Free Republic

REGIONAL BREAKDOWNS: SoCal is head over heels for Trump (Trump 49 percent; Cruz 34, Kasich 13) , Central Valley leans Trump (Trump 39, Cruz 26, Kasich 18), and Inland Empire for Cruz (Cruz, 43, Trump 30, Kasich, 9). Silicon Valley and the Bay Area? Kasich trounces Trump 43-36, with Cruz at 14.

Gov. Jerry Brown, casting a living wage as a moral imperative while questioning its economic rationale, signed legislation Monday raising California’s mandatory minimum to $15 an hour by 2022, acting within hours of a similar bill signing in New York. The bill’s enactment comes one week after Brown, Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders announced an agreement on the wage increase, averting a brawl on the November ballot. [snip] California political leaders and labor have struck a deal to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next seven years. One excited fast food worker hugged Gov. Jerry Brown...

Oday Aboushi leads a double life. On the one hand, he is an American football player with professional-level athletic skills. On the other, he is a fundamentalist Muslim with radical associations and a heritage that pushes him towards a destructive world of violence and hate. When the New York Jets football team chose Oday Aboushi with the eighth pick of the fifth round of the April 2013 NFL Draft (141st pick overall), the organization knew that it was getting an elite player who could wreak havoc on the field – one of the top offensive linemen in the entire draft....

An Open Letter to Muslim Feminist Linda Sarsour Let's talk about ISIS rape victims. August 17, 2015 Danusha V. Goska    Open Letter to Linda Sarsour Director of the Arab American Association of New York Honoree, New York City Council's Shirley Chisholm Women of Distinction Award Senior Strategist for the Campaign to Take on Hate 2009 Fellow with the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute, housed at the University of Southern California's Center for Religion and Civic Culture, in partnership with the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University Obama White House honoree as a "Champion...

Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist who recently raised an uproar for her open support of rock-throwing terrorism against Israel, has been awarded over $500,000 by the City of New York. The activist, who is a longtime ally of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and has helped him get votes, has led the Arab-American Association of New York based in Brooklyn since 2005. […] Sarsour is the daughter of Palestinian Arab immigrants. Last October she exposed her blatant anti-Israel bias during a Twitter debate with Queens Councilman Rory Lancman, who is Jewish. …

City First Lady Chirlane McCray is handing over more than $500,000 to an Arab-American activist who came under fire for denouncing critics on Twitter as “Zionist trolls.” The Arab-American Association of New York, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit run by Linda Sarsour, was selected as one of 14 groups by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York to receive $10 million over five years to integrate mental-health services into their community programs. McCray oversees the fund.

A settlement that a federal district court approved Wednesday protects the right of pro-life pregnancy care centers in New York City to serve women without being forced to speak or post messages that are contrary to their pro-life beliefs or that direct women away from the services the centers offer. The settlement protects the centers’ constitutionally protected freedoms that were in jeopardy because of Local Law 17, an anti-pregnancy care law that the courts mostly invalidated through the ADF lawsuit Pregnancy Care Center of New York v. City of New York. An appeals court affirmed most of a district court’s...

It is a tragedy when any member of the US military is killed in combat. This is of course true regardless of race. But since Al Sharpton and an MSNBC guest have chosen to racialize and politicize the matter, it's incumbent to set the record straight. On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough pointed out that Hillary has been much more hawkish and interventionist regarding foreign wars than Sanders. New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas then said "and the people who die in those coffins by the way have a racial make-up that is much browner and blacker than the rest...

On the 16 March 2016 edition of CNN's New Day, Chris Cuomo revealed that he was wearing his father's guayabera shirt, which was "given to him by Fidel Castro as a gift." Cuomo, who was covering President Obama's visit to Cuba, underlined that "it didn't mean something to him because it came from Fidel Castro necessarily, but because it marked conversations going on decades ago that were the same as those today." The anchor summarized that for his father, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, "the concern was the freedom of the people. What is the point of this communist...

An anti-Donald Trump rally in New York City was infiltrated by brave Trump supporters. While thousands of protesters marched from Columbus Circle to Trump Tower and got into clashes with police, his supporters stuck out like a sore thumb. Among them a black man shouting, "Black people ain't got nothing against Trump. Al Sharpton don't speak for all of us."

According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the spike in edged weapon attacks in the Big Apple are a result of the city’s gun control efforts being so successful. Yes, he really is that delusional. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says the explosion in random slashings this year shows the city is getting guns off the streets, but critics say it’s another NYPD policy that is driving the blade attacks: The end of stop-and-frisk. De Blasio’s claim earlier this month that violent criminals are using knives, razor blades and boxcutters to maim strangers because they can’t get...

New York State appears ready to throw as many as 200,000 people out of work by imposing a $15 an hour minimum wage statewide. The New York Post reports: Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan is close to a “Faustian pact’’ with Democratic Gov. Cuomo to raise the state’s minimum wage to a national high of $15 an hour — boosting union power and possibly costing New York hundreds of thousands of jobs. A source close to Flanagan said the deal would involve Cuomo agreeing to do “little if anything’’ to help Senate Democrats, now just one vote shy of...

Let’s say computers come for most of our jobs. This may not seem likely at the moment; computer scientists and economists offer wildly varying ideas for how deeply automation will affect future employment. But for the sake of argument, imagine that within two or three decades we’ll have morphed into the Robotic States of America.

Mayor de Blasio rips Donald Trump, calls him a 'racist' promoting 'proto-fascism' Mayor de Blasio took a big swing at Donald Trump Saturday — calling out the huckster as a “racist” promoting “proto-fascism.” De Blasio ripped into the Republican front-runner after a string of rallies devolved into bloody spectacles, with supporters and protesters clashing over Trump’s provocative rhetoric.

Pamela Anderson wants to cut the cheese - and meat - out of New York prisoners' diets. The Baywatch beauty wrote an open letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, on behalf of PETA, suggesting that he make all prison meals vegan. The famous vegetarian says that the diet switch could save the state millions, and she even offered to visit a penitentiary to cook for the inmates if he takes up her offer, as she did last year for a prison in Arizona.

Donald Trump’s fired-up New York backers predict that a victory by him in November would set the stage for defeating Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018 — and lead to the ouster of their own GOP leader next year. They also predict that if the Manhattan developer becomes president, he’d work from the White House to turn New York away from the anti-business, tax-and-spend, “progressive’’ Democratic politicians, including Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who now dominate City Hall and the state Capitol. The Trump supporters, who lost out Friday in an effort to convince state GOP Chairman Ed Cox to...

Al Sharpton said Thursday that if Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is elected president, the outspoken businessman would likely try to deport him. "If Donald Trump is the nominee, I'm open to support anyone [else], while I'm also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins, only because he'd probably have me deported anyway," Sharpton said. His remark was met with laughter at a Center for American Progress Action Fund event focused on issues during the presidential race. It was first highlighted by The Huffington Post. Sharpton also suggested that Trump was the most surprised of anyone...

The Debate, summarized in one tweet:I really have nothing to add.Meanwhile, it appears there will once again be a parade of celebrities leaving the country if Trump wins. This time the émigrés will include Whoopie Goldberg and Al Sharpton. I fail to see the downside. Here’s my favorite “declaration” – from Raven-Symonè, who I guess is another of The View’s co-hosts: “My confession for this election is if any Republican gets nominated I’m gonna move to Canada with my entire family.” – Town Hall Wow, she doesn’t even require it be Trump, nor that he actually get elected. Congratulations Canada!...

Rev. Al Sharpton told attendees at a Center for American Progress Action Fund event Thursday he would flee the country if Donald Trump won the election, in order to avoid being deported by Trump. Sharpton, a Democrat, had positive feedback for many of the Republican presidential candidates until he got to Trump. "If Donald Trump is the nominee, I'm open to support anyone [else], while I'm also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins, only because he'd probably have me deported anyway," Sharpton told attendees, who responded in laughter. Sharpton, who has participated in various national...

New York City's former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran. "There's a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer," Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. "Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal," Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut "was aimed at getting a reaction from...