Tomorrow, two of Donald Trump’s loyal underlings, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will get on an airplane owned by the U.S. government and fly to Moscow to meet with an accused war criminal, Vladimir Putin, allegedly to negotiate some sort of deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. What sort of deal will they talk about with Putin? Well, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, “borders matter less than business” when it comes to dealing with Russia and Ukraine. As long as everyone gets rich, very much including their master, Donald Trump, the details, including hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, entire Ukrainian cities including hospitals and churches in rubble, don’t matter. Trump doesn’t care if the color of money is red, so long as the right percentage of blood money ends up in his pocket.

Nor does it matter to Donald Trump how his war is fought against drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Pacific seas. On September 2, at the very beginning of the Navy’s strikes on alleged “drug boats,” Pete “secretary of whatever” Hegseth ordered Seal Team Six to “kill everybody” who survived an airstrike on a boat off the coast of the Caribbean island of Trinidad. A second missile strike was ordered. The two survivors, who had been clinging to the wreckage of their boat, were “blown apart in the water,” according to the Washington Post.

Let me describe to you where Hegseth was when he ordered the deaths of these two men: He was in his office at the Pentagon, nowhere near the alleged “drug boat,” nowhere near whatever was left of it after the first missile hit, nowhere near the blood that flowed into the water when the two men were hit by the second missile. Hegseth’s office is on the third floor of the Pentagon overlooking the Potomac River, with a view of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The office has its own express elevator that goes straight to the basement parking garage, making no stops on other floors.

Outside the office, the third-floor hallway is lined with photographs of previous secretaries of defense and chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff. Shortly after taking office, Hegseth ordered that photos of General Mark Milley and former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper be removed. The same day, he ordered that the security clearances of the two men be revoked. Hegseth understands erasure. He does not understand killing. That is why he has ordered the missile strikes on the so-called “drug boats,” without any evidence that the boats are carrying drugs or manned by drug dealers.

Hegseth’s order, which has been variously quoted as “kill them all” or “kill everybody,” is such an extreme departure from military doctrine and law that two Congressional committees, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, have announced “inquiries” and a “full accounting” of the circumstances of the operation ordered by Hegseth that killed the two survivors of the missile attack on the boat in the Caribbean.

Hegseth does not have much to worry about. Although airstrikes on unidentified and undefended boats from a country we are not at war with may be a war crime, Donald Trump will pardon him if he should ever face charges.

Trump has pardoned war criminals before. In his first term, he pardoned Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who was serving a 19-year sentence in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth. Lorance ordered his unit to kill two unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. Trump also pardoned an Army Special Forces major who was facing a court martial for killing an unarmed Afghan civilian whom he believed was making bombs.

Trump, who is obsessed with the obvious lie that every boat that has been attacked and sunk by U.S. forces is carrying enough fentanyl to kill 25,000 Americans, has announced that he will pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45 year term in federal prison for drug trafficking offenses that included conspiring with foreign drug cartels to move 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to gangs in the United States. Hernández was accused of accepting millions in bribes from drug cartels and was also sentenced to pay an $8 million fine in addition to his prison term. Legal and law enforcement experts say that it is highly unlikely that the boats in the Caribbean and Pacific are carrying fentanyl. The places where they were destroyed by airstrikes are known smuggling routes for cocaine.

Hegseth’s order to kill survivors of one of the airstrikes reflects a desire by the Trump administration not to get involved in arrests and trials of the alleged drug smugglers, in case they turn out to be fishermen or other innocents. There have been several other survivors of the airstrikes. U.S. military forces made arrangements with Mexico and Columbia to rescue the survivors and prosecute them in the countries that picked them up.

Lawlessness has consequences. This country may have endured a repercussion from one of our recent wars when two National Guard soldiers were shot on a street corner in Washington D.C. last week. One of the soldiers died of her wounds. The other is in critical condition in a D.C. hospital. The Afghan national accused of the shooting is a veteran of a so-called “Zero Unit” of the Afghan military that was employed by the CIA to carry out assassinations of Taliban figures. Assassination of a political figure, even during an armed conflict, is considered a war crime by many nations.

That is one of the problems with condoning the commission of war crimes. Other countries are inclined to employ war crimes such as murder and assassination if war crimes are committed against them.

The administration of Donald Trump has been a consequence-free environment since January 20 of this year. One of Trump’s first acts was to pardon the more than 1,000 insurrectionists convicted of crimes on January 6, 2021. Many of those pardoned have gone on to commit new crimes, including armed robbery and domestic violence. Those Trump pardoned are free to buy and possess firearms, even though many of their convictions included a lifetime ban on possessing guns.

It’s all of a piece. Ignoring the law and embracing law breakers creates a permission structure for the commission of new crimes. Does Hegseth even wonder what the consequences will be from shooting boats out of the water that belong to another country? There is a massive black market in armed drones, some of which are capable of attacks on ships. What if Venezuela, or some militia operating on its behalf, uses a drone to attack one of the many U.S. warships now stationed in the Caribbean? Once the drone has exploded when it hits a ship, the evidence of its origin explodes with it.

Not that evidence would matter to Donald Trump or Pete “sign your NDA on this line” Hegseth. Evidence has not mattered to Trump’s Department of Justice in the charges it has attempted to bring against people Trump considers enemies such as James Comey and Leticia James. The evidence of Putin’s war crimes against Ukraine has not mattered in the “peace deal” Trump is attempting to make with him to end his war in Ukraine.

Crime pays. That has always been Trump’s motto. Crimes have victims, and the question this country faces every day is, when will enough of Trump’s victims in this country be mad enough to fight back?

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Most of the shenanigans and just plain idiocy involve this guy, Vinay Prasad, an RFK Jr. acolyte who currently heads up the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. It’s necessary to use the word “currently” in the above sentence, because you just never know what’s going to happen next with him. Earlier this year, Prasad was forced to resign his post after Laura Loomer – you just knew she’d be involved – went after him as a “progressive leftist saboteur” shortly after he placed a hold on a drug to treat muscular dystrophy “for safety reasons.” Prasad is “a Marxist Trojan Horse,” Loomer wrote in one of several posts attacking him.

Prasad stayed out of that job for two weeks, before being welcomed back to the RFK Jr. fold after unnamed “experts” determined that Loomer had been fronting for a drug manufacturer, Serepta Therapeutics, which manufactured the muscular dystrophy drug in question and stood to lose millions in sales because of Prasad’s decision to suspend usage of the drug. Conservative activists who pay attention to the fine-print ins and outs of who is funding who in their sphere of activism went after Loomer with boots on. Ned Ryun, one of the fine-tooth nitpickers on the Right, addressed Loomer directly on X, “The fact of the matter is you got funded by Sarepta Therapeutics to take Vinay out; probably thru a middleman for deniability but still pharma money funding it all.” Antonia Hitchens wrote in the New Yorker about a conversation she had with “a veteran political operative” at Ned’s Club, a members-only “lounge” frequented by Trump administration figures like Karoline Leavitt. Loomer, the right-wing operator, told Hitchens, is a “pay-to-play Tasmanian devil” who creates “total anarchy and a wide blast zone” with her attacks on figures such as Prasad.

It would almost be possible to feel sorry for Prasad until you have a look at his latest moves at the FDA, doubtlessly at the behest of his boss, Kennedy. Yesterday he announced a series of FDA decisions that will seriously affect access to childhood vaccines. Prasad is going to change the way vaccines are approved by requiring pharmaceutical companies to run much larger studies than are required now. The Washington Post reported that Prasad’s announcement will require that “pneumonia vaccine makers must demonstrate that their products reduce pneumonia rather than just generate antibodies to fight infections.”

This is in line with attacks on COVID vaccines that have been made by RFK Jr., that they do not prevent the disease from occurring but only reduce its severity once contracted. Which is like saying that the effectiveness of automobile brakes must be questioned because they don’t prevent crashes, they only serve to make them less likely and not as deadly when they occur.

Prasad has also ordered studies that will question whether multiple vaccines can be given at the same time, the common method for vaccinating children according to schedules that were previously approved by the FDA and pediatric specialists. Older Americans have been encouraged to receive vaccines for COVID, flu, RSV and pneumonia at the same time, cutting down the number of visits the elderly must make to doctor’s offices. That practice will come under scrutiny by the order Prasad issued yesterday.

What all of Prasad’s orders have in common is their connection to the anti-vaccine views long held by his boss, RFK Jr., who has been questioning the efficacy and safety of childhood vaccines for decades, as well as attacking the COVID vaccine as “the most deadly vaccine in history.” Prasad also announced that his office had conducted its own study of COVID vaccines and concluded that they had “contributed” to the deaths of 10 children between the years of 2021 and 2024. During these years, no fewer than one billion COVID shots were administered to Americans, saving millions of lives according to studies that the FDA is now busy questioning. At least 100 million COVID vaccine shots were given to children during that time.

“This is a profound revelation,” Prasad wrote. “For the first time, the US FDA will acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines have killed American children.”

Ten American children. Over three years.

Prasad’s dramatic statement is not accurate, because his study concluded only that the COVID vaccine may have contributed to children’s deaths, not caused them.

Meanwhile, 157 children died from accidental gunshots during 2023, and 114 children died from the same cause in 2024, the most recent years for which statistics are available. The numbers come from analysis of figures from the Centers for Disease Control – another government agency now under the control of RFK Jr. – and Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for gun safety. There are reports of chaos at the CDC, which is operating under an acting director, the previous Senate-approved director having been fired by RFK Jr. after she refused to sign-off on vaccine policy directives he ordered. The announcement yesterday by Prasad is exactly the kind of policy change that former CDC Director Susan Monarez objected to, resulting in her being fired.

Funding for the division of the CDC that keeps records for and studies gun violence has been severely cut back under directives by RFK Jr. But then, who wants to study hundreds of gun deaths of children when ten children have allegedly died from a COVID shot?

RFK Jr. has been wanting to take apart the children’s vaccine schedule ever since he joined the board of Children’s Health Defense in 2015. The anti-vax group alleges that vaccines cause autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autoimmune diseases and even cancer. That the purpose of vaccines is to prevent diseases that for centuries were deadly to children and adults both does not matter to advocates from Children’s Health Defense, the most prominent of whom has been RFK Jr., who is now, as HHS secretary, in charge of vaccine policy.

Here, I would like to make a personal point as the father of three children. Every decision you make as a parent, and I mean every decision, is fraught. The act of strapping an infant or toddler into a car seat and driving a child to a doctor’s appointment is more dangerous than anything a pediatrician can do with or to that child in his or her office. A driver or a child in the backseat of a car is more likely to be seriously injured or die in a car accident than they are to get sick or die from a vaccination given by a pediatrician or a family doctor treating a father or mother of children.

Whether to allow a child to play pee-wee football or train to become a gymnast is another example of a decision parents often make. A boy of 7 or 8 can suffer head trauma playing football as a child. Head trauma is cumulative, meaning that multiple impacts to the head as you play football can contribute to neurodegenerative diseases later in life, even if no individual head impact as a child or young man results in a concussion.

Gymnastics, even with all the safety measures that are taken in training, can cause injuries that can become debilitating. So, what do you do if a son or a daughter wants to become involved in gymnastics? Do you bar your child from football or gymnastics and err on the side of safety on the theory that an injury in childhood could lead to more severe problems in adulthood?

What of the children who die on the football field or while practicing for cheerleading or gymnastics? Because there are ten deaths over a three-year period from children playing football or being a gymnast, do you just decide for your child that he or she cannot play those sports? Who would advocate cancelling the sports of football and gymnastics because ten children died?

We know from figures kept by the National Institutes of Health that as many as 15,000 children died from COVID during the pandemic. If in fact it turns out that a number of children did die from a COVID shot, that is indeed a tragedy. But how many children out of the tens of millions who received a COVID vaccination would have died without it?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a fanatic who has hired other fanatics such as Vinay Prasad to carry out an ideological assault on the healthcare of more than 300 million Americans because Donald Trump empowered them. The fact that Trump is the person who made the decision to develop the vaccine that saved millions from dying due to contracting the deadly COVID virus is an irony that is fast turning into a tragedy.

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Let’s begin with the egregious error that in August, the Capital and West Virginia and Louisiana National Guard were deployed in Washington D.C. in the first place. We’ll move on to the fact that they’re still there in November. The troops have been misused. They were never trained to be used on the streets of a major American metropolitan area. They were not trained to pick up trash on the Mall and “beautify” the District.

They especially were not trained to patrol the streets in groups of as few as two soldiers. In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers were used, albeit in larger groups, in the same way. They were sent onto the streets of Baghdad and Mosul and other cities as “presence patrols,” which military commanders thought were valuable to show the “presence” of U.S. forces. The troops called them “target patrols.” As one soldier in Mosul put it to me one afternoon as I accompanied a squad on patrol, “You know, sir: we’re the target.”

The fact that the National Guard soldiers who were shot were themselves armed turned out to be meaningless. The shooter, an Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, allegedly used a handgun. He ambushed the victims on a street corner a few blocks from the White House, an otherwise very safe neighborhood in Washington, shooting each of them repeatedly. One soldier, Army Specialist 4^th Class Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, died later of her wounds yesterday in the hospital. The other victim, Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, is in critical condition, described as clinging to life.

The question is, why would an Afghan immigrant who worked with U.S. forces as part of an Afghanistan army “Zero Unit,” drive all the way across the country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, to shoot two National Guard soldiers a few blocks from the White House? Administration authorities are describing the shootings as “targeted,” meaning that it was not random, that it was his intention to kill National Guard soldiers on a patrol close to the White House. His intention seemed to be to make a statement with the shooting, but what statement?

Much is being made of the fact that Lakanwal had been “vetted” before he and his family were given passage out of Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. One story in the New York Times today said the vetting continued after refugees reached bases in Gulf states like Qatar, where they were held on American bases before being flown to the United States. Even to be chosen for such refugee status, an Afghan citizen who worked with U.S. forces had to have a sponsor who vouched for him. Lakanwal’s sponsor, according to reports, would have come from the CIA, with which his Zero Unit worked in the province of Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Most coverage of the shooting has not mentioned the fact that at least some of the people who worked with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq took the positions to spy for insurgent forces they were secretly loyal to. I encountered two translators for American officers in Iraq who I thought were probably reporting to insurgents about the movements and intentions of U.S. units. I caught one of the translators behind a shed at a company-level base camp talking on a Motorola two-way “Walkabout” radio with someone off the base. When I asked him where he got the two radios that would have been necessary for such a conversation to take place, he said he had ordered and paid for them online and had them shipped to the American basecamp by FedEx.

It is of course unknown where Lakanwal’s loyalties lay then or now, but it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for Americans working with him in Afghanistan to track his movements and contacts with Afghans who appeared to be civilians but were actually military members of the Taliban. It is unlikely that he would have concealed his true loyalties all this time – four years since he was flown out of Afghanistan – for the express purpose of killing American military members years later in Washington D.C. There was no way for him to know that Trump would deploy the National Guard to Washington, although if that was indeed his purpose, he could have picked different targets elsewhere.

The question of his motivation may never be known, even if he survives his wounds and is indicted and tried for murder, as Attorney General Pam Bondi has said he will be. But the reason behind his actions may be close to what many American veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq have experienced: PTSD. Some of our veterans have committed crimes that have been attributed to PTSD, and there is evidence that many veterans’ suicides were caused by depression that resulted from the traumatic stress of having served in combat.

We don’t often think of the veterans of enemy armies, or the veterans of our allies, as suffering from the same terrible problem that our veterans endure after returning from war, but human beings everywhere are likely to suffer in the same way our veterans have. If this country is to accept foreign veterans who have served alongside our forces, then we are going to be vulnerable to their psychological and physical problems as well. I can see in my mind’s eye Donald Trump turning this fact into an excuse not to repay the service of foreign soldiers who transferred their loyalties to our side in a war. He has already announced that he will refuse to accept refugees from some 19 “third world” countries. I suppose he thinks that the moat of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will protect us from the problems human beings contain just as we have been protected for more than 200 years from wars that have consumed continents far from our shores.

This is folly, of course, but what are we to expect from a fool?

The fact is that wars do not leave their tragedies on the battlefield. Human devastation comes home with warriors in their kit bags, in their minds, and in their broken bodies. Trump thinks that his fallacious “America first” policy will protect us from problems of the world beyond our shores. He thinks if we do not start wars, that we will be left alone to enjoy the fruits of Americanism, which he of course defines as Trumpism.

But wars have found us on airplanes flown into towers in New York City and the Pentagon, and wars come through customs in the persons of people who have served in them, and in the people who have suffered the devastation of wars, such as Ukrainians who have sought shelter as refugees from Russian military aggression and murder. The invention of commercial flight has been a boon to our economy, to the pleasures of our tourism in foreign lands, in trade made possible by transport aircraft, in bringing families together who would otherwise be separated by distances difficult or impossible to travel without flying.

We are open to the world whether Donald Trump likes it or not, and part of this freedom comes at a price paid by two National Guard soldiers this week in Washington D.C. They are as much casualties of our 20-year war in Afghanistan as were soldiers who shed their blood on Afghan battlefields. Bullets don’t care who they kill or where. Sadness from loss abounds when war is made and even when it ends. It is equally sad that this fact is not remembered by leaders who inflict war on soldiers and civilian victims, even upon soldiers assigned to walk patrols in a city where they are not needed or wanted.

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Donald Trump’s premature declaration of the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington an “act of terror” and issuing an immediate halt of all Afghani immigration is racist, partisan and petulant.

More to the point, Trump’s instant show of power even before any investigation of the motives of the identified 29-year-old Afghani immigrant as the shooter is unlikely to protect any Guardsman or Washington resident. Trump again is using untargeted blame as a weapon.

Shock, even anger, over what appeared to be an ambush shooting is expectable, but the shooter’s immediate capture means that he already will be facing serious charges. It means that  local and state authorities will be seeking what prompted someone brought into this country as a wartime ally and granted asylum to this crime.

But Trump jumped quickly, declaring the shooting a terrorist act, ordering a review of all Afghani individuals admitted to the U.S., halting all Afghani immigration, and surging another 500 Guardsmen to Washington as some statement of, we-won’t-back-down muscularity. Along the way, he tagged the admission of the shooter after the chaotic exodus from Afghanistan on Joe Biden without noting that it was the Trump administration itself that granted Rahmanullah Lakanwal asylum status in April.

Deciding that because the shooter, now described by the same Homeland Security that granted asylum as “a criminal alien from Afghanistan,” that all Afghans are suspect is openly racist.

Each Trump action here seems ineffective and racially punitive. Had Trump announced a halt on immigration of all men or all 29-year-olds or anyone living in Bellingham, Wash., the suspect’s reported home, the conclusion would be that Trump was nuts.

How about focusing the immigration focus on people with guns? How about looking at why 2,375 National Guardsmen remain in Washington with so little crime duty that they are raking leaves on the Mall? What exactly is sending an additional 500 Guardsmen on a holiday weekend going to do to provide protection for those already patrolling tourist areas while carrying guns?

Blaming Afghans

The suspect came into the country in August 2021, as part of the rescue effort following the Taliban’s retaking of power in Afghanistan. Amid the chaos of withdrawal, the Biden administration organized the hurried departure of 100,000 Afghan nationals who had been helpful to U.S. military efforts, called Operation Allies Welcome.

In blaming Biden, Trump neatly forgets that it was he who had set a withdrawal deadline with the Taliban, forcing Biden’s hand. Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden for the chaotic end and the death of 13 Americans in the exodus.

At the time, the same voices now behind a halt to immigration were saying we should have brought more allies out. Those airlifted away were in the United States on two-year grants of parole, not permanent status. Like special visa programs, the asylum program afforded to this man requires additional background checks.

Lakanwal had worked with U.S. units and the CIA in Kandahar, according to John Ratcliffe, CIA director.

Trump’s recent curbs on immigration will leave many in limbo, stranded in third countries or forced into hiding in Afghanistan. Taliban officials have said they are ready to discuss repatriation of Afghan nationals with the United States and other countries.

Trump vowed to redouble deportation efforts and called for new scrutiny of Afghanis brought to the U.S. in 2021. “We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan,” he said.

Whatever the case, blaming an entire class of Afghanis, including those who helped keep U.S. troops alive, for the still-alleged acts of a single immigrant is irrational. For that matter, concluding that one ambush shooting by one guy means Washington generally is unsafe is an unwarranted leap in logic.

Determining a motive – this suspect is said to be uncooperative with authorities – before blaming his ethnicity would seem the only reasonable action for a leader. Trump just showed us again the limits of his leadership.

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The post Irrational Jump to Blame Afghans appeared first on DCReport.org.

Thanksgiving is a day for a traditional menu, and part of my holiday is to reprint this annual column on the origins of the day.

The first presidential proclamation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday was issued by George Washington on October 3, 1789. But it was a one-time event. Individual states (especially those in New England) continued to issue Thanksgiving proclamations on various days in the decades to come. But it wasn’t until 1863 when a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale, after 15 years of letter-writing, prompted Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to designate the last Thursday in November as a national holiday–a pattern which then continued into the future.

An original and thus hard-to-read version of George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation can be viewed through the Library of Congress website. The economist in me was intrigued to notice that some of the causes for giving of thanks included “the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge … the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

Also, the original Thankgiving proclamation was not without some controversy and dissent in the House of Representatives, as an example of unwanted and inappropriate federal government interventionism. As reported by the Papers of George Washington website at the University of Virginia.

The House was not unanimous in its determination to give thanks. Aedanus Burke of South Carolina objected that he “did not like this mimicking of European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings.” Thomas Tudor Tucker “thought the House had no business to interfere in a matter which did not concern them. Why should the President direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind to do? They may not be inclined to return thanks for a Constitution until they have experienced that it promotes their safety and happiness. We do not yet know but they may have reason to be dissatisfied with the effects it has already produced; but whether this be so or not, it is a business with which Congress have nothing to do; it is a religious matter, and, as such, is proscribed to us. If a day of thanksgiving must take place, let it be done by the authority of the several States.”

Here’s the transcript of George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation from the National Archives.

Thanksgiving Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Sarah Josepha Hale was editor of a magazine first called Ladies’ Magazine and later called Ladies’ Book from 1828 to 1877. It was among the most widely-known and influential magazines for women of its time. Hale wrote to Abraham Lincoln on September 28, 1863, suggesting that he set a national date for a Thankgiving holiday. From the Library of Congress, here’s a PDF file of the Hale’s actual letter to Lincoln, along with a typed transcript for 21st-century eyes. Here are a few sentences from Hale’s letter to Lincoln:

“You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution. … For the last fifteen years I have set forth this idea in the “Lady’s Book”, and placed the papers before the Governors of all the States and Territories — also I have sent these to our Ministers abroad, and our Missionaries to the heathen — and commanders in the Navy. From the recipients I have received, uniformly the most kind approval. … But I find there are obstacles not possible to be overcome without legislative aid — that each State should, by statute, make it obligatory on the Governor to appoint the last Thursday of November, annually, as Thanksgiving Day; — or, as this way would require years to be realized, it has ocurred to me that a proclamation from the President of the United States would be the best, surest and most fitting method of National appointment. I have written to my friend, Hon. Wm. H. Seward, and requested him to confer with President Lincoln on this subject …”

William Seward was Lincoln’s Secretary of State. In a remarkable example of rapid government decision-making, Lincoln responded to Hale’s September 28 letter by issuing a proclamation on October 3. It seems likely that Seward actually wrote the proclamation, and then Lincoln signed off. Here’s the text of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation, which characteristically mixed themes of thankfulness, mercy, and penitence:

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

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Columbia University Severs Ties with Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

From natural disasters to mass shootings and riots, journalists are often first on the scene documenting the world’s tragedies. However, few in journalism take the time to step back and recognize how traumatic events can affect reporters, photographers, and others in the field as they convey what they have seen.

A traditional toxic mindset will not allow journalists to seek support. They think…that their colleagues will think less of them, or that their editor will take them off hard stories…because they’re not tough enough. That fear prevents people from seeking help.

Leona O’Neill, professor, Ulster University

This summer, Columbia University cancelled its partnership with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma after 16 years, raising questions about the future of journalistic training for covering and coping with violence and tragedy. The move highlighted a pivotal moment for journalists facing rising mental health risks amid recurring exposure to traumatizing events.

The Dart Center, reorganized as the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, an independent non-profit. It raised enough money to continue, though not at Columbia.  

Bruce Shapiro, director of the Dart Center at Columbia since 2009, explained that he now continues the same work as the executive director of the Global Center, which aims to better adapt to a rapidly changing landscape within the industry. 

“On the one hand, our core programs are continuing in the new global center, and on the other hand, we see this as a moment for innovation, a moment that requires a lot of agility to respond to threats to journalists and to new issues that are coming into the news agenda very quickly,” Shapiro said. 

New Partner

The Global Center will be partnering with the non-profit Committee to Protect Journalists in Manhattan to develop programs that address the escalating threats journalists are facing, while looking for a new home. Prospects include both the City University of New York’s graduate journalism school and New York University’s journalism school.

The need for this support is clear: from beats that include local protests to global crises such as war and famine, contemporary journalists who cover conflicts, mass shootings, and natural disasters are constantly exposed to traumatizing events.

“The whole foundation of domestic journalism has changed,” said Dr. Anthony Feinstein, a psychiatry professor at the University of Toronto. He researches how trauma affects journalists.

“There are now multiple stressors that don’t seem to have much downtime between one stressful story and the next. Because of all of this, you really need to be trauma aware; it has become an increasingly stressful position,” Dr. Feinstein said in a telephone interview.

Beginnings

The Dart Center, founded in 1999, was set up as a resource center and think tank around two issues: what journalists need to know about the psychology and science of trauma to inform their reporting on victims of violence, and to support journalists who are traumatized because of their reporting.

Shapiro explained the new Global Center was formed after it became clear over the summer that the best way to continue its mission was to create a new, independent nonprofit to carry the work forward. “That mission has continued in the new Global Center for Journalism and Trauma. It’s the same core team, the same major projects for the most part.”

Shapiro said he had cobbled together, from several sources, roughly the amount of money the Dart Foundation had been donating.

Matthew Pearson, a journalism professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, who researches trauma-informed reporting, says the emotional toll of journalism no longer falls only on reporters and photographers who cover conflict zones or intense crises. In recent years, he said, it has become clear that no category of journalism is untouched by trauma.

 “In years past, there may have been a time when sports and business and entertainment writers could sort of say, ‘No, I don’t have to get my hands dirty with any story,’” he said. “But as these social issues [like sexual harassment and racism] have complicated every realm of society, they also complicate every realm of reporting.”

Old Problem

Journalists have long faced difficult and traumatic reporting assignments including coverage of wars and the Civil Rights era. But the need to support them is more urgent than ever, Shapiro said.

“Trauma and violence are at the heart of so much of what is at the top of the news agenda today, whether it is conflict in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan; whether it is climate change; whether it is violent authoritarianism… issues like migration and attacks on immigrant communities in the U.S.,” Shapiro said. “All of these issues require journalists, on the one hand, to have special knowledge about the impact of violence on the individuals and families and communities we report, and all of them also require us to look after ourselves.”

Although this era of change has brought increased fear and distress in journalists, in newsrooms, the traditional expectation of “toughing it out” remains strong.

Journalist Leona O’Neill, a professor at Ulster University in Northern Ireland and founder of Media Strong, a mental health symposium for journalists, witnessed the murder of a colleague during a 2019 riot in Derry. O’Neill reflected on her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as what she says was an utter lack of support from her newsroom. “Because of the newsroom bubble, the story is the only thing that matters,” O’Neill said. “Getting the story out. Being the first with the story. There are so many demands.”

O’Neill added that many journalists are afraid to ask for help because of the stigma that they must be able to handle the tough parts of the job.

“A traditional toxic mindset will not allow journalists to seek that support. They think…that their colleagues will think less of them, or that their editor will take them off hard stories…because they’re not tough enough. That fear prevents people from seeking help,” she said.

Stigma

Feinstein connected with these sentiments, saying that the stigma of toughing it out has become highly problematic. Feinstein said there should not be distinct cultural attitudes for psychological and physical injuries. He argued that if a reporter were to break an arm, they would be treated immediately.  However, when the injury is psychological or emotional, many journalists are expected to continue working and push through it, creating what Feinstein said is a harmful double standard.

The lack of care when it comes to trauma and mental health highlights how newsroom cultures continue to prioritize stories over the well-being of the reporters producing the work.

This intense pressure from newsrooms not only belittles the emotional distress journalists often face but also worsens it. Some mental health experts say that this can cause an emotional breaking point.

Emily Sachs, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, explained that, due to fear of missing deadlines or performing inadequately, many journalists seek help only when their ability to work begins to deteriorate.

“Usually, I find that journalists come to therapy very often when the trigger is that the distress is at a level where it is impacting their functioning, and they’re worried they’re not going to be able to do the job,” she said.

Craft and Mission

Sachs added that many passionate journalists who entered the field out of a love for storytelling and a sense of morality experience deep internal conflicts when their organizations fail to protect the values that originally drew them to journalism.

“The people who went into it because they loved the craft and the mission and wanted to do it right, those people suffer with moral distress and get disgusted when their institution is not upholding it and start to realize it’s costing their mental health,” Sachs said.

Her observations show that while emotional distress follows situations that many journalists are exposed to, a lack of institutional support often compounds trauma.

When organizations send reporters and photographers into dangerous or traumatic circumstances without providing adequate resources and support systems, experts argue that it becomes the organization’s responsibility to help their staffers and freelancers.

“It comes down to a duty of care,” said Pearson, the Canadian journalism professor who studies how trauma affects journalists. “I think that news organizations, journalism schools and anybody who is asking somebody else to get on the front lines of difficult stories, whether that be a car crash…or war in another country…[these institutions] ought to have a duty of care for the people they are asking to do that.”

Pearson explained that this responsibility should extend beyond physical safety and should include readily accessible mental health resources.

“Newsroom benefits ought to include mental health support, and the best mental health support that is unlimited…and by unlimited, I mean if an employee needs to seek care weekly, that is not going to be taken out of their personal pocket,” Pearson said.

While Pearson emphasized the responsibility of organizations to implement mental health support, others, like O’Neill, have personally experienced the consequences of inadequate duty of care from these institutions.

Duty of Care

O’Neill highlights why this duty of care is vital. Journalists “are sent into the worst situations possible,” she said. “They have to gather all the information and the gruesome details…then they have to come back and write all that up so the public can consume it.”

This reflects the broader issue that institutions that rely on journalists’ courage fail to protect their well-being.

“It’s very difficult to shake that off and show people journalists are humans and they’re not robots,” said O’Neill.

She believes that change must start by breaking the silence on this crisis and debunking the stigma that surrounds reporters’ mental health. “When you take the stigma out of a conversation, it takes the silence out of the conversation.”

Similarly, Pearson’s work in trauma-informed journalism argues that the future of the press depends on building strong institutional systems of support.

“Trauma-informed journalism is an approach to our work as journalists that brings an understanding of both what trauma is and the impacts it can have on people….and that needs to inform us as we approach a particular type of coverage,” he said.

This perspective explains what awareness and focus are needed to be implemented in the industry to prepare reporters properly.

“It’s really important now for journalism organizations to understand that there is a human cost to covering conflict and violence,” he added. “We need to think about those costs….by creating and talking about ways to report on traumatic incidents in a more thorough way.”

Open Conversations

As a professor, Pearson said that he is always thinking about how we are preparing people to enter the industry.

Feinstein emphasized that the need for open conversation and information needs to begin even before journalists enter the newsroom.

“Education [around trauma in journalism] needs to start at [university level] and in our journalism programs.” As a professor, he also argues that trauma awareness must be embedded not only into newsrooms but also into journalism education.

As the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma replaces the Dart Center at Columbia University, its leaders hope to continue providing vital aid for reporters.

“It’s going to be the work of the Dart Center, and the team is the same core team… and the mission is the same,” said Sachs, program director of the Global Center for Trauma’s Journalist Trauma Support Network. “The program has just been sunset at Columbia and transitioned to an independent non-profit…and therefore it intends to do really the same work [even] outside the limitations of the academic bureaucracy that Columbia is.”

While the work is not yet done, experts such as Feinstein, O’Neill, Pearson, Sachs, and Shapiro are leading the conversation on supporting journalists’ mental health.

“The world needs journalists; they need those lights shone in dark places,” O’Neill said. “Journalists are the bravest people in the world. You know, they’re amazing.”

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The post Trauma Stalks Journalists Covering Disasters and Wars appeared first on DCReport.org.