- [Philip] This update to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse
just exposed an even bigger problem.
Andrew Tate took another desperate L.
We've got a middle school strip search scandal
over in Oklahoma,
Lineker versus the BBC,
abortion is soon to be the equivalent of homicide
in South Carolina.
We're gonna talk about all that and so much more
on your brand new revamped "Philip DeFranco Show."
So buckle up, hit that like button,
and let's just jump into it, starting with:
This was definitely one of the most requested stories
from you beautiful British bastards who watch the show.
And I get it, it's big news over there.
It also blends several stories together.
What I'm talking about is this controversy around
BBC sport host Gary Lineker,
and all that seems to stem from
the UK's controversial new bill
that cracks down on illegal migration,
which we actually covered last week.
It would deport almost all people who arrive in the country
on small boats, which often carry
asylum seekers who are led by human traffickers.
With the country's home secretary is saying in a video:
- This bill will mean that if you come here illegally,
you will not be able to stay.
You will be detained
and removed to your home country, if safe,
or a safe third country, like Rwanda.
- [Philip] But the United Nations has said that
this bill is a clear breach of international law,
and the UN was far from the only critic.
Gary Lineker, the host of
the BBC sport show "Match of the Day"
responded to that video of the home secretary
by saying, "Good heavens, this is beyond awful.
We take far fewer refugees
than other major European countries.
This is just an immeasurably cruel policy
directed at the most vulnerable people
in language that is not dissimilar to
that used by Germany in the '30s."
And those posts landed him in some hot water.
So much so, Lineker, who is reportedly
the highest paid presenter on BBC,
was suspended from his show
for breaking BBC's impartiality rules, with BBC apparently
discussing this decision with him and finding that
his comparison to Nazi Germany was unacceptable,
and also saying that he would be benched
until all parties could figure out how
he can express his views on social media
while remaining in line with
the broadcaster's impartiality rules.
With all that leading to BBC
facing tons and tons of backlash for this decision.
You had athletes and BBC presenters supporting Lineker
by refusing to appear on air,
accusing BBC of having a political bias
and suppressing free speech,
with this even forcing BBC Sport
to have to scrap a bunch of its weekend programming.
We also saw Greg Dyck, a media executive
and the former general director of BBC,
condemning the move, saying,
"the BBC has undermined its own credibility by doing this
because it looks like the perception out there
that the BBC has bowed to government pressure,"
and saying the impartiality policy is
really only meant to apply to news presenters,
not entertainment or sports personalities.
With all of that bringing us to the big update,
yesterday, BBC lifting Lineker's suspension.
Director General Tim Davies saying that
he is "a valued part of the BBC,"
and he "looks forward to him presenting our coverage
this coming weekend."
The BBC will also reportedly be launching a review
into its social media guidelines,
specifically as they apply to staffers
outside of news and current affairs.
And for his part, Lineker said
he's happy to have navigated through this,
thanking all his colleagues for their support,
but also adding,
"However difficult the last few days have been,
it simply doesn't compare to
having to flee your home from persecution or war
to seek refuge in a land far away.
It's heartwarming to have seen
the empathy towards their plight from so many of you."
And then later thanking Director General Tim Davie
and noting, "He has an almost impossible job
of keeping everybody happy."
And so in response to all this, there are plenty of people
that are happy that Lineker is back on the air,
but as the New York Times notes,
this debate has been polarizing for people
and conservatives think that BBC capitulated to him
over his star power.
And then, the bottom G just took a big L.
Or for those of you that are not chronically online,
that translates to
Andrew Tate just faced another loss in his legal battle.
Because today, we saw a Romanian court
deny his request to be released on bail.
And this, as a quick reminder,
Tate, his brother, and two other female suspects
have been in detention since December
as authorities investigate them over
human trafficking, rape, and organized crime allegations,
with Tate also repeatedly trying to appeal his arrest,
but the court has upheld it and continually extended it
with him currently slated to be detained
until at least March 29th.
Also notably, ahead of his court hearing today,
his Twitter account sent out more of
the kind of weird cryptic tweets that it's been sharing,
saying, "If you want a life people aspire for,
you need to be prepared to defend it."
Right? Kind of just a bunch of sayings that are
the bro versions of "live, laugh, love,"
and "be yourself, everyone's taken."
But anyways, the court reportedly said that
the request to have his custody replaced
with restricted release on bail
was inadmissible in principle.
And as expected, Tate wasn't happy with this,
with his spokesperson telling the Daily Mail
"We are disappointed in this outcome, as we had high hopes
to see Andrew reunited with his family.
His legal team will be appealing this decision
within the 48 hour timeframe."
And at the very least,
there should be a sprinkling of Tate News this week,
because in addition to that 48-hour appeal,
the court will rule on a similar request
for his brother tomorrow.
And then, the family of a former student
at Heartland Middle School in Oklahoma
is suing the district because
they say that the principal strip searched her,
and specifically accusing them of
intentional infliction of emotional distress,
negligence, sexual assault,
and violating the Fourth Amendment.
So let's talk details.
Back in May of 2021, the student was pulled into a room
with the principal, another student,
and the school resource officer.
This because the principal suspected
that she was carrying a vape,
which is when the principal allegedly told the student
to lift her shirt, exposing her stomach
and the top of her boxers underneath her pants,
with the principal then allegedly asking
what type of underwear the student was wearing
and telling her to lift her shirt and expose her bra.
And according to the lawsuit, no vape was found.
With the suit going on to say that
the principal should have known that
making the student expose her abdomen and undergarments
amounted to a strip search.
And notably, by Oklahoma law
and the school's district's policy,
staff can search students under reasonable suspicion,
but they're not allowed to strip search,
with the school policy reading:
"In no event shall a strip search of a student be allowed.
No student's clothing except cold weather outerwear
shall be removed prior to or during
the conduct of any warrantless search."
And they didn't have a warrant.
So the family is now suing the school
and looking for a minimum of $25,000 in damages.
With the family's attorney also saying
the student had already been searched
with a metal detector wand
and presented no threat,
and noting they did all of this
without contacting anybody's parents.
And going on to say, "Our goal is for people to understand
that your rights don't end at the door to a school."
But in the meantime, we'll have to wait to see what happens.
And as far as the girl,
her parents removed her from the district
and she's enrolled in an online program
as they look to a new school district.
And then, in a big update to
the Silicon Valley Bank collapse,
of course, the government had to step in.
With regulators announcing that
all the depositors for this now failed bank
would have access to their funds.
Not only to keep those people whole,
but also there was a general concern
that this was gonna cause more bank runs.
You know, fear is contagious.
And one of the ways we saw that happen yesterday
were bank stocks getting pummeled. Not all.
Right, the Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chases of the world
really didn't take that big of a hit,
but holy hell, first Republic Bank and Western Alliance Bank
took a beating.
But the news today, much, much brighter.
And this is possibly connected to
the Fed's bank term funding program,
which is absolutely huge for these banks
if they need to become liquid
because people are pulling out money
because, like we talked about,
the whole banking industry kind of just relies on
trust that it works.
And that trust seems to be there, at least for some,
because First Republica and Western Alliance,
holy hell, what a rebound.
Congrats to whoever the grabbed that falling knife
in the past 24 hours,
with the stocks as of recording jumping 57 and 45%.
But the situation is not all rainbows and sunshine
because one, we do need to see how things play out.
Just because we see something in the short term
doesn't mean long-term success.
And two, there's a chance there may be some repercussions
for the execs at SVB,
as there are now reports that the DOJ is going to
investigate them and some of their shady actions
prior to the bank's collapse.
But even with that,
there are still concerns from people that it won't be enough
to disincentivize bad banking behaviors
because of how the government stepped in here.
And part of the reason FDIC insurance is $250,000
is because the big people who have the big money,
they need to understand that
there's a risk where they put their money.
Whereas those who have under $250,000 should feel safe,
like, "Oh, okay, I should be covered, I'm small.
I'm small bananas," is that a phrase? I dunno.
But with the government making
massive public exceptions here,
does that train banks to go,
"Oh, we can really do whatever."
Every bank, no matter the size,
as long as you're kind of connected to a certain degree,
too big to fail.
But as far as what happens next,
we're gonna have to wait to see,
he said in a clip that will be used in a future documentary
to talk about the future crash.
Because if our systems have shown us anything,
it's not a matter of if it will fail, it's just when
and how we try to put the pieces back together.
And then it turns out that Rite Aid is a fantastic place
to get drugs you should not be allowed to get,
or at least that's what the Department of Justice is
alleging in their new lawsuit against Rite Aid,
claiming that between 2014 and 2019,
Rite Aid violated the Controlled Substances Act
and knowingly filled unlawful prescriptions
for controlled substances.
We're talking about prescriptions that
lacked good paper trails, were obviously fake,
or were clearly not for a legitimate medical purpose.
And an associate attorney general added that
Rite Aid filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions
that did not meet legal requirements.
And according to our complaint, Rite Aid pharmacists
repeatedly filled prescriptions for controlled substances
with obvious red flags,
and Rite Aid intentionally deleted internal notes
about suspicious prescribers.
And adding that this opened the floodgates
for opioids and other controlled substances.
Also, looking into what they called the obvious red flags,
wow, they reportedly ignored notes on accounts
that said things like "cash-only pill mill."
So at the very least you know some people working there
had an idea that things were fishy with some customers.
Rite Aid's also accused of submitting
false prescription claims to healthcare programs.
These are massive allegations because
this is one of the nation's largest pharmacy chains.
And this, I mean, during a time where
over half a million Americans have died
during the opioid crisis.
But like with so many stories like this,
who's actually gonna be held accountable, right?
The company Rite Aid isn't a person,
they can't go to prison.
So based off of how things like this often play out, what?
Worst case scenario, Rite Aid has to pay
a yet unknown amount in fines.
Ooh, so scary. That'll teach 'em.
And then, Uber and Lyft just got massive wins
and this because a California appeals court
ruled that Proposition 22,
which allowed companies like Uber and Lyft
to label their drivers
independent contractors rather than employees
can remain a law.
An absolutely massive win for the companies
considering last year California superior court judge
said it's unenforceable.
But of course, this isn't the end of the road,
with opponents of the proposition saying
they're going to take it to the state Supreme Court.
Chick-fil-A is looking to bring their off-on-Sunday chicken
over to Asia and Europe,
with it being reported that Chick-fil-A,
which is the third largest fast food chain in America,
has a $1 billion international expansion plan.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is
buying Seagan for $43 billion,
and it's all about cancer.
And this because, as the AP reports,
while cancer treatments brought in $12 billion in revenue
for Pfizer last year,
they've only marketed
a couple first-generation ADC treatments,
which are treatments that, unlike chemotherapy,
target and kill cancerous cells
while leaving good cells alive.
But Seagan has four treatments on the market already,
and it also has a pipeline of drugs under development
that includes potential treatments for
a form of lung cancer and advanced breast cancer.
And it appears Pfizer was able to easily do this
because they're absolutely flush with cash right now.
Bring in a hundred billion last year
in large part due to the Covid 19 vaccine
and treatments like Paxlovid.
We've got good news for home buyers.
Could be better, but it's good.
The average 30-year mortgage has dropped
from 7.5% to around 6.57% now.
Still miles away from pandemic mortgage rates,
but hey, better's better.
And then selfishly, the final bit of business news is that
I'm clearing out some stock.
If you go to beautifulbastard.com
from now to the end of Friday,
I'm doing a good vibes 50% off sale.
This extends to the posters
I just put back up after several months,
as well as our holographic water bottles and journals.
Because honestly, bitch, you need to hydrate
and you need to write out your feelings and-or plans.
And whether you buy those things from me or somewhere else,
I stand by that.
Take time outta your day
to drink some water and write some shit down.
It's a game changer, trust me.
Yeah, 50% off select items over at beautifulbastard.com.
And then, it can be hard
keeping up with working out consistently,
and exercising on your own has its own host of challenges,
which is why I wanna thank
the fantastic sponsor of today's show, CoPilot.
CoPilot is the doable way
to start and stick with your fitness goals.
Between my coach and the app,
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I've personally been working with my coach Devin
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And for me, it's that CoPilot difference.
Each day is different, and I appreciate it's about
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And I love having the flexibility,
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When I started on this journey by myself,
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And then:
- No more drilling on federal lands. Period.
Period, period, period. (audience applauding)
- [Narrator] One debt to society later.
- The Biden administration has officially approved
a controversial oil drilling project in Alaska,
known as Willow.
- The Climate Hawk himself is defying
the environmental activists who helped get him elected,
with the massive Willow oil project owned by Conoco Phillips
given the green light yesterday.
It's expected to produce
180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak,
which also would result in 263 million tons of
greenhouse gas emissions over three decades,
which to give some context,
that's roughly equivalent to 1.7 million cars,
though it's still a tiny fraction of total US emissions.
And all this comes despite a desperate 11th hour push
by green groups to protest the plan,
with a viral Stop Willow hashtag on TikTok
and over a million letters sent to the White House,
with them pointing out that
the International Energy Agency says that
new investments in oil and gas drilling must be halted now
if we wanna reach net zero emissions by 2050.
And we saw a climate scientist adding, "At some point,
we have to leave oil and gas and coal in the ground.
And for me, that some point is now."
But others argue that instead of attacking supply,
policymakers should focus on reducing demand,
saying if domestic projects like Willow are just stopped,
then oil refiners will simply look overseas for their crude.
And as far as that goes, I mean,
we've barely put a dent in demand,
with electric vehicles expected to displace
less than 3% of global oil consumption by 2030.
So you've also got some Alaskans supporting Willow
because they say, "Look, we need these jobs,"
thousands of which will be created
as well as the billions of dollars in revenue, right?
Because oil is the lifeblood of Alaska's economy,
and with production down since the 1980s,
state lawmakers from both parties have backed the project.
Though as far as the indigenous population, they are split,
with some favoring the economic benefits
and others fearing that ecological damage
will destroy their way of life.
And they're pointing to coastal erosion
threatening their villages, as well as thinning sea ice,
melting permafrost, and wildfires.
Plus, I mean, you got the deaths of
countless birds, fish, and other animals
that provide nutrition to many rural communities.
So you have the Biden administration finding itself
stuck between the short term economic needs of Americans
and the long-term climate crisis threatening the Earth,
with Biden initially landing on one side of that dilemma,
suspending all new oil and gas leases
at the start of this term.
But last year, he went "nevermind" regarding that policy
in exchange for Joe Manchin's support on a climate bill.
And so now he plans to sell
more than 73 million acres of oil and gas leases
in the Gulf of Mexico this month,
as well as 350,000 acres of onshore leases in Wyoming,
New Mexico, Montana, and other states in May and June.
Though, as a concession to activists,
he paired the approval of Willow with a policy
making the entire US Arctic Ocean
off limits to future leasing,
though that has been met with its fair share of eye rolls
since really there hasn't been a massive demand
for that specific area.
And then, South Carolina pro-birthers
are so pro-birth, they're pro-death.
With South Carolina House Republicans pushing forth
some legislation that they call
the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023.
What it would do is change
the legal definition of "person" under state law
to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception.
So as a result, the fertilized egg would get
equal protection under the state's homicide laws.
So getting an abortion would be considered
the same as committing a homicide,
which key thing, in South Carolina,
is punishable by the death penalty.
Now, the proposal does make the small exception for
when a person gets an abortion because
they are at risk of imminent death or great bodily injury.
And the Republican who introduced the bill
State Representative Rob Harris told reporters
there's also a duress defense for women who are
pressured or threatened to have an abortion.
But also, very notably, that's it.
The bill does not have any exceptions
for things like rape or incest.
And understand, this is not a proposal from
a lone extremist Republican.
Reportedly, this bill has earned 21 co-sponsors,
though two of those have since asked
for their names to be removed from the bill.
And very important, this is not the first time
legislation like this has been proposed.
Similar bills have also been introduced
in Arkansas, Texas, and Kentucky,
with all of those states having the death penalty
and all of those bills establishing that
life begins at conception
and specifically reference homicide charges for abortion.
"Under his eye." Moving on.
And then, when you really think about it,
the January 6th insurrection
was actually Mike Pence's fault, right?
He was the one who refused to
overturn the results of the election.
So that is an absolutely insane argument,
which is why it makes sense that
that's what Trump is literally arguing right now, right?
According to the Washington Post,
while speaking to reporters on his plane yesterday,
Trump said that the violence at the Capitol
would not have happened if Pence had just listened to him
and rejected the electoral college votes in Congress.
Right? 'Cause it definitely was in Trump's fault.
He didn't spend months lying
and inciting his supporters to violence, right?
He didn't rally a mob of people,
some of whom were carrying guns and weapons around DC.
Things just wouldn't have been bad
if it hadn't been for Pence.
Why didn't he just undermine democracy like a good boy?
And Trump really leveling up his gaslighting by saying,
"Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures,
they wouldn't have had a problem with January 6th.
So in many ways you can blame him for January 6th.
Had he sent them back
to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states,
I believe, number one,
you would've had a different outcome.
But I also believe you wouldn't have had
'January 6th,' as we call it."
Man, sometimes I can't tell if he believes the bullshit
or, like, he knows that it's all lies.
But also, as far as why he was even talking about this,
he made those comments in response to
what honestly is the strongest rebuke Pence has ever made
of his former running mate,
saying during an event over the weekend,
"President Trump was wrong.
I had no right to overturn the election,
and his reckless words endangered my family
and everyone at the Capitol that day,
and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable."
But also, I gotta say, I think this highlights
the stranglehold that Trump has
on the conservative base right now.
It's taken Pence so long to be like,
"It's not cool that you tried to get people to kill me.
That's not super dope fresh, Donald."
Also, again, this is not a power
that the vice president even has.
He does not have the power
to single-handedly reject electoral votes
and send them back to state legislatures.
Pence, at the very least, has repeated that
time and time again since January 6th.
It's also something that's been
widely backed by legal experts.
And in December, Congress passed
a bipartisan bill that clarified
that the vice president does not have the authority
to overturn the results of an election.
Because a very notable thing here,
that legislation literally did not change anything
about the existing law.
It just made it even more clear.
Though the counterpoint to that,
to anyone who has looked at most of history,
people who wanna undo democracy
don't follow every single rule.
You know how they say possession is nine-tenths of the law?
Yeah, it translates here.
If you get enough people to disregard the rules
and force through some change,
shit just happens.
Which is why it's important to remember that
Donald Trump is a very real threat.
Any of this reporting about
how the GOP is just gonna treat him like a sideshow,
he shouldn't be taken seriously,
come on, really?
You learned zero point zero things
from the 2016 election cycle?
You're just gonna disregard things like
an Emerson poll last month finding that 72% of Republicans
with a high school degree or less education support him?
That he's still generally and strongly leading
other potential rivals in the race like Ron DeSantis?
Which, I mean, by the way,
if they actually wanna have someone that's not Trump,
they're gonna need to quickly get behind one person
rather than a whole field of people.
Because in any sort of Republican primary situation,
you should expect a locked down Trump vote
and something to be split among everyone else.
And then, America's number one baby.
I used to say shit like that
all the time when I was growing up.
And then you realize like,
"Oh, we're not number one in everything, or a lot.
Oh, okay, we're number one in things like school shootings."
And as it turns out, with the news we're seeing today,
we also like to export our murder,
with new numbers showing the United States of America
absolutely controls global arms exports.
And like, it's not even close.
Number one and number two have been
the United States and Russia.
And in 2013 to 2017,
the United States did 33% of global arms exports,
Russia at 22%.
Like Dominic Toretto, we put that bitch in another gear
between 2018 and 2022,
jumping to 40% of global arms exports.
And Russia actually got knocked back to 16%.
Though I will say, it'll be interesting to see
how these numbers change over the next few years
considering the war in Ukraine right now.
There's this constant flow of arms to the country
and it's changing the international landscape
as far as weapons.
And as far as Russia, those numbers are probably gonna drop
since instead of exporting they're using.
And then, more than five months
since the killing of Mahsa Amini set Iran ablaze,
those fires are finally being extinguished because
with the protests largely going quiet in recent weeks,
the government's apparently comfortable enough
to release people from prison,
with the judiciary chief announcing that
82,000 people have been pardoned so far, including
22,000 who were arrested during the demonstrations.
Though he didn't specify when the pardons occurred,
so it's not clear whether these include
the tens of thousands of people and protestors
state media said were pardoned back in February.
But he did note that anyone who committed
what they said was theft or violent crimes
were not pardoned,
suggesting the total number of arrested
could be much larger.
And that's notable because this conservative number
is already above the 19,700 people
human rights activists previously estimated,
which means, if the pattern holds,
the current estimate of 530 deaths could be low as well
since the government
hasn't released fatality numbers in months.
And this as not a single state official
has been held accountable for
the brutal repression of protestors.
But that is where today's show ends.
Thank you for being a part of
another one of my daily dives into the news.
Also, if you made it to this point,
let me know your thoughts on the
kind of the same but slightly different format of the show.
I'm trying to make it your one-stop shop for news
rather than just a few stories.
You seemed to love it yesterday,
but I'm an ask twice kind of guy.
With that said, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in.
I love yo' faces and I'll see you tomorrow.