Featured

The Reckoning of Joe Biden. By David Remnick / The New Yorker

There is an immense bounty of bunk about the wisdom of age available to all of us who require it from time to time, but, as the pitiless Mark Twain put it in his autobiography, “It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”

On Thursday night, it was Joe Biden’s turn. But, unlike the rest of us, he went to pieces on CNN, in front of tens of millions of his compatriots. At some level, Biden’s supporters were hoping that he would defy the realities of time, the better to puncture the vanities and malevolence of his felonious opponent. And so there was a distinct cruelty to it all, the spectacle of a man of eighty-one, struggling terribly with memory, syntax, nerves, and fragility, his visage slack with the dawning sense that his mind was letting him down and that, as a result, he was letting the country down. It must be said, with fellow-feeling, but it must be said: This was an event that, if unremedied, could bring the country closer to another Trump Presidency and with it a diminishment of liberal democracy. Read more

American media heavyweights tell president: it’s time to quit. By Robert Tait / The Guardian

Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden’s strongest backers join the call.

The judgment was devastating. The US president, the board forcefully argued, had presented such an alarming spectacle of aged frailty that the best thing he could now do for the country he had served for more than half a century was to withdraw from the race and allow his Democratic party to choose another candidate. Read more

Should Democrats stay the course or replace Biden? By Robert Reich / The Guardian

If anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night’s debate. His bullying lies were not just lies – they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.

Joe Biden had good and often detailed answers to the questions put to him, but the debate was never going to be about the president’s answers. It was always going to be about his age. In the wake of Biden’s performance, many Democrats are in a panic. Some believe it’s urgently necessary to replace Biden with another candidate. But there are many problems with trying to replace Biden at this point. For one, Biden would have to willingly give up the nomination in order to release delegates already pledged to him.

The only people I can think of as possible nominees are Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom and (my personal favorite) Sherrod Brown. Read more

Political / Social

Trump made more than 30 false claims during CNN’s presidential debate — far more than Biden. By CNN Staff

Trump made more than 30 false claims at the Thursday debate. They included numerous claims that CNN and others have already debunked during the current presidential campaign or prior.

Trump’s repeat falsehoods included his assertions that some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth, that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, that there were no terror attacks during his presidency, that Iran didn’t fund terror groups during his presidency, that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has, that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,” that Biden is planning to quadruple people’s taxes, that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, that Americans don’t pay the cost of his tariffs on China and other countries, that Europe accepts no American cars, that he is the president who got the Veterans Choice program through Congress, and that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election. Read more

Kamala Harris Could Win This Election. Let Her. By Lydia Polgreen / NYT

The obvious, logical path out of the mess President Biden created with his disastrous debate performance is for him to bow out with honor and endorse his young, vigorous and talented vice president to stand in his stead.

I think I speak for a lot of women, probably the most decisive voting bloc in this election, when I say that I would love to see Harris cut Trump down to size. Read more

No Blacks Allowed: The 2024 Presidential Debate. By Asha Bandele / Newsone

Listening to last night’s debate in which race matters were mostly undiscussed, speaks volumes about Americans, liberal, conservative and Trumpites.

Which is why in the end, what we heard loudly both in query and in response, was what was not said: critical matters of concern for Black people. I mean, wow. Just wow. With all the attacks on DEI, CRT and Black voters, how did none of that make it to the stage? No issues were calibrated toward Black sensibilities and needs. So aside from the issues noted above, where was the full-throated discussion on police violence, something that lives at the very top of an issue at the top of the NAACP’s agenda, which was released in March? Read more

Black men helped power Biden’s 2020 Georgia win. Some are wavering. By Maeve Reston / Wash Post

Trump and his allies are courting onetime Biden voters, aware that even a small shift among Black men in a state like Georgia could mean the difference between winning and losing.

The openness of some Black men to voting for Trump — despite his history of racist and offensive comments — is often rooted in the belief that the Biden administration has not done enough to ease their economic struggles. A defection by a significant number of them could be disastrous for Biden’s campaign. Read more

Two Governors, Two Visions of a New South. By Charles M. Blow / NYT

Last week, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a Democrat, signed an executive order issuing pardons for 175,000 marijuana and drug paraphernalia convictions, saying, “Today, we take a big step forward toward ensuring equal justice for all.” Meanwhile, Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a Republican, recently signed several bills that he says are intended to “expand faith in public schools.”

The paths taken by these two relatively young governors, one from the Upper South and one from the Deep South state from which I hail, represent opposite visions of what the South stands for and what its future should be. Read more

The judicial independence of Ketanji Brown Jackson. By Jason Willick / Wash Post

The progressive justice joined five conservatives in the Supreme Court’s Jan. 6 ruling on Friday.

When I would tell conservatives in the legal world that I expected Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — President Biden’s only Supreme Court appointee — to join the Republican-appointed justices in ruling against the Biden Justice Department’s sweeping and novel interpretation of an obstruction of justice law, most thought it was a long shot. Jackson surprised. In Fischer v. United States, she broke with the court’s other liberals on Friday and joined a 6-3 ruling for the Capitol riot defendant in the case. “Our commitment to equal justice and the rule of law requires the courts to faithfully apply criminal laws as written, even in periods of national crisis,” she wrote in a concurrence, “and even when the conduct alleged is indisputably abhorrent.” Read more

The Endless Pursuit of Equality Through College Admissions. By Alex Nguyen / Mother Jones

The new documentary “Admissions Granted” examines the different ways Asian Americans are impacted by the battles over affirmative action.

Admissions Granted, a documentary set to premiere on MSNBC on Sunday at 9 pm ET, gets at a central question about equality in the United States. “Everyone is treated the same, or equality demands that people be treated differently in order to produce the equality,” Jeannie Suk Gersen, a Harvard law professor, says in the film. “This has been there since the beginning of the country and was there at the inception of the Fourteenth Amendment. And it’s one that is unresolved.” Read more

Meet Dr. DEI, the new personification of old right-wing grievances. By Theodore R. Johnson / Wash Post

Complaints about diversity programs reflect the same old racial divisions inflamed for political gain.

The far right declares that the nation’s changing demographics threaten American culture and that diversity comes at the expense of White people. It points to critical race theory as proof — citing misconceptions of the law school framework as evidence of an imagined grand conspiracy. It positions its adherents as victims of racial discrimination because of policy attempts to right past wrongs and because opportunities have been opened to people of color. It laments feeling socially stigmatized for these views, and it turns that feeling into fuel for political campaigns. Read more

Texas Southern University ushers in new era under recently appointed president James Crawford III. By Brandon Hamilton / ABC News

Crawford, a Charlotte, North Carolina native, comes to TSU after serving in the Navy for over 30 years. He retired as a Vice Admiral and its 43rd Judge Advocate General.

Crawford became president of New Jersey’s Felician University in 2020 before stepping down last year. “I want to be that helping hand for these students because I can see myself in them and their opportunity and potential to exceed and excel,” he said. To excel, Crawford understands the task at hand. He takes over for Dr. Lesia Crumpton-Young, who abruptly retired in 2023 after holding the position for two years. Read more

World News

The reason why NATO and Europe found Biden’s debate performance so alarming. By Luke McGee / CNN

Those concerns, to be clear, are not about whether or not Biden is fit to make decisions. They are not worried that he will implement dangerous policies or take dramatic actions internationally – always a factor when talking about the person in charge of the world’s most powerful armed forces, a nuclear arsenal and largest economy.

The concerns that America’s allies have are that the most powerful country on earth cannot provide the one thing they most want: stability. Removing a candidate this late in the electoral cycle, diplomats fear, could undermine the whole process. It could allow adversaries like China and Russia to lash out at the US democratic system, making it look weak in comparison to their autocracies where strongmen grip power tight. Read more

Ukraine Update: North Korea commits boots on the ground in Ukraine. By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin visited fellow autocrat Kim Jong Un earlier this month, resulting in a new Russia-North Korea defense pact. As part of the deal, Russia agrees to provide North Korea with higher-precision weapons it can aim at Seoul. In return, Russia gets a unique rendition of the Russian anthem and more of the unreliable artillery shells it needs to fill out its dwindling stockpile.

However, Putin also seems to have emerged from the deal with something that many were not expecting—North Korean troops on the ground in Ukraine. Read more

Ordinary white South Africans and apartheid – bound to a racist system they helped prop up. By Neil Roos / The Conversation

In South Africa, apartheid was a divisive political system entrenched by a white minority who regarded other ethnic groups as inferior, creating townships on the outskirts of cities to house the black population and legislation to control their movements.

Many academic studies have focused on black life under apartheid, but few on white life – and even fewer on the role of working-class whites in the system. A new book, Ordinary Whites in Apartheid South Africa: Social Histories of Accommodation, does exactly that. We asked historian Neil Roos about his study. Read more

Biden administration extends protected status for up to 309,000 migrants from Haiti. By Sergio Martínez-Beltrán / NPR

The Biden administration, on Friday, announced an 18 months extension —and redesignation- to temporary protected status for up to 309,000 unauthorized migrants from Haiti living in the country.

A temporary protected status, also known as TPS, is not a permanent legal status but protects against deportation, allows migrants to get a work permit, and sometimes travel authorization. The TPS will apply for Haitians already under temporary protected status. And the redesignation will allow Haitians who have been in the U.S. since the beginning of the month to apply for an initial TPS. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Christians Must Reject Donald Trump. By Jim Miesner Jr. / Patheos

A lying, unprincipled, unrepentant criminal who stole from his charity, his contractors, and creditors, Trump has no moral compass. He embodies everything evil and everything Evangelical Christians warned against for 60 years.

Evangelicals told us not to support Bill Clinton because of his sexual immorality, saying repeatedly that character matters. Trump is everything immoral about Clinton, cubed, and Trump apologists continue to support him. He’s assaulted women and bragged about it. He has been fined more money than most of us can imagine. He faces federal charges of attacking American democracy and his only hope of evading a conviction is to be elected president and ordering the Department of Justice to stop prosecuting him. Read more

‘We are not saved alone’: Catholic theologians engage the social dimensions of salvation. By David E. Decosse / NCR

Meeting June 13-16 in Baltimore at its annual convention, the Catholic Theological Society of America brought the matter of salvation firmly back to earth.

Offering a vibrant range of papers on the theme of “social salvation,” more than 360 Catholic theologians explored what generations formed by the Baltimore Catechism and American individualism have often left out: that “we are not saved alone; our salvation is interrelated with the salvation of others,” as incoming president Nancy Pineda-Madrid put it. Read more

Thousands of faith leaders, union members, activists rally for poor. By Jack Jenkins / RNS

The Rev. William Barber addresses a crowd at a demonstration organized by the Poor People’s Campaign outside the U.S. Capitol on June 29, 2024. (RNS photo by Jack Jenkins)

Thousands of clergy, union members and activists rallied on behalf of the poor near the U.S. Capitol on Saturday (June 29), with faith leaders calling for lawmakers to embrace a slate of policies and for low-wealth Americans to make their voices heard in November as the nation’s “largest potential swing vote.” Read more

Key points in the debate over public funding for religious schools. By John Yang and Harry Zahn / PBS Podcast

According to an analysis by The Washington Post, the vast majority of school voucher money nationwide is going to religious schools.

John Yang speaks with Robert Enlow of EdChoice and Richard Katskee of Duke University’s Appellate Litigation Clinic for two perspectives on the debate over religion in publicly supported schools. Listen here

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law Is an Assault on History. By Robert McCoy / The Progressive Magazine

Republicans are using a debunked James Madison quote to defend a bill that would eviscerate church-state separation.

After all, Madison—the principal author of the First Amendment’s freedom of religion guarantees— tirelessly defended religious pluralism and liberty of conscience from state incursion. In his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance, he railed against publicly funded religion in Virginia on the grounds that state support for one faith “degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority.” Read more

A Storied Harlem Church Has a New Leader. Its Members Have Questions. By Gina Bellafonte / NYT

Behind the opaque process that just selected the next pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church. The Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson was most recently the lead pastor at Dare to Imagine, a church that he founded in Philadelphia.

Ever since Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s reign, beginning in the late 1930s, Abyssinian Baptist has been one of the most influential Black churchs in the country, a force in the political life of New York and an economic and social engine in Harlem, where it has stood for a century. When the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, who presided over the church for three decades, died two years ago at the age of 73, his legacy was felt both at the level of spiritual inspiration and material advantage. Over the past two years, the search for a new leader has been consuming. On Sunday, it resulted in the controversial election of a Philadelphia pastor named Kevin R. Johnson. Read more

Historical / Cultural

Descendants Push for Monument at Tulsa Race Massacre Site. By Brooke Leigh Howard / Daily Beast

The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s rejection of reparations for victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre has spurred a new fight to establish a memorial at the site.

Now, descendants and their allies want recognition in the form of a national monument so the country can never forget or attempt to suppress the brutality that was unleashed on the Greenwood community over a century ago, an event whose effects still linger in the livelihoods of residents and later generations. Read more

A Visual History of the Harlem Renaissance. By The New York Times

The Harlem Renaissance changed the world. We’ve gathered dozens of images, many that we’ve never published, showing the people and the art that they created.

Travel through early 20th-century Harlem in this visual history: a curated collection of photographs, videos, paintings and books that gave the Jazz Age its swing. Hover over an image or click an article to learn more. Read more

Looking forward and back as the Civil Rights Act turns 60. By Deborah Barfield Berry / USA Today

Across the country, civil rights groups, scholars and others have commemorated the landmark law with panels, comprehensive reports and rallies. Many have cited its impact and other federal laws that came in its wake, including one protecting the right to vote for all citizens and another banning discrimination in housing.

“It propelled a movement that was able to make major civil rights gains,’’ said Melanie Campbell, president of the nonpartisan National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. The law outlawed segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, called the law “transformative.” Read more

How Black Americans have been cheated out of land ownership – and the movement to reverse this . By Andrew Lawrence / The Guardian

New book examines history of US land theft and why Black citizens’ futures should include restorative justice

Brea Baker’s debut tome, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Ownership, plows deep into a devastating history that spans from settler colonialism to modern-day redlining. Released on Juneteenth, the US federal holiday that honors the captive workers who were last to find out slavery in America had ended. Read more

THE PACIFIC: The Warriors That HBO Forgot – Black Soldiers In the Pacific. By Ronald David Jackson / Internet Archive

It took me less than 5 minutes to find these photographs and accompanying information online. So why are blacks almost (if not completely) absent from HBO’s 10-part series?

The HBO Series, “The Pacific” was produced by Steven Spielberg & Tom Hanks. HBO is a billion-dollar corporation, Tom Hanks is a multi-millionaire and Steven Spielberg is a virtual billionaire– Are we to believe they could not afford a professional group of researchers and that they didn’t know about the role that American blacks played in the Pacific during World War II? Read more

Sports

Now 99, the oldest living Negro leaguer ‘never thought they would recognize me.’ By Michael Lee / Wash Post

Rev. Bill Greason, who survived the Battle of Iwo Jima as a Marine before becoming teammates and close friends with Willie Mays, calls the recent embrace of Black baseball’s past a “blessing.”

His service in the military was seemingly behind him, and his professional baseball career just beginning, when Rev. Bill Greason arrived in Birmingham, Ala., in 1948. Greason roomed with another rookie, a 17-year-old high school kid nearly seven years his junior. Willie Mays was bubbling with talent and knew how good he was but never bragged. His flashy play in center field was how he communicated his confidence. Greason recalls the time Mays set the rules with his fellow outfielders for how balls would be defended. Anything between the foul lines and where they stood was theirs. Read more

Simone Biles Gets Standing Ovation For Breathtaking Vault Named After Her. By

The highly decorated gymnast drew a standing ovation and earned a score of 15.975 in Minneapolis after landing a Yurchenko double pike.

The complex maneuver is the most difficult jump in contemporary women’s gymnastics. Last year, Biles became the first woman to perform the feat in an international competition, which led to it being officially dubbed the Biles II. Read more and watch here

Bronny James to Lakers in NBA draft: What it means for him, LeBron. By Lorenzo Reyes / USA Today

There’s another James — officially — in the NBA.

The Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James, the son of icon and all-time leading scorer LeBron James, with the No. 55 overall pick in the NBA draft Thursday. This ends months of speculation about where Bronny would land, and it also may help settle uncertainty about where his father will be playing. Though he had cooled in his public comments about this recently, LeBron James has said repeatedly that he would be interested in playing in the NBA with his son. Now, that looks like it will be the reality. Read more

U.S. track is poised to head to Paris with plenty of star power. By Adam Kilgore / Wash Post

Sha’Carri Richardson, Noah Lyles and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are lighting the way to the Summer Games.

Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, world champions in the marquee 100 meters, won and maintained their status as favorites to win gold medals in Paris. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the 400-meter hurdles world record holder, will make her trials debut Thursday as an essential lock to make her third Olympic team by 24. Read more

Orlando Cepeda, Baseball Star Known as the Baby Bull, Dies at 86. By Richard Goldstein / NYT

Only the second Puerto Rican native elected to the Hall of Fame, he hit 379 home runs but later served time in prison on a drug-smuggling charge.

Playing for 17 seasons in the major leagues, mostly at first base but also in the outfield and, at the end of his career, as a designated hitter, Cepeda hit 379 home runs, had 2,351 hits, drove in 1,365 runs and finished his career with a batting average of .297. Read more

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