Featured
The spirit of Old Dixie rises in D.C. By Colbert I. King / Wash Post
“The South will rise again” was not just the wistful rallying cry of the defeated Confederacy. It was also the South’s declaration that the day would come when rules would be restored to the liking of militarily vanquished White people left smoldering below the Mason-Dixon Line.
That day might have arrived this week when National Guard troops from Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee were deployed to D.C. as part of President Donald Trump’s takeover of law enforcement in our nation’s capital. In announcing that the Magnolia State was sending 200 Old Confederacy denizens to D.C., Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) proudly declared he was doing so at Trump’s behest because “Americans deserve a safe capital city that we can all be proud of.” Read more
Related: Hegseth authorizes National Guard troops in D.C. to carry weapons. By and / NBCNews
Related: Trump’s Military Occupation of DC Crashes Into Reality—Literally. By Dan Friedman / Mother Jones
Political / Social
The Mind-Boggling Intrusiveness of Donald J. Trump. By Thomas B. Edsall / NYT
The Trump administration ranks among the most intrusive in American history, driving the tentacles of the federal government deep into the nation’s economy, culture and legal system.
Economically, the administration is dictating corporate behavior through tariffs, subsidies and the punishment of disfavored industries and companies, while rewarding allies with tax breaks and deregulation. And that’s all before the government takes its cut. Culturally, Trump is seeking to redefine the boundaries of public discourse: pressuring universities, elevating grievance politics and reshaping federal agencies to reflect ideological loyalty rather than expertise or experience. Within the legal system, the administration is aggressively reshaping the federal judiciary, asserting executive power over independent institutions and using the Justice Department for political ends. Read more
Related: Trump Pushes White Nationalist Agenda Across Multiple Fronts. By David Kurtz / TPM
Related: Yep—Trump Is Still the Most Racist President of the Last 100 Years. By Michael Tomasky / TNR
Related: In Trump’s Second Term, Far-Right Agenda Enters the Mainstream. Alan Feuer / NYT
Cities led by Black women are the first targets of Trump’s political power grab. By Amanda Becker and Barbara Rodriguez / Salon
Republican President Donald Trump’s continued power grab in the nation’s capital, and his threat to expand his militarized takeover to other Democratic-led cities, is setting up a high-stakes showdown over the country’s democracy that pits him prominently against a familiar political foe: Black women. DC Mayor Bowser.
Using the District of Columbia as a template, even though 79 percent of its residents oppose Trump’s actions, according to a Washington Post/Schar School poll, the president has, citing crime, threatened to send federal law enforcement back into Los Angeles, and to Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland and New York — all cities led by Democratic Black mayors, including Barbara Lee in Oakland. Read more
Related: Trump Rages About ‘Fat Black Women’ in Revenge Rants. By Emell Derra Adolphus / The Daily Beast
Trump’s redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule to the US House. By David Morgan / Reuters
Republicans hold a 219-212 House majority and Trump is looking to break the streak of midterm House losses for the sitting president’s party — as happened to him in 2018 and to Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 — by pushing states starting with Texas to aggressively redistrict.
Democratic states, led by California, have threatened to retaliate by redrawing their own districts for partisan gain, a longstanding feature of U.S. politics known as gerrymandering that has grown far more potent thanks to modern data analysis tools. But Republicans hold the advantage, with control of the state legislatures and governorships of 23 states, compared with 15 for Democrats. Further, independent analysts say, population shifts could create as many as 11 new congressional seats in Republican Southern and Western states after the 2030 U.S. Census. Read more
Related: Texas and California Race Forward With Rival Redistricting Efforts. J. David Goodman / NYT
Lisa Cook, Who Broke Ground at the Fed, Faces Attack by Trump. By Ben Casselman / NYT
The first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve board, Ms. Cook has long been a pathbreaker in a field dominated by white men.
Mr. Trump is now trying to force Ms. Cook out of that job. On Wednesday, Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, accused her on social media of falsifying bank records and other documents in order to obtain favorable terms on a mortgage before she joined the Fed. Mr. Trump on Friday threatened to fire Ms. Cook if she didn’t resign. Read more
MSNBC Host Nicolle Wallace Fires Back at ‘Delusional’ Trump After Direct Attack. By Eboni Boykin-Patterson / The Daily Beast
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace used her show on Monday to fire back at Trump after becoming his newest media target, highlighting his biggest “delusion” and questioning his basic grip on reality.
The 79-year-old president was in the midst of one of his bizarre social media rampages when his ire turned to Wallace Sunday. “She will be fired soon! MSNBC IS DEAD!” he also wrote to Truth Social, as supporters jeered at the TV host in the comments below the post, calling her “Typhoid Mary Nicole Wallace,” and her show “Clown news.” Read more
Related: Nicolle Wallace: A Profile in Integrity. By Ronald J. Sheehy / Race Inquiry
Related: The Media Should Be Biased—Against Authoritarianism. By Perry Bacon / TNR
Education
Justice department backs lawsuit seeking to end grants for hispanic-serving colleges, calling them unconstitutional. By CBS News
The Trump administration said Friday it will not defend a decades-old grant program for colleges with large numbers of Hispanic students that is being challenged in court, declaring the government believes the funding is unconstitutional.
In a memo sent to Congress, the Justice Department said it agrees with a lawsuit attempting to strike down grants that are reserved for colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding Latino students were attending college and graduating at far lower rates than white students. Read more
Howard President Resigns Amid Housing Crisis and Student Outrage. by
Ben Vinson III is stepping down after just two years in the post. Former President Wayne A.I. Frederick will fill in on an interim basis.
“It has been an honor to serve Howard,” Vinson said in The Dig, the university’s news hub. “At this point, I will be taking some time to be with my family and continue my research activities. I look forward to using my experiences as president to continue to serve higher education in the future.” Read more
Education Dept. Finds Faculty-Diversity Efforts at George Mason U. Were Discriminatory. By Jasper Smith / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has found that George Mason University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by adopting race-based hiring practices in the wake of the George Floyd protests that were discriminatory.
“In 2020, University President Gregory Washington called for expunging the so-called ‘racist vestiges’ from GMU’s campus,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for OCR, said in a letter announcing the finding on Friday. “Without a hint of self awareness, President Washington then waged a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race.” Read more
World
With Moves on West Bank and Gaza City, Israel Defies Global Outcry. By Lara Jakes / NYT
Israel on Wednesday approved new settlements in the West Bank and announced that it was moving ahead with plans to take over Gaza City, bucking international criticism and defying growing support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
The moves raised questions about whether a new cease-fire proposal — which officials have said is similar to terms that Israel previously endorsed — could move forward. Experts said the two moves suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was bending to the ideologies of extremists in his coalition in order to remain in power — even at the cost of isolating Israel internationally. Read more
Related: The West Bank Is Poised to Explode. By Jon Finer / The Atlantic
What It Would Actually Take to End the War in Ukraine. Joshua Yaffa / The New Yorker
For Putin, lopping off Ukrainian territory—and, in the process, levelling Ukrainian cities with artillery barrages and aerial bombs—is a way to achieve his ultimate goal: a loyal and neutered Ukraine that does not threaten Russia and is free of undue Western influence.
Trump, the source said, wants a quick end to the war and may be ready to squeeze or undermine Ukraine to get there, but doesn’t necessarily presuppose an end game that is entirely satisfactory to Moscow. For now, the pressure to end the war has fallen primarily on Kyiv, but it’s possible to imagine the reverse: Trump could expect Putin to sign on to a peace deal that does not address the entirety of the Russian President’s demands. Read more
Related: Peace talks in Budapest? Beware of Trump’s ulterior motive. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
The Man Who Saw the Future of Africa. Howard W. French / NYT
Not long after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as president, he received his first visit from a foreign leader. He had chosen Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president. By today’s standards, in which Africa seems to sit on the far margins of world affairs, the selection is practically unimaginable.
Until Mr. Kennedy’s assassination, Mr. Nkrumah remained the American president’s most important African interlocutor, a fact that reflects both the Ghanaian leader’s charisma and the tremendous prestige he had earned on the continent by peacefully leading his country to independence from colonial rule in 1957. Mr. Nkrumah was a graduate of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Christian Nationalism: A Civil Rights Fight In Our Time. By Ginny Baxter / Patheos
America’s “single biggest threat” took downturns after the Civil War (1861-1865) and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but it is growing stronger again today. It is, of course, white Christian nationalism – aka white supremacy — and supporters are using the ballot box to push their repugnant beliefs into public schools.
One expert on religious freedom has said the effort to defeat white Christian nationalism is the Civil Rights Movement of our time. And so it is. There has been no Christianity in white supremacists’ treatment of other races — only ugliness, hatred and a false sense of superiority. These Americans have forgotten that the God who created our universe loves the entire human race rather than one small part of it. Read more
At conference, pastors address racism in their churches as momentum fades. By Fiona Andre / RNS
Five years after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a police officer, OneRace’s conference explored how the anti-racist momentum of 2020 has progressively faded. People attend the Change the Story conference presented by OneRace, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, at Victory Church in Norcross, Ga.
As Josh Clemons, the executive director of OneRace, an anti-racist Christian organization, kicked off its racial reconciliation conference last week, he compared efforts to clean the church from the sin of racism to an ancient Japanese art practice, kintsugi. “Our racial past is marred and scarred,” Clemons told Religion News Service at the event. “It’s steeped in racism and ethnocentrism and cultural divide. The church is often on the wrong side of that conversation. We believe that the church should show up credibly in these conversations.” Read more
A Path To a Healthy Black Evangelicalism. By Bryan Loritts / Christianity Today
Being a minority in white institutions can feel frustrating. But it’s possible to navigate it without assimilation or bitterness.
As a pastor and the son of a prominent Black evangelical, I have spent decades immersed in predominantly white churches and organizations. My father, Crawford Loritts Jr., was heavily influenced by the evangelist Tom Skinner, cofounded a church with Tony Evans, and was mentored by the famed evangelical civil rights hero John Perkins. But even with these connections, I am hesitant with the phrase Black evangelical. Read more
Historical / Cultural
The Meaning of Trump’s Attack on the Smithsonian. By Clint Smith / The Atlantic
The president’s latest criticism of museums is a thinly veiled attempt to erase Black history.
In what looks to be an intensifying quest to reshape American history and scholarship according to his own preferences, President Donald Trump this week targeted the Smithsonian Institution, the national repository of American history and memory. Trump seemed outraged, in particular, by the Smithsonian’s portrayal of the Black experience in America. Before continuing, it is important to pause a moment and state this directly: Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, believes that the Smithsonian is failing to do its job, because it spends too much time portraying slavery as “bad.” Read more
Related: In Trump’s Ideal Picture of America, Diversity Is Taboo. Zolan Kanno-Youngs / NYT
Why Republicans keep saying slavery was great. By Oliver Willis / Daily Kos
Most rational human beings who know anything about American history believe that the practice of slavery was one of the United States’ original sins, and that it was allowed for too long. Untold millions suffered due to the enslavement of human beings across generations in a way that still has very real lingering effects.
Conservative leaders and Republican voters have made it clear for a long time that they prefer fairy tale narratives about America’s past over the truth—because that truth could expose the legacy of white supremacy. . Read more
Related: Remembering the slave trade and its abolition. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
U.S. releases Emmett Till investigation records ahead of 70th anniversary of his killing. By AP and NBC News
Till, 14, was killed in 1955 by two white men who were acquitted by an all-white jury but later told a reporter that they kidnapped and murdered the boy.
The records in the National Archives, released by the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, detail how the Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights responded to the 1955 killing of 14-year-old Till. The records were released in accordance with the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018. Read more
Sports
Shedeur Sanders was 100 percent set up to fail in his final preseason appearance. By Corey Long / Glory Colorado
The Browns latest attempt to sabotage Sanders was a sad affair
Shedeur Sanders must’ve had flashbacks of 2023. The best quarterback on the Browns roster was sacrificed to the Rams behind a makeshift offensive line of camp bodies in a final attempt to make sure the rookie “knows his place”. After allowing projected starter Joe Flacco and chosen backup Dillon Gabriel to shine with the starters and primary backups, the Browns put Sanders in the game during the second half with a group of guys that will not be in the NFL after the cut deadline on Wednesday. Read more
Kenny Lofton helps remember Black baseball’s Cleveland Buckeyes. By Justice B. Hill / Andscape
New documentary tells story of forgotten Negro Leagues championship with assist from former MLB star
Filmmaker Evelyn Pollard-Gregory couldn’t walk away from it. Pollard-Gregory knew the Cleveland Buckeyes, one of the last great teams from the Negro Leagues, had a story to tell, and she intended to learn about their story and then tell it. Read more
Stick to politics? How Donald Trump is using sports to advance his agenda. By Steve Buckley / The Athletic
Now, a little more than halfway through the first year of his second term, Trump doesn’t limit his sports takes to the occasional quip, or to saying things to energize an already supportive crowd. Based on what we’ve seen so far in 2025, the president’s sports fandom falls into three basic categories:
• White House visits by sports celebrities and championship teams.
• The desire to see and be seen at major sporting events.
• Bringing his political agenda and culture wars to a ballpark, arena or stadium near you.
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