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President Barack Obama will star at an “intimate” $32,400 per head June 6 fundraising dinner and discussion in the Portola Valley home of star Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his wife, Neeru, according to the invite obtained by the Chronicle. The dinner is one of two events in Peninsula private homes on Obama’s upcoming fundraising swing here, which benefits the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In addition to the Khosla home dinner, Obama will also attend an earlier reception in the home of Marci and Mike McCue of Palo Alto. McCue co-founded Flipboard, and serves as its CEO. Senator...

Well, Harry Reid is resorting to desperate measures in order to try and regain some power in the Senate. Reports say that he is getting ready to use the so-called “nuclear option” to change the senate rules so that 60 votes are no longer needed to block a filibuster. And it looks like President Obama will support Reid’s efforts if the Republicans try to block upcoming nominations. “If Senator Reid decides to do something on nominations, the president has said he’ll be there to support him,” a Democratic aide told the Post. "This would take away the right to...

WASHINGTON — During the 2012 presidential campaign, Harry Reid claimed to have intimate knowledge of what was secretly inside Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tax returns. As President Obama’s campaign slammed Romney nearly every day for not releasing more tax returns, the Senate majority leader repeatedly made the unsubstantiated claim that, at one point in his life, Romney hadn’t paid taxes for almost a decade. He even did so from the floor of the U.S. Senate. “The word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years,” the Nevada Democrat claimed on the floor in August. “Let him prove...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Wednesday "House Republicans have truly lost their minds" under a popular definition of insanity. Reid, speaking of House GOP leaders' plan to hold a 37th vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act -- commonly known as "Obamacare" -- cited a statement often attributed to Albert Einstein, that insanity is defined as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.""If that's true, the House Republicans have truly lost their minds," Reid said in a speech on the Senate floor.Noting that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the 2012...

WH Live Stream Scheduled to begin at 12:30 pm EDT

An anonymous individual or group claims to have obtained "all available" tax returns associated with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The alleged hackers claim to have accessed them via computers in the Franklin, Tenn., office of professional services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. An anonymous posting on a file sharing website claims PwC was hacked; the same site has been used to boast of other high-profile corporate hacks. How'd they pull it off, allegedly? The posting states: "[Romney's tax returns] were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of...

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) -- The Secret Service said Wednesday it is investigating the reported theft of copies of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's federal tax records during a break-in at an accounting office in Franklin. Someone claiming responsibility demanded $1 million not to make them public.

A Middle Tennessee company is at the center of a mystery that could turn the political race upside down. The Secret Service wants to know if a group hacked into Price Waterhouse Cooper's computer system in Franklin and got Mitt Romney's tax records. "Right through here and it was just lying on the floor there," Peter Burr recalled.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reacted to Republican outrage at the IRS targeting of conservative groups Tuesday, saying that when the Internal Revenue Service targeted liberal organizations, “we didn’t hear a single Republican grandstand the issue then.” “It wasn’t long ago that the IRS inappropriately targeted the NAACP, Greenpeace, and a California church which was really progressive, called the All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif. It was interesting. At that time, we didn’t hear a single Republican grandstand the issue then. Where was their outrage when groups on the other side of the political spectrum were

Funding Will Research How To Make Solar Panels More Efficient & Minimize Water UseNSF Grant Expected To Employ 100 Technicians, Scientists and StudentsWashington, D.C.- Nevada Senator Harry Reid today joined Chancellor Dan Klaich and officials with the National Science Foundation  in announcing a grant for $20,000,000 which will be awarded to the Nevada System of Higher Education to improve the effectiveness of large-scale solar installations in arid desert lands. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the project, called  “The Solar Energy-Water-Environment Nexus in Nevada,” will be a collaborative effort between the University of Nevada, Reno, the...

When it comes to investigative reporters, how do you change a bulldog into a lapdog? Easy: change the occupant of the Oval Office from a Republican into a Democrat. Witness Carl Bernstein's pitiful performance on today's Morning Joe. The man who teamed with Bob Woodward to bring down Richard Nixon now credulously claims that he "can't imagine" that President Obama is possibly involved in the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Bernstein instead blames the "hyper-partisanship" in Washington. Yeah, cause politics were so kumbaya in 1972, Carl. View the video here.

By the end of Tom Coburn's Morning Joe appearance today, a panel member could be heard, off-camera, whistling in astonishment. Not surprising, since the plain-talking Republican Senator from Oklahoma had just unloaded on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Coburn called Reid "dishonest" in his dealings with him, saying that Reid was "not truthful" and had "not kept his word." For good measure, Coburn added that Reid had been a "failure" as Majority Leader. View the video here.

“We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years,” Reid said...

When your party controls the Senate, you are the majority leader, and you have a freshman GOP senator getting lippy and being right about it...you'd think you could handle it a bit more maturely...

Yes, because goodness knows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has never thrown a political punch below the belt in the course of his career. Via The Hill: The two senators bickered as Cruz rose to object to Reid’s motion to appoint conferees to a House-Senate budget committee. …He said Cruz’s request to eliminate all taxes in a final House-Senate budget was absurd.“The senator from Texas was on the losing side…now he wants us to adopt the losing side’s view or we cannot go to conference,” Reid said.“My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully,” Reid added.“He pushes everybody around...

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has essentially agreed with Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul that the Senate should address weaknesses in the U.S. immigration system in light of last month’s attack in Boston. U.S. Senator Rand Paul had sent a letter to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid after the Boston bombing expressing concern over the refugee program. That program allowed two individuals to move to Bowling Green where they were planning a terrorist attack. “I am not for saying no to an immigration bill, I think the immigration system is broken and we do need immigration reform and I am...

How stupid does the Senate background-check vote look now, I ask the pundits and others who thought it was dumb politics for Obama and the Democrats to push for a vote that they obviously knew they were going to lose. I’d say not very stupid at all. The nosedive taken in the polls by a number of senators who voted against the bill, most of them in red states, makes public sentiment here crystal clear. And now, for the first time since arguably right after the Reagan assassination attempt—a damn long time, in other words—legislators in Washington are feeling political...

Reid defends remark likening Tea Party to modern-day anarchists By Alexander Bolton - 05/02/13 05:17 AM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says the Tea Party is the main reason why things are not getting done in Congress and views it as a party of modern-day anarchists. Reid on Wednesday afternoon stood by comments he made on the Senate floor last week comparing Tea Party-affiliated Republicans to 19th century American anarchists. “I believe that, my experience with the Tea Party is that they are against government in any form. They throw monkey wrenches into the government,” Reid said during...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

After Al Gore lost the electoral college in 2000 in a way that first revealed the contours of the red-blue divide, the Democratic Party made a strategic decision to abandon gun control as a central plank of its agenda. The Newtown massacre has scrambled that calculation. It forced President Obama to push for a gun-control law he didn’t plan, and the failure of that law has provoked a furious liberal backlash against the consensus that Democrats have to leave guns alone. John Oliver’s Daily Show segment captures the incredulity many liberals are feeling: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Oliver’s contrast is to the courage...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Mike Perrone, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS), which represents over 11,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, including systems specialists and aviation safety inspectors, released the following statement regarding the continued furloughing of FAA employees: "The furloughing of FAA employees is having an impact on the aviation system and the flying public is noticing. Systems specialists, aviation safety inspectors, aeronautical specialists, examiners and thousands of other FAA employees work behind the scenes to ensure that planes take off and land on time, equipment is restored, and planes are safe to fly. These employees...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday equated the Tea Party to a non-violent “anarchist” group because, in his mind, Tea Partiers don’t believe in any form of government. He was speaking about the sequester and other financial issues on the Senate floor. “We have a situation where this country has been driven by the Tea Party for the last number of years,” Reid said. “When I was in school, I studied government and I learned about the anarchists. Now, they were different than the Tea Party because they were violent. But they were anarchists because they did not...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Majority Leader Reid, As our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to those affected by the tragedy in Boston, I urge you to incorporate the following national security concerns into the comprehensive immigration reform debate. Before Congress moves forward, some important national security questions must be addressed. I believe that any real comprehensive immigration reform must implement strong national security protections. The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system. If we don't use this debate as an opportunity to...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) mocked Second Amendment rights activists while announcing his support for a ban on assault weapons and limits to high-capacity magazine clips on the Senate floor today. REID: In the 1920s, organized crime was committing murders with machine guns. So Congress dramatically limited the sale and transfer of machine guns. As a result, machine guns all but disappeared from the streets. We can and should take the same common-sense approach to safeguard Americans from modern weapons of war. That is why I will vote for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban – because we must strike...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that he will support the Assault Weapon Ban against what he calls conspiracy theorists, black helicopters and false flags: “I’ll vote for the ban because saving the lives of police officers, young and old, and innocent civilians, young and old, is more important than preventing imagined tyranny,”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he would support a new ban on assault weapons as an amendment to pending gun control legislation. ""I will vote for Dianne Feinstein's assault weapons ban," Reid said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. "I will vote for assault weapons ban because maintaining law and order and saving lives is more important than preventing imagined tyranny." "Today I choose to vote my conscience, not only as Harry Reid, a United States Senator, but also as a husband, a father, a grandfather, and — I hope — a friend to lots...

"I will vote for assault weapons ban because maintaining law and order and saving lives is more important than preventing imagined tyranny."

Washington (CNN) -- An envelope that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin was intercepted Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility in Washington, congressional and law enforcement sources tell CNN.

The question now becomes, will he ever? From Politico: The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are shy of the 60 votes they need to move the bipartisan compromise bill on background checks for gun sales. Vice President Joe Biden has been personally calling senators to urge them to support the measure, Democratic aides say. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) began a whip count on Monday, Democratic aides said, and Biden has been pressuring his fellow Democrats to fall in line. Biden's office did not return an email seeking comment. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)...

The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are shy of the 60 votes they need to move the bipartisan compromise bill on background checks for gun sales. Vice President Joe Biden has been personally calling senators to urge them to support the measure, Democratic aides say. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) began a whip count on Monday, Democratic aides said, and Biden has been pressuring his fellow Democrats to fall in line. Biden’s office did not return an email seeking comment. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are co-sponsoring the proposal that would expand background checks...

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) told host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that supporters of new gun control legislation do not yet have the votes to pass it, despite defeating a Republican-led filibuster attempt last week. Durbin is the Senate Majority Whip, responsible for counting his party's votes on key legislative proposals. The specific bill facing the Senate is the Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks, which would expand such requirements to gun shows, among other provisions. Currently, private sales between individuals at gun shows do not require background checks--just as private sales anywhere do not require them. The following is...

Uh oh. Has Sen. Harry Reid been getting gun advice from Uncle Joe Biden? On Thursday, the Senate voted to move forward with gun control legislation. It’s a good thing Reid studied up on the gun-thingy lingo. Speaking on the Senate floor, he brought up the Aurora shooting. The accused shooter’s rifle was reportedly equipped with a 100-round magazine, but here’s what Reid said: The events of the last few months has been very tragic. People going to a movie theater to watch a movie and they’re gunned down? And more would have been gunned down but for the fact...

The Republican plan to block debate on Senate Bill 649, which requires background checks on almost all gun purchases and transfers, failed spectacularly Thursday morning when sixteen Republican Senators joined almost all of the Democrats to vote in favor opening debate on the bill. Among those voting to defeat the filibuster were 9 Democrats with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association, and 12 A-rated Republicans (out of 16 Republican “ayes”). Two Democrats, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), joined the majority of Republican Senators who tried to prevent debate, much less a vote, on the bill....

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters on a conference call moments ago that his compromise bill with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on gun background checks “doesn’t change in any way” his “conservative record or views.” The former Club for Growth president acknowledged he was out of his usual legislative area on the issue, but “it became clear to me a bill of some sort was very likely to reach the floor” that would be “badly flawed,” so he reached out to his friend and neighboring state senator Manchin to sit down and talk. “You’re probably used to hearing me talk...

With his penchant for ripping Republicans rather than Democrats, Joe Scarborough likely long ago ruined his chances of winning a Republican primary. But the Morning Joe host today jokingly acknowledged how particularly tough it would now be, after Harry Reid yesterday approvingly quoted him on the Senate floor. Ever since Newton, Scarborough has been waging a daily campaign for gun control, repeatedly scourging Republicans for their opposition to President Obama's proposals. Quoth Reid: "Scarborough tears into GOP filibuster on gun bill, and I quote, 'is anybody awake in my party?'" View the video here.

(CNN) – A key player in negotiations over potential gun control legislation said on Tuesday a planned GOP filibuster of the bill won’t occur if Democrats allow Republicans to bring amendments up for a vote. Sen. Tom Coburn, speaking on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront,” said a filibuster that’s been promised by more than a dozen fellow Republicans would prevent Americans from seeing where their elected officials stand on the issue. “It’s not going to be filibustered,” Coburn said, adding that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to offer "an open amendment process" in order for Republicans to agree to...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid again took the Senate floor to make a very personal plea on Tuesday morning for a vote on gun control legislation. ~snip~ “In Nevada, if you purchase a handgun, you have to wait three days to pick it up,” Reid said. “And it is believed that alone has saved the lives of many people. Sometimes people in a fit of passion will purchase a handgun to do bad things with it, Mr. President, even as my dad did — killed himself. Waiting a few days helps.”

I’m moving forward to break the Republican filibuster. On Thurs, Senate will begin voting on background checks + other gun safety measures.

Here’s a better question. Should the GOP filibuster the gun-control bill? Johnny Isakson says no: “I’ll speak for myself on that question,” Isakson said on CBS’s “This Morning” when asked about the filibuster. “There’s no ambivalence on the gun issue, I think everyone knows what the issues are. We have not seen the final draft of the legislation that was produced, I understand, last night, but I think it deserves a vote up or down.”… Isakson also said he could support a bill for universal background checks, depending on the language it contains. McConnell, who does intend to filibuster, needs...

A little known pro-gun lobby that’s well to the right of the National Rifle Association has complicated efforts to reach a solution on gun control legislation, top Democrats have said in recent days. The Gun Owners of America has been around for decades, operating mostly in obscurity, dwarfed by the lobbying and fundraising prowess of the NRA. The group’s big gripe is that the NRA is too squishy and willing to compromise, and its recent efforts to scuttle gun control legislation appear to be scaring away Republicans amenable to background checks. The results have frustrated Democrats trying to strike a...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s threat to filibuster any new gun restrictions is gathering steam, as a dozen of his Republican colleagues have now signed onto his plan. The Kentucky Republican and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) first wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid late last month to warn him of their intention to try to tie up the Senate if, as planned, Reid moved forward with legislation that would expand background checks and attempt to crack down on interstate gun trafficking. Reid is expected to bring a gun-control bill to the floor as early as next...

Finally, some sanity, and from a somewhat unexpected source. The ACLU is concerned about the civil liberties implications of the new Harry Reid Senate bill to establish so-called “universal background checks” for firearms purchases. The organization has tended toward silence on gun rights, but at least now it recognizes aspects of the problem with this terrible proposal. Ever since Sandy Hook, the Obama administration and its progressive choir have demanded a new Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). Now it looks like that plan is toast. California Senator Dianne Feinstein blames gun owners and the NRA, and in a sense we should...

As Senate Democrats struggle to build support for new gun control legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union now says it’s among those who have “serious concerns” about the bill. Those concerns have the capacity to prove a major setback to Sen. Harry Reid’s current gun bill, which includes language from earlier bills introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, a top lobbyist for the ACLU announced that the group thinks Reid’s current gun bill could threaten both privacy rights and civil liberties. The inclusion of universal background checks — the poll-tested...

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) must know, Americans who own firearms have a special sensitivity to a “Big Brother” federal government that wants to keep centralized records on who owns what guns and where in America. Loose language in his gun control bill (S. 649) could start America down that slippery slope. Since the Second Amendment guarantees to the people the right to keep and bear arms, many Americans look askance at efforts to create centralized records that might some day, in some distant future neither wanted nor expected, facilitate a despotic government’s efforts to disarm the populace...

Soon after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced an assault weapons ban would not be part of a gun control bill, a new CBS News poll shows support for stricter gun control laws overall has dropped since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Currently, support for stricter gun control laws stands at 47 percent today, down from a high of 57 percent just after the shootings. Thirty-nine percent want those laws kept as they are, and another 11 percent want them made less strict. Pared-down Senate gun bill focuses on background checksWH says it doesn't support national gun...

NewsBusters readers know that one of my guilty pleasures is demonstrating virtually every Saturday how intellectually challenged the high and mighty Bill Maher is. On HBO's Real Time Friday, the host perfectly demonstrated this himself by blaming gerrymandering for the Senate's failure to implement an assault weapons ban moments after he called Americans "morons" and "complete idiots" that "don't know anything" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary): Maher Calls Americans 'Morons' Moments Before Blaming Senate Weapons Ban Failure on Gerrymandering After showing a video clip of Tea Partiers in New Jersey not being able to list one thing they’d...

<p>Lawmaker: 'They refuse to let us know what is going on'</p> <p>Members of Congress are demanding the Obama administration explain why it is stockpiling a huge arsenal of ammunition and weapons.</p> <p>The Department of Homeland Security bought more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the last year, as well as thousands of armored vehicles.</p>

Harry Reid will reverse course and allow a tough gun bill to be introduced in the Senate.The Huffington Post reports, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will introduce gun control legislation Thursday night that includes a proposal for universal background checks, a high-ranking source told The Huffington Post."  The liberal website adds:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pretty much dumped Senator Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban bill, leaving her feeling a bit betrayed. In fact, it is questionable that a serious background check will make it to the Senate floor. Feinstein’s response to Reid’s decision was classic. She told CNN, “What Senator Reid told me is that I would have an opportunity for a vote. I take him at his word. I told him also that it would be my intention to separate out the prohibition on the future, manufacture, transfer, sales, and possession of large ammunition-feeding devices of more than...

Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore had some harsh words for Sen. Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats after they decided not to include an assault weapons ban in gun-control legislation. Moore ranted against the Senate majority leader after Reid removed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to prohibit military-style weapons from the bill because they wouldn’t have the votes. The director behind “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11” said people need to “rise up” against the Nevada senator. “There will be an Aurora next month and there will be a Sandy Hook the month after that,” Moore told CNN.....