Free Republic

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.

The NYPD is supporting gay pride with a new rainbow colored patrol vehicle. The SUV was apparently painted for the city’s gay pride parade Sunday in Manhattan and carries a message of support for Orlando in the wake of the country’s largest mass shooting incident earlier this month.

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...

New reports indicate the Cuomo administration tried to subvert information about a cancer-causing chemical in the water supply of the town of Hoosick Falls … and nobody seems all that concerned. Documents obtained by Politico show the New York State Department of Health dismissing warnings from the EPA, and refusing to alert residents of the very dangerous situation. Over a year ago, health department officials issued a ‘fact sheet’ indicating that “health effects are not expected to occur from normal use of the water” within days of a contradictory declaration by the EPA which advised residents not to drink or...

MSNBC national correspondent Joy-Ann Reid has yet to pay off her still open nearly $5,000 tax warrant that attracted a good bit of attention last year. Ditto for the nearly $600,000 for two tax warrants that New York lists for MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton. Here is the backstory. National Review contributor Jillian Kay Melchior created a stir on April 22, 2015 that Reid and then afternoon host Touré Neblett were in the hock with the Empire State for thousands of dollars. Melchior was apparently following up on a well-circulated report that then-host Melissa Harris Perry was just slapped with...

We learned this week that Hizzonor Bill de Blasio has yet another plan to entrench the city in “transgender” warfare and make sure that business owners are made to toe the line on political correctness. Under this latest scheme, any business which greets someone using a pronoun not matching the gender (or lack thereof) the customer “identifies” as could face a stiff fine in court.

Why do liberals hate science? The left has long claimed that it has something of a monopoly on scientific expertise. For instance, long before Al Gore started making millions by claiming that anyone who disagreed with his apocalyptic prophecies was "anti-science," there were the "scientific socialists." "Social engineer" is now rightly seen as a term of scorn and derision, but it was once a label that progressive eggheads eagerly accepted. Masking opinions in a white smock is a brilliant, albeit infuriating and shabby, rhetorical tactic. As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,...

Garbage bags could help bring down the Blasio administration. Of many revelations about City Hall’s pay-to-play culture, the case of how New York came to buy a certain brand of trash bags caught the prosecutors' attention . Joseph Dussich, tried for nearly a decade to get the city to buy his Mint-X bags, which he says deter rats and squirrels. But he got the brush-off until he contributed $100,000 to Campaign for One New York, a slush fund de Blasio created. Presto, Dussich got a meeting with the mayor, a trial contract for $15,000, and then a deal worth nearly...

These are the guns and knives Mayor de Blasio doesn’t want you to see. A surging tide of weapons — including loaded revolvers, 9mm handguns, meat cleavers and daggers — has been confiscated this year from students in city schools, most of which do not have metal detectors.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called for a city-wide boycott of Chick-fil-A last week, and it appears the people of New York have answered that call. The answer is a resounding "no." Both midtown Manhattan locations are reportedly raking it in, with long lunchtime lines that often stretch around the block. Chick-fil-A boycott in New York not getting much traction ... https://t.co/KkYczjfXQf @ChickfilA @toddstarnes pic.twitter.com/Fs0Ogxq01L— Joni Hannigan (@JoniHannigan) May 5, 2016Last week, Mayor de Blasio-- who is currently fending off several state and federal ethics probes -- urged New Yorkers to avoid eating at the politically incorrect eating establishment. "What the...

The Rev. Franklin Graham has strongly condemned Mayor Bill de Blasio's call for a boycott of popular fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, which is opening a new location in the New York City borough of Queens, just because its Christian owners believe in the biblical definition of marriage. "Can you imagine a city where a popular, successful business is singled out and attacked by the mayor who calls for a boycott — all because the business owners let it be known that they operate by Christian principles and believe in God's definition of marriage?" Graham, the president of Samaritan's Purse and Billy...

Racism is to blame for Puerto Rico’s dire fiscal situation, Mayor de Blasio charged Saturday. “The backs of the United States government turned on them, while a health-care crisis grows, a humanitarian crisis grows, the Zika crisis grows,” he said in a speech at the National Action Network in Harlem.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials are urging New Yorkers not to eat at Chick fil-A. The popular chicken restaurant is planning to open up a new location in Queens, its fourth to open in New York City. But the liberal mayor argued that the owners of Chick fil-A support groups that promote "hate" against gays. "Chick-fil-A is anti-LGBT," he said in a statement, according to the website DNAInfo. "This group imparts a strong anti-LGBT message by forcing their employees and volunteers to adhere to a policy that prohibits same-sex love. It is outrageous that...

  Q.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?                         A.  Does it really matter if you believe believe in gay marriage? The outpost of left wing totalitarianism raised it’s [trigger warning] ugly little head again in NYC. Mayor de Blasio joined Councilman Danny Dromm from Queens in calling for a boycott of Chick-fil-A restaurants in the city. As a rationale Domm issued the following statement: “Chick-fil-A is anti-LGBT.” This group imparts a strong anti-LGBT message by forcing their employees and volunteers to adhere to a policy that prohibits same-sex love,” he said. “It is outrageous that Chick-fil-A is quietly...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday encouraged his constituents not to eat at a new Chick-fil-A restaurant opening in the city, citing the company’s pro-traditional marriage views. “What the ownership of Chick-fil-A has said is wrong,” Mr. de Blasio said at a press conference, as reported by DNA Info. “I’m certainly not going to patronize them, and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them,” he said, adding that “they do have a legal right.” Mr. de Blasio’s comments came after city Councilman Danny Dromm started a boycott for a new Chick-fil-A location opening in...

As Blue as New York State is, its Senate is still controlled by the Republicans. In New York City, however there is no Republican presence except for three City Council seats. Consequently the City’s scandals are 100% owned by Democrats. After a thorough investigation, Preet Bharara, a local US Attorney, succeeded in convicting and jailing both the Democrat Speaker of the State Assembly and the Republican Leader of the State Senate. Immediately afterward Bharara announced he was going after New York’s Democrat Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Then a strange thing happened: Bharara announced that he would not be going further on...

ALBANY – Hours after his office received a subpoena as part of a criminal probe of the Buffalo Billion program, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday ordered a review of his own signature economic development program, which is anchored by the massive SolarCity project along the Buffalo River. The governor’s counsel, Alphonso David, said Friday that the investigation begun last year by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has “recently raised questions of improper lobbying and undisclosed conflicts of interest by some individuals” that may involve cases in which the state was “defrauded.” The revelation by Cuomo comes after months in which...

n this case, however, the Google search on the slogan or hashtag allows the Propaganda Man to verify for himself that Al Sharpton did indeed tell his listeners, "I don't believe in marching! I believe in offing the pigs! Well, they got pigs out here! You ain't offed one of them!" and "I'll off the man. Well, off him! Plenty of crackers walking around here tonight!" The Propaganda Man can also verify independently that Hillary Clinton has made at least two appearances at Sharpton's National Action Network, where she praised Sharpton and essentially solicited his support for her candidacy. This...