- Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had
a fantastic Monday, welcome back
to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it.
The first thing we're gonna talk about today
is vaping and e-cigarettes.
So for the last few months health officials
say they've been seeing a string of lung-related illness.
Back in April health departments in Illinois
and Wisconsin followed 53 patients who had vaped
and a third of those people reportedly
ended up on respirators.
Last month you have the Washington Post report
that within days, one man had gone from being
a 20 year old hiking enthusiast to being
kept alive by two machines forcing air
into and out of his lungs and oxygenating
his blood outside of his body.
Around the same time, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention was reportedly
investigating almost 200 cases and all of that
led 'em to the first reported death
from a vaping related illness which happened
a few weeks ago in Illinois and then this past
Wednesday health officials released a statement
saying that they were investigating the death
of another person in Oregon.
Then this past Thursday the New York Department of Health
said that it was reporting 34 cases
of severe pulmonary illnesses,
and those cases are notable because investigators
believe that they may be specifically linked
to cannabis vaping products which all the people
in the cases said that they used.
Though, of note, some said that they'd used
other types of vaping products as well,
and here's the thing, a lot of people might
naturally assume that it's the cannabis that's causing
these illnesses, but health officials actually believe
that it's another ingredient typically
packed in cannabis vaped products.
Specifically, oil derived from Vitamin E which
you can find that oil in things like almonds and canola
oil, which, before you get worried, it is safe to eat,
it is also safe to use on the skin and creams.
But the issue here is that health officials
worry that breathing it in may be harmful.
Right and so what you have is an oil,
it gets heated up, it turns into a vapor,
you breathe it in and it's believed that because
it's an oil it's going to return to a liquid state
in your lungs once it cools down which then coats them
with the oil, and as it turns out your lungs
are pretty horrible at dealing with anything
that isn't a gas.
You then reportedly have immune cells
recognizing this oil as foreign, trying to get rid of it,
that then in turn could cause your lungs to inflame,
that could hurt your ability to breathe.
And a big note regarding this story,
the New York State Department of Health
says it believes some of the products
in the investigation may be counterfeits
of the State's medically approved marijuana.
Although the person who died in Oregon
appears to have purchased the product legally.
So officials right now aren't sure if this is a problem
with legal vaping products, with off the street
vaping products, maybe both.
I mean hell, you had one doctor telling CBS News:
When you think about it, these e-cigarette devices
are really like chemistry sets.
You put in this liquid, you lick it, you heat it up,
there's some kind of chemical reaction.
You're creating all these different chemicals.
You're not entirely sure what these chemicals are
but we are sure of one thing,
you are sucking a lot of them.
All of this is just a working theory
on what is causing these illnesses and the FDA
is now testing over 100 samples.
This to see if there maybe other contributing substances
such as synthetic cannabinoids, pesticides or opioids,
they're also looking at THC and nicotine
and in a statement they said
"No one substance, including vitamin E acetate,
"has been identified in all of the samples."
The CDC also echoing that warning with all vape products.
But unfortunately the problems have only continued
as we saw three more reports of deaths.
These occurring in Indiana, California and Minnesota,
as of right now we do not know how old the person
from Indiana was but the other two were 55 and 65
and of those we only know that one of them
had been using a cannabis vaping product
and that person also had a history of lung disease.
All right, so that could mean trying to make
a sort of relationship between the two there murky,
but also the number of cases being
investigated has skyrocketed,
officials have now logged 450 cases across 33 states
suspected to be from vaping-related illnesses.
Also regarding the story and space just this morning
we saw the FDA issue a warning to JUUL for quote:
Engaging in labeling, advertising and/or other
activities directed to consumers,
in which JUUL explicitly and/or implicitly
has represented that JUUL products
are free of a substance, have a reduced level of
or exposure to a substance, and/or that JUUL products
present a lower risk of tobacco-related disease
or are less harmful than one or more other
commercially marketed tobacco products.
We even saw First Lady Melania Trump tweet:
I am deeply concerned about the growing epidemic
of e-cigarette use in our children.
We need to do all we can to protect the public
from tobacco-related disease and death,
and prevent e-cigarettes from becoming an on-ramp
to nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.
And as far as my reaction to this story,
I'll start, one, with the respiratory diseases,
obviously I think it is incredibly important
to definitively understand why something is happening
when we're talking about the public health.
But also too, I think in the meantime
its important to handle things in a certain way
as to not accidentally make the situation worse.
Regarding our first report from Illinois and Wisconsin,
http://www.reason.com points out
"83% admitted using black-market cannabis products,"
as well as pointing out that
"E-cigarettes have been in wide use for years,
"while these cases have cropped up only recently."
And so they noted therefore that it
seems likely that the agents responsible
for the symptoms are relatively new.
And whether it be vapes in general or JUULs,
I think we need to be careful
in what kind of crackdown we see,
because obviously we don't want more kinds JUULing,
we don't want more kids putting nicotine
in their system, getting addicted.
But you know to mention something that David Hammond,
the University of Waterloo professor whose research on
chronic disease has recently focused on vaping said,
"We can't wish them away,"
in reference to e-cigarettes, and adding
"to the extent that we have many, many Canadians
"using these products, I don't think pushing
"those folks outside the legal market makes sense."
Especially even though it is not definitively known
there seems to be a lean towards the idea that it's the
black market products that may be causing this.
Especially because regarding legal
vaping products Hammond says
"They're almost certainly likely to be harmful
"but much less harmful than smoking,"
and adding: we have to find a way of getting these
in the hands of adult smokers who can't quit
other ways but protect kids and change the perceptions
of these things as a fun, modern, sleek way
of taking your drugs.
And the final place that we'll kind of end on this story,
one, please in no way take this as me saying
"Yes, continue to JUUL and vape," right,
this is not me promoting that,
but more of a "We need to make sure that we
"handle this in the best possible way,"
and I mean that for, we kind of bounce back and forth
but both of the situations of cannabis vapes
as well as JUULs because you don't wanna force more
people into the black market or accidentally push
more people to smoking cigarettes because
as the CDC points out, cigarette smoking
is responsible for more than 480,000
deaths per year just in the United States.
Yeah, that's where that story ends today,
you got the story, a little of my thoughts on it
but of course I wanna pass the question off to you here.
And of course like with everything,
I'd love to know everyone's thoughts.
But also, especially what are your thoughts on this
if you're someone who vapes or you JUUL,
I'm really interested in what you have to say on this one.
But from that I wanna share some stuff I love today,
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And the first bit of Awesome is actually
just a massive thank you, thank you so much
to John Feal who's a 9/11 responder,
all the first responders and family that we were able
to speak to for a mini doc that we're releasing
on the Rogue Rocket channel on Wednesday.
- We keep talking about 18 years later,
we keep talking about two decades,
for the 99% of the American population,
yes, it's been 18 years, it's been almost two decades,
but for the 9/11 community it's yesterday.
It's the longest day in the history
of days that's never ended.
- It was a goal of ours for this Wednesday
not to just say kind of never forget and that be that,
but to talk and share the story of individuals
who's life was forever changed.
I feel like we often lose the individual human element
to each story, especially in stories that are so massive
and now seem somewhat disconnected thanks to time.
Then, we've got the final trailer
for Doctor Sleep with Ewan McGregor,
we got Architectural Digest giving us
16 celebrity bathrooms,
we had Monsta X watching fan covers on YouTube,
then we got an official trailer for The Lighthouse,
as well as an official teaser trailer
for Gretel and Hansel.
And finally our http://phil.chrono.gg partner game
of the day today is Yakuza 0,
which is a fantastically well-reviewed
and beloved action beat 'em up,
and if you snag it using our link before 9 a.m. tomorrow
and/or while supplies last, you can get it
not for the regular $20 but just $8.99, 55% off.
If you wanna see the full versions of everything
I just shared the secret link of the day
really anything at all, links as always
in the description down below.
And then today and over the weekend there were a number
of stories involving and/or around or focused on
President Donald Trump and seemingly what has become
kind of standard, the story that has garnered
the most attention going into the week
is also kind of the least significant story, right,
like for example this morning when you woke up,
if you went to Twitter most every trending topic
was about President Trump and Chrissy Teigan.
That's because last night, MSNBC aired a special program
hosted by Lester Holt called "Justice For All".
And that program focused on criminal justice reform
in America, part of that program involved a town hall
and an interview with musician John Legend
to discuss his campaign called "Free America",
and for those who don't know,
John Legend is Chrissy Teigan's husband
which is seemingly a thing you do not need to know about
but it matters because Trump ended up tweeting
what seemed to be a reaction to this program, saying:
When all of the people pushing so hard for
Criminal Justice Reform were unable to come
even close to getting it done,
they came to me as a group and asked for my help.
I got it done with a group of senators and others
who would never have gone for it.
Obama couldn't come close.
"A man named Van Jones and many others
were profusely grateful at that time,
I signed it into law, no-one else did,
and Republicans deserve much credit.
But now that it is passed, people that had virtually
nothing to do with it are taking the praise.
Guys like boring musician John Legend
and his filthy-mouthed wife are talking now about
how great it is, but I didn't see them around
when we needed help getting it passed.
Anchor Lester Holt doesn't even bring up the subject
of President Trump or the Republicans
when talking about the importance or passage
of criminal justice reform, they only talk about
the minor players or people that had nothing to do with it.
And the people that so desperately sought my help
when everyone else had failed, all they talk
about now is impeaching President Trump."
Now following this, in addition to the general reaction
we saw John Legend and Chrissy Teigan both respond,
Legend saying: Imagine being president of a whole country
and spending your Sunday night hate-watching MSNBC
hoping somebody, anybody, will praise you.
Melania, please praise this man, he needs you.
Your country needs you, Melania."
Teigan on the other had, went with a far more direct
strategy, tweeting "lol what a pussy ass bitch,
"tagged everyone but me, an honor, mister president."
Then posting this photo, writing Luna, who's her daughter,
"Remember the night before your first day of school?
"When mommy was making your sign and the pussy ass bitch
"president had his 9th meltdown of the day,"
and adding "the absolute best part of his tweet
"is I literally didn't speak in the special,
"nor was I mentioned.
"I'm cackling at the pointless addition of me
"because he cannot not be a bitch."
Which is why this morning we saw the hashtag
#presidentpussyassbitch which we actually also saw
circulate even harder after Teigan, Legend and others
jokingly said that they hoped it would not trend.
But really, ultimately, that's where that story ends,
it was just a lot of people kind of memeing,
and joking and arguing but also with me being
the opportunist that I am, if you would like to join
the filthy mouthed wife club, you can snag a limited
pre-order shirt right now over at
http://www.shopdefranco.com and if you wanna attach
a political affiliation with it, fine,
but I, and the real people of American know
that filthy mouthed wives, they have no problem
crossing the aisle to say "Shut the fuck up"
to whoever they're speaking to,
sometimes even their own husbands, Lindsay.
Also this morning there was another piece of Trump news
that more people were made aware of because
the President tweeted: I know nothing about an Air Force
plane landing at an airport (which I do not own
and have nothing to do with) near Turnberry Resort
(which I do own) in Scotland and filling up with fuel,
with the crew staying overnight at Turnberry
(they have good taste!)."
In all caps, "NOTHING TO DO WITH ME."
Now as far as what is Trump talking about,
where is this coming from,
back on Friday Politico put out a report titled
"Air Force Crew made an odd stop on a routine trip:
Trump's Scottish resort."
and adding "Now the layover is part of a broader
"House inquiry into military spending
"at and around the Trump property."
And according to that report, since April,
the House Oversight Committee has been investigating
why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane
made the unusual stay - both en route
to the Middle East and on the way back.
Now according to the New York Times, previously
an Air Force official defended lodging the crew
at Turnberry because it offered the closest rooms
available and that the rooms were discounted
below an internal spending limit,
but on Sunday in a statement sent to Politico,
Air Force said that it is reviewing how it selects
international overnight accommodation locations.
Also today, regarding the airport that Donald Trump
says that he does not own and has nothing to do with,
it's on Natasha Bertrand, the National Security
Correspondent for Politico, re: a screenshot
from November of 2014 with the headline
The Trump Organization and Glasgow Prestwick
Airport Announce Official Partnership,
where it goes on to say: Prestwick will serve
as the main hub for not only Mr Trump's private
aviation operation but in particular it will serve as
the Trump Turnberry Resort which with Mr Trump's
investment of £250,000,000 will transform it
into the finest resort in the world.
As far as why the situation, as AXIOS explains:
Trump's tweet comes less than a week after
House Democrats opened an inquiry on the use of tax
dollars at Trump properties and the House Judiciary
Committee plans to vote this week
to formalize an impeachment inquiry.
And see, if people pointing out that
that relationship matters, not only because
of this one particular situation but because
it's not just one plane.
According to Air Force statistics,
military aircraft stops at this particular
aircraft have gone up.
According to reports, in 2015 Air Mobility Command
aircraft stopped at Prestwick 95 times,
so far this year there have been 259 stops,
220 of them involving overnight stays.
And so it's gonna be interesting to see what happens here
but then finally, we have this huge news
regarding the now-canceled peace talks
between the United States and the Taliban.
On Saturday we saw President Trump announce on Twitter
that he had canceled a secret meeting
between US officials and the Taliban, writing:
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban
leaders and separately the President of Afghanistan
were going to secretly meet with me
at Camp David on Sunday.
They were coming to the United States tonight.
Unfortunately in order to build false leverage,
they admitted to an attack in Kabul
that killed one of our great great soldiers,
and 11 other people.
I immediately canceled the meeting
and called off peace negotiations.
What kind of people would kill so many in order
to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?
They didn't, they only made it worse.
If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these
very important peace talks and would even kill
12 innocent people then they probably don't have
the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway.
How many more decades are they willing to fight?
And if the United States talking with the Taliban
is news to you, how dare you for not watching
our previous deep-dives.
And for some context here, under the agreement
which officials have been negotiating
for almost a year, the United States would remove
5,400 of the remaining 14,000 American troops
in Afghanistan within 135 days.
With the runner goal being to gradually withdraw
the entire US military presence which has been
in the country for nearly 18 years since just after 9/11,
and reportedly in exchange for the United States
withdrawing the troops, the Taliban would then stop
enacting and supporting violence in the regions
of Afghanistan where the US military was based.
And in fact just last Monday the United States
Envoy for Afghanistan told local media in the country
that both sides had agreed to the deal in principle.
But a lot of people in the Afghan government,
including the President of Afghanistan,
were skeptical of both the peace deal
and the meeting at Camp David.
Afghan critics of the agreement argued that it did not
include input from the Afghan government
and it did not really give them a seat at the table
for negotiations and following that the Trump
administration addressed this concern
by arguing that its talks with the Taliban
would pave the way for the Taliban
to negotiate with the Afghan government,
and still others worried that the plan was problematic
or just doomed from the get-go because the Taliban
doesn't recognize the Afghan government
and has refused to negotiate with them in the past.
So others critical of the plan also argued
that the deal only protected American troops
because it did not require the Taliban
to stop attacks on Afghan civilians or the Afghan military,
and that's especially important because the Taliban
now controls more territory in the country
than it has at any time since the war started.
And also because the Taliban has carried out,
it's reported, numerous deadly attacks
over the last few months.
And so you have Afghan officials worried that if the US
pulls out here it would create a sort of
security vacuum leaving the Afghan military
to fend for itself and so prompting fears
that the Taliban would not only launch
more violent attacks but also
try to take over the government.
Now also, of note here is it wasn't just people
in Afghanistan who opposed the negotiations,
according to reports multiple high-ranking officials
including Vice President Mike Pence and National Security
Advisor John Bolton opposed the meeting.
Bolton, among others, allegedly did not believe
that the Taliban could be trusted
and the deal would just collapse anyway.
Also other administration officials were
reportedly worried about the optics of having
an unprecedented meeting with a militant group
on US soil just days before the 18th anniversary
of the 9/11 terror attacks.
And so after Trump put out that tweet
reportedly a leader from the Taliban told NBC News
that they were caught off-guard by the news saying
"It not only shocked us, it made us realize
"that the people we were talking with
"were not sincere in peace talks."
Last night they also released a statement saying:
Such a reaction towards a single attack
just before the signing of an agreement
displays lack of composure and experience.
This even as attacks by the US and their domestic
supporters prior martyred hundreds of Afghans
and destroyed their assets.
We called for dialogue 20 years earlier and maintain
the same stance today and believe America shall
return to this position also.
Our previous 18 year resistance
should have proven to America that we will accept
nothing less than the complete end of occupation
and allowing Afghans to decide their own fate.
Now as far as the President of Afghanistan,
he has not responded specifically to Trump's tweets,
however yesterday his office released a statement saying:
The people and the government of Afghanistan pursue
a dignified and sustainable peace and are committed
to putting any effort into ensuring peace in the country.
However, the government considers the Taliban's
obstinacy to increase violence against Afghans
as the main obstacle to the ongoing peace negotiations.
We have consistently stressed that genuine peace
is possible when the Taliban stop the killing of Afghans,
embrace an inclusive ceasefire, and enter into direct
negotiations with the Afghan government.
That's the situation and as far as what happens next here,
I mean, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
on speaking to Fox News, he was asked if Afghan
talks were dead and he said
"For the time being they are,"
but also reportedly telling CNN that the US is still
interested in striking a deal
as long as the Taliban honors its commitments.
And so right now, for the United States
it looks like there are three main options.
One, try to come to the table with another deal,
two, withdraw the troops without concessions
from the Taliban or three,
just keep the troops in Afghanistan.
And also the timing here is notable,
it's not just because of 9/11 but because
for Afghanistan they're set to have elections
later this month on September 28 and notably there
the Taliban does not want those elections
to take place and so you have officials
in the United States and Afghanistan concerned
that the Taliban attacks will ramp-up.
But ultimately that is where we are right now,
it is gonna be interesting to see what happens
with negotiations, unfortunately attacks.
Now of course with this story especially but really
any story, I'd love to know your thoughts on it,
on one, regarding what has transpired
but also two, what are your thoughts in general
about negotiating with the Taliban,
yeah, let me know what you're thinking
in those comments down below.
And that's where I'm going to end today's show,
and hey, if you liked this video
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Also if you're not 100% Philled in, you still want more,
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you can click it or tap right there to watch that.
Lots, with that said of course,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been Philled in,
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.