Free Talk Live

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday signed into law a new package of gun regulations intended to fortify New York's existing assault weapons ban, limit the number of bullets in magazines and strengthen rules that keep the mentally ill from owning firearms. The regulations are the nation's first since last month's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 27 people, including 20 young children at an elementary school. Cuomo, a self-described gun owner, said the tragedy had spurred lawmakers to action and called the legislation a "common sense" measure.

The fact that your vote will not change the results actually is a great plus for you! Now you can simply vote your conscience and not have to worry about your "vote being wasted". Voting for someone or some issue that you don't really believe in is really unethical. For most people, to do so is upsetting and shameful. So, don't bother. Number 1, do your duty and vote and number 2, vote your conscience. I think you will feel a whole lot better about it.

To Eric Holder: Stop Lying About The PATRIOT Act

From Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall: Law enforcement is using a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act to spy on people who aren't connected with terrorism. The FBI operates under a cloak of secrecy, so we only know about this because these two courageous senators are defying the intelligence agencies and speaking out. Here's the New York Times:

I have been reading up on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a legislation powerhouse responsible for laws such as the Voter ID legislation that we are dealing with here in PA. They claim to be proponents of the free market, federalism, and limited government, but this whole group is just really creeping me out. Seems to support of transition of power, rather than a lessening of regulation. And then I saw this article supporting intellectual property rights.

In a radio interview on Thursday with Albany’s WGDJ-AM, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said that he plans to work with state legislators next month to submit a proposal for new gun-control laws; in particular, Cuomo said, “our focus is assault weapons,” because current state laws regulating the weapons “have more holes that Swiss cheese.” Cuomo continued, “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

The House passed the legislation Tuesday night by a vote of 261-116. Legislation Tuesday that would exempt certain presidential appointees from having to be confirmed by the Senate.

House Republicans leaders plan to bring Rep. Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation, H.R.459, to the floor for a vote in July: "...we’ve just received word that H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act will receive a vote in the House this July!" Audit the Fed recently passed a cosponsor milestone with more than half the House of Representatives now publicly supporting the bill. With hundreds of thousands of petitions, emails, faxes, and phone calls pouring into Congressional offices from around the country, now is the time for Audit the Fed to become law of the land!

In the weeks leading up to the SOPA vote (or delayed vote, as it were), I perused my representative's website, looking for a phone number or other means of contact to inform them of the bill's odiousness and potentially catastrophic fallout. I'm reasonably sure they'd heard it before, but had been blithely ignoring it. This simple act underscored a problem possibly bigger than SOPA: the fact that as with far too many of our elected officials, technology legislation isn't even on his radar.

The Republican majority in the State Senate is not satisfied with a proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana and will not pass it in its current form, the chamber’s top lawmaker said Wednesday.