Free Republic

Back in November, I discovered a 2001 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing transcript where Senator Chuck Schumer (D - NY) said it would be "ludicrous" to try Osama bin Laden in New York City's downtown federal court. However, today, Mr. Schumer is welcoming the trial of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York's southern district within downtown Manhattan. TRANSCRIPT of 2001 segment:

Protesters are arrested outside US Senator Chuck Schumer's office in New York. Angry constituents of Schumer staged the sit-in at his Manhattan office, dissatisfied that the influential senator hasn’t done enough to push for universal, national health care.

ILION, N.Y. (WKTV) - Members of the Ilion Fish & Game Club are upset that Senator Chuck Schumer used their club last week to introduce his new venison donation legislation. Last Monday, the Senator introduced a new bill proposal that would allow hunters donating venison to food banks to get a tax break. Members of the Ilion Fish & Game Club say they're not happy Schumer was in the club, and most members didn't even know he had visited until they saw it on the news. Monday night, club members held a meeting to discuss the issue. They say they're...

WASHINGTON (BP)--Delivering a more forthright speech than is often seen from politicians on the issue, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer -- the third ranking member of the Senate -- told a homosexual group last week that "gay marriage" supporters "must not rest" until it is legalized in all 50 states. Schumer's comments came as Maine prepares for Tuesday's vote that will decide the future of "gay marriage" there. If Question 1 passes it would overturn a new state law that legalized "marriage" for same-sex couples. But if it fails it would be the first time any state will have approved "gay...

New York's Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer just doesn't know what to think about terrorism. He does, however, know what to say - whatever is politically convenient at the moment. That's not what New Yorkers need to hear with the trial of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed about to land on the docket. Immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Schumer chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing to figure out how to legally handle terrorist suspects. While smoke still hovered in the air over Ground Zero, the senator was all about being tough. His opening statement included his support for...

Deer hunters who donate their bounty to food banks could score a new tax deduction under a proposal that Sen. Charles E. Schumer began advancing Wednesday. The legislation would allow hunters to deduct the cost of processing venison and other game as long as they donate the meat. A similar tax exemption would be extended to processors for any fees paid by state agencies or charities to clean and prepare game for serving in food kitchens. Schumer, D-N.Y., said his plan would benefit hunters and the poor while at the same time helping to combat an overpopulation of deer in...

Sen. Charles Schumer's (D - NY) support of the Obama administration's use of the civil court system to try terrorist suspects is odd to say the least, considering how he saw this issue eight years ago. Immediately following attacks of September 11th, in December of that year, the Senate Judiciary Committee met to discuss the idea of prosecuting terrorists in military tribunals. According to the hearing's transcript, Schumer was in favor of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects.:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sen. Charles Schumer says a hole in federal gun laws allowed the man charged with a shooting rampage in Fort Hood, Texas to purchase a gun.Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has been charged with the shooting spree that left 13 dead.Hasan purchased a gun at a store in Texas in August even though the Joint Terrorism Task Force had investigated him for possible terrorist ties.Authorities had taken a look at Hasan after intercepting messages between Hasan and a radical imam overseas. The inquiry was closed sometime in early 2009.Schumer says that should have been enough...

In a blatant display of the partisan card stacking which routinely debases the intellectual and ethical currency of Congressional hearings on "immigration reform," Sen. Charles Schumer (D, NY) last month chaired a session of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security titled "Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Faith-Based Perspectives." Even a fig leaf of balance was missing; the minority wasn't allowed its fractional quotient of witnesses. Only supporters of "comprehensive immigration reform" were invited to testify. The hearing violated the spirit of open, oppositional discourse essential to the functioning and preservation of democratic institutions. The farce was also...

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), who is in charge of new candidate recruitment for House Democrats, played a key role in getting Republican Dede Scozzafava to back Democrat Bill Owens -- just hours after she dropped out of the NY-23 race on Saturday, Dem sources tell me. Former state Democratic chairwoman June O'Neill, a friend of Scozzafava's who brokered the Owens endorsement, arranged for Israel, who was already in western New York, to have coffee with the moderate Republican at 4 p.m. yesterday at Gouverneur, N.Y. eatery near Scozzafava's home. Even though she had already spoken to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo...

Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel, the architects of the Democrats’ historic take-back of Congress in 2006, talk to each other nearly every day in abrupt, Morse code bursts stripped of hellos, goodbyes and thank-yous. On the surface, everything seems normal. But Schumer and Emanuel — whose relationship hovers somewhere between a business partnership and a sibling rivalry — are now finding themselves on opposite sides of an internal Democratic argument on health care reform.  Schumer, a New York Democratic senator, is pushing a proposal that allows states to opt out of a public option. Emanuel, who left the House to...

Chuck Schumer appeared on MS-NBC this morning to endorse an unusual strategy in Afghanistan — the very “air raiding villages and bombing civilians” that Barack Obama derided as a candidate. The clip from Morning Joe is lengthy, but the portion that caught The Hill’s attention takes place in the first couple of minutes. Schumer seems to have missed a couple of strategy sessions in coming up with this idea:

Senator Schumer Begins Dark Pool Crack Down Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2009 08:52 -0500 Dark Pool Dark Pools Mary Schapiro New York Stock Exchange NYSE Schumer SEC Securities and Exchange Commission Senator Schumer WASHINGTON, DC—U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) will hold a conference call with Duncan Niederauer, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:30 pm to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to institute a series of reforms to better regulate dark pools. Schumer will release a letter he is sending to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro urging several different...

Although Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) vowed this week to introduce comprehensive immigration reform next month, his Senate counterparts expected to take the lead on the issue aren’t heeding a similar timeline. “That’s new to me,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of Gutierrez’s announcement, made Tuesday at an immigration rally on Capitol Hill. “I’ve been talking to Sen. Schumer, and we hope to get something done that’s comprehensive,” Graham added. “We just don’t know when yet.”Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, has been meeting periodically with Graham to discuss ideas on immigration,...

The long-simmering tension between insurers and congressional Democrats is erupting into open warfare, with lawmakers stepping up their push to revoke a key federal protection for the insurance industry. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday called for an amendment to the health care reform bill that would remove the long-standing antitrust exemption for insurers, echoing a push by other Democrats to crack down on the industry. “The health insurance’s antitrust exemption is one of the worst accidents of American history," Schumer said. "It deserves a lot of the blame for the huge rise in premiums that has made health insurance...

This bill will likely get all sorts of media attention in the next week and month. That's because Democrats are now thinking about repealing it. The exemption, known as McCarran-Ferguson, cedes regulatory control of the industry, on the business side, to individual states. Since health insurers are already heavily regulated at the state level, its repeal would have a much broader impact on property and casualty insurers — a group that has also found itself in Congress’s cross-hairs recently.

You know, our job loses are bad enough without President Obama and now Senator Chuck Schumer lying about it all and making it sound even worse than it is. But this particular lie is a very particular lie, one that is aimed to make the presidency of George W. Bush the bad guy. Job loses occurred during Bush's last year in office, of course. But both the president and now Schumer are blatantly lying about the extent of that loss. Just last week President Obama used this lie, as he did in mid September. Here is what the president keeps...

For all you steadfast NRA supporters who pooh-poohed us when we told you that veterans were going to get shafted by this act... read this and start making excuses.

Thirty-Four years ago the President of the United States was accused of telling NY to Drop Dead. Today a Senator from the almost bankrupt state of New York, told the rest of the country to Drop Dead. Rather than listen to the will of the people of NY and of the entire country and keep the government option far away from the Obamacare bill, Schumer the most hack of political hacks tried to add it to the Baucus bill, the one bill in congress that had no government option. After he was defeated, Schumer who has long been described as...

Senate Finance Committee members, from left, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., talk on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday on Sept. 29, 2009, before the start of the markup of health care legislation.

At a Columbia Political Union event last semester, Amy Klobuchar, Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was reminiscing about a Halloween costume she wore in high school. Her Purple Rain outfit inspired by musician Prince was great, Klobuchar explained, but she lost the costume contest to someone dressed as a bathroom wall. Klobuchar’s legislative director, sitting in the front row, shook her head at the digression. “No?” Klobuchar asked, turning to the staffer, who kept shaking her head. The Senator changed the subject. Moira Campion, the woman who intervened to avert the anecdote, is a former employee of New York Senator Chuck...

Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator.

Democrat's $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator. While the industry has scaled back its political spending in the wake of last year’s economic...

Two Central New York businessmen are in line to get $10.8 million in federal money to build a small airstrip in the Oswego County town of Hastings. The Hastings airport is eight miles from a former small, taxpayer-built airport — Michael Airfield in Cicero — that the same businessmen have bought and shut down. Essentially they’ll be spending nearly $11 million in federal money to replace one generally unused airport with another airstrip.... The Federal Aviation Administration has already spent $2.8 million on the project for which there is no demonstrated need, which doesn’t meet the FAA’s minimum quota for...

Here is video of New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night that he will offer an amendment today in the Senate Finance Committee to put a "Public Option" in the Baucus Health Care Bill. Schumer said he would offer such an amendment, along with Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Schumer said the battle for a Public Option begins today, and he will demand a roll call vote on the amendment. Schumer said it may fail in committee, but said they have a much better chance of winning in the full Senate. . . . (VIDEO)

A fund-raiser for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who was charged last week with defrauding Citigroup also defrauded other banks, U.S. prosecutors said. The allegations against fund-raiser Hassan Nemazee—arrested last week on a bank fraud charge and released on $25 million bail—were not formal charges but were in a letter dated Tuesday from prosecutors to a Manhattan federal court magistrate judge handling the case. Nemazee, 59, head of a private equity firm, was accused on Aug. 25 of one count of bank fraud for seeking a fraudulent $74 million loan from Citigroup's banking unit. He said after his...

Someone needs to remind Charles Schumer that the war of 1812 is over. The senior Senator for New York is ludicrously calling for sanctions against Great Britain over the role of the Labour government in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. The New York Daily News quotes Schumer as saying: “If it is proven that there was a quid pro quo, even though Britain is our friend, there ought to be some sanctions.” Schumer doesn’t outline exactly what those sanctions might be and his remarks were probably made without any thought or consideration, but his comments are deeply...

Washington » Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Sunday that Democrats are proposing health care legislation that is untenable for Republicans to support and warned it would be an abuse of power if congressional leaders use a rare parliamentary tactic to force through their reform plans. "We need to work on it together," Hatch said of health care reform on NBC's Meet the Press. "But I have to tell you, they're insisting on these, I think, legislation-killing approaches that literally Republicans cannot go along with." Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the same show that Democrats are trying to seek a...

Senate Democrats said Sunday that they were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster. After consulting experts in Senate rules and procedure, the Democrats said they were increasingly confident that they could legislate creation of a public plan in a way that would withstand challenges expected from Republicans. Appearing Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said a...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― New York Sen. Charles Schumer wants the United Nations to condemn Libya's welcome home celebration for the man convicted in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Democratic senator was scheduled to holding a news conference Saturday to urge the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N to introduce a resolution condemning the ceremony and asking for an apology. Family members were furious that convicted Libyan bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison Thursday and was greeted in Libya by cheering crowds. Pan Am Flight 103 — which was carrying mostly American passengers to...

In the late 1970s, as the federal government arranged to bail out Chrysler, not-yet-famous economist Alan Greenspan warned the problem “was not that it would fail, but that it would succeed.” And it did, thus paving the way for more bailouts, including (again) Chrysler. But the first Chrysler bailout was just one company, one time. The rolling series of financial bailouts over the past year -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG and Citibank, General Motors and Chrysler, etc. -- have not yet succeeded or failed. But they’ve raised a new moral hazard. These days, having invested so much in...

Itching to unload on Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand at a town hall meeting on health care reform? You're out of luck. Aides to the New York Democrats told the Daily News they won't be sponsoring any town hall meetings on health care. Instead, they will be touring the state and soliciting opinions in more informal settings. "During recess, as he does every year, Sen. Schumer will be in over 20 counties across New York City and state talking with thousands of constituents, discussing the issues that are important to them," Schumer spokesman Josh Vlasto said. Glen Caplin, a...

Itching to unload on Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand at a town hall meeting on health care reform? You're out of luck. Aides to the New York Democrats told the Daily News they won't be sponsoring any town hall meetings on health care. Instead, they will be touring the state and soliciting opinions in more informal settings. "During recess, as he does every year, Sen. Schumer will be in over 20 counties across New York City and state talking with

The health care debate continues, with Nancy Pelosi calling those who dare to express their opposition “un-American.” And all this time, I thought that telling your Congressmen what you think of a vital issue in face-to-face meetings was as American as apple pie. The Fox News cable show hosts, like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, are supposedly stirring up these ”mobs” according to the Democratic Party and its supporters on the far Left.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working behind the scenes to help Democrats craft a new version of former President Bush's immigration reform bill. Graham also supported the Bush/Kennedy/McCain bill back in 2007. As The Wall Street Journal reports: Wes Hickman, a spokesman for Mr. Graham, said in a statement that "Senator Graham is ready and willing to play a key role in immigration reform. He intends to work with many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle." The new bill will most likely be introduced in September by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Graham has been working with...

Can any Freepers help me out with this request? I'm looking for a specific photo of Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, I think right after the 2008 elections. Chucky is rubbing his hands together, and the others are in ecstasy over the win. Drudge had it on his front page around that time, and I've scoured the internet for it, but with no luck. Do any Freepers know where I can find it? Thanks in advance.

"When you are running for President, everything should be public..."

Schumer: “Borders Now Secure” $1 Trillion in Extra Health Care Costs by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org Charles Schumer (D-NY), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says that the borders are now “secure enough to move forward on immigration reform.”Mr. Schumer’s statement comes on the heels of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, who was gunned down by members of a Mexican smuggling ring in July.Five suspects have been taken into custody by Mexican law enforcement officials.Immigration reform for Mr. Schumer, according to the Minuteman PAC, is the granting of full amnesty to all illegal aliens who...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6iLuyCAx0

New York TimesObama Setting Out to Put Brighter Face on Economy. Unemployment rising, GDP tanking, the nation's deficit four times higher than in January, but hey, this is a Democratic administration we're talking about, so Happy Days are Here Again! While the article itself is actually harder on Obama than I have seen the Times in recent months, the headline is pure spin, plain and simple. During the Bush administration, the headline would surely read something like this: "Bush blind to worsening economy." MSNBC.comObama's promises a work in progress. The President has been in office for nearly seven months, during...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has promised to ban a controversial trading practice offered by stock exchanges that include Lenexa-based BATS Exchange Inc. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a release Tuesday that SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro told him in a personal phone call of the regulatory agency’s plans to ban flash trading, which momentarily lets certain traders know of stock orders before they’re released to the public market. BATS and Nasdaq have welcomed scrutiny of the practice. Last month, Schumer sent a letter to the SEC saying that it should ban flash trading or that he would introduce legislation...

With President Barack Obama's political fortunes on the line, Democrats in Congress vowed on Monday to push healthcare reform through the Senate with or without Republican support. "No matter what happens we are going to enact healthcare reform by the end of the year," said Senator Charles Schumer, one of the Democrats who has been working with Republicans to craft a bipartisan plan in that chamber. Obama has made overhaul of the $2.5 trillion healthcare system this year his top domestic priority, saying it is central to long-term economic recovery, and its success or failure could define his presidency. Obama...

Democrats will not hesitate to forgo bipartisanship to pass a health overhaul bill if negotiations fail in the next month, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday. Schumer, on a conference call with reporters, indicated that Democratic leaders are actively exploring options to pass the health bill that would not require Republican votes. He pointed specifically to budget reconciliation, a parliamentary tactic that would allow passage of a bill with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes generally required in the Senate. Reconciliation is "clearly one of the contingencies on the table," Schumer said. "We want to get a...

Will Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln continue to fight "as a member of the Senate Finance Committee" for a bipartisan bill, or will she heel to the Democrat leadership who want a health care plan, no matter what? The reason I ask is due to this interesting report from Politico's Glenn Thrush on how Sen. Chuck Schumer is planning use of parliamentary tricks to bypass the committee process and the 60 votes needed for cloture to pass a health care plan for President Obama. Thrush writes: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sounds like he's getting ready to play hardball this fall on...

Senate Democrats will await a bipartisan healthcare reform bill but are looking past it, and around it, in the meantime, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democratic leaders are promising to push through a health care bill even if negotiations with Republicans fail.</p> <p>Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday there are contingency steps that will be considered as a last resort. Among the possible steps is invoking a legislative procedure known as reconciliation. Such as step is problematic because of its strict limits on what would be allowed in the bill and what wouldn't.</p>

New York Senator Wants $4 Billion For Wildly Popular Program, Says Senate Really Dropped The Ball Initially

A bill introduced Wednesday in the Senate would require states to write laws to prohibit text messaging by drivers or risk losing 25 percent of their annual federal highway money. The proposal, sponsored by a group of Democrats including Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), came a day after the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute released a study on commercial truck drivers that found texting drivers to be 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or a near miss. The legislation would set deadlines for Transportation Department regulators to devise minimum penalties for states to implement. States would have...

States offer a hodgepodge of concealed-handgun rules that prevent citizens from protecting themselves when traveling from one state to another. Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have fixed this problem by granting reciprocity for gun permits across state lines. In a 58-39 vote on Wednesday, supporters fell two short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. This was a victory of fear over facts. Thirty-seven of the 39 no votes were cast by Democrats. The two Republicans who crossed party lines to vote nay were Sen. Richard G....

How do you outgun the NRA? Very, very carefully. Mark Pryor knows all about that. The Democratic senator from pro-gun Arkansas was nowhere to be seen on the Senate floor during Wednesday's showdown over a proposal, championed by the National Rifle Association, that would have gutted state gun-control laws across the nation. Toward the end of the vote, Pryor entered the chamber through the back door, took a few steps inside, flashed a thumbs-down to the clerk, and retreated as fast and furtively as somebody dodging gunfire. Several minutes later, the Democrats had racked up more than enough votes to...