Walter Olson

@walterolson.bsky.social

2025

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Writer on law etc.; @CatoInstitute. Blogged Overlawyered 1999-2020. Election law, Maryland civic stuff.

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Walter Olson

NEWSFLASH: Children's hospital struck in brazen Russian daylight attack Just a week ago we profiled the work of the Okhmatdyt Children's Clinic in Kyiv. Today, it was hit. We rushed to the scene to report.

I see it was brilliant of me to pick this weekend to visit Durham.

Rare event! Competing heat domes in the Southeast and Southwest US crank out two huge all-time record highs. Palm Springs 124 and Raleigh=Durham 106 with a heat index of 118! Las Vegas is forecast to break their all-time high this weekend and even Death Valley may come close.

In Will Baude’s view, a generally principled Court leaned over backward this term to rescue Donald Trump from what it saw as ill-handling by other parts of government. Too bad it bent its own constitutional principles along the way.

Opinion | A Principled Supreme Court, Unnerved by Trumpwww.nytimes.com Most of the court’s decisions were principled and sound — most, but unfortunately not all.

Is Trump’s talk of military tribunals for political opponents seriously meant, or mere bait for the rubes? Pretty grim either way.

Trump Amplifies Calls to Jail Top Elected Officials, Invokes Military Tribunalswww.nytimes.com A post that Mr. Trump circulated on Sunday called for Liz Cheney to be prosecuted by a military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.

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Walter Olson

If you want the straight scoop on this from the nation's #1 unquestioned, encyclopedic knowledge, GOAT expert on every possible obscure detail of state ballot access laws, Richard Winger is it:

Gullible News Media Give Credence to Heritage Foundation Analysis that Says it Would be Difficult for Democrats to Nominate Someone Other than President Biden | ballot-access.org

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Walter Olson

This is excellent.

Now up: my thoughts on Trump v. U.S. In my view the Court majority went much too far in creating a zone of formal and practical presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. "This is not what the Framers wanted. It is not what we should want either." www.cato.org/blog/court-w...

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Patrick McKenzie on title insurance, the insurance line with the curiously low loss ratio www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/work...

Working title (insurance)www.bitsaboutmoney.com Title insurance is grossly overpriced relative to actual risks involved. Why is that?

Watch: I'm part of a Vote Nevada panel discussion on misconceptions about ranked choice voting, with Vote Nevada's Sondra Cosgrove and Doug Goodman. (1:23:36, I come in at 37:45) www.cato.org/multimedia/m...

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With less of a check on presidential criminality than many of us had been counting on, it becomes all the more important not to elect a brazen criminal to the presidency.

Team Evidence of Our Own Eyes has been thrown onto the defensive over the last day or two. (Although it’s not clear there is any such team.)

In liquor licensing news. patch.com/new-jersey/b...

NJ Does Not Renew Trump's Liquor Licenses At 2 Golf Clubs After Felony Convictionpatch.com The golf clubs are temporarily allowed to continue to serve alcohol until a final hearing on the renewals is held in July.

Confirming the intuitive: when people are lied to about elections supposedly having been stolen, they become more willing to countenance political violence. Those who falsely portray lawful elections as stolen bear a heavy moral responsibility.

"Allegations of Democratic Voter fraud and Support for Political Violence Among Republicans" #ELBelectionlawblog.org James A. Piazza in American Politics Research: Are partisans more likely to endorse political violence when politicians accuse their rivals of election improprieties? I theorize that for Republican pa...

"You can't make me certify election results" lawsuit from Georgia county official may serve to create a welcome court precedent that yes ma'am, you do have to certify [Derek Muller]

On the Fulton County certification lawsuit #ELBelectionlawblog.org Rick H. posts the Washington Post story about the lawsuit from an official trying to guarantee the right to refuse to certify election results in Fulton County, Georgia. I confess, I have a somewhat d...

"It is precisely because we are in a 'hair-on-fire moment' that I think institutional reform to eliminate partisan primaries is such a high priority" [Ned Foley]

The Primary Importance of Primary Reform #ELBelectionlawblog.org Nate Persily is one of our nation’s leading election law scholars (and a friend), with whom I usually agree on many specific matters in our field, but he is quoted today in the N.Y. Times (in an artic...

Does (did?) Chevron encourage Congressional inaction? With notes on the changing equilibrium of administrative law [Gus Hurwitz]

An Equilibrium-Adjustment Theory of Current Trends in Administrative Lawtruthonthemarket.com This essay began as a response to claims that the argument that Chevron encourages congressional inaction has been refuted by the best available evidence. That Chevron causes such inaction is one of t...

"How did the [Libertarian] party get here, to a place where its chair is openly cheering on victory for the decidedly nonlibertarian Trump?" Liz Wolfe digs in.

How the Libertarian Party lost its wayreason.com Two years post-"takeover," some longtime activists and donors have pulled their support, claiming the Mises Caucus is running the party into the ground.

"Plaintiff Accused of Being 'Litigious' Sues for Slander" [Vermont; he lost.]

Plaintiff Accused of Being "Litigious" Sues for Slanderreason.com He loses.

"When there is genuine uncertainty as to the meaning of a law, judges help safeguard liberty by applying a narrow reading to avoid criminalizing conduct not clearly marked out as such. That is what the court did today." My take on J6 rioter case Fischer v. U.S. www.cato.org/blog/fischer...

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Walter Olson

While we wait for EVEN MORE SCOTUS OPINIONS here's what I wrote about Murthy v. Missouri, a case I filed an amicus brief in: www.techdirt.com/2024/06/27/m...

Murthy Decision Should Not Foreclose Cases Against Actual First Amendment Violationswww.techdirt.com The Supreme Court on Wednesday was 1-and-1, with one good decision, in Murthy v. Missouri, and one doozy in Snyder v. US, where it somehow read a statute criminalizing corruption to… not actually c…

The New York Times tried to tell us about Biden's age problems. In response it got slagged by the some of the folks who believe, against all likelihood, that the Times "actually, secretly wants Donald Trump to win the election." [Joel Mathis]

The New York Times tried to tell us about Joe Biden's age problemsjoelmmathis.substack.com And got blasted for it.

Have Donald Trump and MAGA/Jan. 6 defendants gotten harsher-than-normal treatment from the criminal justice system? Radley Balko documents many ways in which they've gotten gentler-than-normal treatment

Trump and MAGA haven't been mistreated by the criminal justice system. It has favored them.radleybalko.substack.com Few people get the leniency and preferential treatment the courts have shown Trump and his allies

First of many such articles? “Biden is simply no longer fit to be the Democratic nominee. For the good of his country, and his own well-being, he must open the field for someone else.” Short essays by Quico Toro and Sam Kahn in Persuasion www.persuasion.community/p/the-night-...

The Night the Biden Presidency Endedwww.persuasion.community A grotesque spectacle that must shock Democrats into finding a new candidate.

This all is what I was really saving my liquor collection for.

If anyone still sees Elon Musk as some sort of free speech devotee, @andycraig.bsky.social has a definitive demolition of that notion for @theunpopulist.nethttps://www.theunpopulist.net/p/elon-musks-statist-road-to-free-speech

Elon Musk’s Statist Road to Free Speechwww.theunpopulist.net This self-proclaimed free speech absolutist is aggressively deploying government power to kill the 'woke mind virus'

In the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case, a Supreme Court majority chose an individualist rather than a consequentialist view of legal rights. New from me at Cato: www.cato.org/blog/high-co...

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Come for the modern history of the Confrontation Clause (Antonin Scalia, protagonist) and stay for examples of how AI is getting pretty good at figuring out which judge probably wrote which opinion [Adam Unikowsky]

A brief history of the Confrontation Clauseadamunikowsky.substack.com And more fun with Claude.

“The government was not given any new rights to do anything today.” Thanks Will Oremus at the WaPo for quoting me on the implications of today's Supreme Court decision in Murthy v. Missouri, on social media jawboning. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Live updates: Supreme Court allows White House contacts with social media platforms; Trump immunity still undecidedwww.washingtonpost.com The Supreme Court’s remaining decisions include Donald Trump’s claim of immunity, charges for Jan. 6 rioters and abortion care.

Making the ground vibrate in certain ways causes earthworms to come to the surface, and from that, a north Florida subculture was born.

The Worm Charmersoxfordamerican.org A hint of blue on the horizon meant morning was coming. And as they have for the past fifty-four …

I will always remember the defeated Rep. Bowman as the guy who was a school principal for ten years and still thought it was okay to pull the fire alarm.