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“In short, coal has been a bedrock component of our economy and energy policy for decades,” writes constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe. “The [EPA’s rule] demonstrates the risk of allowing an unaccountable administrative agency to ‘make’ law and attempt to impose the burden of global climate change on an unlucky and unfortunate few.”

“EPA’s singling out of a mere handful of emitters and limiting (or curtailing) their property is exactly the type of overreaching the Fifth Amendment seeks to prevent,” Tribe, who is on retainer for the coal company Peabody Energy, wrote in his comments to the EPA.

Tribe’s argument that the EPA rule is unconstitutional is one of the strongest charges made against the agency’s Clean Power Plan to date.

The Clean Power Plan “violates principles of federalism and seeks to commandeer state governments in violation of the Tenth Amendment,” Tribe argues. “It raises serious questions under the Fifth Amendment as well, because it retroactively abrogates the federal government’s policy of promoting coal as an energy source. Private companies — and whole communities — reasonably relied on the federal government’s commitment to the support of coal.”

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Rolling Stone magazine, it appears, ignored both principles in its explosive story, “A Rape on Campus.”

The 9,000-word article about Jackie, a University of Virginia freshman who alleged a frat-house gang rape, was apparently fraught from the beginning with gaps in basic reporting. The story’s writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, as well as a phalanx of editors, fact-checkers and lawyers who massaged the piece before publication, accepted Jackie’s account without locking down key details that would have confirmed, or at least plausibly substantiated, her harrowing tale.

Instead, Erdely’s story, published Nov. 19 to a thunderous and mostly positive reaction, appears to have been fatally defective. Major details, including the name of the fraternity in question, are in dispute or have been exposed as false. Jackie’s allies have distanced themselves from her and from Rolling Stone’s story.

And so, too, has Rolling Stone. The magazine backed away from the story Friday and placed the onus for its defects on Jackie. “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” wrote managing editor Will Dana in “A Note to Our Readers” posted on the magazine’s Web site. (The magazine did not return calls for further comment.)

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Hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are allegedly involved.

According to the suit, Wells Fargo purposely issued out these high-risk loans to minority borrowers because most of them did not qualify for traditional loans.

The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Chicago, contends that Wells Fargo engaged in the practice known as “equity stripping,” which involves imposing inflated or unneeded rates and fees, plus penalties to refinance. That practice, alleged to have taken place for much of the past decade, may involve up to 26,000 loans and compensatory damages that could top $300 million, according to the lawsuit.

“Equity stripping is an abusive form of ‘asset-based lending’ that maximizes lender profits based on the value of the underlying asset and onerous loan terms, while in disregard for a borrower’s ability to repay,” the lawsuit alleges.

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