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BUFORD, Ga.— A Cobb County jury has awarded a Buford woman $1.2 million after she said she was scalded by 190-degree water that shot out of a cappuccino machine at a QuikTrip convenience store. Lawyer Nelson Tyrone III says the woman, 52-year-old Cynthia Nance, was burned on Halloween night in 2007 at a QuikTrip convenience store. Atlanta attorney Valerie Pinkett, who represented QuikTrip, said the case was settled on confidential terms after the jury's verdict. She said the machine involved has been replaced with a newer model at all QuikTrip stores. Tyrone said Nance was burned on her hand and...

.. most analysis of the Tea Party movement ignores history and sees the Tea Party as something new and rather bizarre. Yet the Tea Party is a form of populism - a perennial feature of American politics and perhaps one of its defining characteristics. American populism has its origins in the broad-based and fissiparous movement that emerged from the 1850s onwards. It reached its high point in the 1890s with the formation of the People's Party, which challenged the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats but declined rapidly as a formal movement thereafter. Yet, like an event of nuclear fission,...

Opponents speak out against tuition vouchers Thursday, January 20, 2011 By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteHARRISBURG -- In his inaugural speech, Gov. Tom Corbett barely hinted at what is sure to become one of the most hotly debated issues of the spring -- "school choice," also known as "tuition vouchers." It would be a major change in how the state funds education. "Our students compete not only with those from the other 49 states, but with students from around the world," the new chief executive said Tuesday. "So we must embrace innovation, competition and choice in our education system." The measure,...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL): "She knocked the gun clip out of the shooter's hand, very likely save the lives ever more innocent people. She was in line to talk to her Congresswoman, to share she thought the title of the health care repeal bill was disingenuous and because she and her husband own a small business. One of her employees has a pre-existing condition. They have been unable to find affordable coverage. She wanted to tell Representative Giffords, the health care reform law would help her employees. Pat was unable to deliver her message to her representative but she...

Do you think President Barack Obama's health care overhaul should be repealed?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41)--People who need help from the state could soon have to take a drug test to get that help. State Rep. Lonnie Napier of Lancaster introduced the House Bill 208. The bill would require random drug testing for adults who get food stamps, medicaid or other state assistance. "I went on maternity leave when I had my daughter," says Irma Turner, who receives state assistance. Until she can get back on her feet, Irma Turner is on the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program and receives food stamps. "It helps a lot when you can't get a job,...

With the Republican takeover in the House, many fiscal conservatives and independents hoped to see serious budgetary reform as the focus of the 112ths session. Did that include entitlement reform? National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru argues in the New York Times that the Republicans didn’t get a mandate for restructuring Social Security and Medicare, and that it should only be attempted if Barack Obama signs onto the project. Otherwise, it will have to wait for a Republican President in 2013: Would-be reformers should draw two lessons from this history. The first is that reform can’t be sprung on the electorate. Reagan...

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure. Congressional Reform Act of 2011 1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below.. A. Two Six-year Senate terms B. Six Two-year House terms C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms...

(snip)Filing taxes takes too long, costs too much money and is far too overwhelming a process for taxpayers. (snip)"If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States," the report says. "To consume 6.1 billion hours, the 'tax industry' requires the equivalent of more than three million full-time workers."

With Republican leaders anxious to set an austere tone for their ascendance into the House majority this week, the lavish fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday night at a trendy Washington hotel to benefit a dozen GOP freshmen is not exactly the populist image leaders are anxious to project. House Speaker-elect John Boehner, whose name was featured on the invitation, is nonetheless skipping the event at the W Hotel, where lobbyists, political action committee managers and others paying the $2,500 ticket price will be treated to a performance by country music star LeAnn Rimes (a $50,000 package includes a block of eight...

... Many Saudis are fed up with the inordinate interference of religious authorities in their lives, and one can even speak of an anti-clerical movement. The liberals, however, speak a language that is alien to the world of official Wahhabism and the majority of Saudis and is therefore hardly likely to influence them. ...

Pelosi Statement on Republican Bill to Repeal Health ReformFor Immediate Release 01/03/2011 Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today after the incoming House Republican leadership posted their legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act: “As we begin the 112th Congress, the number one priority of House Democrats will continue to be putting Americans to work. Each new proposal will be measured by a simple test: does it create jobs? Does it strengthen America’s middle class? And does it reduce the deficit? When our Republican colleagues put forward solutions to the problems facing Americans that meet these...

Republicans may starve financial reform of cashBy Dave Clarke and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON | Mon Jan 3, 2011 11:44am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the new Congress could put the budget squeeze on two powerful regulatory agencies to slow President Barack Obama's crackdown on Wall Street. A Democratic-controlled Congress pushed through the Dodd-Frank bank reform laws last year and regulators were counting on a big budget boost to police the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market -- blamed for much of the excess behind the 2007-2009 financial crisis. But the last Congress failed to deliver on the funding, and that...

Does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act need title reform?By Marilyn Serafini Kaiser Health News Sunday, December 26, 2010; 9:46 PM Puh-pack-uh? Is that some kind of llama? In fact, it's the ungainly acronym of the new health-care law - PPACA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many people who support the law, or are neutral toward it, call it "puh-pack-uh" or "pee-pack-uh." Others call it the Affordable Care Act or plain old health-care reform. But those less-than-inspiring monikers aren't much help to Democrats trying to convince the public that "Obamacare" - the Republicans' pejorative name for the...

Obamacare falls to critical conditionCal Thomas Los Angeles Times Syndicate Published: Friday, December 17, 2010 11:15 AM MST **SNIP** In a statement shortly after the ruling, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) got to the heart of what bothers most opponents of ACA: “Obamacare’s ‘individual mandate’ always rested on the absurd premise that the Commerce Clause empowered the federal government to regulate Americans’ decisions not to engage in commercial activity. Adoption of such an argument would have vested the federal government with the power to regulate virtually every aspect of Americans’ lives...” King is correct. If the federal government can get away...

States Move to Implement Health Care Reform as Fight Continues in Courthouses, CongressBy: Betty Ann Bowser December 20, 2010 at 12:55 PM EDT **SNIP** But the incoming chairmen of three key House committees have all indicated they will try to slow down the law by holding hearings and summoning Obama administration officials to the Hill to testify. And they have also signaled they will try to shut off the federal government's money spigot by refusing to fund some portions of the law. Much of the work of implementing reform, though, will take place in the states. And Brian Quinn, Director...

Another judge may reject health care overhaulBy Zachary Roth – 1 hr 32 mins ago Could President Obama's health care overhaul be struck down by a second federal judge? That's a distinct possibility. Roger Vinson, a federal district court judge in Florida, said yesterday it would take "a giant leap" to accept the Obama administration's argument that requiring almost all Americans to buy health care is constitutional, reports the New York Times. "People have always exercised the freedom to choose whether to buy or not buy a commercial product," Vinson added. His comments came in a hearing for a lawsuit...

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A Taxpayer’s Lips to God’s Ear- by: Larry Walker, Jr. -Shared sacrifice? I’ll think about that the next time I’m forking over a check for $8,000 in income taxes, while the person in front of me is walking out with an $8,000 refund check. Nobody is willing to pitch in any further to help out an irresponsible bunch of crooks in Washington D.C. The truth is that 53% of us have already been pitching in, while 47% of Americans have not been paying any income taxes at all. It’s the 47% who don’t pay income taxes, the ones reaping all...

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.