- Let's just jump into it today
with our douchebag of the day,
the now Former Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver,
Henry Ruggs III.
As reportedly, Ruggs was driving at a high speed
in a residential area
when he ended up rear-ending another vehicle.
And understand, when I say high speed,
he was allegedly driving at 156 miles per hour.
And when I say rear-ended,
reportedly, he slammed into this woman in this other car
at 127 miles per hour,
with a 23-year-old woman's car bursting into flames,
killing her and her dog.
Meanwhile, Ruggs and his passenger
who he shares a daughter with
were hospitalized with serious,
but not life-threatening injuries.
Also, if you're wondering,
yes, he was driving under the influence.
In fact, his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
So now you have this guy, Ruggs,
who seemed to be destined for greatness.
He was a first round NFL Draft pick in 2020,
now getting kicked from his team and facing felony charges.
The report is saying that
a conviction for his reckless driving charge
could earn in one to six years in prison
with the possibility of probation,
as well as the DUI resulting in death charge,
meaning that he could face a sentence
of anywhere between two to 20 years
in state prison with no probation.
And if I'm being honest with you,
when I first heard those numbers,
I was kind of shocked because I was like,
"Okay, so he could get convicted
and only serve three years?"
He was driving a car 156 miles per hour,
drunk out of his mind, obliterated this woman and her dog,
and he could serve three years?
Like if you wanna kill someone,
why hire a contract killer?
Just pay someone to drink some booze and run someone over.
And honestly, if he's a first time offender
and these are the only charges he ends up with,
he'll probably avoid the maximum sentences,
especially since he's a guy with a lot of money
who can hire the best lawyers.
And I know some people are gonna say,
"Hey, it was an accident."
But I very much agree with it.
I saw someone say,
"It wasn't an accident, it was an inevitability."
You chose to drink that much,
you chose to get in your car,
and you chose to put everyone's lives at risk around you.
There's already no excuse to drive drunk,
but motherfucker, you're rich.
You've got all the options in the world
to save you from making the worst choice ever,
and you still do it.
And the only person
that's really going to suffer from your actions
is this woman, who's no longer here.
Even if you're behind bars,
you're still breathing, you're still living.
This woman didn't have a choice and she's no longer here.
Also hey, this is the Philip DeFranco Show.
That's a story in my opinion,
and I'll pass the question off to you.
Are you right there with me?
Do you disagree?
Do you strongly disagree?
Also, what sentencing or punishment
do you think that he will get and/or should get?
And then, because it feels like
we need to close out this story
because we covered it previously,
we should talk about Valkyrae and RFLCT.
Or if you're unfamiliar, Valkyrae,
one of the biggest streamers on YouTube,
also Co-Owner of the esports org, 100 Thieves.
And last month, she came under fire
for launching this skincare line,
which claimed to protect skin against blue-light exposure
from digital screens.
And immediately, we saw critics accusing her
of promoting a scam or at the very least, pseudoscience
after pointing out there's not a lot of credible research
supporting the need for such products.
And Val for her part tried to address the backlash
in a live stream,
but a lot of people felt like she was shifting blame
or not fully understanding the issue.
At one point, she even said that she thought
she was gonna be a part of something revolutionary
and still stood by the products
because she saw the company's research,
which she had assumed that they would share it at launch.
However, RFLCT's parent company later told her
they couldn't release the research
because it could be stolen by other companies.
And so some took that as,
"They're just trying to protect trade secrets."
Others going, "This brand is just misleading Rae."
They're not releasing the data
because the data might not be trustworthy.
There are also some DMs leaked
between Rae and a fellow Sherman by the name of Ludwig
seemed to expose that Rae was very frustrated
by trusting the wrong people,
as well as giving people insight
into how much money was involved with this.
With Rae appearing to say in these DMs
a beauty retailer, Ulta had invested $4 million
into the line.
Also, saying she didn't understand why they would do that
if they didn't believe in the research.
And this whole situation continued to snowball over
until the last week
when RFLCT announced that they were shutting down.
Since then, we've seen Rae go live
admitting that she messed up, that she was naive, saying
that she shouldn't have done her first live stream response
when she was in such a bad mental space.
And in this, talking more about the brand's termination.
- They pulled all the products out of 400 stores.
So, that happened.
It was a clean break,
took a long time, the lawyers and stuff, but we did it.
I got really lucky that there wasn't a lawsuit,
but I do think that I have mental damage
from all of this, for sure.
- With that, also assuring fans that she is getting help.
- I'm going to therapy.
(laughs)
I have a therapist and I have a lot of trouble.
I've been going through it.
I have depression.
(laughs)
But, yeah.
But I'm hopeful.
- So, while this whole situation seems done,
there's also been this different narrative
that's been floating around.
With people like Joanna Coles,
the Co-Founder of Ideavation Labs,
which helped create RFLCT
attributing a lot of the criticism Rae received is sexism.
Telling reporters, "It's hard enough for young women
to start a business in a male-dominated economy.
I am confident that if a male gamer had come up with RFLCT,
he would have been roundly applauded."
And to that I say, as someone that has
befriended a number of women in this space,
employed a number of women in this space,
it is at times horrible,
like so much more horrible for them than it is for me.
This specific situation feels way, way, way, way more
about the misleading claims.
And if anything, it feels kind of disgusting
or the least ignorant and wrong to weaponize sexism,
which is a very real problem in the industry.
And completing it with
or using it to dismiss the very legitimate concerns
that a lot of people have.
Hey, I'm just one guy, right?
My opinion isn't irrefutable,
and so, I've given you the story,
I've given some of my opinion,
and now I pass the question off to you,
what are your thoughts regarding this?
Regarding that last note,
do you think this is a case of sexism?
What do you think about Rae's handling the situation?
And really just any and all thoughts,
I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below.
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So what are you waiting for?
And then we should talk about a CDC Advisory Committee
voting on Tuesday
to approve the use of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine
in kids aged five to 11.
It's a two-shot regimen that will now be available
to the 28 million kids in that age group.
Technically, vaccination sites across the country
have been prepping to give shots as early as today.
But the full vaccination effort
isn't expected to be up and running until next week.
The doses for the kids are also different
coming in at only a third of the size given to adults.
The Pfizer's data saying that the kid's size vaccine
is 90.7% effective against symptomatic illness.
Without being that this will be significant
for curbing new infections and thus prevent disruptions
to schooling, hospitals, and more.
But the biggest question that comes with this news
is whether parents will actually get their kids vaccinated.
And I say that because in an October poll,
the Kaiser Family Foundation found that
only about 27% of parents with kids in that age group
would get them vaccinated right away,
with 33% saying they would wait,
and seeing 30% saying outright they would definitely not.
Though that's why you have people like
FDA Acting Commissioner, Janet Woodcock saying,
"As a parent, if I had young children in this age group,
I would get them vaccinated now.
I would not want to take the risk that they would be
one of the ones who would develop long COVID,
who would develop multi-system inflammatory syndrome,
or have to be hospitalized from the virus."
And then in news that just maybe,
just possibly might be divisive.
Let's talk about guns and gun rights.
And this is because today for the first time
in more than a decade, the Supreme Court is hearing
its first gun rights related case.
So here are the basics.
So, the case is called
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen
and it revolves around New York's concealed carry law.
In particular gun owners are very frustrated
at how difficult it is to get a license
in some areas of the state
and meet the vague standard of showing "proper cause"
for needing a license.
Arguing there, the Second Amendment applies
to concealed carrying as well.
But you have New York arguing that the restrictions
fall within the scope of the limitations allowed
within the Second Amendment
and are supported by legal precedents
that restrict carrying firearms in "sensitive places".
Now, both sides have faced scrutiny
with Justices navigating the arguments
and really pushing the evidence each side
was using to back up their claims.
For example, there were questions for New York
over why there's such a drastic difference
in how easy it is to get a license in a rural area,
rather than an urban one,
despite the latter of the two being far more dangerous.
With New York, arguing that
while the risk to personal safety may be higher
in an urban area,
the need to consider public safety is higher as well.
So it balances out.
Still, some Justices seem concerned about
letting public officials interpret "proper cause".
However, you also have the NYSRPA
facing some scrutiny as well.
With Justices Roberts and Barrett pushing the association
to clarify what it thought
reasonable time and place restrictions would be
on carrying firearms.
Or things like,
weather firearms should be allowed on school campuses
or other sensitive areas
despite longstanding legal precedents that prevent it.
And if not that, then what about something like
at Times Square on New Years Eve?
Or essentially asking,
where do you think the line actually is?
Well, we shouldn't expect a ruling hearing
until spring of 2022.
What happens here is gonna have massive implications.
The concealed carry could become far more common
in the few places in the country that don't allow it,
or if it goes the other way,
it could embolden states to one stricter regulations
to feel like,
"Hey, we can do this without the constant legal battles."
But for now, they'll do their talky talk thing
and we'll do our wait and see thing.
And then, we should definitely talk about
yesterday's elections because top level here,
if you are a Democrat,
you should be very, very concerned going into 2022 and 2024.
And if you are a Republican,
I imagine you are over the moon right now.
The Dems need to learn as much as they can
from these losses here,
or they're gonna be doomed to repeat them.
But I'm saying that in part, of course,
because of Virginia where
Republican Glenn Youngkin beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
With Younkin bringing in nearly 51% of the vote
compared to McAuliffe's nearly 49%.
And while that's only a two-point difference,
reminder, Biden in 2020 won the state by 10 points.
One of the things here is that
yes, while this is the first time
a Republican has won a statewide race in Virginia since 2009
Youngkin was not the only one.
With Republicans also managing
to secure the Lieutenant Governor
and likely the Attorney General seats from Democrats.
And it was very much the theme of the night, right?
You have Republicans also expected
to regain control of Virginia's House.
With every single county in the state
shifting more Republican,
even the counties that McAuliffe won.
And of course, it wasn't only in Virginia.
If you looked at New Jersey,
there was a very, very tight race,
it was not expected to be so.
With incumbent Democratic Governor Phil Murphy
currently having the lead as of recording this
with 89% of the votes counted
only leading by less than a percentage point.
Though there is still a lot of mail-in ballots
that need to be counted,
and those usually tend to lean Democrat.
So it is possible the lean could grow.
But very important for most Democrats,
New Jersey didn't seem like a fight.
And this is a state that Biden won last year by 16 points.
Also, of note outside of the gubernatorial races
residents in Minneapolis
voted down a major police reform measure.
As I mentioned, yesterday had this passed
it would've dissolved the city's police department
in favor of the Department of Public Safety
overseen by City Council.
Though, to be clear,
the department would have still had police,
it just would have scrapped a requirement
for employing a minimum number of officers.
However, that doesn't matter because it's not happening
because 56% of residents said no to that proposal.
No, that doesn't appear that they want.
No, action appears that most people in Minneapolis
seemed to agree that the current way that
the city's police department operates does need to change,
but this specific change was not the answer.
And the vote here actually kind of ties back
to the gubernatorial races
because right now you have a lot of Democrats going,
"Okay, what can we learn from this?
Why did we lose?"
And there's potentially a number of reasons.
One, it's possible that
some Democrats and largely independents
are seeing the Democrat party go far too left in their mind.
Two, it could be the fact that Trump was not on the ticket.
I know a lot of people who voted in 2020,
not because they liked Biden,
but because they hated Trump so much.
And/or three, Republicans are just so much better
at the culture war stuff.
Like in Virginia specifically,
there's been a lot of focus on schools,
whether it be over CRT or vaccine or mass mandates.
At one point during a debate McAuliffe said,
"I don't think parents should be telling schools
what they should teach."
And man, it seems like he got hammered for that.
With exit polling in Virginia, asking the question,
"How much say should parents have in curriculum?"
Finding an overwhelming majority
of both Republicans and Democrats saying a lot/some.
And then finally,
four, you have a lot of people pointing to Biden himself
and his approval numbers.
With places like Axios noting,
"Biden's approval at 42% is the lowest for any president
in October of their first year,
going back to Dwight Eisenhower in 1953,
except for Donald Trump who was at 37%."
And noting, and this is important going into 2024,
"Many in Biden's own party don't want him to run again."
Noting that in a recent poll,
"Just 36% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
thought they would have a better chance in 2024
with Biden on the ballot, as opposed to someone else."
Which brings us to my insane prediction
of the next three years.
The only way that the Democrats will win in 2024
is if Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson runs.
Yep, that's how I'm ending this segment.
Democrats, your only chance is The Rock.
And ultimately that is where this story
and today's show ends.
Of course, I'd love to know your thoughts,
whether it be on this last story, the first one,
anything in between,
let me know what you're thinking
in those comments down below.
But of course, as always, my name is Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love y'all faces and I'll see you tomorrow.