A couple of weeks ago, the National Association of Realtors agreed to settle more than a dozen cases alleging that the organization and brokerage firms associated with it violated antitrust laws by setting industrywide standard commissions, paid by sellers of homes. The NAR agreed to pay $418 million in damages and adopt a new business model.
If a federal judge approves the settlement, commissions — currently set at 5 to 6 percent of the sale price of a home, in contrast to 1 ...
Opinion
Addiction treatment in prison is a crucial part of solving the opioid crisis
Two decades into an opioid crisis that has claimed more than 1 million American lives, policymakers are still searching for ways to reduce overdose deaths. They would do well to focus on jails and prisons.
There are 4,000 correctional facilities in the U.S., of which only a few dozen operate on-site opioid treatment programs. On any given day, there are almost 2 million incarcerated, about 15 percent of whom meet screening criteria for opioid use disorder. For many, incarcerat...
Remove the barriers keeping women from addressing colorectal cancer
This may be a month of fun and festivities with St. Patrick’s Day rolling right into March Madness, but it also commemorates two serious topics: women’s history and colorectal awareness. While the overlap may be purely coincidental, the timing appropriately underscores the need for improved awareness, screening and treatment for colorectal cancer, especially among women.
Though overall rates of new colorectal cancer cases have declined in the past decade or two, cases among pe...
Matthews: Autocrats gonna mandate: health insurance, vaccines, EVs and more
The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are denying that recent EPA regulations are meant to mandate that everyone switch from gas-powered to an electric vehicle (EV). Don’t you believe ’em. Progressive elites rely on the power of government to force you to do what they think you should be doing. In other words, autocrats gonna mandate.
We’ve seen this movie before. Recall that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) went into effect 10 years ago. O...
How Biden can win in the swing states by learning from New York City’s subways
Warning that Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” is too abstract a message to sway many citizens to vote for President Biden.
Instead, his campaign needs to show voters how the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will benefit them in the years ahead — especially in the swing states.
Biden’s signature legislation allocates substantial funds to Arizona ($7.307 billion), Georgia ($12.388 billion), Michigan ($10.783 billion), North Carolina ($10.395 billion),...
Why Trump can’t escape his appellate bond dilemma
The two recent verdicts against former President Donald Trump — one in federal court and the other in New York state court — have thrust an esoteric area of law into the spotlight: appellate bonds. There are two main questions: Can Trump raise the cash necessary to allow him time to appeal the verdicts while staving off enforcement? And how can the winning plaintiffs collect on their judgments?
Trump has secured a bond in the federal case won by journalist E. Jean Car...
I defended the Capitol from Trump’s mob. I know he’s an insurrectionist.
When I received my acceptance letter almost a decade ago to the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., my imagination raced with the intense, life-or-death scenarios I would be confronted with on a regular basis in order to protect and serve the citizens of our nation’s capital.
But even while contemplating such scenarios, I never imagined what I experienced on Jan. 6, 2021, or that I would be one of a few dozen officers standing in between former Preside...
I defended the Capitol from Trump’s mob. I know he’s an insurrectionist.
When I received my acceptance letter almost a decade ago to the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., my imagination raced with the intense, life-or-death scenarios I would be confronted with on a regular basis in order to protect and serve the citizens of our nation’s capital.
But even while contemplating such scenarios, I never imagined what I experienced on Jan. 6, 2021, or that I would be one of a few dozen officers standing in between former Preside...
Five reasons the Trump campaign needs more money — lots more money
Can money win an election? Not necessarily — just ask Hillary Clinton, who outraised Donald Trump two-to-one in 2016 and went on to lose anyway. That race Politico called “the most lopsided contest in modern campaign finance.”
That doesn’t mean money isn’t important. In 2020, Biden outraised Trump by hundreds of millions of dollars, raking in more than $1 billion in campaign cash to the former president’s $774 million. Biden’s incredible haul allowed a la...
Nostalgic for the Trump years? That’s because his draconian budget cuts never passed.
A New York Times poll released this month revealed that more voters believe Donald Trump’s policies benefitted them personally than feel that way about Joe Biden’s policies. We have news for these Americans. The policies you miss are actually Barack Obama’s.
Yes, President Trump passed a massive tax cut for large corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Those voters may rightly cheer the boost to their pocketbook. But what really helped everyone else was that Trump was unabl...