Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Traitor-in-Chief: Top military leaders confirm Trump’s attacks on wounded or killed American soldiers

The trial of former president Trump, his oldest sons, two associates, and the Trump Organization began in Manhattan on October 2. Jose Pagliery, political investigations reporter for The Daily Beast, noted that the presiding judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, started with a reference to September 29’s rainstorm that flooded New York City, saying: “Weeks ago, I said we would start today ‘come hell or high water.’ Meteorologically speaking, we’ve had the high water.” New York Attorney General Letitia James launched the investigation in 2019 after Trump fixer Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump had been...

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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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