May 2, 2024 • 16 mins
Updates on the Trump Hush money trial and more are covered on today's midweek memo
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A man who needs no introduction. The Black Information Network
is committed to bringing you up to the date news
stories that are relevant, informative, and inspiring. And while news
stories are always being updated and others are breaking, we
understand that you need to be in the know all
week long. Welcome to your midweek memo on the Black
(00:20):
Information Network Daily Podcast with me your host, Rams's Job
All Right? First up from CNN New York. Judge Juan
Mrchan has fined former President Donald Trump for repeatedly violating
the gag order in the hush money trial. Urchan ruled
Trump violated the gag order nine times for criticizing expected
(00:43):
trial witnesses and post on social media and his campaign page.
Trump must pay the nine thousand dollars fine by the
end of the week. Ur Chan also threatened incarceration if
Trump willfully violates the gag order again, writing in his ruling, therefore,
defendant is hereby I warned that the Court will not
tolerate continued wilful violations of its lawful orders, and that,
(01:05):
if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose
an incarceratory punishment. Trump did not visibly react, as the
judge was reading his decision in court, Trump on Tuesday
afternoon removed seven of the offending posts from truth Social
and the two offending posts from his campaign website, as
(01:26):
Merchant ordered. So this is not nothing. Rarely have we
seen Donald Trump bow to, indeed heed, the gravity of
his circumstances. He has often moved through time and space
(01:50):
as though consequences weren't a real thing. And now that
he's deleted these posts, it's almost as if he's taking
this seriously. Now a little bit of background, prosecutors brought
ten apparent violations forward, and as we mentioned, Trump was
(02:10):
held responsible for nine of those and is now ordered
to pay a nine thousand dollars fine. He's also refrained
from reposting other people's comments that violate this gag order,
as the judge referred to them as endorsements. In other words,
(02:30):
even if it's not original content that Donald Trump is posting,
if it violates the gag order, and he reposts the content,
that will also qualify as a violation. And so there
are some carbouts, there are some exceptions. If he's attacked
by you know, political opponents things like this. You know,
(02:52):
he's got a fine line to walk. But this is
what normal people could expect, you know, a fine and
you know, the next level up would be something like,
you know, a short incarceration period or something like that.
And until now we haven't seen Donald Trump have to
(03:16):
really listen to anything like that, you know, I mean,
he has, but nothing that's so direct like this that
I that I can recall. So here's hoping that everyone
keeps that same energy moving forward. I don't think that
this judge is being unfair or unkind. He's you know,
(03:37):
a judge and there's a certain order that needs to
be kept in a courtroom. Unkind would be the judge
not allowing Trump to go to his son's graduation for
no reason. The judge has determined that it's fine if
Trump goes to a son's graduation, they won't have trial
on that day. It's it's fine. But you know, until now,
(04:01):
Trump has been suggesting or alluding to the fact that
the judge won't let him go, and the judge said, wait,
we'll see, and as it turned out, there was nothing
to see here. So again, I don't think there's anything
wrong here with the trial. A lot of people on
the right, especially are considering this like a sort of
a witch hunt in a kangaroo court, but it seems
(04:25):
as fair as it can given the circumstances. And this action,
this find certainly has has suggested to me at least
that Trump has now starting to heed the gravity of
his actions. Not only does he have to pay this fine,
(04:46):
which let's be honest, isn't a big deal, but he
removed the posts and now he's aware that if he
violates again, the consequences will be increased up to an
including jail time. We'll see what happens next, but that's
the latest on that. Up next from the Black Information Network,
and investigation is underway after a black activists discovered a
(05:09):
noose and a racist letter inside her mailbox this week.
Doctor Candace Matthews, the state chair of the Texas Coalition
of Black Democrats, found the disturbing content Sunday morning at
her Houston home. According to KHOU eleven, Matthews believes this
has something to do with her work as well, since
she's also a provider with the Texas Department of Health
(05:29):
and Human Services and has a contract with the Department
of Family Protective Services with her child placing agency. Quote
Doctor Candace Matthews stay out of our business with DFPS
and HHSC inward. If you don't, we will use this
rope and drag you like James Byrd on the quote,
(05:50):
and the letter goes on to say, quote fu inward
and inward providers. You have been warned inWORD. James Burr
Junior was a black man brutally killed by three white
men dragging his body with a pickup truck in June
of nineteen ninety eight. The killers, two of whom were
self proclaimed white supremacists, dumped his corpse in front of
(06:11):
a black church in Jasper, Texas. Matthews called the police
and the Harris County Sheriff's Office detectives collected the threatening
letter and noose as evidence. While the motive has been determined,
the activist offers a potential clue quote, I've been exposing,
doing expose as HSC and DFPS for over a month
and a half in reference to dealing with crimes against children,
(06:33):
and how I was able to find out about it
was because the children were reaching out to me bio
social media and moving on. Despite the incident upsetting her
and her family, Matthews told reporters she'll continue advocating for
civil rights. Now, this is obviously a very upsetting article,
(06:56):
But the truth is that these sorts of things, obviously
they come across our desk all the time, and this
really wouldn't be headline news for a show like this
except for the fact that, also from the Black Information Network.
On Tuesday, April twenty third, our Cola, Texas mayor Fred
(07:17):
Burton was sent a package containing a noose and a
note warning him to cancel his reelection bid per people.
The Arcola Police Department shared images of the package on
social media. Quote, get out of the race now unquote.
A type letter reads letter arrived with a noose in
an envelope addressed to Burton. So you know, if it
(07:42):
happens once, you know, again, these sorts of things happen
from time to time, But if it happens twice in
the same week, and this obviously isn't you know the
extent of these nooses and letters, But so close back
(08:02):
to back, I'm starting to suspect that the racists are
becoming bolder and bolder as the upcoming election draws closer.
So at this point, host a Trump presidency out loud
(08:27):
racists are more insulated than they've been in recent memory,
perhaps in my lifetime, we've always known that the people
in power insulate racists, but generally speaking, there was a
(08:50):
modicum of common public decency and people were afraid of
the repercussions of getting found out to be racists. And
I think that some of that decency, that moral standard
has eroded during the Trump presidency and since then. Trump
(09:14):
ism and politics, I believe has had a direct effect
on these types of actions and behaviors. A great comparison is,
you know, we've been obviously watching the protests on college
campuses around the country very closely, actually been to a
couple of them, and you'll notice that there are counter
(09:41):
protesters or people just demonstrating, and they're from far right groups,
racist groups, Nazis, white supremacists, you name it. And they
will march and they will whatever, and either there will
be no police presence at all, perhaps because they're participating
(10:05):
in the marches, or the police will stand idly by
and allow them to demonstrate. And when you look at
sort of social justice protesters, you know BLM protesters, more
recently the Palestine protesters, you see police engagement and police
(10:28):
escalation quite a bit. You see people getting arrested, and
you think to yourself, why aren't they arresting these neo
Nazis and these other people, Why aren't they picking on
them and instigating and antagonizing them and provoking them the
way that they do these other protesters. And then you
start to think of the connection between the police and
(10:50):
the far right, indeed, the police and the Israeli defense
for us. Many of you may know that a lot
of police in this country are trained in Israel how
to suppress black and brown bodies, and then they do
a great job of it. So this is the fight
that I fight, and at present, the fight looks like
(11:13):
sharing these stories of these nooses being mailed to these
high profile black individuals around the country. So some food
for thought. This is your midweek memo on the Black
Information Network Daily podcast with me your host ramses Ja.
(11:34):
All right, next up from the Root King Kendrick kung
Fu Kenny k Dot Kendrick Lamar, the boogeyman of hip hop,
took time out of his Tuesday morning to respond to
Drake in a scathing disc track where he attacks the
Toronto MC's entire persona. No lead up, no teasing, no rollout,
Lamar simply dropped a link on X and let fans
(11:54):
enjoy it. The track, titled Euphoria, is more than six
minutes long and sees a Lamar attack the boy with
multiple verses, lines, Simile's metaphors, and everything in between. So yeah,
Kendrick's response to Drake dropped and I heard it more
(12:15):
than once. And you know what, I like to be
honest whenever I have a microphone. I like to be
honest in general, and honesty sometimes require you to update
your position on things. You know, We're all humans. We grow,
(12:38):
we get new information, the information shapes our vantage point
and so forth. So what I will say is that
I now have to retract at least part of my
previous statement about hip hop battles. For those that caught
(12:59):
the episode that I did with q Ward where we
were discussing j Cole's sort of bowing out of this battle,
you will know that I am not the biggest fan
of hip hop battles anymore, and I'm going to have
to retract at least a part of that. I still
(13:21):
overwhelmingly feel the same way, but there's a small part
of me that has to seed that I did listen
to this this recent track multiple times, and there's there's
some elements that might be good. Perhaps one day I'll
(13:42):
do a one More Thing installment. Of course, i'd have
quback on the show and we'd kind of hash it
out together, because that's my partner in rhyme, so to speak.
But I'm not going to say too much else about this.
But you know, if you want to listen to the song,
it's called Euphoria, and you know I listened on. I mean,
(14:04):
you could listen to it anywhere, so it doesn't really matter.
But you know, if you're into this sort of thing,
check it out. I don't think you'd be disappointed. And
last up from The Guardian last Tuesday, Portugal's President Marcelo
Rebello de Souza said the country quote takes full responsibility
quote for the wrongs of the past, and that the
country's crimes, including colonial massacres, had costs. Quote. We have
(14:28):
to pay the costs, he said. Are there actions that
were not punished and those responsible were not arrested. Are
there goods that were looted and not returned? Let's see
how we can repair this. On Saturday, Rebello de Suza
said reparations could be made by canceling the debts of
former colonies or introducing credit lines, financial packages or special
(14:51):
cooperation programs. Quote, we cannot put this under the carpet
or in a drawer. We have an obligation to pilot
to lead this now. He said, the country had to
take responsibility for the bad and the good of what
happened in the empire and draw consequences. And the reason
(15:11):
we're talking about this today is because Portugal's new center
right coalition government said in a statement to the Portuguese
news agency LUSA that it wanted to quote deep in
mutual relations, respect for historical truth, and increasingly intense and
close cooperation based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples. In
(15:34):
other words, reparations is a bridge too far or the
rest of the government. But I suspect that this president
is going to keep fighting for something that qualifies as reparations.
And even if nothing happens, there a prominent figure from
(15:59):
a country it had such a historical role in the
Transatlantic slave trade stepping up and making a statement like this,
I think is a win for those who push for
reparations around the globe. And that's not nothing. So We're
(16:20):
going to leave that right there. Don't forget. These and
other stories can be found to vidnews dot com. This
has been a production of the Black Information Network. Today's
show is produced by Chris Thompson. Have some thoughts you'd
like to share, use the red microphone talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app. While you're there, be sure to hit
subscribe and download all of our episodes. I am your host,
(16:41):
Ramse's Jaw on all social media and join us tomorrow
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
A man who needs no introduction. The Black Information Network
is committed to bringing you up to the date news
stories that are relevant, informative, and inspiring. And while news
stories are always being updated and others are breaking, we
understand that you need to be in the know all
week long. Welcome to your midweek memo on the Black
(00:20):
Information Network Daily Podcast with me your host, Rams's Job
All Right? First up from CNN New York. Judge Juan
Mrchan has fined former President Donald Trump for repeatedly violating
the gag order in the hush money trial. Urchan ruled
Trump violated the gag order nine times for criticizing expected
(00:43):
trial witnesses and post on social media and his campaign page.
Trump must pay the nine thousand dollars fine by the
end of the week. Ur Chan also threatened incarceration if
Trump willfully violates the gag order again, writing in his ruling, therefore,
defendant is hereby I warned that the Court will not
tolerate continued wilful violations of its lawful orders, and that,
(01:05):
if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose
an incarceratory punishment. Trump did not visibly react, as the
judge was reading his decision in court, Trump on Tuesday
afternoon removed seven of the offending posts from truth Social
and the two offending posts from his campaign website, as
(01:26):
Merchant ordered. So this is not nothing. Rarely have we
seen Donald Trump bow to, indeed heed, the gravity of
his circumstances. He has often moved through time and space
(01:50):
as though consequences weren't a real thing. And now that
he's deleted these posts, it's almost as if he's taking
this seriously. Now a little bit of background, prosecutors brought
ten apparent violations forward, and as we mentioned, Trump was
(02:10):
held responsible for nine of those and is now ordered
to pay a nine thousand dollars fine. He's also refrained
from reposting other people's comments that violate this gag order,
as the judge referred to them as endorsements. In other words,
(02:30):
even if it's not original content that Donald Trump is posting,
if it violates the gag order, and he reposts the content,
that will also qualify as a violation. And so there
are some carbouts, there are some exceptions. If he's attacked
by you know, political opponents things like this. You know,
(02:52):
he's got a fine line to walk. But this is
what normal people could expect, you know, a fine and
you know, the next level up would be something like,
you know, a short incarceration period or something like that.
And until now we haven't seen Donald Trump have to
(03:16):
really listen to anything like that, you know, I mean,
he has, but nothing that's so direct like this that
I that I can recall. So here's hoping that everyone
keeps that same energy moving forward. I don't think that
this judge is being unfair or unkind. He's you know,
(03:37):
a judge and there's a certain order that needs to
be kept in a courtroom. Unkind would be the judge
not allowing Trump to go to his son's graduation for
no reason. The judge has determined that it's fine if
Trump goes to a son's graduation, they won't have trial
on that day. It's it's fine. But you know, until now,
(04:01):
Trump has been suggesting or alluding to the fact that
the judge won't let him go, and the judge said, wait,
we'll see, and as it turned out, there was nothing
to see here. So again, I don't think there's anything
wrong here with the trial. A lot of people on
the right, especially are considering this like a sort of
a witch hunt in a kangaroo court, but it seems
(04:25):
as fair as it can given the circumstances. And this action,
this find certainly has has suggested to me at least
that Trump has now starting to heed the gravity of
his actions. Not only does he have to pay this fine,
(04:46):
which let's be honest, isn't a big deal, but he
removed the posts and now he's aware that if he
violates again, the consequences will be increased up to an
including jail time. We'll see what happens next, but that's
the latest on that. Up next from the Black Information Network,
and investigation is underway after a black activists discovered a
(05:09):
noose and a racist letter inside her mailbox this week.
Doctor Candace Matthews, the state chair of the Texas Coalition
of Black Democrats, found the disturbing content Sunday morning at
her Houston home. According to KHOU eleven, Matthews believes this
has something to do with her work as well, since
she's also a provider with the Texas Department of Health
(05:29):
and Human Services and has a contract with the Department
of Family Protective Services with her child placing agency. Quote
Doctor Candace Matthews stay out of our business with DFPS
and HHSC inward. If you don't, we will use this
rope and drag you like James Byrd on the quote,
(05:50):
and the letter goes on to say, quote fu inward
and inward providers. You have been warned inWORD. James Burr
Junior was a black man brutally killed by three white
men dragging his body with a pickup truck in June
of nineteen ninety eight. The killers, two of whom were
self proclaimed white supremacists, dumped his corpse in front of
(06:11):
a black church in Jasper, Texas. Matthews called the police
and the Harris County Sheriff's Office detectives collected the threatening
letter and noose as evidence. While the motive has been determined,
the activist offers a potential clue quote, I've been exposing,
doing expose as HSC and DFPS for over a month
and a half in reference to dealing with crimes against children,
(06:33):
and how I was able to find out about it
was because the children were reaching out to me bio
social media and moving on. Despite the incident upsetting her
and her family, Matthews told reporters she'll continue advocating for
civil rights. Now, this is obviously a very upsetting article,
(06:56):
But the truth is that these sorts of things, obviously
they come across our desk all the time, and this
really wouldn't be headline news for a show like this
except for the fact that, also from the Black Information Network.
On Tuesday, April twenty third, our Cola, Texas mayor Fred
(07:17):
Burton was sent a package containing a noose and a
note warning him to cancel his reelection bid per people.
The Arcola Police Department shared images of the package on
social media. Quote, get out of the race now unquote.
A type letter reads letter arrived with a noose in
an envelope addressed to Burton. So you know, if it
(07:42):
happens once, you know, again, these sorts of things happen
from time to time, But if it happens twice in
the same week, and this obviously isn't you know the
extent of these nooses and letters, But so close back
(08:02):
to back, I'm starting to suspect that the racists are
becoming bolder and bolder as the upcoming election draws closer.
So at this point, host a Trump presidency out loud
(08:27):
racists are more insulated than they've been in recent memory,
perhaps in my lifetime, we've always known that the people
in power insulate racists, but generally speaking, there was a
(08:50):
modicum of common public decency and people were afraid of
the repercussions of getting found out to be racists. And
I think that some of that decency, that moral standard
has eroded during the Trump presidency and since then. Trump
(09:14):
ism and politics, I believe has had a direct effect
on these types of actions and behaviors. A great comparison is,
you know, we've been obviously watching the protests on college
campuses around the country very closely, actually been to a
couple of them, and you'll notice that there are counter
(09:41):
protesters or people just demonstrating, and they're from far right groups,
racist groups, Nazis, white supremacists, you name it. And they
will march and they will whatever, and either there will
be no police presence at all, perhaps because they're participating
(10:05):
in the marches, or the police will stand idly by
and allow them to demonstrate. And when you look at
sort of social justice protesters, you know BLM protesters, more
recently the Palestine protesters, you see police engagement and police
(10:28):
escalation quite a bit. You see people getting arrested, and
you think to yourself, why aren't they arresting these neo
Nazis and these other people, Why aren't they picking on
them and instigating and antagonizing them and provoking them the
way that they do these other protesters. And then you
start to think of the connection between the police and
(10:50):
the far right, indeed, the police and the Israeli defense
for us. Many of you may know that a lot
of police in this country are trained in Israel how
to suppress black and brown bodies, and then they do
a great job of it. So this is the fight
that I fight, and at present, the fight looks like
(11:13):
sharing these stories of these nooses being mailed to these
high profile black individuals around the country. So some food
for thought. This is your midweek memo on the Black
Information Network Daily podcast with me your host ramses Ja.
(11:34):
All right, next up from the Root King Kendrick kung
Fu Kenny k Dot Kendrick Lamar, the boogeyman of hip hop,
took time out of his Tuesday morning to respond to
Drake in a scathing disc track where he attacks the
Toronto MC's entire persona. No lead up, no teasing, no rollout,
Lamar simply dropped a link on X and let fans
(11:54):
enjoy it. The track, titled Euphoria, is more than six
minutes long and sees a Lamar attack the boy with
multiple verses, lines, Simile's metaphors, and everything in between. So yeah,
Kendrick's response to Drake dropped and I heard it more
(12:15):
than once. And you know what, I like to be
honest whenever I have a microphone. I like to be
honest in general, and honesty sometimes require you to update
your position on things. You know, We're all humans. We grow,
(12:38):
we get new information, the information shapes our vantage point
and so forth. So what I will say is that
I now have to retract at least part of my
previous statement about hip hop battles. For those that caught
(12:59):
the episode that I did with q Ward where we
were discussing j Cole's sort of bowing out of this battle,
you will know that I am not the biggest fan
of hip hop battles anymore, and I'm going to have
to retract at least a part of that. I still
(13:21):
overwhelmingly feel the same way, but there's a small part
of me that has to seed that I did listen
to this this recent track multiple times, and there's there's
some elements that might be good. Perhaps one day I'll
(13:42):
do a one More Thing installment. Of course, i'd have
quback on the show and we'd kind of hash it
out together, because that's my partner in rhyme, so to speak.
But I'm not going to say too much else about this.
But you know, if you want to listen to the song,
it's called Euphoria, and you know I listened on. I mean,
(14:04):
you could listen to it anywhere, so it doesn't really matter.
But you know, if you're into this sort of thing,
check it out. I don't think you'd be disappointed. And
last up from The Guardian last Tuesday, Portugal's President Marcelo
Rebello de Souza said the country quote takes full responsibility
quote for the wrongs of the past, and that the
country's crimes, including colonial massacres, had costs. Quote. We have
(14:28):
to pay the costs, he said. Are there actions that
were not punished and those responsible were not arrested. Are
there goods that were looted and not returned? Let's see
how we can repair this. On Saturday, Rebello de Suza
said reparations could be made by canceling the debts of
former colonies or introducing credit lines, financial packages or special
(14:51):
cooperation programs. Quote, we cannot put this under the carpet
or in a drawer. We have an obligation to pilot
to lead this now. He said, the country had to
take responsibility for the bad and the good of what
happened in the empire and draw consequences. And the reason
(15:11):
we're talking about this today is because Portugal's new center
right coalition government said in a statement to the Portuguese
news agency LUSA that it wanted to quote deep in
mutual relations, respect for historical truth, and increasingly intense and
close cooperation based on the reconciliation of brotherly peoples. In
(15:34):
other words, reparations is a bridge too far or the
rest of the government. But I suspect that this president
is going to keep fighting for something that qualifies as reparations.
And even if nothing happens, there a prominent figure from
(15:59):
a country it had such a historical role in the
Transatlantic slave trade stepping up and making a statement like this,
I think is a win for those who push for
reparations around the globe. And that's not nothing. So We're
(16:20):
going to leave that right there. Don't forget. These and
other stories can be found to vidnews dot com. This
has been a production of the Black Information Network. Today's
show is produced by Chris Thompson. Have some thoughts you'd
like to share, use the red microphone talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app. While you're there, be sure to hit
subscribe and download all of our episodes. I am your host,
(16:41):
Ramse's Jaw on all social media and join us tomorrow
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast
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