Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Survivors of the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, testified on December 14 before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Club Q is an LGBTQ club in the city of about 500,000 people. The shooter opened fire there on the night of November 19-20, during a dance party. He used an AR-15 style rifle, murdering five people and wounding 19 more. Six others were hurt in the chaos. Pointing to Republican anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that calls LGBTQ individuals “groomers” and abusers,” survivors of the mass shooting said that Republican rhetoric was “the direct cause” of the massacre....

Former president Trump took to his Truth Social media platform on December 14 to announce that he would be making “a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT.” Since he recently threw his hat in the ring for president in 2024, there was a great deal of speculation about what political move this would be. When the news came on December 15, it turned out that his announcement was for digital trading cards with images of him as a superhero…available for $99 apiece. Radio personality John Melendez promptly called them “Broke’mon cards.” Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and Republican who now monitors right-wing...

The Keystone Pipeline ruptured on December 7 near a creek in northern Kаnsаs, spilling what its operator, TC Energy, says is about 14,000 barrels of oil. This is equivalent to about 588,000 gallons, an Olympic swimming pool holds about 666,000 gallons. TC Energy says the leak is now contained. This is the largest land-based crude pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine years. Although the Keystone Pipeline has leaked 22 times before this, this week’s spill is bigger than all the others put together. A spill in July 2010 was more expensive — costing more than $1 billion —...

On the clear, windy morning of December 2, 1859, just before 11:00, the doors of the jail in Charles Town, Virginia, opened, and guards moved John Brown to his funeral procession. Three companies of soldiers escorted the prisoner, who sat on his own coffin in a wagon drawn by two white horses, for the trip to the gallows. Once there, Brown mounted the steep steps. The sheriff put a white hood on the prisoner’s head and adjusted a noose around his neck. After a delay of about fifteen minutes while officers arranged the troops that had escorted the wagon,...