The Chosen Vehicle

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

-- Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), American novelist, short story writer, and poet, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852) Bk. IV, ch. 5

Sleek, Simple, Utopian

One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates, and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise.  Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away.  The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme.

-- Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002), American libertarian philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; Utopian Means and Ends, p. 330

Constitutional Harms

For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.

And not just any constitutional violation.  The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives.  In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.  These gerrymanders enabled politicians to entrench themselves in office as against voters' preferences.  They promoted partisanship above respect for the popular will.  They encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction.  If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government.

And checking them is not beyond the courts.  The majority's abdication comes just when courts across the country, including those below, have coalesced around manageable judicial standards to resolve partisan gerrymandering claims.  Those standards satisfy the majority's own benchmarks.  They do not require -- indeed, they do not permit -- courts to rely on their own ideas of electoral fairness, whether proportional representation or any other.  And they limit courts to correcting only egregious gerrymanders, so judges do not become omnipresent players in the political process.  But yes, the standards used here do allow -- as well they should -- judicial intervention in the worst-of-the-worst cases of democratic subversion, causing blatant constitutional harms.  In other words, they allow courts to undo partisan gerrymanders of the kind we face today from North Carolina and Maryland.  In giving such gerrymanders a pass from judicial review, the majority goes tragically wrong.

-- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, dissenting in Rucho v Common Cause (27 June 2019) in which they anticipated the escalating gerrymanders attempted by Texas and threatened by California this year

The Basic Right

In 1957, as the leader of the majority in the United States Senate, speaking in support of legislation to guarantee the right of all men to vote, I said, "This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless.  It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies."

-- President Lyndon B. Johnson, remarks in the Capitol Rotunda at the Signing of the Voting Rights Act (6 August 1965, 60 years ago today), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Volume II, entry 394, pp. 811-815

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)

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)

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.

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)

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

Vast Conspiracy

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

-- John Hoyer Updike (1932 - 2009), American novelist, poet, critic, and short-story writer, "How to Love America and Leave it at the Same Time", Problems and Other Stories (1979)

No Passion Is Stronger

No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes.  Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.

-- Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941), British author, Orlando: A Biography (1928) Chapter 3

Study Carefully

Study carefully, the character of the one you recommend, lest their misconduct bring you shame.

-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, lyric poet, Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC) Book I, epistle xviii, line 76 

It Happened

It's almost like he was trying to say it didn't happen.  And it happened.  I did those things, and they weren't pardonable.  I don't want the pardon.  And I also learned that I can reject the pardon.  And I did reject the pardon because I'm thinking down the road [if] an employer looks in my background, they see misdemeanors --  Misdemeanors with a presidential pardon -- I think that tends to draw more attention.  And I'm sure that's fine in the MAGA world with whoever supports Trump, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering if the job I'm applying to, if they like Trump.

I'm a recovering alcoholic.  And I also had some other mental health problems.  That's a bad mix, it's a vicious cycle.  I got rid of drinking, and now I have no problem.  I'm able to handle my mental health problems, but I still just can't help but think of all the the suicides amongst the Capitol Police officers since the riot.  I can empathize.  I just can't imagine -- it's got to be real hard for anyone working in that department with him coming back into office and now pardoning 1,500 people who assaulted their brothers and sisters on that day.  And I think about them.

-- Jason Riddle, who served time in jail for his participation in the 2021 riot, in an inteview with Rick Ganley on New Hampshire Public Radio, "Keene man arrested for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 rejects Trump's pardon" (24 January 2025)

An Insult

Accepting the pardon would be an insult to the Capitol Police officers, to the rule of law, to our nation.  The J6 criminals are trying to rewrite history by saying that it was not a riot, it wasn't an insurrection.  I don't want to be a part of their trying to rewrite what happened that day.

We are not victims, we were volunteers.  Nobody went up to them with a gun to their head and said, "You're going to go break a window.  You're going to go destroy property.  You're going to push an officer."  They had a choice.

I got my critical thinking back and started doing my own research, which I'm guilty of not doing back then because they gaslight you so much.  It's really weird when you come out of a cult.  It's like you look back and you go, what was I thinking?

-- 71-year-old Boise resident Pamela Hemphill, once nicknamed "the MAGA Granny", who already served her 60-day misdemeanor sentence, on rejecting the pardon offered her by President Trump, Idaho Statesman, "‘Trying to rewrite history’: Boise woman guilty in Capitol riot rejects Trump pardon" (22 January 2025)

Obviously

If you committed violence on [January 6th], obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.

-- Vice president-elect JD Vance on "Fox News Sunday" (12 January 2025)

Farewell Address

Before I begin, let me speak to important news from earlier today.  After eight months of nonstop negotiation by my administration, a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas, the elements of which I laid out in great detail in May of this year.  This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That's why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed, because that's how it should be: working together as Americans.

This will be my final address to you -- the American people -- from the Oval Office, from this desk as president.  And I've been thinking a lot about who we are and, maybe more importantly, who we should be. ...

Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.  We see the consequences all across America.  And we've seen it before, more than a century ago.  But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts.

People should be able to make as much as they can, but play by the same rules, pay their fair share in taxes.  You know, we've proven we don't have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy.  We're doing both.  But powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we've taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interest for power and profit.  We must not be bullied into sacrificing the future, the future of our children and our grandchildren.  We must keep pushing forward and push faster.  There is no time to waste.

Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power.  The free press is crumbling.  Editors are disappearing.  Social media is giving up on fact-checking.  The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.

We must reform the tax code -- not by giving the biggest tax cuts to billionaires, but by making them begin to pay their fair share.  We need to get dark money -- that's that hidden funding behind too many campaigns' contributions -- we need to get it out of our politics.

A fair shot is what makes America, America.  Everyone is entitled to a fair shot -- not a guarantee, but just a fair shot, an even playing field -- going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.  We can never lose that essential truth -- remain who we are.  Now it's your turn to stand guard.  May you all be the keeper of the flame.  May you keep the faith.

I love America.  You love it too.  God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you for this great honor.

-- Excerpts from President Biden's Farewell Address to the Nation (15 January 2025)

The Throughline

As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power.  This included attempts 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 Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. 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 leverage rioters' violence to further delay it.  In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office.  The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit -- knowingly false claims of election fraud -- and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process. 

-- Special Counsel Jack Smith, in his Final Report of the Special Counsel, Volume One: The Election Case, The Results Of The Investigation, pp 2-4 (7 January 2025)

Imposition Of Sentence

Mr. Trump, you appear before this court today to conclude this criminal proceeding by the imposition of sentence.  Although I have taken the unusual step of informing you in advance of my inclinations before imposing sentence, I believe it is important for you as well as those observing these proceedings to understand my reasoning for the sentence I am about to impose.

[N]ever before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances.  Indeed, it can be viewed fairly that this has been a truly extraordinary case.  There was unprecedented media attention, public interest, and heightened security involving various agencies.  And yet, the trial was a bit of a paradox, because once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique or extraordinary than the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same exact time.

To be clear, the protections afforded to the office of the president are not a mitigating factor.  They do not reduce the seriousness of the crime or justify its commission in any way.  The protections are, however, a legal mandate which, pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow.  However, despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is a power to erase a jury verdict.

After careful analysis in obedience to governing mandates and pursuant to the rule of law, this court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge, which the New York State Legislature has determined is a lawful and permissible sentence for the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree.

Therefore, at this time I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts.

-- New York State Judge Juan Merchan, at the sentencing hearing for president-elect Donald Trump (10 January 2025)

Can't Change The Truth

Donald, this is not the Soviet Union.  You can't change the truth and you cannot silence us.  Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened?  Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined, or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you.  Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave?  Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic?  We remember.

And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic -- to protect the America we love from you.

-- Former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) responding to recent attempts by president-elect Donald Trump to downplay the events of January 6th 2021 (3 January 2025)

See The Process Unfold

I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide, competitive process.  Last night I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process.

This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.

I am excited to see the process unfold in the months ahead.

-- Justin Trudeau, announcing he will step down as Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the governing Liberal party after nine years in office, in a speech outside his Rideau Cottage residence in Ottawa