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'Start With Me': NY Gov. Cuomo Dares Trump to Deport Him Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) told a crowd in New York City that if the Trump administration wants to "deport immigrants" that they should start with him. Cuomo, whose grandfather Andrea immigrated from Italy, said that unless people belonged to the Onondaga, Mohawk and other Upstate New York tribes, "we are all immigrants." Cuomo, who like Trump is from Queens, N.Y., said the White House forgot the Emma Lazarus poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty.

From 1987 to 1989 a fellow named Jim Wright was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wright had produced a book, ‘Reflections of a Public Man’ and it had sold quite a few copies even though it was nothing more than a compilation of political speeches he had performed over the years. Unfortunately for Speaker Wright, even though he had sold quite a few copies, he sold those quite a few copies to a very small group of people who all had business before congress that he was in a position to influence. In other words it was a scam,...

ALBANY — Thanks to the new state budget, electronic cigarette users can puff away without the tax man taking a drag. Despite an alarming surge in e-cigarette use by high school students, state lawmakers — at the urging of the GOP-controlled Senate — rejected Gov. Cuomo’s plan to tax the liquid used in the devices and tighten restrictions on their use, advocates charged Monday. Cuomo’s proposals were mysteriously left out of the budget approved by the Senate and Assembly over the weekend. “The Senate Republicans picked big tobacco over public health,” said Bill Sherman, vice president for government relations at...

ALBANY — New York edged closer to its first-ever government shutdown Sunday as lawmakers struggled — once again — to reach agreement on a new spending plan. With the state entering its second day without a budget in place, legislative leaders said negotiations with Gov. Cuomo made progress but final agreements were elusive. As it has been all week, a proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility in New York from 16 to 18 remained the critical stumbling block.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Some of the wealthiest New Yorkers are asking the state to raise their taxes. Eighty people including George Soros, Steven Rockefeller and Abigail Disney wrote to lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying they and other top earners should pay more to support schools, roads, bridges and programs to help poor and homeless residents of the state. "Now is the time to invest in the long-term economic viability of New York," the letter reads. "We need to invest in pathways out of poverty and up the economic ladder for all of our fellow citizens, including strong public...

With most of the country divided between efforts to either tear down or prop up the Trump presidency, there are various players on the political chessboard conducting maneuvers which remind us of one unpleasant fact. There are barely 1,300 days left until the next election. (I’ll pause for a moment here to allow some of you to reach for your airsickness bags.)Despite the seemingly ridiculous proposition that people would already be maneuvering for that race, it seems that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo feels there’s no time like the present. While he has repeatedly insisted that his sole focus...

There may have been much more to the termination of US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, than meets the casual glance.According to Reuters, which cites a law enforcement source, two days before U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was fired on Saturday, the high-profile New York prosecutor declined to take a call from President Donald Trump.  Bharara reportedly contacted the DOJ for authorization to speak to the president on Thursday - one day before the DOJ announced it had requested all Obama-era attorneys to hand in their resignations. When he apparently did not receive it, Reuters...

The New York Assembly moved Monday to establish New York as a sanctuary state, but the measure faces an uncertain future in the state Senate. Assembly Democrats are backing measures that would give the entire state sanctuary status for immigrants.

On Saturday Night Live, have they ever lampooned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo? As it turns out, no, they haven’t. And it’s not because being governor of New York is too obscure to merit mention on a national television show. SNL repeatedly lampooned Cuomo’s predecessor, David Paterson, for being blind. Classy. But Cuomo has never come been the target of SNL’s scorn. It’s all in on attacking his potential presidential political opponent – Donald Trump – but it’s never laid a glove on him. Which has no connection, I’m sure, to the fact that Andrew Cuomo feeds Saturday Night Live...

There is little doubt that easy access to federally subsidized student loans has contributed to the astronomical increase in the cost of attending college in the United States.  After all, what 18 year old would turn down $200,000 in free money to party for 4 years?  As an added bonus, when you figure out upon graduation that your degree in anthropology if fairly worthless, you can always just move back in with mom and force taxpayers to pick up your debt burden.  Anything less would be a substantial "triggering" event and we just can't have that.As we noted roughly...

The Governor of New York State hasn’t been indicted for anything yet, but nearly every rock which gets kicked over in Andrew Cuomo’s vicinity seems to reveal more roaches scurrying away from the light. After a pack of his aides and associates were indicted last week by Preet Bharara, the Albany Times Union began digging into the background of some of the state executive branch staff and almost immediately turned up something interesting. One of the indicted individuals, Steven F. Aiello, has a son who is employed by the Governor as a senior policy adviser. The son, Steven L....

A federal grand jury indicted former Gov. Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco Tuesday for allegedly hustling upstate companies that wanted profitable government contracts, prosecutors said. The feds charged Percoco — Cuomo's ex-executive secretary and campaign manager — with six corruption counts in September. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged seven others in relation to the pay-to-play plot, whom a grand jury also indicted. They include the onetime honcho of State University of New York Polytchnic Institute, as well as six execs from prominent Upstate firms. Todd Howe, another Cuomo confidant-turned-lobbyist, secretly copped to corruption charges two days before cops collared Percoco...

The election of Donald Trump has, at least according to some, produced a spike in so called “hate crimes” around the nation. Others find reason to doubt this, citing instances which turn out to be hoaxes or staged events by liberals, or simply a left leaning media focus on isolated incidents which blow it all out of proportion. There seems to be little reason to doubt it in the mind of New York’s governor, however. Andrew Cuomo is stepping up to create a special task force to battle this new scourge whether it’s happening or not.

Last Friday Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a new bill seeking to crackdown on citizens offering their homes for short term rental through Airbnb. The law would impose fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing a rental on the popular site for travelers. Why would the state of New York pass this law attacking people seeking to earn some extra money to help afford living in one of the most expensive cities in the country? The answer lies with the hotel companies, one of whose CEOs openly celebrated that his company would be able to raise prices...

Morning Joe did a very decent job today of covering the shooting of police officers in Dallas and the issue of police shootings of African-American. The remarks were generally even-handed. Even Al Sharpton was cautious and balanced in his comments. And so it was surprising that of all people, Chuck Todd made the most tendentious remark. Speaking of the shooting of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota, and discussing the need for better police training, Todd said: “how do you train prejudice and hate out of somebody’s heart? That’s a tough thing.” Is there racism among police? Of course, as...

Reports indicate that a supporter of the anti-Israel BDS movement and a self-proclaimed radical who has supported numerous anti-American initiatives has been named the host of a new late night talk show on VH1. Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN commentator, will launch VH1 Live which will begin airing weekly on the Viacom-owned cable network on Sunday, July 17 at 10 PM. Would a supporter of segregation be rewarded with a talk show? How about someone who is fiercely anti-LGBT? It seems that bigotry is only OK if it is directed at Israel. Hill is a staunch opponent of Israel, a...

Firefighters and medics will take their first “Trans 101” course on Tuesday, learning the correct way to interact with transgender people — and even getting a lesson in what LGTBQI actually stands for, a city official said. The two-hour sensitivity training was launched in March by the city Commission for Human Rights after Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order allowing people to use any public bathroom or locker room they identified with, regardless of their sexual anatomy.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing at least a half-dozen federal, state, and local investigations into his fundraising, accompanied by ugly headlines and the lowest approval ratings of his tenure. Last week’s arrest of Norman Seabrook, the powerful head of the city's corrections officers’ union, on federal corruption charges in a case involving a de Blasio fundraiser, only crystallized what more and more New York Democrats are starting to believe: With next year’s election looming on the horizon, the progressive mayor is becoming vulnerable to a primary challenge. While a few prominent local politicians are toying with the idea, it’s...

Former Attorney General Eric Holder has come out against proposals in Chicago and New Jersey to require fingerprint background checks of drivers for ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Lyft. Why would President Obama's onetime top lawman come out against regulation that is supposed to protect the riding public? Credit the intersection of two forces. First, Holder's tony corporate law firm, Covington & Burling, represents Uber. Also, as Holder sees it, requiring drivers to submit fingerprints may "have a discriminatory impact on communities of color." I was surprised to read about Holder's opposition, as I have trouble seeing Holder as...

A group of anti-cop dissenters burned an American flag outside a Staten Island police station house in protest of the NYPD’s investigation into the death of a black teenage boy who police said suffered a fatal asthma attack after a gang-related street fight last month, video shows. In a video posted to YouTube, demonstrators can be seen gathered outside of the 121st Precinct station house for the staged flag burning on Saturday. “We light fire for the ancestors who have gone before us who were lynched,” a woman can be hearing saying in the video as another person attempts to...