Free Republic

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is "in a pickle" arguing against the president's health care bill because he passed a similar version in Massachusetts. "He prescribed this. This was his bill," Schumer said on "Face the Nation." He noted Republicans "have ads saying it's a tax increase. Are they going to say, 'Mitt Romney had the biggest tax increase in Massachusetts?'" "Mitt Romney is in a total pickle here," Schumer said, arguing that the Republican Party is in a tough position: As polls suggest the economy is the top priority of voters, he...

You remember U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., don’t you? He was the guy who said “the American people don’t care” about the wasteful, pork-barrel spending habits of Congress. He was also the guy who called a flight attendant the “B-word” because she asked him to turn off his cellphone prior to a flight. He was also the guy who told the state of New Jersey how it should spend its own highway funds, much to the displeasure of that state’s very outspoken GOP governor, Chris Christie. Schumer is at it again. This time, he set his sights on Facebook co-founder...

GOP money floods battlegrounds, threatens Dems' hold on SenateBy Alexander Bolton - 05/01/12 05:00 AM ET Third-party groups allied with the Republican Party have vastly outspent Democratic incumbents and their backers in Senate battlegrounds. The disparity in advertising firepower threatens Democratic control of the Senate and could have an impact on the presidential race as well. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a first-term Democrat from Ohio, has been the primary target of outside groups, which have outspent his allies by a ratio of 10-1 this election cycle. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS and 60Plus Association have funded the bulk of...

A top Democrat in the Senate took a rare direct shot at GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney on Tuesday, arguing that Romney's past support of health care reform means the issue is "off the table" during the fall elections. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic Conference vice chairman and former head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, blasted Romney during an outdoor press conference near the Supreme Court. The court is spending this week reviewing the constitutionality of the 2010 health care reform law that is President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement. Schumer said Romney's support of a...

Reid’s floor maneuvers leave some Senate Democrats frustratedBy Alexander Bolton - 02/07/12 05:15 AM ET Some Democrats are grumbling over how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has run the floor this year. The frustration is felt mostly among junior lawmakers, who want more of a role in decision-making and have yet to resign themselves to the traditional pace of the Senate, where seniority rules and lawmakers often have to wait years to have significant influence. They say Reid’s style leaves them feeling out of the loop. Colleagues have second-guessed Reid’s decision to greenlight a deal with Republicans on the...

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday said Senate Democrats are done negotiating with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "Trying to negotiate with Speaker Boehner is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall," Schumer said on MSNBC. The Senate passed a two-month extension of the backed payroll tax cut legislation in a 89-10 vote on Saturday morning. The House was expected to pass the proposal until Boehner voiced the rejection by House Republicans on Sunday. Boehner said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that legislating tax policy two months at a time is "kicking the can down the road." Schumer expressed...

WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and six other Democrats charged Tuesday that modern political campaigns - and democracy itself - are threatened by a pair of "awful" Supreme Court decisions that can only be fixed by changing the U.S. Constitution itself. The senators said during a news conference that adding a new provision to the Constitution is necessary if Congress wants to nullify a 1976 ruling that said campaign spending was the same as free speech and a 2010 ruling that removed all limits on campaign spending for special interests, corporations and labor unions. "In the mid-70s the activist...

In an e-mail yesterday, Schumer said the scandal left him "heartbroken" -- but he stopped short of calling for Weiner to resign. "For those of us who are longtime friends of Anthony Weiner his wrongful behavior is distressing and saddening," Schumer said. "It's clear he needs professional help and I am glad he is seeking it." Weiner was a SUNY senior when he went to work as Schumer's intern; the then-congressman later gave Weiner his first political job, as an aide.

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system. Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide. "Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the...

SNIP Moments before a conference call with reporters was scheduled to get underway on Tuesday morning, apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line, Charles Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, began to instruct fellow senators on how to talk to reporters about the contentious budget process. After thanking his colleagues — Barbara Boxer of California, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Tom Carper of Delaware and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — for doing the budget bidding for the Senate Democrats, who are facing off against the House Republicans over how spending for...

Some Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer and Debbie Stabenow, are pushing for legislation aimed at denouncing China’s currency undervaluation, the type of bill that the White House has consistently opposed in favor of diplomatic negotiations. “There’s no bigger step we can take to promote the American dream and secure job creation ... than to confront China’s manipulation of currency,” Schumer told reporters on a conference call on Monday. “It allows Chinese goods to undercut American goods here, and put American goods at a major disadvantage in China.”

The call by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Carl Levin for AIPAC to back passage of the stalled START treaty with Russia speaks volumes about the growing desperation of both the White House and its Senate allies. The administration is reportedly going all-out to push Jewish groups to lobby for the treaty, but it is unlikely that AIPAC will succumb to the pressure. The group has been scrupulous about sticking to its agenda of working only on behalf of Israel-related issues, a policy that keeps it strictly neutral on arms control measures like START.

This early word from inside the campaign Voter turnout is high everywhere but Manhattan area.. Sufflok county 3 to 1 Repub over Dem.. Great for us.. Things look good but I am cautiously optimistic

There he goes again. Carl P. Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor, promised he would be politically incorrect. He wasn’t kidding. On Thursday, during a rally in Hicksville, N.Y., he called the state’s junior United States senator, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, “Schumer’s little girl.” It was an apparent reference to Ms. Gillibrand’s close relationship with Senator Charles E. Schumer, but Mr. Paladino’s dismissive description of the only woman to hold statewide elected office in New York jolted the political world. His comments were reported on the Web site of Newsday and by NY1. Mr. Paladino, a businessman from Buffalo, has previously...

Democrats will look to bring up a stalled campaign finance reform bill for another key procedural vote on Thursday. Jim Manley, a top spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Twitter the Senate would debate the Disclose Act on Wednesday, with an eye toward holding a vote on Thursday. The legislation, crafted by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), looks to respond to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year loosening restrictions on corporate and labor spending in elections. While the legislation enjoys some bipartisan support in the House, Senate Republicans have complained that the bill is a partisan...

Coffee prices hit a 13-year high Wednesday, extending a rally that has sent prices up about 43 percent in the past three months. Sen. Charles Schumer , D-N.Y., says he wants U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to warn some major coffee growers in Brazil and Vietnam not to stockpile their crops. He said that could boost coffee futures contracts even more.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer says New York will win millions of dollars in federal education funding when "Race to the Top" program grants are announced Tuesday. The competition has instigated a wave of reforms across the country, as states passed new teacher accountability policies and lifted caps on charter schools to boost their chances of winning.

China said yesterday that it would allow a more flexible yuan, bringing to an end its controversial 23-month peg to the US dollar which has been accused of keeping Chinese exports artificially cheap. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) ruled out the one-off revaluation that US politicians had sought, arguing that there was "no basis for big fluctuations or changes". Instead, the yuan's 0.5pc daily trading band will remain unaltered, but the central bank will use a system of setting daily reference rates for the currency to slowly guide the exchange rate against the dollar higher. This is a similar...

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...