#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Crockett Senate Poll Questioned. Black Woman Fights Disenfranchisement. Assault on Black History.

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

1.16.2026 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Crockett Senate Poll Questioned. Black Woman Fights Disenfranchisement. Assault on Black History. A recent Emerson College poll in the Texas Senate primary is raising questions, with critics challenging its results. More on that ahead. Tennessee activist Pamela Moses is challenging the state's permanent disenfranchisement laws after she was charged and convicted of voter fraud. Moses eventually had the charges dropped. She and her attorney will be here to talk about the upcoming case. Another example of Black history being erased -- Frederick Douglass excluded from a U.S coin series honoring America's most celebrated leaders. Texas A&M University canceled a graduate Ethics course after a Black professor refused to comply with a discriminatory ban on certain subjects. We'll hear from him later.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Also on today's show, Tennessee activist Pamela Moses is challenging the state's disenfranchisement laws there in Tennessee. One in five or 20 percent of African Americans in that state cannot vote as a result of that particular law. Another example of black history being wasted being erased, Frederick Douglass, excluded from a U.S. coin honoring America's most. celebrated leaders. Why? Because of white supremacist, Donald Trump, and MAGA. Also, a Texas University professor is calling out the university over them canceling his ethics class

and him finding out like he was a regular nobody. He'll join us on the show as well. Plus, we have, of course, Black Star Network headlines with Britney Noble. And also, I'm going to get y'all update on a lawsuit that we had to file against a black star. own company who never delivered the sprinter that we ordered. You're watching Rollin Martin unfilcher. The Black Sun Network is time to bring the fun. Let's go. Folks, I'm here in Dallas speaking tomorrow at the city of Dallas's M.O.K. Gala.

So one of the races that we really are watching is the U.S. Senate race in Texas. On the Republican side, you've got in longtime income at U.S. Senator John Cornyn being challenged by hardcore MAGA corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton. But you also have Black Texas Congressman. Wesley Hunt who is in that particular race. On the Democratic side, you have Texas state rep James Tala Rico. Many people say he's a TikTok star for many of the videos that he has posted of him challenging Republicans in Texas.

And of course, the woman Donald Trump despises Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Yesterday, Emerson College dropped a poll that shocked a lot of people showing that Tala Rico was up nine points against Crockett. Now, you look at all other poll that's been taken, Crockett has had anywhere from a 7 to 12 point lead. So this poll raised lots of questions and folks are looking at the methodology of how this poll was taken. Joining us right now is Steve Phillips, is a host author as well. And so Steve was breaking this whole thing down on social media. And so I want to talk to about it.

Steve, glad to have you back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. So walk us through the issues that you have with this. this Emerson poll that again, a lot of folks have been talking about because folks were stunned and shocked to see a poll showing Crockett down nine points to Talleyco. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of problems with it. And let's just start with, when you dig into the specific numbers and they break out the Democrats specifically that Crockett leads among the Democrats. And so Tala Rico's lead within this poll comes from Republicans.

Apparently may have said they're going to vote the Democratic poll, but he leads among Republicans. Republicans and then independents, which is a very fraught issue in terms of how those different people are going to be. But this is a Democratic primary, and even in the Emerson poll, when you drill down to the specific people who self-identify as Democrats, Crockett Leads. So that's a first piece. Then you get into the whole piece around the incredibly small sample size of this poll. And so then they kind of throw out, oh, there's African-Americans and Latinos and whites. But we're only talking about 400 voters total. And so then for the subgroups and for those cross tabs,

it's even in smaller sample size. So statistically, it's very hard to accurately get a read on that kind of a population with that kind of numbers that you're actually using. And then the other pieces about it is that this is the first poll disjointing like this, right? There was a poll by data for social good in November that showed Crackett ahead,

showed her a head among Kamala voters, 31% to 22%. There was a December poll that came out that has her leading by 8%. And then so all of a sudden now, somehow, the whole race has turned over the... Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijon Robinson. When I'm on the field, I'm feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes you feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field.

Make a game plan for your mental health at love your mind playbook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the ad console. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Z years in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target.

and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about these online stories

in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast. Hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week,

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Well, and the reason this, of course, stood out. You've had a lot of conversation. Many white progressives having highly critical of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockin because of the issue of Israel as if Tellerico does not have the exact same stance that she does. And so you've had a lot of that going on. You have these two, you have this white and Asian comedian who implore people not to get any money to Crocket. They got lit up so hard that they had to actually come back and backtrack and apologize

for those comments. And then you've still had these other white progressives who said how dare they had to apologize. And so there's been a lot of conversation, a lot of conversation, a lot of. of discussion around this. And this is why folks say, wait me, what the hell is going on here? And then, of course, you've got folks seizing on her comments regarding Latino voters, having a slave mentality in terms of voting for, those comments she may do in the interview,

voting for Donald Trump and folks like, oh, there you go. So she's going to get Latino vote away. And so it's been quite interesting when you've seen in these Democratic progressive circles, massive attacks against Crockett and was laughing. to me, Steve, is that I'm a native Texan. I can go back. If you pull up the data from every single U.S. Senate race in Texas dating back to Lloyd Bidson, being the last one to win a race, you've had a minimum of two candidates running

in the Texas, in the Democratic primaries. You've sometimes had three, four, five or more. So it's amazing to me to listen to these people get offended because she dare run as if she didn't have some right to do so and their positioning of Tala Rico as somehow being the perfect candidate who can somehow steal this Senate seat that is actually deeply. Yeah, so this really lay, yeah, I hear you. I have catch you. You got to hear me. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's really laid bare money, many of the problems within the progressive movement in the Democratic Party within this country, both in terms of the reluctant,

and the higher level of skepticism and doubt, both on race and gender lines. And so there's a predisposition to want to feel comfortable to actually attack the black woman candidate that I don't think there's a lot of self-awareness about in the Democratic Party. And then the other part about this is that there is, there's this article in New York Times, saying that Tala Rico was the, was he the savior for the Democrats. And there's this deep-seated desire among Democrats to find the right, white candidate, who's kind of this age of enlightenment person, who can reason with voters, go on Joe Rogan, and then win over the Trump people and get them to see the error of their ways. But Texas has said 30 years of Democrats not winning.

And so it really is a fool's errand in that regard at the same time as there are five millions. people of color who did not vote in the last midterm election. So that's where the upside is. So which candidate offers that hope? Well, I've had to push back against many of these people saying, y'all clearly don't know a damn thing about Texas. The reality is 60% of Texas is black and brown. 60% of Texas is made up of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, 40% white.

Yet when it comes to voting, 60% are the people who vote are white and 40% are Latino, African-American, Asian-American, Native Americans. So the reality is what I have been saying for the longest is Texas is an unorganized state. Now, it does not mean that you don't have black conservatives, Latino conservatives, Asian-American conservatives. They exist. Native American conservatives, they exist. But the reality is that's what you find in this state. Democrats have frankly given up on this state for a very long time. When Beto O'Rourke ran against Senator Ted Cruz, he lost by 2.5 points. Then Congressman Colin Allred almost lost by 10 points to Ted Cruz last year.

And what was also crazy, listen to these same people who were sitting here saying, oh, my God, that Allred was the perfect cannon. I was kind of like, did y'all just, y'all just skipped last year? Well, he literally lost by 10 points. It did not, and did not really gin up the vote among African Americans. And so then you hear all of this, oh, my God, Crocket is so. liberal. She's so liberal and she's she's so polarizing when you know what you need is somebody who can actually activate that vote. And so her strategy is how can I turn out an abnormally large

percent of African Americans and then also tap into allowed Latinos who are angered by Donald Trump and MAGA and their policies. And so what I've said and again, I've met with Tala Rico. I've got his number. I've texted him. Of course, I no crockett as well. And I'm literally want to say these people, so, yo, shut the hell up. I mean, the point of a primary is to get the best candidate as opposed to crowning somebody. And so I don't know what the hell these white progressives are talking about. And last point here, Steve, I've said to nearly all of them, I didn't y'all shut the hell up because y'all'm not even from Texas. You got people from San Francisco, New York City, all these other places.

I had some asshole who was from Australia who was sitting here, I was like, what do you know nothing about Texas? And that's also what's crazy to me. Right. Yeah. And so this gets back to this piece, but the model candidate, then can we find, they're saying the right white person who can reason and appeal and be able to win over white voters

in a state that has five million non-voting people of color. There's almost three million eligible African Americans. And you only need like four million votes to win them. statewide election and whatnot. And so the total upside is very clear from a mathematical standpoint, getting more people of color inspired, engage, organizers you're saying, and mobilize. That's the path to victory within Texas. Not this notion about this time we're going to magically find somebody who can actually appeal to the Republicans and win them over. That hasn't worked for 30 years. And so we need to go into a direction. And probably represents that direction.

And not only that, I'm going to say again, this is what people don't understand. In when O'Rourke ran against Greg Abbott before governor of Texas, 75% of young voters, 30 and under, did not vote. And so that's what, and so what I said to these same people is when you look at listen, there are positives to a television. There are positives to a Tala Rico. They're positives to a Crockett. Tala Rico has drawbacks with the name ID. Crockett has drawbacks because of polarizing in terms of how Republicans feel about them. But the whole point is you want somebody to win the Democratic primary,

and then you want the party to coalesce around them. And that's why what I've been saying to a lot of these white progressives, what y'all don't understand is you're actually screwing Democrats, Because what you're doing is you're pissing off the number one demographic that supports Democrat politics, and that's African Americans. And let's be perfectly clear, okay, no Democrat candidate, no Democratic candidate. I don't care who that person is. And again, Tala Rico is a great guy. But there is no Democratic candidate who can come close to beating a Republican in Texas if you piss off the one group that represented.

It's the largest group of eligible black voters of any state in the United States. And that's black Texans. A million and a half black Texans who have not been inspired to vote. And so where are we going to focusing on that? So you're 100% correct too, is that these progressives are actually undermining the prospects for unity. But after the primary, by all these attacks on crime. Calo Rico has a platform and a program to put forward and a track record. You should do that.

But all these progressives who are taking these shots at Jasmine Crockett and do not, are not even self-aware enough to know that these are largely white progressives taking a shot at a black woman. And how does that resonate among the electorate? It's a very self-defeating proposition. People need to kind of check themselves and rethink how they're approaching. All right, Steve Phillips. We appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Folks, let's, first of all, I'm going to go to a break. I'm going to talk, no, I'm going to stick right here. Let's not go to a break. I want to talk about this here with our panel because, again, it's, it is crazy to look at these people and listen to the crazy things that they are saying. So Michael M. Hotep hosts African History Network Show out of Detroit, Raven Schwamm, Curtis, political commentator, and Blavity Correspondent.

Also, Matt Manning, Civil Rights Attorney, Out of Corpus Christi. Matt, I'll start with you. These white progressives are going to make me cuss these folks out. Let me clear. I understand. I fully understand Gaza and the role of their play in the 2012 election. Dude, I'm in Texas. I'm still registered voter in Texas.

I'm telling you right now, that is not a dominant issue in this U.S. Senate race. It's not. And if you have an, and if you want to talk about, you want to attack Congresswoman Jasmine Crockton. And now the new one they're saying, oh, she's getting money from the crypto industry. And that's bad as if not other Democrats are doing that. Then guess what? What's on the other side? On the other side is a hardcore, a hardcore supporter of Israel in Senator John Cornyn, somebody who backs Donald Trump and the MAG agenda. And then you have a corrupt Texas Attorney General, who is crazy and deranged, who actually could upset Cornyn because Texas Republicans want to be so hard right and so magos. So do you mean to tell me you would

stir up this level of dissension, knowing full well that what you should be focusing on is trying to turn out as many Democrats as possible and organizing and mobilizing this state? These people are stuck on stupid. Yeah, they are. You're hitting the nail on the head. And, you know, to talk about Ken Paxton just this week his office issued an attorney general opinion saying that people should be able to bring handguns to the city of Corpus Christi city council meetings. So I might be on here talking pretty soon about the effects of that policy because we know that right down the road from there that Uvalde trial is going on in the very county that I live in. Ken Paxton is the absolute worst and shouldn't even be considered as is John Corny. But in any event, you're 100%

right. That's what I'm hearing around the water cooler. That's what I'm hearing at the lunch table. That's what I'm hearing out in the wild is people continuing to say that Tala Rico is kind of the prototypical candidate. And I think, Steve, and you hit the nail on the head. It's the progressives wanting to find what they believe to be the white savior, the person that they think is going to be most palatable to the crazies out in West Texas, who are absolutely not going to vote Democrat anyway, who they want to bring over. They think Tala RICO is the salvo for that. But I will tell you something I heard interestingly this week that I didn't expect to hear, at least in the way that I heard it,

and I was talking to a young white guy, and he told me pretty frankly, he said, man, I'm not voting for Tala Rico, because that's exactly what we tried to get in Beto, and that continues to not work. I'm voting for Crockett because we need to go in a completely different direction. We need new leadership, and Tala Rico is more of the same. So I think that sentiment is out there, but I think none of that matters if it doesn't coalesce to people going to the polls and actually casting the vote to give her that opportunity because what it comes down to at the end of the day is there are people who are just going to think white is right number one and they're going to think a man is better than a woman even in 2026 unfortunately that's still what we're dealing with

a lot of backwards people and that's why i think some of the attacks that she's had are not attacks that are rooted in anything substantive they're all straw man attacks because they're all trying to knock her down because she's not prototypical in their mind of the the right candidate so So that's what I'm hearing here. Babes, what are you doing? What? I'm just mowing the lawn. No, it's blazing hot and dry out here.

Don't you remember? Smokey Bear says, Avoid using power equipment when it's windy or dry. Where'd you learn this? Oh, it's on... Smokeybear.com with many other wildfire prevention tips. Right. Thanks, honey, bear.

Because remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your State Forrester and the Ad Council. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Z years in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target.

And I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers, whose trip to the White House, ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about this. these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the internet, criticizing the extremes of both sides

from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is you can decide who takes home the 26 IHard Podcast Awards Podcast of the year by voting at IHeartPodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at Audible.com. Texas, but I am heartened to hear that there are some people who think we need to go ahead and break away and take a new tack. Raven, I responded on threads to one of these crazy-ass people, and I can tell you it was unbelievable. I trace back all these races. The reality is you've never had an African-American woman run statewide. African-American man, yes. Have you had Latinos run statewide?

Yes. Have you had Latinos run statewide? Yes. Have you had white women run statewide for U.S. Senate? Yes. Have you had white men run for statewide for the United States Senate? Yes. And they all lost.

So we could literally sit here and go back to 1988 and find every type of candidate you can think of to run for U.S. Senate and they all lost. So this idea that all of a sudden there is this perfect candidate to run is stupid. 100%. There's no such thing as a perfect candidate. And I think that is a huge issue on the left,

this idea that we're going to get every single little thing that we want out of every single little candidate. It's just not realistic, unfortunately. I'm a deeply pragmatic person. And I see this situation for what it is. I'm also someone who spent a huge chunk of my childhood in Houston and understands what it is to be materially impacted by the outcomes of elections like this.

The reality is 8% of Democrats or only 8% of Democrats support Israel's military action in Palestine, right? It is wildly unpopular among our constituency. We don't want our politicians to be supporting a nation state, enabling a genocide, enacting a genocide. It's really that simple. And to your earlier point, Roland, both Tala Rico and Crockett have expressed sentiments around this issue that are pretty commiserate. So I don't think all the critiques of Crockett can be chalked up to misogy noir, but I think a lot of them can be, right? There is a fundamental lack of moral and intellectual consistency in the ways that people are thinking about these two candidates. And fundamentally, let's tell the truth.

These two candidates are exceptional on domestic issues. Procket in particular has shown over and over and over again that she is a fighter. She is not afraid to go toe to toe with Donald Trump. And we need people like that in this era of fascism and authoritarianism. It's critical. I feel very personally about this particular race because I was sitting in Texas and, you know, in the pandemic when the Great Freeze came through and the incompetent leadership of the Kim Paxton's

and the John Cornans of the world meant that I was sitting in my apartment with my mom freezing. That hundreds of Texans lost their lives in a completely preventable incident, right? Like we're talking about deeply insidious, evil incompetent leadership that's in place right now. And white progressives in particular, as we're naming, and flaming the already existing issue

of voter disenfranchisement, or at the very least, maybe not disenfranchisement, but voter apathy. We don't need that right now. We need to activate people and critique in good faith. It's okay to critique people running in primaries, right? But the way we do that critique, especially when we know that we are dealing with and operating with individuals who are moving in good faith is so, so important. Absolutely. Michael. Yeah, Rowling, you know, I agree with the statements being made here. I've been watching this as well from afar here in Detroit, Michigan.

James Tilariko was in the race first. I saw him on MSNBC, now MSN, now a number of times before Jasmine Crockett got in. He's raised $13 million so far since launching his campaign in September. But at the same time, you know, these attacks, I've been watching these attacks on Jasmine Crockett, and this is, this reminds me of the attacks on. on Vice President Kamala Harris. And people wanted to hold Kamala Harris to a standard that they didn't want to hold Donald Trump to.

And I've said before, you can't put Democrats under a microscope and then put a blind photo on when you did with Republican, right? The same criticism you have, but Jasmine Crocker, you have to have a John Cornyn, Cornyn, Wesley Hunt, Ken Paxton. So a lot of these people on social media and TikTok things like this, one, don't live in Texas,

to don't even know who's running on the Republican side, because the people on the Republican side are much worse than Tower Rico, Jasmine Crockett, any of this, right? So, and this is where a lot of these progressors shoot themselves in the foot. Okay, they did the same thing with Kamala Harrison and Donald Trump. Didn't turn out because of Gaza, and Trump doesn't give a damn about the Palestinian, right? So hopefully, Jasmine Crockett is able to pull this out. I think the primary is in March, I think it is rolling.

But I like the analysis. Yeah, primary March 6. Yeah, March 6, yeah. Because I've been paying attention to this. I like the analysis you have from Steve Phillips as well, because this appears, this Emerson poll appears, to be an outlier from some of the other polls that show Jasmine Crock and do it much better.

Well, I just think that again, again, for a lot of these people who are talking, a lot of them who are running their mouths, if you don't know anything about the state, I'm sorry, the March 3rd primary, I'm sorry. If you don't know anything about the state, seriously, be quiet. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

And I just don't understand whether so many people are thinking and operating. All right, y'all, going to go to break. We come back more, Roland Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Next on the Black Star Network. table with me, Greg Carr. America is being reshaped in real time by a group of six people,

unelected and without any checks and balances. By the end of the current Supreme Court session, education, the workplace, who gets to elect our leaders, and so much more could radically change. This week, we reconvene our legal roundtable and look at what the new America may look like and how we should respond. That's next on the black table right here. on the Black Star Network. On a next, a balanced life with me, Dr. Jackie, a relationship that we have to have. We're often afraid of it and don't like to talk about it.

That's right. We're talking about our relationship with money. And here's the thing. Our relationship with money oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. Balancing your relationship with your pocketbook. That's next on a balanced life with me, Dr. Jackie, here at Black Star Network. If in this country right now, you have people get up in the morning, and the only thing they can think about is how many people they can hurt, and they've got the power, that's the time for mourning. For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

We are at a point of a moral emergency. We must raise a voice of outrage. We must raise a voice of compassion, and we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization, a human rights crisis, and a crisis of democracy itself. And guess what? You've been chosen to make sure that those that would destroy, those that would hate, don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win.

I'm Ryan Wilson, CEO co-founder of The Gathering Spot, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Folks, 2019, Tennessee activist Pamela Moses was found guilty for illegally registering to vote. She was sentenced to six years in prison for vote fraud. Now, she had been deemed permanently ineligible to vote Tennessee due to a 2015 conviction for tampering with everything. Now, she voted because of an error that was made by the state's Department of Corrections. Now, although the charters later dropped this experience, it's motivated her to really challenge this issue.

Tennessee has a significant issue with the percentage of African Americans who are unable to vote due to their state laws. And so on Tuesday, a voting rights trial begins making Pamela the first person in 100 years to challenge the law that prevents individuals who have been in incarcerated from regaining their right to vote. If successful, this ruling could automatically restore voting rights from more than 500,000 Tennessee. And it's joining us right now is Pamela and her attorney, John Habiner Rice. Glad to have both of you here on the show. Pamela, we had you on before.

This is, I mean, though, this is an issue just today. I just lost audio again. In Virginia, they moved forward, they moved forth with the, the same. second time that would move to a constitutional amendment that would restore the voting rights of the formerly incarcerated in Virginia. We saw what Desmond Mead and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition did in Florida, where they got amendment to four-past restoring the rights to 1.4 million people. This thing is real when we talk about how these states like Tennessee and Mississippi

and others have felony disenfranchising. Yeah, it's real. It's more than real because it has collateral consequences when you restrict a person's right to vote. In Tennessee, you not just keep them from voting, but you prevent them from holding public office. And so the reason why this case is monumental, as you know, I ran for U.S. Senate in 2024 against Marsha Blackburn, who's now trying to run for government. governor here, but I couldn't run for mayor, city council, school board, or alderman. If you are unable to register to vote, you're unable to run for any state offices. So essentially by them prohibiting people from being able to register to vote and vote, they prohibit them from being able to represent people.

And that's why you have a state that is bloody red with a governor that's red, attorney general this red, all the state reps, I think it's about 80, 20 this red. And when you have it locked and loaded like that, you can't get any change because they don't have to. They have no leverage because everybody is caught up in partisan, you know, beliefs. And, you know, that was one reason why I ran as an independent to give people who were on either side a chance to look at me as a candidate and as a person. And so it's very real. And I appreciate the things that I learned when I met Desmond Mead and other people. And I think that's phenomenal what Florida did in Virginia. And I think it's time for Tennessee to do the same thing.

And when you want to bring in your attorney, John, here, John. So walk us through in terms of what your focus is, your strategy is going to be to appeal to the courts to restore. Because, look, Tennessee has been steadfast in standing for this, just like Mississippi has been. Yeah, you're exactly right, Roland. Tennessee has a long, long history of really pernicious felony disenfranchisement laws. We are one of the worst states in the country when it comes to the percentage of black Tennesseans who are being disenfranchised. We have a really pernicious permanent disenfranchisement regime. It really goes back over 100 years.

So we have several claims in this lawsuit. We have an equal protection claim because we have a statistics expert who has been able to really crack open the vault of data here in Tennessee and prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is a massive, disparate impact on black Tennesseans when it comes to. felony disenfranchisement three to one or worse when compared to white voters. In some counties, it's 10 to 1. So we are going to be proving that on the stand through the state's own data that this has a massive impact on black Tennesseans. We also have claims relating to the history of felony disenfranchisement in Tennessee. Tennessee began with a commitment to voting rights early in these 1800s, and in fact, during the Reconstruction era, passed a constitutional amendment that was specifically designed to protect suffrage and to stop the state from

ever manipulating the votes of its people. Unfortunately, just was with poll taxes and literacy tests and grandfather clauses, felony disenfranchisement really is the last vestige of Jim Crow. And we're here to challenge that, and we're excited to do that. on Tuesday. So in terms of the Tennessee law, what does it all go back to? When did this start? Because I think about Virginia, where you had a white legislator who literally said on the floor, we are doing this to keep the niggers from voting. And that stood all of this time. And when Terry McCullough was governor, he highlighted this. And he tried to do a mass restoration. But the But the law says the governor has to do each individual person must sign for each person.

And they did that for a number of people. And they've been doing this. But now they want to put it in law. So what was the impetus in Tennessee to make this the law? So going back over 100 years, we've had a history in Tennessee of adopting laws that work both practically and through the legal system to disenfranchise black voters. There's been a long history after the Civil War, after Reconstruction, and with the advent of Jim Crow, of Tennessee passing a series of laws like poll taxes, like literacy tests, like felony use enfranchisement, that worked specifically to deplete the power of black citizens in Tennessee. Over the course of years, those laws have changed. They've taken a little bit different format.

They've been amended, but they've never been done away with. And in fact, what happened in this case is that for a long time, Tennessee did not have permanent felony disenfranchisement. But in 2006, unfortunately, during an attempt to make it easier for people who had been convicted of felonies to restore their voting rights, during that process, an amendment was slipped into the bill that would, while at the same time allow certain people to get their rights restored, would have another category of people like Ms. Moses who would be permanently disenfranchised and could never get their voting rights back. So unfortunately, it was one of those situations where a poison pill, so to speak, was slipped into some legislation that was introduced for a good purpose.

And unfortunately, with the power shifts in Tennessee over the last 10 or 15 years, very little progress in the legislature has been made to try to reverse that. And so we've decided, along with the braver. and strength of Ms. Moses herself, who started this whole thing, we decided that litigation is the way that we have to fix this. Pamela, look, we understand the impact of the law in African Americans, but this impacts white folks in Tennessee, too. Are there white Tennesseans who are standing with you saying, hey, you know, we support your effort as well? Yes, like, and I'm glad you brought that up. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijan Robinson.

When I'm on the field, I'm feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes you feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game playing for your mental health at loveyourmind playbook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the ad council. media trend that's landing some Gen Z ears in jail.

The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up

with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the internet, criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, can decide who takes home the 26 iHeart Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at iHeartpodcastawards.com

now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at iHeartpodcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Roland because when I was campaigning, I got an opportunity to go to 66 of the 95 counties. And I would say I met probably eight out of 10 white males and some females who were disenfranchised. And it was shocking because, you know, I don't want to look at this as a black and white thing, but it is what it is. But at the same time, Tennessee's population is not made up of majority black people.

It's made up of a lot of, you know, poor people in both rural and city areas. But it's made up of a lot of people who have been disenfranchised, you know. And recently, I had to go to a funeral in Knoxville where I went to school. And it was for my brother-in-law. He'd been murdered on New Year's Day. and he was 60 years old. And the last thing he said to me when I was running for office,

he was like, you know, you need to lead those white people alone. Don't be getting involved in those politics. And I was like, why? He was like, I'm just playing with you. He was like, I can't vote. I'm a felon. He said that, but I'm going to tell everybody I know

to vote for you. That was the last thing, a 60-year-old black man told me that never got the right to vote before he died. And he was a victim, of gun violence. And so what I say with this case, this isn't about black or white. This is about right or wrong.

Our president is a convicted felon. And the judges that I will appear before, who took an oath sworn to uphold the United States and Tennessee Constitution, they are going to have to look themselves in the mirror. in the mirror because the future is coming. We're already here. We got robots and Elon and all kinds of stuff going on in Memphis.

And if you do not want my children or people who've been wrongfully incarcerated in prison like myself to have the right to vote, then you can't call yourself an American and you can't be for democracy. And it's very important that people understand that, that this is the trial of the century. Well, we're definitely going to be, go ahead. And I hope that, you know, people will tune in because you got courts and you got the court of public opinion. And the people need to be watching because Tennessee claims to be a volunteer state. And it's time for us to volunteer to end slavery because that's what this is.

When you deny me the right to vote, you deny me the right to hold up. office and that's what they've done. And I think President Trump is. John, this really, I think he would support this really is. Well, I won't say he's going to support it, John, because clearly there's, there's, MAGA is anti-black in so many different ways. And Republicans, their goal, and let's just be, look, it's, this is, this is, this is, this is across the country. They are on record as saying, if we can shrink the voting populace, we stand a better of winning. And unfortunately, race plays a huge role when it comes to voting laws in America. You're exactly right, Roland.

We, I'm counsel at my organization's called Protect Democracy, and we focus on a whole variety of issues, and voter suppression is a huge one. We have done felony disenfranchisement cases in other states, North Carolina, got one in Virginia right now, but we recognize that this administration, one of its primary goals is voter suppression. We've seen it come out of the president's mouth. We've seen it come out of various other people in the administration talking about making it harder to vote. You see devices all over the country, including in Tennessee, voter ID, limits on, you know, so-called line warming, cutting down on early voting, cutting down on voting days. This is part and parcel of a number of tactics that the administration is using, as you say, the deliberate intent.

to stop people from voting. And when you look at the history of authoritarian when they come into power, one of the targets right off the bat in every situation throughout history is marginalized communities. And at Protect Democracy, we recognize that,

and we are prepared to fight back on behalf of these marginalized communities, fight back on efforts to suppress the vote, and fight back on efforts to transform our democracy into something more authoritarian. That's the whole mission of our organization. and we think this case is a big part of fulfilling that mission.

All right. Well, look, good luck. This is, will this take place in state court or federal court? It's in state court. Supreme State court. We're 140 Adams, 10 a.m. Tuesday. We're in the state, Tennessee state Supreme Court, but it's room, but it's a state issue. And I, I.

Do they allow? allow I'm not familiar do they allow live streaming or is there no streaming? Oh, it will be live streamed on their YouTube with the Tennessee Court of Administration. All their cases are live streamed. Okay. So if you're not able to attend. All right. Well, good luck, Pamela. Good luck, John. And thank you so much. Good luck with this. Good luck with this case because it truly is important. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much, Ron. Thank you. Have a good day.

I'm going to go back to my panel here. I'll start with the resident lawyer, although I might be in Texas. He's a Howard grad, but he's always trying to claim that little school up the road. Matt, the point here is it's no doubt. Republicans flat out, they want to keep these laws on the books because they want to keep black folks from voting. And I asked that question about white folks. I hope white Tennesseans are rising up and saying I want my right to vote back to. Yeah, because there are a lot of white felons to people who are affected by this.

In fact, I have a client here in Texas dealing with a similar issue regarding disenfranchisement. We were talking about it earlier this week. But what I wanted to ask them, and maybe you or the other panelists have some information on this, what I think is especially insidious about this is I read the constitutional section so I could see kind of their argument. And the way Tennessee passed this law is it says you're permanently disenfranchised if you're, quote, convicted of an infamous crime, or if you are convicted of specific crimes, I think in 2024, they promulgated a law where voter fraud would be one of them. Now, the thing I don't understand as a threshold matter in this case is Ms. Moses's case was dismissed in 2022. So that to me seems to be dispositive.

It seems to be there's a mootness question because usually what courts do is they say we don't even want to get to the ultimate question if there's not a current dispute between these two litigants, right? Ms. Moses in the state of Tennessee. So if her case has been dismissed, I don't even understand how the state could be denying her rights under its own law from the little bit that I read. But I do think that to your point, the way these laws are written is very insidious because something like a quote infamous crime what is that right how do you define that

maybe it's defined somewhere in a statutory section but that's precisely the kind of thing that allows local administrators on the ground to say you know what mr manning you can't register to vote we think that's an infamous crime that's the kind of nebulous thing that you do when you want to make it such that people are not given their right back to vote and what's especially interesting is the united states constitution has caveats about when you are removed from servitude or when you're removed from, you know, being punished. In fact, the Eighth Amendment specifically says you can't be punished, essentially, overly harshly commensurate to the crime you allegedly committed.

There's no question from a due process standpoint taking away somebody's right to vote lifelong is virtually, you know, a death penalty sentence, as you might say. So I really don't understand how it's still working in this case. I was hoping to ask them that question, but I think your larger point is 100% correct. And I think what happens a lot of times with disenfranchisement as it relates to voting and just the restoration of rights to people who have felonies is the system is so arcane and so difficult to navigate that people just give up. I mean, I see it more commonly in the instance of gun rights, but I've had people who have felonies and they're distant in their past, you know, 40, 50 years ago, and they still don't know how to navigate the restoration of their rights because the system is purposely made difficult so that you are in. never fully restored, particularly with respect to your right to vote. So I think you're exactly right, and I don't quite understand how it's playing out in this

case, but it's clearly intended to make it difficult for any felon to have their rights renewed. Raven. I'm thinking about this conversation very holistically. You know, when we talk about incarceration, mass incarceration, it starts from the very beginning. It starts with the school to prison pipeline. Then it turns into black and brown and indigenous folks being over-eastern.

index in prisons and jails. And then it looks like our communities being disenfranchised when it comes to the ballot box. And the more I think about sort of this timeline of how everything unfolds, I mean, the word insidious. I feel like that's the word of the night, just how fundamentally and profoundly insidious it feels. And for me, at the core of all this

is a politics of disposability. I'm an abolitionist at my core. That's a whole another conversation just in terms of what different people mean, when they say abolitionists. but for me, fundamentally what it means is I do not believe in a politics of disposability. And when I think about these Tennessee laws that disenfranchise folks who have felonies, that to me feels like a prime example of what that looks like, a politics of disposability.

Oh, because someone has had a situation and encounter with this apparatus that is disproportionately organized such that it's going to be anti-Black, going to be anti-Indigenous, going to be anti-Hispanic, going to be anti-Latine, because someone has had a negative encounter, therefore they don't don't get to exercise a fundamental right that our community has fought and died for, that our ancestors literally laid their bodies on the line for. But how dare you? The audacity, the audacity to believe

that that's something that you get to take away from someone is really what's driving at home for me. And I think at the core of this is really a fundamental conversation about restorative justice, really a fundamental conversation about how do we talk about harm, what it looks like to repair harm, and what it looks like to still keep folks, fundamentally engage on a societal level at all levels because that's a fundamental human right.

You don't get to take that away because of something that's transpired in the past. Michael? Yeah, Roland. You know, when we look at this, we see after slavery ended, we see during the reconstruction era, these felony disenfranchisement laws being put in a place in various southern states. The earliest one that I see is Florida in 1868, whenever we wrote this, state constitution. Tennessee's date back to the 1870s. And right now, looking at the Georgetown, Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives, they talk about how in Tennessee today more than one in 10 black adults are disenfranchised due to prior felony convictions.

So this is a continuation of these ways to get around the 15th Amendment of 1870. And I find it interesting that you have Donald Trump today, you have Republicans today saying that we want to feel Dr. King's legacy, so we're going to wipe out all of these discriminatory policies because they think that affirmative action was discriminatory to white people, they think DEI policies are discriminatory to white people, right? And these same people that have wiped out 60 years of civil rights progress since January 20th, 2025 are going to do posts on social media come Monday talking about how great Dr. King was. But they don't want to deal with the harm that felony disenfranchisement laws are still inflicting upon African

Americans today. And these same people will then say, say, well, it's legal. It's okay to disenfranchise you if you have a felony, but you should still pay taxes. To me, that's called taxation without representation. Isn't that one of the reasons why the American Revolutionary War was fought? So once again, this goes to how many of these white supremacists fear the political power of African Americans. Okay.

And this is why we have to fight back and vote these people out of office. All right, folks. Got to go to break. We come back more on Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Don't turn away lots for us to talk about and break down.

And we talk about elections. Donald Trump gave an interview with borders where he said, you know, we've been doing so amazing. There's not even a need for the election in November. y'all be real they want to steal the election don't be surprised if they try to stop the election ain't going to work but they're going to try it you're watching rolling mark down the filter the black star network folks uh if you want to join our bring the funk fan club those that's the people who contribute to our show to make it possible us do the work that we do we appreciate all of their support our goal

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And here's the thing. Our relationship with money oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. Balancing your relationship with your pocketbook. That's next on a balanced life with. me, Dr. Jackie, here at Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Swain Cash, basketball Hall of Famer, and you're watching Black Star Network. All right, folks, welcome back to the show. And let me also remind folks, if you have the Black Star Network app, we haven't downloaded.

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told you that what we are looking at right now is a white supremacism administration. The administration does not give a damn about black people. Actions they have taken are perfectly clear when it comes to denigrating ignoring black people. Well, this year, the United States celebrates this 250th anniversary, and already MAGA is doing all their part to erase black people from this history. So the plan was it already decided that two African Americans were going to be honored being on a U.S. coin, and one of them was for... Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijan Robinson. When I'm on the field, I'm feeling the pressure. I usually just take a deep breath.

When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes you feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmind playbook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the ad council. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Zier is in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired.

I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media. but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the internet, criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective.

Join in on the Insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 26 IHard Podcast Awards Podcast of the year by voting at IHeart Podcast Awards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at Audible. dot com. Douglas. These are these being put out by the U.S.

Mint. Well, of course, now we know the Maryland-born Douglas, born a slave, the unbelievable life, career orator, newspaper publisher, all those different things.

But Trump and his wife folks said, nah, we're not doing that. Well, joining us right now is Ventris Gibson, the immediate past director of the U.S. Mint. Talk about this year. And, you know, Ventris, so take folks through

what was, already decided and how long that process was. How many coins are we talking about? How many Americans are going to be honored on these coins? The coins that are out now are not representative of the designs that were approved by the former secretary, Janet Yellen, approved by the Commission on Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Institute, and others. We worked diligently with Ruby Bridges family and herself, of course, and Frederick Douglas, the appropriate contact points for that. But what is so important about this is the semi-Quincennial Commission Act of 2016 said very clearly they wanted a complete picture of American history. That was one requirement. The second requirement was to

include women. And thus, we, when I was there, as the director of the MENT, went out on a survey to the public, where we framed the various pieces of history throughout the United States and had the public vote. We ran various groups, we did surveys, and as a result, we came up with the various periods of history, and then from there, ask the public, well, here's who do you think should? So we did engage the public. I probably went further than you wanted me to go, but that's just the backdrop. No, no, no, no, no, actually. No, no, no, no, that's actually what I wanted.

Okay. And so what were the total number of coins that were going to be issued? The nickel-dine penny quarter dollar coins, all would change. And the act required that the one change to the circulating coin, which is that group of coins, nickel, Don, pennies quarters, et cetera, was to have 1776 to 2026. The designs, however, would come from our medallic artists, as well as our artists that we have in the United States meant highly talented people. And they worked feverishly and really try and tell the story through medallic art.

And that is exactly what they did. So there were numerous, numerous renderings. I have one that I can just hold up to the screen for you because I think you would be very pleased to see it. Okay. Here's an example. This is Ruby Bridges. So those are two different designs that Ruby approved. And what we do is after we've worked with her and her team and our artists, we then take these designs and they go out for review and approval external.

to the Mint and external to the family and others. It comes back. Here's what we want. And then we prepare a package with the Secretary's Coignage Task Force, or I'm sorry, advisory committee, that principally makes recommendations to the Secretary. And that was approved, and we began the work. Because remember, the bill was signed in 2016.

The work began in 2022, putting everything together for us, that is. And it takes about 18 months to pull this off. And all the number of designs, remember we're talking about 250 years of history. We also made sure that we included the Native American population so that we had that story. And I was honored to have worked with the U.S. treasurer, who at that time was Lynn Malerba. and she was a chief of an Indian nation, as they affectionately referred to it as. But more importantly, the designs were in the 20s and 30s

because we wanted to make sure we captured the essence of what exactly our history should say. And I have to tell you, if you saw these designs, the voting rights, women, the abolitionist part of our history, and it was nothing negative. It was all positive because, Roland, the reason why I wanted to come and tell you guys this today, I am floored at what I see that the tapestry and the richness of our country, as it relates to us as a people, African Americans, black Americans, whatever we want to use today. The bottom line is this. We have been cut out. The Treasury is not even following the legislation.

unacceptable another another pin in stopping us from moving forward eliminating us from history what they what they claim they claim this is about patriotism and putting patriots on they also chalked

the designs that you've talked about up to wokeness and diversity and so that's what this all is about This is about whiteness. And so what Donald Trump and his chairy secretary, Scott, dissent did, they totally ignored the committee as well. When they unveil this, the 11 members of the committee didn't even show up for it as a statement of protest. Well, here's another to add to that.

The law, the law requires us as, well, I'm no longer with the meant, but it was the best job ever. I loved all the work we did there, especially for connecting America through coins. But the bottom line is this president violating the law in having the meant put his image on a coin, a circulating court. And the reason why it infuriates me so is the law says no living president shall go on a coin. So I want to offer, okay, if you want to put Trump on there, a significant part of our American history is that we had an African American president and an African American vice president. That's historical for all of our 250 years. And yet a living president, like the one we have in office, is really trying to erase us as a people. And we've got to do something different rolling.

That's why I decided I was going to find out who else can I tell that this has got to stop. I offered that why don't we find an African-American coin company and share these designs. They will not be circulating coins, of course, because it's really too late to do that. But giving our people an option, letting our children know that when you hold this coin in your aunt, you are part of that history. Right now, the coins that are out there and the men have said this, and I was surprised by that,

that when, as we as Americans, when we hold these new coins in our hands, we will feel the connection to coins. I want to feel connection to my people. I want to feel that we are part of this country and have been, and so significantly so. And I want to stand and say, no, if this up,

to me, I can do, I can try and do as much as I can in reaching out to others. And that's why I reached out to you, to Mike Dyson and to you. Thank you. Well, this goes to show you the kind of folks that we have there. And when you are a massive narcissist, there's no shock that he would want to put his own face on a coin. And then he would have his lackeys defend doing so. And that's exactly what we're dealing with. Well, Ms. Gibson, we certainly appreciate you joining us. apprising us of this. And we certainly hope as a result of this, more people

become aware of this. And, of course, we'll be pushing this out through all of our social media channels as well. Thank you. And I just leave you with this, that Dr. King told us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice every day. And we are realizing it every day. And yes, indeed, we are. We appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Thank you. Raven, I'll start with you. Let's just be real clear. And I got no problem saying it. These people, it's whitewashing. It's white supremacy. At the end of the day, their whole idea is like, oh, no, we don't want to talk about those things. We don't want to talk about women's suffrage.

We don't want to talk about slavery. We don't want to talk about civil rights because, no, that's not how we should be talking about the power of what it means to be an American. They want to overlook those things as if they didn't exist. And so that is what we're dealing with. We are dealing with white. supremacists who want to hold up a white view of America in its 250th year? That's absolutely right. This is straight up a historicity. And honestly, I'm somewhere

between enraged and like on the verge of years almost because it's so sad and so shameful that 250 years into this project called the United States of America, the leaders in this country still refuse to reckon with this nation's original sense. chattel slavery, indigenous genocide, land theft. The list goes on and on. And the alternatives of who they want to put on those coins are the founding fathers. This administration is obsessed with the founding fathers.

But let's break it down, right? James Madison, enslaver, George Washington, enslaver, Thomas Jefferson, enslaver and assaulter. Let's not forget about Sally Hemings, right? They just keep showing their colors over and over and over again. And I know there's a lot going on in the news cycle right now, so folks may have missed this, but the white House actually partnered with Prager University to push out these AI generated, you know,

videos of the founding fathers with the intention of essentially pushing out more of this a historicity. So it's really just astoundingly predictable. You know, I think this goes even beyond a quote-unquote colorblind positionality in terms of these politics. It's really something much more sinister. It really is an attempt to rewrite an office histories of communities on the project. Look, I mean, these people don't care about any of this. It is about whiteness, Michael, pure and simple. That is their focus. That is their strategy. I mean, they are just making my book,

white fear just come alive every single day with every move they make. Can you hear you? Okay. Okay, I've got you. Yeah, we got you. Yeah. Well, Roland, unfortunately, this is not surprising, and this is just indicative of these white supremacist, white nationalists. And in 2024, they told us what they were going to do. So, you know, this is unfortunate, but it's not surprising. I mean, when you revoke Executive Order 11246, affirmative action from President Lyndon & John,

on your second day in office, well, we can see that this was coming. You know, and one of the interesting things is, is we see this attack from Donald Trump on the Smithsonian African American Museum, right? And they want to sanitize it, and they say it talks too much about slavery. Now, in 2017, when he took a tour of the museum, he talked about how it, you know, allotted great heroes and how magnificent the museum was, things like this. And New York Times has a good piece called The War on Wokeness comes to the U.S. men. And they said to commemorate the abolition of slavery, the committee had recommended an image of Frederick Douglass.

Okay, as the sister just talked about, on the obverse, and shackled and unshackled hands on the reverse, right? So they want to wipe out all these references to slavery. We see his attack on Juneteen. We see his attack on Dr. King holiday as well. So this is not surprising. This is white people being white people, white supremacist, I should say, being white supremacist. And unfortunately, this is what happens when the wrong people get in power. They do things like this.

Matt? So one thing I wanted to ask, Ms. Gibson, is how the Mint determines what its priorities are. when you have, I guess, new circulating coins coming out like this, because there's got to be some component there where they talk about, you know, the psychology of a minted coin, the, I don't know, I guess you say, like the patriotic value, making sure people are on it, all that kind of thing, because I'm sure there's some psychological questions that go into that. So the first question is, how does it mean even decide how you're going to show?

Matt, they got all of that. Matt, no, no, no. I'm saying, Matt, what you're laying like, if you pull up, they got all of that. These folks don't care. They just run a rough shot. They don't care about the law, the rules, the committee, the choices.

They don't care about it was public. They're like, ah, damn that. They went woke, woke, that's wokeness, it's out. No doubt, no doubt. And I agree with you. The reason I was getting to that is because the thing that's really interesting about this is the reason they're saying the quiet part out loud,

which is we don't care about anybody who's not white, is the actual theme is something like America's journey to a more perfect union, right? So if you look at the words of their own theme that the Trump administration has kept, that would be inclusive of anybody part of that journey. But instead of making the messaging coalesce with that, instead of saying, oh, this is about, you know,

commemorating America's founding or using something that's at least, you know, defensible as a reason that you extricate everybody who's not white and who's not a founding father, they say it's America's journey, and you don't include most of the parts of that journey. We know it's racism. There's no question with that, but it's interesting that this administration has gotten so brazen, and they are so used to just making the message that they want to make that they don't even try to enshroud it in anything. They just say, America's journey doesn't include Negroes. America's journey doesn't include

Latinos, Chicano. It does not include anybody who's not white. And I think that's, that's emblematic of the fact that every one of these coins is a white person. And that to me seems like if you have any, you know, intellectual honesty, if it's America's journey, it's got to include some, you know, representative of all parts of that journey. And this clearly is not that. And then the other thing about him being a living person on circulated coins, you know, that's, it's crazy to me the extent to which we as a society have accepted rule breaking from the president. in the United States. We talk about it on this show all the time. But I mean, that's about as brazen and unequivocal and overstepping of the law as you get. You're a living person.

You can't be on a minted coin. Bump that. I'm about to be on this minted coin. I mean, we're just in Banana Republic territory now because you just do whatever you want. And that's, you know, obviously shown by them rescinding all of the work that had gone in to make sure this was a more inclusive and representative showing of America's journey toward a perfect union. If I can jump in and add on just a little fair. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Sorry, I'm breaking form. I just want to say white people and specifically white men. They're not even giving white women their flowers here. Like, there's no interest in that either. So I just wanted to name that real quick. Oh, no. Look, they want white women to get their asses back in the house, not be work, not work, and just lay down,

kick out some babies and get your ass in that kitchen and cook. That's literally what these white men are all focused. are all focused on. But when Matt talked about how brazen they are, listen, we're dealing with a thug. We're dealing with a thug. I mean, listen, this fool here

shortly after Netflix made their decision, located Paramount, he bought some Netflix bonds. Donald Trump is everything we talked about. He is, he desires to be a king.

He desire. be a dictator. He loved how they would hang the banners of the Soviet leaders and the North Korean leaders in these other countries, Saddam Hussein. He loves all of that. That's what he desires. So it's no shock. Yep, I'm going on the coin. I don't give a damn what y'all think. Oh, there are rules against that? Don't give a damn. Yeah, I'm going to personally enrich myself. I'm telling you right now, I'm going to go ahead and put a number on this here. By the time of the inauguration in January, 2009, I believe Donald Trump is going to, and with his children, everything, he is going to enrich himself to the tune of $20 billion. And I believe that is being conservative.

I believe that they are going to do deals. They do not care. They are brazen. They are robbing this country blind. in the daylight with a flashlight. And so everything is about this man's ego. Everything is about his ego. And that's why he is scared to death of the election in November.

Reuters did a story, and I definitely want to get your thoughts on this. Let me read out this quote. So this is from a Reuter story. Yesterday in an interview with Reuters, Trump complained about the common pattern of a press. who wins an election then loses seats in the midterms and suggested he didn't want to be in that position. Quote, it's some deep psychological thing. But when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms, Trump said. He went on to say that he had accomplished so much that, quote,

when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election. Michael. Oh, I'll take this one first. Absolutely. And he doesn't want to have an election. Well, that's why I call your damn name. That's why I call your name first. Right, right, right, right. That's why I call your name first. Right, okay. Yeah, he doesn't want to have an election.

He would try to do everything he can to make sure we don't have an election in 2026. And if there is one, expect him to deploy the National Guard, to have right ice running rampant through cities that have high. African-American populations, Democratic cities like he is now. What's going on in Minneapolis right now, that's the dry run. That's the test. That's so they can get everything together. And the New York Times article, the extensive New York Times interview he did.

I think they interviewed him for about an hour, like one or two weeks ago. He said something to the fact that he regretted not seizing the voting machines. and everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijan Robinson. When I'm on the field, I'm feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down.

It just makes you feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game playing for your mental health at loveyourmind playbook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the ad console. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Ziers in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired.

I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target. And I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers, whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulation. You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things

happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast. Hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride through the most delulu takes on the internet, criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. guests. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is you can decide who takes home the 26 IHard Podcast Awards Podcast of the year by voting at IHeart Podcast Awards.com now through

February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at Audible.com. The previous election, previous presidential election, right? So he's signaling. I've said this before.

I've said this for years. Everything that Trump does, he tells you ahead of time he's going to do it. The problem is a lot of people don't believe him. And I'm telling you right now, as Stephen Bannon said, they figured out six or seven ways for him to serve a third term or however they want to. crazy, they're going to try to run that game too. I'm telling you, yeah. So I believe him.

Absolutely. They're going to try it. We got to fight harder and we have to stop them. Yeah, Raven, White House Chief Liar, liar and chief Carolyn Leavitt when asked, she's like, oh, he was just playing. No, he wasn't playing. And also, even if he was, what do you mean he was just playing? That's the president of the United States of America. You don't play about that.

And we have precedents for this, right? Did we forget about the big lie? Like, this man has already shown us that he is a horribly sore loser. And when he doesn't get his way, he will do everything in his power to usurp the legislative presidents and the decisions that constituents made when they went to the ballot box. This man is a sore loser. And he absolutely will do everything in his power to raid the midterms if we do not fight back like hell, 100%. He's made awful decisions since he's been in office.

The one big beautiful bill, more like the big ugly bill, the big bodacious bill. Folks can't afford their health care, folks can't afford their groceries, folks can't afford their housing. Are we great yet? Did we do it? Was this worth it, y'all, putting this bigot in office? Because we're one form of bigotry exists, all the other forms exist too. And at the core of all this is class warfare.

This is a man who is a billionaire, he's four other billionaires. And to your point, Roland, he is a man. using his positionality of power right now to further enrich himself. Let's talk about crypto. Let's talk about the Genius Act. Let's talk about all those loopholes. Let's talk about how he's already enriched himself. Billions of dollars. This is not abstract. It's happening in real time right in front of us, but so much is transpiring at the same time. It's like a blitz creek. It's hard to identify all the evil stuff that's going on because it's happening too fast. But let's not be confused. This is not business as usual. And we need to be real, real,

real intentional about midterms coming up here in a couple of months? Matt, there's nothing with MAGA I trust. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I don't give a damn what it is. They absolutely want to steal elections. They absolutely don't want to be held accountable. And what Trump is really angry about, dude, you're mad because the public ain't buying your BS.

The public has said that the last year has been a failure. And he and so, and then he was beggar Republicans, don't, don't lose, because y'all lose. They're going to impeach me. We can't hear that happen. I'm like impeach his ass. Let's go. Yeah, affordability is a made-up Democrat word, right? Even though in the election you were talking about how you're going to put a chicken in every pot proverbially.

But look, here's the truth of it. Since before he was running again or when he started talking about running again, I said exactly this. This man is going to come in and say, I'm going to be president as long as I want to be president. And I say that tongue in cheek, but this is what we're trending toward. And part of this is all of our fault. What we have done in this society is we have legitimized this stuff that is out in the ether that would just be beyond the pale. I think Raven kind of alluded to it earlier said this is the president of the United States. Before the Trump administration, we not only would have been mortified by this, but it would have probably been political suicide for a president to say we're not going to have elections.

But because we're in a banana republic, the president can, quote, make a joke like that. And then Caroline Levick can go on and say, oh, he's just joke. No, you don't joke about that kind of thing because that's the kind of thing that is a fundamental bedrock part of our society. We've got to have full and fair and free elections. And you don't get to say that we're not going to have elections at all. So yeah, he's afraid of being impeached. And he's also able to say whatever he wants to say, because we give him a bullhorn to say the bullshit he continues to say, and we as a society, talk about it. Like, it's something that needs to be discussed academically rather than said, this is absolutely banana pancakes.

We cannot give this a second of our time because it's not a thing that should be discussed or given any credibility. On top of that, you talk about his narcissism and you talk about how egocentric he is. But I think a thing we don't talk about enough is that he is an egocentric puppet. It's James Blair and Stephen Miller and all these crazies who've laid in wait for all of these years to have the perfect person be their bullhorn and their mouthpiece to go out and say all of this insane stuff and to say the quiet part out loud that a lot of people are thinking in their rooms at home when they are tired of seeing black people take their country. That's what we're seeing.

We're seeing king makers use the puppeteer or use the puppet act as a lot of. the puppeteer and have him enact this insane policy. I mean, we are seriously sitting here talking about the president joking about us not having elections. That's exactly the kind of thing they would get on TV and say this is why we need to go into ex-third-world country and go depose their government because they're denying their citizens' elections. But our president gets on TV and says, I'm not going to have elections or rather says it in an interview. I mean, I don't even know what we're doing discussing this because this is the kind of thing that we have come to as a country that we should never have countenance

and we should never give any kind of time to discuss this kind of stuff. I mean, I know we have to, but we can't, we shouldn't be doing it in the way that we are, which is giving it any credibility because it's absurd. Well, many, many folks said him running for the White House was absurd and these idiots chose to do it twice. Quick break. We come back. Blackstar Network hit black star network headlines with Brittany Noble and then we'll talk about the absolute mess that the right wing is creating at Texas A&M University of my alma mater talk about being stuck on stupid you're watching roller mark unfiltered right here on the black star network if in this country right now you have people get up in the morning and the only thing they can

think about is how many people they can hurt and they got the power that's the time for morning For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. We are at a point of a moral emergency. We must raise a voice of outrage. We must raise a voice of compassion. And we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization.

a human rights crisis and a crisis of democracy itself. And guess what? You've been chosen to make sure that those that would destroy, those that would hate, don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win. They said the quiet part out loud. Black votes are a threat. So they erased them.

After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Republican legislatures moved fast. moved fast. New voter ID laws. Polling place shutdowns. Purges of black voters from the rolls. Trump's Justice Department didn't stop it. They joined in. In 2018, his DOJ backed Ohio's voter purge system, a scheme that disproportionately erased black voters, their goal, erase black votes and political power. Yeah, that happened. These are the kinds of stories that we cover every day on Roland Martin Unfiltered. and download the Black Star Network app.

Support fact-based independent journalism that centers African Americans and the issues that matter to our community. I'm Mark Curry and you're watching the Black Star Network. That's why I got these glasses on, because that Black Star is bright. All right, folks, time for Black Star Network headlines with Brittany Noble. Roland, all five men charge in connection with the death of Southern University student Caleb Wilson have entered Not Guilty Please. Wilson's parents and siblings were seated in the front row as Isaiah Smith, Kai Thurman, Caleb McCrae, Winston Sanders, and Jaden Landrum entered their pleas. After their arrest in March, three of the defendants were indicted on felony hazing charges.

The charges stem from a hazing incident at a warehouse on February 26. Police say 20-year-old Wilson was participating in an Omega Sci-Fi fraternity ritual when he collapsed after being punched in the chest with boxing gloves. According to police, McCray, who also faces a man. slaughter charge was identified as the one who punched Wilson. Their next court date is scheduled for April 28th. President Donald Trump released his long-awaited plan to tackle the high cost of health care. The proposal is largely a broad framework of the President's health care priorities, including reducing drug prices, lowering health insurance premiums, and increasing price transparency. What the plan does not recommend is extending the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium subsidies,

which expired at the end of last year and sent premium soaring for more than 20 million Americans this year. The Senate is currently wrestling with weather to renew the subsidies. It also does not make changes to Medicare or Medicaid, which covers nearly 150 million people. Well, the FBI carried out a search warrant at the Virginia home of a Washington Post reporter this week. It's part of an investigation to a federal employee who is suspected of mishandling classified information. FBI director Cash Patel confirmed on social media that police executed the search warrant, alleging the journalist received, quote, classified sensitive military information from a government contractor, endangering our war fighters in compromising America's national security. The alleged leaker was arrested this week and is in custody.

The decision to execute a search warrant at the home of a journalist is highly unusual and could escalate the already tense relationship between the media and the Trump administration. Ludacris and Nellie have been added to the lineup for a MAGA music festival. It's for the 2026 Rock the Country Music Festival. While the gathering is an official political event, it has earned its MAGA nickname due to the country-themed lineup, pro-American branding, red state aesthetics, and connections to artists such as Kid Rock and Jason Aldean. Ludacris will appear on stage in South Carolina. Meanwhile, Nellie will be in the lineup in New York.

alongside Kid Rock. The pair have been slammed as sellouts and cash chasers. Well, Sierra and Russell Wilson joined the list of couples gaining citizenship outside the U.S. and Singer and the giant quarterback recently visited the West African country for the first time this month and discussed plans to bring American football over to that nation. The Wilson's made their citizenship official through a ceremony with the Beninese government. The program my Afro origins encourages descendants of the Sub-Saharan Africans to apply for citizenship, which can take as little as three months to complete. Roland?

All right, Brittany. I'm still appreciate it. Thanks a lot, folks. Let's now talk about what's happening at Texas A&M University. And ethics and public policy graduate course was canceled three days into the spring semester by the dean. Now he canceled this. because the professor, Dr. Leonard Bright, refused to submit the information needed to be exempt from a new ban on teaching gender and race ideology.

Well, Dr. Bright shared on social media that his colleagues and students were informed about the cancellation of his ethics class before he was. This is the statement. Here's the message that TAMU sent to my entire college. My colleagues and students knew about a decision to cancel my ethics class before me. This disrespect my dean showed towards me was unwarranted. The message was clear. Be very afraid no one can save you from being censored at Texas A&M. He and other faculty advocates expressed concerns about the lack of clarity regarding the rules of the ongoing course review,

suggesting that administrators may be using this ambiguity to serve their advantage. Dr. Bright joins us right now. I'm glad to have you here. Doc, let's just be clear what's going on here. Texas is being governed by the Republican Taliban. What you have going on in Texas with Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, led by a craze deranged, right-wing state legislator who's an A&M graduate,

led by a hardcore right-wing deranged website that all the Republicans follow. What they want to do is they believe that Texas universities are too liberal, and they actually want to turn Texas A&M into the most conservative institution in the state. They're doing the exact same thing at the University of Texas, because they believe that they have gone too far left. They are imposing right-wing zealots in leadership positions as chancellors, as presidents and putting them on boards.

So let's be perfectly clear what's going on here in Texas. This is all driven by white Republican politics. I absolutely agree. And at the end of the day, you know, as you said, they want to create an education system that, that, you know, basically, you know, promotes their ideology, you know, And anyone else's sort of perspectives, you know, they want to be, you know, censored and removed or taking through a long sort of arduous process of validating that, you know, what you should say, you know, they approve of. And, you know, and it is unfortunate, you know, and, you know, Texas A&M, you know, certainly is one of those universities that said, at least in the past, that they value the broad, diverse education, you know, system.

but it is clear that they are turning back, you know, on that idea, you know, and, and, you know, and now want to, you know, for like a better word, indoctrinate, you know, students, you know, toward one, you know, political agenda. Absolutely. And when you look at, there's another professor who now says, based upon these new rules they put in place, he can't teach Plato, which is, very stupid, which is just, which is unbelievable. And that's what's going on. They want to take power out of the hands of the faculty senate. The previous president of Texas A&M, General Welsh, would be a very good man. They felt he was too supportive of woke of diversity.

The governor got involved ordering saying that the president did not cancel Texas A&M attending a conference to recruit minority. graduate students that he would fire the president. These people do not believe in academic freedom. They do not believe in diversity of thought. And let's be perfectly, and let's be clear. Texas is a state that is 60% people of color, 60% minority. What Republicans in Texas want to do is they want white domination, white control,

adherence to a white right-wing ideology. Yes. Now, and one thing I would say is, you know, when they were considering some of the policies that Texas A&M have put in place, you know, this, you know, prohibition on this thing they're calling race ideology, which, which are gender ideologies, I mean, we're like, you know, who does that? I mean, I don't know any professor that does that. And we're like, yeah, sure, yes, we don't do that so good. You know, we're good, right. And then it became evident that, I mean, obviously, they realized that, well, you know, that's not going to do what they wanted. So they revised the policy. see to kind of convolut now teaching and what they call advocacy or, you know, and so now they sort of confuse these two and arguing that, no, you know, what we really are doing, we're trying to stop now, our teaching on these topics. But we don't really say you can't teach it. We're just going to say you need to have our approval, some exemption, because you might be advocating. Now, the question here is that I think there's some of some citizens who are looking at on this don't really know or may not be fully realized,

is that these policies were not sort of instituted, I would say, in a very democratic way. When the legislature had a chance to approve the policies, some of the politicians, they put this stuff in the bill. I was there. I was arguing against it, you know, on our hill here in Austin. And we were saying, you know, don't do this. It's going to damage our education.

And you know what? It's too surprising. I have to give credit where credit to do. The Republicans said no, they took it out the bills. They would not advance the legislation forward. And so they said, okay, yes, you should not advocate for anything. And we agree with that, sure. You know, our job is not to promote a particular agenda.

Our job is to present the full picture for students, especially around contested ideas. So they can make the decisions for themselves. But we're teaching them about the facts and how to distinguish between misinformation, you know, disinformation and to be prepared for this broad world. I mean, you may not agree with everything, but at least you are aware. So they failed at the legislature. So now they have come down, you know, to the universities and have backdoored it, you know, throughout board of regions. So it doesn't take a vote. You just take a governor who wants these things done and he's appointed a board of regions that they're going to follow his orders. And, and now we have these very

draconian, you know, highly censored policies that essentially tell you that, essentially, me when I walk into my classrooms, I have to deny, you know, basically who I have. I'm a black man. And I'm supposed to sit there and say, oh, I can't talk about my experiences because, you know, they have not approved that or, and I have to whitewash this, you know, and take out all the juicy parts that they need to understand and know because someone says, well, who I am, they want to de-emphasize. And that is Holly, unfortunate. Questions for my panel. I'll start with you, Matt. So, Dr. Bright, I was going to ask about the 10-year law.

I know tenure had come up, and I know you were talking about some of the changes there in Austin at the legislature. And I guess my question is this twofold. First, is there a concern that if you teach something outside of the bounds of what's been especially approved, that it will be called professional incompetence, and then essentially you'll be on the chopping block for, you know, allegedly having been professionally incompetent? If so, before you answer that, I'll tell you there's a corollary between that and exactly what they did with DAs in Texas. They try to control district attorneys. They tried to change what constitutes professional incompetence.

But what I'm specifically interested in is just kind of from a due process standpoint, what rights you have as a professor, because the concerning thing to me is this is really the last bastion of free thought, right? I mean, colleges and universities, you're supposed to really grapple with these ideas, especially in a class. like ethics. So where are the bounds on that? What are your due process rights? What kind of autonomy do you have and what you can actually teach that doesn't have to be rubber-stamped by the administration? Yes, so that's a great question. And really, you know, the way they have done this, they're essentially have removed our deep process rights. You know, so basically, you know, the way this sort of exemption process is working, this is sort of like a trap. They're saying, you know,

and they tried to apply that to me, they want me to be dishonest. in terms of what my class is about. They want me, they didn't want to accept that an ethics class, a public service, no less, should not discuss issues of race, gender, and sexuality throughout the class, especially given the power that public service are gonna have, you know, as we see today, we see what ICE, we see all this.

I mean, these are public service that will come through a program, you know, like ours, and our job is to help them do their job better, do it well for behalf of all, you know, citizens. So the way they're doing this with this exemption, They're saying, okay, all right, put on paper exactly what you're doing. You know, tell us every little detail. And if we allow you to do the class, you've got to stick to that. And we might tell you you can't do these kinds of things.

So we're going to censor this, but we'll let you do these things over here on this day or that day or regards to that. And now you've put it in writing that this is all I'm doing, right? And we're going to prove it. Now, down the line when a student comes or someone sets you up and say, wait a minute, Dr. Brack was talking about this on day two. but you said he can only talk about this on day four. I mean, he put that in writing. And guess what? They've already told us that we can be penalized up to and including termination.

So these are things that even as a teenager and a professor, I mean, I am the only black teen professor in my entire college. You know, I am the only one that has ever been promoted to full professor in the entire history of my college. So right there, he tells you that there's a race issue here at Texas A&M when it comes to professors. So despite all that, if I had a student, come say I somehow misrepresented. The university is going to say, I misrepresented my class, and, you know, I can lose my tenure. I mean, they'll draw me up and dismiss me potentially for calls. You know, one of the administrators said, if we're found to have intentionally done it,

we can be dismissed. So it just throws all this, you know, into flux, you know. All right, son, time to put out this campfire. Dad, we learned about this in school. Oh, did you now? Okay. What's first? Smoky bear said to, First, drown it with a bucket of water, then stir it with a shovel. Wow, you sound just like him. Then he said, if it's still warm, then do it again. Where can I learn all this? It's all on smoky bear.com with other wildfire prevention tips,

because only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester and the ad council. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Ziers is in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target, and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment.

So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast. Hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride who the most delulu takes on the internet,

criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 26thiHard Podcast Awards

Podcast of the year by voting at iHeartpodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at iHeartpodcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com.

Again, Texas A&M have said that they have these policies. We're seeing that they're quite willing to violate them and just give a reason. And right now, I fear that many of our faculty members in the effort to keep their jobs are voluntarily and unintentionally sacrificing their academic freedom and the quality of their education, you know, by these tactics, you know, that Texas A&M is now using to, as you say, whitewash and purify our education of any idea,

of any idea that they disagree with. And today, it happens to be race, gender, and sexuality. Next week, tomorrow, next year, it's gonna be something else. They're gonna add to this. Roland, can I ask a follow-up question? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, real quick, Professor Bright,

so what are you seeing on the ground in terms of the effect this is having on the back end with the students? And what I mean is, are you seeing students who are attacking grades or rather appealing grades, for instance, that you give on the basis of, hey, I held a different position than what I thought, Professor Bright was advocating for, he taught this thing and he's not taking into account my political ideology.

I mean, is that affecting on the back end what you're able to do in terms of your appraisal of a student's work as a professor? Yeah, so I have not seen any personal evidence of that. I'm sure it is quite concerning for all of us as faculty that, especially, you know, we see examples at Oklahoma and so forth, where professors or instructors were basically accused of being arbitrary when someone literally did not do. do the assignment. They, I mean, it was like, okay, take this article, tell us academically what is, you know, your reaction and the student took the perspective of the Bible. And, you know, and it's not that the Bible cannot be applied. It's just an academic setting that is not a legitimate academic sort of source, you know, to, to use. So, so that professor was dismissed on the grounds that, well, you were arbitrary. When everybody knows that the end of the day, this is not.

not what we expect, you know, from our students. So, so there is fear that the way they're setting this up, especially with this ethics point, you know, that we call the snitch portal, you know, where, where basically students are in faculty are told, you know, snitch on each other, you know, tell on them, tell us, you know, they're doing something wrong, you know, so that we can bring the full force of the state upon them, you know, and this could be, definitely can involve grades and in great disputes. When someone comes in and say, you disqualify my, you know, my, you know, my perspective. So it really speaks to the importance of us designing our course in ways that that demonstrates that we're we're not trying to disqualify anyone's ideas. As long as they're

not hateful or illegal, you know, I would say that's my lie. It was not hateful or illegal. Let's talk about it. I don't have to agree with you. You don't have to agree with other points of view, but I want you to hear them and understand them and apply them if possible. Raven. Professor Bright, thank you so much for coming on to the show tonight and sharing this harrowing experience. I just, as someone who spent most of my life in academia before I became a content creator and correspondent,

I am just so heartbroken to see how the academy is being attacked in particular ways by this regime and Project 2025 and sort of all of these various apparatuses that we're seeing play out on local levels. I really want to talk about recourse. Do you have any recourse in a situation like this with the board of regents and also, you know, How does this impact your feelings about staying at A&M?

I can imagine that it's created a very hostile and an uncomfortable environment for you personally as a professor. Yeah, so really at this point, we have no recourse to change these policies. It is clear that despite the opposition to this, and I'm one of the, I know, I have not seen any evidence that this is what all of Texans, the majority of Texans want,

this is not what our employers want. This is what a very small, small group for very powerful, I would say, conservatives that are pushing their agenda on everyone else. So we have no recourse at this point, especially given that our universities are, and our board of reasons, report to the governor. So there's nothing immediate, you know, that we can do. They can put these policies in place. As a matter of fact, they've strengthened their ability to do this, you know, without, you know, any, you know, need to consult anyone. I mean, they don't have to talk to us. They don't talk to anybody. You know, they just, they can do what they

they want to do now and that has been even more strengthened through these latest laws, SB 37 and so forth. I think the only immediate thing that we can do is is for the parents and students and the in users of education to say to realize that this is not what we don't want our students, our young ones to to to be unprepared for the world that is here and that is growing more and more diverse. And that's as has been alluded to, really alluded to that the world is changing And this country is going to change. They see it. They see it in high school.

And they're afraid of that. So they're trying to put the things in place that will try to hold that back. But you know, so the things that we're trying to do now is especially as I'm the president of the American Society and University professors here at College Station, is to kind of prepare the faculty, give them some advice, you know, provide legal assistance as they needed to try to,

first of all, you know, certainly keep their jobs, but also encourage them that they can stand up, that they can, you know, try, we can try to push back as best as we can against these incursions into our, higher education. My personal feelings about, you know, being here, you know, I believe that I was brought here. I was brought here for a purpose. You know, I'm a religious person. I, I believe in destiny. And, and I don't believe that, you know, God makes mistakes. You know, I was, you know, I arrived here probably believing I'll be here for two years and I'll be gone,

you know, you know, but, but I came here and, and, and I just got to work. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I just got to work. And there were just things here that I saw that I wanted to improve. I wanted to try to contribute to. And these issues just called on to me. You know, they pointed me out. Say, hey, Leonard, here I am. So I have no intention of leaving. Certainly have plenty of opportunities to people say, hey, come over here, Dr. Bright.

You know, we will love you to be over here. And certainly I can. But I believe that these issues that we see right now on the front lines are about to affect everybody in this country. You know, we're just sitting here in Texas, the red states, the leading to charge. But if they can do what they're doing in Texas, what they really want to do is get this instilled across the country. So running away from this from Texas isn't going to solve this. If this keeps going on, it's going to be in every blue state. You know, it's going to be everywhere.

You know, so why not, you know, stay where I am and do the best that I can to push this back. And again, they want to run black people. people are. They want to do that. Michael. Well, Dr. Bright, thanks for coming on and sharing this with this. This is an extension of the critical or the anti-critical race theory laws that we saw in various states over the past few years. You asked my question dealing with exemptions. So the question I will ask you is looking at this policy, it prohibits the teaching of race or gender ideology among other things in the core curriculum. So my question,

would be how you may not teach this subject, but how would one teach history under these, this current policy? How would you teach the history of slavery, the civil war, the reconstruction era, the civil rights movement? How does one, how would one navigate, you know, throughout that? Because this has wide-ranging implications when it comes to academia. Absolutely. And so one of the things I see this as facts isn't an ideology.

You know, that's a fact. This happened. Nor is nor am I responsible for how someone accepts a fact and how they feel about that fact. You know, that's their subjective judgment. And if a fact of what has happened has struck you in such a degree that it makes you consider and say, I am sorrowful for what this country have done to other people, I think that's a good thing, especially when it's bad, especially when it dealt with extermination of people, slavery, slavery, and in the horrific things that America have done in history. You know, so understanding those facts is not an ideology.

My tip to teach those facts, I am not teaching it. It is what it is. I don't, you know, accept it or not. So, so and beyond that, you know, just the idea that I would want to intentionally teach something to say your race is more, my race is more. superior to you that I want to shame you you know I'm trying to teach this to shame you you know the whole thing is built so so much of an in a normative negative way that that it almost says it's not instruction it's something else entirely and in the way the policies work is that we have to somehow acknowledge and accept that we want to do that you know and and so so if you can't accept that you want to

do that you you won't get an exemption almost making us you know make a determination about something that, first of all, even before any accusations that even has happened, but we're presuming then that it will happen, that you're going to make someone feel bad and you're going to intentionally seek to do such. So these kind of policies are just really bad, you know, and they're designed, you know, they're designed to, again, to target people who they don't want to be here, target education and the kinds of information that they don't want to be told because they see education as a spoil as a, you know, to the victor goes to spoil. They have the power.

They're a small group, but they have the power and they get to remake education in their image. But education, public education, especially something that Texas A&M does, a land, sea space grant institution is the purpose is to serve the public broadly. In other words, this is a public good that we all deserve to have. And unfortunately, they don't think that. And that's why this university and universities that do things like this should not be considered

to be a serious system of higher education. All right, thank. And just in case anybody was wondering, pull the photo up, this is Bill Mahomes. Bill Mayhomes is a Texas A&M graduate. Bill Mayhomes, well, guys, guys, come on, let's go. Bill Mayhomes went to A&M one of the early days when there were virtually no African-Americans there. Later became chair of the Board of Regents.

And you know what he's done? Nothing to protect black students or black faculty or a black interest. When you look at many of these votes, when you look at many of these votes, they have been unanimous. when they had the whole controversy under the previous president and dealing with Kathleen McElroy being hired to run the Texas A&M Journalism Department. Bill May Holmes was chair. He allowed this nonsense to go on.

They had to pay out a big settlement, and so here's the reality. No, no, leave it on there. Okay, they know what I look like. They know what I look like. They know what he looks like. When the Kathleen McElroy stuff went down, I called Bill Mayhomes.

I got his cell phone from multiple people. He never returned my phone call. He never returned any emails. He avoided me. My name was brought up to him by a couple of other people, and again, he did not want to address the issue. And so this is also part of the problem, Professor, that you are laying out.

The problem that we have is we have some black folks, some Negroes who sit in high positions, who sit on boards of regions, who do nothing, who are there to clearly enrich themselves, who are happy just to be there, who play a go-along to get-a-long game. And I'll say this, and I have no problem saying it, and I really don't not care.

Having a black member on the board like Bill Mayhomes is the same as having a white board member on the day of simply all lacquish to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and they do nothing at all to protect the interest of African-American students, African-American faculty, and as simple as that. And I'm quite sure, a professor, you haven't even heard from Bill May Holmes,

and you won't hear from Bill May Holmes because he is not there to protect the interest of African-Americans. Yeah, you know, and, you know, certainly he's a part of the board, and he has certainly, I mean, I've sat in meetings and I've listened to them call at the votes, and I've always held out the hope that I would hear a long note, you know, and I have not. So, so, so certainly I don't know him personally and, you know, but certainly I don't agree with what he's been voting for.

Absolutely. Well, I have met him. I have known him. And I'm telling you right now, Bill May Holmes serves no purpose. And as a black Texas A&M graduate, frankly, I'm ashamed that he's on the board of regions. he certainly does not represent any of our interests whatsoever. And let me be perfectly clear, Bill Mayhomes, history will go down. History will go down and record your silence.

And history will record how you allow these things to happen. And you said nothing. You did nothing. When these racist texts were discovered what these board of regions were saying, these white border regions were saying going back and forth over the Kathleen McElroy hiring, you knew if they were attacking that black woman with impeccable credentials. And you said and did nothing. And you know I reached out to you as a black Texas A&M graduate.

And so it's shameful that he sits there like a bump on a log and says and does nothing as black faculty members, as black students, as diversity comes under attack. And so how different is Texas A&M in 2006 than when it was when they did not entry to black students? So, yeah, it needs to be said. And yeah, Bill Mayhombs needs to show some courage because he is certainly doing a disservice to the ancestors and to all the black folks

who fought to make it possible by him to be able to enroll into the Texas A&M Corps cadets when he went there. Professor, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Thank you for having, man. Last point here,

and I'm doing the panel here, Matt, Raven, and Michael. I just, here we are, here we are. Yesterday, it would have been the 97th birthday Reverend after Martin Luther King, Jr. And this is the MLK weekend.

And then, of course, the federal holiday is on Monday. And I just simply don't have any patience whatsoever with, with silent and complicit Negroes. To me, if you have these black folks in Texas and other parts of the country who are sitting there silent

and who are watching as individuals want to roll us back and launch Jim Crow 2.0 and they do nothing, when you look at the racial attacks of Donald Trump that are taking place all across this country unleashed against African Americans, And these Negroes defend him like he's their daddy. And yes, I'm talking about you, Byron Donald's.

I'm talking about you, Burgess Owens. I'm talking about you, Texas Congressman Wesley Hunt. I'm talking about you, Senator Tim Scott. They absolutely say nothing. And then you have these black Republicans who sit on these boards, who are all about getting the check. And let me perfectly clear, okay. I know, I personally know, black Republicans

and black conservatives who don't support this mess, who have spoken out. I know them, but I'm telling you right now, I do not, I will not be silent and watch as these lackeys. Throw us under the bus for personal gain to fatten their pocketbooks, to be accepted at Mar-Largo and in these country clubs. And I'm sorry if these folks don't give a damn about, them and they are there for window dressing and they need to be they need to be

called out and they deserve to be called out and Raven on this weekend I don't want to hear shit from any of these white MAGA folks or the black ones using keen quotes and talking about any of that because none of these people give a damn about the agenda that King was advancing then and would be advancing today now they can keep all that virtue signaling to themselves and stay real quiet over these next few days, 100%. You know, Black Maga and Black Republicans and the overlap they're in,

because sometimes they distinguish, so deeply bizarre to me. You know, I think the crux of those sentiments and leaning into those identities is really rooted in a fundamental belief they hold that if they are proximal enough to white supremacy and white supremacists, it will give them access to power

and it will keep them safe. And there are some truth to that. There are some truth to that, but safety in the cradle of white supremacy is always conditional, even for white people. And they're going to have a very rude awakening because if the leopards haven't eaten their face already, they're sure getting ready to. So I feel sorry for them. I do.

I feel sorry for them. And this is not me saying that unity means conformity, right? When we talk about folks on the left, we're a broad base. We have lots of different sentiments, lots of different positionalities. And I think that's the argument I see coming from Black Maga and Black Republicans sometimes. I don't want to do that because that's what you expect me to do. And I'm not just going to follow mine. And Democrats haven't worked for me.

Like, it's like the ultimate boss of I'm not like the other girls. You know, just because you're not doing what the majority of black folks are doing doesn't make you good or right. Why aren't you asking yourself the question? Why are most black folks not aligning themselves with these people? There is a reason for that. And, yeah, to my earlier point, they're in for a very rude awakening. And I don't want to hear nothing from them about MLK because everything they're doing is in diametric opposition. to what that man said for.

Michael? Yeah, Roland, as I alluded to earlier, you're going to have all these Republicans. You're going to have probably Donald Trump as well, and Black Maga, talk about how great Dr. King was while they worked for dismantle his legacy. And we've seen the history of this over the past 10 years or so. So they can keep all that nonsense.

We need to call them out on that. We need to call them out on that hypocrisy while they are implementing Project 2025. In my last check, last time I checked 48% of the 318 policies of Project 2025 have been implemented as the Project 2025 tracker shows. And most of these people never read any books that Dr. King wrote. He wrote five books. They never read any of his complete speeches. Don't really understand Dr. King.

and he was calling out the Republican Party back in 1964 as well, what the Republican Party was moving towards. He was calling out. So he wasn't just criticizing white liberals. He was also criticizing Republican Party. And contrary to properly believe, he was neither a Republican nor Democrat as well. So you're going to see a whole bunch of BS this weekend,

and I've done extensive research on Dr. King of written articles, interviewed historians on him. But I don't get into this whole National Day of Service. I focus on teaching the real history of the revolutionary, Dr. King. And I learned a lot from the interview, Roland, that you did a few years ago on News One Hour, Roland Martin, when you had Professor Charles E. Cobb Jr. on that wrote the book, This Nonviolent Stuff, would get you killed, how guns made the civil rights movement possible. And in that book, it talks about how Dr. King owned guns until,

They got Rustin convinced them to get rid of his guns. One person referred to Dr. King's house as a known arsenal. You know, so, you know, we need to stop with this nonsense that they spread about Dr. King and challenged them every step of the way because most of these people don't know what they're talking about when it comes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose real name was Michael. Okay? His father, Michael, Sr., changed his name because he went, because Michael Sr. went to the Holy Land and changed the name to Martin Senior in Martin Luther King, June.

Matt. Well, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the last segment was about, you know, what's going on at a little school out in the middle of nowhere. It's really a tragic thing. Such things have not happened at Howard University, from my understanding, but we can discuss that in earnest later. In any event, I think Michael and Ray would have said, but those things, but those things are happening at your,

Pan's alma mater, University of Texas. Notice I didn't talk about the University of Texas. That's not here and there. I'm going to continue making my comment, which is this. I think Dr. King would talk about all of the... Babes, what are you doing? What? I'm just mowing the lawn. No, it's blazing hot and dry out here.

Don't you remember? Smokey Bear says... Avoid using power equipment when it's windy or dry. Where'd you learn this? Oh, it's on... Smokeybear.com. with many other wildfire prevention tips. Right. Thanks, honey, bear.

Because remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester, and the ad council. The social media trend that's landing some Gen Ziers in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired. I'm going to take Francesco off the network entirely. The massive TikTok boycott against Target that makes no actual sense. I will continue getting stuff from Target.

and I will continue to not pay for it. And the MAGA influencers, whose trip to the White House ended in embarrassment. So refreshing to have the press secretary after the last few years who's both intelligent and articulate. You won't hear about these online stories in the mainstream media, but you can keep up with them and all the other entertaining and outrageous things happening online, in media and in politics with the Brad versus Everyone podcast, hosted by me, Brad Palumbo. Every day of the week, I bring you on a wild ride who the most delulu takes on the internet,

criticizing the extremes of both sides from an independent perspective. Join in on the insanity and listen to the Brad versus Everyone podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, You can decide who takes home the 26 IHeart Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at IHeart Podcast Awards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.com. proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award.

Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. The verses in the Bible that talk about strangers and then would full-throatedly denounce ice and what's happening. And what we know is they're going to do the same political pageantry where they use him as a mascot as they do every year.

Despite the fact that were he alive, they would be calling him everything but a child. child of God. So we know that that's going to happen. I think Michael and Raven said that. And it doesn't surprise me what's happening at Texas A&M University. Well, the reality is the New York Times had a huge story talking about how the right wing is doing the exact same thing at the University of Texas. I just saw a story other day with a chancellor at Texas Tech University when it came to he literally crap all over gender studies and said, hey, if you want to study that stuff, they said, the place for you. What the right wing in Texas is doing. I'm talking about Texas Governor Greg Abbott. And here's, and here's, and see, this is again, why voting matters. You talk about this whole deal and how these things are not changing. Right now, Abbott is sitting on $106 million to run for

reelection, governor of Texas. And so they're going to swamp the state. Can he be beaten? Yes, if the state gets organized. But if Democrats continue to play these. silly games and not focus on going into black communities and going into Latino communities and having a message and talking to people on the ground, you're going to keep losing. I do not believe for a second. Texas does Texas does not have to be a solid red state. I remember when people claim Georgia was a solid red state. We see we see that as well.

But the reality is, and I'm going to say this again, folks, what we have is we've got the right wing Taliban right here in the United States. that's what we have going on right now. And these people, they want to drive a white supremacist agenda. And we had better understand this 100%. So on this weekend. And I'll say this here, Michael alluded to this here, and I'll speak on as well. I don't give a shit about Day of Service.

Let me say this again, okay? And this has been my chief criticism when it comes to how we have treated Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, what I call the Black Freedom Movement. I am sick of Dr. King being positioned as a civil rights bobblehead. I'm sick of people sitting here saying,

oh my God, Dr. King wanted all of us to get along. Dr. King wanted us to get together and to do these things together. No, Dr. King was a ratatism. Dr. King was somebody who had a radical vision for this country. He was not just about, oh, can we all just be nice and wonderful and get along? No, that was not the case. He was a radical.

And so we have to act like it. If you ask me, what would Reverend Dr. Martin of the King say or do? this weekend or Monday, it would not be a day of service. He would not be at a food bank. He would not be serving meals. He would not be planting trees. He would be leading a mass protest.

He would be leading mass protests against the actions of ICE. He would be leading a mass protest against the anti-black agenda of Donald Trump. and MAGA. So really what has to, what really has to come back is this radical king. That's what has to come back. And so what needs to happen

when we have all of these celebrations, we, black people have got to stop this bullshit of the bobblehead figure. I spoke last night to the Columbus Education Association. And we had some

issues, the live view server, something happened until it crashed. And so we didn't finish streaming the speech. Kenan, let me know if they finally sent us the speech and if it's ready so we can streaming tonight. And this is what I said to them last night. And what they did was they

played a portion of Dr. King's speech. And they really played, I dare say, the last four to five minutes of that sermon he gave on April 3rd, 1968 at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. and what I said to them was,

please do me a favor, stop playing that part, and I appreciate the other mountain top part. I appreciate that. But in the same 43-minute and 16-second sermon, Dr. King talked about protests. He talked about economic withdrawal. He used the phrase referencing Reverend Jesse Jackson

Senior St. Jesse, what do you call it? Redistributing the pain. He named-checked companies that black folks in Memphis needed to be boycotting and pulling their money out of. That's what King would be doing. If King is alive, if King was alive, if Abernathy was alive, if James Orange was alive, if September Clark, if Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, Annie Lou Cooper, you talk about Ms. Boynton, we can go on and on on.

Fred Siddlesworth. You know what they would be doing? They'll be standing with those people saying, no, we're not going to work on January 23rd in Minneapolis. That's what they would be doing. And so I need black people. I need us to stop trying to have the nice and cute and go along to get along King

because, you know what, it's just, no, no, no, we ain't doing. Y'all, I was sitting here and Chuck Schumer was standing with the Commerce Secretary in New York today, touting jobs coming to New York State. And Luke Riddell is a reporter. Y'all going to love this here.

He said, the tweet was, when I asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik why Trump should get credit for jobs coming to C&Y when he opposed the Chips Act, Schumer interjected, quote, we're not looking for one side

or the other. Lutnik, jumps in, we took a good start and made it great working together. Later on, Redell interviewed Schumer, and he asked him, why did he do that? Schumer said he stepped in because, quote, today's a day for bipartisanship. Minutes later, Lutnik said the bill that Schumer wrote was full of, quote, D-EI crap, and we cut out the bullshit. See, this is what I'm talking about

right here. See, the Schumers of the world, oh, no, this is a moment of bipartisanship, and Lutnik, when you're not around, trash is your own damn bill. This is how they play. So what I am saying is, I need our folks to say, well,

we're not playing that game. No, no, no. This is where we say, we are going to bring back radical king. That's what we're going to do bring that back and so i need our folks so when you have when y'all go to these m o k events i'll all that little nicely stuff because so tomorrow at 6 p.m. when i speak at the city of dallas's m lk gala oh i got a word for them because in this city do you know what one of the

thing what this city was about in this city it was called the city of accommodation Dallas didn't have a significant role in the civil rights movement. Now, that were individuals who were doing stuff, but it was called the city of accommodation. Jim Schultz put out a book on this very issue. What you still have today, you got some accommodating Negroes who are personally profiting without people as a whole are getting screwed.

So, yeah, I'm going to have something to say, Dallas. Come Monday, I'm going to tell you, Monday show, Tuesday show. I'm going to tell you about also a lawsuit that we just got a judgment against a black-owned company that cheated us out building our sprinter. We got a $55,000 judgment against that company. I'm going to give you all the details next week. And so I wasn't going to do it today, but I'm going to push it. And so we'll do that. Let me thank Matt.

Let me thank Raven. Let me thank Michael. You all have a great MLK weekend. And I appreciate you've been on today's show. Folks, support the work that we do by joining our Brena Funk fan club. Ain't anybody else speaking truth to power like we are. And so we look at the content that we're producing with digital shows and online as well. It is unmatched by anyone else.

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The goal of $17 million. If you want to invest in Fanbase, you ain't got much time, get more information at startengine.com 4 slash fanbase. But if you don't want to do that or if you do, be sure to download the app fan base.

Download the app fan base. Folks, that's it. Shout out to my Houston, Texas. Play the New England Patriots on Sunday. Good luck to the Texans. Antoine is directing today's show. He'll live Dallas Cowboy fan. didn't make it.

They didn't make it. So he and the salty how well my Texans doing. And so is that commander span in the control room, Terrell, as well. So, yeah, so looks like I think I'm the only person here with a playoff team that's still going, right? Hmm, okay. All right. Folks, so again, good luck to my Texas on Sunday. Hey, hey, we're going to be, one of the things that we're going to be doing is we're going to be

restreaming. We're trying to get it going to be restreaming. Oh, Matt got something. say what he got to what what what they're not trying to hear from that we we're not hurt man what what he got to say so cowboys uh matt matt matt you're not even in the playoffs y'all finish seven your season is over you can't even wear your jersey anywhere so you cowboy fans all y'all have to look forward to right now is the nfl draft in april yeah because you didn't make it the only texas team is in

the playoffs that made it, the Houston, Texas. Suck it up. We're better than you are. All right, y'all. Again, the City of Dallas MLK Gala, tomorrow, 6 p.m. And we're going to have lots of live coverage of MLK day events all across the country on Monday show as well. Folks, that's it.

Y'all have a fantastic weekend. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back Bijan Robinson. When I'm on the field, I'm feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes you feel great before I run the play. Just like Bijan, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at love your mind playbook.org.

Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the ad console. The social media trend is slanding some Gen Zers in jail. The progressive media darling whose public meltdown got her fired and the massive TikTok boycott against Target that actually makes no sense. You won't hear about these online stories

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