- Sup, you beautiful bastards?
Welcome back to "The Philip DeFranco Show."
I hope you're having a good one.
I am having an uncharacteristically great day,
really feeling myself.
Maybe part of the reason
why I'm giving you this double XL PDS.
I think we're clocking it at over 18 minutes.
So if you like those big ones
and you want big ones on the daily,
hit that Like button and let's just jump into it.
Hey, y'all, the first thing
that we're gonna talk about today
is Adidas hitting a hornet's nest yesterday.
And personally, I loved it.
So yesterday, the company unveiled this new ad,
that I can't actually show you
because this platform isn't okay with this sort of thing.
And that is because they featured many images
of women's uncovered breasts with the caption,
"We believe women's breasts, in all shapes and sizes,
deserve support and comfort.
Which is why our new sports bra range contains 43 styles,
so everyone can find the right fit for them."
And for a decent chunk of people,
the sudden appearance of 25 pairs of breasts
on their timeline was too much to handle.
The tweet drawing a ton of backlash.
With some wondering, "Why are you showing uncovered breasts?
Why don't you actually show the bras?"
Although, clicking the link does actually do that.
And Adidas did eventually release a video
highlighting the bras.
You know, one of the things with the story,
a part of the reaction,
is people going, "Hey, would you do the same for men?"
With people leaving comments Like,
"Would you do this with men's genitals?
Is this ad directed towards men?
Women already know what shapes, sizes,
colors breasts come in."
But to that, I would argue,
that is not a one-to-one comparison.
Or the opposite of a dick and balls would be a vagina.
And personally, I feel like movements and moments like this,
are a good step towards removing the sexual stigma
around breasts, right?
I mean, hell, pretty much everywhere
they tried to post this ad, it was removed, except Twitter.
And that's because most of our society,
like most of these social media platforms,
see men's chest and they can be shown,
there's no issue there,
but women's are automatically assumed to be sexual,
despite being essentially the same thing.
With the only difference being that women
are essentially magic,
they can feed a small child with them.
And here's the thing, if you have an issue with this,
I'm not gonna try and villainize you.
I understand that having this take,
a lot of you aren't going to agree with me.
It can take a long time to unlearn the things
that society kind of like, drills into us.
But, yeah, I guess the main point of the story is,
I just think it's stupid that I can do this and it's fine,
but if a woman did it, bye-bye.
And then let's talk about this Dave Chappelle scandal
and pylon.
And I mean, there have been a lot of claims,
a lot of potential misinformation,
maybe some just missing information,
all spreading a over the past 24 hours.
And in an attempt to break this down,
let's start with the core of the story.
You have Dave Chappelle in his hometown
of Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Which Chappelle is actually featured and showcased
in a recent documentary he did,
showing the town during the pandemic,
showing how it struggled and survived.
And it's been known for a while,
that he's planning on establishing two businesses there,
a restaurant and a comedy club.
But he recently threatened to pull those businesses
over a recent development plan.
And some background here
so I don't just kind of show you a video and you're like,
"Okay, I don't understand the context."
According to the Dayton Daily News,
the Village of Yellow Springs and Oberer homes
were working on a plan
that included a variety of housing structures,
this including affordable housing,
alongside single-family homes in a 53-acre area.
And more specifically, the plan would've included
64 single-family homes, 52 duplexes and 24 townhomes,
along with 1.75 acres being donated
so affordable housing could be built later.
But per the Dayton Daily News,
tons of residents actually had issues with the plan,
including traffic concerns,
issues with the proposed homeowner's association,
water management, and more.
With one resident telling the outlet,
he felt like this was two projects instead of one,
arguing that it's, quote, "important to kind of understand
the framing and also understand how those products
attract different home buyers."
And among those critics, you had Chappelle,
who expressed his concerns back in December.
But the reason this blew up now
is because of a recent video
where he threatened to pull his two businesses
from the town over the plant.
There was a council meeting this week.
You can find the video on YouTube.
It's about two hours long,
but Chappelle's section is essentially this.
- Hi. I'm Dave Chappelle.
I just wanna say,
and Marianne, I can talk to you about this privately,
I don't know why the Village Council
would be afraid of litigation
from a $24 million-a-year company
while it's out a $65 million-a-year company.
I cannot believe you would make me audition for you.
You look like clowns.
I am not bluffing.
I will take it all off the table.
That's all. Thank you.
- All right, so Chappelle, very blunt.
He calls them clowns. He threatens to take out his money.
And while in this video, Chappelle does not say
specifically, why he's opposed to this.
The headlines just wrote themselves.
Which most all, essentially hit the headline,
rich, famous guy kills homes for the less fortunate.
With people saying,
"Oh, so he doesn't want the poors around."
Now with that, I will say,
hey, that could genuinely be the reason,
but a lot of people are kind of just jumping to conclusions.
Because if you take the time to look further into this,
along with the complaints that I talked about before,
many felt that the council
didn't involve the community enough in the plan making.
Also, there were concerns
over the quality of the development.
Some also seemed against corporate development
rather than the alternatives.
And with all that, the council voted two to two,
with one abstention on the plan,
meaning the zone reverts to a previously-approved plan
to build 143 single-family homes
with a starting price of around 300,000.
Though, even there, there are conflicting reports
regarding the starting price.
But really, one of the main things that stood out to me
with this story is how quickly it just ran away.
'Cause once again,
like, my argument isn't that Dave Chappelle
is 100% guaranteed not an asshole or a fuck head,
or anything like that.
We don't know those people in person.
You don't know in real life.
We also saw a video where Dave, yes, is being harsh,
obviously, frustrated and annoyed.
But looking through the video,
he doesn't even mention affordable housing.
Also, because remember,
this is about a larger development plan
that was simply set aside a donation of land
to later use for affordable housing.
Those are two different things.
Though you could argue
that even though we don't know
what Chappelle's specific issues or intentions were,
technically, his complaints
and the complaints from the community
resulted in a plan with affordable housing getting scrapped.
And that for some alone could still be enough
to cause frustrations.
But it just genuinely feels like
we don't have enough information.
Like, you could have an issue with the fact
that Dave Chappelle was kind of like holding his wallet
over the town's head,
but without more information, it could be argued,
that's a bad thing or maybe a good thing,
depending on his reasoning and his goals,
which again, remained pretty unclear.
But ultimately, that's everything we know right now.
Hopefully, it explains a number of things.
Though there are still a number of unknowns.
Although it appears that there is at least one less unknown
because literally the moment
I started uploading today's show,
Dave Chappelle, or rather one of his people, responded.
With that representative telling Yahoo Entertainment,
"Dave Chappelle didn't kill affordable housing.
Concerned residents and a responding village council
killed a half-baked plan
which never actually offered affordable housing.
The passion with which he delivered his comments
during the village council meeting was just as evident
as when he fought to create living-wage jobs
with his famed "Summer Camp" for residents
during the height of the COVID pandemic.
Neither Dave nor his neighbors
are against affordable housing,
however, they are against the poorly vetted,
cookie-cutter, sprawl-style development deal
which is little regard for the community,
culture and infrastructure of the Village."
And so now with everything that we talked about
and now this latest update,
I do wanna pass the question off to you and there's two.
One, what are your thoughts on this situation in general?
And two, if you had seen headlines
or just the little snippet of the video before,
but now, you've seen this full coverage,
does it reinforce what you thought before?
Does it change your mind? Let me know.
And understand, I'm asking that question
as if this story exists in a bubble,
because I know going into this,
there are a lot of people that have very positive
and very negative feelings about Chappelle
for other stories in the past.
And then there is a big, mental health controversy
in what feels like the first time in the last few years,
it somehow doesn't just involve BetterHelp.
Congratulations to the team over there.
I mean, I'll still never work with you again,
but congratulations on not being the only boogieman.
And so at the core of this story,
there's a controversy with TikTok
and ADHD-related advertisements.
And that, because two weeks ago,
there was a report from NBC News,
that Cerebral, which is an online mental health platform,
was running ads that essentially linked ADHD to overeating.
With one ad featuring a woman surrounded by junk food
with text that claimed that obesity
is five times more prevalent among adults with ADHD,
and adding that getting treatment
should help people stop overeating.
Now, that specific ad appeared on both TikTok and Meta,
and after inquiries from news outlets,
both platforms removed ads with that imagery,
with a TikTok spokesperson saying,
"TikTok has strict policies to protect users from fake,
fraudulent, misleading or harmful ads,
and in this case, we removed two of Cerebral's ads
for violating our body image policies."
But it also didn't end there.
You had Facebook also running similar Cerebral ads
regarding diabetes,
and they ended up taking them down
after being contacted by media outlets.
It's also prompted conversations
about promoting medical misinformation to young people,
specifically when it comes to representing ADHD
in a misleading way.
And today, this story got even bigger
because Media Matters published a report this week,
claiming that TikTok is quote,
"enabling predatory ADHD advertisers to target young users."
And saying there, that while TikTok
did take down specific ads mentioned by NBC,
Media Matters still found similar ads
from Cerebral and other companies, touting ADHD treatments,
and saying that, "These ads seem to capitalize
on the TikTok phenomenon of ADHD self-diagnosis,
in which some creators oversimplify the disorder,
leading viewers to try to decide themselves
whether they have the disorder, sometimes incorrectly."
And noting, "This can push users
to inappropriately seek ADHD medication,
which can have dangerous side effects if used improperly."
With Media Matters arguing
that this should also count as medical misinformation,
which is a violation of TikTok rules.
With it specifically referring to one ad
that tells women that traits like being spacey,
forgetful or chatty should be a reason
to seek ADHD treatment.
Also adding, that another company called Done,
implores people to self-diagnose themselves via a survey.
Even though that quick assessment
can't offer an official diagnosis,
and only tells people that it might be likely.
But as the Attention Deficit Disorder Association notes,
"A full assessment and potential diagnosis of ADHD
is not accomplished using an online test
or during a quick doctor's appointment.
A thorough evaluation usually takes more than one visit,
and must be done by a professional
who is trained in ADHD."
And noting, "Other conditions can sometimes resemble ADHD,
so it is important to work with a professional
who is able to rule out these other conditions
and make the appropriate diagnosis."
And all of this plays into the larger issue
where the internet and misleading advertisements
allow people to convince themselves
they have mental or physical health problems.
With Dr. Adeola Adelayo telling Banner Health,
"It creates this horoscope type of effect.
People see enough of these videos,
they start to relate to any number of the potential symptoms
and even begin to present with some of the same symptoms."
But yeah, ultimately, that's a story.
And of course, I'd love to know your thoughts in general.
But also let me know,
because we're talking about this topic,
if you got a mental health ad at the beginning
or wherever, and if so, what was it?
It feels like there's always a 50% chance
when I'm talking about there being a controversy
with a company, their ads playing on the video.
And then, in massive entertainment news,
it's kind of the COVID of the animation world
because just when you thought it was over,
it comes back again, "Futurama" is returning.
And to continue with this, similarly much like COVID,
people are concerned about this newest variant,
and not just because of people like myself
that are torn because it's like,
"Oh, I can't wait for Hulu to give me 20 more episodes.
I would love that."
But also, the last series finale was so good.
Which, by the way, this thing has had four series finales.
How many times are you gonna try to make me cry,
Matt Groening?
But rather, the big reason that people
are up in arms right now
is that the voice of Bender right now is not returning.
With Deadline reporting
that among the three lead voice actors,
the only person who has not agreed to come back
is John DiMaggio, who of course,
voices Bender as well as a half a dozen other characters.
But the role currently being recast
ahead of the first table read on Monday,
with this decision reportedly being made
after negotiations came to a standstill.
With Deadline going on to report,
that according to sources, "DiMaggio felt that the proposal
was not competitive based on the success
and name recognition of the original series."
And so now, if you look online,
there are a number of fans threatening a boycott
of the a new series.
Along with general fan reactions,
you had massive voices in the voice acting world
also speaking up.
Like Tara Strong, who tweeted, "Bad move Futurama.
Maggio is hugely responsible for the success of the show."
And adding, "Voice actors, loved by fans,
are treated insanely unfair by Hollywood.
They love making us feel replaceable
and get away with paying a fraction
of what on camera celebs make.
Time to close the gap."
While a big fan of Tara
and I respect which she is saying here,
I think the obvious path forward is clear.
Bender voiced by Chris Pratt.
Y'all, he's the only voice actor we need.
Obviously, I'm kidding.
But I, ooh.
I do hope this gets resolved.
Because I do think this could be ugly,
both for "Futurama" and whoever replaces DiMaggio.
And I say that because,
while I'm not in the voice acting world myself,
I do know a few voice actors.
And while it might not be universally,
it does feel like there's this general air of like,
you do not go for a voice acting gig
if it's because like, the people making the project
don't wanna pay the original voice actor
what they think they're worth.
With the mindset being,
you're helping fuck that other voice actor,
and it's gonna be you next time.
But ultimately, we're gonna have to wait to see
if this plays out,
if a part of what's happening here,
it's kind of like, the public version of negotiations,
or it really is this far.
But as we wait to see if there's some sort of resolution,
"Futurama" fans, what's your take on this?
But from that, I wanna take a second
to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Vessi.
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So, head on over to Vessi.com/DeFranco right now.
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And then, have you ever seen a painting in an art gallery,
and you thought, "I could make that so much better"?
Personally, I can say that thought
never popped into my head,
but I'm also not talented in anyway.
But you had this Russian security guard
who had his eyes on a $1.3 million painting,
and he thought, "Ah, that could be so much better."
And so, this mother fucker whips out a ball point pen
and just starts drawing on the art.
With the specific art in question
just having faceless people,
And he is like, "They need faces."
Now, as far as why the security guard
didn't do the one job he was supposed to do,
and in fact, did the opposite of it,
there have been reports that he was bored.
The exhibitions curator said,
"His motives are still unknown,
but the administration believes
it was some kind of lapse sanity."
But also for the few art lovers watching the show,
do not fret.
Apparently, the restoration's only gonna cost around $3,400
And hopefully, the restoration's not done
by the same person that did this.
And as far as the security guard, he was obviously fired.
And the police initially declined to press charges
because the damage just simply wasn't enough.
But complaints from the ministry of culture
have now prompted them to open an investigation.
Which if they decide to prosecute,
could earn him a fine and up to three months in prison.
And personally, I'm not saying send this guy to jail,
but I just want there to be an investigation
so we can figure out a better answer to why this happened.
Like, was it just finally giving in intrusive thoughts?
Like, I don't know if anyone else has this.
You're riding shotgun in a car.
You look at the door and you're like,
"I could just open it. I could open it and jump out.
I'll never do it,
but I-I-I, just, I, why not? Why not?"
And in no way is that thought connected
to like, being depressed or actually wanting to hurt myself.
I just, it's in my head.
Which, side note, whether you have an intrusive thought
like that or not, you are not the thoughts in your head.
That voice, that often fucking mean voice, that's not you.
You are your actions
and not any of the garbage that's up here.
And then, it looks like Congress is finally coming together
on something to say that beating women,
not super awesome, guys.
And for those of you that are like,
"Well, obviously, they would come together for this,"
that hasn't always been the case.
All right, so what we're seeing
is that a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate
introduced a proposal yesterday to renew
the Violence Against Women Act.
The original law was first passed in 1994.
It was then reauthorized three times
before ultimately, Republican opposition
caused it to expire in 2019.
And as far as what it did,
it created the Office on Violence Against Women
in the Justice Department
and awarding over $9 billion in grants
to nonprofits, universities,
as well as state and local governments
to help victims through crisis intervention,
transitional housing and legal assistance.
And while it failed in 2019,
this time around with Biden in the White House,
a bare majority in the Senate,
Democrats believe that they can get enough Republicans
on board to meet the 60 vote threshold
to stop the filibuster.
With Dick Durbin saying, "For those who have given up hope
on the United States Senate functioning,
passing important laws,
working together on a bipartisan basis,
take a look behind me."
But even with that, you have people going,
"But still the bar is so low."
With many pointing to the fact that
the primary sticking point for Republicans,
this time around, is a provision within the law
that would close what is known as the boyfriend loophole.
This would keep people
who have been convicted of misdemeanor stalking
or violence against a partner from owning a firearm.
And so in a compromise with Republicans,
Democrats left that provision out,
realizing that there was no other way
to get this bill passed.
But with all that said as far as,
will this actually pass?
It's not guaranteed, but there is hope.
With Durbin saying, "The Senate is perilously close
to reaching 60 votes,
but that the bill won't come to the floor
until later this month."
As well as Republican Joni Ernst,
who is herself, a survivor of domestic violence
and sexual assault saying,
"I think we can almost let out a sigh of relief.
We need to get this over the finish line and we will."
And y'all, I fucking hope so.
Once again, the bar is so low.
But that said, in the meantime,
if there is something I can add to this story,
I don't care who or what you are,
you deserve a relationship free of domestic violence.
If you are being manipulated, verbally abused, or even hit,
one, that person is not going to change.
Anyone that's ever been in a relationship like this,
or they've seen it from the outside in,
it has ups, it's down, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
I would never do that."
It happens again. That may be your current normal.
That is not normal.
Even if this just reaches one person
that it needs to right now,
I'm gonna include resources down below.
There are also other options,
but this is the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
You can call, you can text, you can chat on your computer.
And this has always been an important topic and problem,
but especially after COVID 19
where everyone was packed in,
we saw domestic violence numbers going up.
You may feel helpless, but you're not.
You are stronger than you know.
You just don't have your footing right now.
That's what abuse, and manipulation, and gas lighting does.
And then, in shit that's actually happening right now
that affects real people news,
let's talk about evictions.
Evictions right now are surging again.
And very few pandemic protections remain in place
since the Supreme Court struck down
the federal evictions ban back in August.
And earlier this month,
the Pew Charitable Trusts reported
that evictions have now officially returned
to pre-pandemic levels.
And according to a preliminary analysis
published by The Eviction Lab at the end of last year,
"Eviction filings in 11 major cities,
including Columbus, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin;
Tampa, Florida; and Houston, Texas,
significantly increased soon after
the federal CDC moratorium expiration."
And to make matters worse, while we're back to pre-pandemic,
experts predict that these numbers will only increase
as rents continue to rise.
And part of the reason is shit's expensive
and only getting more expensive.
Just last month, the online apartment rental site, Zumper,
reported that, "The national median price
for a one-bedroom rental apartment
hit an all-time high, jumping 12% to $1,374 a month."
And so, the spike in evictions is expected to get worse
as many people nationwide continue to struggle to pay rent.
With just this week,
the New York Times reporting, "Tens of thousands
of residents of New York City public housing,
many of whom lost their jobs after the city locked down
two years ago, have fallen behind on their rent,
raising fears of a coming rise in evictions."
And y'all, the numbers are crazy.
The New York City Housing Authority said
that as of November, more than 68,000 households,
about 42% of all those in public housing, had overdue rent.
And so in an attempt to address this issue,
we've seen Democratic representatives,
Ayanna Pressley, Rosa DeLauro, and Cori Bush,
proposing legislation that would add more protections
for tenants at risk of losing their homes.
And there, according to NPR, the proposal called
the Housing Emergencies Lifeline Program Act
"would ban credit agencies from recording evictions,
fund legal assistance to fight landlords in certain cases,
and ramp up enforcement against illegal tenant removal."
As well as "Authorize $10 billion in grants
to fund related legal aid,
require landlords to inform tenants of rights
and responsibilities as a deterrent to illegal removals,
and create a database to track evictions."
But I do feel it necessary to say,
if you are someone this would impact,
you're someone that's hoping that it'll get through,
the battle for this is very, very uphill.
But Congress has definitely become more reluctant
to renew pandemic-era protections,
or even propose new ones lately.
So it is very possible that we're going to see
at least a version of the eviction crisis
that was talked about for the last two years.
And then we had Donald Trump in the news
because according to reports,
he and 12-year-old me have something in common,
with outlets like The Independent reporting,
"Trump would eat torn up documents in the Oval Office."
Which, yes, for a little bit,
I was that kid that would eat paper and sometimes erasers.
- Good soup.
- But the Trump allegedly eating paper thing,
like, that's not the main point of the story though.
It's like an odd thing,
and I understand why it's in headlines.
But this is really all connected
to the House Oversight Committee announcing today,
that it's launching an investigation into Trump's handling
of presidential records.
Which is a move that came just one day
after the National Archives and Records Administration,
NARA, asked the DOJ to look into the matter,
prompting questions about whether Trump
could be investigated for a possible crime.
With these actions stemming from recent revelations
that Trump had taken 15 boxes
of official White House documents to Mar-a-Lago
instead of turning them over to the National Archives.
Which is legally mandated
under the Presidential Records Act,
and that requires the president to preserve memos,
letters and electronic communications.
And ultimately, those documents were turned over
to NARA last month,
but the agency only confirmed it this week.
And among other things, the documents reportedly included
Trump's self-proclaimed love letters with Kim Jong-un,
as well as the letter Obama left him when he left office.
But also people familiar with the matter,
told reporters that the Archives found
possible classified material in the boxes,
which makes Trump's already shady actions
even more questionable.
Whereas, the Washington Post put it,
"These new allegations are just the latest example
of what records personnel
described as chronic difficulties in preserving records
in the Trump era."
And very notably, all of this news
came right after the National Archive
took the very unusual step last week
of confirming something that has been long reported
by White House insiders,
that Trump had a habit of tearing up documents,
which aids would have to literally reassemble
and tape together.
And so with that, over the last few days,
there have been other concerning allegations,
including for former White House aide Omarosa,
with her specifically citing at least one instance
where he appeared to put a torn up document
into his mouth and chew it.
And they are adding that there are quote,
"certainly things I'm sure cannot be accounted for
because Donald Trump became very, very aware
that a lot of these sensitive documents
would at some point be made public."
Also with weird barrage of news on this topic,
you had Axios reporting that New York Times
White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman,
wrote in her upcoming book that quote,
"Staff in the White House residence
periodically discovered wads of printed paper
clogging a toilet,
and believe the president had flush pieces of paper."
Now Trump, for his part, addressed these allegations
and reports in a statement today, saying
That the records he had illicitly taken,
in fact, it was viewed as routine and no big deal.
With him also claiming, without evidence,
that he was under no obligation to give this material.
And of the Haberman news saying,
"Another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents
down a White House toilet,
is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter."
But ultimately, this is one of those situations
where we're gonna have to see what happens from here.
You know, how does the House probe play out?
And most significantly, if the DOJ launches an investigation
into all of this as well.
But ultimately, that is where that story
and today's show ends.
As always, thank you for watching.
Subscribe and see you're a part
of these daily dives into the news.
I love yo faces and I'll see you next time.