Exposing The Motive Behind Media Smears Of Youtube (A Warning To All Youtubers)
Exposing The Motive Behind Media Smears Of Youtube (A Warning To All Youtubers) Recently the Mainstream Media as well as many other digital outlets ran smears against youtubers. On Wikipedia one person even highlighted a smear campaign against Philip Defranco after he was included in the Times hit piece.The motive for the smear may have just been revealed in another story by the New York Times who published a quote from an organization representing them stating that they deserved a piece of Google's profits off of news search.You read that right. NYT Ran a story in which they claimed they deserve a piece of Google's revenue. If that doesn't make it clear as to why they ran this hit job then I don't know what else will. We are in an unprecedented political era with the rise of the far left, social justice activists in media, and the election of Trump. News outlets are spiraling out of control and losing money left and right which brings about an unhinged desperation. Drama and controversy generates views and clicks while also serving to harm political and economic rivals.Carlos Maza and Steven Crowder was just one more straw on the camels back. It triggered a wave of censorship on apolitical youtubers. Even channels that make hippie music for meditation got hit by the wave.You may be an entertainment or history Youtuber but make no mistake, you will be dragged into the next great youtube war same as anyone. They did it to pewdiepie, they will do it to you. The Youtube Vs Mainstream media war won't be the first but it will be bad news for many smaller channels on youtube who can't take the heat.
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Over the past couple of weeks, we've been embroiled in a media battle.
The Vox Adpocalypse hit, historical channels, independent creators, journalists, all being purged from the YouTube Partner Program.
This is, I wouldn't call it a concerted effort necessarily, or a conspiracy or anything like that.
I don't believe there's a group of people at media twirling their mustaches saying, let's all do this.
But, it is the dominoes falling over exactly as you could predict.
The media is dying.
And I've said this over and over again.
As they drown, they become violent and thrash about and grasp for whatever they can.
People in media know they can target independent creators individually because we're weak as individuals.
It's easy to take down YouTube when you point to one guy like Steven Crowder.
In the past couple of days, we saw a smear on the front page of the New York Times.
You may be a regular YouTuber, like, in terms of entertainment content, wondering, why would I watch, why do I care what you say, Tim?
Let me tell you.
The Vox Apocalypse hit people who were just journalists.
The New York Times ran a front-page smear against all of YouTube.
Make no mistake, it will come for you, and I've got evidence stacked up to show you exactly how and why.
Steven Crowder tweeted this.
Massive media companies continue their campaign to smear and silence independent creators.
We've got a couple things happening here.
The first, these media companies get salaries.
They make ad revenue.
YouTube is taking away a lot of the ad revenue from these companies.
Viewership is switching to mobile and to digital.
Old-school advertisements don't work anymore, and the media industry is collapsing layoff after layoff over and over again.
Don't take my word for it.
HBO just cancelled Vice News tonight.
It is not going to survive, and I assure you, they're going to turn around and come for all of us.
Don't take my word for it.
Let me show... Actually, this is my word, but let me show you some evidence.
I tweeted this.
Don't you see how the game is played yet?
Media today is not seeking to inform, they are seeking to destroy for political ends.
Take a look at this Google search I pulled up.
I Google searched natural news.
I don't know too much about natural news.
From what I understand, they're a bit off their rocker.
Not a big fan.
That's not the point.
The point is, two days ago, The Daily Beast wrote how natural news became a conspiracy hub.
And then yesterday, Facebook removes conspiracy site natural news.
Like clockwork.
How about this story?
Chase withdrew services to conservative business one day after Slate Reporter's query.
Was the Slate Reporter seeking to inform the public?
Or was she seeking to destroy a political rival?
I'm highlighting these two things because there's an overlap.
I tweeted.
I warned the media would become increasingly unhinged as they struggle and collapse.
Many have warned that with 2020 coming up, they will do everything they can to stop opposition rhetoric.
And of course, here's the story.
Facebook suspends natural news.
Founder calls for President Trump to use military against tech giants.
Well, I don't know who this guy is or what his deal is, but I can say The smears are coming.
They're going to get worse.
They will take anything you say out of context.
They will pull up your archives from years ago to prove something is wrong with you.
It's one of the biggest dangers of YouTube, is that YouTube bends over backwards to these people.
In the New York Times hit piece, we noticed something really interesting.
They claimed that it was radicalizing someone to the right.
But interestingly, they included this timeline which shows he started out on the right.
He wasn't radicalized to the right.
In fact, it shows over time he became left-wing, with the intellectual dark web being the first step in becoming left-wing. Why would the New
York Times frame it in the inverse?
Brett Weinstein tweeted, amazing. New York Times sees one man's YouTube history as Sunday front
page above the fold material, as if nothing happened anywhere on earth this week. In their
story, the New York Times accidentally admits that far from being the gateway to the alt-right,
intellectual dark web discussions rescue people from it.
The reason I bring this up, there is a war.
It's beginning.
It's getting worse.
Let me show you more evidence.
I can tell you exactly why we are starting to see this.
Actually, I can tell you my opinion as to why I believe we're starting to see this, and some strange questionable behaviors surrounding these hit pieces.
Now, I've gone over this to great detail in the past several videos, but I believe it's important to highlight again, specifically to highlight how the initial narrative is that extremists and bigots are radicalizing young men for profit, The making of a YouTube radical, and they show you these figures.
Yet, in reality, the timeline they post in the article shows the inverse.
They lied.
On their front page story.
Why?
I believe I know why.
Take a look at this story that's been going around.
Another hit piece from the New York Times against Google in just the past couple days?
Why so much hit?
Why so many smears, New York Times?
There were three smears against YouTube from the New York Times in one day.
There was a story that was published that was quite literally just a slack, I believe it was a slack message between two personalities about how YouTube doesn't enforce its rules properly, something like that.
There was another piece, which is a write-up on the same thing, three times in one day.
And then we see this from the New York Times.
Google made $4.7 billion from the news industry in 2018, study says.
Now, again, let's be very, very clear.
There is no grand conspiracy, okay?
This is the important part and the biggest thing to stress.
There are not people behind the scenes twirling their mustaches, planning how to destroy YouTube and Google and hurt YouTubers and creators.
It's just dominoes falling over.
This system is entirely predictable.
I said this was going to happen because, out of sight, out of mind, and I can only imagine the inverse would be true.
When the only thing these journalists hear about all day is how they're losing views, they're laying people off, their salaries are collapsing, the Vox Union walked out, they're not getting paid enough!
And us here on YouTube are doing better and better every day?
Who do you think they'll be angry at?
So no, they're not going to meetings and planning what to do, but their minds are all falling into the same place as they lose their jobs.
This story emerges.
Google made nearly five billion dollars from the news industry, study says.
Who cares?
It's called the future.
It's called technology.
Why are they angry?
Well, let me show you.
Quote.
So it's not a direct quote, but it says, The journalists who create that content deserve a cut of that $4.7 billion, said David Chevern, the president and chief executive of the Alliance, which represents more than 2,000 newspapers across the country, including the New York Times.
Can you see it now?
A statement from someone who represents the New York Times saying we deserve a cut of that money, Google!
The money is ours.
Does YouTube, I'm sorry, does the New York Times deserve a cut of that money?
No, of course not.
Absolutely not.
The information economy has changed.
It used to be that back in the day, to publish a statement, you needed a platform.
You needed one of these companies, the newspapers.
And the newspapers were very, very important for the local markets.
And I do lament their demise.
But times change.
And the correct response should be, we need to innovate and figure out how to solve this problem.
Instead, they do what most industries do.
It's like Netflix and Blockbuster.
You had an opportunity to get on board.
New York Times.
You could absolutely have your individual journalists set up YouTube channels and do what we do.
Instead, they aim to take us down.
Why?
Because they don't know how to do what we do.
They're relics of yesterday.
And they're going to lose their jobs.
And there are problems with this system.
It is bad that journalists lose their jobs.
Unfortunately, the emotional response is entirely predictable.
They say, 4.7 billion.
It's more than the combined ticket sales of the last two Avengers movies.
It's more than what virtually any professional sports team is worth.
And it's the amount that Google made from the work of news publishers in 2018 via Search and Google News, according to a study to be released on Monday by the News Media Alliance.
Excuse me.
The journalists who create that content deserve a cut.
They make money off this arrangement, Mr. Chavrin said, and there needs to be a better outcome for news publishers.
The $4.7 billion is nearly as much as the $5.1 billion brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year.
And the News Media Alliance cautioned that its estimate for Google's income was conservative.
For one thing, it does not count the value of the personal data the company collects on consumers every time they click on an article like this one.
Oh, there's more here.
I'm not done yet.
First of all, my understanding as of right now is that Google has pushed back saying, no way, it's not true, your estimates are incorrect, and they don't sell ads on news links.
When you go to Google and search for a story, Google, this is my understanding, I could be wrong, but I saw, I don't have it pulled up, but I saw a quote, apparently they're saying, when you search news, they don't sell ads against that, so they're not making money, it's an estimate.
The important thing is here, that the New York Times doesn't have a disclosure at the top.
You'd think that because this individual who did the study, his organization, and because he's demanding money, and because he represents the New York Times, at the top it would say, before the story begins, full disclosure, the News Media Alliance represents the New York Times and their interests.
They do mention it.
Don't get me wrong.
They say passively.
But how many people are going to just pass through that?
They need it bold, in my opinion.
No, that's just my opinion.
Because it is in the story.
But I think this line, it tells us exactly what's happening.
The journalists who create that content deserve a cut of that $4.7 billion.
Interestingly, one of the issues here is that New York Times does do a lot of original reporting.
So does the Associated Press and Reuters and some other news outlets, ABC, CBS, NBC.
BuzzFeed and Vox kind of do, but they mostly do journalism, where they rewrite stories from these services.
Now, I'm not going to pretend like I don't do similar things on this channel, at least, and my second channel.
I absolutely do, but I'm commenting on what I think about the news, okay?
It's a different sidestep than just claiming I reported their reporting.
BuzzFeed will write a story saying X happened to Y.
And at the bottom they'll cite a news organization.
It's fairly common.
It's become very common in the internet era because information is, for the most part, free.
And the technology around information has changed.
The economy around information has changed.
And they can't keep up with the times.
I want to make sure I stress because people seem to think that they love dragging me while ignoring the fact that, yeah, I do original reporting.
Absolute original reporting.
We do cite other news sources on some stories, but a lot of the in-house reporting we do, the anchoring, is from independent reporters we have on the ground, as well as press releases and other scientific articles.
We also have actual on-the-ground reporters.
But they don't like that.
So here's where it gets interesting, however.
Let's step it up.
Mark Tracy, the guy who wrote the story, which is a clear conflict of interest, where he's citing someone who represents his own interests, where they demand access to the money that Google made, meanwhile, the New York Times runs a front-page story smearing YouTube as a whole and YouTubers.
Coincidence?
Yeah, kind of, but they're interests, you can tell why.
They're doing this.
Again, I don't think there's a guy at the top of the New York Times saying, man, we've got to go after these guys.
What's probably happening is the journalists are going, dude, Google is killing us.
It's not fair.
And these YouTubers, man, I'm going to write a story about this.
The other guy goes, I'm going to write a story about Google News.
Here's the interesting thing.
Anthony Quintano, he is a former NBC News reporter.
This is the guy who wrote that story.
He said, why is someone who covered college sports writing about Google and news publications?
Mike Isaac is clearly listed as a tech reporter in his bio, yet Mark Tracy isn't listed as anything but his background.
Why?
Someone said, Ahmed Zidan, I don't see anything wrong with that.
And Anthony said, clearly you haven't seen the backlash to his story.
On that response, I have seen the article before responding assessing a journal's work, in my opinion, should be based on the merit of the reporting rather than their past coverage.
Whether you cover media or college sports, for the first time or the hundredth, principles of newsgathering remain largely the same.
Anthony responded that you're welcome to your own opinion, but if you actually read the story, you would know that those principles were not followed.
You would not have seen this story produced if one of their tech reporters was on this.
Quite literally, I pointed out to you in the first paragraph the overt conflict of interest and demand for money from Google.
Isn't that weird?
Well, it turns out Mark Tracy is formerly, as it says, of the New Republic.
Interesting.
The New Republic, according to Media Bias Fact Check, is a left-bias outlet.
Unsurprised.
He now works for the New York Times, which is a left-center bias.
I'm not super concerned with the bias, as long as you follow general principles.
But reporting a story in which someone who represents your interests makes a demand for money from Google?
Well, that's really interesting.
Really interesting indeed.
So now I think we can see the motivations as to why these hit pieces are coming.
HBO cancels Vice News tonight.
It's not stopping.
Vox reported their valuation is down.
The union is strangling management, saying we can't pay you above market.
They've come to an agreement.
I wonder what that agreement is.
We'll see.
Layoff after layoff.
A shrinking amount of revenue for these companies.
It's just not good news.
The media industry is not doing so well.
They relied heavily on Facebook and YouTube and the Google algorithm.
And when these companies changed, it hurt them.
A lot.
I don't think it's a good thing.
I think Facebook and Google are dangerous.
They're too big and they control too much.
Here's the problem.
They're coming for us as individuals with lies and smears to destroy our businesses and lives because they didn't innovate.
Could you imagine if Blockbuster started smearing Netflix?
No, Blockbuster just lost.
They had every opportunity to get on board.
This reminds me of the Napster fight.
When the internet emerged, the ability to share information had changed.
And Napster created the ability for people to share music instantly and copy it and replicate it.
And this hurt the music industry.
What did the music industry do?
They attacked Napster.
Sued them.
Went after users.
Sued individuals.
Metallica went after that guy.
You know, individual guy's a big stink.
Why?
The times changed.
The tech changed.
You need to get with the program.
They did eventually.
And now we see iTunes, Spotify, Pandora.
The system changed.
I still believe that revenues in the music industry are way down, but they needed to find other ways to make money.
Instead, what we're seeing is just general outrage, smears, lies, and fake news, and the destruction of individuals' reputations and businesses because they're panicking.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's just full-on panic.
They are panicking.
Dave Rubin tweeted.
He says, OK, fear not.
I'm not going to bash the New York Times all day.
So many other good things happening which I need to focus on.
With 40 million Twitter followers, look how little traction they actually get.
Has anyone done an audit of that?
They can't quit us.
Dave Rubin's making an interesting point.
They do a story on YouTubers.
They smear us.
They try to destroy our reputations and harm the greater community.
And they get relentless, relentless traction, retweets, shares.
Kevin Reuss, I think, got like 10,000 retweets on this story.
It's really interesting, right?
Look at this story from this morning.
Seven retweets.
Really, New York Times?
How about this one?
Tesla, 20 retweets.
It's unfortunate.
Here's one on the Democratic Party.
19 retweets.
The New York Times is becoming irrelevant.
My understanding is they're profitable off subscriptions, but full disclosure, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times upon the front page publication of that story.
When I saw the New York Times was smearing YouTubers as radicalization, and it's fake news, it is.
Easily disproven.
There's no data in the story.
The anecdotal data they do have about one guy actually shows their premise is flipped and wrong.
I thought it was gonna be like an op-ed.
Sure, the New York Times publishes a lot of stories.
Not all of it's correct, that's fine.
And then there it was the next day on the front page above the fold.
The front page story on the New York Times smearing YouTube and individuals.
Mind-blowing.
Philip DeFranco is one of the hardest people when it comes to damaging his business, and I think that's why he was the focus of the story.
Now, they claim he was just part of the watch history of this guy, Caleb.
But does that mean to say that Caleb never watched a Young Turk video?
They couldn't put the Young Turks on there?
I'd be willing to bet he absolutely did.
I would be shocked if he didn't watch any left-wing content.
They did put counterpoints on the front page.
But what about all the other YouTube videos?
Are you trying to imply this guy didn't watch any apolitical videos?
I find that atypical and strange.
I watch tons of political content, but YouTube mostly recommends skateboarding and anime to me, because I watch those too.
Did this guy only choose to watch conservative content?
I think the reality here is YouTube isn't radicalizing people.
Some people are susceptible to certain types of content.
Some people become fans of Pikachu.
I knew a guy in my neighborhood who walked around dressed up like a Pikachu.
Not like in a costume, but he had like a Pikachu hat, with a backpack with a tail on it, and he wore Pikachu shoes.
Is that an extremist?
Maybe.
It's just someone who really likes it.
And some people do this.
But they have to lie.
Because they're panicking.
I'll leave it there.
With the final thought being, let me know if you agree.
They, in this story, said they deserve a cut of Google's money.
Not surprising we're seeing these hit pieces come out.
They feel entitled to the money from Google.
And they're mad at us for making money on YouTube.
Ad revenue for most people is not very good, but it doesn't matter.
They want it, and they're mad.
And the smears are going to get worse.
If you find yourself as a YouTuber, somebody who makes apolitical content, maybe you make comments about, you know, entertainment videos.
Spider-Man's coming up.
Less than a month.
I'm super excited for that.
Maybe you're going to do a review on this.
All of a sudden, one day you'll notice your advertisements are gone and you can no longer talk about the things you care about.
This is what's happening.
Is it on purpose?
Not necessarily, but it will be the outcome.
Make no mistake.
The attacks haven't stopped.
They've only gotten worse.
We're on what iteration of the adpocalypse at this point?
They target advertisers.
They get advertisers pulled from channels.
They are trying their hardest.
They will lose, in my opinion.
They need to innovate.
But it's going to hit you, apolitical YouTubers.
You will lose your livelihood.
So I hope you're putting your eggs in other baskets at this point, because the attacks are not going to stop.
Corporate media is out for you.
Vox is backed by NBC to the tune of 200 million dollars and probably other investments.
They don't care if they destroy ad revenue on YouTube because their money comes from somewhere else.
In fact...
It still benefits these companies to strip the ads of YouTube because, I'll say it again, they think they're owed that money, and they'd rather you get nothing than make money off of them in any capacity.
They don't deserve the money.
The times have changed.
Let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Mines at TimCast.
Stick around.
More content coming up at 6 p.m.
at youtube.com slash TimCastNews, and I will see you all in the next segment.
Vice News is over.
It was a long time coming, if you ask me.
They've done some pretty great things.
And this is specifically about HBO.
There's still going to be their YouTube channel.
Who knows what they're doing?
I'm hearing from one of the reporters that there is a plan to try and sell the show to someone else, so the show may still exist.
But HBO has officially ended the Vice program, and now Vice News Tonight.
For those that aren't familiar, I am the founding member of Vice News.
I was the first person brought on, and based on a speech given by Shane Smith, the CEO of Vice at the Knight Foundation Innovation Awards, he said that they didn't necessarily have the intention to do news until I came in and kind of paved that path.
They brought in a bunch of other people who helped build it.
I don't want to act like I deserve more credit than I do.
By no means.
There were substantially more people brought on to launch Vice News.
But I was number one.
And I kind of created that ability for them to do it.
It's over.
Vice News has been cancelled on HBO.
Now, I had nothing to do with the HBO show.
I was gone around the time they were launching that.
But there's some really important things here.
It's going to be an addendum to the video I did on my main channel today.
Just talking more about this specific instance.
And there's some comments from Vice News staff, as well as a journalist, I believe a journalist, who went through why news is dying.
Before we get started, go to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There are multiple ways you can donate.
But in these trying times, it's great if you do.
Because a lot of people are losing their revenue, getting demonetized, and outside of that, like, comment, share the video.
If you want to support my work, the engagement really helps.
They say former New York Post publisher, that's from the Hollywood Reporter by the way, former New York Post publisher Jesse Angelo is joining VICE to oversee the news, digital, and television divisions.
HBO has canceled VICE News Tonight, putting an end to its seven-year relationship with VICE Media.
It was the end of 2012 when I started talking to VICE.
It was mid-2013 when I joined, and now it's over.
The architect of that show, news chief Josh Terangel, will depart Vice the summer after nearly four years of, per a memo he sent to staff, harrowing challenges and huge highs with the company.
Amid the changes at Vice News, CEO Nancy Dubuc has tapped Jesse Angela, the former chairman
and CEO of the New York Post, for a newly created role overseeing news, television and
digital at Vice.
She announced the staffing changes in an email to Vice employees Monday morning.
Jesse is joining us to create expanded platform opportunities and franchises for all of our
great talent and content we are making every day.
The shakeup comes one year into Dubik's tenure as CEO.
News is among her five focus areas of the company, which also include cable network Viceland, which apparently has been doing really, really poorly.
The editorial sites under Vice Digital, Angelo's hiring, she explained, will allow her to strengthen the relationship between those three divisions.
Here's the thing.
It was recently announced that several Vice brands were being collapsed.
Yes.
I can't remember exactly which ones, but, like, Broadly, I think, was one of them.
And they're being put under the Vice main vertical, vice.com, because it seems Vice peaked.
Their expansion has stopped, and now they're retracting, and this is more bad news for Vice.
So I want to make sure it's clear.
I feel really bad, to a certain extent, because there was so much great opportunity there.
They did do great things.
When I was there, a ton of awesome things happened.
Some of the coverage I did got millions and millions of views.
We were featured on television advertisements.
I remember my cousin telling me one day she was watching Hulu and all of a sudden heard my voice and got confused and saw this commercial.
I got featured in commercials for Vice.
It was amazing.
One of my documentaries was featured on a billboard.
It was awesome stuff.
But something happened around the time I left, and they started to just kind of downward spiral towards regressive identitarianism.
I think because it was cheap content, but I think it's the tract that we see these news organizations following because it's cheap and effective.
It makes money for them.
They say that HBO has been the exclusive television home for Vice News, a relationship that at times proved fraught for both companies, especially when Vice, under then-CEO Shane Smith, expanded its TV footprint with the 2016 launch of Viceland.
They say Vice News Tonight will end in September, when Vice's deal with HBO is up.
But Vice is shopping a daily news show to other networks and platforms and is expected to announce a home for the show in coming weeks.
It's going to be a different show, apparently.
Meanwhile, the company is at work on a news-centric show for Hulu that has yet to be announced.
I just don't see it anymore.
I really don't.
Vice was this edgy upstart.
It was where the cool kids wanted to be.
And I was typically ahead of the market in a lot of circumstances with technology, and I had an opportunity to do a deal with Google, do a deal with some other news companies I'm not going to name, or Vice.
I chose Vice for a reason.
It was the right choice.
Vice was growing like crazy and doing awesome stuff.
Fortunately, changes happen too soon.
And now, once again, we are seeing this, this, you know, Vice was supposed to be the CNN of the street.
It was supposed to take over and kind of displace everybody, and here we are.
Now Vice News has been cancelled.
They say... I believe they're talking about... We'll just read this.
This is interesting.
The ambitious new project, part of an expansive multi-year deal with HBO, allowed Vice to significantly expand its newsroom, filling it with journalists who would report and produce four half-hour shows each week.
The company recruited T. Rangel, previously editor of Bloomberg's Businessweek, to oversee the creation and execution of the show.
But despite attracting a young audience of over half a million viewers per episode, according to data from Nielsen, and winning five news and documentary Emmys in three years, the show has struggled to break out in a crowded landscape of Trump-era TV news.
Its busiest moment came with its 2017 coverage of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
Yeah, we can talk about the double standard.
They embedded with these people for three days and everyone cheered them on.
They won awards for it.
I go to one, one sit-down interview and decide not to publish anything because I didn't think anything relevant came of it.
And they used, they lured that over me non-stop.
It's just complete and total nonsense.
They say HBO had already decided not to renew Vice, a daily news show, and it began to make less sense for the network as it doubled down on drama and comedy under its new leadership.
So we get it.
Vice News is done, but I want to highlight some important issues.
Simon Ostrovsky tweeted, The period under Tarantula's stewardship coincided with a major loss of interest in Vice News' output among its core viewership, in my view.
Completely agree.
Simon Ostrovsky did a fantastic job on the ground in Ukraine.
Danny Gold did some amazing, amazing reporting on the ground in the Middle East, in Israel and Palestine during some major conflicts.
And they both left.
Simon's now with PBS Newswire.
I'm not surprised.
You get rid of, like, so, you know, Danny and I have had some Twitter arguments, but
for the most part, I don't, you know, I think he's done really fantastic work, especially
in the Middle East.
Simon Ostrowski as well has done really amazing work.
And you remove these actual journalists who are actually on the ground, whether or not
we have political disagreements, besides the point, they did great work.
You remove them and bring in these young people, and it just became bad.
It really did.
And there's a lot of controversy now.
I'm not going to get into some of the controversies, but... Danny Gold said, look at you, all diplomatic.
Simon responds, this is obviously a self-serving tweet since I quit soon after he was hired.
But I still think it's true.
People talked about Vice News in 2014 and 2015 when we were there.
Others tried to imitate us.
That's no longer the case.
And he's right.
Vice News launched early 2014.
And yes, Danny did... I remember there was this piece he did on swatting.
Huge.
The Ferguson coverage I did was huge.
Coincidentally, the last thing I did for Vice News.
I did a few documentaries that broke a million, some that got a couple million.
I did a documentary for Vice News on Kim.com, which was just before the official launch of Vice News, but under the Vice News title.
Five or six million views.
My reporting in Ukraine, Venezuela, was the lead up to the launch of Vice News, and it was this period where the people were just talking nonstop about the great things.
And I will say, the peak came with Simon Ostrovsky's reporting in Ukraine, nothing from me, and it came with the, they did a documentary on the Middle East called The Islamic State, which was huge.
So I left near the end of 2014.
Having done all this Ferguson coverage and went to Fusion, and they did carry on doing some really epic coverage that was getting tons of press.
And then it just kind of burned out.
So here's what I want to do.
The last thing I want to do is I want to go through this... Oh, do I not have the thread?
Okay, the thread's right here.
Let me see if I can just get it from the beginning.
This is from Elizabeth Hanson.
Actually, let me do this, because I want to make sure I have her title correct.
She's Business Models for Local News.
That's what her title says.
Harvard HBS, Harvard Sociology.
Here's what she tweeted.
There was no commercial business model that could have saved most news publishers.
This is not a case of product commodification.
It's a case of total decommercialization of news as an industry.
Internet platform economics were going to swamp the majority of publishers no matter what.
There is no market for their products anymore.
Not because they couldn't make one, but because that's not how internet economics work.
Even with an early high paywall and an aggressive pivot to reader revenue, the costs of print and delivery would still not be covered in a majority of small mid-sized newspaper publishers.
I just want to clarify, she keeps putting these parentheses which are irrelevant.
I'm trying to ignore.
Add in the aggressive roll-ups, consolidation, asset stripping, and I think there isn't much small, mid-sized publishers could have done to save themselves from digital disruption.
No doubt, first click, free, helped kill the business model for small and mid-sized news publishers.
Facebook was the nail in the coffin.
But gas on the fire was private equity and the industry consolidation.
In fact, I think many more small, mid-sized news publishers would still have a decent business were it not for the brutal managerial economics of private equity ownership.
It's tempting to apply disruptive innovation theory to all cases of technical change, but also dangerous when bigger secular trends are afoot.
Even digital native commercial news publishers have been struggling, which signals underlying digital news economics mostly suck.
No, it means you're not playing the system right.
I'm doing better than ever!
Subverse is expanding.
Revenue is wonderful.
And we're avoiding playing up to any of the extremes.
Absolutely.
Subverse is pretty run-of-the-mill center straight news reporting, and things are going great.
You couldn't figure it out.
You were too big to pivot, and you're falling apart.
This is what happens.
So why the subscription model needs to be what you do from the ground up.
She ends by saying takeaway.
The news industry is going through decommercialization due to consolidation and internet economics, not commodification and disruption.
We need a new set of non-market policies and strategies for reconstructing the news ecosystem.
Well, there you go!
They couldn't do it.
The business models didn't work, and they failed.
So, I'll leave it there.
Long story short, HBO.
No more Vice News tonight.
That's the latest.
Stick around, I got more segments coming up shortly, and I will see you soon.
A story this morning comes from NBC News.
Record number of undocumented immigrants flooded the southern border in May.
This is crazy, I kid you not, because I saw this story a few days ago and I kind of just glanced at the headline and I'm like, yeah, of course, but it's actually like 50% higher than the previous record from a month earlier.
Quote, we are in a full-blown emergency and I cannot say the stronger the system is broken, said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders.
Border Patrol officers encountered more than 144,000 undocumented immigrants at the southwest border in May, the largest monthly total in 13 years, officials said Wednesday.
More than 132,000 were stopped while crossing the border illegally.
The rest presented themselves at legal ports of entry, customs and border protection, officials said.
Let me make this clear to all of you.
I'm sure you get it if you watch my channel.
That is the size of a small town every single month.
Okay?
There are, like, how many people live in Seattle?
Like, half a million?
So we're talking about every three and a half months, Seattle coming into the United States, and we have no idea who, where, when.
And keep in mind, they encountered this many.
You know what that means?
Let's do some basic semantic breakdown.
If Border Patrol is encountering 144,000 undocumented immigrants, what do you think happens for those they don't encounter?
They're not in that number, which means the number is quite, in all probability, much higher in terms of the amount of illegal immigrants coming to this country.
That's a serious problem.
When, look, asylum seekers deserve asylum, and I believe we absolutely need to do what we can to protect those whose lives are in danger.
But it's these people, okay, the illegal immigrants in this capacity, not all of them, some of them are probably legit asylum seekers, but it's a small percentage, they fill the system, they're straining it, they're breaking it, and they are taking away the protections needed by the actual Asylum seekers, let me remind you of a quote published by Vox.com.
V-O-X.
Not Fox.
Vox.
V-O-X.
They had a statement from one of these illegal immigrants saying, we just want Buffalo Wild Wings.
I'm not trying to be a dick.
I'm trying to show you the severity of the difference.
When someone says, I want Buffalo Wild Wings, and someone else says, the gangs and the cartels are trying to kill me, I think there's an obvious thing we can do here and protect those whose lives are in danger and tell the person, I get it, you want chicken wings, but guess what?
Buffalo Wild Wings is all over Mexico too.
Like, dude, you're not entitled to any of these things.
I absolutely believe we should bring all of these people in in the legal way for a very simple reason.
We need to make sure we can distribute new families in the right ways to help grow the economy, not strain the economy, and not have undocumented people who are at risk, who are sick, and are unvaccinated.
Okay?
There's a reason why we have a legal process for this.
It's very complicated.
And no, it is not about dehumanizing or anything.
It is about protecting the migrants themselves.
Listen, there are kids who are dying.
Okay?
This is why we need to have a legal standard.
So they can come in and be safe.
So they're not wandering through the desert trying to get, and I'm not being facetious, buffalo wild wings, okay?
That was an exact, that was actually published!
V-O-X, the left-wing site, acknowledged this and said many of these people just want better economic circumstances.
Mexico is not really that bad.
From American standards, Americans have this really negative view of Mexico.
Trust me when I say, it's not bad.
Tijuana's beautiful.
They're having problems now because there's too many people there.
Mexico City is amazing.
The weather is beautiful.
The food is great.
It's not poor.
So if somebody is granted asylum by Mexico or welcomed to the country and offered jobs, that's not a bad situation.
We shouldn't ignore that Mexico, you know, would do nothing.
But I'll tell you what, Mexico's now going to do more.
It's a big thing going on with Trump and the tariffs.
But I just want to stress, what really frustrates me here is, there are simple truths.
Asylum seekers need to be protected.
We shouldn't discriminate against migrants.
But we do need a legal process to protect the economy and the migrants themselves.
It is a system put in place with checks to make sure everyone's okay.
Detention centers are having like a mumps outbreak or something like that.
I can't remember exactly, it was mumps or measles.
And this is part of the problem, okay?
We're already seeing, you know, diseases that we in the United States have wiped out coming back because people aren't vaccinating.
These undocumented immigrants are not vaccinated.
It's another reason why we have a legal process.
By all means, you can come here.
It's hard sometimes.
There are certain restrictions, but we will do it to keep everyone safe, okay?
We want to keep Americans safe.
We want to keep the migrants safe.
But yes, I think even Trump said, bring all of the migrants in legally.
I don't understand why that's a problem to anybody.
You don't really bother me.
So let me read a little bit more.
May marked the third month in a row that more than 100,000 immigrants were taken into custody at the border amid a surge of migrants heading north in large groups from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
They are draining themselves of their own countries.
This is just, it can't work.
More than 19,000 immigrants are currently in CBP custody.
Nearly 1,000 border patrol officers have been moved from northern ports of entry, airports, seaports, and elsewhere along the southwest border.
We are in a full-blown emergency and I cannot say this stronger.
The system is broken.
Do you know what the Washington Post said in response to this?
And this is why I'm really, really, excuse me.
I'm really angry about the story.
Because...
The Washington Post, one day before NBC published this, tariffs won't solve our border crisis, but Democrats denied Trump the tools he needs.
When the New York Times comes out, and they did, and they say, Congress, give Trump his money.
When the Washington Post says, a day before, CBP is saying this is a full-blown emergency, Democrats have denied Trump the tools he needs.
I feel like I'm living in some kind of fantasy land where the Democrats just literally don't care.
The story on NBC goes on to say, of the 132,000 who were caught entering the country illegally,
more than 84,000 were traveling as a family unit, 36,000 were single adults, and 11,000
were unaccompanied children.
This is more than a full-blown emergency.
Because I take great issue with this number right here.
Why are 11,000 unaccompanied children coming through this country illegally, crossing through the desert, getting sick, etc.?
We keep hearing stories about people who are dying in CBP custody, and the left blames CBP.
It's a crisis.
I'm not going to put the blame on anybody.
People came to the desert, got dehydrated and sick, and they died.
We need to make sure we don't encourage this behavior and tell them, look, America is for immigrants, it's a country of immigrants, and you are welcome here through a legal process.
I have friends in foreign countries that I want to come to the United States.
It's very, very difficult.
One of my friends is from a rather impoverished nation.
And I am doing everything legally to figure out what we can do to get them legally to the United States.
Not easy.
Not easy.
But there's a reason we do this.
It's very important.
We can't just bring random people from who knows where.
People are vetted.
There are threats.
And I'm not talking about these illegal immigrants being bad people.
I'm sure they're good people who just are desperately trying to improve the situation, and they believe this is the path forward.
But the risks are high.
And there are children now who are getting sick and hurt.
And the Washington Post will rub it in my face that the Democrats are the ones denying the tools he needs, while CBP is saying this is an emergency.
Please!
So what do you think someone like me is supposed to do?
Okay, let me break this down for you.
I think Trump lacks charisma.
I think he speaks to a certain group of people.
I think he's boorish.
I think his tweets can be hard to interpret sometimes, and it's bad in terms of trying to unite the country.
There's a lot of things I can criticize him for in terms of his demeanor.
And these things put me in a position where I'm predisposed to not liking him.
And that's how you can imagine a lot of the other liberals feel.
They're like, when Trump says these things, it gives you the heat.
Like, come on, man.
Don't say... You know, but then you have the foreign policy stuff, which I object to on a moral level.
Here's the thing, though.
I am not led by emotions.
It doesn't matter if I like the president or not.
There are a lot of Trump supporters who personally don't like his attitude either.
I've talked to them about this, and they say it doesn't matter if what he's doing is working.
And I say, you know what?
I can't argue with that.
Well, I can definitely argue with the foreign policy stuff, because defined working in that capacity, I have no idea what you mean when you bomb 18-year-old men and call them militants because they're of age, which is what Obama was doing, or when commando raids go in Yemen and kill kids, or when you provide weapons to Saudi Arabia to go and bomb Yemen.
Yeah, it's something we shouldn't be involved in.
It's a complicated situation.
Don't get me wrong.
But I can object to that, and it's a very complicated situation.
But when we have an absolute border crisis with record numbers, the highest in the past 13 years for any single month, three months in a row of record-breaking, record-breaking, 11,000 kids coming through the border with no parents, And all the other problems, I'll stress, unvaccinated, and the Democrats deny the tools.
Why?
The New York Times, okay?
The New York Times, the left of center, New York Times, published an editorial board statement saying, Congress, give Trump his money.
I am not in some weird fringe group of liberals who are like, maybe Trump should protect the border.
The New York Times is not fringe, okay?
They're the urban elites of the left.
And they said it's time.
And even the Washington Post and other news outlets have said straight up, the Democrats need to do something.
What do I hear all day?
What do I hear all day?
They're, they're, what are they doing?
What is this?
The, the, the...
Here's a story from the Fox News.
Pelosi needs to address invasion at border.
Congress in action.
Shameful, says the GOP.
There was another story I wanted to bring up.
I guess I don't have it, but it was like, I Google searched the Democrats.
I was like, what, you know, like Democrat news.
And you know, they get Mueller report, obstruction, impeachment.
You know, it's absolutely, I feel like I can certainly relate to a lot of these people who did support Trump, in that we are living in some kind of nonsense, absurd breakdown of social cohesion, where the Democrats are just absolutely ignoring this and acting like nothing's happening.
You've got a lot of people calling it a manufactured crisis, and it's like, whatever you want to criticize the president for, I get.
I get.
You know, grab him by the statement, the crass and crude things he said.
He once played up a Republican who body-slammed a journalist and laughed about it.
I'm not a fan of those things.
I'm not a fan of his attitude, his behavior, and his foreign policy.
Can't argue with the booming economy.
I don't know enough about it.
All I know is it's working.
I'm not going to argue with that middle-class family in the middle of the country who got their jobs back.
I can respect and understand that.
There's a predisposition among liberals because of Trump's behavior.
But you know what?
I can put that aside and say, what's going on at the border?
Why is this in the news?
And why are the Democrats obstructing it?
It's not my opinion.
The Washington Post has just published this a day before we see this crisis reaching ahead, where CBP is like, it's a full-blown emergency.
And if you can't, if you can't rally behind someone, okay, if the Democrats are unwilling to do this, and then you complain about we shouldn't be caging children, that's what they keep saying, Trump is caging children.
Listen, it's not a one-sided problem.
It's not all or nothing.
It's 11,000 unaccompanied children wandering through the desert.
They're by themselves.
We need funding to deal with this, and we need to disincentivize this.
But instead of talking about the fact the problem exists, they're worried about what Trump does in response to the kids wandering in the desert?
Caging children.
You mean the unaccompanied kids wandering through the desert who were picked up by CBP, given food and water, and brought to a detention center?
I'm not a fan of the detention centers.
I'm not a fan of how they're being run.
But what's the alternative?
What are you literally telling me?
The kids should just be left to wander in the desert?
We're not going to put the kids in the jails with their parents.
I don't know what the solution is.
But certainly complaining about it isn't actually solving the problem.
Perhaps Congress, like the New York Times said, should give Trump the money he's asking for.
I am not someone who arbitrarily has, I don't have arbitrary opinions.
I don't just decide I'm going to be on this tribe or this tribe.
I sit back and I think about it and say, man, it's a complicated problem.
Let's try and break this down.
And it takes a long time to really figure these things out.
And it got to a point when I saw a major publication saying straight up, you know what, Trump's right on this one.
And I said, damn, the discussion's over.
Like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post are all saying straight up, you know, Let's uh, look at this!
The Washington Post writes, President Trump is understandably frustrated by the crisis at the border.
It's a crisis, and Trump's understandably frustrated.
I don't know who the Democrats think they're playing to.
They're on Twitter, reading garbage, and their brains are being melted by the ridiculous Twitterati who's like, just open the borders!
The Democrats themselves need to pay attention to what's actually happening in this country.
Because when you have the Washington Post of all outlets saying that Trump is understandably frustrated by the crisis, so we know it's not a manufactured crisis, and the Washington Post writer, is this an opinion?
It is an opinion, so I can respect that.
It's not necessarily the opinion of the Washington Post.
But this is not fringe, okay?
These are regular Americans.
Andrew Yang.
Bless his heart.
Tweeted out, like the other day, identity politics is a great way to lose elections.
And naturally, a ton of these Twitterati leftists got really mad.
Yang held his ground.
I have tremendous respect for him.
He's right.
He said we need to bring people together.
He's right.
But these Democrats who are playing these games, who are calling this a manufactured crisis, who are ignoring this and obstructing Trump, look at this, they break down all of the ways the Democrats are blocking Trump from getting the tools he needs to actually solve this problem, while CBP is begging.
It's an emergency.
Record numbers.
Children.
Unaccompanied children.
Okay, I'll tell you what.
Let me frame this in a way that maybe some Democrats and liberals can understand.
Let me just say this.
Trump asked for money.
For border security.
Not necessarily the wall.
Whatever he's asking for.
If there are 11,000 unaccompanied children coming through, wandering through the desert, do you think we should probably pay some people to go and take them out of the desert and bring them somewhere to get food and water and keep them safe from sickness and things like this?
Or do you think it's better that we don't fund, you know, a division of people Do you think it's better that the children are wandering the desert by themselves?
Or do you think it's better that they're, you know, sleeping under mylar blankets in large facilities in, you know, surrounded by chain-link fences?
That's how I can frame it.
Let's put it this way.
What would you rather have?
A large, you know, 100 foot by 100 foot chain-link cage?
I'll call it a cage.
Or would you rather have those kids wandering through the desert by themselves?
I don't know what the right answer is.
I really don't.
All I know is that maybe we should disincentivize this behavior.
You know what, man?
I rant on this stuff all the time.
So, uh, I don't, I, I, I, I'm, I'm just gonna end it here.
It's, you get it.
You know, uh, the Democrats aren't doing anything, and I just get so angered by this.
And I think this is one of the things, immigration is a big issue for Americans, and I think this is one of the things that's gonna push a lot of moderates to the conservative side, and a lot of independents who lean left will probably still vote, you know, Republican, because they're like, dude, you don't have to agree with Trump on building the wall to recognize 11,000 unaccompanied children coming through this border, wandering through the desert, is a really, really bad thing.
One child, to me, is too much.
One kid, by themself, is too much.
But they are human traffickers, okay?
We know this is happening.
And for whatever goddamn reason, the Democrats are just denying Trump the tools he needs.
Whatever, man.
More segments to come later today.
I'm just... I can't say I'm shocked by this anymore, you know?
Next segment will come up at 1 p.m.
Uh, on this channel, and I will see you all in the next story.
Behold, my van, three weeks ago.
Three weeks.
Maybe a little bit more than three weeks.
It was May 4th.
Why'd it say three weeks?
That's ridiculous.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Those were the comments.
This is from May 4th.
That's what the inside of my van looked like.
The point of this video, I'm gonna give you an update on what's going on with the van project, where I want to go with it, and why I just love capitalism.
I love capitalism, okay?
I am not a laissez-faire capitalist, nor am I a socialist, but I am moderate to center-left on economic policy.
But what I love about capitalism is that I have no idea how to build a van or convert it, make it something beautiful.
I literally have no idea the first step to take to make that even happen.
I look at this van and I'm like, boy, I have no idea.
So I turned it over to Diversified Vehicle Services.
I think it's the name.
Sorry, Neil, if I'm getting it wrong, but I'll put a link to their Instagram.
And he started doing the work.
And this is what we started with.
This is one of the first update pictures.
So I'm going to go through some of the updates, talk about the plan.
What we're going to be doing with the van, for now, it's going to be me, and there's a couple other people that I may be bringing with.
The goal is, I'm going to be able to work from the van the same way I'm doing right now, because we've got a rig set up, which I'm going to show you in a second, along with another person, and I'm going to be launching my third channel.
I'm probably going to do this, much to the disappointment of gamers.
There's a channel connected to these channels called Timcast Games.
I'm probably going to change that to an on-the-ground, real conversations channel.
I'm going to take the van on the road.
I'm going to be producing these same videos like I always do, every day on the same schedule, but there will be a new channel dedicated specifically to sitting at the table and talking with people about their ideas and politics.
So it'll be a very much kind of like real conversations, change my mind kind of thing.
I'm not, in terms of like change my mind like Steven Crowder does, I'm not that kind of person.
I'm not really here to debate people.
You know, there will be pushback if someone's got something wrong.
I'll say, well, hold on, you know, actually, according, you know, and I'll always try to, like, pull up the facts on the phone, but I think it'll be interesting to have these conversations.
So here's the thing.
That's what it looked like.
We then had an update, uh, there's a, uh, I don't know what that is.
There's an update here, where the siding got put in, you can see there's the foam, and, um, some work was being done, the trim, or the siding was being put in.
Another amazing update was this is a water heater with a water tank behind it.
And this is the electrical system.
It's not all of it.
There's inverters that are now in other places, but there's going to be solar power, which we have on the roof and an air conditioner.
And so I was told that, um, air conditioned, like I've watched a ton of videos where they said air conditioners don't necessarily work, but.
I guess this guy knows his business.
He knows what he's doing and he said, don't worry about it.
We got this.
So we've got a ton of power.
There's also another thing that we're going to be adding to the roof.
Actually, let me stop here and say one of the reasons why I'm making this video now is it's going to be done in the next few days.
Wait till you see the last photo.
If you didn't go on my Instagram already and see it, you're going to be like, wow.
And when it is done, we're gonna make a full van tour video explaining everything.
It's probably gonna be a pretty damn long video.
I don't plan on editing or anything, so Neil, who's making the van, will show us around and explain, you know, how everything is put together.
And, uh, you know, what it can do, why he chose the certain things he did.
It was 99% designed by, uh, Neil.
Uh, and I kind of just like said, here's what I'm looking for.
What can you do?
So these are the solar panels, as you're seeing, this was an update from six days ago.
It's a photo of the shower, which is in, I don't expect to be using the shower all that often, but it's really important because there will be periods where we're in like, I don't know, the panhandle of Oklahoma or something.
And if we're literally in the middle of nowhere, gotta have a shower.
Gotta have a shower.
The van is not for living.
I'm being facetious when I say I will live in a van down by the river.
The shower is more of like, you know, you gotta have it.
So there is going to be a grey water and a black water system.
You will be able to use the toilet and do your business.
The curtain pops out, extending the length that you will have when you're sitting down taking care of business.
And this shower head, it's going to have hot water.
It's going to be epic.
And there's a gray water system, which we can go through.
Actually, you can see the water pipes going through here.
So this is the workstation.
And I've got a couple photos here, and I'll explain how I work.
I have multiple monitors right now in front of me.
There's two monitors.
And this desk can actually go up and down to open up space.
And the TV has full range of motion.
You can see that it can move You know, in any direction.
We've got power outlets.
We've got USB.
And we've got this, uh, this here table.
And then, um, I don't know if I have a photo.
Okay, I guess not.
But it can go flush up against the wall.
You've got some controllers here.
I actually haven't checked out the latest on this yet.
But, uh, you know, so I, I, there's probably a bunch of stuff in here that I haven't seen.
But this was the latest update.
Look at that.
Tell me that is not beautiful and going to be very much exciting.
So let me, let me, let me just lightly say, like, why I like, uh, capitalism.
All of this was done while I did my work, okay?
I'm sitting here, talking to the camera every day, doing research.
I have no idea how to begin to put a shower in a van.
That seems so foreign and ridiculous to me.
Like, you could literally come up to me and say...
Put a shower in a van, and I'd be like, I literally don't know what the first thing to do is.
Granted, I could figure it out in a few months, depending on what my resources were.
But to be able to go to somebody and say, I'm gonna do work, for which I will receive green pictures of dead presidents, you do this, and then I will give you green pictures of dead presidents.
Doesn't that make so much sense?
I had a conversation with someone on Twitter about socialism.
It was actually like the British Socialist Party or something.
And I explained, like, under communism, what if I wanted to build a car?
And they said, well, then you just go build it.
And I'm like, right, but where would I get the parts?
And they're like, from the factory.
And I'm like, why would they choose to give me the parts and not someone else?
Parts are finite.
And they said, well, they'll have to figure out a system to get that to work.
And I said, would I be able to own the car after I build it?
And they're like, that's your personal property.
You can personally own this.
I said, okay.
So we have to figure out now, before any of this can be implemented, why should I be given access to the finite amounts of resources in these factories and not someone else?
And they said, well, you know, they'll figure it out in the future, I guess.
That's kind of worrisome.
They'll figure it out.
Why are you proposing an economic system that you haven't figured out yet?
We're not going to put some half-baked plan into play.
The other issue I had was, okay, I am not a mechanic.
I'd like to build a car for fun, but I don't know the first thing.
You know what that means?
They would never give me the parts.
The communist factor would be like, you are the last person who's going to be in line for these parts.
Sorry.
But guess what?
In our glorious capitalist system, and I'm not talking about crooked, crony, corrupt capitalism, I'm talking about the literal private enterprise, the ability to take money for yourself and control it, most of it, you know, I still believe in... I'm a social liberal.
But I can take that money and I can do with it as I choose.
I'm not a big taxationist theft person.
Forgive me.
You can take some of the money you receive and use it as you choose.
The government does take some.
I'm not entirely on board with what the government does with tax money, but that's a different conversation.
Going too far and the government seizing your resources, just collapse everything.
Everything falls apart.
You can't do it.
So anyway, like, I don't know, show some more pictures, but the point is, all of this that was done is being done by somebody while I do my work, and my work is being converted into resources for someone else to produce something.
Isn't it that simple?
So this is where the bed's gonna go, and it's gonna be, like, the hardest crappy bed.
I like sleeping on the floor, I have no stress about it.
And so there's gonna be cushion and stuff.
It's just gonna be not like a legit mattress because I don't like them.
Grew up sleeping on couches.
We've got some cabinets up here and not too much headroom.
But you can see from the other photo, the goal with turning the monitor
is that you can watch movies while you're in bed.
I'm gonna have like a PlayStation.
It's gonna be so epic playing PlayStation in the middle of nowhere.
I wanna add something too in my travels.
A lot of people don't know this.
And to me, it's kind of an epic thing.
When I was in Fukushima, I was in the no-go zone of Fukushima, the red zone,
the full-on wiped out, destroyed buildings and radiation.
And it was like, you can't be there without a suit and protection.
I was playing Hearthstone on my phone.
It's a card game, it's the World of Warcraft card game.
I have to imagine, you know, whoever I played against, they had no idea that the place I was in, there was, like, very few people.
It was extremely dangerous, but we had, like, downtime.
There was, uh, um, the camera guy I was working with was getting some b-roll and, like, talking to our fixer, person who guides us around, and I'm sitting there playing video games.
How amazing.
I'm gonna be playing, you know, like, Overwatch or some, you know, first-person shooter, and they're gonna have no idea that I'm sitting up in the mountains.
Now, Um, let's go through these photos real quick.
There's one more.
So, you can see there's the monitor flush.
I thought I had a photo of this desk.
Actually, you can pull it up and it clicks in place and then you can lift it up and put it back down to open up room.
It's gonna be awesome, we're gonna be on the road soon, and I'm going to be putting together, like, a full series traveling.
I don't know exactly when, because we're setting up the Mines office soon, but I will do this.
One of the biggest challenges, outside of what we have so far, is getting data in the van.
And because I upload something like 10 gigs per day, I kid you not, that- it becomes really, really challenging.
Most phone plans will give you like 20 gigs per month.
I think AT&T gives you unlimited, but it's 10 bucks per gig after that, which means that's gonna be really expensive every month if I'm doing 10 gigs per day.
I'm gonna blow out my data plan in two days, and then it's literally gonna be, what, like 100 bucks a day?
That's a ridiculous amount of money, so I gotta figure out how to do this.
Now, T-Mobile and Verizon just throttle you, but if I'm in the middle of nowhere, There's not gonna be any throttling, because throttling occurs when you're in a congested area.
They deprioritize you over others, so I think it'll be fine.
But, rest assured, I will be using a ton of data.
So here's what we found.
I don't know if it's the right solution, but this is the Winegard Connect 2.0 Long Range Wi-Fi Extender and 4G LTE.
I've heard some things about it.
You can see on this, at least Google, it's got 50%, 2.5 out of 5.
Only two reviews.
People aren't super happy with it.
And I've talked to some people who are experts in cell technology and things, and they said they didn't think it was going to be that great.
But you know what?
Might as well get it.
Mostly because it's a Wi-Fi extender, which means if I'm in a semi-urban place, I might be able to catch that Starbucks Wi-Fi.
Or hotel Wi-Fi or something that I could- that I could probably use.
And there are certain memberships you can get for, like, hotspots around the country.
And there's also, like, I don't know how Google Fi would work on this.
But anyway, you know, that's kind of the plan.
Mini rant on capitalism, I guess.
I just wanted to show the current state of things because I'm gonna be putting up a full van tour probably this week.
And so, get ready.
It's gonna be awesome.
You can see the photos at instagram.com slash timcast.
Follow me if you haven't already.
I just felt like making kind of this random video.
Maybe you didn't like it, but whatever.
I'll see you at 4pm on the main channel, and we'll get back to some serious politics and news.
Brett Easton Ellis has a new book out, and it's called White.
It's called White, I believe.
And we have the story from RealClearPolitics, which basically is just pulling a snippet from Bill Maher's show.
But I gotta say, guys, I'm really digging Bill Maher.
You know, Bill Maher has had some stupid gaffes, like the economy and things like that.
But boy, is he calling it out where it needs to be called out.
And I got tremendous respect.
And I will say this.
Dave Rubin made this comment a while ago.
I think it was when Bill Maher made the comment about dragging the economy to hurt Trump.
Dave said something like, he's the last good liberal, don't drag him.
Criticize his bad ideas, but that's the kind of guy you need to be protecting to make sure he doesn't get taken down.
It was something like, people wanted Bill Maher off the air, I don't remember.
In this story, it says Brett Easton Ellis, the nihilism of Generation X is what millennials are reacting to.
But interestingly, in this segment, and I want to add something that's really funny, they drag social justice warriors.
That's exactly how they say it.
And that's kind of crazy.
Could you imagine the rhetoric of the Gamergate era now making its way to mainstream politics?
And so I'll give some pushback to David Pakman.
I think David's great, by the way.
I think he's very intelligent.
Not perfect.
No one is.
Neither am I. But we had a conversation where he said he believes these things are edge cases.
And that means they're rare and under specific circumstances.
I disagree.
These are becoming mainstream circumstances, mainstream incidents that are destroying the left and the Democratic Party.
When some crazy pink-haired woman shrieks the top of her lungs and throws eggs at people, that doesn't help the left.
I don't see why they don't get it.
That makes you look nuts!
What's the goal of hitting someone with an egg?
Seriously, Trump really wouldn't get hit with an egg?
Why?
Why throw a milkshake at someone?
It feels good.
That's all it ever is.
That's all it ever is.
Why do they smash windows?
Is that going to get your politics to win?
Nope.
And so here I am, throwing my arms up, saying, if you don't got anything for me, then I don't got anything for you.
That means my vote.
I'm out.
Right?
But again, it's not about the Democrats or the Republicans, because I certainly think Tulsi Gabbard is amazing, and so is Andrew Yang.
They've both called out identity politics.
They're not perfect, I understand.
Here's the thing.
In this segment, Bill Maher drops the hammer with this quote.
What's really interesting is that whenever these conversations comes up, it seems like there's some outraged social justice activist who takes offense.
Remember when Bill Maher had on Sam Harris and they talked about Islam and Ben Affleck just got so triggered, really angry.
Well, why are you angry?
You know?
This guy right here.
I don't know who this guy is.
Is this Charles Blow?
I don't know.
This guy isn't that bad.
I think this guy's actually pretty good and he brings up some good points.
I want to make sure I'm respectful because I have respect for the way he addressed this.
But he did get like really angry when they brought up social justice warriors and he pushed back on their claims.
And that's a good thing.
That's not bad.
So I appreciate that.
But I do think there's an emotional reaction that we're seeing.
It's fine to react emotionally.
I'm not saying it's not.
I'm just saying you see Brett Easton Ellis in this segment talking about his book and the social justice warriors, and he's doing it in a calm way.
And Bill Maher's going, yeah, yeah.
And then this guy goes, whoa, hold on, hold on.
He gets angry.
Right?
So, again, I'm not saying you shouldn't get angry.
I think the response from this guy was correct.
I'm just saying, we tend to see a reaction to these statements in an emotional way instead of where everyone else is talking calmly.
And look, it's true for the anti-SAW types.
There's a ton of outrage channels that rant and get really loud and angry.
I do it sometimes just because it's like, if I get angry, I'm angry.
Let's read a little bit about this and what Brett Easton-Ellis had to say.
They say on HBO's Realtime Friday Night, host Bill Maher, author Brett Easton Ellis, and New York Times opinion writer Charles Blow had a heated debate on social justice warriors, political correctness, and the differences between Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. The group also talked about the film Black Panther being nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and how being against the nod was racist.
Brett said, I did a podcast that was about two and a half hours long, and for about two minutes, I talked about how in the town, Hollywood, there was this perception of Black Panther being overtly represented of something in terms of the Oscars.
People were talking about that.
And then I talked about how much I thought it was a subpar Marvel movie, but I also talked about how much I liked those opening images of Wakanda.
We have never seen anything like that before.
No one talks about that.
They just talk about the racist douche who dissed the subpar Marvel movie, and that's part of the problem with social justice warriors.
And I agree.
Out of two and a half hours, they take one snippet out of context and say, screw this guy.
A lot of other people started cheering him on for saying it, which I think you can.
It's fine to criticize.
The point is, you can see that's not so much the problem with social justice warriors, but the culture war itself.
Can we talk about Brett praising the scenery of Black Panther?
And I gotta add too, man, like, there was a lot of, in my opinion, faux outrage over Black Panther and faux praise.
It just felt so fake to me, all of it.
Hollywood being like, you're gonna get an Oscar nomination.
Why?
They won for costume.
I think that's actually spot on.
The costumes was really, really incredible because they were all unique, right?
When you do a movie and everybody wears kind of the same thing or it's kind of, you know, But they had all of these unique, colorful costumes.
I thought it was fantastic.
I give the movie a 7 out of 10.
Black Panther, not the greatest movie ever, but worth watching twice.
I kind of judge things on whether or not I'd watch it again.
Doctor Strange, I'd watch over and over again.
Black Panther, I'd watch a couple more times.
It's worth it.
But there was a ton of people like, oh, it was terrible, it was bad.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It was fine.
It wasn't the greatest movie.
He says, they're gone.
I think a lot of what happens, uh, I think a lot of what happens happens because one generation reacts to another, Ellis remarked.
And when we talk about social justice warriors or victimhood, we're talking about a generation that is reacting towards Generation X, which was kind of cool, very aloof, very indifferent to things, wasn't so overly emotional.
I think the nihilism of Gen X was what millennials are reacting to or reacting against.
Now we see that Bill Maher quote.
It's people just trying to build a reputation to be part of a social media nation that may or may not even be real, and it's also dividing us apart.
Social media is not designed to bring us together.
It's to bring us together to battle each other, National Security Analyst Clint Watts added.
They say Clint Watts said, but I'm saying he edited it.
It creates what real activism is versus, I'll click this, tweet this out.
What's so exhausting about this lack of trust Mara lamented.
When we're just with our own friends in a place that's not public, we're funny, we're politically incorrect.
We all do it.
And then in public, and public now means on Twitter, social media, Facebook, I always say that's like our avatar.
It looks like us, it sounds like us, but it's this whole other person who talks like a robot.
And can't you just trust me after all these years that I'm not wrong on these, I'm not wrong, I'm not on the wrong side of these issues.
It's like, no we can't, because we're just trying to get you your scalp and clicks.
Okay.
He's right.
Absolutely, 100%.
And it's Twitter's fault, it's the tech giant's fault, and it is the regressive left.
It is the social justice warriors.
You can be a social justice activist and not be a social justice warrior.
Charles Blow, I believe his name is, took offense and said there are good people doing good work in courtrooms.
No!
Those are not social justice warriors.
Social justice warrior is an ironic term to reference that they're going out of their minds and going, ah, and running full speed.
I would consider myself an activist for social justice.
I believe in equality and fairness, and there's a real social justice.
Some people say, no, social justice is just justice.
You're right.
But there can be subcategories.
I believe there's problems with racism in this country.
I'm not going to go and bash some dude over there with a bike lock because of it.
I'm not going to shriek about white people because of it.
I'm going to say, hey, did you notice that's not fair?
What do you think we can do?
You disagree with me, it's not fair?
Let's have a conversation about it.
That's real social justice activism.
Trying to do what's right to bring people together to mend these problems.
Am I perfect?
No.
Is anyone else?
No.
Do I disagree with other activists?
Of course.
I would, I would, I would posit that most people who watch my show would agree with equality, civil rights, liberty for all.
It's, it's, it's, it took a long time of fighting in this country to get to that point.
We had laws that segregated people in the past.
We don't anymore.
Let's not do that again.
So I'll tell you what a social justice warrior is.
It's a person advocating for segregation.
It's a person advocating for censorship.
He describes people in courtrooms defending the rights.
No.
That's legit social justice work.
And I respect those people.
And I respect the people who want to highlight these problems.
Unfortunately, The grifters, yes, I'll use that word, the real ones, who want to make money, hide behind anti-racism.
And so do the fascistic individual activists.
Antifa is not fighting against fascism, they're going around beating innocent people.
Sometimes, some Antifa will protest against, you know, actual fascists.
Sometimes, and actually most of the time, the real anti-fascist activists aren't showing up wearing all black, they're doing behind-the-scenes activism.
Oftentimes people cross the line and violate civil liberties.
Doxing, publishing private information, whatever.
The issue is, they go out in the street, they show up to Trump rallies, and they attack regular conservatives.
They're not fascists.
So yes, props to Bill Maher and to, you know, Charles Blow as well.
I do believe it's important.
There's always some good pushback.
And I think he handled himself really well without going over, you know, like Ben Affleck did.
But I'm glad to see this conversation happening.
On HBO, right?
So they have the videos and all the stuff.
I'm glad it's happening.
And props to Brett Easton Ellis for being rational and calling out the bad without dragging the good.
There are absolutely going to be people on YouTube who want to go after, you know, SJWs and they're disingenuous.
And I have seen some of these videos and I've called them out.
And I've called out the snark and the nonsense from those claiming to oppose these people who do the same thing.
I got one more segment coming up for you in a few minutes, so stick around, I will see you then.
Following up on the story about Oberlin College losing a lawsuit, oh my god, did they just make a ridiculous mistake?
And I laughed really, really hard when I read this headline.
Oberlin College mass email criticizing jurors could influence punitive damages hearing in Gibson's bakery case.
They say, from legal insurrection, publicly accusing jurors of disregarding, quote, the clear evidence our team presented when the trial is not over is another baffling move by Oberlin College.
Get woke!
Go.
Broke.
Not absolute.
I always want to clarify that.
It's sometimes true.
It's the funny saying.
Let me just clarify this.
Oberlin College is being sued for smearing, defaming, and harming the business of Gibson's Bakery.
They lost.
They have to pay $11 million.
But the decision on punitive damages hasn't yet come.
In what may be one of the most insane moves ever, The college sent a mass email criticizing the jurors before the jurors have even made their decision.
Oh my god.
Could you imagine having to decide whether or not someone defamed someone else and they sent out a mass email criticizing you?
I'd imagine the jurors saying, we didn't disregard your evidence.
We looked through it and disagreed with you.
How dare you?
Oh my god, let's read this story.
For those that aren't familiar, there was some shoplifters who happened to be black.
At the bakery, they got arrested, they pled guilty, they apologized, but the school actually facilitated protests accusing the bakery of being racist and profiling people, and they just lost, and they pulled this nonsense.
So let's see what happened.
Before we get started, go to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There are multiple options to choose from.
In these trying times, as I broach these controversial issues, your support is that safety net to keep me afloat in the event they come for my channel as well.
Which would suck, but whatever, I'll get in my van and drive off into the sunset.
Um, but also just like, comment, subscribe.
It really does help.
Legal Insurrection says, There are a lot of things about the way Oberlin College
handled the Gibson's Bakery dispute and lawsuit that have had me wondering who, if anyone, is in
control over there.
As mentioned numerous times, from the start of this case, I have questioned the aggressive
and demeaning attacks on the Gibsons' defense strategy.
And I'm still shaking my head at the tone-deafness of the defense in belittling this family business.
So, I'll clarify this.
This is a business that's been around since 1885.
That brings a warmth to my heart.
They survived two world wars and the Depression, among other great crises in America.
And they exist to this day.
That's inspirational to me.
And the defense said they were only worth $35,000 less than half a semester at Oberlin.
That's a smack in the face to the community and to Americans who believe in America.
But they did.
And so they highlight this.
this. They say, the jury seems to have agreed, rendering a combined $11.2 million compensatory
damages verdict against Oberlin College and the Dean of Students, Meredith Raimondo. The
next stage is a punitive damages hearing, since the jury found the defendants acted
with intent and malice. Man.
A separate punitive damages hearing is required under the Ohio tort reform legislation that passed several years ago.
The point is to keep some of the more inflammatory evidence that does not go to liability or compensatory damages away from the jury during the initial deliberations.
That additional evidence relevant to punitive damages could include information as to the wealth of the defendants, but also additional information supporting the need for punishment.
In this context, there is nothing more baffling than a statement sent to alumni after the verdict by Donika Thomas-Varner, Oberlin College's Vice President and General Counsel.
The statement was contained in a mass email sent to alumni and possibly others criticizing the jury verdict and repeating the same stale defenses that failed at trial.
I wonder what the jury is going to think when they hear they're being spoken of negatively because they felt they made the right choice.
Not gonna be... Wow.
What?
What is that?
What are you?
Are you nuts?
They said, I don't want to read through the whole thing.
But they do say, we are disappointed with the verdict and regret that the jury did not agree with the clear evidence our team presented.
Neither Oberlin College nor Dean Meredith Raimondo defamed a local business or its owners, and they never endorsed statements made by others.
Rather, the college and Dr. Raimondo worked to ensure that students' freedom of speech was protected, and that the student demonstrators were safe and lawful, and they attempted to help the plaintiffs repair any harm caused by the student protest.
Except, it was stated in the other article, They handed out flyers supporting the protest.
So they say, well, we are disappointed by the outcome.
Overland College wishes to thank the members of the jury for their attention and dedication during this lengthy trial.
They contributed a great deal of time and effort to this case, and we appreciate their commitment.
Our team will review the jury's verdict and determine how to move forward.
So I do want to stress, they're not that hard.
It's not that bad.
They did thank the jury.
Legal Insurrection may be pushing a little hard, claiming, you know, they're criticizing them.
But I think from a legal standpoint, the person who wrote this probably knows better than me to say, you probably shouldn't put out this letter, period.
Well, I'm saying this.
I'd imagine you don't want to send out a letter that could prejudice the jury by stating you think they were wrong.
Just, just, just, there you go.
Wait, you know, let, the trial's not over yet.
There's more.
Here's what they say.
Procedurally, the email is baffling because the trial is not over.
The jury will hear more evidence and render a verdict on punitive damages that could add another $22 million to the $11 million compensatory.
The objective of any communications at this sensitive stage must be to first do no harm.
That's how Scott Wargo, Oberlin's spokesman, handled it when contacted by me and other media after the verdict, indicating the college had no comment on the jury verdict.
Wargo's statement was the professional response one would expect in this circumstance.
So why are others at the college not heeding the basic corporate communication strategy?
Well, I'll tell you what.
That is a bit refreshing.
I hate corporate PR nonsense.
Just tell the truth.
I'm glad they did, but now here's the problem.
It's unfortunate.
They're gonna reap the benefits.
I'm saying that facetiously.
They're gonna reap the harm.
Substantively, the email is infuriating to anyone who has filed the case.
Oberlin College and Raimondo were not, quote, held liable for the independent actions of the students.
Rather, the defendants were held liable for their own conduct in aiding and abetting the publication of libelous documents, interference with business, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Let me repeat, it was the college's and Raimondo's own conduct that was at issue before the jury.
That the General Counsel of Oberlin College doesn't understand that, even if she disagrees with the jury conclusion, tells me something went very wrong with the way the case was handled internally at Oberlin College.
The jury knows this.
The jury knows that they were personally at fault.
Varner began serving at Oberlin College as Oberlin College's Acting General Counsel on June 5, 2017, and was appointed General Counsel on March 2018.
Prior to that, she spent 15 years in the General Counsel's office at the University of Michigan.
This means that while she was not at Oberlin College when the protests took place, she was General Counsel starting several months before the lawsuit was filed in November 2017.
Given her position, she likely would have been the administrator at Oberlin College overseeing outside counsel's handling of the case.
Depending on what her role was in overseeing the failed litigation, effectively, she was the client.
She may not be the best person to be involved in communication strategy post-verdict.
He goes on to say, uh, I saw this phenomenon when I was in private practice representing employees against securities firms, which usually had in-house counsel involved in termination decisions.
When the in-house counsel who advised, who advised as to termination was also allowed, I'm sorry, When the in-house counsel who advised as to termination also showed up overseeing the litigation, I knew there were going to be problems because that person had an interest in defending his or her own termination advice, rather than providing a cold, disinterested litigation assessment.
We would have to know more about Varner's involvement in overseeing the litigation, but if she was the key point person at the college as to the litigation strategy, she may not be the right person to handle corporate communications.
Well, let's just read the conclusion here because I don't want to make this one too long.
Don't accuse the jurors.
They say, for heaven's sake, don't make things worse.
Don't accuse the jurors of disregarding the clear evidence.
Don't repeat the same failed claim that the college administrators were simply keeping the peace and protecting free speech when numerous witnesses testified otherwise.
So basically, you're being sued for defamation when you get proven wrong in court and the jury says you lied or you're wrong.
Don't repeat the same misinformation.
You're basically defaming them again.
That's insane.
I think they're gonna get slammed hard on this punitive stuff.
They say, and don't claim the college was held liable vicariously when in fact the college's
own conduct was at issue.
The post-verdict email could be Exhibit A, as the punitive damages hearing as to why
the compensatory damages are not sufficient to send a message to Oberlin College and its
Whether it will be an exhibit, we'll find out on Tuesday.
But I think it'd be pretty damn hilarious if they said, we told you you defamed them.
For you to come out afterward during the trial and say, no we didn't, when we told you you did?
