walterolson.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

This is by far vastly emptier than Constitution Ave. would usually be with tourists on a Saturday in June.

submitted 31 minutes ago • 2 comments

Important, from Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, on how the power to hold the federal government accountable in court for unlawful rights violations is now under even worse threat than before from language in the budget bill.

submitted 1 hour ago • 2 comments

An ugly provision in Senate GOP version of the Big Beautiful Bill poses grave threat to fed courts' power to protect constitutional rights. My post highlights critique by Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick (previously a prominent public interest litigator): reason.com/volokh/2025/...

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

Remember, in America only the secret police get to wear masks

submitted 4 hours ago • 56 comments

So many American flags here in Philly

submitted 5 hours ago • 28 comments

Strib lifts paywall for this critical story: www.startribune.com/brooklyn-par...

submitted 5 hours ago • 2 comments

Cherry clafoutis fresh from the oven; this one I made myself, whereas most of the food posts here are from Steve. On the great pit controversy, I baked it with pits still in. #WhatsCooking #BlueskySupperClub

submitted 9 hours ago • 1 comment

my mom just sent me her sign for tomorrow. no notes.

submitted 21 hours ago • 19 comments

Important further info: the email was sent only to ICE HSI, the arm of ICE more traditionally involved in worksite raids. It applies to any agricultural facility, restaurants, and hotels, and bars arresting workers, really. Other businesses, including factories, are presumably still fair game.

submitted 18 hours ago • 62 comments

Tell me about it

submitted 16 hours ago • 10 comments

I know there are many Brazilians on this platform. Rulings like this may mean that no one is willing to offer social media services in Brazil at all. It gets the equation exactly backwards. apnews.com/article/braz...

submitted 1 day ago • 29 comments

LAPD is illegally sharing license plate data with ICE and Border Patrol. Under California law, police agencies are barred from sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state public agencies or federal entities.

submitted 1 day ago • 112 comments

Rockfish with cherries, both local, after a recipe in Anne Volokh, The Art of Russian Cuisine (1983). The juice but not the pulp of the cherries is used and other flavorings include clove, cinnamon, fortified wine and chopped cornichons. #WhatsCooking #BlueskySupperClub

submitted 20 hours ago • 2 comments

ICYMI: Some hoped Sen. Grassley's Senate Judiciary Committee would save us from the awful House budget provision stripping federal courts of power. But the Senate counter-version looks like it was written by lawyers who actually knew what they were doing -- and I don't mean that as praise.

submitted 21 hours ago • 4 comments

"No, L.A. is not under lockdown. No, the protesters aren’t Soros-paid agitators. And no, this isn’t Portland 2020. I’m here in Los Angeles. Here’s what’s actually happening" from Nancy Rommelmann

submitted 21 hours ago • 1 comment

Trump just announced new 50% tariffs on household appliances like dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators. Hope no one out there was in the middle of a remodel, or had a stove recently conk out www.reuters.com/world/us/hom...

submitted 1 day ago • 78 comments

The Illinois secretary of state on Thursday asked for an investigation into a suburban Chicago police department after learning that it violated state law by sharing data from automatic license-plate readers with a Texas sheriff seeking a woman who had an abortion.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

“.. as his second-term immigration crackdown—including stepped-up deportation flights and workplace raids—has drawn protests in several cities ..” @forbes.com @zacheverson.com www.forbes.com/sites/zachev...

submitted 1 day ago • 48 comments

This is insane, but also, what does it even mean to have "costs and damages" for the government being ordered not to do something? In some cases they're being ordered to affirmatively do something, or maybe not do something that would raise revenue I guess. But more often it's simply "stop that."

submitted 1 day ago • 10 comments

New from me at Cato: Senate Judiciary has responded with its own version to the House’s provision meant to gut enforceability of court orders. The aim is still to shield the Trump administration from accountability, but instead of monkeys with sledgehammers we now get a skillfully wielded dagger.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Big news on the House budget bill provision proposing to kneecap courts' power to enforce their orders through contempt: Senate Judiciary has now countered with a version that drops the unconstitutional craziness while still advancing goal of discouraging TROs against Trump. From Sam Bray. /1

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Every elected Republican should be asked if they think the president has the power to send in military in to “liberate” a state or city from its elected government.

submitted 2 days ago • 114 comments

submitted 1 day ago • 123 comments

BREAKING: Judge Breyer orders Trump to "return control of the California National Guard" to CA Gov. Newsom, finding that Trump's order taking control was illegal because it did not follow the required procedure. The order is stayed until noon Friday. More to come at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com

submitted 1 day ago • 22 comments

If all a masked, badgeless, ICE agent needs to do to be untouchable is say the word "ICE", then all a Senator should need to do is say the word "Senator", right? They could be in full head to toe combat gear with an obscured face, right?

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

We don't need answers, Senator Schumer, we already know what happened: forceful abuse of power violating rights by an anti-Constitutional regime, in defense of other abuses. Maybe working with and appeasing them, or doing nothing and hoping they'll go away on their own, isn't the best strategy.

submitted 2 days ago • 14 comments

Senator Padilla’s office sends me this video of his take-down and detention at Sec. Noem’s press conference in L.A.

submitted 2 days ago • 292 comments

Anyone in replies who asks a question is getting arrested immediately

submitted 2 days ago • 20 comments

Two days ago, I joined my former Cato colleague & dear friend @aaronrosspowell.com for a discussion about my new book, events in LA, how we got to this point, and what post-Trump era constitutional/legal reforms must be on the national agenda. Listen here: www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/fear-and-c...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"In an essay published on the website of @cato.org , Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote, 'For the Trump admin, turning masked raids into standard practice fits into a wider effort to dodge accountability for potentially illegal and unconstitutional actions.'” [E.J. Montini]

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

"Trump is using the Guard and the military to enforce his will, not the law....When rioters were on his side, he didn’t call in the Guard. He embraced the criminals, pardoned them, and purged the law enforcement officials who prosecuted them. He’s a despot and a scofflaw." -- @saletan.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Today's bonus "One First" looks at how well the Trump administration has fared with respect to the unprecedented number of emergency applications it has filed at #SCOTUS — including why the Court has (likely) granted so many of them, and what it means for litigants and lower courts going forward:

submitted 2 days ago • 10 comments

FactCheck takes apart a piece of viral sludge that makes various false / exaggerated claims about the House budget bill, as if there weren't enough accurate arguments one could make against this awful bill. I get quoted analyzing one of the more defensible bits, about court contempt powers.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"The conservative legal movement’s fixation on the judiciary led many of its members to ignore (or worse, excuse) the degradation of the other two branches of government and damage to constitutional norms and values." -- @greggnunziata.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

ICE wanted the San Francisco Standard to blur the faces of agents who were taking immigrants into custody. The Standard told them "no." "...we believe that censoring images from this news event would set a harmful precedent for the media’s right to report and the public’s right to know."

submitted 13 days ago • 42 comments

Good article on masking and identity concealment by agents on ICE raids (also quotes me, for which thanks). A few bits: /1

submitted 2 days ago • 15 comments

WSJ: “.. an extraordinary pressure campaign that Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino launched to boost revenue by cajoling advertisers—including Amazon, Unilever, Pinterest and Lego—to spend money on their platform.” @wsj.com www.wsj.com/business/med...

submitted 3 days ago • 65 comments

The “free speech absolutist” demands you run paid ads next to Catturd’s rants or he and Linda will sue and he’ll have his govt friends investigate you. Some of the companies that have chosen to comply rather than say fk off are Verizon, LEGO, Amzn, RL, & Pinterest. www.wsj.com/business/med...

submitted 3 days ago • 11 comments