Free Republic

Facing widespread criticism over his decision to fly to Hamburg just after the shooting death of a Bronx police officer, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Americans’ views don’t align with President Trump’s and need to be represented abroad. While the national governments will probably only make limited progress, the rest of us don’t have that choice. If we make only limited progress we’ll only be going backwards,” de Blasio told Bloomberg before speaking at a Saturday protest that coincides with the Group of 20 summit attended by Trump and other world leaders in Germany. “We almost have Washington as an...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Saturday pushed back on President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords, noting that some U.S. cities plan to honor the agreement despite Trump's decision. "American cities are signed on to the Paris Accords. We will do it ourselves," de Blasio said, according to a spokesman who was tweeting his speech at the “Hamburg Zeigt Haltung” rally. (TWEET-AT-LINK) De Blasio is in Germany for events surrounding the Group of 20 summit, where Trump and other world leaders have gathered to address topics including climate change. Every...

Police protect the rights of demonstrators objecting to the G20 summit this weekend in Hamburg, Germany, Mayor de Blasio said Saturday in an appearance before a protest rally of tens of thousands of people. “Our right to protest is directly related to the fact that our police protect us,” the mayor said. He began his speech by remarking at the size of the audience he spoke to: “We have a phrase in America we like to use: This is what democracy looks like.” De Blasio appeared on the outdoor stage in central Hamburg with his son Dante, a Yale University...

President Trump and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio were both overseas this week, within a few miles of each other. In fact, the President and the mayor were in Hamburg, Germany for the same exact event. Yet the contrast could not be starker. After a very successful trip to Poland, President Trump is tending to state business of the highest order at the G-20 summit in Hamburg. Despite the countless violent, rogue and lawless protesters, the President is moving our country’s agenda forward at the summit, as he temporarily leaves behind an America that is in far better...

An illegal alien with pending felony charges was released by New York City law enforcement as requests by federal immigration officials continue to be ignored due to prevailing sanctuary city policies. Najee Antonio Clarke, a Jamaican national, entered the United States on a foreign B-2 visitor visa back in June 2010, according to officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Clarke was supposed to leave the U.S. in December 2010 but instead over-stayed his visa, remaining in the country for the next six years. The Jamaican national with pending felony charges was arrested on June 16 by U.S....

“Die Kitties Die!” screamed the headline in the New York Daily News when, in 2013, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Joe Lhota criticized a decision to pause trains in a Brooklyn subway station to rescue a pair of kittens lost on the tracks. These days, New York so badly needs to get the trains to run on time that Lhota, whose unfortunate anti-cat comments caused a minor scandal, has been brought back as chairman of the transit agency.

On Thursday, July 5, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, with no advance notice to the public he serves, jetted off to Hamburg, Germany, to attend the G-20 Summit, where heads of state and leaders or representatives from worldwide organizations and entities meet to discuss global imperatives. The mayor is not there to participate in the open dialogue between more than 20 participating countries and scores of international organizations and invited guests. He is to be the keynote speaker for an event called Hamburg Shows Attitude, which is described as a protest really for “democracy and human rights.” He...

New York City "Democrat" "Socialist", "Communist" Mayor, DeBlasio should be thrown out of office, immediately by the citizens & voters of NYC. His hidden trip to Hamburg, Germany to openly address the violent, rioters in Hamburg is disgusting by itself...but, with the brutal murder of an innocent NYC police officer, a 42 year old mom, with three young children....and DeBlasio skipping out of town and not attending a graduation of new NYC police cadets in this mourning period, is inexcusable and unforgivable. NYC...have you no heart, no consideration for this hero mom, her family, her children, and the new cops...

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to travel to Hamburg, Germany, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit to speak at a demonstration against President Trump's policies and the spread of populism in Europe. De Blasio, a Democrat, will deliver the keynote address at a protest event organized by a group called "Hamburg Zeigt Haltung," or Hamburg Shows Attitude, his office announced Thursday afternoon. The mayor will be "on stage on Saturday on our rally for human rights and democracy as keynote speaker," according to a tweet from the organization. "It's important that American leaders confront head-on, locally and...

Mayor Bill de Blasio is jetting off to Germany on Thursday to protest President Trump and other world leaders attending the G20 Summit meeting. The day after a cop was assassinated in The Bronx, de Blasio skipped an afternoon swearing-in ceremony for 524 new NYPD recruits ahead of his flight overseas. snip The cost is being paid for by organizers of “Hamburg Shows Attitude,” said mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips, who’s among the aides joining de Blasio on the trip.

A leading young Democrat and de Blasio administration employee has a secret taste for sickening kiddie porn that involves baby girls as young as 6 months old, court papers revealed Friday. Jacob Schwartz, 29, was busted for allegedly keeping more than 3,000 disgusting images and 89 videos on a laptop after downloading the filth from the internet.

As a candidate, Mayor de Blasio promised to enact universal free school lunch in New York City public schools. The Mayor has aggressively pursued policies to decrease inequality in the City and clearly understands the important links among food access, health, and learning. From affordable housing to universal pre-K, the Mayor has worked to address the needs of poor and working class New Yorkers. But universal school lunch sticks out as an unfulfilled pledge. I’ve written previously about the merits of eliminating school lunch fees and getting more kids to eat lunch at school. A hungry child can’t learn or...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's popularity is mounting. His approval rating hit an all-time high in a poll released Wednesday, and he has, for the first time, raised more money than his best-funded Republican challenger in his bid to seek re-election.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that New York City would offer free, full-day preschool to all 3-year-olds within four years, saying that he was building on the success of the city’s prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds and that it was time to go further.

Ed Mullins, president of the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association, slammed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neil for lashing out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for a Friday Justice Department statement relating to the city’s non-compliance with federal immigration law and crime. Mullins said in a statement issued Friday that “Sessions is absolutely correct to hold New York and other jurisdictions accountable for their so-called ‘sanctuary policies.’”

BRONX — Building on his success of Pre-K for all of the city’s 4-year-olds, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday a plan to provide free “full day” pre-K for all of the city’s 3 year-olds by 2021. The program — called “3K for All” — will ramp up starting this September with roughly 11,000 children attending the city’s EarlyLearn programs, which serve the city’s low-income working families. In September 2018, about 2,000 3-year-olds in two of the city’s poorest school districts — South Bronx’s District 7 and Ocean Hill/Brownsville’s District 23 — will be part of the program. Two more...

Seeking to double down on an effort — expanding early childhood education — for which he has been widely praised, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan on Monday to offer free, full-day prekindergarten to 3-year-olds. Four years ago, Mr. de Blasio made an ambitious proposal to provide publicly funded prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds the centerpiece of his mayoral campaign. His plan called for more than tripling the number of available seats, to 70,000, within two years. Although some expected there would be significant bumps in the rollout, it went relatively smoothly. It is too soon to say whether the...

The nation’s largest municipal jail guard union sued New York City on Friday, saying recent sweeping changes in city’s jails have empowered violent inmates and endangered correction officers. The lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleged violence in city jails has increased 18 percent since the city instituted changes to how guards perform their work following a rash of alarming reports about the abuse of prisoners, particularly at the city’s main Rikers Island jail complex, where as many as 10,000 inmates are housed. The city and its officials have “created a substantial and imminent risk that Correction Officers will continue to...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday that cigarette prices in the city would go up $2.50 to $13 which, de Blasio bragged, would be "the highest price in the country." . . . Council Member Fernando Cabrera, who introduced the bill to create the licensing requirement for e-cigarette retailers, described the proposal as "a major step to limit the use of e-cigarettes, which are dangerous nicotine delivery systems that can lead to nicotine and potentially drug addiction."

Mayor de Blasio's developer-backed Brooklyn-Queens streetcar project may not pay for itself as he has promised it will, according to a draft memo prepared for Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and obtained by reporters. The 16-mile BQX streetcar line from Sunset Park to Astoria is premised on the idea that building the streetcar line will boost property values, prompt more construction, and create jobs along the line, which will in turn generate enough tax revenue to cover $2.5 billion in bonds used to build the thing. However, since de Blasio announced the project in 2016, development and tax experts have pointed...