Contrary To Everything

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge.  I was 38 years old.  At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life.  However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved.

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom.  President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment.  This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench.  The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out.  Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy.  I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.

I cannot be confident that I will make a difference.  I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."  Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.

-- Mark L. Wolf, retired senior United States district judge in Massachusetts, "Why I Am Resigning", The Atlantic (9 November 2025)

Shipwrecked

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

-- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), German-born theoretical physicist, in his Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954), p. 26

Stop Making Cents

The U.S. ended production of the penny Wednesday, abandoning the 1-cent coins that were embedded in American culture for more than 230 years but became nearly worthless.

When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy.  Now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers, and each one costs nearly 4 cents to make.

Billions of pennies are still in circulation and will remain legal tender, but new ones will no longer be made.

The last U.S. coin to be discontinued was the half-cent in 1857.

Most penny production ended over the summer, officials said.  During the final pressing, workers at the mint stood quietly on the factory floor as if bidding farewell to an old friend.  When the last coins emerged, the men and women broke into applause and cheered one another.

-- MaryClaire Dale, writing for Associated Press, "US Mint presses final pennies" (12 November 2025)

Brexit Impact Update

This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016.  Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey.  These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time.  We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%.  

These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process.  Comparing these with contemporary forecasts -- providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions -- shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade.

-- Nicholas Bloom, et al, "The Economic Impact of Brexit", National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2025

Immortal Truth

Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn't it?

-- Charles Reade (1814 - 1884), English novelist and dramatist, The Cloister and the Hearth (1861) Ch. V

One Never Notices

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

-- Marie Curie (1867 - 1934), Polish-born scientist, first woman to win the Nobel Prize (for Physics in 1903); first person to win a second Nobel Prize (for Chemistry, 1911), Letter to her brother (1894)

Continual Accretion

Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the president.  It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives.

-- Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, in an exchange with Solicitor General D. John Sauer about Trump invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs (6 November 2025)

Web Crawler Meta

For the last 10 days I've been observing somewhat odd web traffic at trvth.org.  First I noticed that traffic was significantly higher than usual, with a few days of 300 to 500 page views, instead of the usual 70 to 100.  The next couple of days had more than 1000 page views each, and I started to look into it.

The culprit appears to be a bot running on Tencent Cloud Computing, connecting out of Singapore.  I suspect it is consuming trvth.org as training material for an AI.

The connections come every 1 to 2 minutes and last less than 5 seconds.  It started by reading the pages by year and is following every link, though not in any recognizable order, and the queries come from a range of IP addresses, not a single address.

I'm not sure how I should feel about all that.

A Price To Be Paid

All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get.  There is a price to be paid for anything.  Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill of craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, and eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline. 

-- William Barclay (1907 - 1978), Scottish author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister, and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, The Gospel of John (1955) Vol. 2 (1964), p. 77

Refusing To Accept

It is only by refusing to accept the situation that in the end we can change the situation.

-- William Barclay (1907 - 1978), Scottish author, radio and television presenter, Church of Scotland minister, and Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow, The Plain Man's Guide to Ethics (1973) Ch. 7, p. 89

Happy Halloween!

Tonight I had 106 Trick or Treaters come to my house for Halloween.  I started the evening with 102 full-size candy bars, with plenty of backup candy when that ran out.  The house was well decorated by my #5 daughter (pictured).  

Happy Halloween!

Generally Wrong

Majorities are generally wrong, if only in their reasons for being right.

-- George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (1845 - 1933), prolific and popular English historian and literary scholar, as quoted in A Last Vintage (1950) John W. Oliver et al. (eds.) p. 172

Absolute Conviction

All political movements are like this -- we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong.  The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies.  With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority.  There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

-- Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013), British writer, 2007 Nobel laureate in Literature, "A Notorious Life" -- interview with Dwight Garner at salon.com (11 November 1997)

Armed Men

Armed men don’t sit down and talk.

-- Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018), American writer, recipient of the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, The Eye of the Heron (1978) Chapter 8 (p. 107)

Facebook Privacy

Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator has sent you $36.12 USD.

Note from Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation Settlement Administrator:

"Your Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation settlement payment is now available in PayPal.

Thank you."

-- Email from PayPal telling me that I received $36.12 USD from the Facebook privacy class-action initiated in 2018 and settled for $725 million (27 October 2025)

Yi Dan

A hearty congratulations to my Taekwondo student, David, on achieving the rank of Second Degree Black Belt (Yi Dan) this past Saturday, October 18th.  

Although he turned 13 years old just 2 weeks before the test, David is an experienced martial artist with considerable skill.  His fine test performance demonstrated the integrity with which he prepared.  

Last October David became my third student to go from White Belt to Black Belt.  He is the first to continue on to advanced rank.  

Safety Valve

The continuing episodes of protest and dissent in the United States have their basis in the First Amendment to the Constitution, a great safety valve that is lacking in most other nations of the world.  The First Amendment creates a sanctuary around the citizen's beliefs.  His ideas, his conscience, his convictions are his own concern, not the government's.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court with a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 3

The People Are The Sovereigns

Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?  The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents.  We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily.  We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court with a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, dissenting in Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104 (1972)

10 Years And Counting

10 years ago today, at about 10:20 in the morning, I got a call from my doctor to tell me that a biopsy showed I had prostate cancer.  A few minutes later I walked into a meeting at work.  Over the following decade necessary interventions were made, and I'm still here.

I still get my numbers checked a few times a year.  So far I have been treated well by modern medical science.  

-- Don Appleman, 21 October 2025

The Ending Is A Beginning

All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.

-- James Clavell (1924 - 1994), British novelist, screenwriter, World War II hero and POW, Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio (11 November 1986)

Power Belongs

The Power Belongs to the people

In June, millions of everyday Americans from every walk of life peacefully took to the streets and declared with one voice: No Kings.  The world saw the power of the people, and President Trump's attempt at a coronation collapsed under the strength of a movement rising against his abuses of power.

Now, he's doubling down -- sending militarized agents into our communities, silencing voters, and handing billionaires giveaways while families struggle.  This isn't just politics.  It's democracy versus dictatorship.  And together, we're choosing democracy.

All No Kings events adhere to a shared commitment to nonviolent protest and community safety.  Organizers are trained in de-escalation and are working closely with local partners to ensure peaceful and powerful actions nationwide.

-- Text from NoKings.org regarding tomorrow's planned demonstrations against executive overreach by the Trump administration (17 October 2025)

Free And Independent

Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements, which would restrict journalists' ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.  The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.  We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.

-- Joint statement from ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC regarding a new Pentagon policy that limits journalists to information the Defense Department explicitly makes available to them (14 October 2025)

Sharp Nails

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

-- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784), French philosopher, as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 338

Verification

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

-- Thomas Huxley (1825 - 1895), British biologist, On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge (1866)

A Path Forward

I really commend President Trump and his administration, as well as Arab leaders in the region for making the commitment to the 20-point plan and seeing a path forward for what's often called the day after. 

Let's now support this process and bring it together, not just in a nonpartisan way in our own country, but literally internationally as a great global commitment to try to bring peace, security, stability and a better future to the Middle East. 

-- Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Norah O'Donnell of CBS News regarding the Israel-Hamas peace plan brokered by President Trump (10 October 2025)

Compact For Academic Excellence

[T]he Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. 

These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent.  We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission -- work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States.  And of course, MIT abides by the law.

The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution.  And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.

In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence.  In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore , with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.

-- MIT President Sally Kornbluth, replying to the Education Department's proposed "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" (10 October 2025)

Every Act

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

-- John Marshall (1755 - 1835), American statesman and jurist, fourth Chief Justice of the United States, serving from February 4, 1801 until his death, In the Trial of Aaron Burr, August 1807

Try To Learn

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

-- Thomas Huxley (1825 - 1895), British biologist, A favorite comment, inscribed on his memorial at Ealing, quoted in Nature Vol. XLVI (30 October 1902), p. 658

What We Do Not Know

Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.

-- Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694 - 1773), British statesman and man of letters, Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774) entry for 14 December 1756

Untethered To The Facts

In sum, the President is certainly entitled "a great level of deference," in his determination that he "is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3).  But "a great level of deference" is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.  As the Ninth Circuit articulated, courts must "review the President's determination to ensure that it reflects a colorable assessment of the facts and law within a 'range of honest judgment'".  Here, this Court concludes that the President did not have a "colorable basis" to invoke § 12406(3) to federalize the National Guard because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law.  The President's determination was simply untethered to the facts.

-- US District Judge Karin J. Immergut, granting a Temporary Restraining Order against Trump's efforts to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, OR, in State of Oregon, City of Portland v Trump, et al (4 October 2025)

The Alchemists Were Right

Seekers after the glitter of intelligence are misguided in trying to cast it in the base metal of computing.  There is an amusing epilogue to this analogy: in fact, the alchemists were right.  Lead can be converted into gold by a particle accelerator hurling appropriate beams at lead targets.  The AI visionaries may be right in the same way, and they are likely to be wrong in the same way.

-- Terry Winograd (1946 -), American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Group, "Thinking Machines: Can there be? Are we?", in The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines (1991), ed. James J. Sheehan and Morton Sosna, p. 216

Palpable Misunderstanding

Everything above in this section is necessary background to frame the problem this President has with the First Amendment.  Where things run off the rails for him is his fixation with "retribution." "I am your retribution," he thundered famously while on the campaign trail.  Yet government retribution for speech (precisely what has happened here) is directly forbidden by the First Amendment.  The President's  palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans' freedom of speech.  It is at this juncture that the judiciary has robustly rebuffed the President and his administration.

I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.

Is he correct?

-- William G. Young, Judge of the United States, ruling in AAUP et al v Rubio, Noem, and Trump et al that the Trump administration's effort to deport pro-Palestinian academics is a deliberate attack on free speech (30 September 2025)

RIP Jane Goodall

Confrontation can be counter productive.  Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

-- Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall (3 April 1934 - 1 October 2025), English primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist most famous for her study of chimpanzee social and family life in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, interview at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa (26 August 2002)

Expert Discernment

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

-- Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871 - 1964), editor and translator, in the preface to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (1917)

One Of The Best

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

-- Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti (1719 - 1789), Italian literary critic, poet, writer, and translator, during his years in England often known as Joseph Baretti, quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson

More Frequently

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Rambler (1750 - 1752) No. 2 (24 March 1750)

Perversion And Exorbitance

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Rambler (1750–1752) No. 148 (17 August 1751)

We Are Inclined

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Idler (1758 - 1760) No. 80 (27 October 1759)

Highly Unsettling

Suggestions that acetaminophen use in pregnancy causes autism are not only highly concerning to clinicians but also irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients, including those who may need to rely on this beneficial medicine during pregnancy.

Today's announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.  It is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data.

The conditions people use acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and the fetus.

-- Steven J. Fleischman, MD, MBA, FACOG, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), "ACOG Affirms Safety and Benefits of Acetaminophen during Pregnancy" (22 September 2025)

Deliberative Forces Should Prevail

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary.  They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means.  They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty.  They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.  They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject.  But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.  Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form.  Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, at 375-376 (16 May 1927)

Instructions For Living

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

-- Mary Jane Oliver (1935 - 2019), American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Red Bird (2008) "Sometimes", § 4

A Good Arbiter

A good arbiter of how close we are to bad hybrid regime shit is if the political comedy shows start getting pulled for whatever reason

-- Sharon, posting as @sharonk on Bluesky, in a post that anticipates recent shenanigans involving Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel (22 January 2025 @11:36 PM)

No One Dies

No one dies but some one is glad of it.

-- Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802 - 1838), English poet and novelist, Lady Anne Granard (or Keeping up Appearances), Chapter 1, page 1, Opening line

Pythagorean Triple Square Day

Pi Day (March 14) is a day of global mathematical celebration, but it's not the only numerically significant calendar date.  It's far from the rarest, either.  In fact, today marks a special occasion that only occurs once this century.  Not only is each number in today's date (9/16/25) a perfect square -- their consecutive square roots are also an example of a Pythagorean triple.  While an official name has yet to be assigned, "Pythagorean Triple Square Day" encapsulates the moment pretty perfectly.

Here's the specific math to add it all up: 3 multiplied by itself is 9, 4 squared is 16, and 5 squared is 2025 (sic).  On top of that, the sum of the first two square roots (sic) adds up to 25.

September 16, 2025, is the only date that fits the definition this century. 

-- Andrew Paul, "Forget Pi Day. Today is Pythagorean Triple Square Day", Popular Science (16 September 2025)

Servant Of Our Politics

When we vest our personal opinions with the trappings of religion, we make religion the servant of our politics.

-- John Danforth (1936 -), former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. Senator (R-MO), and ordained Episcopal priest, Faith and Politics (2006) p. 213

We Have Our Agency

Now again, to my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage.  It feels like rage is the only option.

But through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path.

Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don't matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.

I think we need more moral clarity right now.  I hear all the time that words are violence -- words are not violence.

Violence is violence, and there is one person responsible for what happened, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable.

And yet, all of us have an opportunity right now to do something different. ...

We can return violence with fire and violence.  We can return hate with hate.  And that's the problem with political violence is it metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side, and at some point, we have to find an off-ramp -- or it's going to get much, much worse.

See, these are choices that we can make.  History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country, but every single one of us gets to choose right now.  If this is a turning point for us, we get to make decisions.  We have our agency.

-- Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) at a press conference with the FBI and local law enforcement officers on the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk (12 September 2025)

You Don't Have To Know More

As of the time I'm writing to you, law enforcement has not yet offered a motive for Charlie Kirk's murder.  It's easy to jump ahead with assumptions that it was about his politics, but it's important to wait until the evidence is assembled before jumping to conclusions.  But you don't have to know more than we already do to know that it is wrong to kill people for their political views.  We can stand for decency.

-- Joyce Vance, "On Political Violence" (10 September 2025)

The Real Threat

I urge this Committee to consider the real threat to Americans' freedom of expression, the one here at home.  I have noted a handful of areas where this administration is putting freedom of expression under direct attack.  Where is the opposition, let alone outrage, given the attack not only on speakers -- journalists, public media, professors, students, whistleblowers, civil servants -- but on every American's right of access to information about the issues important to our democracy and to our public's health?  That, I would respectfully submit, is the real threat to American speech and innovation. 

-- David Kaye, Clinical Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law, and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, in testimony delivered to the House Judiciary Committee in a hearing titled "Europe's Threat to American Speech and Innovation" (3 September 2025) (h/t Peter Picucci)

3 Steps

Be, beget, begone.

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, Jim Dandy : Fat Man in a Famine (1947)

Now What?

Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.  Now what?

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, Statement to the Associated Press, five days before his death (13 May 1981)