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Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of one of the more tragic moments of the civil rights movement — the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and the deaths of four little girls inside. Birmingham had a long history of racial violence, of course. The city suffered fifty different
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It seems inevitable now that Republicans will move to impeach President Joe Biden. Cementing his status as the absolute weakest Speaker of the House in modern history, Kevin McCarthy has allowed himself to be bullied by the right-wing cranks of the Freedom Caucus into launching a semi-formal impeachment inquiry. It’
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There’s been a lot of discussion recently about whether or not Donald Trump should be disqualified from running for office again due to the Fourteenth Amendment’s bar against anyone who previously swore an oath to defend the Constitution but later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [Constitution]
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We’re coming up on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, with a major commemoration taking place this Saturday in D.C. and then the actual anniversary coming on Monday. This means, of course, that we’re going to be treated to another round
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When the Republican presidential field meets tonight at the first debate of the primaries, there’s going to be a noticeable absence — former president, current frontrunner and future defendant Donald John Trump. We’ve all become numb to the many ways in which Trump has broken with the norms of
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Sorry for the lighter posting this last week, but I’ve been busy writing the new chapter on the Trump presidency for the updated edition of FAULT LINES. All I had to share was a deep sense of despair and the academic version of PTSD. Good times, good times. But
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Earlier this week, professional podcaster and part-time US Senator Ted Cruz tried his best to boost the contrived controversy about Joe Biden being linked to his son’s foreign dealings with this imaginative line of argument: Now, leaving aside the obvious fact that anyone can pretty much “allege” anything — something
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The early exit of the U.S. Women’s National Team from the 2023 World Cup led to some predictable taunts from conservative critics who’ve long clashed with the outspoken athletes. Even former president Donald Trump interrupted his taunting of the judge, jury and prosecutor in his latest indictment
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With the latest installment of criminal indictments against former president and future defendant Donald J. Trump, we’ve got the latest round of hand-waving and excuse-making from his most loyal lickspittles. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — the loyal little Chester to Trump’s Spike — raced to run interference. The refrain of
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As I noted in the last one of these, I’ll be using CAMPAIGN TRAILS to share some of the research from my current book project on the civil rights era. The first installment came yesterday with the interview I did with civil rights legend Dave Dennis. (Apologies for the
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As I noted recently, I’m going to use CAMPAIGN TRAILS to highlight some of the research I’m doing for my current project on John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s, with special “Work in Progress” features for paid subscribers. This morning I had the extreme
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Today marks the 75th anniversary of President Harry Truman’s order banning segregation and discrimination in the American military. Though he had grown up, in many ways, as a southerner and even used racial slurs, Truman was deeply shaken by the wave of violence and discrimination that greeted many black