On The Merits

For decades now, both parties in Washington have been unhappy with the status quo at the U.S.-Mexico border. But finding a congressional solution to our border problem has never seemed more out of reach.House Republicans are moving forward on a comprehensive immigration bill that few, if any, believe can pass the Democratic Senate, much less earn President Biden's signature. Meanwhile, despite Biden's campaign promises that he would start fresh, many Trump-era border policies are still in effect.Bloomberg Government reporter Ellen M. Gilmer just returned from a trip to the border where she witnessed multiple groups of migrants being apprehended. She joins On The Merits, our weekly news podcast, to talk about what she saw and whether there is any hope for improvement.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The chief judge of one of the 13 federal appeals courts has filed a formal complaint against one of her colleagues. Her beef? That her nonagenarian fellow judge is cognitively impaired and unfit to serve.How did we get here? That's the topic of the latest episode of our weekly news podcast, On The Merits. We discuss the near-unprecedented move to remove 95-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman from the bench.Bloomberg Law reporters Kelcee Griffis and Kaustuv Basu explain who Newman is, what the complaint about her says, and what this whole affair says about the practice of granting federal judges lifetime appointments.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

When Geraldine Tyler didn't pay her tax bill, her county sold her home and kept the profits—more than twice what she actually owed. Tyler, a Minnesotan who's now in her 90s, sued. Next week she'll be appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.Numerous states have laws allowing tax authorities to take all of the value of a property when it forecloses. But Tyler is asking the Supreme Court to declare these laws unconstitutional.Bloomberg Law reporter Perry Cooper is covering the case. She joins our weekly news podcast, On The Merits, to talk about it. Perry says Tyler's argument that her property rights have been violated may appeal to the court's ruling conservative majority.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

It's now clear that the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs last year raised more questions than it answered. The latest example of this came late last Friday when a pair of opinions from federal judges threw the legality of a long-used abortion medication into doubt.A judge from Washington state ordered the FDA to maintain the status quo for the drug mifepristone. Another judge from Texas came to the opposite conclusion, ordering the FDA to take mifepristone off the market despite the drug having won approval more than 20 years ago.Bloomberg Law reporter Celine Castronuovo walks us through these developments and looks at what's coming in the fight over abortion—including another likely ruling from the Supreme Court—on the latest episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

During the Cold War, the U.S. was the undisputed leader in a field of science called geodesy—the precise measurement of the shape and magnetic field of the Earth. The development of GPS sprung from this, along with many other useful technologies.But fast forward to today. Numerous countries have surpassed America in this field, with China in particular making extraordinary leaps. Scientists are now saying the US may have fallen so far behind in geodesy that catching up is nearly impossible.On this episode of On The Merits, our weekly news podcast, Bloomberg Government reporter Jack Fitzpatrick talks about the profound national security implications of this and why Washington's current anti-China mood may help reverse this trend.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

It used to be that bank runs took weeks, or even months, to gain steam. Not anymore.Thanks to the speed of electronic financial transactions and near-instantaneous online communication, the financial panics that felled Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month materialized in a matter of days.Is there a solution for preventing this? Bloomberg Law reporter Evan Weinberg looked into this question for a recent story. He joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to explain why it's unlikely regulators will be able to stop flash bank runs anytime soon.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Bankruptcy law is the ultimate countercyclical industry: business is booming when when things get bad. And things have almost never been worse in the crypto world, with even the most prominent coins down more than 40% in just the past year.Numerous crypto platforms—Voyager Digital, Celsius, BlockFi, and, most famously, FTX—have filed for Chapter 11. That means bankruptcy attorneys have a lot of work on their plates.Bloomberg Law spoke to more than half a dozen of the attorneys working on these cases to hear if managing a crypto bankruptcy is just another day at the office. They say nothing in their careers prepared them to unwind what were essentially quasi-banks dealing with some of the most volatile financial assets known to humankind."I knew that they would present novel issues of law and technology," White & Case lawyer Greg Pesce, who's working on the Celsius bankruptcy, told us. "And that couldn't begin to describe what we confronted."On this special episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, we hear what it's like to be an attorney managing the downfall of the titans of crypto.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Court supervised guardianships are meant to protect people who can no longer manage themselves and their assets. But a Bloomberg Law investigation found that people in guardianships can easily be taken advantage of, and that getting out of one is extraordinarily difficult.Reporters Ronnie Greene and Holly Barker just released a five-part series that looks at how guardianships can go wrong—from wealthy celebrities like Britney Spears to indigent senior citizens.They join our weekly podcast, On The Merits, to talk about how a lack of oversight creates conditions ripe for fraud and abuse. Holly discusses the particularly galling case of a New Mexico guardianship company that stole millions from its clients and whose CFO she spoke to from jail.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Britney Spears’ conservatorship dispute brought the guardianship system to the public eye. It’s a system that entraps thousands more Americans without a platform to fight back. The industry is regulated loosely and ripe for exploitation of elderly and disabled people, Bloomberg Law found in a six-month investigation.Read the full 5-part series: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberglawnews/us-law-week/BNA%2000000186a58cdac2afe7e7ecdc9b0001

Suing your own customers usually isn't a wise business strategy. But that's what some insurance companies are doing as litigation over PFAS continues to flood the courts.Many of the companies that are, themselves, facing lawsuits over allegedly exposing people to the so-called "forever chemicals," are saying their insurers should be footing the costs of defending these suits. However, not only are the insurers rejecting these claims, but they're taking their own clients to court in the hopes of getting a judge to rule that their policies don't cover PFAS litigation.Bloomberg Law's Daphne Zhang has been reporting on this, and she joins this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits. Daphne explains what's a stake for insurers in these suits and why, in the very near future, it may be all but impossible to find an insurer willing to cover PFAS.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.