Also, in the 1980s, Christian Scientists accepted military vaccine requirements as pragmatic and vital to readiness to deploy. They actively chose *not* to contest them, though they fought vaccine requirements in other spaces.
When I teach the social history of the military, students read soldiers' diaries from the Am. Revolution, letters from the Civil War, notes from WWI, etc. They always note the prevalence of illness & the desire to avoid/cure it. Smallpox, yellow fever, flu, malaria... all big problems.
Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health. When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.” Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”
This is NUTS
www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...
Patrick Radden Keefe's *Say Nothing* is a great read, and a limited series too. (Obviously I'm not a historian of Ireland, and I don't know how scholars see it, but it takes you into the era. Ditto the movie Belfast.)
Green enlisted in the military after high school, served, went to college and was ordained (National Baptist), and returned to the army as a chaplain in 1994. He didn’t have to—he chose to. Green understood the purpose and ethos of the chaplain corps, which Hegseth does not and does not want to.
I can’t overstate how unusual it is for a chief of chaplains to be fired. Green was very well respected. He entered the army as a chaplain in 1994, at the end of the term of Matthew Zimmerman, the first Black Chief of Chaplains. Green was the 3rd. Which appears relevant for… reasons.
p.s. reminder to grad students: you never know when your research will suddenly (unfortunately) become relevant. I started the research for what became Enlisting Faith (2017) over 15 years ago… the story was about pluralism and inclusion, which has now taken a sharp right turn to sectarian exclusion
Great to talk to @gregsargent.bsky.social about how unusual it is for an American military leader to glorify and sanctify killing as an ultimate higher good like Hegseth is doing. (Historically, most tend to talk about violence as an unfortunate but necessary means to a better and peaceful end.)
Terrible for many reasons, but also just completely impractical. People move, at all times and for many reasons, and there’s no way that list would be accurate for more than a millisecond.
It's simple: The Supreme Court says bans on medical care—and speech related to that care—are only allowed in the conservative direction.
Tennessee can ban gender-affirming care as a medical regulation, matter but Colorado CANNOT regulate therapists who wish to deny patients' gender or sexuality
And left unstated: what era's chaplain corps he thinks he wants to return to. It's unlikely that he knows much about what chaplains were doing when he thinks they were "great."
Quick take: the real impact of Hegseth's announced changes to the chaplain corps remain to be seen -- much hinges on what religions/denominations remain on the list of 31 "religious affiliation codes." Far more significant are his coded linguistic tells about "Truth."
Assigned reading (primary source) is deemed inaccessible because the document doesn’t have headers because… the source didn’t have headers 🤯
💯 No LORs should be needed from people who already have PhDs... either decide to fund the project or not
Having written many such LORs, I'm begging archives to stop requiring them. And no one needs 3--I'm looking at you, presidential libraries. If you need to verify the grad student/project is real, use a checkbox form. Just decide which project to support based on the applicant's statement!
Also the bibles distributed during WWII varied — there were Protestant (KJV), Catholic (Douay), and Jewish (JPS) versions. After the war, the government also printed an entire set of the Talmud. It was about religion, yes, but not Christianity. There was also a burial guide w/many more religions.
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Final Schedule F rule published: in defiance of the vast majority of public comments, it commits to further politicizing government, removing anyone the Trump administration dislikes.
public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-02375.pdf
Like @ashleyrparker.bsky.social “I can’t remember a time when the Post was not, somehow, woven through the fabric of my life.” Before I could read, I picked up the Washington Post and pretended to read it—like my parents did every morning. And then I read it too, trading sections with my dad.
I’ve never seen anything quite like Chief Judge Schiltz’s letter to Chief Judge Colloton.
(The Eighth Circuit has since denied DOJ’s application, but didn’t acknowledge any of its … ridiculous … behavior.)
And what are they learning? Experts on the formation of internal security services in authoritarian regimes point to a sense of impunity as a warning sign. Regime officials abuse their power when they know they will be protected, and even praised, for doing so. Over the course of weeks and months, we have seen images of DHS officials abusing American citizens and immigrants alike, including killing them. What we do not hear is regime officials calling for credible investigations into such abuses, or even expressing any concerns. Renee Good’s killer was announced innocent, and both Good and her wife was instead the subject of an investigation, a perversion of justice so obvious that an FBI agent and half-dozen career Department of Justice prosecutors assigned to Minnesota resigned.
What we are watching is a paramilitary force learning that they can kill with impunity, that the regime will smear the victim and defend them. Unless politicians and the legal system exerts accountability, it will not stop. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/past-the-b...
I am watching what is happening in Minneapolis on Ali Velshi and one of the ICE officers (off camera) literally says, “It’s like Call of Duty. Pretty cool huh?” as they shoot whatever it is they are shooting. Agents walking around, guns unholstered for no reason. This is insanity
MSNOW headline: News Trump administration plans to deport 40 İranians days after mass killings in Iran Two of the deportees are gay and terrified of returning to a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, their lawyer says.
Another day, another outrage; ICE under Trump is going to deport dozens of people to Iran, including two gay men previously arrested by the regime who face the death penalty for their orientation, and despite the ongoing crackdowns which have killed thousands.
An administration of total inhumanity.
Danish Parliament Deputy Speaker Lars-Christian Brask:
"If I could come with some advice, it would be for the Senate & House to start to take control of political power in America because with this erratic & mad behaviour, you have to ask the question, is the President capable of running the US?"
Folks saying this is just as bad, I need you to reread about reconstruction. Not holding people accountable is how we get into this position. Removing people who colluded with the administration in an authoritarian takeover of higher ed from their position is the most reasonable thing to do.
the great David Gutenfelder who’s photographed so many of the world’s most intense conflict zones in the past three decades now reporting from his home town
www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...
Change a few words and this could have been the statement every university president had the opportunity to make last year.
www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...
This is an aggressive interpretation of the “church autonomy doctrine,” with weak grounding in First Amendment precedent. But the concept’s lack of internal limits is unsurprising, as @richschragger.bsky.social and I anticipated more than a decade ago in virginialawreview.org/articles/aga... /4
Jon Shelton, “Letters to the Essex County Penitentiary: David Selden and the Fracturing of America,” Journal of Social History 48, no. 1 (Fall 2014): 135-55.
I use it with undergrads too b/c it’s based on a single box of letters and shows what you can do with a small set of sources.
This is giving Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers to a 17 other newspapers after the courts initially blocked the NY Times from publishing it.
