Free Republic

Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division issued the following statement in response to the federal court ruling today regarding religious liberty in New York City and New York State:"Today’s federal court decision is a win for religious freedom and the civil liberties of New Yorkers. Government cannot discriminate by protecting free speech and the right to assemble while threatening or limiting religious exercise – it must protect all rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. The court’s decision is consistent with positions and arguments made by the United States Department of Justice in similar filings and...

Protesters in New York City spent a second straight night camped out in front of City Hall to demand a $1 billion cut to the police department's budget. The group of about 100 protesters, calling themselves "Occupy City Hall," gathered at a nearby park around 5 p.m. Tuesday and haven't left. They have vowed to stay until their demand to slash one-sixth of the New York Police Department's $6 billion budget is met. The protesters say the money saved should be redistributed to social and community services as well as health care and education.

On May 20, CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" aired one of those jokey interviews between CNN host Chris Cuomo and his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The governor had submitted himself to a coronavirus test on camera. Chris decided to mock the size of his brother's nostrils by unveiling a series of ever-larger Q-Tips (or test swabs) and cracked his brother up. CNN happily posted the fun on YouTube under the headline "Chris Cuomo teases brother Andrew with giant test swab," now at more than 693,000 views. Before that, Chris asked his brother "First of all, is it true that...

Rowdy New York protesters came out in force at Mayor de Blasio's Gracie Mansion residence late Monday night to express their frustration with sleepless nights throughout the city due to general lawlessness and an epidemic of illegal fireworks displays designed to sew discontent. “The reason why we came out here is for the simple reason that at 12 o'clock at night, our families can not sleep, our children are scared, our families are scared, and this is not the New York that we love!” a resident shouted through a megaphone. "Our message to the person that's occupying Gracie Mansion is...

Seema Verma, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), told Breitbart News exclusively that New York’s Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democrat governors originally issued guidance that contradicted federal guidelines for nursing homes battling the coronavirus pandemic. “I just want to make it very clear that our guidance was absolutely crystal clear,” Verma said in an exclusive interview late last week. “It was clear and unmistakable. Any insinuation to the contrary is woefully mistaken at best and dishonest at worst. We put out our guidance on March 13. It’s very clear when it says that,...

You wouldn’t know it from my last name, my tan skin, my North Florida address, or my politics, but I am a Jew. A northeastern Jew, in fact. I not only had a Bar Mitzvah but continued to attend Hebrew School afterward. And while I’d never move back up north, and seldom attend synagogue, I still feel a tremendous sense of pride while watching the Orthodox Jews of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, rebel against their tinpot dictator-mayor. Williamsburg has long been home to Jewish immigrants, including my grandparents and my mother. That’s right, they had a hipster address before it was cool....

VIDEO It's almost too cringeworthy to watch as Jane Pauley goes full goo-goo ga-ga lovestruck over New York Governor Cuomo. And Jane, what exactly is this "Phase One" relationship of which you speak? Let's give credit to Cuomo for keeping a straight face when he claims that he fully believes that Joe Biden will run for a second term at age 82. That red blush on his face is either from Jane Pauley publicly gushing over him or his tell that he just told a whopper about Biden.

Effectively downplaying his fumbled response to the coronavirus outbreak in his state, and ignoring the bipartisan calls from state legislatures to investigate why he put infected patients in nursing homes, CBS Sunday Morning host Jane Pauley spent her segment gushes about Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Not only was she dismissive of his critics, but she also appeared to flirt with him while discussing how he was an eligible, sought after bachelor, and pushed him on running for president in 2024 . . . PAULEY: You are a bachelor, you've got a nice house here, having a moment, and...

Shootings are surging this week in New York City, with 28 incidents and 38 victims reported since Monday — the day the NYPD disbanded its plainclothes anti-crime unit, The Post learned on Friday. By comparison, the same week last year there were only 12 shootings for the entire week. In the most recent reported shooting, at 4 p.m. Friday in East New York, Brooklyn, a 27-year-old man died of multiple gunshot wounds to his t A 17-year-old boy who was also shot there was in stable condition, police said. “This is what the politicians wanted — no bail, nobody in...

President Trump has had enough of Anthony Fauci’s bullsh*t. – Last night, President Donald Trump issued the following tweet: Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump Informed Dr. Fauci this morning that he has nothing to do with NFL Football. Forced Democrat run Minnesota to bring in the National Guard & end rioting & looting after seeing the destruction & crime in Minneapolis. 100% successful! Waiting to hear from Dem run Washington State... 91.5K 9:42 PM - Jun 19, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 33.7K people are talking about this Trump’s tweet came after Fauci, in an interview on CNN, injected...

, New York’s WAMC public radio did manage to get one serious question in about the nursing home scandal during their otherwise equally softballish-interview Thursday with New York’s so-called “Luv Guv.” His answer was as despicable as it was tone deaf: “Do you ever change your mind, governor, about anything based on what these reporters are saying?” host Alan Chartock asked Cuomo. “I think about the nursing home situation, you got a lot of criticism from them, they asked one question after another. Is there anything you could point to in which you say ‘Ok, they really sort of have...

Florida is one of the states currently experiencing an increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases as the state begins to reopen. During his daily briefing yesterday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo suggested that he may soon be issuing a mandatory 14-day quarantine for any travelers coming to the Empire State from Florida, presumably to stave off another outbreak in the Big Apple. But wait… wouldn’t that amount to something approaching a “travel ban” on Floridians? I’m almost positive that somebody once told me that travel bans are bad. (CNBC) Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that he’s considering imposing a...

Flyers are circulating among New York City police officers calling for a “strike” on July 4 in order to give people a taste of what a world without police would be like. This follows comments from Governor Andrew Cuomo on NPR on Monday where he said if people don’t want the police force, “they shouldn’t have it.”It looks like at least some NYPD officers want to take the governor at his word.New York Post: A pair of flyers making their rounds among NYPD officers are encouraging them to call out sick July 4th — as retribution for police reform and...

A career criminal with more than 100 arrests to his name was busted for cruelly shoving a 92-year-old woman into a Manhattan fire hydrant — leaving his victim too scared to walk alone in her own neighborhood. The injured elder, a Bronx native named Geraldine, spoke to The Post on Tuesday after cops arrested convicted sex offender Rashid Brimmage, 31, and charged him with attacking her. “I thought a brick hit me or something hit me on the left side of my head, and I went right down and hit my head against the hydrant,” Geraldine, who asked that her...

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea signaled Tuesday that he’s open to the department ending its role in school safety enforcement — less than a week after Mayor Bill de Blasio said cops should stay in schools. “I think everyone has to cut,” Shea told The Associated Press when asked about calls for belt-tightening, first necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, then exacerbated by a wave of police reform since the police-custody killing of George Floyd. “I think we’re going to be forced to do difficult things,” continued the top cop. “We certainly get that.” Among the tough cuts Shea told the AP he was willing to make was...

Cops arrested a suspect who caused an elderly woman to smack her head on a fire hydrant in Manhattan last week. According to police, at 3:23 p.m. on June 12, a 92-year-old woman was walking on 3rd Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets when she was pushed by an unknown man. The victim fell to the ground and hit her head on a nearby fire hydrant. The suspect then continued down 3rd Avenue to parts unknown. The victim was transported to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in stable condition. Following an ongoing investigation, officers arrested 31-year-old Rashid Brimmage and...

A few hours after the Manhattan district attorney announced he would not prosecute some of the protesters who had been arrested during demonstrations against police brutality, the Police Department sent him a message: All the officers assigned to his office would be pulled off the job to help with crowd control. The district attorneys in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens made similar decisions and received the same news. Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea said on Friday that the timing was unrelated to the prosecutors’ decisions. Resources were pulled from the entire department to cover the protests, he said. But to...

If reopening America is contingent on robust contact tracing then America will never reopen. There were supposed to be armies. Grand armies of contact tracers crisscrossing every county in the country on the hunt for the Chinese virus. This was the key we were told to a safe reopening, they have been telling us this since back when they still told us not to wear masks. Soldiers in this army would interview anyone who tested positive and track down the people they spent time with. Supposedly serious people with TV shows and everything said with straight faces that we might...

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday fired back at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s threat to shut down Manhattan again if the city didn’t enforce social-distancing better — saying through a rep that “imprisoning people” isn’t the answer. “We must balance safety with people’s need to reopen their businesses,” a City Hall spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We had social distancing ambassadors out all weekend distributing masks and encouraging people to disperse after making their purchases.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday fired back at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s threat to shut down Manhattan again if the city didn’t enforce social-distancing better — saying through a rep that “imprisoning people” isn’t the answer. “We must balance safety with people’s need to reopen their businesses,” a City Hall spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We had social distancing ambassadors out all weekend distributing masks and encouraging people to disperse after making their purchases. “These businesses are allowed to be open per the Governor’s guidelines and we don’t believe imprisoning people or taking away their livelihood is the answer.”