Name	C-SPAN
Logofile	C-SPAN.png
Logoalt	C-SPAN logo
Launch	March 19, 1979 (C-SPAN)June 2, 1986 (C-SPAN2)January 22, 2001 (C-SPAN3)
Picture format	480i (SD)1080i (HD)
Owner	National Cable Satellite Corporation
Slogan	Created by Cable. Offered as a Public Service.
Country	United States
Language	English
Broadcast area	United States
Headquarters	Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
Sister names	C-SPAN2C-SPAN3C-SPAN Radio
Web	cspan.org
Terr serv 1	WCSP-FM/HD(C-SPAN Radio)
Terr chan 1	90.1 FM / HD Radio (Washington, D.C. / Baltimore)
Terr serv 2	Selective TV, Inc.(Alexandria, MN)
Terr chan 2	K62AU (Channel 62)
Sat serv 1	DirecTV
Sat chan 1	Channel 350: C-SPANChannel 351: C-SPAN2C-SPAN3: not available
Sat serv 2	Dish Network
Sat chan 2	Channel 210: C-SPANChannel 211: C-SPAN2C-SPAN3: not available
Cable serv 1	In-House (Washington)
Cable chan 1	Channel 4: C-SPANChannel 2: C-SPAN2Channel 3: C-SPAN-3
Cable serv 2	Available on most cable systems
Cable chan 2	Check local listings for channels
Cable serv 3	Verizon FiOS
Cable chan 3	Channel 109: C-SPANChannel 110: C-SPAN2Channel 111: C-SPAN3
Sat radio serv 1	XM
Sat radio chan 1	Channel 132
Adsl serv 1	AT&T; U-verse
Adsl chan 1	Channel 230: C-SPANChannel 231: C-SPAN 2Channel 232: C-SPAN 3
Online serv 1	Available free to all internet users
Online chan 1	C-SPAN.org(Live and On Demand)

C-SPAN (), an abbreviation of Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network owned and operated by the cable industry. It airs non-stop coverage of government proceedings and public affairs programming. C-SPAN does not accept outside advertising; the only commercials aired are for its own programming and products.

C-SPAN operates three television channels, one radio station and several websites that provide streaming media including archives of many C-SPAN programs. The television networks are:

C-SPAN which provides uninterrupted live coverage of the United States House of Representatives. Also airs Washington Journal live every morning

C-SPAN2 which provides uninterrupted live coverage of the United States Senate. It also airs Book TV on weekends

C-SPAN3 which features other uninterrupted live public affairs events and airs a large amount of archived historical programming branded as C-SPAN3 History

Each network since a graphics upgrade in summer of 2010 now has an associated color to the left of their channel's logo to make it easy to differentiate which channel is being watched, with C-SPAN blue, C-SPAN2 red, and CSPAN-3 yellow.

All three channels also air events such as Presidential press conferences and speeches, as well as other government meetings such as Federal Communications Commission hearings and Pentagon press conferences. State events such as the Illinois Senate trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich were simulcast from Illinois' state public affairs channel. Other state events include Governors' State of the State addresses. International events such as British House of Commons meetings from The UK's BBC Parliament, and Canadian government events and shows from Canada's CPAC are also occasionally aired. Several non-government public affairs events are also featured. Channel usage for all of these events vary by date depending on availability.

The bulk of C-SPAN's operations are located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., but they also maintain archives in West Lafayette, Indiana at the Purdue Research Park under the direction of Professor Robert X. Browning.

History

Brian Lamb, C-SPAN's chairman and CEO, conceived of C-SPAN while working at Cablevision, a cable industry trade magazine, as their Washington, D.C. bureau chief. C-SPAN was created as a cable-industry financed, non-profit network for televising sessions of the U.S. Congress and other public affairs event and policy discussions. Bob Rosencrans, a cable industry pioneer, was alone in providing the initial seed funding of $25,000 to start up C-SPAN. It receives no funding from any government source, has no contract with the government, and does not sell sponsorships or advertising. It strives for neutrality and a lack of bias in its public affairs programming.

C-SPAN first went on the air on March 19, 1979, broadcasting a speech by then-congressman Al Gore. C-SPAN2, a spin-off network, covers all live sessions of the U.S. Senate and went on the air on June 2, 1986, with the original channel then focusing on the House. The latest spin-off, C-SPAN3, began broadcasting on January 22, 2001, and shows other government-related live events along with historical programming from C-SPAN's archives.

On October 9, 1997, C-SPAN launched C-SPAN Radio, which broadcasts on WCSP 90.1 FM in Washington, D.C. The radio station, which is also available on XM and was on Sirius satellite radio from 2002–2006, covers similar events as its sister TV networks, often simulcasting their programming.

All three video channels, plus the radio channel, are globally available through streaming media via the C-SPAN web site, however high-speed access is required for nearly all content. Additionally, some programs are archived on the Internet for weeks or for longer times.

On February 12, 2003, C-SPAN launched the Amos B. Hostetter Distance Learning Program with the University of Denver. Steve Scully, Political Editor and Chair of Communication, instructs the course from the C-SPAN center in Washington, D.C. and features prominent guests in politics and journalism who can field questions live to students in Denver over 1,500 miles away. Soon after, the program was also expanded to Pace University in New York.

C-SPAN also provides unedited, commercial-free coverage of campaign events, both on its weekly "Road to the White House" program and at its dedicated politics website, C-SPAN Politics.

Organization

Uncommonly for a television network, C-SPAN is operated as a non-profit organization by the National Cable Satellite Corporation, whose board of directors consists primarily of representatives of the largest cable companies. C-SPAN accepts no advertising; instead, it receives nearly all its funding from subscriber fees charged to cable and DBS operators. C-SPAN receives no funding from government sources.

Coverage

In addition to live coverage of House and Senate proceedings and local and general elections, the three channels air government hearings, press conferences and meetings of various political, media, and non-profit organizations; book discussions, interviews, and occasionally proceedings of the Parliament of Canada, Parliament of the United Kingdom (usually Prime Minister's Questions and the State Opening of Parliament) and other governments when they discuss matters of importance to viewers in the U.S. Similarly, the networks will sometimes carry news reports from around the world when major events occur — for instance, they carried CBC Television coverage of the September 11 attacks. Newscasts and other broadcasts in foreign languages are dubbed into English. C-SPAN also carries CBC coverage during events that impact Canadians, such as the Canadian federal elections, the death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau, and the 2003 North America blackout.

C-SPAN has submitted requests to air live United States Supreme Court proceedings, but despite demonstrated popular interest and support for such coverage, has always been denied camera access. However, the network has aired audio tapes of the Court in session on significant cases and has covered individual Supreme Court Justices' speaking engagements.

C-SPAN is the only cable channel that covers the Republican, Libertarian, and Democratic presidential nominating convention in their entirety. Following the deaths of Ronald Reagan in 2004, Rosa Parks in 2005 and Gerald Ford in 2006, C-SPAN featured live, uninterrupted coverage of the visitors who came to the Capitol Rotunda to pay their final respects. The network also provided coverage of Lady Bird Johnson's funeral in Stonewall, Texas. In 2008, C-SPAN gave coverage of Hurricane Gustav through New Orleans' NBC affiliate, WDSU, as well as Hurricane Ike coverage via Houston's CBS affiliate, KHOU.

Additionally, C-SPAN simulcasts NASA Space Shuttle mission launches and landings live, using the footage and audio from NASA TV.

Live streaming

All of C-SPAN's live feeds are streamed free of charge on its World Wide Web site in the Flash Video format; high-speed access is required for nearly all content. As of 2008, selected C-SPAN programs were archived for the general public on its website for at least two weeks, while others remained permanently accessible. C-SPAN used to charge from $30 to $45 for DVD copies of programs.

Online archive

In August 2007, C-SPAN unveiled the C-SPAN Video Library, announcing it would eventually provide free access to all of its past programs—including Congressional proceedings, hyperlinked to corresponding Congressional Record entries—that are not otherwise subject to copyright. In August 2008, C-SPAN announced that an embeddable video player would be part of a "convention hub" website that will track convention coverage by bloggers and social media.

In March 2010, after several years of digitalization efforts (at a cost of about $1 million per year), C-SPAN announced the completion of the C-SPAN Video Library, which provides cost-free online access to more than 160,000 hours of video recorded since 1987. Most of the recordings before 1987 (when the C-SPAN archive at Purdue University was established) have been lost, except around 10,000 hours which Browning intended to make available online, too. excluding re-syndication of live video streams. Additionally, C-SPAN considers video coverage of the floor proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate to be in the public domain.

Prior to this change, C-SPAN engaged in numerous actions to stop parties from making unauthorized uses of its content online, including video of House and Senate proceedings. For example, Dem Bloggers received a take down request for clips they had posted. In May 2006, C-SPAN requested the removal of the Stephen Colbert performance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner from YouTube while allowing it to remain on Google Video, causing concern from bloggers.

Websites such as metavid and voterwatch.org make House and Senate video records freely available. C-SPAN contested metavid usage of C-SPAN video which resulted in metavid taking down portions of the archive which were produced with C-SPAN's cameras while maintaining an archive of government produced content.

On December 14, 2006 C-SPAN wrote an open letter to Speaker Designate Nancy Pelosi requesting control over the cameras that record floor proceedings. Although C-SPAN airs the transmission, the cameras themselves are controlled by the respective body of Congress. The request was denied.

Allegations of bias and other controversies

Despite its stated commitment to providing politically balanced programming, C-SPAN and its shows such as Washington Journal, Booknotes, Q & A, and Afterwords have been accused of having a conservative bias. C-SPAN's CEO Brian Lamb was a volunteer for Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential election, and later worked as press secretary to Senator Peter H. Dominick (R-CO). The liberal media criticism organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) released a study of C-SPAN's morning call-in show Washington Journal, showing that Republicans were favored as guests over Democrats by a two-to-one margin during a six-month period in 2005, and that people of color are underrepresented. FAIR and critics including guests have also charged that the shows Booknotes and Afterwords highlight more conservative authors than liberals, and that guests are paired unequally. When Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser appeared as a guest, she asked, "Do you typically have a conservative and then somebody who is just a journalist? Is that the typical match-up?” In 2005, the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America objected that C-SPAN2 booked L. Brent Bozell, head of the right-leaning Media Research Center, to interview former CBS producer Mary Mapes on After Words about the Killian documents controversy during the United States presidential election, 2004.

In 2004, C-SPAN intended to broadcast a speech by Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt adjacent to a speech by Holocaust denier David Irving, who had unsuccessfully sued Lipstadt for libel in the United Kingdom four years earlier. Critics including the Anti-Defamation League decried C-SPAN's use of the word "balance" to describe its plan to cover both. C-SPAN claimed the adjacent broadcasts would pair arguments of both plaintiff and defendant. However, once Lipstadt closed media access to her speech, C-SPAN canceled the broadcasts of both.

Past chairmen

Bob Rosencrans

John Saeman

Ed Allen

Gene Schneider

Shows

After Words

America and the Courts

Booknotes (See also: List of Booknotes interviews)

Book TV

In Depth

Road to the White House

Q & A

Washington Journal

Special programs

American Presidents (video series)

Presidential Library (video series)

Inside Blair House

High definition

The channel launched C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 in high definition on June 1, 2010, and C-SPAN3 in July.

See also

Al Jazeera Mubasher

BBC Parliament

Houses of the Oireachtas Channel

DD Lok Sabha

Rada TV

CPAC

A-PAC

Asamblea Nacional Televisión

References

External links

C-SPAN Video Library

C-SPAN Classroom Educator Resources

TV History: Exploring the Secret Capitol

Category:Legislature broadcasters in the United States Category:American television networks Category:Commercial-free television networks Category:Media in Washington, D.C. Category:Companies based in Washington, D.C. Category:Television channels and stations established in 1979 Category:English-language television stations in the United States Category:Peabody Award winners Category:Television news in the United States

Name	Seth Meyers
Caption	Meyers at the Time 100 Gala, May 4, 2010.
Birth name	Seth Adam Meyers
Birth date	December 28, 1973
Birth place	Bedford, New Hampshire, U.S.
Active	1995–present
Medium	Television, film
Nationality	American
Genre	Satire/political satire/news satire, improvisational comedy, sketch comedy
Subject	American politics, current events, pop culture, American culture, mass media/news media
Notable work	Weekend Update anchor on Saturday Night Live

Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American actor and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for Saturday Night Live and anchors its news parody segment Weekend Update.

Early life

Meyers was born in Bedford, New Hampshire, the son of Hillary, a middle school French teacher, and Lawrence Meyers. He attended Manchester High School West in Manchester, New Hampshire. He went on to graduate from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where he was a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. Meyers is the older brother of Josh Meyers who was best known as a cast member of MADtv.

Career

Before SNL, Meyers got his improv comedy start as a member of the Northwestern University improv sketch group Mee-Ow, created by Paul Warshauer and Josh Lazar. He continued his career at ImprovOlympic with the group Preponderate as well as overseas as a cast member of Boom Chicago, an English language improv troupe based in Amsterdam, where his brother was also a cast member.

Meyers appeared with Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem in the 2008 3D film Journey to the Center of the Earth. He also makes a cameo in the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as a drunk man who mistakes the main character's Yugo for a taxi. Meyers is currently writing and will star in a movie called Key Party. He also starred in the 2004 comedy See This Movie with John Cho. In July 2008, Meyers directed the web series The Line on Crackle. Meyers has hosted the Webby Awards twice, in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, Meyers hosted the Microsoft Company Meeting at Safeco Field in Seattle, WA. Meyers also hosted the 2010 ESPY Awards on ESPN. The show was broadcast live on July 14. Meyers will also host the 2011 ESPY Awards on ESPN. The show will broadcast on July 13, 2011. In 2011, Seth Meyers will be the key speaker at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner on April 30.

Saturday Night Live

Meyers joined the SNL cast in 2001. In 2004, he auditioned to co-anchor "Weekend Update" with Fey, but lost out to Amy Poehler. With Fey's departure, Meyers became head writer for the 2006-2007 season and also took on the role of Weekend Update co-anchor with Amy Poehler. When Poehler left the show during the 2008-2009 season, Meyers anchored solo. In fall 2009, Seth co-anchored two episodes of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday with Poehler.

During the 2008 United States presidential election, while appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, former SNL cast member Tina Fey credited Meyers with writing the sketches involving Fey's impression of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

On SNL, Meyers has impersonated such figures as John Kerry, Even so, he mentioned in interviews that he regretted missing much of the presidential election primary season.

Other pursuits

Meyers won the third season of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown and donated the $100,000 prize to the Boston-based Jimmy Fund. In 2008, Meyers donated over $4000 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Meyers and SNL castmate Bill Hader penned a Spider-Man one-shot entitled "The Short Halloween". It was illustrated by Kevin Maguire and came out May 29, 2009 to positive reviews. Meyers, along with Mike Shoemaker of SNL, created an animated half-hour series "The Awesomes" that was picked up by MTV and will be produced by Lorne Michaels's production company, Broadway Video.

Personal life

Meyers is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is the older brother of actor Josh Meyers, who, like Seth, has done work on a sketch comedy show. Josh Meyers was a cast member on Saturday Night Live's former rival show MADtv.

Filmography

References

External links

Official SNL cast biography

Category:1973 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from New Hampshire Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:ImprovOlympics Category:Northwestern University alumni Category:People from Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors

Name	Ted Poe
Image name	Ted Poe, official 109th Congress photo.jpg
State	Texas
District	2nd
Party	Republican
Term start	January 3, 2005
Preceded	Jim Turner
Succeeded	Incumbent
Date of birth	September 10, 1948
Place of birth	Temple, Texas
Religion	Church of Christ
Alma mater	Abilene Christian University, University of Houston
Spouse	Carol Poe
Residence	Humble, Texas
Occupation	attorney, judge
Branch	United States Air Force
Serviceyears	1970-1976
Unit	Reserves

Lloyd "Ted" Poe (born September 10, 1948) is a Republican politician currently representing Texas's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. The district includes most of northern Houston, as well as most of the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area.

Early years

Poe was born in Temple, Texas. He now lives in Humble, a suburb of Houston. Poe graduated in 1970, with a degree in political science from Abilene Christian University, where he served as class president, and, in 1973, received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Houston Law Center, where he had participated in the school's honor society. From 1970 to 1976, he served in the United States Air Force Reserve’s C-130 Unit at Houston’s Ellington Air Force Base.

As prosecutor and judge

After serving as a chief felony prosecutor in Harris County (Houston) for eight years, Poe was appointed a felony court judge in Harris County in 1981, becoming one of the youngest judges in the State of Texas. Poe was one of the first Republican judges elected in Harris County since Reconstruction. In this position, he gained national prominence for his unusual criminal sentences that included ordering thieves to carry signs in front of stores from which they stole; required men who abused their wives to publicly apologize on the steps of Houston’s City Hall; commanded sex offenders to place warning signs on their home after serving jail time; and directed murderers to securely place a photo of their victims on the wall of their prison cells, creating a daily reminder of their crime. In a story that is part of jailhouse lore in Texas, he reportedly told a defendant at sentencing of his intention to throw some pennies in the air and, however many hit the ground, would be the number of years the defendant was going to serve. After flinging an entire jar of pennies, he informed the man that the sentence would be twenty years. Ted Poe became well known to most offenders in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, even those from beyond Houston.

During his judgeship, "creative sentencing" became a trademark of his court. However, in at least one case, Poe amended the sentence afterwards without notifying the victim's family.

Election to the United States Congress

In November 2004, Poe ran for the U.S. House against Democrat Nick Lampson in the 2nd District, which had been numbered as the 9th District prior to a controversial mid-decade redistricting. The new 2nd was considerably more Republican than the old 9th, in part due to the loss of Galveston and the area around the Johnson Space Center. They were replaced with several heavily Republican areas around Houston. Poe won 55% of the vote to Lampson's 43%. While Lampson trounced Poe in Beaumont and Port Arthur, Poe swamped Lampson in the Harris County portion of the district.

Within a month of taking office, Poe was chosen by President George W. Bush to be one of two members of the House, along with one member of the Senate, sent to observe firsthand the elections in Iraq.

In January 2005, Poe founded and cosponsored the Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus to represent and advocate before the United States Congress and the Administration on behalf of victims. The Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus facilitates discussions, organizes meetings, and disseminates information on the causes of victimization to help achieve greater understanding and to formulate sensible solutions. He has worked closely with rape victim Jamie Leigh Jones, who is from his district.

Poe is noted for wrapping up speeches on the floor of the House with the words, "And that's just the way it is."

2006 election

Poe made border security a centerpiece of his re-election strategy, calling for "more [National] Guardsmen on the border front". On November 7, Ted Poe handily won a second term against Democrat Gary Binderim, a water utility manager and community activist, and Libertarian Justo Perez.

2008 re-election

Poe easily defeated Libertarian Craig Wolfe in his campaign for re-election in 2008.

Committee assignments

Committee on the Judiciary

*Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

*Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law

Committee on Foreign Affairs

*Subcommittee on Europe

*Subcommittee on Terrorism Nonproliferation and Trade

*Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

In addition to Poe's committee assignments, he is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Victim's Rights Caucus.

2010 Texas governor's race

An unofficial grassroots movement was started to attempt to convince Poe to run for Governor of Texas in the 2010 election.

Issue positions

Abortion

Poe's position on abortion is firmly pro-life. Poe received a 0 rating from abortion rights group NARAL in 2007, and rating of 100 from the National Right to Life Committee in 2007-2008. He also voted for the Prohibiting Federal Funding of Abortion Services amendment on November, 7, 2009.

Fiscal policy

In 2008, the National Taxpayers Union, an organization that supports "lower taxes and smaller government", gave Poe the grade B+, and in 2007 received a rating of 90 from the group Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that advocates "taxes [that] are simpler, [and] flatter". Also Ted Poe voted against the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package (HR 1) and the 2010 Concurrent Budget Resolution (S. Con. Res. 13). The Club for Growth PAC gave Ted Poe a power ranking of 85.85%.

Healthcare reform

Poe doesn’t support what he calls "government run health care" Poe voted "Nay" on the Health Care and Insurance Law Amendments bill on November 7, 2009. In 2008 Poe voted for the Medicare Bill (HR 6331). Poe supports healthcare reform that would “Allow insurance to be purchased across state lines, provide for a safety net for catastrophic injury or illness…and allow for a health savings account".

Controversies

As a state judge, in November 2002, Poe ruled that he would permit the PBS documentary show Frontline to videotape jury deliberations of a capital murder case. There was considerable concern that this would affect the result of the trial, possibly by skewing the composition of the jury, and the decision was appealed by Harris County prosecuters. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal appellate court, ruled against Poe's decision and prohibited the videotaping.

On May 7, 2007, while speaking on the floor of the house, Poe used a quote from Civil War Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest when describing the military strategy that Poe felt the United States should have followed in Iraq. Forrest's maxim was to: “Git thar furstest with the mostest.” The controversy lies in the personal history of General Forrest; after his military duty was over, he became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (though soon after called for the Klan to disband). Some critics have stated that despite quoting Forrest for a discussion on military strategy and not on race relations, it was still highly inappropriate for Poe to quote such a divisive figure.

On June 7, 2009, Poe signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 1503, the bill introduced as a reaction to conspiracy theories which claimed that U.S. President Barack Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen. On July 23, 2009, he appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight in which he claimed that Certifications of Live Birth issued by Hawaii State Department of Health cannot be used to obtain a U.S. passport, which is untrue. His support of H.R. 1503 and public advocacy for it earned him a negative editorial in the Houston Chronicle.

References

External links

U.S. Congressman Ted Poe official U.S. House site

Ted Poe for U.S. Congress official campaign site

Profile at SourceWatch

Interview on "The Joe Cook Program" in Philadelphia June 23, 2006

Video of Speech praising Nathan Bedford Forrest on the House Floor May 7, 2007

Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:People from Temple, Texas Category:American members of the Churches of Christ Category:Texas Republicans Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas Category:People from Harris County, Texas Category:Texas state court judges Category:Abilene Christian University alumni Category:University of Houston alumni Category:University of Houston faculty

Name	Ron Paul
Image name	Ron Paul, official Congressional photo portrait, 2007.jpg|thumb|Paul's Congressional portrait
Birth date	August 20, 1935
Birth place	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
State	Texas
District	14th
Term start	January 3, 1997
Preceded	Greg Laughlin
State2	Texas
District2	22nd
Term start2	January 3, 1979
Term end2	January 3, 1985
Preceded2	Robert Gammage
Succeeded2	Tom DeLay
Term start3	April 3, 1976
Term end3	January 3, 1977
Preceded3	Robert R. Casey
Succeeded3	Robert Gammage
Party	Republican (1976–1988)Libertarian (1988 Presidential Election)Republican (1988–present)
Spouse	Carolyn "Carol" Paul
Children	Ronald "Ronnie" Paul, Jr.Lori Paul PyeattRandal "Rand" PaulRobert PaulJoy Paul-LeBlanc
Alma mater	Gettysburg College (B.S.)Duke University School of Medicine (M.D.)
Profession	Physician, Politician
Residence	Lake Jackson, Texas
Religion	Baptist
Website	U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul
Signature	Ron Paul signature.svg
Branch	United States Air ForceUnited States Air National Guard
Serviceyears	1962–19651965–1968

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American physician and Republican Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas. Paul serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Committee on Financial Services, where he has been an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policy. He has gained prominence for his libertarian positions on many political issues, often clashing with both Republican and Democratic Party leaders. He is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. Paul has run for President of the United States twice, first in 1988 as the nominee of the Libertarian Party and again in 2008 as a candidate for the Republican nomination.

He is the founder of the advocacy group Campaign for Liberty and his ideas have been expressed in numerous published articles and books, including End The Fed (2009), and (2008). According to a 1998 study published in the American Journal of Political Science, Paul has the most conservative voting record of any member of Congress since 1937. His son Rand Paul was sworn in as a Senator for Kentucky in 2011, an event with made the elder Paul the first Representative in history to serve alongside a son or daughter in the Senate.

Personal life

Paul was born in Pittsburgh to Howard and Margaret (née Dumont) Paul. As a junior at Dormont High School, he was the 220-yard dash state champion. After earning an M.D. degree from the Duke University School of Medicine, he was a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon during the 1960s.

Paul has been married to Carol Wells since 1957. They have five children, who were baptized Episcopalian: Ronald, Lori, Rand, Robert, and Joy. Paul's son Rand is senator-elect of the state of Kentucky. They also have eighteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He has four brothers. Two of them, including David Paul, are ministers. Wayne Paul is a Certified Public Accountant.

Early congressional career

While still a medical resident in the 1960s, Paul was influenced by Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which led him to read many works of Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. He came to know economists Hans Sennholz and Murray Rothbard well, and credits to them his interest in the study of economics. He came to believe that what the Austrian school economists wrote was coming true on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon closed the "gold window" by implementing the U.S. dollar's complete departure from the gold standard. and welfare, Paul became a delegate to the Texas Republican convention and a Republican candidate for the United States Congress. In 1974, incumbent Robert R. Casey defeated him in the 22nd district. When President Gerald Ford appointed Casey to head the Federal Maritime Commission, Paul won an April 1976 special election to fill the empty seat. Paul lost some months later in the general election, to Democrat Robert Gammage, by fewer than 300 votes (0.2%), but defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch, and was reelected in 1980 and 1982.

Paul was the first Republican representative from the area; he also led the Texas Reagan delegation at the national Republican convention. His successful campaign against Gammage surprised local Democrats, who had expected to retain the seat easily in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Gammage underestimated Paul's support among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."

House of Representatives

Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, at first in the 1970s in the House where he also declined to attend junkets or register for a Congressional pension while serving four terms. His chief of staff (1978–1982) was Lew Rockwell. In 1980, when a majority of Republicans favored President Jimmy Carter's proposal to reinstate draft registration, Paul argued that their views were inconsistent, stating they were more interested in registering their children than they were their guns. Also in 1976, the foundation began publication of the first monthly newsletter connected with Paul, Dr. Ron Paul's Freedom Report (or Special Report). It also publishes monographs, books, radio spots, and (since 1997) a new series of the monthly newsletter, Ron Paul's Freedom Report, which promote the principles of limited government.

On the House Banking Committee, Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation, it is now available from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to which Paul is a distinguished counselor.

In 1984, Paul chose to run for the U.S. Senate instead of re-election to the House, but lost the Republican primary to Phil Gramm. He returned to full-time medical practice In his House farewell address, Paul said, "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare. Vote trading is seen as good politics. The errand-boy mentality is ordinary, the defender of liberty is seen as bizarre. It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."

1988 presidential campaign

In the 1988 presidential election, Paul defeated American Indian activist Russell Means to win the Libertarian Party nomination for president. Paul placed third in the popular vote with 432,179 votes (0.5%), Paul was kept off the ballot in Missouri, and received votes there only when written in, due to what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called a "technicality".

As the "Libertarian standard bearer", Paul gained supporters who agreed with his positions on gun rights, fiscal conservatism, homeschooling, and abortion, and won approval from many who thought the federal government was misdirected. This nationwide support base encouraged and donated to his later campaigns.

According to Paul, his presidential run was about more than reaching office; he sought to spread his libertarian ideas, often to school and university groups regardless of vote eligibility. He said, "We're just as interested in the future generation as this election. These kids will vote eventually, and maybe, just maybe, they'll go home and talk to their parents."

After the election, Paul continued his medical practice until he returned to Congress. He also co-owned a coin dealership, Ron Paul Coins, for twelve years with Burt Blumert, who continued to operate it after Paul returned to office. He spoke multiple times at the American Numismatic Association's 1988 convention. In 1985 Ron Paul & Associates began publishing The Ron Paul Investment Letter and The Ron Paul Survival Report; it added the more controversial Ron Paul Political Report in 1987. Many articles lacked a byline, yet often invoked Paul's name or persona.

After his unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988, Paul returned to private medical practice and continued to allow the newsletters to be published bearing his name. For 1992, RP&A; earned $940,000 and employed Paul's family as well as Lew Rockwell (its vice-president and seven other workers. Murray Rothbard and other libertarians believed Rockwell ghostwrote the newsletters for Paul; Rockwell later acknowledged involvement in writing subscription letters, but attributed the newsletters to "seven or eight freelancers".

Paul considered running for President in 1992, but instead chose to support Pat Buchanan that year, and served as an adviser to his Republican presidential campaign against incumbent President George H. W. Bush.

Later congressional career

Campaigns

1996 campaign

In 1996, Paul was re-elected to Congress after the toughest campaign race he had faced since the 1970s. As Republicans had taken over both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Paul entered the race hopeful that his Constitutionalist policies of tax cuts, closing federal agencies, and curbing the U.N. would have broader support than in the past. The Republican National Committee focused instead on encouraging Democrats to switch parties, as Paul's primary opponent, incumbent Greg Laughlin, had done in 1995. The party threw its full weight behind Laughlin, including support from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Governor George W. Bush, and the National Rifle Association. Paul responded by running newspaper ads quoting Gingrich's harsh criticisms of Laughlin's Democratic voting record 14 months earlier. While Paul was able to paint Morris as a tool of trial lawyers and big labor, Morris ran numerous ads about Paul's advocacy of federal drug law repeal.

Morris also accused Paul of authoring questionable statements in past newsletters, Paul's congressional campaign countered the statements were taken out of context. and that voters might not understand the "tongue-in-cheek, academic" quotes out of context. Further, the campaign rejected Morris' demand to release all back issues.

Paul went on to win the election in a close margin. It became the third time Paul had been elected to Congress as a non-incumbent. In both campaigns, the national Democratic Party and major unions continued to spend heavily on targeting Paul. On December 11, 2001, he told the independent movement that he was encouraged by the fact that the petition had spread the message of Constitutionalism, but did not expect a White House win at that time. Further prompting in early 2007 led him to enter the 2008 race.

Unlike many political candidates, Paul receives the overwhelming majority of his campaign contributions from individuals (97 percent in the 2006 cycle), and receives much less from political action committees (PAC's) than others, ranging from two percent (2002) to six percent (1998). The group Clean Up Washington, analyzing from 2000 to mid-2006, listed Paul as seventh-lowest in PAC receipts of all House members; one of the lowest in lobbyist receipts; and fourth-highest in small-donor receipts. He had the lowest PAC receipts percentage of all the 2008 Republican presidential candidates.

Paul was re-elected to his tenth term in Congress in November 2006. In the March 4, 2008, Republican primary for his Congressional seat, he defeated Friendswood city councilman Chris Peden, obtaining over 70 percent of the vote. On the 2008 ballot, Paul won his eleventh term in Congress running unopposed. In the 2010 Republican primary for his Congressional seat, Paul defeated three opponents with 80 percent of the vote.

Relationship with district

, which is larger than Massachusetts.]] After 2003 Texas redistricting, Paul's district is larger than Massachusetts, with of Gulf of Mexico coastline between Houston and Rockport, Texas, covering some 22 counties. Even so, Paul opposes programs like federally funded flood insurance (typically supported by coastal and rural representatives) because it requires those outside flood zones to subsidize those within, but prohibits those within from choosing their own insurers. In an overwhelmingly rural region known for ranching and rice farms, Despite his voting against heavily supported legislation like farm bills, Paul's devotion to reducing government resonates with 14th district voters:

Paul adds his own earmarks, such as for Texas shrimp promotion, but he routinely votes against most spending bills returned by committee. Earmarks permit members of Congress, rather than executive branch civil servants, to designate spending priorities for previously authorized funds directed otherwise. In , Paul states his views on earmarks this way: "The real problem, and one that was unfortunately not addressed in the 2007's earmark dispute, is the size of the federal government and the amount of money we are spending in these appropriations bills. Cutting even a million dollars from an appropriations bill that spends hundreds of billions will make no appreciable difference in the size of government, which is doubtless why politicians and the media are so eager to have us waste our time on [earmarks]."

Paul also spends extra time in the district to compensate for "violat[ing] almost every rule of political survival you can think of,"

In March 2001, Paul introduced a bill to repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) and reinstate the process of formal declaration of war by Congress. Later in 2001, Paul voted to authorize the president, pursuant to WPR, to respond to those responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks. He also introduced Sunlight Rule legislation, which requires lawmakers to take enough time to read bills before voting on them, after the Patriot Act was passed within 24 hours of its introduction. Paul was one of six Republicans to vote against the Iraq War Resolution, and (with Oregon representative Peter DeFazio) sponsored a resolution to repeal the war authorization in February 2003. Paul's speech, 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq", was translated and published in German, French, Russian, Italian, and Swiss periodicals before the Iraq War began. After a 2005 bill was touted as "slashing" government waste, Paul wrote that it decreased spending by a fraction of one percent and that "Congress couldn't slash spending if the members' lives depended on it." He said that in three years he had voted against more than 700 bills intended to expand government.

Paul has introduced several bills to apply tax credits toward education, including credits for parental spending on public, private, or homeschool students (Family Education Freedom Act); for salaries for all K–12 teachers, librarians, counselors, and other school personnel; and for donations to scholarships or to benefit academics (Education Improvement Tax Cut Act). In accord with his political positions, he has also introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, the We the People Act, and the American Freedom Agenda Act.

List of bills sponsored and cosponsored

The following tables link to the Congressional Record hosted by the Library of Congress. All the specifics and actions taken for each individual bill Ron Paul has either sponsored or cosponsored can be reviewed further there. "Original bills" and "Original amendments" indicate instances where Ron Paul had pledged to support the legislation at the time the bill was initially introduced rather than at some other point during the legislative process of the bill. {| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:1em auto 1em auto; font-size:90%; border:0; text-align:left; line-height:150%;" |+ Rep. Ron Paul – U.S. House of Representatives – [R-TX-14] |- !Years Covered !All bills sponsored !All amendments sponsored !All bills cosponsored !All amendments cosponsored !Original bills cosponsored !Original amendments cosponsored !Bill support withdrawn !Amendment support withdrawn |- |1997-98 |32 |7 |223 |0 |76 |0 |0 |0 |- |1999-00 |51 |8 |316 |0 |119 |0 |0 |0 |- |2001-02 |64 |4 |323 |0 |104 |0 |1 |0 |- |2003-04 |68 |8 |354 |0 |150 |0 |0 |0 |- |2005-06 |71 |8 |393 |0 |141 |0 |0 |0 |- |2007-08 |70 |0 |443 |0 |160 |0 |0 |0 |- |2009-10 |41 |0 |120 |0 |69 |0 |0 |0 |}

Note: The numbers for the current session of Congress may no longer reflect the actual numbers as they are still actively in session.

Affiliations

Paul serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (having been on the Western Hemisphere and the Asia and Pacific subcommittees); the Joint Economic Committee; and the Committee on Financial Services (as Ranking Member of the Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology subcommittee, and Vice-Chair of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee).

Paul was honorary chair of, and is a current member of, the Republican Liberty Caucus, a political action committee which describes its goal as electing "liberty-minded, limited-government individuals". Paul also hosts a luncheon every Thursday as chair of the Liberty Caucus, composed of 20 members of Congress. Washington DC area radio personality Johnny "Cakes" Auville gave Paul the idea for the Liberty Caucus and is a regular contributing member. He remains on good terms with the Libertarian Party and addressed its 2004 convention. He also was endorsed by the Constitution Party's 2004 presidential candidate, Michael Peroutka.

Paul was on a bipartisan coalition of 17 members of Congress that sued President Bill Clinton in 1999 over his conduct of the Kosovo war. They accused Clinton of failing to inform Congress of the action's status within 48 hours as required by the War Powers Resolution, and of failing to obtain Congressional declaration of war. Congress had voted 427–2 against a declaration of war with Yugoslavia, and had voted to deny support for the air campaign in Kosovo. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that since Congress had voted for funding after Clinton had actively engaged troops in the war with Kosovo, legislators had sent a confusing message about whether they approved of the war. Paul said that the judge's decision attempted to circumvent the Constitution and to authorize the president to conduct a war without approval from Congress.

Committee assignments

Rep. Paul serves on the following committee and subcommittees.

Committee on Financial Services

*Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology

*Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade

*Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Committee on Foreign Affairs

*Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

*Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere

Joint Economic Committee

2008 presidential campaign

Liberty Forum.]] in Manchester.]]

Republican primary campaign

Paul formally declared his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination on March 12, 2007, on C-SPAN. His campaign had intense grassroots support—his supporters were said to "always show up"—and he had dozens of wins in GOP straw polls.

Paul's campaign showed "surprisingly strong" fundraising with several record-breaking events. He had the highest rate of military contribution for 2008, and donations coming from individuals, aided significantly by an online presence and very active campaigning by supporters, who organized moneybomb fundraisers netting millions over several months. Such fundraising earned Paul the status of having raised more than any other Republican candidate in 2007's fourth-quarter. Paul's name was a number-one web search term as ranked by Technorati, beginning around May 2007. He has led other candidates in YouTube subscriptions since May 20, 2007.

Paul was largely ignored by traditional media, including at least one incident where FOX News did not invite him to a GOP debate featuring all other presidential candidates at the time. One exception was Glenn Beck's program on Headline News, where Beck interviewed Paul for the full hour of his show.

Though projections of 2008 Republican delegate counts varied widely, Paul's count was consistently third among the three candidates remaining after Super Tuesday. According to CNN and the New York Times, by Super Tuesday Paul had received five delegates in North Dakota, and was projected to receive two in Iowa, four in Nevada, and five in Alaska based on caucus results, totaling 16 delegates. However, Paul's campaign projected 42 delegates based on the same results, including delegates from Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota.

In the January Louisiana caucus, Paul placed second behind John McCain, but uncommitted delegates outnumbered both candidates' pledged delegates, since a registration deadline had been extended to January 12. Paul said he had the greatest number of pledged Louisiana delegates who had registered by the original January 10 deadline, and formally challenged the deadline extension and the Louisiana GOP's exclusion of voters due to an outdated list; he projected three Louisiana delegates. The Super Tuesday West Virginia caucus was won by Mike Huckabee, whose state campaign coordinators reportedly arranged to give three Huckabee delegates to Paul in exchange for votes from Paul's supporters. Huckabee has not confirmed this delegate pledge.

Paul's preference votes in primaries and caucuses began at 10 percent in Iowa (winning Jefferson County) and eight percent in New Hampshire, where he had the support of state sovereignty champion, State Representative Dan Itse; on Super Tuesday they ranged from 25 percent in Montana and 21 percent in North Dakota caucuses, where he won several counties, to three percent in several state primaries, averaging under 10 percent in primaries overall. After sweeping four states on March 4, McCain was widely projected to have a majority of delegates pledged to vote for him in the September party convention. Paul obliquely acknowledged McCain on March 6: "Though victory in the political sense [is] not available, many victories have been achieved due to hard work and enthusiasm." He continued to contest the remaining primaries, having added, "McCain has the nominal number ... but if you're in a campaign for only gaining power, that is one thing; if you're in a campaign to influence ideas and the future of the country, it's never over." Paul's recent book, , became a New York Times and Amazon.com bestseller immediately upon release. His newest book, End the Fed, has been released.

On June 12, 2008, Paul withdrew his bid for the Republican nomination, citing his resources could be better spent on improving America. Some of the $4 million remaining campaign contributions was invested into the new political action and advocacy group called Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty. Paul told the newsmagazine NOW on PBS the goal of the Campaign for Liberty is to "spread the message of the Constitution and limited government, while at the same time organizing at the grassroots level and teaching pro-liberty activists how to run effective campaigns and win elections at every level of government."

Newsletter controversy

Controversial claims made in Ron Paul's newsletters, written in the first person, included statements such as "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." Along with "even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming." Another notable statement that garnered controversy was "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" An issue from 1992 refers to carjacking as the "hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos." In an article title "The Pink House" the newsletter wrote that " "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

Shortly afterwards, The New Republic released many previously unpublicized quotations attributed to Paul in James Kirchick's "Angry White Man" article. Kirchick accused Paul of having made racist, sexist, and derogatory comments geared towards African Americans, women, and the LGBT community. Kircheck also accused Paul of possessing "an obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry." CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer that the writing "Didn't sound like the Ron Paul I've come to know." Later, Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the NAACP, also defended Paul.

Reason republished Paul's 1996 defense of the newsletters, and later reported evidence from "a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists" that Lew Rockwell had been the chief ghostwriter.

Paul had given his own account of the newsletters in March 2001, stating the documents were authored by ghostwriters, and that while he did not author the challenged passages, he bore "some moral responsibility" for their publication.

Support for third party candidates

On September 5, 2008, the Constitution Party of Montana removed Chuck Baldwin from their presidential ticket, replacing him with Ron Paul for president and Michael Peroutka for vice president. Paul made an announcement stating that he "was aware that the party planned to do this, and has said that as long as he can remain passive and silent about the development, and as long as he need not sign any declaration of candidacy, that he does not object." stating that that he did not "seek nor consent" to the Montana Constitution Party's nomination. stating that the request was sent to them too late. On September 4, 2008, a list of electors in Louisiana using the label "Louisiana Taxpayers Party" filed papers and paid $500 with the Secretary of State's Office. The congressman had reportedly invited presidential candidates Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader to the press conference, leading some to speculate that they would endorse Paul running for president on the ticket of either the Constitution, Libertarian or other third party.

On September 10, 2008, Paul confirmed his "open endorsement" (CNN) for the four candidates at a press conference in Washington D.C. He also revealed that he had rejected a request for an endorsement of John McCain. He later appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer with Nader where they presented and briefly laid out the four principles that all the independent candidates had agreed on as the most important key issues of the presidential race. On September 22, 2008, in response to a written statement by Bob Barr, Paul abandoned his former neutral stance and announced his support of Chuck Baldwin in the 2008 presidential election.

In the 2008 general election, Paul still received 41,905 votes despite not actively running for the seat. He was listed on the ballot in Montana on the Constitution Party label, and in Louisiana on the "Louisiana Taxpayers Party" ticket, and received write-in votes in California (17,006), Pennsylvania (3,527), New Hampshire (1,092), and other states. (Not all U.S. jurisdictions require the counting or reporting of write-in votes.)

Post presidential campaign activities

On February 26, 2009, Ron Paul was a key speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., speaking for 20 minutes on topics including monetary theory and policy in the United States, in addition to the War in Iraq, and international foreign policy. Paul's Campaign for Liberty sent 140 volunteers to CPAC 2009 to distribute materials, and significantly increased that number the following year.

In the 2009 CPAC Presidential Preference straw poll for the 2012 election, Paul tied 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for third place with 13% of the vote, behind fellow former candidate Mitt Romney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. However, in the 2010 CPAC straw poll, he came out on top, decisively winning with 31%, followed distantly by Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, among others. In the 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll, Paul finished second place with 24% of the vote (438 votes), behind only Mitt Romney (with 439 votes). An April 2010 Rasmussen poll found that Ron Paul and President Obama were nearly tied for the 2012 presidential election among likely voters, although later polls showed him trailing significantly. He also trails in polls for the Republican presidential nomination, typically behind Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich.

Speculated 2012 presidential run

There is speculation among pundits and journalists regarding the prospect of Paul running for president again in 2012. When Paul's wife, Carol, was asked if he would run in 2012 her response was "If you would ask him now he would probably say 'no', but he did say...things are happening so quickly and fast in our country, if we're at a crisis period and they need someone...with the knowledge he has...then he would do it."

Jesse Benton, Senior VP of Campaign for Liberty, has said of the prospective run: "If the decision had to be made today, it would be 'no', but he is considering it very strongly and there is a decent likelihood that he will. A lot of it depends on things going on in his personal life and also what's going on in the country."

As part of an effort to encourage Ron Paul to run for president in 2012, a Tea Party moneybomb has been set up with the aim of repeating the 2007 Ron Paul Tea Party moneybomb, which gave Paul's 2008 presidential campaign over $6 million in one day. The goal of The Ron Paul Tea Party is to have 100,000 people donate $100 each on December 16, 2010 to kick off Paul's 2012 presidential run, should he decide to run.

Political positions

Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, June 15, 2007.]]

Paul has been described as conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian. reflects both his medical degree and his insistence that he will "never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution." One scoring method published in the American Journal of Political Science found Paul the most conservative of all 3,320 members of Congress from 1937 to 2002. Paul's foreign policy of nonintervention made him the only 2008 Republican presidential candidate to have voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. He advocates withdrawal from the United Nations, and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for reasons of maintaining strong national sovereignty. He supports free trade, rejecting membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization as "managed trade". He supports tighter border security and opposes welfare for illegal aliens, birthright citizenship and amnesty; he voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006. He voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, but suggested war alternatives such as authorizing the president to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal targeting specific terrorists.

Paul adheres deeply to Austrian school economics; he has authored six books on the subject, and displays pictures of Austrian school economists Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Ludwig von Mises (as well as of Grover Cleveland) he cast two thirds of all the lone negative votes in the House during a 1995–1997 period. and states he has never voted to approve a budget deficit. Paul believes that the country could abolish the individual income tax by scaling back federal spending to its fiscal year 2000 levels; financing government operations would primarily come through the corporate income tax, excise taxes and tariffs. He supports eliminating most federal government agencies, calling them unnecessary bureaucracies. Paul also believes the longterm erosion of the U.S. dollar's purchasing power through inflation is attributable to its lack of any commodity backing. However, Paul does not support a complete return to a gold standard, instead preferring to legitimize gold and silver as legal tender and to remove the sales tax on them. He also advocates gradual elimination of the Federal Reserve System.

Paul supports constitutional rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms, and habeas corpus for political detainees. He opposes the Patriot Act, federal use of torture, presidential autonomy, a national ID card, domestic surveillance, and the draft. Citing the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, Paul advocates states' rights to decide how to regulate social matters not directly found in the Constitution. Paul calls himself "strongly pro-life", "an unshakable foe of abortion", and believes regulation or ban on medical decisions about maternal or fetal health is "best handled at the state level". He says his years as an obstetrician led him to believe life begins at conception; his abortion-related legislation, like the Sanctity of Life Act, is intended to negate Roe v. Wade and to get "the federal government completely out of the business of regulating state matters." Paul also believes that the notion of the separation of church and state is currently misused by the court system: "In case after case, the Supreme Court has used the infamous 'separation of church and state' metaphor to uphold court decisions that allow the federal government to intrude upon and deprive citizens of their religious liberty."

He opposes federal regulation of the death penalty, of education, and of marriage, and supports revising the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy to focus on disruptive sexual behavior (whether heterosexual or homosexual). As a free-market environmentalist, he asserts private property rights in relation to environmental protection and pollution prevention. He also opposes the federal War on Drugs, and thinks the states should decide whether to regulate or deregulate drugs such as medical marijuana. Paul pushes to eliminate federal involvement in and management of health care, which he argues would allow prices to drop due to the fundamental dynamics of a free market. He is an outspoken proponent for increased ballot access for 3rd party candidates and numerous election law reforms which he believes would allow more voter control. Ron Paul has also stated that “The government shouldn't be in the medical business." He is also opposed to government flu inoculation programs.

Paul takes a critical view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguing that it was unconstitutional and did not improve race relations.

Books authored

Other contributions

References

External links

Ron Paul's Personal Website, books, articles, links to political sites connected with Ron Paul

RonPaul.com speeches, essays, interviews, photos and videos

Ron Paul Library articles and speeches by Ron Paul

Ron Paul Forums

;Congress

U.S. House of Representatives Office of Ron Paul

Congressional campaign website

;Organizations Founded

Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty

Ron Paul's Liberty PAC

Ron Paul's F.R.E.E. Foundation – The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education

;Presidential campaign

NOW on PBS "Ron Paul and Internet Politics". Also, a September 2008 NOW on PBS interview with Ron Paul

PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer — Vote 2008: Ron Paul

Category:1935 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-Iraq War activists Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American libertarians Category:American physicians Category:American political writers Category:American writers of German descent Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Classical liberals Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Duke University alumni Category:Gettysburg College alumni Category:Internet memes Category:Libertarian Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas Category:Military physicians Category:People from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Category:People from Brazoria County, Texas Category:Physicians from Texas Category:Politicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Texas Republicans Category:Texas Libertarians Category:United States Air Force officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:University of Pittsburgh people

Name	Paul Kanjorski
Image name	Rep. Paul Kanjorski.jpg
Date of birth	April 02, 1937
Place of birth	Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Residence	Nanticoke, Pennsylvania
Alma mater	Temple UniversityDickinson College
Occupation	attorney
State	Pennsylvania
District	11th
Term start	January 3, 1985
Term end	January 3, 2011
Preceded	Frank Harrison
Succeeded	Lou Barletta
Party	Democratic
Spouse	Nancy Kanjorski
Religion	Roman Catholic
Branch	United States Army
Serviceyears	1960-1961
Unit	Reserves

Paul E. Kanjorski (born April 2, 1937) is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1985 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

The district includes the cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Hazleton, as well as most of the Poconos.

Before his election to Congress, Kanjorski was a trial attorney, city solicitor, and administrative law judge for workers' compensation. He also served in the United States Army Reserves.

Early life, education and career

Kanjorski was born in Nanticoke, near Wilkes-Barre. He attended public schools before enrolling at Wyoming Seminary, a private college preparatory school in Kingston. He finished his high school education at the Capitol Page School in Washington, D.C. He became a congressional page at age 15, first appointed by Republicans but ending up working on the Democratic side of the House.

Kanjorski attended Temple University in Philadelphia from 1957 to 1961, and briefly served in the United States Army Reserves from 1960 to 1961.

*Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises (Chairman)

*Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit

*Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform In March 2010, Kanjorski supported and voted for the federal health care reform legislation.

2008 financial crisis

In an interview on CSPAN on January 27, 2009, Kanjorski defended the original emergency actions by the United States government to halt the 2008 financial crisis in September 2008. Kanjorski stated that the move to raise the guarantee money funds up to $250,000 was an emergency measure to stave off a massive money market "electronic run" on the banks that removed $550 billion from the system in a matter of hours on the morning of September 18. He further asserted that, if not stopped, the run would not only have caused the American economy to crash immediately, within 24 hours it would have brought down the world economy as well. On February 10, 2009 the financial writer Daniel Gross subsequently confirmed some elements of the story on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, but he prefaced his remarks by saying “I don‘t know if his numbers are 100 percent correct”. Felix Salmon of Condé Nast Portfolio also questioned why Kanjorski's account had not been stated before.

Political campaigns

In 1980, Dan Flood, who had represented the 11th District for most of the time since 1945, resigned. Kanjorski ran in the crowded special election as an independent, finishing behind State Representative Ray Musto. He ran against Musto in the Democratic primary later that year, but finished third. Musto lost to Republican James L. Nelligan in the general election. In 1984, after sitting out the 1982 campaign, Kanjorski defeated incumbent Frank G. Harrison, who had defeated Nelligan in 1982, in the primary. He won the general election by a solid 17-point margin, even as Ronald Reagan carried the district in his landslide reelection bid.

In 1986, Kanjorski faced a younger, well-financed Republican opponent in Marc Holtzman. The race was initially seen as one of the hottest in the country. However, Kanjorski won by 41 points, his largest margin of victory in a contested election. He was unopposed in 1988 and 1990 and did not face another credible opponent until 2002, when he faced Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton. Kanjorski defeated Barletta by 13 points. The margin would have likely been closer had the state legislature not shifted heavily Democratic Scranton and most of surrounding Lackawanna County from the nearby 10th District to the 11th. It appeared that the Republican-controlled legislature wanted to protect the 10th's then-incumbent Republican, Don Sherwood by packing the already heavily Democratic 11th with as many Democrats as possible. Scranton had anchored the 10th and its predecessors for almost a century.

2008

After facing no major-party opposition in 2004 and a nominal Republican challenger in 2006, Kanjorski faced Lou Barletta again in 2008. Since the 2002 race, Barletta had become well-known for his opposition to illegal immigration. In 2008, Fox News broadcast a segment accusing Kanjorski of obtaining $10 million in earmarks for a company run by his family.

Multiple polls had shown Kanjorski trailing by as many as five percentage points, and the race was pegged as one of the nation's most competitive leading into the 2008 elections. Kanjorski was one of the few House Democrats in the Northeast in any danger of being unseated. However, Kanjorski won in a much more competitive race than his first matchup with Barletta, taking 52 percent of the vote to Barletta's 48 percent, even as Barack Obama easily carried the district. Kanjorski lost three of the district's five counties, including Luzerne County, where both he and Barletta live. However, as in 2002, Kanjorski swamped Barletta in Lackawanna County, winning by 12,500 votes (20 percent); he lost the area he had represented prior to the 2000 redistricting by almost 4,000 votes.

2010

Kanjorski won against Corey O'Brien and Brian Kelly in the May 2010 Democratic primary with 49.3% of the vote.

Barletta challenged Kanjorski again in 2010. This time, Barletta managed to defeat Kanjorski with 55 percent of the vote, largely due to winning Luzerne County by almost 10,000 votes. Kanjorski was dogged by some of the more incendiary comments he made during the campaign, such as his comments about Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott: "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

References

External links

Pennsylvanians for Kanjorski official campaign site

Profile at SourceWatch

A twisted tale of congressional earmarking Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico, September 5, 2007

Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania Category:Pennsylvania lawyers Category:American politicians of Polish descent Category:American Roman Catholic politicians Category:Temple University alumni Category:Dickinson School of Law alumni Category:People from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Category:People from the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area Category:Pennsylvania Democrats

Name	Jon Stewart
Caption	Stewart at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, October 30, 2010.
Alma mater	William & Mary
Birth name	Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz
Birth date	November 28, 1962
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, books
Nationality	American
Active	1987–present
Genre	Satire/political satire/news satire, observational comedy
Subject	Mass media/news media/Media criticism, American politics, current events, religion, Jewish culture, race relations, human sexuality, self-deprecation
Influences	George Carlin, Woody Allen, David Letterman, Steve Martin, is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian. He is widely known as host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central.

In January 2005, CNN announced that it was canceling Crossfire. When asked about the cancellations, CNN/US' incoming President, Jonathan Klein, referenced Stewart's appearance on the show: "I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day." Soon after, Stewart quipped on The Daily Show that "I fought the law, and the law lost!"

When asked about his relationship with Tucker Carlson on CNN's Larry King Live in February 2008, Stewart said: "It became this idea that it was personal between the two of us, and it wasn't... If there's one thing I regret about that thing, it was probably the idea that it was personal, that there was something I was saying about Tucker to Tucker, but actually it was about the show."

On March 18, 2009, Carlson wrote a blog entry for The Daily Beast criticizing Stewart for his handling of the CNBC controversy (see below). In this article, Carlson discusses the CNN incident and claims Stewart remained backstage for at least "an hour" and "continued to lecture our staff", something Carlson described as "one of the weirdest things I have ever seen."

Criticism of CNBC

Stewart again became a viral internet phenomenon following a March 4, 2009, The Daily Show sequence. CNBC cancelled Rick Santelli's scheduled appearance but Stewart still ran a short segment showing CNBC giving bad investment advice.

Subsequent media coverage of exchanges between Jim Cramer, who had been featured heavily in the original segment, and Stewart, led to a highly anticipated face-to-face confrontation on The Daily Show. The episode received a large amount of media hype and became the second most-viewed episode of The Daily Show, trailing only the 2009 Inauguration Day episode. It had 2.3 million total viewers, and the next day, the show's website saw its highest day of traffic in 2009. Although Cramer acknowledged on the show that some of Stewart's criticisms of CNBC were valid and that they could "do better," he later said on the "Today" Show that Stewart's criticism of the media was "naïve and misleading."

Criticism of Fox News

For years, Stewart has regularly accused Fox News of distorting the news to fit a conservative agenda, at one point ridiculing the network as “the meanest sorority in the world.” In November 2009, Stewart called out Fox News for using some footage from a previous Tea Party rally during its report of a more recent one, making the later rally appear larger than it was. The show's anchor, Sean Hannity, apologized the following night. A month later, Stewart criticized Fox & Friends cohost Gretchen Carlson – a former Miss America and Stanford graduate – for claiming that she googled words such as "ignoramus" and "czar." Stewart believed that Carlson was dumbing herself down for "an audience who sees intellect as an elitist flaw.”

Stewart stepped up his criticism of Fox News in 2010; as of April 24, The Daily Show had 24 segments criticizing Fox News′ coverage. Moments later, Stewart defended his assertion: On April 30, 2009, Stewart apologized on his program, and stated he did not believe Truman was a war criminal: }}

Books

in New York.]]In 1998, Stewart released his first book, Naked Pictures of Famous People, a collection of humorous short stories and essays. The book reached The New York Times Best Seller List.

In 2004, Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff released , a mock high school history textbook offering insights into the unique American system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and satirizing such popular American political precepts as "one man, one vote", "government by the people," and "every vote counts." The book sold millions of copies upon its 2004 release and ended the year as a top fifteen best-seller.

Film and television acting

Although best known for his work on The Daily Show, Stewart has also had roles in several films and television series.

His first film role was a minor part in The First Wives Club but his scene was deleted. In 1995, Stewart signed a three-year deal with Miramax. He played romantic leads in the films Playing by Heart and Wishful Thinking. He also had supporting roles in the romantic comedy Since You've Been Gone and in the horror film The Faculty. Other films were planned for Stewart to write and star in, but they were never produced. Stewart has since maintained a relationship with Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein and continues to appear in films they have produced including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Doogal and the documentary Wordplay.

He also appeared in Half Baked as an "enhancement smoker" and in Big Daddy as Adam Sandler's roommate; he has joked on the Daily Show and in the documentary The Aristocrats that to get the role he slept with Sandler. Stewart often makes fun of his appearances in the high-profile flop Death to Smoochy, in which he played a treacherous television executive, and the animated film Doogal, where he played a blue spring named Zeebad that shot a freeze ray from his mustache. In 2007, Stewart made a cameo appearance as himself in Evan Almighty, which starred former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell. In the movie, Stewart was seen on a television screen in a fictional Daily Show episode poking fun at Carell's character for building an ark.

Stewart had a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show in which he played himself as an occasional substitute and possible successor to late-night talk show host Larry Sanders (played by Garry Shandling). In 1998, Stewart hosted the television special, Elmopalooza, celebrating 30 years of Sesame Street. He has guest-starred on other sitcoms such as The Nanny, Dr Katz, Professional Therapist, Spin City, NewsRadio, American Dad, and The Simpsons. He has also made guest-appearances on the children's television series Between the Lions, Sesame Street and Jack's Big Music Show.

Producing

In the mid-1990s, Stewart launched his own production company named Busboy Productions. The name of the company is a reference to Stewart's previous job as a busboy. The company's production logo features the sound of a glass being knocked over followed by a voice whispering "Oops. Sorry." Stewart signed a deal with Miramax to develop projects through his company, but none of his ideas were ever produced. After Stewart's success as host and producer of The Daily Show, he revived Busboy Productions with Daily Show producers Ben Karlin and Rich Korson. In 2002, Busboy planned to produce a sitcom for NBC starring Stephen Colbert, but the show did not come to fruition.

In 2005, Comedy Central reached an agreement with Busboy to finance the production company. Comedy Central has a first-look agreement on all projects, then Busboy is free to shop them to other networks. The deal spawned the Daily Show spin-off The Colbert Report. Other projects include the sitcom pilot Three Strikes, the documentary Sportsfan, the series Important Things with Demetri Martin, and the film The Donor.

WGA strike of 2007–2008

Stewart was an important factor in the unionization of the writers for Comedy Central. The Daily Show writers were the first of Comedy Central's writers to be able to join the guild, after which other shows followed.

He supported the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, commenting on The Daily Show episode just before the strike in a sarcastic manner about how Comedy Central had made available all of the episodes for free on their website, but without advertising, and said 'go support our advertisers'. The show went on hiatus when the strike began, as did other late night talk shows. Upon Stewart's return to the show on January 7, 2008, he refused to use the title The Daily Show, stating that "The Daily Show" was the show made with all of the people responsible for the broadcast, including his writers. During the strike, he referred to his show as A Daily Show with Jon Stewart until the strike ended on February 13, 2008. Stewart, as well as several other late night talk shows, returned to TV early in January even though the strike was not over, because their stage crews and production teams were suffering much more than the writers from the financial crunch, and by that point had been out of work for two months.

The Writers Guild Strike of 2007–2008 was also responsible for a notable mock feud among Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien in early 2008. Without writers to help fuel their witty banter, the three comedians concocted a crossover/rivalry in order to garner more viewers during the ratings slump. Stephen Colbert made the claim that because of "the Colbert bump", he was responsible for Mike Huckabee's success in the 2008 presidential race. Conan O'Brien claimed that he was responsible for Huckabee's success because not only had he made mention of him on his show, but also that he was responsible for Chuck Norris' success (Norris backed Huckabee). In response, Stewart claimed that he was responsible for the success of O'Brien, since Stewart had featured him on The Jon Stewart Show, and in turn the success of Huckabee. This resulted in a three-part comedic battle between the three pundits, with all three appearing on each other's shows. The feud ended on Late Night with Conan O'Brien with a mock brawl involving the three talk-show hosts.

Honors

Stewart and the rest of the members of The Daily Show have received two Peabody Awards for "" and "", covering the 2000 presidential election and the 2004 presidential election, respectively.

In the December 2003 New Years edition of Newsweek, Stewart was named the "Who's Next?" person for the coming year of 2004, with the magazine predicting he would emerge as an absolute sensation in that year. (The magazine said they were right at the end of that year.)

Entertainment Weekly named Stewart as its "Entertainer of the Year" for 2004.

In 2004, Stewart spoke at the commencement ceremonies at his alma mater, William and Mary, and received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. Stewart was also the Class Day keynote speaker at Princeton University in 2004, and the 2008 Sacerdote Great Names speaker at Hamilton College.

In 2000, when he was labeled a "Democrat," he generally agreed, but described his political affiliation as "more socialist or independent" than Democratic.

Asteroid 116939 Jonstewart, discovered April 15, 2004, is named in his honor.

Stewart was also named one of the 2005 Time 100, an annual list of 100 of the most influential people of the year by Time Magazine.

In addition, Stewart and The Daily Show received the 2005 NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

Stewart was presented an Honorary All-America award by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) in 2006.

On April 21, 2009, President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made Stewart a chief.

On October 26, 2010, Stewart was named the Most Influential Man of 2010 by AskMen.com.

Grammy Awards

Stewart has hosted the Grammys twice, in 2001 and in 2002. In the middle of the 2001 broadcast – after laying a number of comedic duds – Stewart did what he encourages most public officials to do, and owned up to his bad hosting, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say I feel your scorn and accept it." When Stewart returned to host the next year, his comedy was more successful. Joking about the performance of the song "Lady Marmalade", he said, "Our next performance is from the movie Moulin Rouge!, a film about a time when the whorehouses were about the music!" When the award winners for Album of the Year walked up on stage, many in number, Stewart quipped, "I don't know what you may have heard, but you were only supposed to go on stage if you worked on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, not if you heard it."

Oscars

On January 5, 2006, Stewart was officially announced as the host of the 78th Academy Awards, which were held March 5 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Responding to press questions at the time of his selection, Stewart remarked: "As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal." (According to The New York Times, Oscar producer Gil Cates knew Crystal was going to be performing 700 Sundays during the time period and was not able to host.) On the Monday before the Oscars, Stewart told Larry King that he was more "excited" than nervous about the job and joked that if he turned out a failure, he could be "bumped down to public access". When asked what the opening would be, the comedian chastised himself by comparing a Stewart opening to a "Gene Rayburn homage". Instead, the opening segment, preceding Stewart's monologue, featured several recent hosts "declining" to host the show.

Critical response to Stewart's performance was mixed. Roger Ebert compared him favorably to legendary Oscar host Johnny Carson. Other reviewers were less positive; Tom Shales of The Washington Post said that Stewart hosted with “smug humorlessness.” James Poniewozik of Time said that Stewart was a bad host, but a great “anti-host” in that he poked fun at parts of the broadcast that deserved it, which lent him a degree of authenticity with the non-Hollywood audience. Stewart and correspondent John Oliver later poked fun at his lackluster reception on The Daily Show's coverage of the 79th Academy Awards by saying that the "demon of last year's Oscars had finally been exorcised."

Stewart also hosted the 80th Academy Awards on February 24, 2008. Reception this time, however, was far more positive.

Personal life

In 2000, Stewart married Tracey McShane, his girlfriend of four years. The couple met on a blind date set up by a production assistant on Stewart's film, Wishful Thinking. On June 19, 2001, Stewart and his wife filed a joint name change application and legally changed both of their surnames to "Stewart." He proposed to his future wife through a personalized crossword puzzle created with the help of Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The New York Times. The couple had their first child, Nathan Thomas Stewart (named after Stewart's grandfather), They also have a cat named Stanley and two pit bull terriers, Monkey and Shamsky (named after former Major League Baseball player Art Shamsky).

Filmography

Bibliography

Naked Pictures of Famous People (Rob Weisbach Books, 1998) ISBN 0688171621

(Warner Books, September 2004) ISBN 0-446-53268-1

(Grand Central Publishing, 2010) ISBN 978-0446579223

References

External links

in 2010 in 2005 in 2004

Collected news and commentary at The New York Times

Category:1962 births Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:Actors from New York City Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American media critics Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American political pundits Category:American satirists Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television personalities Category:College of William & Mary alumni Category:Criticism of journalism Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish comedians Category:Living people Category:Male comedians Category:Peabody Award winners Category:People from Mercer County, New Jersey Category:People from New York City Category:New York Democrats Category:Thurber Prize for American Humor winners Category:William & Mary Tribe athletes

Caption	Hodgman in 2009
Birth date	June 03, 1971
Birth place	Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Birthname	John Kellogg Hodgman
Occupation	Actor, author, humorist, television personality
Yearsactive	2005–present

John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 3, 1971) is an American actor, author and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a Mac" advertising campaign, and for his correspondent work on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

His writings have been published in One Story (to which he contributed the debut story), The Paris Review, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Wired and The New York Times Magazine, for which he is editor of the humor section. He contributes to Public Radio International’s This American Life, and CBC Radio One’s Wiretap. His first book and accompanying audio narration, The Areas of My Expertise, a satirical tongue-in-cheek almanac which actually contains almost no factual information, was published in 2005. His second book, More Information Than You Require, went on sale October 21, 2008.

Hodgman was the headline speaker at the 2009 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C.

Early life

Hodgman was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended the Heath School and Brookline High School and graduated in 1994 from Yale University with a degree in literature. Before gaining fame as a writer, Hodgman worked as a literary agent at Writers House in New York City, where he represented Darin Strauss, Deborah Digges, and actor Bruce Campbell, among others. Hodgman has used his experience as an agent in his column “Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent” at McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Television appearances

Hodgman appeared on The Daily Show on November 16, 2005, to promote his book, The Areas of My Expertise. Host Jon Stewart described the book as “very funny” and said that the section on hobo names in particular was written with “a certain kind of genius.” Hodgman has returned to the Daily Show several times for "resident expert" interview segments, and he is listed on the show's web site as a contributor.

In 2005, Hodgman played a character named "The Deranged Millionaire" in They Might Be Giants's Venue Songs DVD/CD, narrating in between songs with dialog he co-wrote with the band. He also narrated a number of Venue Songs-themed setlists during the band's live shows in 2005, and has introduced the band while in the role of The Deranged Millionaire as recently as May 16, 2007. Hodgman appeared again with They Might Be Giants on The Late Late Show, with Craig Ferguson, on December 11, 2009. Hodgman performed the spoken-word portions of the song Why Does the Sun Shine?

In February 2006, Hodgman appeared on Attack of the Show, a show that airs daily on G4, to share some insight with the host and promote his book The Areas of My Expertise. In this appearance, Hodgman recounted the sad tale of the lobster (which he said were actually a small, furry, extinct species, killed and replaced by the creatures we think of as lobsters today) and brought along Jonathan Coulton, a frequent Hodgman collaborator and musical director of the Little Gray Book lectures. Coulton performed a song called Furry Old Lobster. Also, on October 18, 2008, Hodgman appeared again on Attack of the Show to talk about his newest book More Information Than You Require.

Hodgman appears in the Get a Mac advertising campaign for Apple Inc., which started in May 2006. In the ads he plays the personification of a PC alongside his Mac counterpart, played by actor Justin Long. In reality, however, Hodgman himself became a Mac user in 1984.

In 2007, Hodgman appeared in the "Bowie" episode of the HBO television series Flight of the Conchords. He played the manager of a musical greeting card company who was considering using one of the band's songs for a greeting card.

Hodgman appeared in the episode "No Exit" of Battlestar Galactica, appearing as the civilian neurosurgeon, . He had earlier visited the set in 2005 to write about the show for The New York Times Magazine. A bottle of Edradour given as a gift to the show's producers also appeared in the episode "Crossroads, Part I."

On Friday, June 19, 2009, Hodgman was the headline speaker at the 2009 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C. Hodgman referred to this event as a "Nerd Prom." Many of his jokes were on the topic of President Barack Obama as the first nerd president, and quizzed the president on his knowledge of Frank Herbert's novel Dune.

Hodgman appeared in the last two episodes of the first season of Bored to Death, "The Case of the Stolen Sperm" and "Take a Dive," as a literary reviewer who wrote a bad review that offended the main character. He returned in the second season.

Hodgman voice-acted on The Venture Bros. in the episode "Self-Medication" as Dale Hale, an ex-boy detective in therapy following the death of his father.

Also, during the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in September 2009, Hodgman provided color commentary with made up trivia about the winners. He reprised this role for the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards in August 2010.

Because of his continuing support for QI, the BBC's intellectual comedy quiz, to be shown on BBC America, Hodgman was invited to appear on the show. He was the first “fifth panelist" on the program broadcast 3 December 2009 (the usual line-up being Stephen Fry as host, Alan Davies as regular panelist and three guests)—and won, continuing the tradition of a guest winning their "rookie" appearance on the show, despite his terrible, near-silent performance. .

Other media appearances

Film appearances

2007: Super High Me as Himself (deleted scene)

2008: Baby Mama as Fertility Doctor

2009: Coraline as Father/Other Father (voice actor)

2009: The Invention of Lying as Wedding Overseer

Radio

Hodgman has been a guest on a number of different radio programs including PRI's This American Life and The Sound of Young America, WFMU's The Best Show on WFMU, NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and North Carolina Public Radio's The State of Things. Hodgman has also been featured on several podcasts including occasional appearances as "Judge John Hodgman" on Jordan, Jesse GO! which led to a stand-alone podcast produced by Maximum Fun. Hodgman was also a guest along side Jonathan Coulton on a number of episodes of You Look Nice Today. Hodgman was also a guest on This Week In Tech with Leo Laporte and has been featured on the podcast Boing Boing TV. Hodgman also appeared in person and on the NPR radio broadcast of City Arts and Lectures, in a recorded interview by Dave Eggers, in front of a live studio audience on November 10, 2008, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, California.

Online

the show with zefrank

TED Diggnation Episode 231 Today in the Past (podcast) Two articles on the website Open Letters in the year 2000. In them, he details a family trip to Ocean City, New Jersey shortly after his mother's death, and uses his experiences there as metaphors for life and death.

Transcript of welcoming remarks at a literary reading shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11

Music

Track 12 Question and answer time on MC Frontalot's Zero Day (album)

In print

.]] As contributor:

Hodgman appears on the cover of the February 2007 edition of Wired Magazine, as a contributor to their "What we don't know about..." articles.

Hodgman oversaw the "True Life Tales" section of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The section is currently on hiatus.

Hodgman has guest written for the "Sedaratives" section of The Believer Magazine. "Sedaratives" is an advice column created by Amy Sedaris.

Hodgman wrote the Massachusetts chapter in the anthology .

Hodgman wrote the introduction to The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out (2009), a collection of Adam Koford's "Hobotopia" comic strips.

Hodgman founded The Little Gray Book Lectures in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The lectures have been on hiatus "for the foreseeable future" as of August 2007. As author:

The Areas of My Expertise (ISBN 0-525-94908-9, 2005)

More Information Than You Require (ISBN 0-525-95034-6, October 2008)

References

External links

Official site for The Areas of My Expertise

John Hodgman on Twitter

Good Evening—Hodg-man on Blogger (inactive)

"Interview with John Hodgman"

Category:1971 births Category:American humorists Category:Living people Category:McSweeney's Category:People from Brooklyn Category:People from Norfolk County, Massachusetts Category:This American Life personalities Category:Yale University alumni Category:Apple Inc. advertising

Janet Tavakoli is an American author and structured finance expert based in Chicago. She has had three books published on credit derivatives, structured finance, and the 2008 global financial crisis.

Education and background

Tavakoli grew up in the south side of Chicago, received a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1975, and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1981.

After marrying an Iranian Ph.D. student in college, Tavakoli lived in Iran for over a year during the time the Shah was overthrown, leaving in 1979, three months after Ayatollah Khomeini returned.

Career

Tavakoli has worked in finance since completing her M.B.A. in 1981. She has traded, structured, and sold derivatives and structured products in both New York and London. In addition, she has held senior positions in the global financial markets division at Westdeutsche Landesbank in London, the capital markets group for Bank One in Chicago, the Swap (finance) trading desk and mortgage-backed securities marketing for Merrill Lynch in New York, and MBS marketing to Japanese clients for PaineWebber (now UBS) in New York. She has also worked for Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers and Bank of America.

She taught "Derivatives: Futures, Forwards, Options and Swaps" at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as adjunct associate professor of finance.

Writing

Tavakoli's book Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (2009) uses her discussions with Warren Buffett on credit derivatives and structured finance as context for analyzing the global financial meltdown of 2008. The discussions began after Buffett invited her to lunch after receiving a copy of her book Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Structures (1998, 2001). This book, along with her Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization (2003, re-published as Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization in 2008), outlines flaws in the methodology for rating structured financial products.

She has also written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Business Week, and other financial publications. She points out that many decisions made appear to favour companies with connections to government officials making the decisions. In particular, she criticizes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, headed by Timothy Geithner at the time, for deciding to pay Goldman Sachs and other financial firms 100 cents on the dollar for billions of dollars of troubled AIG credit default swaps, while other bond insurers have settled similar contracts for as little as ten cents on the dollar. AIG had been trying to persuade the banks to settle for a discount of 40 cents on the dollar.

Henry Paulson, the prime architect of the bailout, was CEO of Goldman Sachs at the time those CDS agreements were entered into. Geithner was later appointed Treasury Secretary by the Obama administration.

Works

Credit derivatives: a guide to instruments and applications, Wiley, 1998, ISBN 9780471246565

Credit derivatives & synthetic structures: a guide to instruments and applications, John Wiley and Sons, 2001, ISBN 9780471412663

Collateralized debt obligations and structured finance: new developments in cash and synthetic securitization, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, ISBN 9780471462200

Dear Mr. Buffett: what an investor learns 1,269 miles from Wall Street, John Wiley and Sons, 2008, ISBN 9780470406786

Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization, John Wiley & Sons, 2008, ISBN 9780470288948

Notes

External links

BusinessWeek Article

University of Chicago Magazine Article

Interview on C-Span | Transcript

Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:American finance and investment writers Category:Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Category:University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni

Name	Eric Holder
Office	82nd United States Attorney General
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	David OgdenJames Cole
Term start	February 3, 2009
Predecessor	Michael Mukasey
President2	George W. Bush
Term start2	January 20, 2001
Term end2	February 2, 2001Acting
Predecessor2	Janet Reno
Successor2	John Ashcroft
Office3	Deputy Attorney General of the United States
Term start3	June 13, 1997
Term end3	January 20, 2001
President3	Bill Clinton
Predecessor3	Jamie Gorelick
Successor3	Larry Thompson
Birth date	January 21, 1951
Birth place	The Bronx, New York, United States
Party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Sharon Malone
Children	MayaBrookeEric
Profession	Attorney at Law
Alma mater	Columbia University
Religion	Episcopal

Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is the 82nd and current Attorney General of the United States and the first African American to hold the position, serving under President Barack Obama.

Holder previously served as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, a United States Attorney, Deputy Attorney General of the United States and worked at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. He was senior legal advisor to then-Senator Barack Obama during Obama's presidential campaign and one of three members of Obama's vice-presidential selection committee.

Early life

Eric H. Holder, Jr. was born in the Bronx, New York, to parents with roots in Barbados. Holder's father, Eric Himpton Holder, Sr. (1905–1970) was born in Saint Joseph, Barbados and arrived in the United States at the age of 11. He later became a real estate broker. His mother, Miriam, was born in New Jersey, while his maternal grandparents were immigrants from Saint Philip, Barbados. In 1969, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and attended Columbia College, where he played freshman basketball and was co-captain of his team. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history in 1973. Holder received his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, graduating in 1976. He worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund during his first summer and the United States Attorney during his second summer. In 1988, then-President Ronald Reagan appointed Holder to serve as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Holder stepped down from the bench in 1993 to accept an appointment as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from President Bill Clinton. He was the first African-American U.S. Attorney in that office. During his confirmation hearing, Holder's opposition to the death penalty was questioned, but he pledged his intention to cooperate with the current laws and Reno, saying, "I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us." Holder was the first African-American to serve in that position.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder advised Reno about how far to go in the Justice Department's use of the Independent Counsel statute. Reno made the decision to permit Kenneth Starr to expand his investigation into the Lewinsky affair, leading to Clinton's impeachment.

After presenting his case to Holder in a November phone call and a last minute January 17 letter, Quinn arranged a phone call between the White House and Holder, asking the Deputy Attorney General to share his opinion on the Rich pardon. Holder gave Clinton a "neutral, leaning towards favorable" opinion of the pardon.

During his February testimonies before the House Government Reform Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder argued his phone call was not intended as a formal Justice Department blessing of the pardon, saying, "my interaction with the White House, I did not view as a recommendation. because I didn't have the ability to look at all the materials that had been vetted through the way we normally vet materials." He also did not believe his opinion would be interpreted as a go-ahead for the pardon. "What I said to the White House counsel ultimately was that I was neutral on this because I didn't have a factual basis to make a determination as to whether or not Mr. Quinn's contentions were in fact accurate, whether or not there had been a change in the law, a change in the applicable Justice Department regulations, and whether or not that was something that would justify the extraordinary grant of a pardon." An investigation led by House Government Reform Committee chairman Dan Burton concluded in a 2003 report covering 177 Clinton pardons that Holder had played a significant role in facilitating the Rich pardon, first by recommending the well-connected Jack Quinn to Rich's legal representatives, by failing to fully inform prosecutors of the pending pardon, and by eventually delivering a "neutral leaning favorable" opinion to Clinton from a position of authority. Holder has expressed some regret over his handling of the Rich pardon, stating "I wish I had done some things differently with regard to the Marc Rich matter. Specifically, I wish that I had ensured that the Department of Justice was more fully informed and involved in this pardon process", and called his own actions a "mistake".

Holder was also involved in Clinton's decision to reduce the criminal sentences of 16 members of the Boricua Popular Army, an organization that has been categorized by the FBI as a terrorist organization. The clemency request was initially opposed in 1996 by U.S. Pardons Attorney Margaret Love. When Holder was elevated to Deputy Attorney General in 1997, he was asked to reexamine the issue by three members of Congress. In July 1999, Holder recommended clemency to Clinton with a report from then U.S. Pardons Attorney Roger Adams that neither supported nor opposed clemency. A month later, Clinton granted clemency. According to The Hartford Courant, the grant of clemency was unusual because it was opposed by the FBI, the federal prosecutor and the victims. According to the newspaper, it was also unusual because before the commutations, the Boricua Popular Army members were not required to repudiate their actions and were not asked to provide any information concerning the whereabouts of Victor Manuel Gerena, a co-conspirator and one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, or the millions of dollars stolen by the group in a in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Private practice

From 2001 until he became Attorney General, Holder worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., representing clients such as Merck and the National Football League.

In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita's payment of "protection money" to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. In the agreement, Chiquita's officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represented Chiquita in the civil action that grew out of this criminal case.

The firm represented Guantanamo inmates but Holder "never participated directly in the firm's Guantanamo work", and is not expected to recuse himself from matters pertaining to it.

While D.C. v. Heller was being heard by the Supreme Court in 2008, Holder joined the Reno-led amicus brief, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and said the position of the Department of Justice, from Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton, was that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State’s operation of a well-regulated militia. Holder said that overturning the 1976 law "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."

In 2008, Holder represented the wife of Robert Wone, victim of a controversial and unsolved 2006 murder.

Attorney General of the United States

detainees]] In late 2007, Holder joined then-United States Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign as a senior legal advisor. He served on Obama's vice presidential selection committee. He is opposed to the Bush administration's implementation of the Patriot Act, saying it is "bad ultimately for law enforcement and will cost us the support of the American people." He has been critical of Enhanced interrogation techniques and the NSA warrantless surveillance program, accusing the Bush administration of a "disrespect for the rule of law... [that is] not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism."

On December 1, 2008, Obama announced that Holder would be his nominee for Attorney General. He was formally nominated on January 20, 2009 and approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 28. Following his confirmation by the full Senate on February 2, 2009, he became the first African-American Attorney General of the United States. His installation took place on March 27, 2009 at the Lisner Auditorium of the George Washington University.

During his confirmation hearings in the Senate, Holder agreed with Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, that a technique used by U.S. interrogators under the Bush administration known as waterboarding is torture. Holder was confirmed by a 75-21 vote on February 2, 2009.

Holder gave a speech on race relations on February 18, 2009, in the midst of Black History Month, in which he called the United States "a nation of cowards" on racial issues. "Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about race," he said. The speech stirred mild controversy, with some reacting favorably to Holder's comments and others sharply criticizing them. Obama rebuked Holder's comments, saying that “I think it’s fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language”.

When questioned about weapons regulations during a news conference to announce the arrest of Mexican drug cartel members, Holder stated that the Obama administration would seek to re-institute the expired Assault Weapons Ban, which he strongly supports.

After the U.S. government filed suit against the Swiss bank UBS AG, whom Holder had represented during his time in private practice, the attorney general recused himself from all legal matters concerning the bank, which stands accused of conspiracy in U.S. tax fraud.

On April 1, 2009, Holder announced that he had ordered the dismissal of the indictment against former Senator Ted Stevens on corruption charges. Stevens had been found guilty, but hadn't been sentenced; Holder's action effectively vacated Stevens' conviction. Holder was reportedly very angry that the prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from Stevens' attorneys. After the prosecutors had been held in contempt of court for failing to turn over required documents, Holder replaced the entire trial team. Soon afterward, the Justice Department discovered a previously undocumented interview with Bill Allen, the prosecution's star witness. In this interview, Allen gave statements that directly contradicted his testimony at trial, including a claim that he'd been asked to get a note for a repair bill on his house. By nearly all accounts, Holder wanted to send a message that he would not tolerate any behavior he deemed to be prosecutorial misconduct.

Holder presented friend and predecessor Janet Reno, Attorney General under the Clinton Administration, the American Judicature Society's (AJS) Justice Award on April 17, 2009. The award is the highest given by the AJS, and recognizes significant contributions toward improvements in the administration of justice within the United States.

On November 13, 2009, Holder announced that accused September 11 attack conspirators Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi would be transferred from the military commission system to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for trial. He also expressed confidence that an impartial jury would be found "to ensure a fair trial in New York".

Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 14, 2010, "No final decision has been made about the forum which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants will be tried. As I said at the outset, this is a very close call."

In May 2010 Holder expressed "concerns" about "Arizona’s tough new immigration law", saying that it might "lead to racial profiling". Holder was criticized for his testimony during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, when he said that he had "not read" the Arizona law and that he had formed his opinions on the basis of news reports. In July 2010, Holder stated that the Justice Department filed suit against the Arizona law because it is preempted by federal law. Holder was quoted as saying, "I understand, first off, the frustration of the people of Arizona and the concerns that they have with regard to the amount of illegal immigration that occurs, but the solution that the Arizona legislature came up with is inconsistent with our federal Constitution."

Holder's Department of Justice ended a civil suit originally brought by the Bush administration against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation due to an apparent lack of evidence. This has caused controversy amongst conservative commentators, since some former members of the department, including J. Christian Adams, accused Holder and the Justice Department of dropping the case due to racial prejudice. Other pundits have pointed out that DOJ officials at the end of the Bush Administration said that the facts of the case did not constitute a prosecutable criminal violation and refused to pursue this course of action before Obama was inaugurated.

In July 2010, Holder flew to Kampala, Uganda, to address the Heads of State Summit of the African Union, where he discussed the Obama Administration's priorities with regards to Africa and the terrorist bombings in Kampala during the World Cup

Before the November 2010 elections, Holder stated that he planed to prosecute people in California if they possess marijuana even if Californian voters passed a proposition legalizing marijuana (Proposition 19). Proposition 19 was ultimately defeated.

After the United States diplomatic cables leak in December 2010, Holder said that "We have an active, ongoing, criminal investigation with regard to this matter," Holder said. "We are not in a position as yet to announce the result of that investigation, but the investigation is--is ongoing. To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law and who has put at risk the assets and the people that I have described, they will be held responsible," Holder said. "They will be held accountable." Holder's comments leave open a crucial question, which is whether the investigators are looking at how WikiLeaks obtained the documents (not unlike probing a news organization's source), or if they're looking at whether WikiLeaks staffers violated criminal law and should be the ones indicted.

Personal life

Holder is married to Dr. Sharon Malone, an obstetrician; the couple have three children. Malone's sister was Vivian Malone Jones, famous for her part in the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door which led to integration at the University of Alabama. Holder has been involved with various mentoring programs for inner-city youths. He is also an avid basketball fan.

Awards

In June 2009 the Government of Barbados announced that it would begin a project to determine the first 100 Great Barbadians which would be selected among the public of Barbados. At the announcement of the project it was announced that Eric Holder was the first candidate to be nominated toward the final list.

On May 16, 2010, Eric Holder presented the commencement address at Boston University, for both the All-University Ceremony and the School of Law. In addition, he was presented with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. On May 19, 2009, Holder was chosen by his alma mater, Columbia College, to be its Class Day Speaker.

References

Further reading

External links

Profile at the United States Department of Justice

Answers.com

Columbia University

Covington & Burling

The History Makers

Homeland Security Policy Institute

Eric Holder's federal campaign contribution report at NewsMeat

Holder Speech at Department of Justice African American History Month Program Feb. 18, 2009

Authenticated text, audio, video of Eric Holder Speech at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program AmericanRhetoric.com

Attorney General Holder Speech to the African Union Summit July 2010

Will Eric Holder Be the Anti-Torture Hero? by Andy Worthington, The Huffington Post, July 12, 2009

|- |- |- |-

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:African American judges Category:African American lawyers Category:African American members of the Cabinet of the United States Category:American people of Barbadian descent Category:Columbia Law School alumni Category:Deputy Attorneys General of the United States Category:Obama Administration cabinet members Category:People from the Bronx Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni Category:United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia Category:United States Attorneys General

Name	Elizabeth Warren
Office	Special Advisor for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
President	Barack Obama
Term start	September 17, 2010
Office2	1st Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel
Term start2	November 25, 2008
Term end2	November 15, 2010
Deputy2	Damon Silvers
Successor2	Ted Kaufman
Appointer2	Harry Reid
Order3	Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Term start3	1995
Birth date	June 22, 1949
Birth place	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Residence	Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Alma mater	University of Houston, Rutgers School of Law—Newark
Spouse	Bruce Mann
Children	Amelia Warren Tyagi, Alexander Warren
Profession	Lawyer, Law school professor, Appointed official
Website

Elizabeth Warren (born Elizabeth Herring, June 22, 1949) is an American attorney and law professor. She serves as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She is also the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law. In the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis, she became the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to investigate the U.S. banking bailout (formally known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program). She has long advocated for the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010.

On April 12, 2010, CNN reported that Warren's was among additional names being considered as Supreme Court nominees to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. On May 24, 2010, Time Magazine called Warren, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro the "New Sheriffs of Wall Street" in a cover story. On September 17, 2010, she was named a special adviser by President Obama to oversee the development of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her position will include the responsibility of recommending a director for this new entity, although it is unclear whether Warren herself will be considered for the position.

Personal life

Elizabeth Warren was born Elizabeth Herring, and raised in Oklahoma where she was a state champion debater at age 16. She married Jim Warren at age 19, and transferred from George Washington University to the University of Houston, where she graduated with a B.S. in 1970. In 1976 she received her J.D. from Rutgers Law—Newark, where she served as an Editor to the Rutgers Law Review and was one of two female summer associates at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's Wall Street office. After law school, Warren worked from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings for walk in clients. She divorced Warren in 1978, and later married Bruce Mann.

She joined Harvard Law School in 1992 as the Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. Prior to Harvard, she was the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and also taught at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan and Rutgers Law School.

From 2005-2008, Warren and her law students wrote a blog called Warren Reports, part of Josh Marshall's TPMCafe.

Warren appeared in the documentary film Maxed Out in 2006, has appeared several times on Dr. Phil to talk about money and families, has been a guest on The Daily Show, is interviewed frequently on cable news networks, appears in Michael Moore's , and has appeared on the Charlie Rose talk show.

Warren is a member of the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Executive Council of the National Bankruptcy Conference. She is the former Vice-President of the American Law Institute and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as the Chief Adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.

Warren is married to Bruce Mann, a legal historian and law professor also at Harvard Law School. She has a daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, with whom she has coauthored two books and several articles, and a son, Alexander Warren. She is an ex-Sunday School teacher and cites Methodist John Wesley as an inspiration. }}

In an article in Time magazine by Maryanna Murray Buechner, "Parent Trap" (subtitled "Want to go bust? Have a kid. Educate same. Why the middle class never had it so bad"), Buechner said of Warren's book:

}}

In 2005, Dr. David Himmelstein and Warren published a study on bankruptcy and medical bills, which claimed that half of all families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. The finding was particularly noteworthy because 75% of those who fit that description had medical insurance. This study was widely cited, although critics from the insurance industry argued that the criteria used were too loose. In 2007, the team repeated the study, using more robust criteria. They concluded that the proportion of medical bankruptcies had increased to 62% of personal bankruptcies and that, once again, about three-quarters of those families had health insurance at the onset of their medical problems.

TARP oversight

On November 14, 2008, Ms. Warren was appointed by United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Panel releases monthly oversight reports that evaluate the government bailout and related programs.

The Panel's monthly reports under Warren's leadership covered foreclosure mitigation, consumer and small business lending, commercial real estate, AIG, bank stress tests, the impact of TARP on the financial markets, government guarantees, the automotive industry, and many other topics. The Panel has also released special reports on financial regulatory reform and farm loans. For each report, Warren released a video on the Congressional Oversight Panel's website explaining key findings. All reports and videos are available at cop.senate.gov.

In her role as Chair of the Panel, Warren testified many times before House and Senate committees on financial issues.

In an interview at Newsweek, December 7, 2009 entitled "Reining in, and Reigning Over, Wall Street" Elizabeth Warren was asked: "Congress is trying to reform financial regulation, and it can get a little abstract. Where should people focus?"

She responded: : To restore some basic sanity to the financial system, we need two central changes: fix broken consumer-credit markets and end guarantees for the big players that threaten our entire economic system. If we get those two key parts right, we can still dial the rest of the regulation up and down as needed. But if we don't get those two right, I think the game is over. I hate to sound alarmist, but that's how I feel about this.

Public Service After TARP

While not officially on the short list of potential nominees to replace retiring US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, members of the media speculated on her potential service on the court. In an interview by Tavis Smiley, Warren was asked about serving on the Court and also about heading a potential Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She was complimented by Tavis on her diplomatic answers and she asserted that she has not been asked to serve in either of those capacities. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Warren is the top pick of Democratic leaders in Congress to head the new consumer agency. There have also been calls for her to challenge Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts in the 2012 election.

Recognition

Warren was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009 and 2010.

In December 2009, the Boston Globe named Warren the Bostonian of the Year.

The National Law Journal has repeatedly named Professor Warren as one of the fifty most influential female lawyers, and she has been recognized for her work by SmartMoney magazine, Money magazine, and Law Dragon.

In 2009, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Leila J. Robinson Award.

Warren has been recognized for her dynamic teaching style. In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's teaching award twice. The Sacks-Freund Teaching Award was voted on by the graduating class in honor of "her teaching ability, openness to student concerns, and contributions to student life at Harvard." Warren also has won awards from her students at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and the University of Houston Law Center.

On August 13, 2010 a rap video by the Main Street Brigade was put on YouTube in an effort to encourage President Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren as the first director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Publications

;Articles

'Bankruptcy Policy' (1987) 54(3) The University of Chicago Law Review 775-814

'The Untenable Case for Repeal of Chapter 11' (1992) 102(2) The Yale Law Journal 437-479 73

'Bankruptcy Policymaking in an Imperfect World (1993) 92(2) Michigan Law Review 336-387

'The Bankruptcy Crisis' (1997–1998) 73 Indiana Law Journal 1079

'Principled Approach to Consumer Bankruptcy' (1997) 71 American Bankrupcy Law Journal 483

'Financial Characteristics of Businesses in Bankruptcy' (1999) Am. Bankr. L.J. 499 (with JL Westbrook)

'Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy' (2005) SSRN (with DU Himmelstein, D Thorne and SJ Woolhandler)

'The Success of Chapter 11: A Challenge to the Critics' (2009) 107 Michigan Law Review 603 (with JL Westbrook)

'Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,' (2008) American Journal of Medicine (with DU Himmelstein, D Thorne and SJ Woolhandler)

;Books

Notes

External links

Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School

*Bibliography

Generation, Gap, and interview with Elizabeth Warrn in Guernica Magazine

Elizabeth Warren: a tough sheriff in finance's Wild West, Telegraph

Warren Winning Means You Won't Sell It If You Can't Explain It, Bloomberg

In fight over credit rules, she wields a plan, Boston Globe

The TARP Queen: Why we should all bow before Elizabeth Warren (even if you've never heard of her), Slate

Bank Buster, Mother Jones

The Debt Crusader: Inspired by Dr. Phil, Harvard's Elizabeth Warren has gone to D.C. to change the way America borrows, Newsweek

Elizabeth Warren on the Economy, NOW on PBS

Video: Elizabeth Warren, New Yorker, Nov. 16, 2009

Interview with Yahoo! Finance, Oct. 16, 2009

Voices of Power Video: Elizabeth Warren, Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2009

Interview with Elizabeth Warren from Frontline

Elizabeth Warren on NPR link to full interview for show of 2009-05-08

UCTV programs with Elizabeth Warren

*The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net

*Conversations with History: Law, Politics, and the Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren

Warren Reports at TPM Cafe

Warren says Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is Obama’s "Strongest Financial Reform" - video report by Democracy Now!

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:American academics Category:American economics writers Category:American female lawyers Category:American finance and investment writers Category:Harvard Law School faculty Category:People from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Category:Rutgers School of Law - Newark alumni Category:University of Houston alumni Category:University of Michigan faculty Category:University of Pennsylvania faculty

Name	Christopher Hitchens
Color	green
Caption	Hitchens in 2007
Birthname	Christopher Eric Hitchens
Birthdate	April 13, 1949
Birthplace	Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK
Occupation	Writer and pundit
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Nationality	American/British
Religion	None
Genre	Polemicism, journalism, essays, biography, literary criticism
Spouse	Carol Blue (1989–present)
Children	Alexander, Sophia, Antonia
Relatives	Peter Hitchens (brother)
Influences	George Orwell, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Leon Trotsky, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Isaiah Berlin He is a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 he was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll.
Name	Hitchens, Christopher Eric
Short description	Author, journalist and literary critic
Date of birth	13 April 1949
Place of birth	Portsmouth, England, UK}}

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