All the news you need to know for Tuesday, November 28th, 2017!
Today we’re talking about how two people were appointed for the same job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and why President Trump is accused of using a racial slur.
Plus: a Royal engagement, smartphones charging 5x faster and #GivingTuesday.
All that and much more - in less than 10 minutes!
Award-winning broadcast journalist and former TV news reporter Erica Mandy breaks it all down for you.
Israeli investor Ido Sum is a Partner at TLcom Capital— a venture capital firm with a presence in Nairobi, Lagos and London. Since 1999, the firm has invested in Telecom, Media and Technology (TMT) companies in Europe, Israel and Sub Saharan Africa and currently manages total commitments in excess of €200 million.
In this conversation with Andile Masuku - taped at the fringes of African Angel Investor Summit 2017 (www.AAIS2017.com) - Ido fields questions regarding the prevalence of investor bias, the appropriateness of certain VC approaches on the continent, and of course, TLcom's participation in one of 2017’s most well-publicised startup investment deals— Andela’s $40 million Series C, led by South African Pule Taukobong of CRE Venture Capital.
Here's a link to Ido Sum's crowdsourced African Investment Landscape Database: http://bit.ly/2Abm8lj. If you are actively involved in early-stage investment efforts on the continent, Ido welcomes your contributions to the spreadsheet.
Katy Waldman, Laura Miller, and Meghan O'Rourke discuss the novel Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. Our selection for next month will be Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey.
Today's episode takes two deep dives into complicated legal issues in the news. First, we tackle the FCC's recent "Order Restoring Internet Freedom," which is being characterized as ending Net Neutrality. Is that true? The answer... probably won't surprise you, actually. Then, Andrew and Thomas discuss general principles of antitrust law with an eye towards the recent news that the Trump Department of Justice has sued to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Finally, we close with the answer to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam Question #51 involving class action lawsuits in Tenntucky. Don't forget to following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and like our Facebook Page so that you too can play along with #TTTBE! Recent Appearances Andrew is going to be on the Wednesday broadcast of the David Pakman show; give it a listen! Show Notes & Links
The main citations we relied upon in the show were 15 U.S.C. § 1 (The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890); 15 U.S.C. § 18 (The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914), and 15 U.S.C. § 45 (the FTC Act of 1914).
Elliott Abrams narrowly missed out on the State Department’s No. 2 job under President Trump, and it wasn’t just because of his sharp criticism of Trump, the candidate. In his book, Realism and Democracy, he argues that the U.S. should stay involved in the Arab world, going against the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine. Abrams also sounds off on Trump’s use of the presidential pardon.
In the Spiel, Mike weighs the New York Times’ coverage of your run-of-the-mill American Nazi.
Republicans don’t yet have the votes to jam through their Donor Relief Act, Trump goes all-in for Moore, Conyers steps down from Judiciary, Tillerson guts State, and Mulvaney appoints himself consumer watchdog. Then Senator Elizabeth Warren talks to Jon, Jon, and Tommy about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Cass Sunstein joins to talk about his new book, Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide.
In this week's bonus, Brittany makes an appearance on the Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids stage. Listen to find out which celebrity young Brittany was convinced she would marry, and come back next week for an all new episode of The Nod!
On November 1, 2017, the Supreme Court heard argument in Artis v. District of Columbia, a case involving a dispute over the meaning of tolling as the term is used in the federal supplemental jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d). In April 2009, Stephanie Artis, a temporary employee for DC’s Department of Health (DOH), filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination by her supervisor, Gerard Brown. Artis followed the charge with a series of grievances challenging notices of proposed infractions against her and alleging other violations of employee rights by Brown. The DOH terminated her employment in November 2010, and she lodged a final grievance in January 2011, alleging the termination was unlawful retaliation. Artis filed suit against DC in federal district court in December 2011. She asserted a federal claim of unlawful termination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, along with various other claims arising under DC statutes and the common law. In June 2014, the district court granted DC judgment on the pleadings and dismissed Artis’ sole federal claim under Title VII. Given the facial deficiency of that claim, the district court found no basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over Artis’ remaining non-federal claims. Fifty-nine days later Artis refiled those remaining claims in DC Superior Court. DC responded with a motion for dismissal on the grounds that the claims were time-barred based on the relevant statutes of limitations plus 28 U.S.C. § 1367(d) of the federal supplemental jurisdiction statute. The Superior Court agreed, concluding that § 1367(d) does not suspend state statutes of limitations at the time of an unsuccessful federal filing, but rather creates a thirty-day period for a claimant to file actions over which the U.S. District Court lacked jurisdiction. The language of 1367(d) provides that statutes of limitations “shall be tolled while the claim is pending and for a period of 30 days after it is dismissed unless State law provides for a longer tolling period.” On appeal to the DC Court of Appeals, Artis argued that there were nearly two years remaining on the statute of limitations when she filed her suit in the federal district court, and under the language of 1367(d) she had that period (plus thirty days) to file her claims in the Superior Court after her case was dismissed. DC countered that “tolled” should merely mean that a thirty-day “grace period” applies if the limitations period for the non-federal claims expires (as it would have in Artis’ case) while the federal claim is pending in federal court. The DC Court of Appeals found DC’s “grace period” reading more persuasive. As Artis had failed to refile her remaining claims within that grace period following dismissal, the Court of Appeals deemed them time-barred and affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the dueling interpretations of § 1367(d): whether that provision suspends the limitations period for a non-federal claim while the claim is pending and for 30 days after the claim is dismissed, or whether the tolling provision does not suspend the limitations period but merely provides 30 days beyond the dismissal for the plaintiff to refile. To discuss the case, we have Misha Tseytlin, Solicitor General of Wisconsin.
How does technology affect how we fall in love? Crowdscience travels to India to answer listener Erin’s questions about the impact of the internet on our search for soulmates. We meet the traditional matchmaker who says her service provides security in an era of digital fraud. And ask whether computer algorithms are the best way to help people make permanent romantic connections?
In Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation (Oxford University Press, 2017), Princeton University English Associate Professor Sarah Rivett studies how colonists in North America struggled to understand, translate, and interpret Native American languages, and the significance of these languages for theological and cosmological issues such as the origins of Amerindian populations, their relationship to Eurasian and Biblical peoples, and the origins of language itself. Through a close analysis of previously overlooked texts, Unscripted America places American Indian languages within transatlantic intellectual history, while also demonstrating how American letters emerged in the 1810s through 1830s via a complex and hitherto unexplored engagement with the legacies and aesthetic possibilities of indigenous words.
Ryan Tripp is an adjunct instructor for several community colleges and online university extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology.
