I watched the reaction roll in from my spot down here in North Carolina, and it looked the same everywhere I turned. Cookouts got loud. Group chats lit up. Folks raised on Signed to the Streets started typing the same three words: he coming home.

I hate being the one holding cold water. But somebody who loves this brother needs to say it plain. The Chicago artist beat the murder for hire accusation, and that part is real. It carries weight. What he has not done yet is win his liberty.

Here is the piece plenty of people skipped while the news was trending. Back in June, roughly two months before he was set to face a jury, the government filed a fresh superseding indictment. Prosecutors recast the broader allegations around what they called the Banks Gang Enterprise. Off that theory they charged him with violent crimes in aid of racketeering, dragging in allegations tied to an old Chicago homicide and a 2019 Atlanta shooting that had no connection to the matter being weighed by the California jury.

His lawyers, led by Drew Findling, swung back hard and landed a blow. In July, Judge Michael Fitzgerald agreed to peel those newer counts off into their own proceeding. Sharp move. It kept a mountain of ugly gang testimony far from the folks weighing the Quando Rondo shooting. Yet splitting a case does not make its second half disappear. It simply parks that half down the road. And down the road is precisely where Smurk sits tonight.

So picture the real shape of his situation. The panel said no on the gunfire outside that gas station near the Beverly Center, the attack where Quando Rondo was the alleged target and his young cousin Saviay’a Robinson lost his life instead. Genuine relief, no argument. Still, the feds have a whole separate racketeering-related battle loaded and waiting. And anyone who has watched these prosecutors work knows they are nowhere near ready to hand this man his coat.

This is the cruel arithmetic of the system, and our people have watched it run a thousand times. Beating one round never equals strolling out the door. Getting held in federal court does not hinge on whether the last group of jurors believed you. It hinges heavily on questions the bench keeps circling: are you a danger, and might you run. Former prosecutor Neama Rahmani spelled it out for Complex, noting federal prosecutors would almost certainly push to keep him locked regardless of an acquittal, since that call leans on flight risk and public safety far more than on the verdict from one case.

And they already have their talking points stacked. Recall, when agents grabbed him back in October of 2024, federal authorities alleged he had booked multiple international flights and was preparing to leave the country. They have also accused him of leaning on witnesses. The bench already rejected a bail package running four and a half million dollars with around-the-clock home monitoring and private security, deciding that figure represented only a small portion of what the man was believed to be worth. Sit with that. His own success became part of the argument to keep him inside.

Now a few attorneys spot a crack of daylight. Adanté Pointer, another trial lawyer, told that same outlet the acquittal hands him a legitimate shot at some form of release, maybe house confinement with an ankle monitor, especially since the remaining allegations overlap with some of the same broader claims prosecutors have already presented. Worth something, sure. That would let him hold his kids under his own roof. Even so, the softer path is far from promised, because the government can turn around and appeal a release order. It happened to Karl Jordan Jr. in the Jam Master Jay saga. Nothing lands as clean until it is genuinely clean.

So what does freedom even mean here. That is the true question humming under all the noise.

For him, and for a whole generation of young brothers pushed through the same machine, liberty is not one door you kick open on a dramatic afternoon. It arrives in fragments. Beat one, then brace for whatever comes next. A headline reads like triumph while a brother stays boxed in the identical cell he woke up in. That gap between what the timeline cheers and what he actually lives is where too many of our stories unfold.

And let me be straight about the full picture, because I owe you that much. A young man is dead. Saviay’a Robinson belonged to somebody, and no ruling on earth returns him to his people. Carrying two truths at once is the grown thing to do. There’s room to exhale that this brother walked clear of that nightmare, even while the crush of a life stolen way too early hangs heavy. Real ones never flatten grief just to savor a win.

What I want the culture to sit with runs bigger than one artist. The government tipped its hand the moment it piled fresh counts into a prosecution that had already been building for close to two years. Understand the design there. Those added charges expanded the battlefield and guaranteed that even a spotless verdict in Los Angeles would not automatically open into blue sky. It is a reminder that the federal apparatus does not power down simply because twelve strangers speak the words supporters prayed to hear.

So enjoy the not guilty. Durk earned it, his defense earned it, and a room of everyday citizens studied what the feds laid on the table and refused to convict. Let that land. But keep your feet planted about what tomorrow carries. A separate federal case involving racketeering-related allegations is still breathing. Custody hearings are still to be argued. And if a judge eventually orders some form of release, the government can still challenge that decision.

A win belongs to him. His freedom does not, at least not yet. And until that second fight settles, the wisest thing his supporters can do is stay loud, stay clear eyed, stay ready. Because the story that turned in that Los Angeles courtroom Friday is nowhere close to over, and the chapter ahead is the one that truly decides whether Smurk ever gets to go home.

Staff Writer; Jamar Jackson

This brother writes with a love for poetry, music, and real conversations that reflect everyday life in the Black community… Much of his inspiration comes from old records, spoken word, and the kind of stories people carry with them for years… One may contact him at; JJackson@ThyBlackMan.com.

In this historic month of Insurgent Black August, we mark the 235^th anniversary of the beginning if the Haitian Revolution, August 21-22, 1791 and the 222^nd anniversary of the Haitian people’s Declaration of independence, January 1, 1804. We remember and raise up Haiti’s decisive defeat of its enslavers, their allied armies and political forces that sought to prevent and crush its national liberation; its revolutionary inspiration and assistance of liberation struggles in Latin America; and its becoming a beacon of African and human liberation, teaching possibility and achievement against all odds and enemies.

We reflect on and discuss this especially this month, even in the midst of our deep moral concern, understandable sadness and righteous anger about and resistance to the Trump regime’s trampling on the lives and futures of the Haitian people and laws to protect them. For we know resistance is not only opposition to oppressors and oppression, but also affirmation of the good and victories achieved and sustained and of our sacred, soulful, resilient, resourceful and beautiful selves. And we know too that resistance is also about aspiration, active aspiration for a new history and humanity in the world and willingness to work and struggle to bring this aspiration into being. Thus, in the midst of the vicious madness and vulgar meanness that define this gansta government and its racist rampage through the lives of our Haitian sisters and brothers, we reaffirm their humanity and human rights, their contribution to human freedom, and our continuing commitment to stand in solidarity and struggle with them. And as pan-Africanists, we understand their struggle as part and parcel of our own,

This June 25^th a servilely compliant Supreme Court handed Trump another weapon for his arsenal of wanton destruction he asked for, ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian migrants and placing over 350,000 people at risk of being deported. Indeed, the deportations have begun in the most brutal, disruptive and disabling ways. These 350,000 vulnerable persons who came here seeking refuge, asylum and a better life are now being told and brutally shown that there is no balm in Gilead America, no sanctuary in the city or the countryside. Thus, once legal authorization to work and deportation protections had been taken from Haitians, it caused a parallel process of layoffs at various kinds of workplaces around the country. But despite all the racist chamber pot filth and falsehood Trump regularly throws out the White House windows, these are good neighbors, health care workers, professionals, business owners, taxpayers, family members and fellow faith tradition doers of good.

Haitians received TPS after the devastating earthquake of 2010 and in consideration of continuing political instability, insecurity and economic and political collapse rooted in a history of US imperial occupation, disruption, weapon supply to outlaw groups and gangs, overthrowing the first democratically elected president and placing a series of puppets to do the bidding of it and its European crime partners. And still, it rules and wreaks havoc in Haiti and delights in blaming its history of designed chaos and cultivated collapse on Haitians, the victims of this systemic evil.

There are several moral, legal and rational problems with Trump’s policies of persecution punishment and deportation. A key principle of international law concerning refugees and asylum seekers is they are to be saved from harm and danger not placed in it. The US cannot morally, legally or rationally argue for knowingly sending people in harm’s way, when the US government maintains a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Haiti. Thus, it is morally wrong hypocritical and unjust to deport people to a country classified as unsafe and severely dangerous for Americans.

Moreover, given that many of the families are both citizens and migrants, this will mean separation and disruption of family life, adding to the cruelty of this unnecessary and racist policy. Also, many of the deportees are being sent back to places they have not lived in for decades, where family and social networks have been disrupted and people have been displaced in great numbers, and there is a clear lack of resources and infrastructure to ensure security and provide basic needs.

Surely, then, we must intensify and expand our efforts of support for the Haitian people. The legislative initiative H.R. 1689, authored by Rep. Ayanna Pressley which extends Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti for three years was an important victory. Now, we must struggle to ensure the passage of the parallel Senate bill S. 4814 which is stalled in the Senate and represents the last current legislative attempt to prevent another major humanitarian tragedy, save lives, keep families together and ensure a good future for the Haitian people.

Our task is to make an all-out sustained effort to get this bill passed with enough votes to override Trump’s promised veto. This means creating a national and global daily conversation about Haiti and the importance of this struggle; strengthening and expanding networks of cooperation in work and struggle among ourselves and with Haitian organizations; calling on faith communities and activist organizations to say more, question more and do more; using social and corporate media to center the issue of justice for Haiti and Haitian people; and strengthening our internal pan-African unity (Umoja) so that it is both principle and practice in the most transformative and effective ways. And in doing this we answer again the call to struggle across the centuries of two central leaders of the Haitian Revolution, Mambo Fatima and Houngan Boukman, who told us in words and the ways they gave themselves resolutely and unreservedly to the liberation struggle. They call to us saying, “Listen to the voice of freedom that speaks in all our hearts” and forms the foundation of the good future we all want and deserve, and then dare to struggle and achieve it.

Written by Dr. Maulana Karenga

Official website; https://www.maulanakarenga.org/

For those who have been paying close attention, America’s decline has been gradual and subtle. In some ways, it may be reaching the point of permanent damage. The permanent threat from this administration is also felt here at home. Like our allies, the American people cannot trust the unpredictable policies of this administration. We can no longer trust that our federal government is sincere and competent in protecting the health of our children.

For example, U.S. measles cases have hit their highest level in more than three decades under President Trump and U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Kennedy has promoted the idea that vaccines, including the combined measles, mumps, and rubella shot, are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent. This anti-vaccine message is effectively being promoted despite decades of scientific evidence that this particular shot saves lives. Leading medical organizations say that Kennedy’s statements about vaccines and his policies as health secretary, including efforts to reduce the number of government-recommended childhood immunizations, have increased vaccine delay or refusal, thereby making outbreaks harder to curb. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed that the recent deaths of two infants were measles-related, illustrating a fast-growing national outbreak. Can future administrations reverse the threat from irresponsible and deadly policies to avoid long-lasting life-and-death risks to children? The opposition is the key.

Our nation has two major political parties. At any given time, one party is in power while the other is the opposition. Currently, the Republicans are in power. They have proven through the Trump administration and its control of the House and Senate to be a party that abuses its power through corruption, incompetence, manipulation, and greed. As the opposition party during the Obama presidency, the Republicans prided themselves on being the party of obstruction. Even in cases where the majority of the American people would be helped, Republicans blocked and delayed with glee.

Obstruction is not necessarily a bad thing politically, especially when it is used to resist the MAGA-type corruption, misinformation, and incompetence that is currently in place. Today’s Democratic Party needs to not only be the opposition party; it needs to be an obstruction party. Rep. Ayanna Pressley is urging her fellow Democrats to abandon cautious politics and fight more aggressively against President Donald Trump. She urged them to be willing to “swing” even if it means sometimes missing. The Massachusetts Democrat made the comments during an appearance on “The People’s Brief,” where she argued that Democrats should stop moderating their ambitions and instead fight for their positions more forcefully.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who recently became chair of the National Governors Association, said: “Governors, in many ways, are becoming the last line of defense against what we’re seeing in Washington.” I understand Gov. Moore’s position particularly in this age of gerrymandering wars. But Black women are the last line of defense. They have become the dependable voting bloc that puts lawmakers like Wes Moore into office. Without their consistent support, there would be no Gov. Wes Moore. Gov. Moore is the only elected Black governor, but he could soon have company.

Eight Black major-party gubernatorial nominees are on state ballots this November. Five of the eight candidates are Democrats, and two are women. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is the only Black female Democrat. Unfortunately, the Black male candidates for governor do not face the same identity politics challenge Keisha Lance Bottoms will have in Georgia. We have seen Black women elected as U.S. representatives and senators, but no Black woman has served as governor.

In 2018, the Stacey Abrams gubernatorial campaign drew 97% of Black women’s support but received lower support among Black men at 88%. After Abrams’s narrow 2018 loss to Brian Kemp –50.2 percent to 48.8 percent – her 2022 campaign developed the “Stacey and Fellas” events to engage Black men. As Lance Bottoms follows in Abrams’s footsteps, she too is trying to engage Black men voters. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, roughly 1,000 people joined a virtual “Men for Keisha” rally organized to mobilize Black men behind Lance Bottoms. The lineup included Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, former U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young, and singer and actor Tyrese.

The focus on Black men is strategic. While Black voters remain a critical part of the Democratic coalition in Georgia, the AJC notes that Black men are more likely than Black women to support Republican candidates. This gap could matter in a competitive statewide election. This tells us that in cases where Black men will stray and support a Republican candidate, a Black woman will stick with the Democrats as either the party in power or the party of obstruction. They are truly the last line of defense. Our nation is in trouble on multiple fronts, and we need fighters like Rep. Pressley. There is too much at stake for Black men as voters to not vote for a Black candidate because she is a woman.

Written by David W. Marshall

Official website; https://davidwmarshallauthor.com/

One may purchase his book, which is titled; God Bless Our Divided America: Unity, Politics and History from a Biblical Perspective.

[Verse 1]

Laura Loomer please stop attacking Black women in the press!

You are viewed in the world as a total hot mess.

Sonny Charles and the Checkmates would be ashamed of you,

Espousing racism in the way that you do.

Picking on Black women that are the cream of the crop,

Shut your mouth gal…it’s got to stop.

[Chorus]

You probably had no friends of distinction in your high school days,

Hatred is the only tool you recognize anyways.

Stop this madness and apologize…

Don’t let your life be compromised.

[Verse 2]

I know you must have a lot of time to fill,

Trying to impress likeminded friends on Capitol Hill.

The world is watching as you make a fool of yourself,

Put your foolish pride and the racism on the shelf.

Denigrating sisters who have made the world a better place,

That’s not the way it’s done according to God’s Grace.

[Chorus]

Please remember the Golden Rule,

Your deeds are coming back to you…don’t be a fool!

One day you’ll look back with regret at what you’ve done,

Especially in the eyes of your daughter or son.

[Bridge]

You know full well you sought to curry favor with a party of one…DJT,

The White House is surely proud of you,

Please stop these foolish verbal attacks… it only shows the brains you lack.

[Outro]

So take a moment, pause, and reflect,

The impact of your words can cause so much wreck,

Choose love over hate, let kindness drop,

Laura Loomer please stop, just let it stop.

Laura Loomer Please Stop!

Copyright (c) 2026

TriDreams Productions Inc

Stanley G Buford

What Laura Loomer Actually Said

Last week, Laura Loomer attacked five college educated black women who are among the most influential individuals in the United States via a video on Twitter. In the video, Laura refers to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Democratic Congresswomen Angie Nixon, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush as “ghetto Black b****es” among other derogatory terms. The word “ghetto” is very important here and holds centuries of pain and intent to demean and insult people of lower socioeconomic status who are often Black and of marginalization compared to people of higher status and of other races. Her justification? “Stereotypes exist for a reason,” she concluded emphatically.

Congresswoman Angie Nixon responded the way that a woman who has been dealing with this her whole life responds – with crystal clearness and without ducking. “Been called a dog, a m*nkey, an a*e and g*rilla” Angie Nixon told Newsweek. “But I’m going to keep speaking truth to power.” Even Marjorie Taylor Greene saw fit to disown Loomer, writing that “The Republican Party owns Laura Loomer and her nonstop vitriol.” When Marjorie Taylor Greene is the voice of reason in a battle, you know that you’ve crossed a line.

This Is Not New. This Is the Old Playbook.

Scholars have long named the hatred of Black women that combines racism and sexism as “misogynoir”. So, what Laura Loomer did isn’t random, it is strategic and intended to accomplish one goal: to make black women seem less, to diminish their credentials, and to reduce a Supreme Court Justice to a slur.

The word “ghetto” is inscribed with centuries of racism and hatred toward black people. Initially it described bad neighborhoods where marginalized people lived due to segregation, redlining, and other forms of government neglect. But today it’s largely used by a further emancipated class to denigrate people of a lower socioeconomic status. Loomer knows exactly what she is doing when she uses it. This is a choice, not ignorance.

The scholar Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that the wealth gap in America is not an accident but the logical result of deliberate policy decisions. The same is true of these attacks on Black women in public life. They follow an old, well-documented playbook: weaponize ugly stereotypes to distract from the substance of what these women are actually doing and saying.

Black Pearl: The Song That Stayed With Me

As I began writing Laura Loomer Please Stop, I couldn’t get out of my head one other song in the archives of a bygone era. In 1969, Sonny Charles & The Checkmates recorded “Black Pearl,” which was produced by Phil Spector and penned by Tony Wine, Irwin Levine and Spector himself. The single hit its peak at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and No. 8 on the R&B Chart. But its impact far exceeded any chart success. 

Toni Wine – who wrote it – explains why he wrote it: “It was a very tough period. A lot of the Black women were depicted as being housekeepers, rather than having positions in companies, whether they were capable or not. And it was about time to have a song putting them on a pedestal.”

I thought the chorus of this song from decades ago was so pretty and I still sing in the chorus: “Black pearl, precious little girl — you’ve been in the background much too long.” The song was inspired by the Sidney Poitier film For Love of Ivy about a Black woman who had spent 9 years of her life as a maid and finally went back to school to pursue her education and her life. This song was a declaration in 1969 when it was written. The declaration still needs to be made in 2026.

That is where my song comes from. Laura Loomer Please Stop is my version of that same declaration — updated for a moment when the Supreme Court has a Black woman on it, when Black women chair congressional committees and pass legislation, and when one particular loud voice keeps trying to drag them back into a box they were never meant to fit inside.

My Daughter, Kathryn Cherise

I have to tell you about my daughter. Kathryn Cherise recently finished her PhD. at the University of Maryland. She has gone further than anyone in my family ever has to attain such height. When she walked across that stage, I thought about all of the generations before her who were dismissed by the world and told to stay in the background and to be quiet, and to be small. I thought about women in Sonny Charles’ song – carrying other peoples’ children while their own dreams wait. 

I told Stinky, a nickname given to her at birth; shortly after I changed her first diaper. “Kathryn the sky is  the limit,” I believed that then and I believe it now. But when I heard Laura Loomer call educated, accomplished Black women in public office those names — I felt something shift inside me. Not just anger. Grief. Because Kathryn is stepping into a world where some people still see her and think of her only in slurs, no matter her credentials.

That is why I wrote the song, not to argue politics and not to score points. I wrote this song for my daughter to know that her achievements will be recognized and her excellence celebrated and acknowledged and not perceived through someone else’s fear.

What the Song Says

Laura Loomer Please Stop is not a hate song. It is not even an angry song, exactly. The song is exhausted. So am I. It is the type of song that is written from exhaustion of watching attacks repeat themselves across generations with different names but the same bile.

It says: we see you and we know what you are doing. And we are not going back. The women you sought to destroy through hate filled rants on public media- Ketanji, Angie, Ilhan, Ayanna and Cori – worked their way up to public office through hard work and sacrifice. Their credentials cannot be touched by your racist slurs.

Sonny Charles sang in 1969 that the Black woman had been in the background much too long. More than fifty years later, she is at the highest levels of American public life — on the Supreme Court, on the floor of Congress, in laboratories and lecture halls and operating rooms. The background is not where she belongs. With all due respect, Laura Loomer, please stop pretending otherwise.

Closing Thoughts: The Sky Still Has No Limit

I am very proud of what I created in my home  studio. The song was derived from true feelings of love of a father to his daughter, her accomplishments, and anger at the destruction of achievements that people have given their lives, sweat and everything to earn.

Black Pearl was written for a generation of Black women to place them on a pedestal for whom they could be adored. Laura Loomer Please Stop was composed fifty-seven years later to defend that same principle with equal urgency and love.

To Kathryn Cherise: the sky is still the limit for you. Let no loud voice, old playbook or threatened ego convince you otherwise. You worked very hard to earn that PhD. You sacrificed a lot to get to where you are today. You are not in the background anymore.  Amen!

Associate Editor; Stanley G. Buford

Feel free to connect with this brother via Twitter; Stanley G. and also facebook; http://www.facebook.com/sgbuford.

Also his email addy is; StanleyG@ThyBlackMan.com.

Across the country, reading achievement continues to decline. Nearly 40 percent of fourth graders read below the basic level and roughly a third of eighth graders are reading below basic, the highest share ever recorded.

Taken together, these numbers reveal a national literacy crisis that threatens economic opportunity, educational equity, and our nation’s future competitiveness.

Reading is not merely another subject in school. Reading is the foundation upon which all learning rests. A child who struggles to read struggles to learn history, science, mathematics, and civics. A young person who cannot effectively read and analyze complex information faces barriers to college completion, workforce success, and informed participation in our democracy.

That is why the growing literacy crisis is fundamentally an opportunity crisis. Behind every percentage point is a child whose future opportunities hang in the balance. Persistent achievement gaps mean that Black and Latino students continue to bear a disproportionate share of the consequences when reading instruction falls short. If we are serious about economic mobility and educational justice, literacy must be at the center of the conversation.

For more than two decades, many schools embraced Balanced Literacy approaches that sought to cultivate a love of reading by putting books in students’ hands and encouraging independent reading. The approach was well-intentioned, but too often foundational skills instruction, particularly phonics and decoding, suffered.

The evidence is increasingly clear that explicit, systematic instruction helps more children become successful readers. States and school districts that are embracing these principles deserve credit for moving in the right direction. But millions of students are already in middle school, high school, and even college struggling to read complicated texts, analyze difficult arguments, and complete entire books.

What is our plan for them?

Too many students arrive in high school lacking the reading stamina necessary to engage deeply with literature, history, or complex informational texts. College professors increasingly describe students who struggle with lengthy assignments that previous generations navigated more comfortably.

To be clear, Balanced Literacy alone cannot explain these trends. Increased screen time, constant digital distractions, shortened attention spans, and the dominance of algorithm-driven content all influence students’ reading habits and learning experiences.

Yet recognizing these factors cannot become an excuse for inaction.

Instead, it should compel us to think more broadly about literacy.

The challenge before us is not simply helping children sound out words. It is helping them develop the capacity to wrestle with complex ideas, sustain attention, evaluate evidence, and build knowledge through reading. It is helping them become informed citizens and lifelong learners.

And that requires a comprehensive, systemic strategy.

We need high-quality literacy instruction beginning in early childhood settings and extending throughout elementary school. We need to strengthen early intervention so that struggling readers receive support before learning gaps become entrenched. We must carefully examine the quality and effectiveness of programs serving our youngest learners, including Head Start and other early childhood initiatives.

At the same time, we need a national commitment to literacy recovery for older students. Districts and states should be developing evidence-based strategies that help adolescents strengthen comprehension, vocabulary, knowledge-building, and engagement with complex texts. Students who fell behind during the pandemic and those who continue to struggle deserve intensive support, not lowered expectations.

We should also have serious conversations about the role of technology in children’s lives. Restricting unnecessary screen exposure, particularly in the early grades, should be part of a broader effort to rebuild reading habits and attention spans that support learning.

More concerning than the decline in reading scores is the absence of a clear, large-scale strategy to address the growing crisis. Every year that a struggling reader falls further behind increases the likelihood that they will face lifelong educational and economic disadvantages.

The recent reading results from New York City are a warning. The national NAEP results are an even louder one. Together, they tell us that incremental change is not enough.

We know more about how children learn to read than ever before. We know that literacy is the gateway to opportunity. What remains to be seen is whether we have the collective will to act with the urgency this moment demands.

Our children cannot afford for us to wait.

Written by Marc Morial

Official website; http://twitter.com/MARCMORIAL

What many have viewed as chaos may in fact be a well-orchestrated strategy to confuse, frustrate, deceive and exhaust the American people and the media into submission. There may be an element of method to the chaos and the madness.

Immediately upon taking office the regime declared war on the federal bureaucracy and the American people. In a blitzkrieg widespread assault, the regime bombarded the public and the media in what appeared to be nonstop actions. It attacked broad sectors of the American government and nongovernmental institutions.

The attack included countless executive orders, firings, dismantling of programs, abandonment of long-standing policies and an avalanche of lawsuits against nongovernmental institutions.

There appeared to be no rhyme or reason behind the actions beyond revenge and retaliation. The regime did not attempt to hide those efforts. It was bold and unapologetic with its revenge and retaliation. However, there was more to its purpose than just revenge and retaliation.

As for its lawsuits against various longstanding nongovernmental institutions, the regime attempted to convey outrage and concern that those nongovernmental institutions were engaged in injustices that demanded federal governmental intervention. It was just a smokescreen.

The regime wanted to intimidate and silence institutions. Institutions believed if left alone might challenge the unlawful actions of the regime.

It seemed to be omnipresent, nonstop in pursuit of liberty, justice and the American way. It impressed many, it frightened others and fooled even more.

The approach being used was a much larger scale version of the DOGE’s firing and dismantling of the federal bureaucracy. A buckshot approach. It was using a sledgehammer when a laser scalpel of a surgeon was needed.

There were many that saw the issuing of countless executive orders and the reports of the disbanding of programs and repeal of various policies and the adoptions of new policies that the regime was firmly in charge. Finally, they surmised, the government is being led by a person, an extremely successful businessperson, who knows exactly what he is doing.

It was the most effective and efficient federal administration in their memory. They were proud to convey to others how the regime in just a matter of days had done more for the American people than all the recent administrations had done combined over the years.

Just as quickly as the executive orders were promulgated judges throughout the US were forced to render rulings overturning the executive orders. However, it did not stop the regime from issuing additional executive orders and/or plowing ahead with its previous issued executive orders in contempt and defiance of the court rulings.

The court challenges to the executive orders and the regime’s lawsuits that were dismissed led many, especially opponents of the regime, to proclaim not only that the regime was incompetent and evil but also drowning in chaos. With chaos and confusion everywhere, they viewed the head  of the regime as totally unsuited and ill-tempered to being in the Oval Office.

The regime’s greatest success in promoting its government by chaos has been in its handling of the media. The regime flooded the zone with its numerous executive orders and pronouncements. Far more it seems than the media could keep up with.

Unable to track and report on all the actions of the regime, the media basically cherry-picked a small number that seemed most fascinating and intriguing.

Exhibit One: Epstein. The media used a lot of ink and spent a lot of time reporting on an issue which a year later no one is talking about. It was replaced by the US and Israeli War on Iran.

Then there is the White House Ballroom, DC Arch, Canada as the 51st state, Greenland as a territory of the US, John F. Kennedy Center Performing Arts Center renovations, and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. None of those issues addressed the affordability concerns that the average American citizen has with the increasing prices of food and other essentials.

If anything, it has only made things worse for the average American family as highlighted by the rising cost of oil resulting from the regime’s unpopular war on Iran. However, it has not stopped the media from focusing considerable attention on distracting issues.

Unfortunately for Americans while the media has followed and reported on glitzy pieces, the regime and its allies have gone into overdrive buying and selling America. The regime has basically engaged in full scale looting and robbery in broad daylight. A robbery and looting at the expense of the nation and its people.

In the end all the regime’s activity, its executive orders, lawsuits, policy changes and pronouncements have done is to confuse, frustrate, distract and exhaust the public into tuning out and turning off.

In the meantime, the regime and its allies are using the government to make money hand over fist. It has been clever in using what some view as a government in chaos while it plows ahead in its unholy campaign of robbing the public coffers bare.

The phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has been substituted by “government of the regime, by the regime, for the regime” with its clever use of perceived chaos.

Staff Writer; Al Alatunji

Question or comment regarding this article? Feel free to send a message to: Alatunji@ThyBlackMan.com.

Sit with the arithmetic of that sentence for a second. You reach for an insult with an ugly and well-documented history when aimed at Black people, you pin it on the first Black lawmaker ever to lead a major political party in Congress, and then you ask the room to believe race had nothing to do with it. Afterward Jebreal explained that she had the three wise monkeys in mind, the familiar see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil image. That explanation did not stop the backlash.

Hold on though. I won’t have a soul in here twisting my meaning. Hakeem Jeffries is not above criticism. Not even close. Question his relationship with AIPAC. Question his posture toward Israel amid Gaza’s continuing humanitarian crisis and severe food insecurity. Argue over whether Democratic leadership has been too cautious or too accommodating. All of that belongs in the rough business we call politics. Current humanitarian assessments project that roughly 1.4 million people in Gaza will face Crisis level or worse acute food insecurity between July and December 2026.

But there sits a canyon between attacking a man’s votes and reaching for language historically used to diminish Black humanity. One is political debate. The other carries baggage that generations of Black Americans have had to recognize and confront.

That particular comparison carries a history no clever explanation can simply wash away. American popular culture spent generations portraying Black people as primitive, animalistic, intellectually inferior, and even apelike. The Jim Crow Museum documents postcards, advertisements, cartoons, and other objects that explicitly linked African Americans with monkeys and apes. The Smithsonian likewise documents racist caricatures that helped reinforce social and political stereotypes about Black Americans. Drag that imagery into a political argument involving a Black man and the history comes with it whether the speaker intended every part of that history or not.

Here comes the part that ought to trouble every honest reader. Standards against racist language mean very little if they change depending on who says the words. Political affiliation does not erase history, and ideological agreement does not make dehumanizing language harmless.

So the question is not whether the speaker belongs to the right or the left. The question is whether people are willing to apply the same standard when the offensive language comes from somebody whose politics they otherwise share.

Ritchie Torres put that consistency question directly into the public conversation. The New York Democrat argued that if Jebreal and Ali had been figures on the far right, critics on the far left would have had little difficulty condemning the language. He finished by saying, “The silence is deafening.” Torres was among several Democratic lawmakers who publicly condemned the remarks.

I have watched this shuffle my entire life, in church business and union halls and city council chambers. People decide first who they are loyal to, then they decide what they are willing to see. Loyalty can slide on like a pair of blinders. Once that happens, another person’s dignity can become negotiable, depending on who happened to throw the punch. That temptation is hardly unique to one political party or ideology.

Let me say a thing that may sting a few readers. Bigotry does not check voter registration before it lands. Racist language does not become harmless because the person delivering it shares somebody’s views about healthcare, housing, Israel, Palestine, taxes, or anything else. The history attached to anti-Black imagery remains there regardless of the speaker’s political affiliation.

The Congressional Black Caucus said much the same thing in its response. The caucus rejected Jebreal’s explanation and said there was no “non-racist way” to call Jeffries, a Black man, a monkey or errand boy. It also called for rejecting anti-Black racism whether it comes from the political right or left.

Other Democrats spoke publicly as well. Torres condemned the remarks, and Representatives Joe Neguse and Ayanna Pressley were among the lawmakers reported as criticizing Jebreal’s language. That matters because the most credible standard is one applied without checking first whether the offender is a political friend or enemy.

Because that is the real test, is it not. It is easy to recognize offensive language when it comes from somebody you already distrust. The harder test comes when the speaker shares your causes, attends your gatherings, or agrees with you on nearly everything else. Consistency means the rule survives that test.

I will be fair about the apology too, because the record matters. Jebreal reiterated her criticism of Jeffries and AIPAC before acknowledging that the term she used was inappropriate, offensive, and should never have been used. She then ended her statement plainly: “I apologize unconditionally.” Readers can decide for themselves whether restating the underlying political grievance weakened the apology, but it would be inaccurate to say she never offered an unconditional one. She did.

Young brothers, hear me now. Do not let anybody sell you the notion that your dignity depends on the ideology of whoever is speaking about you. Nobody should be expected to excuse racially loaded language merely because it comes from somebody whose politics they otherwise support. That standard should travel in every direction.

Criticize Hakeem Jeffries. Criticize his votes, donors, leadership decisions, foreign policy positions, or anything else he does in public office. That is part of citizenship, and elected officials should expect vigorous scrutiny. But political disagreement does not require reaching for imagery that has historically been used to portray Black people as less intelligent, less civilized, or less human.

A racial insult does not lose its history because the speaker stands on one side of the political aisle rather than the other. The harder and more useful principle is simpler than that. Judge the language by the same standard every time, no matter who says it and no matter whose politics happen to be under attack.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

Politics explained through the lens of justice and equity. Offering perspective that informs, challenges, and empowers.

One can contact this brother at; LLMcKenna@ThyBlackMan.com.

So when I watch what Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have built over these last 13 years, something in my chest loosens. Two Black men who found each other early in their Hollywood journeys and decided, apparently on purpose, that the other one winning was a good thing. Not a threat. A blessing.

The years line it up plainer than I could.

Start with Fruitvale Station back in 2013. Coogler was 26, working on his first feature, and he chose to tell the story of Oscar Grant, the young man shot by a transit police officer on an Oakland platform on New Year’s morning in 2009. A hard thing to put on screen. He needed an actor who could make you love a flawed brother across 90 short minutes, so that when the bullet came it took something out of you too. He picked Jordan. Jordan had already done strong work in television and film, but neither man was a major Hollywood name yet. Both were betting on the other.

That is the part folks skip when they tell this. It was mutual risk. A first time director trusting an actor with the most important thing he had made. An actor trusting that same director not to waste his face and his time on something small.

Then came Creed in 2015. Coogler took a franchise everybody assumed belonged to Sylvester Stallone forever and handed the gloves to Jordan. The picture worked. Stallone got an Oscar nomination out of it. The whole thing felt less like a reboot and more like a passing of something sacred. A Black face at the heart of a story white America had held close for four decades, and not one soul had to be pushed aside for it to happen that way.

Which brings us to Black Panther in 2018. Now here is where a lesser pairing might have cracked. The director is running a billion dollar Marvel machine, and the actor is playing the villain. Not the hero. The villain. Killmonger. And Jordan took that role and made him one of the most quoted, most argued about, most mourned villains in the whole comic book business. He did not sulk about not wearing the crown. He knew a great villain is what makes a hero worth a damn. Serve the picture, you serve your partner. Lift your partner, and somehow you come up too.

You see the pattern yet? Each time, one of them stepped back a half step so the other could move forward a full one. And somehow they both kept rising.

By the time we reached Creed III, Jordan had moved behind the camera himself. He directed the picture, while Coogler, who helped develop the story and served as a producer, backed his longtime collaborator as he took that next step. Jordan turned it into the highest grossing film of the Creed trilogy. Plenty of partnerships get strange when one person starts occupying territory the other once owned. This one kept moving forward.

Then Sinners. 2025. Their fifth film with Coogler directing Jordan, counting Jordan’s brief return as Killmonger in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the first that belonged to nobody but them. No Rocky. No Marvel. No existing thing to lean on. Coogler wrote an original vampire story set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, put Jordan in it as twin brothers named Smoke and Stack, and dared the whole industry to bet against him. Warner Bros. put down a reported $90 million on an R rated horror movie with no built in audience, and gave Coogler an unusually filmmaker friendly deal that included ownership rights reverting to him after 25 years.

And it hit. More than $370 million at the worldwide box office. It became the highest grossing original live action film domestically in 15 years, going all the way back to Nolan’s Inception. People lined up. Old folks, teenagers, film nerds, my barber. Everybody had seen it or was about to tell you why they were going.

The money is not even the part that stayed with me, though. Watch what happened next.

This past March, at the 2026 Academy Awards, Sinners showed up holding 16 nominations. Sixteen. That topped Titanic. It topped La La Land. No single film in the entire history of that ceremony had ever pulled more. Coogler won for his screenplay, the first Oscar win of his career. And Michael B. Jordan, on his very first nomination, took home Best Actor.

Jordan got up to accept and did not rush through his mama and his agent and hustle off. He stayed at that microphone and called the roll of Black Oscar winners whose footsteps he was following. Sidney Poitier. Denzel Washington. Halle Berry. Jamie Foxx. Forest Whitaker. Will Smith. Named them so the room would remember whose shoulders he was standing on.

That is a man who knows he did not arrive alone. And he was only up there because somebody, more than a decade back, said I want you for this and truly meant it.

I keep thinking about the brothers coming up now, scrolling their phones, being told again in a thousand fresh ways that another man’s shine dims their own. That your homeboy’s promotion is somehow your failure. That there is one plate on the table and you had better grab yours before it is gone. I want every last one of them to look at these two.

Because what Coogler and Jordan proved, over and over, on the biggest stages this culture has to offer, is that the old math was a lie the whole time. Two Black men lifted each other and neither one shrank in the process. The director got his masterpiece. The actor got his statue. And the rest of us got to watch, for once, brotherhood do exactly what brotherhood was always supposed to do. Build something.

Not compete. Build.

My granddaddy had a saying about how a flame gives up nothing of itself when it lights the wick next to it. He mostly said it about church folk who guarded their little bit of authority like it was gold. But he could just as easily have been talking about these two men, who have looked across more than a decade at one another and decided, again and again, that the surest way up was side by side.

That is the lesson sitting right there in plain sight. We were never actually each other’s competition. We were always supposed to be each other’s proof.

Staff Writer; Lee Walker

This brother is a fitness trainer with 12 years of experience, focused on building strength, clarity, and real health within the Black community. Through his writing, Mr. Walker hopes to uplift younger Black men and men in general through honest conversations about fitness, financial pressure, fatherhood, discipline, mental wellness, and the importance of brotherhood.

Have questions? Reach me at LeeW@ThyBlackMan.com

The United States government today alleges that Mohammed was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, a crime of historic horror that demands accountability. For nine years, the government told us that the mastermind of the attacks was Osama bin Laden, whom it never charged for 9/11-related crimes. Then, after it dispatched U.S. commandos to murder him when they could have arrested him, it recognized it killed the wrong man: Mohammed was the mastermind. By then, Mohammed had been tortured for three years by the CIA and the U.S. military.

But accountability obtained through unlawful methods is not justice. It is merely punishment wearing the costume of law.

The judge who recently suppressed Mohammed’s statements — an Air Force lieutenant colonel — did not create this crisis. He inherited it. He did not erase evidence. He confronted the unavoidable consequences of a decision made more than 20 years ago: The decision by President George W. Bush to authorize a system of torture that guaranteed that the most important terrorism prosecution in American history would be burdened by questions of legitimacy from the beginning.

The judge found that the abuse Mohammed endured in CIA and military custody was so severe that its coercive effects continued years later, contaminating subsequent statements made to FBI investigators. The constitutional problem was not limited to what happened in a particular interrogation room on a particular day. The problem was the continuing psychological impact of the government’s criminal conduct.

The government cannot torture a suspect, obtain information and then attempt to cleanse the evidence through later civilized questioning. Constitutional protections are not satisfied by changing the interrogator’s nameplate.

The FBI’s inexplicable failure to provide Miranda warnings added another layer of constitutional aberration. The entire purpose of Miranda is to prevent the government from using its immense power to obtain statements from a person who doesn’t voluntarily choose to speak.

This should never have been a military commission case.

After more than two decades, the United States still has not produced a final resolution in one of the most consequential criminal cases in its history. How many convictions have there been at Gitmo for 9/11? ZERO.

Had this prosecution been brought in federal court in Manhattan, it would have been governed by decades of precedent, a single trial judge, a single prosecution team, established discovery rules and a functioning appellate structure. The case would have been difficult and complex. But it would have been a real prosecution rather than a constitutional experiment conducted in slow motion.

Instead, Bush — embarrassed that 9/11 took place on his sleepy watch — persuaded Congress to create an extraordinary system; and then his White House successors discovered that extraordinary systems have extraordinary weaknesses.

The Guantanamo military commissions have produced exactly the outcome that critics predicted: Endless litigation over basic questions of evidence, procedure and constitutional authority. Mohammed’s case has cycled through four prosecution teams and five judges while the families of victims continue to wait for a conclusion.

Once coercive interrogation became government policy, prosecutors faced an unavoidable dilemma: Seek convictions using evidence compromised by criminal conduct, or confront the reality that the government had damaged its own case.

The prosecutors eventually recognized that problem. They pursued plea negotiations because a negotiated resolution offered something a contested trial might not: Finality and legitimacy. A plea agreement was accepted by the accused, prosecutors, Pentagon officials and the military judge, and it offered a path toward ending a case that had already consumed years of litigation.

Then the political branches intervened.

The agreement was accepted by the Army general in charge of all prosecutions, herself a former judge. Then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin rejected the agreement and fired the general. Then the same prosecution team that had negotiated the plea sought to undo it. Then the military trial judge who accepted the plea declined to discard it. Then an appellate court reversed that decision.

The spectacle was extraordinary: The government negotiated a resolution, defended the process, challenged the process and continued litigating a case it had spent decades trying to avoid.

The final constitutional insult may be the government’s position that even an acquittal would not necessarily end Mohammed’s confinement. If the government may imprison a person indefinitely regardless of whether prosecutors can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then the trial is a symbolic sham and the Constitution becomes just dust.

The purpose of a trial is not theater; it is to determine whether the government has met its burden under law.

An acquittal is not a technicality. It is the Constitution’s command when the government fails to prove its case. The alternative is a system where accusations become convictions, detention replaces adjudication, and the courtroom becomes a stage in an already predetermined outcome.

That is not the American system of justice.

The irony is profound. The United States created the Guantanamo commissions in the name of efficiency and security. Instead, it created a process monumentally slower and profoundly less trusted than the ordinary courts it abandoned. It sought extraordinary justice and produced extraordinary confusion.

The lesson is not that constitutional protections are obstacles to defeating terrorism. The lesson is the opposite. Constitutional protections are what separate a lawful government from the very conduct it condemns.

The military judge’s ruling is a warning to the government that evidence matters, procedure matters, and the methods used to obtain justice determine whether the result deserves to be called justice at all.

After 20 years of delay, the United States is finally confronting the consequences of its own choices.

A small act of judicial courage at Guantanamo has exposed a much larger failure: a system built to avoid constitutional limits ultimately became trapped by its own rejection of first principles.

Written by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Official website; https://twitter.com/Judgenap

Sadly, the administration’s response to the pressure is as erratic as its tariff policy.

On one hand, Trump lowered tariffs to bring down the price of beef, effective this week. The White House acknowledged the link between tariffs and higher prices by explaining that the cost of beef has risen “unreasonably” and that the remedy is to temporarily import more of it at a lower tariff rate. Experts expect the 300,000 metric tons of relief to come largely from South America.

Apparently, though, this economic lesson has not traveled very far. As Trump liberalized the market for beef, he also imposed new 50% tariffs on some $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, once again behaving as though buying from our closest neighbor is a detriment to U.S. consumers. Canada is retaliating in kind against American exports beginning Sept. 8. Products caught in the escalating trade war include steel, aluminum, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics.

Economic war with Canada not only reminds the American people of a policy they hate but runs counter to an affordability agenda. Research on the effects of Trump’s tariffs continues to surface and offer clarity.

Take the most recent paper by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Columbia University. Mary Amiti, Sebastian Heise and David Weinstein looked at who shoulders the cost of the tariffs, examining which part of the tariff reaches consumers through higher prices versus which share of the price hike is due to other factors. The group estimates that a 10% tariff on all imports will raise U.S. consumer prices by about 2.6%. Roughly two-thirds of the increase comes quickly and directly from the tariff being passed on to customers at the border. The remaining third of the price hike shows up more slowly in American-made goods.

Let me repeat that: Raising tariffs on foreign goods also raises the prices of American-made goods. This happens partly because domestic producers pay more for imported parts and materials. But it also occurs because domestic producers, facing less competition, often raise their prices simply because they can.

This is only the latest study to knock out protectionists’ three main claims at once.

The first claim is that “foreigners pay the tariff.” It’s hard to deny that the pass-through of costs collected at the border to U.S. consumers amounts to anything less than a tax.

Some intellectually honest protectionists concede as much. In fact, it’s what they want. They prefer a second claim: that higher import prices will push American consumers to switch from foreign goods to American goods. That may be. However, we can’t actually avoid an import tax that shows up in domestic prices and fatter markups. Buying American doesn’t actually shelter us from higher prices.

The third claim is that tariffs help American manufacturing as a whole. But for the average firm facing higher costs for both foreign and domestic inputs, tariffs do little.

What’s left is a tariff working exactly as designed: a hidden, unavoidable import tax that makes everything imported more expensive, hands government-favored firms pricing power at the expense of consumers, and taxes the domestic production it claims to defend. Citing Yale University’s Budget Lab, The Washington Post’s Ramesh Ponnuru points out that “Trump’s tariffs are costing American households an average of $1,100 a year.”

Unfortunately, because the prices of domestic goods take months to rise, the affordability crisis is still developing.

It’s not as if we don’t know what would help. The administration’s beef policy inadvertently acknowledges the argument for free trade. Now, apply that insight consistently.

If you want cheaper houses, do not make Canadian lumber more expensive. If you want more affordable cars and appliances, do not tax steel and aluminum inputs. If you want American manufacturers to compete, do not make them pay more for intermediate goods. And if you want American exporters to prosper, do not repeatedly provoke America’s trading partners into retaliating against them. In short, remove the tariffs.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy