Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- Wall Street Braces for New Layoffs as Profits Wane
- NSA, Internet Providers Teaming Up To Monitor ‘Web Traffic’
- Untangling The Incredibly Complicated, Puzzling World Of Online Privacy
- Kids’ Lemonade Stand Shut Down, Slapped With $500 Fine
- It’s Rush Revere! Rush Limbaugh launches his own brand of (patriotic) iced tea
- Tea Party group targets Orrin Hatch for defeat
- In Tea Party Montana, An Old Idea Finds New Life
| Wall Street Braces for New Layoffs as Profits Wane Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:34 AM PDT By: Susanne Craig, CNBC.com Wall Street plans to get smaller this summer. Faced with weak markets and uncertainty over regulations, many of the biggest firms are preparing for deep cuts in jobs and other costs. The cutback plans are emerging even as Wall Street firms have mostly recovered from the financial crisis and are reporting substantial profits again. But those profits are not as big as they were before the crisis, and it is expected that in the coming months it will be even more difficult for firms to make money. Worries about debt in Europe and the shape that the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul rules will ultimately take, combined with the usual summer doldrums, are prompting banks to act. "It's a tense environment right now," said Glenn Schorr, an analyst with the investment bank Nomura. Even Goldman Sachs [GS 137.78 1.69 (+1.24%) ], Wall Street's most profitable firm, is retrenching. Senior executives at Goldman have concluded they need to cut 10 percent, or $1 billion, of noncompensation expenses over the next 12 months, according to a person close to the matter who was not authorized to speak on the record. The big pullback will cause Goldman employees, who have already been ordered to cut costs, to re-examine every aspect of their business. The firm, this person said, had not set final targets for layoffs, but Goldman was "certain" to shrink headcount in the coming months. Decisions on bonuses are still months away, but they are sure to come down as well if business does not pick up. Bank of America [BAC 10.615 0.015 (+0.14%) ] is also examining its expenses and is likely in the next few months to cut some staff members from its securities division, according to one senior executive at that firm who was not authorized to speak on the record. And Credit Suisse [CS 39.5864 -0.1036 (-0.26%) ] is in the process of identifying people to cut in its investment banking unit, according to a person briefed on that bank's plans. To read more, visit: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43435919 |
| NSA, Internet Providers Teaming Up To Monitor ‘Web Traffic’ Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:31 AM PDT By Ellen Nakashima, WashingtonPost.com The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say. The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation's largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets. "We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger," Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. "It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security." The prospect of a role for the NSA, the nation's largest spy agency and a part of the Defense Department, in helping Internet service providers filter domestic Web traffic already had sparked concerns among privacy activists. Lynn's suggestion that the program might be extended beyond the work of defense contractors threatened to raise the stakes. James X. Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil liberties group, said that limiting the NSA's role to sharing data is "an elegant solution" to the long-standing problem of how to use the agency's expertise while avoiding domestic surveillance by the government. But, he said, any extension of the program must guarantee protections against government access to private Internet traffic. "We wouldn't want this to become a backdoor form of surveillance," Dempsey said. To read more, visit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/major-internet-service-providers-cooperating-with-nsa-on-monitoring-traffic/2011/06/07/AG2dukXH_story.html |
| Untangling The Incredibly Complicated, Puzzling World Of Online Privacy Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:27 AM PDT BY AUSTIN CARR, fastcompany.com Senators Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill yesterday that takes direct aim at online privacy. After it was reported recently that tech giants like Apple and Google might be collecting location data from unwitting customers, public officials raced to put together legislation that would give the public more control over personal information. If passed, the bill would require developers to obtain consent before collecting and sharing geo-location data. But that’s only one small piece of the incredibly massive and complicated online-privacy puzzle, one that public officials, privacy advocates, and tech companies are trying to solve. Think of all the ways our personal data is collected: through tablets and smartphones and apps and email clients and browsers and myriad web services. The problem has become so fraught that few pretend to have an answer for all of the issue’s complexities. A recent interview with Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, underscored this idea. Baker has been a crusader for user privacy, having been involved with the issue for years. “I’m smack in the middle of all of this,” she says. But she will be the first to admit that not even the tech-savvy folks at Firefox have all the answers. Firefox, notably, has fought hard to build a Do Not Track feature, a first step in letting users opt out of sharing their data with advertisers. Baker says the tool is in its earliest stages. When asked what it could look like in the future–will it let users opt out of data-sharing altogether or on case-by-case basis?–Baker reminded me again how young Do Not Track is. “We don’t know yet [what it will look like],” she says. “There’s a lot of testing and experimentation.” Whether Mozilla or another organization could even create a tool powerful enough to protect users from sharing data is another problem. There’s mountains and mountains of data being shared. Just two practically daily examples for many of us: Data is shared every time you open up Foursquare and share your location, or look on Netflix for a recommendation. Creating one tool for the browser, then, is a bit like setting up a red light in front of a tidal wave. “No question, there’s a tsunami of data,” says Baker. “We don’t yet know what our products are going to look like, or even what our society is going to look like.” Facebook has been a key factor in redefining privacy norms. For a child growing up sharing photos and status updates on social networks, he or she might even be less concerned over sharing personal information. To read more, visit: http://www.fastcompany.com/1760301/the-incredibly-complicated-puzzling-world-of-online-privacy |
| Kids’ Lemonade Stand Shut Down, Slapped With $500 Fine Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:24 AM PDT Written by: Bruce Leshan, wusa9.com BETHESDA, Md. (WUSA) — You can make a fortune selling parking spots outside the US Open, but don’t even dream of setting up a lemonade stand. A county inspector ordered the Marriott and Augustine kids to shut down the stand they set up on Persimmon Tree Rd., right next to Congressional. And after they allegedly ignored a couple of warnings, the inspector fined their parents $500. “This gentleman from the county is now telling us because we don’t have a vendors license, the kids won’t be allowed to sell their lemonade,” Carrie Marriott told us, her voice trembling. The kids can’t seem to understand it. “I don’t agree, I think the county is wrong.” “We’re sending the money to charity.” Jennifer Hughes, the director of permitting for the county, says it’s technically illegal to run even the smallest lemonade stand in the county, but inspectors usually don’t go looking for them. She said this one was unusually large. Hughes also says they’ve warned all kinds of other vendors they couldn’t operate near the US Open because of concerns about traffic and safety. But that did little to console Carrie Marriott. “Does every kid who sells lemonade now have to register with the county?” she asked the inspector. To read more, visit: http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/155167/158/County-Shuts-Down-Kids-Lemonade-Stand-500-Fine |
| It’s Rush Revere! Rush Limbaugh launches his own brand of (patriotic) iced tea Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:20 AM PDT By FIONA ROBERTS, dailymail.co.uk Now we know what devoted Tea Party members will be drinking at their summer barbecues. Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh today revealed he is launching his very own brand of iced tea. Fed up of trying to fight the current ‘oppressive regime’ on the airwaves, the controversial presenter hopes he can take make his mark on America with a patriotic beverage instead. Emblazoned with a picture of Limbaugh dressed in full colonial costume, ‘Two If By Tea’ takes its name from Longfellow’s famous poem, Paul Revere’s Last Ride, about the arrival of British troops during the War of Independence. According to its website, the tea represents ‘traditional American values of capitalism and the pursuit of excellence’, and each bottle ‘is designed to rise above the sameness and mediocrity that threatens our great nation.’ Describing it as ‘kick butt’, he urged his listeners to go online and fork out $23.76 for a 12 pack. To read more, visit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004451/Rush-Limbaugh-launches-brand-iced-tea.html |
| Tea Party group targets Orrin Hatch for defeat Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:17 AM PDT By Lucy Madison, cbsnews.com Conservative PAC FreedomWorks, a prominent Tea Party group chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is targeting Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in the 2012 Senate race. The group, arguing Hatch has insufficiently conservative economic views, is launching the so-called “Retire Orrin Hatch” campaign at Utah’s Republican Convention on Saturday. “It’s clear that Senator Hatch is trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Tea Party movement by reinventing himself as a fiscal conservative,” said Russ Walker, Vice President of Political and Grassroots Campaigns for FreedomWorks PAC, in a statement. “But his recent rhetoric and actions in favor of limited government simply do not erase decades of bad votes, costing taxpayers trillions of dollars. Indeed Hatch’s body of work proves he cannot be trusted to consistently adhere to a fiscally conservative agenda, and possible primary challengers like Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-3, UT)give conservatives in Utah and around the country a great opportunity to trade up.” Despite Hatch’s recent overtures to the Tea Party (he has made a handful of appearances at Tea Party-affiliated events), he could have reason to be worried: the six-term senator has in the past sided with Democrats with politically risky issues, and he recently saw the defeat of longtime Utah Senate colleague Bob Bennett (R), who was defeated in a Tea Party upset in the 2010 midterm elections. Walker said FreedomWorks would employ similar techniques against Hatch as it had in attempting to defeat Bennett. “FreedomWorks PAC will utilize the same tactics in the ‘Retire Hatch’ campaign that proved most effective in our campaign against Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010,” Walker added. “We will be spending a lot of time in Utah to talk to our activists and work with them on effective GOTV strategy. They have been hungry to replace Hatch for a while and we are here to answer their call.” To read more, visit: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20071665-503544.html |
| In Tea Party Montana, An Old Idea Finds New Life Posted: 17 Jun 2011 10:12 AM PDT By ALEX ALTMAN, Swampland.time.com HELENA, MT—On a rainy morning in March, Derek Skees sat in a Helena hotel explaining his beef with the federal government. It was as big as all Montana. Skees, a building contractor from the Flathead Valley, surfed the Tea Party wave last November to a seat in Montana's House of Representatives. He thinks Washington has stolen powers reserved for the states, strangling individual rights in the process. Polite and affable, he wore a nameplate in the shape of his state, a teapot lapel pin and the inscrutable smile of a guy sitting on a secret. He peppers his arguments with allusions to the Magna Carta, the Federalist Papers, Plato and de Toqueville, and at one point whipped a copy of the Constitution from his jacket pocket to bolster a point. "Jefferson gives me goose bumps," he says. "Most of my heroes have been dead for 200 years." In the age of Obama, it's not unusual to hear Tea Partyers pine for a sepia-toned past. What's unusual is the solution Skees proposes. The freshman legislator, 42, is at the forefront of a nascent nullification movement, which argues states can fight government oppression by refusing to follow unconstitutional federal laws. With Congress mired in the slog of divided government, the hottest battles in the war against Washington are taking place in the states, and the weapon of choice is a dusty legal theory with a checkered past. Twelve states have introduced bills to nullify President Obama's health care law. Others, like Kentucky and Texas, tried to declare themselves sanctuaries from Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The tiny town of Sedgwick, Maine–population 1,000—passed an ordinance nullifying any law that interferes with local food production and processing. In May, the Texas House of Representatives voted to ban TSA pat-downs, spurring the Department of Justice to warn the state's Senators that passing the bill could halt all air travel to Texas. But it's Montana that has emerged as the epicenter of the nullification movement and the purest laboratory for the Tea Party's model of governance. In the statehouse session that wrapped up on April 28, a lopsided GOP majority launched an all-out blitz of conservative legislation, including a "birther" bill, a declaration emphasizing global warming's unsung benefits and a measure that would have legalized the hunting of big game with spears. Tea Party Republicans introduced nearly a dozen bills to nullify laws governing everything from health care and food safety to animal protections and gun restrictions. One, known as a "Sheriff's First" law, would have forced federal officials to get the local constable's permission before making an arrest. Another, authored by Skees, would have established an 11- person commission to examine all federal statutes and eliminate those deemed unconstitutional. To Democrats, the mushrooming movement highlights the GOP's march toward the fringe. But to many Montanans, nullification is a way to assert state sovereignty and safeguard individual liberties. In one recent poll of 625 Big Sky voters, 43% of respondents said states should have the right to "nullify and ignore" federal laws they don't support, a shade above the 42% who disagreed. "Nullification saves the union," Skees says. "Every Republic, from Rome on, ends in tyranny. That's where we're headed, unless guys like us can change it." To read more, visit: http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/17/in-tea-party-montana-an-old-idea-finds-new-life/ |
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