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A man who needs no

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introduction.

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The Black Information Network is committed to bringing

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you up to the date news stories that are relevant,

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informative, and inspiring. And while

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news stories are always being updated and others

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are breaking, we understand that you need

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to be in the know all week long. Welcome

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to your midweek memo on the Black Information

0:21

Network Daily Podcast with me your

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host, Rams's Job All

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Right?

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First up from CNN. Seven jurors

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were placed Tuesday on the panel

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that will decide former President Donald Trump's

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guilt or innocence in the New York hush money

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case, a process that has highlighted

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how difficult and often contentious

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it will be to pick a full jury.

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Trump's lawyers dug through prospective

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jurors's social media posts to try and

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root out those with anti Trump bias

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from getting on the jury, even questioning several

0:54

of them about their posts as the defense

0:56

team asked to remove them from the jury for

0:58

cause. So,

1:02

yeah, if you're paying close

1:04

attention to this, which

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I unfortunately am, you

1:11

know that this is this

1:14

is going to be a bit of a process. So it turns out they

1:16

need eighteen jurors, you know, they need like reserve

1:19

backup jurors so

1:22

that things can move along. But it's

1:25

kind of tough because typically you want

1:27

jurors who are not familiar

1:29

with the person in question,

1:32

and of course, since this was the former president.

1:36

Presidents are among the most popular

1:38

human beings that walk the earth, and

1:42

because this was such a polarizing president,

1:44

the selection process is even more challenging

1:47

still, so New York

1:49

City took the

1:52

wise step of sending out extra summons

1:55

to fill the additional slots of hopefully

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unbiased jurors. Actually,

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they sent out a total of two hundred extra summons

2:05

because their assumption is that many folks are going to have strong

2:07

opinions on Trump. Now,

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if that was the only thing, then

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it wouldn't really be a Trump trial. So

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we'll add to that that Trump is really

2:19

seems to be frustrating the judge. He's

2:21

been admonished for attempt set intimidating

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the jurors, He's

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fallen asleep twice so far

2:28

during the trial. And then

2:30

the judge said that they would have to

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wait and see if Trump

2:35

would be able to go to his son's graduation

2:38

ceremony. But Trump is proceeding

2:40

and posting as though the judge has told him that he

2:42

couldn't go. So this is creating

2:44

a lot of frustration

2:47

with the judge. And obviously this

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all comes in addition to the gag order

2:53

that was issued by this

2:55

judge already, and

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that led to Trump claiming

3:01

that he couldn't exercise

3:03

his freedom of speech and that he was

3:07

willing to go to jail and be

3:09

like a Nelson Mandela figure, which

3:13

again is a huge stretch. He

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just talks too much, and he's invoking

3:17

the names of people that have nothing to do with

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this trial, and

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the judge doesn't want him doing that specifically.

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But yeah, Trump is being

3:30

Trump, and

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we're all subject to these

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these stories, and so they're

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a little bit more up to speed here.

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But one good thing is that they're hoping

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that jury selection is going to be finished

3:46

by the end of the week, so hopefully the trial gets underway

3:48

and we can start to see what is

3:51

what moving on and

3:53

keeping in presidential news,

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Newsweek is

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reporting that Joe Biden now leads Donald

4:01

Trump in ten polls.

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So I'll share a bit. With seven months to go until

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the presidential election, incumbent

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President Joe Biden is beating his Republican

4:12

challenger Donald Trump, and a series of

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recent polls. The Democrat is leading

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Trump in ten separate polls conducted in the

4:18

last month, although experts have cautioned

4:21

that it is still too early to call the election, and

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Trump is polling higher than Biden and

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other polls too. So

4:29

yeah,

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there's uh, I

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guess good news there, or

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maybe it's good news for Joe Biden.

4:39

But I think what it shows, probably more

4:41

than anything, is that Donald Trump

4:44

is losing favor

4:46

with the general public, not that Joe Biden

4:49

is really gaining it, although you could make that

4:51

argument because

4:53

Joe Biden is really working

4:56

that student loan angle and

4:59

that's really affecting people. It's you know, I

5:01

know people personally who have been impacted

5:03

by that, and they're like, hey, I'm grateful, it's

5:05

worth a vote for me. But

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I think that Trump being in the news for

5:11

so much of these negative things,

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it has to be taking a toll. But

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again, they're warning us not to

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read too much into these polls, because

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there are some polls that have Trump higher than Biden

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too. So just

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something to know. This

5:31

is your midweek memo on the Black Information

5:34

Network Daily Podcast with me your

5:36

host ramses Ja. All

5:41

Right, next up from Nbclos Angeles

5:44

dot com. The University of Southern California

5:46

will not have its pro Palestinian

5:48

valedictorian delivered the twenty twenty four commencement

5:50

speech during graduation, citing

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security concerns and leading to condemnation

5:56

from a leading Muslim group. Shortly

5:58

after, USC and now Asna Tebassum,

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a fourth year student from Chino Hills

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with a major in biomedical engineering and a

6:06

minor in Resistance to genocide, was

6:08

selected as the twenty twenty four valied Edictorian.

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There were calls for the university to reconsider

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their decision. Several organizations

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asked for USC to remove her as valedictorian

6:18

because of a link on her social media account

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that they said contains anti Semitic

6:23

language. To Bossum's

6:25

Instagram account links to a slideshow

6:27

encouraging people to quote learn

6:29

about what's happening in Palestine and how

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to help It

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calls for quote one Palestinian

6:36

state unquote, which it says

6:39

quote would mean Palestinian liberation

6:42

and the complete abolishment of the state of Israel

6:44

unquote.

6:45

This.

6:46

According to NBC News, Trojans

6:50

for Israel said this

6:52

must be denounced as anti semitic.

6:54

Bigotry, and that's a quote from them,

6:56

and of course Trojans are the mascot at

6:59

usc Debossum

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said the link was shared on her social media account five

7:03

years ago and that she was not the author.

7:07

So here's one of the

7:09

things that I

7:12

and a lot of people have really

7:14

had a problem with. And

7:18

there's a parallel that I see.

7:22

So with this link saying that there

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needs to be one Palestinian state and

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Israel needs to be abolished from

7:30

the state of Palestine,

7:34

that is not dissimilar from

7:36

people saying black lives matter

7:41

and the Trojans for

7:43

Israel saying that this must be denounced

7:46

as anti Semitic bigotry. Sounds

7:49

very much like the all Lives Matter crowd,

7:54

or the reverse racism crowd, or

7:57

you know, pick a crowd, pick anything that flies

7:59

in the face of somebody affirming their

8:02

right to exist. Now,

8:05

I personally, personally am

8:07

a huge

8:10

fan of Jewish

8:13

based Jewish culture, Jewish

8:16

people. I love Jewish

8:18

people, like buried Jewish people. I have

8:21

lived a significant part of my

8:23

life being a brother

8:26

to this community. And indeed,

8:28

I know that a lot of people who are humans

8:30

first and recognize

8:33

the humanness of

8:35

these pleas from the Palestinian people is

8:39

well founded, or at minimum it's

8:41

founded in their own worldview.

8:44

They don't look.

8:44

At these affirmations

8:47

as though it's somehow antisemitic. But

8:49

there are some people who are pro

8:53

Israel, we'll call them, who

8:56

certainly do feel like anything

8:59

that comes from Palestine, or anything that

9:01

is supportive of Palestinian people

9:03

continuing to live or

9:06

otherwise live unencumbered by Jewish

9:08

influence, that somehow that

9:11

is anti Semitic. And

9:14

I would argue that it's anti

9:16

Israeli, but not anti Semitic.

9:19

I think that Israel is a country and

9:22

Judaism is a faith. And

9:25

I have personally not encountered

9:27

anybody who has had a problem

9:29

with the Jewish faith, nor would I allow

9:31

anybody that did have a problem with the Jewish

9:33

faith to share time and space with

9:36

me. But

9:39

the problem here is that for

9:41

people who are pro Israel,

9:43

which obviously there are going to

9:46

be some people who feel

9:48

that Israel is doing exactly what Israel

9:50

should be but be doing by continuing

9:52

to recover the hostages, or continuing their efforts

9:54

to recover the hostages and

9:57

to protect Israel's interests, and

10:00

rightfully so, there should be some people that feel that way.

10:03

Of course, for.

10:05

Those people to continue to refer

10:07

to everything as anti Semitic,

10:10

that feels a

10:12

little thin, feels like you're

10:15

not getting an argument

10:17

where these folks are really engaging in

10:19

the issues and combing

10:21

through the nuance. They just are

10:24

painting everything away with these broad strokes.

10:27

And again that's not unlike the oh,

10:29

this is reverse racism, crowd affirmative

10:32

action. Oh, that's reverse racism CRT. Oh,

10:35

that's reverse racism. Black history, that's just reverse

10:37

racism. Anything

10:39

that centers or prioritizes

10:42

Black efforts, it

10:45

can be painted away by people who choose to paint

10:47

it away as a reverse

10:49

racism. And I feel like that is

10:52

not fear to people

10:54

who would make an honest,

10:56

good faith pro Israel argument can

11:00

respect how recovering the hostages

11:04

is mission critical

11:07

and the invitation

11:09

to reconcile, the effort to recover

11:11

the hostages with the

11:13

somewhere the neighborhood forty thousand people who've lost

11:15

their lives in that effort, most of whom

11:18

are not how my soldiers.

11:21

That's the argument that people should be

11:23

having, and that it's very

11:25

difficult for pro Israel people to have these

11:29

relatively speaking handful

11:31

of people mean more than

11:33

these tens of thousands

11:35

of people who've lost their lives

11:37

in our effort to recover them. And

11:40

I'm not saying what's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's a more

11:42

challenging conversation have, And so it

11:45

manifests itself in ways like this,

11:47

where this valedictorian

11:50

has been put in a position where

11:52

she cannot deliver her speech, and

11:55

from what I'm read, she's certainly willing

11:58

to give that speech, but when

12:01

it's decried as anti

12:03

semitic, even letting her give

12:05

a valedictorian speech, no

12:07

one has read the speech, no one knows what she's going

12:09

to say yet. But to even have her

12:12

up there as anti

12:14

semitic, based on a post

12:17

from five years ago, not

12:19

months years ago, it

12:22

just feels like a little bit of a stretch. And so USC

12:25

is hearing about it, and

12:29

I say, rightfully, so these

12:31

are conversations that, for better or worse, we need

12:33

to have in

12:35

an institution like that, where

12:38

tough conversations are had and debates

12:40

are had and so forth and so on. I

12:43

respect that they're in a tough spot, but yeah,

12:46

you can't let someone call it what it's not,

12:49

and then bow to them simply for calling

12:51

it that. I don't think that that's

12:53

right for anybody.

12:54

It doesn't.

12:54

It certainly doesn't do our Jewish brothers and sisters

12:56

any favors, and obviously

12:59

for people who are

13:01

hoping that Palestine

13:04

will one day soon enjoy

13:07

a ceasefire, it doesn't help their cause

13:09

either. All right,

13:11

and before we let you go it, I've got to remind you that today

13:13

is the last day of Black Maternal Health

13:15

Week. Black Maternal Health Week aims

13:17

to tackle the racial disparity and maternal mortality

13:20

by spreading awareness and providing resources for Black

13:22

birthing people before, during, an after pregnancy.

13:25

The founding organization especially highlights

13:27

black midwiferycare and full spectrum

13:29

Black led doula care as sound, evidence

13:31

based solutions to tackling pregnancy related

13:33

deaths that incorporate the true needs,

13:36

once and desires of Black women and

13:38

birthing people. I employ

13:40

you to find out more at binnews dot

13:42

com and learn

13:44

about this cause, and

13:47

please continue to champion this cause after today,

13:49

because black mortality

13:51

rates maternal mortality

13:54

rates are something that we should all be paying attention to.

13:56

Again, you can find out more at binnews

13:59

dot com and don't forget that these, of course

14:01

and other stories can be found at bionnews

14:03

dot com as well.

14:06

This has been a production of the Black Information

14:09

Network. Today's show is produced by Chris

14:11

Thompson. Have some thoughts you'd like

14:13

to share, use the red microphone talkback

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feature on the iHeartRadio app. While

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you're there, be sure to hit subscribe and download

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all of our episodes. I am your

14:21

host, Ramse's Jaw on all social

14:23

media and join us tomorrow as

14:25

we share our news with our voice from

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our perspective right here on the Black

14:30

Information Network Daily Podcast