Heather Cox Richardson Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

September rambling: Tohubohu

a dangerous assault on democratic oversight

Word of the Day: Tohubohu – A state of chaos; utter confusion.

Threatening Vulnerable People Is No Way to Mourn Someone Who Was Murdered. Those who had nothing to do with the violence against Charlie Kirk are being menaced—just like always.

Big Tech Data Centers Compound Decades of Environmental Racism in the South

Scholars’ group cites mass civilian killings, starvation, and official incitement as evidence, while Israel and the United States reject the genocide label.

Pentagon press clampdown sparks First Amendment alarm. Journalists and free press advocates warn that new restrictions requiring pre-approval of even unclassified information represent a dangerous assault on democratic oversight.

Robert Reich on FOTUS’ Calamitous Crypto Corruption

Cartoon: The road to fascism

FOTUS to U.N.: ‘Your Countries Are Going to Hell.’ Read his full address at the U.N. General Assembly.

Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez lays out what she found about the degree to which every New Yorker is being tracked, the harms that tracking is already inflicting, and the reasons to fear that things might get much worse, here and across the nation.

Modern dogs now occupy roles historically reserved for close human relationships and often receive greater moral concern than people.

RFK Jr., HHS secretary, “is correct that reported autism rates have exploded in the last 30 years — they’ve increased roughly 60-fold — but he is dead wrong about the causes,” the psychiatrist Allen Frances writes in The Times Opinion. “I should know, because I am partly responsible for the explosion in rates.”

FOTUS Has ‘Strong Feelings’ About Autism; the Issue Is Personal

Rural Health Clinics Begin to Fall Under Crushing Weight of Big, Ugly Bill

Nanoplastics are not just in seafood; a new study finds small plastic particles penetrate crops

Potential Trouble for Retirees: A Wealth Adviser’s Guide to the OBBB’s Impact on Retirement

History

In October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine will reach an extraordinary milestone: 1 trillion webpages preserved. Record a video answering the question: “Why is the Wayback Machine important to you?”

The last look at American poverty? New data shows 41% of Americans are poor or low-income, revealing deep racial and regional disparities ahead of sweeping federal cuts.

Netanyahu: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Thieves Steal and Destroy Solid Silver Statue of Abraham Lincoln Created by Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum

American Hindenburg -“the worst air disaster you’ve never heard of”

Jordan Klepper’s The Daily Show interview of John Fugelsang talking about his book Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. There is a lovely George Harrison reference as well.

10 of the Oldest Cities in the U.S.

Why Romania Excels in International Olympiads

Internet Archive Designated as a Federal Depository Library

The Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent me $38.36 USD. I’m RICH!

John Masius, St. Elsewhere, Emmy-winning writer, and Touched By An Angel creator, dies at 75

‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant Ben Scripps Dies at 52 After Losing Battle With Cancer

Baseball’s Davey Johnson (1943-2025)

Now I Know: Why The Dot Got Dashed

Jimmy Kimmel

The Death of Free Speech – Legal Eagle

The FCC: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

He is Back!

HCR

Heather Cox Richardson, about the first of her Letters from an American newsletter six years ago: “In that first letter where I warned of rising authoritarianism, I wrote: ‘So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…

“If you are tired from the last six years, you have earned the right to be.

“And yet you are still here, reading, commenting, protesting, articulating a new future for the nation. And I am proud to be among you.

“I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities: the idea that we all have the right to work to become whatever we wish. I believe that American democracy has the potential to be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.”

MUSIC

Freedom of Speech – Marsh Family parody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”

Sonny Curtis, member of the Crickets who wrote the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme song, dies at 88; here he was on CBS Sunday Morning in 2022

Love Is All Around – Sonny Curtis; Mary Tyler Moore Show – Seasons 4-7 Intro & Theme

I Fought The Law – Bobby Fuller Four (1966), written by Sonny Curtis; I Fought The Law – the (post-Buddy Holly) Crickets (1959), featuring Curtis

Ouvertüre zum Lustspiel “Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien” by Franz von Suppé

From – Bon Iver

Wuthering Heights score by Alfred Newman, composed for the 1939 film of the same book.

Makin’ Whoopee – Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks, September 9, 2025 – Radio Free Birdland #34

Need A Ride – Kathleen Edwards

Wuthering Heights suite from the 1939 film by Alfred Newman

Elegy by Mark Camphouse

Helter Skelter – The Beatles (Second Version, Take 17) [Anthology 2025]

K-Chuck Radio: Celebrating Earth, Wind & Fire Day

Ivonny Bonita – Karol G

Full Moon by Ludovico Einaudi

Sesame Street: Pentatonix Counts (and Sings) to Five

Flash Gordon – Queen

Coverville 1549: Interview with Jeff Kanan of The Keep Recording and 1550: Cover Stories for Fee Waybill of The Tubes and B.B. King

J. Eric Smith’s Best Albums of 2025 (Third Quarter)

St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) – John Parr

Protein Synthesis (1971)

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits

July rambling: the Sin of Condemnation

The 1934 National Firearms Act unconstitutional?

The Stones in Our Hands: Misreading John 8 and the Sin of Condemnation

‘Motherhood Should Come With a Warning Label’

CBS News’ John Dickerson Takes on Paramount Settlement: “Can You Hold Power to Account After Paying It Millions?” (especially from 36:45) Dan Rather calls it “a Sell-Out to Extortion.” Steve Kroft tells Jon Stewart that it was a “shakedown.”

“The regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons; at the very time, we need a much better understanding of it,” said one environmentalist. “This is so reckless and dangerous.”

A 2024 report published by Texas A&M University found that extreme rainfall events in the state have already increased by about 10 percent due to climate change. That number could double in the coming decades, reaching a 20 percent increase compared to a century ago.

Deep cuts erode the foundations of the US public health system, end progress, and threaten worse to come.

Kelly has links, including the sad closing of the Ontario Science Centre, which my family LOVED when we went to Toronto in 2011.

VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer released a viral video about race in America in 2020, just after George Floyd was killed. If anything, it’s more relevant now.

Meet the Moon Mammoths, the baseball mascot masterminded by John Oliver’s show

Now I Know: The Bovine Unity of Milk and Glue? and Brunch: Because We Like the Party and Why the National Animal of Scotland is… Wait, Really? and This Airport SUX

Leading to the semiquincentennial

Full interview: Ken Burns on “Face the Nation” about his new film on the American Revolution and the importance of telling the story of American history.

July 4th in the Face of Fascism: Moral resources for Americans who know we’ve been betrayed – Our Moral Moment w/ Bishop William Barber & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

“If fireworks ring hollow, you’re not alone. Light a candle instead.”

HCR: The MAGA Ideology That Brought Us to This Moment. It’s Our Job to Make Sure People Know the Truth

I am the man on Fifth Avenue.

Americans Have Never Been Less Proud of Their Country

Retired Supreme Court justice gripes about the hot mess he helped create

“While the lighthouse shining the way is admittedly hard to make out through the cruel fog that envelopes us, it is out there, sturdy upon the shore, and still blazing brightly. We must trust that we will rediscover its guiding power and, together, steer this ship safely home. We’ll do it together, and in our strong and welcome company, we will find the courage and conviction we need.” – Jay Kuo

Purblind bunny boiler

Heather Cox Richardson: “Within hours of [FOTUS] signing the [OBUB] into law, Gun Owners Of America and… other pro-gun organizations filed a lawsuit claiming the measure makes the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) unconstitutional. That law regulated machine guns and short-barrel guns by imposing a tax on them and making owners register their weapons. The Supreme Court upheld that law as a tax law. The budget reconciliation bill ended those taxes and thus, the plaintiffs’ claim, the constitutional justification for the law.”

10 Charts to Understand the 900-Page Budget Bill

GOP budget bill would give top 1% over $1 trillion in tax breaks, analysis finds. It will steal from the poor and give to the rich.

FOTUS/DOGE foreign aid cuts could cause 14 million deaths by 2030, study warns

The trolling is coming from inside the White House

Cold as ICE

A surge in ICE detentions of those with no criminal record, despite stated priorities. Still, “as a result of the agency’s stonewalling, the Guardian, alongside the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, last week filed a lawsuit against ICE for unlawfully withholding documents that represent a clear and overwhelming matter of public interest.”

FOTUS ramps up deportation spectacle with new stunts and ICE funding

He only has ICE for you. And: ICE Agents Deserve No Privacy. Attempts by the public to keep tabs on ICE are provoking predictable and pathetic responses from the government.

MUSIC

Lou Harrison’s Pacifika Rondo

Coverville 1539: Carly Simon Cover Story and 1540: The Blondie Cover Story III

Mockingbird – Weavers Gallery

Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik

Another Day of Sun, the opening number from La La Land.

Sit Down, John from 1776

Weird Al Medley (A CAPELLA) White & Nerdy, Party in the CIA, Like A Surgeon, Tacky, Eat It – Jared Halley

Sussudio – Phil Collins

The Longest Time – Boyz II Men and Billy Joel

Ten Steps to Revolution

Journey to American Democracy

Heather Cox Richardson posted on her June 7th Letters from an American column, introducing Ten Steps to Revolution:

“The hard lessons of history seem to be repeating themselves in the U.S. these days, and with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, some friends and I got to talking about how we could make our real history more accessible.

“After a lot of brainstorming, we have come up with Journey to American Democracy: a series of short videos about American history that we will release on my YouTube channel, Facebook, and Instagram. [What they released was] a set of videos that can be viewed individually or can be watched together to simulate a survey course about an important event or issue in American history.

“Journey to American Democracy explores how democracy has always required blood and sweat and inspiration to overcome the efforts of those who would deny equality to their neighbors. It examines how, for more than two centuries, ordinary people have worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land.

“Those principles establish that we have a right to be treated equally before the law, to have a say in our government, and to have equal access to resources.”

A crash course in America

“In late April, in an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News, [FOTUS] showed Moran that he had had a copy of the Declaration of Independence hung in the Oval Office. The interview had been thorny, and Moran used his calling attention to the Declaration to ask a softball question. He asked [FOTUS] what the document that he had gone out of his way to hang in the Oval Office meant to him.

“He answered: ‘Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration. A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.’

“The Declaration of Independence is indeed very special to our country. But it is not a declaration of love and unity. It is the radical declaration of Americans that human beings have the right to throw off a king in order to govern themselves. That story is here, in the first video series of Journey to American Democracy called ‘Ten Steps to Revolution.'”

From the YouTube page: “Journey to American Democracy examines how ordinary people worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land. This series, Ten Steps to Revolution, explains how the king’s American subjects came to oppose monarchy and, over the course of only thirteen years, to embrace the right to govern themselves.”

Also

Transcription: Two years ago, in partnership with the National Park Service, the National Archives set an audacious goal to transcribe the more than 2.5 million pages found in the Revolutionary War Pension Files by America’s 250th on July 4th, 2026. Together with the National Park Service, we spread the word and recruited volunteers. In our first year, Citizen Archivists transcribed 65,000 pages, and we were so excited to see the stories of America’s first veterans that they uncovered.

Tories: From the Smithsonian: The Defiant Loyalists Who Chose the Wrong Side in the American Revolution. American colonists who aligned with the British lost their lands, their reputations, and sometimes even their lives.

“The popular image of the American Revolution may be of fired-up colonists united in the fight to overthrow their British rulers. But the reality was far more complicated. Many historians estimate that at least 15 to 20 percent of the population remained loyal to the crown, some even taking up arms against their rebellious neighbors and fighting alongside the British.

The Boss: Land of Hope and Dreams intro by Bruce Springsteen

Silence dissenters

Turning Point USA

Would America silence dissenters? I’ve been reading Heather Cox Richardson since the middle of 2024. Frankly, I thought she was way too optimistic last year. Her philosophy as a historian was that she knew of worse times and that the United States has enough resilience to overcome the awful. But since the last election and particularly since the inauguration, she seems to be more concerned about what is happening and what might occur. This piece from mid-April 2025:

In a strange twist, I was actually researching the extraordinary powers of the Department of Homeland Security… for a radio show when Forbes broke the news that the DHS was looking for help compiling a database of “media influencers.” DHS leaders want the database to include journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers, and so on, and to include the “sentiments” of the people in it.

While DHS spokesperson Tyler Q. Houlton tweeted that monitoring the media is normal practice and that “any suggestion otherwise is fit for tin foil hat-wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists,” many people have helpfully pointed out that, in fact, this is a move straight out of Putin’s playbook, and that media influencers with the wrong “sentiments” get arrested or attacked, or they disappear.

There is no way now to know which interpretation is the right one.

But I do know that it’s a funny thing as an American to realize that saying or writing something could lead to imprisonment, torture, or death. It happens in other countries, of course, and it has certainly happened here at times, but it has never been part of our lives that we had to worry that our own government would, in a systematic way, silence dissenters.

Nah, not here! Right?

The first reaction to this realization is denial: there is no way this could happen. And then it gets personal: there is no way this could happen to me. And finally, the personal turns the idea into a bit of a joke: the concept that I would be important enough to silence just proves that the idea is ridiculous.

But then you wonder. Perhaps every person thinks they’re safe right up until they hear the door slam against the wall.

And it goes on. She’s been put on a Professor Watchlist, “a project of 501(c)3 non-profit Turning Point USA. The mission… is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom. Professor Watchlist is a carefully aggregated list sourced by published news stories detailing instances of radical behavior among college professors.”

HCR wasn’t all that concerned about being on the roster until I understood how frightened other people were about my inclusion on it, and I suddenly saw that maybe the fact that our government supported the sort of folks who were policing universities meant that the watchlist was a very different thing than I had become accustomed to.

AmeriNZ

My good buddy Arthur, who was born in the US, but who now lives in New Zealand, wrote in response: “The regime absolutely intends to target US citizens who don’t bow down before the convicted felon to send them to an El Salvador death camp. That means that it’s absolutely rational to stay quiet and say nothing—were it not for the fact that there’s no safety in silence, as folks 80 years ago would attest to, had their own fascist regime not ended them. Moreover, the harsh truth is that once something is posted online, it’s forever: Nothing is ever actually ‘gone’ and cannot be erased. So, anyone who has ever criticised the Republican God-King is already on a List. If we’re doomed anyway, why no go out with a fricking bang?”

A US citizen told to self-deport: “‘They want immigrants to be uncomfortable here.’ Nicole Micheroni, an immigration attorney and U.S. citizen born and raised in Massachusetts, has not heard from the Department of Homeland Security since it told her to leave the country.”

Who, me?

Common Sense: “As independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported, White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka said in an interview with Newsmax that the divide between the [regime], which has sent hundreds of people to a notorious foreign prison without trial and disobeyed a Supreme Court order, and those who oppose its actions boils down to a disagreement between those who ‘love America’ and those who ‘hate America..’

“‘We have people who love America, like the president, like his Cabinet, like the directors of his agencies, who want to protect Americans,’ said Gorka. “And then there is the other side, that is on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens, on the side of the terrorists….

“And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them?” Gorka said. “Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.”

All of this has gotten me a bit discombobulated. I’ve written some, let’s say, less-than-complimentary posts about the current regime on my little blog, which gets a little over a thousand views a week. But surely, I don’t need to worry. Little ol’ me?

Certainly not. Probably not. Maybe not. Maybe? Despite being a political science major in college, I’d rather write about the arts and music than about politics. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt, so we play it.

March rambling: Dismantling

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber

**Used by permission of Clay Bennett, Editorial Cartoonist, Chattanooga Times Free Press**

“We Are Watching the Deliberate Dismantling of American Democracy” – Heather Cox Richardson with Katie Couric

Mark Evanier has posted nearly daily a series of Fact Checks over the last month that suggest members of the regime LIE regularly, especially FOTUS.

The regime seeks to starve libraries and museums of funding. Fight back with ALA.

The executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution will “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institute’s museums, centers, and the National Zoo in Washington.

Pete Hegseth Sent Secret War Plans to Journalist by Accident. Here Are the Texted War Plans That He Said ‘Nobody Was Texting’ on Signal. “A reminder that various administration officials lied under oath in the Senate.”

Millions face delays as administration ends Social Security phone verification. A new policy eliminating phone verification for Social Security benefits threatens to overwhelm field offices, cut off vulnerable recipients, and accelerate efforts to privatize the system.

Executive Order on Voting Denounced as ‘Authoritarian Power Grab’

Pentagon restores some webpages honoring minority service members but defends DEI purge.

Rights, Privileges, and Mahmoud Khalil

Decades ago, Columbia refused to pay him $400 million. The university was looking to expand. It considered and rejected property owned by djt. He did not forget it.

People named in JFK assassination documents are not happy their personal information was released.

FOTUS has big dreams for the Kennedy Center but doesn’t seem to know what it does. His hostile takeover of the Washington, D.C., cultural institution will probably chase away the very people who like to attend shows there

Here’s What RFK Jr. Got Wrong About H5N1 Bird Flu— “This is Hollywood science, not real science,” one expert said

EPA Teases Evisceration of Scientific Research Office

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, FOTUS’ Media Pit Bull Is “Off the Leash”

Cory Doctorow: Twinkump Linkdump (22 Mar 2025)

How DOGE is making government almost comically inefficient

Musk tells his biggest lie yet: ‘I’ve never done anything harmful’

How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill: The Department of Government Efficiency is shuttering organizations that Beijing worried about most or actively sought to subvert.

IRS braces for $500bn drop in revenue as taxpayers skip filings in wake of DOGE cuts at the agency

From Catherine Rampell – WaPo:

At the IRS, employees spend Mondays queued up at shared computers to submit their DOGE-mandated “five things I did last week” emails. Meanwhile, taxpayer customer service calls go unanswered.

At the Bureau of Land Management, federal surveyors are no longer permitted to buy replacement equipment. So, when a shovel breaks at a field site, they can’t just drive to the nearest town or hardware store. Instead, work stops as employees track down one of the few managers nationwide authorized to file an official procurement form and order new parts.

At the Food and Drug Administration, leadership canceled the agency’s subscription to LexisNexis, an online reference tool that employees need to conduct regulatory research. However, some workers might not have noticed this loss yet because the agency’s incompetently planned return-to-office order this week left them too busy hunting for insufficient parking and toilet paper. (Multiple bathrooms have run out of bath tissue, employees report.)

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber: When Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto appeared 30 years ago, the internet was brand-new. Now, his dark vision is finding fans who don’t remember life before the iPhone. Paragraph 173: “If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave.”

Researchers find thriving, never-before-seen ecosystem under Antarctic ice shelf: “This is unprecedented”

Author John Green on why he wrote “Everything is Tuberculosis.”

Do Adults Need a Measles Booster? A single-dose inactivated measles vaccine used from 1963 to 1967 was later found to not be as effective or long-lasting as the currently used live-attenuated vaccine, experts said.

George Foreman, Boxing Champion and Grill Spokesperson, Dies at 76

Richard Chamberlain, King of the Melodramatic Miniseries, Dies at 90. One of my sisters had a massive crush when he played ‘Dr. Kildare’

Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

My Quest to Find the Owner of a Mysterious WWII Japanese Sword. “When I was a kid, I was fascinated by a traditional katana my grandfather had brought home from Japan in 1945. Years later, I decided it was time to find the heirloom’s rightful owner.”

Rita Braver will retire from ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ after 50 years at the network

The 51 Best Canadian Films of All Time

How Charles Dickens Shaped Our Vocabulary

Magnet fishing is supposed to be a wholesome hobby. Why all the beef?

In 2012, when NBC had the Super Bowl, they shot a little video to precede it and promote all their shows and stars.

In 1969, Jim Henson produced several commercials for a new potato crisp called Munchos.

Now I Know: The Supreme Court Told Me I Was Wrong and Forcing Beer into Star Wars and A Miner Revolt

MUSIC

Jesse Colin Young, Youngbloods’ Frontman, Dies at 83. Get Together was one of the very few singles I ever purchased.

Herb Alpert turns 90 today. He’s still performing. I had half of his early albums, including his first, The Lonely Bull. Here’s Herb and the Tijuana Brass on that title track.

Signal Leak – Jesse Welles

You Were Not Supposed to Message It Through – Marsh Family Parody of the Bee Gees on #Signalgate

I Put Up Tariffs – Marsh Family adaptation of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff

Vivaldi’s Summer/Mozart’s Semplice/Mack The Knife

Get Away and three other songs – Jimi Somewhere

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique

Please Please Please – Sabrina Carpenter, feat. Dolly Parton

On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever – Voctave

The Song (Love Is All) – Sadie Sink from the movie O’DESSA

Two of Hearts – Stacey Q

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye

Scissors Cut – Art Garfunkel