Arizona Republic: “Zipps Sports Grill has filed suit against the city, Planning and Development Department Director Debra Stark and Bethany 16th LLC, the owner and landlord of a central Phoenix shopping center where Zipps leases a location. The March 28 filing follows a months-long zoning battle involving a Z’Tejas restaurant proposed at the southwestern corner of 16th Street and Bethany Home Road.”
The Hill: “The Energy Department said Thursday it expects to begin tentatively approving new taxpayer-backed loans for renewable energy projects in the coming months. The announcement comes about seven months after Solyndra, the California solar firm that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the administration in 2009, went bankrupt, setting off a firestorm in Washington.”
The purpose of government is not to decide which businesses should receive taxpayer money to enrich the chosen few citizens who win the government business investment lottery. Not only is it morally wrong the government does not have the knowledge necessary to be in the venture capital business.
Reason.com: “Courts are expanding rights but cops are cracking down. Find out how to keep your footage, and yourself, out of trouble. Last week the City of Boston agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2007 felony arrest for videotaping police roughing up a suspect. Prior to the settlement, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Glik had a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public.” The Boston Police Department now explicitly instructs its officers not to arrest citizens openly recording them in public. Slowly but surely the courts are recognizing that recording on-duty police is a protected First Amendment activity. But in the meantime, police around the country continue to intimidate and arrest citizens for doing just that. So if you’re an aspiring cop watcher you must be uniquely prepared to deal with hostile cops”
Fox News: “Attorney General Eric Holder assured a federal appeals court Thursday that the Obama administration believes judges have the authority to overturn federal laws, after President Obama’s comments earlier this week raised concerns from the bench about his view of judicial power. Holder, in a three-page letter to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, said “the power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute'”
Harvard constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe said that President Obama “obviously misspoke,” but White House press secretary Carnes explained “the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.” When I took two semesters of constitutional law in law school my con law professor did not speak to us in shorthand.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said:
“The president crossed a dangerous line this week and anyone who cares about liberty needs to call him out on it. The independence of the court must be defended.”
New York Times: “opting for models that promise better mileage through new technologies does not necessarily save money, according to data compiled for The New York Times . . . . the added cost of the fuel-efficient technologies is so high that it would take the average driver many years — in some cases more than a decade — to save money over comparable new models with conventional internal-combustion engines. . . . The Volt, which cost nearly $40,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit, could take up to 27 years to pay off“