Month: January 2026

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Wise Words from Heather Cox Richardson

Dr. Richardson is a prominent historian and professor at Boston College.

I think the whole video is worth watching, even if you are generally aware of what’s going on in this country. Some of the relevant points:

First Minute: HCR puts some of Trump’s outrageousness in historical context, in light of a Republican intellectual triumphalism—“We’re right and, guess what, you’re wrong!” We saw a lot of that beginning with Reagan’s election. I remember it well. 

Third Minute: She doesn’t use the phrase, but others rightly call it “herrenvolk democracy”: any Democratic victory is inherently illegitimate.

Sixth Minute: A concerted effort to destroy rules-based order.

Eighth Minute: He thinks only people like himself should be in power. 

Ninth Minute: He’s no compos mentis. It appears they’re giving him psychiatric drugs. It’s a behind-the-scenes effort to control him.

Eleventh Minute: No, J.D. Vance would not be worse. 

Twelfth Minute: It’s extremely difficult to tell what’s happening in this Administration.

Fourteenth Minute: What appears to have just happened in Venezuela.

End of Seventeenth Minute: A work of genius by the Venezuelan regime and its allies.

As historians know, invasion of your country greatly helps to unify your people. 

Nineteenth Minute: Trump’s oil fantasy.

Twenty-first Minute: Shrinkage from a global power to a regional power. Jettisoning the benefits of the rules-based international order.

Twenty-third Minute: Greenland.

Twenty-fourth Minute: A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of American power.

Twenty-sixth Minute: Russia gets Ukraine, we get Venezuela. Sort of like the eve of World War I, but this time with nuclear weapons.

Twenty-seventh Minute: Oil is the technology of the past. The future lies in semi-conductors. We’re giving Xi permission to take over Taiwan—which makes 60% of the world’s semi-conductors. And Trump doesn’t understand this.

Twenty-eighth Minute: Destruction of the rules-based international order. A demented president, no longer operating in reality. Magical thinking is a hallmark of this moment.

Twenty-ninth Minute: Don’t follow grandpa down this road. Time to speak up. 

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We’re the Cops of the World, Boys

Quick, get out of the way
You’d better watch what you say, boys
Better watch what you say

… We’ve rammed in your harbor and tied to your port
And our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short
So bring your daughters around to the port
‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys

… We’re the Cops of the World
We pick and choose as please, boys
Pick and choose as please
You’d best get down on your knees, boys

… Best get down on your knees
We’re hairy and horny and ready to shack
We don’t care if you’re yellow or black
Just take off your clothes and lie down on your back

… ‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys
We’re the Cops of the World
Our boots are needing a shine, boys
Boots are needing a shine

… But our Coca-cola is fine, boys
Coca-cola is fine
We’ve got to protect all our citizens fair
So we’ll send a battalion for everyone there

… And maybe we’ll leave in a couple of years
‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys
We’re the Cops of the World
Dump the reds in a pile, boys

… Dump the reds in a pile 
You’d better wipe of that smile, boys
Better wipe off that smile
We’ll spit through the streets of the cities we wreck

… We’ll find you a leader that you can’t elect
Those treaties we sighned were a pain in the neck
‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys
We’re the Cops of the World

… Clean the johns with a rag, boys
Clean the johns with a rag
If you like you can use your flag, boys
If you like you can use your flag

… We’ve got too much money we’re looking for toys
And guns will be guns and boys will be boys
But we’ll gladly pay for all we destroy
‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys

… We’re the Cops of the World
Please stay off of the grass, boys
Please stay off of the grass
Here’s a kick in the ass, boys

… Here’s a kick in the ass
We’ll smash down your doors, we don’t bother to knock
We’ve done it before, so why all the shock?
We’re the biggest and toughest kids on the block

… ‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys
We’re the Cops of the World
When we butchered your son, boys
When we butchered your son

… Have a stick of our gum, boys
Have a stick of our buble-gum
We own half the world, oh say can you see
The name for our profits is democracy

… So, like it or not, you will have to be free
‘Cause we’re the Cops of the World, boys
We’re the Cops of the World

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Supreme Court Bites Man: Trump v. Illinois. In Response, Man TACOs.

I recently shared some observations about the Supreme Court’s shadow docket (here and here). In brief, the Supreme Court has been catching serious flack for

  • ducking hard questions in its many shadow docket decisions involving the Trump Administration, and, generally,
  • letting the Administration get away with murder pending some final resolution of the legality of Trump’s usurpations—a resolution that, it appears, might come around the Twelfth of Never. 

But in Trump v. Illinois, in a short, unsigned 6-to-3 decision, the Court majority ruled that, pending trial and appeal, Trump had to get the National Guard the hell out of Illinois, because Trump had identified no proper legal authority to send them there in the first place. 

For a few days, people wondered whether Trump and his merry band of legal geniuses would either (i) tell the Supreme Court to go stick it where the sun don’t shine or (ii) claim authority under the Insurrection Act, even though there was and is no insurrection. 

Trump did neither. Instead, he TACOed, surrendering in his legal attempts to keep federal troops in Los Angeles and announcing that he would withdraw the National Guard from Illinois, Los Angeles, and Portland. 

So … what does it all mean?

I don’t know, and I won’t pretend to pretend that I know.

And yes, very assuredly, one swallow does not a summer make. But it cannot be a bad thing that …

… faced with a clear loss in the Supreme Court on one of his several signature issues—sending federal troops into the big cities—Trump has unambiguously backed down,

… Trump has elected, at least on this one occasion, not to put to the test whether “his” troops would or would not obey illegal orders, and that …

… a six-person majority of the Supreme Court bit the bullet, dared Trump to defy them, and came away with a famous victory.

The bet paid off.

May that trend long continue.

And this final word of speculation: as Justice Holmes said so long ago, the Court reads the newspapers. I think Chief Justice Roberts, along with his sidekicks Justices Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh, probably read the newspapers, where they grasped, one, that Trump is circling the drain, and two, that people are getting sick and tired of the Supreme Court’s fecklessness. 

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The 5.2 Million Epstein Files and the 400 Lawyers

In recent days, widespread reports say the Justice Department has discovered more than five million new Epstein files—and that it has pressed 400 lawyers into service redacting the files.

If all of that is so, then there is a document that must exist—and therefore it does exist—namely, a written summary of criteria that the 400 lawyers are required to use when choosing that passages to redact. 

I want to see that set of redaction instructions.

And I will see it. And so will we all. Sooner than you may think.

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You Can Tell a Man who Abuses by the Company He Chooses

Among those who, the records show, often kept company with Jeffrey Epstein were (in alphabetical order) Woody Allen, Prince Andrew, Steve Bannon, Ehud Barak, Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, Michael Jackson, Bill Richardson, Larry Sommers, and Donald Trump. 

Morality aside, these people knew or should have known that close association with Jeffrey Epstein involved a risk of grave reputational and/or legal harm.

The most logical reason that could explain why they would choose to run such a risk is that they were in the grip of a virtually irresistible impulse.