Author: Heather Cox Richardson

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...

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...

“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...

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,...

Sixty years ago a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church on Sunday, September 15, 1963, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies lounge, killing the four girls instantly. Standing...