United We Stand

Let us trust God and our better judgment to set us right hereafter.  United we stand, divided we fall.  Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.  Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.

-- Patrick Henry (1736 - 1799), American attorney, planter, and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s, Last public speech (4 March 1799); as quoted in Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondences and Speeches (1891) by William Wirt Henry, Vol. 2, p. 609-610

Bound By Ideals

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.  We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens.  Every child must be taught these principles.  Every citizen must uphold them.  And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.  Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion, and character.  America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility.  A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness.

-- Former President George W. Bush (6 July 1946 -). First inaugural address (January 2001)

Uncontainable

"The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day." Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 594 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).  But "[i]t does come," "from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority."  Ibid.  By needlessly granting the Government's emergency application to prohibit universal injunctions, the Court has cleared a path for the Executive to choose law-free action at this perilous moment for our Constitution -- right when the Judiciary should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the law's constraints.  I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the Executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the Court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish, and from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends.  Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.

-- Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting in Trump v CASA, in which the majority ruled that federal district courts cannot be allowed to enter nation-wide injunctions (27 June 2025)

USAID

Background
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid worldwide. The aim of this study is to comprehensively evaluate the effect of all USAID funding on adult and child mortality over the past two decades and forecast the future effect of its defunding.

Findings
Higher levels of USAID funding -- primarily directed toward low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly African countries -- were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality. This finding indicates that 91 839 663 all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths). Significant decreases were also observed in mortality from tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and maternal and perinatal conditions. Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.

Interpretation
USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030.

-- Daniella Medeiros Cavalcanti, PhD et al, The Lancet "Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis" (30 June 2025)

Eligible And Qualified

All right.  So what do I tell 663,000 people in 2 years or 3 years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there anymore, guys?

I think people in the White House, the amateurs advising the President, are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise. ...

It is inescapable that this bill, in its current form, will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet room when I was there with Finance, where he said: We can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs. ...

I am telling the President that you have been misinformed.  Your supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.

-- Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), speaking on the Senate floor during debate on the "Big Beautiful Bill", quoted from the Congressional Record, p. S3646 (28 June 2025)

What Everything Else Isn't

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste.  It's what everything else isn't.

-- Theodore Huebner Roethke (1908 - 1963), American poet, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954, Poetry and Craft (1965)

Narrow Escapes

It is happening here.  Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes.  We may be running out of luck, and no one is coming to save us.  For that, we have only ourselves.

-- Bill Moyers (5 June 1934 - 26 June 2025), American journalist and political commentator, We Hold This Truth to Be Self-Evident: It’s Happening Before Our Very Eyes (5 June 2020)

Air Quotes

We used to be called the world's greatest deliberative body.  I think we're still called it, but now I wonder if it's in air quotes.  We will survive as a democracy if we continue to respect the integrity of our institutions, and so that means respecting our own rules and how they operate.

-- Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in an interview with the Washington Post (24 June 2025)

Rewarding Lawlessness

In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution.  In this case, the Government took the opposite approach.  It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there.  Then, in clear violation of a court order, it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical personnel.  An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya.

Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied.  I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion. ...

The Due Process Clause represents “the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.”  By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle.  Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled.  That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable. Respectfully, but regretfully, I dissent.

-- Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting, in Department of Homeland Security, et al. v D.V.D., et al., on application for stay (23 June 2025)

Now More Than Ever

Who will stand up for our democracy?  This question, fraught in even the most peaceful times, has only grown more pressing as our country approaches its 250th anniversary.  Each passing day brings growing assaults on essential liberties like freedom of speech and due process.  Meanwhile, our delicately assembled legal system faces a constant barrage of threats.  Even as this issue reaches publication, the U.S. military has been deployed against peaceful protestors.  We teeter on the brink of collapse into an authoritarian state.  That is why, today, The Onion calls upon our lawmakers to sit back and do absolutely nothing.

Members of Congress -- now, more than ever, our nation desperately needs your cowardice.

Our republic is a birthright, an exceedingly rare treasure passed down from generation to generation of Americans.  It was gained through hard years of bloody resistance and can too easily be lost.  Our Founding Fathers, in their abundant wisdom, understood that all it would take was men and women of little courage sitting in the corridors of power and taking zero action as this precious inheritance was stripped away -- and that is where we have finally arrived. ...

But we have not descended entirely from a nation of fearful men, have we?  Let this be the moment to make amends for any missteps of American bravery and valor.  Congress, we are asking, nay, demanding: This coming Independence Day, don't wave the Stars and Stripes, that enduring symbol of liberty and rebellion.

Instead, wave the white flag of surrender.

Tu Stultus Es,
The Onion Editorial Board

-- Editorial from a hard copy edition of The Onion newspaper that was delivered to all members of Congress, along with a letter "Why I'm Sending Issues of 'The Onion' To Every Member Of Congress" (20 June 2025)

Our Willingness To Discipline

One of the widest gaps in human experience is the gap between what we say we want to be and our willingness to discipline ourselves to get there.

-- Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878 - 1969), American Baptist and Presbyterian minister, Living Under Tension : Sermons on Christianity Today (1941)

Someone Has To Pay

Increases in tariffs, this year, are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.  The effects on inflation could be short-lived, reflecting a one-time shift in the price level.  It’s also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent. ...

Because someone has to pay for the tariffs, and it will be someone in that chain that I mentioned, between the manufacturer, the exporter, the importer, the retailer, ultimately somebody putting it into a good of some kind or just the consumer buying it.

All through that chain, people will be trying not to be the ones who can take up the cost, but ultimately, the cost of the tariff has to be paid.  And some of it will fall on the end consumer.

-- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a press conference after the Federal Reserve declined to lower interest rates, nj.com (18 June 2025)

Retreating

To give meaning to our Constitution's bedrock equal protection guarantee, this Court has long subjected to heightened judicial scrutiny any law that treats people differently based on sex.  If a State seeks to differentiate on that basis, it must show that the sex classification "serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives."  Such review (known as intermediate scrutiny) allows courts to ascertain whether the State has a sound, evidence-based reason to distinguish on the basis of sex or whether it does so in reliance on impermissible stereotypes about the sexes.

Today, the Court considers a Tennessee law that categorically prohibits doctors from prescribing certain medications to adolescents if (and only if) they will help a patient "identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex."  In addition to discriminating against transgender adolescents, who by definition "identify with" an identity "inconsistent" with their sex, that law conditions the availability of medications on a patient's sex.  Male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls.

Tennessee's law expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny.  The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee's categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as " ‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts' " might justify it.  Thus, the majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review.  By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.  In sadness, I dissent.

-- Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting in US v Skrmetti, Attorney General for Tennessee, in which the majority upheld a Tennessee law denying gender-affirming care to minors (18 June 2025)

The Task

The task counts more than the one who does it.

-- Lloyd Alexander (1924 - 2007), widely-influential American author, mostly of fantasy novels for children and adolescents, as well as several adult books, The Chronicles of Prydain (1964-1968) Book I: The Book of Three (1964) Chapter 2

Not A Caucus

Democracy is not a caucus, obtaining a fixed term of office by promises, and then doing what it likes with the people.  We hold that there ought to be a constant relationship between the rulers and the people.  "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," still remains the sovereign definition of democracy.

-- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and statesman, speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947), published in 205 The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc.

To Know How Much

The most ignorant are the most conceited.  To know how much there is that we do not know, is one of the most valuable parts of our attainments; for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of humility and a stimulus to exertion.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Lectures on Education (1855) Lecture 6

Be Ashamed

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Address at Antioch College (1859)

RIP Brian Wilson

All of us have the privilege of making music that helps and heals -- to make music that makes people happier, stronger and kinder.  Don't forget: music is God's voice.

-- Brian Douglas Wilson (20 June 1942 - 11 June 2025), American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys, At the induction ceremony of The Beach Boys into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (January 1988)

Inconvenience

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), Italian political philosopher, historian, musician, poet, and playwright, Discourses on Livy (1517) Book 1, Ch. 6 

Extraordinary Intervention

Today the Court grants "emergency" relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans.  The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now -- before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful.  So it asks this Court to stay a lower court's decision to place temporary and qualified limits on DOGE's data access while litigation challenging DOGE's authority to access the data is pending.  But the Government fails to substantiate its stay request by showing that it or the public will suffer irreparable harm absent this Court's intervention.  In essence, the “urgency” underlying the Government's stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes.

That sentiment has traditionally been insufficient to justify the kind of extraordinary intervention the Government seeks.  But, once again, this Court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them.

-- Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in Social Security Administration v AFSCME, on application for stay, in which the majority, on the emergency docket, granted a stay of a lower court ruling that limited DOGE access to Social Security data as this case makes it way through litigation (6 June 2025)

Foolish People

Foolish people -- when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine.  If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

-- Jerome K. Jerome (1859 - 1927), English author, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Background Circumstances

Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  Under our Title VII precedents, a plaintiff may make out a prima facie case of disparate treatment by showing "that she applied for an available position for which she was qualified, but was rejected under circumstances which give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination." Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248, 253 (1981).

The question in this case is whether, to satisfy that prima facie burden, a plaintiff who is a member of a majority group must also show " 'background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.' " 87 F. 4th 822, 825 (CA6 2023) (per curiam).  We hold that this additional "background circumstances" requirement is not consistent with Title VII's text or our case law construing the statute.  Accordingly, we vacate the judgment below and remand for application of the proper prima facie standard.

-- Justice Jackson, for the unanimous Supreme Court of the United States in Marlean A. Ames, Petitioner v Ohio Department of Youth Services, in which the court ruled that cases of reverse discrimination require no higher standard of proof than other discrimination cases (5 June 2025)

Getting There

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.  When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.  The never-satisfied man is so strange; if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another.  I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.

-- Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855), German mathematician, astronomer and physicist, Letter to Farkas Bolyai (2 September 1808)

Equally Convenient

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

-- Henri Poincaré (1854 - 1912), French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, Science and Hypothesis (1901), Preface, Dover abridged edition (1952), p. xxii

What Do We Get For That?

The total actual 2024 budget to run the country was about 7 trillion dollars.  That means the NASA budget was only 0.004 of the national budget -- less than half a percent.  For every hundred dollars the US government spent, it put 40 cents in the bucket for NASA.

And what do we get for that?  The Universe. 

Missions to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter.  Landers on Mars, telescopes that peer through the depths of the cosmos, a fleet of spacecraft monitoring the Sun, the star to which we owe our existence.  The abject awe and wonder of images of a glorious cosmos.  The first A in NASA is for Aeronautics, too; research that makes air travel better, faster, and safer.  NASA science includes observing and monitoring our own planet as well, making satellites that track our water, atmosphere, and land. NASA scientists study climate change, one of the single biggest existential threats to humanity.

NASA employs about 18,000 people across all 50 states (and that doesn't include contractors, of which I was one for many years, and people such as  academics who have NASA grants).  NASA partners with space agencies around the world, a diversified portfolio that guarantees the best scientific research always pushing past the cutting edge and accelerating our understanding of, well, everything. 

-- Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy Newsletter, "Trump threatens to eviscerate NASA" (2 June 2025)

By This Embrace

Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace.

-- Karl Kraus (1874 - 1936), Austrian journalist, satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright, and poet, Beim Wort genommen (1955); as translated by Harry Zohn

Destroy The Institutions

The way the Trump administration treats many Americans is as a defeated enemy, not as fellow Americans.  Like, when you conquer a society by force, when you defeat another nation at war, you conquer them, you often will destroy the institutions that undergird it, to ensure pacification, to remain in power.  And then maybe you rebuild them in a form you like.  

I think what has been so confusing for so many people, because I think we tend to think everyone acts in good faith, is that the Trump folks are treating, like the EPA and Harvard, not as fellow Americans and American institutions that are trying to act for the good of America, but as a defeated enemy.  

-- David Plotz, host of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast, on the show's 29 May 2025 episode "Why Destroy Harvard?" @25:50

No Limits

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.  If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.  Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), Austrian-born philosopher who spent much of his life in England, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) 6.4311

Better And Smarter

I work quite diligently and wish that I were better and smarter.  And these both are one and the same.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), Austrian-born philosopher who spent much of his life in England, In a letter to Paul Engelmann (1917) as quoted in The Idea of Justice (2010) by Amartya Sen, p. 31

Does Not

Truth does not blush.

-- Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. 155 - c. 240), theologian in the early Christian church, known for his powerful denunciations of many influences he considered heretical, "Against the Valentinians" Adversus Valentinianos, 3.2

Is That Money?

Oh! what a frightful business is this modern society; the race for wealth -- wealth.  I am ashamed to write the word.  Wealth means well-being, weal, the opposite of woe.  And is that money? or can money buy it?

-- James Anthony Froude (1818 - 1894), controversial English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine, The Nemesis of Faith (1849) Letter VII

Very Nearly Allied

To tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited.

-- Catherine II of Russia aka Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796), Empress of Russia for more than three decades, Memoirs of the Empress Catherine II (1859)

Habeas Corpus

Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to -

-- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, at a Senate hearing, responding when asked, "Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?" before being interrupted and corrected, New York Times  (20 May 2025)

Economic Reality

Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs -- and by Mr. Trump's own hand.  Witness the agreement Monday morning to scale back his punitive tariffs on China -- his second major retreat in less than a week.  This is a win for economic reality, and for American prosperity.

One tragedy of Mr. Trump's shoot-America-in-the-foot-first approach is that he's hurt his chances of rallying a united front of countries against Beijing's mercantilism.  By targeting allies with tariffs, Mr. Trump has eroded trust in America's economic and political reliability.

Beijing now also has the benefit of concrete experience to reassure the Communist Party that Washington would struggle to impose economic sanctions in a crisis such as a Chinese blockade or invasion of Taiwan.  

If there's a silver lining to this turmoil, it is that markets have forced Mr. Trump to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new "golden age."  The age didn't last two months, and it was more leaden than golden.  White House aide Peter Navarro, the main architect with Mr. Trump of the Liberation Day fiasco, has been repudiated.

Mr. Trump will not want to admit it, but he started a trade war with Adam Smith and lost.  He's not the first President to learn that lesson.

-- The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal, "The Great Trump Tariff Rollback" (12 May 2025)

Neither Knows Nor Tolerates

But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.  There is no caste here.  Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.  In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.  The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.  The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.  It is, therefore, to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race. ...

The sure guarantee of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional recognition by our governments, National and State, of every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States without regard to race.

-- Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson (18 May 1896), which held that the Fourteenth Amendment allowed "separate but equal" accommodations by race; Plessy was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (17 May 1954), ending racial segregation in public schools [h/t Heather Cox Richardson]

Until He Has Tried

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.  The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), American philosopher, essayist, and poet, Essay "Self-Reliance"

Born Or Naturalized, Redux

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

-- Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by Congress in 1863 and ratified in 1868

[I see I previously ran this in 2018, but I guess we need periodic reminders.]

Well-Anchored

If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment.  The effects on inflation could be short-lived, reflecting a one-time shift in the price level.  It is also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent.  Avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the tariff effects, on how long it takes for them to pass through fully into prices, and ultimately on keeping longer-term inflation expectations well-anchored.

-- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, speaking after the group's most recent meeting at which they held interest rates steady (7 May 2025)

Political Fortunes

Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down.  Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain.  Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.

In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step.  Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government. ...

It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.  I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country.  I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.

I have said before that no change in political fortunes alters our commitment to stand with the world’s most vulnerable people, and I want to reaffirm that promise.  While our public-private partnership as a refugee resettlement agency is no longer viable, we are hard at work on a church-wide plan to support migrants and refugees ...

-- The Most Reverend Sean W. Rowe, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, in an open letter, "Letter from Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe on Episcopal Migration Ministries" (12 May 2025)

RIP David Souter

What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough -- another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown -- some one person will come forward and say, "Give me total power, and I will solve this problem."  That is how the Roman republic fell. ...  That is how democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.

-- David Souter (17 September 1939 - 8 May 2025), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1990 until his retirement in June 2009, With Margaret Warner at "Constitutionally Speaking" in Concord, N.H. (14 September 2012) "David Souter Gets Rock Star Welcome, Offers Constitution Day Warning" PBS NewsHour

Sa Dan

On Saturday April 12th I tested in front of my Taekwondo master instructor, 8th Dan Grandmaster Namsoo Hyong, for the rank of 4th Dan.  Tonight I received my new belt.  

Testing requirements included 20 poomsae (patterns or forms of about 20 movements each), including a creative poomsae of my own design, 40 different kicks, and numerous other combinations, with a few creative combinations of my own.  The testing culminated in sparring against a single opponent, and then sparring against two opponents at once.  

The last time I tested was April 2020, peak pandemic time, 5 years ago.  It took about 18 months to prepare for this test, including about 5 to 10 hours per week since the start of the year.

With this rank I have earned the title 사범 님 Sabeom Nim, meaning one who teaches, and who can perform all of the requirements at a high level.  In our system, you must be 4th Dan to judge Black belt tests, and to award others the rank of Black belt.  Achieving this rank checks off an item on my bucket list.  It will be about 4 years until I am eligible to test for 5th Dan, and from today's perspective, I wonder whether I'll test again.

Glad to have that behind me.

Habemus Papam

Habemus Papam!

-- A Vatican spokesman speaking from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the introduction of newly-elevated Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, of Chicago, the first American-born Pope (8 May 2025)

Check The Excesses

In our Constitution ... the judiciary is a coequal branch of government, separate from the others, with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president.

And that innovation doesn't work if ... the judiciary is not independent.  Its job is to obviously decide cases, but in the course of that, check the excesses of Congress or the executive, and that does require a degree of independence.

-- Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaking at the 125th anniversary celebration of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Buffalo (7 May 2025)

No American President

No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." [WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VI, PART 2, act 4, sc. 2, l. 75.]  When Shakespeare's character, a rebel leader intent on becoming king hears, this suggestion, he promptly incorporates this tactic as part of his plan to assume power, leading in the same scene to the rebel leader demanding "[a]way with him," referring to an educated clerk, who "can make obligations and write court hand."  Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power.  See Walters v. Nat'l Ass'n of Radiation Survivors (1985) (explaining the import of the same Shakespearean statement to be "that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government").

The U.S. Constitution affords critical protections against Executive action like that ordered in EO 14230.  Government officials, including the President, may not "subject[] individuals to 'retaliatory actions' after the fact for having engaged in protected speech."  They may neither "use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression," nor engage in the use of "purely personal and arbitrary power."  In this case, these and other foundational protections were violated by EO 14230.  On that basis, this Court has found that EO 14230 violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.  For the reasons explained, plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment and declaratory and permanent injunctive relief.  The government's motion to dismiss is denied.

-- U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, ruling in Perkins Coie LLP v U.S. Department of Justice et al, vacating President Trump's executive order that punished the law firm for litigating cases Trump doesn't like (2 May 2025)

Have A Hap

Hey, wish me a happy birthday.  So far I have survived 66 years without accidentally dying.  Happy square root day (5/5/25  5*5=25) and Cinco de Mayo as well!

Limitation Of Authority

When an American thinks about the problem of government-building, he directs himself not to the creation of authority and the accumulation of power but rather to the limitation of authority and the division of power.

-- Samuel P. Huntington (1927 - 2008), American political scientist, adviser, and academic, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), p. 7

We Must Die

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

-- Anatole France (1844 - 1924), French poet, journalist, and novelist; 1921 Nobel Laureate in Literature, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881) Pt. II, ch. 4

Real GDP

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2025 (January, February, and March), according to the advance estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the fourth quarter of 2024, real GDP increased 2.4 percent.

-- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross Domestic Product, 1st Quarter 2025 (Advance Estimate), 30 April 2025

The Goal Itself

The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.

-- Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 - 1975), British historian and the nephew of Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (1934–1961)

Good Government

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.

-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), third president of the United States (1801-1809), Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1829) edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, p. 70