That Result

The majority today loses sight of its proper role.  It is supposed to review the District Court's fact-finding only for clear error.  But under that deferential standard, the District Court's "plausible" (actually, quite careful) fact-finding must survive.  The majority can reach the result it does -- overturning the District Court's finding of racial line-drawing, even if to achieve partisan goals -- only by arrogating to itself that court's rightful function.  We know better, the majority declares today.  I cannot think of a reason why.

And this Court's eagerness to playact a district court here has serious consequence.  The majority calls its "evaluation" of this case "preliminary."  The results, though, will be anything but.  This Court's stay guarantees that Texas's new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year's elections for the House of Representatives.  And this Court's stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race.  And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.

-- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, with whom Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson join, dissenting from the grant of the application for stay in Greg Abbott, et al. v League Of United Latin American Citizens, et al. (4 December 2025)

At Least For A While

I maintain that AI CAN be a very useful tool for someone who is experienced and knows what they are doing.  However, this idea that it can replace people OR drastically reduce the learning curve for inexperienced people seems perilous to me.  Someone who doesn't really know what they are doing yet would not be able to select the best options from the AI, but a lot of the folks in charge don't see it that way.  They think AI is magic and is going to replace all sorts of people.  It probably will, at least for a while. 

-- Susan Tiss via Facebook, 16 August 2024

Next-Token Predictors

Never would have guessed that decision leaders at huge companies would be so incompetent to actually think that stochastic next-token predictors incapable of causal reasoning are a replacement for human capital, who possess a cognition that took hundreds of millions of years to get to this point, and is still unmatched by all modern AI tools. 

-- Lucas Deschamps, Contract Senior Software Engineer from Mexico, in a discussion on LinkedIn, observing that LLMs are not AI, since they have no understanding, and function by sequentially selecting a statistically likely next word to follow each previous word of output (3 December 2025)

Unreliable Information

Some of what these declarants complain about is, while aggravating, insulting, or unpleasant, also Constitutionally protected.  For example, a protestor who happens to lawfully possess a weapon while protesting is exercising both their First and Second Amendment rights. ...  And with respect to Defendants' declarants' descriptions of the ICE Processing Center protests, the version of the facts set forth in these affidavits are impossible to align with the perspectives of state and local law enforcement presented by Plaintiffs.

The Court therefore must make a credibility assessment as to which version of the facts should be believed. ...   [T]his Court ... does note a troubling trend of Defendants' declarants equating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning, and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting, or doing violence.  This indicates to the Court both bias and lack of objectivity.  The lens through which we view the world changes our perception of the events around us.  Law enforcement officers who go into an event expecting "a shitshow" are much more likely to experience one than those who go into the event prepared to de-escalate it.  Ultimately, this Court must conclude that Defendants' declarants' perceptions are not reliable.  

Finally, the Court notes its concern about a third declaration submitted by Defendants, in which the declarant asserted that the FPS "requested federalized National Guard personnel to support protection of the Federal District Court on Friday, October 10, 2025."  This purported fact was incendiary and seized upon by both parties at oral argument.  It was also inaccurate, as the Court noted on the record.  To their credit, Defendants have since submitted a corrected declaration, and the affiant has declared that they did not make the error willfully.  All of the parties have been moving quickly to compile factual records and legal arguments, and mistakes in such a context are inevitable.  That said, Defendants only presented declarations from three affiants with first-hand knowledge of events in Illinois.  And, as described above, all three contain unreliable information.

-- US District Judge April M Perry, in State of Illinois and City of Chicago v Donald Trump, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense et al, granting a TRO barring mobilization of the National Guard or deployment of the U.S. military over the objection of the Governor of Illinois

Procedural Safeguards

The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.  And the effective administration of criminal justice hardly requires disregard of fair procedures imposed by law.

-- Felix Frankfurter (1882 - 1965), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, writing for the court, McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943)

Crime Is Contagious

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.  In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.  Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.  For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.  Crime is contagious.  If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.  To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.  Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856 - 1941), dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

Happy Thanksgiving

For the first time in several years we were able to get the whole family together today for Thanksgiving.  I was joined by all 5 daughters with all 5 sons-in-law, and all 11 grandchildren, plus my 18-year-old granddaughter's boyfriend, and my ex-wife and her boyfriend, for a total of 25 for dinner.  This is the first time I've had to cook more than one turkey at a time.  Much food was consumed, much conversation ensued.  After dinner we decorated the Christmas tree and had pie.  Today I have no trouble remembering to be thankful for what I have.