159. Puppycide in Buffalo during a police raid that fails to turn up any drugs or make any arrests.

160. Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, no friend of fugitives, illegal immigrants or civil rights, spends an unknown amount of taxpayers’ money on production costs for a Fox reality show.  Then his boys arrest some people applauding a speech critical of Arpaio during a county supervisors meeting.  And Phoenix police raid the home of a blogger who’s been criticizing them.

161. I’m from the government, and I’m here to check out that funny noise under the hood: President Obama can’t save the banks or balance the budget, but he’s now backing your transmission.  More details about the warranty from those helpful folks at reason:

162. “One of liberty’s great benefactors”, Burt Blumert, chairman of the Mises Institute and a champion of many libertarian causes, passes away at the age of 80.

163. After a student is kicked in the groin, a Connecticut school bans all physical contact.  Because today’s hug could be tomorrow’s headlock.

164. Michigan woman charged for her son’s stay in juvie hall, then is sent to jail herself after she’s unable to pay.

165. More than half of California’s service stations face hefty fines or even closure for failing to install expensive vapor recovery nozzles on their pumps.  The CARB-mandated systems run about $11,000 per pump.

166. Congress seeks to give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco, while also limiting safer choices for people looking to cut back or quit.

167. Speaking of tobacco, remember Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000?  Well, he lied, unless you think only rich people smoke.  They don’t, at least not as much as the poor do, making the new cigarette tax increase highly regressive.

The Daily Cuts:

152. Eminent domain abuse continues four years after Kelo, but some folks are fighting back.  More here from reason‘s coverage of eminent domain issues.

153. It’s just no fun being a teenager in Texas.

154. New York state bureaucrats treat “direct-to-consumer” genomics firms as laboratories, burdening them with needless regulations.

155. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton is my new folk hero.  He decided to check out of this world on his own, rather than have the Feds put him in prison for the unpardonable crime of distilling his own moonshine.  His tombstone reads “POPCORN SAID FUCK YOU”.  Here’s to you, Popcorn.

156. Warren Meyer over at Coyote Blog presents this easy-to-follow checklist on how to start a business . . . in Alabama.  The other 49 states may be different.

157. Congress shovels $182.5 billion dollars into the AIG furnace, then heroically recovers 0.09% of it for taxpayers.

On to the Daily Cuts:

148. After a six-year battle with the Feds over obscenity charges, two porn film entrepreneurs plead guilty to reduced charges, earning them up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a far cry from the five decades they faced on the original indictment.  As Jacob Sullum points out, the prosecutor, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, “seems to be a sincere moral crusader and therefore a public menace”.

149. Even though members of their own party seem lukewarm on the idea, it appears that the Obama administration still doesn’t have enough on its plate, and wants to add a revival of the Federal assault weapons ban.  This time it’s not for the children, but for the poor Mexicans caught in the crossfire of a vicious drug war.  Of course, if we Americans would just stop being such loser dope fiends, we wouldn’t need a drug war in the first place.

150. A Congresswoman from Ohio introduces a real clunker of a bill: $5,000 for any car you can drag to a dealership, to be applied towards the purchase of a new car.  Of course the automakers are supportive of this boondoggle.

151. Comic relief: What, would you rather have the cops kicking in your door?