Free Republic

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June ordered state Attorney General Barbara Underwood to pause her investigation into Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s handling of the Harvey Weinstein case, a spokeswoman for Underwood confirmed Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami took a few moments in his Tuesday statement about Michael Cohen’s plea deal to sing neutrality’s praise: “His day of reckoning serves as a reminder that we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone.” If there is only “one set of rules,” where is Mr. Mueller’s referral of a case against Hillary for America? Federal law requires campaigns to disclose the recipient and purpose of any payments. The Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to compile a dossier against Mr. Trump...But the campaign funneled the money to law firm...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development hit Facebook Inc. with an administrative complaint alleging the social media company’s advertising tools enable those managing property to discriminate in housing. Filed on Aug. 14, HUD’s administrative complaint alleges that both the social media company’s ad targeting tools and user classification enable the limitation of ad audiences on characteristics “outright prohibited” by the Federal Housing Administration, said the government’s formal statement of interest. Among the grounds on which Facebook is alleged to have allowed discrimination are “sex, religion, familial status, and natural origin, and pretexts for protected characteristics.”

To US President Trump: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

<p>The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) has always been at the forefront of issues that are critical to the welfare of our state and our country. This year, NYSBA will return to an issue that continues to be a scourge of our society - the prevalence of gun violence and mass shootings in the United States.</p>

Starbucks, the nation's largest food and drink retailer, announced on Monday that it would be going strawless.... As is to be expected, Starbucks' decision was greeted with universal adulation.... Yet missing from this fanfare was the inconvenient fact that by ditching plastic straws, Starbucks will actually be increasing its plastic use. As it turns out, the new nitro lids that Starbucks is leaning on to replace straws are made up of more plastic than the company's current lid/straw combination.

WASHINGTON — Max Della Pia's campaign is taking some heat after it was discovered that portions of his write ups on policies were plagiarized from a former Democratic candidate's website...about 20 passages of Della Pia's website were similar to the website of Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who ran for Congress last year in a special election in Georgia. Ossoff ultimately lost to Republican Karen Handel, but it was a close race that garnered a lot of public attention. Many passages were taken word for word from Ossoff's site.... As of Monday morning, all of the policy sections of Della Pia's...

A New York state trooper in Steuben responding to an early-morning call in Steuben County. State police say the shooting happened around 3:30 a.m Monday morning on Welch Road in the Town of Erwin, not far from SUNY Corning Community College. Troopers say 29-year-old Nicholas Clark was responding to a call of a suicidal person. When Trooper Clark arrived, State police say 43-year-old Steven Kiley shot and killed Clark, before apparently taking his own life. State police say Kiley was a school principal, but did not say which school he worked at.

Facebook blocked more people from seeing posts about 4th of July fireworks in Greece, N.Y. Why? Politics and Russia. Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich says he was trying to inform as many people as possible about the free 4th of July events in the town. When he boosted the posts, he says Facebook blocked them because Facebook said they were political. Reilich posted the events on his official supervisor Facebook page where he is listed as a "government official." When he tried to pay Facebook $90 to boost the posts, so more people could see them, he says Facebook said...

A Stuart man is behind bars, accused of threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Brian Mast’s children in response to current immigration policies. Mast has three young children. Laurence Wayne Key is facing federal charges under the offense of "communication of a threat to kidnap or injure a person." Key’s social media pages show he is very politically active. He volunteers regularly for the Democratic Party of Martin County and has volunteered many hours for Planned Parenthood, according to a friend of Key’s.

The Red Hen, a farm-to-table restaurant in the Shenandoah Valley, has been flooded with mostly one- and five-star Yelp reviews after White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that the owner had asked her to leave Friday night because she works for President Donald Trump... "Despicable and outlandish behavior. The only thing served here … if they agree to serve you ... is a heaping plate of arrogance and hypocrisy," Yelper Russell H of McKinney, Texas, wrote on Saturday morning in a one-star review.

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether the government has used the Justice Department’s awesome investigative authorities as a weapon against political adversaries. We learned yesterday that, in response to this ... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . . . threatened to use the Justice Department’s awesome investigative authorities as a weapon against political adversaries. That Rosenstein threatened to subpoena the committee’s records does not seem to be in serious dispute...the best explanation for the outburst is that Rosenstein is beset by profound conflicts of interest, and he’s acting like it.... Rosenstein has clung to his role as Mueller’s ostensible...

Arizona Republic corrected Thursday an op-ed published last week that erroneously claimed the “the federal government has lost — yes, lost — 1,475 migrant children in its custody” (emphasis added). “An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody,” the correction reads. The correction comes days after the New York Times, Vox, and the Washington Post published articles explaining that...

Sodus, NY -- Authorities have not yet charged a Mexican citizen in the death of his girlfriend and the disappearance of her 14-month-old child, but the man known as Alberto Ebavardo Guiterrez-Reyes isn't going anywhere. The 25-year-old man, suspected of working illegally on a Sodus farm, has been ordered held by federal immigration officials. He's also facing an evidence tampering charge in connection with his girlfriend's death. "Alberto Ebavardo Guiterrez-Reyes" is an alias for Evarardo Donoteo-Reyes, a twice-deported Mexican citizen, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement.... The mother, Selena Hidago-Calderon, was found dead Wednesday in a wooded area...

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Alberto Gutierrez-Reyes had been deported twice, in 2016 and again last year. Reyes was arrested Thursday for the murder of his wife Selena Hidalgo-Calderon, whose body was found Wednesday morning in a wooded area near her home in Sodus. Meanwhile, the search will resume Sunday for 14-month-old Owen Hidalgo-Calderon. Wayne County Sheriff Barry Verts expressed his concern Friday that Owen will not be found alive.

Denia Perez’s parents brought her from Mexico to the United States illegally when she was 11. Last month, she became among the first of the so-called “Dreamers” to earn a law degree. And now, she and others are using their lawyerly know-how to take on the system so they can legally practice. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows young immigrants who entered the U.S. before 2007 and before their 16th birthday to go to school under temporary renewable work permits, became law in 2012. That means the first beneficiaries have now had just enough time to graduate...

In late 2016, federal agents showed up at the Fort Myers, Florida, homes of brothers Brian and Edward Krassenstein, seizing computers and financial records, and hauling off with “at least 20 to 30 bundles of stuff.” At the time, the story was just a notable blip on local media’s crime blotter. But in the two years since, the Krassensteins have become more than a pair of local businessmen. They’re now prominent members of the online anti-Trump “resistance.” According to the feds, they also, until recently, ran websites that propped up fraudulent online financial scams. Law-enforcement officials last year seized nearly...

In March 2017, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) successfully delayed for 11 days Senate ratification of Montenegro's entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). America's leading advocate for NATO expansion, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) responded by accusing Paul of "achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin...of trying to dismember this small country." "I repeat again," McCain said then, remarkably. "The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin." Perhaps even more remarkably, though not very surprisingly, McCain is unapologetic about that accusation in his valedictory new memoir, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations. "Senator...

Racism and discrimination continue to grab headlines throughout the country on a near daily basis. These incidents present themselves often in tangible, visible ways that lend themselves to those very headlines naturally, but not always. For example, one of them has hung prominently in school classrooms for decades as doctrine of healthy living despite, some argue, inequities of who exactly it is healthy for. Doctor Milton Mills explained these inequalities of the US Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines at length, painting a picture of the historical negligence of the US government when it comes to crafting their food recommendations to...

Cornell Republicans are worried that students may have collected as many as 88 tickets to lower turnout for Tuesday’s Dick Cheney lecture in a move taken without seeking approval from the student organizations leading the protest against the former U.S. vice president. Marco Antonio Peralta-Ochoa, freshmen representative-at-large for the Student Assembly, approached members of the Cornell Republicans and admitted to collecting dozens of tickets “countless times” in what Weston Barker, current C.R. freshmen representative and incoming treasurer, considered a serious, 45 minutes to 1 hour-long conversation in Amit Bhatia Libe Cafe last Wednesday. Peralta-Ochoa declined to comment to The Sun...