Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 8h

In a mistaken-shooting-of-colleague police case, the Eighth Circuit said it was up to the judge not jury to assess the reasonableness of the defendant's factual mistakes. Cato cert amicus brief argues that displacing the jury’s role undermines a vital constitutional check on government power.

Green v. Tanner Brief: Juries, Not Judges, Need to Determine the Reasonableness of Mistaken Use of Force

By converting disputed factual questions of reasonableness into issues of law for judges, the decisions stripped juries of their constitutionally assigned role and gutted the mechanism Congress design...

www.cato.org

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 9h

This by the way sheds light on the question I hear from people, "If ICE smashes its way into my car and then discovers they screwed up and I'm a citizen after all, will they pay for the broken windshield and tear gassed upholstery?" No, they won't.

Reason Magazine @reason.com · 15h

Law enforcement launched 30 tear gas canisters into Amy Hadley's home, smashed windows, ransacked furniture, destroyed security cameras, and more.

The government gave her nothing.

This Indiana city doesn’t have to pay an innocent mom $16,000 after police wrecked her home, court rules

Law enforcement launched 30 tear gas canisters into Amy Hadley's home, smashed windows, ransacked furniture, destroyed security cameras, and more. The government gave her nothing.

reason.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 9h

Bulgur pilaf with roasted cauliflower and pine nuts #BlueskySupperClub #foodsky #vegan

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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 10h

After getting zero firm commitments to this point from the first nine invitees, the Trump administration is extending its proposed compact to all colleges. Expect some red-state publics to say yes.

Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in re...

www.bloomberg.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 11h

Seasoned prosecutor Erik Siebert didn't think the case against Letitia James was strong enough to go forward with, so Trump fired him and installed his crony Lindsey Halligan to indict. Andrew McCarthy looks at various bits and elements of the known record that suggest maybe Siebert was right. [NRO]

The Letitia James Case Appears More Complicated Than the Trump DOJ Indictment Suggests | National Review

Some exculpatory testimony and previously unreported documents create a blurrier picture of the bank-fraud allegations.

www.nationalreview.com

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Grande Chefe @strategicchancla.bsky.social · 19h

You can find a piece from CATO asking to abolish DHS as far back as 2011. I know I've heard Nat Sec academia wish it were gone before 2018. This was never a fringe position

Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 1d

It’s impossible to overstate how much “abolish ice” is the normie position now here in chicago — just countless random moms at toddler soccer on a park district field asking me where I bought my anti-ice t-shirt. average people don’t like our neighborhoods being terrorized.

laura olin @lauraolin.bsky.social · 1d

A friend ran the Chicago marathon today and said he couldn’t count the number of FUCK ICE signs along the way.

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grimace14.bsky.social @grimace14.bsky.social · 19h

Every small victory should be felt in a big way.

This woman's story should be shared nationally. It was a crime to detain her after being victimized for so long.

www.thebanner.com/western-mary...

Hagerstown nail salon owner freed after five months in ICE custody

Melissa Tran, a Hagerstown mom and nail salon owner, was freed five months after being detained by ICE and jailed in Washington state. A federal judge ruled that U.S. officials had no basis for prolon...

www.thebanner.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 15h

Yeah, sure, Mr. Speaker, #NoKings is antifa, whatever.

Imagine being assigned to find antifa as part of a scavenger hunt and the closest thing you could find was me.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Mike Johnson: "We're so angry about it. I mean, I'm a very patient guy, but I've had it with these people. The theory we have right now -- they have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It's the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people ... "

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 15h

Cf. /8 bsky.app/profile/anot...

Jonah @anotherjonah.bsky.social · 19h

This morning I was filming ICE abducting sometime in Petworth. One of the agents told me "the last US citizen that did this he put in cuffs all the way to the courtroom".

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Julia @sdrose.bsky.social · 19h

My frog suit cost about $35

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Cathy Gellis @cathygellis.mastodon.cloud.ap.brid.gy · 19h

I have a new Techdirt post that went up on Friday, while the CDC was trying to illegally fire everyone...

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/10/i-want-a-new-drug-a-vaccine-even-and-a-functioning-fda-cdc-nih-etc/

I Want A New Drug. A Vaccine Even. And A Functioning FDA, CDC, NIH, Etc…

My cancer is back. This is disappointing but not unexpected; of the 2/3 of people who survive their first bout with ovarian cancer, 80% usually have it recur at some point. For me it was sooner than expected, and disheartening because, even if I beat it back this time, it will likely come back again […]

www.techdirt.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 19h

>”It begs the question of who’s funding it.”

To account for the lavish self-funding of my own #NoKings participation: poster board cost me about $8.00 at Staples, I already had Sharpies, and gas downtown and back runs maybe a buck & a half. Same with my friends. I feel like we’re all mini-Soroses.

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 19h

>”It begs the question of who’s funding it.”

To account for the lavish self-funding of my own #NoKings participation: poster board cost me about $8.00 at Staples, I already had Sharpies, and gas downtown and back runs maybe a buck & a half. Same with my friends. I feel like we’re all mini-Soroses.

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

"Trump and his allies told Christian voters they were the last defense against persecution. What they delivered was a gov't that made worship a liability. When a state wraps itself in faith while making people afraid to pray, it isn’t protecting religion—it’s performing it." [Jeff Quinton] /6, end

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

"Inside detention centers, religious freedom eroded even more visibly. Muslim detainees in Florida said officers confiscated Qurans [and] prayer rugs." In some facilities, detainees of multiple faiths were denied chaplains and issued meals that violated their religious diets. /5

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

"The idea that Catholics might risk arrest simply by attending Mass would once have been unthinkable....Religious liberty, the slogan Trump once built a movement around, proved hollow when tested." /4

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

The local bishop responded "with a rare decree lifting the Sunday and holy-day obligation for Catholics “who have a genuine fear of immigration enforcement raids by [ICE]....
the first time fear of government action, rather than a health emergency, made such a move necessary." /3

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

"Within weeks of the change, agents entered Catholic parish properties in Montclair and Highland, California, detaining several people in parking lots immediately after Mass. Attendance at Spanish-language services in the Diocese of San Bernardino fell by nearly half." /2

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20h

"For decades, federal policy treated houses of worship as 'sensitive locations,' places enforcement was to avoid unless absolutely necessary. That protection ended in 2025, when ICE and Border Patrol were authorized to conduct arrests around churches and religious services." /1

Trump: Religious Freedom for Me but Not for Thee

His administration wrapped itself in faith while making worship a risk for others.

quintonretort.substack.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 21h

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance,
’Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

-- from Alexander Pope, An Essay On Criticism

Today’s Poem: Sound and Sense

an excerpt from An Essay on Criticism

poemsancientandmodern.substack.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 21h

As Trump administration takes shares in more companies, a survey of finance economists warns that government ownership of share stakes tends to undercut corporate performance and governance, as accountability blurs and managers' side agendas proliferate. [Ryan Bourne and Nathan Miller, @cato.org]

Finance Economists Warn Against Government as Shareholder

Just as most economists oppose price controls that distort market incentives, they view government ownership stakes as a threat to the market discipline that makes firms productive and innovative. In ...

www.cato.org

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Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 1d

A federal judge ordered federal agents last week to issue two warnings before using tear gas.

Witnesses said they heard no warnings and none can be heard on videos, @chicago.suntimes.com reports

Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 1d

Federal agents deployed tear gas after Albany Park residents protested to their attempts to detain a resident of the Northwest Side neighborhood, @vimiller.bsky.social reports for the @chicago.suntimes.com

Feds deploy tear gas in another Chicago neighborhood: 'We chased federal agents out of Albany Park today'

A federal judge’s temporary restraining order requires federal agents to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons such as tear gas. Witnesses says they didn't get any warning.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Graham Platner for Senate @grahamformaine.bsky.social · 1d

We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.

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Joseph Britt @zathras5.bsky.social · 1d

Thread. As @walterolson.bsky.social rightly says, putting Republican propaganda on channels meant for official government information is standard practice during the Trump administration. No Republican will speak out against it.

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 1d

“We didn’t consent to playing it, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits using public assets for political purposes and messaging. … We believe consenting to playing this video on Port assets would violate Oregon law." /1

PDX chooses not to air video of Sec. Noem blaming Democrats for shutdown

The Port of Portland is choosing not to broadcast a new video that shows DHS Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the federal government shutdown."Democr

katu.com

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Ira 'Bluebeard Homer' Goldman @kdbyproxy.bsky.social · 1d

Not that Trump/Vought/Hegseth gaf, but among other ways in which the law says this may NOT be done:
A) The part of 8005 I've underlined in green says money transferred to another account is "available… for the same time period" as that other account; that other acc't expired on Sept 30.

1/

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