Free Republic

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has been staying with one of his sisters in Westchester County in the final days of his third term, recently has asked staff members at the Executive Mansion if anyone would like to keep his dog, Captain, who has remained at the state-owned residence after the governor moved out last week. Two State Police sources told the Times Union on Saturday that the governor had recently asked mansion staff members if anyone would be interested in caring for the dog. Captain — a high-strung mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute — has nipped...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo left behind his dog at the Executive Mansion when he moved out last week, the Albany Times Union reported. The New York Democrat announced Aug. 10 he was resigning from office in the wake of accusations that he sexually harassed several former and current female staff members. The governor, whose resignation takes effect Tuesday, has been staying with one of his sisters in Westchester County. The Times Union, citing two New York State Police sources, reported that Cuomo recently asked staff members if anyone wanted to keep his dog, Captain, a high-strung mix of shepherd, Siberian, and...

.Black Lives Matter supporters ran over a raccoon twice before beating it to death with a baseball bat and posting it online in a horrific act of animal cruelty. The incident took place in New York City, as onlookers watched and cheered.

Darius Brown, from Newark, New Jersey, was diagnosed with developmental delays, including speech delay, comprehension delay and fine motor skills delay, when he was just two years old. Since then, his mother, Joy Brown, and his older sister, Dazhai Brown-Shearz, have been working hard to encourage him to improve those skills. Darius’s breakthrough came at the age of eight, while his sister was in cosmetology school. Dazhai was making hair ribbons for little girls and thought Darius could benefit from helping out with the project. “With his fine motor skills, he wasn’t able to really use his hands well —...

A 22 year old Israeli Jewish man was stabbed Tuesday morning (roughly 2:00 am EST) in Crown Heights, outside the Chabad-Lubavitch building at 770 Eastern Parkway in New York City. The man’s condition is defined as stable, but serious; he was reportedly stabbed in the neck. The public has been asked to pray for him; his Hebrew name is Levy Yitzhak ben Raizel. Police arrived at the scene and apprehended the perpetrator, now revealed to have been a 40-year old African American man. He may have also been Muslim, but this has yet to be confirmed. The attacker died after...

They used to hang horse thieves — now they elect them mayor. As many know, New York City’s new commandant, Bill de Blasio, has sworn that one of his first acts upon taking office will be to ban Central Park’s iconic horse-drawn carriages. He claims that forcing horses to work in downtown Manhattan is inhumane, but is he really just kowtowing to a big real-estate developer who heavily supported his campaign? Interestingly, there was a time when de Blasio was more blasé about these animal-rights concerns. In fact, when he had the chance as a City Council member to support...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's bill to ban horse-drawn carriages reached the City Council on Monday, in a move to phase out the carriages that often give tours around Central Park. The legislation says that as of June 1, 2016, "it shall be unlawful to operate a horse-drawn vehicle in the city of New York or offer rides to the public on a vehicle drawn or pulled by a carriage horse." ... It also boosts the penalty for breaking horse-carriage rules to a maximum of $25,000 instead of the current $500. The proposed ban was introduced one day after...

A startled carriage horse took a jaunt around Central Park without any passengers or its driver. The horse became detached from its bridle on Monday evening and ran into the Manhattan park, following its usual route, the union that represents carriage drivers said. It was unclear what startled it. […] Advocacy agency NYCLASS, which is seeking to end the carriage horse industry, released a statement saying carriage horses and city streets don’t mix. “It’s time to retire the carriage horses and replace them with something that doesn’t spook or dart dangerously through traffic and pedestrians,” it said. …

Mayor Bill de Blasio is pulling back the reins on his plans to quickly get rid of New York City’s horse-drawn carriage industry, stung by a recent outpouring of support for the colorful coaches that have clip-clopped their way through Central Park for more than 150 years. A campaign pledge to take on the horses during his first week as mayor was eclipsed by other issues. […] What changed? For one, a media blitz led by actor Liam Neeson has portrayed the horse-drawn carriage industry as an iconic, romantic part of New York that provides about 400 jobs, many to...

Wednesday, March 12, 2014 The Left's War on Horses Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog At Grand Army Plaza, beneath the golden equestrian statue of General Sherman, the horses stand, lazily flicking their ears, tasting the grit of 59th street and occasionally glancing about as a yellow taxi driven by an angry Pakistani wheels around past the Plaza Hotel, brakes squealing, an Al Qaeda friendly Nasheed or a little  Atif Aslam, either sounding more unpleasant than the brakes, blaring through the open window. Feathered plumes, scarlet red, sapphire blue, electric purple, matching the colors of the plush...

While Bill de Blasio backer Steve Nislick plots to grab the stables once his boy follows through and outlaws carriage horses in Central Park, Liam Neeson visited the actual stables whose “64,000 feet of valuable real estate” Nislick has been drooling over and is plotting to seize under the cover of animal rights. And taught smirking liberal Jon Stewart a thing or two about horses. . .

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced recently that he’d make banning the city’s horse-drawn carriages his first priority, a lot of people were left asking, “Really?” Could This be the Reason De Blasio Decided to Go After Horse Carriages in NYC? Indeed, for all the problems de Blasio claims the city struggles with, it would seem horse-drawn carriages would take a back seat. But they haven’t and he’s pursuing the ban. And there may be a reason why: A major de Blasio campaign donor and real-estate executive may be tied up in the drive to banish the...

Mayor Bill de Blasio's promise to ban New York City's iconic horse-drawn carriages could backfire, exposing what the newly-elected mayor's critics suggest is a corruption scandal masquerading as an animal-rights crusade. Defenders of the carriage industry point to a real-estate executive who is one of de Blasio's major campaign donors as the driving force behind the effort to abolish the carriages. (snip) The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real...

Rush Limbaugh has come out swinging in defence of the heavily Irish horse and carriage industry in New York’s Central Park after new mayor Bill de Blasio promised to put them off the streets. Over half the drivers of the 200 horses are Irish, but they are fighting a rearguard action against de Blasio, who had major support from animal rights groups. De Blasio stated that one of his first acts would be to end the horse and carriage trade and replace it with electric car tours. "We are going to quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no...

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio vowed to act quickly to abolish horse-drawn carriages in the city. "We are going to get rid of the horse carriages. Period,” de Blasio said in response to a question at his press conference announcing his schools chancellor pick Monday. “It’s over,” he said.

Suffering from a clear lack of intellectual honesty, the morally bankrupt progressive socialist mayor of New York City seems to have a knack for tax avoidance. (And remember: despite what Harry Reid would have you believe, tax avoidance is not a crime.) According to public records, Bill “punish the rich” de Blasio paid a mere 8 percent of his income in federal taxes. Just to put that in context for any liberal that has accidently stumbled across this paragraph: That’s less than that capitalist pig, Mitt Romney paid in prior years. Of course, to be fair, it is possible...

Bill de Blasio, New York’s incoming mayor, apparently loves animals more than people. He thinks horse-drawn carriages in Central Park are “inhumane.” But abortions in New York City, which is the abortion capital of America given its ridiculously high abortion rates? No problem.Fox News reports on de Blasio’s concern about horse-drawn carriages: New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has vowed to move quickly to outlaw the horse-drawn carriages that pull tourists around the city’s famous Central Park.“We are going to get rid of the horse carriages. Period,” de Blasio, who takes office New Year’s Day, said at a news...

New York City’s brand-new mayor Bill de Blasio has an ambitious progressive agenda that includes tax increases, much talk about somehow crushing inequality and punishing “the elite.” Two issues high on de Blasio’s agenda are the creation of more abortion clinics across the five boroughs and an outright ban on horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park. De Blasio’s animosity to the horse-drawn carriages runs deep, apparently. “We are going to get rid of horse carriages, period,” he said at a news conference Monday, according to CNN. He added that he believes the tourist attraction — popular since 1858 — is...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A New York appeals court says a chimpanzee isn't entitled to the rights of a human and doesn't have to be freed by its owner. The three-judge Appellate Division panel was unanimous Thursday in denying "legal personhood" to Tommy, who lives alone in a cage in upstate Fulton County. A trial level court had previously denied the Nonhuman Rights Project's effort to have Tommy released. The group's lawyer, Steven Wise, told the appeals court in October that the chimp's living conditions are akin to a person in unlawful solitary confinement.

San Francisco veterinarian Jill Chase had just finished hosting a birthday party for her son 10 years ago when her dog went limp. After investigating what might have caused the problem, she discovered the culprit: cannabis-infused butter that a neighbor had dumped in the garbage down the street. Her dog, a Tibetan terrier who was a habitual trash surfer, had eaten a large dose.