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Trump and Vance keep repeating lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. The Republicans know exactly what they’re doing. By Eric Levitz / Vox
In recent days, the Republican presidential ticket has decided to promote incendiary lies about a roughly 15,000-person immigrant community in one small Ohio city.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance introduced this line of messaging Monday, when he declared that “Haitian illegal immigrants” are “causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” and that “people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” Every aspect of this claim was untrue. Read more
Trump, Outrage and the Modern Era of Political Violence. Peter Baker / NYT
The latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president indicates how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him.
At the heart of today’s eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed. Read more
Related: The Threats in Springfield Are an Ominous Sign of What’s to Come. By Anna Marks / NYT
Political / Social
Harris holds 6-point national lead over Trump in postdebate polling. By Filip Timotija / The Hill
Vice President Harris is leading former President Trump nationally by 6 points, according to a polling released a week after the first debate between the major party nominees.
The Morning Consult survey, published Tuesday, found Harris garnered 51 percent support among likely voters — her highest margin to date — compared to Trump’s 45 percent. Some 2 percent said they would prefer someone else, while another 2 percent had no opinion. The vice president’s lead is outside the survey’s margin of error. Read more
Related: Kamala Harris has neutralized Donald Trump’s “high-dominance” advantage. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Related: Harris got her debate bump and the fundamentals are looking strong By J Ash Bowie / Daily Kos
Related: Trump’s Woes Grow as Harris Surges in Crucial Poll. By Edith Olmsted / TNR
Millions Have Amnesia About the Worst of Trump’s Presidency. Memory Experts Explain Why. By David Corn / Mother Jones
One of the most oft-quoted sentences ever penned by a philosopher is George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In 2024, this aphorism is practically a campaign slogan. Donald Trump, seeking to become the first former president since Grover Cleveland to return to the White House after being voted out of the job, has waged war on remembrance. In fact, he’s depending on tens of millions of voters forgetting the recent past. This election is an experiment in how powerful a memory hole can be. Read more
Related: Trump’s Slow-Burn Authoritarianism. Greg Sargent / TNR
John Roberts’ MAGA conversion: How Donald Trump remade the Supreme Court in his image. By Austin Sarat / Salon
The chief justice has ignored Trump’s worst behavior to advance an expansive conception of presidential power
Since he was appointed Supreme Court chief justice by George W. Bush in 2005, John Roberts has been something of an enigma. He initially tried to cultivate a reputation as a fair-minded institutionalist, occasionally surprising observers in controversial cases, as he did when he cast the deciding vote upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. But don’t be fooled. Roberts is no moderate. He’s a right-wing idealogue whose leadership has done great damage to the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country and lately become an enabler of former President Donald Trump. Read more
“Get this under control”: Mark Robinson’s anti-birth control tirade spoils Trump’s Project 2025 spin. By Amanda Marcotte / Salon
“Don’t lay down and act like you’re making a baby til you’re ready to have a baby,” the Republican candidate said
North Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, now running to be governor of the Tar Heel State, rose to fame in the GOP by channeling the id of the typical MAGA voter. His speeches and social media presence channel a D-list shock jock mentality, filtered through a Christian nationalist lens, that’s grown in popularity in the Trump era. He calls LGBTQ people “filth,” “maggots,” and “flies,” insisting they should be forced to “find a corner outside” rather than be allowed to use public restrooms. He’s denounced women’s suffrage and argued that once a woman is pregnant, her body belongs to “the daddy.” And before Tucker Carlson was embracing Holocaust denialism, Robinson was raving that it was “hogwash” to believe the Nazi genocide of Jews happened. Read more
Disinformation and suppression loom over Georgia, says Black Voters Matter co-founder. By Mary Louise Kelly ,Erika Ryan ,Kira Wakeam. Courtney Dorning / NPR
Just a few months ago, it looked like Donald Trump had secured the state of Georgia for the November election. Then Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Kamala Harris jumped in. Now, the state is very much in play. Shown is LaTosha Brown.
Black voters make up about a third of the population in Georgia. Their votes will matter. So All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly sat down with LaTosha Brown — the co-founder of Black Voters Matter — to find out how she’s thinking about the election, the threat of voter suppression and disinformation, and what Harris’ candidacy means to her. Read more
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI. Erin Gretzinger, Maggie Hicks, Christa Dutton, and Jasper Smith / Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Chronicle is tracking higher ed’s dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. As colleges make changes in response to anti-DEI legislation and mounting political pressure, an inconsistent and confusing landscape has emerged. This resource aims to document the changes and help readers better understand how the campaign against DEI has actually reshaped campuses.
The Chronicle has tracked changes at 200 college campuses in 30 states. View more details by state and individual institution below. Read more
Related: Yale, Princeton and Duke Are Questioned Over Decline in Asian Students. Anemona Hartocollis / NYT
Black women are more likely than white women to die of all types of breast cancer. By
The findings highlight how racial disparities, rather than biology, are driving the differences in death rates between Black and white women.
Black women are more likely than white women to die from even the most treatable types of breast cancer, a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found. The findings, experts say, underscore that it’s racial disparities, not biology, driving the biggest differences in death rates between Black and white women. While Black women and white women are diagnosed with breast cancer at similar rates, Black women are 40% more likely to die from the disease. Read more
World News
Second Apparent Assassination Attempt on Trump Prompts Alarm Abroad. Roger Cohen / NYT
There is widespread concern that the November election will not end well and that American democracy has frayed to the breaking point.
In the nine years since Donald J. Trump entered American politics, the global perception of the United States has been shaken by the image of a fractured, unpredictable nation. First one, then a second apparent attempt on the former president’s life have accentuated international concerns, raising fears of violent turmoil spiraling toward civil war. Read more
Related: Microsoft says Russian propaganda now targets Harris and Walz. By Shannon Bond / NPR
Ambassador Brigety Remarks for Independence Day Celebration – U.S. Embassy & Consulates in South Africa
It is my privilege to welcome you here to the American Community Center in Pretoria or, as you may have seen on your way in, welcome to Atlanta!
This year, the United States celebrates 248 years of independence. 248 years of self-determination. 248 years of the exercise of democracy. On the heels of the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s democracy and the establishment of the historic Government of National Unity, I am honored to celebrate this important American milestone in South Africa. For this year’s Independence Day event, we’ve chosen to highlight the American City of Atlanta which epitomizes the enduring democratic values that the United States and South Africa share. Read more
How Netanyahu Is Trying to Save Himself, Elect Trump and Defeat Harris. Thomas L. Friedman /NYT
If President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris needed any reminder that Benjamin Netanyahu is not their friend, not America’s friend and, most shamefully, not the friend of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, the murder by Hamas of six Israeli souls while Netanyahu dragged out negotiations should make that clear. Netanyahu has one interest: his own immediate political survival, even if it undermines Israel’s long-term survival.
Madam Vice President, have no doubt, this will lead him to do things in the next two months that could seriously harm your election chances and strengthen Donald Trump’s. Be afraid. Read more
Related: The One Issue Where Israeli Extremists Are Mainstream.
Sprinkled with our blood’: Why so many Ukrainians resist land for peace. By Francesca Ebel and Serhii Korolchuk / NYT
Ukraine is under pressure to cut a deal to end the war, especially if Trump wins, but there is likely to be fierce opposition from some soldiers and their families in the east.
Even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky heads to the United States bearing a “victory plan” for President Joe Biden that he says will end the war in Ukraine’s favor, the future of U.S. leadership is on a knife-edge. Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), have made it clear that their plan for the end of the war would involve Ukraine ceding territory. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Do Christians Need to be Reminded that Racism is Immoral? By Jim Meisner Jr. / Patheos
Trump’s repulsive rhetoric reflects the racism that simmers just beneath the surface for millions of Americans and has destroyed countless lives.
If elected, Trump pledges to destroy tens of thousands of families and separate parents and children again with massive, racist roundups and deportations of Spanish speaking people living and working in the United States. Read more
The Uneasy Conscience of Christian Nationalism. By Russell Moore / Christianity Today
Too many of us assume that Christian nationalism promises a road map to a New Jerusalem or a New Rome or a New Constantinople. That’s understandable, given the triumphal and martial rhetoric of would-be theocrats. But what if the actual road map is to none of those places?
What if the new Christian nationalism wants to take us not to the rebuilt shining city on a hill of Cotton Mather’s Massachusetts Bay Colony but just to double coupon night at the Bellagio in Las Vegas? Read more
Kamala Harris’ message to women on ‘freedom’ helps explain why Black and white Christians are deeply divided over support for Donald Trump. By Youssef Chouhoud et al. / The Conversation
By centering “freedom” in her campaign, Harris invoked a key element of Black identity and spirituality rooted in the historic struggle for liberation by formerly enslaved people. This legacy partly drives an attitudinal divide between Black and white Christians, especially on issues such as abortion and support for Trump. Kamala Harris addresses Zeta Phi Beta sorrority.
As political science and religion scholars, we view Harris’ remarks as a subtle reminder to voters that Black religious life in the U.S. has long involved an appeal to people of all faiths to use their beliefs to advance social justice. Read more
Democrats Can’t Rely on the Black Church Anymore. By Daniel K. Williams / The Atlantic
The path to winning the Black vote no longer runs through the church door.
When Kamala Harris learned that Joe Biden was going to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, she called her pastor to ask for prayer. Like many other African American Democrats, Harris is a member of a predominantly Black, social-justice-oriented church, and her pastor, Amos C. Brown, is a veteran of civil-rights campaigns. But today, many of those churches are shrinking, and their members are aging. Brown himself is 83. For many younger African Americans, the Black Church no longer holds the place of importance that it did for their parents or grandparents. Fewer than one-third of Black Gen Zers and Millennials ever go to Black churches. The result is that the Democratic Party is losing a reliable way to reach Black voters.
Historical / Cultural
What the landmark ‘1619 Project’ taught Nikole Hannah-Jones. By TyLisa Johnson / Poynter
5 years after its publication, the Pulitzer Prize and Genius grant winner reflects on the landmark project and looks toward what’s next
Even when the award-winning “1619 Project” was just the seed of an idea, Nikole Hannah-Jones knew the immensity of her endeavor. The ambitious set of essays first published by The New York Times in August 2019 centered the enslavement of Africans in the founding of America and aimed to unsettle long-held narratives that downplay the role of slavery in the development of the nation. The project beckons readers to consider 1619 as a founding date, and the practice of slavery as the country’s true foundation. Read more
Taking Frantz Fanon at His Word. By Sazi Bongwe / The Nation
There has been an effort to negate Fanon’s ideas and sever them from the people of Palestine. But in his work, I find the beginning of a credible path towards liberation. Frantz Fanon at a press conference in 1959.
We were assigned readings from Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. I anticipated our discussion to center the latter, but Fanon’s anti-colonial treatise, written against the backdrop of the Algerians’ struggle for independence from France, was squeezed into the tail end of the two-hour lecture. Our professor closed with a frantic footnote: “I just want to caution you against thinking of Fanon as the bloodthirsty celebrator of violence he’s often made out to be.” Read more
Frankie Beverly obituary. By Adam Sweeting / The Guardian
American singer, musician and founder of the R&B band Maze whose sensual voice was at the core of their sound
He was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the city’s East Germantown district. His father was a truck driver while his mother organised the family home. He attended Germantown high school, and took his first musical steps as a schoolboy by singing gospel music in a local Baptist church where his father was a deacon. “I grew up in church, and even as a child I loved singing,” he said. Read more
Tito Jackson, member of the Jackson 5, has died at 70, his sons say. By AP and Aol.com
Tito was the third of nine Jackson children, which include global superstars Michael and sister Janet, part of a music-making family whose songs are still beloved today.
Born on Oct. 15, 1953, Toriano Adaryll “Tito” Jackson was the least-heard member of the group as a background singer who played guitar. His brothers launched solo careers, including Michael, who became one of the world’s biggest performers known as The King of Pop. Read more
Sean Combs Indicted on Charges of Sex Trafficking and Racketeering. Ben Sisario and Julia Jacobs / NYT
A day after his arrest, the music mogul known as Diddy was accused of running a “criminal enterprise” that threatened and abused women. He pleaded not guilty.
Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, was denied bail on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. In a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday, Mr. Combs, 54, was described as the boss of a yearslong criminal enterprise that threatened and abused women, coercing them to participate against their will in drug-fueled orgies with male prostitutes and threatening them with violence or the loss of financial support if they refused. Read more
Sports
Deion Sanders believes Travis Hunter can still play both ways in NFL By Brent Schrotenboer / USA Today
Colorado football coach Deion Sanders recently had a discussion with NFL scouts about Travis Hunter. The topic was his potential, according to Sanders. Can Hunter do in the NFL what he’s been doing at Colorado?In other words, can he play on offense and defense at the next level without taking much of a break?
In last week’s 28-9 win at Colorado State, Hunter had 13 catches for 100 yards and two touchdowns on offense. On defense, he had five tackles, an interception return for 38 yards and a pass breakup. He played 123 of 138 snaps from scrimmage, according to Colorado. Read more
Related: What legacy will Deion Sanders leave at Colorado? By William C. Rhoden / Andscape
New Evidence in Simone Biles Documentary Could Help Jordan Chiles Get Her Medal Back.
There’s a positive new development in USA Gymnastics’ relentless pursuit to help Jordan Chiles reclaim her bronze medal from the 2024 Paris Games.
Video footage in the Netflix docuseries, Simone Biles: Rising, reveals that Landi tells the judges, “Inquiry for Jordan!” exactly 49 seconds after Chiles received her score in the floor routine—well before the 60-second time limit—according to court documents released Monday. Landi could be heard saying “inquiry for Jordan” several more times prior to the deadline. Read more
Related: Jordan Chiles appeals to Swiss supreme court over stripping of Olympic bronze. The Guardian
“Fast As Hell”- Tyreek Hill Gets Upper Hand Against Noah Lyles To Give A ‘Hard Time’ In Potential Race Duel. By Rohit Lohan / Essentially Sports
Around 36 million Americans tuned in to watch the Paris Olympics proceedings when Noah Lyles lined up to bag the ultimate prize. They had hoped their fastest man to bring the Olympics 100m gold back after 20 years and had anticipated the end of such a long, enduring wait. When Lyles edged out Kishane Thompson with the barest of margins, it erupted the nation into joy and tears.
But one man thought the newly crowned champion could be defeated, and that’s none other than Tyreek Hill. Read more
Related: Officer in Tyreek Hill’s detainment had 6 suspensions and numerous reprimands, records show. By
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