Category: 2025

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – March 7, 2025
  Black Americans outnumbered white Americans among the 29,500 people who lived in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, but the city’s voting rolls were 99% white. So in 1963, Black organizers in the Dallas County Voters League launched a drive to get Black voters in Selma registered. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a prominent civil rights organization, joined them.
  …
  The leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Selma decided to defuse the community’s anger by planning a long march—54 miles—from Selma to the state capitol at Montgomery to draw attention to the murder and voter suppression. Expecting violence, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee voted not to participate, but its chair, John Lewis, asked their permission to go along on his own. They agreed.

  On March 7, 1965, sixty years ago today, the marchers set out. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate brigadier general, Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, and U.S. senator who stood against Black rights, state troopers and other law enforcement officers met the unarmed marchers with billy clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas. They fractured John Lewis’s skull and beat Amelia Boynton unconscious. A newspaper photograph of the 54-year-old Boynton, seemingly dead in the arms of another marcher, illustrated the depravity of those determined to stop Black voting.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – March 6, 2025
  This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

  “This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

  The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world

  (more…)

• The biggest Ponzi scheme in history

  Friends,

  I remain optimistic about the longer term, but I still awaken each morning with a sense of dread. I’m sure some of you do, too.

  Start with Elon Musk’s bonkers comment that Social Security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

  In a Ponzi scheme, a con artist lures investors into a fake investment project, pockets the cash, and then gets new “investors” to funnel their cash to the earlier investors — until there are no new recruits and the whole thing collapses. The last ones in are suckers left holding worthless bags.

  Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. It’s a high-functioning, universal, and exceptionally efficient part of the American social safety net — the opposite of a Ponzi scheme. Which is why the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose cutting it.

  Social Security is a simple “pay as you go” program. Current workers, via the payroll tax, fund payouts for retirees and disabled people. In 2024, about 1 in 5 U.S. residents received Social Security.

  I used to be a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. I know what I’m talking about.

  As the Social Security Administration explains, “In 2025, when you work, about 85 cents of every Social Security tax dollar you pay goes to a trust fund. This fund pays monthly benefits to current retirees and their families and to surviving spouses and children of workers who have died. About 15 cents goes to a trust fund that pays benefits to people with disabilities and their families.”

  The only reason that the Social Security trust fund is slowly running out of money is the trustees never anticipated that so much of the nation’s total income would be in the hands of so few people (such as Elon Musk).

  The simple way to fix this is to lift the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, which is now $176,100.

  Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg fulfilled their 2025 Social Security payroll tax obligations a few minutes past midnight on January 1. Most Americans continue paying payroll taxes all year.
  (more…)

• Supreme Court rules Trump administration must unfreeze foreign aid payments
  The court ruled 5-4 the administration must comply with a lower court order.

  A sharply divided Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration must comply with a district court order and pay out nearly $2 billion in foreign assistance funds to nonprofit aid groups for work already completed on the government’s behalf.

  Supreme Court Refuses to Save Trump in Quest to Demolish USAID
  The Supreme Court has denied Donald Trump’s emergency bid to cancel billions in USAID funding already approved by Congress.

  Hundreds of State Dept. Officials Sign Dissent Cable Urging Rubio to Stop Killing USAID
  The letter, obtained by The Bulwark, is a remarkable eleventh-hour attempt to save the beleaguered agency.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – March 3, 2025
  As seemed evident even at the time, the ambush of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday was a setup to provide justification for cutting off congressionally approved aid to Ukraine as it tries to fight off Russia’s invasion. That “impoundment” of funds Congress has determined should go to Ukraine is illegal under the terms of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, and it is unconstitutional because the Constitution gives to Congress, not to the president, the power to set government spending and to make laws. The president’s job is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

  It was for a similar impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds for Ukraine, holding them back until Zelensky agreed to tilt the 2020 election by smearing Joe Biden, that the House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2019. It is not hard to imagine that Trump chose to repeat that performance, in public this time, as a demonstration of his determination to act as he wishes regardless of laws and Constitution.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American -March 2, 2025

  On February 28, the same day that President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Martin Matishak of The Record, a cybersecurity news publication, broke the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stop all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.

  Both the scope of the directive and its duration are unclear.

  On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.

  And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – March 1, 2025
  John Simpson of the BBC noted recently that “there are years when the world goes through some fundamental, convulsive change.” Seven weeks in, he suggested, 2025 is on track to be one of them: “a time when the basic assumptions about the way our world works are fed into the shredder.”

  Simpson was referring to the course the United States has taken in the past month as the administration of President Donald Trump has hacked the United States away from 80 years of alliances and partnerships with democratic nations in favor of forging ties with autocrats like Russian president Vladimir Putin.
  …
  After yesterday’s Oval Office debacle, democratic nations rejected Trump and Vance’s embrace of Russia and Putin and publicly reiterated their support for Ukraine and President Zelensky. The leaders of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Union, and others all posted their support for Ukraine and Zelensky.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 28, 2025

  Today, President Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in an attack that seemed designed to give the White House an excuse for siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine. Vice President J.D. Vance joined Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office—his attendance at such an event was unusual—in front of reporters. Those reporters included one from Russian state media, but no one from the Associated Press or Reuters, who were not granted access.

  In front of the cameras, Trump and Vance engaged in what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo called a “mob hit,” spouting Russian propaganda and trying to bully Zelensky into accepting a ceasefire and signing over rights to Ukrainian rare-earth minerals without guarantees of security. Vance, especially, seemed determined to provoke a fight in front of the cameras, accusing Zelensky, who has been lavish in his thanks to the U.S. and lawmakers including Trump, of being ungrateful. When that didn’t land, Vance said it was “disrespectful” of Zelensky to “try to litigate this in front of the American media,” when it was the White House that set up the event in front of reporters.

  Zelensky maintained his composure and did not rise to the bait, but he did not accept their pro-Russian version of the war. He insisted that it was in fact Russia that invaded Ukraine and is still bombing and killing on a daily basis. His refusal to sit silent and submit meekly to their attack seemed to infuriate them.

  (more…)

[Presumably, the White House event today and subsequent fallout dominate other topics, and, presumably, Heather Cox Richardson will have some of the best coverage in her February 28 Letter. In the interim, many other sources are cited and excerpted below.]

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 27, 2025

  Yesterday an unvaccinated child in Texas died of measles as nearly 140 people in Texas and New Mexico have been reported ill with the disease. This is the country’s first measles death since 2015.

  Measles cases appear almost every year, but usually the government works to suppress measles, as well as other contagious diseases. It’s not clear the Trump administration intends to do that.
  …
  Measles cases appear almost every year, but usually the government works to suppress measles, as well as other contagious diseases. It’s not clear the Trump administration intends to do that.

  (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 26, 2025
  …
  Musk appeared to be in charge of the first Cabinet meeting of the Trump administration today. As Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny of CNN reported: “If anyone was still in doubt where the power lies in President Donald Trump’s new administration, Wednesday’s first Cabinet meeting made clear it wasn’t in the actual Cabinet.” Katherine Doyle of NBC News described “Senate-confirmed department heads spending an hour as audience members.”
  …
  Trump appeared to be aware of the popular anger at Musk’s power over the government and today dared the Cabinet members to suggest they weren’t happy with the arrangements. “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON,” Trump wrote on his social media channel this morning. “The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!”

  (more…)