- Sup you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
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With that said, buckle up.
Hit that like button and let's just jump into it.
Starting with Justin Bieber is in the news right now
for a really gross concerning reason.
Also, it has nothing to do with
whatever the hell's happening
with the Hailey Bieber, Selena Gomez situation.
Social media algorithms
have been trying to force that down my story.
I'm just gonna wait
until my wife gives me a presentation like she did with
whatever's happening with the Vanderpump Rules stuff.
I just don't care.
But with this Bieber situation,
I wanted to talk about it because
it really just puts a spotlight on how society was just okay
with some really fucking nasty shit.
With the number of clips getting resurfaced,
showing Justin as a teenager
with people constantly sexualizing him.
Which, at that time he is a child, right?
For things like this one clip where Justin's 15 years old
a radio interviewer kept describing him as a flirt,
asking if he had a girlfriend,
then going on to ask if he had the sex talk
and adding...
- [Interviewer] My parents never gave me the sex talk.
- [Justin] Okay,
- [Interviewer] So why don't you gimme the sex talk?
Teach me.
- I really feel uncomfortable right now.
- [Interviewer] Oh.
- [Justin] Why do you wanna know the sex talk
from a 15 year old boy, that' pretty weird."
- There's also clips like when Justin's a teenager
and Katy Perry grabs his butt.
As well as a moment from the American Music Awards
back in 2012 when Justin's 18.
You have Jenny McCarthy presenting an award that he wins
and then once he gets on stage, this happens.
(audience applauding)
- Wow, I feel violated right now.
- Right, and so you have people reacting like,
"Oh my God I grew up watching this
and I'm only now realizing
he lost his innocence to this evil shit hole
in exchange for fame while being exploited left and right
and no one protected him.
And specifically with McCarthy had people going,
"You know imagine if the roles were switched."
Right, on live television you have some old man
trying to kiss up on an 18 year old.
And you also had people saying,
"Jenny talking about it afterwards,
it actually made it worse."
- A little cougar scary.
- Yeah.
- But I took the opportunity in the window
considering I'll never get to do it again
and kind of molested him.
I want some Bieber fever and I want a Bieber rash.
- [Interviewer] You want it all.
- It'd be lik Cougar (beep).
- And keep in mind,
these are just some of the many, many clips
and there is one constant in all of them.
Bieber, in pretty much every single one of these incidents,
plainly says like, "That makes me feel uncomfortable."
"That's weird."
And almost always
it's kind of just dismissed or met with laughter.
And so you know where I'm gonna end this is to ask
if you grew up watching this happen
is it something that was fucked up and you recognize it?
Or, at the time, was it so normalized by everyone?
Did it just kind of pass by you?
Because as someone in the past who reported on
and was critical of Justin Bieber
when he was doing a bunch of the asshole shit.
I do find myself these days far more sympathetic
and also kind of amazed that he is not a crazy person.
Because I don't know how you go through
the extremely abnormal life experience that he has had
and come out seemingly okay on the other end.
Like that seemingly takes a lot of strength.
And then if you didn't see,
this disabled Twitter employee
absolutely humiliated Elon Musk.
Even though his defenders are gonna be like,
"No, Elon Musk came out looking great.
He's playing 5-D chess.
He wanted that pie on his face
'cause he likes the way it tastes."
But regarding the guy that I mentioned,
his name is Halle and he is muscular dystrophy.
And since 2021, he's been an employee at Twitter.
That is until a week and a half ago
when the company fires another 200 people
amounting to some 10% of its remaining workforce.
Side note, remember when Elon was like,
"Hey, that report that came out
saying I was gonna fire 75% of staff, that was bullshit.
That's not gonna happen.
Oh, shit I did it."
But anyway, with what happened,
Halle reaches out to HR and he says
after nine days since the layoffs
he couldn't confirm whether he was still an employee.
Because apparently Musk hadn't answered any emails
so Halle just tweets at the CEO instead.
And then he gets his attention with Elon asking
"What have you been doing?"
To which Halle replies
that he'd have to break confidentiality
to answer that on Twitter.
So Elon gives him the go ahead
and Halle dumps a bunch of his accomplishments,
including leveling up designs.
But then Elon asks, "Level up from what design to what?
Picks or didn't happen.
We haven't hired design roles in four months.
What changes did you make to help with the youths?"
Which Halle responds that he can't get any picks
because Twitter locked him out of his computer.
And that appears to be where it ends
until Elon comes back hours later with this.
Writing, "The reality is that this guy
who is independently wealthy did no actual work,
claimed as his excuse that he had a disability
that prevented him from typing
yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm.
Can't say, I have a lot of respect for that."
And then adding, "But was he fired?
No, you can't be fired
if you weren't working in the first place."
Now to be clear here, if you look a little further
you find out Halle wasn't just any regular hire.
He founded a creative agency that Twitter acquired.
And in fact, he was named 2022's Person Of The Year
by several Icelandic media outlets.
With him also apparently leading
an innovation team at Twitter
that spearheaded the "Edit" button.
And while it's true,
he can only type for an hour or two at a time
before his hands cramped,
he explained it an overly polite Twitter thread
that it wasn't a problem because he was a Senior Director.
So it was more managerial also saying
there is a difference between
typing with one finger on a phone
rather than actually coding.
And as for the independently wealthy remark
Halle fired back at Elon
that he must be referring to the agency and saying,
"I independently made my money
as opposed to say, inherited an emerald mine."
And adding, "I joined at a time
when the company was growing fast.
You kind of did the opposite.
The company had a fair amount of issues,
but then again, most bigger companies do
or even small companies like Twitter today."
And so after that, it appears that Elon shuts his mouth
for the first time in his adult life
at least for a little while.
And Halle saying that
"All of a sudden Twitter's HR Head
finally confirmed that he was fired."
With Halle adding that now he's still waiting
to see if the company pays him
what he's owed in his contract.
But I do wonder if Musk is gonna fight him on this
because, like I said, he kind of kept his mouth shut,
but only for a little while.
But as I'm recording this he's tweeting out things like,
"Many people on Twitter are defending him
this hurts my faith in humanity."
And in response to someone who wrote
"I don't think it's a good idea
to shit on former employees in public."
Musk wrote, "He's the worst, sorry."
And also from a legal standpoint
I'm interested to see what happens.
Because he's openly talking about this guy's disability
in relation to his employment and now firing.
Especially 'cause regarding that specific fight,
at least for now, it is far from the only one
that's being waged by disabled workers against Elon.
You may have missed it
but there was a class action lawsuit
that was filed against Twitter back in November
on behalf of disabled workers who say
that Elon's demand for hardcore high-intensity long hours
forced them to quit.
And arguing the new work culture effectively foreclosed
on any reasonable accommodations
resulting in disability discrimination.
It's almost like, and guys I feel crazy saying this,
maybe Elon Musk isn't a good guy.
No, no, that can't be it.
My apologies to Lord Musk.
Moving on.
And then y'all know how I feel
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And then if you've never been to a nursing home
you may not realize
that immigration is actually very closely tied to it.
And that's become a bigger topic of conversation recently
because nursing homes are struggling incredibly right now.
With around 6 in 10 now limiting new patients
due to staffing issues.
With those numbers coming from
a 2022 American Healthcare Association survey.
And that survey actually goes on to say
that 87% of nursing homes have staffing shortages.
And even more concerning, 98% of nursing homes
are experiencing difficulty hiring staff.
And while according to
the National Bureau of Economic Research
the solution to this problem is immigration.
With the bureau publishing a paper
saying that increased immigration
could help solve the labor shortage in nursing homes.
And this isn't just a wild claim, the numbers back it up.
Immigrants reportedly make up 19% of nursing home workers.
And with every 10% increase in female immigration,
nursing assistant hours go up by 0.7%
and registered nursing hours go up by 1.1%.
And with that same immigration increase
short-term hospitalizations
of nursing home residents goes down by 0.6%.
And this, as we know that the number of people
coming into the US to work in healthcare fields
is increasing.
With the State Department issuing 145% more EB-3 visas,
or employment based visas, for healthcare workers
in the 2022 fiscal year than in 2019.
But according to "Skilled Nursing News",
in August of last year, the approval process for an RN
can take between seven to nine months.
Without substantial immigration reform
that's just not fast enough to actually help nursing homes.
But also a thing to keep in mind
is that displeasure about immigration has exploded
since Biden took office in 2021.
With a Gallup study published back in February
saying that around 40% of American adults
wanna see immigration decrease.
And this is a very recent increase.
That number rose from 19% in 2021 to 35% last year.
Now, a key thing to consider is
that more than half of Democrats
still are satisfied with immigration
and wanna see it increase.
But with a divided Congress
the likelihood of that happening is actually pretty slim.
So yeah, absolutely devastating news for my mother
who only started treating me nice in my thirties.
(Philip laughing)
It's a joke, but it's not Debbie, it's not.
It is, it is.
It's not.
It is.
Don't worry, I'll get you a west-facing room.
And then, this is so scary, if you didn't hear
there were four Americans that were kidnapped in Mexico.
With the FBI saying that the incident took place
on Friday in the northern border city of Matamoros.
The four crossing the border from Brownsville, Texas
driving a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.
And shortly after entering Mexico,
the FBI said that unidentified gunmen
fired upon the passengers in the vehicle.
And saying all four Americans were placed in a vehicle
and taken from the scene by armed men.
With a video that appears to show
the violent kidnapping taking place in broad daylight
circulating widely on social media.
And we know there, I'm not going be playing it
because it is quite graphic.
But in the footage we see on woman walking
and then being forced into the back of a white pickup truck
by multiple armed men wearing protective vests.
The men then dragged other people
trailing what appears to be blood on the ground
over to the car and loading them into the back.
With photos obtained by CNN also seeming to show
that the car believed to have been driven by the Americans
had collided with another car
before the occupants were taken at gunpoint.
And the big update today is that just this morning
Mexican officials confirmed to the public
that the four Americans have been located
in a village about 15 miles away from Matamoros.
But tragically two of them were found dead,
one is alive, and a fourth is wounded.
Also, of note here, the US Ambassador to Mexico
said in a statement yesterday
that an innocent Mexican citizen
was also killed during the confrontation.
And while officials have not yet
officially released the names
of any of the kidnapped Americans,
family members have told the media that they are
Latvia "Tay" McGee, Shaeed Woodard,
Eric James Williams, and Zindell Brown.
With family members also saying
that the four were traveling to Mexico
so one of the people in the group
could have a medical procedure.
A claim that's also been backed up
by anonymous government officials.
With McGee's mother telling CNN that her daughter
who was a mother of six
was the one receiving the procedure.
So that, of course, raises the question of,
"Well, why were these people targeted?"
And actually there you had a US official
reportedly saying the authorities
don't believe the victims were targeted
prior to the incident.
Noting that none of the four had criminal records
and there was no evidence
they had connections to organized crime in Mexico.
In fact, one US official even told CNN
that investigators actually believe
the Americans were not the intended victims
and were targeted by accident.
Believing that a Mexican cartel
thought that they were Haitian drug smugglers.
And we've seen many experts say
that a theory along these lines would check out
because, as the New York Times explains,
"Cartels often avoid targeting American nationals
fearful of the blowback it will cause
by the US law enforcement."
And adding, "While Americans can be victims
of the violence that plagues much of the border
it is often because they are
at the wrong place at the wrong time, traversing a frontier
rife with criminal activity and drug cartels."
In fact, the US State Department
has even explicitly told Americans
not to travel to this area
because of the risk of crime and kidnapping.
Issuing a Level 4: Do Not Travel Advisory for the state.
Which is the highest warning in the system.
But the reason you still see
many Americans going to these places
that are rife with violence is that they can get
medicines and medical procedures
that are either cheaper in Mexico
or just unavailable in the US.
Because even more so in recent years Mexican border towns
have been increasingly popular destinations
for medical tourism.
But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens.
Does this latest incident change
US National Security Policy towards Mexico?
Does it increase pressure
for Mexico to crack down on this violence?
And only time can tell?
And that's where I'm gonna end today's show.
Thanks for watchin', lockin', and being subscribed
to these daily dives into the news.
For more news you gotta jump into, I got you covered here
and in those links down below.
But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco
you've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.