Tonight:
Trump's LGBT broadside.
Nevada's green pot of gold.
And…
Defending the deplorables:
— There's a dead hooker in here someplace.
But given my practice,
dead hookers are our spirit animal.
— At least 100 people were injured at the site of al-Aqsa Mosque
as more violence broke out between Palestinians and Israeli police—
despite the fact that divisive new security measures,
including barricades and additional surveillance equipment,
had been removed from the area.
Worshippers returned to pray in the Mosque for the first time since fighting broke out two weeks ago,
and they carried in Jerusalem's main Muslim cleric on their shoulders.
Pakistani police arrested 25 people
after a village council ordered the public rape of a teenage girl as a revenge punishment.
The girl's brother had allegedly raped the sister of a man,
who was then told to carry out the assault in retaliation.
Some members of the council reportedly watched the second rape as it was carried out.
The Dutch manufacturer of the ride that broke apart at the Ohio State Fair,
killing an 18-year-old man,
is ordering the rides be shut down
until investigators figure out what caused the malfunction.
There are 43 of the Fire Ball rides around the world
and 11 are in use in America.
Five other states have taken similar rides out of service since the Ohio accident.
The head of the Boy Scouts of America apologized
to anyone offended by President Trump's speech at the organization's National Jamboree earlier this week:
— You know, I go to Washington…
and I see all these politicians…
and I see the swamp.
And it's not a good place—
in fact, today I said, we oughta change it
from the word "swamp,"
to the word "cesspool,"
or perhaps to the word "sewer."
— In a statement, the Chief Scout Executive wrote,
quote, "I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family…"
"…who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree."
Speaking in Washington a day after President Trump announced a ban on trans servicemembers,
the Army Chief of Staff said there have been some issues integrating transgender personnel:
— This is a complex issue
and there's a variety of challenges out there that we have to deal with,
and we've been working through it.
But this is not clean cut either way,
so the short answer to your question is yes,
we've had to deal with problems.
We don't get it in the media,
we deal with it professionally, quietly,
with dignity and respect for the individual and the institution.
— But he also echoed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
who said trans soldiers will be able to continue serving
until the White House sends the Defense Department formal policy guidance on implementing the change.
— The ban on trans military service the President announced on social media
wasn't the only surprise attack on LGBT rights coming from the Trump administration yesterday.
And it's part of what looks like a more sustained effort.
— There's one legacy of the Trump administration
that, six months into this whole thing, is now secure:
The federal government now works to make life harder for the LGBT Americans,
rather than easier.
Yesterday, the Justice Department did something unexpected:
in an amicus brief filed as part of an ongoing workplace discrimination suit,
the DOJ said Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
does not include LGBT people in its protections against workplace discrimination.
This is a big deal,
according to the lawyers who work on LGBT issues:
— What you have now is the Justice Department affirmatively asserting itself
and trying to influence the rest of the courts that are deciding this issue.
And we expect that at some point the Supreme Court will need to weigh in.
— This kind of brief, the Justice Department making this kind of ruling, what does it mean?
What happens now?
— I mean, it's really noteworthy,
for a court that has the chance to really decide this question in a fresh way,
to say, "No, no, court!"
"You be sure to take the really narrow view,"
really is an attempt to plant the flag,
I think, in a way to satisfy particular elements of the President's base.
— Challenging LGBT equality was one of the first things this administration did.
Back in February,
Trump officials overturned an Obama-era directive
that said public schools that receive federal funds
must allow trans students to use the bathroom they're comfortable using.
This may seem like a pretty obvious play to the conservative base.
But actually, it's a dumb strategy,
both politically and economically.
— If we don't get no justice,
then they don't get no peace!
— In multiple states,
transgender bathroom bans have been considered
and dropped after corporations threatened to pull business.
And in one state, North Carolina,
the Republican governor actually lost his job, in part, because of it.
Many Republican politicians have actually given up on re-litigating LGBT issues,
because they know it's a political loser.
Yesterday, in the hours after Trump made his move on trans military service,
conservative after conservative after conservative
lined up to oppose his move:
— You oughta treat everybody fairly
and you oughta give everybody a chance to serve.
— In order for this to be a smart political play,
Democrats running for Senate in states that Trump won
would need to be afraid of taking this issue on.
But so far, none of them are.
Basically every targeted red-state Democrat rushed to support transgender military service.
Less than a month after Nevada legalized recreational marijuana,
a fierce battle is underway over who gets to distribute the drug.
Currently, only alcohol wholesalers can apply for distribution licenses.
But the state is worried that they can't meet demand on their own,
and is trying to open up the market to other types of companies.
Now, the liquor distributors are suing—
to keep their monopoly.
In the meantime,
dispensaries in Nevada are doing their best to make sense of the shifting regulations.
— A block and a half west of the Las Vegas strip,
with the Trump International Hotel looming in the background,
sits Reef,
a marijuana dispensary unlike most others in Nevada.
The operation is massive—
165,000 square feet and about 150 employees.
Matthew Morgan, Reef's CEO, gave us the tour.
— I've seen a lot of pot.
So this is Girl Scout Cookies, obviously another very famous strain.
If I built this out, as close to the strip as it is,
it'd become the destination point.
— So it was a visibility move.
— Of course.
It's like the Costco of weed.
— Every step of the process involved in bringing marijuana
from the soil to the store happens within these walls.
— So how many strains are you selling at this moment?
— About 12.
So we're running a little low.
Normally, I like to keep between 16 and 20 on the shelves.
— It's a smooth, unbroken process, except for one wrinkle:
Distribution,
meaning physically moving the packaged product to the place where it's sold,
is currently restricted by law to alcohol distributors.
So, when the time comes for Reef to restock its dispensary shelves,
they have to hire a different company, called Blackbird—
one of only two currently licensed to distribute cannabis in Nevada.
A Blackbird employee shows up in the morning and grabs a cart loaded with four plastic bins.
He walks the cart down a short hallway,
then moves the bins down an even shorter hallway,
and hands the cargo—
3,760 pre-rolled joints—
to the workers in Reef's stock room.
The whole process takes about a minute and a half.
— The situation you're currently in,
where you have to hire a third party distributor
to move the product from your grow to your dispensaries,
does that affect your bottom line at all?
— If we're talking about money, it's not a huge issue.
But just logistically, it's a nightmare.
— Do you ever feel tempted to just…
walk the product from the grow to the store yourselves?
— Um…
you know, I have a pretty good relationship with the regulators in Nevada,
so I'm not trying to deteriorate that relationship.
So, to answer your question, no.
— Reef's predicament is a side-effect of special interest politics,
Nevada-style.
The voter initiative that legalized recreational cannabis
was actually written by a national group—
the Marijuana Policy Project.
In an attempt to lure the state's powerful liquor lobby into the fold,
the group included a provision limiting distribution to alcohol companies for the first 18 months.
Political consultant Scot Rutledge
helped run the state's successful campaign to legalize recreational marijuana:
— So why was that provision in the initiative in the first place?
— Politics.
You know, they came to Nevada.
They understood that alcohol is king here.
Las Vegas sells a lot of alcohol.
And so, as opposed to creating a natural enemy,
they said, "Look, let's try to find a way to include them in this new industry."
— So it was an attempt to sort of preemptively appease the liquor lobby?
— Correct.
— As it turns out,
many big alcohol distributors were worried
that dealing with a product that's still illegal according to the federal government
would jeopardize their business.
By the time legalization rolled around,
not a single alcohol company had gotten a cannabis distribution license—
and very few had even applied.
It was almost two weeks into legalization before when Blackbird got the first one.
And Tim Conder, the company's CEO, has been busy ever since.
— I did 20 deliveries myself yesterday,
we're, like, we're slamming.
— So you're one of very few players
who can fulfill this very specific step in the process
that's absolutely necessary for the whole machine to run.
— Yes.
— Does that mean you can kinda charge whatever you want?
— We definitely could.
We don't choose to, but we probably could.
For us, these partnerships with dispensaries and cultivators in Nevada are important for the long-term.
— Eager for tens of millions of dollars in new tax revenue,
the state is trying to open up applications to other companies.
But a few small liquor distributors
are still fighting in court to hold onto their 18-month monopoly.
If the state prevails,
then Reef will be able to apply for its own distribution license,
allowing them to walk their product down their own hallway.
In the meantime,
the current arrangement doesn't seem to be pleasing many people.
— So this isn't even necessarily very good business for you—
like, having to come here to move boxes down the hallway.
— Not whatsoever.
You know, maybe if we were price gouging, it would be.
But we see the ridiculousness in that practice.
— Advocates for legal cannabis are happy the industry is up and running,
even if parts of it don't make much sense,
and even if the rules seem to change every week.
But some entrepreneurs think there are bigger problems yet to come,
and that the industry isn't ready to meet demand—
which is already huge, and growing.
— I anticipate the whole state running out of product.
As a whole.
— When do you think that's going to happen?
— Before the end of the year.
This is one of those markets where demand is going to far exceed supply.
— Just from all the tourists on the strip.
— I can just see what's happening, you know, from up here.
And I'm watching it unravel before my very eyes.
— In Venezuela,
the death toll in the protests calling for the ouster of President Nicolàs Maduro
climbed past 100,
after three people were killed in the streets yesterday.
But on the margins of a crisis that has now wracked the country for 118 days
are impoverished Venezuelans, like 28-year-old Enrique Alvarado,
who's been surviving on the scraps since the conflict began.
— When a neo-Nazi website called for an army of trolls
to go after a Jewish woman in Montana,
the site's publisher, Andrew Anglin,
got sued.
It's the first big case against alt-right trolls,
and could draw a new line between what's considered protected free speech,
and what counts as illegal harassment.
— This was apparently a whorehouse back at one point.
And there's a dead hooker in here someplace.
Not her body,
but the legend is this place is haunted by Rosie the dead prostitute.
But given my practice,
dead hookers are our spirit animals.
So we're okay with that.
— Marc Randazza is best known for representing the porn industry on First Amendment issues.
— You know where that shit place we ate at the other day was?
It's right there.
— Now he's representing Andrew Anglin,
the founder of the neo-Nazi website, "The Daily Stormer."
— Jews, it so happens,
are behind absolutely every problem that we face as a society.
— Anglin is a prolific troll who combines classic white supremacy with the latest teenagers' memes.
With a series of posts,
he raised more than $150,000 for his legal defense.
— Where or not I agree with somebody's content
is irrelevant to whether I'll represent them.
In fact, I find I do better work when I don't agree with them.
— So you don't like this substance, but what do you think of his style?
— I don't have any judgement on that.
— His trolling?
— Look, there are people who crack me up with their trolling.
You know, troll level 100.
Some of the best trolls in the business are friends of mine.
Mr. Anglin is a pretty run-of-the-mill troll when it comes to trying to troll somebody.
— Anglin jumped into the fray of a smalltown dispute in Whitefish, Montana.
A local realtor there named Tanya Gersh
had sent an email to the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer,
urging her to condemn his views.
— Heil Trump!
Heil our people!
Heil victory!
— Anglin took Spencer's side,
and urged his readers to participate in a troll storm against Gresh.
She got hundreds of threatening anti-semitic messages.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit on Gersh's behalf
for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and intimidation.
— This is the call to action now we see, right?
"Tanya Gersh, please call her and tell her what you think."
"And, hey, if you're in the area, maybe you should stop by…"
"…and tell her in person what you think of her actions."
— Danielle Citron is scholar who literally wrote the book on digital harassment.
SPLC consulted with her on its original brief in the Anglin case.
— Gives her address.
Gives her phone number.
"You can also leave a review of her business on Google,"
"and perhaps note it's a front for an extortion racket."
I'm not seeing political speech here.
— Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment.
Threats aren't.
What about when someone uses hate speech to urge a mob of trolls to go after someone?
This lawsuit can help to answer that.
— What Mr. Anglin and what The Daily Stormer does is First Amendment protected.
— Do you think he incited a mob to harass Tanya?
— For it to be incitement,
speech has to call for imminent lawless action.
If you ask a lot of people to speak, you're not causing imminent action.
Tanya Gersh, as far as I see it,
did not get unwillingly brought into this debate.
Don't walk into that arena if you don't want to get hit.
— The case comes at a time of increased concern about online harassment.
Two-thirds of American adults have seen someone harassed online.
And most American adults think law enforcement should do more about online harassment.
— What victims of online harassment are constantly told is,
"Just turn off your computer,"
which betrays this completely backwards understanding
about what social media means for us today.
We're all connected to it all the time.
But the law hasn't recognized that yet.
— Mary Anne Franks is a law professor at the University of Miami.
She's helped to make state laws that curb digital harassment,
much the same way they already restrict phone harassment.
— So there is a possible future
where the potential price for criticizing the alt-right or a Nazi
is not that your life is ruined?
— Right, I think that there is a potential for a court to say,
"We are not really going to look at the rights of the worst people in society,"
"we are going to look at the rights of everybody."
And if you go all the way back to the First Amendment itself,
and the Constitution itself,
it was not written for everybody.
That "We the people" part—
totally a lie.
We didn't mean women.
We didn't mean black people.
And to some extent, we still don't.
We can't try to whitewash the fact that this is a case about anti-semitism.
That this is a case that misogyny.
That this is a case about really trying to make the world safe for white supremacy.
The question really has to be:
Is this a just result in a good and civilized society?
— Do you think the country will be a better place if you lose this case?
— Ah, now that.
You've been waiting for that question all day, haven't you?
— I just thought of it, actually.
— That's good.
See, that's good J-school training right there.
Wow.
I just don't know what the unintended consequences would be.
Because this is political speech.
You know, any time you give a little bit of extra ammo to censorship,
it gets used.
So if we were to say yes in this circumstance…
I just don't know where that where that would end.
But would the country be better off if I lose this case?
Yeah, I don't know.
— Today…
…was a crazy day.
— We made those packages together,
with the cookies and the rockets and the tissue paper.
People will think the baking soda is anthrax.
— Kyle and I have been making videos for a long time
with another couple of dudes who are in the film "Brigsby Bear"—
Beck Bennett and Nick Rutherford—
and caught the eye of some people at Saturday Night Live and then,
around the time that Kyle was starting to really develop the idea for this film,
we got hired by Saturday Night Live.
— Wanted to do something about a kid who watches a TV show that his parents make.
That's all I knew.
Brigsby Bear is about a guy, James, who is obsessed with this TV show,
"Brigsby Bear Adventures."
— Hey guys, James here.
Um… first of all,
episode 34, volume 25,
I put three thumbs up!
— It's a children's show and he's into it, like the way like a Star Wars fan would be.
He's got memorabilia all over the place…
— Prophecy is meaningless.
Trust only your familial unit.
— …lives with his parents in seclusion.
And then one day,
something insane happens and he's taken away from his parents,
and his favorite TV show, "Brigsby Bear," ceases to exist.
The beginning of the movie was I just wrote up, like, a Word doc,
and that was like me coming up character names,
me making up the name of Brigsby Bear.
Brigsby Bear was just like…
just putting words together.
It was like, what are other cartoon characters or kids' characters with that kind of alliteration?
— Tony the Tiger.
— Exactly.
Chuck E. Cheese.
Mickey Mouse.
Donald Duck.
Minnie Mouse.
— Okay, you don't have to… we get it.
— One of the most difficult things was figuring out what his outfit was going to be.
It's a triangle with, like, a rainbow stripe on it sort-of,
and that was just a sketch I did on a legal pad.
That was very inspired by Captain EO, the Michael Jackson Disneyland ride.
It's a 3D movie, and what he wears, I think it's just a rainbow sliver, basically.
— We liked the idea of having an emblem.
So we were like—at one point it was just a "B,"
just like very big,
and we thought maybe there was something charming to it being so basic.
— He had a cape. — He had shorts at one point.
— You don't want to make it too corny.
You also want to make it too cool.
It's a difficult balancing point.
— It was also fascinating in that how stressful it was
just, like, picking between a red shirt and a blue shirt—
just like, once we say blue, once we lock that color in,
that's going to be what we look at for the rest of time.
— And that could determine whether a movie is successful.
— Yeah.
— Or a failure.
— Let's just say I'm onto something pretty big.
So stay tuned for that,
and of course, as always,
until our next adventure!
— One thing that will always hit me is that there's truly a wonderful connective tissue
to how we became creative together and how our main character falls in love with creativity.
— And this,
and I can't believe that I got to work with my best friend, Dave!
— I also can't believe it.
— I was very lucky.
And, damn.
Guess the industry's not so bad after all.
— That's VICE News Tonight for Thursday, July 27th.
Tune in tomorrow night
for the award-winning documentary series "VICE":
— I've never seen anything like this in real life.
The closest thing I can compare it to a scene from "Game of Thrones," or "Mad Max."
— We came here ready to do whatever it is that we need to do to stop this.
— There's no benefit to our tribe for this pipeline.
That threatens this water supply.
It's gonna have a direct impact on our people.
And that's not right.
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