- Now covering news in 2021, soon to be 2022, it's so weird.
Like for example, you have the very serious news,
maybe you saw headlines like,
"Biden warned Putin of specific "consequences"
if Russia invades Ukraine."
But that following reports from earlier this week
that Russia is planning a 175,000 troops
military invasion or offensive.
And you know how Ukraine responded?
They posted this meme.
That's their real account.
This is an official Ukraine statement,
which is just kind of legendary.
Also, it feels so ridiculous,
I feel like we're in a simulation but still just legendary.
Anyway fuck Putin.
Welcome back to the PHILIP DEFRANCO Show.
Hit that like button if you agree with that statement
I just said a second ago, what is this show?
But yeah, let's just jump into it.
And the first thing that I wanna talk about today
is this story and news out of Northern California,
focused on this Black couple,
where you have Paul Austin and his wife,
Tenisha Tate-Austin.
They're trying to sell their home
in the San Francisco Bay Area.
And if you're unfamiliar with the process,
you have to get an appraisal.
So they had their home looked at
by Miller & Perotti Real Estate Appraisers.
They show off the more than $400,000 worth of improvements
they've made to the property.
And they end up completely shocked
when the appraiser values their home,
which once again is in the San Francisco Bay Area
at $995,000 which is far below previous appraisals.
So the Austins, they see this, they go okay,
this doesn't make sense.
Let's try something.
And so this time around,
they enlist the help of a white friend
who pretended to be the homeowner for a new appraiser.
With them also white washing the home
by removing family photos and stripping the walls
of their African-themed art.
Instead adding in photos of their white friend's family.
And I'll pose the question to you.
What do you think the second appraisal came in at?
Was it the same number?
Did it go up like 20% to 1.2 million?
No, the new appraisal came in around 50% higher,
$1.48 million, which notably was also the median home value
for a single family home in their county.
And so falling out, you had Paul Austin
telling the state reparations task force in October
that he believes the property was devalued,
"because we are in a Black neighborhood
and the home belonged to a Black family."
And so now with the help of a nonprofit,
the couple is suing over this lowball valuation,
yes, seeking financial damages.
But also they're asking the court to order the defendants
to ensure that they will not discriminate
when appraising homes.
Because they're not the only Black homeowners
who've had these experiences.
In fact, just this last year alone,
we've seen headlines of Black owners in Indiana and Ohio
calling out the same issue.
In 2018 study by the Brookings Institution
also finding that homes in Black neighborhoods
in U.S. metropolitan areas were undervalued
by an average of $48,000
amounting to $156 billion in losses.
With the leader of that study, Andre Perry saying,
"it's almost like when people see Black neighborhoods,
they see twice as much crime than there actually is.
They see worse education than there actually is.
I think this is what happens when appraisers, lenders,
real estate agents see Blackness.
They devalue the asset.
They devalue the property.
Now with all that said, the appraisers in this story
have not publicly commented on the lawsuits.
So we gonna have to wait to see what happens here.
And so until I get an update that I can report here,
I'd love to know your thoughts on this story and situation.
Then in entertainment news, we should talk about Drake,
The Grammy's Award Show culture in general.
And over the years, many of them said, you know,
"Drake has this love-hate relationship with the Grammys,
he's been nominated 47 times, he's only won four."
Very notably, one of the times he won, he even said this.
- If there's people who have regular jobs
who are coming out in the rain, in the snow,
spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets
to come to your shows, you don't need this right here,
I promise you, you already won.
- Like Drake directly saying
what he's insinuated in the past
that the Grammys do not matter.
But probably his most direct hit against the award show
came last year when he was responding
to the weekend's famous Grammy snubs in social media
by writing, "I think we should stop allowing ourselves
to be shocked every year by the disconnect
between impactful music and these awards and just accept
that what once was the highest form of recognition
may no longer matter to the artists that exist now
and the ones that come after."
It's like a relative you keep expecting to fix up
but they just can't change their ways.
With them even calling for an institution or a show
that could replace the Grammys for a future generation.
And so all of that takes us to the 2022 Grammys
where Drake actually got two nominations,
one for Best Rap Album and other for Best Rap Performance.
And the big news is that Drake's reaction
to those nominations were, "no, I'm good."
With him with drawing his nomination saying,
"don't even try to give me the award."
Though Drake has not yet made a statement specifying
why he made this choice.
Which one, means that those categories
now only have four nominations instead of five, right?
The academy not going to replace Drake
with the artists with the next most votes.
And two, so many people ask them the question of why?
Or to even get the nomination to potentially get the award
he and or his team had to submit.
Which in part is why I don't think it's,
some people believe that it's him trying
to kind of disconnect himself from any media attention,
following what happened with ASTROWORLD and Travis Scott.
Like he's got other stuff scheduled.
So I don't think that's the case.
So to me, it very much seems like
he's just making good on what he said last time
and what he wrote down.
Rather than him pulling the move
before he got the nomination where people would go,
you know, maybe he wouldn't even get the nomination.
He now gets all this free attention that shows
that he's kind of a man of his word.
Really from here it's just a question of,
is there a snowball effect?
We see people boycotting the Grammys
or pulling their nominations.
Like is such a big name and artists that it is possible.
But the cynic in my head says, no.
You're talking about the entertainment industry,
the music industry, the egos need to be fed.
And I say that from my much smaller place
in the entertainment world.
Like I think in general award shows
are silly, silly, bullshit pageantry.
But I'd be lying if I told you it didn't feel good
when I got some of those guys in the back
and that outside love, attention and praise
that we didn't get as children,
but still though the whole situation
does highlight something that is true about award shows,
but also so many facets of life.
Things only matter when we decide as a group that they do.
And coming back to this, I mean,
how many of us have watched award shows in the past
and we're like rooting for people?
We didn't even know who's voting.
Bring it back to Drake's point in the Grammy's like,
why allow this little award so much control over
if you think that you're valid and then you're legitimate.
When you're you, you know how many people are buying,
you know how many people are streaming,
you know how many people are showing up to your shows?
Meanwhile, there's a part of your brain
that's trying to get validation from a bunch of people
you probably don't fuck with.
And that I think,
especially because of the rise of social media
is a universal thing
that we should all kind of look inward on.
You often give too much power
about how we think about ourselves
to people that shouldn't have it.
And that is my Christmas gift from me to you.
If any of this resonated with you,
try and figure out why and what you should do about it.
Sorry Drake,
I know you were supposed to be the point of this story,
but we're moving on.
Then move over Obama's tan suit.
A new ridiculously stupid controversy is here to play.
And that's because this morning POLITICO ran the headline,
"Kamala is Bluetooth-phobic."
Again, that's because Kamala Harris is racist
against Bluetooth question mark, exclamation point
was a little bit too crazy even for POLITICO.
With this either veiled hit piece
or just absolutely lazy story
that I'm guessing these authors needed like to hit a quota
before the end of the year maybe?
Explaining that according to three former aides,
Harris is worried about possible security breaches
from using wireless headphones and prefers
to keep her cables.
Also going through the PSA,
it kind of feels like the authors realize
this is a kind of a ridiculous, relatively weak story,
so they try to insert some humor.
With a three year reporters on the piece
writing things like,
"should someone who travels with the nuclear football,
be spending time untangling her headphone wires?"
"The American people deserve answers."
It's all just so stupid and it hurts my brain
that three professional journalists put out this garbage
and I some fucking random schmuck on the internet,
I'm gonna end my show today
talking about the very serious issue of gerrymandering,
talking about the future of democracy in our country.
Why is that happening?
And luckily at least for my own sanity,
it appears that I was not the only one,
many just mocking political and the piece in general.
With some writing things like,
"it's THIS sort of nonsense masquerading as "journalism"
that got us the hyperbole of the tan suit,
mustard, & cooking pot "controversies"
WHILE ignoring REAL 4th Estate responsibilities,
like reporting on emoluments, $$ laundering, corruption,
obstruction, cults, coups, etc.
As well as a number of cybersecurity experts
coming out and saying, "hey, whether it's a hit piece
or just like lazy reporting, she's actually right."
Being concerned about her Bluetooth security
is absolutely the correct thing to do as the vice president.
With some saying,
"this all felt like widespread hypocrisy with the media
for mocking Harris's Bluetooth version,
while also blasting Hillary Clinton in the past
for poor cybersecurity practices."
Which is also, why I wanna say to the commenters, curators,
to the actual other outlets that talked about this piece,
but mocked it, thank you, because it's fucking stupid.
And what always ends up happening
is you have a few assholes doing a stupid thing
and then everyone gets kind of painted
with this broad brush.
Yeah, that's all I'll say about that.
And to Alex, Tina and Ruby who wrote this piece,
I'm very much looking forward to your next piece
of if Biden replaces the toilet paper when he's done,
or if he just puts it on top of the holder like a monster.
You know, really put those degrees to work.
But from that, I wanna take a second
to thank the sponsor of today's show, SEATGEEK.
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And then let's certainly talk about this story
involving Bitcoin, the mystery behind its creator
and $50 billion, right.
So this begins back in 2018.
When the estate of a man named Dave Kleiman
sued Australian computer scientist
and businessmen Craig Wright.
Now notably, the two were business partners.
However, Kleiman died back in 2013.
And so you had his brother bringing the brunt
of this lawsuit and alleging that Wright plotted
to swindle Kleiman out of intellectual property rights
to a number of blockchain technologies,
as well as half of the 1.1 million Bitcoins
they had mined together between 2009 and 2013.
And at that time that was worth around $5 billion.
However, today that would be worth well over 50 billion.
And as the AP noted, these were among the first Bitcoin
to be created through mining,
and could only be owned by a person or entity involved
with a digital currency from its beginning.
Such as Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
However, Satoshi Nakamoto isn't a real name.
It's just a pseudonym for Bitcoin's creator
who to this day is still a mystery.
Well, the original filing itself states that it's unclear
whether Wright, Kleiman or the two together were responsible
for the cryptocurrencies creation.
Wright actually began claiming he was Satoshi back in 2016.
Though to be clear, much of the crypto community believes
that it's a heaping pile of dog shit,
and that he doesn't actually have access
to any of the 1.1 million Bitcoins.
But still during this trial,
your prosecutor's arguing that Kleiman was in fact
co-creator of Bitcoin alongside Wright,
meaning that Kleiman Estate is entitled
to half a Satoshi's assumed fortune.
But ultimately what we ended up seeing yesterday
was a federal jury in Florida, largely siding with Wright
and saying that he doesn't have to hand over
any Bitcoin to Kleiman's Estate.
Which if he isn't actually Satoshi,
it's a major blessing for him
given that he now doesn't have to fork over the money
that he might not have.
But that said, the jury did decide
that Wright needed to pay $100 million
in damages related to IP rights
and W&K Info Defense Research LLC,
which is a joint venture between him and Kleiman.
And look, this story still isn't over.
During the trial, Wright said that if he won,
he would prove his ownership of these coins
and donate a sizable amount of them to charity.
And so now you have a lot of people wondering
if he's gonna make good on his word,
especially since many have regularly called for him
to just simply move a fraction of the 1.1 million coins
to prove his ownership.
But for now, we're gonna have to wait
to see if any of that happens
and only really know for sure is that Wright
got off here with a major win.
And then let's definitely talk about
the incredibly important news around redrawing voting maps,
redistricting and gerrymandering.
And so here in the United States,
we have a representative democracy with that representative
being a good and a bad thing, depending on who you are.
And when you looked at the Senate,
every state no matter the population
gets two representatives.
California with around 40 million people,
Rhode Island with one, equals.
But then you look over to the house of representatives
that has 435 seats split up between the states
based on population.
And every 10 years, the number of representatives
can actually change based on the results of the census.
Well, the results of the census
are incredibly important, right?
Some States could actually lose or gain representatives.
What follows is arguably even more important,
the redrawing of districts, right?
What does the representative actually represent
in the house of representatives?
And because of the way that these districts are cut up,
what should be representative of the entire population,
doesn't actually become that in a lot of places.
And this is a quick example of what that can look like.
We look to Wisconsin.
Biden won Wisconsin, in a very tight race in 2020,
but where the state looks like it's gonna be cut up
for the next 10 years with skewed voting demographics.
So Republicans would more than likely
win six of the states, eight congressional seats.
But with all of that said, right?
Wisconsin's not the focus of today's story.
I just wanted to use that as an example of what's supposed
to be representative,
not necessarily being representative based on some factors.
Instead, the focus today is on the justice department
now suing Texas over its plans to redraw voting maps,
arguing that they discriminate against
Black and Latino voters
while giving more power to white people.
Specifically the DOJ claiming that Texas
is redistricting maps to violate the voting rights act
by essentially diluting the influence of voters of color
who have driven population growth in the state.
According to the lawsuit,
95% of Texas is 4 million person population growth
over the last decade has been attributed to minorities,
and specifically Latinos resulting
in Texas being the only state
to gain two new congressional seats in the last census.
But with that, you have the DOJ claiming
that not only have Texas, Republicans,
given those two new seats to predominantly white communities
and preserve seats held by white GOP members.
They claim that the Republicans
have intentionally crafted its maps
to dilute the increased strength of minorities voices
in the voting process that should have come
with the demographic shifts.
There's is by
either eliminating minority districts altogether
or redrawing lines in a way that concentrates power
for white voters.
For example, the suit outlines multiple instances
where the districts are redrawn to group minority voters
in urban areas to also be counted in the same district
as rural predominantly white areas
to ensure white voters are the majority.
One instance of DOJ claiming that Texas,
"surgically excise minority communities
from the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area
by grouping their neighborhoods
with heavily white rural counties
including some that were more than 100 miles away."
You also had the agency arguing,
that Texas intentionally eliminated
a Latino electoral opportunity
in a West Texas based congressional district
where courts had previously found
Voting Rights Act violations
in the last two redistricting cycle
with the complainant going on to say,
this is not the first time Texas has acted
to minimize the voting rights of its minority citizens.
Decade after decade, Texas has enacted redistricting plans
or violate the Voting Rights Act.
But also beyond redistricting.
This is the second lawsuit the DOJ has filed against Texas
over voting rights in the last few weeks.
Just last month, they also sued the state
over its new restrictive voting law,
arguing that it will disenfranchise voters
with limited English proficiency, voters with disabilities,
elderly voters, members of the military deployed abroad.
But one of the biggest things here
is this latest lawsuit goes beyond Texas.
Yes, it marks the first legal action
the DOJ has taken the challenge redistricting maps
and states began redrawing them after the latest census.
But also according to 538, 18 states have now finalized
their new congressional maps this year
and already we're seeing insane gerrymandering
with some of the most heavily biased maps.
This cycle have been enacted
by Republicans in North Carolina and Ohio.
Notably there both states have already been sued
for racial or partisan gerrymandering,
but it's also unlikely that those challenges will play out
before the midterm elections in November.
Which I mean the same also goes
for the DOJ case against Texas.
Though, the agency has asked a federal court
to block the state from holding its upcoming March primaries
using the challenge maps.
But even if all of that got magically resolved
as the New York Times reports,
restrictive voting laws in place and key battleground states
could be in effect for multiple election cycles
before the courts decide
whether they're constitutional or not.
And that's without us really focusing
on what's happening on the state legislature level,
I'm gonna try and cover that
in one of the last two shows of the year,
because everything that we just talked about today,
this is kind of just the surface stuff.
This is the stuff that we expected,
what's happening at the state legislature level
and what's happening with like, who gets to count what vote?
I genuinely,
and you can call me an alarmist like people did
before the election, like they did before January 6th.
I genuinely have concerns about
if we're gonna be a democracy,
a real representative,
even a representative democracy three-plus years out.
Like I said, I'll expand on that either tomorrow
or on the Thursday show.
But ultimately, that is the end of that story
and actually today's show.
And of course, as always thanks for watching,
I love your faces, I appreciate you,
and I'll see you tomorrow.