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Without Kamala Harris in the White House, Democrats are turning to Hakeem Jeffries

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As Democrats proceed to lick their wounds following Kamala Harris’ stunning defeat to President-elect Donald Trump, all eyes are on Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), whose party in Congress has little likelihood of regaining the majority in the House of Representatives.

If Democrats manage to win the House, it’s going to give the party its only hope of slowing Trump’s agenda. Jeffries, a 54-year-old congressman from Brooklyn, New York, also became Speaker of the House, making history as the first African American to hold the position, just two steps of separation in the line of presidential succession.

As Donald Trump begins to appoint members of his second administration’s Cabinet to be tasked with implementing his agenda – which incorporates proposed mass deportations, the elimination of racial equity programs and big cuts in federal spending – Democrats’ ability to play defense will probably be crucial to mitigating this. , which they see as potentially critical blows to vulnerable communities.

Democrats view Jeffries, the current House minority leader, as a key leader of the party, especially if his caucus can gain a majority. This would involve the commission’s control – which incorporates significant subpoena power – and shaping the federal budget. At the very least, it might enable Democrats to force Republicans to make concessions where possible.

As a six-term congressman known for sticking to his word, Jeffries is a respected and admired politician in the Democratic Party.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – AUGUST 21: U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) departs after speaking on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Payne said Jeffries, who represents a “generational turn” in the party, “has shown that he is a truly gifted communicator and communicator.” He added: “He has some different skill sets that other Democrats may not be able to. And I think that’s something that Democrats will really benefit from.

Payne continued if elected Speaker of the House, “(Jeffries) will become the most important Democrat in the country with any power. She is essentially taking over the mantle that Nancy Pelosi took on when she was re-elevated to speaker during Trump’s first presidency.”

But Payne cautioned that even when Democrats manage to amass a razor-thin majority in the House, it’s going to still be an uphill battle.

He noted that the caucus will include many Democrats “from districts where Donald Trump is popular.” “You still have to hold together a club that will come under cross-pressure from Donald Trump, who is more popular than he was four and eight years ago.”

At this point, Plaskett noted that Democrats would want to take a leaf out of her book as a member of Congress representing a U.S. territory.

“I have limited voting rights, so I understand what it means to punch above your weight,” said Plaskett, who said that being a political minority in Congress requires “cooperating with members of the Democratic caucus, as well as the Republican caucus when it is advantageous to do so for the interests of (our) voters.”

Policy

Democrats also see an incredible opportunity to strengthen Black political power in Washington with the elevation of Hakeem Jeffries.

“Him coming out as a black man from Brooklyn and being a major foil for Donald Trump — I think that’s important at a time like this,” Payne said.

But Congressman Clyburn cautions that Jeffries must overcome a few of the challenges Harris faced as the first woman and first person of color to function vice chairman.

“It’s a big burden that needs a lot of help to carry,” said the lawmaker who served as House majority whip and deputy Democratic leader.

“Kamala Harris suffered for this reason. I took it upon myself to check many individuals who kept telling me that she wasn’t this and he or she wasn’t that, she didn’t do that and he or she didn’t try this,” he recalled. “I’d ask them what number of women have been vice presidents before? She took office two months before you criticized her conduct.

As the first speaker of the Black House, Clyburn had doubts that Jeffries could be “allowed to get his sea legs… to master this job from day one.”

Seawright, the Democratic strategist, said Jeffries won’t only be speaker of the House but additionally leader of the entire national party, which he believes must “rebound, learn and grow as the next election cycles approach” in 2025 and 2026. The role Jeffries will play will probably be crucial “whether we win a majority or not.”

After the devastating defeat in the 2024 election, Seawright said Jeffries and other Democratic Party leaders need to rethink their message to voters.


Headshot by Gerren Keith Gaynor

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Politics and Current

Trump’s Successor to Four-Star General Lloyd Austin: 44-Year-Old ‘Anti-Wake’ Veteran and Former FOX Host Pete Hegseth

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Lloyd Austin and Pete Hegseth

America’s next defense secretary could also be completely different from any the country has ever seen.

On Tuesday, just in the future after Veterans Day, President-elect Donald Trump chosen 44-year-old Pete Hegseth, a former FOX News commentator and former Army Ranger, to lead one of the crucial powerful military forces on the earth.

Hegseth will succeed Secretary General Lloyd Austin III, the nation’s first Black Secretary of Defense, a historic 2021 selection by President Joe Biden.

Austin, 71, is a four-star general with 41 years of service within the Army. He earned the Silver Star for his leadership within the Iraq War and later, as commander of the United States Armed Forces, oversaw all combat operations in Iraq in addition to military operations in Afghanistan within the 2010s.

Hegseth, a Trump loyalist who previously influenced the previous president to pardon a bunch of military men accused of war crimes, has been outspoken against women serving in combat and critical of what he calls a “woke” military.

“Any general, any admiral, anyone, with ties to DEI or ‘woke’ must go,” Hegseth was quoted as saying on the show latest podcast.

Hegseth can also be a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, universities often criticized by conservatives as bastions of the “liberal elite.” He first served within the Minnesota National Guard, working in finance. A yr later, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay as an infantry platoon leader.

After the Baghdad tour, Hegseth entered politics, forming a conservative group called Vets For Freedom and becoming a television commentator.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – NOVEMBER 16: Host Pete Hegseth speaks on stage in the course of the 2023 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on November 16, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)

Richard Brookshire, Army and National Guard veteran and CEO Black Veterans Projectrespectfully acknowledged Hegseth’s service, which incorporates earning the Bronze Star Medal. However, Brookshire questions the balance between Hegseth’s experience and the seniority required for the position.

Brookshire also noted that DEI efforts, often maligned by conservatives like Hegseth, have played a key role in ensuring that qualified candidates like Secretary Austin are usually not missed.

“I attended the White House Veterans Breakfast the other day, and meeting in person with Secretary Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made me reflect on how they got to their positions – not because they didn’t do a great job, because they absolutely did, but through concerted recruiting efforts in the Black community that began in the 1970s.” Brookshire said. “There has been a commitment to provide pathways that did not previously exist, and now there is an attempt to dismantle those efforts through affirmative action.”

Lloyd Austin, theGrio.com
WASHINGTON – SEPTEMBER 16: Gen. Lloyd Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on ongoing U.S. military operations to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during a hearing within the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, September 16, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, echoed the concerns of many Americans about Trump’s recent cabinet selections, but Hegseth particularly.

“People argue about DEI and the lack of qualifications, then rave about Pete Hegseth being put in charge of the most powerful military in the world,” Sells wrote on Twitter. “Watching mediocrity rewarded is a hallmark of the Trump administration.”

The Department of Defense oversees a budget of roughly $842 billion– says the department’s website.

Brookshire expressed concern that with President-elect Donald Trump and a possible defense secretary so hostile to diversity efforts, legitimate issues resembling racial disparities in veterans’ disability compensation will proceed to omitted.

For Black veterans, it could actually be life-changing.

“Sometimes my biggest concern is that the civil rights ecosystem is just not being attentive to the military-industrial complex. And so far as I can see, the veteran ecosystem doesn’t care about black veterans. So nobody is actually going to fill that support gap, Brookshire said.

Hegseth will need to be confirmed by the Senate before he officially replaces Austin as Secretary of Defense.

Harriet Tubman was posthumously commissioned general during a Veterans Day ceremony

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Politics and Current

Op-Ed: Fear of Large Groups of Black Men Voting for Trump Was Misguided and Misplaced – Essence

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Photo: kali9/Getty Images

Before Election Day, headline after headline suggested that enormous groups of Black men didn’t intend to vote or would vote against Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy. Following the discharge of exit polls, it is obvious that this fear was misplaced and resulted from misinformation and misinformation. And as we legitimately analyze all of the “hows and whys” the electorate voted the best way they did, it is usually critical that we dispel the parable that almost all Black men were either blithely unaware of their political options or could be easily swayed by misinformation.

2020 exit polls showed that 80% of Black men supported President Joe Biden in 2020. Four years later, polls show that 78% of Black men supported Kamala Harris; a marginal difference of 2%.which is throughout the margin of error and hardly represents a tectonic shift in support for President Trump. In fact, Black men supported Harris greater than another male demographic group — especially in key swing states. In Michigan, for example, nearly 9 in 10 black men voted for Harris, in response to the info exit polls from the Washington Post.. And for the record, 91 percent of black women voted for Vice President Harris.

These results weren’t a shock to me and my team on the stadium Global Black Economic Forum because in our work now we have seen that black men have all the time been part of her support. In fact, we have had rather a lot of discussions on this topic in our virtual voter registration and awareness town halls, Paint the surveys black. And while Black Men are on no account a monolithic voting bloc, Kamala Harris has repeatedly made a powerful case for sustained leadership and economic policies that may improve our lives. The undeniable fact that her candidacy was not successful with a majority of voters shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of black men. However, many elected officials and pundits have laid the groundwork to position blame on black men if Trump wins. By using racist tropes that Black men fall for every product Trump sells, now we have been used as a crutch to sow discord and spread disinformation.

Every student of history knows that these disinformation campaigns are nothing latest. It’s a convention that dates back to Reconstruction, when former slave owners commonly misled and intimidated Black people into not voting. While the methods and technologies for spreading disinformation have modified and develop into more sophisticated, their intentions haven’t modified. This election cycle, we saw an enormous increase in AI-related images suggesting that Black voters – especially men – supported Donald Trump, when most of these images were false. According to A BBC Panorama reportTrump supporters intentionally targeted black voters with deepfakes showing that black voters support him.

But now that the votes have been counted, we should always take this moment to do not forget that a majority of Black men didn’t give the White House to Trump. We want the chance to construct economic security and wealth, receive inexpensive health care, live in communities that usually are not affected by violence, and live in a rustic where our civil rights are protected.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump proposed a framework that pitted our fight for fair treatment against the search for economic opportunity, as if these concepts were mutually exclusive. And on top of that, he repeatedly attacked Kamala Harris dehumanizing and racist tropes. Trump also went to this point as to suggest that almost all Black people would discover together with his current legal entanglements – dared to check his situation to the racial disparities and injustices that black men face within the criminal legal system. As more polls and analyzes of the election emerge, the decision on this issue is obvious: A majority of black voters paid attention.

Disinformation campaigns proceed. As we move forward, we must make a more concerted effort to know Black male voters — and not only during presidential election season. If we do that, we can have more comprehensive data that reflects what people actually consider and may help us higher thrust back against these false narratives.

Black voters (including Black men) will proceed to be on the front lines, fighting for each economic opportunity and social justice, as we remain unwavering and unwavering in our commitment to fight for each our wallets and our dignity.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Politics and Current

Donald Trump slammed for proposing ‘restitution’ for Americans harmed by ‘unjust’ DEI policies; Joy Reid, Don Lemon Audible alarm

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onald Trump Slammed for Proposing

It isn’t any secret that Donald Trump’s increased popularity in politics is attributable to the reluctance of white people. The president-elect routinely portrays the MAGA nation as victims of well-educated elites.

“Colleges and universities have received hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-working taxpayers, and now we will rid our institutions of this anti-American madness once and for all,” he said in a video posted Wednesday on several social media platforms. “We will have a real education in America.”

Billed as “payback,” Trump’s plan to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs at U.S. colleges and universities features a provision requiring reparations to those allegedly harmed by measures enacted to offer greater opportunities for marginalized racial and ethnic groups.

onald Trump slammed for proposing 'restitution' for Americans harmed by 'unjust' DEI policies; Joy Reid, Don Lemon Attacks
MSNBC host Joy Reid, President-elect Donald Trump and former CNN host Don Lemon. (Photos: Getty Images)

“In other words, reparations for white people,” said MSNBC host Joy Reid, who never shies away from difficult words and phrases.

However, it’s difficult to query her position. This is confirmed by Trump’s statement on the matter:

“I will further direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination, and schools that continue to engage in blatant, unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their grants taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will file a motion to impose a fine on them in the amount of the entire amount of their equipment. Some of the confiscated funds will then be used to compensate the victims of the illegal and unjust policies that have harmed our country so much.”

Seizing funds after which giving them to “victims of these illegal and unfair policies” is textbook reparations. Trump, nonetheless, opposes reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black individuals who, it needs to be noted, have been victims of centuries of illegal and unjust policies.

When asked about reparations for Black people in 2019, Trump said Hill“I think it’s a very unusual thing. It was a very interesting debate. I don’t see that happening, no.”

Author Keith Boykin, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, sent with an X that it’s clear who Trump thinks is experiencing racial discrimination.

“Trump announces reparations for white people,” Boykin wrote. “He says he will ask the Department of Justice to penalize and fine colleges that embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) so he can pay ‘reparations’ to white people whom he considers the true victims of racial discrimination.”

However, compensation for the descendants of slaves stays controversial. In California, the answer was to create an agency to manage funds (that had not yet been put aside) for compensation defeated earlier this yr, and even supporters say it’ll take one other decade for the movement to succeed.

Since Republicans control the Senate and the House, it shouldn’t take Trump that long to push through a reparations plan.

Some X commenters blamed black voters who supported Trump.

“Now imagine you are one of the 12% of black voters who crossed your fingers to vote for Trump.” he said one reader. “Lmao he’s fooling them all.”

Former CNN host Don Lemon also slammed the proposal on social media.

“You voted for this,” Lemon said.

Others saw it as a golden opportunity to talk on behalf of Black people.

“Most black people want to be judged on their merits, not the color of their skin.” he replied one white woman per X. “Not everyone thinks black people should have the bar lowered like you do.”

Trump has proposed wholesale changes to the U.S. education system, including searching for to eliminate the Department of Education, which might give full power to states. Congressional approval is required.


This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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