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rickbrannan.com
Senior Data Architect for BiblioNexus. Translator of Lexham Press' "Apostolic Fathers." Mastermind behind the "Lexham English Septuagint." Now working on Baylor Handbook for Shepherd of Hermas. He/Him. web: https://rickbrannan.com
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1. Today, the Iowa Legislature shamefully stripped transgender people from the State Civil Rights Act. It becomes the first state to ever strip any group from a civil rights act. There were powerful speeches, and huge protets. The latest from Mira Lazine. Subscribe to support our journalism.

Tesla lost enough value today that it could have fully funded USAID for a year.

Open access vol on Hexapla !! www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/book/10....

A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration's firings of thousands of probationary employees, calling the actions illegal.

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts. Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

5 former Secretaries of Defense call on Congress to exercise oversight responsibility on Trump-Hegseth firing of senior military leaders: The "dismissals raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the President’s power."

How could that Trump voter have believed electing him would make IVF free? She must've been into fringey alternative media, maybe saw it from some influencer, professional media outlets would never oh no.

Evergreen reminder

UPDATE: Florida Democrats are demanding to know why Trump loyalist Cory Mills hasn’t been arrested. Rep. Mills has been accused of assaulting a woman in Washington, D.C. A Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson said an arrest warrant was submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in…

Musk alleges the government is rife with incompetence but his DOGE team appears most incompetent of all. They *created a website that was easily hacked *fired, then attempted to rehire hundreds of employees at least 3 times. *posted claims of $16B in savings, but were off by a factor of 1400

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Professor in Latin Palaeography The Faculty of History and @wadhamcollege.bsky.social are seeking an outstanding palaeographer to join the team of medieval historians. Applications are welcome from candidates at all post-doctoral career stages, including at professorial level.

The NIH should be funding research—NOT stuck in political limbo. NIH employees have been blocked from or intimidated into not issuing grants, despite court orders overturning Trump’s funding freeze. Enough is enough—restore NIH funding NOW. #ScienceMatters www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Deadline extended to apply for Introduction to Classical Armenian, a language and paleography course held from July 7 to August 1, 2025, at HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota. All course costs are generously covered by Dumbarton Oaks. New deadline: March 12, 2025 Learn more: hmml.org/programs/int...

My gut says to watch how markets respond to tariff threats and then when the threat is dismissed — and therein you'll find the groups profiting from his crazy and get an idea of whom he wants to help.

President Trump's sweeping cuts to the federal government are also threatening a key banking watchdog.

Because of course it is. This is only the beginning, it will get worse.

As part of her PhD dissertation (which I was stoked to be a part of) Prof. Caitlin Marley did a network & sentiment analysis of Cicero letters. You can access the project here and it’s a great example of how historical letters reveal networks, connections & emotions. bam.lib.uiowa.edu/digitalcicero/

Finally. A major media outlet has finally reported on Trump’s total travel ban for transgender visa applicants seeking the United States. I had to scream for two days to get someone else to report on it. It is NOT just for athletes. www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...

Every news outlet reporting Elon Musk's comment about accidentally canceling Ebola prevention efforts and quickly restoring them should also say they haven't been restored, they're still canceled, the outbreak-fighting teams are dismantled, the money is gone www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Everything that we warned the American public about regarding RFK Jr. is already happening. An excerpt from an OpEd that @jimalwine.bsky.social and I published. We wrote about about what happened in Samoa with the measles outbreak there and said, simply: “The same will happen here”.

Had serious Phil Hartman vibes when I read the Gene Hackman news this morning.

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Associate Professor in Byzantine History The Oxford Faculty of History and Corpus Christi College seek a highly motivated, inspirational person to join their thriving academic community and bring exciting perspectives to the teaching and study of Byzantine History at Oxford.

Jfc this morning’s measles news is terrible.

there really ought to be more discussion about the fact that virtually every promise (or denial) trump made during the campaign was a total lie

Let's hope it isn't an omen.

I am begging @doh.wa.gov and the Dept. of Health from other states to band together and take over this important task. Kennedy will forbid any kind of federal action, but can't states work directly with vaccine manufacturers to produce next year's flu vaccines for their states' residents?

UNREAL: "Department of Veterans Affairs announced today that 1,400 people are getting laid off. This comes after the VA laid off 1,000 people earlier this month... We're already hearing that surgeries are being canceled or postponed at the VA." www.rawstory.com/trump-tammy-...

Secretary of Defense Hegseth says he doesn’t know if Russia invaded Ukraine. This you?

So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID. This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.

The large clinical trial of a new Covid vaccine pill (not shot) was halted by RFK Jr www.aol.com/multimillion... The Covid nasal vaccines may be next up to be axed.

Elon Musk, who has said the beneficiaries of federal spending are a "parasite class," runs businesses that have pocketed $38 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies, loans and contracts www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

Again, folks seem not to grasp how much this is a total collapse of the Constitutional order. A random private citizen is running the "Cabinet" meeting of POTUS & the Principal Officers of the Executive Departments, & going around unplugging large portions of the government. And we're all just 🤷‍♂️

My review of Mark Letteney's (@letteney.bsky.social) book The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity is now up on the Journal of Church History. I couldn't wait to read it when I got it, and thoroughly enjoyed it when I did! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Well done. More of this, please.

Penn his hiring a Digital Scholarship Developer! Come work with me and my amazing colleagues in Research Data and Digital Scholarship (RDDS)!!! wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui...

The Washington Post and LA Times editorial pages have gone full MAGA, MSNBC has purged all of its anti-Trump anchors, and Twitter is owned by a literal Nazi. Here's why liberal media bias is still a problem.

Word of the Day is ‘ingordigiousness’ (18th century): extreme greed at the expense of principles.

BREAKING: NPR obtained a State Dept document revealing the Biden admin planned to allocate only $483,000 in FY 2025 for EV purchases—far less than the $400 million Drop Site revealed was being set aside for Teslas under the Trump admin (until a recent quiet revision to the procurement document).

The blood that Elon Musk and his DOGE-cronies have on their hands because of the PEPFAR Funding Suspension. 200.000+ people not getting their daily HIV medication. 15.000+ deaths and counting.

It really seems like he have to learn some hard lessons again, on war, on economic policy, on taxes, on democracy, and certainly on vaccines and public health. These lessons would not have to be relearned if Americans had even a shred of historical context or understanding.

Tens of millions of Americans rely on Medicaid (and most uninsured people are eligible for it) but even if you don't use Medicaid, cutting its budget means that entire hospitals, clinics, and other medical practices and facilities will shut down. Literally everyone's healthcare access will be worse.

Even the people working at DOGE say it is a lawless nightmare for America. In fact, they know it better than anyone. Thanks to these true public servants who won’t stand for such a dangerous betrayal of the American people.

BREAKING: Acting Social Security administrator Dudek has just abolished SSA’s CREO department and put all employees on leave. That’s SSA’s statutory civil rights and equal opportunity division. Developing story.

JUST IN: A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to resume hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for U.S. Agency for International Development projects.