This is too funny to not post but at the same time it's a sad statement.

Is it me or do we have a problem with our system and how we deal with donations and access to our President? 

Would you believe that Dianne Feinstein is lying?

Senate Democrats are facing a major dilemma on Guns.

Senate Democrats are facing a major dilemma on how hard they should push for an assault weapons ban, a sensitive topic for vulnerable centrists who are running for reelection next year.

Gun control advocates are scrutinizing Senate Democrats’ strategy for implementing President Obama’s proposals for reducing gun violence, and a watered-down effort would likely prompt a backlash from the party’s liberal base. 

 vocates are watching closely to see whether Senate Democrats will use their two-seat majority on the Judiciary Committee to include an assault weapons ban and limits on high-capacity magazines in gun violence legislation moving to the floor. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to give Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the lead sponsor of the assault weapons ban, a chance to offer her proposal on the floor. 

But controversial amendments usually need 60 votes on the Senate floor to be added to pending legislation. Experts following the gun violence debate say an assault weapons ban offered as an amendment on the floor would have virtually no chance of passing. 

“The base bill would be better because it is part of an entire package and it would be considered along with other provisions. If you pull it out as a stand-alone provision, it’s an easier target for opponents,” he said. 

Feinstein, a member of the Judiciary Committee, has yet to make up her mind about whether she will offer her proposal as an amendment to any legislation that receives a mark-up in committee.

“I haven’t made that decision yet,” she said. “We haven’t had the hearing yet and I’m not going to make that decision until after the hearing.” 

Feinstein will hold her own hearing on gun violence in the Judiciary Committee the week of Feb. 25, according to Democratic aides. 

It’s somewhat surprising that Feinstein would consider not offering her proposal in committee. It is co-sponsored by eight of the 10 Democrats on the panel, where it would only need a majority vote to secure approval. 

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has not co-sponsored Feinstein’s bill, but he voted for the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 and 2004. The other Democrat who has not co-sponsored the measure is Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).

But Feinstein could be leery of putting her Democratic colleagues in a tough political position. Seeking a vote in committee could lead to headlines such as “Democrats help defeat assault weapons ban bill.”

Reid has declined to endorse Feinstein’s measure, and he worked to defeat renewal of the assault weapons ban in 2009. Democratic senators in conservative states running for reelection in 2014, including Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Mark Pryor (Ark.), have also balked at it.  

If gun violence legislation came from the Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor with the assault weapons ban and the prohibition on high-capacity clips in it, opponents would have a tougher time defeating those controversial provisions. 

Democrats could be faced with a tough vote if they have to decide to advance or block a comprehensive gun violence bill that includes the assault weapons ban.

Reid is not eager to press his centrist colleagues to take a politically dangerous vote to pass gun control measures if they will only stall in the House.

“The logic of Senate Republicans and some Senate Democrats is, ‘If the House won’t pick it up, much less pass it, why would we stick our necks out?’ ” said a strategist tracking the Senate debate. 

The political clout of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the nation’s capital is well known, but gun control advocates have begun to flex their muscle in recent months. 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for gun curbs, sent a warning to Democrats in the fall when his Independence PAC helped defeat veteran Democratic Rep. Joe Baca (Calif.), who was supported by the NRA. 

Bloomberg is unlikely to be shy if Senate Democrats do not go all out to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Former President George W. Bush backed the reinstatement of the ban, but like Obama in his first term, he did not press Congress to act.

Obama will huddle with Senate Democrats at their retreat in Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday.

Gun control supporters are funding a new advertising campaign to pressure some Democrats. 

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has run newspaper ads ripping Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) for calling Obama’s gun control agenda “extreme.” And last month, it released a video publicizing Rep. John Barrow’s (D-Ga.) tight relationship with the NRA. 

Ladd Everitt, the coalition’s spokesman, said gun control activists will be happy if Congress passes legislation requiring universal background checks for gun buyers and cracks down on gun trafficking. 

But he said Democrats who vote against the assault weapons ban and limits on high-capacity ammunition will not get a free pass. 

“Let’s make no mistake here. The era of no accountability is over,” he said. 

Leahy has yet to decide his strategy for moving gun violence legislation through the committee. He could mark up legislation requiring universal background checks, helping law enforcement combat trafficking and the prohibiting the sale and manufacture of assault weapons as separate bills. 

Leahy, who has a “C” rating from the NRA, has sponsored a bill to help law enforcement prosecute straw purchasers of firearms, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is working on legislation to expand background checks, according to a Democratic aide. 

Schumer, who helped write the 1994 assault weapons ban legislation, last month said background checks are the “sweet spot” for gun safety. 

Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said Democrats should not be afraid to support the assault weapons ban. 

“Polls taken more than a month after the shootings in Newtown show public support for the assault weapons ban above 50 percent. If senators want to support that, they’re on pretty safe ground,” he said. 

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/281343-senate-democrats-face-gun-dilemma-#ixzz2KKlCs3kM 

Facebook Hijacks Internet Sites For An Hour Thursday Afternoon.

Something weird happened to the Web this afternoon - and it's apparently Facebook’s fault.

Websites that use various Facebook integrations were being dragged from their landing pages to the Facebook error page. For instance, if while logged into Facebook you went to a wide variety of sites, including Yahoo News, xoJane.com, SlickDeals.net or many, many other sites, you were redirected after a couple seconds to the error page. Sites such as Gawker, Fox News, The Washington Post and others reportedly were also affected by the mysterious bug.

This is a very big deal. The Facebook connection was not just passively disrupting sites, as Web plugins sometimes do, but actively dragging users away from their destination sites to Facebook’s own platform. 

Developers at Say Media, ReadWrite's parent company, believe that the problem was caused by Facebook Connect having problems with oAuth authentication that allows users to sign into a site using their Facebook profiles. 

The bug affected users for a portion of the afternoon, apparently starting around 4pm Pacific Time. As of 5pm PT, the bug appears to have been fixed. 

Don't scoff, the per-bullet tax maybe coming!

Assemblymembers Roger Dickenson, D-Sacramento, and Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, are authoring legislation to impose a nickel-per-bullet tax on the sale of ammunition in California. Apparently they couldn’t agree on where to spend the revenue, so each lawmaker is introducing his own measure.

George Runner | Feb 8 2013

If you want to grow government these days, it seems the fashionable thing to do is invent new taxes. Two years ago, legislators conjured up an illegal fire “fee.” Last year, they invented a confusing new lumber tax. Two voter-approved multi-billion dollar tax hikes later, and the politicians still want more of your money. This time they want to tax your ammunition.

Two lawmakers — Assemblymembers Roger Dickenson, D-Sacramento, and Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, are authoring legislation to impose a nickel-per-bullet tax on the sale of ammunition in California. Apparently they couldn’t agree on where to spend the revenue, so each lawmaker is introducing his own measure.

A nickel per bullet may not sound like much, but it will mean that each box of 100 shells purchased by a hunter or recreational shooter will cost $5 more. Double that number if both proposed bills pass.

Guns and ammunition are a convenient scapegoat for the tragic loss of life in recent shootings. But more gun laws and higher taxes won’t stop crime. In fact, increased laws and taxes could backfire by leaving law-abiding citizens defenseless and creating a lucrative new source of revenue for criminal gangs.

Consider cigarettes, for instance. Taxes may have discouraged smoking, which is a good thing, but they’ve also created a huge market for smugglers. A recent study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that more than one third of cigarettes smoked in California were smuggled into our state. Not coincidentally, the state with the highest cigarette taxes, New York, had the highest smuggling rate: 60.9 percent.

The social costs of smuggling include health and safety risks, increased law enforcement expense and higher crime.

An ammunition tax will backfire, and the reason is simple: evading a new tax on bullets will be a piece of cake. California consumers will simply stop buying ammunition at local gun stores and instead start buying it online from out-of-state stores that don’t have to collect California taxes.

True, these consumers will still owe use tax on these purchases, but few will pay it — and enforcement will be difficult and, in most cases, cost-prohibitive.

State coffers will see little to no additional revenue, but many California small businesses will suffer greatly as ammunition sales shift to their out-of-state competitors.

It won’t be the first time a new tax fails to yield the promised revenue. Supporters projected that a 2008 malt liquor tax would raise $41 million for the state. Actual revenue was less than $200,000, because most manufacturers simply reformulated their products. Tax policy has consequences.

Another reason to oppose new taxes and fees is that California already has too many. As a taxpayer advocate and elected member of the State Board of Equalization, I oversee the administration and collection of more than 30 tax and fee programs — like sales taxes, fuel taxes and tire fees — that impose upon nearly every aspect of life. Each new tax or fee inevitably grows the state workforce and costs millions of taxpayer dollars to administer and enforce.

Speaking of enforcement, California already has some of the strictest and most complicated gun laws in the nation. The problem is we don’t do a very good job enforcing those laws with the billions in taxes Californians already pay.

At a recent legislative hearing, the Attorney General’s Office reported that it lacks the resources to enforce existing laws prohibiting felons and other dangerous individuals from owning weapons. Nearly 20,000 people identified by the Armed Prohibited Persons System are in illegal possession of firearms, but there aren’t nearly enough investigators to keep up. And the backlog grows daily.

It’s not a question of whether Californians are paying enough taxes — we clearly are. It’s the state’s spending priorities that are out of whack.

We don’t need a bullet tax, and we don’t need more and tax and fee programs. Legislators simply need to stop enacting new laws that chase law-abiding taxpayers and jobs out of our state, and instead start prioritizing the enforcement of laws we already have on the books.

George Runner represents more than nine million Californians as a taxpayer advocate and elected member of the State Board of Equalization. For more information, visit boe.ca.gov/Runner.