Free Republic

Getting prosecuted under New York’s gun laws is a nonsensical crapshoot, where gangsters get their cases expunged and thugs can turn in illegal weapons for $200 — but a weapon that’s legally registered elsewhere can brand a citizen as a criminal for life. That’s the view of a retired Marine who is facing criminal charges after unwittingly trying to check his Indiana-registered handgun at the Empire State building... --snip-- Prosecutors have offered Ryan Jerome a no-jail misdemeanor plea... --snip-- And Jerome took it upon himself to offer the gun to security as he and his girlfriend stood in line for...

On Monday, Israeli embassy workers in the capital cities of India and Georgia were targeted in terrorist attacks that Israeli officials believe were planned and carried out by Iran and its client, the militant group Hezbollah. The bomb in Tbilisi was defused, but the bomb in New Delhi, planted in an embassy worker's car, exploded and injured at least two. Iran's next target could well be on American soil. In Senate testimony last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated that Iranian officials "are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real...

We all know that every level of government is broke and that in a vicious effort at self-preservation, they will stop at nothing to keep the game going. New York State and New York City have been masters of this game for decades. Visit New York City, and you'll be hit with the full force of the law, regardless how trivial your offense. Yesterday, one of Mayor Michael "Nanny" Bloomberg's boys in blue hit me with a ticket for the egregious offense of holding a cellphone in my hand while driving. When the officer approached the car and asked what...

President Obama will attend a star-studded fundraising gala in New York City on Mar. 1, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. The Obama Victory Fund 2012 will host the event at ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan’s upscale Flatiron District, according to the official online invitation. Special guests are expected to include hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, New Age self-help guru Deepak Chopra, and culinary bigwig Jean-Georges Vongerichten, among others. Prospective partygoers can choose from three levels of tickets, “Event Chair” ($35,800), “Event Host” ($10,000), or for those with shallower pockets, “Gala Attendee” ($1,000 a piece). Their massive wealth notwithstanding, Simmons...

Across the country the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been spending millions of ‘Stimulus’ dollars running campaigns and ads attacking tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverages like soda. Health police have also waged overt war on alcoholic beverages. After taxing beverages to no end Big Brother has turned more frequently to regulating away individual choice. Nowhere is the Nanny State more alive and well than in the Big Apple. Under the guise of public health, Mayor Bloomberg is planning a draconian assault on alcoholic beverages, plotting to close a number of drinking establishments and restrict alcohol advertising throughout the city. Initial...

Exiting Occupy homeBy CANDICE M. GIOVE and KENNETH GARGER Last Updated: 7:23 AM, January 29, 2012 Don’t let the door hit you in the collective butt on the way out. Occupy Wall Street squatters have finally begun moving out of an East New York home after their bungled takeover of the vacant property became a major embarrassment for the movement. “I told them that if I see anybody there, I’m going to call the cops,” said the home’s rightful owner, Wise Ahadzi, 27, a struggling single father of two. The occupiers assured him Friday that most of the group had...

“Good Day New York” co-host Greg Kelly — son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly — was a no-show on the program Thursday morning after reports that a Manhattan woman had accused him of rape. The woman told cops she had drinks with Kelly, 43, at the South Street Seaport Oct. 8 before he sexually assaulted her in the law office where she worked, sources said. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/woman-accuses-greg-kelly-son-police-comissioner-raping-law-office-article-1.1012172#ixzz1kadZCu5g

Shaun Day made the mistake of running a red at 12:30 a.m. in the city that never sleeps. When pulled over by the cops, they found a 9mm and three mags in his truck. Day told the cops he was a Navy SEAL but didn’t have any proof. As a result, he spent a day in Bellevue under psychiatric care. Until, that is, the Navy sent people to confirm he actually is a SEAL and got him the hell out of there. . . According to nypost.com he was rambling incoherently during the traffic stop. Translation: he told the cops...

Everyone who's ever gone to school should know how to spell "school." But someone who plastered a school crossing sign on the street in front of a New York City high school got it wrong. The New York Post reports ( http://nyp.st/zzfXDj) that the big white letters in front of Marta Valle High School on the Lower East Side say "SHCOOL X-NG."

A Virginia man claimed to be a Navy SEAL to talk his way out of a gun possession arrest on Thursday, and the New York Police Department committed him to a psych ward thinking his claims of elite military status were the rantings of a lunatic.NYC Police Throw Navy SEAL Into Psych Ward For Claiming... Hes a SEAL Turns out the guy was in fact an elite Navy SEAL. But as the New York Post put it, telling the NYPD “I’m in an elite military unit, you can’t arrest me,” doesn‘t help much when the city’s draconian gun laws are...

Tough New York gun law stirs debate Ryan Jerome was arrested when he tried to security-check his pistol The former Marine has a permit for the gun in his home state, but he was visiting New York The state requires that gun-toting visitors have a New York-issued permit People carrying guns are arrested even though they have permits from their home states NEW YORK (CNN) -- An online campaign in support of a former U.S. Marine -- arrested for attempting to security-check his pistol while visiting the Empire State Building -- is bringing new attention and a fair amount of...

The closing days of 2011 brought a rash of collisions between otherwise upstanding citizens and New York City’s infamous gun laws. On December 16 Mark Meckler, a prominent California Tea Party leader, was arrested at LaGuardia Airport as he attempted to check luggage containing his unloaded, cased, handgun in accordance with TSA, FAA, and Delta Airline rules. Then on December 22, fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves was arrested at the 9/11 memorial when she asked a security guard where she could check her pistol in an attempt to comply with a “No Guns” sign. That case echoed a September case...

Because of a court’s ruling against one particular small church in the Bronx, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has now decreed that come February 12, 2012, all churches and fellowships meeting in public schools – 160 in total - have to be evicted. This terrible decision against religious freedom could impact the souls of thousands of people in New York City. And if this precedent is allowed to stand, the cancer could spread to other cities as well. These churches generally have great relationships with the community. They provide services and revenue for the city. But it seems that is trumped by...

Gun nuts in the Tennessee state legislature have declared civil war on New Yorkers — saying they will retaliate for the prosecution of a woman who was carrying an illegal pistol at the 9/11 Memorial. A resolution winding its way through the Tennessee legislature warns New Yorkers not to drive through their state — because the Highway Patrol is “gunning” for us. A Knoxville-based legislator, who moonlights as a farmer, is so angry over the Tennessee tourist’s gun arrest last month that his resolution condemns it as a “grave miscarriage of justice” — and reminds New Yorkers to “drive carefully”...

The New York City Housing Authority has extended the lease of a Bronx church that uses one of its facilities after the congregation accused authorities of trying to evict them in the context of an alleged clampdown on worship groups in government buildings. Infinity NY Church, a nondenominational ministry led by Pastor Dimas Salaberrios, has been fighting to keep its space at the Bronx River Community Center after it received a notification from NYCHA that its lease was going to expire, and that the church would need to move by February. A number of congregants staged a protest in front...

First, Mayor Bloomberg went after smoking in public places. Then trans-fats, salt and sugary drinks. Now Bloomberg — known for sipping fine wine and downing a cold beer from time to time — wants to crack down on alcohol sales to curb excessive drinking, according to a provocative planning document obtained by The Post. The city Health Department’s far-reaching Partnership for a Healthier New York City initiatives proposes to slash the number of establishments in the city that sell booze. Community “transformation” grants provided under President Obama’s health-care law would help bankroll the effort.

<p>An Ohio man who has a gun permit in his home state is the latest city tourist to be caught in the web of New York’s strict gun laws, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Fred Vankirk, 59, of Columbus, was slapped with handcuffs at about 11 a.m. Saturday after cops found two .357 Magnum pistols and a .45 semiautomatic in his room at the Radisson Hotel on Lexington Avenue near East 48th Street, police sources said.</p>

Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group’s involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources. NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources...

Growing numbers of New Yorkers seeking food stamps have created an unwelcome spillover effect at some of New York City's job centers: overcrowding that in some cases has grown so severe, benefits were jeopardized. The crush of people grew so large at one Brooklyn center in November that the Fire Department intervened and prevented anyone from entering the building.

Actually, this was the first recent case of an otherwise law-abiding out-of-towner caught carrying a handgun in The Big Apple. Last spring, NYC cops arrested Maryland concealed carry permit holder Stephen Grant when maids found a gatt in his Muse Hotel room. Like three other recently nabbed CCW permit-holding tourists, Grant was looking at a mandatory three-and-a-half year stretch. nypost.com reports that the Manhattan DA’s making this one go away. “Prosecutors did not seek an indictment against him, and allowed him to plead guilty to fourth degree weapons possession, a blanket misdemeanor that covers any gun, knife, brass knuckles or...

Detention provisions of defense bill spark New York ‘Occupy’ protestBy Jeremy Herb - 01/04/12 02:46 PM ET Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City stormed Grand Central Station during rush hour Tuesday evening, rallying against the Defense Authorization Act. The protesters were objecting to provisions in the bill, which President Obama signed into law on Saturday, that civil liberties groups say allow the United States to detain American citizens indefinitely in military custody. “There’s an amendment in there that basically makes our country a place where any citizen can be detained indefinitely without a trial and without due process,”...

On December 22, registered nurse and fourth-year medical student Meredith Graves, from Tennessee, was visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Ms. Graves, rather than abdicating responsibility for her security to others, was carrying a defensive handgun, as she is licensed to do in Tennessee. That, unfortunately, avails her nothing in New York. When she saw the "No Guns" sign before entering, she did her best to comply with the law, asking a security guard where she could check her gun. The guard directed her to a police officer, who promptly arrested her for violation of New York's laws...

Free Meredith Graves! Just about everyone in the country now knows about the Louisville, Tenn., woman who was arrested when she tried to check her gun at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. The nurse and medical student had driven to New York with her husband to interview for a residency at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in Long Island. While in the Big Apple, they decided to do a little sightseeing. Graves has a Tennessee handgun carry permit and had a loaded .32-caliber Kel-Tec in her purse. When she saw the no-guns symbol at the memorial, she asked a guard...

<p>Tony-winning actress Ellen Barkin rang in the new year in her typical brash style — uncorking a profanity-laced Twitter tirade against the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg after watching the predawn arrests of suspected Occupy Wall Street scofflaws near her West Village townhouse.</p>

Molotov cocktails made from Starbucks glass bottles were hurled at three sites in Queens last night, including a mosque with 100 people inside, a Hindu Temple and a bodega. Cops were investigating whether a nearby fire that caused major damage to a private home was also part of the frightening pattern. One attack damaged the front door of the Al-Khoei Benevolent Foundation on the Van Wyck Expressway in Jamaica at 8:45 p.m. “We were having a gathering tonight, spending some time with members of the mosque after a service, and someone alerted us that there was a fire outside,” said...

When it is completed, it will be the tallest building in Manhattan and one of incredible poignancy for New York City. One World Trade Center reached its 90th floor this week - with just 14 more floors to go until the top. The structure can now be seen from all five boroughs of the city. Stunning pictures showed how the area has been reborn since the 9/11 attacks more than a decade ago where almost 3,000 people lost their lives in the worst ever terrorist attack on American soil. Towering symbol: The fog rolls out across downtown Manhattan, captured from the...

A belated Merry Christmas to my fellow FReepers.

Scott LoBaido is clever man. He found a way to bring Christmas trees back into NYC’s transportation hubs. LoBaido designed and wore a Christmas tree costume! After being sued for allowing Christmas decorations in bus and ferry teminals, New York City imposed a ban on Christmas trees and other holiday decorations. Scott was not pleased about the ban and managed to find a way to bring the Christmas spirit to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

James Ramseur's life of crime ended yesterday with a bottle of pills in a seedy Bronx hotel room, where he was found dead 27 years to the day after he was shot by infamous "Subway Vigilante" Bernhard Goetz. Ramseur had checked into the Paradise Hotel at 2990 Boston Road on Tuesday and was supposed to check out yesterday. When he failed to return his key, the manager entered the room and found his corpse, fully clothed, with two empty prescription pill bottles next to the bed, their labels scratched off. He was 45, and left no note. Ramseur became infamous...

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — Thousands of drunken Santas terrorized Lower Manhattan when they flooded into the neighborhood for SantaCon earlier this month, openly flouting public drinking and urination laws, locals say. Angry residents attended Community Board 1's Monday night meeting to complain about the latest incarnation of the annual pub crawl, whose participants have been allowed to grow more rowdy every year, they say. "There was public urination, people vomiting all over the place, open containers and no police," said John Fratta, chairman of the Seaport/Civic Center Committee which plans to send an angry missive to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police...

Police say they are questioning a man in connection to the death of a New York City woman set on fire in the elevator of her apartment building. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said Sunday that the 47-year-old man went into a police precinct a couple of miles from where the attack happened in Brooklyn and said he had started a fire. Authorities say the man has made statements implicating himself and came in overnight reeking of gasoline. He hasn't been charged. The unidentified man was waiting for the woman, who was in her 60s, when the elevator...

Frightened New Yorkers shun elevators after crush horrorBy HELEN FREUND, BILL SANDERSON and BOB FREDERICKS Last Updated: 12:17 PM, December 16, 2011 The routine trip up and down elevators across the city was a traumatic affair for many New Yorkers yesterday following the terrifying death of an advertising executive who was crushed to death as she headed to work. “I’ve been taking the stairs today. I usually take the stairs at home, but not here,” said Lisa Miller, 41, who climbed 10 floors to her office. She works across the street from 285 Madison Ave., where Young & Rubicam exec...

Occupy Wall Street’s latest effort to attract immigrants is a march for immigrant workers planned this weekend in New York City. The rally, organized for Sunday, aims to raise awareness on immigrant issues and to draw immigrants to a social movement that has largely focused on corporate greed. It takes place on International Migrants Day, a U.N. designated day in honor of migrant rights. Mariano Muñoz, an active member of the Spanish Assembly for Occupy Wall Street, says that it is natural for immigrants – who are large affected by labor abuse and wage theft – to become part of...

New York City sues roll-your-own-smokes shopsSees tax evasion in do-it-yourself business By David B. Caruso - Associated Press Monday, November 21, 2011 NEW YORK — There is no place in the U.S. more expensive to smoke than New York City, where the taxes alone will set you back $5.85 per pack. Yet smokers who visit Island Smokes, a “roll-your-own” cigarette shop in Chinatown, can walk out with an entire 10-pack carton for less than $40, thanks to a tax loophole that officials in several states are trying to close. The store is one of a number around the country that...

Workers outraged at Caribbean junket As union bosses continued livin’ it up in the Puerto Rican sun yesterday, municipal workers getting soaked by New York’s cold rain were livid that their hard-earned money was funding the leaders’ Caribbean “convention.” “There goes our union dues!” fumed a furious Local 3 electrician. “They paid for that junket with union dues.” “I’ve worked for 10 months in the last two years. I’m getting laid off at the end of the year,” the electrician railed. “I have no use for the union. All I see is waste, corruption and hypocrisy.” At an Upper West...

The New York Police Department is warning local banks to bolster mailroom security after a letter bomb was addressed to the CEO of Deutsche Bank in Germany.

A small, but passionate group of Russian opposition activists is asking emigres in New York to deface their ballots in the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections in an act of symbolic resistance. The technique is called “Nacht-Nacht”: Voters mark their ballot with a large “X” or write an off-color word or phrase. In Russian, “Nacht-Nacht” is an obscene play on words intended to send a rude message to the ballot counters. “It is a way of saying, ‘Go to hell’ to those in power,” said Natalia Pelevine, a Russian activist based in New Jersey, “saying, ‘We are not voting for any...

He's the master filmmaker whose intensity and attention to detail are unmatched in Hollywood. Stanley Kubrick's directing credits include Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Steven Spielberg once said: 'Nobody could shoot a picture better in history.'

It was a rare public appearance for Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday night. But on a rain-soaked evening in New York City, the conservative media idol didn’t disappoint his audience, or the protesters who showed up to rattle him. His message? For the most part it was this: four more years of Barack Obama will be detrimental to the country. That message was punctuated with plenty of personal anecdotes, told in the gruff, almost sing-songy way that has come to define Limbaugh. His main story focused on a visit from a friend last Saturday who encouraged Limbaugh to urge compromise with...

An almost too detailed depiction of the Najibullah Zazi’s 2009 jihad plot to bomb NYC subways. If you have time read it, otherwise, some troubling excerpts via Homegrown Terror | 5280 – The Denver Magazine. As Zazi began driving the last 500 miles to New York, his case finally had the full attention of the U.S. government. The eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a day away, and Davis was now doing regular secure video teleconferences with the heads of the New York field office and the FBI’s National Security Branch, among others. During one video call, an official...

'What has the country so angry," says Fred Siegel, "is the sense that crony capitalism has produced a population that lives off the rest of us without contributing. They're right. It's not paranoid." The economic historian of the American city has spent a lot of this autumn on Wall Street. He met many of the protesters who camped out at Zuccotti Park, before the city's finest cleared them out last week. He also knows the bankers and finds the theater of the Occupy movement ironic. "They're on the same side of the street politically," he says. "They're both in favor...

In the past two decades, the Mexican population in New York City has grown more than fivefold, with immigrants settling across the five boroughs. Many adults have demonstrated remarkable success at finding work, filling restaurant kitchens and construction sites, and opening hundreds of businesses. But their children, in one crucial respect, have fared far differently. About 41 percent of all Mexicans between ages 16 and 19 in the city have dropped out of school, according to census data. No other major immigrant group has a dropout rate higher than 20 percent, and the overall rate for the city is less...

(Excerpt) President Obama has an unwelcome holiday gift for New Yorkers — he’ll be coming to Midtown the same day the streets will be impossibly clogged by the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony. He has picked Wednesday, one of the busiest gridlock-alert days of the year, to descend on the area with his motorcade for a fund-raiser and party. While throngs squeeze into the blocks around Rockefeller Center, where teen heartthrob Justin Bieber will be performing, the president and his entourage will be just a few blocks away at the Sheraton New York Hotel. It’ll be the double whammy of all...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is holding a terrorism-related press conference tonight at 7:30 pm. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and District Attorney Cy Vance will also be in attendance. This is a late breaking addition to Bloomberg's schedule — and the presence of Vance indicates there may have been some sort of arrest. Neither the Mayor's Office nor the NYPD are releasing any information prior to the press conference. UPDATE 6:24: NBC's Jesse Rodriguez tweets: WNBC: Terror suspect taken into custody yesterday; lone-wolf suspect was preparing a pipe bomb. UPDATE 6:28: The New York Times is reporting that the...

"...In New Hampshire on Thursday, [Herman] Cain accused the [OWS] protesters of "trying to destroy the greatest nation in the world" with plans to stop traffic and subway commuters. He accused them of trying "to infringe upon people's right and liberty to go to work."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Police arrested protesters who sat on the ground and blocked traffic into New York City's financial district on Thursday, part of a day of mass gatherings in response to efforts to break up Occupy Wall Street camps nationwide. Police in riot helmets hauled several protesters to their feet and handcuffed them at an intersection one block from Wall Street. "All day, all week, shut down Wall Street!" the crowd chanted. Hundreds of protesters thronged intersections around the financial district, .. After several arrests along one street, protesters retreated. A line of riot police followed them and...

<p>The Occupy Wall Streeters are about to create chaos for 99 percent of the city.</p> <p>In one of the largest demonstrations in recent city history, the anti-greed rabble plans to swarm the subways, take over the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down the stock exchange today.</p>

"Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI): The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI) is a networked surveillance project designed to detect threats and perform pre-operational terrorist surveillance south of Canal Street in Lower Manhattan. LMSI combines an increased police presence with technology to accomplish its mission. At the heart of this initiative is the public-private partnership fostered amongst the NYPD, private entities, and public agencies in Lower Manhattan to create an information sharing environment and better defend against potential threats to the nation's financial capital. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center (LMSCC), staffed 24/7 by NYPD officers, recently opened in November 2008...

There was apparently no treasure too small to be plundered. City Councilman Larry Seabrook’s alleged sales-slip scams included padding the prices on a stack of children’s books — including the classic pirate tale “Treasure Island” — according to evidence presented yesterday at his federal corruption trial. Five gift receipts that the Bronx Democrat allegedly claimed covered books bought for $25 each were actually for titles that cost just $3.99 apiece, a senior Barnes & Noble employee testified. José Nario, director of the merchandise system for the bookstore chain, said the five tomes were purchased on June 6, 2006, at a...

NEW YORK – Watch out New York City. The Occupy anti-capitalist movement is preparing to serve a three-course meal of so-called direct action that apparently includes the blocking of subways and bridges as well as shutting down the stock market. The attempt to cause mass chaos, slated for Thursday, is tied to the Tides Center, the George Soros-financed group that funds far-left causes. Tides grantees have been helping to direct Occupy from the onset of the anti-Wall Street movement. Occupy Wall Street is currently holding "Direct Action Preparation and Training" courses today and tomorrow in downtown Manhattan to gear up...