April 13, 2026

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - With the chaos and confusion surrounding the United States’ self-inflicted war with Iran, our NATO allies are experiencing America’s leadership void firsthand. The direct U.S. and Israeli military operation against Iran has severely strained the relationships with our closest European allies, leading to a major decline in confidence in American leadership.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 David W. Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization TRB: The Reconciled Body and the author of God Bless Our Divided America.

April 4, 2026

To Be Equal 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” - The 14th Amendment

They hoped we weren’t paying attention.

While the country was watching fighter jets and debating troop deployments, while the administration’s shock-and-awe news cycle churned through one manufactured crisis after another, a quieter and far more dangerous move was playing out in plain sight.

On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship in the United States. Not through Congress. Not through the constitutional amendment process the framers required. Through a stroke of a pen.

This is one of the most brazen assaults on American democracy this administration has attempted. And it was designed to slide through the noise.

It must and will not.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, includes a citizenship clause that confers citizenship on anyone “born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The amendment simply constitutionalized centuries of precedent based on English common law.

And let us remind America, that this was a direct repudiation of the Dred Scott decision, which denied Black people the protections of U.S. citizenship. The amendment was the nation’s promise to itself that never again would the government get to decide that a person born on this soil was something less than American.

That promise is now under attack.

Trump has argued that the amendment “was meant for the slaves, for the children of slaves.” Let that land for a moment. The administration’s own framing acknowledges the 14th Amendment was written to protect Black people, and then argues that its protections should be narrower than the text plainly states. 

This is not a legal argument. It is a political ideology, rooted in White Supremacy, seeking to legally discriminate who really counts based arbitrarily by a select few.

The assault on birthright citizenship is anti-Black not only in its history but in its logic. When you establish the principle that citizenship can be conditioned on the legal status of your parents, you create the infrastructure for a permanent underclass. You open the door to generations of people born in America, raised in America, who are American in every lived sense, but who can be told they do not belong. 

If Trump’s order were allowed to stand, an estimated 2.7 million additional people would be unauthorized by 2045, and 5.4 million more by 2075.  These are not abstractions. These are children. And disproportionately, they are children of color.

Advocates have warned this risks creating a “permanent underclass” for some immigrant groups,  transforming the cultural and civic fabric of the country. Communities of color, already navigating the cumulative weight of structural inequality, would face an additional burden; proving their belonging in the only country they have ever known. 

That is not America at its founding promise. That is America at its worst.

Every federal court that has considered a challenge to the executive order has struck it down. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara this week, and a majority of the justices appeared skeptical of the administration’s position.  Even Chief Justice Roberts noted that we may live in a new world, but we have the same Constitution. We agree. A Supreme Court ruling is expected by the end of June or early July. 

The National Urban League has stood against every attempt to diminish the citizenship, dignity, and rights of Black and brown Americans since 1910. We know what it looks like when government uses the machinery of law to shrink the circle of who belongs. We have seen this before, and we have fought it before, and we are fighting it now.

To the communities living under the shadow of this executive order, we see you. To the children whose citizenship should never have been in question, you are American, and we will defend that truth.

And to those in power who believe the noise of the moment will drown out accountability, it will not. 

We are watching the courts. We are watching the Congress. We are watching the ballot box. American democracy has survived every attempt to hollow it out from within, because the people it was built to exclude refused to stop demanding what was theirs.

This generation will be no different.

Feb. 17, 2026

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - One of the great strengths of our movement is that our leaders do more than inspire young people — they keep the door open for them. The leaders who carried forward the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that movements survive only when the next generation is welcomed in. Leaders like Joseph Lowery, Rev. Orange, Rev. Earl Shinholster, Andrew Young, and many others lived that commitment.

Rev. Jesse Jackson carried it farther than most. He gave time — minutes, hours, sometimes days — to younger people trying to find their way.

When I first raised my hand to volunteer, I was 14. I was short for my age. I had a bad stutter. But I heard that a man who had taken risks alongside Dr. King was running for president, and I wanted to help.

I helped lead Youth for Jackson in my county. We registered voters. We believed we could change things. And while I was giving my stump speech around my county on his behalf, I decided I had to conquer my stutter. I set my mind to it until I figured it out.

He asked to meet me when he came to speak at Stanford University. He treated young organizers like we belonged in the room.

In my early 20s, after I had been kicked out of college for organizing protests, I walked into his home in Washington, D.C. He was serving as shadow senator. The topic was winning voting rights for Washington, D.C. — a perennial and yet always urgent battle. We talked strategy. He listened more than he spoke.

Years later, when the pressure mounted while I was leading the NAACP, he was still the person I would turn to first for advice and quiet moments. And when things got especially hot, he would just look andsay: “Flood rules. Eyes open. Mouth shut. Keep stepping forward.”

In Rockford, Illinois, we drove out together because we heard that three-year-old girls who had witnessed a police shooting were losing their hair from trauma. We arrived from the funeral of a Black teenager beaten to death with two-by-fours in the streets of Chicago — some said for crossing into the wrong territory, others because hateful people believed he was gay. Rev. Jackson went where the pain was — to help people heal, to help them find their power to move forward, and to push all of us forward again.

When voting rights came under assault, he did the same. When immigrant rights came under attack, he did the same. When working people of any color came under attack, he did the same.

In my 50s, Dave Chappelle and I sat on either side of Rev. Jackson as we watched Kamala Harris, a Black woman, accept our party’s nomination for president of the United States. It felt more than appropriate that that moment — like President Obama accepting victory on election night years earlier — happened in Rev. Jackson’s town of Chicago.

Across every chapter, he was there. Not as a symbol. As a worker in the struggle.

The lesson was simple. Show up. Keep going. Hold the door open for others.

That is how movements are reborn and rebuilt — even after setbacks, even when the odds feel like they are mounting against us. That is how freedom moves forward.

Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former president and CEO of the NAACP.

Feb. 16, 2026

Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It has been more than two weeks since Alex Pretti was senselessly killed by CBP agents in Minneapolis. Americans across the political spectrum have spoken out.

The message is clear: there must be real and meaningful reforms to  ICE and CBP (Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol).

In response, Democrats proposed a set of commonsense reforms. These changes would protect people’s constitutional rights, improve public safety, and ensure law enforcement acts responsibly:

1. Targeted Enforcement: Require a judge’s warrant before entering private property.
2. No More Masks: Ban ICE agents from wearing face coverings.
3. Officer Identification: Require agents to show identification and state who they are when asked.
4. Protect Sensitive Locations: Stop enforcement actions at schools, daycares, churches, hospitals, and similar places.
5. Stop Racial Profiling: Ban DHS officers from targeting people because of their race, job, or the language they speak.
6. Use-of-Force Rules: Set clear limits on the use of force and require certification of officers.
7. State and Local Oversight: Allow state and local governments to run independent investigations and require evidence to be preserved and shared.
8. Detention Standards: Make sure detention facilities meet basic standards of care and access.
9. Body Cameras for Accountability: Require body cameras, but ban their use to monitor people exercising their First Amendment rights, such as protesting.
10. No Paramilitary Policing: Set clear rules for the uniforms and equipment used by DHS officers.

Unfortunately, President Trump and Republicans in Congress have refused to agree to these commonsense reforms.

Democrats are continuing to negotiate in good faith. So far, the White House has offered only a vague counterproposal that does not seriously address the concerns raised by the American people.

At the same time, funding for the Department of Homeland Security—which oversees ICE and CBP—expires this Friday night at midnight.

Let me be clear: I will not vote to extend ICE and CBP’s funding unless these negotiations yield real progress toward reforms that stop these agencies’ lawless behavior and restore accountability.

Feb. 15, 2026

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When initiating “Negro History Week” in 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson chose February for reasons of tradition and reform. It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping Black history: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. After Lincoln’s assassination in 1856, the Black community celebrated the fallen President’s birthday.

In addition, since the late 1890s, Black communities across the nation celebrated the birthday of Frederick Douglass. Negro History Week kept the tradition of commemorating two great men while reforming the celebration to include the study of a great race. Though Woodson admired both men, he had never been fond of celebrations held in their honor. Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply by great men. He envisioned the study and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. Woodson wanted the Black community to focus on the countless Black men and women who had contributed to the advancement of human civilization. Negro History Week, with the goal of raising racial pride and consciousness, ultimately became Black History Month. A dedication to honor the struggles and central contributions of Black Americans to U.S. history and culture. One individual who deserves recognition for continuing the legacy of our Black ancestors is Jefferson McClellan.

Jefferson McClellan is not a famous person, nor does he have a familiar name, but the 13-year-old from Prince William County, Virginia, is an American hero. He is a middle school student who used his personal heartbreaking experience as a teaching moment and valuable lesson to those within his community. McClellan experienced something that no person should ever have to experience.

The pain of racism is real and is no respecter of age. The 8^th-grader boldly confronted the racism he encountered by speaking truth to power, delivering an emotional speech publicly to members of his local school board. In his statement, he emphasized that racism was a serious problem in his school. He added that he had also been called a monkey and the N-word. McClellan stated, “These are racial slurs said directly to me by other students.” In his speech, he explained that he had previously reported the harassment, but nothing was done, and the abuse continued. Eventually, he took matters into his own hands and physically fought back after another student told him, “Shut up, N-word.” He was suspended for three days; the suspension was later reduced to one day.

In referencing the suspension, McClellan stated to the board members, “I’m here asking why when racism was directed at me, the response is slow or silent, but when I react to it, the response is immediate and clear.” He continued, “I’m not asking for special treatment, I’m asking you to stop allowing people to hurt me.” Unfortunately, Jefferson McClellan is a teenager who has experienced the same dark and ugly side of America experienced by his ancestors. The hurt, the pain, and the humiliation he describes as an 8^th-grade student are the same as those that past leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis fought against. They fought against this during their era, so that McClellan’s generation would not have to feel the pain and abuse as much. Racism persists when it is passed from generation to generation. The abuse McClellan is receiving comes at the hands of other 8^th graders his age. McClellan’s story highlights how racism is embedded in certain households when passed down from the parent to the child. The child then becomes a terror to boys and girls like Jefferson McClellan.

McClellan turned what may have been intended as a typical school board meeting into a classroom for Black history. “It’s sad, it’s hurtful and disrespectful that I have to deal with this from middle school to grown-up age; it’s not going to stop,” McClellan said. “If it does stop, that’s a miracle. The world we live in is not going to stop because people can say and do whatever they want without consequences.” The source of racism, in the case of Jefferson McClellan, came from the schoolhouse. In the cases of Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland and former President Barack Obama, the racism came directly from the White House. Recently, President Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account that contained an image depicting President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. Gov. Moore was also the target of racism from the President, as he was uninvited to this year’s National Governors Association dinner. As the nation’s only sitting Black governor, he was singled out for exclusion, as was Colorado's Gov. Jared Polis. Polis is the first openly gay and first same-sex marriage governor in the U.S.

Jefferson McClellan said he was hurt but wanted to speak up so that no other student would have to experience what he did. For that reason, he is a changemaker worthy of recognition during Black History Month. Our nation needs more young people like him who are willing to take a stand and make a conscious and courageous decision to make the world a better place for everyone.

David W. Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization TRB: The Reconciled Body and the author of the book God Bless Our Divided America.