Free Republic

The Texas police department that arrested a mother for criticizing the town’s dirty drinking water on social media has been ordered to disband after the state ruled that it provided no “benefit to the community.” The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement sent Trinidad Mayor Dennis Haws a letter on Sept. 9 revoking the city’s license to operate its own police department — determining the department had “failed to meet minimum standards” as a law enforcement entity, KETK reported. The action followed an Aug. 5 investigation in which the department was found “unable to provide evidence that the agency provides public...

A legislative update newsletter from Rep. Tobias Read (D-Beaverton) this week gives a glimpse into how Oregon Democrats view businesses. The subject line of the email is “Can business do good, too?” Wow! So businesses don’t have to be just inherently bad? They can “do good, too?”

...To understand why Kelo is truly horrible, it is necessary to look both at Kelo and the constitutional logic of public use requirement. On the former, the declining economic fortunes of New London spurred the city elders to embark on a general urban development plan, underwritten by $73 million in state money devoted to general planning, physical infrastructure and environmental cleanup. The plan lacked only one ingredient -- some real live developer prepared to risk his own capital to build any office or hotel on part of the 90 or so acres the City already had. Not content with its...