Category Archives: Uncategorized

Congress’s power to obtain, review, and disclose Trump’s (and other tax filers’) tax returns

Law prof George Yin has written a brief and timely paper called Congressional Authority to Obtain and Release Tax Returns. Yin is the former chief of staff of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. In his paper, Yin explains that particular congressional committees possess the power to obtain, review, and disclose filers' tax returns in limited circumstances and […]

Should administrative rule makers take account of moral obligations and, if so, how?

That's the topic of Moral Commitments in Cost-Benefit Analysis by law profs Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein. Here is the abstract: The regulatory state has become a cost-benefit state, in the sense that under prevailing executive orders, agencies must catalogue the costs and benefits of regulations before issuing them, and in general, must show that their benefits […]

Virginia Updates Its Anti-SLAPP Law, Stiffening the Standard for Many Libel Claims

by Paul Alan Levy With the signature of Governor Terry McAuliffe having been added last week, Virginia has adopted a modest improvement to its very narrow anti-SLAPP statute.   The new law, SB 1413,  is not nearly as strong as in the anti-SLAPP laws in California and other model states, but it has something that we […]

“Trump administration rolls back protections for people in default on student loans”

That's the name of this article by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel. Some background: In mid-2015, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that student-loan guaranty agencies may not assess collection costs against borrowers who enter the federal government’s loan rehabilitation program within 60 days of defaulting on their loans. One of the two judges in the Seventh Circuit […]

“Trump’s Washington Hotel is a Bridge Too Far for Fair Competition”

That's the name of this opinion piece by Steven Schooner & Alan Morrison, two of the lawyers for the Cork Wine Bar in its unfair competition suit against Trump and his new hotel in D.C. (Subscription possibly required.) For more information about the suit, go to our original post about the suit. Here is an excerpt from […]

Car insurance, driver distraction, car safety, and the cost of fixing teched-up cars

This article by Deirdre Fernandez explains why, according to the insurance industry, car insurance rates are on the rise: "Drivers distracted by their smartphones are crashing their cars more often, and those cars are now more expensive to repair because they’re loaded with sensors and devices." Some excerpts:  TrueMotion is a Boston company that makes an […]

“I spent my childhood on Medicaid, and Trump’s plan to roll it back is disastrous”

That is the name of this essay by consumer columnist Michelle Singletary. Here is an excerpt: When my siblings and I went to live with my grandmother, we were a sickly bunch. There were five of us. … I was 4. .. We were all undernourished. My brother Mitchell had seizures almost every night. He would lose […]