Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

States cutting unemployment benefits
Gold, silver coins to be legal currency in Utah
TSA Agents At Prom?
Google Search Patterns Could Track MRSA Spread
‘Tea party’ gets involved in nonpartisan Phoenix election
Obama digging up dirt on potential opponent Chris Christie
Tenn. bill criticized for targeting Muslims splits Tea Party
Prescribing Jesus Gets Doctor Censured
Cain joins presidential race with promise to beat Obama

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:48 AM PDT

By Kevin Freking, Washingtonpost.com

Some of the states that have drained their unemployment insurance funds are cutting the number of weeks that a laid-off worker can count on those benefits. Legislators are trying to limit tax increases for businesses to replenish the pool and are hoping the federal government keeps stepping in when the economy slumps.

Michigan, Missouri and Arkansas recently reduced the maximum number of weeks that the jobless can get state benefits. Florida is on the verge of doing so. Unemployment in those states ranges from 7.8 percent in Arkansas to 11.1 percent in Florida.

The benefit cuts come as legislatures deal with the damage that the recession inflicted on state unemployment insurance programs. The sharp increase in the number of people who lost their jobs drained the reservoir of money dedicated to paying out benefits.

About 30 states borrowed more than $44 billion from the federal government to continue payments to laid-off workers. Many states hastened the insolvency of their funds by keeping balances at historically low levels going into the downturn.

The burden of replenishing the funds and paying off the loans will fall primarily on businesses through higher taxes, but the benefit cuts are an effort to limit the tax increases.

States usually provide up to 26 weeks of benefits to laid-off workers. Michigan and Missouri have cut that to a maximum 20 weeks. Arkansas went to 25.

Gold, silver coins to be legal currency in Utah

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:43 AM PDT

By JOSH LOFTIN, Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah legislators want to see the dollar regain its former glory, back to the days when one could literally bank on it being “as good as gold.”

To make that point, they’ve turned it around, and made gold as good as cash. Utah became the first state in the country this month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes.

Craig Franco hopes to cash in on it with his Utah Gold and Silver Depository, and he thinks others will soon follow.

The idea is simple: Store your gold and silver coins in a vault, and Franco issues a debit-like card to make purchases backed by your holdings.

He plans to open for business June 1, likely the first of its kind in the country.

“Because we’re dealing with something so forward thinking, I expect a wait-and-see attitude,” Franco said. “Once the depository is executed and transactions can occur, then I think people will move into the marketplace.”

TSA Agents At Prom?

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:38 AM PDT

By: KOAT.com

There were no TSA agents patting down students at the Santa Fe High School prom on Saturday night, despite a federal judge’s ruling that there had to be.

This is after two sisters from another Santa Fe district high school said they were groped at a recent dance.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that TSA certified personnel must now supervise district pat downs, like those at dances or graduations.

“With it being late Friday afternoon, there just wasn’t time to achieve that,” Santa Fe superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said instead of TSA agents, the court is allowing Santa Fe High School to use state police for the prom.

“They didn’t touch me personally, just had me pull out my phone, all my personal items,” student Timothy Velasquez said.

The Herrera sisters, who said they were violated at a recent Capital High School prom, filed a case against the Santa Fe Public Schools.

Google Search Patterns Could Track MRSA Spread

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:34 AM PDT

By Brandon Keim, Wired.com

Records of Google searches could be used to track the spread of drug-resistant staph infections, filling a gap in existing surveillance for the bugs. With near-real-time, city-by-city information about the spread of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, public health experts may be better able to fight it.

"Potentially, we can get from Google a more timely measure of trends" than other surveillance systems provide, said epidemiologist Diane Lauderdale of the University of Chicago.

MRSA causes hard-to-treat skin infections that can turn septic, potentially invading organs and the bloodstream. It became widespread in U.S. hosptials during the 1980s, and in the 1990s a second strain emerged outside hospitals, spreading among healthy people. In 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that MRSA killed 18,650 Americans in 2005, or more people than were killed by AIDS.

In a paper published in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Lauderdale's group compared records of Google searches for MRSA between 2004 and 2008 with MRSA-related hospitalization records. Except for a search burst after that 2007 CDC report, the numbers tracked, suggesting that search data is a reliable indicator of infection.
The methodology is similar to that used by Google Flu Trends, which caught researchers' attention after flu symptom-related searches in Mexico preceded the 2009 swine flu outbreak. But whereas Flu Trends was seen as a potential source of early warning signs, better methods of MRSA surveillance are necessary to understand what's already happening.

"If we had a comprehensive, linked electronic health records system that researchers had access to, we wouldn't need it. There are systems like that in Scandinavian countries, where you can analyze disease factors in all kinds of ways. But you can't do that in the U.S," said Lauderdale.

‘Tea party’ gets involved in nonpartisan Phoenix election

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:29 AM PDT

By: Lynh Bui, azcentral.com

At a recent meeting of the North Phoenix Tea Party, members gathered at an Elks Lodge to discuss what the group should do with its treasury of roughly $400.

Donate it to conservative mayoral candidate Jennifer Wright?

Print signs endorsing a slate of conservatives running for Phoenix City Council?

Or buy supplies to hand-craft signs as a group?

After about an hour of discussion, the majority voted to buy signs supporting candidates for mayor and council seats who value fiscal responsibility and limited government, in line with “tea party” principles.

While $400 worth of signs likely will have only a modest impact across Phoenix’s 500 square miles, the discussion is an example of the tea party’s growing influence in city politics.

Voters will select a new mayor and five members of the City Council on Aug. 30. This is the first Phoenix election in which the tea party is endorsing candidates, pushing agendas and shaping leadership.

City elections officially are nonpartisan affairs. Candidates do not appear on the ballot affiliated with a political party. But some say the involvement of the tea party might increase voter turnout and have an impact on the political tone of the races.

“The message that we have is we don’t want more of the same,” said Wes Harris, founder and chairman of the North Phoenix Tea Party, one of several tea-party organizations throughout Phoenix.

While the populist movement that took off in 2009 is well-known for being active in national and state issues, Arizona tea-party members are now looking to plant their philosophies of limited government, fiscal conservancy and free-market values in Phoenix City Hall.

Obama digging up dirt on potential opponent Chris Christie

Posted: 23 May 2011 05:23 AM PDT

By JOSH MARGOLIN, NYPost.com

President Obama’s re-election campaign is trying to dig up dirt in the Garden State.

Despite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s repeated pronouncements that he will not seek the GOP presidential nomination, Obama operatives are compiling a dossier of what they call “opposition research” — material that could be used to damage Christie if he changes his mind, The Post has learned.

The Obama campaign is trying to keep its efforts from public view, concerned they would only elevate Christie’s already impressive standing within the Republican Party, sources said.

The operatives have chosen not to dispatch their own people to New Jersey, but instead are talking to people there and in New York who know Christie from his time in the governor’s office, as a gubernatorial candidate and as US attorney.

Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, did not respond to messages.

Christie has repeatedly — and colorfully –said he is not running for president in 2012.

“Short of suicide, I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running. I’m not running,” he’s insisted.

Tenn. bill criticized for targeting Muslims splits Tea Party

Posted: 22 May 2011 04:30 PM PDT

By Bob Smietana, The Tennessean

NASHVILLE — Jon Campbell considers himself a loyal member of the Tea Party.

The Kingsport man is a conservative Christian who wants the government to keep its hands off his wallet and his personal life. And that’s why, he said, a bill in the Tennessee Legislature that originally targeted supporters of Islamic law is a bad idea for Tennessee. State officials could have used the bill to punish unpopular groups, he said.

Today, that’s Muslims, he said. Tomorrow, that could be the Tea Party. He pointed to a 2009 report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security, that labeled Ron Paul supporters as potential terrorists.

“If you don’t like the ideas that someone supports, how is that illegal?” he said.

The Material Support to Designated Entities Act, proposed by state Sen. Bill Ketron and state Rep. Judd Matheny, both Republicans, exposed an ideological divide in Tennessee’s Tea Party. It split Libertarians who supported Paul’s candidacy for president from social conservatives concerned about national security who have supported Ketron and Matheny.

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Prescribing Jesus Gets Doctor Censured

Posted: 22 May 2011 04:30 PM PDT

From: MyFOX New York

(NewsCore) – MARGATE, England — A Christian doctor in England has been threatened with an official warning from his professional body for discussing Jesus with a patient, The (London) Sunday Times reported.

Richard Scott, a doctor for 28 years, is under investigation by the General Medical Council (GMC) and faces disciplinary action after he suggested to a 24-year-old man that he might find solace in Christianity.

Scott, who practices at a medical center in Margate, east of London, well known for having Christian doctors, insists he only raised his spiritual beliefs after carrying out a thorough and lengthy consultation, during which medical checks and referrals for further care were arranged.

When the man’s mother inquired of the consultation, however, her son apparently replied, “He just said I need Jesus.” This prompted his mother to refer Scott to the GMC, claiming that he had not offered medical advice during the consultation but instead talked about Jesus.

The young man, who has been described as “in a rut and in need of help” grew up in a different religion but his faith had lapsed. He has continued to seek treatment from the practice despite the complaint filed by his mother.

The GMC has written to Scott suggesting he accept an official warning but the GP (family doctor), who has an unblemished record as a medic, has decided to fight the allegations and stand up to what he believes is a politically correct trend in Britain to persecute Christians for expressing their faith in the workplace.

Cain joins presidential race with promise to beat Obama

Posted: 22 May 2011 04:30 PM PDT

By Aaron Gould Sheinin, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Republican presidential race got a little more crowded Saturday when former business executive and radio host Herman Cain officially launched his campaign.

Cain, whose syndicated radio show originated from Atlanta, became the second Georgia-connected candidate, joining former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich on the GOP trail.

Cain, speaking before an estimated 10,000 supporters in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, was clear on the goals for his campaign.

“In case you accidentally listen to a skeptic or a doubting Thomas out there, let me be clear,” he said. “I'm running for president of the United States. I'm not running for second.”

In his 20-minute speech, Cain took numerous shots at President Barack Obama, accusing the Democrat of abandoning Israel, overseeing an “anemic” economic recovery and a failure of leadership. The rhetoric delighted the crowd, many of whom waved signs with slogans like “Yes We Cain” and “How Can We Beat Obama? With a Cain.”

But Cain also offered a few policy initiatives, including plans to permanently extend the Bush-era tax cuts and to pursue an independent energy policy.

While Cain, a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, has been largely dismissed by pundits and political analysts, his campaign has already showed signs of life. A well-reviewed performance in a GOP debate earlier this month helped boost his numbers in recent polls, giving the nascent Cain campaign reason for hope.

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Monday, May 23, 2011

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

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