#RolandMartinUnfiltered - VP Harris GA Voting Rights Roundtable, Eddie Bernice Johnson Funeral, Trump Wants Economy Failure

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

1.9.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: VP Harris GA Voting Rights Roundtable, Eddie Bernice Johnson Funeral, Trump Wants Economy Failure Vice President Kamala Harris stopped in Atlanta today to participate in a roundtable discussion with community leaders focused on the fight for voting rights. Cliff Albright, Co-Founder of Black Voters Matter, was there, and he'll tell us what happened.  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee vows to spend millions for the 2024 election cycle.   Hundreds gathered to honor former Texas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.  During Donald Trump's appeal of immunity, his attorney said he could order the assassination of his political rival and not be prosecuted for it unless he was impeached. Ya'll have to hear this foolishness. And Trump actually said he hoped the economy would fail. His reason is absolutely ridiculous.  The SWAC conference is trying to crack down on streaming games. Scottay, the host of Offscript will be here to tell us about what's happening between SWAC and Louisiana's Grambling State University.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, folks. Today's Tuesday, January 9th, 2024. Coming up, I'm Roland Martin, unfililtered streaming live in the Black Star Network. Vice President Kamala Harris stopped in Atlanta today to participate in a roundtable

discussion with community leaders focused on the fight for voting rights. Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, was there and he'll join us. Tell us what happened. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee vows to spend millions of dollars in the 2024 election

cycle targeting African Americans and other minorities. Hundreds gathered to honor former Texas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson was laid to rest today, who actually the funeral was today in Dallas should be laid to rest tomorrow in Austin, TX.

Donald Trump, doing his appeal for immunity. His attorney actually said if he could order the assassination of a political rival and not be prosecuted for it unless he was impeached. These folks are crazy. Plus, this thug, the thugging chief, actually said he hoped the economy would tank

in the next 12 months so he doesn't have to get blamed for it if he wins. Okay. The SWAC conference is going at it with grambling over streaming their games on a black-owned platform. Plus, a class-action lawsuit has been filed by one of our viewers against an advertiser that the SEC said fraudulently, fraudulently was accepting money for a cannabis project. I'm going to tell you about that as well.

It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on filter on the Blackstone Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing.

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's on the roll, roll, roll, y'all. It's rolling,oro, y'all. It's Rollin' Martin, yeah. Rollin' with Rollin' now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's Rollin' Martin now. Martin! A fan vice president Kamala Harris was in Atlanta today meeting with national civil rights leaders about the importance of voting. This is, of course, her leaving Air Force Two after it landed there in Atlanta. The conversation took place at the Gathering Place, and of course, which is a

black-owned establishment. They were there, again, talking about what really is one of the most crucial issues facing us today. You see right there, those are a lot of the photos that took place there. We had reached out to find out if they were going to be actually live streaming the event. We normally would be carrying that on Roland Martin unfiltered, but they had not done so. But again, at that particular event, she was talking about, again, how critical, how critical this election is and what we actually are going to have to do to fight those who are trying to keep us from voting. Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, was in that meeting. He joins us right now. Cliff, glad to have you here. I can tell you meet with the vice president because I can't tell you the last time you came on the show dressed in a suit and tie. So I'm glad that Cliff come from church. What's up? All right. So tell us what happened.

Yeah, I had to put on my Sunday best. But thanks for having me, Roland. Yeah, I mean, it was a good conversation, right? You had folks in the room. It was a good combination of Georgia organizations, you know, some of our friends and partners, you know, folks like New Georgia Project and Helen from People's Coalition for People's Agenda and then some national organizations as well. And, you know, it was just a good discussion. The vice president, you know, laid out some of the issues that she wanted to hear about.

And really the conversation was centered on security issues, issues around security and intimidation that we know has been taking place and that we expect to increase over the next 10 months or so. Disinformation, right, we know that that's an increasingly big part of what's going to be going on. We know the way that black voters big part of what's going to be going on. We know the way that black voters are often targeted with disinformation. And so she wanted to have a conversation around that and what suggestions we have on things that the administration can do to help with that.

You may have seen, Roland, already, you already got some of these black influencers out there that are, you know, under the belt of these conservatives spreading messages around why black folks don't need to vote in this presidential election. So they're already starting with the disinformation. So we've got to be prepared to counter that. And certainly black-owned media like you is a big part of that. And then the third piece that she wanted to talk about was just suggestions on what's working.

What are the outreach mechanisms that are working? What do we suggest? And, again, what ways can the administration be more helpful? So, you know, it's an ongoing conversation. And the vice president shared some things, you know, talking about some things that the administration has done, particularly on some of these security issues, things that the Department of Justice has done. And, Roland, you and I know we've talked about, like, some of the great work that Kristen

Clark has been doing with civil rights and and Department of Justice, not just on police accountability. But today we talked about some things that they've done around some of these security and voter intimidation, particularly around intimidation of poll workers. Right. And so they've been very active on that issue. And we expect for that to increase. So it was it was a good, substantive discussion, and we're looking forward to, and it's not going to be the last. She'll be back in Georgia and having some other conversations, some other places around the importance of these voting rights issues. Now, was this a public gathering? Was it a private one? Was it off the record? Describe the meeting. Yeah, it was, you know, was a a brief two-minute statement that

she made at the start where press was available for but the event that the the round table discussion which is what they were calling and with all these these uh voter mobilization and voting rights um the actual conversation itself was a private conversation press was not in the room for that. As you mentioned, it was not being live streamed. And so that was just really a talk amongst folks who are expressing, you know, concerns and suggestions on how we need to deal with these issues that I just outlined. And look, I mean, the reality is, you know, they understand, look, they've got a significant problem. There were a group of

black women who met with President Biden talking about what they have to do. You have, there have been black men who met with the vice president also laying out these issues. The Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee announced today they're going to be spending $35 million this election cycle specifically targeting Black, Latino, Asian, and other minority voters. Bottom line is they see their polling numbers, and they rely on Black voters. And look, there's a lot of it they've actually done, but what we know and understand is that it's a lot of things that they have not messaged properly on. And I think, you know, and I've heard this from senior administration officials that they did a whole lot. And when you look at inflation reduction, that when you look at cares that we can go on and on and on.

And they were passing things, but they were not using the bully pulpit to walk people through to understand what they were actually doing to benefit regular ordinary folks. Yeah. And in some cases, not only were they not using the bully pulpit to do that, but then what you saw happening, and you've talked about this on your show, is you got Republicans out there then having town halls and messaging and putting in their newsletters, you know, spending that's taking place on some infrastructure stuff that they're taking credit for, even though, as you know, not a single one of them, not a single one of them voted for it, particularly in the House. And so, yeah, there's definitely a messaging gap. And part of that has to be dealt with in terms of doing a better, you know, and some of it, Roland, is because of what you talked about. There's actually been a lot of things that have been done, some of which, much of which

specifically benefits black communities, right? Infrastructure, climate change, right? Even student debt cancellation, which is not taking place at the, based on the president's original plan, but is still taking place at some historic levels. I got folks calling me up every other week talking about they got this amount of debt, you know, canceled and that amount of debt canceled. And so some of it is because there's been so much that sometimes you can get lost just in the different things that have been done. You know, and Democrats are really bad because they want to get into the policy and the nuances and all that. And, you know, whereas the other side, you know, oftentimes they're just real, real basic with their messaging. And so there's

a messaging issue in terms of what is the message. There's also an issue in terms of like how frequently it's put out there. Like how much are you touching black voters to deliver these messages? And then, as you know, where are you delivering these messages? Are you delivering it in the right places? Are you delivering it on Black Star Network? Are you delivering it on other Black media? And so it's what's the message, how frequently you're doing it, and where are you doing it? And when they can really get focused on that, and then which other groups, which local groups are you supporting to help them deliver some of these messages, right? When they can really deal with those four issues, then I think that, you know, the messaging problem will get a little bit better.

And, of course, the closer you get to an election, the better it gets. But part of what we always say at Black Voters Matter is you shouldn't have to wait until after the Democratic convention in August. You shouldn't have to wait until September or October. That messaging has to start yesterday, right? Not today that message is needed needed to start yesterday so there's got to be improvement on all that but the the irony is that they've actually got some substance that they can talk about not everything that we want and then some things um that you know that that where they've really fallen short but there's a lot of substance that's been done,

and they've just got to find a way to message better around it. Absolutely. And look, you have people who are angry, who are upset, who are bitter. Even we talked about before, what is taking place between Israel and Gaza and the Palestinians there. When I post things, people start going off and send all kinds of different stuff. And a lot of it's BS. A lot of it's BS. A lot of it is just folks who complain

about anything and everything. But I do believe, though, and I say this all the time, we talk about elections. And it trips me out when I hear these people who say, oh, I'm going to vote third party. We got to have a third party. I'm just not going to vote at all. I just keep reminding them. I said, I'm going to tell you right now, somebody's going to win and I can guarantee you. And I've looked at Project 2025. All the Republicans are saying, you got Donald Trump out here. We'll talk about

this a little bit later, saying he doesn't have a problem if the economy crashes in the next 12 months. They literally want to see America go through hell. And I've yet to see anything, and I know there's people out there in the hood talking about the STEMIs and all the checks and the money that came when Trump was in there, passed by Congress, led by Democrats in the House, but Republicans, they plan on cutting everything. So all the people who somehow think checks are going to start raining down on the black community if Trump gets in, they are delusional. Yeah, not only delusional, not only is that not going to happen, but the exact opposite

is going to happen. You're going to see massive disinvestment from the black community. And guess what? This isn't like hyperbole and this isn't conspiracy. It's already happening. Think about like the things that's on like the Republican platform. They're against affirmative action and DEI, right? They, you know, if you weren't clear about that, then certainly the actions over the past couple of weeks in terms of Claudine Gay and all of these attacks that we're seeing on DEI. So they're against affirmative action and DEI. That's what? That's economic. That's actually

dollars in our pocket when you take that away. They're against money for Black farmers. They're against money for HBCUs. They're against increasing the living wage, particularly in cities that are often disproportionately Black. Even when those cities have actually voted for it, they block it, right? That's money in our pockets. It's being taken away. They're against decreasing the price of insulin, even though black communities are disproportionately impacted by diabetes. So that's a health issue, but that's also what? That's an economic issue. Issue after issue, these are economic issues that are impacting our pockets, our quality of life. Yes, our rights, our civil rights, but also like our economic well-being.

And so the kind of disinvestment that you're talking about later for some stimulus checks, which, as you said, he wasn't even for his party was against. And then when he when he couldn't stop it, then he said, oh, well, put my name on it. And then we get, you know, fooled into thinking that that's something that he actually made happen. So the levels of disinvestment that our communities will see, you know, this is not a game. This is not a joke. And that's before we even get into the other issues around civil rights, voting rights, the attacks on black history, the attacks on abortion rights, and all these other issues.

So whether you look at it from the economic perspective or whether you look at it from the social, civil rights, voting rights perspective, another four years of that would be absolutely disastrous. And those who say that, well, we made it through the first four, they don't have an understanding of what—if you put an emboldened Trump, an emboldened Republican Party back in control after everything that they did illegally, after all of the racism,

right, after all of the attacks on our economic well-being, if you put them back in there, it'll be an entirely different ballgame. So, Cliff, what do you say, final question for you, what do you say to these people who go, oh, man, oh, y'all are scared tactics. Y'all just use a scare tactics. You just trying to see the end cape for the dams.

You want to support them. People say that stuff. And I go, oh, no, no, it's not a scare tactic. I'm telling you what the hell is going to happen. Right. I mean, yes, it's not a scare tactic when it's facts. Right. You know, we talk about you got receipts. Right. I mean, yes, it's not a scare tactic when it's facts. Right. You know, we talk about you got receipts. Right. There's actually receipts on all this. So it's not a scare tactic. Now, with that said, I do agree with this. We can't just speak to our people from a from a perspective of how bad things can get. We can't just speak to our people from a from a perspective of just fear and being afraid. We've always got to speak to our communities around, you know, all this is going on and this is what the plan is and this is what they did and this is what they want to do. But guess what? We've got the power to change all that. We've got the power

not just to keep the bad stuff from happening, but for fighting for an entirely different vision of what the society can look like, what our communities could look like, what our communities could look like with investment, with economic opportunities, with history, with education, with all these things, with police accountability. You know, we've got to speak to our folks from a perspective of love and perspective of hope and a perspective of power, not, you know, conceptually, but in terms of like some real substance and some real issues. When we can have those kinds of discussions, then what our history shows is our people respond. But it takes time to have those discussions. It takes work to have those discussions and it takes resources to have those discussions.

And I'll say this here. And we had on the brothers, the co-founder of the Black and Brown summit that did the debate in Iowa. No Republicans are showing up to that. And here's the deal. Republicans don't call black voters madder than to sit down and talk about issues. And so when I hear these people say, well, they're all the same, well, I can tell you this here. You can actually have conversations at the White House with Biden or with Vice President Kamala Harris, Republicans, they don't invite us. And if I got to pull a video up, I will show Black people the crazy Black people they had, like Raynard Jackson and that other nutcase girl out of Atlanta. They have folk at the table who don't know Black folk know or respect. That's right. And at the end of the day, like you said, Roland, you've got to be able to have those discussions. You've got to be able to

disagree with folks sometimes and be able to be in a space with them where you can tell them, look, we disagree. You've got to be in a space with folks where you can tell them, look, you've done some good things, but guess what? We need you to do some more, right? And so that's part of what this process, that's part of what accountability is like. It doesn't mean

that you only support folks that are right 100% of the times, that are with you 100 percent of the time, that you never have disagreements with. But you've got to at least be in discussion so that you can have that accountability, so that you can call them in. I won't say call them out, but to call them in. And when you've got some folks that are running on anti-blackness, you can't have that discussion. But when you've got somebody like this administration, like a vice president that will come and sit down and have that discussion, then you've got a chance to actually use your influence. And we can actually show situations where we've been able, I'm saying we as a movement, have been able to move them on certain things,

where they've actually moved to the left, where they've been more aggressive on some positions, where it came out belatedly, but eventually Biden came out against the filibuster to get voting rights. It took them too long to do it, but you've got to be in discussion to even make that happen. We can't have that discussion with some folks that are literally running on anti-Blackness. So, no, we can't make perfection the enemy of the good.

That doesn't mean that you don't call people in, that you don't hold them accountable, that you don't have some hard discussions. That's a part of what this process is like. Absolutely. Cliff Albright, appreciate it, my brother. All right, appreciate you. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated

itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Dr Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two

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subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Thanks a bunch. Folks, go on to a break. We'll be right back on Roller Mark the Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Next on The Frequency, we're talking black women in fashion. My guest, Renee Wilson, is speaking

on the challenges of starting her own fashion line. So I wanted to really be able to design the clothes, but add a modern twist to it so that we could wear these patterns in everyday wear and not just reserve it for our formal ceremony that's next on the frequency on the black star network this week on the black table with me greg carr reparation is it finally time two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject will join me to try to answer that very question. Powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach,

we're talking about the difficulty of being able to acquire wealth for Black Americans. My guest, Emily Flitter, is the author of The White Wall, How Big Finance is Bankrupting Black Americans. The bad stuff that you feel when you're dealing with the financial services industry is not your fault. It's not your fault and you don't deserve to be treated like this. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from LA. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together.

So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Right now, we're rolling Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. Folks, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says it will spend at least $35 million this election cycle

to persuade and mobilize voters of color to help the party win control of the U.S. House in November. Of course, they are tasked with financing and helping Democrats win House elections. They've dubbed the effort to reach Latino, Black, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian voters as Power the People. The investment includes research and polling, creating multilingual media, and organizing with local leaders. Of course, they will focus on a variety of areas. Let's talk about this with my panel today. Glad to have them. Dr. Mustafa Santago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA out of D.C. Randy Bryant, DEI disruptor, also out of D.C.

Glad to have both of y'all here. All right. So so so here's the deal, Mustafa. We talk about this, obviously, during the midterm elections in 2022. Now we're in 2024. You've got, of course, you've got billions that are spent. In the last election, they said some $9 billion. It's going to exceed easily $10 billion this time. And we're talking about the presidential campaigns, gubernatorial campaigns, congressional campaigns, U.S. Senate campaigns.

We're talking about state races. We're talking about PACs, environmental lobby, the pro-choice, anti-abortion. We can go on and on and on. And the reality is what has historically happened is little dollars have been spent targeting African-Americans, and there's sort of been sort of the same messaging. The reality is you're now in a situation where you have to now micro-target. You're literally out of the city and go, okay, how do we message to voters? Okay, voters 65 plus, they largely who are black, largely identify as Democrat. Once you go 55 and under, that whole

thing changes. And so you're going to have to see a completely different election strategy to get out black voters and other voters. Yeah, without a doubt. You know, we know that, you know, the numbers that you mentioned, you know, the significance of the billions of dollars that go inside of these elections. The question becomes, how are we going to redistribute those dollars to make sure that we're reaching the spaces and places that one need them the most in the people who are living inside of those communities. And unfortunately, in the past, they haven't made the right sets of investments. So now the writing's on the wall. We see the numbers that are out there, you know, for African-Americans, for black folks, you know, that they're beginning to move away or maybe not vote at all. Same thing

with the Latino community, same thing with younger voters. So as you said, you've got to get really targeted. And that means that you've got to be able to make sure that the institutions and the media entities who have the voice of the communities, who are connected with the communities, are actually getting those resources. But you have to take it a step further because you also got to move away from the talking points. You've got to actually get down to the bread and butter issues that folks care about. Right now, folks are worried when they go to the grocery store. So you've got to be able to make sure that the messaging is addressing that.

You've got to make sure the messaging is also addressing people trying to pay the rent. You've got to make sure the people who got to ride the bus or the subway to work. So you've got to make sure that that pinpointed messaging is being done. But you also got to make sure that you're supporting those entities that have the trust of the community and will listen to the community so you can get that message there. You know what, Randy, you have and look, and I've said this before and I'm gonna say it again a lot of these campaigns It looks like corporate America. You've got largely white folks at the top Sprinkle in a few people of color and I've said before if

Democrats if you really want to win you better listen to black people you better employ black people you better fund black people Because at the end of the day, they're going to need every single vote. You've got a fired up right wing base. I don't I don't believe I still don't believe independent voters are going to go for Donald Trump's BS, especially with the stuff that he's been saying. We'll talk about that in a minute. But the bottom line is the investment that has happened before that that investment simply will not work this year. Fat Joe had a comment

when he says yesterday's price ain't today's price. Well, that's the same. They're going to have to spend a hell of a lot more money to get folks out. The old way of reaching black voters, that is gone. You cannot just pop into some churches, go to some civil rights organizations, and there you go. Nope, it ain't going to work. Absolutely agree with you. They need to throw out the old playbook entirely, like burn that thing. And I believe, just like what you said, is that there is no diversity when it comes to reaching diverse people. And that's quite sad. And I'm always shocked at the arrogance that some people think that they know Black people even more than Black people know themselves. And they will very just quickly speak up and say, this is how we need to

reach Black people. Well, how do you really know? Seriously, like what, from what knowledge are you pulling from? They're pulling from the old playbook. And so they need to recognize that we have a base. Our Black people are much more involved in some ways, thanks to social media. We are getting information all of the time. And people oftentimes don't research what they've read. So that's something that they also need to work against some of the misinformation that's going out. And what are the issues that we care about? You know, I get sick and tired of people just assuming that Black people are, they have us in the bag, right? That they can count on us. We are loyal, but we also are interested and engaged and worthy of being attended to, and they have to do it.

So I am hoping that they look at what matters to us this year and get that information from Black people, right? Not from these people that make tons of money that have one Black friend, okay? But they really listen to the pulse of black America and address those specific issues. Like you said, our grocery store prices. And here's the thing that I make plain, Mustafa, when we're talking about the elections. First of all, no political party, no candidate is perfect. But what I do do is and I've never self-identified.

I've never I've never worked for a politician, I've never worked for a campaign, but what I do look at is what are the issues that matter, not just to me personally that will benefit me. Because I could easily sit here and say, oh, if it's just about me, sure. The tax cuts that Donald Trump put through, oh, that helped my business. That helped me personally. That didn't help black people. And so how we make decisions are critical. And when I look at this election and I've said to people, I said, RFK Jr. ain't got a shot. Cornel West ain't got a shot. Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, they ain't got a shot. This election West ain't got a shot. Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, they ain't got a shot. This election, barring anything health-wise or whatever, is likely going to be a repeat of

2020. And it's going to be Biden versus Trump. And I look at how many black judges did Trump appoint? How many black judges did Biden appoint? Money went to HBCUs, health care, education. I could go on and on and on. And so that's how I look at it. I don't get emotional about this. I don't sit here and go crazy about it. But what I do say is that the vote that I cast is not just about me. It's also about the world that I want my nieces and nephews to have. Well, that gets back to if we truly are communal people or not. You know, we often talk about community. But when it comes down to making decisions, folks often aren't thinking in that same concept. So, you know, we have to, as a community, as a people, make sure that we're actually supporting each other.

And through that support means that we are holding folks accountable. So you don't get my vote unless you meet the criteria that I set out for, the things that I think and that I know are important inside of my community. So that has to be a part also of it. You know, we act, we should be acting as a community, but we also got to make sure that, you know, people are honoring us and that they are actually walking through step-by-step what they are going to do for our community. And then we make sure there's real accountability in that process, because if

someone doesn't do that, then we should make sure that we are putting forward other candidates that we do see, you know, value in to make sure that we're supporting them. So for me, you know, Janet Jackson said, what have you done for me lately? When I hear that, I'm thinking, what have you done for my community lately? But also, what are you going to do as we move forward to meet the needs that still exist inside of our community? Yeah. And also, I mean, and how are you going to behave and how you when it comes when it comes to voting, when it comes, I mean, look, Florida right now is even potentially talking about trying to get rid of mail in voting. I mean, what these people want to do is shameful because they know and they've said it publicly.

When more people vote, they lose. They've said it. All right. Hold tight. One second. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be covering on everybody's business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. That idiot Trump was in D.C. today. Wait till you tell you what his lawyer said to the D.C. appellate court.

And also, Trump says, man, can the economy please tank in the next 12 months? Y'all, seriously, this fool said that. And if you even think about voting for that idiot after saying that, you were crazy before. You're nuts now. We'll discuss that more when we come back. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Be sure to support us in what we do. Join the Bring the Funk fan club. So you're checking money to the PO Box 57196 Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. Cash app. Dollar sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal or Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered bmo is rm unfiltered zale roland at roland s martin.com roland at roland martin unfiltered.com we'll be right back

on the next get wealthy with me deborah owens america's wealth coach we're talking about the difficulty of being able to acquire wealth for black Americans. My guest, Emily Flitter is the author of The White Wall, How Big Finance is Bankrupting Black America. The bad stuff that you feel when you're dealing with the financial services industry is not your fault.

It's not your fault. And you don't deserve to be treated like this. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. online training programs designed to put you on the fast track to jobs in high growth fields. No experience is necessary. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers, get on a path to in-demand jobs and connect with top employers who are currently hiring. Take one professional career certificate program or all six. Earn a Google career certificate to prepare for a job in a high growth field like data analytics, project management, UX design, cybersecurity, and more. All professional career certificate programs must be completed by December 31st, 2024.

Scan the QR code to complete the application. There are 1,000 scholarships available. Grow with Google and J-Hood and Associates. Be job ready and qualify for in-demand jobs. Martin. All right, y'all, the thug in chief's attorney stood before D.C. appellate court today arguing that a president could order the assassination of his political rival and could be prosecuted for it. Unless Congress impeached and convicted him first. Y'all, seriously, listen. To assassinate a political rival. That's an official act in order to seal Team Six? He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution. But if he weren't, there would be no criminal prosecution,

no criminal liability for that. Chief Justice's opinion of Marbury against Madison and our Constitution and the plain language of the Impeachment Judgment Clause all clearly presuppose that what the founders were concerned about was not... I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution? If he were impeached and convicted first. So your answer is no? My answer is qualified yes. There is a political process that would have to occur under the structure of our Constitution which would require impeachment and conviction by the Senate. In these exceptional cases,

as the OLC memo itself points out from the Department of Justice, you'd expect a speedy impeachment and conviction. But what the founders were much more worried about than using criminal prosecution to discipline presidents was what James Madison calls in Federalist No. 47, the newfangled and artificial treasons. They were much more concerned about the abuse of the criminal process for political purposes to disable the presidency from factions and political opponents. And of course, that's exactly what we see in this case. I've asked you a series of hypotheticals about criminal actions that could be taken by a president and could be considered official acts. And I've asked you, would such a president be subject to criminal prosecution if he's not impeached or convicted? And your answer, your yes or no answer is no.

I believe I said qualified yes if he's impeached or convicted first. My question was, OK, so he's not impeached or convicted. Let's put that aside. You're saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Sale of military secrets strikes me as something that might not be held to be an official act. The sale of pardons is something that's come up historically and was not prosecuted. Your brief says that communicating with an executive branch agency is an official act, and communicating with a foreign government is an official act. That's what presidents do. That's a very strange situation. That's a very

strange example of potential officials. If you could achieve justice, he said, he said, directly under Article Two section that the courts that the president's official acts are, quote, never examinable by the courts. And he says it like four different times on page 164. as I understand it, if a president is impeached or convicted, impeached and convicted by Congress, then he is subject to criminal prosecution, correct? Yeah, be it necessary, said to change prosecution. Is that a yes? Yes. Okay. So therefore, he's not completely and absolutely immune because under the procedure that you concede, he can be prosecuted if there's an impeachment and conviction by the Senate.

Very, very formidable structural check against the astonishing radical action of prosecuting a former president. But you're conceding that presidents can be criminally prosecuted under certain circumstances. Specifically, if they're impeached and convicted, I think that's the name of the impeachment judgment clause. And isn't that also a concession that a president can be criminally prosecuted for an official act because presidents can be impeached for official acts? Under those unique circumstances. Correct.

But given that you're conceding that presidents can be criminally prosecuted under certain circumstances, doesn't that narrow the issues before us to, can a president be impeached? I'm sorry, can a president be prosecuted without first being impeached and convicted? All of your other arguments seem to fall away. Your separation of powers arguments fall away. Your policy arguments fall away. If you concede that a president can be criminally prosecuted under some circumstances.

I really hope y'all understand that what these fools are actually saying is this man can do whatever the hell he wants to do. You've heard him praise dictators. That's exactly what he wants to do and will do if he gets back to the Oval Office. Alright, so he had an interview last night with the shameful

despicable, used to be sane Lou Dobbs, who now has a new show on the My Pillow Dudes channel. That's called Really Crazy after Lou got fired from Fox Business. Listen to what Trump said when it came to what he wants to happen to a booming economy right now, what he wants to happen in the next 12 months. We have an economy that's incredible.

We have an economy that's so fragile. And the only reason it's running now is it's running off the fumes of what we did, what the Trump administration, it's just running off the fumes. And when there's a crash, I hope it's going to be. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business

Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we'll be covering on everybody's business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that

they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6

on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

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

MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. During this next 12 months, because I don't want to be Herbert Hoover, the one president, I just don't want to be Herbert Hoover. He actually said, man, can this economy please crash in the next 12 months so it doesn't happen when I'm president? Here's what I crack up about Randy. So he talks about how it's running on the fumes of him. Dude, Obama handed you a great economy. You tanked it.

Then, of course, when COVID hit, his reaction was abysmal. We've been digging out of that particular grave. But the fact that anybody would consider, I mean, this is how nutty and crazy the Republican Party has become. This man has mocked John McCain, who had his shoulders and arms broken as a POW. He is saying, I hope the economy tanks. So damn all y'all and your 401 s and your jobs and everything, please tank before I get in there because I don't want to have to deal with it. All of this is disqualifying, but for Republicans,

hey, he's great. He's a maniacal egomaniac, and he only cares about himself. He only cares about himself, and he has always made that clear. And what just continues to boggle my mind is that there are so many people who praise him as he praises himself. He has no regard for America. He doesn't care about this country. He cares about himself. And it is terrifying that they—we have—we're actually having hearings to say, can this

man get away with anything? I mean, that is what they're arguing. And people are not alarmed that this man wants the right to basically do whatever the heck he wants to do and not in any way face any charges. If that doesn't frighten people, I don't know what's wrong with them. I mean, let me tell you something. I would love to have somebody love me the way that people love that man man because it's just blind love. Like he could do whatever and they still care. I mean, just the simple fact that they look at his hair, that should make him done. But when he speaks and he uses that word incredible so much, does he have, I mean, his vocabulary is incredibly limited because incredible is he uses it in every instance.

He just makes me sick. He just makes me absolutely sick. And here's the deal. I mean, and this is why I say Mustafa to any fool who says, yeah, I ain't gonna vote. I don't like what's going on. That's the

fool who Republicans want in huge numbers. And that is a danger to everyone. Well, especially to our folks. You know, we got to make sure, one, that we're reading, and two, that we're looking at the real numbers that are out there. When you have someone who says that they would like to have the economy crash

by something like that. And of course, we know it's our communities. We know that he's not great at fiscal policy. He's not good at economic policy. All you have to do is take a look at the difference between this administration and the former administration. This administration has created significantly more jobs even after coming out of COVID. So, you know, we just got to really get strategic, but we also got to educate

ourselves on these folks who continue to want our vote and just figure out who is it who actually will be more beneficial to our community. Not by any means will they ever be perfect, and we have to continue to push them. But this man would be devastating for our community. If we think that food prices are high now, allow the economy to crash. What do you think is going to happen? If you're having a hard time being able to find a place to live, to either be able to buy a house or even to be able to find an apartment, what do you think is going to happen if the economy crashes? If you're having a difficult time in paying, if you still have student loans

or even sending your kids to a school, then what do you think is going to happen if the economy crashes? So we just need to use our common sense when we're making these decisions. Absolutely. All right, folks, hold tight one second. We'll come back.

Black, our Black and Missing, and we'll talk about Pentagon Secretary, Defense Lord Austin. We now know why he was hospitalized and we'll talk about Pentagon Secretary of Defense Lord Austin. We now know why he was hospitalized. We'll talk about that when we come back. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. This week on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Reparations.

Is it finally time? Two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject will join me to try to answer that very question. Powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on the Black Star Network. Thank you. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard.

Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. This is Essence Atkins. This is Love King of R.B. Raheem Devon. Me, Sherri Sheppard, and you know what you're watching.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Purpose Ward has been missing from his Aurora, Colorado home since December 28th. The 17-year-old is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 165 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Purpose Ward is urged to call the Aurora, Colorado Police Department at 303-627-3100. 303-627-3100, 303-627-3100. You might remember we told you about a new law in California that deals with black and missing. They passed this law as a way to target those African Americans who often come up missing and don't get the level of attention. It's called the Ebony Alert. It's the Ebony Alert.

And ever since it was put into place, it took place January 1st already. One particular teen actually has been discovered as a result of the Ebony Alert. This is from the Fox station in Los Angeles. Give me a second. I'm going to pull up for a second right here. You see where they actually said Ebony Alert leads to recovery of missing Los Angeles girl after airing on Fox 11. And so this is it here. Ben Crump actually had posted this on his Twitter page. And so of course we appreciate California lawmakers

who actually passed that particular law. And again, black women and girls make up 18% of missing cases every single year, despite accounting for only 7% of the population. And it was Stephen Bradford, former state senator, who actually made that possible. And so certainly glad that that took place. Folks, we now know why Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in the hospital. According to a statement from Walter

Reed National Military Medical Center, Austin is being treated for prostate cancer. The statement revealed that the cancer was discovered in early December. Quote as part of Secretary Austin's routinely recommended health screening, he has undergone regular prostate specific antigen surveillance's PCPSA.

Changes in the laboratory evaluation in early December 2023 identified prostate cancer, which required treatment. On December 22nd, after consultation with his medical team, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy to treat and cure prostate cancer. He was under general anesthesia during this procedure. Secretary Austin recovered uneventfully from his surgery and returned home the next morning.

His prostate cancer was detected early and his prognosis is excellent. The statement goes on to describe the complications Austin experienced on New Year's Day that resulted in him being admitted again and placed in the ICU for close monitoring. Now, it wasn't until today that President Biden was aware that General Austin, retired General Austin, had prostate cancer. Mustafa, I want to start with you. I understand, Lord Austin, brother, 70 years old. I understand the desire for privacy. But there is no way in the world you can be the Secretary of Defense and be diagnosed with cancer.

And the president just finds out today. We're going to go with Mustafa in a second. Randy, I'm going to go to you. You know, I'm not that surprised. I believe that within our community, we are very private, more than others, about health matters, particularly black men in our community. If I just even think about the black men in my family,

getting your loved ones to go to the doctor even is a struggle. And I don't know from where that comes. I know there's certainly, you know, some distrust of the medical community as a whole, understandably. So, yes, it's something that we should know. But I'm not surprised that he held that information close to his chest. You know, and again, I mean, I understand all of that, but he ain't me. He's not you. Right, right. Okay, he is arguably,

if you want to talk about important cabinet positions, this is likely number one. I mean, the Secretary of Defense is, The Secretary of Defense is between Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State, you could say it's a toss-up, but I dare say this is one of the two most important positions of any administration. Again, you've got to be more forthcoming.

You've got to have procedures in place. The White House has reminded all cabinet secretaries that there is protocol here. If they are incapacitated, that has to be followed. And again, I understand this desire for privacy. But I think this was a mistake on the part of Secretary Lloyd Austin, a man who I deeply admire, greatly respect. This was a mistake. It was. It was a mistake. And you see when, you know, tragic things happen like that. I'm sure the news took him and his family off guard and set him back a bit. He forgot his he became human, fully human. And so it was a mistake.

I'm hoping now that he very much U-turns and uses this as a teaching moment, particularly for the Black community, since, you know, one in six Black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, you know, which is much higher than one in eight of the majority culture. So I am hoping that he now will take the time to not just make us aware of his diagnoses, but to educate all of us and to ensure that black men become more open about what's happening and go to the doctor and speak about it. And even he could even actually speak about his reticence to share his diagnoses. And that could be a talking point to, you know, move all of us further along.

So hopefully there will be some get back with his fallback. Absolutely. And so, again, I hope, you know, of course, our prayers go to him and his wife as he recovers from prostate cancer as well. And so we certainly appreciate that. Folks, today in Houston, excuse me, in Dallas, Huddersfield, Dallas' Concord Church, to honor former Congresswoman Edna Bernice Johnson. She died on New Year's Eve at the age of 89. She was remembered as the first registered nurse

ever elected to Congress, the first black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas' Veterans Affairs Hospital, and the first black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. She also led the Congressional Black Caucus as chair, but her grandson remembered her as being granny. A few things that I want to share with you guys about my grandmother. I am Dorrance Kirk Johnson II. I am the oldest grandson of Eddie Bernice Johnson,

and I'm so proud to be her oldest grandson. One thing about Granny is that she had a very, very good way of never, ever letting me, David or James, think that we were the favorite grandson. She found a way for all of us somehow to believe that we were the favorite grandson. I'm here to tell y'all now it was me. I want to talk about her influence and the way that she influenced my family and me and the way that we see and think and the way we treat people. And it was just when I was young, everybody would always be so in awe of her. It always felt like they were looking up to her. And when she would come in the room, I'd tighten up. And I was just like, don't y'all understand that that's just granny? She was my grandmother, my granny. And so when I was so young, it did not make sense to me.

But I understand now. I get it now. And so when I was a child, I thought like a child. But I've lived this life and I've seen her through all the things that she's done. I'm not a child anymore. And I can see it. I can feel it. I can taste it and I miss it. And I want it back. So, Granny had a way of being very, she was a disciplinarian, contrary to popular belief. And my Granny never, ever, ever once had to spank me. And if you know me, you know that's crazy.

That's crazy. She never once had to spank me. It was just a look. It was just the thought of just disappointing her was all that I needed. Now, the fact that Granny didn't do spankings, that did not rub off. She didn't pass that down. My kids, I'm sorry. We operate differently. I can't do that. Granny didn't get that to me She took that with her But she had Just the best way of being so fierce

But also so feminine So powerful But yet dainty And she is the pure Pure epitome Of class and elegance. She was a champion of education. She made sure that we always got our books.

It was huge. And she has three grandsons, college graduates. And I know she's proud of that. And she influences my children and my daughters. And she gave my daughters a true role model to look up to. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app,

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

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

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

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

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

It makes it real. Listen does it makes it real listen to new episodes of the war on drugs podcast season two on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content subscribe to lava for good plus on apple podcast Apple Podcasts. I'll wrap up soon. I have a few memories of Granny. Let's mention her driving. I remember Granny used to,

she used to put me in her lap and she would drive. She would drive around the neighborhood. This is back in the 80s, y'all. It was a long time ago. Don't judge her. But she would put me, that was some of my earliest memories as a child. My grandmother would put me in her lap

and she would drive. I remember, I can't tell y all that part but but I did that to my children I'm not gonna lie in the 2000s because granny did it for me so I did it for mine too um some of the memories I have when she would come to our house for Christmas she would come with a trunk load of poinsettias and there would be poinsettias everywhere. And every time I ever see another poinsettia, I would think of my grandmother, but those types of memories,

those things will never leave me. The lessons that she taught us will never leave. They will always be here. They will live on. She has such a maternal instinct that I just, God, I just want to hug her one more time. But her legacy will live on. I see her face in the faces of my children, of my daughters and my sons. The lessons that she has that she's given to my father, who have given them to me and my brothers, those are things that will never leave us. And so as we celebrate her life, as we celebrate all the great things that she's done and all of her accomplishments,

I just want you guys to understand how much she truly, truly, truly meant to this world. And we really, really lost one. She was one of one. There will never be another EBJ. There will never be another EBJ. There will never be another EBJ. We love you, Granny. Folks, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also spoke at today's funeral. Then I had to figure out where I was going

to sit. Because there's no assigned seats in the CBC meeting. But you know, it's like church. You sit in the wrong place and you might have some challenges. So thankfully, I caught a Bernice's eye and she said, sit right down next to me. Young man. And that's exactly what I did for years to come getting the benefit of her wisdom her warmth her welcoming spirit now in that first term the chair of the

CBC she's now our great HUD secretary was Marsha Fudge she said to Stephen Horsford and I I want the two of you to preside over the CBC floor speech that occurs every Monday evening after votes. And so we said yes, we didn't know what we were doing, y'all. But we said yes. And the thing about it is that the CBC floor speeches an hour Monday evening, people all across town, not covered on CNN, not covered on MSNBC, not covered on BET, covered on C-SPAN. And so Stephen and I, we were never quite sure who exactly was paying attention. But we could always count on three people. Stephen's mother, my mother, and Edie Bernice Johnson, our congressional mother. We were thankful for her always there for us as she has been for so many people. Folks, if you want to see the full funeral program,

we live streamed it today on the Black Star Network. Simply go to our YouTube channel, go to our Black Star Network app. You can check it out as well. She will be laid to rest tomorrow at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas. We come back. What's happening with the SWAT? Why are they admonishing Grambling for live streaming their basketball games on a black-owned platform?

My man Scotty Obscript, he'll be next to break it all down for us right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. This week on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Reparation, is it finally time? Two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject will join me to try to answer that very question. Powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on the Black Star Network.

On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, we're talking about the difficulty of being able to acquire wealth for Black Americans. My guest, Emily Flitter, is the author of The White Wall, How Big Finance is Bankrupting Black America. The bad stuff that you feel when you're dealing with the financial services industry is not your fault. It's not your fault and you don't deserve to be treated like this. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster, but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut.

Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right, I don't like the way that I'm being treated, this goes for males and females. Trust your gut, and then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation. Knowing how to grow or when to go, a step-by-step guide on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. It's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. This is your boy, Herb Quaid. And you're tuned in to...

Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Alright, folks, there's drama in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The SWAC, they are trying to crack down on schools, namely Gramley, streaming their basketball games. SWAC Commissioner Dr. Charles McClellan sent this letter to Gramley State University's interim president, Dr. Corrine Walton, informing her that the university will be sanctioned if the school's basketball games are streamed on the black-owned platform HBCU+.

Now, of course, you know we have an arrangement with them, a third-party arrangement when it comes to advertising. So this is the letter right here. They lay out in there that they cannot negotiate any national deals outside of the conference, and the conference has an existing agreement with HBCU Go. My man Skyder, the host of Allscript, he joined us from Atlanta. He broke this thing down yesterday.

Scotty, you really went off. I saw your broadcast and I said, hey, let's get him on to explain this. And so what the hell is going on here? Because there's been a lot of back and forth between the SWAT and Grambling, but also HBCU+. Listen, it's a boiling point that has been, you know, going back and forth, bickering in the arguments. The thing for me is why now, right? Grambling has had this deal for the past two years. You've never sent this letter. You haven't sent any letters about striking them

or taking away their funds or, you know, banishing them from getting distributions from the conference. But now all of a sudden, their head guy, their chancellor, their president, who is a former lawyer, he leaves and goes to the ULS system. They have an interim in place, and then you slide this letter to the interim saying, hey, we need you to stop production with HBCU League Pass on the national platform. No, that's not what it is. That's shady. Okay, so here's what I'm trying to understand here. Watching your broadcast, you said that how can the SWAT conference be attacking HBCU Plus and telling Grambling to stop when you name specific schools that stream their games on Facebook, that stream their games on YouTube.

So if the conference has a deal with HBCU Go and the HBCU Go news where in the HBCU Go news, in the news release, why aren't they streaming all of the games? HBCU Go can't produce every game. If anybody doesn't know what HBCU Go is, they're like Monday Night Football, right? They'll put everything they have into one game. So first of all, HBCU Go is the hbcu platform that byron allen uh purchased from curtis simons go ahead absolutely correct so they have the rights to everything i mean they have the rights to video demand pay-per-view uh broadcast streaming whatever

you name it they have it but they don't have the production to show every game so swag schools still have to do their own production. So you have schools like FAMU that puts their game on Facebook. You have schools like Southern and UAPB, which puts their games behind a third party paywall that are broadcast on internet. You have teams like Alabama A&M and Alabama State who put their, Mississippi Valley State, who put their games on YouTube. So I'm confused. If you're trying to punish Grambling for putting their thing on a national platform, that means every school in the conference has to get punished for putting their games on national platforms.

And if you're telling me YouTube's not a national platform, Roland Martin, you're not on a national platform. I just want to be clear. I just want to be clear. Okay. Now, not only that, not only that, hold on. You also said that Southern and Florida A&M have deals where their games are streamed on other platforms, right? Yeah.

So FAMU streams theirs on Facebook and Southern has a third party platform that has because none of these schools have built their own platforms to where you pay for it. And then, no. So they go out, they get a third party platform that hosts the game for them and they put it behind a paywall. You pay to go watch and it's on the Internet. So they stream it. Jackson State does it. UAPB does it. Prairie View does it. All these schools do it because that's the only way teams or fans and alums will be able to see the game if you listen to the SWAC

and says you can't put your stuff on a national platform because HBCU Go cannot produce all SWAC games. So what do you think is going on here i think that dr mcclellan because i call him a different name on my show so i have to be respectful uh dr mcclellan has a vendetta against hbc league pass and it's because of them signing their secondary rights grambling signing their second secondary rights to hbcu league pass plus so technically hbcu go

has no rights to the streaming rights of grambling so that technically means they don't they shouldn't have a deal in place because i can't make a contract with something that I don't own. And the SWAC does not own Grambling streaming rights. They have, if anybody knows what the Florida state and the ACC thing is because Florida state has a grant of rights. The SWAC does not do that. The SWAC in their bylaws does not have a grant of rights passage in their

bylaws. So technically Grambling owns them and they can do as they see. That's why you see other teams and other schools do the same thing about putting it on YouTube, putting it on Facebook, putting it on any third-party platform that is able to show their game. Well, that's why, I mean, last year, for the longest, the Grambling Prairie View football game has never been broadcast. Well, then all of a sudden, a deal was struck, and the promoter, Al Walsh, allowed the game to be broadcast and streamed.

The SWAC, and again, I read the letter, but when you talk about who negotiates deals, the Grambling Southern game, the Bayou Classic, the SWAC does not negotiate that deal. In fact, Grambling and Southern, people don't even know this, Grambling and Southern pay NBC to air the game. So when the SWAC says that only they can negotiate contracts with national outlets, you don't negotiate the Bayou Classic.

And it's a conference game, bro. Right! It's a SWAG conference game! A conference game! Wait a minute! The Prairie View Ramblin' Game, the State Fair Classic in Dallas, is a conference game! So, once again,

now you're getting into ramificationsifications if you punish grambling for this that means there's a widespread of violations that have to come down over the entire SWAC and you're already in litigation for interfering with the HBCU uh deal. And now you're just adding more fuel to the fire of them to say, you're still interfering with our deal. And they enroll. And the way they responded to the letter, oh, magnifique. I mean, the lawyers for Grambling come back and say, hey, if we're violating something, show us in your bylaws.

Cite your bylaws and tell us what we're doing wrong. And they cc'd all the presidents and chancellors and say, hey, if we also get violated, then all of them should get violations because we're all doing the same thing. Questions from the panel. Mustafa, you first. Yeah. So, Scottyty thanks for everything you do And thanks for bringing this forward So are we moving toward litigation Or do you think that they'll find

Some way of resolving this issue So HBCU League Pass Plus has litigation Against the SWAC currently So they're already in a litigation Battle what they're looking To do going forward is an emergency injunction to say hey judge this is getting worse look at what they're doing

you know we had a deal in place we've been doing this deal for two years and now all of a sudden they want to come down on us on violations of broadcasting when every other school in the swag does it outside of hbcu go so i really think it just adds more fuel to the fire for HBCU League Pass and what they're trying to get accomplished. Randy. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Randy, you're up. There you go. We got you. Okay, yeah. Do you think this is more about money or power? You mentioned a personal vendetta. I am just confused why this infighting is occurring and disappointed as a HBCU graduate. I think it's—a good friend of mine, BJ, his dad said ego plus ego equals zero. And I think it's an ego battle of—there's legal ramifications behind this,

but I do think it's an ego battle because of Grambling telling the SWAC what it can and cannot do, right? You have guys at HBCU League Pass Plus who have ran billion-dollar companies, you know what I'm saying? You have co-founders who have been part of the Warriors, been a part of Ebony, so they understand the media landscape, they understand

what you can and cannot do rights-wise, and they're telling the commissioner, hey, you can't do this, this is not legal, there is no ramp, there's no bylaw that says you can and cannot do rights-wise. And they're telling the commissioner, hey, you can't do this. This is not legal. There is no ramp. There's no bylaw that says you can do this. Right? So I think it's that.

And then you get, if I'm a commissioner in a position that I don't know the media rights, then why am I in this position? Well, I mean, everybody, if you look at the landscape of college football, most commissioners are the focal points of big media deals. So you're telling me, how are you in a position where you don't understand media rights? All right. Well, now, did Grambling's lawyers give the SWAC a few days? You said in your broadcast, they gave him, what, three days to respond? Absolutely. They gave him three days to respond.

That was on January 8th yesterday. I talked to co-founder Hardy Pelt earlier this morning, said no response. So we'll see where it goes from here if Gremlin still decides to show the games or if they're just saying, hey, we'll just take it straight litigation and we'll fight that battle. But this is definitely something to keep an eye on because it could get really bad for the SWAC really quick. All right, folks,

follow Offscript on YouTube, all the social media platforms as well. Check his show out. Scott, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it, Ro. All right, folks, gotta go to break. We come back. We're gonna talk about a class action lawsuit against a former advertiser of this show

that had a cannabis company that SEC has hit them with fraud. We'll explain to you all of that when we come back right here on Rolling Mark, not on the filter of the Black Star Network. Next on The Frequency, we're talking black women in fashion. My guest, Renee Wilson, is speaking on the challenges of starting her own fashion line. So I wanted to really be able to design the clothes, but add a modern twist to it so that we could wear these patterns in everyday wear and not just reserve it for our formal ceremony. That's next on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster,

but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right. I don't like the way that I'm being treated. This goes for males and females. Trust your gut. And then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation. Knowing how to grow or when to go. A step-by-step guide on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network.

Grow your business or career with Grow with Google's wide range of online courses, Thank you. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers, get on a path to in-demand jobs, and connect with top employers who are currently hiring. Take one professional career certificate program or all six. Earn a Google Career Certificate to prepare for a job in a high-growth field like data analytics, project management, UX design cyber security and more all professional career certificate programs must be completed by december 31st 2024 scan the qr code to complete the application there are 1 000 scholarships available grow with google and jay hood and associates be job ready and qualify for in-demand jobs carl payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla!

You ain't got to wear black and gold every damn place, okay? Ooh, I'm an alpha, yay! All right, you're 58 years old. It's over. You are now watching... Roland Martin, unfiltered. Uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable.

All right, folks, if you are a regular watcher of this show and if you are one of the people who invested in transatlantic real estate or 420 real estate, you definitely want to pay attention. A couple of years ago, remember they were advertising with us in 2019. First it was Transatlantic and then 420 Real Estate. There were two separate cannabis projects. Again, they were an advertiser. We didn't have any part of the business. We're not involved in the business. We simply did live reads for this particular company. Well, the SEC a couple of years ago actually charged them with fraud. And so the SEC, this is a lawsuit right here. The SEC hit hit them with.

And this here is the press release that was sent out. SEC charges crowdfunding portal issuer and related individuals for fraudulent offerings. And so they hit the SEC complaint. They targeted Robert Shoemake, lawyer Nicole Birch and Willard Jackson. It says they conducted fraudulent and unregistered crowdfunding offerings through two cannabis and hemp companies, Transatlantic Real Estate LLC and 420 Real Estate LLC. It says the complaints allege that Shoemake and Birch raised $1,020,100 from retail investors

through Transatlantic Real Estate and Shoemake and Jackson raised $888,180 through 420 real estate. It says Shoemake, Birch and Jackson allegedly diverted investor funds for personal use rather than using the funds for the purposes disclosed to investors. They also targeted the crowdfunding portal True Crowd and its CEO, Vincent Petrescu. And so that was the SEC action that was right there. So let me unpack for you how that even began to happen. So it was around January 2020 when I reached out to our accounts payables.

I said, who owes us money? Well, they owed us money for four months. And I said, well, we're not doing any more ads if you still owe us money. And so what then began to happen, I began to ask questions of Robert Shoemake as well as Willard Jackson. Again, there were two different entities, transatlantic as well as 420. And so began to ask them a series of questions. I did not like the answers.

I was getting a run around. I was getting from Shoemake, oh, well, we can pay you with a new campaign for the old campaign. I was like, hell no, ain't gonna be no new campaigns when you still owe for the old campaign. And so this was going,

so this was January, so this was January 2020, and it goes into February, it goes into March, and it goes into April. And so what then began to happen was, and so again, we're sitting here watching this whole thing play out, watching this and not getting answers. And so when I started getting these,

the answers that I was getting, I did not like the answers that I was getting because frankly, they were not making any sense to me. And so I then began to press them further. I began to ask more questions to begin to demand more answers. And as that continued, well, it kept going and going. And then it just simply wasn't making any sense to me. And so I think we got down to, it probably was around May or so. Yeah, it was in May, where, because I was getting text messages from Robert Shoemake, and again, wasn't making sense.

I began to put pieces together. Now here's the whole deal. When you let a journalist start operating as an investigative reporter, then you're gonna have a problem. And so I will never forget, it was like a Thursday, and I'm sitting here looking at these text messages and these emails and I'm like this stuff is not making any sense. And so I then so what then was a Friday night.

I then they had a company called Bungie B-A-N-G-I. They were sort of this parent company. And on the board of Bungie was Matthew Knowles, who was, of course, Matthew Knowles, Beyonce's father, Hill Harper. Ray J was supposedly an advisor. And so I called them. It was like midnight. It's like they had no idea what the hell was going on. Talked to Hill, talked to Ray J.

Matthew called me the next day. Matthew had invested $100,000 into the company. They couldn't account for the funds. And so that weekend, I'm all of a sudden doing research. Then I find out that Nicole Birch, she owned the company and then takes it over. So I track her down and then begin to call her on the phone. So I'm now sensing, you know what? This stinks, but I got to be able to put stuff together. So I then begin to send the emails, go to my iPad. And so this is what you see. So I then begin to put together and I begin to email all these different people and who are on here and I begin to hit them. So as you see, you see right here,

you see, you know, answers or you see Matthew Knowles, you see Hill Harper response. You see me telling Robert Shoemake his answer was 100 percent bullshit. I said, you text me about the shield. You lean on the alpha shield. Now your hands off. This is foul. And I remember all of this. And so I'm hitting all of them. Now I'm being now I'm asking questions. Now you see right here me breaking down. So you see him saying, oh, the people who invest in Transatlantic, they're going to have their money converted to bonji stock and then you see this and then you see him saying nicole birch is the owner and ceo who controls bonji uh she just found the board blah blah blah blah and so then you see me ask these questions who owns bonji who controls bonji is nicole burst the ceo robert what is your former role with the

company uh is neil parson the chairman ceo'd again ask him about these board members. And then he had this other crowd fund, Green Growth. I say, is Nikita McAllister COO of Green Growth? Is she your sister and senior pastor of a church in Rhode Island? I see the Ebony Foundation canceled a cannabis conference for April 27th. How are they related to Bungie? I start going through all of this and begin to put all of these things together. And then you see me right here and I say, Robert and Willard, I am pissed. Not because you owe me $60,000, because you use my platform and viewers to raise money for this crowd fund and clearly aren't answering questions of the folks who have invested. Now I have more questions. I said, I went to marijuana stock.org and scrolled to the

bottom and saw all of the folks who have been trying to get Questions and answered for months about their investment. I just talked to Ray J He said that you showed him a long list of individuals who gave $200 and up to invest These are folks who are viewers black folks hard-working black folks my retired parents invested $200 Ever since we stopped doing ads for January for non-payment You've been trying to get me to do a new crowdfunding campaign. And so I'm hitting, again, all these questions. Well, let me tell you what happened.

And so then what then happens is, so Willard Jackson was, he was one of the owners of Ebony Magazine. Well, then the people owed their debt took over. So Blueprint Capital, Jacob Waltauer, they then began to start looking into the transactions. So basically what was happening is they were seeing that money from this crowd fund was being used to pay Ebony bills. Yeah. So I then began to communicate with Jacob. Jacob and his team alerted the SEC.

So the SEC launched an investigation. I actually testified before them. My email chain basically led to the SEC investigation, which is why I put the entire email chain together. I was not trusting anything I was hearing from Robert Shoemake, Nicole Birch, or Willard Jackson. If y'all have Robert and Willard's photos, put them up. And so I've never met Nicole Birch, but I've talked to her numerous times on the phone. This is the video. Come on, come on, guys. This here is a video of Robert Shoemake, who's out of Detroit and has been involved in all kinds of different stuff as well. And I've had other people who have emailed us wanting information on the investment. I have emailed Robert, Willard, and Nicole demanding that they give these people answers to exactly what is going on.

And so what you have found is that the SEC then came back and hit Willa Jackson, Nicole Birch, and Shoemake with deals where they have to pay up. I'm going to pull up in a second. Now, Shoemake is still fighting it. Nicole Birch and Willa Jackson agreed to pay a significant amount of money. Now, one of our viewers who I've been corresponding with over the last couple of years about this has launched a class action lawsuit. They join us right now. And so Jeff Carter is the founder and CEO of Accounts Receivables and Revenue Cycle Consulting, LLC. He joins us out of California with his attorney, Tony Bell. Jeff, glad to have you and Tony here. And the thing here is this constant runaround, runaround, runaround from all of these, from Robert Shoemake,

from Willard, from Nicole. And the reality is the SEC says they were engaged in fraudulent activity. It was crazy. First of all, thanks for doing this, because I know a lot of us that depend on you for our news to get our stories out. And he comes in and tries to use you as some type of taxi to steal our money. When I first started sniffing around, things didn't make sense. I made a phone call to the to the phone number that they provided and I asked the young lady on the phone I said now that the now that the maturity date has passed are they going to be offered an IPO and with the initial public offering she didn't know what an IPO was that was the

first red flag she then tried to tell me that the maturity date was 18 months, and I corrected her and said, no, according to the paperwork you provided, it's only 12. She said, well, we're going to have somebody give you a call. I waited a day, waited two days, nothing happened. So I started sending emails, and that's when I first reached out to you, Roland, about asking, had you heard of anybody else having these issues? And you let me know that there were a couple people and things just weren't feeling right. And at the time, with so many things that were going on, I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to it. I was in law schools, running a company, taking care of the family and things like that.

But it always stayed in my mind and we started doing more and more research. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one

of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

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

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

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

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for good plus on apple podcast the information you and i discussed well you've seen what the sec has done with it

right and i want to show that right now so uh this is January 3rd, 2022. The SEC obtained a final judgment against Nicole Birch, against CEO Vincent Petrescu, and they hit the judgment that civil penalties of $200,000, $9,700, and $97,500 against Birch, Petrescu, and True Crowd. Discouragement including prejudgment entrance of $600,000 against Birch and $129,000 against True Crowd. Birch is barred to be an officer and a director on a company. They also agreed Birch was permanently suspended from appearing and practicing before the SEC as an attorney.

She prohibits from representing clients in SEC matters, including investigations, litigation, or examinations. Petrescu was suspended from appearing and practicing before the SEC as an accountant, which includes not participating in financial reporting and audits of public companies. Now, they say the SEC's litigation against Shoemake, Jackson, and 420 Real Estate continues. But that was also a settlement there. I'm going to pull up in a second. So Willa Jackson agreed to a settlement,

but Robert Shoemake is still fighting. Jeff, go ahead. So once we found that out, I wanted to take some steps to make the people who invested their hard money, hard-earned money, into this scheme whole again. One of the things that my mother told me when I was young and i always prayed that it wasn't true that you won't always

necessarily have to worry about what the palm colored man will do to you you might have to worry about what the man who looks like you will do all skinfolk and kinfolk, Reese said it, I believe it. Couldn't find an attorney that was willing to take this on because I don't think they really took the time to investigate like we had to find out what was going on. Because there are so many different layers and so many companies and shell companies connected to this that had they taken the time, it would have been okay. Well, I already mentioned that I was in law school, and I had a—we weren't in the same class, but I knew who he was, a brilliant law student who was later then brought on to the faculty for that school and has now opened up his own firm. And when I approached him, I was thinking, okay, I'm going to get turned down. But a part of me knew that I was led to him for a reason. He was also a pastor.

He may also still be a pastor. Tony, correct me if I'm wrong. And the name of his firm to me is Providence because it's exactly what we're trying to do. We are trying to take this bad situation and make those who took advantage of us pay for what they did. I don't know the ins and outs of how Tony's going to do it. I just know that when he agreed to take the case, it was a weight off my shoulder, and I was thinking, okay, this is great. That's when I then got a hold of you, Roland, so we could announce it once we got everything set up. So, Tony, if you want to, you know. Right. I'm going to go, Tony, a second. And see. So here's the thing that pissed me off.

What pissed me off was and I said to Robert, I said to Willard, I said to Nicole, I said, how dare y'all do this to black people? I said, how dare black people? do this to black people? I said, how dare black people, and it's in all the emails, and I made it clear, I'm going to get all of you. I said, we're going to expose all of you. That's why I began to put the email chain together. I've had people in the last couple of years email me saying, hey, what happened to those guys, what's going on?

And I was, I literally have said, no, no, put the emails. No, this is their email. This is their phone number. Call them. And so it was this constant, this game where, oh, let's do Transatlantic Real Estate. Let's do 420 Real Estate. Let's do Green Growth. Had the same CEO.

It was all BS. Now, Shoemake says that, oh, I wasn't involved as an officer or anything along those lines. I was just doing marketing. 420 was Willard Jackson. Nicole Birch, Transit Clinic was her company. I said, yeah, but you're the one who was tied to all of this as well. And that was just two days ago texting him because another woman has been demanding answers. And the thing here, Tony, is that all this sort of back and forth, the SEC lays it out.

The SEC lays out the fraud that was involved. And so, and the other reason why I wanted to create the paper trail was because I knew if the SEC hit them with judgments, then they will be collecting the money and there will be a way for folks to be able to get their money back. Well, you know, Roland, I spoke with the SEC about this in particular, and it's great, the groundwork that they placed. They laid a strong foundation of informing the public of exactly what these guys were doing, and they even got some orders. According to the SEC, they haven't seen very much of that money paid to them. And they also made it clear that the money that is coming in from the disgorgements is not necessarily going to

be seen by the victims. That money is going to go to pay some fines and things at the SEC. And then they said if there's anything that is left over, then at that point they're going to see about how to get money to the people. And so this is what is so offensive to me, because here we have a couple thousand families who have worked so hard to try to overcome financial barriers and to try to create a legacy for their families in this society that is so repressive of black and brown families.

And so these people have worked hard. They get together some money, maybe a few hundred dollars, and then they decide, well, we are going to invest just a little bit so that we can hopefully create a better future for our families. Yeah, because because because their whole it was their whole deal. We're going to use this money to buy to buy land, cannabis projects. And then eventually take these companies public. Folks will be able to own stock. It was all this sort of back and forth. And again, again, when the lies, it was just lies.

The tipping point literally was this here. The tipping point was when Robert's shoemake tried to get me to start doing a third crowd fund to pay what he owed from the second crowd fund. And I was like, you are out of your damn mind. I mean, I could show you all the text messages. Well, I cussed his ass out. But I was like, ain't no way your damn mind. I mean, I could show you all the text messages. Well, I cussed his ass out. I was like, ain't no way in the hell that's going to happen.

And then it was this all. And then that's when the whole deal was there's this other company, Green Growth. And he sends me to about a get on a call with a COO. I find out that's his sister. It was all kind of BS. And that's when I said, I'm going to bust all y'all asses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Because it's not fair to the thousands of families. You know, they were trying to just do something good, and these guys are the ones who victimize them even more when they should have been the ones who are supporting. So that's exactly why we're starting this class action. One, because a lot of the disgorgements from the SEC,

if they even receive that money, is not going to be seen by these families. And it's only fair that these families get recompensed for the damages that they've experienced. So if there's somebody out there who's watching and listening and they were part of this, how do they, they want to be a part of this class action lawsuit, what must they do? Yes, we encourage you to call 888-680-8322, or they can go to www.420relawsuit.com. Again, it's 888-680-8322 or www.420relawsuit.com. And just so folks, again, if you go to my iPad, this is the SEC lawsuit.

It says Shoemake and Birch offered and sold securities of Transatlantic Real Estate from September 2018 through May 2019. Shoemake and Willard Jackson offered and sold securities of 420 Real Estate from May 2019 through June 2020. It says right here, Shoemake was the driving force behind both offerings, but he kept his participation secret in order to hide a past criminal conviction arising from a mortgage fraud scheme. Shoemake convinced Birch to act as the chief executive officer and sole member of transatlantic real estate and convinced Jackson to act in the same roles for 420. And so it lays out here how they did it.

And it says they diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the offerings proceeds for their personal benefit. None of the money raised in either offering was used to acquire or improve cannabis real estate. None of the investors in either crowdfunding offering has received any return on their investment. And few investors have recovered any of the funds that they invested. And so I made it clear. And so for folks to understand, again, this was all a buildup. It was going for the SEC, testifying, putting all this stuff together. But I knew when they kept lying to me in early 2021, and when I began

to put that email chain together, and what was fascinating, all these fools were actually answering. And so I start linking the paymaster. I literally went through all the board members and started adding their emails. And like, if y'all, I'm telling you, if y'all see this here, it was hilarious as I was just going through. And I'm talking about this was an entire weekend. They pissed me off so much. I was hitting them the entire weekend and even to the point of who the paymaster was. And then he responded. Then that was a guy who shoemake claim dip that did an audit of their books. And the guy was like, no, I wouldn't even accept their packages uh this thing went on and on and on just laid it out uh in in like like you you might see

in here folks uh you might see uh in here uh where go to my ipad where I sat here and said uh parses I searched parses name on twitter came across one of your shareholders. She goes by the name of Magika Alpha. She's been asking a number of questions. It's documented from October 19, 2019. Listed Nicole Burch as the CEO of Bungie. I said then that was an investor call on February 6, 2020. Parsons mentioned the $15 million offering needs to be approved by the SEC. Listed all this sort of stuff.

Well, we now know Nicole Birch, who I talked to directly, who was like, Roland, these people are going to get their money back. Nicole, you lied. Nicole Birch, you're a liar. Now, here's the deal. I can't show her face because I've never met her. And so I don't know if the photo that we have of Nicole Birch, B-I-R-C-H, is correct, but I made it perfectly clear I was going to out her trifling ass. Showed a video again of Robert Shoemake. And yes, Robert Shoemake is an alpha. He can absolutely go to hell too. And so I said I'm going to call him out as well and put him out there.

Showed a photo of Willard Jackson. Pull up Willard's photo. Willard, of course, ran Ebony Magazine. And we dealt with Willard again. And like I said, Matthew Knowles was on the board. They took $100,000 of Matthew Knowles' money, and Matthew Knowles never got that money back. And so this here is Willard Jackson. And so I've made it clear.

I've made it clear to all of them that I was going to do this story. And they were like, oh, they've been trying. Oh, man, you know, don't go there yet. No. The reality is y'all screwed black people. And again, Birch and Willard Jackson have settled. Shoemake is still fighting claims that all charges were dismissed. Jeff, you say that's not true? No, it's not true. As a matter of fact, the SEC has plans on the PACER website, which is public access to court electronic records. They show it, and Roland, if you have it, I sent a few in a text that they have future dates set up for appearances. They already have a date scheduled for the trial in 2025.

So if he thinks that this is somehow dismissed, he must be smoking what he was supposed to be growing. And he not only messed with your company, what was it, the 420 Real Estate lady in Colorado? Yeah, yeah. So that was the same name of the company. And matter of fact, she had sent me an email. And I was like, you need to hit them folks. Yep. And what was it?

He told, he sent you a response to my request for money that, oh, well, have him call this number. Well, I responded that the number didn't work. Then he says provide his banking information and I'll give him a refund. I'm thinking you must really be smoking that really good kush because if you think I'm giving you my bank account information, you're the damn fool. You done already ripped me off, several thousand other brothers and sisters off who are just trying to get into a space where we can generate some generational wealth, and you want me to do this? No. Enough was enough.

Tony was good enough to come in and say, I want to come on board. I think this is a good cause. I think we can help a whole lot of people and make these people actually pay. Now, Shoemake also has another lawsuit out there. The viewers may have seen that flag he was flying a few moments ago, something about a church. He's been sued by the city of Detroit. They locked his church. His sacraments are psychedelic mushrooms.

Yeah, he's now calling himself a shamu? Yeah, yeah. He's supposedly a shaman now. And his name was Jaffa, Samuel Jaffa or something like that. Look, I don't know what type of child. Yeah, Shimon Bobby Shue. Yeah, okay. And he's actually following me on Instagram.

You're not going to get a follow back. He needs to go back. We need to go back to old school. He needed ass work. I mean, with a racetrack, with an ironing cord, something. Because this boy is just completely out of pocket. And I do believe that the way Tony's

going to be taking this, that there will be some recompense for people who were actually harmed. This won't be one of those things where, you know, you sign up for it and you're forgotten. That's not going to happen. We've been tracking this thing since, like Roland said, 2019. We're not going to happen. We've been tracking this thing since, like Roland said, 2019. We're not going to stop until this comes to a resolution that everybody can live with.

All right. Tony, again, if folks want to want to be a part of the class action lawsuit, what do they call? Eight eight eight six eight zero eight three two two. So eight eight eight six eight zero eight three two two. 8322. So 888-680- 8322. All right, gentlemen, we appreciate it. And keep us abreast of the class action lawsuit. Thank you so much, Roland. Appreciate it. Y'all be good. Thanks.

All right, folks, I'll be right back on Roland Martin unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. jackie just who do you think you are and maybe more importantly who is it that you think you're a lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways three or four days a week i would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on

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And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Before I go to Mustafa and Randy, go to my iPad. This here, y'all, this is the SEC obtaining a final judgment against Willard Jackson and 420 Real Estate. You see here it says without, you said, they filed this against Shoemake and Jackson. Alleged that they raised $888,180 from retail investors through 420 Real Estate.

Shoemake with assistance from Jackson, hid his involvement in the offering. They accused them of diverting investor funds. Now without admitting or denying the allegation of the complaint, Jackson and 420 Real Estate consented to the entry of final judgments, permanently enjoining them from violating the registration provisions. Jackson agreed to a civil penalty of $360,000, disgorgement,

including prejudgment, interest of $306,913, and $477,000 against 420 Real Estate, as well as them. So they obtained, it says the SEC previously obtained final judgments against defendants True Crowd, Vincent Petrescu and Nicole Birch. The SEC litigation continues against Robert Shoemake. See, this is, and again, just so y'all know, and I made it clear to them, I was going to show y'all, okay? This is Willard Jackson. I know Willard from Houston.

He used to, he was with the company when they ran Ebony Magazine. And Willard needs to do right by black people because they screwed over black people when it came to this money. Show Robert Shoemake. Robert, I've told you directly, even as of two days ago, y'all need to do right by black people and stop playing games with black people. And y'all need to sit here and uh pay them money that y'all actually uh uh you know how y'all abuse black people and that's what really pisses me the most off here uh mustafa uh these were black people who they were targeting and these are black people who did it and shame on them yeah no i'm right there with you i mean we know how difficult it is in our communities to be able to build wealth, build generational wealth, to have our own, you know, defrauding folks inside of our community is just unacceptable.

And, you know, I hope that the full letter of the law plays out. I hope that everybody who invested gets their money back. And I hope that this also doesn't put a bad taste in people's mouth about making investments. You know, we have to do our due diligence to the best of our ability when researching companies or, you know, future opportunities. But, you know, we just also got to do a better job of loving each other. We should never, ever, you know, do anything to hurt Black people. We know all the hurdles that already exist. So, you know, let's just continue to do what we can to make sure that those who love our community, that we lift them up. And for those who don't, that we hold them accountable.

You know, Randy, I sat here and I talked to Nicole Birch numerous times and she kept saying how, oh, she's going to make sure people get their money back or whatever. And she kept putting the blame on him. I'm like, yeah, but your name on all these documents, your name is on here. And the SEC says that you use money for personal gain. So my whole deal is I don't want to hear shit from Nicole Birch, from Robert Shoemake, from Willa Jackson. You screw black people. You should be paying them back.

And what you did is you leave a sour taste because yeah, it's already hard. We talk about it's hard trusting black folks and doing business with the black folks. And again, for us, when advertisers come to us, people who have products and things along those lines, you won't be able to trust that. Again, we don't have any control over any product. So even if somebody takes an ad out, look, that's a company I bought that black on. But I bought some shoes from I love the shoes. Look, I've been waiting for three pairs since October. They damn they're gone belly up. It's out of Canada. I've been emailing some other people who've done stories on them. And so, unfortunately, these things happen. But again, what pisses me off with Nicole Burke, Robert Shoemaker, Willa Jackson, they did it to black people. Right. Well, I first have to say, you know,

there is a revered Negro proverb that says, you don't mess with the wrong one. And they messed with the wrong one, Roland, when they dealt with you and tried to get over you. So I'm very thankful that you are, you know, watching this and bringing it to light because, you know, I can't, I'm with you. I'm absolutely thankful that you are watching this and bringing it to light, because I'm with you.

I'm absolutely disgusted that anybody who would take advantage of Black people, particularly as we try to build generational wealth and take risks that we're oftentimes not comfortable with taking. We already live in a situation where we don't trust many around us. We really need to trust our own. So I am glad it sounds like they're going to get their due, that due justice is going to come through. And I really appreciate that you cared enough to bring this to light to everybody and you cared enough to keep going on and pursuing what was happening.

So, you know, bravo to that. We're going to call you Roland Matlock. Oh, I'm telling you. When Robert kept lying and they kept lying, I was like, hold up. I'm like, I'm telling you, I'll never forget. It was like a Thursday and Friday night. And I was like, you know what? Y'all really pissing me off.

And I'm tired of this lying. And so I grabbed my laptop. I grabbed my laptop. And I started laptop and I started and I'm telling you I shoot They talk about go down a rabbit hole or I went down a rabbit hole and I was pulling Everybody up and I started adding folks to the emails and I knew I'm telling you I knew as I was doing it I knew and I said it. I said, you know what, I think this is fraud. And I said, and the only way to deal with fraud is I gotta create a paper trail.

And so that's where I started, so that whole email chain, and I'm telling you, in fact, one of my lawyers, when we testified for the SEC, we were preparing, he said, he used to work for the SEC, he said, shit, I wish you were one of my investigators He said when I saw that email chain, he was like damn you went after Everybody because I wanted everybody on record and the crazy thing is they were all talking So the SEC was able to use their actual words against them to get this judgment.

So, yeah, and I ain't done. And I'm going to keep pressing, and I'm telling you right now, don't let me cross any of these people publicly. I'm just letting y'all know right now, if y'all don't like curse words, go ahead and keep moving, because I'm going to cuss them smooth the hell out, all three of them. All three of them. I'm just letting them know right now. If they see me, just go to the other side of the room, cross the street, but don't even come say hi because I'm telling you, it ain't going to go well.

Do us a favor and film it. Hey, I don't know if we can film that thing, but they going to get lit. And I'm just not playing this game with them. And like I say, and Will is like, well, I know that was right. Now, damn all that. I saw. I pulled the document of the paymaster and how funds were going in and out of the account I pulled those documents they had the wrong one you can't lie to me you can't lie to me I You can't lie to me. I don't want to hear it. So they busted. And so what we're going to do is we're going to actually create a graphic and we'll do that. So any of we'll remind folks if they want to participate in the class action lawsuit, what phone number to call.

I had other stuff I wanted to get to. I can't get. I was going to talk about that again Ignataz, Elise Stefanik, calling January 6th folks hostages. I had to get another day. So we're out of time. But Randy Mustafa, I so appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Folks, that is it for us. Don't forget

us. You want to support us in what we do. Look, we out here trying to do what's right for our people, covering the stories that matter. But if you do, if you out here screwing black people and you're talking down on black people and doing wrong, we gonna bust you out. I got another story that I'm working on

about a lawyer who's getting a lot of money off of a settlement, but has some foul stuff to say about black folks on a podcast. So I'll let you know when I roll out with that story. But trust me, we're working on that as we speak. And let you know when I roll out with that story. But trust me, that's we're working on that as we speak. And so be sure to check us out. All right, folks, you want to join our Bring the Fuck fan club. See your checking money. Order the P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C.

20037-0196. Cash Chapters, Dallas Sound, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zayo, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartin unfiltered vmo is rm unfiltered zeo rolling at rolling s martin.com rolling that rolling martin unfiltered.com you also of course can download the blackstar network app apple phone android phone apple tv android tv roku amazon fire tv xbox one samsung smart tv and be sure to of course watch our 24-hour streaming channel on Plex TV, on Amazon Freebie, on Prime Video. You can also watch us on Amazon News. Go to Amazon Fire and check it out. All right, folks.

I'll see you tomorrow right here on Rolling Button Unfiltered. Holla! Live Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. I thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal.

See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You can't be black on media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

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

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart podcast.