ocean and i'm eight or nine years old and ice the on hand these white lines on his wrist in a's for too young to be wrinkled and i said to him, dad what is that? and without thinking and no emotion he said, that is where the secret police found my wrists together with wire behind my back so they could hang me from the ceiling of a torture chamber. that changes your outlook, and as such, from a very early age, i understood that freedom is as fragile as it is precious. and sooner or later, the great ronald reagan was always correct when he said sooner or later, the loss of liberty is always but one generation away . >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span two.

>> next, discussion about the impact of philanthropists and criminal justice reform. this is from a criminal justice summit hosted by variety and rolling stone. this is about 45 minutes. >> i was powerful and i've learned so much today, i want to thank everybody who took part in this because every time i get to get the information that should be that everyone should have access to about what's really going on within our american criminal justice system, it's so moving and is something that we need to do all we can do so we can make some change. so, this is special for me because the last time i saw bernard noble was the night when he walked out of the prison . i got on a plane, me and my

crew among some of the things you may know i'm involved with, i was a filmmaker and i got the idea your go to make a documentary on the history of cannabis in america, criminal justice it also connects with america's music a lot of it is born in new orleans, the music called jazz and jazz musician smoke cannabis in the racism that was typical in america at that time, people didn't want to see people come together, that's really what led to these draconian cannabis laws are cannabis prohibition which was criminalized in 1937. the bernard noble case was we learned about my crew, we decided to go to new orleans and we talked to his family it was a moving experience when they talked about him, first it was jovial and happy and then his family hit on a sad note when his brother passed and how they wouldn't provide a vehicle for him to be able to go and take part in his brother's

funeral, his mother and his sisters broke down in tears, it was a very sad moment but then joy came when a few days later i heard that bernard is going to get parole and then we got together three months, it took them three months to let him out so we were there with cameras rolling and it was a special moment great to see, yes indeed. [ applause ] >> so, now, philanthropy is something that has been moving the situation in an aggressive way, moving it beyond our were politicians we have on stage, people who will shed very valuable light on that. i want to start off with you, who got caught up in the system and justly and it became a national issue and i want to

ask you, what were some of the biggest issues in the criminal justice system that you witnessed during your time . >> i was down with guys like bernard who got sentenced to years for smoking marijuana and that was just, prohibition violations. i actually spent time with the guy who had 28 months in to his bail was $100 and he did 28 months in prison, he wasn't even arrested for felony, me, myself, i spent time in prison just for, if i came to this today without forgetting to notice my device notify my probation officer, i would probably face three or four years in jail so i spend time with a lot of people like that. there's so many different platforms, at the age of 18 i

was accused of pointing a firearm at a police officer, not one police officer, five police officers at one time, no shots were fired and no one was hurt, the only person that came out her was me with stitches on both sides of my face, beat badly and at the time that was my situation. 's but if you had to work hard and run and chase you at the time you had 40 charges so that was just like normal to me and when i got on probation i got guilty of all charges. everything is high risk i was off the radar and through the

times it was probably 2014, i went to the dentist and i got my wisdom teeth pulled and the first time i took percocets and taking percocets and got addicted to opioids. then in full philadelphia, city probation is more intense than a suburban probation because a suburban probation you would probably have 100 probation is coming in a week. city probation you probably got 200 coming in a day. so, if you come in with the dirty urine, most like me if you have five years probation you can be sentenced to five years being addicted to drugs coming in in

philadelphia, i never wanted to admit to my probation officer that i was addicted to opioids because that's like admitting myself into the conditions and being locked up, shackled and people with violent stabbings, and animal mentality basically. i didn't have a choice, later on in life i finally graduated from living in lower class, extreme lower class and i moved to a middle last neighborhood and my probation changed to a different kind of probation and next my probation was a suburban area and i actually went to see my probation officer before and she asked me what eyes i addicted to drugs and she found me rehabilitation. she put me in therapy for two months even while i was on the road i had to fly into my therapy because that's what my probation officer recommended,

i'm in a suburban area and they put me on probation, that was something i was used to, so there were so many different levels, i could talk forever about the different levels that keep people trapped. i cut this case when i was 18 that i wasn't guilty of. any of you think i pointed a gun at five police officers and i didn't even get a shot fired? always when i have friends you think this really happened? i don't think it happened, it wouldn't really be a big deal,

i know he probably believed me but it wasn't a big deal, this is not the type of person i am, where i come from we know not to point a firearm at a police officer, it's nothing but suicide and you have to be mentally ill to do that so i used to tell them that i caught a case that 18, i'm 31 years old right now and still going to prison for the same offense without committing a crime. i've been to prison four times since i was 18 without ever committing a crime again. the last time i went to prison, the da suggested that i didn't go to prison. my probation officer got me rehabilitation from taking person that's in recommended i don't go to prison because i was doing good. i employ people. i have a job, take care of my family, that was probably my one flaw that they could snag

me on and stalk me down about and that's what they don, stalk me down for my whole adult life. i've been on probation from 18 to 31 years old. at 31 years old i popped a wheelie in new york city and was sentenced to 2 to 4 years. mike , was my friend and we used to hang out a lot and the day before i had to go to court i said, you should just come and see how court works. you come from a different world, you should just check it out expect is no way you'll do prison time, it's impossible, my car in your world it's impossible but in my world we go to prison for this at an alarming rate. we went to court and by the time it was time to leave court i was leaving in a bus with shackles on i couldn't even believe that i got a two-year

sentence for actually popping a wheelie. actually i was arrested in new york for pop in a wheelie which was initially a traffic ticket. they charge me with an f1 felony , the case got dismissed without me going to trial, it was basically not really a charge, the judge still sends me in philadelphia laws, if you catch a case and probation, for example, if someone was to drop a bag of weed on the ground and i got locked up for the bag of weed that wasn't mine, i go to court and beat the case for having a bag of lease, i can still be sentenced just for police contact. police contact is a violation of probation. you don't have to commit a crime, you have to do anything, just contacted the police and your violation, so mike saw that and i think he can take it from here and break everything down . >> that was going to be the next question, mike, tell us how you became friends and the

things you are doing . >> well, i think we had a pretty normal friendship amongst boys until the day that changed both of our lives, for me, we met for five years ago now and at a basketball game. the stories pretty well known but we were just sitting next to each other at the all-star game and my daughter was talking to his girlfriend and he said you're the guy from the sixers and i said what you do and i said what do you do and then he was asking me if thousand business questions . >> i asked how do you make all that money. [ laughter ] >> he said how do you do this deal, how do you do that deal, was more than that. to me it was like he reminded me of myself in that i barely made it at a high school, i didn't what a college, like a sponge i just ask questions and he was the same way so, in the beginning i told him i'm one of

the owners of the sixers and he started to come to the games and i remember this like it was yesterday. one of the first games he came to, i said hey, if you want i'm going to the bugatti afterwards , you want to come with me and it's a casino in jersey, across the bridge expect don't ruin the story . >> so he says to me are not allowed to go to expect and i said you need permission from your mother like literally i don't get it, he said, i'm on probation . >> and i said you can't go to the casino across the bridge ? >> he said dude, i will go to jail, i'm not allowed to go expect and i said how does this work that was probably 45 years ago and we became really good friends and we live 10 minutes away from each other, he was at our games all the time and came on different trips, i met so many people in sports and the commissioners of all the sports, everyone loved this guy and he become a good friend. so about a year and a half ago,

he was always around and i said bro, get a stricken job, what is the matter with you, why are you always around and he would say, you don't understand, i'm on probation, i can't leave . >> and i said but your musician, perform, how are you not allowed to leave >> he said i'm not allowed to leave. at that point i started getting involved and to be honest, when you are a successful business guy, your card is always up so, i knew him really well but the story is almost that i didn't believe it. i believed it because it was him but it seemed too hard to believe. i started to make my own phone calls and confirm everything he said. what's probation think about him, they said this gaskins group, he's a great guy, he's done everything we've ever asked, did file everyone was saying great things about him so, i keep asking more people

everyone is validating everything he says and say tristan but is so unbelievable, when you listen to the story you don't believe it could be true, when you listen to either story it's not true for so now he tells a story about how it's even worse because he popped a wheelie didn't get arrested, he got arrested for putting it on social media than a day and a half later 20 cops show up at a charity kids basketball game and a thought the police were coming to give him an escort, i'm not making this up, he thought they were coming to give him an escort and they took him to jail for popping a wheelie and putting it on social media so that happened and then he had another thing where you literally broke the fight up in an airport where they arrest him because he's the black wrapper then they look at the surveillance and realize oh that actually he didn't start the fight he broke it up and they dropped the charges in those two were

enough for the judge to free him so i sit there and meet says to me, he's always telling me about this crazy judge has it out for him is overly involved in his life and now i'm paying more and more attention and starting to hear everything that's just confirming the story as i said to him, you want me to write a letter for you to the judge and he said no, i don't want to put you out for that and i said i'm right in the letter. i write the letter and explain my background in pennsylvania and i just kind of give the background with the sixers and creating jobs in the city, someone came from a different perspective and we get no response. it was the morning of in a column and say hey you're gonna be fine don't worry he said hey, if you have time you should comes the spirit that for me was a life-changing event. honestly, when i listen to dan and bernard story, that was

doing something great but for me, you are my boy and you and i spent so much time together that you didn't even know bernardo went to save a guys life but for me you were really close friend so i said, bucket time gonna go for this 15 minute hearing so we go into the courtroom and the first thing they do is take my phone away you take a phone away from a guy like me so you have a trial, i think were gonna be in for 15 minutes but i go in the courtroom and i watch the probation officer get up and speak about meek as if she were a witness for me. she said how great he was, how much she loved him and he's been rehabilitated and done everything they asked of him and i thought okay this is odd. then i watch the district attorney get up and say we recommend no sentence. sewer three hours and now and i turnaround and they called an intermission at this hearing hours in and i said, what's the

story and they said, no one has ever been sentence, it never happens and the probation officer and da recommend no sentence, you never get sentenced. so, he comes back in the judge says i'm sentencing you and i get up to speak for him and i say how well i know him, he's been around my mom, my daughter call my friends that i was doing great in the community, the whole country is divided and he's bringing people together, she never looks at me. i sit down and she says, 2 to 4 years state penitentiary . >> and he is getting more used to me telling the story, although he doesn't like it, his eyes turned pink and he started crying and i started crying expect betty says you're running miami when you say that . [ laughter ] so, basically to

take his wallet and his close and they handcuffed him and i looked at him and said i'm not stopping till they get you out of this and fortunately i'm sitting next to a woman who said, i'm not stopping until i get him out of this, and for me and working in my family and friends but he was like a brother to me so, i basically at that moment took the majority of my time to help fix his situation, and that's when i learned how broken the system was because the first thing we did and i think this is pretty fascinating as i want to hire investigators. sitting in the courtroom something's not right and they said you can't hire investigators. i'm not the defense and i can do whatever i want so we hire 20 investigators and literally, within, the first thing they do is look at the judges cases and they say something's not normal . >> i said i'm telling you something's not right and within two weeks they said the

cases in normal but she's have 33 individual lawsuits, she sued 33 different people. we start interviewing other people and we hear crazy story after crazy story i mean, all kinds of behavior that is just as crazy as his situation, this judge is doing people and making up stories. give you one story before i move on. she went to the hershey hotel for legal conference and she woke up in the middle of the night and there was a name tag of one of the employees there, she sued the hotel saying she had all kinds of posttraumatic stress syndrome and couldn't do a job with the name tag in her bed. she was the only person at the hotel and said i'm a judge, if you don't settle with me i will make your life miserable and they would pay her to settle with them. that was one of dozens of situations so, we found out the judge was an awful individual who had it out for meek . but

meek kept saying to me, michael, i know what you son the courtroom is so offensive to you, but don't focus on the judge, yes, she's everything you said . >> nobody cares about that . >> but i never did the original crime. so we took the investigators and the first thing they do is interview the cops and the first cop we interviewed says, oh, yes, he never pointed the gun. i'm like what? they said he never pointed the gun, no one asked me, we saw and they said would you sign an affidavit. than all the cops were dirty they were all arrested for stealing money and doing all kinds of things and so now, i keep saying to meek , you're going home. i said you'll be home for thanksgiving. then i said you'll be home for christmas, then i said you'll be at the super bowl with me,

then i said you'll be at the nba all-star game and i was wrong every time. so now are sitting on affidavits from the cops he said he didn't do it and he's been sent back to prison multiple times and that's when i realized that it wasn't just him, there's a whole system that was fundamentally broken. that's when meek and i started saying, as soon as you get out of this mess that we've got to take on the whole criminal justice system because it's so broken. so, fortunately, one of the things we did, similar to the story i hear from dan and bernard is, we kept bringing great people to shed a light on the situation from our team and many others and his buddy james harden is a friend of mine and the mayor of philadelphia and finally, the supreme court ordered his release, da also let him on.

the da is saying, we want to release him so everyone who knew the judge wants him out of jail but the judge won for the first 5 1/2 months so he got out april 24. for me that day changed our lives and that's really what has me here today. it started with how do we get him out of prison because he's such a good friend of mine that it changed into me saying the criminal justice system is so broken that to help fix it. last thing i want to say them really so excited. [ laughter ] i promise. the last thing . >> i'm just shutting up . >> no. no, you know what. [ applause ] this is incredible because the passion involved in people's lives, when you love somebody and they go down, like what you're saying right here, this is important stuff, it did take a minute though but it was important and great. [ laughter ] the passion.

jason, tell us how you got involved in this stuff . >> first of all, i'm honored to be here. there's so many incredible people will who are the reason we do what we do, another round of applause for everyone here has been through it. then, go off script and say it's such an incredible day. i'm so moved by all of it, i think we should take a minute and turn to the person next to us and give them a hug. and we will get on with the rest of it. . i didn't say get a room i said get a hug. [ laughter ] >> i really just wanted to see if dan wood had me. [ laughter ] i got involved in

a similar way because in 1993 i read a story in the newspaper about a kid named stephen leonard hughes serving 15 years to life for a nonviolent first offense cocaine charge in new york state. i won't get into all the reasons it was in the newspaper, it was a crazy story but his mother had become an incredible advocate and had been turned down for a clemency petition for the governor. i just read the story and freaked out because i had no idea about the mandatory sentencing laws. i'd been to rehab when i was younger and growing up in an affluent neighborhood i recognize that my situation could've been different and so i'm not a religious person but in any case, i decide i have to do something, i only knew one criminal defense attorney, this

is the guy who represented skid while w skid row and he was getting arrested twice a week i had him on speed dial. i called him and said what can i do and they said there's nothing you can do and i said do me a favor, i've spoken to the mother on the phone and, so he agreed as a favors to me to take the case pro bono. we ended up in a courtyard five months later five -- holding her mother's hand, while he was brought in with shackles. i had never seen it before. and this is a nonviolent first offense. the judge ruled in our favor. the band the gavel down and said he was reducing the charges and sending the kid home and even now, i'm choking up thinking about it. it was the most profound experience of my life.

i said, that was fun and i'm going to do more of that and i found my thing, and then not too long after that i joined the board. things to those who spoke so eloquently, i've been with them for 25 years. around that time i found about the work of the innocence project from a guy named david keating sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. he was scheduled to be executed, i found his dna, proved his innocence and got him out within weeks of his execution. i walked in and there was nobody there except barry and peter, they were just sitting there, a couple jews in a room with a briefcase, phone and a dream. [ laughter ] and i said i'm jewish too, let's go . >> [ laughter ] so, i said i will do whatever you guys want and i became a founding board member and it's been an

incredible journey. the innocence project is here and they do amazing work all around the country. [ applause ] you want to talk about a tough job, try working at the innocence project in new orleans. really? okay. that's like serving ice cream in [ laughter ] so anyway, it's just been an unbelievable ride. i'm so moved because, now, to see people like the people in this room, people like dan and michael, you know that could be doing anything, it's just like the momentum, the moment today on stage getting the phone call, it's now, right now. this is the time. it's the only bipartisan issue there is, that is saying a lot. if we take this day, this incredible day and use this, i

think we will look back on it and say i think this is a day when the ship got real. because, it is on now. there is no stopping it. i think the individual stories are the most important thing. the macro stuff is more important than micro-stuff but the micro-stuff is so important because the micro drives the macro. every story, robert jones, 24 years in prison for a crime he had nothing to do with and they knew it from day one. these stories, when they get out there you can't help but want to get involved, that is what touched me and i am here with my brother from another mother, scott budnick. [ applause ] he makes me feel lazy though, you know what i mean? he's out here changing laws every day and i will call him and he says i just passed another seven bills, and i say

go make a movie. that's my story . >> i love the stories, they are flowing and we love it. it's so important. so, now, another story, when you grow up in new york and you do arts and you end up on european records, you get to meet a broad range of amazingly interesting people and dan loeb is one of those people. we go back to the 80s, we go back so far that when young tv raps went on the air, a lot of my friends didn't have cable, it was an issue, dan had cable, i went to dan's house, early on in the game that he was doing his thing and we were hanging out together and i went to dan's house to watch eom tv raps . that's my main man, 50 grands

times a whole bunch more. then, dan who has done well is the embodiment of the idea of a philanthropist, got involved in the criminal justice issue and about in three or four years he invited me to a luncheon at the four seasons with the heads of all the major organizations. he just brought them all together, congressman and this person from that organization sharing stories about the criminal justice issues. i was just numb. it was at that meeting where i first heard the name bernard noble. later in making the film it would hit me, oh my god, dan turned me onto this. so dan, philanthropy criminal justice, talk about this . >> i just want to thank everyone from variety, for organizing this event. [ applause ] jay penske, the owner of penske media that owns

friday, it's his vision, he's taken variety to another level, he did the lgbt issue and this whole day was born out of my idea that hey, why don't we do a criminal justice issue and having been around it, he ran with it and stuff and had a lot of people with input coming up with our idea, self-serving because i'm a small partner and friday but, they've done a great job as has rolling stone. second, thanks for making me go after a famous rapper, a sportswriter in a foul mouth comedian. [ laughter ] >> i will be the dry hedge fund guy. i wanna thank bernard for one thing. i want to thank you for being so likable because i spent almost 3 years working on your case and never met you until today, and i'm really glad that

you're such a likable person, it was all worthwhile. [ applause ] first, i think vanessa, allison, i'm sorry i'm so bad with names. she said something really important before which is take the call. i took the call from jason who told me about this case and if it weren't for that and it weren't for him i wouldn't know a lot of things about this area but i took the call in there so many great people to meet and connect with in this room. this is the ultimate network kind of philanthropy. things that are very hierarchical, this is sort of a network and you need the network, you need everyone's energy , the networks are so much more powerful than hierarchies and there are networks with notes and great organizations and they will run with it but they need resources and need energy, it seems very

complicated when you first get into it but, the way i got into it was, i came at it completely differently, a lot of people have an individual story, and stories are very powerful but i always cared a lot about economic injustice, stability, poverty, fundamental beliefs that we have a great system of enterprise and capital system creates opportunities for individuals and innovation, the ability to have freedoms. but there's a lot of problems with the system and i saw it breaking down in places, the privileges and benefits i had and i saw others that didn't so, my first foray into philanthropy into the area of economic inequality and understanding the injustices

that cause that was an education and i became deeply involved and i ultimately became chairman in district public schools. i was walking past the room and you get kind of fright at these things, criminal justice. this is an american enterprise institute, and walking down there and i go in the room and there is mike lee and john cordon with cory booker and another democrat talking about criminal justice. i said this is interesting i will park year and i heard a

statistic that blew my mind was that for african-american men who don't graduate from high school, the odds of being incarcerated or 30%. they will touch the system at some point in their life but 30% of these young men are in prison right now and for those who don't graduate from high school, 68 percent will be in prison. it was like a lightbulb going off in my head. i care about education because i care about our communities and economic opportunity and justice and all this stuff. i can't just focus on education without taking on this other thing. the other thing, i remember, jason had been chirping at me and it finally resonated and get smart on this. then jeff mccormick who works with me, we spent about a year and planted seeds with the marshall project and families against mandatory minimums and connect it with other

philanthropists. and we connected with these philanthropists and little by little i saw there were opportunities, like the meeting you went to on raise the age. we were able to use a bipartisan approach yeah, one last thing. um, alan dershowitz has an organization called all of. and a lot of people from all of

our here. all it helps with a lot of people particularly focusing on jewish people in prison. they do exist. [ laughter ] and, "you said the f word. anyway, i was at their benefit and they were honoring alan dershowitz and he said to me, it was very profound. he said i'm going to fight this fight until my last breath, i'll fight one injustice, i'll fight another, and the thing about injustice is there's another one always. this will never end. we will chip away at this, people with to the age and we will existing and it'll never go away but that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. we just have to keep fighting, and fighting and fighting and it requires grit. and i think everyone, thanks

everyone for being here today. it was a long day. i really appreciate it. >> so now, let's get some information, mike you can jump in on this, too. how people besides cutting the check of any size, what are the other things that people can do to help this fight. please. there's so many things you can do, obviously, going to the website to these organizations is so useful. and drug policy, or any of these. you can start there, every one of them has a call to action but that means calling people in congress. even something as simple as writing a letter to someone on the inside& you know that someone out here cares. i have so many penpals in prison of people that call me and i think it means a lot. and i want to say, too that, i

support these organizations like mike and dan, and there's also the beauty of supporting people with ideas in the space. there are so many creative people that are doing innovative thought. and i want to shout out because of meek's unreal story. but professors zeidman is over there somewhere in the corner. he's doing really transformative work in new york on parole and trying to shape shakeup an idea that can turn into something and i've been lucky to be on the early stage with civil rights core who has been doing the bill reform suing, cities and counties to practice money bail on the grounds that it violates the sixth and 14th amendments. i do funding for these life after exoneration programs with

the innocence project. but i only mention this because i'm good at betting right. if i was at as good as picking stock as i was at picking organizations i'd be as rich as these guys. >> you are pretty good at picking it records, too. >> as are you. talk to each other, i mean there are so many people in here that are so in it, you know that are doing amazing stuff, it starts right here. you know? dan, any advice for people that can, the first thing is just educate yourself. >> and figure out what you can do that will have real impact, either on an individual or the system. so when michael gets involved with mix case, when he got in role involved in other cases. then there is this systemic change that happens, changing the marijuana laws, changing

the probation laws, changing this outrageous probation rules that michael you should probably talk about this organization that you are starting, you have been quiet about that. >> yeah. >> the first thing i think is just giving money is the easy part. i think putting your time and energy about something you really care about, that's what makes a big difference. what a lot of people in this room have in common is they have platforms. so what make went through and what a friend of his, we need to do something about this significantly so. so we need to start criminal justice foundation and our goal is to get 1 million people out of the system in the next five years. so there is so many people in the system today, four and half million people on probation today. probation really tortured meek

his whole life. and he is still on probation with six years left. so he will have 16 or 17 years of probation never committed a crime. we have now raised about $50 million from seven founding partners. i'm proud to say that myself, meek and dan are three of those eight founding partners, rather, and what everyone has in common with our new foundation, they all have a huge financial commitment to it. everyone has pledged at least $5 million to the foundation. they have huge platforms and most importantly, they care deeply about this issue and their spinning real time, again so i'm hopeful we can make a real impact. we are going to focus on probation and parole because that's two thirds of the people in the system and the system is

as broke as anything. so i hope we can stay true to our votes and get 1 million people out of the system in the next five years. and if we can't, by the way we are going to die trying. >> wow. [ applause ] so encouraging, you know, meek mill is literally one of the best people rapping on the planet and as a young black man on unfortunately too many people in this criminal justice system are like meek, they are young black and brown men. in meek the way you have stepped out of prison and gotten involved now i have a better sense of how you and your homey's are doing this work . and you are speaking up, the innocence project gala and you came on stage and i thought that's crazy, meek mill just came home and everything. so just have that last word be like, what can people do? and things that you are going to do going forward to raise awareness. >> first, i would say like mike said a lot of people can cut checks. time is valuable even when we

started our foundation, mike called me and said how many hours a week and use it on this foundation? and i said i'll give you about seven hours a week that we dedicate to our foundation >> you are doing about seven a day, by the way. [ laughter ] >> it turned out to be a lot. me, myself personally, when i went to prison i seen the support i got, i grew up in an environment, some people might have been raised up in love, i was raised up in survival. i was raised in survival, so having support was a big thing to me. so when i seen people coming out and support me the way they did and me being in, this is my first time in a state penitentiary with men like bernard and people who actually had 25, 30 years in for crimes they didn't commit and was over sentenced, i just came home and i had to sit down with myself in the cell one time and i

thought i have to make change. it's crazy, i always thought it was normal until i met a guy like mike or i sat on a plane one time with mike and dan and they talked about how this wasn't normal. and i undervalued myself so much that i thought this was just usual. and when i found a value for myself, i wanted to make a change for the people that are like me that don't have a voice. because i'm on the road to success the way i am and i'm doing well for myself. i'm like, what about the kids like me growing up in my neighborhood who don't have anybody to speak up with them? they will be put on probation when they turn 18 years old and that will give them, that will change their lives and they won't ever be able to get jobs and further their selves. so i just wanted to dedicate more of my time to reforming and trying to make change and using my resources like people like michael rubin, i met dan today i met jess, during a

podcast, of course i'm a politic with people in this room. and we can disconnect and spend more time and use our resources and relationships to make a change in the world for reform. >> that's incredible jason. and the last word? [ applause ] >> i wanted to thank you, too, freddie because you have been doing incredible work in this area quietly like a silent killer. and i just want to recognize that and i also want to recognize mccook mccormick because he's done an amazing job of putting this together. [ applause ] and i wanted to shout out i mars, guy are you here? guy, where are you? guy just got out after 19 years. [ applause ] he is a california businessman he was convicted of a crime that happened in orange county when he was in las vegas

and could prove it. he has never even been to orange county and even after that innocence rogers of california proved his innocence, they still went back and were going to try him again and force them to take a plea. so i just wanted to welcome guy here and again just thanks to everybody for being here and shout out to you. >> and shout out to you for coming out, give yourselves a round of applause. thank you, all. [ applause ] the government shutdown is now in its 27th day. tonight on c-span 3, a senate aging committee hearing on protecting seniors from fraud. then, look at us foreign policy in east asia. later, a discussion about the tax on the judicial system and the world rule of law around the world. >> a hearing of the senate aging committee looked at