Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Al Franken

2009-07-18T15:28:12Z

EHarris: Category

{{Officeholder
|name=Al Franken
|image=Frank en Minnesota.jpg
|party=[[Democrat]]
|spouse=Franni Bryson Franken
|religion=Judaism
|offices=
{{Officeholder/senator
|state=Minnesota
|terms=July 7, 2009 – Present
|preceded=[[Norm Coleman]]
|former=n
|succeeded=
}}
}}

'''Al Franken''' (born May 21, 1951) is a [[liberal]] [[Democrat]], an erstwhile satirist and comedian, known for his extreme obnoxiousness and [[hatred]] for [[Republican]]s and [[Conservatives]], is the new U.S. Senator from [[Minnesota]]; he was declared the winner after the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected the last legal challenges from his opponent [[Norm Coleman]], who decided to put state above personal ambitions in not pursuing a further appeal to a federal court. Franken was born in [[New York City]], and spent several years while growing up in St Louis Park, a suburb of [[Minneapolis]]. Until he decided to run for the Senate, he lived exclusively in [[California]] and [[New York]] all of his adult life. <ref>[http://www.owenfranken.com/bio.html Owen Franken, Biography, statement about where Al Franken resided]</ref> His opponent, incumbent [[Republican]] Senator [[Norm Coleman]], conceded eight months after the election, which was won by 300 votes out of 2.9 million. The governor of Minnesota, [[Tim Pawlenty]], signed the certificate of election for Franken on June 30, 2009. Franken will take office July 6, 2009, for a six year term. Franken's win gives Democrats a 58-40 margin in the Senate, enough to shut off filibusters if the 58, along with two Independents who caucus with the Democrats, hang together.
==Policies==
Franken has been deliberately vague about his position on all major policy issues--except on Iraq, where he reversed himself 180 degrees under intense pressure from the left in Minnesota.
===Iraq===
In the 2008 campaign Franken emphasized his strong opposition to President Bush's policies in Iraq. However he is a relatively recent convert to the conviction that the U.S. should immediately pull out of Iraq. Back in 2003 when the country debated the war, Franken supported intervention. He repeatedly visited Iraq to entertain troops, and came to admire them. By 2006 he argued Bush's handling of the war was incompetent, but as late as June 2006 agreed with Bush in opposing a timeline for withdrawal. Pushed by the anti-war left in Minnesota, Franken in late 2006 finally declared his opposition. <ref>[http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/11761151.html Patricia Lopez; Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 30, 2007]</ref>

==Vulgar satire==
His career was as a rather vulgar satirist, comedian, and former radio host for the [[Air America]] network. Franken has worked as a comedy writer and performer on the television program ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' and was the star and screenwriter of the motion picture ''Stuart Saves His Family''.
Franken has also written for Playboy magazine, a pornographic publication, although his supporters and the [[media]] often skip over that when they talk about him.

==Style==
Franken is known for his anti-conservative hate speak (he has called them "nasty, hateful people" <ref>[http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/doasisay/quiz.pdf Random House.com]</ref>) and his coarse humor. He once quipped to the Harvard Crimson, "I dislike homosexuals. I was glad when that [Harvard] homosexual got killed." <ref>[http://www.gaypatriot.net/2007/01/18/al-frankens-anti-gay-past/]</ref> <ref>[http://lloydletta.blogspot.com/2007/01/al-franken-jokes-about-murder-of-gay.html]</ref> <ref>[http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=112149]</ref> In his book ''Lying Liars'', Franken wrote that a "Methodist minister had had his head up his %#@" in a dispute about the Bible "Do you know what God’s punishment is for liars?" [the minister] asked me ... "God’s punishment for liars is that they believe their own lies." The minister was referring to 2 Thess 2:10-12 which says substantially that. Franken acknowledged his mistake in the paperback version.

At one point his radio show was going to be called "The Liberal Show". <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/magazine/21FRANKEN.html?pagewanted=8&ei=5007&en=5c47bbc5c11b11f2&ex=1395205200&partner=USERLAND Al Franken, Seriously]</ref> but upon debut, it was known as "The O'Franken Factor," a name Franken chose to parody [[Bill O'Reilly]] and taunt him into a lawsuit, getting his show free publicity.<ref>[http://www.kgw.com/business/stories/kgw_033004_biz_progressive_radio.d7edf1d8.html Al Franken's liberal radio network comes to Portland]</ref> When the lawsuit failed to materialize, the show was renamed "The Al Franken Show."

==2008 election==
Franken opposed incumbent Republican [[Norm Coleman]] for the Senate seat in the 2008 election. Franken's rudeness, vulgarity, and coarse style led critics to ask about whether he alienated himself from the important undecided swing voters<ref>http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1083904.html Star Tribune retrieved 6 April, 2007</ref><ref>[http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/06/frankens-senate-race-haunted-by-1995-rape-joke-on-snl-set/ Franken’s Senate Race Haunted by 1995 Rape Joke on ‘SNL’ Set]</ref>. Franken was under fire for an interview he did in Playboy magazine that was considered by many to be unbecoming for a senatorial candidate<ref>[http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/franken_playboy/2008/05/29/100040.html?s=al&promo_code=635B-1] and [http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Washington_Post_franken/2008/06/18/105702.html]</ref>

The election was very close, with multiple recounts and appeals. On January 5, 2009, the Minnesota election board declared Franken the winner by a razor-thin 225 votes. Coleman filed a lawsuit, which by state law had to be resolved before Franken can be seated. <ref>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090105/ap_on_el_se/minnesota_senate</ref> He was seated July 7th, 2009. For which the Wall Street Journal proclaimed that "Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election." <ref>[http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/02/al-frankens-blue-ball Al Franken's Blue Ball; American Spectator, July 2, 2009]</ref> <ref>[http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jromano/2009/05/07/perkins-coie/ When Dems Don’t Have the Votes, Perkins Coie Finds Them - Big Hollywood, May 7, 2009]</ref>

==Controversial Statements==
On Franken's website there is the admonition ''"Anybody who deliberately propagandizes with lies should be held up to scorn and ridicule"''<ref>http://lyingliar.com/index.htm</ref>. Throughout his books he has held himself to "impossibly high standards" to tell the truth about those he has written about. Author Alan Skorski researched two of Franken's books (''Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot'' and ''Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them'') and found an extensive pattern of lies, misstatements, factual inaccuracies, among them:

*Accusing Ann Coulter of "lying with footnotes" by "citing a source and misrepresenting what it says"; throughout his book Skorski states that Franken has done exactly that on numerous occasions (Skorski, pg. xiii)

*Accusing President George W. Bush of treason

*The collision between Bush foreign policy advisor Richard Armitage and news reporter Helen Thomas, which Franken had claimed broke both her hip and jaw (''Lying Liars'', pg 218), but which Thomas herself said never happened (Skorski, pg 208). After this came to light, Franken later added a footnote in the paperback version of the book saying, "The Helen Thomas thing is a joke."<ref>Franken, ''Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'', page 227 of the paperback</ref>

*Franken stated he is "often compared to Rush Limbaugh" when on the air, despite the fact that by the time he left his Air America show to run for the U.S. Senate, his radio network was reduced to just over 40 market stations as a result of severely-low ratings and ultimately bankruptcy. Limbaugh, by comparison, plays on more than 600 stations with an average daily listening audience of 22 million (Skorski, pg 303).

*Franken claimed on his radio show (June 1, 2005) that Rush Limbaugh made up a quotation supposedly said by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which claimed Ginsburg said "replacing 'Mother's Day' and 'Father's Day' with a 'Parent's Day' should be considered...". Skorski did a Google check on Ginsburg and discovered a May 20, 2005 column from the ''National Review'' titled "Bench Warmers, Putting Judicial Nominees in Perspective, Part III"; this column cited a September, 1974 article written by Ginsburg which advocated for the creation of a "Parent's Day" to replace both Mother's and Father's Days.

*Franken claimed John Murphy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was lying when he took a pro-CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) position on PBS's ''Lehrer Report'' (July 27, 2005) stating "we've seen unemployment fall to 5.0 percent today, which is lower than it's been in decades." <ref>http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm</ref>. Skorski demonstrated that Franken took the unemployment figures under the Clinton Administration by the month (rather than by the year as the Bureau of Labor Statistics does) and willfully distorted them to make it appear that it was Murphy who was lying (Skorski, pg. 77-78).

== Quotes ==

*Republicans are shameless d**ks. No, that's not fair. Republican politicians are shameless d**ks. <ref>The Truth (With Jokes) p. 58</ref>

*"Nobody likes getting an abortion. Except perhaps, rape victims." <ref>The Truth (With Jokes) p. 124</ref>

*Of how big an a-s [[Brit Hume]] is, and how shamless, how f*cking shamless these people are, these people are so f*cking shamless." <ref>Howard Dean fundrasier, 2003</ref>

*"Ever tempted to run for office yourself?" Franken replied, "Oh, no! First of all, if I took one vote away from a serious candidate, it would be a sin." <ref>Time Magazine, 09/01/03</ref>

*"If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it would be a travesty." <ref>The Oregonian, 02/22/99</ref>

*"It's not preppies, cause I'm a preppie myself. I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia." <ref>The Harvard Crimson, 4/16/76</ref>

*"The shocking thing about crack is how fast the addiction runs its course. It's not unusual for alcoholics to take 20 or 30 years to hit bottom. Cocaine addicts take maybe a couple of years. Crack, a form of cocaine, usually is a matter of months. The Reagan Administration has been the crack of our nation's debt addiction. And [[Ronald Reagan]], the crack dealer." <ref>"Addictions and Mr. Reagan" by Al Franken, The New York Times, 7/19/88</ref>

*"In an odd way, I blame Linda Tripp and Ann Coulter for Sept. 11, because if they hadn't dug this stuff up, it may not have happened," Franken on-air comment following separate interviews about 'wagging the dog,' a reference to conservative accusations that Clinton diverted attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal by launching attacks on terrorists. <ref>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/7/04</ref>

*"I think, for example, under god probably shouldn't be in the pledge of allegiance, it wasn't put in there since, like the 50's, but it's not that big a deal to me. In god we trust probably shouldn't be on the coin. I don't care." <ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rmm5ioINl4</ref>

== Playboy Article ==

In 2000, Al Franken's comments appeared in a ''Playboy'' article titled "Porn-O-Rama!" He was quoted as saying that the Internet is a great tool for learning and that his 12 year old son was able to do a report on bestiality for a sixth-grade assignment.
[[File:alfrankendiapers.jpg|right|thumb| Minnesota embarrassment (in purportedly fake photo)]]

== Tax Issues ==

During his 2008 campaign, it was discovered that Franken had not paid state taxes in 17 states he earned money over the last four years. Franken blamed it on his accountant saying "This all really comes from one mistake, which is him not understanding that I was supposed to pay state taxes in these other states." Franken says he will pay those states now, plus interest and penalties for a total of $70,000. <ref>[http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/01/accountants/ Accountants: Franken's tax problems should have been caught] Minnesota Public Radio, May 2, 2008</ref> As of March, 2009, Franken had failed to supply proof that the arrears in taxes had been paid.

==United States Senate==

Franken was sworn in to the Senate on July 7, 2009, and is currently ranked 100th in seniority.

== Books by Franken ==
*''I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!'' (Dell Books, 1992) (in character as Stuart Smalley)
*''Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot'' (Delacorte Press, 1996) (a satirical book of personal attacks on [[Rush Limbaugh]] as well as other conservatives.)
*''Why Not Me?'' (Delacorte Press, 1999) (a parody-journal kept through the fictional "Franken for President" campaign)
*''Oh, the Things I know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness'' (Plume Books, 2003)
*''[[Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them|Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right]]'' (Dutton Books, 2003) (targets conservative commentators and the media, particularly [[Ann Coulter]], [[Bill O'Reilly]], [[Sean Hannity]] as well as Fox News)
*''The Truth (with jokes)'' (Dutton Books, 2005) (Franken's view on how [[George W. Bush]] beat [[John Kerry]] in the 2004 Election with what Al Franken calls the "Fears, Smears, and Queers strategy")

==Further reading==
*''[http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/acorn_minnesota_franken/2009/07/06/232551.html Did [[ACORN]] Elect Al Franken?]'', David A. Patten, Newsmax.com, July 6 2009.

==References==
*Skorski, Alan. ''Pants On Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives,'' Cumberland House Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee (2005)
*[http://www.frankenlies.com/ Website devoted to exposing Franken's lies from his two books, ''The Truth'' and ''Lies and the Lying Liars'']
{{reflist}}

==Links==
*[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0291253/ Al Franken] at the Internet Movie Database
*[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1142525 Al Franken] at National Public Radio
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0] Al Franken engaging in highly unbecoming behavior

{{Liberalism}}
{{DEFAULTSORT: Franken, Al}}
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category:Abortion Advocates]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[category:Broadcasters]]
[[Category:Liberal Activists]]
[[Category:United States Senators]]

Talk:Sonia Sotomayor

2009-07-17T18:48:49Z

EHarris: /*Senator Schumer weeps at the confirmation hearings*/

==Why Not a Moderate?==
Is there any reason at the moment to mistrust the ABA's claim that she's politically moderate? If Ed Poor think's it a "biased claim," then it doesn't make sense to use the rest of the quote. But the rest of the article, her resume and what we know of her judicial record, seem to offer good evidence that she is a moderate. If evidence comes out to the contrary (rather than talking heads claiming she's an arch liberal), then it would only make sense to expose that here. [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 17:23, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

:Well, judging how the liberal media presents her, she is in fact a liberal. is there such thing as a moderate-liberal? No
[http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2009/05/27/sotomayor-called-herself-liberal-ny-times-wont]
[http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2009/05/26/sotomayor-prompts-more-conservative-liberal-labels]
[http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/05/26/cnns-jeff-toobin-sotomayor-moderate-liberal-ginsburg-breyer] --[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 17:41, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

The concept of a "moderate" is liberal fiction. Most of the important issues have no middle ground.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:53, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

:But Andy, doesn't it follow that if a judge comes down conservative on some issues, and liberal on others, than calling them moderate is accurate? [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 18:00, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

::Sotomayor, being the nominee of an extreme leftist/socialist (as Obama is) is moderate only by comparison to Obama and his base. While it is true she has been more supportive on the so-called "law and order" issues than one would expect someone he supports to be, there are other issues, such as her statement about how judges make policy from the bench, although given a disclaimer at the time, it was apparent she was openly covering herself, even flip about her comment. The comment she made about how being a woman, and more particularly saying her judgment, she expected, would be better than a white man's, due only to the fact of her being female and Hispanic are both racist and sexist. What would be the reaction if John Roberts said exactly the same words, only reversed? She is most certainly liberal, and not moderate. --[[User:TK|'''₮K''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 19:09, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

:::Good point TK, I would like to add that she is not blind when it comes to justice, as the founders intended. As a liberal, she is content with basing decisions on skin color and gender. The SCOTUS will render a decision on one of her judgments before June. Critics accuse her of race-based identity politics, not a moderates stance.--[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 19:16, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

:::TK, while I respectively concur that those two isolated quotes sound liberal, one can't deny that judges are judged by their rulings, opinions, and legal briefs; not by who appoints them, and less so by their public statements. There still hasn't been time to sift through her whole record, but of what's been examined so far, some of it looks conservative and some liberal. My question still stands, is there reason to mistrust the ABA's appraisal of her as a moderate? [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 19:23, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

::::It isn't a matter of who appoints them, as George Herbert Walker Bush found out with Seuter. What matters is their deportment, decisions, etc. Hers is most certainly liberal thinking in many instances. Personally I am not against some liberals on the Court. It keeps things honest, it makes sure the conservatives think harder, work harder. I think one particular comment was indeed racist and sexist. Remember that one such comment was used by liberals to reject Bob Bork, and the current POTUS wanted to filibuster Sam Alito's nomination when he was a Senator. Thankfully he found little support among his fellow Democrats. The ABA is a liberal captured, Trial Lawyer dominated body. In fact, all current Court members were judged well qualified by them. --[[User:TK|'''₮K''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 22:12, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

'''UPDATE:'''

<blockquote>
"In her fifth year in the office, she was interviewed for The New York Times Magazine about the prosecutors working for [Manhattan District Attorney Robert] Morgenthau. She was described as an imposing woman of 29 ''who smoked incessantly'', and spoke of how she had coped in a job that some liberal friends disapproved of.

“I had more problems during my first year in the office with the low-grade crimes -- the shoplifting, the prostitution, the minor assault cases,” she said. “In large measure, in those cases you were dealing with socioeconomic crimes, crimes that could be the product of the environment and of poverty.

“Once I started doing felonies, it became less hard. No matter how liberal I am, I’m still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.”

In 1984, Ms. Sotomayor left the district attorney’s office and joined Pavia & Harcourt, a boutique commercial law firm in Manhattan.

“We had an opening for a litigator, and her résumé was perfect,” said George M. Pavia, the managing partner who hired her. “She’s an excellent lawyer, a careful preparer of cases, ''liberal'', but not doctrinaire, not wild-eyed.”
[http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090527141805.aspx]</blockquote>
--[[User:TK|'''₮K''']]/Admin[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]] 22:38, 27 May 2009 (EDT)

==Not a racist comment==
Explain your decision RJJenson--[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 15:16, 28 May 2009 (EDT)
::I just put in more of the speech. She is making the conservative argument that there are differences between men and women. She said, ''"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."'' Now liberals may call that racism but we're not liberals here and so we don't call it that. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 15:24, 28 May 2009 (EDT)
:::Maybe you are right but I am not convinced. 'White' male & 'Latina' women is an argument categorized by race and gender. While the other way around would be considered racist by liberals, at the very least it is reverse racism and she shouldn't get a pass. I will leave in place how you corrected.--[[User:Jpatt|Jpatt]] 15:28, 28 May 2009 (EDT)
::::agreed. As Gingrich said, her argument would be considered racist by liberals and so they're hypocrites to ignore it. But we're conservatives and we agree with Sotomayor.[[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 15:32, 28 May 2009 (EDT)

== Sources? ==

Her brother was introduced by Obama as a physician in Syracuse. Her Princeton record is pretty clear. see [http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/33/44Q39/index.xml?section=topstories Princeton Press release] [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 05:22, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

==Senator Schumer weeps at the confirmation hearings==

Liberal Senator [[Charles Schumer]] wept at the confirmation hearings for Sotomayor.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDxCp7bEOYs www.youtube.com]

Homosexual behavior

2009-07-14T12:28:38Z

EHarris: /*See also*/

'''Homosexual behavior''' is sexual contact between two people or animals of the same sex, i.e., two males or between two females. Homosexual behavior can vary from non-consequential, incidental acts to full-fledged [[homosexual act]]s. The former are excusable and often serve other purposes, while the latter are genuine displays of homosexual longing and an espousal of the [[homosexual lifestyle]]. The distinction lies in the intent: some homosexual behavior is homosexual only on the technical ground that it involves animals or people of the same sex, but the purpose of the behavior is not intrinsically linked to the involvement of two people of the same sex.

If a male animal (such as a [[ruminant]]) mounts another male, it is not necessarily a homosexual act; instead it is just dominance behavior or possibly the result of poor vision leading to a case of mistaken identity. The act of mounting is a dominant act, irrespective of the sex of the mounted animal -- the act is "homosexual" solely on the technical ground that it involves two bulls, but it is not homosexual because the bulls are not do not display an intent that the mounted be male.

A commonly seen example in people is one athlete patting the backside of another athlete on his team. In the literal sense of the word, this is "homosexual" behavior since it involves two people of the same sex, yet it is not a homosexual act since the intent of the act was not linked to the person being male, but rather to the person being a teammate. If one were to follow the technical definition of "homosexual" then all sorts of everyday acts would be considered "homosexual behavior", such as grappling in [[wrestling]] or getting changed in a same-sex locker room. But clearly these acts are not homosexual because they are incidentally between people of the same sex, not intentionally and with ulterior motives.

The [[Roman Catholic]] Church makes a distinction between harboring homosexual inclination (or {{show2|sexual|orientation}}) and actually acting upon that inclination. Thus, it deems the former acceptable while joining most other [[Christian]]s as well as [[Jew]]s in condemning the latter as sinful. Muslims simply publicly hang homosexuals, no matter what age they are.

== See also ==
*[[ACT-UP]]
* [[Homosexuality and the Bible]]
* [[Homosexuality and biblical interpretation]]

[[category:Homosexuality]]
[[category:Catholic Church]]
[[Category:Judaism]]
[[Category:Islam]]

Charles Schumer

2009-07-12T15:07:05Z

EHarris: /*Schumer's role in the Financial Crisis of 2008*/ reference fixed

{{Officeholder
|name=""""Chuck"""" Schumer
|image=Chuck Schumer.jpg
|party=[[Democrat]]
|spouse=Iris Weinshall
|religion=Jewish
|offices=
{{Officeholder/senator
|state=New York
|terms=January 3, 1999 - present
|preceded=Alfonse D'Amato
|former=n
}}
}}

'''Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer''' (b. 1950) is a [[liberal]] [[Democratic]] U.S. Senator from [[New York]]. He defeated incumbent Republican Senator [[Alfonse D'Amato]] in a nasty campaign in 1998 after serving in the House of Representatives for many terms. He is particularly vocal in supporting groups that perform [[abortions]], such as [[Planned Parenthood]], and in opposing judicial nominees who are [[strict constructionists]].

==United States Senate==
In 2005 Schumer became chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and in November 2006, he was elected to the new post of Vice Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Schumer has long been known in Washington for his hamming to television cameras. Majority Leader [[Bob Dole]] once quipped that "the most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera." That criticism has not just been Republicans. David McReynolds, the Green Party candidate for senator, observed about Schumer, "People are saying he's a newshound, a camera hog, that he's someone who loses no opportunity to push into a picture."

==Criticisms of Chief Justice [[John Roberts]] and Justice [[Samuel Alito]] ==

In a speech to a [[liberal]] audience in July 2007, Schumer declared:<ref>http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/5146.html</ref>

:"The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito."

Schumer also said that the Senate should not confirm another nomination by President [[George W. Bush]] to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] "except in extraordinary circumstances."<ref>''id.''</ref>

A spokeswoman for the White House, Dana Perino, responded:<ref>''id.''</ref>

:"This is the kind of blind obstruction that people have come to expect from Sen. Schumer. He has an alarming habit of attacking people whose character and position make them unwilling or unable to respond. That is the sign of a bully. If the past is any indication, I would bet that we would see a Democratic senatorial fundraising appeal in the next few days."

==DSCC Controversy==
During the 2006 Senate election's, Schumer's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee illegally obtained a copy of the credit report of the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, Michael S. Steele, a Republican senatorial candidate, posing as him and using his social security number.

==Walter Reed Medical Center Controversy==
Schumer blasted the Bush administration for sub-standard conditions of wounded military personnel at Walter Reed Medical Center. Schumer was called out by radio host [[Don Imus]] for not visiting with the wounded troops at the [[Washington D.C.]] facility. <ref>http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/9/124531.shtml?s=ic , NewsMax.com Imus Grills Schumer for Not Visiting Walter Reed, March 9, 2007</ref>

==Schumer's role in the [[Financial Crisis of 2008]]==

The New York Times has accused Schumer of "backing measures now blamed for the financial crisis.... Schumer took steps to protect (financial)industry players from Government oversight and tougher rules.... Over the years he has helped to save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes."<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/business/14schumer.html?_r=1 www.nytimes.com]</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Bernie Madoff]]

== References ==
<references/>

==External Links==
*[http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/ Official Website]
*[http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Charles_Schumer.htm Schumer On the Issues]

{{DEFAULTSORT: Schumer, Charles Ellis}}
[[Category:United States Senators]]
[[Category:Democratic Party]]
[[Category: 110th United States Congress]]