- 'Sup up you beautiful bastards?
Hope you had a fantastic Wednesday.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
Buckle up, hit that Like button, otherwise,
we'll absolutely destroy your windpipe.
That accidentally came out a little more
aggressive than intended,
but with that said, let's just jump into it.
And the first thing that we're gonna talk about today
is this Chris Pratt situation because Internet,
you made the Avengers actually assemble.
Okay, so this situation actually began last Saturday.
And that's when someone on the Internet sent out a tweet
saying, "Hey, pick a famous Chris to get rid of,"
with a ton of people going with Pratt.
As far as why a lot of people chose Pratt,
I mean, you have people giving a number
of different reasons but also at least a number of them
gravitating towards they believe
that he is a Trump supporter.
And the thing is there, you know, his political views
are not exactly clear, though.
Many believe that, at the very least, he is conservative
with several people pointing out things like
he wasn't on the list of Avenger stars who were hosting
a virtual fund raiser to support Joe Biden,
that list including the likes of Don Cheadle,
Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd,
Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Zoe Saldana,
with others pointing to and saying
that Pratt supports an anti-LGBTQ church
and there, if you don't remember,
that claim actually picked up last year
when actress Ellen Page famously accused Hillsong Church
in Los Angeles of being anti-LGBTQ.
Though there later Pratt claimed, that claim
was absolutely untrue saying that the church opens
their doors to absolutely everyone,
but also with him saying "My faith is important to me,
but no church defines me or my life.
And I am not a spokesperson for any church
or group of people."
He also recently kind of mocked and made jokes
about other celebrities, telling people to vote
writing in an Instagram post,
"The heroes before us did not spill their blood
to only have their sacrifices wasted by your apathy.
The upcoming 2020 People's Choice Awards
is the most consequential vote in the history of mankind
times a million infinity.
Vote for Onward for family movie of the year
or else you will die, no hyperbole."
You know, on the other side of this big discussion
of where Chris Pratt stands, we saw a report from CNN
saying that he donated money to Barack Obama's campaign
back in 2012.
Also his wife, Katherine Schwartzenegger Pratt,
who's the daughter of former Republican Governor
of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger
has notably shown support for Biden,
but it's unclear if Chris shares the same views.
I will say, I've always taken him
as kind of an Independent Libertarian type.
He is also, if we look into it on the record saying
he doesn't support either political party.
Back in 2017 saying,
"I don't feel represented by either side."
I really feel there's common ground out there
that's missed because we focus on the things
that separate us."
But also Pratt hasn't come out either to confirm
or deny anything, show support for one or the other.
You know, for a lot of people, especially in 2020,
being silent is a stance.
Where you have a lot of people who will look
to a person in a position of power, not utilizing it
and go, oh, well that says that they were kind of okay
with the status quo, what's happening,
it is a show up support.
Though, of course, whatever that person actually stands for
is not known because they may be doing
a bunch of stuff behind the scenes.
But what we eventually see here is a number of people
on the Internet, turning this dislike of Chris Pratt
into somewhat of a meme, writing jokes at his expense,
referring to him as the worst Chris.
And eventually with this backlash, and this mockery,
we saw the Avengers assemble, Marvel co-stars
coming to defend him like Mark Ruffalo, who tweeted,
"You all, Chris Pratt is as solid a man there is.
I know him personally, and instead of casting aspersions,
look at how he lives his life.
He is just not overtly political as a rule.
This is a distraction.
Let's keep our eyes on the prize, friends.
We are so close now."
Guardians of The Galaxy director, James Gunn writing,
"Sorry, just finding out about this nonsense,
Chris Pratt is the best dude in the world.
I spent hours and hours sharing my deepest truths
with this man, as he has with me,
please stop assuming what he believes politically
or in any other way, because he's a Christian."
Zoe Saldana quoting Tupac, and then saying,
you got this Chris Pratt, your family, friends, colleagues,
and everyone who's ever crossed paths with you
knows your heart and your worth.
Robert Downey Jr. also sharing a photo with Pratt
and saying, "If you take issue with Chris,
I've got a novel idea.
Delete your social media accounts, sit with your own defects
of character, work on them, then celebrate your humanness,
@prattprattpratt, I got your back back back."
Well, yes, we did see a lot of support for those actors,
their messaging, and their support of Chris here.
We also saw a lot of people taking issue with it,
sparking a debate, accusations of hypocrisy,
with many pointing to when women and actors of color
joined the MCU they faced bullying and harassment online.
There was essentially silence for most of the co-stars.
Many people pointing to the treatment of Brie Larson,
Anthony Mackie, Tessa Thompson, Zendaya.
And people saying they endured bullying, racist remarks,
even death threats without the same kind of quick support
that Pratt received.
But ultimately, that is where this story ends right now.
And as far as my opinion, I'm going to kind of repeat
something here and expand on it.
You know, yesterday while talking about James Charles,
I said, you cannot bully someone into activism.
In doing that, you ultimately create this hollow,
no-win situation.
And to add onto that with this story,
I also think that if you attack someone for not sharing
their political affiliation,
not sharing their political feelings,
it has a high probability of backfiring on you.
I understand, I say all of that as someone that's
actually very, very happy seeing how many more people
this year have felt comfortable sharing their opinions
on politics on, this election, being more outspoken,
even though they're very likely going to lose followers,
but simply put, you're not going to win
hearts and minds by attacking someone for not joining
your calls publicly.
And once again, understand I say this as someone that yes,
I think if you're someone that's like,
I don't care about politics that usually falls
in one of two camps.
You're either incredibly privileged to have that opinion
because you know, it's not going to really impact you
or people you care about that much.
Or, and I think this is often the case,
there are a lot of people that are exhausted
and feel defeated by the political system.
They have the mindset of shit's fucked,
always going to be fucked.
And I think sometimes those people end up
getting inaccurately accused of being privileged.
I guess, to oversimplify things,
I think when it comes to a situation like this,
it's a healthier alternative to choose the carrot
over the stick, try to build and power grow,
support what you see as the good that is happening
in the world rather than kind of tearing down
someone else's building.
Yeah,well, with that said, I do want to pass the question
off to you and actually feels like
there were kind of three questions here.
One, what are your thoughts on this
Chris Pratt situation in general?
Two, what are your thoughts here regarding
the criticisms and allegations that you're seeing castmates
being hypocritical and more showing support here
rather than in those other cases that they mentioned
and three, in 2020, right?
In these divisive times, what are your thoughts
when someone says I don't care about politics,
do you think that that makes sense, yeah I get it,
or do you think that comes from a very telling place
or a privileged position?
Any and all the thoughts you have on this topic,
I'd love to see in those comments down below.
Then let's talk about an update to a story
we covered yesterday.
That seemingly came out of nowhere,
then became big, international news.
And that of course being Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
and her first ever Twitch stream last night,
although it really was much more of that.
And could show kind of the evolution
of campaigning in the future.
Right so if you missed it, I mentioned yesterday
that AOC was planning to play Among Us
with some big Internet stars in an effort
to encourage voting.
We saw a ton of graders reach out and we ended up
seeing her play it with a ton of them with that full list,
including people we mentioned yesterday,
like Pokimane, Hasan Piker, Jacksepticeye,
as well as Valkyrae, who according to reports
is the fastest growing streamer in the world.
Corpse Husband, MoistCr1TiKaL, as well as
Representative Ilhan Omar and her daughter.
And as far as the stream itself, it went on for more
than three hours pulling in very impressive numbers
with reports saying that she peaked
at over 435,000 concurrent viewers.
Meaning that this is the third highest
individual stream by viewership in Twitch history.
Only behind that Ninja-Drake collab around 628,000
shrouds return 500,000.
But also this situation with AOC's stream is a little bit
different because those were only the numbers
from her individual channel, right?
Part of the reason why Among Us is such a big hit
and why AOC's concurrent numbers were probably
much, much higher, you're gonna have 10 people in a game,
and oftentimes all of those people are streaming.
So there were multiple streams last night
or with hundreds of thousands of people watching
those other streams last night.
And while it is very interesting to see those numbers.
And I very much look forward to seeing the number of people
in total that went to these streams.
I think the success of the stream highlights another
evolution of politics.
One, because yes, you could look at this
as just a massive stream,
but you could also look at this as one of the biggest
get out the vote efforts we've ever seen.
And that was a big part of why
she said she was doing this stream.
And during the stream, she's saying register,
vote, vote early.
And two, as odd as this situation may have hit your ears
when you first heard about it before it happened.
It also does make sense.
I mean, think about how many times during an election cycle,
do you hear things like a lot of this
kind of comes down to,
could I have a beer with that candidate, right?
That whole idea is I want to get to know you as a person.
Do I like you as another human being and sitting down
to play video games with another person is how a lot
of people get to know one another now.
It'll be interesting to see not only what AOC does,
but now that she's kind of kicked the door open
for other Representatives,
what does that look like for others?
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The first bit of awesome today is if after today's show,
you kind of just need something different,
maybe more chill right before I uploaded this video,
I uploaded a brand new podcast over at youtube.com/acw.
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Yeah, you can watch that
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Also, something kind of awesome
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So thank you to all you beautiful bastards
who watch the equivalent of a middle aged man
screaming out of a window
about how the world is on fire.
As always, I appreciate you.
Then we got an absolutely beautiful and amazing
teaser trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon.
We also got the Honest trailer for us,
as well as a real trailer for Sean Mendes: In Wonder.
We also had Vanity Fair,
giving us everything Ruby Rose does in a day.
If you want to see the full versions of everything
I just shared the secret link of the day,
really anything at all, links, as always,
are in the description down below.
And then let's talk about this major update
regarding immigration and family separation.
So yesterday, if you look at new sites,
you may have seen headlines saying,
that lawyers could not find or reach
the parents of 545 children who had been separated
at the US-Mexico border.
And that is a pretty big deal.
But also before we get into the details
of the search efforts for the parents,
let's talk about the context of this.
How these parents and children got to be separated
with no real way to contact one another to begin with.
So if you're unaware, thousands of families were separated
back in 2018 under President Trump's zero tolerance policy.
But a Federal Judge ordered that those families
should be reunited, and within weeks many were.
But the reality is that there are actually many more
families who were separated because we later learned
that the Trump Administration was actually already
separating families in a 2017 pilot program.
And under that pilot program,
as the Washington Post reports,
U.S. officials were taking incomplete or inaccurate data
from families and parents with some parents being deported
without being given the option
of reuniting with their kids in the United States.
Right, and so it was not ordered that families separated
during the pilot program be reunited until last year.
And so with all that time passing and much
of the information of the parents being outdated or wrong,
actually getting those families back together
was easier said than done.
But with this order, a Steering Committee,
which includes the American Civil Liberties Union
and other organizations was created to find those families
and is required to give updates on their status,
which brings us to the latest news here.
Yesterday we had Representatives
for the US Justice Department and ACLU
filing an update on the search for these parents in court.
And according to that filing the government provided
a list of 1,556 children.
And the focus is on currently reaching children
whose membership in this case is not contested
and who have available contact information
for a sponsor or parent.
And as of yesterday, the Steering Committee has attempted
to reach the families of all 1,030 children
who fit that bill and have successfully reached the parents
or their attorneys for 485 kids.
But math, that still leaves the 545 children
whose parents have yet to be found
or contact with two thirds of those parents
expected to be in their respective country of origin.
There have been efforts to contact these families via phone,
but those have not been successful
and are not expected to be successful.
There are also other efforts though,
to find and contact these parents that are in the works.
And actually regarding this, you had Lee Gelernt,
the Deputy Director of the ACLU
Immigrants Rights Project telling NBC News,
"There is so much more work to be done
to find these families.
People ask when we will find all of these families,
and sadly, I can't give an answer.
I just don't know, but we will not stop looking
until we have found every one of the families,
no matter how long it takes.
The tragic reality is that hundreds of parents
were deported to Central America without their children,
who remain here with foster families or distant relatives."
And like we said earlier, finding these parents
is very difficult task with Nan Schivone,
the Legal Director for Justice in Motion,
which carries out on the ground searches
for parents explaining some of this process
to The Post saying that "Attorneys take the minimal,
often inaccurate or out of date information
provided by the government and do in-person investigations
to find these parents,
which is an arduous and time consuming process
on a good day."
With the report noting that these people
"Are traveling to remote mountainous villages,
where outsiders might be suspect,
where there might be language barriers,"
the task has also grown much, much harder
during this pandemic, right?
Think about it, you have curfews and lockdown rules,
essentially stopping justice and motion
from being able to take on these efforts though,
in yesterday's filing, we did see the Steering Committee
say that limited physical on the ground searches
for separated parents has now resumed
where possible to do so.
With efforts to protect the health of these workers,
as well as the communities in these various countries,
being a priority.
And on top of the search efforts for the parents,
there's also one for the children, right?
According to NPR, for the most part,
these children initially went into a shelter system
before being placed with sponsors.
But Gelernt also told NPR about 360 of the children
that have still not been located.
With other reports saying that those kids
are likely still in the United States.
While reuniting these families may take a long time
and involve incredibly complicated work.
The matter is still very pressing.
With Gelernt telling NPR,
"Some of these children were just babies
when they were separated.
Some of these children may have now been separated
for more than half of their lives.
Almost their whole life,
they have not been with their parents."
But ultimately that is where we are with this story.
As of right now, we're gonna keep our eyes
on any updates,
but I do want to pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts on this?
Then let's talk about Purdue Pharma and the opioid epidemic
because just this morning we got the breaking news
that Purdue is now set to plead guilty
to three criminal charges related to fueling
the country's opioid epidemic.
Notably those guilty pleas come as part
of a massive settlement worth more than $8 billion.
And, for some context here,
Purdue is the manufacturer of OxyContin, right?
It is a powerful and addictive painkiller.
That's believed to have driven the opioid crisis
right, for reference since 2000
opioid addiction and overdoses
have been linked to more than 470,000 deaths.
And so with this settlement,
which is the highest profile display yet
of the federal government holding a major drug maker
accountable for the opioid crisis,
Purdue will plead guilty to one count
of conspiracy to defraud the United States
with Purdue admitting that it impeded the drug enforcement
administration by falsely representing
that it had maintained an effective program
to avoid opioid misuse,
as well as admitting that it had reported
misleading information to the DEA
to boost its manufacturing quotas.
Both of which are notable because Purdue had told the DEA
that it had robust controls to avoid opioid misuse.
But in fact, instead according to the Justice Department
it had disregarded red flags
their own systems were sending up.
Along with that Purdue will also plead guilty
to two anti-kickback or bribery related charges
with it admitting to violating federal law
by paying doctors to write more opioid prescriptions,
as well as admitting to using electronic health records
software to drive up opioid prescriptions.
With a plea deal reading that Purdue
knowingly and intentionally conspired
and agreed with others to aid and abet
the dispensing of medication from doctors
without a legitimate medical purpose
and outside the usual course of professional practice.
Now, like I also mentioned, those pleas
are part of a more than $8 billion in settlements,
which will be split several different ways.
In one deal the Sackler family, which owns Purdue,
will pay $225 million to resolve civil fines.
And as part of the main deal,
another 225 million will go directly
to the federal government,
in a larger $2 billion criminal forfeiture.
However, the government is also expected to forego
the rest of the figure.
In addition to that $2.8 billion would go
to resolving Purdue's civil liability.
And another 3.5, 4 billion will go to criminal fines,
but, and it is a big,
because Purdue actually filed bankruptcy last year,
those figures also likely will not be fully collected.
As the government will now have to compete with other claims
against Purdue in bankruptcy court.
And actually on that note, since Purdue is in the middle
of bankruptcy proceedings the bankruptcy court
will also need to approve the settlement.
But according to Deputy Attorney General,
Jeffrey Rosen, "The agreed resolution if approved
by the courts will require that the company
be dissolved and no longer exist in it's present form."
However, that does not mean that Purdue is fully gone
or that it will even stop making OxyContin.
In fact, as part of this settlement,
the Sacklers, would relinquish ownership of Purdue
and it would then transform into what is known as
a public benefit company.
Right, essentially meaning that it would
be run by the government with money
from limited Oxycontin sales, as well as from sales
of several overdose-reversing medications,
being pumped back into treatment initiatives,
and other drug programs aimed at
combating the opioid crisis.
And for its part,
the Justice Department has endorsed this model.
However, we have also seen a lot of pushback on this deal,
including from State Attorney Generals
and Democrat Members of Congress
who say it does not go far enough,
arguing that it does not hold Purdue or the Sackler family
fully accountable, especially the Sacklers.
Because unlike Purdue,
they do not have to admit any wrongdoing here.
The New York Attorney General Latisha James
saying, "While our country continues to recover
from the pain and destruction left by the Sacklers' greed,
this family has attempted to evade responsibility
and low-ball the millions of victims of the opioid crisis.
Today's deal doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands
of deaths or millions of addictions
caused by Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family."
Also a coalition of 38 Democratic Members of Congress
saying in a statement to Attorney General, Bill Barr,
"If the only practical consequence of your Department's
investigation is that a handful of billionaires
are made slightly less rich,
we fear that the American people will lose faith
in the ability of the Department to provide accountability
and equal justice under the law."
Though, here while this settlement does not include
any convictions against the Sacklers specifically,
as the Justice Department noted,
it also doesn't release them from criminal liability
and a separate criminal investigation is ongoing.
But still, in addition to
all those other people speaking out,
you also have 25 State Attorney Generals
asking Barr not to make a deal that includes
converting Purdue into a public benefit company,
urging the Justice Department to avoid
having special ties to an opioid company,
conflicts of interest, or mixed motives
in an industry that caused a national crisis,
essentially saying you can't run this new company
while also holding the original one accountable,
For those Attorney Generals instead of arguing
that Purdue should be privately run,
but with government oversight.
But ultimately that is where we are with this.
And like I said, we're gonna have to wait and see
if this settlement is finalized in bankruptcy court.
But with where we are right now,
do you think that this is any kind of justice served?
Is this a meaningful penalty, a meaningful punishment?
Will we see more happen?
Or is this kind of just more of the same
of what we've seen from big industries?
That penalties are just part of doing business
for these companies,
they are essentially thought of as almost taxes
to do predatory and horrible things.
Because as I often do with stories like this
I personally am left, uh, unfulfilled,
feeling like there is no real justice here.
Right if someone's caught pushing Oxy on the street,
you're talking jail time.
But if you break the law at a high enough level
and it is incredibly profitable,
even if you caused so much more damage,
like an almost unthinkable, as if you're trying to make
a comparison amount of damage,
you have to substitute years in prison
and accountability with money.
And it feels like yet another example
that if you live in the United States, yes,
we live in the same country,
but also do we really live in the same country?
Do we actually live by the same set of rules.
And I think if you're paying attention,
the answer is an obvious no.
Hey, like with everything we talk about,
whether you agree or disagree with me,
I'd love to know your thoughts and that, my friends,
is where I'm going to end today's show.
As always, thank you for being a part of my little family
that cares about the news.
Also, if you're new here, you want to join,
hit that subscribe button, maybe tap that bell.
And hey, if you're in the U.S. or Canada,
give me a text at (813) 213-4423.
Also, two people on the text line,
thanks for being a part of that little secret
thing we did yesterday.
But with that said, of course as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.