#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Lexington, Miss. Discrimination Lawsuit, Fani Willis Woes, Flint Water Crisis, GOP Bust Border Deal

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

2.7.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Lexington, Miss. Discrimination Lawsuit, Fani Willis Woes, Flint Water Crisis, GOP Bust Border Deal A Mississippi civil rights group says the police in Lexington harass and abuse black residents of the major-black town. The Justice Department is already investigating the city for discrimination practices. Civil rights group JUILAN just slapped the city with a lawsuit. The founder of JUILAN is here to explain the case. Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis continues to dodge MAGA bullets since charging Donald Trump and his cronies. I'll talk to an attorney who will walk us through the hurdles Willis must clear to continue the prosecution.  Senate Republicans block border bill. And Republican Senator James Lankford says his life was threatened for his attempt to reach a border deal with the Democrats.  We'll also continue reflecting on the Flint Water Crisis by looking at how much attorneys are getting from the lawsuits they file for those affected the most.    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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when have one aisle six. And aisle three. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car

deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop. Look. Lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you everought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, I get right back there and it's bad. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Wednesday, February 7, 2024. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network, a Mississippi civil rights group says the police in Lexington, Mississippi,

constantly harass and abuse black residents in this majority black town. The Justice Department is already investigating the CD for discrimination practices. Civil rights groups, the civil rights group Julian, a join, going with Jonas on the show, the founder will be right here to explain their lawsuit. Georgia D.A. Fannie Willis continues to dodge MAGA bullets since charging Donald Trump and his crowns out. Talk to attorney will walk us through the hurdles Willis must clear to continue the prosecution.

Senate Republicans have blocked the border Ukraine Israel funding bill. Republican Senator James Lanford. Guess what says his life was threatened for his attempt to reach a border deal with Democrats, but also continues reflecting on the Flint water crisis by looking at how much attorneys are getting from the lawsuits they filed for those affected the most. It's time to bring the funk on Rollerball Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. Let's go. With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all

Yeah, yeah It's Rolling Martin Yeah, yeah Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rolling Martin Now She's real the best, you know he's rolling. Martel.

Martel. A Mississippi town that is 80% black. They are under investigation by the Department of Justice for the harassment of black residents. Now they've been hit with a discrimination lawsuit claiming the police department harasses and abuses black residents. This is the same town where the former police chief Sam Dobbins bragged in an audio recording about how many black people he killed in the line of duty. Jill Collin Jefferson is founder of Julia, the organization that filed

the lawsuit. She joins us now from Holmes County, Mississippi. Jill was arrested and ultimately convicted of three misdemeanors for filing a 2020-23 traffic stop by Lexington police. And so you know exactly what that is like living there and being harassed by cops. Yes, yes. So thank you so much for having me, Roland. I do not live in Holmes County. I am from Mississippi, though. And what I can tell you is that this community has gone through pure hell over the last few years with the former police chief that you just talked about and with the current police chief. And that hell has not stopped, even though DOJ is there investigating.

So, again, how long has this been going on? How far back? Yeah, so this started around July of 2021, the harassment. That's when Sam Dobbins became chief of 2021, the harassment. That's when Sam Dobbins became chief of police in Lexington. And when he became chief of police, he basically ushered in just this incredibly racist and abusive regime where the police just started beating black people for no reason, falsely arresting black people. It just became, honestly, awful. You know, it became a situation of just martial law. And that is what is going on there today.

And so have other residents complained? Have there been other lawsuits? And what the hell has the state done? Sorry to laugh, but the state Tate Reeves has not done a thing. We reached out to him. You know, he has done nothing. He's not returned our calls. He's not returned our emails. You know, so at this point, there are at least five lawsuits that have been filed against Lexington. Julian filed the first lawsuit in July.

Well, actually in August of 2022. And then we just filed another lawsuit a couple of weeks ago, a much bigger lawsuit. The residents have been complaining constantly. And the city has been ignoring their complaints. You know, there's actually a complaint form that residents can fill out at City Hall to address their complaints with the police. And what's been happening as well is that the city's basically been telling them, hey, we don't even have any, we don't have a complaint form to give you. So people have no way of even complaining about it at this point.

Those are the links that the city government is going to, to just ignore the black citizens. This is a predominantly black town that is run by a white minority. Wow. That is absolutely crazy. So you're a city council there. What is the majority black city council? It is. The board of aldermen is majority black. The situation, it makes no sense, but I can tell you that the people who are on the board of aldermen, so first off, Lexington is in Holmes County, which is the second poorest county in the country. These are some of the poorest black people in the United States. And so it is not very hard for the wealthy white power structure to, you know,

pace somebody to run, you know, and fund their campaign and make sure they get elected. And then basically that black person is their puppet throughout their term. That is what has happened with the Board of Aldermen. So you've got a majority black Board of Aldermen, a white police chief attacking, harassing, abusing black people, and he still has a job. So the police chief is now black. Okay, so this guy, we talked about him in the previous.

So the curr, so wait a minute. So the current police chief is now black. Okay, so this guy, we talked about him in the previous. So the current, so wait a minute. So the current police chief is black, but the abuse is still going on? Yes, yes. So this police chief was the former police chief's second in command. You know, he is just as corrupt. He was helping the former police chief carry out all the abuses that they were carrying out on black people. And when he became chief, he just continued that. Wow. Wow.

So the lawsuit that y'all have filed, it's a federal lawsuit or state lawsuit? It is a federal lawsuit, and it is the biggest lawsuit against Lexington to date. We have about 20 plaintiffs. We have claims that range from excessive force because of the police just beating people. Our lead plaintiff, Leroy Seacrest, this man actually intervened when LPD was beating somebody else, a mentally handicapped young woman. They were beating her on the side of the road. Mr. Seacrest intervened. A couple of days later, the police arrest Mr. Seacrest's son at the basketball court. And they did this in order to lure Mr. Seacrest. He goes to the

basketball court to check on his son. And when he gets there, the police beat him up and arrest him because he had, because he had intervened when they were beating somebody else just a couple of days earlier. Wow. That is absolutely insane. Well, glad that y'all are on the case. And so certainly we'll be following this story to see what happens next. Thank you so much, Roland. All right. Again, this is just beyond crazy. My panel, we have, of course, joining us today, Scott Bolden, attorney here in D.C.,

former chair of the National Bar Association PAC. Also, Rebecca Carruthers, of course, vice president for Fair Election Center out of D.C. Scott, I will go to you first. I mean, when you hear this, and again, DOJ comes in, and we've had all of these different stories, it's absolutely insane. And unfortunately, you know, I think back to Ferguson,

67% black and the things that were happening there. A lot of these places, again, you have, you know, majority black population. And it's like, really? Yeah, but you keep presuming and me and others presume that because the melanin in our skin, that somehow friendship is kinship. And it just isn't. And so you have the, for lack of a better word, the house Negro doing the slave masters begging, the 2023 version of it, at least according to what your last guest said. But Roland, you could go around this country and find smaller communities

where white power structures are in place, or even black people, and the police are abusing their citizens. When you are the least and the lost and the left out, as Marion Berry used to say, when you have poverty of the mind and lack of education, it's easy. It's easy to abuse. And if you don't have a defender, or you don't have one with courage and the power structure or the council or the mayor or even the police department to stand up for those folks and their rights, yeah, what you just heard is easy. You could go to each state in this union and find a smaller population like that, and I promise you, you'd find those same abuses.

And the lawsuits are the first step, but now you've got to make sure the judiciary is going to give you a fair shake, because when people become hopeless and helpless and don't believe that there is a way to right these wrongs, what do they do? They just accept it, even though the fight is on. They get tired of fighting. And again, remember, you know, this is justice, fairness and America, if you will. But we're just not there yet. We're just not there yet. Yeah. And that's and the thing is, you know, there are people, Rebecca, who believe, hey, we can't do anything. But again, like we talk about with Ferguson, whether he, no, you can. You actually are the majority. You can throw people out.

You can put people in who can do the right thing. And this is why we constantly say on this show to people, stop believing you don't have power. This is why I absolutely reject people who say crap like, oh, voting does nothing. Voting means nothing. You're right. Voting does nothing and means nothing if your ass don't vote. Well, you know, to Scott's point, it sounds like the black police chief is really Django. He's actually someone who's supportive.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If that's how the black police chief, he ain't Django, he's Steven. Yes, thank you. He's Steven. He's Steven in this analogy. Thank you for that, Roland. So look, the thing is, yes, there is power that the folks in Lexington have. You know, when I think about some of the work that Black Voters Matter did in North Carolina, where they went into predominantly black towns that had all white representatives,

and they were able to do some basic community organizing and get black electeds in position. But also, it's not good enough just to have someone with a black face in positions of power in smaller towns like Lexington, but actually having people who actually have the community's values and that they're actually going to support and fund and put resources behind the values of the community. To terrorize this area of poor Black folks simply is not acceptable, whether it's white folks doing it or it's Black folks who are doing it to uphold white supremacy. One thing that I do want to say and do note, not to be flippant, yes, it is real easy in a small town like this to find a candidate, run a candidate with little to no money.

That's pretty simple. That's basic organizing 101. But to address the mental state and the terror that many of these Black residents have undergone by being under such harsh regime. You know, I want to note that as well, because anytime that we talk about building Black power, there's also, like you've outlined in your book, White Fear, there is white backlash. And so as we're figuring out how to build back Black power, especially in these small rural Southern towns, we also have to think about how do we protect the black folks in that town while that transition of power is occurring? Absolutely. All right, folks. So tight. One second. I'm going to go to break. We come back more on Roland Martin Unfiltered, including talking about what's happening in Flint, where lawyers there are making a ton of money off of a class action lawsuit.

What are the residents getting? Also, we will talk about Republicans in Congress. Talk about whining and complaining about the border. And then when you have an opportunity to fix it, you don't do it because Donald Trump told you not to. We'll talk about that as well. You're watching Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. The wealth gap has literally not changed in over 50 years, according to the Federal Reserve.

On the next Get Wealthy, I'm excited to chat with Jim Castleberry, CEO of Known Holdings. They have created a platform, an ecosystem to bring resources to Blacks and people of color so they can scale their business. Even though we've had several examples of African-Americans and other people of color being able to be successful, we still aren't seeing the mass level of us being lifted up. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. For the last 15 or maybe 16 years, 18 years, I'll say, since when I moved to L.A., I hadn't had a break.

I hadn't had a vacation. I had a week vacation here and there. Right. This year, after I got finished doing Queen's Chicken, we wrapped it up. Because I knew I had two TV shows coming on at the same time. So I was taking a break. So I've been on break for the first time and I can afford it. I got it.

You know what I'm saying? So I can afford it. I'm like, I can sit back and ain't got nothing to worry about, man. But this was the first time in almost two decades that I've actually had time to sit back and smell the roses. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker. Trudy Proud on The Proud Family. I am Tommy Davidson.

I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, y'all. Republicans, they're trying to find anything to discredit Fulton County DA Fannie Willis. Of course, Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade, one of the top prosecutors in the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and 18 others. They're going to have to testify at an upcoming evidentiary hearing set to examine allegations that they were involved in an improper relationship while investigating Donald Trump. Willis acknowledged the relationship but said it did not influence the case.

Georgia Republicans are figuring out how they can try to impeach the prosecutor. In fact, the state is also launching a committee to investigate Fannie Willis. Joining me now, Belan, to discuss all of this, that Willis is facing, is attorney Jay Edward Shipp. So, Attorney Shipp, glad to have you here. First of all, do you do any business with the Georgia DA's office? So, I've had a couple of cases in front of the Georgia DA's office, to be honest with you, Mr. Martin. Okay, so, but you don't, you're not like

a special prosecutor or whatever, so I just want to establish that. No, we won't have that. So, here's the first thing and I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Fannie Willis, it was dumb to pick somebody she's having a relationship with

to be on the team. I'm going to say that. Bottom line, anybody knows that this is a high-level case that everybody's paying attention to. What you do in cases like this, you want to be above board. You don't want there to be any sort of anything that can get in the way of this. And the reality is, her decision to pick Nathan Wade, in my estimation, is the reason we even having all these conversations.

And this is a screw up on her part because none of these discussions would be happening if she did not pick him. Be involved with whoever you want to be involved with, but the moment you bring your relationship to work, it's a problem. Your thoughts. All right, so I will agree with you. Yes, this is one of those.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back

there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Dr Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people,

real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players

all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule.

Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never

let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Those cases where you have to be on your P's and Q's to make sure that any semblance of impartiality or anything like that cannot be brought up.

And yes, there was a mistake in this in which she did bring her partner to work with her. But again, we have to be mindful of the fact that this black woman is basically being singled out for these things just to muddy the waters. It's not necessarily a situation of any of this being a detriment to Roman's constitutional rights. It's no detriment to former President Trump's constitutional rights. All it is is his attorneys are trying—Roman attorneys, are trying to do whatever they can to muddy the water.

And now you have Steve Sadow, who's come in, joined in on this motion, bringing up the fact that she talked about it in church, one of our own beloved institutions in which we can normally bring our grievances to the altar. Who is this Steve dude? Who is this? Okay, so Steve Sadow is a local Atlanta attorney.

He's representing Donald Trump in this particular matter. And that's who's his attorney for his Georgia case. Got it. Got it. So, but let's be clear. You're an attorney. Look, you do what you got to do to try to get your client off. So, I mean, the bottom line is that's what you do. So, again, I think there's a difference between being rightfully critical of the actions of Fannie

Willis, separate from I think it's utterly ridiculous that Republicans in Georgia are creating this committee. You've got to investigate her. Now you've got Republicans in Congress trying to subpoena her to come testify as well. And so what you really have here are outside of the attorneys for those who have been indicted. What you really have are people on the outside trying to do all they can to get Donald Trump and his followers off from being going to trial in this case. That's what's going on. I would agree with you. You know, you have Jim Jordan who came and tried to subpoena her when this first started. And he was saying, you know, I want to see what's going on in this investigation.

And she let him know, you cannot interfere in this investigation. So, yes, I do understand your point and your point of contention in which, yes, it was a boneheaded move, and now you have all this scrutiny on it. But at the very bottom line, for those of us in the know, you, I, other attorneys, people who actually know what's going on, we see that none of this has any substance. It's just basically a sideshow, a soap opera sideshow to say, pay attention to this. He's guilty of sin, but pay attention to this. This is what you need to focus on. They stole the taxpayers' money.

They did all of this. All of these things that have nothing to do with whether or not their client is innocent or guilty. And look, I just think that, again, what you don't want to do is you don't want to create any of the drama that takes away from the attention on the case. That's exactly what happened here. Now she has to. Now, at the end of the day, her actions are causing all of this, and you've got to just deal with it as it is dealt. So you're going to have to now go through it now because of bad decisions. Yes, sir.

That's correct. I can't disagree with you on that one, man. Well, we'll see what happens. Again, we'll be watching this. And, look, I don't think, first of all, Well, we'll see what happens. Again, we'll be watching this. And look, I don't think, first of all, it's nonsensical to think that because they had a relationship that you should be throwing all the charges out. But it is causing unnecessary delays in the trial. Final comment, go ahead.

Thank you. No, go ahead. What's your final comment? Go ahead. Oh, final comment. So I just—I look at this and I see everything as far as, like you said, they're trying whatever they can to throw it at the wall to see what may stick. They're saying, well, she did this. It was unconstitutional. He shouldn't have been sworn in. All of these things that have gone before a judge before, and the judge said, no, it's not something that is going to make this case go away. So to continue to try and to continue to try and muddy those waters, that's exactly what they're doing.

I hate to see it. I hate that she's going through it. But this is something of her own destination. So we've got to deal with it. All right, Ben. Attorney ship. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Scott, I want to go to you. And I've seen a lot of people talk about this here. And look, this ain't got nothing to do with attacking a black woman, attacking a woman, whatever.

No. Fonny made a dumb decision, should have thought about this, should have seen this through, and she has brought this on by picking her lover as one of the top prosecutors on arguably one of the most high profile cases in the country. It's like, what were you thinking? How did you think that you were going to hide this from the public or the media, but more importantly, the defense counsel? Whether it was innuendo, whether it was scuttlebutt, hearsay, you are prosecuting, this is going to be the trial of the century, of two centuries.

You're prosecuting a former president who's running for office. You could not have thought that this wasn't relevant or appropriate or material. No president in American history has, no former president in American history has been indicted. Right. He's now, he has four cases. You're one of the four. You arguably have the strongest case. Exactly. And, and, and look, you know, I love the but for a test, right? But for her appointing her paramour, who has questionable experience in political corruption cases, that's another part that is raising eyebrows, which is why you get investigated.

Has questionable experience from a white-collar criminal defense standpoint, and he's one of the lead prosecutors in this type of high-profile trial. Why would you put him in that place? You can love him. You can do whatever you want with him. But he doesn't have to be on—he doesn't have to be the lead prosecutor because he's got good judgment or because he's a smart attorney. That's the other reason why she's being investigated.

But you could not have thought that this was going to be hidden. Now, all right, granted, it's a distraction, but you drove this distraction with a poor judgment decision. And I consider Fonny a friend of mine. I've raised money for her recently within the last six months and stuff. It's very disappointing. Now, last one for your listening audience. When they go to investigate you, it's triggered all these investigations, which probably ultimately aren't going to find anything unless political decisions are made, and they will be. But now you've got these investigations, and you don't want regulators or the FBI or anyone to start investigating you,

especially if you're black or brown, because while they may not find anything wrong with this appointment and the money and the relationship, they may find other things, right? Prosecutions and investigations are about discretion, right? The IRS can look at your tax return and say, in their discretion, okay, we're going to treat this civilly. Another prosecutor or IRS agent could look at it and treat it as a criminal offense simply because they have discretion. This is a very dangerous position for her to be in. And then lastly, she won't recuse herself. She won't throw her paramour off the case. He should step down. And then lastly, this is even more important

that she put him on this case when he's in the middle of a divorce, which meant she was a witness to their divorce, perhaps. But that's another parallel civil proceeding whereby she was subpoenaed, could have been subpoenaed before all this came out. They settled that case, but they delayed in getting this off the front pages. And you know how to get it off the front pages. Make it go away. Have him resign from the prosecution team. She may or may not recuse herself, but you got to do damage control once you make poor decisions like this. And none of that's occurred or it's not occurred in a timely

fashion. That would be my best advice to her and her team right now. I saw you shaking your head, Rebecca. You know, in the past, I've done crisis management for elected officials. And there's many boneheaded things that I've seen. You know, I'm going to give a piece of advice out for listeners and especially for elected officials who are watching this. If you are involved in something that's high stakes, i.e. you're a prosecutor and you are prosecuting a high profile case, if you're running in a competitive election, something to consider is that your opponents probably have you under some type of surveillance. They're watching where you go, what's your normal patterns, who's going in and out of your home. And you need to know that. So for Fannie Willis to be

prosecuting the former president of the United States, arguably she's the only person that's standing between him and the Oval Office again, is this particular case. So she should have known anything that she does in her personal or professional life was now going to be under scrutiny. And think about who all of Trump's allies are. He has allies domestic and he has allies internationally. When we even look at what happened in 2016, what even happened in 2020 with allegations of Russia and other countries helping to support his presidency. So she had to have known or should have known that all of those forces and resources behind Trump would also turn towards her. And so she should have lived in such a way to be above any type of reproof of understanding, hey, you're in the big leagues now. It's just not good enough to show up in a power suit, have your hair done, you know,

be in front of the media. But this is high stakes. This isn't just, you know, for her career, but it's arguably for the presidency. First of all, dude used to be in the Oval Office. He's running for president right now. Okay? He is the Republican leader. The entire Republican apparatus is coming

after you. You. This is where you sit here and you say everybody who's on the team ain't nobody with a tax lien. Right. Exactly. First of all, you vet every person on your team.

You say, ain't nobody related, ain't nobody screwing, everybody's taxes are up to date, you have paid your water bill, you have paid your light bill, you have not attended any fundraisers, you don't give the campaign. You have a squeaky clean team

because, and again, I am not an attorney, but I'm smart enough to say we can't give them anything to question. That's right. That's right. And Roland, you know what? I tell you,

I would supplement Friendly Amendment to my colleague, self-investigate yourself. Yes. I know that's a double whatever. Forgive me. Self-investigate yourself. Because I ran for office in 2006. I did a self-investigation. I had private investigators investigate me and give me your report.

And this is even worse. You have to know that. People who run for office, they literally hire people to say, your job is to do opposition research. You go investigate me and you

bring me the file of the stuff that they gonna use against me. That's right. One of the first things is, who you sleeping with? Roland, I sat down

with a candidate who was an elected official who was running for Congress. And in running for Congress, he was running for a very competitive seat, which impacted which party, Democrats and Republicans, were actually going to control the House. And one of the things I sat down with him and his wife, and I told him, hey, you candidate, if you currently are having an affair, you got to keep whatever it is that you're doing right now. You have to keep up whatever it is that you're doing. Don't change anything for the next nine months because we're in the big leagues now. I sat with him and his wife and explained that. I don't care what y'all do inside the four walls

of your house, but as soon as it goes outside of the house, now that impacts me, that impacts the campaign. So one thing that I tell these people in these particular positions is you've got to fight like this because they are coming after you. Because the easiest way to defeat this case is to break down Fannie and to break down Nathan. Just like my colleague said, fire him. You don't need Nathan. Nathan's billing the most out of the entire team. So at this point, he kind of is dead weight and he doesn't even have the credentials or the background to be your number one biller on this type of a case in terms of billable hours. So at this point, cut bait and like what Scott said.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of

the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house.

And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

It makes sense if she did step back because this case is strong enough that any competent prosecutor can move it forward. So don't jeopardize this case. Let me tell y'all something. That was a dude named Cal Cunningham who was the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate out of North Carolina. Cal Cunningham was leading Tom Willis

around three or four points. Then all of a sudden, what happened? The news came out that Cal Cunningham was having an affair, and somehow the Signal messages got out. Now, and text messages, but now, here's the whole deal. Okay, Signal is an encrypted app. It's phone to phone.

So the only way, you literally, you can't tap into Signal. Okay? I have it on my phone. So the only way a Signal message got out is either you took a screenshot and saved it or somebody else did or the person you're talking to didn't put disappearing messages and they left everything on there and took their phone into a store or whatever and somebody saw it. That's the only way. That's the only way.

This fool, he does this here, and then what happens? Boom, numbers go down. He ends up losing because of that. If you are Fonny Willis, you say nothing, and you're absolutely right. It's like right now. I saw the story. She's now trying to squash the

subpoenas uh this came out um breaking fulton county d.a fonny willis moves to quash uh hold on one second i'm gonna pull this tweet up um give me a second here we go um fulton county d.a fonny willis moves to quash subpoenas to testify that were served her and several members of her staff ahead of February 15th hearing on whether she should be disqualified from the prosecuting Trump and others. Additionally, the DA moves to quash a subpoena served on Nathan Wade's former law partner. Come on, y'all. Go to my iPad. Thank you. Sir, Nathan Wade's

former law partner, Terrence Bradley, as well as a subpoena for the production of Wade's financial information from Synovus Bank. All right. This real simple.

You're Fonny Willis. You have been publicly saying to people, no, our relationship began before we began the investigation. You know what you just now opened up? We're now going to call all staffers and others and ask them,

did you see the two of them kiss? Did you see the two of them holding hands? Did you see the two of them have any interaction before the investigation starts? If one of them says, now, the Trump people have already put out that, now, again, this is opposition lawyers. They do this all the time.

But the Trump lawyers are claiming they have two witnesses who claim they were together after this whole thing started. I mean, it's all sorts. But again, Fannie, you created all of this. And you're absolutely right. Go to him and say, say, man, you my lover. Hey, things are great between us, but you off this case. Right.

You're off the case. Deuces. To sit here and still be fighting to keep your man on the case and he's been paid in excess of $650,000. They are using that against you.

So the story no longer is about the case. No longer about the actions of Trump. Now, you have now focused all of the attention. And guess what? In your mind, Fannie Willis might think, hey, we can beat this thing. But you are creating the distraction.

And when you are the DA, what do you tell your entire team? Don't be a distraction. Don't go out and get a DUI. Don't go out and sit here and slap your girlfriend around in public. Don't sit here and cuss out somebody at the store because you become the story and not the case. But, Roland, one last

one other point, though, that we haven't talked about. This plays into Trump's hand of delay. Yes. Now, this was going to go last anyway, but now it's going to be further delayed because these investigations and these motion practices about her and this relationship.

And listen, I got- Trump is winning now. And this is what's so stupid. I got some fool on YouTube, Kim Smith, rolling it's her own business, her personal life. No, fool. Let me explain something to you. It ain't your personal life

when the person you sleeping with, you hire on the special prosecution team and pay them $654,000 of taxpayer money. Your personal life now becomes public business. So just, okay, hey, Mr. Smith, just to give you some context, presidential elections cost billions of dollars. Billions of dollars is spent. Billions of dollars is on the line. We don't just have American operatives trying to influence the outcome of the election. We have foreign operatives. That's right. We have billions and billions of dollars in foreign money that's trying to impact

the election. So at that point, there is nothing, oh, well, this is her personal life. Look, I get it. Dating in Atlanta could be very tough and you find love where you could find love. However, this ain't it. This is not going to work well for any of them. Wait, wait, wait, wait, here's the deal. Ain't nobody say get rid of your man, But you got to kick him off the team. And if it's love, the love will survive this. You can still date the man. Y'all can go out. Y'all can be lovers.

Y'all can go dance or whatever. But he can't be on the prosecution team. Hey, Roland, one of our mutual friends said to me last night, one of our mutual friends was talking, but he said, boy, that must have been a hell of a love affair. A hell of a love affair. I can't do that. It must have been a hell of a cruise.

That's all I'm saying. They went to the Caribbean and cruised. Hey, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care how good he is. I don't care. I don't care.

You don't care that he put that Nathan under. Hey, I don't care if the theme song is Aaliyah's Rock the Boat. I don't care what it is. I do not care. What you do not do is allow anything to get in the way of

one of the biggest trials in American history. The Donald Trump trial, if it goes to trial, will be ten times as bigger than O.J.

Simpson. And Christopher Darden and Marsha Clark, even though they never confirmed it, it was still one of those things out there where there were accusations that Christopher Darden and Marcia Clark believed prosecutors

prosecuting O.J. Simpson. There were allegations that they were having an affair, and it was impacting with the choices they made with prosecuting O.J. Simpson. But guess what? She, nor Darden, ever came out and said, in a court

filing, yes, we knocking the boots. Correct. Because they didn't have to. The moment Fonny Willis went to that church and stood in that pulpit and talked about

what they do to black people and didn't say no, that reminded me of when Kwame Kilpatrick was being sued by the cops in Detroit who he fired, and he went on that stand and he was sitting here and how dare you accuse a black woman who's risen through the ranks to become chief of staff to the mayor

why isn't treating her like a Jezebel and he got so indignant and they let his ass finish and they went the Skytel pagers. You're

texting your lover. They literally went, uh, Mayor, are these your text messages? Allow me to read them. Baby, I'll see you in 15 minutes. But you can't throw parties at the mayor's mansion.

And then there's a dance stripper. You can't do that either. Kwame was texting his side piece on a city phone. Bruh. Those are public records. Those are public records. Kwame came so close

to Jay-Z's song. The one that says, all I did was put the naughty on up. I'm just, and again, I don't want to hear. We better close this out. I'm going, and again, I don't want to hear, and I'm going to say, we're going to close this out, I'm going to break. I don't want to, I don't want to hear

not now, sister or brother, this how they do to sister, this how they do to brothers. No. You were the one in control of hiring the team. You, you knew.

And if, and here's another deal. If you had hired him and then y'all working on the case, it led to y'all hooking up. The moment that happens, he still got to be off. So I don't care if y'all hooked up before the investigation or after the investigation. This impacts, and again, it impacts the cohesion of the team. You sitting here, okay, what's our strategy?

I don't care who you say. You on the team like, well, we know who he voting for. No, I'm just saying. So, again, I see all this commentary. This is 100% on Fonny Willis. She screwed up. And she needs to right now stop trying to defend and prolong. She needs to say, Nathan, yo, we're going to still kick it,

but you got to go. You're off the team. She has to cut bait and then go for it. But what you've now done, you've now opened Pandora's box. And guess what? They can run with it. And as Scott said, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. All right, y'all got to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk about 10 years after the Flint water crisis. Also, there's some residents in Flint who are not happy with the amount of money that the attorneys are getting in this class action lawsuit. And one of the attorneys, frankly, made some derogatory comments about the residents on a Race Wars podcast.

I'll explain when we come back. Be sure to support the Black Star Network. Join our Brena Funk fan club. See your check and money order at PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, or Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. Zale, Roland at RolandSmart.com, Roland at RolandMartUnfiltered.com.

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Believe it or not, we've seen it all before. You people in the North, you're so sympathetic to Black people, you take them. Sixty years ago, they called it the reverse freedom ride. Back then, Southern governors shipped Black people north with the false promise of jobs and a better life. It's part of a well-known playbook being brought back to life. So what's next? That's next on The Black Table, a conversation with Dr. Gerald Horne about this issue of the Reverse Freedom Rides, right here on the Black Star Network. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer

of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. You're watching Rolling Mark. Until tomorrow. It's all week we've been talking about the 10th anniversary of the Flint water crisis. And on Monday's show, Jordan Charlton with Status Quo said something that captured my attention. And so this is what he said. The settlement, the civil settlement, I got to tell you, I mean, I don't live there. I wasn't poisoned. But when it's all said and done, residents, when they get paid, might, if they're lucky,

per family, get about $7,000, $8,000. I'm not saying that's nothing, but that doesn't even pay for a really good home filtration system in most cases, not to mention the medical bills and extra bills if you have a child with learning difficulties. So I saw that, so I began to look up some stories and I began to see what residents were talking about. And in fact, several residents, a number of residents have actually filed lawsuits challenging the amount of money that the attorneys are getting in this case.

And Corey Stern is one of the attorneys that is one of the lead attorneys in this. We reached out to him. We tried to book him on the show. Wanted to talk about one, obviously, the lawsuits in this case, but also wanted to ask him a question. Some questions about the complaints from residents, but also some comments he made. I'm going to play that in a little bit. But again, you've got a number of residents who say, wait a minute, the attorneys in this case are just making way too much money as a result of this millions of dollars.

Kevin Thompson is pastor of the St. Mark Baptist Church of Flint. Glad to have you on the show. So, Pastor Thompson, what exactly are you hearing residents say when it comes to what they believe is too much money being taken by these attorneys as a result of the settlement? Yes. Many of the community, we are talking about it right now that we have to suffer and we've been suffering for 10 years, and now we're at a point where attorneys have filed with the court to be eligible to own the interest of approximately $626 million in interest on top of 25% they will receive from the award amount. So $626 million. And in addition to that, you know, there'll be some delays in that. They also want the interest on that $626 million,

correct? Yes, which will probably be approximately $180 million, if not more. Wow, now already, so for instance, here's one of the headlines, this was from May, judge authorizes 47 million dollar payment to Flint Water attorneys. And so, do you know, how many, so this is the headline right here, so how many residents are a part

of this class action lawsuit? It's quite a few residents, not the whole city. It's also those who have been affected. That's nearby Flint, Michigan, who have been affected by it. So it's quite a few residents. I'm not sure how many, but even if they turn in or become a part of the lawsuit and they be denied, after being denied, they have to, from what I'm seeing,

it's going to be $150 for an appeal for those who've been affected by this water crisis. So, go to my iPad. This story says U.S. District Judge Judith Levy ordered the payment of nearly $40 million in attorney's fees and $7 million in legal expenses. That's a fraction of the expected $190 million in attorney fees out of the $626 million settlement. A court-appointed special master overseeing the settlement fund and claims process expects to begin paying residents this year.

Yes, and we've been waiting a long time here in this community. Of course, St. Mark Church, church where I pastor, has been on the front line since 2014 when our former mayor, Dr. Weaver, sounded the alarm of the water crisis, and people have been hurting. We reached out to people all over the nation, artists, community activists, all over this nation, and Canada have come to help us when the government had deployed some national guards to distribute

water to the citizens of Flint. And our fire stations, the church, which is in the heart of the community, with the community in its heart, St. Mark Church, decided to give people more than two cases of water. We decided that we would give them as much as they needed. And we thank God that we got through that. But we're still in the fight 10 years later. And so, again, as I am looking at this, and look, what you have is you have, look, attorneys foot the expenses. There's no guarantee they're going to get paid when it comes to it.

So we know that. But when you're talking about $626 million settlement and the attorneys get nearly $200 million of that. I take it residents are saying, okay, 50 million, 75 million, let's say 100 million, but 190 million out of 626? Yes, it's just totally unfair.

It's unfair, and I've just been made aware that there was someone who was on social media that made a bad comment as it relates to us receiving the monies that we receive. And I would say that, you know, you have to have to have been in the water crisis and on the front line to to understand what we're going through. In fact, after the alarm being sound, most cities and states are now checking their water. If I'm not mistaken, Jackson, Mississippi went through the same situation. And also our sister city here in our state, Benton Harbor, has also went through it.

But here we still don't have our service lines together. And so we're still struggling with this, but we're enduring. So you mentioned Comet Maid. So when we were doing our research, looking at these stories and looking at criticisms and looking at how the attorneys responded, I mentioned Corey Stern,

again, one of the attorneys involved in this. And so apparently what you're talking about, a comment made, he was on a podcast called Race Wars on August 2nd, 2018. And this was the exchange that took place on this podcast. That's where I had a problem with Bernie Sanders, because Bernie Sanders is a type of dude who cares. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding

of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Sh Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown.

Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face, and you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it, never let them stay up too late, and never let them run wild through the grocery store. We have one aisle six and aisle three.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. You don't want that guy as president.

You want somebody who could drop a fucking nuke if it came down. Bernie Sanders is a career politician. To say he has no edge is not right. That's how you become and say that. And he's a Brooklyn Jew. Yeah, he's a dick. Don't get it twisted. But could you see him killing people, though?

Yes, absolutely. I don't see Bernie doing drones. Bernie's not weak. Don't get it twisted. But could you see him killing people, though? I could tie it. Yes, absolutely. I don't see Bernie doing drones. Bernie's not weak. He can barely sit. So to tie some of this together for all of you, in 2016 when Bernie ran against Hillary, champion Bernie. I had a T-shirt. My kids had T-shirts. We were all Bernie people.

I like Bernie. My wife was one of the Bernie women that you probably slept with. So I like Bernie. In 2016, I'm like in Flint, Michigan, fighting for these kids. I'm spending time there. It's a shithole. Nobody wants to be there. I'm there every week.

Bernie comes out and says that governor. And I'm going to play some other comments in a second. But what I'm understanding from you is you got residents who are saying, wait a minute, hold up. You call the city we live in a shithole country? That sounds like what Trump said about African nations. Right. After, they have to do their research because if they did their research,

they will understand that we were the leaders in the automobile industry causing the world to turn. We are an innovative city. We invent things. This is a wonderful city that caused the world to turn. And, you know, it's hard to hear something like that in a city that I'm born and raised in, and I have to stand up for the people of the city of Flint. I'm going to play this other clip in a second.

I want to go to my panel first with some questions. Scott, you have a relationship in this Flint water crisis case. You represented one of the folks who was involved in this, who was one of, I think, what city manager, administrator was put in this, who was one of, I think, what city manager, administrator, who was put in charge by the state. Just, first of all, I want you to, just your thoughts on the criticism of some of these residents, and you're also an attorney, who believe that attorneys getting $190 million out of $626 million is just too much money. Well, I mean, I got several thoughts. Donner early was a client of mine.

I was close to defending him in the civil case before the governor made him get local counsel versus counsel out of Washington. But here's the deal. And I'm very sensitive. I've been to Flint. I know Flint has a lot of economic and cultural and social challenges. I'm sensitive to the people who have been suffering. But let me just say this, blaming the lawyers for trying to cut their fees isn't the answer. The lawyers didn't cause

the water Flint crisis. All of those families signed up with these lawyers. They signed contingency fee agreements. 25 percent is low compared to 32 percent or 33 percent or even 40 percent, right? And these residents didn't spend a nickel protecting their legal rights. They all did it on a contingency fee basis. They all signed contracts. Unfortunately, this is the art of the litigation deal. This is how it works on the plaintiff's side. I'm a defense lawyer, so I've never done plaintiff's work, but I certainly understand it and get it. Now, the challenge isn't to cut the lawyer's fees. I understand that's an attractive argument. The issue is, then let's not settle for 626, because that's nowhere near a billion.

You couldn't cut a deal for enough money to satisfy or rather to make these residents hold based on what they've been through, as well as the state and federal government's continued failure. They still don't have new pipes. So I'm very sensitive to that. But cutting the lawyers' fees when they're going to court, when they're hiring experts, and they're taking all the risk in this case of first impression, we've never seen anything like it before.

I just disagree with cutting their fees. I think what ought to be done is perhaps, you know, you're going to delay it, first of all, and then residents getting their money if you challenge the legal fees, which they're not going to be able to cut unless they can convince a judge to do it, because these are all contingency fee arrangements and all the residents signed on to it. So maybe you get a larger settlement, but that's even more further delay. So it's a tough situation, but cutting the fees of the lawyers who work so hard for these residents, notwithstanding the race war stuff, I don't support that at all. You know that, Roland.

But it's a tough issue. But cutting the attorneys' fees who did all the work and took all the risk isn't the answer either, is it? And I say that to you, Roland, as well as Pastor. Pastor, go ahead. Well, I don't want to comment to the fact of taking their fees or having their fees being dealt with. But I am commenting to the fact that we should take care of the citizens of the city of Flint. And we should do it in a great way because they have suffered. Yes. I've suffered, and yes. So cutting the lawyers' fees and giving the residents more,

even though the lawyers are primarily responsible for getting them that $626 million, how does that solve the answer? How do you reconcile that with signed, executed retention agreements, contingency fees, and the lawyers are responsible for getting that award. You're going to cut their fees, which means it's offensive to the hard work that they did to get that $626 million because you want the residents to get more of it. There's no place in civil litigation for those types of arguments, and it's really fundamentally unfair to those lawyers who fought so hard for those residents. How do you reconcile that with any reasonableness?

And you have your opinion to that, but this is my opinion. Well, I'll state this, that there have been people who have died, people who are dying, and then the cognitive or mental illness and situations from the contamination in the water still exist while we are in the city of Flint.

So, with that being said, my heart is for the city. This is where I was born and raised and, of course, I'm going to stay in the fight to help the citizens of the city. This is where I was born and raised, and of course I'm going to stay in the fight to help the citizens of the city of Flint. That's a real good point. Hold on one second. I've got to go to a break.

We're going to pick up on this when we come back on Rolling Stone Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. Back in a moment. Hatred on the streets. A horrific scene. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn minds there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital

we're about to see the rise of what i call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash.

This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. There has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is White Beat. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, we're talking about leveling up or to put it another way, living your very best life. How to take a bold step forward that will rock your world.

Leveling up is different for everybody. You know, I think we fall into this trap, which which often gets us stuck because we're looking at someone else's level of journey. What level up means to them. For some, it might be a business venture. For some, it might be a business venture. For some, it might be a relationship situation. But it's different for everybody. It's all a part of a balanced life. That's next on Black Star Network.

Farquhar, executive producer of Proud Family. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. All week we've been focusing on the Flint water crisis, which in April it will be 10 years. And so we've talked about different elements of this. Residents have been involved in various lawsuits. There are multiple attorneys involved in this as well. And as a result, you have a settlement of about $626 million.

Well, of that, attorneys involved are going to be receiving about $190 million. That hasn't set well with a lot of residents there. They have actually tried to block that amount of money. And so Scott, of course, Scott Bolden's attorney, he was talking about that fee structure, which is, you know, when it comes to class action lawsuits, it's very low. Scott, before we went to break, you were about to make a comment to Pastor Kevin Thompson, who is a pastor of the St. Mark Baptist Church in Flint. Go right ahead. Yeah, Pastor Thompson, his argument or your argument goes to the amount of the settlement. As I understand the settlement, the residence, it comes out to about $7,000, $8,000 per resident.

Even if you took the attorney's fee, let's say you reduced the attorney's fees in half, for example, give them $80,000 or $70 million or $80 million less, one, that wouldn't cover the attorney's fees for those hardworking lawyers. But secondly, I'm not convinced that that would even double the amount the residents would be receiving. And so remember, not only do you have the fee contract with the attorneys, but the residents who make up the class action have to sign off and approve and agree to accepting the $626 million, knowing that the lawyers are going to get 20, 25 percent of that, which is low. And so I don't want to be legal and technical with you, but taking the fees of those who fought hard for you and got that $626 billion, or $626 million, isn't the answer. Now, there are other

lawsuits, by the way, Roland, parallel lawsuits going on where they opted, the plaintiffs or defendants, rather, opted out of that settlement thing. And you get about... There's other litigation. But that may be the source of argument for the plaintiffs. And you get about 45,000 people who are a part of this class action lawsuit.

Pastor Thompson, your response to what Scott just had to say. Well, again, I'm not actually coming personally against the lawyers, but what I can say is you said that the citizens of Flint has to sign off for this 600, excuse me, $626 million. Is that correct? Is that what you said? Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's true. We have to look at the big pictures. It's been 10 years. And the big picture in 10 years is that there are still people, and I want to keep saying this, there are people who are taking showers and still afraid that they might get Legionnaires like their aunts, uncles, and those who they have buried. medically by this. In fact, we opened up an outreach center, a Samar Community Outreach Center with suicide prevention, and we have our therapist on, a free therapist for our community, right, in the heart of the community, to help us in this crisis, which lasts over 10 years later. No one has received any compensation. No one has

distributed any money to any of the citizens of the city of Flint. And so that's what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about our city being—we've all been through a pandemic, but we was in a water crisis. We were in a water crisis before the pandemic. So we've been hit pretty hard in this community, but yet we're still standing and we're standing strong. So pastor, are you saying that your concern is that because of the amount of the settlement and the ongoing needs that even with the amount of money that if you break this thing down, $626 million minus the attorney's fees with 45,000 people,

as Jordan said, it's going to be what you think is a minuscule amount that each person will be able to receive when their need is so greater. The need is great. It's not enough. We're going to continue to stay on bottled water. We're going to continue to drink bottled water. We're never going to trust our water system here because the government, our government, did not treat us right. And of course, as you had stated about early, I can say this, is that our governor at the time had emergency managers. You know, this was the emergency management situation, and some local officials. But we had no say in it. And some people knew something was wrong with this water.

And so we've been suffering that long, so no amount is great. I just believe that we should do what is right. And I quote Dr. King, if you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep on moving. And that's what the city of Flint is doing right now. We're going to sound the alarm and we're going to keep moving. We will get through this. You know, Roland, the one point, the one other point is there are two parallel lawsuits going on, one against the EPA, the federal government.

The other one I want to say is against the county or some contractors. I can't remember. But those are live lawsuits that I think are class actions. and those lawsuits, when the residents, if those cases settle, obviously EPA as part of the federal government has much more money than the state of Michigan, but those are ripe for not only settlement but larger payouts because in reality, the state and county and federal government failed the residents of Flint. And if those cases settle, I fail the residents of Flint. And as they, if those cases settle, I hope the residents of Flint have thoughtful conversations with their lawyers and certainly cut up, know exactly what the payout will be to the residents as well as the lawyers,

because I presume they have contingent fees in those cases as well. And you don't have to settle. They certainly need the money. And settlement works for everyone versus litigating for years and years and years. But you got to know those numbers, know what your legal agreement is, and then settle based on whether you think you could be made whole or not. So this is just one of three lawsuits. And they got two other potential settlements that the residents could be made whole or not. So this is just one of three lawsuits. And they got two other potential settlements that the residents could be made whole with. Rebecca, go right ahead. Sure. So, Pastor, before this crisis happened in 2014, Flint was already under crisis. It was in crisis for decades. There's been intense poverty. There's been intense neglect in Flint. And the water

crisis exasperated what was going on before. So whether residents end up getting $8,000 apiece, even if they get $25,000 apiece when it's all said and done, that's not enough for Flint, especially for a community that's been underutilized, under-resourced, and clearly forgotten. So my question is this. I saw that in October 2013, there was a master plan for Flint that was adopted, and I read through it to figure out, well, what were they trying to do? What's the future of Flint, Michigan? And that's the question I want to ask you, because as I reviewed that master plan, I didn't see a lot of call-outs of what the future for Black residents in Flint looks like. So from your point of view, what do you think the future of Flint should be for those Black

residents? And do you think that the state, do you think that even the local governments care about this Black city and if it continues to be black in the future, or if it's going to be selling up a lot of the land that's there and, you know, from there, gentrifying a city, pushing out black folks, and ignoring these black folks who are in crisis now, exasperated by the water crisis. Yes. I remember the master plan in 2013. And of course, we know that the city of Flint has been going through a lot here. You know about the movie Roger and Me before that. And here it is. We have what we call the master plan. And that was in 2013, I just believe that, in my opinion, that the water

crisis was in that master plan just to move some of the people out of the city. Yes, I believe that. I believe that they have their plan. We're just not in it. I believe that they want to move us out, the churches, all of the businesses that we have that's been hanging on, and re-gentrify. I believe that they're trying to make it what they want it to be, whoever the powers that may be. I, myself, is going to continue to fight because there's some people that don't want to leave. They want to fight. They want to stay with what they have. It's some people even right now that have come into our city and have bought a lot of land for some odd reason. So we know that we're not in their plan, but together we can make a difference. Together we can cause change, and that's what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a brighter, a bigger, a better, brighter future for the city of Flint, the home where I was born and raised in. I'm still proud of the city of Flint. So many actors, so many athletes, so many musicians have come from the city of Flint. And I'm going to fight hard. And I'm sure there's some people that will stand with me because together we stand divided. We fall. We can build a bridge and tear down the walls of division and respond to our brother's call. Together, we can make a difference. Pastor, you were when you alluded to some comments that you felt were

detrimental, again, this, we played this other comment from this Race Wars podcast, and apparently one of the attorneys, again, said that, Corey Stern, said that they were structuring, they were structuring, don't go to my iPad, they were structuring the deal. So, quote, to protect them from themselves.

The quote was two and a half million dollars if you give it to somebody who's never had any money in their life and suddenly they have aunties and they have cousins and they have brothers and they have best friends and they have lead poisoning, part of the job is to try and protect them from themselves. And then when the host of the show said that if you give a victim with the rest of development

a two million dollar check, there's gonna be some dead prostitutes, this attorney agreed laughing, that's right and a lot of cocaine followed by laughter uh that i take it that for you and other folks in a lot of these residents that was quite offensive to hear an attorney get money making those type of comments about Flint residents. Yes, that's offensive. It's disheartening. And it should be an apology if it's from the heart.

If not, keep it to yourself. I'll stop there. Read those comments, Scott. You were like, that's not quite what you want to hear an attorney say, correct? Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. Highly inappropriate. And if that was before settlement and before resolution of the litigation, those are highly inappropriate under most state bar associations and most court rules, whether it's federal or state. That's unfortunate,

because speaking against the interest or speaking against your client actually creates a conflict of interest for you, whether it's real or perceived, whether it's legal or perception-wise. And so that's highly inappropriate. Now, that's from 2018, and fast forward to 2013, and he probably never thought that they, that that tape would reach the light of day, or he forgot about it, and now it's coming back to biting. Whoever he represents certainly could make a motion

to the court to either limit his fee or they could bring a complaint against him for any state or local bar association. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

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on Apple Podcasts week early and ad free with exclusive content subscribe to lava for good plus on apple podcast you say you'd never give in to a meltdown never let kids toys take over the house and never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late.

And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Comments, especially if he was representing those residents at the time he made these comments. That's a possibility. I just don't know the timing.

I got you. Pastor Thompson, final comment. Yes, I agree. I agree with what you said as it relates to the attorney. I do, in the final comments, nation to believe with me that the city of Flint will rise up and be a beacon light unto our nation and rise up and to be what we once was. And we're moving forward together. It's a resilient community. And I want to let everybody know in the city of Flint that everything will be all right, that we are going to higher heights and deeper depths and to hold into God's unchanging hand. And together we'll make a difference. Well, it's highly unfortunate that, again, in the American city, here we are 10 years later in April and residents of Flint continue to have to deal with this. I mean, I can't imagine. And I think this is one of the things that for a lot of people,

it really is hard to fathom because we're just so used to, you know, going to the faucet and turning the water on and putting a pot underneath it and boiling something in it or having a filtration system and drinking some water or even getting in the shower or taking a bath or just even basically washing hands. And then all of a sudden, your life changes. And we covered this story 10 years ago. And to think about the number of women, the families who actually lost babies because of the Flint water crisis

the rashes and and and the diseases And and then was crazy because they had to use so much hand sanitizer that actually Made the situation worse because of loss loss of bacteria, because there's a thing called good bacteria. And so, like you, I mean, this is so deep and expansive. And I say probably what is secondary to the families that lost children in the womb due to this crisis are the children who now are going to have to be monitored their entire lives and this is where I think we're talking about the money comes in their children may very well have health or learning disabilities because of this. And so the Flint water crisis literally is Creek can create generational curses, if you will,

that will affect more than just the people who had to endure it today with the no lifetime healthcare. Right, right. Absolutely. Patrick Thompson. thanks a bunch. Thank you, sir. Folks, thank you.

We'll go to the break. We'll come back. We'll talk about nutcase Republicans on Capitol Hill say no to a bill to fund the border, Ukraine and Israel. But they yell and scream every day about fixing the border. OK, we'll discuss next right here in Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in Black-owned media. Your dollars matter.

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First Thing First, Hip Hop Ladies That Changed the Game. The founder of GumboNet tells us the stories behind the women in hip hop, starting with the first woman that promoted the hip hop party to Megan Thee Stallion. There's even a chapter on me.

Thank you so much. For including me in there. It's just so like, you had to be in there. That's next on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Me, Sherri Shevra, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin unfiltered. All right, y'all. So all that we've heard from Republicans for three years is Biden,

get down to the border, fix the borders. The invasion is a strong America. Now, keep in mind, they never passed such a bill when Trump was in the Oval Office. Keep in mind, we had significant border crossings then. So they've been yelling and screaming. And so what happens? Democratic senators get with Republican senators and they come up with a bipartisan bill. Donald Trump literally says to them, do not touch this bill because I need the border as a part of my campaign. Yep. Today's vote, $118 billion package for the border, Ukraine and Israel, fails 50 to 49.

Here's Oklahoma Senator Republican, Oklahoma Senator, he's a Republican, James Lankford of Oklahoma, y'all, who Donald Trump endorsed on the floor talking about the threats that he received if they even allowed this to become a vote. Some of them may have policy differences. Some of them have been very clear with me. They have political differences with the bill.

They say it's the wrong time to solve the problem. Or let the presidential election solve this problem. In fact, I had a popular commentator four weeks ago that I talked to I'm not going to be able to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to be able to get to the bottom of this. In fact, I had a popular commentator four weeks ago that I talked to that told me flat out before they knew any of the

contents of the bill, any of the content, nothing was out at that point, that told me flat out if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you. Because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election. By the way, they have been faithful to their promise and

have done everything they can to destroy me in the past several weeks. Now, this is, I'm about to play you out, this is the head of the border patrol who is also head of the border several weeks. Now, this is, I'm about to play y'all, this is the head of the Border Patrol, who's also head of the Border Patrol Union, on Fox News, saying, pass this bill.

Listen to this. Whatever goes forth has to be much better immediately. Harris, we're not going to get much better immediately. So I'm going to take those incremental steps. If this were going to tie Donald Trump's hands, I would be opposed to it immediately. It doesn't. It doesn't tie any good administration's hands. So why do you think he's against it? I have no idea. I haven't spoken with him about it. If he has specific issues, let him air those issues. I will give the positive points in this bill. There are negative points. But if we don't even let this bill come to light, if this bill doesn't even go to the floor, we don't even get amendments.

And that's what everybody's talking about. Everybody's talking about killing it before you're able to even offer amendments. That's wrong. Let's have this. So what we have here, Rebecca, are a bunch of frauds and hypocrites. So what they're saying is, oh, we have no problem, no problem from now until inauguration day with the border, with the crossings, with the invasion, because we need to give Donald Trump the border issue to campaign on. And shame on the Democrats if they can't figure out how to take back the House and retain the Senate with a lot of this clownish behavior.

Here's the bottom line. The Republican Party right now is saying that they're not a serious party seeking policy solutions to move our country forward, full stop. They're not just saying it in secret. They're not just saying it quietly at fundraisers, but they're saying it wide out, wide in the open. And then their votes on the floor of the House and the floor in the Senate is reflecting it. So now the Democrats, just some friendly, free advice, do something about it. Make this a voting issue. Run ads about this and then talk about your plan.

So it also isn't just good enough to say, well, this is what the Republicans aren't doing. But Democrats actually need to talk about. And this is what we're going to do to make sure that we're securing our border, because after all, we should have a secure border. Here is Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, not too happy with his colleagues. I understand some Republicans are saying, we don't need any changes to law. Then why did we write H.R. 2? Why did we do that? Why didn't Trump just shut down the border if you just think we don't need any changes to law. Then why did we write H.R. 2? Why did we do that? Why didn't Trump just shut down the border if you just think we don't need any changes to law? He couldn't.

He had to make a deal with Mexico, and he did a great job doing that. But he had to rely on literally international agreements to get it under control. We do need changes to law. You've got to change those loopholes in asylum. You've got to raise the bar for asylum. You've got to make it very clear that there's no paroling. You need to institute remain in Mexico as an authority in law. You know, these are really simple fixes that need to be done. And, you know, that emergency authority that everybody interpreted, I think, as entries, you need to clean that up. You need

to make that clear that that's not entries, it's encounters. Probably I would decrease that number vastly, too. I think 5,000 is way beyond an emergency per day. You know, I think it should be closer to 1,000. But, like, reasonable people can actually make a good bill here. That's what the House should be doing. Do you have high hopes for that? No. Why not?

But I'm still going to try. I'm still going to try. So this right here, Scott, again, shows you how Republicans are frauds on this issue. They will sit here and whine and complain. And I saw Bill Maher. I saw all these people talking about, oh, oh, the president, he already has the authority to do so. Crenshaw said it. Okay. If the president has the authority to shut down the border without any additional action from Congress, then why didn't Trump do it? Why did Trump say, I need a border bill from Congress? Anybody saying that Biden can do it, they're lying.

They're flat out lying lying it's simply not true yeah but the Republicans don't care about the border this proves they don't care about the border and the public who they fed to to believe that Trump they trust Trump on the border more so than Biden well that's silly's silly, too, because now this manifestation of this idiocy that now they don't want the bill. Remember, remember, the reason you had the working bipartisan committee was the drive, the Republicans drove that narrative. Remember, Biden wanted money for Israel and Ukraine, and the Republicans linked it to border security.

So then the Democrats said, OK, we'll sit with the Republicans. And by the way, the senator out of Oklahoma is one of the most conservative senators in America, by the way. Right. He's one of the most conservative ones. And he sat with them and worked with the Democrats and came up with a bill that allowed Biden to shut it down. Whether it's $5,000, whatever the number, it gave him discretion to shut it down, which is what border security means to Republicans. It means we don't want them black and brown people coming across our borders. Now, if they weren't black or brown,

they wouldn't have any problem with all those people coming across the border. Let's just call it the way it is. It's rooted in racism. But here again, they drove the narrative. They linked it. And as soon as Trump says, don't do it, blame me, we now know that this is the Trump Republican organization. It's not a Republican party. It's a Trump party, because Trump runs the House. He runs the Republican Senate. He runs the

RNC. And he's crass and crude and crazy. And they act crass, crude and crazy, too. Think about it. They act just like he does because he's their puppeteer. And so I don't want to hear the Republicans talk about the border anymore. We care about the border or Biden or they're going to impeach my August. They can't even impeach my August because even the Republican conservatives say, that's crazy. It's a policy piece. How are you going to impeach my August at the same time have a field of Republicans put together? And then you reject the bill. You throw Lankford under the bus.

If you do that to your own, the hell you think you're going to do to the country? And I love... Oh, have at it, Roland. Have at it. I love seeing another Texas Republican, Chip Roy, literally say, Donald Trump, you're a liar. Listen to this.

No, we're not going to just pass the buck and say that, oh, any president can walk in and secure the border. I saw former President Trump make that allegation earlier today on one of his social media posts. All the president has to do is declare the borders closed and it's closed. Well, with all due respect, that didn't happen in 2017, 18, 19 and 20. Right. There were millions of people who came into the United States during those four years.

No, we're not. This is why I think all of this is so laughable, Rebecca, because they're lying. And the problem is you've got all these people in this country and an increasing number of black people who are falling for the okie-dokie. Okay? Yeah. I was, I was, I see that they jump on my social media pages.

You ain't saying nothing about that. And I'm like, y'all getting played. Like you get like, here's the first thing. Okay. Here's the first thing that people have to understand. Most people in this country ain't got a damn clue about immigration in this country. They don't know shit about

asylum. They don't understand that in this country you can ask for asylum. There's actually an asylum process. Rebecca, they don't know jack about

the visas. The number of people who are in this country on visas. How about Donald Trump's wife, Melania? Didn't she come into this country on like a genius visa or something like that? And then it expired or something like that? And then it expired or something like that? First of all, there's nothing about Melania Trump that's genius. She could be. You just don't know.

No, no, no, no. You just don't know. No, there's nothing. Maybe it's not an academic genius, Roland. Don't leave Melania alone. Don't bring her into this. No, no, no, no, no. There's other forms of intelligence, Rowland.

Maybe that's what she has. It ain't genius. It's as old as time. It may not be genius, but it's as old as time. She has something going for her. Leave her alone. She has something going for her.

We finished the Fonny and Wade segment a long time ago. Y'all, I'm like, the theme song of this show is going to be the whole Jodeci greatest hits, the way y'all going. The thing

here that drives me crazy, and people try to come at me, man, there you go, justify immigration. They don't even understand the reality of immigration. Don't even understand when we talk about process, we talk about in terms of what's going on, we talk about crossings. You literally can't shut the border. You can't. This is not the northern border with Canada where you have...

You physically can't. But you do have to create a situation where you get under control what's happening. And when you have the head of border patrol i'm sorry what's your border patrol the people that patrol the border say the union by the way union say the resources in here the methods in here these things, we need to combat it. They go, no, uh-uh. Because you know why? What we're going to see,

Fox News, conservative radio, conservative digital, all we're going to hear from Republicans between now and election day, border, border, border, border. Because, Rebecca, they can't run on the economy.

They can't run on any of that. They want to scare Americans and they they're scaring white people. They're they're taking your job. They're stealing from you. And black folks have fallen for that okey doke. And I'm not saying that we should not have a problem with having to provide resources. But guess what, y'all? In this country, you don't let people starve. You don't let people die.

That's not what this country does. And for any black Republican out there who's running their mouths, please, by all means, tell me the difference between wet foot and dry foot. Because guess what? If you're Cuban, American welcome you with open arms. But if you're Haitian, they send you back. Don't sit here and talk to me about immigration. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute

Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos.

You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens.

Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Go right ahead, Rebecca. Well, you know, according to conservative media, you know, Trump built the wall and it's a great wall. So because he built the wall, then we shouldn't be having a border crisis. Right. Because if we have a wall, then that means that the border shut down. Wait, wait, wait. He built it and Mexico paid for it. Yeah, he built it. We the U.S. didn't have to pay for it. Mexico paid for it.

It was the best people doing all the greatest things. So now we have this wall. So it's so nonsensical with how conservative media is talking about the border crisis and how they're actually talking about national security at the border. One thing that I would say that I would like the Biden administration to do is figure out there's a way to increase the number of administrative judges to place them at the border so you could process folks seeking asylum a lot faster, give them a ticket, give them a court date, not a ticket, but process their information, have them fill out the application, give them a court date for when to return to actually have their hearing. Those are things that I think the administration can do. However, for when to return to actually have their hearing. Those are things that I think the administration can do. However, for us to actually move forward with actual real security at the

border, a real accountability of who is moving in and out of the country, whether it's by seaport, land port, or by airport, it does have to be bipartisan. It can't just be one party that's doing it, but it has to be an agreement, because't just be one party that's doing it. But it has to be an agreement, because this is an American issue. But to your point, there's so much misinformation out there. Like, I see in the comments on YouTube, even tonight, you know, every once in a while, oh, well, the migrants in Chicago, are you all going to talk about that? Or what about the ones in New Jersey? Are you going to talk about that?

Or I heard in Kansas City there were some migrants just running all over the city. You know, the question I have for folks who continue to post things like that, where are your primary sources? Where are you getting that information? Because what's happening is there's an echo chamber saying, well, I heard there are some migrants. And then, well, you know what? The Democrats are giving them, you know, hundreds of dollars on credit cards and debit cards, and they're giving all of your money, you American taxpayer, to these migrants. and forcibly bused or flown from Florida or from Texas under the Republican governors up to Martha's Vineyard or even New York City or even Washington, D.C., they're not living the best life. They are living basically in shelters or on the street. Many of them only have the clothes on their back. They don't have adequate food or shelter. So it's not like these people are coming into our country and they're really taking

something from the average American. So that's just, let's take a step back to actually understand what is actually happening. But if you live in an area and you have a Republican member of Congress, call your Republican member of Congress and demand, hey, what are you doing to negotiate something on border security? Are you going to do something about it now because it's an issue now, or are you going to kick the can into next year? Those are the things that we need to see your audience and other folks do as well to hold Republicans accountable if they're unwilling to move this policy forward. Because Trump, the guy with 91—not with—91 charges against him, is telling them, well, I don't want you all to do anything.

Wait until I get in office. Because we know once he gets in office, the only way he would do something on border security is if he could grift and if he could personally make money off of it. That's the kind of leader he has shown himself to be. Well, not only that, I want to do something here. I was sitting here. I was looking at something just the other day. And man, this this jumped out at me. And again, this is one of those things that people don't like to talk about, deal with,

because it's called facts. But Jerome Powell, who leads the Federal Reserve, he did an interview with Scott Pelley in 60 Minutes. And he said something that I've talked about. And folk told me, oh man, you champion this stuff. I said, no, this is what happens

when you operate in facts. So I'm going to try to listen to what he actually had to say. Watch this. What are the important factors that caused the labor market to stabilize? One was just the return of workers. Several million people were just gone from the labor force for whatever reason. Many of them didn't want to go back to their old jobs because of COVID

or because they just didn't want to be. They had moved on with their lives. So there was a desperate shortage of workers. And what happened is we expected people to come right back into the workforce in 2022. They mostly didn't. And then we thought, well, maybe that's not going to happen. And then it happened in 2023. We had a combination of rising labor force participation in prime age workers.

And we also had, with that, we had a resumption of immigration. So there was really no immigration net in — or very little — during the pandemic. But in 2023, we saw immigration move back up to the levels that would have been normal before the pandemic. And those two things together made a real difference in labor supply. So, it's really a supply story. That's the main thing I would point to. JOHN YANG, The Washington Post Why was immigration important?

JOHN YANG, The Washington Post Because immigrants come in and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than Americans do, but that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger. Why is immigration so important to the economy? First of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it. I will say over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And frankly, just in the last year, a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration

returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era the country needed the workers it did right there and that and see scott this is the thing that and and i'm seeing the comments uh in in the section and and and people they said man i've seen these other people out here running their mouth, man, you championing this. Y'all, you can sit here and live in denial. But the fact of the matter is, and I've said this repeatedly on this show, you are not going, when you talk about the labor market, when you talk about gross domestic

product, when you talk about an economic output, if you do not have available workers to do fundamental aspects of the economy, you're not going to have a growing economy. This is the chair of the Federal Reserve who's saying immigration plays a role in the economy of this country. We've detailed it before in the show as well. People believe, people believe that those people who came to this country illegally, others say don't call them illegal immigrants, they'll call them migrants, that's fine.

Folks say, oh, it's a free ride. Wrong. Greg Abbott can yell, holler, and scream all he wants to in Texas, y'all, but let me help all y'all out who are watching. All of those people who have entered Texas, they impacted the US Census. Texas got five additional congressional seats because of the population shift.

Also, folks who are migrants pay taxes. Now, yes, I heard somebody say, man, people get paid under the table. It's a bunch of black barbers I know who ain't putting all that money on their taxes. Can we stop tripping? But, y'all, the data is

there that shows, I'm just being just straight up. The data is there. You're going to let me buy my shoes in peace and pay cash for them. I got a drug dealer that likes cash. Everybody, listen, it won't cash. Let's not act like.

Let's not act like. It's some people out there who sit here and go, I got this or I got these cars. They're like, mm-mm. I can put this under the bed. I can put this in a shoebox. But the point that I'm making is that there are too many black people who are repeating BS they hear on social media or hear from right wingers who literally do not understand how broad immigration is, the different levels of immigration, and then the jobs that people take in this country that other people don't want to do.

Now, last part before I close the segment out by going to Scott and Rebecca. Here's the thing that Republicans also don't want to deal with. Why have we truly had the immigration problem? It's because there's been an unwillingness to crack down on those companies that hire migrants. Exactly. Speak. Speak on it. Speak on it. companies that hire migrants. Exactly.

Speak. Speak on it. Say it again. Speak on it. Because it's so true. America requires cheap labor for our economy to run. Exactly. Without cheap labor in this country, our economy would not continue to grow. We are now demanding living

wages and minimum wages, but we still need cheaper labor for our economy to keep functioning. That means in order to have cheap labor in this country, that means that we're going to continue to have folks immigrating from other countries to this country, some being paid above the table, under the table to keep this economy moving. So if you enjoy this economy, immigration is a part of that equation. We just need to be honest about it. And I'm going to go ahead and go there

with some black folks who don't want to be honest with this. How many of y'all have driven by Home Depot to pick up some folks to do some work? Exactly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

See, I love, I'll go to a three shot. I love the people. I love the people who front. It's labor. I love the people who front. Yo, I need to get somebody to paint the walls in my house. Do you want to do drywall? They ain't calling.

Do you want electricians? Do you want to do your own gardening? Do you want to do your own laundry? Do you want to do your own babysitting or nannying? There's so much labor. We're talking about actually labor jobs. These are called low skill even though they do require skill.

And let's be clear. You ain't paying them $7.25. No. See? See, people don't want... See, folk don't want to deal with the real real. The bottom line is there were a group of people

that America relied on to do cheap labor before 1970. Who do they look like? The three of us. So then, when black... We called them domestics back then. There were plenty of domestics

on both sides of my family tree, but that's what we called it, domestics. And now we have domestic workers and many of them are crossing that border, coming into this country, are being employed by not just white folks, but black folks too. You know, Roland, the other thing is, it is the dirty little secret of immigration,

which you're talking about, the labor demand for companies and corporations who advertise in Central and South America for migrants or folks there to come. They advertise. I've seen it in Mexico when I've been there. But I'll give you a little history on this, too. Twenty years ago—you'll know the date or the year—former President Fox of Mexico told Jesse Jackson 20-plus years ago, he said, my people will do the work that even your people won't do, and that the labor economy in the U.S. relies on my people and immigration.

And, you know, President Fox took a lot of heat about that. Jesse Jackson was very upset about it. But the problem went why it didn't go anywhere, because it was so true. The numbers spelled out accuracy and truthfulness. And in 2023, it is a huge part of our economy. It really is. And it's because corporate America recruits those individuals. And we make money and we profit off that cheap labor. And then real quick,

I had in my summer house about five years ago. Oh shit, my bad, my bad. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. See that, see Scott, the bougie moment slipped at my summer house. The summer house. Yeah, I did, but I hired this black company to do,

to paint the outside of my house. And they were taking a week for what should've been two or three days. They were taking long lunch breaks. They were even drinking on the job, Peyton. And so I had a conversation with the black contractor, who I like. And I said, listen, I need to get this done next day or two. He said, well, I have to contract out to some unskilled laborer or lower laborer. Basically, what he was talking about was South Americans or Central Americans. I said, go get them. Go get them. And I'm not being racist. The next day, 10 of them showed up in a van. I ain't lying. Showed up in a van, couldn't speak English. They had a soccer ball with them

and a paintbrush and some paint. And let me tell you something. The youngest was about 10 years old. They were sitting them up to the roof. They got done in 24 to 36 hours. And then the contractor made me pay more for them versus the labor he was picking up who were drinking on the job. But my house got done. I paid

them. And let me tell you something. They took one break for a half hour. They kicked the soccer ball for a half hour and went back to painting. God bless them. God bless them. I can't believe Scott just told us that story. No, no, no.

The reason I'm glad. Go to my iPad. Go to my iPad. Right here. Right here. This was in 2006. 2006. Vicente Fox met with Reverend Jackson.

2005. Met with Reverend Jackson. 2005, met with Reverend Jackson. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st,

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. You say you'd never give it to a meltdown. Never let kids toys take over the house and never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule.

Never lick your thumb to clean their face and you'd never let them leave the house looking like uh less than their best you say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it never let them stay up too late and never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens before you leave the car. Always stop. Look, lock. Br brought to you by nizza and the ad council met with reverend jackson when he when he met when he made those comments

and and and let me be real clear i am not i am not dismissing um what's happening in Chicago, what's happening in New York City, what's happening in El Paso, what's happening in all parts of these countries. But what people need to understand that if you are pissed off at funds that are being disseminated in Chicago and being spent on debit cards in New York, then what you should be seeing, what you should be saying is fix the problem, which now then requires, see, which now requires

you, which now requires you to then go, okay, who is trying to fix the problem? Oh, okay. Who said I will sign a bill to deal with this? Who said, no, don't sign that bill because I need to run on. So, again, you can be right now angry and emotional about the money being spent and black folks yelling, oh, y'all doing food. You're putting them up in these places, this, that, and the other, and we got needs as well. But you don't want to really

speak to what is the fundamental issue is that what we just talked about, America, major corporations, neighborhoods, individuals, y'all don't want to deal with that shit or not.

We as Americans, white, black, and Latino, and Asian, and Native American, we like cheap labor. And those folks, whether they from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, or whatever, they will work for cheap. And what does Scott say? They took one break, and folk like that. So let's stop BSing around this issue. Final comment, Rebecca. Well, Roland, one thing that I want to point out for the audience, this is exploitation.

This is based upon capitalism in this country. So yes. So one to be clear. But I also want to talk about where black people fit in this equation when it comes to cheap labor exploitation. What they do is they over police us. They throw us in prison. And then for pennies on the dollar, we work for these same corporations when we're locked up in jail. So I want people to understand, like, where it fits.

It fits with migrants crossing the border and being recruited by these companies. with the state of California to contract out free labor for those largely black men, black young men who are now in prison because they're over-policed and they're targeted. It's a scheme of exploitation. So I just want to point out to the audience, this is also a black issue as well. And it's about exploitation in this country for cheap labor. It's either happening through the prison system or it's happening with undocumented folks crossing the border. Just so we're clear, for my story, I played

market rape. I paid the quote they gave me. I paid it. So I wasn't exploiting. Right here. Hold on. We're going to ignore child labor. We're going to ignore child labor, Scott. My beach house needed to be painted. I'm sorry.

Don't be mad at me. Scott, you told on yourself. Well, you could have painted it. You could have painted it. Scott, you told on yourself when you said they ran the 10-year-old up and down the ladder. So now that was child labor. He was the son of the owner. That was child labor.

He was the son of the owner of the company. Come on. That's child labor. People would sell you anything. owner of the company. Come on. Child labor. People would tell you anything. And in the moment, in the moment, Scott said, I paid market rate.

You know, he was not paying $15 an hour. Whatever they gave me, I paid. That's not market rate. Okay. That ain't. That's not market rate. No, no, no, no, no. Don't you dare judge me. That's market rate. I paid whatever that's okay.

See what is the problem. It was a mother's thought I'm going to get to I got time to get to him. Yeah, you got to go out you told you that dams paint your beach house my summer house story Scott stop talking. She said wish you happy birthday Happy birthday a happy birthday. Happy birthday. It's my birthday. Happy birthday. How old are you, 20, 25? You look 25. And matter of fact, while you're there,

since you didn't pay them damn migrant workers, why don't you cash Abha some birthday money? I tried. Your app don't work. No. Cash app Rebecca1908. Cash app Rebecca, R-E-B-E-K-A-H 1908. And Scott, her market rate

ain't they market rate. I gotta go. Rebecca, Scott, Rebecca, happy birthday. Thanks a bunch. All right, y'all. That's it. That is it for us. Lord have mercy.

Lord, black people, black people, black people. That is it, y'all. Please support us in what we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. You, of course, look, we cover the stuff folk don't want to deal with. Senior Check and Money, order the P.O. Box 57196. Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash App, Dollar Sign, R.M. Unfiltered

PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered Venmo is R.M. Unfiltered Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com And of course, you can also support us. Get my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds

available at bookstores nationwide. Download the Black Star Network app. Of course, you know where to get that. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV, and watch our 24-hour streaming channel, Amazon News, by going to Amazon Fire, until Alexa play news from the Black Star Network.

Amazon, you can also Plex TV, Amazon Freebie, Amazon Prime Video. Folks, that's it. Let me shout out Lane College. Lane, this is one of the places where y'all know I only wear gear where I visit. I gave a commencement speech at Lane.

Lane was like, yo, we ain't never seen you with gear. I said in the so they sent me this route, what do you like rubbish rugby shirt so shout to Lane college for sending me this rugby shirt, I appreciate it and hope to see you all soon I'll take care. Black star network. I will right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the

momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your

eyeballs home. You dig? You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop. Look. Lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

Last year, a lot of the problems of theugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really

does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.