If left unchecked, immigration enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology could potentially trigger a constitutional crisis, explains Cato Institute Senior Fellow Patrick Eddington. ➡️ https://ow.ly/gSxi50XowBZ

Chicago Forum Faculty Director Prof. @tomginsburg.bsky.social, who has written about the decline of democracies around the world, says inducing worry is effective. “You get a lot of anticipatory compliance, which is cheap. And vagueness is part of the tool kit.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/m...

Economist Stephen Moore says he's leaving the Heritage Foundation; he'd been one of its highest profile national figures. At a meeting yesterday legal fellow Amy Swearer called Roberts’s handling of Tuckergate “a master class in cowardice that ran cover for the most unhinged dregs of the far right.”

Must-read debut @crampell.bsky.social newsletter for @thebulwark.com explains the hidden costs of Trump’s tariffs… …and asks whether he’ll be smart enough to let the Supreme Court kill them www.thebulwark.com/p/how-the-su...

"State recount laws too often invite costly, unnecessary delays that undermine confidence in elections without changing outcomes. Losing candidates prolong the contest and sell false hope in fundraising pleas." States should narrow the circumstances in which recounts take place. [Derek Muller]

Human millstone: Trump has been uniquely successful in dragging down the fortunes of Republicans in Virginia.

Braised meatballs with leeks and celery adapted from Diane Kochilas, The Glorious Foods of Greece (2001). #BlueskySupperClub #foodsky

That doesn't seem right, at least from this line, in the Washington Post report: "Judge Carl J. Nichols instructed the jury that to convict Dunn, they would have to find he acted forcibly and generated a 'reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm.'"

MAGA officialdom is looking to crack down on foundations and other nonprofits whose grantees engage in unlawful protests; sanctions could include revoking donors' tax exemptions. And the definition of unlawful protest, which courts have often insisted must be kept clear, is getting blurrier.

This by @steve_vladeck is very good. And damning of the extrajudicial executions the US is conducting with alarming frequency. www.stevevladeck.com/p/188-five-q...

Adler on the tariffs argument: "In the past, the court has been reluctant to place much weight on public statements by the president [in challenges to] government actions....The problem in this case, however, is that some of the relevant statements were in the government’s own brief to the court."

WATCH: @pgeddington.com, senior fellow for homeland security and civil liberties at Cato, takes part in a panel on the legal and policy dimensions of National Guard deployment in cities at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention today. (begins around 35 minute mark)

Commie.

NEW: Here is the written preliminary injunction order in the Chicago protesters/press case: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Robert Corn-Revere: “A good day for freedom of speech.” Indeed!

If you get called for jury service, please go and serve.

Straight to the point here: “as long as they can cover their face, they can get away with anything.” #UnmaskICENow

"Rioters tried to kill me on January 6. Trump pardoned them." Sgt. Aquilino Gonell writes a must-read piece on what it's like to risk your life to defend democracy, only to be called an un-American traitor: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/rioters-tr...

ICE and Border Patrol’s use of tear gas injures, sickens and tests the law Federal immigration agents say chemical agents are needed to disperse protesters. But videos also show officers directly firing at people in aggressive and “unorthodox” ways. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

Heartbreaking: Under Trump's ICE terror, a 2-year-old Chicago girl was tear-gassed while walking with her mom-burning eyes, screams of 'Ouch! Mommy!' This isn't enforcement; it's state-sponsored child abuse.

"First, residential development should be allowed by-right in commercial zones.... If a site is already zoned for commercial use and has basic infrastructure like water and sewer connections and it’s all up to fire code and safety regulations, housing should simply be permitted."

European Union's Digital Services Act requires online platforms to implement robust “content moderation” measures, which could curtail Americans' speech freedoms; role of "trusted flaggers" has drawn particular scrutiny.

Ok, just wow. If the content of this article is right, this is depressing. We're slowly reaching the point where ~100% of what I was taught in Social Psych was either innocently wrong or plainly frauded onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

[Exit Clown.]

Criminals posing as US immigration officers have carried out robberies, kidnappings, sex assaults in several states, FBI says FBI urges agencies to ensure officers clearly identify themselves and cooperate when civilians ask to verify an officer’s identity—including by allowing calls to local police

Remember that nutball theory about alleged 2024 vote fraud in Rockland County, NY, centered around a Ramapo precinct showing 0 votes for Kamala Harris while Gillibrand won? And we said it was just Hasidic bloc voting? Last night's results? The same bloc voting. Don't drink the BlueAnon Flavor Aid™.

I truly never thought I’d see the day when Marin County voters went pro-housing; but they appear to have opted to upzone parts of Sausalito(!) and rejected the housing-centric recall effort against the mayor of Fairfax.

Cato statement on today’s tariff arguments at the Supreme Court: www.cato.org/news-release...

Lawyers play a video that was played for Bovino. In it, he tells agents "everybody fucking gets it if they touch you." "This is OUR fucking city," Bovino tells them.

For the second time in two years, Cato has sued the DOJ and FBI for records on their use—and abuse—of FISA Section 702 surveillance. The public deserves to know whether this program protects Americans or targets them.

Emergency tariff powers weren’t needed for any major US diplomatic success, and they’re now harming vital alliances. The Supreme Court should reject the fiction that IEEPA tariffs strengthen US foreign policy, writes Clark Packard:

“Next, on Fox Business, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will be here to announce another 10% equity stake he coerced from a company that took a federal loan under the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which is not state control of the economy at all, it’s dealmaking, you see.”

What's happening in TX-18 is more obscene than not seating Grijalva during pro formas. Turner died in March. Abbott delayed the special election until yesterday, and now it goes to a runoff early *next year.* Congress can and should require special elections to be held within 90 days of a vacancy.

A U.S. Senate investigation led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) "has uncovered dozens of credible reports of medical neglect and poor conditions in immigration detention centers nationwide — with detainees denied insulin, left without medical attention for days and forced to compete for clean water."

Making the rounds.

The Illinois legislature had passed the “Illinois Bivens Act,” allowing people to sue ICE agents in state court. Just waiting for Pritzker’s signature. dailynorthwestern.com/2025/11/03/c...

In a series of four 6-3 decisions, the Supreme Court applied the Major Questions Doctrine to strike down creative Biden regulatory moves. Now the tariff case has squarely presented the same MQD issue, and the Court needs to stay consistent, not search for some ad hoc escape hatch. [Adam Unikowsky]

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo... "our estimates indicate that U.S. consumers paid more than the government received in tariff revenue, because domestic markups amplified downstream price effects" Tariffs: even stupider than you thought!!

Live screening (not online) this afternoon at Cato: documentary on injustices of civil asset forfeiture

I sincerely do not think people like living in a police state, once they see for themselves what it looks like.

Not big enough to bribe Trump, too bad. reason.com/2025/10/30/t...

American manufacturing is already a success story, and there is no case for sacrificing the rule of law in an effort to do it any favors. Colin Grabow explains an argument made in Cato's amicus brief.

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the Tariffs Case today, one of the most consequential of the term. The bottom line is simple: Congress never authorized these tariffs, and the Court should strike them down.👇

EFSA published a literature review on studies claiming exposures to #microplastics and #nanoplastics. They concluded most studies had poor methodologies, over-estimated findings and lab contaminations making any conclusions unreliable. The media missed this www.thefirebreak.org/p/eu-food-sc...

If missed, from me at Cato: Legal scholars William Baude and Samuel Bray argue in a forthcoming article that courts should rebuff some litigation initiatives of the Trump administration by invoking the famous equitable doctrine of unclean hands. /1

Here in Maryland, Frederick has not yet counted mail and dropbox ballots, but the count for day-of and early voting indicates a Democratic sweep of all contested races. Congratulations to re-elected Mayor Michael O'Connor and to the newly elected and re-elected council members.

A package of conservative-backed election reforms is crashing to defeat 41-59 with Maine voters, with half the vote counted. It would have curtailed absentee voting and dropboxes and instituted voter photo ID. The vote had been expected to be a lot closer.

All YIMBY ballot measures are currently winning in NYC by 10-point margins at least

Manassas City, 95% in 43% Hispanic 2020 President: Biden +25 2024 President: Harris +15 2025 Governor: Spanberger +30?!?!?!?