People of different persuasions, philosophers, atheists, scientists, scholars, historians, communists, sociologists, and even some liberal theologians, are amazed, baffled, and some are perturbed that in spite of the hard going journey through the ages, Christianity has managed to survive, and even thrive.

They are surprised that Christianity has emerged virtually unscathed, and that spirituality and religion are so highly valued even in today’s godless culture of materialism and secular domination. They thought that once newfangled ideas came on the scene, ideas cultivated by people like evolutionary scientists, militant atheist, and New Age advocates, to name a few, that Christianity would not only be sidelined or submerged, but possibly killed off permanently. It has not happened, it will not happen.

Christians need to remember that all these fanciful ideas are just that, fanciful, and in time they will vanish as surely as the flat earth theory vanished after it was shown to be  just another European fantasy.

If Christianity survived the murderous external assault of the Muslims, the wretched, blood-spattered warfare of the Crusades, the internecine battles for doctrinal orthodoxy, and the enormous rupture caused by The Reformation, then it must have done so because of something beyond human’s ability to destroy.

That something beyond human’s ability to destroy can be identified, and as always, when you are stumped for answers, when the magicians, and soothsayers, and philosophers, and talking heads, and the willfully blind are clueless, as they so often are, then look to the scriptures for proper enlightenment.

The Bible tells us why Christianity is very much alive today, why all attempts to destroy the faith has failed, why the so-called intellectuals are baffled at its longevity and continuing appeal and vitality. The Bible puts it like this, “And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” (Acts 5:38-39)

Whole countries, indeed entire empires, have fought against God and none has won that battle. The Babylonian Empire fought against God, and they lost, and are no more. The Persian Empire fought against God, and they also lost. The Greek Empire, that brought so much to civilization, also fought against God and lost. And the mightiest of them all, the Roman Empire, fought against God and lost too. They all lost out in the end because they turned to secularism and ungodliness as their way of life.

Even in more recent times we saw powerful countries, even so-called “superpowers”, who tried desperately to wipe out Christianity, and failed. A good example is the Soviet Union that tried to wipe out Christianity agrees perhaps that, “Religion is poison,” as Mao Tse-Tung was said to have stated. The Soviet Union failed, its legacy is now a footnote in history, but Christianity is still going as strong as ever. Believers, and indeed the whole world, should remember the mantra, “…if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it”.

In a previous article I said, “So Satan’s ploy, in pushing an evil, many-sided agenda, is to sift you, to move you away from the verities of the word of God and the Christian faith, to detach you from the groundings that will guarantee your anchorage in Christ and let you be lost.”

The tactics may differ, but the aim is always the same; to get you to relinquish your godly stand, to unbalance you, to get you into a state of uncertainty and equivocation, because it is then that you may move away from God.

Paul was very conscious of this, of the real possibility that under pressure some believers may go away from God, and so he encouraged the believers like this, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

The plain truth is that when some people are confronted with certain events, or when they are certain to face some upcoming challenge, they allow themselves to be intimidated. It is true that some challenges can be tough, but challenges also provide opportunity for you to see God at work if you stand your ground.

Let us be mindful of what happened to Moses when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, and was confronted by the formidable challenge posed by the Red Sea. God was about to do something unheard of, something spectacular, and mighty, but first, Moses had to stand firm and keep his cool, and not allow the Israelites to panic. Moses did as God instructed and was able to achieve success, “And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord”, and as we say the rest is history.

The Apostle Paul was the most persecuted and abused apostle of Jesus Christ, the list of some of his sufferings is listed in 2 Corinthians 11: 23-25, and before he finally left Asia Minor he called the leaders to say goodbye, made them aware of his upcoming tribulations and ended the discourse with these words:

“And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.” (Acts 20: 22-23) It was going to be perilous going forward, undoubtedly not something to look forward to, but Paul was determined, “But none of these things move me” (Acts 20: 24)

Believers everywhere are in a similar situation, no one is immune from the assaults of the enemy; although the specifics may vary. As long as you are a believer, no matter how strong your faith, or where on this planet you live, you will be sorely tested. And if, for some reason or another you think you are different, then I warn you what the Bible says, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12)

So how are we to make sure we stand firm in the faith?

Here are some things believers can do to stand firm in the faith.

1. Refresh your belief in God and his power to aid you. It is often the case that we get lulled into a state of helplessness, and forget that God is the God of miracles, and can do what to us might seem impossible. Just like a Christian revival, certain bad habits can diminish our fervour and reliance on the Almighty God and his power, and we are not firing on all cylinders. We often know the scriptures, but do not bother to petition God to act on his word, like here, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7”14) God’s power is available to assist you, but you must not only want it, but request it in times of need. Refresh, test, evaluate; this is the way to success.

2. Refuse to be over-burdened by circumstances. This is harder than it may seem at first sight because, sometimes, tragedies in the family, and such, can be extremely tough to handle. But the excuse some believers make, that they tried, but could not help themselves, or that the pressure became too great, are instances of being over-burdened. Being over-burdened is evidence that you are taking on your shoulders what you should not. God knows what you can bear, will not place on you more than you can handle, and the Bible tells us, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” (Psalm 55:22) Even when you are over-burdened, when things become too much for you, it is still time to reach out to God in faith. I believe this is what David meant when he said, “From a faraway land I call to you for help. I feel so weak and helpless! Carry me to a high rock, where no one can reach me.” (Psalm 61:2 Easy-to-Read Version)

3. Remember to focus on God and eternal things. The truth is, that there is a strong tendency to become too strongly attached to earthly things, to let matters concerning property, wealth, general matters of living, family, and the like, consume our time and attention. We must make time, quality time, to study the Bible, pray, meditate and do the spiritual things that bring us closer to God. Sometimes we forget that earthly things are trivial and fleeting, whereas the heavenly things are glorious and eternal. The Bible puts it like this: “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:2)

What we know, what is certain, is that the devil has not the power to move you if you stand firm in the faith. It is up to every believer to be strong-willed, determined, resolute, not budging from what is true and unchanging. God will give you the victory if you stand firm, “I must calm down and turn to God; only he can rescue me. He is my Rock, the only one who can save me. He is my high place of safety, where no army can defeat me.” (Psalm 62:1-2 Easy-to-Read Version)

Staff Writer; Henderson W.

You can contact this Christian brother at: HWard@ThyBlackMan.com.

He faced the usual Trump Derangement Syndrome from his political opponents. He faced resistance from those who oppose almost any military action abroad. He faced public frustration over rising gas prices — even though gasoline was higher under Biden and, adjusted for inflation, higher under Obama. He faced weak poll numbers and the possibility that Republicans could lose the House and perhaps even the Senate in the midterms.

Yet Trump acted.

He ordered military strikes against Iran. He attacked a regime that for decades has funded terrorism, threatened America’s allies and repeatedly vowed the destruction of Israel, America and Western civilization.

Critics insist the threat was exaggerated. Iran has long denied it was building a nuclear weapon. It claimed it needs nuclear capacity for civilian purposes.

But the evidence points in the opposite direction.

In February 2025, a confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, obtained by the Associated Press, found that Iran had accumulated 274.8 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a level the IAEA described as only a short technical step away from weapons-grade material. The report also found that Iran’s stockpile had grown dramatically in just a few months.

Seven months later came another warning. In September 2025, the Associated Press reported on yet another confidential IAEA assessment. According to that report, Iran had increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels to more than 440 kilograms before Israel launched military operations against its nuclear facilities.

The trend line was unmistakable. Iran’s negotiators reportedly told Trump’s negotiators the regime possessed enough enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs. Iran was not moving away from nuclear-weapons capability. It was moving steadily toward it.

Supporters of President Barack Obama’s Iran deal often forget two important facts.

First, the agreement contained sunset provisions. Key restrictions were scheduled to expire. Even if Iran had complied fully with the deal, many of the most important limitations would by now have been approaching expiration or already gone. Second, Iran was not complying fully. For years, the IAEA raised questions about undeclared nuclear material, restricted inspections and unresolved safeguards issues. The agency repeatedly complained about a lack of cooperation from Tehran and warned about the unprecedented size of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Peaceful nuclear programs do not require massive quantities of uranium enriched to levels that are a short technical step from weapons-grade material. Nor do peaceful programs generate confidential reports expressing grave international concern over undeclared activities and unanswered questions.

How much longer could the United States ignore the top state sponsor of terror as it marches steadily toward building nuclear bombs while its leaders chant, “Death to America”? Critics call Trump’s action “a war of choice.” It was. He had the choice to push this existential threat onto the desk of his successor, as did other presidents.

Asked if he would give Trump credit if the not-yet-released memorandum of understanding achieved Trump’s objectives, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the leading Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, responded by defending Obama’s Iran Deal.

Iran is significantly weaker than it was three months ago. Its military prestige is in shambles. Its ability to support terror proxies is diminished. Its nuclear infrastructure sustained serious damage. Now comes the next phase. The deal’s details remain unsettled. But one thing seems certain.

Iran will cheat.

The only questions are when and to what degree. That leads to the real issue: What will Trump do when this happens?

He has demonstrated a willingness to use force. He has demonstrated a willingness to ignore popular opinion when he believes American vital interests are at stake.

If Iran violates the agreement, Trump will likely intensify pressure, military and economic, and continue squeezing its leadership until it either changes course, pays a much higher price, or until the unpopular regime collapses.

Three months ago, Iran’s nuclear ambitions appeared stronger than ever. That is clearly no longer the case. Our military remains in the region with a gun pointed at the heads of the Iranian leaders. For all the outrage and hand-wringing from much of the country and the “international community,” America and the world are better off than they were before Trump acted.

History may ultimately judge that the greatest risk was not acting. It was waiting too long.

Columnist; Larry Elder

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

First, we have the foreigners visiting the U.S. to cheer on their teams in this year’s World Cup soccer championship. As I wrote last week, it’s been heartwarming to see how much these people love America, and how surprised they’ve been to find that Americans are warm, welcoming, generous and kind people.

Another aspect of America that has astonished our guests is the number, size and variety of our businesses: restaurants of every type, small boutiques, “big box” supermarkets and corner grocers, food trucks, outdoor equipment and hunting stores (with their ubiquitous guns and ammo), mom-and-pop shops, little kids’ lemonade stands, delicatessens — you name it. Social media is filled with posts and videos in which visitors express their amazement at the quality of the food (and portion size!), “free” appetizers and soda refills, and the uncountable options and choices among America’s products and services.

That, my friends, is a consequence of America’s culture of entrepreneurship — a fact that some of the foreigners here have recognized and remarked upon with envy. One Canadian described us as “the most opportunity-dense country ever.”

He’s right.

So I was disappointed (though not surprised) when Pope Leo XIV posted on X a few days ago that food, water and health care shouldn’t be “commodities” that are subject to “market considerations.” In his follow-up post, he “appealed to governments” to “increase the resources dedicated to combating hunger and its root causes.”

Seriously? Governments are the chief “root causes” of hunger.

The key to adequate food production is not government but small business. Sorry, Holy Father, but food, water and health care are “commodities,” because their provision, for the most part, depends upon the work of other human beings. I would love to hear the pope praise and promote the market, individual initiative and entrepreneurial capitalism as the tickets to human flourishing that they are, instead of treating them as tawdry institutions to be tolerated at best, while government is hailed as the answer to every human problem.

Entrepreneurship meets human needs far better than governments ever have or ever will. This is true even in the world’s poorest nations. There, like everywhere else, people can start little businesses. But officials, regulations, laws, paperwork, permits, fees and taxes — all of which benefit the rich and promote corruption and fraud — stymie the growth of those businesses. When poor people are permitted to grow their businesses, they don’t stay poor.

That only happens when government gets out of the way.

As an American, Pope Leo should know better. But he apparently has a lot of company, even here in the States. In this week’s Democrat primaries in New York City, not one but three socialist candidates won their races.

Aber Kawas, a Muslim Palestinian activist and member of Democratic Socialists of America who has stated that the U.S. deserved 9/11 because of “white supremacy” and “Islamophobia,” won her primary for a New York state Senate race. Self-professed communist Darializa Chevalier defeated incumbent Adriano Espaillat to win the primary for the congressional seat in New York’s 13th district. Chevalier is a convert to Islam and a founder of Columbia University (why am I not surprised?) Apartheid Divest, which calls for an “international intifada” and the “eradication of western civilization,” the abolition of the police and immediate citizenship for all illegal aliens. And socialist Brad Lander defeated incumbent Dan Goldman for New York’s 10th district congressional seat. Lander, too, wants to abolish immigration enforcement, as well as pack the U.S. Supreme Court and pass $2 trillion in student loan debt onto the American taxpayers.

The DSA claims it’s only targeting “millionaires and billionaires” (and the world’s only trillionaire — at least on paper). If you believe that, your head is firmly wedged in your nethermost orifice. Time to read some real history — not the propaganda Western Leftists can get away with only because private enterprise insulates them and the societies they infect from the worst consequences of their ideologies.

Here’s the truth: Socialists and communists neither know how to make anything nor how to build an organization that provides goods or services people are willing to pay for. (Nope, a campaign isn’t the same thing.)

What they do instead is traffic in grievances for their personal aggrandizement.

They exploit ignorance and foster resentment, telling their followers that the only reason they have less is because others have more, and that it’s been stolen or gotten through greed and exploitation. In that vein, they love to focus on major multinational corporations and their extremely wealthy owners and CEOs, even though the backbone of American business is family-owned and small — the vast majority (80%-plus) of companies with employees have fewer than 20.

They preach that wealth is a zero sum game and a limited pie, and refuse to acknowledge that enterprise creates wealth that didn’t exist before, even though the evidence is everywhere. (Did we have the automotive industry 150 years ago? The personal computer industry 100 years ago? The smartphone industry 50 years ago?)

Socialists promise what they can never deliver: an unlimited supply of high-quality goods and services that are cheap or free. And they drive up costs for producers with restrictive regulations and taxes while demanding that prices cannot rise to keep up with those increasing costs.

The result is that businesses are forced to leave or close. Not the big corporations — at least, not at first — but the small ones that house, feed, employ and create the middle class. Then they raise taxes and costs even higher to make up the difference.

Sometimes they take over the businesses. Or even entire industries. That’s the beginning of a precipitous decline.

They don’t understand production, inventory management or balance sheets. With no competition, there’s no need for quality or customer service. So the production declines, the quality declines, the management declines and the rationing starts.

Complainers are smeared as greedy individualists or capitalist throwbacks who don’t want everyone to be “equal” and don’t understand that sacrifices have to be made for “progress.”

No one should be fooled by the presence of the erudite “intellectuals” leading these movements at the beginning. Those self-loathing, upper-class graduates of the best schools don’t last long, because unhappy masses can’t be kept in line (bread or otherwise) by pious platitudes.

No, that takes force. And that’s when the thugs take over.

This is what’s meant when pundits say, “You can vote yourself into socialism or communism, but you have to shoot your way out.”

The America that our World Cup visitors are marveling at was built by freedom-loving entrepreneurs operating within the reasonable structures of a limited government — people of every background who were willing to sacrifice much to build their American dream. We are all the beneficiaries of their hard work.

But what took 250 years to build can be destroyed by socialists within a very short time.

Written by Laura Hollis

Official website; http://law.nd.edu/directory/laura-hollis/

It also taxes a slice of a player’s global endorsement income, prorated by how many days of the year they happen to spend in the UK. Fail to advance far enough in the tournament, and the tax bill on your sponsorship deals can exceed your payout. So, the players who get to choose where they compete are now choosing somewhere else.

“(I)t’s not about the money for playing,” retired superstar Rafael Nadal once explained. “They take from the sponsors. … This is very difficult. I am playing in the UK and losing money.”

File this story under “how people dodge taxes by leaving.” Evidence for the phenomenon was piling up long before California billionaires began their high-profile relocations to Nevada and Florida ahead of a proposed wealth tax on the ballot this November. And it’s not the only reason these taxes disappoint.

When Norway raised its top wealth-tax rate by just one percentage point in 2022, economist Christine Blandhol documented a wave of business owners leaving for Switzerland, helped by a treaty between the two countries that precluded being double-taxed during the move. Norway lost tax revenue while the firms that business owners left behind, now run from a distance, saw their outputs decline.

Switzerland’s own cantons — 26 subdivisions that have taxed wealth since the 1800s at rates from about 0.1% to 0.9% — give researchers a natural experiment. The wealthy move steadily from high-rate Bern to low-rate Lucerne.

The people pushing California’s wealth tax know this. Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley — a frequent coauthor with fellow French economist Emmanuel Saez, whose revenue estimates underpin the campaign — has spent the past couple of years engineering around it.

Zucman wants a coordinated global minimum tax on billionaire wealth, designed explicitly so that there’s nowhere left for the superrich to move. He admits frankly that the whole point of his international coordination plan is to defeat the mobility problem. If wealth taxes are global, the thinking goes, they finally work as intended.

Not so fast. It’s easy to count up lost tax revenue after taxpayers move away. There is also a less visible, but no less real, behavior change from people who stay home (by choice or because there’s no better option).

The effect showed up in Denmark, where decades of tax records — covering people who by and large stayed put during its wealth-tax era — show dwindling levels of wealth accumulation when more of it is taxed away. Nobody had to leave the country for the effect to show up; the incentive to save and build wealth in the first place had simply shrunk.

Inside the businesses of the wealthy, there’s an avoidance channel that requires no moving van. When a wealth-tax bill comes due, the owner of a closely held company will often pull out a larger dividend to cover it. Once that money has left the company, it doesn’t go back into payroll or business expansion.

Make no mistake, the non-wealthy will suffer from this tax too. As wealth taxes diminish saving and reinvestment, the capital stock that workers depend on for tools, equipment and business expansion stops growing as quickly as it should. Wages rise when there’s more capital for each worker to use, so the slower buildup eventually means smaller paychecks for people who would never pay a wealth tax. This effect compounds for decades, so a modest annual drag turns into a substantial gap by the time anyone notices it in the data.

The same dynamic can show up even without a wealth tax. We saw it with another aggressive California levy. When the state raised its top income-tax rate by three points in 2012, Stanford economist Joshua Rauh went looking for the revenue. He found that the people who stayed and bore the tax increase deferred bonuses, retimed asset sales and restructured how they got paid, shifting income away from the year the higher rate applied. Within two years, those reporting changes had erased most of the revenue gain the tax increase was supposed to deliver.

Income and wealth are taxed differently, but the lesson is the same: Raise the price of an activity and people do less of it, restructure how they report it, or, if they can, leave the jurisdiction entirely.

These are the responses that even a global wealth tax can’t reach, because mobility was never the sole problem. The result is less tax revenue than pro-tax advocates project, and less economic activity too. Ultimately, everyone, not just the rich, will be poorer for it.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

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

Congress has regulated in areas of governance nowhere articulated in the Constitution. Its general regulatory powers were granted to address interstate commerce, but during the FDR years, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress can regulate events that affect interstate commerce. This has resulted in federal regulation of matters too infinitesimal to measure, that are not commercial and devoid of movement across interstate lines.

The most extreme of these is the regulation of a farmer’s small field of wheat, all of which was ground into flour and consumed as baked goods by the farmer’s family. Though this had no measurable effect on interstate commerce, the court ruled that if you add up all the similarly situated farmers who may do the same, the aggregate will affect interstate commerce. And, by growing their own wheat and baking their own bread, the farmer’s family was buying less bread from their local grocer and that — though truly infinitesimal — affected interstate commerce.

Once unleashed by this judicial frivolity, Congress recognized no real limits on its regulatory powers. When hosting a show on the Fox Business Network, I once invited nearly all my Fox Business colleagues on set and asked all on air if they could find anything in the studio that was not regulated by the feds.

The chairs on which we were seated? No, the feds regulate their leg length and the rollers on which the legs sit. The color of the walls? No, the feds regulate the pigment in the paint. The cameras used to video us? No, the feds regulate the lenses and the electricity used to power them.

To James Madison, who was the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention and who drafted the Commerce Clause, the word “regulate” in “to regulate Commerce… among the several States” meant “to keep regular.” Indeed, one of the main reasons for the elites’ displeasure with the old Articles of Confederation, and a significant impetus for the Constitution itself, was the effect on commerce of state tariffs and monopolies and their use to impede businesses from out of state.

This was the reason for granting Congress the power to keep commerce regular. But power corrupts, and keeping it regular led to regulating everything that affects it — the speed with which commercial goods moved, the ages and wages of those who worked to produce them, even the prices that could be charged. And the courts permitted all this, in defiance of the Constitution, which prohibits the feds from interfering with contracts without due process.

But all of this, as deleterious as it has been to personal liberty and limited government, takes a back seat to presidential extraconstitutional behavior. And that behavior is nowhere as manifest and harmful as war.

War is the health of the state because it induces fear among the people and thus their compliance, produces jingoistic patriotism and abject hatred of the persons in the country that is the object of war, facilitates vast borrowings in order to pay for the war, enriches elites, slaughters innocents and curtails the civil liberties — the natural rights — of those opposed to the war.

The object of war is, of course, to kill people in a foreign land. Hence the mandate of the Framers that this should not take place without a substantial nation-wide consensus in support of the killing. The Framers of the Constitution so feared wars on presidential whim that they made it clear that only Congress can declare war.

Yet, within months of taking office in 1797, President John Adams fought a war against France without a congressional declaration of war. This was unthinkable at the time, and in order to stifle domestic political dissent, he commenced a regrettable American tradition of silencing domestic opposition to foreign wars.

He asked Congress to enact the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which, among other things, criminalized words used to disparage the government. This is perhaps the most remarkable and abominable piece of legislation in American history. It not only legislatively interferes with a natural right — the freedom of speech, essential in a liberal democracy — but it was enacted and enforced by the same generation, in some cases the same human beings, that had just offered and ratified the First Amendment, which states in part that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

Yet the enforcement of this statute was deemed a wartime necessity, as were many of its progeny. Following Adams, American presidents have arrested journalists without charge or trial during the Civil War; prosecuted opponents of the draft during World War I by arguing that their words of dissent in the U.S. impeded the American military in Europe; incarcerated Japanese-Americans in camps they could not leave during World War II for fear that their words would encourage the government of their ancestors to invade the U.S., and during the war on terror asked for and enforced the Patriot Act, as odious as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which permits searches and seizures without warrants.

All of this terror follows the pattern of interpreting the Constitution so as to curtail personal liberty in wartime, contrary to the plain meaning and common understanding of the founding documents of America. The root of this terror is war. And the application of this terror came about by indifference to constitutional restraints on war.

As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we see that constitutional indifference leads to leviathan and war by whim. Speech that opposes war should be praised because it exposes unconstitutional behavior, challenges authoritarianism, forces the government to explain its killings and is a hallmark to tolerance in a liberal democracy.

Without free speech and constitutional fidelity, what are we celebrating next month?

Written by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

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

But lost in the furor over the slaying is yet another issue which in some ways is just as disturbing. That’s the number of LAPD officers that turned up at the scene. The blunt fact is there were way too many there. And that in far too many other instances where the LAPD repeatedly shows up in battalion force at even the most innocuous calls often guarantees there will be an incident. That more often than not involves the overuse of deadly force.

I’ve seen this scene so many times in South L.A. A throng of cops surrounds a young Black or Hispanic man in cuffs. I have yet to see anything remotely like this scene—an arrest, with multiple officers standing around, in West L.A., Westwood, or Sherman Oaks.

How to explain the quasi-military overkill of hordes of cops at the scene for no heavy-duty violent or major crime in evidence as was the case with the fateful call that brought a squadron of LAPD officers to the apartment where Jameson was slain? Is it a case of too many cops with too much time on their hands, and who use every arrest, no matter how routine and picayune, as an excuse to socialize with other officers?

The Vera Institute, a criminal justice think tank, provided one answer to that question. In a 2022 study, “911 Analysis Our Overreliance on Police by the Numbers,” It examined police responses to mostly non-threatening situations in nine cities.

It noted two critical problems. One, police are almost always the first responders to any situation that remotely resembles a crime. The second is that in many of these situations the responders should not be police, but civilian responders trained in mediation and mental health skills. The study concluded, “At present, police are tasked with responding to far too many behavioral health crises and safety issues, even as police cause serious harm and the public demands more non-police responses.” That was certainly the case with the slaying of Jameson.

The ancient complaint is that in South L.A., as all other poor, Black, and Hispanic inner-city neighborhoods, it is vastly overpoliced. And the LAPD, like other police departments in similar neighborhoods, operate as something akin to a big, aggressive, standing army in South L.A.

The long-buzzed words with the LAPD brass in relation to policing in South L.A is a partnership, and community policing. Meaning that the LAPD no longer operates as an occupying almost paramilitary army. The old Us versus Them has been the ancient knock against the LAPD. Partnership supposedly puts prime emphasis on dialogue with Black leaders, activists, and community residents, and acting as a service agency; all done with a kinder, gentler face.

Yet, compare the dual standard of policing routinely reserved for low income Black and Hispanic inner-city neighborhoods versus that for middle- and upper-income white suburbs. In one, the police procedure is massive shows of force, dubious stops, searches, racial profiling and gruff commands and orders.

In the other (unless the person stopped, searched, and profiled happens to be a young African American walking or driving through those cities), the police procedure is Mr. Rogers-type courtesy, friendly dialogue with emphasis always on protecting citizens, safeguarding their rights, and providing full public service.

The standard retort is that South L.A. and other poor Black neighborhoods have higher crime rates. And residents scream for more, not fewer, police. The problem with both assertions is that claiming more crime among Blacks is both a numbers game and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You put more cops in a neighborhood; the result is not the revelation of the ages. You ‘re going to have more arrests, and thus a skewed picture by the numbers solely of more crime. As for Blacks demanding more police. The demand is not for vast armies of cops prowling the streets. But policing that stress providing service, assistance, and a sensitive response when there is need.

Since Rodney King, the LAPD has revamped many of its policies and procedures on everything from the use of deadly force to racial profiling. A major effort has been made to make the department look like the citizens it polices in L.A.

Those changes are much needed and welcome. However, the LAPD’s gross overreaction to the many scenes in South L.A. stands in stark contrast to what I see when police make stops in other areas. Nowhere was this contrast more horrifying than in the unnecessary battalion of officers’ response to a call to an apartment in Canoga Park. It resulted in a death just as unnecessary.

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).

A jury down in Texas just handed a teenager 35 years. Karmelo Anthony was seventeen when he reached for a blade at a school track meet and drove it into the chest of another child, Austin Metcalf, seventeen himself. Before that rainy morning was finished, one mama had lost her baby for good, and another mother stood before jurors asking them to show mercy to what was left of hers. Two households broken in the space of a few breaths. Both of them, in their own fashion, condemned to carry the weight of it the rest of their living days.

Now, I already know how the wider world wants to slice this thing up. People have turned it into a shouting contest about color, about who put hands on who first, about which corner you are supposed to go stand in. I have no use for that racket. My business here is with the youngblood reading this with his whole road still stretched out in front of him. Hear me the way you would hear your granddaddy if he set you down on the porch steps and cupped your face in both his rough hands.

Listen close. The whole thing started over a tent. Rain was falling, somebody told somebody else to get up and move, the words went hot fast, a push came, and a seventeen year old is now resting in the cold ground. That is the entire tale. No grand cause sat underneath it. Glory never lived inside it either. Just a little quarrel that two children swelled up into something neither one could ever pull back.

I need you to feel the size of that. Not the headline, not the verdict, the actual heft of it. A boy who will never come home for supper. Another who will spend the best years a man is given inside a cell, counting other folks’ holidays through a small window. He goes in a teenager and, if mercy comes early, comes out near fifty, with the strength gone out of his back and the spring gone out of his step, a stranger to the world he left behind.

Here is the part I beg you to tattoo on the inside of your skull. The thing that turned an ugly minute into a funeral and a courtroom was the object in that bag. Take the blade out of the picture and what are you left holding. A shove. Some cuss words. Maybe a busted lip, maybe a bruise to the ego, maybe a coach yanking two hot heads apart. By suppertime it would have been a story they told with a laugh years down the line. Tempers cool. Vanity heals. A wound to the body can mend. But steel does not forgive, and it surely does not care who was right.

That is exactly why I want this verdict to put a chill in you. Because the one who lost everything was not some monster the rest of us could never resemble. He was a regular kid having a regular bad moment, the same kind every single one of us has lived through. Wet and irritated, somebody got in his face, and that hot knot in his chest flared up like a struck match. The only difference between him and a thousand other angry teenagers that same day is that he reached into a bag instead of walking off mad. One reach. That is the whole gap between a free man and a number on a state list.

Let me tell you something the young rarely believe. The strong one is almost never the fellow swinging. He is the man who turns and goes while the crowd is hollering for blood. It takes nothing to throw a punch. A coward can throw a punch. Any scared child can pull out a weapon and feel ten feet tall for half a second. What takes a real spine is letting somebody think they won, swallowing that bitter lump in your throat, and choosing your mama’s peace over your bruised name. Anybody can prove he is dangerous. Precious few can prove they are wise.

The biggest lie that has buried more of our sons than any sickness whispers you must answer every disrespect, that you can never let a thing slide, that a fellow who walks off is somehow less of a man. I am here, with all my gray, to tell you that whisper is a snake. It does not love you. Won’t visit you in lockup, neither. Never once does it sit beside your mother on a hard plastic chair while she runs clean out of things to say. Nor will it write you when the appeals dry up. That snake used you and slithered right along to fill the next young ear.

Consider the arithmetic a second. The state said 35 years, with parole somewhere near the halfway mark. Picture it. Children you have not fathered yet. A wedding you will never throw. That phone call when your grandmother passes and you cannot get to her service. Fresh morning air you cannot taste whenever the notion strikes you. All of it forfeited, not for some cause worth dying over, but for a tent and a temper and a single bad reach on a rainy day. There is no version of that story you could ever tell where the trade makes a lick of sense.

And do not breeze past the other house in all this. A twin brother who shared a face with the child in the ground now wakes up alone in a quiet that will never lift. His father stood in that courtroom trembling with a sorrow so heavy it came out sounding like fury, because some grief runs too deep for gentle words. Two mothers will travel toward two different kinds of graves, one made of earth and one made of steel doors, and neither will ever stop aching. When that blade comes out, it is never only two boys it cuts. It tears clean through everybody who ever loved either one of them, and it keeps tearing for generations down the line.

I have to say a hard word about that weapon some of you keep telling yourselves you carry for protection. It does not protect you. Hear me. The very thing you slip into your pocket to feel safe is the same thing that stands up in a courtroom and convicts you. You think you are arming yourself against the world, and all the while you are quietly building the case that locks you away from it.

Let me lay this race business to rest, just between us. Grief has no color. A prison bunk has no color. Both of those mamas cried the same salt water, and both of those caskets, the wooden one and the one made of years, will swallow a mother’s joy with the same cold indifference. The world wants you fighting over the flag while it picks your pocket. Do not let anybody hand you a blade and call it honor.

So what is it I want from you, son. I want you to settle it right now, while your blood is calm and your head is clear, what kind of man you mean to be when somebody finally tests you. And somebody will. Some fool will run his mouth. Another will bump you and refuse to apologize. A third will try you in front of a crowd just to see what you are made of. The deciding has to happen long before that moment lands, because in the heat itself there is no room to think. You will simply do whatever you already trained your body to do.

So train it to walk. Teach those hands to carry nothing but your good sense. Bend that hard knot in your chest a little so your whole life does not have to snap in two. Learn the old sayings that kept your people breathing through worse than a track meet. He is not worth it. Let it go. My freedom costs more than this moment is worth. Speak those lines to yourself now, out loud if you have to, until they live in you the way a song you came up on lives in you.

I am not writing any of this to dance on a grave or pile shame on a boy already buried under the heaviest load a young life can hold. My reason is simpler. Having stood at too many caskets and pressed my palm against too much glass, I will not add your name to that list without first saying my piece. Somebody loved Karmelo. Austin was somebody’s whole world too. Both of those women held a newborn once and whispered soft dreams over him. Look how it ended. See how fast.

You are not too tough to learn from another man’s ruin. The wisest among us read somebody else’s sentence as a warning written in their own name. So read this one. Tape it to your heart. The next time that fire climbs up in your chest and the whole world dares you to prove yourself, I pray you hear an old man’s voice underneath the noise, telling you the bravest thing your hands will ever do is stay empty, stay open, and stay down at your sides.

Walk home, youngster. Just walk on home.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

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

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

In the House, it narrowly passed 218-214.

Not one Democrat voted for it in either chamber.

President Donald Trump signed it into law on July 4, 2025.

One provision in this narrowly passed law had the potential to help school children all across the country. It was the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program. This program, now set to begin in 2027, will give Americans a nonrefundable tax credit of up to $1,700 per year for making donations to support school-choice scholarships set up in the states.

“Under the program,” explains the Congressional Research Service, “taxpayers will be eligible to receive a tax credit of up to $1,700 for the value of cash contributions to certain scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). These organizations, in turn, will be required to use these contributions to grant scholarships to students at private and public elementary and secondary schools located within their states.”

Recipients of these scholarships would be subject to a family income limit. “Eligibility for scholarships,” said the CRS, “will be limited to students whose family income is below 300% of their area median income.”

Recipients will be able to use the money from these scholarships to cover basic educational costs, including tuition and books, at elementary and secondary schools, whether they are “public, private or religious.”

Whether or not to participate in this school-choice scholarship program was left to the states themselves. “States (and the District of Columbia) may choose whether to recognize eligible SGOs within their jurisdictions,” explained the CRS report. “To qualify for the credit, a contribution must be made to a state-sponsored SGO (which need not be located in the same state as the taxpayer), and the organization must only provide scholarships to students located within the state that recognized it. This effectively allows states to decide whether to make students who live within their borders eligible for the program.”

Why would the political leadership of a state prevent students in their state from receiving scholarship money voluntarily contributed by individual Americans? Because they want to prevent families, who would otherwise lack the necessary resources, from choosing to send their children to private or religious schools rather than to government-run schools.

By contrast, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska wasted little time in signing his state up for these scholarships. On Sept. 29, 2025, he went to St. Teresa Catholic School, not far from the Nebraska capital, and signed an executive order backing his state’s participation in the program. “This program is a game-changer for Nebraska students and their families, generating funds that will help send students to the school of their choice,” he said.

South Dakota soon followed Nebraska. Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden announced on Nov. 14, 2025, that his state also would be joining the school-choice scholarship program. “Parents should have the freedom to choose the learning environment that sets their kids up for success,” he said. “I am grateful that President Trump has the same conviction and is helping us create more opportunities for our students.”

Yet it was not just Republican governors who had their states join the program. The Colorado Sun reported on Dec. 5, 2025, that Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis “said it was a no-brainer for the state to take advantage of the federal tax credit scholarship program, describing it as ‘a real boom of investment in kids.'”

“I mean, it would be crazy not to,” he said.

When the Kentucky state legislature passed a bill in March that opted their state into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear took a different approach. He vetoed the bill. “Kentuckians have been firm that public dollars should only be used for public education,” Beshear said.

“Kentuckians love our public schools,” he said.

The Kentucky legislature overwhelmingly disagreed — with the state senate voting 31-5 and the state house voting 77-14 to override Beshear’s veto.

What did California, the nation’s most populous state, do about the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program? Republican Rep. Vince Fong of California sent Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter in January urging him to bring their state into the program. “By electing to participate, you would ensure this new federal education benefit will flow to California students, regardless of whether they attend a public or private school, and at no cost to the State,” Fong wrote to Newsom.

The IRS published a list indicating that, as of June 22, there were 28 states that had signed up to participate in the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Program. Newsom’s California was not one of them.

Newsom, as this column has noted before, attended Notre Dame des Victoires, a Catholic grammar school in the heart of San Francisco.

When that school marked its 100th anniversary in 2024, Newsom recalled the remarkable opportunity it had provided him.

“Attending Ecole Notre Dame des Victoires was a transformative experience,” he said. “It was here that I learned not only how to conjugate verbs in French, but also about the rich tapestry of French Catholic history. This foundation has stayed with me throughout my life, and I am grateful for the lifelong connections and values instilled in me during my time at NDV.”

So, why is he not supporting a program that would provide funding to help children in San Francisco today embrace a similar experience?

The 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress “long-term trend” tests showed a continuing pattern in American education: Catholic school students outscored public school students in reading and math. Among 13-year-olds, the average reading score among public school students was 255 out of 500. Among Catholic school students, it was 276 out of 500. The average mathematics score among 13-year-olds in public schools was 269 out of 500. Among Catholic school students, it was 291 out of 500.

Embracing unlimited school choice, where every student gets a voucher equal to the full per-pupil expenditures in the local public schools, would be good for students and for our country.

Written by Terence P. Jeffrey

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

Let me say it like this. The man is one of the most important figures the genre has produced this century, and that truth has nothing to do with whether he is real hip hop. People keep tangling those two ideas together. Importance and authenticity live on different blocks.

Go back to where it started for most of us. So Far Gone landed in 2009 and the whole temperature of rap shifted overnight. A light skinned brother from Toronto, used to act on a teenage show, singing and rapping in the same breath, talking about his feelings the way most rappers were too proud to. Half the streets laughed. Other half had it on repeat. By the time the laughing stopped, he had already rewired what a hit was supposed to sound like.

That part nobody can take from him. Melody was already in hip hop’s bloodstream, but Drake helped make it unavoidable in mainstream rap. Flip on the radio any given year after 2010 and you hear his fingerprints all over it. Young dudes singing their pain, crooning over trap drums, switching from bars to harmony mid verse. He did not invent every piece of that, but he stacked them, polished them, and sold the whole package to the planet. Influence like that is rare. You can count the rappers who changed the actual sound on one hand, and his name belongs there whether you love the man or not.

So why the asterisk? Why do grown men who lived through his entire run still hesitate before they call him real?

Comes down to the old code. This thing was built on certain pillars. Lived struggle. Your own pen. Bars that made you rewind the tape. Respect earned in the trenches, not handed over because the numbers said so. Purists hold those values like scripture, and by that scripture Drake keeps tripping the alarm.

The pen is the loudest accusation. When Philly Rapper Meek Mill stood up in 2015 and pointed at ghostwriting, he said out loud what plenty had whispered for years. Reference tracks surfaced. Names got attached to verses. Defenders fired back that legends used cowriters too, that the song matters more than the credits, and there is real weight to that in pop. Hip hop, though, is not just pop. The entire religion rests on the idea that the rhyme is yours, that you bled for those words personally. Hand part of that off and the purist hears a crack in the foundation, no matter how clean the record sounds in the speakers.

Then comes the culture vulture talk, and this one runs deeper than music. Brother moves through styles like seasons. Caribbean patois one summer, UK slang the next, Atlanta cadence after that, Memphis bounce, whatever city happens to be hot at the moment. Some hear a student of the game paying homage. Others hear a tourist who borrows the accent, grabs the bag, and flies home before the check even clears. Both readings come with evidence. That is exactly what makes it stick to him.

His 2024 battle with Kendrick forced all of it into daylight at once. After the smoke cleared, the lasting damage was not really about who had the cleverest line. What mattered was that Kendrick managed to fit every one of these old questions onto a record and make the whole world chant them back. Authenticity. The pen. Who you really are once the cameras cut off. He weaponized the doubt already hanging in the air, and Not Like Us became more than a diss. Turned into a referendum. The streets were not just voting on a song. They were voting on a reputation.

Here is where I have to play fair, because fair is the only way to write this honest.

Gatekeeping gets tired too. Half the purists waving the real hip hop flag also worship eras that broke their own rules. Sampling was theft until it became genius. Singing and melody in rap were often dismissed by purists, even though groups like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony proved how powerful that blend could become. Crossing over to pop was selling out until that same crowd started quoting the crossover records as classics. Wherever the line sits for what counts, it tends to move the moment the banned thing becomes undeniable. Some of the Drake hate is sharp critique. Plenty of it is just men mad the sound left them behind.

And the brother can actually rap. Folks forget that in all the noise. When he locks in, the wordplay is tight, the pocket is clean, the storytelling lands where he aims it. Drizzy is not some singer cosplaying as an emcee. Skill is there. The question was never whether he can do it. What stays open is what he chooses to do with it, and how much of it is truly coming from him.

So where does that leave us?

You can hold two things at once without your head splitting open. Drake is one of the most successful and influential artists this genre has ever produced. He is also a complicated case study in what we mean when we say real, and the culture has every right to keep interrogating him on it. Both statements stand at the same time. Anybody telling you it is simple is selling you something.

This was never only about the trophy case anyway. Real hip hop meant truth. Meant a voice that sounds like one specific life lived in one specific place. The strongest knock on Drake is not that he sings, not that he charts, not even that he had help in the booth. What lingers is the feeling that the truth shifts depending on the room, that the realest thing about him might be how well he reads what you want and hands it right back to you.

But that critique cuts both ways, because reading the room and feeding it exactly what it craves could be the most honest reflection of this entire era. A culture living on streams and metrics and going viral produced an artist who mastered streams and metrics and going viral. Maybe he is not a betrayal of where the music went. Could be he is the mirror, and we just do not love the reflection staring back.

My final word runs like this. Quit asking whether Drake is real hip hop as though a clean yes or no waits at the finish line. Ask the better question. Dig into what he revealed about us, about what we reward, about how easily importance and authenticity blur together when the numbers get loud enough. He changed the sound. Dodged the deepest questions for years too, until somebody finally cornered him with them on wax. Those two truths sit side by side now, and that tension is far more interesting than any verdict ever could be.

This genre has always been an argument with itself about what it really is. Drake did not break that argument. He simply became the loudest version of it we have heard in a long, long time. And that, whether the purists nod along or not, is its own kind of real.

Staff Writer; Jamar Jackson

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

The Chinese leader’s assessment of the United States may have been self-serving, but it is a true. The United States as a world superpower is on the decline. Our respect on the world stage is diminished, and we are humiliated over the events and negotiations surrounding the Iran war. Any person can be quick to defend the United States against criticism or against things said that would place the nation in a negative light.

Some will go as far as to reframe the truth to avoid having America’s weaknesses and moral failures exposed. In other words, they will outright lie without reservation.  In a follow-up post to Truth Social, Trump said, “When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden Administration, and on that score, he was 100% correct.”

There was no indication that Xi was referring to Biden in his comments.  When the President of the United States habitually lies to the American people without hesitation, it not only shows the disrespect he personally has for the office he holds, but it becomes evidence to show how we are a nation in moral decline. Unfortunately, the president is not the only high-ranking official within the administration who produces reckless lies.

Vice President JD Vance falsely denied that Black history is being erased from public spaces under the Trump-Vance administration during a televised interview on the “The View”. While being pressed by hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin, Vance was challenged on the administration’s polices to censor or remove Black history exhibits across the country, and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs for Black Americans as a result of President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He was challenged on cuts to the federal workforce, where Blacks have been overrepresented for decades. When pressed further, Vance denied that the White House made efforts to eliminate Black history, telling “The View” hosts, “Black history is not erased from public spaces.”

Black prosperity is part of what makes America great. It is Black resilience that makes America great. The fact the enslaved Blacks built the U.S. Capitol, and their descendants would later occupy it as elected lawmakers is part of the Black experience that makes America great. These are the true stories about the Black experience that JD Vance and others are attempting to whitewash.

One of the reasons United States has become a nation in decline domestically comes from the decision to erase Black history and hold back Black progress. It may not be the political decline referred to by the leader of China, but it becomes a moral decline resulting from implementing white supremacy goals and objectives. “JD Vance can play confused on television all he wants, but we’ve seen this administration spend 18 months erasing Black history from our military, museums, and monuments,” said Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21^st Century, a Democratic research think tank.

We just celebrated the Juneteenth holiday. But does the true meaning hit home with us or is it just another day? The history behind Juneteenth is complex, and is another truth about the Black experience many people would like to see forgotten. Many of us are familiar with the story of how the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, yet in Texas slavery continued in practice for more than two additional years.

It wasn’t until federal troops arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865 that an estimated 250,000 enslaved Black people learned of a freedom that had already been declared over two years earlier. The delay was structured by power and greed, not by accident: those who benefit from slavery used the delay as a tool to keep extracting labor and wealth from Black bodies. Juneteenth exposes an entrenched unwillingness to grant Black people full justice and freedom, even after laws legally changed.

There are immediate and long-term consequences resulting from the overall anti-Black agenda that we are witnessing today. Every Black high school student and young adult should take a hard look at the fact that Black history is being erased, but also consider how the type of denial by the vice president plays a major part in the moral decline of our nation. They need to fully understand the policy shift by seeing how the Trump administration moved aggressively to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across federal agencies, contractors, and schools receiving federal dollars. They need to reflect how these policy shifts will impact their future career goals, dreams and aspirations as a person of color. Teenagers and young adults need to stay informed. The same agenda to withhold justice and freedom to enslaved Blacks still exists today, but under a different covering.

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.