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Officials say New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, has been hospitalized. The governor’s office says Saturday the elder Cuomo is being treated for a heart condition. A gubernatorial spokeswoman says the 82-year-old former three-term governor is in good spirits and is thankful for the best wishes and support he’s received. …

In his inaugural address Wednesday, incoming New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to establish an intellectual pedigree for his focus on economic inequality. He invoked Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Smith, Frances Perkins, Fiorello La Guardia, Jacob Riis, David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, and Harry Belafonte. It reminded me of when Democrats, eager to prove their national-security bona fides, tell audiences they hail from the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy. As if there wasn’t some other Democrat after Kennedy who dabbled at war and peace, some guy from Texas. De Blasio’s speech was a bit...

NEW YORK, - Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo confirmed he has ended his decades-long boycott against "The Godfather" and watched the 1972 film. Cuomo, 81, long refused to watch Francis Ford Coppola's film due to his vocal opposition to stereotyping Italian-Americans as being involved in organized crime. But he said Sunday at the 2013 Forum Film Festival at the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at Fordham Law School in New York that he has finally watched the movie, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Cuomo admitted that "maybe this thing was a masterpiece." The former governor, speaking on...

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who died earlier this month, was a legendary political figure. Barry Farber was a legendary talk radio host in the Big Apple, whose voice dominated the powerful WOR throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The two larger-than-life figures would face off in 1977, when Koch was seeking his first term as mayor. Farber was interviewed in The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment by Fred V. Lucas (History Publishing Co.). Below is an excerpt: *** Covering a quarter of WOR’s airtime was enough exposure...

Eliot Spitzer was once so voracious for sex that he ordered three different hookers for three separate visits - all in the span of a few hours in one day, an explosive new book claims. The passage from Peter Elkind's "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," describes how the Attorney General-turned-governor procured the women from his favored service, the Emperors Club VIP, using the alias "George Fox." Here's the passage from page 122: "On one occasion, George Fox had booked an appointment in the late morning at the Mark Hotel, on the Upper East Side, just five...

(FORTUNE Magazine) – As we tap out these words on our trusty 101-key enhanced keyboard, the Dow Jones industrial average is around 2700 and also looking enhanced. ... (FORTUNE Magazine) – Easily the most maddening political debate these days is the one about whether Congressman Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, should resign on grounds of turpitude. ...

To these ears, it sounded like a sophomoric line by, well, a sophomore seeking to impress classmates and perhaps his fuzzy-headed teacher. But MSNBC has proclaimed Mario Cuomo's call for a nuclear freeze because "peace is better than war and life is better than death" one of the greatest convention-speech lines ever. In the run-up to this evening's keynote address by former VA Gov. Mark Warner and Hillary's much-anticipated speech, Hardball did a segment on some of the best Dem convention speeches of the past. Now, love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that the late Ann Richards'...

The silver-tongued orator can't come up with an original thought for his victory speech, so he borrows from a speech he assumes we all forgot. And I guess Chris Matthews got all tingling anyway.

The first war fought under the current Constitution was fought during the administration of John Adams on the strength of a naval appropriation after Congress voted against a declaration of war. It wasn't a very big war under today's standards, but the war with France was significant for the young republic. Cuomo claims he wants to reduce the power of the president, but his approach would substantially reduce the nation's flexibility in dealing with foreign threats. He believes the nation should take an all or nothing approach either a declaration of war with the associated restrictions on civil liberties or...

Sen. Charles Schumer is a legendary pursuer of television cameras. But look at the way the national media are covering Schumer's heavy-breathing pursuit to make Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cry uncle and resign. It makes you wonder just how hard Schumer has to work to get press attention. The media appear Schumer-owned and operated. One interview really captures how the press acts more like a Democratic goon squad than nonpartisan observers of the national scene. On ABC's "Good Morning America," news anchor Christopher Cuomo, son of Mario Cuomo, asked this pushy question on July 27: "Is Alberto Gonzales out of...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a possible candidate for the White House in 2008, is drawing support from an unlikely source – liberal former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Speaking at a political gathering at Cooper Union in New York, Cuomo turned to Gingrich and said: "If I can pause and be erratically independent of my text, I think you would make a great candidate for president on the Republican side. I really do.” Nevertheless, the two disagreed on virtually everything that was discussed at the gathering, including North Korea, Iran, Iraq, health care and Social Security. Gingrich, architect of...

Gov. George Pataki has nine weeks remaining in his final term, and a sizable number of Western New Yorkers are ready to say goodbye. Thirty-one percent of local adults consider Pataki to be New York's worst governor since 1959, according to a new Business First-Goldhaber Research Associates Poll. That's the highest negative rating for any governor since Nelson Rockefeller. The runner-up in the survey, Mario Cuomo, received about half as many unfavorable votes as Pataki did. "At the end of the day, if people are unhappy, they're going to blame someone. Many Western New Yorkers are unhappy today, and they're...

by Mark Finkelstein July 31, 2006 - 07:57 There was a feeling of surreality this morning in watching the segment on Good Morning America. There was Chris Cuomo [son of Dem ex-NYS Gov. Mario, brother of Andrew, current Dem candidate for NYS Attorney General] chatting with former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos. Was this an ABC 'news' interview - or had I mistakenly tuned to a CSPAN broadcast of a DNC coffee klatsch? Cuomo had a fine line to walk. With brother Andy running for office in New York, being too critical of Israel could be impolitic. Chris focused on what...

by Mark Finkelstein June 28, 2006 Sure, Tim Russert is a pillar of the great center-left media establishment. You can take the man out of Mario Cuomo's office, but you can't entirely take Mario's office out of the man. Even so, as MSM types go, Russert is among the more fair-and-balanced. But in his Today show appearance this morning, Tim simply didn't make sense. Asked by Campbell Brown about the White House's anger at the New York Times for its latest divulging on an anti-terror program, Russert responded: "There is no doubt this was an orchestrated campaign to try to...

Teachers unions are mad at me. The New York State United Teachers demands I apologize for my "gutter level" journalism, "an irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers." This is because I hosted an ABC News TV special titled "Stupid in America," which pointed out: -- American fourth graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries. -- The constant refrain that "public schools need more money" is nonsense. Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation)...

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RATINGS ABUSE After the Motion Picture Association of America slapped Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 911 with an "R" rating late last week, and it became clear that the MPAA would not budge, Moore and his distributors hired one man they think can change the MPAA's mind: former New York governor Mario Cuomo. According to an MPAA staffer in Washington, Cuomo is being paid a five figure fee to make appeals all the way to the top of MPAA. That would mean former Lyndon Johnson staffer Jack Valenti. On Wednesday, on the "Today" show, Moore revealed that the scenes of abuse...

Mario Cuomo is OUTRAGEOUS BASHING OF BUSH! THIS IS THE NEW DNC TALKING POINTS PEOPLE!!! The DNC is going to try (and fail) to say GWBush is not a follower of Reagan. Cuomo is slime, Rush said it best: Cuomo's only claim to fame is responding to Reagan's shining city. Cuomo is a liar through and through. Cuomo is saying Lincoln would have disagreed with Bush over stem cells. Cuomo is a scumbag. He has no clue, he is saying only religion objects to democrat party positions in essence. They are going to try and peg all republican positions as...

Bishop-elect knocks politiciansBy Matt O'Brien  mobrien@sentinelandenterprise.comPROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The bishop-elect of the Worcester Diocese wants to make certain every priest, parishioner, and Catholic politician in the county understands precisely what it means to be a Catholic. "Rejecting that teaching can have certain spiritual consequences," said Bishop Robert J. McManus, who views his new role as a way to help solidify authentic Catholic identity.McManus said he also wants local Catholic politicians to know when they stray from church teaching, especially on issues that have the highest "moral valence.""The most fundamental human right is the right to life, and it is most...

"You can't ever make serious progress against terrorism unless you deal with Israel. We are not dealing with Israel. We've backed away. We're afraid of the political consequences."