Free Republic

A federal court handed a big defeat to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Police Department today, ruling that the controversial “stop and frisk� program infringed on constitutional rights. Judge Shira Scheindlin appointed a federal monitor to oversee the NYPD and “reform� the practice, although that might prove impossible: A federal judge appointed an independent monitor Monday to oversee changes to the New York Police Department’s contentious policy known as stop, question and frisk, a significant judicial rebuke for what the mayor and police commissioner have defended as a life-saving, crime-fighting tool. …Four men had sued saying they were...

The junior senator has the support of Republican colleagues Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz on a measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Her work has garnered praise from GOP members as a Democrat they’d like to work with and is helping her own set of issues in Washington.,/i> WASHINGTON — It was a head-turning sight on Capitol Hill. There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, standing with firebrand Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to showcase their support of her measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations....

So what say we conduct the experiment that could – and I emphasize could here – finally settle the question once and for all. Let’s just nominate somebody who has welded on all three legs of the stool and leaves not a sliver of daylight for the squishiness question. A nominee who will state without ambiguity that we’re going to bomb the crap out of anyone who is actively working against our interests. One who flatly proclaims that there will be no abortions for anyone and new Supreme Court justices will be inclined to overturn Roe v Wade. They will...

Twin $50,000 donations were made to Andrew Cuomo’s campaign by two companies that have the same address as Extell Financial Services, which is part of Extell Development Co. — one of five developers to receive hefty tax relief thanks to a bill signed by the governor two days after the contributions. A top development company donated $100,000 to Gov. Cuomo just days before he signed a bill that quietly showered the firm with lucrative tax breaks. Two corporations tied to Extell Development each contributed $50,000 to Cuomo’s campaign, which recorded the checks on Jan. 28 — the same day the...

Has a corruption commission launched by New York governor Andrew Cuomo backfired on his political ambitions? The New York Daily News reports that Cuomo received two donations totaling $100,000 from a developer who stands to reap millions from a tax break signed by Cuomo — two days before he signed the bill: A top development company donated $100,000 to Gov. Cuomo just days before he signed a bill that quietly showered the firm with lucrative tax breaks.Two corporations tied to Extell Development each contributed $50,000 to Cuomo’s campaign, which recorded the checks on Jan. 28 — the same day the...

Sen. Mark Pryor gets an assist from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to save him from Bloomberg’s money, then cuts the ribbon at an ammunition factory. Gun control advocates are fine with the factory thing, but not Gillibrand’s money. Welcome to Arkansas 2014. WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Pryor broke ground at an expanded Remington ammunition factory in his home state of Arkansas Thursday — a gun-friendly move by a gun-friendly Democrat. That’s not normally something that would make much news: Even ardent Democrats in Arkansas are firmly supportive of gun rights. But with pro-gun control Democrats coming to his aid, Pryor’s 2014...

Anthony Weiner’s campaign fund-raising has virtually dried up since revelations of a sexting relapse rocked his bid for mayor. Weiner received an average of just $1,897 a day in donations since the new sexting scandal erupted July 23, campaign finance records released Friday show. That’s a trickle of the $16,434 he received each day, on average, in the 50 days after launching his run for mayor on May 22. The records also show that Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, collected no money on his behalf since the new sexting allegations emerged, after she collected nearly $150,000 in the first 50...

What a bunch of meatheads! New York pizza-lovers got a black eye from users of the travel megasite TripAdvisor, who rated the city’s slices a paltry fourth in the country behind outposts like San Diego and Las Vegas. Perhaps most offensive was the third-place choice of Boston, where reviewers gushed about pies with oddball toppings like shrimp scampi. “Get out of here, that’s crazy! Boston is No. 3?” said Jackson Heights resident Andrew Silverstein, 31, while enjoying lunch at famed Patsy Grimaldi’s new Brooklyn joint, Juliana’s. “I’ve had pizza in Boston, and it was a horrible experience.” Users of the...

The New York Times is facing more scrutiny from the pro-Israel community over Middle East-related articles it published this week, prompting the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. to write a letter to the editor complaining about the controversial coverage. This as the paper was forced to issue a correction after a conservative website pointed out an inaccurate key, lead fact in an article.As TheBlaze reported on Tuesday, the venerated newspaper was the target of sweeping criticism after publishing a front page article on Monday that appeared to downplay Palestinian stone-throwing against Israelis, which one youth characterized as a "hobby."The U.S....

Kahr Firearms Group announced Wednesday that it will relocate its corporate offices from New York to Pennsylvania, and blames New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act as reason why. “We’re looking for a more friendly environment for our business,” Frank Harris, Kahr’s vice president for sales and marketing, told the Associated Press. “Maybe we could have stayed here and built a plant, but the way the bill was passed left us feeling there were a lot of uncertainties going forward.” Kahr is the first gun company to announce that it will move out of New York. It’s relocating its...

Two of the men seeking to be New York City’s next comptroller touted their different backgrounds and experiences in an Aug. 1 forum in Laurelton, each saying his made him more qualified than the other to be the city’s next top financial officer. Democrat Scott Stringer is the Manhattan borough president and also served 13 years in the state Assembly. Republican John Burnett has spent more than 20 years in the financial services industry, including supervisory and management positions at Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who joined the Democratic campaign just prior to the deadline for...

MSNBC's Chris Matthews made a bold prediction on Wednesday's Hardball. "The hard-right is going to take over the Republican Party in 2016 and the nomination is going to Rand Paul" (video follows with transcript and commentary):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this. I’ve been offering a prediction of late. Let me nail it down now. I believe the Republican Party is going to go hard-right in 2016. It’s going to run someone from the growing hard-right wing of the Party, something it hasn't done since 1980. And here's the thinking which works equally...

The editor of the New York newspaper that created a furor by publishing the names and addresses of gun-permit owners suddenly is out of a job. According to the Rockland Times, a competitor to the Gannett-owned Rockland County Journal News, editor Caryn McBride is among the casualties of a recent purge at the Journal News. The report said 17 journalists were among a total of 26 staff members at the Journal News who were let go. It was the Journal News that in 2012 published the names and addresses of all gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties under the...

Money line: “This is what I do for a living.” Didn’t he predict a Bush/Clinton race in 2016 just nine months ago? If he believes what he says here about the parties swinging like “pendulums” from moderate nominees to ideologues and then back again, why would he have named Jeb as a strong contender last November? In fact, the roots of the counterargument are in Matthews’s own shpiel here: Most of the time, they head to the center. This is what Republicans did most successfully in 1952 – when, after twenty years of Roosevelt and Harry Truman – they wanted...

After Detroit filed bankruptcy two weeks ago, the attention turned to America's other financially distraught cities. Think Motown is the only major U.S. city in a boatload of financial trouble? Think again. Detroit's bankruptcy filing sent shivers down the spine of municipal bondholders, government employees, and big-city urban residents all over the country. That's because many of the 61 largest U.S. cities are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit into Chapter 9 bankruptcy this summer. These cities have amassed $118 billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities. These are legal promises to pay healthcare benefits...

The number of New York students passing state reading and math exams dropped drastically this year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards. In New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the tests in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department. The exams were some of the first in the nation to be aligned with a more rigorous set of standards known as the Common Core, which emphasize deep analysis and...

New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) exempted NARAL Pro-Choice New York from requiring non-profit groups disclose names...

We are road racing this weekend.

'I was expressing my frustration with the high cost of living in New York': Top Lacoste salesman is fired after posting his paycheck on Instagram A top salesman at Lacoste's flagship New York store has claimed that he was fired for posting a picture of his paycheck on Instagram. Wade Groom, from Brooklyn, New York, told Gothamist that he was merely 'expressing his frustration' with the expensive cost of living in New York, not with Lacoste in particular, when he shared a zoomed-out image of his pay slip.

NEW YORK -- Employees of the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones, a New York Mets affiliate, arrived at work Wednesday morning to find a swastika and racial and anti-Semitic epithets painted on a statue of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese that is on display outside MCU Park. ... "This is being treated as a bias crime," detective John Nevandro of the 60th precinct said in a statement. "Hate Crimes will investigate the incident."

In the past week, The New York Times Co. announced it was selling the Boston Globe to Boston Red Sox owner John W. Henry, and Washington Post Chairman Donald Graham announced Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos was buying the paper that Graham's family has run for decades. Both papers went cheap. The Times bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion and is now selling it for $70 million. The price tag on the Post was just $250 million. The combined $320 million market value of these two big-city dailies is about as much as the federal government now spends in...

If you can’t win, you might as well go down swinging. At senior citizens. At an AARP-Univision mayoral forum this morning, mayoral contender Anthony Weiner pulled out the age card to taunt his most vocal challengers, 69-year-old Doe Fund founder George McDonald. Weiner is 48. Before the debate, Weiner put a hand on McDonald’s back and said hello, prompting McDonald to reply: “I would appreciate if you would never touch me again.” Weiner retorted: “What are you going to do about it, grandpa?” according to two sources. A mild overreaction by McDonald, but in his defense, who knows where that...

Anthony Weiner’s sext buddy Sydney Leathers says that the former congressman and would-be mayor of New York contacted her “as recently as April 12,” contradicting Weiner’s account of the timeline. Leathers made the allegation in a post she wrote on xoJane, in which she tells her “10 secrets for seducing a politician,” just “in case,” she writes, “anyone wants to be as stupid as I was.” “Anthony says he hasn’t been cheating on Huma for six months,” she writes. “Wrong. He last contacted me as recently as April 12. Straight up lies.” Leathers went public with the existence of her...

<p>My hometown — Port Clinton, Ohio, population 6,050 — was in the 1950s a passable embodiment of the American dream, a place that offered decent opportunity for the children of bankers and factory workers alike.</p> <p>But a half-century later, wealthy kids park BMW convertibles in the Port Clinton High School lot next to decrepit “junkers” in which homeless classmates live. The American dream has morphed into a split-screen American nightmare. And the story of this small town, and the divergent destinies of its children, turns out to be sadly representative of America.</p>

Never say that Freedom of Speech is threatened in NYC. Not if you are a card-carrying Israel-Jew-Hating Soc/Commie/Prog-LEFTist who hates America as much as he/she hates the Jews and Israel.

A veterans group alleges in a federal lawsuit that officials violated its free-speech rights when they banned a "Don't Tread on Me" flag from a city-owned armory. The lawsuit filed last week in federal court says New Rochelle's action, in addition to being unconstitutional, was "unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious" and betrayed a lack of appreciation of history. The City Council had ordered the flag down in March, citing complaints that the yellow banner with a coiled rattlesnake was making a political statement. The flag has been used as an unofficial symbol of the tea party since at least 2008 and...

Police in New York City are trying to find a black man wearing a hoodie who is responsible for a horrific attack on a teenage white girl who was stabbed 11 times just steps from her front door. The knife-wielding maniac ambushed Natasha Martinez, 17, as she returned home from working her shift at a local McDonald’s restaurant. Hearing her daughter’s screams, Natasha’s mother, Wendy Martinez, came running outside — and the bloodthirsty attacker fled. “She came home from work, and her body was full of holes,” Wendy Martinez told the New York Daily News. “I was holding her because...

Peter King: Plot ‘most specific I’ve seen’ By: Breanna Edwards August 2, 2013 06:07 PM EDT Chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Rep. Peter King confirmed on Friday that “something serious is being planned,” prompting the shutdown of 21 U.S. embassies across the world. “There’s very little doubt, if any, that something serious is being planned,” the New York Republican told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on a phone call in “The Situation Room.” “I’ve been getting briefed fairly regularly over the last seven or eight years at least and also pretty heavily before then and this is the most...

Weiner says he is '100 percent not' sexting anyone right now NEW YORK — Anthony Weiner said he is “one hundred percent not” having any type of online relationship right now and insisted again that his days of sexting are well behind him. The Democratic mayoral hopeful told NBC New York that he has not sent lewd messages or pictures to women he met online for about a year and said he wants to move on and talk about other subjects. "I just think at a certain point, OK, I think people know these embarrassing things about me,” Weiner said....

What do northwest Washington, D.C., South Beach Miami and upper Manhattan have in common? Less than 50 years ago, the now vibrant communities didn't look much different from most of Detroit, says emergency manager Kevyn Orr—whom Gov. Rick Snyder tapped in March to revive the broken Motor City. This is what gives him hope that Detroit can stage a comeback. "D.C. in '91 was still burned out from the 1968 riots," recalls the youthful 55-year-old attorney who worked for 22 years in D.C., at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Resolution Trust Corporation, Justice Department and Jones Day law firm. "You...

The Al Qaeda threat that prompted the State Department to issue a worldwide travel alert and close down 21 embassies and consulates for the weekend is serious and 'very specific,' Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said Friday. “We’re not certain exactly where something might happen but it’s very specific as to when and it’s also very specific as to the fact that it is going to happen, so we have to be on alert everywhere,” the New York Republican told WINS-AM. The travel alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding...

Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins, is recruiting tax-and-spend puppet candidates to challenge fiscally conservative Florida Republican state legislators in the 2014 Republican primaries. The New York real estate investor’s actions are the latest in his campaign of personal destruction against fiscal conservatives who voted against massive taxpayer subsidies for Ross’ Sun Life Stadium. Ross, a real estate investor from Michigan who now lives in New York, owns 95 percent of the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium. Ross sought funding this year from Florida state and local taxpayers to cover much of the expenses for $350...

LOS ANGELES – Three million Time Warner Cable customers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas are losing the CBS channel, as the cable provider says it is dropping the network in a dispute over fees.

Embattled NY Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, facing the threat of a lifetime ban from baseball, and the loss of some $100 million left on his contract, just held an emotional press conference to announce that he was in fact transgendered, and was taking drugs supplied to him by Tony Bosch of Biogenesis, to prepare for a sex change operation after the season.

Many freshman Democrats in the House are defying Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and not voting with the party on key issues. They told Politico they are there to represent their constituents and not make big points with House leadership. Dan Maffei (D-NY) has voted less with his party than any other freshman Democrat. He voted with Republicans to delay the mandates in Obamacare for one year. Fourteen of his colleagues joined him and Pelosi accused them of undermining her. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-FL) took to the House floor to attack the defectors, but Maffei does not regret his actions:...

In nearly 140 years of Colorado history, it’s never happened before. This year it is happening twice: Two legislators, both Democratic members of the Colorado State Senate, will face recall elections after the Democrat-controlled legislature, bullied by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Vice President Joe Biden, and supported by Governor John “I’m a Moderate” Hickenlooper, passed heavy-handed and unpopular restrictions on gun rights in the Centennial State. The senators in question are Angela Giron (Pueblo) and John Morse (CO Springs), the latter being the... --snip-- The Secretary of State’s office has issued a notice that they intend to...

Every urbanite’s worst nightmare came true for one New Yorker this week: Jennifer Rosoff, leaning against the railing on the balcony of her Upper East Side apartment, suddenly fell 17 stories to her death after the railing gave way. This is obviously horrifying and tragic. Rosoff was a media executive with stints at The New Yorker and Cosmopolitan on her resume. It’s outrageous that the owners of her building were so remiss in their balcony inspection duties. But if you skimmed the beginning of the Associated Press’s account of Rosoff’s accidental death, you wouldn’t get much information about Rosoff’s promising...

Let's face it. Anthony Weiner is the comic relief we've been seeking: sexualized politics without a moral message. Salacious texting, a parody of sensual touching, doesn't depend on the meaning of "is" or "was." Vice in virtual reality is sexuality-lite, superficial fantasy, timorous titillation, shadows in the shallows of the Internet. Bill Clinton's affair with Monica has become so yesteryear. The former president is an aging adulterer from an earlier time. He broke ground in getting a public pass on his behavior, but he doesn't want Huma and Anthony to sweep Hill and Bill into a satirical performance they can't...

Andrew Cuomo has finally noticed no one, including him, has paid any real attention to the needs of upstate New York, but his actions and lack of actions tells us nothing has really changed. Governor Cuomo declares he is finally going to focus on improving the upstate economy, saying, “There has been no upstate focus…downstate dominates the legislature, because that’s where the people are.” We know, Governor; we’re the wan tail attached to that Great Dane, New York City. Whenever they twitch, we are wagged.

If anyone deserves a spa day, it's Anthony Weiner’s wife. The long-suffering Huma Abedin — who has kept a low profile since her husband’s latest sexting scandal broke — emerged from seclusion on Thursday and headed to the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa on Fifth Avenue. Ever the city girl, the stylish Abedin — clad in a belted shirt dress and cream cardigan — hopped the 6 train uptown for her day of pampering at the iconic spa. "I'm just getting my hair cut,” she told The News. Despite the strain of the scandal, Abedin showed no signs of stress....

SAN JUAN - Past Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Senate President and current Senator-at-large Thomas Rivera Schatz asserted today on the talk-radio program "En Caliente con la Jovet" (680 AM Radio) that President Obama is the "whitest" U.S. President and along with Congressional Democrats, the most elitist politicians in U.S. history for calling for amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, while maintaining four million current U.S. Citizens in a second-class citizenship status. Residents of the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico are considered natural born citizens, but are not allowed to participate in Presidential elections nor are they afforded...

My unsolicited advice to Anthony Weiner is to drop out of the race for mayor of New York City. But since you insist on staying, hold a press conference: My fellow New Yorkers,The New York Times, among others, tells me to quit the race. Here’s my proposition. I’ll resign when the Times poses this question. In the upcoming NBC-produced miniseries called “Hillary,� who will play Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey? What, confused expressions? Interesting how the Weiner-get-out crowd forgets that “everybody lies about sex� — except when it comes to politicians whose last name is not Clinton. Digital First Media,...

Graft: The relationship between the Clintons and the wife of embattled Anthony Weiner grows curiouser and curiouser. Forget sexting; this may be the real scandal. And one senator sees a possible criminal element to it. Republican Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is demanding documents from the State Department shedding more light on the private consulting work that Huma Abedin, aka Mrs. Weiner, performed while working for the government, where she had access to top secret information. Abedin served as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff, where she earned $135,000 a year. But...

The allegations of sexual misconduct surrounding New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and San Diego mayor (and 20-year congressman) Bob Filner, have resulted in three days of no comment from the White House. Thursday, the Associated Press ripped the White House over the hypocrisy:

Full title.......Anthony Weiner and wife Huma move into luxury $3.3M condo owned by top Clinton donor... are they there for free or just getting a sweet deal? dailymail.co.uk story | 8/13/12 / FR Posted by ColdOne Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner and his faithful wife Huma Abedin have moved into a $3.3million New York City apartment owned by a top donor to Ms Abedin's boss, Hillary Clinton. The well-appointed luxury pad includes four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms in the 12th floor of an exclusive building on Park Avenue. It costs an estimated $14,000 a month. The price...

Video at link.

So I guess going to a New York McDonald’s isn’t a good idea right now. Videographer and conservative blogger Adam Sharp of SharpElbows.net attended one such demonstration and interviewed an SEIU member, easily identifiable as such by his purple shirt. When asked whether the union member supported the $15 per hour wage increase the McDonald’s workers were demanding, he admitted, “I’m not sure.” He also said he was there to show his support for the workers rather than the company and expressed a fear that, “if they’re [the McDonald’s employees] pissed off, they could be doing something to that food.”...

When Michele Bachmann picked on Huma Abedin a year ago — claiming she had some convoluted connection to the Muslim Brotherhood — there was a rush to defend the longtime Hillary Clinton aide. The Minnesota congresswoman quickly got a scolding from House Speaker John Boehner, Sen. John McCain, House Intelligence Committee chair Mile Rogers. But now that her husband, Anthony Weiner, is running for New York City mayor, the attacks on Abedin aren't so ridiculous, and Abedin herself is not quite so untouchable.

(CNN) – Choosing who to vote for in a potential 2016 matchup between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Rand Paul would be hard for Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican joked in an interview published Wednesday. "It's gonna be a tough choice," McCain, laughing, told "The New Republic."The 2008 Republican presidential nominee hasn't hidden his opposition to some of Paul's positions in the past, including the libertarian-minded senator from Kentucky's stance on drones and U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts. Condemning Paul's 13-hour filibuster over the use of drones, McCain called his colleague, along with fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, "wacko...

The demise of Anthony Weiner's attempt at a political comeback becomes increasingly obvious by the day, even if the former congressman doesn't seem to know it. According to a Quinnipiac poll — conducted after Weiner admitted he had sent out suggestive messages on Twitter after revelations of similar "sexting" forced him to resign from Congress — only 16 percent of likely primary voters supported him for mayor. That's a 10-point drop from the 26 percent Weiner received in a July 24 Quinnipiac poll. The biggest beneficiary of Weiner's implosion appears to be Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate and...