Arguably The Worst

President Trump owes the Supreme Court an apology -- to the individual Justices he smeared on Friday and the institution itself.  Mr. Trump doubtless won't offer one, but his rant in response to his tariff defeat at the Court was arguably the worst moment of his Presidency.

This is the same Court that ruled Mr. Trump's way on presidential immunity, which was more personally consequential for this President.  Mr. Trump shouldn't have been surprised by the Court.  We warned from the start that this would be the result of his unlawful resort to IEEPA.  The fault doesn't lie with the Justices but with his own tariff obsessions.

-- The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal, "Trump Demeans Himself as He Attacks the Supreme Court" (20 February 2026), regarding President Trump's rant in which he "lit into the Justices who voted against him as traitors bought by foreign interest" after the Court voted 6-3 to overturn his signature "emergency" tariff policy

No Difference

If the President can, at his pleasure, send troops into any city, town, or hamlet ... whenever and wherever he pleases, under pretense of enforcing some law -- his judgment, which means his pleasure being the sole criterion -- then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of ... the Czar of Russia.

-- Illinois Governor John Altgeld, in his State of the State address (9 January 1895), as quoted by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, in his State of the State address (18 February 2026) [h/t Heather Cox Richardson]

They Don't Ask Much

They don’t ask much of you.  They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.

-- Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960), Russian poet and writer, famous for his 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago; 1958 Nobel Laureate for Literature, On Soviet bureaucrats, in LIFE magazine (13 June 1960)

RIP Jesse Jackson

America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size.  America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.  The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt.

-- The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born Jesse Louis Burns; 8 October 1941 - 17 February 2026), American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, and politician, Address to the Democratic National Convention (1984)

The Oppressed & Persecuted

On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: "America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions."  More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington's vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.  It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries.  It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually.

Secretary Noem on Twitter (1 December 2025): "I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.  WE DON'T WANT THEM. NOT ONE."

Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders.  They are not, it emerges, "killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies."  They are instead, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer's disease, a software engineer at a national bank, a laboratory assistant, a college economics major, and a full-time registered nurse.

Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system.  Her answer?  Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight.  She complains of strains to our economy.  Her answer?  Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable.  She complains of strains to our healthcare system.  Her answer?  Turn the insured into the uninsured.  This approach is many things -- in the public interest is not one of them.

There is an old adage among lawyers.  If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts.  If you have the law on your side, pound the law.  If you have neither, pound the table.  Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side -- or at least has ignored them.  Does not have the law on her side -- or at least has ignored it.  Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).

Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants.  Secretary Noem, however, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program.  The record to-date shows she has yet to do that.

By accompanying Order, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs' Renewed Motion for a Stay.

-- US District Judge Ana C. Reyes ruling for the Plaintiffs in Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, et al v Donald J Trump et al (2 February 2026)

The Most Divine

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.

-- John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), English author, poet, and painter, The Stones of Venice (1853) Volume II, chapter V, section 30

The Only Currency

Time is the only currency you spend without knowing the balance.  Use it wisely.

-- Nicholas John

No One Wished

No one wished events would prove libertarians wrong more than libertarians themselves.

-- Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason, writing in the New York Times, "Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump" (9 February 2026)

Move Against Vaccines

US regulators will not review Moderna's request to license a new, potentially more effective flu shot -- even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously gave the green light to the project -- in a decision that could have implications for all new and updated vaccines in the US.

It's the latest move by the Trump administration against vaccines.  Officials in January decided to stop fully recommending one-third of routine childhood vaccines, including flu vaccines.

"This is likely to discourage industry from investing in future influenza vaccines, and makes working with the US FDA uncertain and problematic," said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco.  "They are refusing to review a new vaccine with a more flexible technology, while creating a real risk we will not have traditional vaccines for next year."

-- Melody Schreiber, "FDA declines to review Moderna application for new flu vaccine" in The Guardian (10 February 2026)

RIP World Factbook

One of CIA's oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset.  The World Factbook served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe.  Let's take a quick look into the history of The World Factbook.  

Over many decades, The World Factbook evolved from a classified to unclassified, hardcopy to electronic product that added new categories, and even new global entities.  The original classified publication, titled The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, launched in 1962.  The first unclassified companion version was issued in 1971.  A decade later it was renamed The World Factbook.  In 1997, The World Factbook went digital and debuted to a worldwide audience on CIA.gov, where it garnered millions of views each year.

-- Article at cia.gov announcing, but not explaining, the abrupt termination of the CIA World Factbook (4 February 2026); I'll miss it

How Hard It Is

The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant encumbrance. ...  How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!

-- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer, autobiographical dictation, (2 December 1906).  Published in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2 (University of California Press, 2013)

Struck By Lightning

A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.

-- Randall Jarrell (1914 - 1965), American poet, novelist, critic, and essayist, Poetry and the Age (1953) "Reflections on Wallace Stevens", p. 134; conclusion

Here Are The Maps

We read our mail and counted up our missions  -- 
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school  -- 
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."
They said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.

-- Randall Jarrell (1914 - 1965), American poet, novelist, critic, and essayist, Losses (1948) "Losses," lines 21-28

It Is Not Our Wanting

Reality is what we want it to be or what we do not want it to be, but it is not our wanting or our not wanting that makes it so.

-- Randall Jarrell (1914 - 1965), American poet, novelist, critic, and essayist, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962) "Malraux and the Statues at Bamberg", p. 191

Pesky Fourth Amendment

And then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and persons or things to be seized. 

Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster.  That is called the fox guarding the henhouse.  The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.

Accordingly, the Court finds that the Constitution of these United States trumps this administration's detention of petitioner Adrian Conejo Arias and his minor son, L.C.R.  The Great Writ and release from detention are GRANTED pursuant to the attached Judgment.

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency.  And the rule of law be damned.

Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation.  But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.

Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: "Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?" "A republic, if you can keep it."

With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike,

It is so ORDERED.

Matthew 19:14

John 11:35

-- Fred Biery, United States District Judge, ordering the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from immigration detention in Dilley, Texas (31 January 2026)