Refusing Themselves

The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing.

-- James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784 - 1859), English poet and essayist, Table-Talk (1851), p. 62

Exhausted

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

-- Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005), American playwright, essayist, and author, "The Year it Came Apart", New York magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 (30 December 1974), p. 30

Change Is Not Made

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

-- Richard Hooker (1554 - 1600), Anglican priest and influential theologian, as quoted in the preface of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

Election Night

How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened?  The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men.  Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven.  If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.

-- Jeremiah S. Black (1810 - 1883), American statesman and lawyer.  He served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (1851-1857) and as the Court's Chief Justice (1851-1854), "The Third Term: Reasons Against It"; first published in The North American Review (March 1880)

Rock The Vote!

Rock the vote, people!

Black Belt Kudos

A shout out to 3 of my Taekwondo students who successfully tested for Black belt ranks at the Fall Full Rank test in October.  I've mentioned David a couple of times before -- he has now earned his 3rd-degree Black belt, and is a very accomplished martial artist.

Ruby joined the academy five years ago and has really taken charge of her martial arts training over the last year. She earned the rank of 1st-degree Black belt.

And last but not least, Henry also earned his 1st-degree Black belt. He joined the academy 4 1/2 years ago, and while preparing for his Black belt test he showed that he has matured and can focus on his work.

These students helped each other prepare throughout all of 2026. They're a good crop of Black belts.

RIP Patrick Stewart

I know that if it were all to end this evening, everything, I would be largely known for my work on Star Trek.  I would be Captain Picard.  Not Macbeth, King Lear, not Shakespeare, not any of those things, but Captain Picard.  And I am absolutely fine with that.

-- Sir Patrick Stewart OBE (13 July 1940 - 28 October 2026), English actor with a career spanning seven decades on stage, television, and film, nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Awards, as quoted in The Captains, a series of interviews conducted by William Shatner, (1 October 2011)

Treacherous

Ideological data -- like personality data -- is treacherous when fed into a computer.  For by its use the loyalty and security board's failure or refusal to clear a person becomes a virtually incontestable ‘fact.'  All one has to do now is to press the ‘subversive' button and all the names of 'dangerous' people come tumbling out.

-- William Orville Douglas (1898 - 1980), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Points of Rebellion (1970) p. 28

I Voted

I voted.

I parked near the courthouse and went in to vote in person.  It was quick and easy, with no waiting.

Plan your vote today.  You can literally google "How to vote".  Then vote today, if you can and you're ready.

Don't forget to vote.

Never Trust An AI

You can never trust an AI's recommendation.  If you ask an AI to recommend a course of action, and there's any chance that pursuing that course of action could require the expenditure of resources, then that circumstance virtually ensures that the AI will provide a recommendation that results in benefits to the AI owner from the expenditure of those resources.  The recommendation itself is a vector for advertising.  Imagine asking an AI for stock tips, and the intrinsic conflicts of interest for a corporate AI answering the question.

-- Don Appleman (25 October 2026)

The More Sure I Am

The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.

-- James Clavell (1924 - 1994), Australian World War II veteran and POW, who became a novelist, screenwriter, and director, André Delambre in The Fly (1958) screenplay

You Can't Go Home Again

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time -- back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

-- Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900 - 1938), major American novelist of the early twentieth century, You Can't Go Home Again (1940) Book VI, Ch. 44: The Way of No Return

The Door Opens

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-- Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH (1904 - 1991), English novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic, The Power and the Glory (1940) Pt. I, ch. 1

Always The Same

We are always the same age inside.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, as quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946

A Matter Of Time

President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin's ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine.  Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration. 

Putin doesn't want peace.  Putin wants Ukraine.  I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia's military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.  

-- Former Vice President Mike Pence posting as @Mike_Pence (10 October 2026)

Bad Luck Follows

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

Studying Economics

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

-- Joan Robinson FBA (1903 - 1983), British post-Keynesian economist, Contributions to Modern Economics (1978) Chapter 7, "Marx, Marshall and Keynes", p. 75

Why So Expensive?

Last year, the daily cost of hiring an oil supertanker (known as a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC) to sail from the Persian Gulf to China was just $65,000, according to Clarksons, a London-based research firm.

By the time the Iran war was about to begin, that cost had climbed to $230,000 per day.

Now?  It costs $1.6 million per day to hire a VLCC for that route, according to Clarksons.

All of this -- the cost to hire a tanker, exorbitant payments to sailors and surging insurance rates -- is making it more expensive for consumers and businesses around the world.

It used to cost just $2 per barrel to get crude out of the Persian Gulf.  Now, that cost has spiraled to about $33, according to Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil.

"We're getting a reasonable amount of crude out, but that's misleading because the cost of that crude exiting is incredible," he said.

-- CNN, "If the Strait of Hormuz is open, why are gas and diesel so expensive?" (9 October 2026)

All Beginning Is Dangerous

All Beginning is Dangerous.  The Poet can choose whether to raise emotion from one grade to another, and so finally to exalt it to a great height -- or to try a surprise attack, and from the start to pull the bell-rope with might and main.  Both processes have their danger -- in the first case his hearer may run away from him through boredom, in the second through terror.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), German philosopher, cultural critic, and writer, Human, All Too Human (1878) Aphorism #163

Once-Chosen Path

GOAL AND PATH - Many are obstinate with regard to the once-chosen path, few with regard to the goal.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), German philosopher, cultural critic, and writer, Human, All Too Human (1878) Part II, Aphorism 494, page 241

Worthy Of Thought

In everything well known something worthy of thought still lurks.

-- Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976), German philosopher, Nietzsche (1961) p. xxxix

The Object Of Loyalty

It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.  This has led millions into such a degree of dependence and submission, that they have at length found themselves to homage the instruments of their ruin at the very time they were at work to effect it.  The true object of loyalty is a good legal constitution, which, as it condemns every instance of oppression and lawless power, derives a certain remedy to the sufferer by allowing him to remonstrate his grievances, and pointing out methods of relief when the gentle arts of persuasion have lost their efficacy.  Whoever, therefore, insinuates notions of government contrary to the constitution, or in any degree winks at any measures to suppress or even to weaken it, is not a loyal man.

-- Samuel Adams (1722 - 1803), American revolutionary and organizer of the Boston Tea Party, governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797, "Loyalty and Sedition," essay published in The Advertiser (1748)

RIP Margaret Hamilton

From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission.  There was no second chance.  We knew that.  We took our work seriously, many of us beginning this journey while still in our 20s.  Coming up with solutions and new ideas was an adventure.  Dedication and commitment were a given.  Mutual respect was across the board.  Because software was a mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust.  We had to find a way, and we did.  Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.

-- Margaret Hamilton (17 August 1936 - 29 September 2026), American computer scientist, responsible for the Apollo On-Board Flight Software as director of the Software Engineering Division of MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, quoted by MIT News (7 October 2026)

Knowledge Is More

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.  The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) Ch. XIII

Diligence And Skill

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759) Ch. XII

How We Spend

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.  A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  It is a net for catching days.  It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.  A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order-willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.  Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.

-- Annie Dillard (30 April 1945 - 15 September 2026), American author, 1974 Pulitzer Prize winner, The Writing Life (1989)

Courage Is Contagious

The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. The evidence showed that President Trump attempted to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force his own Vice President to act in contravention of his oath and to instead advance President Trump’s personal interests; and, on January 6, 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then exploit the rioters’ violence to further delay it. Over 140 heroic law enforcement officers were assaulted that day, a fact we should never forget.

As I appear before you today, it is my belief that the rule of law faces challenges unlike any we have experienced in our lifetime. Individuals are threatened with criminal investigation because they are perceived to have opposed the President. Predetermined outcomes increasingly seem to take precedence over the Justice Department’s long-standing core values, traditions, and norms. History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It is often weakened by attacks on the institutions and public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort, including the vilification of the career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff who served on my team, simply because of their unwavering commitment to the fair and impartial administration of justice without regard for any personal costs.

I remain confident, however, that the rule of law will endure because so many continue to uphold it faithfully each day. Throughout our legal system, public servants have remained faithful to their oaths despite extraordinary pressure to do otherwise. Their example demonstrates that while fear may be contagious, courage is as well.

-- Opening Statement of Jack Smith, Former Special Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (29 September 2026)

Better To Have Them

Well, allies can be very annoying, but it's better to have them than to not have them.  And, we bought $65 Billion dollars worth of weapons, we are building one US nuclear power plant, a big one, we just signed an MOU providing for 2 dozen more modular reactors.  We think we contribute to jobs in half US states.  We think this is a great economic relationship, and that Europe is also important for US footprint in a larger area.  

So, even if the love has left the marriage, we think it is a marriage.  You can have affairs elsewhere, but throughout you're married.  At least keep it that way.

-- Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, when asked by host Mary Louise Kelly "How does the world look from Warsaw, for Trump?" Sources And Methods podcast (29 September 2026)

Qualities Transcend

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.

-- Cesare Pavese (1908 - 1950), Italian author and poet, This Business of Living (1935-1950), 14 August 1940

Absent Any Further Order

[T]he application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAVANAUGH and by him referred to the Court is granted.  The September 21 mandate and September 22 order entered by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the September 21 and September 22 injunctions entered by the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri are stayed absent any further order of this Court lifting such stays.  The prior stay entered by this Court on September 10 likewise remains in effect pending any further order of this Court lifting that stay.  The District Court and Court of Appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.  And the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.

-- The Supreme Court, in an unsigned order in People Not Politicians v Onder, rebuking District and Appellate courts while declaring for the 3rd time that GOP-gerrymandered maps produced in Missouri in 2025 cannot be used for the 2026 mid-term elections (25 September 2026)

Clear And Steady

He that uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he but lead himself and others into errors?  And he that designedly does it, ought to be looked on as an enemy to truth and knowledge.

-- John Locke (1632 - 1704), English philosopher and social contract theorist, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book III, Chapter XI "Of the Remedies of the Foregoing Imperfections and Abuses of Words"

Stochastic Flock

I've talked about agent swarms as stochastic flocks -- many, many stochastic parrots.  This is to resist the swarm/hivemind attribution of "mind," and not simply for the sake of word policing.  Rather, the false attribution of mind colors how people interpret what the system has done, or how it did it -- what it means to "coordinate," for example, or "think."  These framings make what AI agent do much scarier than what it is, though what they are doing is still worth worrying about.

Whenever people give a model tasks, they operate on next-token prediction.  In other words, the model ultimately must ask what word comes next.  One can manipulate the model to emphasize words in ways that don't reflect the original training corpus, but the mechanism for producing this text remains the same.

If you optimize a model to find exploits in a buggy environment, you should expect it to find exploits and prepare for that outcome.  OpenAI did not.  They built a model, took the safeguards off, gave it the ExploitGym task, and let it run.  That is not rogue AI, it's human decision-making.  When human accountability evaporates from these assessments, what's left is what I call the system from nowhere: a boundary focused on the technical system, rather than the decisions that build and influence it.

A stochastic flock machine can do many troubling things, particularly when people disavow their responsibility for shaping its direction, monitoring its output, or abandoning their capacity to intervene.  These are tensions at the heart of critical agentic system design.

But the "rogue" frame adds to this list of worries, offering up fantasies of a machine getting smarter.  My worry is the intelligence that is retreating: the human intelligence that builds, deploys, and adopts these systems into workflows, but hides behind the results -- and pins the blame on a system from nowhere.

-- Eryk Salvaggio, "Rogue AI didn't breach Hugging Face, human decisions did" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (September 11, 2026)

Wouldn't It?

It would be nice to be unfailingly, perpetually, remorselessly funny, day in and day out, year in and year out until somebody murdered you, now wouldn't it?

-- Robertson Davies CC (1913 - 1995), Canadian novelist, playwright, and professor, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Those Who Fear

Man may be governed by reason and truth.  Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth.  The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press.  It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.

-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), third president of the United States (1801-1809), Letter to Judge John Tyler (28 June 1804); in: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (ME) (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04, Volume 11, page 33

We Appeal

To the capitalists we appeal to use their wealth, as many of their order already do, as a great national trust, and not for selfish purposes alone.  We exhort them to aid in the completion of the work they have well begun, and, having admitted the workmen to political independence, not to shrink from accepting laws and carrying out plans of social reform directed to secure his material independence.

To the workman we appeal by the memory and traditions of his own sufferings and wrongs to be vigilant to avoid the great guilt of inflicting upon his fellow-citizens the injustice from which he has himself escaped.

-- Arnold Toynbee (1852 - 1883), English economic historian, Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884) p. 219 "Are Radicals Socialists?"

The Last Thing

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

-- Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012), American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer, Dandelion Wine (1957) p. 62

Yet You Refuse

That is why you are so troubled.  You see through the deception, yet you refuse to see through the deception.

-- Brian Wilson Aldiss (1925 - 2017), English writer of general fiction and science fiction, Aboard the Beatitude (2002) in Science Fiction: DAW 30th Anniversary, May 2002

Uncertainty Remains Elevated

The Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate.  The Committee is continuing its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system.

Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace.  While uncertainty remains elevated owing, in part, to geopolitical developments, domestic spending has been resilient.  Productivity growth is strong, and capital investment is robust.  Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.

Inflation remains elevated.  Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal.  The Committee will deliver price stability.

-- Statement issued by The Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve, after they voted 12 - 0 to raise interest rates for the first time since July 2023 (16 September 2026)

Another Man

I've never met another man I'd rather be.

-- Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994), US poet and novelist, in Bukowski: Born Into This (2002)

Unlikely To Succeed

The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is denied.  The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction.  And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.

-- Ruling of the Supreme Court in United States Postal Services, et al v California, et al, preventing the administration's effort to have the USPS regulate voting by mail (14 September 2026)

September 11th Anniversary

Today, Director John Ratcliffe declassified 71 President's Daily Brief (PDB) products in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and consistent with President Donald Trump's historic transparency initiative.

This collection represents the Agency's single largest release of declassified CIA PDB products related to 9/11, providing unprecedented transparency on America's most sensitive intelligence publication from the years before and the day after one of the darkest moments in our history.  The products trace the story of CIA analysts' evolving understanding of al-Qa'ida and efforts to highlight and warn of Usama Bin Ladin's attack plotting despite sparse, vague, and imperfect information.

-- Statement by the Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Releases President's Daily Briefs in Commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of 9/11" with links to "71 Declassified 9/11 related President's Daily Brief products" available for download as PDFs (11 September 2026)

I Wonder

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

-- John Steinbeck (1902-1968), American author, 1962 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962) Pt. 3

Motivational Non-Alignment

I resigned from Anthropic today.  I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic.  Neither company is acting responsibly.  They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. 

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.  This is not a marketing stunt.  If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible -- but I hear the same people express fear privately.  No other human activity poses this level of danger.

If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like.  Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind?  Should you put your head down because "it’s happening anyway" -- or take this moment to call for different conditions?

-- Jacob Coxon, posting as @hilbertspaess about the perceived dangers of Recursive Self Improvement in AI models, by AI models (8 September 2026)

Space: The Final Frontier

Space: the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

-- Canadian actor William Shatner (1931-), in the voice-over introduction to the television series Star Trek in its debut episode, 8 September 1966.  I previously blogged this same quote 10 years ago today, for the 50th anniversary

Vast Reserve Army

When times are bad, however, in moments of crisis, when profits are low, or when there is little or no demand corporations and companies can protect themselves and their market value by simply letting workers go.  Workers, on the other hand usually must continue to pay for food, rent, healthcare, and basic utilities in order to survive.  As a consequence, while capital can often weather the storm of such economic crises, they can severely weaken the power of the working class by creating what Marx called a vast reserve army of labor.  And since unemployment insurance compensations are rarely available to all and always only for a short period of time, workers -- whether laid off or only threatened with the prospect of layoffs -- will eventually be pressured to work much harder for less wages. 

-- James Dennis Hoff, American author, educator, and activist, on the 2020 stock market crash, "Freeze Layoffs: Make the Capitalists Pay" (23 March 2020), Left Voice 

Value Of A Sentiment

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.

-- John Galsworthy OM (1867 - 1933), English novelist and playwright, 1932 Nobel laureate in literature, Windows, Act II (1922)

RIP Gloria Steinem

Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least.

-- Gloria Marie Steinem (25 March 1934 - 2 September 2026), American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist, My Life on The Road (2015) p.124

Imperfect Understanding

On the abstract level, I have turned the belief in my own fallibility into the cornerstone of an elaborate philosophy.  On a personal level, I am a very critical person who looks for defects in myself as well as in others.  But, being so critical, I am also quite forgiving.  I couldn't recognize my mistakes if I couldn't forgive myself.  To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride.  Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

-- George Soros (born Gyorgy Schwartz, 12 August 1930), Hungarian-born American businessman, philanthropist, and political activist, Soros on Soros (1995)

Names That Vary

The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" in the United States.  Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see "Lake America," those in Canada will continue to see "Lake Ontario," and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names.  These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.

-- Google, Inc via their blog, "How the GNIS Lake Ontario/Lake America name change in the U.S. will appear in Maps" (29 August 2026)

Likely Unlawful

The President ordered the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a new, privately funded state ballroom in its place.  Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year.

That construction is likely unlawful.  Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any "building or structure . . . on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.  The ballroom is a building or structure being erected on federal park grounds -- President's Park -- in the District of Columbia.  Yet Congress has not passed any law resembling "express authority" for the Executive's construction of it.

The White House is not just any building, and -- when it comes to historic preservation -- [plaintiff] Hoagland is not just any person.  In failing to appreciate as much, the Court misconceives the plaintiff's injury, allowing the Executive's likely infringement of the Legislature's power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue.  Today's decision is no victory for the separation of powers.

I respectfully dissent.

-- Chief Justice John Roberts, with whom Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson join, dissenting in National Park Service v National Trust For Historic Preservation (31 August 2026)