TALES FROM THE WORKERS PARADISE: Venezuela cuts power for four hours a day to save energy.

Venezuela, it should be remembered, is an OPEC member and ranks number one in the world for proven oil reserves.

SUIT CLAIMS FORMER FDA CHIEF HELPED HUBBY’S HEDGE FUND MAKE MILLIONS: Katie Watson of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group reports that former FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg is accused in a suit filed in federal court of using her office to clear the way to approval for Levaquin, a controversial antibiotic in which her husband’s hedge fund just happened to be highly invested.

“Once confirmed as FDA commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg acted as the instrumentality that all defendants used to perpetrate their conspiracy and racketeering enterprise by having her act illegally and outside the scope of her authority as FDA commissioner to suppress material information to plaintiffs and the public that Levaquin was inherently dangerous and in fact, deadly,” the complaint alleges, according to Watson.

Alexandra Walsh, an attorney for Hamburg, strongly disputed the suit’s claims, saying “Mr. Klayman’s allegations against Dr. Hamburg are patently false. There is no factual or legal basis for the lawsuit he has filed, and we are confident the court will dismiss his claims in their entirety.” Walsh was referring to Larry Klayman, attorney for the six plaintiffs in the case.

Hamburg was appointed by President Obama in 2009 and served until March 2015.

WHEN DOVES CRY: A very VodkaPundit farewell to Prince.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1079.

THE EIGHT MOST ICONIC PRINCE SONGS.

What’s your favorite?

UNIONS VS. THE PUBLIC: Blue Civil War Meets Thin Blue Line.

One highly-publicized and worthwhile endeavor of the Black Lives Matter movement has been to draw attention to the way police union contracts sometimes go too far in shielding misbehaving officers from disciplinary sanctions. But that’s not the only way strong police unions can negotiate a system of rules that put the interests of their members ahead of the interests of the public: As the Marshall Project reports, Chicago’s police unions have seen to it that the least experienced officers are asked to patrol the toughest neighborhoods in the Windy City. . . .

Of course, it makes sense that unions would want to protect the interests of their most seasoned officers, who have climbed the ladder and paid their dues—just as it makes sense that teachers’ unions zealously guard the job security of the longest-serving teachers. But in the end, cops and teachers—and firefighters and welfare administrators—are public servants, and their work must ultimately be about securing the well-being of the people they serve. All too often, well-endowed public sector unions can tip the balance too far in the opposite direction, prioritizing the privileges of well-connected union members over the needs of the public that pays their salaries. As the Marshall Project piece suggests, the union-negotiated deal the concentrates inexperienced officers in high-crime areas makes Chicagoans—especially poor Chicagoans—worse off overall.

Powerful public employee unions are a defining feature of the blue model governance system that Democrats are determined to protect. But as we’ve written before, “the most serious grievances that many Democratic voters feel are about the inadequacy of the services these employees provide: dysfunctional schools, unaccountable law enforcement, abusive prison guards, or inefficient welfare bureaucracies.” In many cases, advancing the interests of low-income Democratic voters depends on rolling back the influence of self-interested unions over urban governance.

Democrats back unions and Republicans back police, so accountability gets lost in the mix.

JAMES LILEKS ON HOW TO MURDER A CITY. Lileks features an early 1970s industrial film, and his own running commentary, on how the last vestiges of Bauhaus-style modernism on a massive scale cheerfully sucked the history and vitality right out of a major American city to, as Tom Wolfe would say, “Start From Zero.” As James concludes:

Great job, guys. Just tremendous work. To be fair, there are skyscrapers – built during the worst phase of American skyscraper design, unfortunately — and I guess the old industrial warehouse area is being spiffed up, because people like history. It’s like Theodore Dalyrimple observed: after WW2, the cities that had been spared the bombing were intact, if sagging and old — and we proceeded to make them look as if they’d been firebombed by the Boche for weeks on end, creating our own arid wastelands.

Well-heeled vandals with taxpayer money, leveling the old sad world for a city of bunkers. The whole thing is right here. It’s really an extraordinary period piece.

Everything new is worse.

I quoted the aforementioned Dalrymple passage at the start of a lengthy 2005, Lileks-inspired post titled The Life And Death Of England’s Cities.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Tennessee legislature makes major moves to get rid of gun-free zones at public universities and businesses.

By overwhelming votes, the Tennessee legislature passed two bills that get rid of gun-free zones at public universities and provides immunity to businesses if they don’t post ban. CPRC’s John Lott testified on both bills when they started in the state Senate Judiciary Committee.

The gun-free zones at public universities allows “full-time employees of state public colleges or universities to carry a handgun while on property owned, operated, or used by the employing college or university if the employee has a valid Tennessee handgun carry permit.” This bill passed by a 28 to 5 vote in the state Senate and 69 to 24 in the state House. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam might veto the bill because it didn’t give the institutions the power to opt out, but with a 85 to 15 percent vote in the Senate and a 74 to 26 percent in the House, there are more than enough votes to over ride a veto. It was the Senate version of the bill that was passed.

The other bill “provides immunity to the business/entity if the business doesn’t post” signs banning permitted concealed handguns. This bill passed by a 26 to 4 vote in the state Senate and by 77 to 12 in the state House. The governor hasn’t spoken out on this bill, but even if he were to veto it, it looks as if it would be easy to override the veto.

Taken together these two bills will make a major difference in eliminating gun-free zones in the state. Tennessee will be the 13th state that is ending gun-free zones on college campuses. The immunity bill appears to be the first one in the country.

I hope that Gov. Haslam doesn’t veto the bill — we don’t normally allow institutions to “opt out” of civil rights legislation these days. And I would call his attention to this letter from my colleague Jack Parker in the Engineering school. And also this column of mine from 2007.

THE UNPLEASANT TRUTH about Chinese espionage. “In the two weeks since the Lin story broke, we have still more cases of Chinese immigrants accused of spying against their adopted country on behalf of their ancestral one. . . . The most challenging part of how China spies on the United States is that Beijing’s modus operandi relies overwhelmingly on co-nationals. Chinese intelligence agencies seldom stray far from working with ethnic kin and Beijing-related spy cases here that do not involve ethnic Chinese are very much an exception. Even when non-Chinese are involved, there is usually someone tied to Beijing by ethnicity somewhere in the operation.”

AMERICANS SUFFERING FINANCIALLY, minorities hardest hit.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: The socialist utopias of Sanders’ dreams bear little resemblance to reality across the Atlantic.

DONALD TRUMP, YOU MAY RECALL, CRITICIZED GELLER FOR BEING TOO PROVOCATIVE, THOUGH HE WAS HARDLY ALONE IN THAT: Well-known ISIS operative instructed Americans to kill organizer of Muhammad cartoon contest, prosecutors reveal. “The Justice Department on Thursday revealed that a well-known Islamic State operative instructed a Boston-area man to kill Pamela Geller, the organizer of a controversial Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas last year. In court documents, prosecutors said that Junaid Hussain, a British militant, had been communicating with Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, 26, who along with two friends discussed beheading Geller. Rahim, however, changed his mind and instead decided to target a police officer. He was shot and killed in June 2015 in Roslindale, Mass., after he attacked members of an FBI-led surveillance team while wielding a large knife, officials said.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Congratulations to the 50 US Colleges Who Won a ‘Jefferson Muzzle Award.’

UNISEX GLoP: In their latest podcast, Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long, and John Podhoretz take on the left’s war on bathrooms.

Love the Photoshop atop the post.

THE ANTI-SEX LEAGUE WANTS TO MAKE SURE YOU LOVE NO ONE BUT BIG BROTHER: Prepare to have your sex life regulated by government.

Adults may soon find their sex lives regulated to the point where nearly every sexual encounter is defined as rape unless neither party reports the activity.

The American Law Institute will vote in May on whether to adopt a model penal code that would make “affirmative consent” the official position of the organization. Affirmative consent — or “yes means yes” — policies have already been adopted by many colleges and universities, and have been passed as law in California and New York.

A source within ALI has confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the model penal code on sexual assault that was discussed at last year’s meeting will be voted on at their annual meeting this coming May. Last year, the draft proposal was met with opposition from ALI members, including a female former prosecutor who called the draft “really disturbing.”

A group of concerned members within ALI even circulated an opposition letter, signed by dozens of members, that detailed the dangers of pushing affirmative consent on the general public (not that it’s a good policy for college students, either).

Sure, this sounds impossible — but think of all the other things happening, legally, that seemed impossible not long ago. But the people pushing this stuff have no fear of consequences. If this passes, the American Law Institute should be shamed and shunned.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? TWO KEY FIGURES IN HILLARY EMAIL SCANDAL HOST FUNDRAISER WITH STARS OF TV SCANDAL.

Scandal airs on ABC, where legendarily objective journalist George Stephanopoulos contributed $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

DISPATCHES FROM THE LEFT’S WAR ON BATHROOMS: Cruz campaign now selling “Make PC Great Again” hats to mock Trump over transgender comments.

Related: “Prediction: within 24 hours [Trump] announces a major reversal on this plank and begins using the most extreme language possible to put him in sync with what he imagines conservative opinion to be.”

WAIT, I THOUGHT DEMOCRATS WERE IN FAVOR OF THAT: Split SCOTUS ‘Handcuffs’ Law Enforcement, Democrats Say.

BUT WHEN WILL SHE SLEEP, WRECK OTHER ASPECTS OF THE ECONOMY, AND BURN ADDITIONAL AMERICAN EMBASSIES TO THE GROUND? Hillary Vows to Spend ‘Every Single Minute’ as President to ‘Change Gun Culture.‘

If we’re lucky, she’ll bring the same dedication and focus that Obama brings to his “every waking hour” serving as president.

DEAR SCROTTY STUDENTS: “Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you.”

GIVE ‘EM HELL, BERNIE: $182 million: Bernie Sanders equals Hillary Clinton’s campaign fundraising.

AND FOUND NOTHING OF VALUE: FBI paid more than $1.3M to hack terrorist’s iPhone.

The FBI paid private hackers than $1.3 million for custom software allowing investigators to break into the locked iPhone used by a terrorist in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., attack, Director James Comey indicated on Thursday.

The bureau paid “a lot” of money, Comey said at an Aspen Security Forum event in London on Thursday, without disclosing the specific price tag.

“More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure.”

The FBI director is paid $183,300 per year, according to federal salary system records.

Over the course of the remainder of his term, which ends in July of 2023, he will be paid more than $1.3 million.

The payment “was, in my view, worth it” Comey said on Thursday, “because it’s a tool that helps us with [an iPhone] 5c running iOS 9, which is a bit of a corner case.”

The FBI has declined to say who developed a program to bypass security mechanisms on the phone, but The Washington Post has reported that it paid a one-time fee to a company that was not Cellebrite, the Israeli hacking firm initially suspected of coming to the FBI’s assistance.

They probably spent that much on legal fees in the Apple case.

BERNIE SANDERS DOES NOT PRACTICE WHAT HE PREACHES ON TAXES: “Bernie Sanders released his 2014 tax return this weekend, revealing that he and his wife took $60,208 in deductions from their taxable income. These deductions are all perfectly legal and permitted under the U.S. tax code, but they present a morally inconvenient, if delicious, irony: The Democratic socialist from Vermont, a man who rages against high earners paying a lower effective tax rate than blue-collar workers, saved himself thousands using many of the tricks that would be banned under his own tax plan.”