In the News
President Donald Trump and several top administration officials are joining with a cast of mostly conservative Christian clergy this Sunday on the National Mall in Washington for a prayer gathering billed as a "rededication of our country as One Nation Under God" upon America's 250th birthday.
But some critics call the Rededicate 250 event an effort to "hijack" U.S. history with a false, Christian nationalist narrative — one they say fuses American and Christian identities and threatens a constitutional separation of church and state.
A handful of Congressional Freethought Caucus members, including North Coast U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, called for an investigation into reports that military commanders are using religious ideology to justify the war in Iran.
WASHINGTON — Halfway across the world, President Donald Trump is waging a war against a theocratic regime that he considers a threat to American ideals. Back home, Rep. Jared Huffman is doing the same.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he did not intend to ask for a vote on whether files concerning accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein should be released.
At a largely Christian event that brought hymns and prayer to the heart of the Capitol building, President Donald Trump bemoaned America’s trend away from faith, calling it “one of the biggest problems” and saying, “we have to bring religion back. We have to bring it back much stronger.”
The president spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, held in Statuary Hall on Thursday morning.
Religiously speaking, the incoming 118th Congress looks like America — that is, the America of decades past, rather than today.
Congress is far more Christian, and religious overall, than today’s general population.
Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has steadily risen in recent years — only two of the 534 incoming members of Congress publicly identify as such.
In the wake of Democrats’ disappointing election losses, there is no shortage of theories and prescriptions. But the New York Times (“These Spiritual Democrats Urge Their Party to Take a Leap of Faith”) described one that warrants a respectful critique.
Warning about the far-right Project 2025 agenda for a Donald Trump White House, a group of House Democrats has launched a task force to start fighting the proposal and stop it from taking hold if the Republican former president returns to power.
The blueprint for a potential second Donald Trump presidency known as Project 25 would take “a wrecking ball” to America’s democratic norms and institutions, a leading Democrat has warned.
As the only open non-believer in Congress, I want to thank Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Not for repeatedly revealing himself as an unethical political partisan who poisons the credibility of the court—I’m disgusted with that, and agree with those who are demanding his recusal in cases involving former President Donald Trump.