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Monthly Archives: January 2019

Federal Watchdog Finds Government Ignored Emoluments Clause With Trump Hotel

NPR: “Officials leasing the Old Post Office Building for the Trump International Hotel in Washington improperly ignored the Constitution’s anti-corruption clauses when they continued to lease the government property to President Trump even after he won the White House, according to an internal federal government watchdog. The Inspector General for the General Services Administration, the… Continue Reading

Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question

NPR: “A federal judge in New York has ruled against the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered the administration to stop its plans to include the controversial question on forms for the upcoming national head count “without curing the legal defects” the judge… Continue Reading

Meet ATJ Bot – The World’s First Legal Aid Voice Assistant

Artificial Lawyer: “LawDroid, the legal bot developer, has now launched ATJ Bot, a voice operated legal aid assistant that initially will focus on giving help on uncontested divorces. The project has been backed by America’s main legal aid body, the Legal Services Corporation, plus West Tennessee Legal Services and the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services, with… Continue Reading

Paper – Correcting Biases

Sunstein, Cass R., Algorithms, Correcting Biases (December 12, 2018). Forthcoming, Social Research. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3300171 “A great deal of theoretical work explores the possibility that algorithms may be biased in one or another respect. But for purposes of law and policy, some of the most important empirical research finds exactly the opposite. In the… Continue Reading

Commentary – How to stop fake news? Take responsibility

The Next Web: The only way to stop fake news is for you to take responsibility: “Trump has made a lot of things buzzworthy, but perhaps none more than “fake news.” Everyone has strong opinions about who is at fault for spreading lies in the press. It’s “the media’s” fault. It’s Trump’s fault. Before Trump,… Continue Reading

All the President’s Memes

The New York Times: “On the 12th day of the federal government shutdown, the 45th president of the United States of America posted a meme on his Instagram account: an image of his half-glowering, half-smirking visage, hovering gigantically above the Southwestern desert, dwarfing the picture’s centerpiece — a rendering of his signature campaign promise —… Continue Reading

Study – U.S. Health Care Spending Highest Among Developed Countries

Johns Hopkins: “The United States, on a per capita basis, spends much more on health care than other developed countries; the chief reason is not greater health care utilization, but higher prices, according to a study from a team led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher. The paper appears in the January… Continue Reading

Paper – Psychopathy by U.S. State

Murphy, Ryan, Psychopathy by U.S. State (May 26, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3185182 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3185182 “Rentfrow et al. (2013) constructs a cross-section of the “Big Five” personality traits and demonstrates their relationship with outcomes variables for the continental United States and the District of Columbia. Hyatt et al. (Forthcoming) creates a means of describing psychopathy… Continue Reading