Morning News for Monday, February 25, 2013
From the Washington Examiner:
By any fair estimate, the NLRB, which is funded with taxpayer dollars, has operated as a vehicle for Big Labor to achieve bureaucratic victories it could not otherwise see enacted in the legislature.
From Huffington Post:
Helen Grieco’s strange post “Tilting at Windmills” (Huff Post Green, February 20, 2013) takes a lot of cheap shots at Drakes Bay Oyster Farm. The post is riddled with errors and false implications.
Senate Democrats are in a hurry to confirm Jack Lew as Secretary of the Treasury before anyone notices his biography. Otherwise, liberal lawmakers might be embarrassed voting for a man who represents everything they’ve been campaigning against.
Morning News for Friday, February 22, 2013
Coverage of Drake’s Bay Oyster Company continues. More from Point Reyes Light:
An Interior Department watchdog report released earlier this month that was intended to quiet allegations of scientific misconduct in evaluating the noise impacts of Drake’s Bay Oyster Company instead unleashed more cacophony this week.
New information released in the USDA sensitivity training event, the Daily Caller reports:
Additional clips of a United States Department of Agriculture sensitivity training class feature USDA employees being told to recite, “If we work for a federal agency, we’ve discriminated in the past.”
Electric car company Tesla Motors hopes to be profitable this next quarter – something that will help them pay that big DOE green energy loan they borrowed. Read Green Car Reports:
“We expect to be slightly profitable (excluding only non-cash option and warrant-related expenses) in Q1 2013,” it wrote in a letter to shareholders on its financial results just after the stock market closed yesterday afternoon.
Morning News for Thursday, February 21, 2013
From The Daily Caller: Another EPA administrator caught using a private email account.
Emails released by the Environmental Protection Agency show that acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe used a private email account to conduct official business, which violates EPA policy and has raised questions about whether he was trying to shield communications from public disclosure.
The Oversight Committee is investigating whether contracts worth $500 million came from a personal relationship between an IRS employee and the owner of a computer company. The Washington Guardian reports:
“At best, this is a conflict of interest that runs afoul of … Federal Acquisition Regulation,” Issa writes. “At worst, the IRS may have a situation in which a contracting official is awarding sole source contracts based on false justifications, or receiving kickbacks in exchange for government contracts.”
The Supreme Court is considering an issue of how FOIA rights are treated by states. Read more from Politico:
Freedom of Information laws were before the Supreme Court Wednesday, but the issue wasn’t the usual one of what is and isn’t off limits. Instead, the justices were trying to sort out whether states have the right to limit the use of such laws to their own citizens and companies.
Morning News for Wednesday, February 20, 2013
From NBC Bay Area:
Dollar oysters, already a happy hour rarity, could be a thing of the past once the supply of ocean-bound bivalves shortens following the closure of Drakes Bay Oysters Co., according to reports.
From the Washington Examiner:
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., revealed that he has found “widespread” use of banned, unofficial email accounts at the Environmental Protection Agency. At least two regional administrators used the unofficial email accounts, including the acting agency leader and one person resigning as the investigation gets underway.
Three years after the landmark Citizens United decision that dramatically changed campaign finance laws, the Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will take up another campaign finance case challenging how much donors can give to campaigns and committees.
Morning News for Tuesday, February 19, 2013
From The Washington Times:
Four hundred U.S. Postal Service executives are heading to San Francisco next month for workshops, meetings — and a dance party. And a golf tournament. And a dinner event.
From the LA Times:
The Anaheim company behind the $110,000 Karma plug-in hybrid sports car has previously said it needs about $500 million to launch a second, less expensive model, which would be made at a factory in Wilmington, Del. Fisker ran into a cash crunch after the federal government froze a Department of Energy loan to the company and its battery maker went bankrupt.
A last gasp effort in Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s epic legal battle to stay open will take place this Thursday, when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals takes up owner Kevin Lunny’s final appeal… However, oyster prices are already inching up, demand isn’t slowing down and there is already a shortage of oysters on the West Coast.
Morning News for Monday, February 18, 2013
Money left behind by passengers at airport checkpoints ends up being used by TSA. NBC News reports:
TSA makes “every effort to reunite passengers with items left at security checkpoints,” said agency spokesperson Nico Melendez. But all those nickels, dimes, quarters – and a smattering of poker chips and crumpled bills – usually end up getting counted, forwarded to the TSA financial office and then spent on general security operations. Congress approved that TSA expenditure in 2005, but some lawmakers and passengers rights groups are unhappy TSA gets to keep the change.
Foreign governments are paying for Congressional staffers to take lavish trips according to this story in The Washington Post:
More and more foreign governments are sponsoring such excursions for lawmakers and their staffs, though an overhaul of ethics rules adopted by Congress five years ago banned them from going on most other types of free trips. This overseas travel is often arranged by lobbyists for foreign governments, though lobbyists were barred from organizing other types of congressional trips out of concern that the trips could be used to buy favor.
As the fight for Drakes Bay Oyster Company continues, local businesses worry the price of oysters will significantly increase if the farm is forced to close. Read more from the Marin Independent Journal:
The Drakes Bay Oysters Co. is making its final legal bid to stay open and there is fear if it fails oyster prices will rise and the bivalve business in the region won’t be the same…If it does not grant the injunction, Drakes Bay will have to close operations by March 15, a move many believe will lead to higher oyster prices in the region.