Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Journalist Casey Michel, who specializes in the study of kleptocracy, recently pointed out that reporters had missed an important meeting. Michel noted that while reporters covered Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, they paid far less attention to the visit Orbán paid to the Washington DC, headquarters of the Heritage Foundation on March 8. There, Orbán spoke privately to an audience that included the president of the organization, Kevin Roberts, and, according to a state media printout, “renowned U.S. right-wing politicians, analysts, and public personalities.” Michel noted that it was “nothing short...

Florida rolled out a new law that prohibits many Chinese citizens from buying property in the state, especially near important infrastructure like airports, refineries, and military installations. As reported in The New York Times on May 7 by Amy Qin and Patricia Mazzei, more than three dozen states either have enacted or are crafting laws to restrict the purchase of land, businesses, or housing by Chinese nationals, even if they have legal residence in the United States. The justification for the laws is that Chinese investment in the U.S. is a national security risk, although Chinese nationals own less...

On his social media outlet, former president Trump encouraged his supporters to buy a “God Bless The USA” Bible for $59.99. The Bible is my “favorite book,” he said in a promotional video, and said he owns “many.” The Bible includes the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also includes the chorus of country music singer Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA,” likely because it is a retread of a 2021 Bible Greenwood pushed to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of 9-11. The effort came as Trump has faced...

Although few Americans paid much attention at the time, the events of February 18, 2014, in Ukraine would turn out to be a linchpin in how the United States ended up where it is a decade later. On that day ten years ago, after months of what started as peaceful protests, Ukrainians occupied government buildings and marched on parliament to remove Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych from office. After the escalating violence resulted in many civilian casualties, Yanukovych fled to Russia, and the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, returned power to Ukraine’s constitution. The ouster of...