Speech Tyrants Would Seek To Suppress

Yes, if I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag.  However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged.  And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government.  I mean, that was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.

Burning the flag is a form of expression.  Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words.  It could be semaphore.  And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea -- "I hate the government," "the government is unjust," whatever.

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (1936 - 2016) in an interview on Piers Morgan Live (18 July 2012), discussing his vote to protect flag burning as speech in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) (via CNN)

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

Carefully Nourished

With carefully nourished resentment, a man can go through his life blaming someone or something else for his failures.  This enables him to be a failure and to feel morally superior to the world at the same time.

-- Theodore Dalrymple, pen name of Anthony Daniels (11 October 1949 -), English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist, "Private Clubs and the Sour Pleasures of Resentment", The Epoch Times (19 August 2021)

All Others

"In God we trust.  All others must use data."

-- Mary Walton, The Deming Management Method (1986) Chapter 20 "Doing It with Data" p. 96

Up Is Down

WASHINGTON -- Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and announced by United States Attorney Matthew M. Graves.  A breakdown of the data is available here

In addition to the overall violent crime reduction, homicides are down 32%; robberies are down 39%; armed carjackings are down 53%; assaults with a dangerous weapon are down 27% when compared with 2023 levels, with the District reporting the fewest assaults with dangerous weapons and burglaries in over 30 years.

-- Department of Justice press release from U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia, "Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low" (3 January 2025) h/t JSA

Some Awareness

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955) Section 151

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

In Related News

Trump just took his attack on reality to a different level, by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Why?  Because he did not like the job numbers her agency produced.

In related news, we just saw the last credible BLS data for the rest of the Trump administration.

-- Don Moynihan, Professor of Public Policy at University of Michigan, "Trump Shoots the Messenger", at Moynihan's Can We Still Govern? Substack (1 August 2025)

We Know It Not

To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth.  Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats -- we know it not.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955) Section 59

To Be Responsible

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.  It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery.  It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades.  It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.

-- Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900 - 1944), French writer, poet and aviator, Terre des Hommes (1939) Ch. II : The Men

A Nation Of Laws

We, the undersigned, proudly defended the rule of law as attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).  We are all alarmed by DOJ leadership's recent deviations from constitutional principles and institutional guardrails.  We also share a grave concern over the senseless attacks on the dedicated career employees who are the backbone of the Department.

Emil Bove has been a leader in this assault.  Despite that, he now stands before you as a nominee for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  We ask that before the Judiciary Committee votes on this nomination, you rigorously examine the actions Mr. Bove has taken at DOJ and the effects they've had on the Department's integrity, employees, and mission-critical work.  It is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land, as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice. ...

Each of you was elected through a democratic process that, for nearly 250 years, has been anchored by the rule of law.  But the law is only as strong as the institutions that interpret and enforce it; foremost among them, the federal judiciary and the Department of Justice.  By elevating those who've degraded one of those institutions to lifetime seats on the other, you will have abrogated your duty to ensure that we remain a nation of laws.

We ask that you vote your conscience only after thoroughly and honestly investigating Mr. Bove's actions at the Justice Department, including by questioning current and former DOJ employees with information relevant to the aforementioned incidents and others.  We also urge you to zealously exercise your oversight powers to protect the Justice Department against further attacks.

-- Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, released Tuesday with signatures of 75 former U.S. Department of Justice employees, now (Wednesday) with more than 900 signatories (15 July 2025)

Check That Lawlessness

This case arises out of the President's unilateral efforts to eliminate a Cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago: the Department of Education.  As Congress mandated, the Department plays a vital role in this Nation's education system, safeguarding equal access to learning and channeling billions of dollars to schools and students across the country each year.   

Only Congress has the power to abolish the Department.  The Executive's task, by contrast, is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." U. S. Const., Art. II, §3.  Yet, by executive fiat, the President ordered the Secretary of Education to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department." Exec. Order No. 14242, 90 Fed. Reg. 13679 (2025). Consistent with that Executive Order, Secretary Linda McMahon gutted the Department's work force, firing over 50 percent of its staff overnight.  In her own words, that mass termination served as "the first step on the road to a total shutdown" of the Department. 

When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary's duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.  Two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing.  Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this Court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the Government to proceed with dismantling the Department.  That decision is indefensible.  It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out.  The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution's separation of powers is grave.  Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent.

-- Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting in Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, v New York, on application for stay, in which the majority allowed the Trump administration to move forward with depopulating the Department of Education (14 July 2025)

Odious

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government.

-- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and statesman, in a telegram (21 November 1942) by Churchill from Cairo, Egypt to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison; cited in In the Highest Degree Odious (1992), Simpson, Clarendon Press, p. 391

Reasons

The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know.  We feel it in a thousand things.

-- Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662), French mathematician, logician, physicist, and theologian, The Pensées (1669) (literally "thoughts") Section IV: On the Means of the Belief (242-290) 277

None Of This Was Charity

Russia, despite a rickety economy and unsustainable manpower losses, is escalating this fight in an attempt to win through diplomacy -- pouring everything into a renewed effort to break the West's resolve because they can't break Ukraine's lines.  And Ukraine continues to hold at great cost.  If we falter now, the United States risks more than just a battlefield setback.  We risk sending a signal to adversaries and allies alike that America no longer has the stomach to stand with those who fight for freedom.  To give up now sends the message that we have no will to commit to our own national interests.

The history of diplomacy has many euphemisms for disengaging from a fight before the enemy: "ending wars," "retrenchment," "refocusing," "a decent interval," and so on.  The military has a simple word for it: surrender.

The past three U.S. administrations understood both the stakes and the complexity of supporting Ukraine.  They helped Ukraine take the difficult steps toward interoperability with NATO while provided critical military equipment and training.  Our policy and our delivery timelines weren't always perfect, but Republicans and Democrats agreed that a free, strong Ukraine in a position to defend itself was an asset to our security.  And Americans supported that approach.

None of this was charity -- it was strategic investment with deliberate attention to what we could provide without compromising our own readiness.  That took rigor, discipline, analysis, and more risk mitigation than almost anyone who doesn't work in the Pentagon will ever realize.  But it paid off.  Ukraine, once reliant on Soviet doctrine and gear, transformed its military structure and operational capability under fire while defending its sovereignty with courage, combat savvy, and increasing skill.

Ukraine is holding on.  Barely, but bravely.  Let's not make them hold on alone or for much longer.

-- Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.), former commander of U.S. Army Europe, "If We Don't Stand With Ukraine, What Do We Stand For?" (7 July 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)

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)

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)