Ronit Stahl

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.

Faculty: Help us build a wish list for accommodation requests! We invite instructors to share perceptions of disability support services for students in #HigherEd. Take a short survey (IRB approved) here: uofmississippi.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_.... Questions? Get in touch! #Accessibility

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

The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

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.

Video: What Our Photographer Saw in Minneapolis David Guttenfelder, a visual journalist for The New York Times, was at the scene in Minneapolis immediately after an ICE agent killed a 37-year-old woman in her vehicle. He walks us through the photos...

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...

Statement from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testi

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.

It turned out to be the petition from Japanese Americans, led by JACL, to get a B for Buddhist on dog tags (instead of being classified as Protestants). Which became a significant part of the story of pluralism, race, and the fight for religious inclusion in the military. Pulling every box mattered.

I generally had a good experience at Archives II, but the paltry finding aid for RG247 (Army chaplain corps) listed a box without a decimal classification (War Dept filing system). I requested it. No one knew where it was. It required a tour through the back to find (I got a glimpse of the shelves!)

I’m now realizing I mistyped my own term, which was “the military-spiritual complex,” a riff on both Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” and Herzog’s “spiritual-industrial complex.” Thanks for the reminder — Herzog’s book is great.

Pay attention to this thread. Ronit has a great book that talks about the history of chaplain corps!

Enlisting Faith — Harvard University Press A century ago, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the military chaplaincy included only mainline Protestants and Catholics. Today it counts Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Christian Scientist...

If you're suddenly interested in learning more about the history of the chaplain corps (or have someone in your life who might find this fascinating), I've got a great holiday gift for you (or ask at your local library): www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

He's not wrong that chaplains have a pastoral role. What that encompasses has changed over time, but it's never lacked a counseling dimension. Yet contra Hegsethian assumptions, the language of "spiritual fitness" and "spiritual counseling" did not come from the "woke left" of American religion.

His use of the term "shepherd" is ironic. In WWI, the army changed the chaplain corps insignia b/c, it turns out, asking rabbis to wear crosses is... not great. One suggestion was the shepherd's crook which was rejected for being insufficiently Christian. (Chaplains' insignia vary by their religion)

This is how you get the heroic narrative of the Four Chaplains during WWII. It's also evident in manuals--including, but not limited, to the guidance Hegseth cites from 1956 (an era I characterize as "the spiritual-industrial complex," which invests in religion but not in the way Hegseth thinks).

At the same time, the mandate of the chaplain corps is--and long has been--to serve all, regardless of the chaplain's faith. A chaplain is responsible for meeting soldiers (and officers) where they are, not where the chaplain wants them to be, and serving their spiritual needs, whatever they are.

I have so many takes, it's hard to know where to begin...

E.g., the push for the "faith and belief codes" (2017) he derides starts w/religions seeking recognition during WWII. This includes Buddhists, who had been lumped into the "P=Protestant" category. But, significantly, it was also white evangelicals who felt unseen by the "general Protestant" label.

What's most clear from this speech/order is that Hegseth knows very little about the chaplain corps -- its history, its purpose, and its operations are not what he imagines them to be.

It is really, really hard to get your head around the raw hubris of the majority. They really will be destabilizing the operating structure of the entire U.S. government. Why? Because they believe they have a better idea about how the past century should've been done.

The exasperation dripping through Kagan's dissent is notable, as many are pointing out. So too is the utter exhaustion with, well, everything: "Except to the extent all of us live in election season all the time, the 2026 congressional election is not well underway."

Yet again, the current Supreme Court majority has decided that harm flows only in one direction. Spoil alert: never can "we the people" face "irreparable harm."