July 9, 2015

The world on July 9, 2015:

  • The Guardian reports that Exxon knew about climate change in 1981, a full seven years before it became a matter of public debate. Internal emails show that they were fully aware of the science back then, and engaged in a campaign to fund climate change denial to the tune of at least $30 million over 30 years.
  • Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, as well as the Green Party candidate Jill Stein, have promised to not accept any campaign donations from fossil fuel companies.
  • Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fires Police Commissioner Anthony Batts over his handling of the arrest of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody under very suspicious circumstances. Further, the Baltimore police union issued a review accusing Batts of ordering officers to allow looting and property destruction during an uprising over Gray’s death, which left 19 buildings burned.
  • California Congressmember Barbara Lee introduces the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act, or EACH Woman Act, hoping to invalidate the Hyde Amendment which bans federal funding for abortion.
  • FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate that the FBI needs backdoor access to encrypted devices and software. Tech companies have come out against this, warning that the dangers to privacy outweigh the potential security assistance.
  • The UN announces that the refugee population due to the Syrian War has exceeded 4 million, and that due to hostilities, an estimated 7.6 million people have been displaced. Antonio Guterres, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said, "This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation."

What Alex covered on July 9th:

  • Almost this entire show is about how mad Alex is about a trailer for a show on MTV called White People. The show is intended to teach white youth about the nature of cultural privilege, not to convince them that they are evil, but that they live in a set of circumstances that have come into being because of outright oppression of minorities. Alex does not understand this, and his defensiveness about his white identity almost drives him to the point of insanity while covering this trailer.
  • Alex alleges that he has been attacked by black people more than Martin Luther King Jr was attacked by white people, which is basically an insultingy reductive take on the Civil Rights Movement. Alex believes that the street fights he got into as a kid were him being racially targeted, which is something too absurd for us to unpack here.
  • Alex conducts an interview with Larry Nichols, which is involves a couple of main points. First, Larry needs money. He has medical bills and is appealing to Alex's audience to help. Second, he wants everyone to know that the Clintons were swingers (in addition to witches), and that Chelsea isn't Bill's daughter. Lastly, he wants to explain to the audience that Barack Obama is trying to turn the US into a Muslim caliphate, which would then make him the leader of Islam globally. It's an absurd premise, and you can hear him explain it in the below clip.


  • Alex thinks that doctors and schools are trying to convince kids, who would not be inclined to do so otherwise, to be gay or trans. He relies on a very misleading, inconclusive, and unprofessional video from Joe Biggs to make these completely insane claims. It is an embarrassing look at a man who really believes in a "gay agenda."