DL Open Thread: Friday, Feb. 10, 2023

US Navy Seeks To Inflict ‘Spiritual Readiness’ On Sailors.  Because, without spiritual readiness, sailors might realize just how foolhardy some missions are.  Under the new requirement, commanders ‘own’ their charges’ spiritual readiness.  Here is the new policy:

(2) Spiritual Readiness. Spiritual Readiness is the strength of spirit that enables the warfighters to accomplish the mission with honor. Spiritual Readiness speaks to the will to fight and the ability to overcome adversity in the moment of combat or crisis. The skill to fight without the will to fight leaves a hollow force. While the CHC creates, increases and sustains Spiritual Readiness by PNC (reference (b)), commanders own the requirement. The technical definition of Spiritual Readiness is:

(a) Spiritual Readiness is the capacity for mission accomplishment that results from the warfighter’s connection to the transcendent, defined by:

1. A connection to the divine;

2. Participation in a community of faith;

3. Sacrifice for the greater good; or,

4. The pursuit of meaning, purpose, value and service.

(b) Spiritual Readiness is an element of military readiness that is created, increased, and sustained by PNC [Professional Naval Chaplaincy].

(c) Spiritual Readiness is measured in commands by access to a chaplain; Service members’ engagement with the Command Religious Program (CRP); and, the training, equipage, facilities and resources of the religious ministry team (RMT).

(3) Commanders must offer new check-ins the opportunity to complete a religious needs assessment.

BTW, is it just me, or has the NFL already unofficially adopted this policy?  And why is ‘spiritual readiness’ as applied here virtually the exclusive province of Christian Evangelicals?

Speaking Of Evangelicals–They’re fighting to keep Native Americans from adopting Native American children.  Why?:

Christian groups have jumped to the Brackeens’ defense, arguing that ICWA discriminates against Native children by prioritizing potential caretakers’ Native heritage over their overall ability to provide for a child. Yet critics see that arguments as merely the latest chapter in Christians’ long history of removing Native children from their communities to win more converts—a kind of a modern spin on the famous words of Richard H. Pratt, the Christian founder of the first residential school for Native children in the United States. “All the Indian there is in the race should be dead,” he wrote in 1892. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

(Naomi Schaefer) Riley argued that the US government’s history of abuse and exploitation of Native people is no longer relevant. “I don’t really believe in historical trauma,” she said. Instead, she blamed Natives’ poverty and suffering on modern moral failings. “Maybe it’s the substance abuse,” she said. “Maybe it’s the high crime rates. Maybe it has nothing to do with the fact that your grandfather was forced to go to a boarding school by the American government.” She claims that what “left-wing activists” really hope to achieve is “an Indian Child Welfare Act for Black children.”

Pence Subpoenaed. Finally.  What took them so long? Can you think of a more vital witness?  Or at least a more vital witness whose testimony might be truthful?:

Mr. Pence’s team held discussions with the Justice Department about a voluntary interview, according to the person familiar with the matter, but those talks were at an impasse, leading Mr. Smith to seek the subpoena.

Another former Trump administration official, the final national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, has received a subpoena in connection with the handling of the documents found to be in Mr. Trump’s possession, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But Mr. Pence figures most centrally in the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to use the government to remain in power. Mr. Trump seized on Mr. Pence’s ceremonial role in overseeing the congressional certification of the Electoral College results to try to press his vice president into blocking or delaying the outcome on Jan. 6.

Guess Who’s Gonna Rule On That Abortion Pill Case.  This guy:

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a federal judge in Texas appointed by Donald Trump, has a tendency to attract strong language. Every Democratic senator opposed his confirmation in 2019, with Chuck Schumer, the then minority leader, calling him “narrow-minded” and “bigoted”.

“Mr Kacsmaryk has demonstrated a hostility to the LGBTQ [community] bordering on paranoia,” Schumer said.

Only one Republican senator, Susan Collins from Maine, broke party ranks and voted against Kacsmaryk’s appointment for life. She also had harsh words, lamenting that his “extreme statements” on reproductive rights pointed to “an inability to respect precedent and to apply the law fairly and impartially”.

Soon Kacsmaryk, 46, will have the opportunity to prove Collins wrong or – as his many detractors fear – all too right. One of his most consequential decisions since joining the federal bench in the northern district of Texas could be delivered as early as Friday, in a case that has the potential to disrupt the lives and futures of millions of American women.

Because, you know, court shopping:

Taken together, Kacsmaryk has amassed an extraordinary litany of contentious rulings in less than four years. For Stephen Vladeck, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas at Austin, the judge’s rapid emergence as a central figure in legal battles across so many different fault lines in American public life is anything but coincidental.

“That’s by design,” Vladeck told the Guardian. “It’s no coincidence that Judge Kacsmaryk has on his docket a higher concentration of hot-button divisive social policy cases than any other judge in the country – people are seeking him out.”

Vladeck explained that conservative plaintiffs deciding where to lodge high-profile cases have 94 federal district courts to choose from. Yet so often they select Amarillo, Texas.

Here’s what this ruling could do:

Should Trump’s judge side with the plaintiffs, as many reproductive rights experts suspect he will, the abortion pill ban would apply across the country. Unlike Dobbs, the US supreme court’s ruling last June that eviscerated the constitutional right to an abortion and returned legal control over terminations to individual state legislatures, Kacsmaryk’s injunction would render medication abortions unlawful in every state in the union.

The stakes are high: the abortion pill now accounts for more than half of all pregnancy terminations in the US.

If you’re wondering how one RWNJ judge can inflict such havoc on his own, so am I.

Will New DNREC Appointee Make A Difference, Or Will She Be Merely Window-Dressing?  Since we’re talking environmental racism, and since DNREC has almost exclusively sided with polluters against communities, I’m going with window-dressing until proven otherwise:

Last week, DNREC named Katera Moore as the state’s first environmental justice coordinator and Title VI coordinator to advocate for vulnerable communities and facilitate changes. While her new appointment comes less than a year into her duties as ombudsman, Moore said she looks forward to advancing the mission of DNREC while seeking equity and delivering justice to residents whose communities have long been harmed.

Raising the rhetorical question, what exactly is the mission of DNREC?

What do you want to talk about?