Free Republic

The tables have turned. Police are investigating the vandalism of the inflammatory sign at ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem over the weekend as a hate crime. The unlikely situation stands to paint the church’s controversial pastor, James David Manning, who frequently adorned his marquee with blatantly vicious messages, in a sympathetic light. …

Former congressman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner — who has been looking for a new gig ever since he twice torpedoed his political career by sexting random women on the internet — has finally found a job. Beginning this week, Weiner will write a monthly political column (creatively titled, "Weiner!") for Business Insider.

<p>Consider what passes for a scandal in New York City these days: The rich, conservative Koch family funding a wing of a city hospital. Wall Street types financing charter schools for poor kids in the South Bronx and Harlem. Non-union Walmart trying to open a store in a low-income neighborhood, which would deliver both cheaper goods and jobs to the locals.</p>

After assuming office in January, Mayor Bill de Blasio wasted no time mounting his assault on New York City’s charter schools. His recent decision to pull the plug on three previously approved charter schools has drawn praise from teachers unions. However, some supporters have accused him of not going far enough. This view displays an ignorance of school choice and a misguided understanding of the purpose of public education. Nothing exemplifies this ignorance better than the response made by Brooklyn City Councilman Vincent Gentile. Referring to one of the 14 charter schools that were permitted to move forward by de...

One of Gov. Cuomo’s top Republican supporters ignited an uproar Tuesday by comparing populist appeals targeting income inequality to arguments made by Nazis in pre-war Germany. Kenneth Langone, the billionaire co-founder of The Home Depot and a chairman of Republicans for Cuomo, made the remark when asked by Politico how the rich view the political arguments made by Mayor de Blasio and other liberals.

Saturday, March 08, 2014 The Black Hitler of Harlem Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Black Hitler was a Chicago community organizer who moved to New York. Somewhere along the way he picked up a gold lined cape, a purple turban and a stepladder on which he used to stand while giving speeches outside the stores of Harlem's dwindling Jewish community.  The cape and the turban were combined with Nazi style military shirt and jackboots, for the quixotic uniform of a man who is remembered today as a pioneering labor leader-- but was known back then...

New York's gubernatorial race got its first declared GOP candidate on Wednesday in the form of Rob Astorino, the Westchester county executive who announced via Web video that he would challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in this year's election. "I'm tired of listening to the fairy tale that everything is just great when it's just the opposite. I'm tired of watching New York's decline," Mr. Astorino said in the six-and-a-half minute video. Mr. Astorino, 46 years old, emerged as a likely contender after winning re-election in November in heavily Democratic Westchester with 56% of the vote. The former radio host, however,...

Riders, state legislators and transit advocates spoke out Sunday against Governor Cuomo’s proposed raid of $40 million in transit funds for subway and bus services. In his January executive budget, Cuomo proposed that the state use that money to pay off bonds it originally took out to help the MTA financially, but promised to pay back using state money.Advocates say the raid breaks earlier vows the state made to the MTA and its riders. …

WHITE PLAINS — After nearly 20 months of buildup, the misdemeanor trial of Kerry Kennedy ended on Friday in a breakneck blur, as jurors took one hour to find her not guilty of driving under the influence of a drug. The five-day trial, which featured a riveting turn on the witness stand by Ms. Kennedy, 54, was centered on an act that neither she nor prosecutors dispute: On July 13, 2012, she drove her Lexus S.U.V. erratically after swallowing Zolpidem, a generic form of the sleep medication Ambien. She sideswiped a tractor-trailer on a highway in Westchester County before she...

Kerry Kennedy acquitted of drugged driving in New York WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Kerry Kennedy was acquitted Friday of drugged driving in a July 2012 incident in which she accidentally took a sleeping pill and then sideswiped a truck in a wild highway drive she said she didn't remember. Kennedy hugged and clasped hands with her lawyers as a six-person jury cleared her of driving while impaired, a misdemeanor. It had carried the potential for up to a year in jail, though that would be unlikely for a first-time offender.

A forthcoming study is challenging claims, repeated over and over in the media, that federal restrictions effectively froze gun research over the last two decades. The Crime Prevention Research Center study examined how a 1996 decision by Congress to strip funding for firearms research actually impacted the world of academia. To hear national media outlets tell it, the decision led to a drought in research from 1996 to 2013 -- when such funding was once again allowed. Stories from The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters and other outlets all have claimed that Washington, with the backing of the National Rifle...

LOCKPORT – Lockport police violated Paul A. Wojdan’s constitutional rights by counting the bullets in his gun and charging him with violating New York’s SAFE Act, Lockport City Judge William J. Watson ruled Wednesday. Watson dismissed a misdemeanor charge against Wojdan, filed because the magazine of his 9 mm Ruger handgun contained 10 bullets, more than the limit of seven bullets per magazine under the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act. On Dec. 31, 2½ months after Wojdan’s Oct. 12 arrest, Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny ruled that the seven-bullet rule was unconstitutional, the only portion of the...

A frail Ethel Kennedy showed up at the Westchester County courthouse this morning to support her daughter Kerry Kennedy on the first day of her trial on drugged driving charges. Ethel Kennedy, the 85-year-old widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was in a wheelchair and accompanied by an unidentified man and woman when she entered the courtroom shortly after 9 a.m. Kerry Kennedy had hoped to avoid a trial, but her bid to have the case tossed failed last week after a judge denied her motion to have the case dropped because she supposedly took a sleeping pill by accident....

She’s a mom, a human-rights leader — oh, and another fatherless Kennedy. Testifying in her own defense at her drugged driving trial Wednesday, Kerry Kennedy wasted little time before playing the “Daddy” card. “Daddy was the attorney general during the civil rights movement and then a senator,” the 54-year-old testified, supposedly explaining why she grew up in Virginia, but coyly invoking the memory of her slain father, Sen Robert F. Kennedy.

A jury was poised to begin deliberations after Kerry Kennedy told them how she accidentally took prescription sleeping pills that then "overtook" her, causing her to crash her car on a highway. Kennedy, 54, took the stand to testify in her own defense Wednesday in her drugged driving trial. She is accused of driving under the influence of zolpidem, a sleep medication better known as Ambien, and slamming her SUV into a truck on a New York highway in July 2013.One final witness, a forensic pharmacologist, is expected to be called by the defense on Thursday to testify to the...

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has raised an imposing $33 million, is riding high in the opinion polls and is expected to cruise to a second term this November. But for a political tactician as restless as Mr. Cuomo, a nearly foregone conclusion is not good enough. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is taking the unusual step of involving himself in the selection of his challenger, telling some top Republicans that they should be leery of nominating Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, who is expected to announce his candidacy soon. People with knowledge of the conversations have offered differing...

Republican Rob Astorino will announce the first week in March that he will run for governor of New York. The Westchester County executive is expected to make the announcement March 3 or 4 along with his agenda on "eight key issues," the New York Post is reporting. The decision to enter the race came after receiving promises of at least $15 million in campaign contributions and more to come, if he can tighten the race between himself and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is expected to have $40 million in the bank for his re-election bid. "There'll be a...

If you're not busy this weekend, Lisa Duggan the President-elect of the American Studies Association, is holding a 'secret' anti-Israel conference, the agenda of which she published (above) on her Facebook page. But the most curious part is that this conference is supposed to be a secret.... And for those of you - like me - who are solicited multiple times each year for donations to NYU, the university is apparently sponsoring this conference. It is unclear whether this conference is officially sponsored by NYU itself. The registration webpage says all questions should go to NYU, implying that this...

ALBANY >> With his re-election campaign underway, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is riding high in the polls, but don’t tell that to Assembly member Steven McLaughlin, his self-described loudest critic. “I would point to a multitude of problems, but I think overwhelmingly he’s a bully,” McLaughlin said last week. “He acts that way and it’s catching up with him.” McLaughlin, a Rensselaer County Republican, compared Cuomo to Hitler and Mussolini after the SAFE Act gun law was pushed through the Legislature in January 2013, later apologizing for a poor choice of words. A year later, he says voters in his district...

Kerry Kennedy may agree to a plea deal over driving while drugged charges stemming from a 2012 accident so she can continue her extensive human rights work. Kennedy, 54, is afraid a conviction would bring with it restrictions that would curtail her international travels – she has visited several dozen countries on humanitarian missions. The plea deal was previously discussed between her legal team and prosecutors before being shelved, but her attorneys have brought it back to the table with her trial slated to start Monday, according to the New York Daily News. Lawyers originally tabled the deal while preparing...