• U.S. Senators to micromanage GM, Chrysler plans to close dealerships.
• Dana Milbank: Sotomayor begins important meetings with senators—important in the sense that it allows senators to show how important they are.
• Cheney personally oversaw CIA briefings of Congress on torture techniques.
• Obama's right aproach to Iran: "should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities..."
• 1 of every 6 dollars of Americans' income is government check or voucher
• Texas cop tasers 72-year-old woman for refusing to sign a traffic ticket.
• Weirdest attack on libertarianism.
  
• Cop damages photographers camera, wrongly arrests him for videotaping an accident scene.

With Reason, Hit and Run
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Katherine Mangu-Ward

Banks who jumped at bailout money now seem surprised to discover that the fine print gave the government the right to retain ownership stakes in the banks for up to 10 years. Sure, banks were lead to believe the warrants provision was minor, and wouldn't be a problem when the time came to negotiate repayment terms. But if there's anything this financial crisis should have taught us, writes Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward, it is to be skeptical of lenders who casually promise that paying back enormous loans won't be any problem at all (ask anyone with an adjustable-rate mortgage). 

Read all about it here.

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Steve Chapman:

The invocations of the Boston Tea Party—on April 15, no less—suggested that last week's Tea Party protests stemmed from anger about taxes under President Barack Obama. But Obama has not actually increased income taxes—only the federal tax on tobacco, which the majority of people don't pay. So why, writes Steve Chapman, did people rally across the country when they should have been planning how to spend their tax refunds? Because their true dismay is about the mushrooming of federal outlays, which the demonstrators regard as a future tax increase in the making. Which, of course, it is.

Read all about it here.

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Every tax day, a handful of lefties pen paeans to the federal government, and how they do and the rest of us should feel inspired, patriotic, and invigorated when we pay our taxes.

Here’s one example from this year. Here’s another.

The sentiment is particularly misguided this year, as we begin year seven of a misguided war waged under false pretenses; we’re hearing new revelations every day about how the federal government has systematically violated our constitutional rights, and the human rights of others; and the government is spending billions, and risking trillions, to prop up private companies that took stupid risks and should have gone out of business for doing so–despite that the majority of the public opposes the bailouts.

Still, I always want to ask people who write these articles, why not pay more than your fair share, then? If greed (i.e., wanting to keep as much of your own money as possible) is evil, and if government really is so benevolent and wonderful (provided your party is running it, of course), why not pay double or triple what you owe? The point particularly applies to wealthier supporters of big government. But even journalists, I’d think, if they were true believers, could afford to send a quarterly $500 check to the federal treasury.

Think of it as a donation to your favorite charity–only a really, really awesome one that’s filled with noble, self-sacrificing public servants; is run by selfless politicians who run for office only out of the goodness of their hearts; never violates our rights, despite that it has the power to do so; wastes virtually no money at all on overhead or bureaucracy; and generally makes all of us all-around better human beings.

MORE: Hell, some of them publicly ask for assistance on how to pay less that what they rightfully owe.

A Radley Balko article.
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