Heather Cox Richardson

February 14, 2026
On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother.

Four years before, Roosevelt could not have imagined the tragedy that would stun him in 1884. February 14, 1880, marked one of the happiest days of his life. He and the woman he had courted for more than a year, Alice Hathaway Lee, had just announced their engagement. Roosevelt was over the moon: “I can scarcely realize that I can hold her in my arms and kiss her and caress her and love her as much as I choose,” he recorded in his diary….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-14-20…

7 hours ago | [YT] | 1,028

Heather Cox Richardson

February 13, 2026
At midnight tonight, most of the agencies and services in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will run out of funding, as popular fury over the violence and lawlessness of federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol made Senate Democrats refuse to agree to fund DHS without reforms. And yet, because the Republicans lavished money on ICE and Border Patrol in their July 2025 budget reconciliation bill—the one they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—those agencies will continue to operate….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-13-20…

1 day ago | [YT] | 3,465

Heather Cox Richardson

All right, shall we actually do this Politics Chat today?!? I'll be on at 6:00 Maine time. Let me know your questions and issues below.

1 day ago | [YT] | 1,178

Heather Cox Richardson

February 12, 2026
In a ceremony at the White House yesterday, surrounded by coal industry leaders, lawmakers, and miners, President Donald J. Trump was presented with a trophy that calls him “the undisputed champion of beautiful, clean coal.” At the event, Trump signed an executive order directing the Defense Department to buy billions of dollars of power produced by coal and decried “the Radical Left’s war on the industry.” Anna Betts of The Guardian noted that Trump also announced the Department of Energy will spend $175 million to “modernize, retrofit, and extend” the life of coal-fired power plants in West Virginia….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-12-20…

2 days ago | [YT] | 1,235

Heather Cox Richardson

Update:
Hey folks: I am still in an airplane on the tarmac, meaning that Politics Chat ain’t happening tonight even at 7:00. I actually do have something of interest to say about this week’s news, so will do Politics Chat tomorrow, Friday, at 6:00 PM Maine time. Sorry for the delay (as I have heard repeatedly today)!


Hey folks: Will be on at 7 pm Maine time today.

2 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 441

Heather Cox Richardson

February 11, 2026
On February 12, 1809, Nancy Hanks Lincoln gave birth to her second child, a son: Abraham.

Abraham Lincoln grew up to become the nation’s sixteenth president, leading the country from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865, a little over a month into his second term. He piloted the country through the Civil War, preserving the concept of American democracy. It was a system that had never been fully realized but that he still saw as “the last, best hope of earth” to prove that people could govern themselves….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-11-20…

3 days ago | [YT] | 2,558

Heather Cox Richardson

February 10, 2026
As of yesterday, members of Congress who sit on the House or Senate Judiciary Committees can see unredacted versions of the Epstein files the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already released. As Herb Scribner of Axios explained, the documents are available from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on computers in the DOJ building in Washington, D.C. The lawmakers cannot bring electronic devices into the room with them, but they are allowed to take notes. They must give the DOJ 24 hours notice before they access the files….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-10-20…

4 days ago | [YT] | 2,684

Heather Cox Richardson

What would you like to hear about for Politics Chat at 6:00?

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Heather Cox Richardson

February 9, 2026
Last night’s thirteen-minute Super Bowl half-time show featuring Bad Bunny had more watchers than any other halftime show in history: an estimated 135 million watched live, while millions more have streamed it since. Rapper, singer, and record producer Bad Bunny, whose given name is ​​Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is from Puerto Rico, and rocketed to prominence with the release of his first hit single on January 25, 2016. On February 1, 2026, just a week before the halftime show, Bad Bunny made history by being the first artist to win Album of the Year at the Grammys for an album recorded in Spanish….
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-9-202…

5 days ago | [YT] | 5,915

Heather Cox Richardson

February 8, 2026
On February 9, 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) stood up in front of the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, at a gathering to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The senator waved a piece of paper and later recalled telling the audience: “I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” He said he didn’t have time to share the names of all those individuals, but he assured the audience that the Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman was refusing to investigate “traitors in the government.”
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-8-202…

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