Free Republic

NEW YORK -- Just before dawn on a crisp November morning, federal agents converged on a two-story home in suburban Maplewood, N.J., and woke up Cynthia Brent. They told her to get dressed for court. Brent, a soft-spoken accountant for rap label The Inc., was facing charges of laundering more than $1 million in drug money. Over the next eight days, federal and local agents swept from New Jersey to Manhattan and Queens, making arrests in a probe linking one of rap music's hottest labels to one of New York's most notorious gangsters. After filing charges against seven suspects, including...

...The AG... says he is running for governor because New York is suffering a "crisis" and needs someone to address jobs, taxes and budgetary red ink.... His actions as attorney general have been one of the biggest job-killers in the state. ...The Pacific Research Institute examined state and regulatory regimes with an eye toward whether they attracted business investment or drove it away. New York was ranked dead last, right after California. In a study of the 200 largest metropolitan areas in terms of job-creation, New York ranked 169th. Matters were not improved this week when a gaggle of union-addled...

Americans Waste Vast Amounts of Edible Food BY DRU SEFTON    Adam Weissman finds bagels, croissants and other baked goods discarded in a trash bin in Hackensack, N.J. (Photo by Michael Falco) Passersby look on as "Freegans" Adam Weissman (l), Anji Shirai and Wendy Scher hunt through garbage for still-edible food outside a New York City restaurant. (Photo by Michael Falco)   Marge Danser still feels pangs about "the great freezer debacle." Two years ago she opened the freezer in her Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment and faced a pile of long-frozen packages of meat -- about $20 worth. "I thought,...

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 1:47 p.m. EST Annan Refuses to Stop 'Carrying On' at U.N.; Congressman Suggests Jail Scandal-plagued U.N. boss Kofi Annan today rejected the calls of U.S. lawmakers to resign and insisted he would "carry on" as secretary-general for two more years. "I have quite a lot of work to do, and I'm carrying on with my work," Annan said. "We have a major agenda next year, and the year ahead, trying to reform this organization. So we'll carry on." Here's the first definition for the intransitive verb "carry on" in our dictionary, Miriam-Webster's Collegiate: "to behave or...

PARIS - Continental Airlines said today it was "outraged" at reports that French authorities want to prosecute the airline and several employees over the Concorde crash that killed 113 people in Paris four years ago. The Houston airline issued a strongly worded statement after a French newspaper reported that investigating judge Christophe Regnard had summoned several Continental officials for interrogation and plans to place them under formal investigation along with the company. "We strongly disagree that anything Continental did was the cause of the Concorde accident, and we are outraged by the media reports that criminal charges may have been...

N.J. School Bans Christmas Carols MAPLEWOOD, N.J. (AP) Dec. 8, 2004 — School officials are sticking to their ban on Christmas carols during holiday instrumental concerts despite heavy pressure from residents and outsiders. The South Orange/Maplewood Board of Education voted earlier this fall to ban music with "a religious orientation or focus on religious holidays," Brian F. O'Leary, the school board president, reiterated at a Monday night board meeting. Not many are happy about it. "Now that our two towns are more diverse than ever, it seems to me that (the policy) denies it," said Maplewood resident Shirlee Gross. "Thanks...

Cap Corzine's campaign cash? By Fred Snowflack, Daily Record When people talk about U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine's campaign for governor next year, the conversation starts with money. Corzine, who became a millionaire many times over during a career on Wall Street, spent about $70 million to win his Senate seat in 2000. So, how much will he spend next year? No more than $6.4 million if Morris County freeholder and gubernatorial candidate John Murphy has his way. Murphy sent a letter to Corzine this week suggesting that the senator accept his proposal to limit campaign expenditures to $6.4 million. "I...

...Desperate for tax revenue, cities and towns across the country now routinely take property from unwilling sellers to make way for big-box retailers. Condemnation cases aren't tracked nationally, but even retailers themselves acknowledge that the explosive growth of the format in the 1990s and torrid competition for land has increasingly pushed them into increasingly problematic areas -- including sites owned by other people... [A] shareholder resolution: "adopt a policy for land procurement and use that incorporates social and environmental factors," particularly, the wishes of local property owners and community groups.... "If the company continues to operate in this manner, with...

N.J. gov. outlines his agenda for the year By Alex Savvides / Correspondent Published: 12/8/2004 New Brunswick Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey outlined his agenda for the next 13 months Monday evening, saying his administration would look into raising minimum wage, getting more homeland security money, and increasing the number of jobs in the state. Codey and State Democratic Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman addressed the audience of several hundred New Jersey Democrats in the Regency Ballroom of the New Brunswick Hyatt Regency hotel, promising large returns for the Democratic Party in November 2005. Codey added that increasing minimum wage is...

NJ Same-Sex Marriage Ban May Be Overturned by KYW's Ed Kasuba A three-judge Appellate Court panel in New Jersey has taken under advisement a request from seven same-sex couples that they be allowed to legally marry. A lower court ruled a year ago that the state’s ban on same-sex marriages did not violate the state constitution, so the couples appealed the ruling. Arguing for the state, assistant attorney general Patrick DeAlmeida said same-sex couples now get many legal rights because of New Jersey’s domestic partnership law: “There is nothing in the text, the history, or the intended purpose of the...

When a New Jersey high school told it's students they could no longer sing Christmas Carols in school....but Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was still OK....we finally found a topic both Curtis AND Kuby could agree on! WABC's morning hosts both felt what they were doing at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey was a bad idea. The supterintendent said he did not want to offend anybody, so he banned the Christmas carols. WABC's Curtis and Kuby decided to find some schools that still DO sing Christmas Carols. We joined with our partners at Electronics Expo to hold the...

December 7, 2004 -- "I support the ban on religious music in the schools, because I feel that it makes children, who do not celebrate a particular holiday or have a particular religion . . . uncomfortable." — A parent from the Maplewood, N.J. school district, which has banned "religious music" in a holiday concert. NO doubt that much of the animus toward religion that permeates public schools is "justified" with the excuse that it makes some people "uncomfortable." But is "discomfort" an educational standard? Are we to refrain from subjecting students to anything uncomfortable? Maplewood, N.J., school policy permits...

PHOENIX - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has asked a federal judge for permission to sign a voter-passed immigration initiative, despite the issuance of a temporary restraining order blocking its implementation. The governor's office filed a motion Friday in U.S. District Court in Tucson asking Judge David C. Bury to allow her to issue a proclamation making Proposition 200 law. The Arizona Constitution requires her to declare as law the measure, which would mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration and proof of residency status for some government services. Napolitano had planned to sign the proclamation last week, but she said...

ACLU defends Republicans in campaign libel suit Monday December 06, 2004 By STEVE STRUNSKY Associated Press Writer NEWARK, N.J. (AP) The American Civil Liberties Union is defending Piscataway Republicans in a lawsuit by Democrats charging they were libeled by campaign signs that asked voters if they had ``Had enough?'' of corruption. The dispute involves more than 100 campaign signs posted around the township by Republicans stating: ``Bribery. Corruption. Indictment. Had Enough?'' The signs, which included a picture of a broom, urged viewers to vote for the Republican slate for mayor and township council. The Democrats asked that the signs be...

Recently enacted NY state income tax withholding for 2005 require employers to w/h taxes on all types of employee earning. Even if your visit is for 5 minutes! Go to NY for business and you're taxed by a complex and burdensome process.

Rutgers University is sometimes called "The Little Red Schoolhouse",because of a few radical leftist professors,and their student "groupies":people who receive publicity well out of proportion to their overall importance to campus life. A group called RU 4 the Troops finally received some publicity in Rutgers' Newspaper -The Daily Targum-as members,using card tables set up along campus sidewalks,braved the cold and wind to collect donations of toothpaste,shampoo,snack foods,clothes,cards,and letters for our troops overseas.Response from the student body was excellent. RU4 the Troops: is a new,nonpolitical organization-founded to support and assist US troops overseas.It has held a number of successful fund raisers,and...

Celebrity panel examines popular perceptions of Italian-Americans SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Comedian Joe Piscopo wants to change the popular stereotypes of Italian-Americans promoted on television and in movies. The former "Saturday Night Live" star attended a panel discussion at Seton Hall University Saturday that examined why, according to one attendee, prejudice against Italians is tacitly accepted in popular culture. Piscopo, who said he is embarrassed by some of the stereotypical Italian characters he has played, is at work on a movie that portrays an Italian-American family from northern New Jersey. He is determined to get the film made, though he...

WELLSVILLE, N.Y. -- Federal agents investigating the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001 searched homes yesterday belonging to the founder of an organization that trains medical professionals to respond to chemical and biological attacks.More than three dozen agents, some in protective suits, combed through two homes in this upstate New York village at the same time a similar search occurred in New Jersey. Authorities provided few specifics about the investigation, other than to say that FBI and US Postal Inspection Service agents were searching multiple locations in Wellsville and Dover Township, N.J., as part of the anthrax probe.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Salvadoran police have arrested the mother-in-law of a U.S. Teamster gunned down in El Salvador last month, along with five other suspects, describing the slaying as a contract killing that was the result of a family dispute. Jose Gilberto Soto, 49, a U.S. citizen of Salvadoran origin from Cliffside Park, N.J., was shot in the back on Nov. 5 outside his family's house in Usulutan, 70 miles southeast of San Salvador. Soto had arrived in El Salvador on Oct. 30 to meet with the country's trade union leaders and port drivers. Rosa Elba Ortiz,...

As I was driving through Norwalk, CT today, I saw 6 socialist marxists on a corner with their signs for peace. They were waving to the passing traffic, smiling, doing their "monologues", and their nuanced pleseantries :) . Immediately and spontaneously I sought out parking, popped my truck and withdrew my signs from their "holsters". On the one sign was written "GOD and the Marines gives you the right to sing your commie songs". My other sign reads "Us Bushies... We don't betray our troops...we're loyal...honk if you support our troops". I positioned myself across the road from them and...