Free Republic

Mayor de Blasio lit Gov. Cuomo up Tuesday with a double-barreled blast of political payback. In stunningly frank language, the mayor accused the governor of deliberately thwarting his Albany agenda out of political pique and revenge — and hurting New Yorkers in the process. Hours before leaving on a vacation out West, de Blasio called reporters into his office and spoke calmly in a calculated decision to take off the gloves and reveal the “frenemies” were really enemies.

I’m guessing this is the new face of equality. Or at least a redefinition of sanity. In any case, welcome to the Big Apple, employers! (From the NY Daily News) In front of emotional supporters, Mayor de Blasio signed legislation Monday that will prohibit employers from inquiring about a candidate’s criminal record prior to a job offer.“Today I see hope for people like me,” said Marilyn Scales, 52, of the Bronx, who said she never has had a full-time job because of her record for dealing heroin. As crazy as this may sound, there’s actually a bit more to...

Mayor Bill de Blasio, unleashing months of frustration on Tuesday, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo undermined his Albany agenda and wasn’t focused on New York City residents but instead cared about “deal making” and “revenge.” Mr. de Blasio said he expected more retribution from the governor, a fellow Democrat, for expressing his views Tuesday afternoon, but he said he was prepared to handle it. Mr. de Blasio also said the governor had been disappointing since the mayor endorsed him last year for re-election. ... Melissa DeRosa, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Mr. Cuomo wished the mayor well on his coming...

**SNIP** “If government dependence on welfare is rising in a good economy, what’s going to happen in a bad economy?” wondered study author Stephen Eide, who said the trend was antithetical to data dating back to around 1960. The surprising uptick, reformers say, is partly by design. De Blasio’s pick to head the $10 billion Human Resources Administration, Steven Banks, is a proponent of loosening welfare restrictions. With Banks at the helm, the HRA launched a series of sweeping changes in its state-approved Biennial Employment Plan, including changing requirements for welfare recipients with kids younger than 4 years old. Recipients...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has more than the White House on his mind–he’s also taking a shot at Gracie Mansion. The conservative Republican, a probable presidential contender in 2016, blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, for his educational views in a speech he gave yesterday at the Heritage Action Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. Mr. Cruz, a supporter of charter schools, said Mr. de Blasio’s opposition to Eva Moskowitz’s charter network amounted to throwing “young African-American kids” out of school. “In my view school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. And I gotta say...

Who's afraid of Mayor Bill de Blasio in Albany? Not state Senate Republicans, who denied his request for permanent mayoral control of New York City schools, granting him one year instead. Not Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who didn't deny he and his team were the unnamed officials in news reports who belittled the mayor as "incompetent" and clueless on influencing the legislative process. Not advocates for charter schools, who won a lifting of a cap for new schools over de Blasio's opposition in the three-way agreement last week among Cuomo, state Senate Republicans and the Democrat-led state Assembly. "There isn't...

Two days after the Supreme Court affirmed gay marriage as a fundamental right, New York City’s pride parade began, appropriately enough, with a wedding. Presiding over the same-sex ceremony, which took place in front of the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village on Sunday afternoon, was New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, according to Newsday. Cuomo, who noted he was officiating his first wedding ceremony, wed Human Rights Campaign staffer David Contreras Turley, 36, and UBS financial analyst Peter Thiede, 35, while a crowd of onlookers cheered and The Beatles’ “Love Is All You Need” played, Newsday reported. The Stonewall...

Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a sharp shift from his initial objections, is poised to hire nearly 1,300 additional officers for the New York Police Department, a surprising addition in a $78.5 billion budget deal announced by city leaders on Monday night. The mayor, who has pledged to improve police-community relations, has long been hesitant to hire more officers, saying he felt comfortable with the city’s near-record-low level of crime. But his administration has come under intense pressure in recent weeks after a notable increase in homicides and shootings compared with the same period last year.

ALBANY - Days after getting the right to marry people, Gov. Cuomo will officiate a same-sex marriage Sunday morning an hour before marching in the city gay pride parade. Cuomo will marry David Contreras Turley, 36, and Peter Thiede, 35. "It’s hard to believe everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours,” Turley told the Daily News on Saturday night. “The opportunity arose for us to get married by the governor, and we couldn’t be happier.” Longtime gay rights activist Edie Windsor, who was part of a landmark Supreme Court decision, will deliver the opening remarks at the ceremony, which...

Two Muslim filmmakers have filed a lawsuit against the operator of New York subways claiming the agency rejected their advertisements under a rule that prohibits disputed political views. They argue the ads have nothing to do with politics and should not be banned. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, the filmmakers, Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah, claim the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is violating their First Amendment right to free speech. The two created the advertisements to help promote their 2013 film, “The Muslims Are Coming.” They say the overall message of both the ads and the film...

The street, which runs through the center of Fort Hamilton, New York City's only US military base, was named in honor of Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate troops during the Civil War

Four people were shot at a Harlem deli Wednesday afternoon, police said. The gunman opened fire inside the 20 Stars deli on East 132nd Street near Madison Avenue around 3:30 p.m., cops said. A 25-year-old man was shot in the head and a 17-year-old man was shot in the torso. The chaos then spilled outside, with the shooter letting off several more shots

Mayor de Blasio declared Sunday that Donald Trump is no real New Yorker, even if the mogul has his name plastered on so many buildings in town. The mayor told reporters that The Donald’s politics were out of line with “the values” of everyone else in the city. De Blasio — who is still refusing to endorse his former boss Hillary Rodham Clinton for president — took the shot at Trump during a Washington Heights press conference in which a reporter asked about the billionaire being the only New York City resident running for the White House. “I don’t think...

Facebook user Seth Torres-Campbell posted a video to his page early yesterday morning that shows two NYPD officers getting punched multiple times by an angry onlooker during what looks like the arrest of a young woman.The woman getting arrested can be seen trying to grab the female NYPD officer’s gun numerous times during the altercation.

Chuck Todd aired a racist video featuring all black shooters on Meet The Press, and in the face of a mounting public backlash refused to apologize. Before the video aired, Todd tried to deflect away the obvious problem with what he was about to air, “The circumstances you are about to see are very different from the racist violence in Charleston. In this case, the inmates are African American that you’re going to hear from. But their lessons remain important. We simply ask you to look at this be a colorblind issue, as about just simply gun violence. If the...

Hip Hop mogul Russell Simmons has started a rap-worthy feud with Mayor de Blasio, calling him a “punk” and a “bitch” for not standing up to Gov. Cuomo and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on police reform. “Our police commissioner is bullying our punk mayor” into not appointing special prosecutors to investigate police abuses, Simmons said on WQHT 97.1 FM, Hot97, radio Thursday, in remarks first reported by Capital New York. “He got the police commissioner pushing him around like he’s a bitch,” Simmons railed.

The Republican field is crowded, which implies that primary voters have little information about where some of the candidates stand. That is particularly the case this season, with a few relatively unknown contenders who lack legislative experience or a long history of campaign contributions that would allow researchers to precisely identify where they stand on the liberal-to-conservative political dimension.However, one characteristic all candidates share is that they have active and popular Twitter accounts. And as I showed in an article published earlier this year in the journal Political Analysis — now freely available online as an Editors’ Choice article —...

NEWARK, NJ — The Rev. Al Sharpton was honored for his civil rights and social justice work during a special ceremony in Newark. “We believe that Rev. Al Sharpton deserves recognition. We want to give him his roses while he’s still alive,” Baraka said. “We don’t want to wait until he’s long gone before we say thank you for standing in the gap. When people keep their mouths shut, his is open.” Sharpton was also presented with keys to four other New Jersey cities: Hillside, Irvington, East Orange and Orange.

Rev. Al Sharpton is questioning why Rachel Dolezal’s parents chose to out her for faking her racial identity now of all times. The Black community was really shocked to find out that the president of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter was pretending to be a Black woman. This information was new to us, but this was really nothing new for her family. Despite what Rachel’s done during her tenure at the NAACP, and the lengths she’s gone to to make everyone believe that she’s a Black woman, Al told TMZ that her parents are really the only ones to blame for...

Millionaire Hillary rally on New York City island as she promises to look out for ordinary Americans' pocketbooks – but the 'overflow' crowd zone is left EMPTY New York City rally brings people from several states to watch Clinton reboot her campaign after two months in low gear Speech emphasizes economic issues and puts Hillary on the hot seat as she suffers wealthy, elitist image Clinton is setting herself up as Obama's heir apparent 'She's earned it,' one attendee said Saturday; 'All those campaigns, all that travel at the State Department. All that putting up with Bill' Smaller than expected...