Free Republic

RUSH: De Blasio, already the rich on the Upper East Side are claiming that de Blasio's not plowing their streets to get even with them for being rich. And de Blasio is saying no, no, no, no, it has nothing to do with the fact that I hate you -- and I do -- it has nothing to do with that. It is that our snowplow GPS was tuned to CNN for the Fareed Zakaria show and missed the Upper East Side. We didn't get there. It was just a GPS problem. But it wasn't the fact that I hate...

Twenty one days into his administration New York City Mayor, Bill De Blasio, is already making Mike Bloomberg look good. And, let’s face it, when someone makes Bloomy look like a model of fairness and honesty, things are clearly pretty bad. In fact, this occurred so quickly after De Blasio’s inauguration, I’m beginning to think Bloomberg might have mastered a win for De Blasio in a last-ditch effort to procure a positive legacy for himself after he left office. While Chris Christie faces criticism for his office closing a few lanes on the George Washington Bridge, the New York City...

A defiant Mayor de Blasio is vowing to go full speed ahead with plans to raise taxes on the city’s highest earners to pay for universal pre-K — even as Gov. Cuomo is offering to have the state foot the bill. De Blasio not only insisted his five-year tax hike was the only way to ensure a reliable stream of funding, but said he felt obligated to enact the will of those who voted him into City Hall. “I think of it in terms of following through on a commitment I made to the people of New York City, that...

Mayor de Blasio bungled the second winter storm of his administration when the snow hit a few hours earlier than expected Tuesday — causing a rash of car crashes and snarling traffic across the city. The snow had stopped by Wednesday but bone-chilling temperatures remained, with the wind chill making it feel as low as 8 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service. The high is expected to reach 19 degrees, but at night that could drop to just 7. All NYC public schools are open, but parents were being urged to “exercise their own judgment” when taking...

It really is a tale of two cities — this time with the tony Upper East Side getting the shaft! Huge swaths of the UES had been not been plowed by early Tuesday evening, according to the city’s own map of snow-plower activity. “He is trying to get us back. He is very divisive and political,” said writer and life-long Upper East Side mom Molly Jong Fast of Mayor de Blasio. “By not plowing the Upper East Side, he is saying, ‘I’m not one of them.’ But we have everyone in this area on the Upper East Side. We have rich...

A top aide to the Rev. Al Sharpton will be getting $170,000 a year from taxpayers to serve as chief of staff to Chirlane McCray, Mayor de Blasio’s wife. The mayor confirmed the prominent position that his wife is set to play at City Hall with the appointment of Rachel Noerdlinger, who has worked for Sharpton since 1999.

Bill de Blasio swept into office on a pledge to transform New York's 'tale of two cities' by ending income inequality, raising taxes on the evil 1%, doling out free or reduced-cost housing for poor and working-class residents, and establishing that all-important job-creating engine, pre-kindergarten education. But just three weeks into his tenure as mayor of America's biggest city, the man born Warren Wilhelm in Manhattan 52 years ago has already raised hackles with his many detractors -- and even some of his staunchest supporters. First, despite campaign pledges of bipartisanship and unity, his 1 January inauguration was filled with...

Mayor de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, wants her own office inside City Hall — and to play a hands-on, policy-setting role in her husband’s administration, sources told The Post. Officials have been scouting space for New York City’s new first lady, who described herself as a “sounding board and partner” to her husband during his campaign and transition to mayor, a source said. And the administration has been working on a portfolio of issues for McCray to tackle, ­another source said.

Predictably, People's World is thrilled with New Yorkers electing Bill De Blasio. The CPUSA mouthpiece isn't silent in its enthusiasm, though it is carefully avoiding the "c" word (communism) in favor of the "p" word (progressivism). In this, it is not unlike Bill De Blasio himself. Notably, too, People's World links De Blasio's "forward" success and "change" vision with Barack Obama's "progress" (as does De Blasio). Witness two fresh articles:

As recently as 1998, New York State’s Republican party controlled the governorship, a United States Senate seat, and the mayor’s office in Manhattan. Today, it is greatly diminished, with its sole beachhead of influence in the state senate, where it shares a majority with four independent Democrats. In contrast, the Working Families party (WFP), a 15-year-old left-wing, union-fueled group with just 20,000 members, now holds the whip hand over much of the dominant Democratic party in New York — and is already spreading its wings to other states. The WFP not only was a major force behind Bill de Blasio’s...

ACCENTURE LLP, the Obama Administration’s choice to take-over 'rescue operations' at Healthcare.gov, has a history of committing fraud, waste, and abuse in its contracts with other Federal agencies like the Department of Education and the United States Postal Service. Just seven months ago, the Postal Service Inspector General’s office issued a “Management Alert” to outline “potential fraud risks associated with Accenture Federal Services Contracting Practices…” In the June 2013 document, the Deputy Inspector General for the Postal Service recommended: “The Postal Service should consider Accenture for suspension or debarment and review existing contracts to determine whether the contracts warrant termination....

New York’s new Occupy mayor, Bill de Blasio, took office this month with a stern, if hazy, vow to right the imbalances of economic inequality in New York City, which other speakers at his inauguration called “Dickensian” (Harry Belafonte) and a “plantation” (Brooklyn pastor the Rev. Fred Lucas Jr., delivering an invocation).But he can’t fix income inequality, nor should he. Given that there will always be some who are just starting out or lack the wherewithal to succeed, it’s the wealthy who are responsible for the gap between rich and poor. And it’s those same wealthy whom de Blasio will need to...

Time to invite Occupy back to Wall Street. There is no question but that New York’s new mayor, Bill De Blasio, owes his landslide victory in the November election to the Occupy Movement. It was Occupy Wall Street’s minions, hemmed in by thug-like NYPD officers armed with sidearms, clubs and pepper spray cans, who in 2011 abruptly changed the national conversation about capitalism, introducing the concept of “We are the 99%,” and focusing attention on the enormous enrichment of the top 1% of Americans at the expense of the other 99% over the past several decades, as a direct result...

What did Hillary (D-Dem-e) know? Surely she knew at least to a large degree what former Defense Secretary Gates has proffered in his tell-some memoir (as it seriously torpedoes Biden and Obama but not so much Hillary in comparison). Funny... BOTH Chris Christie (R-GOP-e) and Biden (D-Dem-e) have been torpedoed in near-simultaneous fashion, as the memoir was some time in the writing, as well as the info coming out that hurts Chris Christie happened some time back. Coincidence? .......... And all this right after a power base is established with De BLAH-sio being coronated, er, I mean elected as mayor...

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced recently that he’d make banning the city’s horse-drawn carriages his first priority, a lot of people were left asking, “Really?” Could This be the Reason De Blasio Decided to Go After Horse Carriages in NYC? Indeed, for all the problems de Blasio claims the city struggles with, it would seem horse-drawn carriages would take a back seat. But they haven’t and he’s pursuing the ban. And there may be a reason why: A major de Blasio campaign donor and real-estate executive may be tied up in the drive to banish the...

They used to hang horse thieves — now they elect them mayor. As many know, New York City’s new commandant, Bill de Blasio, has sworn that one of his first acts upon taking office will be to ban Central Park’s iconic horse-drawn carriages. He claims that forcing horses to work in downtown Manhattan is inhumane, but is he really just kowtowing to a big real-estate developer who heavily supported his campaign? Interestingly, there was a time when de Blasio was more blasé about these animal-rights concerns. In fact, when he had the chance as a City Council member to support...

Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo were on a collision course Monday over taxes — with de Blasio declaring that he won’t abandon his plan to tax the rich even if the state funds the universal pre-kindergarten classes that he’s been pushing. “We are not going to water down our goal,” de Blasio proclaimed, reiterating his intention to ask Albany to hike city income taxes on those earning $500,000 or more no matter what happens on the pre-K front.

New York City’s Sandinista-loving mayor couldn’t decide whether he was ushering in the new or reviving the old during his inauguration speech last week. “Today, we commit to a new progressive direction in New York,” Bill de Blasio proclaimed grandiloquently. “We need a dramatic new approach — rebuilding our communities from the bottom up, from the neighborhoods up.” Yet this “new” progressive “impulse” is also a longstanding one, according to de Blasio: It has “written our city’s history. It’s in our DNA.” So is de Blasio’s mission of “fight[ing] injustice and inequality” a novel experiment, turning New York into a...

Mayor de Blasio’s ties to the Brooklyn Democratic boss he teamed up with to anoint the next City Council speaker run all the way to Hizzoner’s doorstep, The Post has learned. Since 2012, de Blasio has refinanced both homes he owns in Park Slope through the firm where Brooklyn Democratic leader Frank Seddio formerly served as vice president — Wall Street Mortgage Bankers. Public records show that the most recent deal came just three days after de Blasio’s primary victory on Sept. 10, when he refinanced his 11th Street home with the firm for $625,000. In June 2012, he had...

Mayor Bill de Blasio's promise to ban New York City's iconic horse-drawn carriages could backfire, exposing what the newly-elected mayor's critics suggest is a corruption scandal masquerading as an animal-rights crusade. Defenders of the carriage industry point to a real-estate executive who is one of de Blasio's major campaign donors as the driving force behind the effort to abolish the carriages. (snip) The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties. The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real...