#RolandMartinUnfiltered - RMU_2022-12-21

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

12.21.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Jan 6th Report, Trump Taxes, Stop Human Trafficking  Act, Anchor Racist Doll Rant, Black Dating App A local Texas nonprofit is urging the Senate to stop human trafficking by passing legislation. We will talk to the President of the No Trafficking Zone and Bishop James Dixon about the push to move lawmakers forward. Trump's political future is in shambles following the release of his Taxes and the final report from the House select committee. We will talk to Nola Haynes about what this means for Trump's future. A Lousiana Parish is fighting to keep a construction company from building a large grain plant near a residential neighborhood. To explain the case, we have one of the Founders of The Descendants Project. The lack of diversity in Media is a huge problem. We will tell you about an acquisition of a broadcast television station group that paves the way for minorities. The Managing Partner & CIO of Standard General will provide details about how this could increase representation in media. In our Tech Talk segment, we will talk to the founder of a Black-owned dating app that could increase your chances of finding the love you've been dreaming of.   Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's Wednesday, December 21st. This is Robert Kittle sitting in for Roland Martin on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Tonight, a local Texas nonprofit is urging the Senate to pass the Stop Human Trafficking Law. We will talk to the president of the No Trafficking Zone, Bishop James Dixon, and the push to move the legislation forward. Also, Trump's political future is in shambles following the release of his tax returns. Of course, you know President Trump is facing multiple legal issues,

including the criminal referral from January 6th Committee, the investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, the investigation into the documents of Mar-a-Lago, the investigation in the Northern District of New York. We're gonna talk about what all this means, with Nola Hayes, about the political future of Donald Trump. Also, a Louisiana terrorist is fighting

to stop the destruction of a company for the building of a large grain plant near a historically black residential neighborhood. To explain the case, we have one of the founders of the Descendants Project talking about the litigation they are currently using to try to stop the displacement and destruction of historic black communities.

In our tech talk, we will be talking to the founders of a black-owned dating app that will be working to increase your chances of finding love this holiday season. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered live on the Black Star Network. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered live on the Black Star Network. Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's on for-or-royal It's Roland Martin, yeah

Rolling with Roland now He's broke, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's rolling, Martin Martin As all of you know, human trafficking is one of the most significant issues facing our community in this nation. Thousands of children per year are victims of human trafficking. And there's legislation pending before Congress introduced by U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee that will work to curtail human trafficking by ensuring that these individuals face federal penalties

if this takes place on school grounds. Joining us now, the president of the No Trafficking Zone, Inc., Ms. Jacqueline Aleto. Jacqueline, how are you doing this evening? Having me on. Thank you so much. Can you talk a little bit about this legislation and why it's so important to pass currently?

Sure. SB 5226 was originally a bill that was sponsored by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Congressman Michael McCaul and Congressman Nadler. domestic minor sex trafficking, which is sex trafficking of children on our school campuses that are being lured, groomed, and recruited into trafficking, a federal crime. And the reason why that is so important is because we see that these sex crimes are happening across our nation, and there are predators like Jeffrey Epstein that for decades really do not face a harsh penalty. But if it was a federal crime, then we would deter commercial sexual exploitation at least up to 30 percent and make predators really think about if they want to buy and sell our children in the United States. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the weight and the breadth of this issue? Because I think we talk a lot about trafficking of children kind of obtusely, but can you talk a little bit about the statistics, the numbers behind this and why

this legislation is so crucial right now? Because our children are truly in danger. Yes, our children are in very much danger and it is an issue that our media does not cover the way it should. So I really applaud you all for covering this. So I'm just going to read a few statistics. And these statistics go back a decade to now. There was a study in San Diego where 20 high schools participated in this study. Every single high school confirmed that recruitment was happening with students. Of those schools, 18 of them reported documented cases of sex trafficking victimization. 140 staff from the 20 high schools identified 81 confirmed reported victims, along with an additional 54 suspected victims. If that wasn't

enough, they also identified 17 recruiters that were targeting their campus. They did a three-year study by the University of San Diego and released in 2015 that between 8,000 and 11,000 victims, mostly underage girls, are trafficked in San Diego. It doesn't end there, sadly. The FBI, the Bureau of Investigations, also said for their high-intensity child sex trafficking areas are located in the state. San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego are consistently the high volume to national trafficking hotline. School campuses statewide have been impacted as well. Some predators are using school campuses as a new hunting ground. In Illinois, every year in the city of Chicago, 16,000 women and girls fall prey to trafficking. To put this into perspective, that is two women every hour of every day, two

women and girls every hour of every day. This makes Chicago one of the United States' main trafficking hubs. In Virginia, Detective Wolf, who is a human trafficking detective, says he's been working on combating human trafficking and gang activity in the region for years. Detective Wolf has worked with victims as young as nine years old. Most trafficking victims go to school every day and sleep in their own beds. Their trafficking occurs when they are in school and will maybe get back home at eight or nine. Sometimes their parents don't even know. Human trafficking in the North Virginia area, high schools and some junior highs are happening in every single school.

That is in the state of Virginia. And then in the state of Texas, there was a report of 55 percent of sex trafficking survivors in Texas while trafficked said that they were trafficked during school or during school activities or were approached by either students in school or former students who had graduated that then introduced them to their groomers or their traffickers. In Florida, with Jeffrey Epstein, at least 32 identified victims by the Royal Palms High School. After that, the Herald identified 80 victims in 2018. So these are just in every state. The statistics are more alarming and more alarming. And I know it's hard for people to understand because we don't really resonate with the term sex trafficking. We should really call it preying. And what predators do is it's their job to prey on our children. And so what more place is it is in schools where there are all children to get access to them? I want to bring Bishop James Dixon into this conversation.

Bishop Dixon, can you talk a little bit about why it's so important to pass this federal legislation against sex trafficking in our schools? Because I think most people already just assumed this was a federal crime. Why is it just now coming up, and what are the blockades to it in Congress? Well, first of all, thank you for having us on today. We appreciate being on Rolling Martin Unfiltered, and we appreciate access to the public's eye and ear and mind. That's exactly what's needed. The reason this has not been a federal crime on this level before is because too few of the American public has been educated concerning this crisis. Think about it. I'm a pastor of a church. There are over 80,000 to 90,000 black churches alone in the U.S.,

not to mention churches as a whole. Ask 90,000 black churches how many of us have a sex trafficking conversation once a year, twice a year, three times a year. How many of us have a sex trafficking ministry? How many of us have a sex trafficking

conference? We don't How many of us have a sex trafficking conference? We don't. Most of us have not yet been educated. It's not that we don't care. It's that we're not conscious and competent. And so it's very important that we have opportunities like this to really expose the public to this dreadful scourge and evil. We're organizing around the nation in order to make that happen.

Jacqueline Ludo is a champion for this cause along with a lot of people who understand it. We've got to grow that number. We need conferences. We need conversations nationwide, city by city, county by county. In the past, no traffic is on bills in each state

like we have in Texas. I'm talking to bishops and pastors in Illinois right now, Bishop Simon Gordon, and a number of people there in Chicago. They're ready to work with us on passing a no-trafficking zone state bill. We need a state bill in Virginia, a state bill in California. And if we build that momentum, we can knock the door down and get a federal bill against trafficking in schools like the no-trafficking zone bill. And going back to Jacqueline, Jacqueline, what do you think are the holdups in Congress? It seems like something that should pass, you know, 99 to nothing in the Senate or a

voice vote in the House. Why is it so hard to get legislation like this passed? You know, that is a really good question. Crimes against children seem to be very hard to get bills passed. Some people would say it's a $150 billion industry, so many people are profiting and participating from it. Others would say that it's simply just because our elected officials and people in power do not know what slavery looks like right now. Human trafficking is slavery of our time. And so for them to understand it and understand the magnitude and how intricate it is seems really to be hard to wrap around elected officials' heads. But something so simple like what happened to New York with a 12-year-old.

She was walking down the street with her friends, and she met up with two boys who were a couple years older. They went to a party. She woke up with two boys who were a couple years older. They went to a party. She woke up. She woke up after having a drink, and she was passed out. She was naked, and she was being raped. And from that moment on, she was told that she was going to be sold into sex trafficking. It took her almost a decade to be found. But it was something so simple of going to a party. And I think that one of the

hangups is with our nation, our elected officials, is that when we think of human trafficking or sex trafficking, we think this is happening in other countries, not understanding that domestic minor sex trafficking by and large of children in the United States, within the United States, is a crisis. And it's a crisis just as big as the border. So it's a crisis that needs the same amount of attention, but not just the amount of attention. Our elected officials need to put the power into federal legislation and strong legislation, because if I'm a sex trafficker, and I know that if I sell drugs, I'm going to go to jail for quite a long time. But if I sell people, I'm not really going to get a harsh penalty and it's so lucrative.

Well, then I'm going to buy and sell children. Bishop Dixon, you know, we hear a lot of lip service about this in Congress and on the campaign trail. What will it take? What does community need to do to hammer this through? We see all this legislation getting passed during this lined up session. What does the community need to do to push these things through, particularly when you have in Congress somebody like Matt Gates, who's currently accused of doing exactly this, paying a 17-year-old for sex? How do we push this through Congress when we have people like that standing in the way? Well, it means that we're going to have to really double down. I've not yet seen the kind of

movement that's necessary. You know, it shouldn't take all of that. You're right. It shouldn't take all of that, right? Anybody in their right mind knows that it should be illegal and punishable in significant ways to traffic a child, to sell a child for money. That's slavery, and it's the abuse of the worst kind. We're treating our most vulnerable like their property and like their products for sale. That's unacceptable in a civil society anywhere on the planet and should be here in the U.S. We've got to go to the front door of every congressperson, every senator who opposes passing these bills. In this instance, Senator Dick Durbin in Illinois killed this bill. He has fought this bill. That means that we should be bombarding his door and his constituents, his voters should know

your senator chose not to support a bill that would save children's lives on school campuses and in school activities. He needs to be known as that senator, right? And unless he wants to change that, then he should be known for that. And people need to know that that's who you'll be voting for or against in the next election.

Elections do matter. And that reputation needs to be stamped there until he makes a change and decides, I'm ready to support passing a no-traffic-is-own bill to protect every school and every school-aged child throughout the United States of America. We gotta do it door by door, name by name, position by position. That's the way we have to make this happen. Elections do matter, and the public's voice, when we unite around a just and righteous cause,

has the power to bring change. Absolutely, and Jacqueline, what are some resources for people who want to find out more information about this legislation, some organizations they can reach out to? Because I feel like this should be the number one priority in the new Congress. Regardless of who the Speaker of the House is, we need to get this legislation passed. They can go to Notraffickingzone.org and sign up, fill out a form, and we will send them all of our data and statistics.

We're coming out in 2023, specifically because this bill was not passed. All of our data and the legislation that needs to happen in every city, in every state, we'll also be listing all of our impact partners. What I will say about this bill is there are people on both sides that came together. Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee, Congressman McCaul, Senator Cornyn, they did put their parties and their politics aside for people and for humanity. And I think what has to happen in 2023 is that we need to let all elected officials know, no matter what party you are on, if you do not protect children, you are not going to be voted in because we want people in power and our leaders to protect children and to put children and their

safety over politics and over parties. So people can go to notraffickingzone.org and we can send them our information and let them know just all the impact partners and people that are coming together around the nation to really band together. And as far as Senator Dick Durbin, I want to say this message, because for a senator to have this much power, this bill was in for nine months. So the Department of Justice, everybody, it was five elected officials that worked so hard on both sides to get this bill done. He absolutely did have the time to work with everyone. He really chose not to for whatever those reasons are. And then we are hoping that in this next legislation, he will. But if he doesn't, we are just going to get louder and more louder and more diligent and let everybody know that he seems to be a senator

that either refuses to recognize this issue or is simply ignoring it. Well, we're going to make sure that we reach out to Senator Durbin's office when we want to bring attention to this. Thank you so much, Jacqueline and Bishop Dixon, for bringing this to our attention. All right. Last comment to you, Bishop Dixon. One comment. I want to thank Reverend Jesse Jackson, Bishop Tavis Grant, all those in Illinois and all around the country. But let me say this.

When an athlete commits an egregious act, what does he lose? Not just a position on the football field, a baseball field, a basketball court. Sponsors withdraw their finances. We are going to look at who's sponsoring, who's financing these candidates, these elected officials, and let them know that the person you're backing with your finances is a person who stopped a no-trafficking zone bill. Because if you don't support stopping it, you're supporting it's continuance. We're going to talk to the sponsors, those campaign financiers, to make you understand if your candidate supports trafficking,

you're supporting that industry by your support of that person. We've got to get to where the money is. That's where the power changes. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Bishop Dixon and Jacqueline Alato for all the work you're doing on this.

We'll keep our audience updated and make sure this legislation gets passed. Thank doing on this. We'll keep our audience updated and make sure this legislation gets passed. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks. We're going to go to the panel. We're joined by Attorney A. Scott Bolden, former chair of the National Bar Association, Attorney Joe Richardson, a civil rights attorney, also Bonique Presley, legal analyst and host of Make It Make Sense on Instagram Live. How are you guys doing this evening?

Good. We're doing fine. All right. Joe, Scott, so let's talk a little bit about this, Scott. Why do you think someone like Senator Durbin is the person holding up this legislation? Well, he may have some problems with the bill, but I don't think he has problems with the concept of supporting the bill. And I haven't talked to Senator Durbin, and I'm not sure what it is.

But having a problem with the bill doesn't mean that he supports sexual trafficking, if you will. Listen, as a former sex crimes prosecutor, as well as someone who has represented companies in the hotel industry, this is a huge issue for hotels and tourism and restaurants, sporting events, if you will, like the Super Bowl. And now it's happening and has been happening in the high schools. I think the minister and your other guests who are deep in the thick of this issue, they need allies, if you will. And they have allies in the hotel industry, I think, that work with law enforcement

or work with lawyers like me who do these investigations for private companies, share information, and are 1,000% behind not being part of or setting up or being a situation where sexual traffickers are actually using their facilities to perpetrate this crime. And so I think there are allies out there. There's a big difference between prostitution and pimping and sexual trafficking you certainly don't have to be a pimp to be in sexual trafficking and you certainly in sexual trafficking you don't have to be a pimp and then the perception of pimps and prostitutes is very different and going on as well and so as a result sexual trafficking for young people as well as adults anywhere in this world has to be addressed very differently.

You've got to get behind the network, find the money, and then free these young women from trafficking, go after the traffickers, and that is a federal and a state cooperation issue. And so I think we can get there. I like the bill because I think it brings it to a federal level. But most elected officials, most federal officials, when they hear sexual trafficking, they think about some big international network. It doesn't have to be that. Or they think about pimps and prostitutes, which is not the case when you're a sexual trafficker or you've been victimized or you're a woman who's being sexually trafficked.

It's a very big difference. And so I applaud the legislation. I also applaud your guests that you had on. But they've got allies out here, and they need to reach out to their allies and push this bill through. Joe, why do you think there's not a bigger national conversation on this issue of sex trafficking? I think a lot of people think, as Scott said, that when you're talking about sex trafficking, somebody pulls up in a big white van, throws a little girl in the back and drives off. But that's just not the modern interpretation of it. You know, I've talked to young women and work with young women who had no idea they had even been sex trafficked. They thought they were going on a trip with

their boyfriend. And that's the, you know, they are deep into the world of, as Scott said, prostitution and sex trafficking. What do we need to do to raise awareness about this in all communities, not just black communities around the country? We are often, it's good to be with you both, we're often penalized for what we don't know. It's a little bit of a different thing, but I am right now representing a family whose daughter was sexually trafficked right out of the home that she was in. And she was 16, 17 years old. And so often, often it's with the terminology, right?

We feel a certain way. There's a lot of different terms out here in different areas of life, whether you're talking about mental illness, whether you talk about sex trafficking, where the terminology is confusing because they take the terminology and make it into something totally different than a reality that's sitting right in front of them. This bill is really important, like what Dr. Bolton was saying, because this really addresses a need. You know, most sex trafficking happens, you know, using schools and places where the kids would be, schools, school-related activities. And so, therefore, there has to be an increased awareness about what sex trafficking is. Like was said in the interview, a lot of times these kids are going home and sleeping in their own beds every night. Moms working two jobs, single-parent household doesn't necessarily have to be single-parent, but they're not watching as much. They're leaving their 13, 14-year-old kid to be independent, et cetera, et cetera.

And whatever is happening is happening, and they have no idea that your child is coming home every day and being sex trafficked. And so a lot of times the issue that we have, I think, is with people understanding of sex trafficking and what these other terms actually are. And that it's not just this thing that you've imagined that you're so distant from that can't be happening to your child or somebody that you know just because they go to school and they come home. They're not kidnapped, but they might be kidnapped in their mind. They might be restrained in their activities. They're coming and they're going, and a parent that's busy just trying to make it might not catch it. You're absolutely correct, and we've got to keep an eye on this story because but the same mechanism by which bad actors recruit our young boys 13 14 15 into gangs and drug dealing uh they're the same mechanism by which they're recruiting our young girls into prostitution and sex trafficking and

we have to be more cognizant of the issue as a community and work with our federal partners to ensure that we are prosecuting people to the full extent of the law and passing legislation like this that is necessary to help protect our communities. We're going to go to a quick break. We'll be back with more Roland Martin Unfiltered after the break. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders?

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The January 6th committee held their final hearings this week, voting unanimously on a criminal referral for President Donald Trump. They have not released their full report yet. It's been delayed and may be released tomorrow. But we want to talk a little bit about what this actually means for the political future for President Donald Trump, who has already said this is a kangaroo court, who has already worked to invalidate any of the findings of the January 6th committee. And remember, even with everything that we saw previously, Republicans came within only a couple points of taking control of both the House and the Senate this year. And it's very likely they'll have a strong challenge in 2024, whether it's President Trump or someone else. To talk a little bit about the political future of President Donald

Trump, we're joined by Dr. Nola Hayes from Georgetown University. Dr. Hayes, how are you doing today? Thank you so much and happy holidays. Happy holidays to you also. So, you know, we've been playing this whack-a-mole in this country for the last half decade about whether or not this will be the thing that gets Donald Trump. Is this the thing that will get Donald Trump? Listen, I'm going to tell you what the nuns used to say and what my papa used to say. Empty wagons make the most noise. Listen, credibility, credibility, credibility, and homie ain't got none. That's all I have to say. I mean, you know, he's going to make noise. He's going to sell more of his little superhero cards. But at the end of the day, I think, you know, I think that people understand that he's more of a liability than he is helpful on the campaign trail.

And to your point, yes, there were some people that came very close to winning, you know, some very tight races. But at the end of the day, it's first past the post. And because I think they had such a large anvil dragging behind their candidates, they didn't get past the post. And at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. I'm really not trying to pay no dust to, you know, his political future or not. I'm more focused on where the country is going and excited for where it's heading. So what do these charges against President Trump mean or the criminal referral for President Trump? Can you kind of break down each of the referrals against him and what the Justice Department will need to do in order to actually prove them? Well, you know, I have a thing where I try not to come

across as an expert in areas that I'm not an expert in. So I'm not a lawyer. But I will say, you know, I've taught enough policy and law classes and I do have a larger understanding of some of these things. And so the first thing that people need to understand, the referral does not mean that the DOJ will automatically, will actually prosecute. So that's one thing that people need to understand. I've been kind of explaining that quite a bit today because I feel like there's some confusion when it comes to a referral and when it comes to what the actual action is of the DOJ. And so, you know, these are very strong. This is a very strong referral. You know, you're seeing things like obstruction. You're seeing inciting an insurrection.

This is unprecedented. And I think to your earlier question, when we think and talk about the former president, we have to understand he is an extreme outlier. Norms do not apply here. So there's a lot of conversation about precedent, you know, that this is unprecedented, that it will, you know, do damage to the norms in terms of, you know, presidents and how they act and how they behave. No president, not even Richard Nixon, has come close to the amount of damage that the former president has done to the country and to our reputation abroad. There are national security implications here. There are foreign affairs implications here.

But, you know, to your specific questions about the four charges, the one that stuck out to me was, you know, the January 6th committee went there, and they are really tying him to this insurrection. If, you know, for people out there who watched the January 6th committee hearings, you know, season one, two, and three, I mean, I was glued to my television having multiple conversations about it. And then recently, you know, their referral, this is serious business. And I still think about Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony. It was pretty powerful. And I think that if the DOJ does go ahead and decide to prosecute him on even just one of these charges, he's in big trouble. Now, you know, speaking of precedents, people have been comparing this to Richard Nixon and his impeachment and the subsequent pardon by President Gerald Ford. And I've heard Geraldo Rivera on Fox News say that, well, even if Trump is convicted, that President Biden should pardon Trump to try to stop his supporters from potentially doing a January 6th-style insurrection, but on a national level?

I'm going to try to keep this cute. But as a national security professional, I have got to tell you, I believe that he is a national security risk. And it goes beyond—what's going to heal the country are consequences. Like I said, this president was such an outlier. We cannot think about him the same way that we thought about Nixon. Compared to Nixon, Donald Trump is kind of like the teenager—I mean, Richard Nixon is like the teenager who stole a pack of gum, you know, compared to some of the crimes that have been leveled against the former President Donald Trump.

I think people really need to stop thinking about this situation in terms of norms or what has happened before. Precedent does not apply. Precedent does not apply in any sense of the word regarding this man. And honestly, in my personal opinion, the only thing that's going to heal this country are consequences, because it's going to do two things, you know, not just give Americans that sense of, you know what, no one is above the law. I think that's first and foremost. And it's going to really set an example for those, you know, who might be trying it.

And then, actually, there's a third. There's a third advantage. You know, as a national security foreign policy person, the damage that was done to our reputation internationally, the Biden-Harris administration has done a great job at trying to repair that. And we have to stand by our own word. If we say no one is above the law, we need to stand on that, because eyes are watching us around the world. A lot of damage was done in the prior administration, and there's a lot of repairing to do. So if we really mean

that no one is above the law, you have to go ahead and prosecute this outlier to the fullest extent of the law. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. We cannot think about this man the way we have traditionally thought about presidents. I'm done with that. Many people said that the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 cheapened the instance of impeachment, that they knew they didn't have the votes in the Senate to remove him. The public opinion was against the impeachment, but they did it anyway. And then further, Republicans are now saying that, you know, the two impeachments of Donald Trump cheapened the institution of impeachment. Do you think that this prosecution will cheapen presidential prosecution going forward, or it simply becomes the new tool that the party out of power uses to interrupt or to

investigate or to stop the agenda of the current opposition president? Could we see going forward a January 6th style committee forming for every president whenever the other party has control of the House and then a criminal referral for every president when the other party has control of the House? Will this become the new cycle, the new normal that we see? And see, this is what's dangerous. And this is what makes this a security risk.

The fact that we are talking about this as if this is not an unusual set of circumstances. And I think that, you know, this is one of the things that the Republican Party got very, very wrong. You know, I'm not an advisor in that sort of sense. But I think they should have come—they should have stuck to what they said after January 6th. If they would have not thought about how he was going to perform on the campaign trail versus saying, you know what, we all watched what happened on January 6th. Some of them were there. They heard what was said on the Dias. They saw the tweet from December 19th. This is a very different situation.

We cannot normalize this. And to your point, I understand what you're saying. I would think that it's more about fatigue than it is about, you know, using this as a tool to get back at your enemies. By framing it that way is to take away the level of seriousness that this is. To have a person who thinks because you are the president, you can act unilaterally without any consequences, that is the dangerous precedent. You know, think of the list of just all-time terrible presidents. You know, there's Andrew Jackson, the Indian removal at the Trail of Tears. There's Andrew Johnson, curtailing

Reconstruction after the Civil War. Of course, Richard Nixon in Watergate. There's Woodrow Wilson, one of the most racist presidents in American history. George W. Bush killed upwards of a million Iraqi civilians for literally no apparent reason. more thoroughly than any of these other presidents who arguably have done far worse things to humanity and killed far more people than President Trump for essentially, as his people would say, having a protest at the Capitol. A protest at the Capitol, I think that is such a horrible way to kind of demean what happened on January 6th. People died.

Police officers were injured. They still suffer from trauma to a large, large degree. And as a person who sits here, you know, who had more than a dozen family members die from COVID, you know, we can have a conversation about that. I would not demean, you know, the loss of life under that administration. And also, you have to take into account the role that social media, context plays a large part in this. And also, you have to take into account the role that social media context plays a large part in this. You know, you have to think about the sign of the times. We wouldn't have found out about Watergate if Richard Nixon's vanity project of recording everyone did not exist. You know, technology plays a large part into where we are today. So because of social media, because of the way that we have access to information, the

way that information can be retrieved from cell phones and videos and things like that, we are living in very different times. And I think without contextualizing the rest of the presidents, because, yes, you can line them up, today is a very different day. And because we have access to different types of information, different types of intelligence, it absolutely makes sense to me in the age of social media that, you know, we have more access to some of the things that the former president has done. And I just want to say one last thing. I was home in New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2020. And that is right before COVID hit.

And one of the things that the mayor of New Orleans said over and over and over is that she got the green light to go ahead with Mardi Gras, that COVID, that it was fine. It was not fine. I lost 13 family members. And I need people to understand, to go ahead and say that, you know, this president lost more lives, that president. We're talking about lost lives domestically. And not to dismiss any lives lost foreign, but we're talking about domestically. And I think that last comment kind of really upset me. So that's why I'm kind of going back to it, because I don't want to disrespect anyone who has lost people during COVID, including my family. You're absolutely correct. And kind of just the last question before we leave,

what will it mean if the Congress does not, or the DOJ does not prosecute President Trump for this? We've already seen the Trumpites, Carrie Lake, Herschel Walker, others denying their elections. What will happen if we do not hold President Trump accountable for this? It would be a huge missed opportunity. I think it would tell the United States and the rest of the world that, yes, presidents are above the law, that, yes, they operate with immunity and they can operate like monarchs.

And I think that that's the dangerous precedent. Like I said, you know, when I started when we started this conversation, that's the president we should be worried about. The only one we need to hold everyone accountable. No one is above the law. Thank you so much, Dr. Nola Hayes, Georgetown University. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Let's bring the panel back in.

So, Scott, what do you think is going to happen with the DOJ? We've seen Merrick Garland be cagey and very measured when it comes to prosecution of the president, even the statements on prosecution of the former president. Do you think this will actually result in an actual criminal charge against President Trump? Well, that remains to be seen. The criminal referrals from the House HR report is relevant, probative, and material, but it won't be dispositive of what DOJ does. DOJ is investigating these same underlying facts and prosecuting the insurrectionists already. They have a special prosecutor investigating Trump's conduct in January 6th insurrection. And DOJ will accept that material, review it, but review it in regard to what they have covered already in their investigation.

How does it fit within their set of facts that they have? And then politically, remember this, the DOJ early on in this January 6th committee investigation was not cooperating with the committee. They didn't want the committee formed at one point, and then it got formed, it was moving forward, and then the committee would not share its information with DOJ. So the politics between the committee and DOJ have not been as clean as you would think and cooperative as you think they should be. Now that the report is done and they're now turning over this material, it will be added to the investigatory results DOJ has. But in the end, DOJ, if they bring charges against Donald Trump, and I anticipate that they will. At least there's enough there for them

to do it. I anticipate that they will. Then DOJ will bring its own charges and explain what its evidence is at a press conference, and then they'll have to go prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt in federal court. That's super important, because if he's acquitted, then all the work that has gone in with the committee and DOJ will be for naught. But more importantly, it sends an awful message, optics and substantively, an awful message in regard to presidential misconduct and the lack of holding presidents bad behavior for accountability purposes. So this isn't over. It's over in Congress, but it's not over with DOJ. Joe, what do you think, which of these charges do you think are actually the strongest? If you were going to put your prosecutor hat on, if you were to pick one of these charges to go forward

on, what do you think is the biggest and best slam dunk that you think the DOJ would be able to actually prosecute him on? Because we all know that often prosecution is throwing spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks. But if the DOJ brings weak charges and President Trump is able to come out of it saying, look, only one of the four charges stuck, I think he actually comes out stronger. What do you think will be the one kind of gravamon that the DOJ hangs their head on? I think it really depends on whether or not the people that are evaluating this case can actually get out of their head. In my mind, inciting an insurrection is the clearest. I think it's crystal clear, but it's so unusual. It never happens. It's very, very rarely used. It hasn't been used since the Civil War to this? That can be preclusive by itself, the lack of familiarity. But the irony

is that I think that that's the clearest. That's the most obvious example. That's the most obvious manifestation of what actually happened. You can take his words. You can take cell phone messages and text messages. The special counsel who has really put his foot on the gas once he got involved last month is really taking this down the road. And by the way, Pete Aguilar, somebody I know, he's my congressman. I've been in the room when he's at fundraisers talking about the fact that they have staffs of former DOJ lawyers, former prosecutors. They're putting this thing together the right way, actually. And so the question becomes whether or not people can get their mind wrapped around the notion that this is so unusual, but that doesn't mean that this is not where, this is not necessary for consideration for a criminal conviction, et cetera, because we haven't convicted anybody else.

To the point that the doctor just made a few minutes ago, the things that happened with COVID, the incompetence with which this presidency was taken about, was gone about, should be criminal in and of itself. But that's not what they're bringing. He killed a lot of people. He helped a lot of people die. He sped a lot of people's demise through what happened with COVID, or what should I say, what didn't happen. But the fact of the matter is, the inciting of the resurrection, frankly, is the clearest. That's what we've been talking about. The January 6th committee is about what? I keep saying the resurrection, but the insurrection. And so that ought to be the clearest,

but because it's so unusual and because people may be unfamiliar and because of the underlying notion, will one out of the 12 people or the 10 people that are on the jury actually be connected to this underlying thing where they don't want to believe that a president ought to be convicted because they think it sends the wrong message. So you've got a lot of things. You've got to do what's right. But I think the unfamiliarity here may be the biggest obstacle, even though that may be the clearest charge. You know, I think this is a very tough decision. I would not want to be in Merrick Garland's shoes for this, especially when you have all the other investigations into President Trump. This is absolutely something we have to monitor because, you know, if you do this

incorrectly, you convict Donald Trump on one count, then Don Jr. announces he's running for president. He wins on a platform of I'm going to pardon my dad. He pardons his dad, makes him vice president, resigns. We still got President Trump again. You can put nothing past the Trump era of American politics. We're going to be back after the break. You're watching Rolling Murder Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's wealth coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you.

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Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. I think we all know that gentrification, destruction of black communities has become an epidemic around the country. You can look at Oscarville in the state of Georgia. You can look at the history of the interstate highway system. Black communities have continuously been victims of eminent domain and construction companies coming in and destroying what we have spent so

long building. Right now, a Louisiana parish is fighting to keep a construction company from building a large grain plant near a residential neighborhood. The Descendants Project, a Louisiana parish is fighting to keep a construction company from building a large grain plant near a residential neighborhood. The Descendants Project, a local Louisiana nonprofit, is helping the residents of St. John's Baptist Parish battle Greenfield, Louisiana, LLC. Greenfield is a Colorado-based company seeking to construct a large grain silo or grain terminal. The local circuit court of appeals affirmed a decision that the residents could move forward to nullify the zoning ordinance. To help explain this new development, we're joined by Dr. Joy Banner, co-founder of the Descendants Project. Dr. Banner, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you for joining us. Can you talk a little bit about this case and how we got to this point?

Because I've worked with many families and many organizations trying to stop these. And it's a David and Goliath type of situation often. How do we get to this place where we're already in federal court trying to stop this grain turmoil from being built? Yeah, well, you know, the reason why we're here in the first place is because 30 years ago, a parish, the parish president of St. John the Baptist Parish took a bribe and illegally changed the zoning from residential to industrial. That parish president was sent to federal prison for five years, but the zoning stayed on the books for 30 years. And now Greenfield is taking advantage of those laws. St. John the Baptist Parish, who the lawsuit is against, we're suing the parish to actually have the zoning change off the books. And Greenfield stepped

in and intervened and is now part of that lawsuit. But the good news is that, like you said before, the courts at the district level affirmed that the case could continue. Greenfield stepped in and actually appealed the decision, trying to dismiss the case again. And the appellate court agreed that, again, the case could continue. But really what is very shocking, and I guess maybe being in Louisiana, maybe it shouldn't be, and the fact that this is cancer rally, and we're in the environmental health crisis that we are, maybe people aren't shocked. but it's just the way that our elected officials, you know, understanding how dangerous this grain terminal is. When we say grain, you know, sometimes people don't have an understanding of how dangerous these facilities are. They have been characterized as

more explosive in some cases than dynamite factories, right? And so you have, we would have this huge, massive facility that's sitting right outside of our backyards, right, you know, outside of our doors. And the fact that, you know, no one at our public official level, even at our state legislative level, no one is concerned enough about, you know, the danger and the fact that this would pump out 130 more tons of pollution into an area that's already called Cancer Alley. We have asthma rates that are twice as high as the states and twice as high as the countries. But the way that our elected officials, again, have refused to put us on the agenda. We have tried to engage with our legislators, and they've basically ignored us. And talk a little bit about why the elected

officials have acted in this way, because it seems like this should be a political solution, that you have elected officials, you go there, you ask for a change in the zoning, and then if they don't do it, you vote them out. But we see often that this is not the case. We had a situation here in Atlanta probably a decade ago where I was the lawyer. We were trying to stop a zoning ordinance, and we found out that these construction companies have been buying people Cadillacs and shoes and vacations and everything else. Talk a little bit about why the political solution has fallen apart. Yeah. And, you know, it's unfortunately because the way that industries work is they engage with our elected officials first. They get the approval. They get whatever relationships,

you know, whatever has been promised. They get that worked out first. And then these public officials, instead of being doing what's in the best interest of the public, they're instead acting as an arm, an extension of these companies. And so for us, you know, the most shocking, you know, for us even involves our port of South Louisiana. This is bizarre, you know, what we found out. They have actually stepped in. That's the port, which is a board that is appointed by the governor. It's a public serving board. It's a political subdivision. But on paper, essentially, the port has agreed to buy the Greenfield grain terminal, at least on paper, so that Greenfield will get a $209 million

tax deal over 30 years. So that money, you know, instead of it going to the schools, instead of it going to, you know, resources, infrastructure that we need, resources for flooding protection, for our senior citizen community, that would be wiped off the books for them. And this is done in full participation and collaboration with our port of South Louisiana. They've done this with some really suspicious, in my opinion, some very questionable tactics that seem to be in violation of open meeting laws. So it's not publicly available for us to even see. It has been done with little documentation. It has been done with little record keeping. It's amazing that a company could be allowed to get $200 million

of taxes essentially wiped off the books, yet we don't even have a paper trail. We don't even know how the decision was made. So again, it is our political, our elected officials, our leaders being more loyal to these companies and let's be, you know, possibly, probably to what they're getting from these companies rather than being concerned about citizens. You talked a little bit about the environmental and health effects of putting a terminal like this near a historic black community, because it's not just the terminal itself. It is the hundreds of 18-wheelers that are going to be coming through that area every day, spewing pollution and diesel fuel. We talk about the force of nearly an atomic bomb. It nearly destroyed that port. Because once grain is oxidized, all it needs is an ignition source and pressure being inside of a silo.

And you effectively have something the equivalent of the Oklahoma City bomb, which was an ammonium nitrate bomb. In addition, when grain ferments, it leaks dangerous chemicals into the water supply, the groundwater supply. Talk a little bit about the health effects that people are worried about and why it's so important to stop this from being constructed. Yes, and thank you for, you know, for having to, for being so informed about the dangers of grain. But yes, like you said, it takes a layer of dust as thin as a sheet of paper to be dangerous enough to explode. There was a grain explosion and fire two days ago in Michigan. They explode all the time. And the really frightening part about it is that in a lot of those cases, you can't determine why exactly did these grain terminals explode. So yes, I mean, they explode all the time. Also, just the air that

we would be breathing in. So we're breathing in all of the, you know, the fume against the fertilizers, all of the chemicals that are being used on the grain. The dust itself contains pieces of metal fragments, which is sometimes the reason why, you know, these grain terminals explode, because, you know, it scrapes against metal and it causes an explosion to happen. So, yes, we would be breathing in, you know, things like excrement from animals, from dead insect parts, dead rodent parts. So all of that, again, in cancer rally, in, you know, in a region where we have been begging, pleading, you know, with our government officials, with people in charge of protecting us to come in and help us, right? And we have, you know, studies that show

over and over again that environmental racism is real, you know, that Black communities, historic Black communities like mine, you know, whose, you know, that Black communities, historic Black communities like mine, you know, whose, you know, people are descended from the plantations that still surround us, and in which case, you know, many of these plants are literally on the grounds of plantations. That's the reason why our burial grounds are in danger, including, you know, burial grounds at the Greenfield site. That's why we, you know, are often targeted. So, again, we are just pleading, you know, for our elected officials to step in. But even if they don't, you know, we've taken a responsibility as private citizens, which should not have to be

our responsibility. These elected officials have the power to do something and they don't. But the good news is that the work of communities like mine, we actually have an EPA investigation into permitting, including one of Greenfield's permits. So it's an unfortunate situation, but we're going to continue fighting. We have no choice but to fight and, you know, we're in it for the long haul. How has the federal government been uh either assisting or have they not been assisting this you know daniel blackman's at the epa for the southeast region uh how they worked with you to try to uh determine how to stop this have your congressional representatives uh been responsive because we want to find a solution to this not in addition to bringing attention to the problem? No. Our legislators, our representatives

and senators, unfortunately, have been very disengaged. And, you know, these are, you know, Louisiana, you know, predominantly African-American for this region. And it has been really, you know, very disturbing, but more disappointing, I should say, that our elected officials, I mean, we've reached out to some and they've not, you know, engaged with us or they say they're going to meet and they don't. Or they know we've, you know, we've put this story out, put this, you know, the situation out in the media enough, and we are not getting any engagement or any outreach. What is, what happens in Louisiana, as it does in a lot of places, is that it becomes an economic development, or these industries come in and they use jobs, you know, as a reason why, they promise us jobs, and they make us think that we can't get jobs or we can't get economic development that doesn't require Black communities and black people to be sacrificed. We you know, this is not a sacrifice zone that we can we can attract industries that, you know, have community input.

We can go out and we can find, you know, things that work for our community. But we have a very rich parish. But if you look at, you know, the resources, the infrastructure, the problems that we have in our parish, it's a lack of good governance at the state and at the local level. That's why we have the situation that we have. Well, we're glad we have people on the ground like you bringing attention to this. And I think it's crucial for folks to just think about this. When grain ferments, it turns into alcohol. That's where liquor comes from. If you put fire to liquor, you get an explosion. That is what putting a giant grain silo into a community does. You're putting a literal bomb

into the middle of a black community. Thank you so much, Dr. Fall, for all the work that you're doing and for bringing attention to this. We're going to make sure we follow up on this to make sure the people of that community are protected and hope we can bring in our federal officials to put some pressure to move this to a less populated zone. If it was a good idea, put it by the rich people and see what they have to say about it. Thank you so much for joining us.

That's right. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. We're going to be back after the break on Rolling Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I am on screen and I am representing what a black man is to the entire world that's going to see this. And this might be the only black man, a representation of a black man that they see. Right. So I am responsible. Right. For how they see black men. And it's my responsibility to if I am not playing an upstanding, honorable

of someone with a strong principle of moral core to make sure that this character is so specific. Right. That it is him, not black men. And I wish that more actors would realize how important their position is as an actor, as an actor of color playing people of color on screen. Because there are people that see us all over the world in these different images that we portray. And not everyone knows black people to know, yes, that's not all

i'm deborah owens america's wealth coach and my new show get wealthy focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shante Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Today on Black and Missing, Talia Lovett has been missing from her Smithfield, Rhode Island home since December 14, 2022. The 16-year-old is 5 foot 7 inches tall, weighs about 160 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Talia Levin is urged to call the Smithfield Road Island Police Department at 401-231-2500. And we absolutely want to make sure that we bring attention to our young people who are missing,

that are not being articulated about and paid attention to on national news. So if you have any information in that area, please be sure to reach out to the Smithfield, Rhode Island Police Department. Right now, 7.30 tonight, we're going to see a live address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the Congress of the United States of America. Today, he met with President Joe Biden and also congressional leadership. This is in the wake of nearly $40 billion being pledged in aid to the Ukrainian government in the continued fight against Russia. And this funding has been flowing all year. And many of us who support the Ukrainians and want what's best for them and, of course, want to stop Russian aggression,

we do have this question of where are y'all getting all this money at all of a sudden? And if you look at what's been happening during the lame duck session of Congress, we have seen continuously bipartisan agreement after bipartisan agreement. We have the Respect for Marriage Act that was signed into law last week by President Biden, which codified both gay marriage and interracial marriage into federal law upon the threat of it being overturned by the Supreme Court in the wake of the Dobbs decision. After the Dobbs decision, we saw an executive order protecting abortion rights on the federal level nationwide.

Just this week, we saw a $1.7 trillion, trillion, with a T, where beyond billions, we're into trillions, a billion-dollar federal budget for 2023 that looks like it's going to pass with bipartisan support. The 4,000-page bill was introduced to Congress at 1.23 a.m., with only 48 hours to read through the bill before it will be put up to a vote and is expected to pass with bipartisan support. All these things are all well and good, but, you know, I'm down in Atlanta, and it was just a month ago that we had every Democratic elected official in the country at Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark Atlanta's homecoming doing the Dougie and doing the stanky leg, talking about how much Black folks were important in the backbone of the Democratic Party, how crucial it was for Black people to save democracy. But then when it's time

to spend $1.7 trillion, all of a sudden, nobody's doing the dougie to tell us what we're getting out of the $1.7 trillion. Has anybody come to your neighborhood and done the stanky leg to explain where that $1.7 trillion is going to go? So we've seen a little bit of the breakdown of the bill. As I said, it was 4,000 pages, and clearly nobody can read that in 24 hours. But it looks like we're going to be spending $458 billion on the defense budget for 2023. To put that into perspective, the Biden administration only asked for $813 billion for the defense spending bill, and Congress went ahead and added another $40 billion to that. This is more than the next five nations on earth combined. America has donated more money to Ukraine's defense than the entire Russian GDP for the year 2020. When we talk about spending, if you have a $1.7 trillion budget

and $850 billion of that's going to defense, that means the entire rest of the country has to live off of basically about the same budget as the U.S. defense industry has to. So why is it that we get bipartisan support, bipartisan agreement, when it comes to an $856 billion defense spending bill? We all know exactly why. As Gil Scott-Heron said, it's the military and the monetary coming together whenever it's necessary, turning the planet into a cemetery. It is the military-industrial complex that is able to bribe our congresspeople with everything from jobs, everything from campaign donations to lobbying to ensure that the defense budget is never decreased.

Think about the fact that we are fighting around the edges to get things such as early childhood education, K-12 education, free lunch programs in communities, infrastructure to rebuild roads and schools and bridges and airports. We fight like cats and dogs 300-ish days a year to fight over those mere scraps in our federal budget. But the defense industry doesn't have to do any of this. If you look at the F-35 jet program, that is the state-of-the-art fighter jet that's being built currently, just that one jet program costs over a trillion dollars to develop, and we have not seen it be used in action yet. It literally has never shot anything down, and frankly, we have seen more crashes of the F-35

in recent years than we've seen actual use of it in combat. That's a trillion dollars that no one has any ability to ask questions about. You look at the B-2 bomber program. We're talking about $2 billion per airplane for a strategic bomber that really has no role in modern warfare, so much so that they're now replacing it with a new billion-dollar bomber, the B-21 Raider, which will just display by the Defense Department in the last couple weeks. Oh, are we picking on the Air Force for acquisitions? Well, you can look at the Navy.

They're presenting the brand-new aircraft carrier, which costs $13 billion per aircraft carrier, has been in development for over a decade, but we still aren't using them because the electromagnetic catapults that they are replacing the steam catapults with don't work. So we are spending $13 billion on aircraft carriers with parts that still don't work. And note, America has 13 currently in service aircraft carriers. The rest of the world has three. When you talk about supercarriers, China has one, Russia has one that is currently in dry dock, and France has one. The rest of the world has no ability to match this. And we have 13 so that we can, quote unquote, project power

internationally. If you want to go further into the defense budget, there's money in there for Space Force, because we have to make sure that we are fighting in space, apparently. Until we can get our defense spending under control, there's no way that we can tame the $31.5 trillion debt that the United States is currently in, that we have no intention of paying down. We still have not paid down the Trump tax cuts from 2017, and Democrats have made no efforts to repeal those same tax cuts. We still have not paid off the Bush tax cuts from the first Bush administration. We haven't paid off the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan. But whenever it comes time to balance the budget, we never go to the defense industry

and ask, can they cut that $856 billion budget? And when you add in veterans affairs and administrative costs, it's well over a trillion dollars that we're actually spending on defense on a yearly basis. But we want to cut school lunch. We want to cut aid to single families. We want to cut any social program because Lord knows we can't ask the rich people to pay more money. We can't ask the defense industry to take less money. We have to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. So those same Congress people, those same officials who are doing the duggy and doing the stanky legs saying how important black folks are, I think it's a reasonable question to ask them right now. But where are you at when it comes to doing things that the community needs? industry, then we should have a few billion dollars to spend on reparations per year to African-Americans who built this country and even allowed you to have something to be defending in the first place. Until we repair what's been done to black folks in this country, it's going to be

very difficult for anyone to take us seriously when we're talking about spreading democracy around the world. I want to bring the panel in on this, Scott Bolden, Joe Richardson. Scott, why do you think we are passing this $1.7 trillion spending bill with no public debate, no public disclosure, 48 hours to read a 4,000-page bill, and all of a sudden Republicans and Democrats can get along? Can't get along on voting rights, can't get along on criminal justice reform, but when it's time to pass a secret bill during Christmas when nobody is paying attention, all of a sudden everybody's all chummy and can get along. Well, you said a lot. I don't know where to begin. But let me say this. Democracy costs. It costs a trillion dollars to protect this life of democracy that we enjoy, the First Amendment, the Constitution. And Democrats and Republicans will always agree on that. You don't want us to be less safe, do you? And the costs for military might are the costs for military might. I don't disagree with your supposition or your proposition, but these are the political realities that we may have 13 carriers and

the others have one carrier. We need to keep it like that because our democracy is always under threat. And this is the greatest country in the history of this country and the history of the world. And so $2 billion a year for reparations is a drop in the bucket of the world. And so $2 billion a year for reparations is a drop in the bucket for black people. It certainly should have, but the reason both sides, Democrats and Republicans, can't agree is because America struggles

with the race question. And poor people, it costs a lot of money to take care of poor people. America doesn't want to recognize the poor people. We're a capitalistic society, and so we recognize the capitalists, if you will. I mean, you're talking about retribution, wealth retribution, economic retribution in this country, and it's going to take a lot more fighting in order to do that. It makes all the sense in the world. But the reality is our elected officials,

black, white, yellow, or brown, you know, believe in this military industrial complex. They believe in it, right? And they vote on it. And so they may not have read the bill, but this bill has been negotiated for some time. If you don't vote on this bill in a positive way, then the government's going to shut down and you'll have a financial disaster in the private sector and public sector. So that's why it's going to pass, and that's why it makes sense. But Scott, why didn't they say that, you know, three, four weeks ago when they were down here at homecoming doing the stanky leg and Dougie talking about how important it was to defend America? Why didn't they say, well, we need

you to get out here and vote so we can have a majority so we can pass a trillion dollars in defense spending and tax cuts for rich people? They didn't mention any of that. They were doing the side-to-side, doing the Beyonce dance and stuff. Why weren't they doing that? I was at Morehouse Homecoming. Who did you see doing the stanky leg? I didn't see you doing the stanky leg.

What are you talking about? They were doing a whole lot of... Kerry Washington were right there at home coming, doing the stanky leg in the doggie. I'm not making it up. I was there. Kerry Washington can do whatever she wants to do as far as I'm concerned.

That's not beauty. But here's the deal. That's not the only vote that's ever going to be taken in Congress. It's not really fair to say, well, you're doing the stagy leg and we need black people. They need black people to vote for them to keep control of the Senate and to keep it close in the House. So it's not really fair. I mean, Robert, I get what you're saying.

And philosophically, it makes all the sense in the world. I wish it wasn't like that. But I also think that it's just not realistic. It should be, but it's not. And until we become a country of color in 2043 and that culture changes, and I predict that it won't change, that if we were a country of color and the majority of the citizens of the house were still black, protecting democracy at all costs and military might is always going to be a bipartisan issue and

always going to be very supported by those who are going to be voting to protect our democracy and protect us. Joe, I'm going to go to you and then we also want to bring in Pastor Wright to this conversation so we can have a more well-rounded discussion. But Joe,

you know, after the— You're doing a good enough job, if you ask me. You're doing a good enough job. But, look, after the midterms, you know, we said, well, we can't— the whole year we've been saying we can't have any bipartisanship, don't have any bipartisanship. Mitch McConnell says the era of bipartisanship is over. But as soon as we saw there was a danger of these Republicans losing their white women,

they passed a respect for marriage act on a bipartisan basis. They wanted to make sure that Clarence Thomas ain't going to lose Jenny. You know, Kamala ain't going to lose Doug. So they can come together for things like that. When it comes time to line their pockets and spend $1.7 trillion in the dead of night while y'all are eating Christmas dinner, they can come together on that. So why is it we can't get bipartisan agreement on voting rights, on criminal justice reform, on not shooting Black people? Explain to me why we should not demand those sorts of things if all of a sudden we can

have bipartisan agreements on these other issues. Not inconsistent with the previous point. You know, the fact is all of those issues that they should be progressing on, you have to make an acknowledgement in order to do that. To fix something, you have to recognize something is wrong. To do reparations, you've got to realize and acknowledge that you made a mistake and you've been making a mistake and it's systemic and it's widespread. And to reverse it, it's going to hurt the people that benefited from you making the mistake. And folks don't want to go that far. OK. And so, again, the country is changing. It's changing quickly.

And those issues that you're talking about are issues that morally and legally we ought to be doing something about. But it gets to the heart of this whole change thing, of this whole being outnumbered by people that don't think like us and people that don't look like us at least don't look like us. We think very alike more than we would acknowledge when we get together and have conversations and that type of thing. So there'd have to be a recognition made there, right? And yeah, there is this military industrial complex.

That's why we want to be, we want to feel safe. We want to be safe. People, black folks in the military would support that. But to your point, what we'd have to do, or black people that feel safer, you know, being able to say this is the greatest country in the world. I absolutely believe that there are things that we have done that no one has done. But, you know, being the leader of the free world and all of these other things,

there's no election to be the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, to be considered the greatest. Oh, we took a survey and this is how it came. There was this objective evaluation of what makes you great and who's the greatest. Well, it starts off with who's the most powerful, right? It starts off with who's the most mighty, right? And then that ends up being our starting point. And we kind of go from there. But to your point, there has to be some priority for things that need to happen as well, things that protect us and then help us in our existence. It didn't help me necessarily that I'm in the greatest country in the world if I get pulled over because I got on a hoodie and I'm driving my $50,000 Acura. It didn't necessarily help that in that moment, right?

And hopefully that doesn't happen, where now, you know, we go and we're doing the, you know, Pledge of Allegiance and singing the Star-Spangled Banner, but y'all forgot the second verse wasn't written for us. And so what we have to do is continue to be politically engaged, right? You know, and so, you know, our answer to that question, Robert, has to be why is it that our moms, our dads, and our kids and our family and our community isn't keeping our hands to the plow here in terms of saying, okay, I voted for you, but here's what I want to happen from a budget standpoint. Don't leave us out.

Don't leave early childhood education out. Don't leave solidifying and confirming the existence and the legitimacy of Medicare out. Don't leave the expansion of ACA out, etc. And so we have to stay on it. We can't just do, you know, that every two-year thing, every four-year thing, even though the politicians try to do it that way. So don't just have them come out and talk to us and say what they say, and then we vote for them. Let's follow them back figuratively, if not literally, to Washington, to our state capitals, to our other places. And so we stay on it to say, OK, you want to be military industrial, but we're not going to lose on this. You have to do this. You have to do this and you have to do this.

Otherwise, we will vote you out. And that's why voting rights and voting, regardless of what's happening with those rights, is so, so important. Pastor Wright, you know, in in 1960s, Malcolm X said, you put them first, they put you last, because they think of you as chunks, political chunks. And so when you have all these groups coming out, they have strippers doing get your booty to the poll for the midterms here in Georgia. Like I said, they had all the rappers coming out. They have all the entertainers and everybody else coming out saying you got to get to the polls. But then it was time to spend the money. I don't see that same thing happening. This is why you got to get your money up front. This is why you got to get paid up front on things. Because we saw an executive order on

abortion after the Dobbs decision. We saw the respect for marriage act. Because remember, a decade ago, the idea of gay marriage was the most abhorrent thing in American politics. It was a bridge too far. Even President Obama was talking about domestic partnerships as opposed to full marriage rights. But you get bipartisan support from Christian evangelical Republicans on the respect for marriage yet. But somehow we can't get criminal justice reform done. We can't get an executive order on voting rights. You're not getting any of the money out of this $1.7 trillion is getting spent. Make this make sense to us. And what can we do going forward to not have the same thing happen in 2024? partisan support, left and the right in the trillion dollar budget, and the folks on both sides down there doing a Dougie and a Stank Leg, and I'm trying to figure out which Republican

folks was down there first of all, and who of them would know which of one of those dancers you're talking about? I'm trying to catch up. I'm stuck there. There's a video of Marsha Walker on stage absolutely doing some kind of little step and fetch. I'm sorry, that doesn't count. It's both sides. That one don't count.

No, we ain't playing that. You have to come with another better one than that. I'm sorry, that don't count. That don't count. That one don't count. No. You have to come with another better one than that. I'm sorry. But the reality is, when you look at these things and you look at these bills and you look at where it does not appear we are a priority, it is because we are not. We don't write big checks to candidates. We don't do a lot of the things that our elected leaders value to be able to continue to be our elected leaders. So until we find another voice that has enough heat behind it to be able to make them understand and recognize we're serious, and we're going to be serious not just with our words but

with our votes, we are not going to see ourselves as a priority in these bills that are being passed. The reality is I don't care which party you belong to, but if you want to cut taxes and you want to talk about lowering the amount of money that you have to, quote, give out to folks, you know, and help folks and all the social this, that, and the other, then fix education. Level the playing field on education so that folks have a better chance of being able to continue their education and get a job where they can actually live, not just survive. So when we talk about, you know, not being a priority, we have to make sure we understand the importance and what the priorities are that we have to advocate for

and never ceasing, period. Look, I think this is a conversation that we're going to have to continue going forward. I think tomorrow we're going to do a full breakdown after we have a chance to read through that 4,000-page bill with the $1.7 trillion in spending. That's exactly where it's going. But I recommend for people, make some demands before you cast your vote. Make sure that these people understand, hey, you know, when they come to you at church and they say, look, I'd love to have your vote, pull them in real close and say, you know, you got to pay what you weigh on these things. These are the things I'm expecting.

Very specific. Because trust me, if you go to that LGBTQ community, they're making sure you know, I expect a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act in exchange for this vote. If you go to the feminist community, I'm expecting something on

Dobbs in order to get this vote. We're the only ones that you send Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion out to do some dances, and then we run into the polls without making any demands. We've got to make those demands up front before giving out the vote. That is the currency that we have. We're operating in a pluralistic society.

We're going to talk—we're going to be back after the break. You're listening or you're watching Rolling Mart Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Throwing that work. It's time to be smart. Roland Martin's doing this every day. Oh, no punches! Thank you, Roland Martin, for always giving voice to the issues. Look for Roland Martin in the whirlwind, to quote Marcus Garvey again. The video looks phenomenal, so I'm really excited to see it on my big screen.

I support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. I gotta defer to the brilliance of Dr. Carr and to the brilliance of the Black Star Network. I am rolling, we're rolling all the way. I'm gonna be on a show that you own,

a black man owns the show. Folks, Black Star Network is here. I'm real revolutionary right now. Rolling was amazing on that. Hey, Blake, I love y'all. I can't commend you enough about this platform that you've created for us to be able to share who we are, what we're doing in the world,

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Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Stay black. I love y'all. All 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 scape.

It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer. Hello, I'm Bishop T.J. What up, Lana Well, and you are watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered. I'm going to hit some headlines. The Mississippi NAACP is suing the state over the Mississippi's legislative redistricting plan.

If you guys remember this year's midterm elections, Democrats in large part lost the House majority because of redistricting. Redistricting in Florida basically created five Republican seats out of thin air. We saw this around the country. The Mississippi legislature has passed a new redistricting plan that significantly dilutes the percentage of power that each vote of Black residents have in their district. Because of this, Mississippi NAACP and five Black residents have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new district schedule to be used in 2023 election. This comes only weeks before the qualifying deadline of February the 1st. Remember, voter suppression takes many forms. I think often when people talk about voter suppression, they're thinking about Bull Conner sitting outside of the polls with hoses and dogs stopping people from voting. In reality,

there are various schemes and tools being used, particularly with the weakening of the voting rights act in 2014 and the continued action by states in order to push and make it more difficult for Black people to be able to exercise the franchise. So, of course, we're going to pay attention to that case going forward. Also, news anchor goes on a rant on Newsmax about the lack of white American girl dolls. Can't make this up. Newsmax host Rob Finnerty had an on-air milkdown over the lack of white American girl dolls. Here's what he had to say if we have the clip. How long has this been going on with American girls? I took my six-year-old to the store in Rockefeller Center, like the American Girl experience.

And, you know, typically girls that are into American Girls, they get a doll that looks like them. And you can get an outfit that, you know, so you can match your doll. We were in there, and my daughter's just a cute little six-year-old white girl. We couldn't find anybody that looked like my daughter. It was the whole place, it was like woke-ified. Oh, my God.

Oh, the poor white people, they can't find no white dolls. Oh, Lord Jesus, what are they going to do? However, will a young 16-year-old white girl find any representation of herself in America, where literally everything that you see is about the protection of little white girls? When you're playing video games as a kid, Super Mario is rescuing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess from the castle. When you watch movies going back to the 1920s and 30s, they're rescuing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed white girl from King Kong on top of the building, tied to train tracks, every single piece of media. The eternal victim in America is the blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman. But yet and still, this host seems to think

that he is being oppressed and discriminated against because this is the new white victimization culture that we see happening. You see this often on Tucker Carlson and other forms of white media. When they talk about woke and wokeism, Rhonda Sands is in Florida saying this is where woke comes to die. They consider anything that is an attack on white supremacy to be, quote, unquote, woke. In their minds, any attacks on white supremacy are a fundamental attack on America. America and white supremacy are interchangeable to these people. And they see any efforts to diversify or to update or to recognize anybody besides cisgendered, straight, white people in this country to be quote-unquote woke.

I'm going to bring the panel back in on this because sometimes you've got to stop and just laugh at people. Pastor Wright, do you think that there's an issue where little white girls are not getting enough attention and not enough representation? Stop picking on that poor man. He's just trying to find something for his baby to look like her. You should sympathize. You know what that struggle is like, doggone it. I'm sorry. I

couldn't resist. I have a granddaughter, and it wasn't, when she was born, it was still difficult difficult to find dolls that looked like her. So I understand that it is special for folks that feel like they shouldn't have that problem to have that problem. And I think, quite honestly, the American Girl doll gave me a real good idea. I think we should try. I think, just like folks are having trouble finding the American Girl doll that represents what their children like, we should start having other folks get pulled over in hoodies driving their cars, too. Because I feel like if we could, you know, you've got to walk a mile in people's shoes. And maybe if folks could understand some of the issues and the problems, there'd be a little bit more sympathy and understanding. We could really meet somewhere in the middle. So I think that doll situation has given me a good idea. We ought to start stopping white people in

hoodies. Yeah, you know, they want all the benefits, but none of the detriments. It's strange how that works all of a sudden. Scott, do you think we should sympathize with this man and his, you know, his plight and maybe send him some little white dolls so he can feel better about himself? We can empathize with him because black people have been looking for black dolls and black toys that look like them. And the power of that has been researched and determined over the years, not only in the media, but scientific studies. I can we can empathize with him, but part of me wants to say, welcome to the struggle. Finally, after 400 years,

your whiteness is being challenged by corporate America and the American Dow. Well, here's another question, though. What's wrong with his daughter buying a black Dow or Chinese doll or a Thai doll? Because they're all girls in America. Why isn't he celebrating diversity? And maybe he was there when they were out of white dolls. So why is he on national TV arguing or lamenting the fact that his little white girl couldn't find another little white doll that looks like her? As if buying a black doll was somehow going to be detrimental to her, or maybe it was compared to what he's teaching her at home about her white privilege. Don't know.

But buy a black doll or a Hispanic doll or a Chinese doll. She'll be okay. She may even learn about diversity and maybe Lord knows, find a black friend, a black friend or a brown friend and God forbid, bring her home

because she's got a brown or black doll. I think it's very reasonable. He's afraid that she's going to get this little black doll and she's going to take her home. And next thing you know, little Sally's going to be, you know, little Sally's going to be in there seasoning chicken and then all of a sudden have some rhythm doing the little Beyonce dance

and everything. You can't expose children to that. Next story. Hold on, Robert. When she does that, when she does that, when she buys the black doll, you know she's going to bring Jamal home in a couple years,

and it's going to be over. Is that what we're saying? We don't want the black and brown dolls to lead to Jamal coming home? Is that what we're saying? Apparently, that's the fear. I think that's what's going to happen, you know? All of a sudden, you buy her an American Girl doll, then she's, you know,

seasoning chicken, cooking greens, making cornbread, and Jamal at your house. That's just how it is. God forbid. That's what they fear. God forbid. Jamal's going to be looking at his wife like, how you doing? How you doing? Young men.

Young men. But, you know, it might help to, you know, that understanding and empathy and us, you know, finding our way to the middle a little bit more. Maybe. It's just amazing that they spent time on that, on news back. He helps us. As conservative as they are. I think he helps us prove this point here. This reminds each and every one of us.

This should remind all of us. Listen, I ain't mad at him for wanting a doll that looks like his. That looks like his little girl. Okay? I ain't mad at him at all. As a matter of fact, now you know how I feel when I'm looking for a black baby alive or a black American girl.

I know what it is to go to an American Girl doll store. We were in Chicago about 10, 12 years ago, and I'm going to tell you right there, it was not overrun with black dolls. It was not. Okay? You know, I looked around in there. I was downtown in the Miracle Mile in Chicago, and I said, you know, it looks like

white folks' place in society is still firmly implanted as of right now. I didn't get mad. You know, I didn't go on television about it and yell it out loud, but he helps to prove a point. I'm not mad at him for wanting a doll. As a daughter, you have a doll that looks like him. A lot of times the dolls, you know, you get a doll or whatever that looks like you, you put it next to you. So it's like, it's really yours. It's like, it's really your child. It's like, it's really your sister, you know, those

types of things. So in and of itself, I'm not mad at him about that. But now, hopefully, you understand our reality all the time. So when we turn on television and we don't see something that looks like us, when we go in the classroom, come on, somebody, and don't see anybody that looks like us. When we go to work and don't see somebody that looks like us, you feel like you are isolated and you're there yourself. And, of course, you know, going back decades, you know, the doll thing that they did where even the black kids had had it ingrained with them that the white doll was the best one.

Because that's all they had been buying. That's right. That's all they could buy. And so they rejected the black dial in the Brown versus Board of Education studies. Even the black kids rejected the black dial that looked like them because they had been, they bought white dials

because that's all American manufacturers were making. Right? That's exactly right. If his daughter starts buying black dolls, if she tests it, she'll pick a black doll as being a symbol of beauty and my friend and what it means to

be. I mean, she might accept diversity. She might start fighting for black people and black causes and for a fairer and better America. Wow. It just reminds him that things are changing, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it just reminds him that things are changing. Now him and people like him can make as much money on rap artists as they possibly can.

They can manage them. I remember doing deals for music artists back in the day, and they said at a certain point, you know, a white lawyer actually has to take this over. Black artists. You know, I had that happen. So the black, so the white can do the business or whatever else, but just make sure that your daughter doesn't bring one of them home. And so now here we are having this discussion, and there's a reminder of the fact that things are actually changing, but you can't play with fire and not get burned. So in other words, just the same thing I say it all the time, the same thing that make you laugh or make you cry.

Things are changing now. And now your daughter or your people or your wife or your teacher or your colleague, your brother, your sister might have a brush with the unfamiliar and feel a different way about it than you do and not be made insecure about it. And to reach out toward it and for it. And that reminds us of the change and everything that's going on. And now what? Well, we're gonna make sure- This isn't just a new thing.

When you go back and you look at, do any of you remember the cabbage patch doll? How many yellow, black or blue cabbage patch dolls did you see? So this is not a new thing so there his concern his struggle with this is new to him

but this has been going on for a long long time now and I really do feel like things like that if you can get outside of your own anger with this poor newscaster here and look at the picture, again, bring us closer, not separate. Well, look, I just think he's worried that she accidentally picked up the Jamaican American Girl doll,

and he come home and she got a pot of oxtail going on my wagwan. I'm mad at him. We got to make sure that we protect this poor white man and his poor white daughter. We'll be back after the break. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Do you ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy.

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And we're SWB. What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. It's the Christmas season. Many of us are going to have office Christmas parties this weekend, family events, and a lot of y'all are lonely as hell. They ain't got nobody. But our today's Tech Talk segment, we have somebody who can be able to do something about that. The Amore Dating app is a black-owned dating app that could increase their chances of finding love

and also getting your grandma and mom for your back about when you're going to get married. Joining us now, we have Jonathan Joseph Jr., founder and creator of the Amore Dating app. Jonathan, talk to me about the app. How exactly does this work, and how is it different than every other dating app. Jonathan, talk to me about the app. How exactly does this work and how is it different than every other dating app on the internet? Hey, Robert, thanks for having me. That's a great question. What we do is we focus on the preferences that people want when they're looking for a mate. So many times you see people swiping and you're taking chances with what you're doing uh what we're

trying to do is focus on your preferences uh the things that you want and match you based on that we also have um what's known as the love lounge uh which is for the sapiosexual people who are more into intellectual conversation we have uh different rooms that we change the topics on daily to allow you to meet with somebody that way as well. So it kind of increases the chances of meeting somebody that's compatible with you rather than just swiping and hoping for the best. So it's not just a swipe left, swipe right, like Tinder. It's not just creating a profile like, you know, some of the other dating apps. Talk about how the mechanics of this work is more conversational than other apps are.

Yeah, so when you sign in, it's going to ask you a bunch of questions, some personal, some for fun, just to try to see where you are from a character standpoint. Everyone has to do it, and then we match you based on that. So there's a five-star, four-star, three-star, and it goes down from there. And then that's one part of the app. Another part of the app is what I said earlier, which is called the Love Lounge. The Love Lounge is topics that we create. Our team creates it every day.

Could be, you know, a whole range of things. Could be political. Could be what's happening in the world today. Just so you can kind of get an understanding of who's in your community. And you can match with somebody that way as well. And then the next part of the app is called Discrete Meets. So those are for the traveling people that say, you know what, I just want to find somebody to go to movies with or a travel partner or a dinner date.

So there's actually three components to the app that I think separates us and makes us great. Okay. So the conversation part, so it's kind of like a clubhouse where people can have conversations with people who have similar interests. Then there's kind of a dating profile section where you put in what you're looking for and you kind of are matched with people along that. And then it's like you have a section for freaks. So they're just an area for freaks. What you saying? I knew you was going to go there, Robert.

I knew you was going to go there. No, I wouldn't call it that. I mean, it sounds like that's for freaks. Ain't nothing wrong with it. It's called discreet meats. That's what we're going to call it. It's called discreet meats. Look, in the words of the prophet CeeLo Green,

everybody that's grown got a skeleton bone that got hidden away. Yes, y'all, there's a freaking us, y'all. Just some choose not to say. I hear that. Don't make it a little balls of clay. I'm just saying, look, if it's for freaks, just say it's for freaks and call it the freaks. I mean, if you want to name it the Boom Boom Room, that's cool. But it's called Discreet Meats, and it's for everyone.

It's really, we really thought about that section for travelers. There's a lot of people that travel. They go from city to city, and they say, you know what? I just don't want to eat alone. I'd rather have somebody I can eat with. And this gives them an opportunity to meet people in the area where they're traveling who may feel the same way. Okay. And so when you're signing up, is this where there's a fee to sign up or different levels of membership? Talk about kind of the mechanics of it and what the success rates are with regards to finding people.

That is a great question. And I think that is where you find, I mean, there's thousands of apps, right? When you log into your Play stores or your Apple store. I think this is what separates us. We don't have paywalls is what it's known as. So, you know, if you go hit the back button, they want to charge you. If you send a message, they want to charge you.

We don't do that. We charge one flat rate. Our most expensive plan is 10 bucks a month. It is free to download. To get to the certain features, you must be a premium member. And in order to be a premium member, it's just $6 a month. So we're not trying to break the bank. We want low costs and high results. And because we're basing it on your preferences, I think we have a higher success rate because it allows you to, you know, base things on characters, traits that you can match with someone else as opposed to just swiping and then trying to find out that that person's not a match for you.

Now, Ulta, you know, a lot of the prophet Kevin Samuels often said that people have unrealistic expectations. You know, every guy is going to put in, you know, 5'5", brown eyes, caramel skin, long hair, Pam Grier from 1972. Are there ways for people to kind of get an idea of what's actually out there? Instead of, you know, all the women are going to put 6'4", multimillionaire, six-pack abs, who also cook French cuisine and loves his mama, those sorts of things. You know, is there a way to kind of let people know what's out there when they're shaping their preferences, or do you just kind of hope you're going to get what you're putting into the slot machine? That's a great question.

What we have is a filter button. So once you fill out your questionnaire, you can match that way, but then as you're going in, you can also filter through and say, okay, I want this particular person, I want this size, you know, this kind of thing, this distance, which is a big one. So you can alter and filter that way. Because there's a lot of people that, you know, may want to date interracially and we give them that option. So you can basically see who it is you want to see, as opposed to seeing people that you know are probably going to have no shot. All right. We're going to bring the panel in.

Pastor Wright, do you have any questions? See, now you have to go to me first on that one. Ladies first, of course. As a disclaimer, it is the holidays. It is the week before Christmas. I do not want my gifts to be replaced with a lump of coal. I will not be asking any questions nor visiting your Facebook page. All right, Scott, did you have a question?

Scott, you there? Are you trying to download the freak section of the app real quick? Oh, I'm coming. Okay, I'm back. I'm sorry. Good doctor. I appreciate this app and stuff, although I'm a married man, but you had one of your promotions of this article I saw had to do with, had to do with, um,

sapio sexuals, if you will. Could you tell us about how you can isolate sapio or sapio sexuals, people who are attracted to really intelligent people correct so when we created the love lounges we we did that with the with the mindset that we wanted to create a platform for people that you know okay great you look good you may be attractive but what's inside right so we So we created the Love Lounge with different topics that people might resonate with certain people so that they can log in with like-minded people who want to talk about that same topic and have a discussion. And then that way, you might like what that person, him or her, is saying,

and you can match with them that way as well. So it's just another aspect of meeting someone. So how do you know if you're attracted to people who are intelligent? So is that all it is? Or do they have a sexual relationship as well? I don't know. I think that one, it all depends on the people. I think obviously there has to be some sort of attraction there, right, if we're talking about being a mate.

But I think people are trying to find something more than that. I think the apps are not allowing you, some of them are not allowing you to find out more about that person, dig in deeper. It's not allowing you to do that. So now, you know, I've been in the restaurant business for 20 years. I actually own a bar in Baltimore called Happy Hour Heaven. And I've seen first dates fail consistently. And 80% of them are, you know, dating app dates. And it's always for that reason.

Well, you know, I've long argued to my friends and fraternity brothers that one of the most attractive sexual, well, what is a sexual attraction is intelligence for most people whether they realize it or not right or humor before you get to the physical part of the relationship yeah i would agree with that 100 i think the pictures to me is like window shopping right yeah you still have to try try on the, try on the tie, make sure it fits you. And have somebody to talk to with some reasonable intelligence, right?

I couldn't agree more. Look, I wish I had the hope and optimism of y'all, but Joe, do you have a question? I'm having so much fun with this. You just want to hear more about the boom-boom room. Yeah, yeah. That's like, right, right.

The Saphio area, sound like that? The ugly people area. Like, you know, you go over to the talking section to see if, you go over to the talking section to see if you can pull somebody over there. The boom-boom room. Back to the freak boom-boom room. Don boom boom room. The boom boom room. Don't have any questions about the freaks. Alright, you know, we're having entirely too much fun here.

Entirely. I'm a little old fashioned. I met my wife 30 years ago in college and it took a brother nine years but we eventually got married. There weren't any dating apps. How would this be something that distinguishes itself for people that think that meeting someone online is still

taboo or, you know, someone that just not is not into dating apps, so they don't think they'd be in the dating apps. Why would this be any different for them? And then the other question I would be is, is there any screening for safety-related reasons? Okay, all great questions. I remember growing up that I could bond in the grocery store over, you know, maybe Cinnamon Toast Crunch if we had, like, cereal, right? Or maybe I could be a gentleman and help a young lady pump the gas, and I could meet a woman that way. These days, those things are because of COVID and everybody's got their ear, you know, phones in. It's very difficult for people to meet now. So dating apps is what's happening. So that's the first thing. Second thing is, I think for us, we're more than a dating app. I think the Love Lounge allows us to

be more than a dating app. And also, you know, when you're putting your preferences in and you match with somebody, the chances that you find someone that you can at least have an intelligent conversation with, like we were saying earlier, go up significantly. So I think that would be some of the things that separate us. For the people that are not wanting to do a traditional dating app, I think we fall right in that line with that. Safety is one of those things we take very

seriously. We have a disclaimer when you go into any of our rooms that say, you know, use common sense. Don't give out your phone number if you're going to meet someone. If you're going to meet someone off the app, please meet them in a public place. You know, we even leave tips to say if you're going in a restaurant, please let the host know, hey, I'm here and I'm on a first date. So that everybody's aware of what's happening. Because the fact of the matter is there are people who are, you know, just not right in the head. And unfortunately, they prey on apps like this to find people that are vulnerable. But, yeah, we have things in place.

You know, if there's anyone who's experienced some sort of dating trauma or anything like that, we have 1-800 number list on the app. So we try to make sure from the Amore community that we're offering everything that we can for our people. And you can even report someone in the app. If you don't feel comfortable with a message you got sent or anything like that, just send a message out. We can block that user immediately. And there's no three-strike rule thing. It's a one-time, you're done. And we just completely take them off the app.

So we take things like that very seriously. All right. So the name of the app, how can people download it in the app store, social media, how can people follow you, plug, plug, plug away? We're trying to get people into the saposexual area of the app to do some conversations. We know they're going to go to the free session. Saposexual? area that to do some conversations. We know they're going to go to the pre-session. So we're on Instagram at

Amor underscore AHA. We're on Facebook at Amor Dating App. And then you can also find us in the Google and Apple Play stores. We're already in there. We're live. We're ready to go in there as well. So, yeah, I look forward to seeing you guys

in the community. What's the name of your place in Baltimore? I might swing by. Happy Hour Heaven. Happy Hour Heaven. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining us. Robert, are you a saposexual? I don't know.

Are you a saposexual? No, you want to hear something funny? Me and my wife actually met at a freak party about 15 years ago that we did not know we were at. We both went with other people. We both ended up at a party with other people, and we were just in the corner

horrified by the stuff going on. I don't think we're supposed to say that. Beautifying thing. At least one of y'all knew what was going on. At least one of y'all knew what was going on. Look, this is how much I didn't know what was going on. I was helping to set up the food and stuff. I thought it was just a regular house party.

I'm going to pick up women and stuff. I had no idea. So there's nothing to say you can't find yourself a good man or woman at the freak party. You just have to be in the ugly people section. But shout out. Thank you, somebody, for Christmas. All right. That was a great show.

Roland will be back at some point. I'll be around if y'all need me. Great show today. I want to thank Scott. I want to thank Pastor Willis. Want to thank Joe for joining us. Want to thank all of our guests. Want to thank everyone for tuning in.

Make sure you like and subscribe, follow. Send your donations in to Roland to keep this going. Black media is crucial. You don't have these conversations on Newsmax. Today we're talking about the American Girl doll. And as we say, holla. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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