four immigration bills that have been worked on failed. Chris Coons and John McCain's bill failed 52 to
47. Toomey amendment failed 54 to 45. The Susan Collins Chuck Schumer common-sense plan failed fifty four to forty five and the Grassley bill that
President Trump tweeted that if Dems were serious about DACA
they would vote for was 39 to 60 and the other bills were expected to fail, but the one that had the most
hope was the Bipartisan bill the ones with Collins and Schumer things actually looked pretty promising
until Trump threatened to veto the bill on Twitter calling it a total catastrophe,
saying it's a vote against law enforcement and a vote for open borders. Now as far as what happens now,
I have no idea because so much time has seemingly passed with so many people focusing on this issue and we are
nowhere closer to striking a deal and ultimately we're looking at a situation where every solution proposed failed,
no one really knows
what comes next, everyone's going on a vacation, and DACA recipients have no long-term protection.
But ultimately we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens next. That's where we're going to end today's show and remember if you
liked this video, like what I'm trying to do on this channel, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button if
you don't want to miss these daily weekday videos which actually if you did miss yesterday's show you want to catch up
Click or tap right there watch that or if you need something lighter, we posted a brand new behind-the-scenes vlog right here
You can click or tap right there to watch that, but with that said of course as always my name is Philip DeFranco
You've just been phill'd in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you Monday