Free Republic

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — also known as AOC — said the “quiet part out loud,” in the eyes of former President Donald Trump and his supporters: that the business records trial sparked by Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against him is keeping him off the campaign trail. After the Trump campaign announced this week that Trump was doing an event in the South Bronx on Thursday evening, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters he was doing so because the trial was keeping him tied up in New York. ... Her remarks validated Trump’s repeated assertions that the charges brought against...

Former President Donald Trump is set to hold a campaign rally in the South Bronx on Thursday, an audacious statement of intent in a borough that hasn’t backed a Republican for the White House in 100 years. Not since Calvin Coolidge won every Empire State county in 1920 and 1924 has a GOP candidate won the Bronx and Trump is unlikely to break that trend — having failed to reach 10% support in 2016 and barely reaching 15% four years ago. “The park only holds a couple thousand people. So this is certainly not going to be a Wildwood. But...

Google and Meta are spearheading a fierce push to kill New York legislation aimed at protecting children online — and the controversial lobbying battle is poised to surpass $1 million in spending ... The SAFE Act would crack down on addictive recommendation algorithms used by social media apps by requiring them to provide default chronological feeds for users 18 or younger unless they receive parental consent. It would also allow parents to impose time limits on social media use and in-app notifications. ... The Child Data Protection Act would block apps from collecting or selling the personal or location data...

*** [I]n my 60 years as a lawyer and law professor, I have never seen a spectacle such as the one I observed sitting in the front row of the courthouse yesterday. The judge in Donald Trump’s trial was an absolute tyrant, though he appeared to the jury to be a benevolent despot. He seemed automatically to be ruling against the defendant at every turn. Many experienced lawyers raised their eyebrows when the judge excluded obviously relevant evidence when offered by the defense, while including irrelevant evidence offered by the prosecution. But when the defense’s only substantive witness, the experienced...

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher reacted to New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn arguing that the paper shouldn’t be an instrument for the Biden campaign and only write negative stories about Republicans while writing solely positive stories about Biden by stating that this is what the paper does now. Maher said, “Now that I’m doing interviews…the big question that people are asking me, I see every interviewer ask the same question, which is like, you make fun of the left a lot more than you used to. Yes, I do, because they’re goofier and...

The Biden administration faced fierce GOP opposition last year after its decision to host the recently deceased Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi — a Holocaust denier dubbed the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in the mass executions of tens of thousands of political prisoners — in New York to attend the 2023 United Nations session. On Sunday, search teams reportedly located the site where a helicopter carrying the Iranian president crashed, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the state’s news agency. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials were also reportedly on board the helicopter that went...

“Texas is paying the price. I hope they learned a lesson,” Senator Schumer said. “Texas thought it could go it alone,” Senator Schumer declared on the Lower East Side. “Now Texas is paying the price. I hope they learned a lesson." But Democrats never learn their lesson. And they’re never expected to learn. In 2003, New York City’s power went out because of a mistake by an operator in Ohio as part of the second biggest blackout in history which took down the grid in eight states and in Canada. Texas’ decision to go it alone was a whole lot...

Deputy of NYC Mayor Eric Adams calls out Washington Post for article on wealthy Jews' advocacy for Israel.

President Biden applauded a call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip Sunday while attending the commencement of Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday. Valedictorian Deangelo Fletcher, who spoke before Biden’s commencement address, stopped short of any direct rebuke of the president but called for an “immediate and a permanent ceasefire.” “It is only right for the class of 2024 to utilize any platform provided to stand in solidarity with peace and justice,” Fletcher said while evoking the activism of Morehouse alumnus Martin Luther King Jr.

Some wealthy Jews would like to influence American public opinion. They also appeal to their elected representatives. That is the "news" in a Washington Post "exclusive" that ran Thursday, and the paper makes clear that there is something very untoward about it. The piece, by reporters Hannah Natanson and Emmanuel Felton, is based on an inside look into an online chat that included New York City mayor Eric Adams and several wealthy New York businessmen. In that chat, several people pressed Adams to send the New York Police Department to clear out Columbia University’s dangerous, disgraceful, and violent pro-Hamas encampment,...

New York City is losing drugstores as retail theft continues to surge. Gotham has logged 21,578 shoplifting complaints this year through May 12, up 5% from the 20,552 thefts during the same period last year. Manhattan has seen 8,896 incidents of retail theft alone. Crime is so rampant, national chains like Target, CVS and Walgreens are closing locations and tempering expansion plans. Target announced at the end of last year the closure of nine stores across four states, including one in Harlem, due to theft.

Cohen’s testimony on cross-examination unraveled his claims about Trump’s motivations, a phone call he previously alleged, and his collusion with Bragg.Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s flimsy case against former President Donald Trump rests on the testimony of its star witness, convicted liar Michael Cohen. But unsurprisingly, Cohen — and his allegations against Trump — fell apart on the witness stand under cross-examination by Trump’s defense team on Thursday.Even CNN couldn’t help but admit it.“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a star cooperating witness get his knees chopped out quite as clearly and dramatically as what just happened with Michael Cohen,”...

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), the prosecutor linked to billionaire George Soros who is currently prosecuting former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, has offered plea deals to six of the nine migrants accused of attacking two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers in January. On January 27, a mob of Venezuelan migrants were caught on surveillance and police body cam footage attacking a pair of NYPD officers outside of a taxpayer-funded migrant shelter in midtown Manhattan. .....

New York City’s public school system has received billions of dollars in additional funding since 2020 — despite enrollment cratering by nearly 100,000 students during that time, an analysis released Wednesday reveals. Per-student spending at K-12 Department of Education schools is expected to hit $39,304 in the upcoming fiscal year 2025 budget — a massive 26.3% increase, equating to $8,185 more per student since 2020, the “Did You Know” study by the Citizens Budget Commission found. Mayor Eric Adams proposed a 10.2% increase or $2.1 billion more in city taxpayer funding for the Big Apple public school system — which...

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll have asked a federal appeals court to expedite Donald Trump’s appeal of the verdict in their first trial in which a jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump liable for defamation and battery in May 2023. Carroll wants to see the oral arguments for the appeal scheduled to take place by July, arguing that the former president will try to further delay the proceedings, using his ongoing criminal trial or busy campaign schedule as an excuse. The motion with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals filed Tuesday cites Trump’s numerous attempts...

Even after five weeks, the Trump bookkeeping case in Manhattan is a "Potemkin Village," according to law professor Jonathan Turley. That means it has all the appearance of being real, but upon closer inspection, there's no there there. Indeed, the indictment of former President Donald Trump on 34 counts of bookkeeping errors, statute-expired misdemeanors that have been miraculously spun into a series of felonies, is the Seinfeld of criminal cases. But a jury could still find him guilty. "It's Trump," Manhattan jurors could say to themselves. "Of course, Cheeto-man must be guilty of something." But after the prosecutors told Judge...

Six of the migrants charged in connection to the vicious attack on two NYPD officers in Times Square were offered plea deals Tuesday as a Manhattan judge revealed that one of the accused cop-beaters was arrested again while out on bail. Yohenry Brito, 24 — who was remanded after his initial arrest — was nabbed last week for petit larceny after an activist Brooklyn priest posted his $15,000 cash bail in February, Judge Laura Wood said in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday. “I am furious that Mr. Brito was rearrested and charged with petty larceny while he was out on...

The northern border shares something in common with the southern border of the United States - it is understaffed and Border Patrol agents are stretched thin. Despite a lack of proper support, agents at the northern border continue to apprehend a record number of illegal border crossers. In the busiest northern border sector of Swanton, Border Patrol agents made history by apprehending the greatest number of illegal border crossers in sector history of 1,109 in March, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. While the numbers are significantly lower than those apprehended at the southwest border, they are out...

A New York county executive plans to "deputize" legal gun owners to help law enforcement officers during emergencies, but the move is facing pushback from critics who say it will lead to acts of vigilantism. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said the deputies must be over 21 years old, be U.S. citizens and Nassau County residents, undergo a full background check, take a drug test and have a valid firearm license. They would be paid $150 a day for their service, according to the plan. "They will have to be trained on the law and use of force," Blakeman, a...

This article is posted in its entirety after a podcast from Bloomburg discussed the unfair NYC property tax system.New York City’s notorious property tax system — which places a higher burden on rental properties and advantages affluent white areas at the expense of lower-income neighborhoods of color — appears headed for a major overhaul.The state’s highest court voted 4-3 on Tuesday to reinstate a lawsuit by a coalition called Tax Equity Now New York that sought to have the convoluted system declared illegal.The Court of Appeals revived two claims from the suit, which had previously been dismissed by lower courts....