1) eliminate affirmative action programs;

2) dismantle corporate set-aside programs for Blacks and other minorities;

3) defeat reforms aimed at making law enforcement less hostile and the criminal justice system more humane in its treatment of Blacks and other minorities; and

4) silence and table any discussion of reparations for Blacks in the US.

Widespread protests took place across the US and world after the murder of George Floyd during the coronavirus pandemic. Attention was directed at the injustice Blacks and other minorities experience at the hands of law enforcement and in the US criminal justice system as well as other facets of daily life.

In addition to discussions around revamping and reforming law enforcement and the criminal justice system there were calls for reparations for Blacks. Reparations for their ancestors having been enslaved in the US and the lingering negative efforts of that enslavement.

Major US corporations, seemingly influenced by the protests and discussions of an unequal society with very little fanfare, quickly and quietly committed to developing or enhancing set-aside programs for Black and minority businesses. They also committed to funding advocacy and community improvement organizations in Black and other minority communities.

Just as quickly and quietly with even less fanfare those commitments vanished from the websites and public communications not long after being first posted and disseminated. Their disappearance occurred way prior to the November 2024 presidential election.

The current federal regime probably would be pleased to receive credit for the removal and disappearances of corporate set-aside programs for Blacks and other minorities. However, the credit belongs to the actions of right-wing activists and organizations.

While Blacks and others were marching in the streets and standing before buildings chanting slogans, right-wing activists and groups quietly and effectively threatened and implemented boycotts of corporations directed at their set-aside policies and programs. Their threats and actual boycotts proved far more effective than the marching and chanting.

It seems the right-wing activists and groups clearly understood what appeared lost on the marchers and protesters. They understood that during the civil right movement it was the threats and implementation of boycotts that touched the pockets and not the hearts and souls of business interests that moved those interests to push governmental officials to do the profitable thing.

Right-wing activists and groups with assistance from right-wing influencers and information peddlers lit fires under police organizations and police unions to push back and raise questions about law enforcement and criminal justice reforms. Reforms that left the public with images of widespread lawlessness if certain restrictions were placed on law enforcement personnel.

The concerns as highlighted by the law enforcement community were such that a frightened public compelled federal lawmakers to quietly and effectively bury legislation that was conceived to help ensure there would be no more George Floyd type murders.

As for the issue of affirmative action, discussions and efforts to dismantle such programs were basically shrugged off by Blacks. The issue may have been important to the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents of today’s Black workers, but not for themselves.

Black workers today look around and see Blacks prominently appearing on network and cable programming, Black executives in the boardrooms and C-suite offices of Fortune 500 corporations, and throughout the offices and hallways of local, state and federal governmental buildings.

Blacks are everywhere and that is not going to change, many Blacks have concluded. Like water and air nothing to concern themselves about. Since they saw affirmative action as an archaic phrase talk by right-wingers about eliminating it was viewed as basically a non-issue. “Nothing to see here, keep it moving.”

As for the issue of reparations, right-wing influencers and other information peddlers went into overdrive to discredit and defeat it. Their approach was not to challenge the validity and merits of the issue, but to try and discredit individuals who publicly raised the issue.

By hook and by crook their smear campaigns seemed to have been effective in forcing those who supported the idea of reparations into silence. The right was successful enough to even make the term “racism” taboo. There was no such thing as racism or a racist, the right racists proclaimed.

To assist with their discrediting efforts right-wingers plucked a few bootlickers and handkerchief heads from under rocks, dusted them off and told them to go fetch. They obediently obeyed while pocketing their thirty pieces of silver and wedge of cheese.

Many civil and human rights activists and organizations focus their lobbying efforts entirely at the federal government level. Right-wing activists and groups on the other hand while focusing efforts at the federal level have also directed considerable attention at the local and state government level, including boards of education. They have been quite successful in promoting their right and far-right agenda.

It is estimated that Blacks in the US have $2.1 trillion in yearly purchasing power. If used strategically and effectively corporate America would not have to be pushed to make sure the well-being of Black consumers mattered. It would not be about hearts and souls for those corporations but their corporate wallets and pocketbooks.

Blacks may also want to ease up on the marching and chanting. It is no longer the 1960s. Instead, they might want to use the tactics of other groups, with far less numbers who have been able to successfully push their agendas.

While Blacks are out in the streets marching, those groups are on the phones, sitting in offices and hovering over the shoulders of decision makers to make sure they do the right thing. What that also means is that Blacks cannot just go to the polling booth on election day cast their votes and then for the next 364 days go back to sleep.

We have to hold people accountable for our votes. It is about being proactive and not reactionary.

Staff Writer; Al Alatunji

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

They have reason to be excited about their prospects.

Let me state for the record that we Republicans do not deserve to be reelected to the majority in Congress in either body. Far too many of our candidates campaign as a conservatives and then vote as  liberals, but I digress.

To my giddy Democrat friends, allow me to pose a simple question.

When Democrats control Congress and or the White House, can you please point to any legislation specific to the Black community in general and Black entrepreneurs specifically that became law?

I will wait…

During the 117th Congress (January 3, 2021–January 3, 2023), the Democrats controlled the House with a majority, while the Senate was evenly split 50–50. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris held the tiebreaking vote in the Senate, giving the party effective control of both chambers along with the House majority, where Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker.

With Joe Biden occupying the White House, the Democrats controlled the whole of government like the Republicans do now.

During this 117th Congress, Blacks chaired several major committees:

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) – Chair of the Financial Services Committee, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) – Chair of the Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) – Chair of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-MO) – Chair of the House Select Committee on HHS Oversight, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) – Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. David Scott (D-GA)—Chairman of Agriculture.

Blacks also chaired twenty-five subcommittees.

Name me one specific benefit to the Black community that was received as a direct result of having these people in positions of power and authority.

Name me one policy or law that was enacted to specifically benefit Black entrepreneurs.

Therefore, relative to the Black community, does it really matter who controls Congress?

Blacks give Democrats north of eighty percent of their vote during Congressional elections, with no corresponding return on their vote.

Can you make it make sense?

Is the symbolism of having a Black hold elective office more important than a specific agenda targeting the Black community, especially entrepreneurs?

Herein lies the problem.  Elite radical liberal Democrats want and expect Blacks to vote for them based on emotion, not policy.

When these Democrats go to the Hispanic community, they talk about amnesty for their family, citizenship, free housing, free medical services, free education and free money.

When these Democrats go to the homosexual community, they talk about people with mental issues playing in girls sports, free genital mutilation surgery, free drag queen shows for their children.

When these Democrats go to the Black community, they talk about slavery, hangings, smoking weed, dancing, voting rights; but never policy!

Voting for a Democrat is like peeing on yourself in a dark blue suit; it gives you a warm feeling but no one ever notices.

In my conversations with friends of mine who are members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), should they win the House in November, their top issues are:  impeaching Trump, investigating Trump’s businesses, free health care for illegals, etc.

So, again I ask what is the benefit of having a Black elected officials when they never address, let alone solve any problems of particular interest to the Black community?

Maxine Waters was Chair of the Financial Services Committee from 2019-2023, how did the Black community benefit? We are down to ten Black owned banks from a high a few years ago of over one hundred.  Bobby Scott was Chair of the Education and Labor Committee from 2021-2023, how did the Black community benefit?  How did Black colleges benefit?  David Scott was Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2021-2023 how did the Black community benefit?  How did Africa benefit?

Democrats have a plethora of Black elected officials from local, state, and federal offices with the Black community having nothing to show for it.

Republicans have few Black elected officials from local, state, and federal offices with the Black community having several substantive things to show for it—higher wages, more funding for HBCUs, lower crime rates to name a few.

I would submit to my readers that it is far more important to have fewer Black elected officials and get issues addressed that are of particular concern to the Black community, verses having more elected Black officials who have no plan to address specific issues impacting the Black community.

We must become more strategic with our vote and less emotional.

I had dinner with one of my buddies this morning, King Solomon, and he told me in Proverbs 4:7, “Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding.”

I challenge my followers to name me one Black organization that has a substantive plan that can be enacted by the next Congress that will address the high unemployment rate in the Black community; that will reconstitute the nuclear family; that will reduce out of wedlock childbirth; that will decrease Black on Black crime; that will spur entrepreneurship.

I will wait…

The NAACP, the National Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Black Economic Alliance all have plans, but they are not substantive, credible plans that will solve any of the problems facing the Black community.

Their plans are like the sounding brass or the tinkling cymbal; full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson

RJ is a Pulitzer Award nominated columnist and President & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC, a Washington, DC based global public affairs consultancy.  Feel free to visit his website at: www.raynardjackson.com.  You can follow Raynard on Twitter @ RealRaynardJ or Gettr @ RaynardJackson.

Our words matter, whether we use them as a weapon to attack or a shield to protect. Our words matter because they reflect our inner conscience and heart. Former U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney once said, “But my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside.”

At critical moments of our history, citizens expect our leaders to be conscience-driven servants whose inspiring words are consistently matched with inspiring actions.  Sen. Romney never became president. But a president’s words can shape the nation’s identity, change the political landscape, influence global politics, and set the country’s moral and legal tone.

In times of crisis, presidents rely on speeches to calm a frightened nation, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt rallying the country after Pearl Harbor or President George W. Bush uniting a grieving public at Ground Zero after 9/11. Roosevelt’s famous phrase, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” came during his first inaugural address at the height of the Great Depression. It was meant to counter the panic, uncertainty, and fear and replace it with public confidence and collective action. Before television, almost every home in America had a radio, and FDR used it to enter every household.

His fireside chats (evening radio addresses) were intimate speeches with a conversational tone and encouraging patriotic themes. He never painted a dark picture of America; instead, he urged people to face the future with patience, understanding, and faith. His calming manner lifted the public’s confidence and their trust in him as president. President Barack Obama’s three words, “Yes we can,” align with FDR’s messages, offering a shared vision of unity and progress. Obama’s vision of unity confronted the nation’s legacy of culture wars when he stated, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America.” His words mattered because they highlighted a nation long divided politically, culturally, and racially.

President Abraham Lincoln navigated the same cultural and racial fault lines. In his House Divided speech, Lincoln stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” In doing so, he warned that the United States could not permanently endure being a nation consisting of half slave and half free states. It became one of the defining summaries of the cultural crisis before the Civil War. In a moment of executive accountability, Lincoln also used the five powerful words written by his predecessor, President Thomas Jefferson.  Before Jefferson became the third president of the United States, he was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

It was written as a formal explanation of why the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. It became a point-by-point list of grievances and injustices against King George III and the British government. When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” as part of the Declaration of Independence, he did so as a man who was socially oppressed and suffering. “All men are created equal” turned the Declaration of Independence from a list of grievances into a profound commitment to preserving human dignity. Those five powerful words made the Declaration of Independence into a social justice document. Jefferson’s message of justice became timeless. Despite one man being king (King George III) and the other a subject of the king (Thomas Jefferson), in God’s eyes both men are created equal and have basic rights as human beings. Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, used “all men are created equal” as he tied it to the abolition of slavery. Women’s rights advocates used “all men and women are created equal” when fighting to get women the right to vote. Dr. Martin Luther King used “all men are created equal” in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, which demanded equal rights for Blacks.

As an enslaver, Jefferson was selective in his fight for human dignity. His fight for freedom from British oppression did not result in freedom for Blacks suffering from the oppression of slavery. While diversity, equity, and inclusion were delayed, future generations picked them up. Again, words backed by action matter, and a future president took the baton of DEI and ran with it… even when it meant putting aside personal feelings and political biases. When President Lyndon Johnson spoke the words, “We shall overcome,” he used the civil-rights movement anthem in his 1965 address to Congress urging voting-rights legislation after violence in Selma, Alabama. In doing so, the phrase tied the presidency directly to the mass movement for racial justice.

Johnson was instrumental in changing the political landscape when he stated, “We are not fully free until all of us are free.” Presidential words can also be damaging when setting a fearful tone for the nation. When President Richard Nixon mentioned to an aide, “People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true,” Nixon was speaking as an elected official who was fully aware of the impact fear plays in building walls and suspicion of others. Nixon’s defining words, “I am not a crook,” made him inseparable from the Watergate scandal. Speaking of crooks, the current president has no words of historical significance. President Harry Truman said it best when he stated, “The buck stops here,” when referring to executive responsibility. This is true even of the current president.

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.

Fulton Sheen possessed a rare gift: He could bring the richness, beauty and intellectual depth of traditional Catholicism into the homes of ordinary Americans. Through his Emmy Award-winning, half-hour weekly television program in the 1950s, “Life Is Worth Living,” he introduced millions of viewers to traditional Roman Catholicism. He did not dilute the faith to make it acceptable to the times. He presented it with clarity, conviction, humor, warmth and a deep love for Jesus Christ.

For those of us who cherish the traditional Catholic faith, Sheen remains a particularly compelling figure. His Catholicism was rooted in the Eucharist, the priesthood, the sacramental life, the spiritual disciplines that had nourished the faithful for centuries, the need to evangelize, and a public recognition of the unique role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in human salvation.

The Catholic faith that Sheen proclaimed fostered the traditional pre-Vatican II practices that shaped centuries of Catholics. The Latin Mass, with its reverence, mystery and transcendent orientation, expressed a vision of worship in which the human person was drawn beyond the distractions of the world and into a unique space, reserved for Christ’s re-sacrifice of himself.

Sheen also understood the importance of the seemingly ordinary disciplines of Catholic life: meatless Fridays, weekly confession, personal prayer, the daily recitation of the Rosary, and personal self-denial. These practices were not empty rules or burdens imposed for their own sake. Properly understood, they were instruments of spiritual formation.

Sheen’s genius was to explain truths and regimens in ways that ordinary people could understand. He could speak about theology without making it lifeless, about sin without making it condemnatory, and about holiness without presenting it as something reserved for monks and nuns. He understood that every person, regardless of education, wealth or social position, was created for communion with God.

Here is how Fulton Sheen touched my life. Shortly after I graduated from law school, a friend gave me a Miraculous Medal as a gift. It was a beautiful, traditional, 24-karat gold image of the Blessed Virgin Mary that Catholics often wear on a chain suspended from our necks. I wrote to Archbishop Sheen and asked him to bless it for me.

He wrote back quickly. In his letter, he asked me to meet him during Holy Week at 12:30 in the afternoon at Marble Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where he was preaching.

I arrived in time to hear his traditional Catholic sermon. Then, I stood in a line of people waiting to meet him. When I reached the head of the line, he floored me.

He looked directly into my eyes and said: “You must be Andrew. Show me the medal!”

I was shaking as I loosened my necktie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of my shirt, removed the medal, and handed it to him. He held the medal in one hand. With the other, he touched my eyes, my ears and my lips. He blessed and kissed the medal, then placed it over my head and around my neck.

Then he embraced my entire head in his hands.

This was a profoundly personal encounter. Here was a holy churchman, a public figure known to millions, yet in those moments his attention was directed entirely toward God and the sacramental significance of the medal and wishes of a supplicant stranger. I asked him why we were in a Protestant church.

He said, in substance: “These folks need to know that in Catholic churches all over the world, Jesus Christ is physically present under the appearance of bread and wine; and He wants to be present in their hearts.”

That answer revealed something essential about Sheen’s ministry. His love for Catholicism did not lead him to withdraw from the world. It impelled him to bring the Catholic message to people who might never enter a Catholic church. He understood that evangelization required meeting people where they were, speaking to their questions, and inviting them toward the fullness of the truth.

What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of suffering? How should we confront sin? What does it mean to love God? Where can we find truth, forgiveness and lasting hope? Why is there war and genocide? No question escaped him.

Sheen’s answers always led back to Christ through Mary.

The traditional Catholic practices he cherished offered a practical response to spiritual poverty. The Latin Mass directed the soul toward the mystery of transubstantiation. Confession restored the relationship between the sinner and God. The Rosary brought the mysteries of Christ and Mary into daily life. Fasting and self-denial weakened the grip of selfishness and cupidity. Personal prayer opened hearts to divine grace.

These practices did not promise an easy life. They called for discipline, humility and perseverance. But Sheen understood that holiness is not produced by convenience. It requires the daily decision to place God above self.

This week, the Church is beatifying Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Beatification is a formal declaration that a person may be publicly honored as Blessed according to the Church’s norms. It is a significant step toward canonization.

For those who have long admired Sheen, his beatification is an opportunity not merely to celebrate his accomplishments but to reflect upon his holiness. For me, Archbishop Sheen will always be more than a figure in the history of American Catholicism. He is the man who didn’t know me, looked into my eyes and mysteriously said my name, and drew me to his heart.

That encounter remains in my heart as an unmerited gift from a future saint. Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, pray for us.

Written by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

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

… ultimately produced a very good security deal for all three primary parties (Greenland, the U.S., Denmark). NATO and — for that matter — every nation on Earth which relies on American military and economic strength for strategic stability will benefit as well.

That phrase in the previous sentence beginning with “every nation” covers a lot of planetary surface. From Japan and South Korea through Southeast Asia to Australia. The Pacific archipelagos. North America and South America. The Middle East. Let’s include the subcontinent. U.S. diplomatic efforts halted the last Indo-Pakistani war. Free Europe — from Iceland to Poland. North Africa. Yes, Africa’s fragments are in misery. But all nations benefit from safe international maritime trade, and since 1945 the U.S. Navy has been the primary global champion promoting free and safe navigation.

I’ve said the following many times since the end of the Cold War: No matter the regional, bilateral or internal instability, the main aim of American diplomatic, economic and military power is to promote stability in 70% of the world’s inhabited landmass. (Exempt Russia and China.)

On Sept. 22 at the U.N. in New York City, senior U.S., Denmark and Greenland representatives signed a defense and cooperation deal that essentially makes the 1951 U.S.-Denmark Greenland defense agreement permanent. What worked during World War II and the Cold War will guide Greenland’s defense in perpetuity. The deal does add one additional 21st-century feature: the U.S. can deny countries the ability to make “sensitive investments” in Greenland. Translation: Washington is going to make sure 21st-century adversaries can’t buy or steal Greenland’s rare earths and valuable minerals.

1951 wasn’t World War II. It was the Korean War and the Cold War. The U.S. was defending the island against Soviet subs and saboteurs, not Nazi subs and saboteurs.

The U.S. has been Greenland’s defender since April 1940, when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Denmark. In 1941, Danish diplomats and Greenland authorities essentially made Greenland an American protectorate. When the U.S. entered World War II, America established air and sea bases on the island. During the conflict, there were often more American military personnel on the island than there were native Greenlanders.

In January 2025, after President-elect Trump argued (Jan. 7) that the U.S. should buy Greenland and perhaps reacquire the Panama Canal, I wrote a column making that specific historical point. Uncle Sam had been defending Greenland for over eight decades.

In 2026, Denmark still can’t defend the island. Copenhagen knows Danes and Greenlanders cannot defend the huge Arctic island against two adversaries that desire it: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Communist China.

China is an aspiring Arctic power. Beijing, being cannier than Moscow, wouldn’t take Greenland with commandos. Chinese intel operatives disguised as investors would do it with cash — buying politicians and political support in order to acquire mineral leases, fishing rights and even basing rights.

Beijing uses those techniques throughout the world, but cash, luxuries and beautiful women have been particularly effective in gaining access to minerals and ports in the small islands of the South and Western Pacific.

Look at the map. Greenland is a huge island. Its exclusive economic zone extends into the Arctic Ocean (think fish, minerals, perhaps oil). It is also one of three land areas that serve as primary positions for defending the North American continent from strategic attacks launched in the Northern Hemisphere.

The other two: Alaska and Hawaii. Think of Alaska as Greenland’s polar bookend — though its Aleutian Islands run all the way to Asia. Hawaii is small but in a perfect position for controlling and defending the central and South Pacific.

Ensuring the U.S. can use Greenland for surveillance, for anti-submarine operations and anti-air and anti-space weapons defense makes it much harder for an adversary to threaten the U.S. and Canada with nuclear attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as much after the deal was announced. Rubio wrote via his X account, “Greenland will forever be part of the strategic defense area of North America and exclude any adversary from it and the surrounding area.”

Bottom line: Another major success for Trump administration Transactional Diplomacy Operations.

Written by Austin Bay

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

Should an American who graduated from high school but never went to college — and who now works as a delivery truck driver, earning $43,950 per year (the median annual earnings for that job) — be forced to help pay off the federal student loans of these two college graduates who make $240,000?

If former President Joe Biden had gotten his way, that truck driver and other hardworking American taxpayers would indeed have seen their tax dollars help pay off those loans.

When Biden was running for president in April 2020, he announced his plan for “forgiving student debt.”

“I propose to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000,” Biden said.

His plan, he said, would also “(i)mmediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.”

After he was elected president, Biden did not get Congress to enact new legislation to implement this plan. Instead, he took unilateral executive action in an attempt to do so — and his administration claimed this action was justified under a law that had been enacted under former President George W. Bush.

In 2003, Bush had signed the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, aka the HEROES Act.

This act, said its official summary, “(a)uthorizes the Secretary of Education to waive or modify any requirement or regulation applicable to the student financial assistance programs under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 as deemed necessary with respect to an affected individual who: (1) is serving on active duty during a war or other military operation or national emergency; (2) is performing National Guard duty during a war, operation, or emergency; (3) resides or is employed in an area that is declared a disaster area by any Federal, State, or local official in connection with a national emergency; or (4) suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

As the nation headed into the 2022 midterm elections, Biden announced his student loan forgiveness plan. “On August 24, 2022,” explained the Congressional Research Service, “the Biden Administration announced it would invoke the Higher Education Relief Opportunities Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) to carry out a ‘one-time student loan debt relief policy’ to ‘address the financial harms of the [COVID-19] pandemic for low- and middle-income borrowers.’ Under the one-time student debt relief policy (HEROES Act policy), ED (Education Department) would have cancelled up to $10,000 in qualifying HEA Title IV federal student loan debt for borrowers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) in 2020 or 2021 of less than $125,000 (for individuals or married borrowers who filed federal income taxes separately) or $250,000 (for married couples filing jointly and certain other individuals).”

So, under Biden’s plan, a law that had been designed to help individuals “serving on active duty during a war or other military operation or national emergency” or had “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency” could be used to grant general federal student loan forgiveness in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Sept. 26, 2022, the Congressional Budget Office sent a letter to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) that estimated the cost of the Biden plan. “As of June 30, 2022, 43 million borrowers held $1.6 trillion in federal student loans,” said this letter. “About $430 billion of that debt will be canceled, CBO estimates.”

Six states, including Nebraska, sued Biden, arguing that he did not have the legal authority to move forward with this loan forgiveness plan. The Supreme Court agreed with the states, voting 6-3 against Biden’s plan.

“The Secretary (of Education) asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.

“The new program vests authority in the Department of Education to discharge up to $10,000 for every borrower with income below $125,000 and up to $20,000 for every such borrower who has received a Pell Grant,” said the court. “No prior limitation on loan forgiveness is left standing. Instead, every borrower within the specified income cap automatically qualifies for debt cancellation, no matter their circumstances. The Department of Education estimates that the program will cover 98.5% of all borrowers.”

“From a few narrowly delineated situations specified by Congress, the Secretary has expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country,” said the court.

“But imagine instead asking the enacting Congress a more pertinent question: ‘Can the Secretary use his powers to abolish $430 billion in student loans, completely canceling loan balances for 20 million borrowers, as a pandemic winds down to its end?'” said the court. “We can’t believe the answer would be yes. Congress did not unanimously pass the HEROES Act with such power in mind.”

Despite this loss in the Supreme Court, Democrats in Congress have not given up on trying to find a way to make federal taxpayers pay for someone else’s college costs.

Led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a group of nine Democrats in the Senate and 18 in the House are now cosponsoring the Debt-Free College Act. This bill would appropriate $84 billion in fiscal year 2027 alone. It would provide funding to states so that those states could “distribute the grant funds … in a manner designed to best achieve the partnership’s goal of providing debt-free college for all eligible students at in-State public institutions of higher education.”

This month, the Census Bureau released its report on income in the United States in 2025. It showed that the median household income of a high school graduate who did not attend college was $60,790 last year. The median household income of those who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher was $138,300.

Democrat politicians who would like to make taxpayers subsidize the student loan debt of college graduates are seeking to redistribute wealth to the wealthier.

Written by Terence P. Jeffrey

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

Let me lay out what we can confirm. Shannon claims a representative reached out and made it plain that certain clients would not be sitting across from him. To hear him tell it, that’s hypocrisy in plain sight, the same crowd that praises open speech right up until the moment it pinches them. His point was that people support freedom of speech until somebody says something they disagree with, and that argument deserves consideration whether or not the wider tale checks out. Ocho was part of the conversation, and the discussion raised questions about who gets to decide which athletes appear on the program. Social media, being what it is, had plenty to say about the accusation before anybody could establish exactly what happened behind the scenes.

Past the drama, here is where the whole thing turns worth studying. Strip away the mystery agency and the vague callout, and the former tight end stumbled onto a question this culture has circled for years. How much say does a man really hold over his own voice once he signs with a shop?

Because let’s not play. Managing image is the gig. It isn’t some conspiracy, it’s the literal job description. These offices exist to keep talent marketable, to smooth over messes, to whisper “maybe skip that one” when a room looks radioactive. The good ones build crisis plans and walk ballplayers through sitdowns so a bad soundbite doesn’t torch an endorsement. A young athlete with generational money on the table needs somebody watching the blind spots, and a sharp adviser earns that fee by seeing trouble three moves ahead. None of that reads as villainy. That reads as competence.

So a representative urging caution around a host who has faced his share of controversial headlines? Reasonable. Shannon faced a highly publicized civil lawsuit in 2025 involving sexual assault allegations he denied. The case was settled and dismissed that July, and ESPN subsequently parted ways with him. A careful representative might consider that history when weighing whether a multimillion dollar client belongs in that chair, though nobody has established that the lawsuit played any role in the guest restrictions Sharpe described. A family hiring somebody to protect an athlete’s reputation isn’t necessarily looking for a yes man. Sometimes the person earning that fee has to deliver advice the client doesn’t want to hear.

But a canyon sits between guidance and a flat “you cannot go.” One is counsel. The other is a leash.

That gap is the whole ballgame. Somebody online framed it perfectly, asking whether the agent works for the player or the player works for the agent. Sit with that. We’re talking about grown Black men. Fathers. Business owners. Guys who absorbed hits that’ll ache in the knees at fifty. And the notion floating around is that one phone call from a representative could potentially dictate which conversations get had at all. We don’t know whether any athlete actually wanted to appear on Nightcap and was prevented from doing so. That distinction matters. But if a player wants to sit down for an interview and somebody else can override his decision without his consent, it raises a serious question about who’s steering the ship.

Money explains plenty. Endorsement checks, appearance fees, and brand partnerships can give agents considerable influence over an athlete’s public image. A player who depends on that professional relationship might think twice before challenging a representative’s advice, even when the final decision remains his own. Rock the boat, ask one question too many, wander onto the wrong stage, and a man might start wondering whether those opportunities could dry up. That doesn’t mean the unnamed agency threatened anybody financially or interfered with endorsement deals. We have no evidence of that. Still, the possibility of losing valuable business relationships can influence which conversations an athlete chooses to have and which subjects he would rather leave alone.

Still, I’m not handing Shannon a clean pass either. He named nobody, and he provided no correspondence or other evidence that listeners could examine independently. A heavy charge deserves heavy backing, and “y’all know who you are” isn’t backing, it’s a public callout with a gold jacket behind it. Vagueness cuts both ways. It lets the man present himself as somebody being unfairly excluded while leaving the audience without enough information to determine what actually happened. It also lets folks pour whatever meaning they please into the empty space. Once speculation takes over, theories that have nothing to do with a ballplayer’s right to book his own calendar can quickly muddy the discussion.

Aim the lens where it belongs, though, and the core matter survives the noise. Grown professionals ought to pick which rooms to enter. A trainer can tell you to skip leg day. Chaining your ankles is another story entirely. An adviser can flag a risky booking and spell out the downside in plain English. Yanking the decision out of a man’s hands completely, without an agreement giving that representative such authority, crosses into something else. Black men who built a name with nothing but talent and a mouth shouldn’t need a hall pass to speak.

The counter deserves air, because it’s fair. Reputation is fragile, and one loose hour beside the wrong host can cost a guy a shoe deal he spent a decade building. When a client pays a shop to guard the brand, firm boundaries may be part of the arrangement. Tell your people “handle my press, I trust you,” and a refusal to approve an appearance can become that trust in motion, not a betrayal of it. Plenty of quiet stars are happy letting somebody else swallow these headaches. An athlete who voluntarily gives his representatives control over media bookings hasn’t necessarily surrendered his independence. He may simply have decided that managing those decisions is part of the service he’s paying for.

Both truths hold at once. That’s the messy part people want to skip. Protecting somebody can be the right thing to do. Silencing him against his wishes is another matter. Trouble is, from the cheap seats the two look nearly identical, and only the parties inside that arrangement know which one is really unfolding. Until the athletes themselves explain whether they wanted to appear on Nightcap, nobody outside those conversations can say for certain whether their representatives were carrying out their wishes or overriding them.

So who runs the conversation? Not the host, plainly, or there’d be no venting into a mic about empty guest chairs. Maybe the ballplayers made their own decisions and simply had no interest in appearing. Maybe their agents advised them against it, and they agreed. Or perhaps some wanted to participate and were told the booking would never happen. Those are different situations, and the distinction matters. The honest answer is that power in this business doesn’t always sit with the face we see. Sometimes it rests with the athlete, sometimes with the representative he hired, and sometimes with the terms of an agreement the public knows nothing about. Black men who have built careers through their own talent deserve a clear understanding of who controls their public appearances and how much authority they have handed over. Shannon’s complaint, whether he provides evidence or not, at least hauled that question into daylight. Now we find out whether anybody with skin in it has the nerve to answer.

Staff Writer; J.G. Lacour

Covering the NBA, NFL, college basketball, college football, and Major League Baseball from a Black man’s perspective. He loves the full world of sports, but the NFL remains his favorite.

Need to contact this bro, feel free to use this email address; JGLacour@ThyBlackMan.com.

Key Takeaways

• Finance employers need people who can combine financial knowledge with data, technology, communication, and judgment.
• AI can accelerate routine work, but people remain responsible for verifying outputs and making recommendations.
• Career options include financial analysis, corporate finance, risk, investments, fintech, wealth management, and analytics.
• A well-explained project can demonstrate skills more clearly than a long list of software tools.
• Career planning works best when it starts with a specific role and a realistic skills-gap review.

Miami’s position as a global gateway, its active real estate and hospitality sectors, and its connections to banking, investing, wealth management, and technology make it a useful setting for understanding how finance is changing. For students and early-career professionals, the goal is not to master every new platform. It is to develop the financial judgment and practical skills that help turn information into sound decisions.

For professionals considering structured advanced study, the MS in Finance program at Miami Business School offers a graduate finance pathway centered on quantitative, analytical, and career-focused finance learning. As the University of Miami’s business school in Coral Gables, Miami Business School serves the Greater Miami area. It provides a relevant example for people exploring preparation for finance roles in investment, corporate finance, wealth management, and financial services.

Why Finance Careers Look Different

Finance teams still rely on core activities such as budgeting, valuation, forecasting, reporting, and risk assessment. The difference is that many professionals now receive data faster and in greater volume. Routine collection, formatting, and document review can be automated, leaving analysts with more responsibility for checking assumptions, identifying risks, and explaining what the numbers mean.

In Miami, that may mean evaluating a hospitality company’s seasonal cash flow, comparing real estate investment scenarios, reviewing a cross-border client portfolio, or helping a growing business plan capital needs. The work is less about producing a spreadsheet alone and more about building a defensible conclusion from it.

Core Skills Employers Still Expect

Technology does not replace the fundamentals. A capable finance professional should be able to read income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, then connect those records to operating performance and future decisions. Financial accounting, corporate finance, valuation, financial modeling, statistics, probability, and risk analysis remain foundational.

Employers also value business writing, presentations, attention to detail, and professional ethics. Financial analysis often influences investments, budgets, customer relationships, and long-term strategy. That makes accuracy and accountability as important as technical speed.

Technical Skills That Add Career Value

Technical skills can make finance work more efficiently without requiring every professional to become a software engineer. Advanced spreadsheet modeling remains highly useful for forecasting, scenario analysis, and presenting results. SQL can help users work with structured data, while Python can support repeatable analysis and simple automation. Data visualization tools can make trends and exceptions easier for decision-makers to see.

AI tools can also assist with document summaries, first-draft reporting, and pattern identification. Their outputs require human review, especially when data may be incomplete, confidential, outdated, or misunderstood. Cybersecurity and data privacy awareness matter because finance professionals often handle sensitive business and client information. Start with one tool that fits a target role, then use it in a real project.

Finance Career Paths to Watch

• Financial analysis: Evaluates performance, builds forecasts, and prepares recommendations for business leaders or investors.
• Corporate finance: Supports planning, budgeting, capital allocation, acquisitions, and growth decisions within an organization.
• Risk management: Assesses credit, market, operational, and regulatory exposures, then helps reduce potential losses.
• Investment management: Researches securities, markets, portfolios, and investor objectives.
• Financial technology: Connects finance knowledge with digital payments, software products, automation, and data systems.
• Wealth management: Helps clients consider investments, retirement, tax coordination, and long-term financial goals.
• Financial data and analytics: Converts large data sets into forecasts, dashboards, and decision-ready insights.

These paths overlap, but each has a different emphasis. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects financial analyst employment to grow 7 percent from 2025 to 2035 and describes the role as evaluating financial data, forecasting trends, and preparing recommendations. That combination of analysis and communication appears across many finance specialties.

What AI Can and Cannot Do

AI can sort information, identify patterns, draft summaries, and support repetitive reporting. It cannot independently establish whether the underlying data is reliable, whether a forecast rests on sensible assumptions, or whether a recommendation is appropriate for a client or organization. People provide context, challenge weak logic, manage ethical concerns, and remain accountable for final decisions.

An analyst might use AI to summarize an earnings release, then compare the output with the original filing, validate key figures, test the implications for a forecast, and explain the business impact to a manager. Fast output is useful only when it is carefully reviewed.

Why Communication Is a Finance Skill

Senior leaders rarely need every line of a model. They need a concise answer to questions such as what changed, why it changed, what could happen next, and which action is recommended. Strong finance professionals can translate technical findings into an executive summary, a focused presentation, or a clear conversation with a non-finance colleague. Communication often distinguishes candidates with otherwise similar analytical skills.

How to Build Evidence of Finance Skills

1. Choose a target role. Review job descriptions and identify recurring skills.
2. Assess your starting point. Separate skills you can prove from those you have only encountered.
3. Create one applied project. Build a company valuation, portfolio review, cash-flow forecast, or risk dashboard using public information.
4. Explain the work. State the question, method, findings, assumptions, limitations, and recommendation in plain language.
5. Request feedback. A professor, manager, mentor, or experienced professional can identify gaps before an interview does.
6. Update your résumé. Describe the decision supported, the analysis completed, and the tools used.

Where Graduate Finance Education Fits

A master’s degree is not required for every finance role. Many entry-level opportunities begin with a bachelor’s degree, internships, and demonstrated technical ability. Graduate study may be useful for career changers, professionals seeking deeper quantitative preparation, or candidates aiming to specialize in areas such as investments, analytics, corporate finance, or risk.

How to Compare Finance Programs

• Does the curriculum match the role you want to pursue?
• Are modeling, analytics, cash flow, communication, and applied decision-making publicly available, making part of the learning experience?
• Can students complete projects, internships, capstones, or recommendations?
• Does the format fit your work schedule, location, and learning preferences?
• What career coaching, employer access, and alumni connections are available?

Common Questions About Finance Careers

Is finance still a good career choice?

Finance remains broad, with opportunities in companies, banks, investment firms, technology businesses, and advisory settings. The strongest candidates pair finance fundamentals with data literacy, communication, and ethical judgment.

Will AI replace financial analysts?

AI is more likely to change tasks than eliminate the need for analysis. Professionals who validate information, interpret uncertainty, and communicate recommendations remain valuable.

Do finance professionals need to learn coding?

Not every role requires advanced coding. Spreadsheet expertise, data literacy, and financial modeling are strong starting points. Basic SQL or Python can be especially useful in data-heavy roles.

How can a beginner stand out?

Build one credible project, seek internship or student-organization experience, practice explaining financial conclusions, and develop relationships with people working in the field.

Conclusion

Finance careers in Miami and beyond increasingly reward professionals who can connect financial reasoning with data, technology, communication, and responsible judgment. Choose a target role, identify one skill that role requires, and complete a project that proves progress. That focused approach is more useful than trying to chase every trend at once.

Staff Writer; Steve Washington

Former San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds is a polarizing figure. He is a man who seemed to attract attention no matter what he was doing. Many people marveled at his physical gifts: his eye for identifying pitches, his prior prowess for stealing bases and stealing home runs from opposing players while on defense, his ability to hit home runs and line drives due to incredible bat speed on his swing, and other physical abilities. Other baseball fans looked at Bonds completely differently and wonder if he is cheating.

They observed that his body has gotten more muscular and larger during his late 30s and early 40s, noticed that his head had gotten noticeably bigger, and saw that he was setting all types of home run, hitting, and slugging records at an advanced age when most professional athletes are losing skills and diminishing in physical ability. For these reasons, numerous baseball fans wonder concluded that Bonds was on performance-enhancing drugs of different types.

Barry Bonds was also able to shatter numerous Major League Baseball records and gained more fame and notoriety for do so. He is not only the single season home run record holder; he is the single season and career leader in walks and intentional walks. But the breaking the legendary Hank Aaron’s career home run record of 755, is Barry Bonds’ biggest career accomplishment. As Bonds approached the epic record career home run record, people were puzzled about how to celebrate or treat his accomplishment. Should baseball fans boo Bonds or cheer him after every home run he hit? Should sports journalists write positively or negatively of Bonds? Even Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was indecisive early in the season about whether he would be present when Bonds broke the record. (He would be present when Bonds passed Aaron for the record). It seems if a person is a baseball fan or sports fan then they have a strong opinion of Bonds, one way or the other.

Because of the controversy and the amount of publicity Bonds produced, it made an analysis on the perception of him a fascinating concept. With the analysis, one can gather how differently two groups (Black people and White people) perceive a controversial Black athlete. Peyton Bonds has the advantage of having the all-time home run leader to get advice from but one wonders if that advice should be searched for given the well-chronicled controversies around Barry Bonds.

Staff Writer; Mark Hines

But you also have to look back into the past. Statues of the old leader must be demolished. The people he appointed must be fired and replaced with new personnel. His institutions must be dismantled. If you fail to abolish their legacy, everything that mattered about them lives on. You may not know it — but you have lost.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint written as a governing plan for a conservative administration, understood that. It treated rolling back rolling back the prior Democratic agenda — especially Joe Biden’s — as a central task. Donald Trump spent much of his first year focused on that rollback, and Republican voters loved it.

As the 2028 campaign begins in earnest next summer, however, Democratic voters have little reason to believe the next Democratic president would erase Trump’s legacy with anything close to the same scale or energy. That is the Ratchet Theory, as former Reagan-Bush official Bruce Bartlett explained: “Republicans are extreme radicals; when in power they do extreme stuff. Democrats are moderates; in power they do moderate stuff. This means they never undo all the bad radical stuff Republicans do, so there is a steady ratchet toward Republican priorities over time.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders and the populist-progressive wing he leads have watched that ratchet work for decades. They want Democrats who fight for their own ideas and reverse conservative policies whenever they can. Trump is increasingly unpopular, and anti-Trump sentiment is at a fever pitch. Democratic messaging will still be incomplete without sweeping pledges to make it look as if no one named Donald J. Trump had ever lived in Washington.

Part of that is symbolism. Any 2028 Democratic nominee should promise to tear down however much of Trump’s White House ballroom gets built, restore the East Wing and Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden, and rip out that horrid helicopter pad on the South Lawn. Palm Beach International Airport should get its name back. Restore the bordello-ized Oval Office to its pre-Trump state. The Kennedy Center should get its name back, plus a new charter that guarantees its financial solvency and blocks future politicization. No more Gulf of America, no more Lake America — and blow up the Arch too.

I’d leave the Department of War. It’s a rare case of Trump telling the truth.

If history is any guide, far too much of Trump’s legacy will outlast both his presidency and his body. When Biden confided to wealthy donors in 2019 that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he won, he meant it.

Barack Obama kept George W. Bush’s wars and started new ones.

Biden kept Trump’s tax cuts for the rich and his Space Force. Rather than return to Obama’s status quo, he maintained Trump’s sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela. He endorsed and tried to expand Trump’s Abraham Accords, refused to move the U.S. embassy out of Jerusalem, accepted Trump’s recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli, and continued a pro-fracking energy stance. He did reverse the Muslim travel ban and rejoin the World Health Organization. On two of the biggest issues, though — Israel’s war in Gaza and human-caused climate change — the two old white guys were hard to tell apart.

Approval of Trump’s tariffs regime is in the toilet: 30% in the latest polls. His Canada-specific tariffs are even less popular, at 20%. Yet California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading 2028 hopeful, will not promise to mend fences with our northern neighbor and closest ally. “I can’t guarantee that,” he says. Is making nice with Canada really such a heavy lift?

Similarly, only 5% of registered Democrats support Trump’s partnership with Israel in attacking Iran, a war that has become an economic disaster with no end in sight. Yet no major Democratic prospect has promised to withdraw U.S. forces from that war of aggression on day one. Newsom, who governs a state with a large Iranian exile community, echoes Trump-era talking points: The “corrupt and repressive Iranian regime must never have nuclear weapons,” and Iran’s leadership “must go.” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro criticizes Trump for sidestepping Congress, then recites the same brief against the “Iranian regime” — the target of Trump’s war — as a repressive state and “the leading state sponsor of terrorism.” On this latest forever war, it is reasonable to expect the 2028 nominee to land, as Kamala Harris did in 2024, on Team Israel.

The party may be splitting, but its voters agree on this: They hate Trump, want his presidency behind them and want what he did undone. A pivot to the center for swing voters will not save a nominee who cannot close the enthusiasm gap. That requires a clear list of promises to unwind the last eight to 12 years.

That means not only leaving the Iran war but moving fast toward diplomatic normalization as well as begging forgiveness and paying restitution. It means cutting off U.S. military and financial aid to Israel and redirecting those funds to Palestinians. Nicolas Maduro and his wife should be returned to Venezuela, and he should be allowed to resume the presidency; tear up the attempt to seize the country’s oil. Everyone fired by the Department of Government Efficiency should be offered their job back, with back pay and restitution. People who entered the country with permission — including under Biden — should be allowed to return, with a path to permanent residency and citizenship.

With a presidency this extreme, it is not enough to promise to govern differently or better. You have to scrap what they built. Annul every executive order, reverse every law, fire every appointee. If you can’t promise that, why should anyone vote for you?

Written by Ted Rall

Official website; https://x.com/TedRall