Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Threat of government shutdown temporarily ends with MAGA Republicans blocking vital aid to Ukraine

“The U.S. spent billions during the Cold War to prevent Russian aggression. Now, we have spent less than 3% of our defense budget in Ukraine to help the Ukrainian military, and they have destroyed half of the Russian army. It is the best investment ever for American security.” – Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator The House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution on September 30 to fund the government for 45 days—until just before Thanksgiving—by a vote of 335 to 91. The maneuver was a huge blow to the MAGA caucus that was demanding dramatic cuts to the government, the...

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President Biden says Trump incites violence and works “against the very soul of who we are as Americans”

In Tempe, Arizona, President Joe Biden spoke on September 28 at the dedication ceremony for a new library, named for the late Arizona senator John McCain, who died in 2018. Biden used the opportunity not only to honor his friend, but to emphasize the themes of democracy and to call out those who are threatening to overturn it. While Biden has made the defense of American democracy central to his presidency, he has never been clearer or more impassioned than he was today. Biden recalled that when McCain was dying, he wrote a farewell letter to the nation that...

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Republican’s math problem: Why a minority faction uses White Supremacist terror to keep its power

In the early afternoon of August 26, a heavily armed, 21-year-old White Supremacist in a tactical vest and mask, who had written a number of racist manifestos and had swastikas painted on his rifle, murdered three Black Americans at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida. He had apparently intended to attack Edward Waters University, a historically Black institution, but students who saw him put on tactical gear warned a security guard, who chased him off and alerted a sheriff’s deputy. As David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo put it two days later, “America is living through a reign...

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MAGA Republicans accused of trying to shut down Federal government to halt Trump’s prosecution

“The GOP has completely gone off its rocker, incapable of passing House spending, ranting and raving at AG, cooking up ludicrous and baseless impeachment, unable to greet Zelensky with joint session. This is not normal. This is egregious. You’d think the reporting would reflect it.” – Jennifer Rubin, September 21, “Washington Post” Indeed, the House Republicans remain unable even to agree to talk about funding the government, let alone actually passing the appropriations bills Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed to four months ago. Right-wing extremists in the House blocked a procedural vote o September 21 over a Pentagon funding...

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Fourteenth Amendment: Legal scholars say Trump’s actions have disqualified him from the presidency

Various constitutional lawyers have been weighing in lately on whether former president Donald Trump and others who participated in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election are disqualified from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The third section of that amendment, ratified in 1868, reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of...

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Extremist ideology: Why the Republican party is in crisis and trying to take the country down with them

Headlines on September 18 stated that “Congress” was in crisis. But that construction obscures the true story: the Republicans are in crisis, and they are taking the country down with them. The most immediate issue is that funding for the government ends on September 30. The Senate, controlled by Democrats, is moving forward on a strongly bipartisan basis with 12 appropriations bills that reflect the deal President Biden hammered out with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in May to get House Republicans to agree not to default on the United States debt. That deal, the Washington Post editorial board pointed out,...

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