- Sup you beautiful bastards?
Hope you're having a fantastic Thursday.
On that note, I am having a great one
considering today is the first day I can
keep something down other than crackers.
I'm a huge fan of that.
It's funny how a few garbage days
will just make you appreciate the normal.
With that said, buckle up, definitely hit that like button,
otherwise I'm gonna throat punch you now that I have
my energy back, and let's just jump into it.
And the first things we're gonna talk about today, let's
knock out some quickie stores that have been going around.
One of my favorite non stories, especially
because of the headline is Bella Hadid is the most
beautiful woman in the world, according to science.
Which I will say, if you have to say
science, it doesn't feel like science.
The people listening to the podcast version
of the show are very confused, I just used air quotes.
But yeah, seemingly a number of the reports on this link
back to the Daily Mail, which is of course
the most trustworthy and legitimate of news sources.
It appears to be connected to something
called the Golden Ratio of Beauty Phi,
references the Greek's idea of perfection.
And for their top five, they have Bella Hadid,
then Beyonce, then Amber Heard,
followed by Ariana Grande, and then Taylor Swift.
Which really, if you think about it was just their way
of using science, air quotes, as a way to make a top ten
hottest celebrities list, without it being kinda sexist.
Then you had the story going around
that Kim Kardashian was offered a million
dollars to use likeness for virtual sex.
Which just to clear the air on this, if you ever
see a story like this, things like this,
they're bullshit and they're orchestrated PR efforts.
The company that's offering this is currently
fundraising their project, and so it's trying
to capitalize on the name value of someone
who in the past has one of the most notable sex tapes
of all time, who would obviously not accept this deal.
I mean she's got a what, an estimated net worth
of 350 million dollars, and if she wanted to make
a whole one million dollars, she could do it
in one or two Instagram posts.
Then in another quickie, it's that time of year agan,
Streamy nominations have been announced.
This year it's gonna be the ninth one,
it's one of the biggest internet award shows.
We ended up actually being nominated
for both audience show of the year as well as news.
Which I will say, thank you, but also I will say
having an internet award show, I feel like it's kind of hard
in general because there are so many massive people
online that you've just never heard about.
For example, there are times on this show
where I'll cover someone that has like 20 times
the audience that we have on this show,
and around 80% of the audience is like, who's that?
But also, and I'm probably fucking myself by noting this,
it is odd to me that you can have something
like audience creator of the year, and you can have
someone on there like a Tana Mongeau,
but no Pewdiepie, or hell Shane Dawson for that matter.
One coming off a historic year,
over 100 million subscribers, the other seemingly
part of this massive YouTube change.
And so again, I really don't know how to feel about it.
Also in quickies, we got new Juul news.
Of course over this past year, there's been this big focus
on the e-cigarette market, and since Juul
owns such a massive part of that market,
there's been increased focus on them, there's been
huge criticism around their advertising practices.
Which, as we covered, they recently
suspended all broadcasts, print,
and digital advertising in the United States.
But there was also an increased focus on their flavors,
with many critics saying that their flavored products
were targeted towards teens, or at the very least
contributed to the massive spike in teen vaping.
Regarding those flavored products, last year
we saw them remove all fruity flavors from retail shops.
Then more recently this year in September
there were reports that the Trump administration
might ban flavored e-cigarettes.
And the news we're seeing today is that Juul
has announced they will stop selling fruity flavored
e-cigarette cartridges online for US customers.
With those customers now only able to purchase
tobacco, mint, and menthol flavors.
And with this, we had Juul's new CEO saying:
Which on that note, on the other side of this,
you had the American Vaping Association
calling this a cowardly self-serving move,
saying that this is Juul saying
to their ex-smoker customers: drop dead.
With AVA president Gregory Conley saying:
And adding that this move
Around this story, I'm really
fascinated to know what you think.
I personally have no experience with nicotine,
thus no experience trying to quit.
What are your thoughts on this?
Do you think it's good, it's bad,
it's not gonna do anything? Let me know what you're thinking
in those comments down below.
But from that, I wanna share some stuff I loved today
in Today in Awesome, brought to you by Seat Geek.
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And the first bit of awesome is that if after today's show
you want more news, you want a new deep dive, today we also
put out a deep dive on federally unrecognized tribes.
It's really interesting and I recommend you check it out.
Then we got the official trailer
for American Son with Kerry Washington.
Got the how it should have ended for It: Chapter Two.
We had Liza Koshy putting her
dollar store taste to the test.
We had the fantastic Paul Rudd on Hot Ones.
We had Nikki Glaser hijacking a stranger's phone.
Ryan Reynolds gave us a Deadpool makeup tutorial.
We had Gordon Ramsey surprising a young fan.
And if you wanna see the full versions
of everything I just shared, the secret
link of the day, really anything at all,
links as always are in the description down below.
And then as you may have realized, thanks to memes
and or extremely stressed out teenagers, it is PSAT season.
Something that people say is a great
primer for the SAT and even the ACT.
And actually regarding the ACT, we have a story
about a woman by the name of Marjorie Klapper.
And Marjorie is in the news because she reportedly
paid $15,000 to cheat on her son's ACT,
with prosecutors saying that she made out this $15,000
payment to a fake charity that the scam's mastermind
William Rick Singer created called Key Worldwide Foundation.
With Singer then paying a proctor to correct her son's test,
which resulted in him scoring a 30 out of 36.
And reportedly Klapper agreed with Singer
to lie about her son's background by saying that
he was African American and of Hispanic Latino origin.
And also if that wasn't enough, she also said that he was
a first generation college student, even though both
of his parents had actually graduated from college.
And so Klapper ends up pleading guilty
to conspiracy to commit fraud back in May.
And the reason we're talking
about her now is her sentencing.
Prosecutors had pushed that she be sentenced
to four months in prison and fined $20,000
while her attorneys pushed for no jail time,
instead asking for one year of supervised release
including four months of home confinement,
300 hours of community service, and a $20,000 fine.
And the judge ended up hitting Klapper with a three week
prison sentence, one year of supervised release,
250 hours of community service, and a $9,500 fine.
And the sentencing here, I mean a lot of people
had issue with this, for example US attorney
Andrew E Lelling said that he disagreed
with the three week sentence given Klapper's bribe
and her false claims about her son's background, saying:
Meanwhile, Klapper's defense team argued
that she was motivated by what they called
her child's legitimate and documented disadvantages,
as well as a recent violent assault, saying
that Klapper chose to doctor his exams because she quote
Her attorney writing "Mrs. Klapper's motives
"were maternal but her execution misguided and illegal."
And also following this, we saw a number of people
online criticizing this sentencing,
calling it leniency towards white or wealthy parents.
You know, we've kind of seen similar reactions
surfacing when we saw Felicity Huffman handed
her 14 day sentence back in September for that case.
People pointing to situations like that of Tanya McDowell,
who's a Connecticut woman who was sentenced to five years
in prison for lying about her address
to get her son into a better school district.
Reportedly at the time she was homeless
and living out of her van, shelters,
and an apartment she only had access to at night.
Others pointing to the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar in Ohio
where she used her father's address
to get her children into a better school district.
She was initially handed two concurrent five year sentences,
though she was later able to reduce that to just 10 days.
But yeah, ultimately that's where we are with this.
It's been very interesting to see kind of the reaction
and sentencing with Klapper being now the ninth parent
to be sentenced from that huge college admissions scandal.
And around this, I'd love to know your feelings on this.
Do you feel like people are being held accountable
or no these sentences, you view them as light
and kind of just an extension of the wealthy
feeling like they can do whatever because they're
just treated different, even when they get caught?
Then in international news, we had
an update around Turkey and Syria.
We've been covering this story for a little while now,
it was our main final story yesterday.
And the update today is that there
is a ceasefire that is also not a ceasefire.
And I'll try to unpack that confusing sentence.
Today we saw US Vice President Mike Pence say.
- That today the United States and Turkey
have agreed to a ceasefire in Syria.
Turkish side will pause operation Peace Spring
in order to allow for the withdrawal
of YPG forces from the safe zone for 120 hours.
All military operations under operation Peace Spring
will be paused, and operation Peace Spring
will be halted entirely on completion of the withdrawal.
- Also reportedly as part of the deal,
Pence said that the United States would not
implement any more sanctions on Turkey,
and that it would revoke all economic punishments
once a permanent ceasefire takes effect.
Pence also reportedly saying that Turkey agreed to recommit
to countering ISIS and to cooperate
with the United States on securing ISIS detainees
and guarding prison camps in Syria.
Right so there's that, but the reason this has been
referred to as not a ceasefire, well it's for two reasons.
One, as Axios explains, the agreement just gives Turkey
what it wants - the removal of sanctions and support
for a quote safe zone free of YPG forces that they view
as an extension of a group they consider terrorists.
Right so you had people saying that Turkey
started the operation in the first place
to clear the YPG from the region, and so really
this is just a retreat window for allies
the United States had previously unexpectedly abandoned.
Even with this, reportedly hundreds of Kurds
have been killed, thousands have been displaced,
and at least 1,000 ISIS prisoners and supporters
have escaped from prison camps.
And the second reason that people are saying
that this is not a ceasefire, is that
Turkey's Foreign Minister literally said:
Also something else we're seeing reported,
in Pence's announcement he specifically says
that Turkey agreed to not take action against Kobani,
but on the other side of that, the Turkish
Foreign Minister denied that they agreed to that.
And so you know, just some notable discrepancies
in a situation that it's hard to argue
that the Trump administration created
by unexpectedly abandoning an ally,
that the President is now trying to tout as a win
by getting a ceasefire, that once again
is also not a ceasefire apparently,
and seemingly gives the Turkish president
everything that he wanted, so yeah.
And then let's talk about the big updates around Brexit.
One, because it's interesting and important,
and also two, the only way I can feel a sense
of normalcy these days is to look at others chaos.
And the big news and update around this
is that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
has agreed to a new deal with the European Union.
And this has been a long time coming.
You know, we saw Johnson saying that he would negotiate
a better deal than the EU offered
the last Prime Minister Theresa May.
But also at the same time, you had the EU saying
that they wouldn't negotiate a different deal.
And all of that happened among other things as Johnson
lost his majority in parliament, he was kicking out
members of his own party, and as parliament voted
to prevent him from leaving the EU without a deal.
Which notably, removing the United Kingdom from the EU
had been one of Johnson's major promises,
and he originally said that this would happen by the current
October 31st deadline with or without a deal.
Okay, but now that there is a proposed deal, let's take
a look at some of its key differences from May's deal.
First, this deal scraps the Irish backstop,
which has been a massively contentious issue.
And for a little oversimplified context,
the United Kingdom is made up of four countries:
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
And specifically here, we're looking at Northern Ireland
because it's on the same island as the independent
Republic of Ireland, and right now, there is no hard border
between those two countries, meaning that there
are no custom checks for goods crossing between the border,
and under May's deal, that soft border would've remained.
But this was actually one of the big reasons
that her deal failed three times in parliament,
because members of parliament believe
that this would've essentially kept the UK in the EU.
Secondly this deal would reportedly create a new
Northern Ireland only backstop which may sound confusing
because as we said Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
But basically the idea is that this would set up
a special arrangement were Northern Ireland
would still remain subject to certain EU regulations,
those including agriculture, value added tax on goods,
excise duties, and state aid rules.
And that in turn would prevent a hard border
between Ireland and Northern Ireland,
but it would also result in a new border
between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Which means there would be custom checks
and different regulations between the two,
meaning some new big trade costs for the United Kingdom.
But there's also a big caveat here, this deal
would also eventually give Northern Ireland law makers
the chance to decide on whether they stay
so closely aligned with the EU in the future.
And thirdly, while the UK would leave the EU, it would still
continue to apply EU rules until the end of next year.
Right and so this is being seen as a transition period
meant to soften the split, especially since this deal
doesn't really look to the future
relationship between the UK and the EU.
And so that transition period is meant to give them time
to work out a trade deal among other things,
and it could also be extended by up to two years
if both sides agree that they need more time.
So this part of the deal is actually similar
to May's agreement, but unlike May's deal,
this deal is non-binding, meaning that the EU
has the ability to change its mind.
Now all that said, the all important
question is of course will this deal pass.
Parliament's expected to vote on the deal on Saturday,
and if it does pass, the UK could actually
meet that end of the month deadline.
But like all things Brexit, it's not gonna be that easy.
A few things, the removal of the Irish backstop
is expected to be a sticking point
for a lot of pro-Brexit conservative MPs.
But you still have a lot of other MPs from other parties
already saying that they'll refuse to back the deal.
You had Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn saying:
Though of note, some Labor MPs
have expressed support of the deal.
We've also seen the Liberal Democrats
say that they're opposed to the deal.
Also Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage
said that he's not voting for the deal.
Even referring to this new deal as Boris
Johnson putting lipstick on a pig.
And if that was already not enough, you had the Democratic
Unionist Party of Northern Ireland opposing the deal.
And this could really be a make or break moment
because they are a key ally for Johnson.
And specifically here, they're
not at all happy that there might be a border
between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
And they said in a statement "these proposals are not,
"in our view, beneficial to the economic
"well-being of Northern Ireland and they
"undermine the integrity of the Union."
Though the deal has been well received outside of Britain.
The President of the European Commission,
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel,
and France's President Emmanuel Macron
all calling the deal fair.
We also had the Prime Minister of Ireland
saying that it solves the issue with Northern Ireland.
- And also creates a unique solution for Northern Ireland,
recognizing the unique history and geography
of Northern Ireland, one which ensures
that there is no hard border between north and south.
- But ultimately right now we're
looking at two main possible outcomes.
If the deal does pass, the deal will need to be approved
by the EU leaders and the European parliament
to bind them to the agreement.
Or it fails and Johnson may be forced to ask the EU
for an extension until the end of January.
And though there, there's been a lot of talk
about whether he would actually do that, a secretary
for Johnson has now said that he will comply with the law.
But yeah, ultimately that's where we are with this story,
it's gonna be interesting to see how it develops.
And of course while I love everyone's opinion on this topic
and please give them, I'm especially interested
if you live in an area that is directly affected by this,
what are your thoughts on this new deal?
What do you think will happen?
What do you hope will happen?
It has been an interesting one to watch for sure.
And that's where we're going to end today's show.
And hey if you liked diving into the news with me,
let me know, just tap that like button.
Also if you're new here, be sure to subscribe
and tap that bell to turn on notifications.
Also, if you're not 100% filled in, you can watch
that brand new podcast with Mia Khalifa
or our brand new Rogue Rocket deep dive
by clicking either of those right there.
But with that said, of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been Phil'd in,
I love yo faces and I'll see you next time.