Free Republic

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) crafted the following questions for Samuel Alito in hopes, I suppose we're to assume, trap him on the question of a "right" to abortion. Here's the transcript: SCHUMER: Does the Constitution protect the right to free speech? ALITO: Certainly it does. That's in the First Amendment. SCHUMER: So why can't you answer the question of: Does the Constitution protect the right to an abortion the same way without talking about stare decisis, without talking about cases, et cetera? ALITO: Because answering the question of whether the Constitution provides a right to free speech is simply responding...

The federal government will spend $400,000 to set up security cameras in 300 bodegas in New York City as part of a project called "Operation Safe Store," Sen. Charles Schumer announced yesterday. The senator said the money was vital because many bodegas are located in high-crime neighborhoods and keep late hours. Speaking at Washington Heights' Natalia Grocery, whose owner was robbed at gunpoint, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said crime data would determine which of the city's 14,000 bodegas get the cameras and silent alarms. The $400,000 appropriation, inserted by Schumer into a multibillion-dollar spending bill, will be administered by the Bodega Association...

United States Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat from Brooklyn, won re-election to a second term yesterday by an enormous margin, outpolling the former top vote-getter in the state, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and fueling talk that he may soon become a candidate for governor. Mr. Schumer defeated his opponents with more than 70 percent of the vote, a figure that exceeded Mr. Moynihan's record for a Senate election of 67 percent in 1988. His margin is doubly noteworthy because Mr. Moynihan's record was set in his run for a third term, after 12 years in the Senate, whereas...

President Bush tossed a bone to his conservative base yesterday and made an end run around Senate Democrats, appointing a controversial judge to the federal appeals court. Democrats had blocked Charles Pickering's nomination for two years, but the President handed the Mississippi judge a temporary recess appointment yesterday that requires no Senate approval. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leading opponent of Bush's judicial nominations, denounced the move as "a finger in the eye to all those seeking fairness and bipartisanship in the judicial nominations process." "A man who [once] defended cross-burning does not deserve elevation to the bench," Schumer added...