- Free Billie Eilish!
Granted, I don't know what
we're exactly trying to free her from,
but that's exactly what a man wrote on a massive sign
before climbing the KTLA news tower in Los Angeles
and displaying that message for the city.
With officials telling KTLA that this was a protestor,
but the outlet also noting that the goal,
or point of his protest was unclear,
especially 'cause in addition to the Billie Eilish stuff,
he had a sign that, on the back, said,
"MK Ultra sex slaves, Donald Marshall clones."
Though now having said those words out loud,
they sound like the key trigger word
to activate sleeper agents.
But also, that's not where the bizarre stuff ends,
with one KTLA reporter tweeting
that, at one point, the man brought out a guitar
and started playing while on the tower.
And while part of Sunset Boulevard had to be closed
to handle the situation, luckily, everyone's okay.
With the man, after three hours,
finally coming down on his own, around 9:30 PM,
he's been arrested and is facing trespassing charges.
Yeah, another normal day in Los Angeles.
And then, this Tucker Carlson news is crazy.
With reportedly eight sources,
either at or close to Fox News, telling "Rolling Stone"
that executives have a dossier of dirt on Carlson
that they are willing and ready to use if they have to.
And it now being reported that Carlson and the network split
on what's been described as the worst
and messiest possible terms.
And apparently, the head
of Fox News's corporate communications department
has an oppo file on Carlson,
which is said to include workplace conduct complaints,
disparaging comments about management,
and toxic workplace allegations.
And many of those, appearing to be consistent with a lawsuit
Carlson is separately facing from a former producer.
And while a Fox News spokesperson
officially denied the existence of this file,
many sources say, "Oh no, it's real,
and the comms executive will never be shy
about using these things if they need to."
And claiming that the exec actually has a dirt file
on all talent to screw with them if needed.
And one source describing the tactic as classic Fox.
"The Wall Street Journal" also reporting
that there were concerns that Carlson
had come to believe himself bigger than the network,
which is apparently a cardinal sin at Fox.
Also saying that a slew of private communications
that Carlson sent bashing Fox News management
led to his departure.
Though I will say, this is where I disagree
with a number of people
who have commented on this situation.
I personally believe that Carlson
is, in fact, bigger than Fox News.
I understand that his time slot
is a massive part of his come up in recent years,
but there are a few things at play.
One, a big part of Tucker's narrative
is always that it's him versus the mainstream.
And with this split,
there are gonna be a lot of Carlson fans
that go, "Oh, wait, Fox News is the mainstream."
Also, depending on the specifics
of this alleged oppo research,
I think there's a genuine question
of how much of it matters to Carlson fans, right?
People will believe what they want to believe.
Prime example, Fox News and Fox News hosts,
knowingly platformed false election theft claims,
with the wildest private texts from hosts, like Carlson,
seeing the light of day.
Fox News, in just this one defamation case,
having to settle for just under $800 million
because of everything that happened.
And a huge chunk of the Fox News fans
were like, "No, you didn't lie to us."
What? Make it make sense.
So all that's to say, it's my belief
that he could probably weather any storm here,
and make any competitor out there
an immediate mainstream competitor,
or just do his own independent thing, and it be massive.
And then, let's talk about this super weird
and messy Steven Crowder situation
that took over a portion of the internet yesterday.
He's a big right-wing talking head.
He's recently made news
'cause there's been some, like, conservative in-fighting
between he and people over at The Daily Wire,
as well as he recently went after Mister Beast,
pushing the trans agenda on young children
because he just has a trans friend.
And while in the conservative sphere,
there was a lot more of the focus
being on Crowder versus Candace Owens.
And that's because, on his podcast, Crowder talks about
how he's been dealing with the divorce since 2021,
saying he kept it private, but people in positions of power
knew that this was happening,
with him alluding to extortion
and threats about exposing that information,
then playing a clip of Candace Owens speaking about him.
There, she seems to question his Christianity,
says that he's going through a lot,
says we should pray for him.
And then you had Owens uploading a video
titled, "Steven Crowder Accused Me Of Extortion,"
saying he always paints himself as the victim,
saying no one's threatened him
or made demands behind closed doors,
saying Crowder sent her a flirty Instagram DM
on midterm election night that she didn't respond to,
saying after that, he began his attacks on The Daily Wire,
and concluding that the divorce
is why he's spiraling and acting erratic.
She then sends Crowder a cease and desist,
demanding a full retraction,
and then invites Crowder's wife on her show.
So with all of that, I gotta say,
I don't care about that part, let 'em fight it out.
But for me, what was the most interesting
was the insight that it gave
on what he, and people like him,
think should be legal or not,
with Crowder very much seemingly not a fan of the law.
- My then wife decided
that she didn't want to be married anymore.
And in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted.
And I still believe that children need a mom and a dad,
and that divorce is horrible.
But in today's legal system, my beliefs don't matter.
In Texas, divorce is permitted
when one party wants it, period.
And she wanted something else, for her life.
That's not my choice. She simply wanted out.
And the law says that that's how it works.
That's no one's fault but my own, in that I picked wrong.
- And the focus on that felt very weird, right?
Because, to be clear, you should only need one party
to get out of a marriage, to get out of a marriage.
Anything other than that sounds like,
or rhymes with, a hostage situation.
The person that you marry, man or woman,
is not an object that you own.
I think that it's especially important
because when you get into a relationship,
and when you get married,
it's just a matter of time before people change.
Sometimes people change in a way they can do it together,
in a complementary way, and sometimes, not the case.
A marriage should only work if both people want in, period.
And then, Ezra Miller has got people fucked up right now
'cause that new "Flash" movie's getting tons of praise,
and with that, a ton of backlash, right?
So the movie doesn't actually come out 'til June,
but it was screened at CinemaCon
for a select audience that included theater owners,
and the reactions have been widely positive.
One saying, "It's got heart, it's got soul.
It's going to be big."
A report saying that the audience overall seemed to love it,
some even crying by the end.
And that's not even because Ezra Miller assaulted them
during the screening.
With Warner Bros and DC higher ups unsurprisingly,
but certainly boldly, touting it
as one of the greatest superhero films of all time.
Notably, the film's director, Andy Muschietti,
specifically praising Ezra Miller
as, "one of the best actors I've ever worked with."
But all this, in the face of Ezra,
let's call it, being tangled in a plethora of controversies
over the past couple of years.
When I say plethora,
I mean, honestly, it would take like a day
to fully explain every single arrest,
every accusation, every outburst.
But, some of the most notable altercations
include a 2020 video
where Ezra appears to be choking a woman in Iceland,
getting arrested in Hawaii for harassment
and disorderly conduct in March of 2022,
then getting arrested in the state
over assault just a few weeks later.
Also, later that summer, there were accusations
that Ezra was housing a woman and her child
on a farm in Vermont,
which was also later the subject of an investigation,
with the state requesting emergency care orders.
There's also been grooming accusations against Ezra as well.
And again, I've barely touched on half of it here.
Now with all this, "People" magazine reported
that "The Flash" movie was mostly completed
before most of the stories broke.
Ezra also released a statement last year,
claiming they're suffering complex mental health issues,
and have begun ongoing treatment,
and saying they're committed to doing the necessary work.
But given everything, and again,
we haven't even covered everything,
you have many people taken aback at how openly DC execs
and so many people are praising Ezra.
With reactions like, "No amount of talent
excuses terrible behaviors.
No matter how much money this movie makes,
Ezra Miller must be recasted."
And, "Ezra Miller should not be rehabilitated
by box office numbers."
And, "So we're just gonna ignore the fact
that Ezra Miller is an abuser because some of you
wanna see a 70-year-old man in a Batman suit."
Others also arguing
there's been vastly different reactions and treatments,
depending on who the star in trouble is,
with people pointing to Jonathan Majors, for example,
a Marvel actor arrested on assault charges,
with Majors having been dropped
by his manager and publicist,
his future in the Marvel films looking unclear.
And so you have people comparing that to Ezra,
who has a dozen allegations,
and is getting the superhero treatment at CinemaCon,
which is why, with this story,
and the arguments that we've seen,
I'd love to know your thoughts on this.
And then, gaming's biggest merger is in massive trouble,
with UK authorities now officially blocking
the $69 billion merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard,
citing concerns over monopolizing the cloud gaming space.
And the Competition and Markets Authority stating
that Microsoft already controls 60 to 70% of the space,
and the merger would just make it worse.
Also adding that Microsoft would have the incentive
to withhold Activision Blizzard games from competitors,
and substantially weaken competition
in this important growing market.
Right, so it really seems like Microsoft's efforts
to appease regulators, that's not working,
'cause they've been signing deals,
trying to ensure that Activision Blizzard games
won't be Microsoft exclusives,
which I imagine, is also why Microsoft has said
that they will appeal this decision,
saying that the authorities
have a flawed understanding of the market
and the way that relevant cloud technology actually works.
So there, according to experts,
an appeal is very unlikely to win,
as they almost literally never have
in British antitrust cases.
Also, as far as Activision's response,
they weren't quite as calm, with the company saying
that this decision contradicts the ambitions of the UK
to become an attractive country
to build technology businesses.
And adding that this is a disservice to UK citizens
who face increasingly dire economic prospects,
and that the UK is clearly closed for business.
And this, as ever since leaving the EU,
British regulators have increasingly flexed their muscles.
Right, just last year, for example,
they blocked Meta's acquisition of Giphy,
and forced a sell off.
But the next question we have to ask
is if Microsoft somehow wins the appeal,
or they make a deal, or they decide to just leave the UK,
what happens then?
Well, they'd still have some big hurdles to cross, right?
'Cause while the EU, last month, suggested
that they are actually open to the merger,
America isn't quite as convinced.
Regulators here have already sued to block it,
citing similar concerns as the UK.
Though possibly in the most important gaming news,
I am very likely going to be very pasty in the near future,
'cause Tears of the Kingdom and Star Wars Jedi Survivor,
about to be released, getting rave reviews.
I'm so excited.
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And then, so some people say there's this new space race
between the US and China,
but what if that turned into a space war?
Because according to recently-leaked Discord documents,
that's the fear American intelligence analysts
are discussing behind closed doors right now.
With them warning that Beijing
has developed significant capabilities to, quote,
"hold key US and Allied space assets at risk,
and would deploy them in any conflict with Taiwan."
And adding that, in such a conflict,
China would probably jam communications
and intelligence satellites that can see through clouds,
degrade or destroy space ground networks,
and destroy ballistic missile early warning satellites.
This also coming just a week after Space Force General,
Chance Saltzman, said that the Pentagon
is seeing an incredibly sophisticated array of threats.
These including spacecraft
that can grapple other satellites,
lasers that can dazzle them, cyber attacks,
and even nesting dolls, or satellites that release others
that spread out and track adversary spacecraft.
Whereas Russia, by contrast,
is just watching its famed space program fade away.
With a report noting that it will very likely diminish
over the next decade, as it suffers US sanctions,
and loses business to SpaceX and other competitors, right?
Because while NASA used to pay 75 to $85 million per seat
aboard Russian rockets,
it's been increasingly turning to SpaceX instead,
with foreign customers having canceled planned launches
on Russian rockets, eliminating a key revenue stream
for Moscow's space agency, right?
So as Russia becomes a smaller player in the space game,
the stage is being set
for confrontation between the US and China.
And y'all, Beijing is moving fast.
With Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall saying
that China has doubled its number of satellites
since the Space Force was established three years ago.
And adding that it now has more than 700 in operation,
with about 250 used for intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance.
Now while the field of space weapons
is still in its infancies, we have seen countries
test some relatively crude technologies in recent years.
Like in 2019 and 2021, we saw India and Russia fire missiles
at two of their own satellites,
blowing them up, creating huge debris fields,
that even forced the ISS crew to hunker down.
And if we look further back, in 2007,
China did the same to one of its own,
followed, the next year, by the United States.
But aside from land to space missiles,
military strategists have also proposed
attacking ground stations,
which could knock out multiple satellites at once,
rather than trying to hit each one individually.
Though that could also directly kill people,
and would probably be seen as more escalatory.
Though not nearly as escalatory
as detonating a nuclear bomb in space,
which would create huge waves of radiation,
and an electromagnetic pulse that wouldn't discriminate
between what it would affect in a given area.
And while thankfully, the use of nuclear weapons
is banned in space under a 1963 partial test ban treaty,
China, notably, is not a signatory.
And notably, some policy makers believe
that China, perhaps, rightly views space
as the soft underbelly of the US empire.
Though that's also been changing in recent years, right?
China has expanded its presence in space,
with a new space station,
and a historic trip to the far side of the moon.
You got both China and the US competing
to put equipment on the lunar south pole,
where, notably, water from ice might provide the ingredients
of hydrogen and oxygen to make propellant
for springboard missions to Mars and deep space.
Though notably, not all space activities
are militaristic, or even governmental.
A satellite serves civilian purposes too,
such as GPS, internet, and weather tracking.
The global space economy was valued
at almost $500 billion in 2021,
with that projected to hit 1.25 trillion by 2030.
And, of the nearly 25,000 satellites expected to launch
in the next decade, over 70% will be commercial.
So policy makers have been debating
whether these private assets are valid targets,
especially since SpaceX deployed its Starlink satellites
in Ukraine to help soldiers on the frontline.
And so, for Russia, the answer's been pretty clear,
as it's been targeting Elon's toys
with electronic and cyber warfare.
But also, the US is very likely gonna have
to grapple with that question as well, with Beijing, right?
Given how Chinese private companies
are often closely entwined with the government and military.
Though arguably, the same could be said about the US,
where the Pentagon plans
to increasingly rely on private corporations
for rockets that get its military assets into space,
as well as for on-orbit services,
such as refueling and repairing spacecraft.
And then, you need to just stay poor.
That's essentially what the chief economist
at the Bank of England's telling the Brits right now.
With you Huw Pill going on a podcast
for Columbia Law School, and saying.
- Somehow in the UK, someone needs to accept
that they're worse off,
and stop trying to maintain their real spending power
by bidding up prices, whether higher wages,
or passing the energy costs towards customers.
- Right, the cost of goods goes up,
so workers wanna be paid more
to keep their relative purchasing power the same.
Then, as labor costs go up,
businesses raise their prices to keep their margins,
causing workers' purchasing power to go down.
So there's this spiral that Pill thinks
is because there was a reluctance to accept
that things are rough economically in the UK right now.
And as you might expect,
those comments received a lot of backlash,
with workers pissed, saying, "So you just want us
to be okay with everything being expensive?"
Even while the Federation of Small Businesses was angry
because he pinned the blame on them
reacting to the labor cost increases
and calling Pill out of touch,
and claiming that the real issue
is that the cost of raw goods and energy has skyrocketed.
Arguing that if they didn't pass the prices on to consumers,
they'd all go out of business.
Though very important, not everyone disagreed
with Pill's basic premise.
But even there, you had people saying, you know,
Pill could probably learn a lesson here,
that even if you are right,
no one wants to listen to someone being an asshole about it.
And then, y'all, marijuana is just green gold at this point.
With a new report just coming out,
estimating that there were $30 billion
in legal cannabis purchases, just last year.
And what really highlights how massive this industry is,
and how big it's going to get,
is legal marijuana's not even available in many states.
Like, to give you a comparison, do you like chocolate?
I fuckin' love chocolate.
I'd do some questionable things
for a box of Entenmann's donuts.
Americans bought $10 billion more
in cannabis than chocolate,
with it even approaching the tobacco industry,
which has been shrinking,
and is now in the $50 billion range.
And it's expected that the marijuana industry
is gonna grow past that by 2028.
And remember, there's a lot of things happening
with the money at play here.
With, just to give one example, in Q4 of 2022,
California reported that cannabis excise tax and sales tax
brought in $221 million in tax revenue.
And that's not even including taxes made
by local municipalities either.
And then, Ron DeSantis just keeps grabbing L
after avoidable L in this whole bullshit battle with Disney.
With the latest news being
that Disney has now escalated this ongoing feud,
and is suing DeSantis, the board he appointed,
and other state officials, for a relentless campaign
to weaponize government power.
And the suit specifically accusing DeSantis
of personally orchestrating, at every step,
a targeted campaign of government retaliation
as punishment for Disney's protected speech.
And adding that this now
threatens Disney's business operations,
jeopardizes its economic future in the region,
and violates its constitutional rights.
But Disney also painting this as a last resort,
saying, "Disney regrets that it has come to this.
But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution,
the company is left with no choice
but to file this lawsuit."
And specifically, the company is asking that the court rule
that DeSantis' efforts to revoke Disney's special tax status
and exercise control over the district
violate a number of federal laws,
including the First Amendment.
Now, as far as how DeSantis has responded,
a spokesperson said that his office is unaware
of any legal right that a company has
to operate its own government
or maintain special privileges not held
by other businesses in the state,
and claiming that this lawsuit
is yet another unfortunate example
of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters,
and operate outside the bounds of the law.
And then, at a time where trust in the Supreme Court
is so incredibly low, we're seeing a pair of senators
now rolling out a bipartisan bill
aimed at requiring the Supreme Court
to adopt a code of conduct.
Right, the proposal would direct the high court
to develop its own code of conduct
in order to preserve the separation of powers,
and publish the code publicly on its website.
It would also mandate that the court name a person
to handle complaints and violations,
as well as give the court the power
to initiate investigations into justices or staff
that may have violated federal laws or codes of conduct,
or otherwise affected the administration of justice.
And the bill sponsors arguing that this is necessary
to bring the high court in line
with the same accountability and transparency
that literally everyone else is subject to, right?
Noting that these kinds of rules literally apply
to all other federal judges,
and both the two other branches of government
already have codes of conduct.
And while we've seen calls for this in the past,
those demands have been renewed in recent weeks,
especially after that absolute bombshell ProPublica report
that we talked about on the show,
that revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas
had been accepting incredibly expensive luxury gifts
from a Republican mega donor over the past two decades
without disclosing them.
But also, it's not just Thomas.
Yesterday, Politico reported
that just days after being appointed to the high court,
Justice Neil Gorsuch sold property
to the chief executive of a huge law firm
that regularly has business before the court,
but he didn't disclose the buyer's identity.
And while notably, experts say
that is not technically a violation of the law,
it still emphasizes the need for reform.
But, in the least shocking news ever,
the justices have been very resistant,
with Chief Justice John Roberts, yesterday,
declining a request by the Senate Judiciary Committee
to testify in a hearing
on imposing ethics rules for the Supreme Court.
Roberts arguing that it would be exceedingly rare
for a chief justice to testify before the Senate,
implying that it may violate the separation of powers.
Also attaching a statement signed by all nine justices,
asserting that their current ethics rules
on gifts, travel, and other financial disclosures,
were just fine and dandy.
But also, with that, you have the Democratic Chair
of the Judiciary Committee hitting back, saying,
"Make no mistake, Supreme Court ethics reform must happen
when the court participates in the process or not.
It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility
to establish an enforceable code of ethics
for the Supreme Court."
And that is all the news you need to know today.
My name is Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.