Charley E. Willison

DHS has always had a difficult time managing its workforce. When I created measures of capacity based on personnel data, it was the lowest ranked department.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

As we look ahead to SNAP benefits not being administered on November 1, it's a good time to read Mohammed Abba-Aji and Sandro Galea's recent article on the health impact of Administration cuts to non-health structures including related to food assistance. read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/articl...

Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune

This is obviously illegal. It is also very stupid. An unconstrained executive will quickly learn that the best way to pay for the government is to call together all of the billionaires and ask them who wants to demonstrate their patriotism the most

This paper has been in the works for about five years and is finally in print! It's about the work that formerly incarcerated Black women engage in to resist efforts to undermine their citizenship.

In this moment, when citizenship is becoming more and more precarious, I highly recommend this read.

One of the pillars of the 9th circuit opinion allowing the National Guard to deploy to Portland is that the remedy for presidential overreach in the use of military force against civilian populations is and has always been the political process. Not just a bad argument, but bad history. /1

Monstrous.

"federal agents detained nearly every resident of the 130-unit building—including children and babies—placing them in zip ties and separating them by race into vans for more than two hours early Tuesday morning."

FYI, if you try to measure the strength of civil society (what Hahrie, Milan, and I call civic opportunity in our 2023 Nature Human Behaviour paper), you may want to consider using our org-, county-, and ZIP code-level datasets published in Scientific Data: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An unprecedented violation of our civic and Constitutional traditions. Calling every military leader in the world back to the U.S. to hear a wildly inappropriate partisan campaign speech followed by a fascist call to use the military against Americans.

"We are asking the Department of War to deploy to our cities" should be a statement that ends any Governor's political career.

Data manipulation within the US Federal Government A US Department of Veterans Affairs dataset compiling veteran health-care use in 2021 was quietly amended on March 5, 2025. A column titled gender was renamed sex, and the words were also switched in ...

"Data manipulation by the US Gov...makes crucial datasets untrustworthy and unusable. If the US Government secretly changes datasets for political reasons, researchers relying on the data might erroneously recommend ineffective or counterproductive interventions."
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Congrats Miranda! Can’t wait to read and assign!

You've heard me talk about it.
You've seen me write about it.
And now it's your chance to pre-order my forthcoming book Coverage Denied!

Combining survey & administrative data with extensive interviews, my book highlights the harms caused by coverage barriers. Hope you'll read it!
cup.org/4nfM2IM

Ask yourself if this is the kind of country you want to live in

Uncivil Democracy How the civil legal system undermines the political lives of marginalized communities

My book w/@profsorelle.bsky.social will be out in January! These ideas have brewed since I interned at Queens Legal Services 20 years ago. The book is for anyone who cares about people, justice, power & democracy. Much more to share more in the coming months!

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Homelessness and Mental Illness: How Trump’s New Executive Order Could Backfire thefulcrum.us/governance-l...

With mental health expert @isabelmperera.bsky.social and the excellent support of @scholars.org !

Important context with now second case of federalizing subnational law enforcement, DC

Homelessness and Mental Illness: How Trump’s New Executive Order Could Backfire In late July, President Trump signed an executive order urging local authorities to find ways to force homeless individuals with mental illness into hospitals. On its face, some observers might find t...

Homelessness and Mental Illness: How Trump’s New Executive Order Could Backfire thefulcrum.us/governance-l...

With homelessness expert @charleywillison.bsky.social and the excellent support of @scholars.org !

Blake Emerson, Andrea Katz, and Jennifer Nou listen to a speaker while seated at a table in a classroom.

Backseat car hammocks for babies? Thanks to government, they are no longer for sale in the United States. Now, as federal regulators come under attack from within, political scientists and legal scholars gathered for a conference on the future of studying the administrative state: bit.ly/44LJSbW

Anyone still quibbling that this isn't fascism?

Here's a preview of our conversation with @charleywillison.bsky.social from our new podcast series on the local politics of public health. Check out the full episode!
www.urbanaffairsreview.com/uar-archive/...

@charleywillison.bsky.social @askellyphd.bsky.social @didikuo1.bsky.social @sarahgollust.bsky.social @nataliapmoreira.bsky.social @patriciastrach.bsky.social @kathlsullivan.bsky.social @hjarman.bsky.social

CDC vaccine advisory committee to review long-approved immunizations A leader of the CDC's reconstituted vaccine advisory committee said the panel would start a review of long-approved shots.

News: The American Academy of Pediatrics says it will no longer take part in the process of ACIP meetings.

“We won’t lend our name or our expertise to a system that is being politicized at the expense of children’s health,” the group's president says.
www.statnews.com/2025/06/25/c...

<thread>

On the left:

June 12, Judge Breyer writing that THE test for whether the US Marines/Guard violate Posse Comitatus will be whether they've engaged in "detaining" civilians.

On the right:

June 13: See for yourself.

Note: The DoD has confirmed the detention of civilian to Reuters.

Fun fact: in the 1960s, Civil Rights protestors were given literal classes on nonviolent protest; they didn't all just spontaneously know what to do.

So, if you're planning on showing up, this weekend: read this comic. And if you're staying home, signal-boost it/link it around.

Literally describing themselves as occupying a blue state like hostile territory with the military and federal forces.

WTF; he's one of the leading scholars in the world

Yet another day when I'm thinking about Paul Musgrave's old Twitter post:

"Around the department:
Americanists: how bad can it be really?
Comparativists: dictatorship, purges
International relations: nuclear war
Americanists: haha but seriously
IR and comparative: who is joking"

What Can Be Done About the Global Far Right’s Threat to Health? | AJPH | Vol. 115 Issue 6 American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APHA)

“Better Health Is a Political Intervention…Ill health can lead to distrust, which benefits the far right. Appeals to patient-centered, trustworthy, responsive health care take on a new edge if we can tell policymakers that the alternative is an increasing far-right vote in their constituency.”

"For 142 years, the merit-based civil service survived because both parties recognized that functional government requires professional expertise. That consensus is dead. We're watching the transformation of public servants into party servants, of a government of laws into a government of loyalty."

With @mirandayaver.bsky.social. Medicaid cuts will be particularly harmful for rural communities, even for those not enrolled in the program. In Republican districts and states, Republican voters are disproportionately likely to suffer. thehill.com/opinion/heal...