- 'Sup you beautiful bastards?
Hope you're having a fantastic Thursday,
welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show,
and a quick note before we get started.
As you may have noticed, I'm dressed
a little bit different today.
One, because I kind of wanted a warm hug all day,
and also two, over at shopdefranco.com,
link down below, I am launching the pre-order
for the "One Day We'll All Be Skeletons" varsity hoodie.
I love the outer shirt around this,
I loved the message, and once I saw
this design I was like yes, we have to.
But yeah, if you wanna snag one for yourself,
make sure you grab it as fast as possible.
Of course, it's first come first serve.
And also while you're at Shop DeFranco,
check out some of the new bundles that we just created
in case you wanna grab a bunch all at once.
But, with that said, let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today
is the sentencing of Amber Guyger,
and all of these stories that have been coming from it.
Now in case you missed it, we talked
about her case earlier this week.
Guyger was a police officer in Dallas and in 2018
she entered a man's apartment, shooting and killing him.
And she said the reason for her actions
is that she thought she was entering
her apartment, and that this man was an intruder.
But she did not, she had actually entered the apartment
that was above hers, and the man
that she shot was Botham Jean.
And following this she was fired,
she was charged with manslaughter,
but then on Tuesday like we talked about,
Guyger was found guilty of first degree murder.
And with this, she faced a maximum sentence of 99 years.
And what we ended up seeing at her sentencing yesterday
is that she received 10 years with
the eligibility for parole in five.
And following this, we had a lot of people
who were upset over this seemingly short sentence.
It even resulted in protests in Dallas
with a member of Next-Generation Action Network
who organized the protest, telling NBC in Dallas.
"A murder conviction, that's great.
"It's almost unprecedented and it's
"a rarity in this country.
"But as far as the punishment,
"the punishment did not fit that action."
All right, so there was a lot of outrage
and debate around this sentence,
and this is kind of something that I touched on Tuesday.
What was notable to me was the
amount of surprise online that
this person, that this former cop,
was actually found guilty.
There's a distrust of the system,
that the system does not treat everyone equally.
And so obviously with this sentence that is continuing.
But one of the biggest things to spark attention,
get massive spotlight is Botham Jean's brother.
18 year old Brent Jean in this courtroom
spoke and he said that he forgave Guyger for what she did,
adding that he loves her like any other person
and that he does not even want her to go to jail,
and then making this request.
- I don't know if this is possible,
but can I give her a hug please, please?
- [Tammy] Yes.
(cries of sadness)
- And notably, he also wasn't the only one to do this.
The judge in this case, Tammy Kemp,
gave Guyger a Bible and hugged her in the courtroom as well.
And among the reactions you had some
finding it both powerful and inspirational.
Senator Ted Cruz saying that amidst
heartbreaking tragedy, a beautiful,
powerful example of Christian love and forgiveness.
Over ambassador of the UN, Nikki Haley tweeted,
"This makes my heart hurt,
"there are no winners in this situation,
"sad all around, but once again, grace prevailed.
"And amazing example of faith, love and forgiveness.
"Lifting up both families in prayer during this time."
Dallas Police Department saying
"Botham Jean's brother's request
"to hug Amber Guyger and Judge Kemp's
"gift of her Bible to Amber Guyger
"represent a spirit of forgiveness, faith and trust.
"In this same spirit, we want to move forward
"in a positive direction with the community."
Then you also had some more
mixed reactions to this situation,
with some thinking it was okay for Brent
to hug Guyger, but were kind of a bit
more shocked when they saw the judge do it.
With reporter Brooke Thomas saying
"I have never seen anything like this.
"I can't imagine having this strength
"after losing my brother in such a way,
"this family is amazing."
And then adding,
"this part made my jaw drop.
"None of this has been the ending
"I expected after a racist killer
"was convicted and sentenced to prison.
"Those text messages, I can't get that out of my head."
And here, what she's referring to are text messages
that were brought up in Guyger's sentencing
where Guyger was seen making jokes
about the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
and other disrespectful comments
about black police officers.
You also had the likes of Jemele Hill saying
"How Botham Jean's brother chooses
"to grieve is his business, he's entitled to that.
"But this judge choosing to hug this woman is unacceptable.
"Keep in mind, this convicted murderer
"is the same one who laughed about
"Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination,
"and killing people on sight."
And finally, you had others thinking
that this whole situation just sent
a troubling message about the way
people of color are treated in comparison to white people,
with CNN commentator, Keith Boykin saying
"Amber Guyger muderered Botham Jean.
"The jury gave her 10 years,
"the judge hugged her, the victim's brother hugged her,
"a police officer in court brushed her hair.
"The message, white women's lives are valuable,
"black men's lives are not."
Others saying things like
"Amber Guyger is a racist convicted murderer.
"Why does she get a sweet, caring hug from the judge?
"Because she was a cop?
"Because she's a white woman,
"which means she deserves sympathy?
"Name the last black man you saw hugged
"by the judge after a murder conviction."
But ultimately, that's where we
are with this story right now.
And I mean, as far as my reaction to this,
one, I think the family of the victim
can react however they find appropriate.
By watching Botham Jean's brothers
wrap his arms around the woman that
took his brother's life, that is powerful.
Watching that, I saw a young man
who has a much greater capacity for forgiveness than I do.
But as far as the judge, I found that wholly inappropriate.
If that was my family that this woman had killed,
I would have lost my fucking mind.
And I understand at this point,
I'm talking about what my personal
feelings on the matter would be if I was in this situation,
and hey, everyone can have their own
personal feelings on this, so with this story,
I do pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on everything that has transpired?
And then let's talk about what celebrities
people are angry about today news,
'cause they did or said something.
First, we have director Tom Phillips, who of course,
directed "Old School", "The Hangover",
now has "Joker" coming out.
And there was this quote from him
that was published at Red.
"Go try to to be funny nowadays with this woke culture.
"There were articles written about
"why comedies don't work anymore, I'll tell you why.
"Because all the fucking funny guys are like
"fuck this shit, because I don't want to offend you.
"It's hard to argue with 30,000,000 people on Twitter,
"you just can't do it, right?
"So you just go I'm out, I'm out, and you know what?
"With all my comedies I think what comedies
"in general all have in common is
"they're irreverent, so I go,
"how do I do something irreverent but fuck comedy?
"Oh I know, let's take the comic book
"movie universe and turn it on it's head with this."
And so following that being published,
people started screenshotting it, sharing it,
there's a lot of bashing, with tweets like
"the whole Todd Phillips woke culture thing
"just reminds me once again that
"some people are alarmingly unable
"to separate vulgarity from bigotry."
Another writing,
"Todd Phillips, wah, woke culture
is making comedy impossible.
"Taika Waititi, bitch, I'm literally playing Hitler
"in a comedy and woke Twitter loves my ass for it."
Also Taika himself quote tweeted an article
and and Tweeted "LOL, he funny."
Others pointing to a George Carlin clip
that recently went viral again.
In it he talks about his concerns
around people who punch down in their comedy,
some referencing Eddie Murphy apologizing
for his homophobic and transphobic jokes.
But at the same time you had people
pointing to this backlash and saying well
isn't Todd Phillips right?
He said a thing that wasn't well-received,
and he was hit with a wave of go fuck yourself.
With some saying they're now no longer
going to see "The Joker."
And I'll say, as far as my reaction to this,
I think Phillips is both right and wrong.
Right, like I imagine "Old School"
and other comedies from the past
would not be received the same way
if they were released today, and hell,
it feels like half the time someone
comes out with a new comedy special,
there's someone trying to cancel someone.
But also usually it feels like that backlash
end ups leading to just more traffic to that piece, right?
And like with most things, and especially comedy,
you're never gonna leave everyone happy,
but then, I look to shows like
"Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
It's an incredibly politically incorrect comedy
that is fantastic and generally well-received,
and that is in large part because of
the incredibly skilled setup and delivery of the jokes.
Are you gonna get hit by some people all of the time?
Sure, but you're gonna get hit the most
if you're lazy with the setup and delivery.
And regarding this, I would love to know your thoughts.
But yeah, another person who was hit
with backlash is Demi Lovato, and that is
because she shared a number of
photos from her trip to Israel,
and this including one where she
was being Baptized in the River of Jordan.
And she says that she was raised Christian,
has Jewish ancestors, adding
"when I was offered an amazing opportunity
"to visit the places I'd read about
"in the Bible growing up, I said yes.
"There is something absolutely magical about Israel."
And reportedly, rather quickly her comments
started getting filled up with people that were angry.
Some saying that this was Demi Lovato
taking a political stance, others angry
she didn't mention the Israel Palestine conflict,
Lovato eventually disabling the comments,
which just got people angrier,
and eventually Lovato ended up apologizing,
writing in an Instagram story
"I'm extremely frustrated.
"I accepted a free trip to Israel
"in exchange for a few posts.
"No one told me there would be
"anything wrong with going or that
"I could possibly be offending anyone."
And adding "with that being said,
"I'm sorry if I've hurt or offended anyone,
"that was not my intention.
"Sometimes people present you with
"opportunities and no one tells you
"the potential backlash you could face in return."
Adding "this was a spiritual experience,
"not a political statement."
And closing "going against all advice right now,
"apologizing because it feels right to me
"and I'd rather get in trouble
"for being authentic to myself
"than staying quiet to please other people.
"I love my fans, all of them from all over."
But also, of noted, it appears that
that apology is no longer up.
But yeah, with all of that said,
I'd love to know your thoughts on
the whole situation, the apology, anything.
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The first bit of Awesome today is
we gave you an extra news video.
Specifically a deep dive on how gay dating
apps are being abused and used for
entrapment around the world.
Okay, so the subject, not awesome.
The extra news, yes.
Then we have Noah Gallagher on "Hot Ones",
Vanity Fair gave us the "Mean Girls"
costume designer breaking down Lindsay Lohan's costume.
GQ gave us Jim Gaffigan going undercover
on Reddit, YouTube and Twitter,
we have The Infographic Show giving us
a scientist where on cheese is addictive as this drug.
The Atlantic gave us the last video storm,
we had YouTuber slash Tik Tocker Will Smith
surprising unsuspecting shoppers at Target.
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.
Then let's talk about the EU making decisions
for the rest of the world, that's probably
the worst and most cynical way to describe
the situation, but accurate.
And so this big news involves Facebook.
Today the European Court of Justice,
EU's highest court, ruled that Facebook
can be ordered to remove specific content worldwide
if one EU member country finds it illegal.
In a statement, the ECJ said that if the national court
of one EU country decides a post on Facebook
is illegal, Facebook will be required
to remove all duplicates of that post,
not just in the EU country, but everywhere in the world.
With the ruling also saying that in some cases,
even posts that are similar to the post
deemed illegal will have to be removed.
And the easy Jane making it to this decision
after an Austrian politician sued Facebook
in Austrian court demanding that the company
remove a defamatory comment someone posted about her
as well as any equivalent comments disparaging her,
and this reportedly after a Facebook user
shared a link to a news article that
called the politician a quote,
"lousy traitor of the people,
"a corrupt oaf, and a member of a fascist party."
Now Facebook, at first, had refused
to remove this post which in many countries
would still be considered acceptable political speech.
But the Austrian courts ruled that
the post was intended to hurt her reputation,
and the Austrian screened court referred
this case to the ECJ, and in the ECJ's statement,
the highest court did clarify that Facebook
and other social media companies
are not liable to illegal content
posted on their platforms if they
didn't know it was illegal or removed it quickly.
But this really still comes as a massive blow,
a huge change for Facebook, and not just Facebook,
just social media companies in general.
And unsurprisingly, Facebook is
not happy with this decision.
Before the high court's decision,
Facebook and others critical of the rule
argued that allowing one country
to force a platform to remove material globally
limits free speech, with Facebook also
arguing that the decision would most
likely force them to use automated content filters,
which some activists have claimed
could cause legitimate posts to be taken down.
Right, this because the filters can't
necessarily tell if a post is ironic
or satirical or just a meme.
Although I have noticed that a meme
format in general has been incredibly effective
as far as just pushing propaganda, but you know what I mean.
The main point, we ended up seeing Facebook
condemn the ECJ ruling in a statement
where they argued that internet companies
should not be responsible for monitoring
and removing speech that might be
illegal in one specific country, and saying
"it undermines the long-standing principle
"that one country does not have the right
"to impose it's laws on speech to another country.
"It also opens the door to obligations
"being imposed on internet companies
"to proactively monitor content,
"and then interpret if it is", quote,
"equivalent to content that has
"been found to be illegal",
and adding "in order to get this right,
"national courts will have to set out
"very clear definitions on what identical
"and equivalent means in practice.
"We hope the courts take a proportionate
"and measured approach to avoid
"having a chilling effect on freedom of expression."
And Facebook's statement has also
been echoed by some experts in the field like Thomas Hughes,
the executive director of the UK
rights group article 19 who said
"Compelling social media platforms
"like Facebook to automatically remove
"posts regardless of their context
"will infringe our right to free speech
"and restrict the information we see online."
And adding "this would set a dangerous
"precedent where the courts of one country
"can control what internet users
"in another country can see.
"This could be open to abuse,
"particularly by regimes with weak human rights records."
Which I mean, regarding that last point,
an analyst at the Center for Data Innovation
told the Financial Times that the ruling
could open a Pandora's Box.
I mean hell, the note of enabling bad actors,
yesterday we talked about that Singapore fake news law.
How can you speak truth to power
when the power gets to just go yeah,
I think that's fake news.
Also, this horrible, destructive decision
can now expand past our borders.
But yeah, ultimately that's where
we are with this right now, I mean,
this decision can't be appealed
because once again, it is the highest court,
and it's going to be interesting to see
how Facebook and other social media companies
continued to react, what will we see removed?
You know, we have this decision,
but what we see is the true scope.
But with this story, of course,
I'd love to know your thoughts on this.
And then let's talk about this controversial plan
coming out of Philadelphia to reduce opioid overdoses.
And this story actually goes back
to January of last year, we also have
a fantastic deep dive on this
on the Rogue Rocket channel that we posted last month.
The main point, last year Philly officials
announced that they plan to establish
the country's first safe-injection site.
And essentially what that would look like
is a space where people could use illegal opioids
while being supervised by medical staff.
And actually following that proposal,
a nonprofit called Safehouse stepped
in to spearhead the project.
And I do think it's important to note here
that while the United States doesn't
have any safe injection sites, we've actually
seen them popping up in places like Canada and Europe,
with researchers finding that those facilities
resulted in less overdoses and linked
drug users with treatment services.
Also in the case of infectious diseases, like HIV,
we've seen transmission rates drop.
And so of course, you have Safehouse
defending their proposed injection site with those stats.
All right, saying that the idea is
based on harm reduction tactics,
and that's kind of similar to what
we've seen with some cities and states
handing out clean needles for drug users,
but of course, a note there,
those decisions have also been extremely controversial.
For example, back in 2014,
then-governor of Indiana, Mike Pence refused
to lift a ban on sterile needle programs.
This, while one county in his state suffered
a massive HIV outbreak because
of opioid users sharing needles,
and they result in saying those programs
encouraged drug abuse, although ultimately
he did issue an executive order and then
signed another law in 2015, both of which
ended up allowing counties in the state
to distribute sterile needles.
My main point, if there was pushback
there and then around sterile needles,
we shouldn't be surprised if there was pushback here,
which, I mean, on that note, last year
in November, we saw the federal government
purging Safehouse to comply with federal law.
However, Safehouse continued with their plan,
and then we saw the government
filing a civil lawsuit back in February,
with William McSwain, the attorney representing
the eastern district of Pennsylvania saying
"this is in-your-face illegal activity
"using some of the most deadly,
"dangerous drugs that are on the streets.
"We have a responsibility to step in."
"It's saying Safehouse, we think this is illegal,
"stop what you're doing."
Right, and then essentially saying
that because you go to a Safehouse that
"doesn't mean that you're not
"going to overdose when you're not at the site."
Also that "it doesn't mean that there
"couldn't be other negative effects
"of having a site where more people are,
"for example, getting hooked on drugs
"or trying drugs because they think it's safe,
"or they think it's legitimate or they think it's legal.
"We don't attract people to go down this path
"of drug dependency that destroys their lives."
All right, and so a big part of their concern
and a part of their argument is kind
of the same as the clean needles argument,
that a safe injection site could normalize
and inadvertently encourage drug abuse,
with the government also saying
that a supervised injection site
would violate part of the Controlled Substances Act of 1980,
specifically a section widely
known as "The Crackhouse Statute."
Which makes it illegal to maintain spaces
to make, store, distribute, or use illegal drugs,
which is important because while Safehouse
didn't plan to make, store, or distribute drugs,
they would allow people to bring their own and use.
But on the other side of things,
Safehouse has argued that the statute
had originally been passed to crack
down on owners of drug dens or people
selling drugs out of their cars,
with the attorney for Safehouse saying
that the site wouldn't violate federal laws
because it's focus would be on saving lives
and encouraging people addicted to opioids to be treated,
which on that note, you had city officials
in Philadelphia estimating that
such a site could save 75 lives each year.
As far as the reason we're talking
about this today is that yesterday
we finally saw a federal judge rule on the matter,
and the judge cited in the favor of Safehouse,
saying in his decision, "the ultimate goal
"of Safehouse's proposed operation
"is to reduce drug use, not facilitate it,
"and accordingly, the statute does
"not prohibit Safehouse's proposed conduct."
Right, and so with that, the judge concluded
that the Crack House Statute wouldn't apply here,
and that because the context here
is significantly different, also,
because of this decision, the federal government
is expected to appeal, with McSwain saying,
"the Department of Justice remains committed
"to preventing illegal drug injection sites from opening.
"Today's opinion is merely the first step
"in a much longer legal process that will play out.
"This case is obviously far from over."
But still, we are where we are here,
a decision has been made, and that's why
it's expected that officials in other cities
like New York and Seattle have been watching closely.
Right, because the judge's decision here
could give them the precedence
to open up sites of their own,
some of which have actually already been proposed.
However, you also had U.S. Deputy Attorney General
Jeffrey Rosen warning those cities saying,
"any attempt to open illicit drug injection sites
"in other jurisdictions while this case
"is pending will continue to be met with immediate action."
Yeah, ultimately that's where we are with this right now.
It is gonna be interesting to see what happens from here.
With this story, I do wanna pass
the question off to you that
do you think that drug injection sites should be a thing?
Do you agree with the concerns that
this might encourage drug use or first time use?
What do you think, having a place
where someone can be safer, that's more controlled,
that's monitored, the possibility of funneling
sums and treatment services, is that better?
And so any and all thoughts on
this, I'd love to hear from you.
And that's where I'm going to end today's show,
and hey, if you like this video, hit us with a like.
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But with that said, of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been Philled in,
I love yo faces, and I'll see you next time.