Friday, February 17, 2012

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party

NEWSFLASH: Maine GOP to recount caucus votes

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 03:06 PM PST


By John Richardson, MaineToday

AUGUSTA — The Maine Republican Party is reviewing its numbers from the presidential caucuses as pressure grows for a recount.

An email sent to county and town chairman this afternoon asks the local officials to resubmit vote totals to the state headquarters.

"We are confirming the totals from the presidential preference straw poll," the email says. "Can you please email me the totals from your towns?"

The email does not say when, or whether, state GOP officials will publicly correct or update the results that have been posted on the party's website since Saturday, when Mitt Romney was declared the winner over Ron Paul by less than 200 votes.

Those official results were inaccurate because several communities that submitted vote totals were left out, including Waterville and much of Waldo County. Community vote totals were entered incorrectly in some other cases.

State GOP Chairman Charlie Webster has refused to post or release corrected numbers, saying the errors did not affect the outcome.

To read more, visit:  http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-GOP-reportedly-recounting-caucus-votes.html

Tea Partyers Angry at Boehner’s Stance on Payroll Tax Cut

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:57 AM PST

By Martin Gould, NewsMax.com

Tea party supporters in the House of Representatives have vowed to make a last-ditch stand in a bid to stave off the extension to the payroll tax holiday that their leaders have agreed to.

The 62-member block of conservative members believes Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders have turned their back on a key policy point by allowing the deal, which will be voted on later this week.

They claim the deal will further deplete the Social Security trust fund.

"I had warned my Republican colleagues over a year ago not to do this in the first place, don't go with this payroll tax cut," tea party caucus chairwoman Rep. Michele Bachmann told MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday.

"This year, it cut off $111 billion out of the Social Security Trust Fund. We continue to write checks to senior citizens, we have to," she said. "But what that means is we have to go to the general treasury and write checks.

"When you go to the general treasury and open the door to that vault, only moths and feathers fly out," Bachmann added. "There's nothing in there – we're broke."

To read more, visit:  http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/tea-party-payroll-tax/2012/02/15/id/429580

New American Dream is renting to get rich

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:53 AM PST

By Lou Carlozo, Reuters.com

Rich Arzaga owns a luxury home in San Ramon, California, but he’s not betting on it as an investment.

The founder and CEO of Cornerstone Wealth Management, who bought the 5,000 sq. ft. property in 2005 for $1.8 million and has spent $500,000 improving it, considers the abode a wonderful place for his family. But ask him to rate his home — or any home, for that matter — as a financial investment, and Arzaga balks.

“It’s the American Dream to own a home, but whoever said that didn’t do the analysis on it,” says Arzaga, knowing he’s taking a contrarian stance to conventional wisdom.

Examining 250 properties around the U.S., and going through close to 40 client files to project the financial impact of owning real estate versus liquidating it, Arzaga, an adjunct professor in personal finance at the University of California at Berkeley, found that, “100 percent of the time it was better to rent, rather than own.”

That’s right: 100 percent.

The reason is simple. While a home is the main repository of wealth for many Americans, it comes with numerous hefty expenses. The carrying costs – what’s needed to hold and maintain the asset – range from property taxes and home insurance to emergency repairs and renovations. In a rental situation, the landlord covers those costs, leaving the occupant free to invest revenue in other areas.

To read more, visit:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/us-housing-americandream-idUSTRE81E1LG20120215

DHS: ‘CBP Stops Thousands of Unsafe Hair Dryers’

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:50 AM PST

By: Joel Gehrke, The Washington Examiner

President Obama’s border enforcement officials prevented over 13,000 dangerous hair dryers from entering the country, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trumpeted today.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized thousands of hair dryers recently that were determined to constitute a "substantial product hazard" under U.S. law, for failing to have adequate immersion protection,” DHS announced. “The potentially dangerous hair dryers were identified through a nationwide targeting operation by the CBP Import Safety Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center (CTAC).”

CBP seized the hair dryers at the ports of Los Angeles (9,768 hair dryers) and Miami (3,614) because they “lacked shock protection for consumers” in the event of the hair dryers’ immersion in water.

Allen Gina, CBP’s assistant commissioner for public trade, praised the CPB officers who helped seize the hair dryers. “The concerted targeting efforts of CTAC and the vigilance of CBP officers at our ports of entry will help ensure that products like hair dryers are safe for consumers and that substandard product from overseas does not reach store shelves,” he said.

To read more, visit:  http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/dhs-cbp-stops-thousands-unsafe-hair-dryers/376786

Pentagon: Future of Homemade Bombs Is High-Tech

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:47 AM PST

By Spencer Ackerman, Wired.com

Most improvised bombs used by insurgents are decidedly low-tech, jury-rigged affairs. A couple of command wires, some fertilizer chemicals and wooden pressure plates in Afghanistan; in Iraq, leftover mines or plastic explosives often detonated remotely by cellphone. But the Pentagon's bomb squad sees "ever more sophisticated" bombs on the way.

The next generations of homemade bombs, known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs, will feature "hydrogen-based explosives; nanotechnology and flexible electronics," says the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization, JIEDDO.

That's for starters. "Future bomb makers" will use new energy sources for the bombs, like "microbial fuel cells, non-metallic and solar," JIEDDO writes in a strategy document released late Tuesday for its operations over the next four years. Also on deck for the bombs: "advanced communications (Bluetooth, 4G, Wi-Fi, broadband); optical initiators (using laser or telemetry more than infrared); and highly energetic and molecular materials." Sounds expensive, undercutting one of the bombs' major advantages.

JIEDDO expects the bombs to go off inside the U.S. — as the Times Square would-be-bomber attempted in May 2010 — and may occur "with concurrent cyber attacks." But while the bomb squad has lots of ideas about what the next generation of insurgent bombs contain, it offers few specifics about how to combat them.

JIEDDO has spent over $20 billion since 2004 on a variety of tech to stop the bombs, from sensors mounted on aircraft to find scampering teams of bomb-placers to "Wolfhound" devices to hunt their communications. But bomb attacks are at an all-time high in Afghanistan. And U.S. troops imperiled by the bombs still don't have a bomb detector that outperforms a dog's nose.

Whatever tech it's funded in the past to stop the bombs or find the bombmakers, JIEDDO isn't explaining what it plans on funding in the future. Instead, its strategy document lays out vagaries about what it'll emphasize between now and 2016: "research funding, collaborative development, policy direction, developmental contracts, information sharing, and venture capital investment.”

To read more, visit:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/jieddo-high-tech-bombs/

Sebelius Didn’t Consult Bishops on Contraception Deal

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:45 AM PST

By Jennifer Corbett Dooren, The Wall Street Journal

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that she didn't consult with Catholic bishops before the Obama administration announced a change in its contraceptive coverage largely meant to appease the bishops.

What role, if any, the Catholic Church played in reshaping the policy has gotten heavy attention since President Barack Obama announced the deal Friday. The compromise requires religious employers like schools and charities to offer contraception in employee health plans but wouldn't require them to pay for it, instead shifting the costs to health-insurance providers.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the loudest critic of the insurance requirement since the administration proposed its first version last year, remains opposed to the coverage mandate.

In a budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) asked Ms. Sebelius whether she contacted the bishops on the issue. "I know that the president has spoken to the bishops on several occasions," she said. However, Ms. Sebelius said she did not know if the White House contacted the bishops before the changes in the contraception rule were solidified. The bishops said over the weekend that the administration didn't consult them in crafting the new policy.

Mr. Hatch then asked if other groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood were informed of the contraception coverage rule and compromise.

"I know numerous conversations were had with religious leaders, insurers…stakeholders," Ms. Sebelius said. "I assume some of those groups were talked to."

Mr. Hatch said he thinks all religious institutions should be exempt from the contraceptive coverage rule.

To read more, visit:  http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/02/15/sebelius-didnt-consult-bishops-on-contraception-deal/

Waldo County mostly missing from official Maine GOP results

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:42 AM PST

By Ethan Andrews, Waldo Village Soup

The Maine Republican Party drew criticism over the weekend for declaring Mitt Romney the statewide winner without results from Washington County, where voters had planned to meet on the same day as the statewide announcement — Feb. 11 — but canceled the night before based on reports of a potential winter storm.

A press release, issued by the party on Saturday, downplayed the importance of Maine’s caucuses, describing them as a “beauty contest” in which “there are no national delegates ‘won’ or ‘bound’ to any Presidential candidate.”

The release described some caucuses as having “decided not to participate” in the poll, choosing instead to caucus after the statewide announcement. This was followed by the disclaimer that, “Their results WILL NOT be factored into this announcement after the fact.”

In a nutshell, tough luck Washington County.

And, as it turns out, most of Waldo County, where voters from 18 towns gathered for municipal caucuses in a countywide event held a week before the announcement, casting a total of 138 votes. In the official Maine GOP tallies, however, the results from all but one of those communities were given as a series of zeros below the name of each candidate, as though no one had voted.

Northport was the exception. The town participated in the countywide event and results consistent with those provided by the local organizer were listed in the statewide press release.

To read more, visit:  http://waldo.villagesoup.com/news/story/waldo-county-mostly-missing-from-official-maine-gop-results/484636

A Tea Party Senate Takeover

Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:40 AM PST

By Michelle Malkin , ParamusPost.com

The tea party isn’t dead. It’s just looking down ballot. While fiscal conservatives remain split over the GOP presidential candidates, grassroots activists are coalescing around a stellar slate of limited-government candidates looking to reinforce and reenergize the right in Washington.

And in the spirit of the modern-day tea party movement, no entrenched incumbent — Democrat or Republican — is safe.

Utah was Ground Zero for the movement’s first major electoral upset. In April 2009, this column first reported on a Salt Lake City tea party protest of 2,000 Utahans who repeatedly booed GOP Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch for supporting the $700 billion TARP bank bailout. In May 2010, the three-term, 76-year-old Bennett got the boot at the GOP state convention. Young conservative lawyer Mike Lee, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, went on to win the seat.

Now, young conservative entrepreneur and renowned state pension reformer Dan Liljenquist is taking on Utah’s other big government Republican barnacle, 77-year-old Hatch. Liljenquist excelled in the private sector as a global management consultant and business strategist; he also helmed a privately owned call center company that grew from two to 1,500 employees since its 1995 founding. Liljenquist was elected to the Utah Senate in 2008, where he spearheaded state pension and Medicaid reforms that earned him the non-partisan Governing magazine’s 2011 “Public Official of the Year” award.

The 36-year, six-term Hatch was first elected in 1976 on an anti-entrenched incumbent platform. Hatch’s campaign line then against his opponent Frank Moss: “What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.” Now, Hatch is clinging to power after almost four decades in government — and vainly attempting to claim the tea party mantle to stave off Liljenquist’s David vs. Goliath primary challenge.

Hatch co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy, with whom he also joined hands to create the ever-expanding SCHIP health care entitlement. He slobbered over corruptocrat Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, supported tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from Day One, lavished praise on Joe Biden’s manhood, and embraced and defended Attorney General Eric Holder’s nomination because, he said, “I like Barack Obama, and I want to help him if I can.”

To read more, visit:  http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20120215212804343
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