Free Republic

New York is reaping the whirlwind of sky-high cigarette taxes with a wave of smuggling decimating the state’s revenue. New York raised taxes on cigarettes to $4.35 in 2010 from $2.75. In total, cigarette taxes have increased by 190 percent since 2006. The sharp rise has resulted in a raft of unintended consequences which are dealing a significant blow to the state’s finances. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reports New York’s revenue from cigarette taxes has plunged by $400 million over the past five years.

..New York has nine specialised high schools, of which eight admit students using the city’s Specialist High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). The education they offer rivals that of private schools that charge $40,000 a year. The high schools are free. The most popular, Stuyvesant, sends roughly 25% of its graduates to the Ivy League or other top colleges. The school’s unofficial mantra is “Sleep, study, socialise: pick two.” It admits 4% of test-takers, pickier than Harvard.New York’s Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio thinks the SHSAT favours parents who can afford tutors. He wants to “broaden” (ie, relax) the admissions criteria,...

It's Spitz-ville: Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his girlfriend, 33, break up - two years after affair ended his marriage It was an affair said to have cost Eliot Spitzer his marriage and his girlfriend her political spin job. But after two years together it appears that the disgraced former New York governor and partner Lis Smith have gone their separate ways, NY Daily News reports. Smith had just joined Bill de Blasio's team and was widely considered to be the likely candidate for the mayor's press secretary when pictures of emerged of then-married Spitzer sneaking into...

NEW YORK - A "credible threat" has been lodged against New York City, days ahead of Christmas and during an especially busy time of the year when tourists flock to the Big Apple, law enforcement sources told PIX11 News Tuesday. Top NYPD brass including Commissioner William Bratton held an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the threat and their response to it, sources said. Few details were released about the nature of the threat. A federal law enforcement source said the threat is not specific and could take place in several major U.S. cities. All New York City police officers received...

A former state Senate leader and his son were convicted Friday of federal extortion charges, marking the second time in a month that one of Albany's most powerful politicians was run out office following a case that put the state capital's political culture on trial. The prosecution of Republican Dean Skelos, 67, and his 33-year-old son, Adam, cast a harsh light on politics-as-usual, much like the one against former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was convicted of bribery on Nov. 30. ...

Congressman Chris Gibson of New York is calling for an investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration after learning hundreds of millions of dollars in loans went to Health Republic, an insurance co-op that lasted only two years, and which caused 215,000 New Yorkers to lose their insurance. Health Republic was founded in 2013 with $265 Million in federal loans. It soon became one of the largest health insurance cooperatives in the United States. Now it is no more after New York regulators discovered massive deficits in Health Republic's books. Originally ordered to close by December 31, regulators had to bump...

Mayor de Blasio said his son Dante has been active in protests over racial issues at Yale — and they both agree the school should drop the name of a prominent defender of slavery. Dante, a freshman, is assigned to Yale’s Calhoun College, named for John C. Calhoun, a U.S. vice president and South Carolina senator who vehemently backed slavery as a “positive good” for the nation. “He’s very concerned, and he certainly notes the fact that the college he’s in, Calhoun College, is named for someone it shouldn’t be named for,” de Blasio told reporters Monday. “ That’s quite...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced as part of his "See Something, Send Something" campaign a new mobile app that allows New Yorkers to alert authorities of potential threats. The "See Something, Send Something" app allows anyone with a smart phone to report suspicious activity directly to the New York State Intelligence Center in the form of photos or written notes, according to a press release. The press release reminds users to only report “suspicious behavior and situations (e.g., an unattended backpack or briefcase in a public place) rather than beliefs, thoughts, ideas, expressions, associations, or speech unrelated to...

It pays to have friends in high places. Al Sharpton gave himself a 71 percent raise last year after his National Action Network group drew a record $6.9 million in donations — as the controversial cleric’s association with Mayor de Blasio and President Obama lent him a newfound air of legitimacy. De Blasio’s election gave Sharpton a seat at City Hall, as the mayor treated him as an adviser and presented him at a press event next to Police Commissioner Bill Bratton after the death of Eric Garner. Also in 2014, Obama addressed NAN’s annual convention, bringing along five...

Mayor de Blasio says New York City will not turn away any refugees fleeing Syria. De Blasio said Tuesday that New York "is a proud immigrant city" and would welcome refugees trying to escape the conflict in their homeland. Many public officials and U.S. presidential candidates have expressed wariness at admitting refugees in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris last week. De Blasio chided a pair of local Republicans running for president. He called New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie "an embarrassment to this country" and said that the city "will adhere to the words of our Founding Fathers,...

Mayor de Blasio is moving to clean up a state medical-insurance mess that blindsided thousands of New Yorkers, including 114 cancer patients in the city who were about to lose their doctors. Under a hastily drawn-up deal, the patients will continue to get coverage for treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under the city's MetroPlus health plan. The patients had faced a tough choice: pay out of pocket or find new doctors because of the impending bankruptcy of Health Republic - one of the state's ObamaCare providers and the only one that covers treatment at Sloan Kettering.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed Hillary Clinton on Friday for president. "The candidate who I believe can fundamentally address income inequality effectively, the candidate [that] has the right vision and the right experience and ability to get the job done is Hillary Clinton," de Blasio said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." De Blasio, who was Clinton's campaign manager for her 2000 Senate bid, had been debating for months whether to endorse her. "I've seen her vision and platform develop over five months. I'm extremely pleased with what she's put on the table," said de Blasio, who also served...

In his 1999 book, Dr. Ben Carson wrote that our nation’s history on racial injustices made it impossible for the black community to think of the judicial system in anything but racial terms and that white Americans were only able to view racial violence in a modern context. In his book, The Big Picture, released by Zondervan, Carson argued white Americans had “no grasp on the history of racial violence in this country.” Carson wrote of a time his mother was thrown in jail for a minor traffic violation as an example of personal history of the racial injustice in...

NEW YORK (AP) — Divers searching the Harlem River recovered a gun "consistent" with the weapon used to kill a police officer during a foot chase in Manhattan, the New York Police Department said Sunday. Chief of Manhattan detectives William Aubry said the weapon was found around 3 a.m. Sunday. The gun will be tested for fingerprints and DNA, as well as test fired, to determine whether it is the same gun that was used to shoot Officer Rudolph Holder in the head. "That firearm is consistent with the firearm that we were looking for," Aubry said. The police also...

Protesters flip off NYPD days after cop slay By Amanda Lozada Just four days after the on-duty murder of a hero NYPD street cop, a rally in Washington Square Park against “police terror” devolved Saturday into a raucous, law-enforcement gripe-fest. Protesters held signs reading “Rise Up! Stop Police Terror!” and “Murder with a badge is still murder.”

EXCLUSIVE: De Blasio administration joins fight against law that would exclude immigrants, felons from voting district count The de Blasio administration has joined a Supreme Court fight that could change the way voting districts are carved up to exclude residents like immigrants and felons from the population count, the Daily News has learned. If successful, Evenwel vs. Abbott would dramatically change the political landscape in immigrant-rich communities like New York, because it would draw districts to include only eligible voters. Immigrants, felons who have lost the right to vote and children would be excluded. In court papers filed last week,...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) discussed his disagreements with Pope Francis’ criticisms of global capitalism. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reacted to Rubio’s remarks and suggested he should go back and reread Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

...Patrick Lynch used his role as the President of the largest police union in New York to essentially declare war on Black communities.

In Washington, Mr. Jeffries, a second-term congressman, is best known as a collegial, next-generation Democrat with a keen interest in criminal justice reform. In New York, however, he has positioned himself at a nexus of powerful interests that have grown frustrated during Mr. de Blasio’s tenure.... Where Mr. de Blasio has opposed charter schools, Mr. Jeffries has firmly defended them; in April, he addressed a fund-raising gala for the Success Academy organization, a fast-growing charter network heavily backed by wealthy critics of the mayor. When Mr. de Blasio sought to limit expansion of the ride-hailing company Uber, Mr. Jeffries spoke...

The Democratic Party on Friday adopted a call to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr as part of their established party platform heading into the 2016 election season. The move further polarizes the progressive wing of the party by moving them further to the left of both the Republican Party, and corporate centrist Democrats such as Hillary Clinton. In response to the Democratic Party’s vote, Terrence Wise, a Kansas City, Mo. McDonald’s and Burger King Worker and member of the National Organizing Committee of the Fight for $15, issued the following statement.