Free Republic

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – An Ocala man has been arrested after stealing a car in an attempt to access Patrick Space Force Base. According to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Corey Johnson, 29, stole a truck in Riviera Beach before heading north to the base three days later. While trying to get into Patrick Space Force Base, Johnson claimed the President told him, through his mind, that he needed to steal the truck to warn government officials about U.S. aliens fighting Chinese dragons. Johnson was arrested and booked into the Brevard County Jail. He has been charged with grand theft...

Speaker Corey Johnson and seven other City Council leaders firmly embraced the “Defund Police” movement Friday, calling for $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s $6 billion budget. “We believe that we can and should work to get to $1 billion in cuts to New York City’s police spending in the Fiscal 2021 budget, an unprecedented reduction that would not only limit the scope of the NYPD, but also show our commitment towards moving away from the failed policing policies of the past,” Johnson (D-Manhattan) announced late Friday. He was joined by Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo (D-Brooklyn), Democratic Conference Chair...

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson may have just slammed the parking brake on his mayoral bid. Johnson fumed to WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Thursday that too much public space is dedicated to on-street car storage, potentially alienating a host of car-driving voters. “I do think that there are too many parking spaces in New York City,” Johnson said bluntly. “We have over 3 million [on-street] parking spaces in New York City … and we should reclaim that space and use it for the public.” Johnson, an early front-runner in the 2021 mayoral race, was responding to a call...

A Brooklyn lawmaker set off a social media storm Wednesday by denying the existence of Palestine and accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar of being an anti-Semite. “Palestine does not exist,” tweeted Councilman Kalman Yeger, who represents Midwood and other neighborhoods with large Jewish populations.

A city lawmaker in New York is refusing to apologize for saying that the city government is “controlled by the homosexual community.” Bronx city council member Ruben Diaz Sr., described as a conservative Democrat, made the comment while speaking on the Spanish-language radio program, “El Desahogo," last week, according to The New York Daily News. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is gay, and others called for Diaz to apologize over the comment. “The disgraceful and homophobic comments made by Ruben Diaz Sr. don’t reflect this city’s values,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) tweeted on Saturday. “The...

New York City Council members grilled Amazon executives about the company's plan to build a secondary headquarters in New York during a contentious hearing Wednesday that was interrupted several times by jeering protesters. The council members, who have no vote on the project and no apparent path to block it, demanded to know why the city and New York state were offering Amazon up to $2.8 billion in tax breaks and grants to build the new headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. "We have a crumbling subway system, record homelessness, public housing that is in crisis, overcrowded...

Democrats on Thursday distanced themselves from Gov. Cuomo’s eye-popping remark that America “was never that great.” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called the comment “inartful” and “clumsy.” “We are a great country and a great city — we could even be greater,” Johnson said in an interview on WNYC radio. Upstate Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko claimed ignorance. “I haven’t heard about it,” Tonko told Albany’s WNYT TV.