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Shares of gun maker Smith & Wesson fell 11 percent Friday after the company gave a disappointing revenue outlook. There are signs that booming gun sales are returning to more normal levels. * Wold said near-term gun demand in the United States "remains somewhat cloudy" as backlogs have been worked down and inventories have returned to normal levels. He said until consumer trends were more clear, he couldn't recommend buying the stock, which he rates "neutral." Shares of Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. fell 53 cents to $4.20.

PACKED HOUSE—— They were expecting 600…… 1,800+ SHOWED UP TODAY!UPDATE:—- New Count— 2,225 TURNED OUT TODAY!! An overflow crowd turned out today at 9:45 AM to attend the “Kill the Bill” rally today in St. Charles, MO Republican Lt. Governor Peter Kinder told the fired up crowd– “We have just begun to fight!” ** The Anti-Obamacare Health Care Rally at St. Charles Convention Center (map, directions, parking) is on.Jamie Alman from 97.1 is emcee today at this “Kill the Bill” rally!The Wednesday Rally called by Rep. Todd Akin & GOP House Leader John Boehner is the federal-healthcare equivalent of “The...

The House will take up the impeachment of a Louisiana federal judge accused of seeking and accepting bribes and perjury this Friday, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday. The judge, G. Thomas Porteous, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, is accused of accepting cash and gifts from lawyers whose cases he presided over in court. He’s also accused of lying about his finances when he filed for personal bankruptcy.*Mr. Porteous could become the eighth federal judge forced out since Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire in 1804. Former Judge Alcee L. Hastings of Florida was one...

UNDECIDED/LEANING UNDECIDED UPDATED 3/8: Rep. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.) moved from "no" to "undecided." He told local media outlets on March 2 and March 7 that he was voting against reform. But his spokesman told the Plum Line blog on March 8 that he’s undecided. Arcuri voted for the House bill. --Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.) voted yes on the House bill, but told the Syracuse paper March 8 the he is undecided on the final bill. --Rep Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) voted yes on the House bill, but told the Syracuse paper March 8 the he is undecided on the final bill....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not accustomed to the word she’s been hearing far more frequently in recent days: “no.” Over the past two weeks, Pelosi has faced a series of subtle but significant challenges to her authority — revolts from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Blue Dog Coalition and politically vulnerable first- and second-term members. The dynamic stems from an “every man for himself” attitude developing in the Democratic Caucus rather than a loss of respect for Pelosi, according to a senior Democratic aide. But it’s making Pelosi’s life — and efforts...

He’s spent only 431 days in Congress, has never seen any of his bills pass out of subcommittee and was best known for voting against major pieces of legislation because they weren’t liberal enough for him — at least until he was accused of sexually harassing a male staffer. Meet Eric Massa, conservative media hero. The New York Democrat’s weekend radio rant against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has his star rising on the right even as he resigns from Congress under an ethical cloud. Rush Limbaugh vowed to...

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver said today on KCUR's "Up to Date" that President Barack Obama doesn't have the votes to pass health care reform in the U.S. House. "We're not at 217," Cleaver said, referring to the number needed to pass the bill.Later, the three-term Democrat from Kansas City said the passage number could be 216 given vacancies in the House.The count today, Cleaver said, is about 201 health care supporters.That number, he added, could fluctuate significantly as a final vote nears.Listen to the show, that also featured Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore, here.

The president who so famously rejects drama and derides political theater walked into the East Room at 1:45 p.m. during one of the wildest political stretches in recent memory. In the past few days, a White House spokesman was forced to defend Obama's pugnacious chief of staff and his departed social secretary. A Republican senator held a spending bill hostage, despite protests within his own party. A Democrat considered resigning as chairman of a major House committee, then vowed to stay on, then announced he would take a leave of absence. As this chaos ricocheted through the Capitol, the president...

First-term Rep. Eric Massa announced Wednesday that he will not seek reelection, saying his doctors have told him that he can’t continue to “run at 100 miles an hour.” But several House aides told POLITICO that the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that the New York Democrat, who is married with two children, made unwanted advances toward a junior male staffer. A more senior staffer — Ronald Hikel, Massa’s former deputy chief of staff and legislative director — took the complaints to the ethics committee and was interviewed about them twice. Hikel declined to comment about the...

Representative Eric J. Massa, an outspoken freshman Democrat from upstate New York, announced Wednesday that he would retire from Congress after the end of his term for health reasons, leaving Democrats with a difficult challenge in maintaining their hold on a hard-won seat. * Mr. Massa’s retirement comes as another blow to Democrats in New York State. The governor, David A. Paterson, is battling for his political survival even as Representative Charles B. Rangel has temporarily stepped down from his powerful post as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. * Formerly a Republican, Mr. Massa campaigned in 2006...

Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) -- now the subject of a reported investigation into charges he sexually harassed a male staffer -- blew the whistle on his campaign manager in Nov. 2006 after the staffer was caught providing alcohol to three underage boys. Massa accused Sanford Dickert of luring three underage boys into his Corning apartment, providing them with liquor and beer. The group partied so raucously that water leaked from the apartment into an antiques store below, according to a report in the Star-Gazette of Elmira. [Story snippets, after the jump] Massa fired Dickert -- and his campaign paid more...

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will not seek re-election after only one term in office. According to several House aides – on both sides of the aisle – the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer. Massa and his office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but his office has scheduled a press conference for later this afternoon. Massa, a 20-year Navy veteran, was elected to office last November. He serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.

At the core of this technology-intensive trend is a set of high-speed digital cameras mounted on the hood and trunk of a vehicle that snap pictures of license plates while passing other vehicles, even at 80 miles per hour. Photos of the plates (including the time the photo was taken and the car’s GPS coordinates) instantly pop up on a laptop computer inside the repo man’s vehicle. Optical character recognition software converts the plate numbers to text. The process gets more technical: the plate numbers are checked against an encrypted database of delinquent cars, compiled from lenders and stored on...

Neither "average Americans," as they like to portray themselves, nor trailer-park "Deliverance" throwbacks, as their lefty detractors would have us believe, tea partyers are more highly educated and wealthier than the rest of America. Nearly 75% are college educated, and two-thirds earn more than $50,000. More likely to be white and male than the general population, tea partyers also skew toward middle age or older. That's the tell. Most came of age in the 1960s, an era distinguished by widespread disrespect for government. In their wonder years, they learned that politics was about protesting the Establishment and shouting down the...

The New York State Senate on Tuesday night expelled a senator convicted of assaulting his companion, the first time a member of the Legislature was forced from office in nearly a century. Hiram Monserrate, a Democrat from Queens, was convicted last fall of misdemeanor assault after a fight with his companion, Karla Giraldo, that left her with a deep gash on her face, though he was acquitted of more serious felony assault charges. Rather than bringing a close to Mr. Monserrate’s legislative career, the expulsion could be the beginning of a lengthy fight that would play out in the courts...

IMAGINE HAVING YOUR driver's license revoked in Pennsylvania but then being able to get one in Florida - through the mail - that must then be honored here. Now imagine it happens with guns. Because it does. Pennsylvania residents who are denied a license to carry a concealed weapon, or have theirs revoked, have found a loophole that allows them to get a license from another state that must be honored here. "They could be disapproved here and they could apply in Florida and we are not notified," said Philadelphia Police Lt. Lisa King, commander of the Gun Permit Unit....

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

Two days after the nation's first midterm primary, Illinois Democrats are staggering into the young election season weakened by a contentious campaign, lukewarm support for their nominees and news their candidate for lieutenant governor has an arrest record. Topping the list of woes for Democrats is Scott Lee Cohen, a pawnbroker and political neophyte who pumped $2 million of his own money into a campaign to win the party's nomination for lieutenant governor. The day after the election, big headlines in Chicago's newspapers said that in October 2005, Mr. Cohen's then live-in girlfriend called the police and accused him of...

A Montbello mother says her 9-year-old son's death from severe asthma could have been prevented had Denver Human Services resolved problems with his Medicaid pharmacy benefits. Zuton Lucero said she called Human Services every three days for months last year when she was suddenly unable to get prescription drugs for her son, Zumante. The boy's health deteriorated without the medication, his doctor said, and he died at Children's Hospital in July after losing consciousness at his house after an attack. "I don't want anyone else to be sitting where I'm sitting," Lucero said. Advocacy lawyers who met Wednesday with the...

A Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction showed up for work on Wednesday as he routinely does — entering the city jail in Lower Manhattan to minister to some of the roughly 900 male inmates there. But when the chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, flung his shoulder bag onto an X-ray machine at the entrance of the Manhattan Detention Complex, at 125 White Street, officers were alerted to the presence of metal. They found a pair of scissors and three metal blades, the kind used in box cutters, in the bag’s outer flap, the authorities said. Imam Abu-Shahid was...