Featured
The One Thing Not Named Trump That Trump Cares About. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
The centerpiece of Donald Trump’s second-term domestic agenda is the mass deportation of what he and his campaign say are 20 million or even 25 million undocumented immigrants.
“The Republican platform,” Trump said during his speech accepting his party’s nomination in July for president, “promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” And while the best estimates have the undocumented population at around 11 million people, plus the approximately 2.3 million migrants who have been released into the country on bond, parole, an order of supervision or conditional release, this doesn’t seem to matter to the former president, who has targeted anyone he deems “illegal.” Read more
Political / Social
Can Harris Stop Blue-Collar Workers from Defecting to Donald Trump? By Eyal Press / The New Yorker
She’s touting the Biden Administration’s strong record on labor. But it might not be enough to win over voters who distrust Democrats as élites.
The large crowds at Harris’s rallies, along with the donations that have poured into her campaign, have drawn comparisons to Obama’s electrifying race for the White House in 2008. The broad enthusiasm her candidacy has aroused is reflected in the proliferation of Zoom fund-raisers with names like South Asian Women for Harris and White Dudes for Harris. But Harris’s support rests disproportionately with affluent, college-educated voters. It’s possible that courting such Americans—including Republicans in the suburbs who dislike Trump and support abortion rights—will enable her to win. Read more
A Steely Liz Cheney, at Harris’s Side, Calls It ‘Our Duty’ to Reject Trump. Erica L. Green and Katie Rogers / NYT
The former congresswoman and Republican exile stumped for Kamala Harris in Ripon, Wis., the birthplace of the G.O.P., calling on conservatives to shun Donald Trump’s “depraved cruelty.”
It was an exercise in unsubtle and unlikely campaign optics: a Democratic vice president who is running for the presidency. A Republican former congresswoman who is the daughter of a staunchly conservative vice president. A small city known as the birthplace of the Republican Party in the middle of a battleground state. Read more
Related: Bruce Springsteen Slams Donald Trump In His Kamala Harris Endorsement. By Kase Wickman / Vanity Fair
Related: Obama Launching Four-Week Campaign Blitz for Harris. By Jennifer Epstein / Bloomberg
Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age. Peter Baker and
With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years.
Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there. Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention. Read more
Related: Are People Quiet Quitting Trump? By Leah D. Schade / Patheos
Four Takeaways From Jack Smith’s Brief in the Trump Election Case. Charlie Savage and Alan Feuer / NYT
The special counsel who has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a criminal conspiracy over his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election has filed a lengthy brief laying out his key evidence along with an argument for why the case should be able to go forward despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in July on presidential immunity.
Here are some key takeaways from the 165-page brief, which a judge largely unsealed on Wednesday: Read more
Related: Trump Did Nothing to Stop the Mob. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Related: Jan. 6 thrust back into the spotlight in final election days. By Stephen Collinson / CNN
The Post endorses Angela D. Alsobrooks for U.S. Senate in Maryland. By the Editorial Board / Wash Post
Marylanders have two strong options, but Ms. Alsobrooks is the better one.
Both candidates in Maryland’s race for U.S. Senate are urging voters to think in terms of how each would affect the balance of power in the upper chamber — and in national politics more generally. Former governor Larry Hogan (R), citing his consistently anti-Trump stance, offers himself as a centrist who could help temper the Republican Conference from within and forge bipartisan compromises. Democrat Angela D. Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, counters that the only effect electing Mr. Hogan would have on a Republican majority is to make one possible in the first place. Read more
The Worst States for Black Americans: Every State Ranked. By 24/7 Wall St. Staff
Racial disparity and inequality in the United States today is rooted in long-standing behaviors, beliefs, and policies. Formal and informal inequitable policies, such as Jim Crow laws, enforced segregation and severely limited opportunities for Black Americans and other groups. Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to address some of these issues, it remains difficult to this day to undo centuries of rooted racism and practices and the resulting enduring racial disparities.
To find out which states are the worst for Black Americans today, 24/7 Wall St. created an index consisting that assess race-based gaps in eight measures: median household income, poverty rate, adult high school and bachelor’s degree attainment rates, homeownership rate, unemployment rate, incarceration rate by race, and age-adjusted mortality rate by race. The index does not rank conditions of Black Americans alone by state, but rather the gaps compared to white state residents. Read more
False Claims of Voter Fraud Lead to Real Instances of Voter Suppression. By Ari Berman / Mother Jones
Donald Trump’s claim that non-citizens are crossing the Southern border and registering to vote in US elections has become a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, even though every major study shows that non-citizen voting is exceedingly rare. Exhibit A: Alabama’s error-ridden voter purge.
But a lawsuit filed last month shows that those false assertions of voter fraud are leading to real world instances of qualified voters being blocked from casting a ballot. On August 13, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, an election denier who supported Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 results, announced that his office had identified 3,200 alleged noncitizens who had registered to vote in the state and had begun removing them from the voter rolls. Read more
Why ‘Equity’ Is The DEI Dirty Word. By Sheila Callaham / Forbes
The American Civil Liberties Union refer to 2020 as the time of racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd, after which protests followed. At the same time, employees demanded leadership make statements of support and demonstrate that support with increased efforts to address continued racial strife. According to Indeed, corporate DEI hiring increased by 123% between May and September 2020. As DEI grew, so did the anti-DEI movement, coined by some Republicans as the war on woke. The question is, what is driving the anti-DEI movement?
When diversity programs appeared in corporate America in the 1980s and 90s, according to the late Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., ( A Morehouse College graduate) it was a strategy to increase U.S. global competition. Referred to as the father of diversity, Thomas was one of the first thought leaders to write about diversity management. Over the decades, what started as simply diversity went through several iterations before it became diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Read more
Red Lobster is a mess. Here’s why the new 35-year-old CEO wanted the job anyway. By CNN
TikToks of customers stuffing their faces with a $20 endless shrimp. More than 100 restaurant closures and thousands of layoffs. A revolving door of CEOs. Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Damola Adamolekun, the new chief executive of Red Lobster, is taking over a chain in turmoil. And he’s only 35. Read more
Related: How David Steward Became the Richest Black Person In America. By Ann Brown / Finurah
World News
Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would He? By Lawrence Freedman / NYT
Last week, President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine. He said Russia would be prepared to use a nuclear weapon in response to an attack with conventional weapons that creates a “critical threat to our sovereignty” and would treat “aggression against Russia by any nonnuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state,” as a “joint attack on the Russian Federation.”
This is the key change, and it’s not subtle. Nor is it meant to be. Its purpose is to influence Washington on the specific question of whether to grant Ukraine’s request to use American weapons systems against targets inside Russia, and more generally to persuade Western leaders to take Mr. Putin’s threats more seriously. Read more
The world’s mayors want to change the conversation on migration. By Ishaan Tharoor / Wash Post
“I see politicians trying to use the situation to advance their political position,” said the mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. “But this doesn’t solve the problems we actually have.”
Migration is the powder keg of our angry age. Disquiet over influxes of asylum seekers has animated nationalists and nativists on both sides of the Atlantic. An ascendant strain of right-wing politics in Western democracies is rooted in suspicion and resentment of migrants. Outside the West, from Tunisia to India and many countries in between, demagogic leaders grandstand over fears about foreign interlopers. Read more
Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack. By AFP
Jamaican soldiers and police officers arrive at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 12, 2024, as part of an international policing mission
The Haitian government has deployed specialist anti-gang police units, it said Friday, after an apparent massacre northwest of Port-au-Prince that the United Nations said left at least 70 dead. Carried out early Thursday in the town of Pont Sonde, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital, the attack saw scores of houses and vehicles torched after gang members opened fire. Read more
Thousands Join Pro-Palestinian Rallies Around the Globe. By Giada Zampano and Sylvia Hui / Time
Attendees at a protest in Rome on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, as people gathered to march ahead of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7.
Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent demonstrators in Rome as tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets in major European cities and around the globe Saturday to call for a cease-fire as the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel approached. Huge rallies were held in several European cities, with gatherings expected to continue over the weekend and peak on Monday, the date of the anniversary. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
JD Vance and the Prophets of Trumpism. By David French / NYT
On Sept. 28, JD Vance spoke at a Christian political event hosted by the most influential religious leader you’ve probably never heard of.
His name is Lance Wallnau, and he is one of the chief proponents of a radical religious doctrine called the Seven Mountain Mandate. He’s an election denier. He’s said Kamala Harris engaged in “witchcraft” in her debate with Donald Trump and that an “occult spirit” is working “on her and through her.” And he’s a leader of one of the most dangerous political factions in America: the religious movement that helped fuel the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Read more
A Lincoln parable: A review of Our Ancient Faith. By Stephen Healey / Christian Century
Civil War historian Allen Guelzo documents Lincoln’s faith—not in God but in the American experiment.
Eminent Civil War historian Allen C. Guelzo, a distinguished research scholar at Princeton University, has written a book-length essay worth commending to your second hand. Marshaling a lifetime of learning and reflection, Our Ancient Faith reviews Abraham Lincoln’s life, thoughts, speeches, and outlook to reveal the riches of American democracy. Read more
Belief, Experience, and Expectations of God. The Russell Moore show: A Conversation with Steve Cuss / Christianity Today
Why do we struggle to rest in the love of God? Perhaps, says Steve Cuss, it’s because we’ve never “wrestled to the ground our own preconceived notions.”
On this episode of The Russell Moore Show, Moore and Cuss dig into some of those preconceived notions about God and Christianity. They talk about fear and anxiety, persistent sin, and addiction. Their conversation covers the differences between a preventative and a redemptive gospel, the power of community as an antidote to despair, and how to determine when a failure is an inevitable part of life or when it is a sign that something is wrong. Moore and Cuss discuss the five false needs in every human, what it looks like to give our anxiety to God, and the great hope of the thief on the cross. Listen here
A church divided: Rift over new pastor at influential Black church in Harlem. By Chris Glorioso and Tiffany Zeno / NBC NY
Fresh off of the selection of a new senior pastor, Harlem’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church is facing a deep divide. A dozen members of the influential Black congregation tell the I-Team they represent dozens more who believe the new pastor was chosen in a flawed process, set up to unfairly favor one candidate.
Last Sunday, Rev. Kevin Johnson officially took over both administrative and spiritual leadership of the century’s old church on West 138th Street. Over the years, Abyssinian has hosted governors, senators, and presidential candidates, while playing a prominent role in the nation’s civil rights movement. Among those on hand to celebrate the new pastor’s installation: Sen. Rev. Raphel Warnock (D-GA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–NY). But Johnson’s ascendency to the pulpit of one of the nation’s most powerful African American churches has frustrated some members who say his choosing was pre-ordained by a biased selection committee, that handed him a victory with too few votes from rank-and-file church members. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Nat Turner’s Rebellion: An American Tale Of Defiance And Tragedy. By NewsOne Staff
In 1831, Nat Turner led a rebellion of slaves known as the “Southampton Insurrection” against their White owners, which led to the death of more than 160 people in total. The rally would be the largest uprising, at that point, in US history.
Nat Turner spent his life in the Southampton region of Virginia, a predominately Black area. He had strong ties to the Coromantee people, as his maternal grandmother was a part of that group. The Coromantee were known for slave revolts, which may have inspired his later calling. Unlike many slaves, he learned to read and write at a young age, finding comfort in religion. Quoting Bible verses and plagued by what he thought to be prophetic visions, Turner would lead his fellow slaves in church services, with his congregation calling him a “prophet.” Read more
Kamala Harris and the Influence of an Estranged Father Just Two Miles Away. Robert Draper / NYT
Donald J. Harris rarely speaks to his famous daughter, who lives nearby. But he helped shape who she became.
Kamala Harris recalled a childhood memory of her father in her convention speech two months ago, when she said he exhorted her in an unnamed park to “Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.” It evoked a golden moment between a father and his older daughter and seemed a tribute to what he had helped her become. The reality is a great deal more complicated. Read more
Related: The Woman Who Made Kamala Harris — and Modern America. By Michael Kruse / Politico
Gladwell reexamines ‘The Tipping Point’ — releasing ‘Revenge of the Tipping Point.’ By Steve Inskeep / Morning Edition NPR
Decades after writing “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell says he’s less optimistic. He tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep he reexamined his book about social epidemics, and rewrote it with darker themes.
Malcolm Gladwell is revisiting the book that made him famous. “The Tipping Point” was a huge bestseller in 2000. Its title proclaimed an alluring idea – a social trend or behavior might spread slowly until a tipping point, when it reaches just enough people, and then suddenly it’s everywhere, like an epidemic. Businesses and activists loved this, even as critics questioned some of Gladwell’s findings. Recently, he started an update to that book and decided instead on a total rewrite. Read more
Kimberlé Crenshaw Awarded W.E.B. Du Bois Medal At Harvard For Her Contributions To African And African American Culture. By Shannon Dawson / NewsOne
Civil rights advocate and legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw speaks after she received her medal during the Harvard University Hutchins Center Honors W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Ceremony on October 1, 2024, at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Masachusetts.
This week, the world-famous scholar and social justice advocate received the prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Medal, awarded by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research courtesy of her alma mater, Harvard University, according to a press release. The honor is bestowed upon leaders who have made remarkable contributions to African and African American culture—an area to which Crenshaw has devoted her life’s work. Read more
Sports
The Black quarterback is now the NFL’s leading man. But at what cost? By Andfew Lawrence / The Guardian
Black signal callers are no longer marginalized. But it also means that, to some extent, they have been forced to become company men
When the NFL regular-season began in September, Black quarterbacks made up a record 15 of the league’s 32 starters; that included three – Carolina’s Bryce Young, Houston’s CJ Stroud and Indianapolis’ Anthony Richardson – who were taken with the three of the first four picks in the 2023 draft. But even as Black quarterbacks have gained acceptance into the most symbolic leadership position in American sports, some things had to give in the bargain. Black quarterbacks backpedal from going full LeBron James and using their lofty platform to call out institutional racism in and around their sport, lest they offend their billionaire white bosses, turn off fans and end up banished from the league alongside Colin Kaepernick. Read more
Related: How Deshaun Watson became a football calamity in Cleveland. By Adam Kilgore / Wash Post
Up against Hank Greenberg, baseball’s first Jewish superstar, antisemitism struck out. By Robert
Hank Greenberg might be the best baseball player you’ve never heard of. Greenberg was the first baseman for the Detroit Tigers during the 1930s and 1940s. His career was relatively short – 13 years – and interrupted by two stints of service in World War II.
Yet outside the war years, there were glorious seasons. Greenberg led the American League in home runs four times, played in five All-Star Games, twice won the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award and, in 1938, nearly broke what was then the game’s most hallowed record: Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in one season. In 1956, Greenberg was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Read more
Heisman straw poll: Travis Hunter’s pose matches early voting, but Jalen Milroe lurks. By Joe Rexrode / NYT
Travis Hunter struck the Heisman pose. Jalen Milroe and Ryan Williams connected on what will be one of 2024’s best plays. Ashton Jeanty created one of those on his own. Cam Ward made an improbable escape.
And that’s the entirety of the representation in The Athletic’s first weekly Heisman straw poll of the 2024 season. Hunter, Colorado’s do-everything, play-every-play cornerback and receiver, leads the way, getting 19 of 25 first-place votes and totaling 67 points. Milroe, the Alabama quarterback whose 75-yard touchdown pass to freshman receiver Williams delivered victory over Georgia after a 28-point lead had been squandered, came in second (six first-place votes, 41 points). Read more
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