I don’t think there’s been any week when we got so many emails from listeners asking us to address a story in the news as we got from you this week asking us to talk about Afroman. Yes, Afroman, famous for the 2000 hit single “Because I Got High.”
If you have not seen the recent news about Afroman, here’s the short version: Adams County, Ohio police raided his home last year, looking for evidence of drug trafficking and kidnapping. They apparently didn’t find anything related to that, and they didn’t bring any charges. But Afroman took video footage of the raid — some from his security cameras, some that his ex-wife shot on her phone — and turned it into creative content.
For example, [above] is the music video for his new song called “Lemon Pound Cake.” It’s about one of the more rotund officers who raided Afroman’s home, and a tempting lemon pound cake sitting on Afroman’s kitchen counter that seemed to distract him from his official duties. The music video contains quite a bit of that video footage:
This and other raid-related songs have racked up millions of views on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
Oh, and Afroman also made t-shirts with the cop’s face on them:
A post shared by O.G. Afroman (@ogafroman)
Now, the cops are suing — not for defamation, but for misappropriating their likenesses for commercial purposes. They say you’re not allowed to take video of police officers who raid your house and turn it into songs and merch you make money off.
Is that right? We discuss how the First Amendment interacts with law restricting how you can use other people’s likenesses commercially. And we talk about the Streisand Effect: won’t the added publicity from the litigation only worsen a key problem the officers raise in their lawsuit, that is, that people keep making fun of them while they try to do their jobs?
Drug Prohibition is stupid. So stupid that even I find myself on the side of Afroman and against the police.
NEW YORK, NY — District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly set to indict Trump this coming Tuesday for the removal of a mattress tag back in 1997. According to sources, new evidence was discovered in the mattress tag cold case by grizzled Detective Harry Jakes, who utilized modern advances in forensic science to place former president Donald Trump at the scene of the crime.
“We got him dead to rights,” said Bragg in an unnecessary press conference. “No one removes a mattress tag in my city and gets away with it!”
You walk in. The wall decorations vaguely suggest psychedelia. The music is pounding, head-splitting, amelodious. Everyone is struggling to speak over it. Everyone assumes everyone else likes it.
You flee to the room furthest from the music source. Three or four guys are sitting in a circle, talking. Two girls are standing by a weird lamp, drinks in hand. You see Bob.
“Hi, Bob!”
“Hey, good to see you again!”
“What’s new?”
“Man, it’s been a crazy few months. You hear I quit my job at Google and founded a fintech startup?”
“No! What do you do?”
“War insurance!”
“War insurance?”
“Yeah. We pay out if there’s a war.”
“Isn’t that massively correlated risk?”
“Yeah. The idea is, we sell war insurance to companies who do badly if there’s a war – tourist attractions and the like. Then we sell the same amount of peace insurance to military contractors. As long as we get the probabilities and costs right, we make the same profit either way.”
“Neat idea, how’s it going?”
“Great! Ayatollah Khameini just bought a ten billion dollar policy.”
LONDON — In his first official royal decree, King Charles has replaced Meghan and Harry in the line of succession with two of the late Queen’s corgis.
“Fluffy here shall immediately assume the title of Duke,” said Charles, presenting the corgi with a scepter. “There now! Who’s a good future King of England?”
The nation of England erupted into celebration upon hearing the news. “After the sadness of the past week, it feels good to have something to be happy about,” said citizen Gerald Funderburk. “The thought of the monarchy falling into the hands of Harry or Meghan, those blithering idiots…we can all rest a little easier tonight knowing the kingdom will be in good hands. Or paws.”
And whom will they be going after? You, Mr. & Mrs. Small Business Owners. NY Post:
A key provision in the Inflation Reduction Act — which throws an extra $80 billion to the IRS to improve the agency’s collection of under-reported income — will end up targeting small business owners to pay for the legislation, according to nonpartisan watchdog the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The group estimates that between 78% and 90% of the estimated additional $200 billion the IRS will collect will come from small businesses making less than $200,000 annually.
Just 4% to 9% would come from businesses making north of $500,000 a year — meaning the legislation is in sharp contrast to President Biden’s longstanding claim that he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000.
“The IRS will have to target small and medium businesses because they won’t fight back,” Joe Hinchman, executive vice president at National Taxpayers Union Foundation, told The Post. “We’ve seen this play out before … the IRS says ‘We’re going after the rich’ but when you’re trying to raise that much money, the rich can only get you so far.”
My 4-year-old pangender child, Stardust, just asked, "Matt, if Elon Musk takes control of Twitter, will hate speech be normalized? Is Democracy over? Will life even be worth living?"
I looked at them and replied, "Yes, yes, and no." And we simply held each other and sobbed.
— Dr. Matt Walsh, Women’s Studies Scholar (@MattWalshBlog) April 25, 2022
