Free Republic

New York’s top court handed a victory to opponents of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas Monday by affirming the right of municipalities to ban the practice within their borders. The state Court of Appeals affirmed a midlevel appeals court ruling from last year that said the state oil and gas law doesn’t trump the authority of local governments to control land use through zoning. […] The court in a 5-2 decision stressed that it did not consider the merits of fracking, but only the “home rule” authority of municipalities to regulate their land use. The court said the towns of...

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger leads Albany's Walk for Life. (Photo creidt: Michael Schweigert / Citizens Concerned for Human Life) ALBANY, NY – Albany’s new bishop led about 1,000 pro-life activists in a Walk for Life around New York’s state capitol building June 17. Catholics from the diocese, which had been directed for nearly four decades by a bishop known for his progressivism, see the new bishop as a “springboard of new energy” for the pro-life movement in the city. “It's just wonderful to have someone in our corner who is committed to the cause." Organized by local Catholics Jason and...

ALBANY, New York — The cathedral filled with applause as New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan placed the bishop's miter on the head of the Rev. Monsignor Edward Scharfenberger, ordained Thursday as the 10th bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Albany.Hundreds of white-robed priests and 34 bishops from across New York and New England participated in the Ordination Mass at the red-stone neo-Gothic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception near Albany's capitol complex.Scharfenberger, 65, of New York City, was appointed by Pope Francis to succeed Bishop Howard Hubbard, who was the longest-tenured bishop of a single diocese in the nation when...

When Andrew Cuomo was running for governor in 2010, he claimed time and again that he wanted to represent and fight for all the people of New York – all, that is, except Catholics.Since taking office in 2011, Cuomo, who was baptized a Catholic, graduated from Archbishop Molloy H.S. in Queens County and Fordham University, has been hell-bent on offending Catholics and dismissing their beliefs in the public square.Cuomo’s first assault was on Catholic teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. He was embarrassed that his state had been “surpassed by many other countries which have legalized...

I say “probably” because I haven’t had time to research the factual claims behind the legislation. But if anyone thinks conservatives are against all government action, then this might be a time to set the record straight. If the facts are correct then I think if is quite likely that the NY legislature is doing exactly what it needs to do. In that case, I hope other states, or even the Federal Government follows their example. Here is Newser.com’s summary:

Now they want to psych test your little children. What is New York going to do with that information?A bill introduced by State Senator Margaret Markey, A8186-2013, calls for an amendment to education law to mandate psychological screenings for students in public schools as part of the required health certificate.The law reads that a mandatory health certificate “shall also state that a psychological examination was performed and that the child is mentally fit to permit attendance at school.”That’s not all. The bill further reads: “Each such certificate shall also state the student’s body mass index (BMI) and weight status category.”What...

It’s the curse—or maybe the blessing—of living in a place that doesn’t make or break presidential elections: The president and those running for the job just don’t come around very often. So President Barack Obama’s two-day bus tour this week through swaths of western and central New York, a state that reliably backs Democrats in presidential elections, set the region abuzz. … Bus tours have long been standard fare in presidential campaigns. But Obama has occasionally hit the open road outside of the campaign cycles, boarding his black Secret Service-approved motor coach in search of an escape from the insular...

The Albany protest, staged outside the Federal Courthouse on Broadway, drew some 200 people, many of whom carried signs and chanted the slogan ‘no justice no peace.’.... .. Zimmerman was acquitted of murder and manslaughter by a Florida jury, largely due to the circumstances under which prosecutors were bound by Florida’s controversial ‘stand your ground’ laws, which sanction and expand the use of deadly force in cases of so-called self-defense. Martin had been walking along a street in Sanford, Florida; in an area patrolled by neighborhood volunteer Zimmerman. The two became engaged in confrontation, the details of which remain...

You can't brew beer without malt, which is something Ted Hawley thinks legislators forgot about when they passed a farm brewing bill last year that will eventually require ales and lagers labeled "New York Beer" to contain 90 percent locally grown ingredients. "They just thought they could grow barley in New York," Hawley said. "They didn't know there was another step, which is malting. It has to be malted before you use it in a brew. So it was kind of interesting that they put this huge amount of effort into requiring 90 percent ingredients from New York, but there's...

Fantastic Historic Civic Action May 21 If you deem this worthy – spread the words We are On the March for real. Look at all the stuff we are achieving – there are too many action items to mention here but we know there are many – such a rewarding feeling. We have rallied in more places and with more people on one issue than ever before. We now have bad governance in fear of “We the People”. We are making a DEMAND for a vote and have at least 300,000 signatures to back it up. We have put them...

The Mr. Ding-A-Ling truck hadn't been rolling through the streets here for more than a week before Joshua Malatino made his message clear: There ain't enough Fudgsicles in this city for the both of us. Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Cops-Snow-Cone-Joe-stalked-Mr-Ding-A-Ling-in-4479911.php#ixzz2SMcToNAd

Albany Police Officers Union, local 2841, “We respectfully demand that you do the right thing and repeal the law.” FROM: Albany Police Officers Union, local 2841, Council 82, AFSCME, AFI-CIO, P.O BOX 6567, ALBANY, NEW YORK 12206 (518) 438-9422 To: Andrew M. Cuomo / Dean G. Skelos / Neil D. Breslin / John T- McDonald III / Phil Steck / Sheldon Silver / Jeffrey D. Klein / Cecilia Tkaczyk / Patricia Fahy Note; see the formal list of people this letter went to at the bottom. April 15,2013 Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen: The Albany Police Officers Union condemns and opposes...

(JTA) -- A New York teacher who assigned her students to write a persuasive essay on why Jews are evil has been placed on leave and will be disciplined. The teacher, who has not been named, was placed on leave from her job at Albany High School on Friday, and could face a reprimand or firing, according to the Albany Times Union. School Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said in a news conference on Friday, where she appeared with members of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federation, that the teacher will be disciplined by the school district and might not return...

Try to imagine a high school tasking its students with making a logical argument to support the proposition that black people are evil. If you find that thought experiment too perverse even to imagine, substitute Jews for blacks, and there’s no need to use your imagination at all. It really happened, at a school in upstate New York. The Epoch Times reports that Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard of the Albany School District apologized Friday for a writing assignment that asked students to “argue Jews are evil” while making a persuasive argument blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany. Wyngaard...

AMHERST, N.Y. - A state lawmaker is calling for an investigation into how an Amherst man's guns were taken away by mistake. State Assemblyman Ray Walter says when he saw the news coverage of David Lewis' case, he knew immediately something was "seriously wrong." Walter wants some answers, when he meets face-to-face with the State Police Superintendent in Albany next Tuesday. Lewis said, "It's been very embarrassing. I feel like I've been let down, and my privacy's been invaded." Lewis was forced to turn in his seven handguns and stripped of his pistol permit. After State Police in Albany identified...

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. “You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It was the ultimate putdown of state lawmakers caught in the corruption spotlight. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said they’re not qualified to get real jobs. The circus has returned to Albany. The man known in some parts as “El Bloombito” took out his rapier to cut state lawmakers down to size with a jab only a self-made billionaire could fire off, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported Friday. “The average legislator who has to make policy on things that influence our lives, our kids’ lives, our future, would they ever get a job in the private sector making...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A man previously charged with having child pornography cut an electronic monitoring device off his ankle before carjacking a woman, fatally stabbing her and raping her 10-year-old daughter, authorities said. David J. Renz abducted the school librarian and her daughter as they left a gymnastics class at a mall in the Syracuse suburb of Clay, about 150 miles west of Albany, on Thursday night, state police said Friday. Renz bound both victims, raped the girl and drove a short distance to a spot where the girl escaped and was found by a passing motorist, troopers said....

The never-ending campaign… The Obama campaign is going to bus people in for a protest in Albany. The campaign put a post up on its website advertising the event. Via Free Republic:

From a reader: Diocese of Albany is asking all Mass attendees to participate in ritual of extending our arms and praying and blessing the priest who just said Mass. Part of their “Called by Name” vocations pitch. I didn’t hold up my arm, I folded my hands & prayed for the priest. Not comfortable. Am I uncharitable? Goodness gracious. Quousque tandem?Some dioceses did this “Called by Name” program some thirty years ago. If I am not mistaken, a large number of names of potential priestly vocations were identified this way. Most of them were from relatively conservative backgrounds. But in...