Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- Google Is Going After Microsoft’s Heart With Chromebooks
- Mitt Romney’s ObamaCare problem
- Second Poll Finds Kaine, Allen Tied in Virginia
- Florida Tea Party Favorite Talks About Islam and Donald Trump
- Ill. lawmaker says raising obese kids should cost parents at tax time
- Tea Party Express Endorses Nelson Rival in Nebraska
- TSA gets flack for baby’s KC airport patdown
- Budget chief wants plan with 50-50 split between spending cuts and tax hikes
- Wannabe SEALs Help U.S. Navy Hunt Pirates In Massively Multiplayer Game
- Mitt Romney to give big health care speech in Michigan
| Google Is Going After Microsoft’s Heart With Chromebooks Posted: 12 May 2011 06:52 AM PDT By: Matt Rosoff, Businessinsider.com Google just explained the business case for Chromebooks in a press briefing at I/O, and it’s crystal clear that they’re not a consumer product. Rather, Google is going after Microsoft’s heart — the corporate IT department. The pitch: Chromebooks are so much cheaper and easier to manage than PCs, it will free up the IT department to do other more interesting (and profit-centered) things. According to Gartner, the cost of managing each Windows PC in an organization is between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. That’s how much it takes for an IT person to do things like push Windows and Office patches out every month, install and maintain antivirus software, answer helpdesk calls, and so on. Google isn’t claiming that Chromebooks will push these costs to zero, but Chrome OS business manager Rajen Sheth said that they could total cost of ownership in half. The best example: today when a new employee starts, it can take several hours to image a new PC with all the right apps and get them set up on all the different accounts they need. |
| Mitt Romney’s ObamaCare problem Posted: 12 May 2011 06:48 AM PDT By: The Wall Street Journal Mitt Romney travels to Ann Arbor today to deliver what his campaign bills as a major address laying out his “2012 principles for health-care reform.” These are likely to be sensible, but what we’ll be listening for is how he explains his health-care principles of five years ago. As everyone knows, the health reform Mr. Romney passed in 2006 as Massachusetts Governor was the prototype for President Obama’s version and gave national health care a huge political boost. Mr. Romney now claims ObamaCare should be repealed, but his failure to explain his own role or admit any errors suggests serious flaws both in his candidacy and as a potential President. There’s a lot to learn from the failure of the ObamaCare model that began in Massachusetts, which is now moving to impose price controls on all hospitals, doctors and other providers. Not that anyone would know listening to Mr. Romney. In the paperback edition of his campaign book “No Apology,” he calls the plan a “success,” and he has defended it in numerous media appearances as he plans his White House run. Mr. Romney has lately qualified his praise, saying in a speech in New Hampshire in March that “our experiment wasn’t perfect—some things worked, some things didn’t, and some things I’d change.” He’s mostly avoided specifics other than retreating to the cover of state experimentation, but we can fill in the details based on interviews with Romney staffers as well as others present at the creation. When Mr. Romney took office in 2003, the state was already enforcing public utility-style regulation of insurers for premiums and multiple benefit mandates. The resulting distortions were increasing rates fast, along with the natural increases from good but expensive Massachusetts medicine. Mr. Romney applied the approach that succeeded when he was a Bain & Company business consultant: He convened an expert task force. His health-care commission immersed itself in data, crunched the numbers and came up with a technocratic solution. |
| Second Poll Finds Kaine, Allen Tied in Virginia Posted: 12 May 2011 06:46 AM PDT By Kyle Trygstad, RollCall.com A second Senate poll this week has found former Virginia Govs. Tim Kaine (D) and George Allen (R) statistically tied in a potential general election matchup. Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released a poll Wednesday that found Kaine with 46 percent and Allen 44 percent. It surveyed 547 registered voters from May 5 to 8 and had a 4.2 point margin of error, and followed a Washington Post poll published Saturday that found Kaine and Allen tied at 46 percent. "When you have two highly polarizing candidates that voters have known for years, it's unlikely either of them will break away from the pack," PPP President Dean Debnam said. Other hypothetical matchups were not quite as close. Kaine led Allen's primary opponent, Jamie Radtke, 49 percent to 33 percent, and Allen led Rep. Bobby Scott (D) 44 percent to 39 percent. To read more, visit: http://www.rollcall.com/news/second_poll_finds_kaine_allen_tied_in_virginia-205517-1.html?ET=rollcall:e10280:80096864a:&st=email&pos=epol |
| Florida Tea Party Favorite Talks About Islam and Donald Trump Posted: 12 May 2011 06:42 AM PDT By: Lisa Rab, blogs.browardpalmbeach.com The light is dim and smoky inside the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8182 in Pompano Beach. Red, white, and blue slogans brighten the low walls and ceilings, urging patrons to “Thank a Vet” and to remember “Freedom Is Not Free.” At the far end of the small, bunker-sized room, two men in white T-shirts take a break from shooting pool to amble up to the sticky wooden bar. It’s a Tuesday, not quite 4 p.m. They order Jäger bombs. One of them lights a cigarette. His friend, whose pale-brown hair is shaved militarily close to his head, counts as the barkeep pours: “Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, Mississippi.” Behind him, on dual TV screens, Eddie Murphy cackles with Dan Aykroyd in the ’80s classic movie Trading Places. Boredom hangs in the stagnant air. Eventually, the door swings open, and a flood of harsh sunlight enters the room. A politician in a fitted suit and stylish blue tie appears. He wears round, wire-frame glasses, and his hair is tinged with a distinguished sprinkling of gray. U.S. Rep. Allen West has never been to this post before. He doesn’t drink or smoke or frequent bars in the middle of the day. But he is a veteran of a foreign war and has chosen this spot for a one-on-one interview. Two years ago, West, 50, was a little-known veteran from the suburban Broward city of Plantation whose résumé included one failed congressional campaign and a 22-year Army career. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel but in 2003 faced military criminal charges for shoving an Iraqi detainee’s head into a barrel during an interrogation and firing a pistol into the barrel. Army investigators found probable cause to call the incident aggravated assault, but a hearing officer dismissed the case. West was punished with a fine of $5,000 and resigned from the military the next year with an honorable discharge and full benefits. Last November, he was swept into office by the wave of Tea Party popularity that flooded Florida and the nation. An avalanche of individual supporters and major conservative donors, such as House Speaker John Boehner’s Freedom Project PAC, helped raise $6.5 million for his campaign. He comfortably beat Democratic incumbent Ron Klein with 54 percent of the vote in a swing district that covers a large eastern swath of Broward and Palm Beach counties and includes Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach, and Palm Beach Gardens. To read more, visit:http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/05/allen_west_donald_trump_islam.php |
| Ill. lawmaker says raising obese kids should cost parents at tax time Posted: 11 May 2011 09:44 AM PDT BY HANNAH HESS, stltoday.com SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • An Illinois lawmaker says parents who have obese children should lose their state tax deduction. “It’s the parents’ responsibility that have obese kids,” said state Sen. Shane Cultra, R-Onarga. “Take the tax deduction away for parents that have obese kids.” Cultra has not introduced legislation to deny parents the $2,000 standard tax deduction, but he floated the idea Tuesday, when lawmakers took a shot at solving the state’s obesity epidemic. With one in five Illinois children classified as obese and 62 percent of the state’s adults considered overweight, health advocates are pushing a platter of diet solutions including trans fat bans and restricting junk food purchases on food stamps. Today, the Senate Public Health Committee considered taxing sugary beverages at a penny-per-ounce, in effect applying the same theory to soda, juices and energy drinks that governs to liquor sales. Health advocates say a sin tax could discourage consumption, but lawmakers are reluctant to target an industry supports the jobs of more than 40,000 Illinoisans. “It seems like we just, we go after the low-hanging fruit, where its easy to get,” said state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford. He said the state needs to form a comprehensive plan to address physical fitness and disease prevention, rather than taking aim at sugary drinks. Studies attributing the weight gain to liquid sources have made the beverages the latest target in the war on fat. Last year, 23 states proposed tax plans similar to the one presented by state Sen. William Delgado, D-Chicago, but opponents flushed them down the drain. To read more, visit: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/article_ce1a393c-7b4e-11e0-b418-0019bb30f31a.html |
| Tea Party Express Endorses Nelson Rival in Nebraska Posted: 11 May 2011 09:39 AM PDT By KATE ZERNIKE, The Caucus, The New York Times The Tea Party Express, whose money and endorsements proved key to the victories of several Senate candidates in 2010, has made its first endorsement for 2012, backing Jon Bruning, a Republican who serves as Nebraska's attorney general, in his bid to unseat Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat. The group plans to announce the endorsement Wednesday morning at the National Press Club. Mr. Nelson, perhaps the Senate's most conservative Democrat, has been considered ripe for challenge, particularly since the wrangling over health care legislation in 2009, when he angered Republicans and Democrats alike for negotiating special Medicaid payments for his state in exchange for his vote. The Tea Party Express was started by Republican consultants and is derided by many more grass-roots Tea Party groups as the "Astroturf Express." But it packs more financial punch than most Tea Party groups. It spent more than $350,000 in the final weeks of the special Senate election in Massachusetts last January to help elect Scott P. Brown, a Republican who until then had been considered a long shot to replace the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. It also helped Christine O'Donnell, a perennial candidate plagued by financial problems, snatch the Republican Senate primary in Delaware from the all-but-guaranteed-to-win candidate, Representative Michael N. Castle. And in Alaska, it helped Joe Miller, a little-known attorney, beat Senator Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent and the daughter of a state political dynasty, in the Republican Senate primary in Alaska. Both Ms. O'Donnell and Mr. Miller later lost the general election. The Tea Party Express also held several bus tours across the country last year, bringing out thousands at rallies to endorse its candidates, with prominent speakers including the former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. To read more, visit: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/tea-party-express-to-endorse-nelson-rival-in-nebraska/?partner=rss&emc=rss |
| TSA gets flack for baby’s KC airport patdown Posted: 11 May 2011 09:32 AM PDT By: CBSNews.com (CBS News) Less than a month after a public outcry over a 6-year-old’s patdown at the New Orleans airport by TSA agents, a photo showing TSA agents examining what appears to be the rear end of a baby at Kansas City International airport has gained a lot of attention. Twitter user Jacob Jester, who describes himself as an “evangelist, founder of reaching innovations, son of god, husband to kristin, father to jude and cruz, pastor of @theremixlife”, posted the photo over the weekend, with the description: “Just saw #tsa agents patting down a little baby at @KCIAirport Pretty sure that’s extreme. Check the pic.” In response on its TSA blog, a spokesman wrote: “We reviewed the screening of this family, and found that the child’s stroller alarmed during explosives screening. Our officers followed proper current screening procedures by screening the family after the alarm, who by the way were very cooperative and were on the way to their gate in no time. The child in the photo was simply receiving a modified pat-down.” In April, a TSA agent at the New Orleans airport gave a 6-year-old a pat down, even after the little girl said, “I don’t want to do this,” drawing rage and condemnation across the spectrum. TSA defended itself in a similar manner, saying it was just doing its job. CBS News correspondent Bob Orr said at the time: “Privacy experts don’t like it at all, the critics call it security theater, but we have to say the screener here appears to be doing her job. This patdown happens all the time … somewhere in America. Whether we like it or not, the truth is it’s part of the post-9/11 security.” To read more, visit: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/10/national/main20061649.shtml |
| Budget chief wants plan with 50-50 split between spending cuts and tax hikes Posted: 11 May 2011 09:28 AM PDT By Alexander Bolton, TheHill.com Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Tuesday presented a budget proposal to Senate Democrats that calls for an even balance — 50 percent to 50 percent — of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit. The emerging consensus on Capitol Hill is there should be at least $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. To meet that goal, Congress would have to increase tax revenues by $2 trillion over the next decade with an equal amount of spending cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, "Four trillion dollars is a number that has been floated around here because that's what the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan came up with," making reference to the fiscal commission established by President Obama. "We're looking at large amounts of money that we have to work toward saving," Reid said. "But it can't all be done by cutting domestic discretionary spending." That’s a more even ratio between spending cuts and tax increases than what President Obama’s debt commission recommended last fall. It suggested reducing deficits through two-thirds spending cuts and one-third tax increases. To read more, visit: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/160273-senate-dem-would-reduce-deficit-with-spending-cuts-and-tax-hike |
| Wannabe SEALs Help U.S. Navy Hunt Pirates In Massively Multiplayer Game Posted: 11 May 2011 09:24 AM PDT BY NEAL UNGERLEIDER, FastCompany.com It’s not quite the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but 1,000 military and civilian players could help the Navy–and presumably its elite SEAL teams–figure out tactics for fighting off maritime terrorists and securing the Horn of Africa. All those years playing World of Warcraft may not have been for naught: The United States Navy has begun crowdsourcing ideas for fighting Somali pirates … through a new video game project. The game platform, called MMOWGLI (Massive Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet–not a reference to Jungle Book), is the product of years of research, will include more than 1,000 military and civilian players, and is planned for launch on May 16. It marks the first major effort by the American military to integrate both crowdsourcing and gamification into traditional military wargames. MMOWGLI was developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in order to test the feasibility of using massively multiplayer online games along the lines of Warcraft and Guild Wars to help solve difficult strategic problems. The MMOWGLI game launching in May will focus exclusively on combating Somalian piracy, but the gaming platform is open enough that it can be adapted to other military hotspots. According to Dr. Larry Schutte, Director of Innovation at the ONR, “We hope MMOWGLI will help us to understand what happens when your insights are combined with the observations and actions of another player–will that fusion result in a game-changing idea or solution, or will the MMOWGLI platform teach us something about our traditional thought processes?” Or is it little more than some badass, righteous, high seas pwning? The game will be managed by a “control team” that will vaguely assume the role of a dungeon master and will monitor ongoing events to make sure no one pulls a Leroy Jenkins or that things don’t get too unrealistic. To read more, visit: http://www.fastcompany.com/1752574/the-us-navys-massively-multiplayer-pirate-hunting-game |
| Mitt Romney to give big health care speech in Michigan Posted: 11 May 2011 09:21 AM PDT By: Kasie Hunt, Politico.com Mitt Romney’s major health care speech on Thursday has a single goal: ending the current fixation on “RomneyCare.” Donors ask about the Massachusetts health care law in private fundraisers. The ladies of “The View” asked Romney to explain it when he went on to try and sell his book. His triumphant return to New Hampshire back in March resulted in a crush of stories about it. After a foreign policy speech in Las Vegas in April, an audience member asked about health care instead. And when he went back to New Hampshire that month to court the tea party, they only asked him two questions — and one of them was about health care. Romney will try to change that narrative Thursday at the University of Michigan’s Cardiovascular Center, where he’ll outline a plan to “repeal and replace ObamaCare” — and try to fundamentally change a conversation that forces him to explain, over and over again, how the law he enacted as governor of Massachusetts is different from the national one President Barack Obama pushed through Congress. The speech, a Romney campaign adviser said, will be aimed at changing that — and shifting to “a conversation about what he’s going to do going forward rather than what he’s done in the past.” In the speech, Romney won’t spend much time talking about Massachusetts, and the plan he signed that now requires the state’s citizens to buy health insurance — an individual mandate that was included in the federal law and drives Republican fury. And he’ll move beyond the explanation he’s been offering so far about how he can defend the Massachusetts plan — he’s said he’s “proud” of it — and still oppose the Obama plan. “One thing I’d never do would be to impose a one-size-fits-all plan like ObamaCare on the nation. That’s simply wrong, and it’s unconstitutional,” he said in New Hampshire last month at the tea party event. He also defended his attempts to solve the cost problems that arise when the uninsured use emergency rooms for primary care. “In my state, we were spending hundreds of millions of dollars giving out free care to people who [could have] afforded it for themselves. So I went to work to try and solve a problem. It may not be perfect — by the way, it isn’t perfect,” he said. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from RE Tea Party To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment