Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- Labor group reaches into GOP districts
- Federal government guilty of hurting housing market by guaranteeing mortgages, inflating home values
- Tea party pushes GOP candidates to right
- Cyber Combat: Act of War
- Obama Administration getting ready to ditch the Food Pyramid
- Contest Lets Voters Choose ‘God’ for Their Poll Stickers in Ohio, Riling Some Activists
- CREEPY HOMELAND SECURITY MOBILE ‘MALINTENT’ PRE-CRIME SCREENING SYSTEM TO SCAN AMERICANS
| Labor group reaches into GOP districts Posted: 31 May 2011 07:18 AM PDT By Steven Harmon, MercuryNews.com SACRAMENTO — The last group you’d think would sway Republican voters is a public employee labor union. But David Kieffer, the political director of the Service Employees International Union, thinks he has the tools and the approach to persuade GOP voters to support its highest political priority: extending the current level of sales, income and auto taxes to help close the state’s $10 billion deficit. It is a multimillion-dollar experiment for the SEIU, the largest public employee union in California, with 700,000 members. Kieffer has targeted 10 Republican legislators’ districts with TV, radio and newspaper ads, fliers and billboards over the past two weeks. The TV and radio campaign has reached 2.6 million viewers and listeners in five markets: Sacramento, Fresno, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. The campaign has two purposes: to provide cover for some Republicans who are considering voting for taxes, or at least voting to put tax extensions on the ballot as legislators work toward the June 15 budget deadline; and to harangue other Republicans who may be vulnerable to accusations that they are blocking reasonable compromise solutions. “Republicans who want to do the right thing will know they will have the political backing to do it,” Kieffer said. “They don’t have to worry about right-wing attacks in a primary. We’ll have their backs if they stand up to an all-cuts budget.” A short-term objective is to help persuade four Republicans to vote for tax extensions this year; a long-term goal is to elect moderate, pro-government Republicans in newly drawn districts in 2012 and beyond under the new top-two primary system, in which two members of the same party could face each other in a general election. To read more, visit: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18156569?nclick_check=1 |
| Federal government guilty of hurting housing market by guaranteeing mortgages, inflating home values Posted: 31 May 2011 07:13 AM PDT By: PETER SIRIS, nydailynews.com When you search for the causes of the financial meltdown and the following recession, look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage entities. The government will make money on its bailout of the banks and may even break even on the auto industry, but according to Gene Epstein, the economics columnist for Barron’s, the housing market has already cost taxpayers $164 billion, and the tab seems likely to climb. Epstein, who calls it “a failure of crapitalism,” makes a quite simple point. When the government guarantees, or seems to guarantee, losses, the “behavior of private actors gets fatally distorted,” says Epstein. Mortgage firms and banks, as well as individual homeowners, take undue risks, knowing the taxpayer will stand behind their mistakes. If they are right, they make a big profit. If they are wrong, we will bail them all out. This is, in Epstein’s words, “Heads I win, tails you lose.” It seems logical to think that government should not be underwriting everyone’s mortgages, but since the financial meltdown, things have actually gotten worse, not better. With banks nervous about lending and with tens of millions of homeowners underwater, more than 90% of all mortgages are being guaranteed by the government – and that means by you and me. Further, in the past Fannie and Freddie were only quasi-government agencies. But now that we have bailed them out they are actually part of the government – which means that we, the taxpayers, are financing more than 90% of all mortgages and covering the losses of anyone who is underwater. To read more, visit: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2011/05/31/2011-05-31_federal_government_guilty_of_hurting_housing_market_by_guaranteeing_mortgages_in.html |
| Tea party pushes GOP candidates to right Posted: 31 May 2011 07:08 AM PDT By Charles Babington -Associated Press, WashingtonTimes.com In the first presidential election since the tea party's emergence, Republican candidates are drifting rightward on a range of issues, even though more centrist stands might play well in the 2012 general election. On energy, taxes, health care and other topics, the top candidates hold positions that are more conservative than those they espoused a few years ago. The shifts reflect the evolving views of conservative voters, who will play a major role in choosing the Republican nominee. In that sense, the candidates' repositioning seems savvy or even essential. But the eventual nominee will face President Obama in the 2012 general election, when independent voters appear likely to be decisive players once again. Those independents may be far less enamored of hard-right positions than are the GOP activists who will wield power in the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary and other nominating contests. "The most visible shift in the political landscape" in recent years "is the emergence of a single bloc of across-the-board conservatives," says the Pew Research Center, which conducts extensive voter surveys. Many of them "take extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues," Pew reports. They largely "agree with the tea party" and "very strongly disapprove of Barack Obama's job performance." Climate policy is a dramatic example of how GOP presidential hopefuls have shifted to the right in recent years. Former Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Jon Huntsman of Utah, along with other likely candidates, have backed away from earlier embraces of regional "cap-and-trade" programs to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. To read more, visit: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/30/tea-party-pushes-gop-candidates-to-right/ |
| Posted: 31 May 2011 07:04 AM PDT By SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES, WallStreetJournal.com WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force. The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military. In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official. Recent attacks on the Pentagon’s own systems—as well as the sabotaging of Iran’s nuclear program via the Stuxnet computer worm—have given new urgency to U.S. efforts to develop a more formalized approach to cyber attacks. A key moment occurred in 2008, when at least one U.S. military computer system was penetrated. This weekend Lockheed Martin, a major military contractor, acknowledged that it had been the victim of an infiltration, while playing down its impact. The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack’s origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. These questions have already been a topic of dispute within the military. One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of “equivalence.” If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a “use of force” consideration, which could merit retaliation. To read more, visit: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories |
| Obama Administration getting ready to ditch the Food Pyramid Posted: 31 May 2011 07:01 AM PDT From: cbs8.com SAN DIEGO (CBS In its place, officials are “dishing up” a simple, plate-shaped symbol, sliced into wedges for basic food groups and half-filled with fruits and vegetables. Beside the plate is a smaller circle for dairy, suggesting a glass of low-fat milk or perhaps a yogurt cup. The revised pyramid is part of the administration’s crusade against obesity, led by first lady Michelle Obama. To read more, visit: http://www.cbs8.com/story/14750182/obama-administration-getting-ready-to-ditch-the-food-pyramid |
| Contest Lets Voters Choose ‘God’ for Their Poll Stickers in Ohio, Riling Some Activists Posted: 31 May 2011 06:55 AM PDT From: FoxNews.com They say in Ohio that “With God, All Things Are Possible.” That’s the state’s motto, a reference to the almighty that has been upheld by federal courts, but a proposal to put the motto on the stickers given out at polling stations after people vote is causing controversy in the Buckeye State. The phrase is among the options proposed by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted as part of a campaign inviting state residents to choose the design for new stickers. Two designs state simply “I Voted Today,” with the state motto in smaller type. Other options range from the straightforward “I’m a Buckeye Voter” to a play on the state name, “O-H I vOte.” But the prospect of offering all voters, regardless of their religious beliefs, a sticker with the word “God” isn’t sitting well with some voting rights activists. “The ones that have the state motto on it would kind of put atheists in a bind, wouldn’t it?” Ellis Jacobs, senior attorney for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, told the Middletown Journal. “There are a heck of a lot of atheists out there. They shouldn’t be made uncomfortable when they go to vote.” Catherine Turcer of the government watchdog group Ohio Citizen Action argued that people of all religious persuasions should feel welcome when voting. “People love their stickers,” Turcer told the Middletown Journal. “It’s like a badge of honor. So the badge of honor should not be contentious.” To read more, visit: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/30/contest-lets-voters-choose-god-poll-stickers-ohio-riling-activists/ |
| CREEPY HOMELAND SECURITY MOBILE ‘MALINTENT’ PRE-CRIME SCREENING SYSTEM TO SCAN AMERICANS Posted: 31 May 2011 06:51 AM PDT From: TheBlaze.com Straight out of Minority Report a new Homeland Security program would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect people who are intending to commit a terrorist act at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places has moved closer to being implemented after the FAST program passed its first round of testing at an undisclosed location in northeast US. The system uses a computer program that studies physiological indicators of a person, such as heart rate and the steadiness of a person's gaze, and then uses the data to make a judgment on whether that individual has "malintent". |
– The Obama Administration is getting ready to ditch the Food Pyramid, a symbol of healthy eating for the last two decades.
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