Chief Justice Roberts pushed back sharply when Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that a new era of global mobility justified departing from 125 years of settled constitutional interpretation. “It’s a new world,” Sauer contended. Roberts’ reply was brief and pointed: “It’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” Justice Neil Gorsuch noted the executive order targets parents while the Fourteenth Amendment’s text is trained on the child. Justice Elena Kagan told Sauer his reading was “revisionist” with respect to a substantial portion of American legal history. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the practical mechanics—how hospitals would verify parental immigration status at birth and what adjudicatory process would follow. Justices Alito and Thomas appeared more open to the administration’s theory. Legal analysts who had anticipated a 7-2 ruling against the order came away less certain. A ruling is expected before the Court’s term ends in late June or early July.

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, establishes citizenship for all persons born in the United States “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Senator Jacob Howard, who introduced the clause, stated plainly in floor debate that the jurisdiction language excludes “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens.” I have argued as a designated expert witness in federal and state courts for over a decade. United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) presents a high bar for the administration—Justice Horace Gray’s majority opinion held that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents domiciled in the United States acquired citizenship at birth, and that holding has anchored the doctrine for 128 years. The administration’s theory is that “subject to the jurisdiction” requires a substantive allegiance condition, not merely physical presence within the nation’s borders—and that Wong Kim Ark’s reasoning, applied to a population that entered illegally or on temporary visas, stretches the original holding beyond its logic. The constitutionally sound path runs through a formal Article V amendment. But the policy question Trump has forced onto the national stage—whether a doctrine originating in Reconstruction-era politics was ever designed to extend to children born to people who violated immigration law or paid a cartel for crossing services—deserves a direct answer, irrespective of how this case resolves.

During the Biden administration, an estimated 14 million illegal aliens entered or remained in the United States, including 10.8 million border encounters and at least 2 million known gotaways. ICE’s fiscal year 2022 enforcement data documents 46,396 noncitizens arrested with criminal histories—carrying 198,498 collective convictions, including 3,445 homicides, 9,185 sex offenses, and 3,737 kidnappings. The 2024 murder of Laken Riley in Athens, Georgia, by a Venezuelan national who had entered illegally and been released without detention gave that data a name and a face. Her death was preventable at every point in the processing chain; it was not prevented because the policy priority was release, not detention. The DEA’s 2023 National Drug Threat Assessment confirms that the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels control the majority of cross-border drug trafficking. CBP seized over 11,200 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2022. The CDC reported over 107,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2023, with synthetic opioids—primarily fentanyl—accounting for the majority. In 2022, Border Patrol encountered over 22,000 unaccompanied minors, thousands placed with sponsors who were never properly vetted, per DHS Inspector General findings.

California is projected to spend over $8.4 billion in fiscal year 2024–2025 on healthcare for unauthorized immigrants. New York City is housing over 65,000 asylum seekers in emergency shelters at a projected annual cost exceeding $4 billion. World Bank data shows remittances from the U.S. to Mexico alone totaled $61.7 billion in 2022, capital that exits the domestic economy without tax contribution. The National Academy of Sciences’ 2017 analysis found that first-generation immigrants use welfare at higher rates than native-born Americans, with costs loading onto state and local governments while long-range fiscal benefits accrue primarily to federal coffers decades later. The SAVE Act (H.R. 22), which requires proof of citizenship for voter registration, passed the House in April 2025 and sits stalled in the Senate. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated in 2020 that states with large, unauthorized populations gain roughly 26 additional House seats through census-based apportionment compared to citizen-only counts—a structural reward for tolerating unauthorized populations that is not accidental and is not without political beneficiaries. The political incentive to maintain the status quo is baked into the constitutional architecture of congressional representation itself.

Comprehensive reform has failed every time it has been attempted—most recently with the 2013 Senate Gang of Eight bill—for one reason: Democrats demand legalization first; Republicans demand enforcement first. The American public wants both, and in consistent polling has never viewed those goals as contradictions, because they are not. Enforcement without a legal pathway creates a permanent shadow population that cannot be taxed, regulated, or integrated. A pathway without enforcement is an open invitation with no expiration date, a signal to every prospective migrant worldwide that the statutory process is optional and the consequence is eventual amnesty. The deal has always been structurally available. The resolve to execute it, on both sides, has not. Complete the border barriers. Mandate E-Verify universally. End sanctuary policies. Restrict asylum to statutory qualifying cases. Restore interior enforcement. Trump v. Barbara will produce a ruling this summer. Whatever it says, the broader crisis requires elected officials, not lawyers, to provide the answer.

Written by Jay Rogers 

Thus wrote Kyle Smith in a Wall Street Journal column titled “EVs Can’t Compete Without Subsidies.” Smith deserves the Pulitzer for Clueless Commentary, a competitive category. About six weeks earlier, Trump launched a war on Iran paid for — subsidized! — by the American taxpayers. Some of it was to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program, a worthy goal. But it was also about oil, hence, the ongoing struggle to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for tankers.

Let’s talk about carmakers and subsidies. In 1908, when Henry Ford’s Model T first rolled off the assembly line, 93% of America’s rural public roads lacked any kind of surfacing. Until decent roads could permit town-to-town car travel, the market for Ford’s new product would be largely limited to well-to-do city folk seeking a new plaything.

The fledgling car industry clearly needed good roads to prosper. Several industry leaders proposed pooling their resources to privately build some kind of national highway system. Not Henry Ford. Government should pay for it, he said. And Ford became a major force in the Good Roads Movement, which pushed for greater government involvement. It achieved ultimate victory with the Federal Highway Act of 1921.

This was classic “rent-seeking,” to use Smith’s dismissive term, that is, getting the government rather than the marketplace to advance an industry’s interests. In 2023 alone, U.S. taxpayers spent about $285 billion building, maintaining and policing roads. But rent-seeking can also lead to good results for the nation at large. The modern road system helped America prosper into the 20th century and beyond.

And what do electric vehicle makers need from government? Not roads. The existing roads do just fine. They need something that costs considerably less than a network of interstates.

Many would-be customers for EVs worry that they’d be on a long trip with nowhere to charge their vehicles. The Biden administration tried to address that concern by budgeting a mere $8 billion to build a coast-to-coast system of charging stations along said interstates.

Trump tried to kill it. He froze the charger-station plan, miring much of it in litigation. He launched a smear campaign against EVs. Many MAGA devotees followed him in mocking them. Candidates campaigned against EVs as a “hoax.”

Governmental sabotage and a drop in gasoline prices devastated U.S. efforts to adopt the technology the rest of the world was running toward. Ford stopped making its all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning last year.

Consider this: The owner of an electric Tesla Model Y can drive 100 miles for less than $5. With pump prices of $4 a gallon (they’re $6 in California), a comparable compact SUV, the 2025 Toyota RAV4, costs more than twice as much, $10.40, to go that distance. And it’s a hybrid.

Meanwhile, at today’s gas prices, the driver of Ford’s gas-powered F-150 may have to shell out $20 to travel the same 100 miles.

Where’s China in all this? Mostly watching as high gas prices strain the U.S. economy — and not minding it one bit. For over a decade, China has devoted massive resources to reducing its need for imported oil, while becoming the world’s biggest maker of EVs. (China now has charging stations that can “refill” a car in five minutes.)

With gas prices spiking, Americans are again looking at EVs — just as discouraged American carmakers had largely given up on them. We’re losing.

What were EV subsidies subsidizing? They were subsidizing our economy, our national security and our future.

Written by Froma Harrop

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

I say this as a devout Catholic. Yet one who is often critical of the church’s doctrine on abortion, gays, and the role of women. But Trump managed to do something that no other politician has ever done. He rallied just about every Catholic believer, Catholic critic, non-believer, many Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, and even atheists in praise of the Pope and rip of Trump.

This is no mean fete. I come back to church critics. There are legions of them without and within the church. One example is Vice President JD Vance, a purported catholic, who quickly did his requisite Trump lap dog bark at the Pope screeching that he should stick to church matters.

Another example is the myriad of conservative Catholic notables, groups, and even U.S. Cardinals. They lambasted Trump’s self-serving, standard megalomaniacal, idiotic anti-Papal rants.

But it’s the other example of those who rallied round the Papal throne that is most intriguing. These are the reform minded Catholics who have relentlessly challenged church doctrine of abortion, the role of gays and women, and its oft times look the other way at pedophile priests. They loudly proclaimed that they had the Pope’s back.

That cast light again on the question that many have asked for years. That is which Catholic Church would emerge in the years after Pope Francis’ death in April 2025. Would it be a Catholic Church that Leo in another of his first pronouncements following his ascension to the papacy did what he called for, “We have to be a church that works together to build bridges and to keep our arms open, like this very piazza, welcoming.”

Church reformers would interpret that to mean the church takes seriously the call for a total overhaul of its teaching and doctrines frozen in time that excluded wholesale groups, lifestyles, and relationships that the church for centuries considered taboo. Church conservatives by contrast would interpret his admonition as little more than generic words that any leader would be obliged to make. But that carried no force behind them when it came to fundamental change.

The church almost certainly would continue to vigorously defend immigrant rights. That was an easy choice since many Catholics globally were in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They were the individuals who would make up the bulk of immigrants to the U.S, Canada, and Western Europe. They were the ones who would likely suffer discrimination.

Likewise, it was just as easy for the church to continue to speak out on and fight against poverty and wealth inequality. That was also in the church’s direct interest since much of the poverty and inequality in the world were in the countries with large numbers of Catholics.

However, the betting odds were that it would be a far different story when the debate on church change swung back to the long-standing church views on gays, the family, marriage, abortion, and women’s roles. There were mixed signals on how much change there would be during Leo’s papacy.

Far right Catholic bloggers, groups, magazines, websites, and some church hierarchy poured over then Bishop Prevost’s sermons, quips, and homilies on these issues to find clues which direction he’d try and take the church. They found some that marked him as a traditionalist and others that marked him as a Francis’ type reformer.

When all the mounds of initial speculation on this were finished, the consensus was a wary wait and see. That was best summed up by no less than Vance, a so-called born again Catholic. In an interview, he noted, “I’m sure he’s going to say a lot of things that I love. I’m sure he’ll say some things that I disagree with, but I’ll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all.”

There were two views there were universal consensus on when it came to whether there would be any foundational church reversal of its age-old positions on these issues. One was that these issues would continue to be raised. The other was that the battle lines on them would continue to be fiercely drawn with little give from either side.

There would be no dramatic epiphany and then a recitation of the ancient Catholic repentance call punctuated by three strikes of the breast mea culpa mea maxima culpa. Translated: through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” That best sums up Trump. Pope Leo’s blast simply underscored that.

Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

One can find more info about Mr. Hutchinson over at the following site; TheHutchinson Report.

Also feel free to connect with him through twitter; http://twitter.com/earlhutchins

He is also an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book is From King to Obama: Witness to a Turbulent History (Middle Passage Press).

Now with Chris Brown riding alongside him on a 2026 stadium tour, it feels like a full circle moment. Two artists who carried the torch for rhythm and blues through different eras, stepping into a space that once belonged to giants. The announcement alone stirred something in the culture. Not just excitement, but relief. Because when voices like theirs come together, it signals that the genre still breathes strong.

But before stadium lights, before social media rollouts, before choreography went viral, there were songs. Songs that made you call somebody late at night. Songs that had you staring at the ceiling replaying memories you thought you had buried. Songs that reminded you love was both beautiful and dangerous.

Let’s take a walk through eight of Usher’s finest love records, the kind that still hit today without needing a remix or a trend to carry them.

As Usher steps into this next chapter alongside Chris Brown, these records stand as proof of his impact. Not just as a performer, but as a storyteller. As someone who understood that music is not just about sound, but about feeling.

And when those stadium lights rise in 2026, these songs will not just be played. They will be felt all over again. Because real R&B does not fade. It lives on in every memory it helped create.

Staff Writer; Jamar Jackson

This brother has a passion for poetry and music. One may contact him at; JJackson@ThyBlackMan.com.

Central to our relating rightly, acting justly and walking gently in the world is seeing and sensing the world and all in it as sacred. This does not mean we don’t or can’t also have special sacred places, but it means that we should recognize and respect the fact that the special sacred space is located in and part of a larger sacred space, the world. In our earliest sacred texts, the world was seen and sensed as sacred for several reasons and all of them were interrelated and central to the transcendent respect they had for the spiritual, natural and social worlds of humans. In the Kawaida Maatian ethical tradition rooted in ancient Egyptian sacred teachings, humans are part of an interrelated reality of concentric circles of relatedness. In their identity as images of God, they are spiritual beings; in their embeddedness in nature, they are natural beings; and in their lives, work and struggles in society, they are social beings. And each of these must be seen, approached and engaged as interrelated, interdependent and inseparable.

What I want to do here is share some of the essential teachings of our ancestors on how we can relate rightly, act justly and walk gently in the world. Starting with some of our most ancient texts and ending with some of our modern texts on the sacredness of nature, I want to share how they sensed and engaged the world as sacred and worthy of transcendent respect. In the classical spiritual and ethical texts of ancient Egypt, the Husia, the Great Praise Poem to the Divine by Pharaoh Akhenaten stands out as an excellent example reaffirming the sense of the sacredness of the world. He says in this great work: “You are beautiful, great, radiant exalted above every land…sustaining all you have made…people, cattle, animals and all there is. You make a Nile (for Kemet) deep in the earth and you bring it because of your love that cause the people to live…all other lands, you make a way of life for them also. You place a Nile in the sky and it comes to them”. In this praise poem the Pharaoh Akhenaten speaks of the beauty and sacredness of the world suggesting it is goodness of itself, a creation of the Divine, and a means of sustainment and beauty for human beings everywhere. He also stresses the equal access to and right to the necessities of life which the earth provides as a Divine endowment, “and everyone can see this so that they may live rightly”.

Also beautiful in the spiritual, ethical and aesthetic sense is the definition of holiness by a Bakwena (Setswana) person given to a colonial missionary who saw holiness in a less inclusive and therefore incomplete way. Approaching holiness as a wholistic and inclusive reality, he stressed in his definition that not only is spirit sacred, but also the earth and all in it. Thus, he says, “When abundant rains fall during the night and wash all the world, trees and cattle clean and the air breathes clean; and the rising sun shows a drop of dew on every blade of grass, that to us is holiness”. In a word, the forms, contents and processes of the world are both sacred and beautiful.

Another important sacred text which teaches us to recognize and respect the sacredness of the earth and all in it and our moral responsibility to care for it and do good for it is the Odu Ifa. It tells us, that “those whose turn it is to take responsibility for the world, they should do good for the world”. Clearly, it is our time and our responsibility, we, the living, conscious and capable, to take care of the world and do good for the world in the ways we each and all can.

Our ancestors also taught that “the world should stop making sacrifices for wealth, and instead make sacrifices that would protect the earth from its enemies. In this way, we will live”. And again, this calls for us to sense the sacredness of the earth and all in it and relate, act and walk in dignity-affirming, life-enhancing and world-preserving ways.

In more recent times, Nana Dr. George Washington Carver gives us a beautiful model of sensing and appreciating the sacredness of the world. A highly accomplished and respected scientist, he also was a very spiritual person, combining it all in the way he conceived and lived his life and did his work. Sensing and seeing the world as sacred, he spoke of how he did “love the things God has created, both animate and inanimate”. Advancing love of creation as a sacred space of living, learning and working, he taught that if you approach nature with genuine love and a will to learn, it will give up its secrets just as other loved ones do. Nature, he taught, has wonderful stories to share and awesome goodness to give, if we love it and learn its languages and lessons. Indeed, he said, “the singing birds, the buzzing bees, the opening flower and the budding trees, along with other forms of animate and inanimate matter, all have their marvelous creation story to tell”. And “more and more as we come closer and closer in touch with nature and its teachings are we able to see the Divine and are therefore fitted to interpret correctly the various languages spoken by all forms of nature (around) us”.

Nana Dr. Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement whose model offers a framework for environmental work in the world, also stressed “love for the environment,” as an indispensable value which teaches us to see and sense the earth as sacred. She taught an active caring for the world which “motivates one to take positive action for the earth, such as planting trees and ensuring that they survive; nurtur(ing) those trees that are standing; protect(ing) animals and their habitat; conserve(ing) soil”; and other related life-affirming and world-preserving activities. And she urged us to have and demonstrate “gratitude and respect for the Earth’s resources” and “valuing all that the earth gives us and because of that valuation, not wanting to waste any of it”.

Again, then, in our deep sense of the sacredness of the earth and all in it , let us dare to relate rightly, act justly and walk gently on earth. Let us relate rightly, embracing an expansive understanding of ourselves that reaffirms our ancestral teachings of the unity of being, the oneness of life, and the interrelatedness and interdependence of the whole world. Let us act justly in and for the world and for ourselves, giving everyone and everything in the world their rightful due. It means respecting the earth as our honored ancestors taught, i.e., for:

1) its intrinsic value as a goodness in itself;

2) its status as a divine creation and sacred space,

and

3) its being a central and indispensable source of our shared well-being, sustainment, our sense of the sacred and beautiful, and our expansive concept of ourselves and our responsibility.

And let us walk gently in the world asserting ourselves in the world as good relatives to all in it, without species arrogance, abuse, and insensitivity to other living and inanimate beings and without conscious or unconscious complicity in the plunder, pollution and depletion of the world by our own practices. In a word we must see and conduct ourselves not only as human beings (watu), but also as (walimwengu) with joyful responsibility for the well-being and shared good of the world and all in it.

Written by Dr. Maulana Karenga

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

Back in the day, male politicians cavorted with their female staffers and got away with it. But that was way back and many days ago.

An official cheating on his wife with a woman picked up at a rally doesn’t seem to bother voters the way it once did. Donald Trump has numbed the electorate to that level of moral outrage. I don’t approve of adultery, but it’s generally not a deal killer in my voting for someone. Many men regarded as great national leaders had sexual relationships outside their marriages. Some were Founding Fathers.

An affair with a staffer who may fear losing a job or a chance at promotion if they refuse is another matter. Although I’ve generally referred to the offenders as men, women can engage in similar misconduct, and some have. They famously include former California Rep. Katie Hill. She was involved in at least one improper relationship, with a congressional staffer. Hill resigned in 2019 under considerable pressure.

The undeniable shift in the rules of conduct makes it incomprehensible that an ambitious congressman would ignore them. That goes doubly so for Swalwell, a Democratic star who briefly ran for president in 2019. Until recently a serious contender to become governor of California, he’s now out of the race.

He’s been charged with grave offenses that include drugging and raping a woman in a hotel in 2018. I’m reluctant to accept as fact any accusation thrown at a powerful male figure. The #MeToo business may have emerged out of reasonable outrage, but it has often spiraled into a racket peddling half-truths — pushed by women with other agendas or a few screws loose.

Swalwell says the stories about him are “false.” He denies the rape charge and insists that the allegations were politically motivated. He might have a point or two. Given the heated gubernatorial race in California, the timing may be questioned. Swalwell’s lawyer has publicly threatened legal action against at least one accuser.

But his admission of having made “mistakes” alongside the copy-and-paste announcement, “My focus in the coming days is to be with my wife and children” leads one to believe he was sexually involved with an underling. That alone is serious.

Power radiating over good looks and smart TV appearances made Swalwell a glamorous figure. He had fans in Hollywood. One can easily believe an unnamed accuser’s description of his aura. “When he talked to you, it was like the sun was shining on you,” she said. “You felt like the coolest person in the room.”

As for Gonzales, the staffer with whom he admitted having an affair later took her life. The congressman insists that the suicide was not tied to their relationship.

Gonzales strayed from his marriage vows while representing a culturally conservative district along the South Texas border. Swalwell’s constituents in the East Bay, right across the water from San Francisco, are affluent and socially liberal.

The two couldn’t be culturally more different, but both seemed to think they were entitled to disregard the mores of the day. Being sexually involved with an employee is barred by House rules. And for good reasons.

Again, if they were caught having a fling with a woman outside their professional orbit, they might be criticized but could wrangle their way out of it. Their fatal flaw was treating their female workforce as a harem. What could they have been possibly thinking?

Written by Froma Harrop

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

The erosion of trust comes from the lack of diplomatic consultation resulting from our nation’s “America First” policy, which consistently ignores input from our allies. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has severely disrupted global energy supplies and is economically impacting European and Asian allies with higher energy prices. It shows that Americans here at home are not alone in suffering from the results of the Trump administration’s recklessness and arrogance. Our allies, who express concerns about the stability of U.S. leadership, would not be wrong to question how a presidential candidate with a long list of documented moral, ethical, and legal failings managed to maintain political support from millions of voters.

It didn’t matter to voters that each of the failings was a red flag representing clear evidence that he is unfit to become the most powerful person in the world. When it comes to shielding the nation and world from Donald Trump’s domestic and foreign policy volatility, the Republican-led Congress, the Republican-led Supreme Court, and the MAGA movement have let the nation and world down. On the world stage, our allies can no longer trust the actions and motives coming from this White House. At one time, the Republican Party was the party of foreign affairs and fiscal responsibility.

Steve Schmidt is best known as a co-founder of the Lincoln Project. It was founded in 2019 in opposition to Donald Trump and his leadership of the Republican Party and has earned him the wrath of MAGA. He was an establishment Republican who worked on political campaigns for President George Bush and Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign. He is now a Never Trump Republican who has broken with the Republican Party. Thanks to Republicans, Schmidt said the nation no longer has the system of checks and balances envisioned by the country’s founders.

“A system with checks and balances and a separation of powers and a separation between church and state in the country…is foundational to who we are, to what we are,” said Schmidt. There are not enough Republicans like Schmidt who understand the times we are living in, both domestically and globally. I do not agree with Schmidt politically on many things, but I do appreciate his willingness to speak out to confront fascism and the billionaire class. This is important because every Senate and Congressional election directly and indirectly impacts the nation and world. Every Republican lawmaker knows the threat that Trump poses.

What Schmidt has been able to do is highlight the contrast between Republicans who are true Americans, with courage, and Republicans who have placed the goals of their party over the needs of the nation by refusing to restrain President Trump’s aggressive power grabs, even when they are done without Congressional approval. “It’s an age of epic cowardice of selfishness of greed,” Schmidt told Left Hook podcaster Wajahat Ali in reference to members of his former party. “These are despicable, villainous people, and I think the High Court of History is going to judge them very, very harshly.

The world is watching, and the High Court of History will judge Democrats as well, because there are many forms of checks and balances.

There is a critical U.S. Senate race in Texas, and the Black vote can ultimately determine the outcome. A May runoff between U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton will determine the Republican candidate. The winner is favored to win in November. The Democratic nominee is James Talarico, the Texas state representative who defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. While a coalition of white, college-educated Democrats and Latino voters helped propel Talarico over Crockett, Talarico will need the support of Black voters if there is any chance of winning in November.

That may not be easy. Some of Crockett’s supporters took offense to the notion that a white state representative was more electable than a Black congresswoman, as rooted in racism and sexism. Dallas Jones, a Texas Democratic strategist, believes Talarico doesn’t need an “overwhelming surge” of support from Black voters, but he does need to make sure they don’t stay home. There is a balance to be maintained to keep the powerful Black vote energized, because voting and politics are based on relationships. On one side, the Black vote in Texas must be earned, regardless of the candidate. It should never be taken for granted; therefore, Talarico should sincerely work to earn the trust and support of the Black community.

On the other hand, the Black vote must be consistent, grounded in justice and compassion. Black voters in Texas are in a position to serve as the moral checks and balances the nation and the world need. When Steve Schmidt refers to cowardice, despicable, villainous people, those people have names. Their names are John Cornyn and Ken Paxton.

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.

The latest employment report shows the economy adding 178,000 jobs in March, with unemployment holding at about 4.3 percent. Economists look at those numbers and pronounce the labor market strong. But statistics do not pay rent or buy groceries. Economists love numbers. Workers live with consequences. Talk to workers and you hear something different: a growing sense that the rules of work are changing, and not necessarily for the better.  And the surface numbers don’t tell the whole story.  With several measures of labor underutilization, the unemployment rate looks more like 8 percent, and as high as 13 percent for African Americans.

For decades Americans believed that education, hard work, and loyalty to an employer would lead to stability. A job was supposed to provide more than wages. It was supposed to offer a path—a way to build a life, raise a family, and eventually retire with dignity.

That bargain is quietly disappearing.

Many of the fastest-growing occupations in the American economy are in what economists politely call the care sector: home health aides, childcare workers, nursing assistants, and elder care providers. These workers do the labor that allows the rest of the economy to function. They care for children, support people with disabilities, and help aging Americans live with dignity.

Yet the economy rewards that labor with wages that barely sustain the people doing it. The median pay for home health and personal care aides is about $16 an hour, roughly $32,000 a year for full-time work. Try paying rent, transportation, and groceries on that in most American cities. An economy that pays caregivers poverty wages is telling you exactly what it values.

More than four million Americans now work in these jobs, making caregiving one of the largest occupations in the country. Demand will only grow as the population ages. Within the next decade, Americans over the age of 65 will outnumber children for the first time in our history.

That demographic reality reveals something uncomfortable about the American economy. The work that sustains human life—caring for children, tending to the sick, supporting the elderly—is treated as low-value labor. Meanwhile, sectors far removed from those everyday needs capture extraordinary wealth.

At the same time, the middle-class professional job that once symbolized stability is showing signs of fragility. Workers in media, technology, universities, and nonprofits increasingly face layoffs with little warning. Contract work replaces permanent employment. People who once relied on one job now patch together two or three to stay afloat. Roughly five percent of American workers now hold multiple jobs, often because one paycheck no longer stretches far enough.

Artificial intelligence may accelerate these trends, but technology alone is not the story. The deeper issue is how our economy values work. In the emerging labor market, the jobs that generate the greatest social value often generate the least financial reward.

Black women understand this reality better than most. For generations they have participated in the labor force at high rates, sustaining families and communities while navigating an economy that rarely rewarded their labor with equal pay or equal opportunity. What many Americans are discovering today about instability and undervalued labor is something Black women have been managing for decades.

The future of work is not being shaped by technology alone. It is being shaped by power.

So when we talk about the future of work, we should be clear about what is really at stake. The question is not whether machines will replace humans. The question is whether work in America will continue to drift toward instability while the most essential labor remains the least rewarded.

The future of work is already here. And unless we rethink what work should provide—stability, dignity, and the ability to build a life—we may discover that the economy we are building works very well for profits, but not nearly as well for the people whose labor sustains it.

Written by Julianne Malveaux

Official website; https://www.juliannemalveaux.com

The left-wing media treats liberal Democrat candidates different from how it treats conservative Republican candidates, but the media are not the problem if one’s candidacy starts to resonate. The heat comes from the same-party campaign rivals.

When I decided to run for governor of California, I sought the advice of several experienced strategists, politicians, pundits and some professors. They all said the same thing, only worded differently: “Is there anything in your background that would be a problem?”

These questions, they advised, include but are not limited to: Skeletons in your closet? What about your friends, associates and family members? Taxes? Sexual harassment or misconduct or assaults? Any present or past behavior that could be deemed scandalous? Dating history, marriage or divorce? Outstanding warrants? Traffic tickets? Unpaid traffic tickets? DUIs? Automobile accidents you caused or were involved in? Arrests? Misdemeanors? Felonies? Unpaid bills? Credit card debt? Lawsuits filed by or lawsuits against you? Drug use and drug abuse? Alcoholism? Abuse of prescription drugs? Sketchy business dealings? Bankruptcy? Inappropriate internet activity, including adult sites, other illicit sites or sending “compromising pictures”? Social media posts that could come back to haunt you? 911 calls from your home? Your work history? To what church do you belong? Who is your pastor? Ever been fired? If so, why? Is your campaign biography accurate, with no exaggerations or embellishments? Do your neighbors like you?

And, for good measure, I was advised to hire a private detective to investigate myself. My experienced campaign manager took me on only after I addressed all those questions — and others — and obtained a report from a well-regarded private investigator. My campaign manager cautioned, “If you are accused of picking your feet in Poughkeepsie — especially if you DID pick your feet in Poughkeepsie — it will come out.”

This brings us to Swalwell, who, according to a University of California, Berkeley poll conducted in March, was the leading Democrat in the primary. He was endorsed by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, like Swalwell, served as a prosecutor in an impeachment trial against President Donald Trump.

According to Reuters, “… a fifth woman came forward to accuse Swalwell of unwanted sexual contact, saying the Democratic lawmaker drugged and raped her during an encounter in 2018.” Swalwell first denied the accusations. He then dropped out of the race for governor, followed by his resignation from Congress.

Former House Speaker and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claimed she knew nothing about the rumors against Swalwell. But Willie Brown, once a mentor to former Vice President Kamala Harris and a former mayor of San Francisco, and who for 15 years served as speaker of the California Assembly, said: “No, I’m not surprised frankly because there have been rumors after rumors after rumors, his colleagues in Washington pretty much said that. That’s what Adam Schiff said, that’s what Nancy Pelosi said.”

But Swalwell’s problems are just beginning. The sheriff of Los Angeles County has launched a criminal probe, as has the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Civil lawsuits may follow.

Then there are Swalwell’s financial issues. Despite a combined income with his wife of over $400,000, he is deeply in debt. He owes $100,000 in student loans, borrowed against his retirement account to help fund his campaign and deferred paying income taxes to conserve cash flow. This is not exactly a good look for someone vying to be the chief executive of a state with a budget deficit and massive unfunded pension liabilities.

On top of everything, these scandals could cost the father of three children his marriage. After all, Swalwell set the standard. During the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Swalwell considered Kavanaugh unfit due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Swalwell tweeted: “Support survivors. Believe survivors. We are with you.”

All of this raises a question. When Swalwell decided to run for governor, “What was he thinking?”

Columnist; Larry Elder

Official website; http://www.larryelder.com

College sports can open the doors of opportunity for student athletes. All too often, exploitation is what steps through the opening.

The SCORE Act and President Trump’s April 2026 Executive Order to “Save College Sports” would transfer billions in wealth from student athletes to coaches and institutions, grant the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) unprecedented control over college athletics, and deny athletes the right to fair representation, while leaving smaller sports programs and institutions, including Title IX programs and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), behind.

The National Urban League has urged Congress to delay consideration of the SCORE Act and similar proposals until after the midterms to ensure meaningful input from current and former players – and civil society – to promote a level playing field for student athletes.

Both the SCORE Act and President Trump’s April 2026 Executive Order are fundamentally flawed. Their efforts represent a transfer of wealth from student athletes to institutions and coaches who already benefit disproportionately from the lopsided system. The SCORE Act, for example, caps revenue sharing for athletes at 22 percent, while top coaches earn more than $10 million annually.

Not surprisingly, President Trump’s Executive Order does nothing to address this disparity or expand opportunities for fair compensation. Instead, it empowers the NCAA to define the “fair market value” of NIL deals between student athletes and higher education institutions and constrains third-party NIL agreements, tying them to the compensation of other players. This approach restricts athletes’ ability to receive fair compensation from both institutions and third parties, while relying on scholarships as a justification for limiting their earnings. Importantly, the EO also threatens federal funding for colleges and universities who are not in compliance with the Order. This scheme would likely negatively impact critical funding streams for institutions, including Pell Grants, which are a lifeline for many students.

The NCAA’s mistreatment of student athletes and strong pushback from the courts is not new. In Haywood v. NBA (1971), the Supreme Court rejected the NCAA’s eligibility framework, which forced athletes to remain in college for four years before having an opportunity to play professionally. The system, seemingly designed to benefit the NCAA and its member institutions, required student athletes to remain in college for four years, even if they had the desire and talent to play professionally. Additionally, in Johnson v. NCAA (2024), the Third Circuit held that student athletes are not categorically barred from being considered employees under federal law. In its opinion, the court asked, “Do efforts that provide tangible benefits to identifiable institutions deserve compensation? In most instances they do.” Although the case was remanded to the district court for further analysis, the decision clearly rejects the NCAA’s longstanding claim that athletes are not entitled to basic labor protections.

Rather than acknowledging the NCAA’s mistreatment of student athletes or pursuing reforms in compliance with the nation’s longstanding antitrust laws and recent court cases, the SCORE Act instead seeks to grant the NCAA an unprecedented antitrust exemption – insulating it from accountability and entrenching a system that extracts billions from athletes while denying them a commensurate share of the value they produce. Such an exemption would grant the NCAA sweeping control over nearly every aspect of college sports while significantly limiting athletes’ ability to secure a meaningful seat at the table or pursue legal recourse. Exemptions of this kind are exceedingly rare and clearly unjustified given the NCAA’s long, multi-decade history of mistreatment toward student athletes.

Equally concerning, the SCORE Act and President Trump’s EO fail to provide student athletes with meaningful representation or the opportunity to organize and collectively bargain. Both efforts appear designed to preempt the implications of Johnson v. NCAA (2024), which held that student athletes may be classified as employees, entitled to basic labor protections. If student athletes were permitted to organize and collectively bargain, many of the bill’s provisions could be negotiated directly, rendering most of the language in the SCORE Act unnecessary.

The National Urban League is open to thoughtful efforts to strengthen college sports, including potential updates to the Sports Broadcasting Act, but we have not taken a position yet. That being said, incremental progress alone is not enough. Meaningful reforms must ensure equitable revenue sharing, reject unwarranted antitrust exemptions, provide substantive representation, and directly support smaller programs and institutions, including Title IX programs and HBCUs.

Anything less is unacceptable.

Written by Marc Morial

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