Walter Olson
Writer on law etc.; Cato Institute. Election law, Maryland civic stuff, cooking. Blogged at Overlawyered back when. No kings, no tyrants.
- My own @cato.org has filed an amicus brief in support of a Florida small business's lawsuit to block Trump's tariffs as overstepping both his legal authority and the Constitution. The brief offers historical context on Congress’s constitutional role in tariff policy and on IEEPA’s purpose.
- Wholly Schmitt: In its claims that a president might unilaterally strip some U.S.-born persons of citizenship, or that he has authority both "inherent" and boundless to expel whom he pleases without congressional say-so, the White House is operating "straight from Schmitt’s playbook."
- Carl Schmitt supplied the framework that Donald Trump has relied on in his efforts to become Supreme Leader of the United States. Pure fuego from @andycraig.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net
- I voted in my town election.
- Former AG Ed Meese, Rep. Jim Jordan and other amici offer an implausibly narrow reading of the 1898 case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the Supreme Court upheld the citizenship of a man born and raised in San Francisco to and by noncitizen parents. [Jacob Sullum, @reason.com]
- New post from me: a free society should not tolerate routine masking and other attempts to conceal identity by ICE agents raiding worksites, stopping cars and arresting protesters. And it's part of a wider Trump administration strategy of pursuing impunity for rights-violating law enforcers.
- [Not loaded yet]
- I've now adapted into a post at Cato:
- High among the indictments of Harvard University among some of my Trump-voting old acquaintances is that they've taken money from Qatar. I guess they should have taken planes instead.
- Missed this one from a couple of weeks ago. Leaving aside the threat to prosecute bystanders who objected, why should we permit ICE enforcers to wear balaclavas and other masks when arresting people, as reports from around the country show them doing?
- ICE says they will bring charges against the two Immigration Rapid Response Hotline volunteers who demanded that agents show their badges before seizing two men from the Charlottesville courthouse. dailyprogress.com/news/local/c...
- Jugendstil (German art nouveau) house in Munich.
- From my colleague @ilyasomin.bsky.social: "If the writ of habeas corpus is suspended, the consequences would not be limited to supposedly illegal migrants. Legal immigrants and US citizens could be detained without due process, as well." /1
- White House says it may try to suspend writ of habeas corpus to facilitate deportation of migrants. In this post, I explain why that would be both dangerous and unconstitutional: reason.com/volokh/2025/...
