Free Republic

mayoral candidate Christine Quinn, who is speaker of the City Council, said one of her political platforms is perhaps opening the door for middle school girls to receive morning-after contraception, known in some circles as the abortion pill. Yes, doing so “can make some people uncomfortable,” she said, as the New York Post reported. But, she added, “this is a really important option we need to make accessible.” That means some girls as young as age 11 could have access to the pill. Ms. Quinn, who faces off against former Rep. Anthony Weiner in the Democratic mayoral primary — made...

Kim M. Catullo does not like giving interviews or getting behind a microphone. At political events, she tends to hover in the background, so much so that she is sometimes mistaken for a member of her wife’s security detail. But with the primary just weeks away, Ms. Catullo, the wife of Christine C. Quinn, is edging out of her comfort zone to take on a more visible role in Ms. Quinn’s campaign for mayor of New York City.

In a jolt to the Democratic campaign for mayor, a new poll suggests that Bill de Blasio, the most liberal of the leading candidates, has vaulted into first place among likely voters. With one month to go until the Sept. 10 primary, Mr. de Blasio has now passed Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who had led in most polls for months, although her lead had already narrowed. Until a month or so ago, Mr. de Blasio had been mired in fourth place, about 10 points behind Ms. Quinn. He was then overtaken by former Representative Anthony D. Weiner,...

The Talk Shows July 28th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Treasury Secretary Jack Lew; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Lew; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Christine Quinn, candidate for New York mayor.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rogers; Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.THIS WEEK (ABC): Lew; Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Lew; Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The influential women-in-politics group EMILY's List will tell supporters on Friday that as far as New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner is concerned, "It's time to end this." "New Yorkers deserve better than the circus their mayoral race has turned into. I actually caught myself glad I'm not home — where I'd have to see the cover of the NY Post on every street corner," communications director Jess McIntosh will write Friday morning in an email obtained by NBC News. Their proposed solution: Donating to Christine Quinn, who would be the first woman mayor of New York. "She's tough, she's...

Officials and various candidates for office joined in the flood of outrage tonight following the not guilty verdict in the racially-charged trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson, the mayoral race’s only black candidate, released and tweeted a terse, one-line statement slamming the decision, which was read tonight just before 10 p.m. “Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black,” declared Mr. Thompson. “There was no justice done today in Florida.” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn further slammed the acquittal as “a shocking insult to his family and everyone seeking justice...

New York Dems want to pass a bill that would limit a description of a suspect to identify suspects essentially by the clothes they wear only. Truly mind-numbing stupidity. NYPost reports the following: Cops might as well wear blindfolds if the City Council passes a bill that would let them use little more than the color of a suspect’s clothing in descriptions — or risk being sued for profiling, according to this provocative new ad (pictured) from the NYPD captains union. The ad asks, “How effective is a police officer with a blindfold on?” And the answer is not very,...

Northern Ireland’s Lord Mayor of Belfast offered an enthusiastic endorsement of a certain Irish-American mayoral candidate Thursday morning during a visit to Gracie Mansion. “We think that every city needs an Irish mayor. And New York has had a series of wonderful mayors and we think it would be wonderful in the days ahead, in the short time ahead, if New York had an Irish-American mayor again,” Lord Mayor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir told Politicker this morning, as he posed for photographs with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn by his side. While Mr. Ó Muilleoir didn’t mention...

The NYC city council has just passed a resolution allowing religious groups to worship in public schools, taking a stand on a decades-old controversy. Since 1994, state legislators and activists with a radical interpretation of the First Amendment have been trying to evict New York City churches from public schools. The official New York City Board of Education policy forbids religious institutions from renting public schools, a restriction that applies to no other type of organization. Churches and their supporters have been fighting back, and the battle over the enforcement of this policy has taken a serpentine path though both...

For the record, I tend to think that a cigarette ban for minors may be appropriate. While I oppose prohibition for adults, I think it makes sense to say that adults shouldn’t be permitted to entice children into certain unhealthy choices. Of course, if such a prohibition is put in place, it needs to be justified by banning a substance that is clearly dangerous, not just “unhealthy” by some statistic that we know doesn’t apply to all people. If the evidence qualifies tobacco as such a substance, then I can see restricting it from children.But recent news about a new...

A session of the New York City Council had descended into chaos, and lawmakers were openly questioning her leadership. Ms. Quinn, the Council speaker, decided there was one person to blame: Betsy Gotbaum, then the city’s public advocate, who had been presiding. The response was sudden and fierce. Ms. Quinn summoned Ms. Gotbaum to an office nearby and, with little warning, began shouting at her in increasingly angry tones about appearing weak in front of other lawmakers. “You were like Bambi in there!” Ms. Quinn exclaimed, slamming her hand on a table for emphasis, according to Ms. Gotbaum, who was...

A powerful New York politician claims she was just speaking as a private citizen when she tried to run Chick-fil-A out of town, but she used her official letterhead and even invoked her position as City Council speaker to apply pressure on the embattled chicken chain. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has mayoral aspirations, sent a letter to New York University president John Sexton on Saturday asking the school to immediately end their contract with the fast food restaurant. The Atlanta-based company's sole New York City outlet is in the school's food court. "I write as the...

A powerful New York politician claims she was just speaking as a private citizen when she tried to run Chick-fil-A out of town, but she used her official letterhead and even invoked her position as City Council speaker to apply pressure on the embattled chicken chain. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has mayoral aspirations, sent a letter to New York University president John Sexton on Saturday asking the school to immediately end their contract with the fast food restaurant. The Atlanta-based company's sole New York City outlet is in the school's food court. "I write as the...

Nearly a quarter of the City Council's secret slush fund went to organizations in Speaker Christine Quinn's district, records show. Eleven groups in the Democratic lawmaker's Manhattan district - encompassing Greenwich Village, Chelsea and parts of Midtown - soaked up a combined $866,500 from the mysterious fund in fiscal year 2007. That was 24 percent of the pot's $3.6 million total. One of the recipients in her district - Friends of the High Line, which has received $32.5 million in up-front council capital funding - got $290,000 from the secret stash, more than any other organization in the city. The...

Columbia University said it does not plan to call off a speech by Iran's president despite pressure from critics including the City Council speaker, who said the Ivy League school was providing a forum for "hate-mongering vitriol." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is traveling to New York to address the United Nations' General Assembly. He was scheduled to appear Monday at a question-and-answer session with Columbia faculty and students as part of the school's World Leaders Forum. City Council speaker Christine Quinn called Thursday for the university to rescind the invitation, saying "the idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our...