Featured
The 2024 election one year out: Don’t wait to panic about the polls. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
The 2024 presidential election is one year away. As it stands now, tens of millions of Americans appear prepared to forsake their own democracy. A series of public opinion polls show that Donald Trump is tied with or leading President Joe Biden nationally. A new poll from the New York Times-Siena is especially dire for Democrats as it finds Trump is now ahead in key battleground states.
Early polls have been met with the usual qualifiers by many in the pundit class.
The elections are one year away and it is too early to make predictions.
Early polls are often wrong and anything can happen.
There is no need to panic because the American people are fundamentally decent and would not do something so crazy as putting Trump, a person who could soon be a convicted felon, back in office. Read more
Related: Ex-Obama Strategist Warns Biden It’s Time ‘To Decide’ After Dismal 2024 Poll. By Ed Mazza / HuffPost
Political / Social
Trump’s big payback: The plot for MAGA’s revenge should scare voters straight. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon
Yes, Americans are upset about the economy and the world feels unstable but I don’t believe that it’s so bad that a majority will put an actual criminal, vengeful, would-be dictator back in the White House.
As I wrote last week, there are dozens of MAGA Republicans working on the agenda for the next term getting ready to implement what amounts to an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. They aren’t trying to hide it. In fact, they are explicitly running on it as a platform. I mentioned the reinstatement of Schedule F, Agenda 47, Project 2025 and their plans to install MAGA legal advisers throughout the administration to ensure that there are no Federalist Society RINOs like former Attorney General Bill Barr or White House counsel Don McGahn, who didn’t robotically snap to and fulfill all of the president’s wishes without question. Read more
Related: Why Does the Right Hate America? By Paul Krugman / NYT
Abortion Powers Democrats to Big Victories in 3 States. By Jonathan Weisman and
Ohio enshrined a right to abortion in its constitution, Gov. Andy Beshear was re-elected in deep-red Kentucky and Democrats seized full control of Virginia’s Legislature. But Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, secured a second term.
The night’s results showed the durability of Democrats’ political momentum since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022. It may also, at least temporarily, stem the latest round of Democratic fretting from a series of polls demonstrating Mr. Biden’s political weakness. Read more
Related: Kentucky governor race: Democrat Andy Beshear defeats Daniel Cameron. By Lucas Aulbach / USA Today
Houston mayor’s race goes to runoff election. By Andrew Schneider / NPR
Texas State Sen. John Whitmire and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee are advancing to a runoff election for Houston mayor since neither cleared the 50% threshold.
Both stood out in a crowded field for their high levels of name recognition, decades of public service, and in Whitmire’s case, a prodigious campaign war chest that enabled him to blanket the airwaves with commercials. Jackson Lee is widely considered the more progressive of the two leading candidates. Read more
Cherelle Parker becomes first woman elected mayor of Philadelphia. By AP and The Guardian
Cherelle Parker was elected as Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to hold the post.
Voters were also choosing a new leader for Allegheny county, which is home to Pittsburgh. The races will set the electoral stage for 2024, when Pennsylvania will be a presidential battleground state, with candidates taking lessons about how Democrats see crime and the strength of progressives in local races into the next election cycle. Read more
Exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ member Yusef Salaam will win seat on NYC Council. By AP and NPR
Exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam is poised to win a seat Tuesday on the New York City Council, marking a stunning reversal of fortune for a political newcomer who was wrongly imprisoned as a teenager in the infamous rape case.
Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the City Council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections playing out across New York state on Tuesday. He won his primary election in a landslide. Read more
Tim Scott is 2024’s only Black Republican, and he wants America to focus less on race. By Averi Harper and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim / ABC News
A major speech he recently gave at a Black church faced tough questions.
Attorney Rodrick Wimberly said he came to the church with his wife, Evelyn, “out of respect” for what Scott has accomplished. When it was his turn to speak with the South Carolina senator, Wimberly challenged Scott. “I’ve seen both in the debate and also in statements you’ve made where you indicated that you don’t feel that there’s systematic racism,” he said. “There is statistical data to show, or suggest at the very least, that there is some issue where it’s systemic.” Scott told him, “I’m saying that there is racism, but it’s not the system.” The pair went back and forth on education, redlining — referring to discrimination in financial loans — and inequities in wealth before Scott was ushered away by his staff. Read more
With threats on the rise, many American Jews are buying guns, seeking training. By Ashley R. Williams / CNN
With threats against American Jews on the rise, many have begun seeking firearms training and purchasing weapons out of fear for the safety of their communities and families, according to interviews CNN has conducted with gun range operators, firearms instructors and Jews in the US in recent days.
The Anti-Defamation League said it recorded 312 antisemitic incidents across the United States over the first three weeks after the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas broke out, including instances of harassment and assault. Read more
BU finds Ibram X. Kendi’s antiracist research center managed funds properly, despite turmoil. By AP and NBC News
Boston University said Tuesday that its initial inquiry into the antiracist research center run by best-selling author and academic Ibram X. Kendi found no issues with how it managed its finances. After the announcement, Kendi said he was eager to get back to work.
“Unfortunately, one of the most widely held racist ideas is the idea that Black people can’t manage money or Black people take money,” Kendi told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. “It was those two allegations that were expressed and connected to me that, of course, people didn’t necessarily need evidence to substantiate their belief that that happened because apparently my skin color was enough evidence.” Read more
Report: U.S. Schools Remain Segregated, More Work to Do. By Arrman Kyaw / Diverse Issues In Higher Ed.
Schools and school practices are integral to racial reconciliation and justice in the U.S., according to a new report that was published as part of UCLA’s Civil Rights Project.
In the report titled, “The Racial Reckoning and the Role of Schooling: Exploring the Potential of Integrated Classrooms and Liberatory Pedagogies,” the authors cite existing research to describe the ways in which schools, classrooms, and teaching strategies can be used to further racial equality and anti-racism. Read more
HHMI Launches $1.5 Billion Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program To Support Diversity, Innovation In Biomedical Research. By Sarah Hansen / UMBC News
President Freeman Hrabowski at Alumni Awards Ceremony. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Today, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) launched the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program to help build a scientific workforce that more fully reflects our increasingly diverse country. The $1.5 billion program honors UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III for his decades of leadership in growing and diversifying the pipeline of Ph.D.-level researchers, most prominently through UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program. UMBC is now the nation’s #1 producer of Black bachelor’s degree recipients who go on to earn a Ph.D. in the natural sciences and engineering, and this program builds on that legacy. Read more
It’s time to rethink parole in the age of mass incarceration. By Kristen Martin / Wash Post
Ben Austen’s ‘Correction’ focuses on the stories of two men to show how we might change the process of giving people second chances
As journalist Ben Austen’s “Correction” attests, parole is a process full of its own inequities and injustices, raising existential questions about what incarceration is supposed to accomplish and how much punishment and rehabilitation a person must undergo after committing a crime. Parole is also, as Austen writes, “central to a correction, to a change in the country’s values.” His book is a critical contribution to discussions of how to reform American criminal justice, illuminating how we might change the process of giving people second chances and re-envision the very purpose of our carceral system. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
“Apocalypticism”: Polling expert reveals the root of “panic among conservative White Christians.” By Chauncey Devega
“That core belief explains so much of the extremism and the proclivity toward violence on the political right”I asked Robert P. Jones, founder and president of PRRI, to help make sense of the survey results that show a divided American public, the enduring power and growing dangers of Trumpism and the role of White Christian nationalism in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s swift ascendence. Jones is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future.” Read more
Why are people leaving church? It’s time for faith leaders to change. By Buzz Thomas / The Tennessean
If religious leaders do not make some serious adjustments, 20 years from now a whole lot of church buildings are going to be restaurants.
If we want to reach young people, not only must we accept them – be they rich, poor, gay, straight, black, white or anything in between. We must help them. With their careers and their marriages. With child rearing, addiction, loneliness, depression, you name it. The church should be a place where all people can find hope, a sense of purpose and a place to serve. Read more
Abortion vote in Ohio pushes ‘pro-life pro-choice’ Black clergy to take a side. By Kathryn Post / RNS
For some clergy, the fall of Roe v. Wade has motivated them to speak out on abortion for the first time.
According to the Rev. Lesley Jones, organizing director of the AMOS project, a network of clergy and congregations working for social justice in Ohio, Issue 1 has forced many Black clergy, traditionally perceived as more conservative than mainline Protestants on abortion, to come to terms in public for the first time about how their faith informs their positions. The result, said Jones, is a “sophistication” in conversations about abortion in Black faith communities. Abortion rights were upheld Tuesday in Ohio. Read more
American Baptist Churches USA to be led by Rev. Gina Jacobs-Strain. By Fiona Andre’ / RNS
ABCUSA’s new leader stands out, as only 13% of ABCUSA churches are pastored by women, and 86% of women in Baptist churches still report facing obstacles in their ministry because of their gender.
On Saturday (Nov. 4), the American Baptist Churches USA became the last of the major mainline Protestant denominations to appoint a female leader by naming the Rev. Gina Jacobs-Strain as its general secretary. Read more
Historical / Cultural
A law that helped end slavery is now a weapon to end affirmative action. By Julian Mark / Wash Post
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 has become a critical tool in conservatives’ fight to end racial considerations in the private sector
After Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 — establishing citizenship for newly emancipated slaves — President Andrew Johnson vetoed it, voicing concern that it was “made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.” But lawmakers overrode his veto, enacting one of the nation’s first building blocks of an equal society. Now, 157 years later, the law has become central to the legal battle over what is fair and equal when it comes to race in the workplace. In recent years — and especially since the Supreme Court overturned race-conscious college admissions in June — the Reconstruction-era law has emerged as a critical tool for conservatives intent on dismantling race-specific programs that promote “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI. Read more
Nearing Her 109th Birthday, and Still Waiting for Her Day in Court. By Audra D.S. Burch / NYT
For more than a century, Lessie Benningfield Randle, one of the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, has lived with the searing details of that spring. For decades, she has recalled the fire that ravaged her neighborhood, Greenwood, and the frantic trip with her grandmother to the safety of a fairground.
“I would like to see justice. It’s past time. I would like to see this all cleared up and we go down the right road,” Ms. Randle said in an interview from her Tulsa residence. “But I do not know if I will ever see that.” Read more
Henry Ford’s Anti-Semitism Was Not a Footnote. By Daniel Schulman / The Atlantic
Making sense of anti-Semitism today requires examining Henry Ford’s outsize part in its origins.
Ford’s anti-Jewish beliefs are well known. Not well understood is his singular role in unleashing a new era of anti-Semitism, a modern strain of an ancient poison built upon the themes of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. You can glimpse Ford’s influence in the casual anti-Semitism of Donald Trump, who has deployed barely coded references to “globalists” and to “international banks” plotting secretly with one of his Democratic rivals to weaken the U.S. for their own enrichment; in Elon Musk’s signal-boosting of anti-Semites and his suggestion that George Soros “appears to want nothing less than the destruction of western civilization”; and in a surge in anti-Jewish harassment and hate crimes around the world, including the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. Read more
The Black National Anthem Was Created On This Day. Here’s What You Probably Didn’t Know About It. By Melissa Noel / Essence
Here’s how the song written by two bothers, James Weldon Johnson and his younger brother John Rosamond Johnson, continues to have an impact today.“
Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a powerful hymn with a rich history and cultural significance in the United States. It is often referred to as the Black National Anthem due to its powerful message and its role in the African American community’s struggle for civil rights and equality. Here are some key points about this hymn which was written on November 6, 1899. Read more
Hip-Hop Was Born in New York City, But Its Roots Are in the Caribbean. By Alex La Rotta / Yahoo News
Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Chuck D attend Columbia University’s Rap Summit circa November 1993 in New York City Credit – Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty ImagesSports
An all-Native American NFL team was founded 100 years ago — to promote a dog kennel. By Dana Hedgpeth / Wash Post
The Oorang Indians played a century before the Washington Football Team rebranded following its controversial Native American-derived name
17 years, zero losing seasons: Mike Tomlin’s coaching genius rumbles on. By Dave Caldwell / The Guardian
The Steelers head coach has won a Super Bowl but remaining in the playoff hunt with a middling roster may make 2023 his finest year so far
Tomlin led the Steelers to the Vince Lombardi Trophy in just his second season, tumbling to the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl two years later. But Tomlin also had the services of six-time Pro Bowl quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who often just refused to lose. The glory days were thought to be over when Big Ben called it quits in January 2022 after 18 seasons. Read more
Deion Sanders, blind faith and the coach’s first puzzling decision. By Ari Wasserman / The Athletic
There’s one quality Sanders lacks, though. Patience.
That has to be the reason Colorado’s head coach made the knee-jerk decision last week to take primary play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Sean Lewis and hand them to former NFL coach Pat Shurmur. Lewis was perhaps Sanders’ most important coaching addition during the offseason, and he was largely credited for being the reason the Buffaloes put up so many points early in the season despite having an obvious deficiency on the offensive line. Lewis left a head coaching job at Kent State to call plays at Colorado and seemed destined to be an attractive candidate for a Power 5 job in the offseason. Read more
Coco Gauff opens up on sponsorship deals as staggering financial figures are revealed. By Kevin Palmer / Tennis 365
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