What I’ve been up to lately
Updates on my NABJ panel, Poynter feature, just-published profile and new reporting on Trump’s unprecedented takeover of Washington, D.C.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Congress Nerd, the flagship newsletter from Once Upon a Hill, where I break down the week’s biggest congressional storylines and chronicle the politics, policies and power players shaping the Democratic Party in the Trump 2.0 era.
It’s been a little while since my last post—August 6, to be exact, the day before I traveled to Cleveland to speak on a panel about Project 2025 at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention. Since then, I’ve been deep in special projects, preparing for what promises to be a chaotic fall legislative session and catching up on much-needed rest and reading.
I’m grateful to share that C-SPAN covered our NABJ panel and aired it last week. You can watch it here. The hour-long conversation—with Yamiche Alcindor of NBC, Eugene Daniels of MSNBC (er, MS Now???), and masterfully moderated by CNN’s Eva McKend—is full of insights on a topic so sprawling it can easily become unwieldy.
I’d like to thank and welcome all the new subscribers who’ve joined the OUAH community after watching the discussion. To keep building on that momentum, I’m offering a pre-Labor Day special: 20% off annual subscriptions through September 2. Upgrading is the best way to sustain this work and ensure it reaches even more people. Just click through—the discount is automatically applied at checkout.
I was also featured in Poynter in a piece on what it really means for young journalists to “build your brand,” a phrase professors, media executives and reporters love to debate but rarely define. And earlier this morning, I was featured in a story by Kirstin Garriss, a phenomenal journalist and the author of Here’s the Deal with KG. Her new outlet is one you’ll want to add to your media diet if you’re looking for more reporting that makes sense of the moment we’re in and helps energize action toward change.
In my latest COURIER column, I took a deep dive into President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C.—an extraordinary move Democrats argue exposes Republicans’ misplaced priorities ahead of looming deadlines on government funding, the NDAA, and possible forced votes on the Epstein files and a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. FWIW: Trump visited law enforcement officers and National Guard troops at a Park Police facility in the Southeast area of the district. The visit came a day after Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller stopped at Shake Shack in Union Square to meet with National Guard troops, part of the administration’s effort to normalize and defend its control of the Metropolitan Police Department alongside the Guard deployment. And this morning, Hegseth authorized troops to start carrying firearms.
Finally, have you heard about Winnie Greco, the former aide and longtime fundraiser for New York City Mayor Eric Adams at the center of the wildest scandal?
Greco was suspended from Adams’s re-election campaign after allegedly giving a City Hall reporter, Katie Honan, a potato chip bag that contained a red envelope with cash, an action she later described as a cultural gesture of friendship and “a mistake.”
The reporter declined the money, returned it to her newsroom and the incident was reported to authorities, prompting an investigation by the city’s Department of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.
The story has exploded because it combines a bizarre visual—a “potato chip bag bribe”—with serious political implications. The involvement of a City Hall reporter underscores the ethical stakes while highlighting the attempt to influence the press and the watchdog role of journalists. Coupled with New York’s long history of corruption scandals and Mayor Adams’ mounting vulnerabilities, the incident became irresistible fodder for national outlets and online ridicule alike.
This episode is also a reminder of the kind of story that local media does best. However valuable national coverage may be, it was The CITY that broke the news—reinforcing why independent local outlets remain vital to holding powerful people and special interests accountable to the public they serve.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Plenty more to come as we head into fall. Make sure you don’t miss the moments that matter.