Free Republic

Downtown developer Carl P. Paladino, who is nearing a decision on whether to run for governor this year, said Monday that if he enters the contest, it will be as a candidate for the Republican nomination. Paladino, who earlier this month said “tea party” activists are urging him to run on an independent line, now says his best option lies in a challenge to presumptive Republican nominee Rick Lazio, the former Long Island congressman. “If we’re going to do it, that’s the way,” he said. “I’ve ruled out all these other options.” Paladino, who had been a Democrat for many...

ALBANY, N.Y (AP) - Calls for Gov. David Paterson to abandon his election bidmounted Thursday as the state attorney general announced he would investigate whether the administration or state police committed a crime in talking to a woman who had filed a domestic violence report against a top aide to the governor. Paterson's top criminal justice Cabinet member resigned Thursday over the burgeoning scandal, saying conduct by the state police was "distressing" for an administration that has devoted itself to reducing domestic violence. Elected officials and other candidates for office clamored for Paterson to end his campaign - formally launched...

Andrew Cuomo is missing in action. He is running a campaign for Governor while hiding from the people of New York. It's nothing more than politics as usual. Andrew Cuomo has been part of the Albany dysfunction for so long he believes the people can be ignored. As Martha Coakley found out in Massachusetts, the people will be heard from. Watch our new web video "Silence" by clicking below and then join our movement to speak up, stand up, and take back New York State from politicians like Andrew Cuomo.

Albany Bureau Chief ALBANY - Attorney General Andrew Cuomo shouldn't fear a racial backlash in a Democratic primary against Gov. Paterson, according to a new poll released Wednesday. In fact, the Quinnipiac University poll found Cuomo has higher approval ratings than Paterson among African-Americans, 78% to 60%. Yet black voters still say they prefer Paterson, 42% to 34%. A whopping 80% of voters, including 73% of African-Americans, disagree that a primary would be racially divisive despite such warnings from Rep. Charles Rangel and Paterson's father, Basil. Overall, Cuomo leads Paterson 55% to 23% in a potential Democratic primary matchup, down...

ALBANY, N.Y. — Republican Rick Lazio told state Conservative Party leaders Monday that Democrat Andrew Cuomo has been hiding in a foxhole while Albany burns. Even as Lazio targeted Albany’s political status quo as out of touch with New Yorkers, he drew a challenge for the Republican nomination to run for governor from a candidate who said he represents the GOP’s antiestablishment “tea party” faction. The announcement by Warren Redlich of Albany County shows a revived interest in the prospects for the Republican party, which lost its base of power in the 2008 elections. Of Cuomo, Lazio said, “Rather than...

ROME, January 28, 2010 – More than half a century after that long ago 1952, and in both cases with administrative elections around the corner, the  diocese of the pope is today presented with the same threat: that its civil government may fall into enemy hands. But the Church's reactions today appear much different than they did then. In 1952, the pope and the Vatican authorities, in a state of high alarm, swung into action in person. Fearing the electoral victory, right under the Vatican walls, of communists and socialists who at the time were closely connected to the...

Key Republicans, including former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, are urging Rick Lazio to drop his long-shot bid for governor and challenge embattled -- and vulnerable -- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, The Post has learned. D'Amato, who once worked closely with Lazio during his tenure as a Long Island congressman, told Lazio in a face-to-face meeting late last month that "you can't win for governor, but you can beat Gillibrand." "He told Lazio that [Attorney General Andrew] Cuomo is going to be the Democratic nominee for governor and that if he finally wants to have a chance of winning a statewide election, he...

Italy's four main mafia organisations have put aside their deadly differences to form a new and dangerous "fifth mafia" in Rome, a report has warned. The co-operation between the organised crime syndicates is a new and worrying development for the country's capital, researchers said. The impoverished south of Italy has been the traditional power base for the country's four mafia groups – Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra from Campania, the 'Ndragheta of Calabria and the lesser known Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia. But Mafiosi are now targeting Rome and the surrounding region of Lazio, according to a study by Libera...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The wave of voter anger aimed at incumbents in last Tuesday's off-year elections is just what an against-all-odds campaign in New York's governor's race needed. Two weeks ago, Republican candidate Rick Lazio was quietly running an uphill campaign for the 2010 race. He faced a rising Democratic wave in New York, with every statewide office held by Democrats, rising party enrollment and a Democrat in the White House. Lazio even called his effort "the little engine that could." But the Election Day vote that ended the tenures of suburban county executives, legislators and two governors gave...

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009 Lazio to Enter N.Y. Governor's Race By SUZANNE SATALINE Rick Lazio, a former Republican congressman from Long Island, N.Y., will announce on Tuesday that he's running for governor, a spokesman said. Mr. Lazio, who served four terms in Congress, chose in 2000 to run for Senate. He lost to Hillary Clinton, who is now secretary of state. Mr. Lazio, 51, is on leave from J.P. Morgan Chase where he is a managing director. He will seek to unseat Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat who is struggling in the polls. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican,...

A new Marist poll does not bring good news for Gov. David Paterson, who can't seem to get his approval rating to budge, no matter how hard he tries. Just one-fifth of the electorate thinks the governor is doing a good job, while 34 percent rate his performance as "poor." Paterson was at 21 percent in a June Marist poll and 19 percent one month prior to that. He continues to score poorly with voters across the board - even members of his own party. Only 24 percent of fellow Democrats say he's doing well as governor. As for 2010,...

Former U.S. Congressman Rick Lazio said today that will run for governor of New York. Lazio, a Republican, will make a formal announcement on Sept. 21 in Albany. He will then spend the week traveling around the state, meeting with voters. Lazio, 51, served part of Long Island in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993-2001. In 2000, he unsuccessfully challenged Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race to fill one of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats. Lazio is currently a managing director at J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), focusing on client relations and public policy issues. He lives downstate....

Much like no-limit Texas Hold ‘em poker and hermit crab racing, politics is a game where you are rarely offered a second chance these days. Perennial candidates in national or statewide races — a regular feature in America through the first half of the 20th century — have been largely driven toward extinction by a prevailing political wind which banishes losers to the gulag of the Trivial Pursuit realm.

Former Long Island congressman Rick Lazio is apparently running for governor of New York. > http://lazio.com/

We were informed by my child's principal that Senators Hillary Clinton and Blanch Lincoln would be at his school for a reading program presentation. The letter said that only students and faculty could attend -- no parents or friends would be admitted. Usually the school has a real open door policy for parents. The program will not be taped (for later viewing of parents) as Clinton's press secretary will not allow it. So I can't even review what was said or hold anyone accountable. Supposedly this event is not to be used for political purposes. So what is it for?

Waving signs and banging sticks on plastic buckets like drums, about 200 people, mainly undocumented Mexican immigrants, marched through Farmingville yesterday demanding the right not to be evicted without notice and thrown into the street.'snip'The immigrants and their supporters, including priest and activists, were protesting the eviction by authorities last week of at least 28 Mexican day laborers from an overcrowded Farmingville house, leaving them homeless.'snip'[Steve] Levy shot back yesterday, saying his campaign is supported by wide swaths of people fed up with overcrowded houses in Farmingville. "The 99 percent of the county that supports the closing of this hellhole...

MIDI - MORE - scroll down to second section More than the biggest campaign finance fraud Bigger than anything here or abroad Larger than any throughout history Behind it all you will find Hillary More damage she will surely do...I am warning all of you 'Though it may sound shocking...White House doors they should be locking More than the cattle futures she pulled off She simply looked down at the law and scoffed Everyone knows it wasn't right...it's not hidden out of sight It was done in broad daylight More than the biggest campaign finance fraud Bigger than anything...

MIDI - TEDDY BEARS PICNIC - scroll down to Kiddie Favorites July 16th in 2001...a courier took the letter To Hillary he delivered it...he wishes he'd never met 'er The numbers had been made very clear...you can't say you did not know, my dear That is the day that Hillary wants forgotten Hillary cheated Lazio...the senate seat had been ripped off When Peter had found out what she did, the FEC he had tipped off The numbers had been made very clear...you can't say you did not know, my dear That is the day that Hillary wants forgotten She...

"HOW'S THE NEWS ON SOFT MONEY GOING?" MAURICE I. MICHAANE '03 There's good news and bad news on the campaign finance reform front . The good news lies in the unprecedented agreement between New York Senate candidates Hillary Rodham (D) and Rep. Rick Lazio (R) to forgo millions of dollars worth of soft-money advertising on their behalf and to urge independent groups not to mount ad campaigns for them. The bad news arises from evidence that, despite the campaign finance scandals of 1996, the White House guest rooms are still being used by President and Mrs. Clinton to raise money...

Do the cameras tell us lies? Italian policemen, magistrates and soccer officials are examining images to determine whether Paolo Di Canio should face criminal charges for stirring old fascist leanings with his celebration of a victory for SS Lazio over AS Roma in the febrile Roman "derby" contest last Thursday. The so-called Roman salute - stiff right arm and flat palm - that this appears to be was not, according to Di Canio and his agents, at all a political gesture, and certainly not intended as incitement to the known neo-fascist faction of hard-core Lazio fanatics in the north stand...