Free Republic

Indeed, one of the rhetorical items that caught our eye in President Yanukovych’s latest effort to quell dissent and further placate Comrade Putin was the use of the term “extremist.” The English essayist William Hazlitt once guyed “the common-place critic,” who, said Hazlitt, searched for the truth “between the extremes of right and wrong.” That anemic middle is an inauspicious place to search for the truth. But part of Hazlitt’s point is the rhetorical advantage to be gained if one succeeds in labeling one’s interlocutor “extreme.” “He’s an extremist”: that means, “You needn’t pay him any attention,” “He’s not worth listening...

People misunderstood New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he said conservatives “have no place in the state of New York,” the Democratic governor explained Wednesday. “I was not saying anyone should leave the state, right? And anyone who heard the comments knows that’s not what I was saying,” Cuomo said when asked about his comments at a press conference. “To the extent people want to have a political dialogue, that’s what it is.” Cuomo came under fire from conservatives last month when he said “extreme conservatives, who are right-to-life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay … have no place in the state of...

One day after Mayor de Blasio suggested New York City be allowed to set its own minimum wage, Gov. Cuomo shot down the idea as economically damaging to the entire state. Cuomo told a radio interviewer that having municipalities set their own, competing wage rates would create a “chaotic situation” and negatively “cannibalize” New York. The mayor needs Albany’s approval to increase the minimum wage, now set at $8 an hour.

Dwayne Ferguson spent more than a decade advocating for nonviolence and peace in the streets of Buffalo. He was a well-known face in the movement for the SAFE Act, the state law that made carrying a gun on school property a felony. He was also a familiar presence in the hallways of the city’s Harvey Austin Elementary School, where he worked in the after-school program and mentored students. No one imagined that on Thursday he would show up at the school in possession of a gun, touching off an hours-long lockdown, search and ultimately his arrest on two felony charges....

President Obama said previously that the nation needed to have a "conversation" about gun control, and he reiterated this agenda in his State of the Union speech. New York's Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has subsequently boasted that his SAFE Act has criminalized law-abiding gun owners for "offenses" such as having too many bullets in their guns. This helps prove that Cuomo meant exactly what he said when he stated that there was no place for "extreme conservatives" in his state. Cuomo defined his enemies as those who "oppose abortion rights and favor legalization of assault weapons. Barack Obama's ongoing anti-Second Amendment...

WHITE PLAINS, NY — Even if Kerry Kennedy accidentally drugged herself with a sleeping pill before getting in her car, she broke the law if she kept driving after feeling the drug’s effects, prosecutors say. In filings Tuesday, the Westchester County district attorney’s office asked a judge to reject Kennedy’s second attempt to have her drugged-driving case dismissed. Prosecutors said a dismissal would send the wrong message to the public about how “people of wealth and power” are treated. Kennedy is the ex-wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the niece of...

ICYMI, my story from today: It’s a role that Gov. Cuomo does not often talk about: “designated survivor.” Tuesday night, as President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, one of his Cabinet members will be located far away, just in case the unthinkable happens and the Capitol is attacked. Twice when he was President Clinton's housing secretary, Cuomo was chosen to be the designated survivor, putting him one national catastrophe away on the night of the big speech from being the last man standing in the executive branch. Cuomo said it was hard not to ponder all the...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio may receive the kind of press attention most politicians would kill for, but on Monday he played the supplicant. He traveled to Albany, New York’s capital, to plead for the state government to pass a budget that would permit him to impose the tax plan that was the centerpiece of his campaign. His chief argument is that he needs the tax in order to raise enough money to pay for universal pre-kindergarten. His secondary argument is that he is not asking for a statewide tax, but merely a tax over the same voters who...

A high-wattage gathering of Hollywood moguls feted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Brentwood on Thursday night, raising nearly $600,000 for his reelection campaign and quietly discussing their hope that Cuomo will seek presidency, if Hillary Clinton decides not to run. "Behind Hillary, he's the second pick," said one attendee at the evening gathering, held at the Spanish-style manse of Fox Film chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos and his wife Ann.

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Recently, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a now-famous rant, put out the "Not Welcome" mat in front of Empire State pro-lifers.  If you're conservative, he said, you're not welcome in his state.  NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio sided with him "100%". Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton, who has served in the Oklahoma House for 18 years, has published a response to the governor's inflammatory remarks on her blog, Public Catholic, which can be found on the Catholic Portal at Patheos.   Rep. Hamilton first gratefully acknowledges the statement from Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, who publicly...

We no loner live in times that allow us to shrug our our shoulders and say, "Naah. That could never happen here". We now live in times that force us say "I sure hope that ain't true". I hate to sound like an alarmist, but ladies and gentlemen, the situation is dire. There's no nice way to put this. The Federal Leviathan is now targeting political dissenters with Stasi-like tactics. Case and point: *** "Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) proposed using the Internal Revenue Service to curtail Tea Party group funding during a speech on how to 'exploit' and 'weaken'...

New York Governor Cuomo has demanded that those he disagrees with leave New York. New York City Mayor DeBlasio endorses Cuomo's statement "100%". At a memorial after the shooting of Gabby Giffords, Judge Roll, and other bystanders, Obama gave a speech in which he said: And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face...

One week ago today, Governor Cuomo railed against what he called “extreme conservatives” who are “pro-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay.” He said such persons “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” Yesterday, Mayor de Blasio said he agrees with Cuomo’s comments “100 percent.” He explained, “I interpret his [Cuomo's] remarks to say that an extremist attitude that continues the reality of violence in our communities or an extremist attitude that denies the rights of women, does not represent the views of the people of New York State.” deblasoThe spin won’t work. Who...

**SNIP** “The people who are pushing this are from the Working Families Party. De Blasio is married to them.” The Cuomo ally noted the WFP is basically run by the most leftist leaders in the labor movement — the Transport Workers Union, the Communication Workers of America and United Federation of Teachers, among others. **SNIP De Blasio and his allies show no sign of backing down. A labor-backed “UPK coalition” met Friday and vowed to continue a campaign to push the mayor’s tax-the-rich initiative in open defiance of the governor, who opposes it.

A few random news items from around the country: •Dinesh D’Souza, a prominent conservative filmmaker, was indicted for allegedly violating federal campaign-finance laws. The indictment was “the result of a routine review by the FBI of campaign filings with the FEC by various candidates after the 2012 election for United States senator in New York,” said a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office. Routine. A Google search for “liberal filmmaker indicted” did not turn up any liberal filmmakers who have been indicted. •James O’Keefe, a conservative maker of provocative films, said the New York State Department of Labor had taken...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to run the conservative activist group Project Veritas out of the state, its founder James O'Keefe believes. "We got a subpoena over the last week from the Board of Labor and they're asking for every single financial transaction over the last three years," O'Keefe told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "I'll be happy to cooperate but there's some funny business going on, especially when there's so much corruption in the state of New York and they're going after my organization and compelling me to give them every transaction. "I'll comply but...

Hot on the heels of his incendiary "extreme conservatives" comment, this Thursday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took flight from the frigid, snow-covered confines of Albany for the warm embrace of sunny Southern California...... .....So this begs the question: Is Andrew Cuomo really that arrogant to think that he can get away with using taxpayer money to subsidize his sycophantic Hollywood friends who will then provide tens of thousand of dollars in kickbacks, I mean, contributions to his campaign coffers?

<p>Conservative activist James O'Keefe is accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration of targeting his group with document requests and a subpoena, claiming the Democratic governor's recent comments critical of conservatives "aren't simply words."</p> <p>O'Keefe, whose Project Veritas is behind a series of hidden-camera investigations against left-leaning groups and causes, made the claims on the heels of the controversy over a recent Cuomo interview. In it, Cuomo blasted "extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay" and said they "have no place" in New York. He later walked back his remarks, and said they were being taken out of context in the media.</p>

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio emphatically backed New Governor Andrew Cuomo’s controversial remarks that “extreme” conservatives – which he defined as being pro-life, second amendment advocates, or supporters of traditional marriage – “have no place in the state of New York.” “I stand by that 100 percent,” de Blasio told reporters at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. “I agree with Governor Cuomo’s remarks. I interpret his remarks to say that an extremist attitude that continues the reality of violence in our communities or an extremist attitude that denies the rights of women does not...

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made news last week when during a radio interview he said “extreme conservatives” have “no place” in the Empire State. Who are these people? Among others, he said, those who are “right to life” or “anti-gay.”Later he tried to walk back this naked and nasty bit of intolerance, reassuring us that those who are “anti-choice” (one presumes he got a tongue-lashing from NARAL for saying “right to life” the first time) could stay in New York after all. But that bell, as the saying goes, can’t be un-rung.Catholics, of course, are “right to life”...