Free Republic

The former top aide to First Lady Chirlane McCray announced on Twitter on Monday that she was hired as managing director at the PR firm. She resigned from her City Hall post after a series of scandals including the revelation her live-in boyfriend was an ex-con who spewed anti-cop comments. Rachel Noerdlinger, the controversial ex-aide to First Lady Chirlane McCray, has landed a new gig at a prominent PR firm Mercury Public Affairs. “I'm elated to start the new year as Managing Director at #Mercury! I'm thrilled to join one of the best firms in the country!” Noerdlinger tweeted Monday,...

The head of the NAACP said it is “not fair” for the leader of a prominent police union and former Gov. George Pataki (R-N.Y.) to blame Democratic politicians for the deaths of two New York City police officers. “I don’t believe it’s fair to link the criminal insanity of a lone gunman to the peaceful protest and aspirations of many people across the country, including the attorney general, the mayor, and the president is simply not fair,” Cornell William Brooks, the president of the NAACP, told CBS's “Face the Nation.” Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed...

If he’s serious, the Republicans of New Hampshire and elsewhere are in for an interesting time. George Pataki is heading north from New York, where he retired as an undefeated three-term Republican Governor in 2006. Do not underestimate him. There’s a sort of aw-shucks persona he puts out there. He’s smart. He’s not encumbered by previous entanglements with the nutty Republican infrastructure. He beat a Democratic liberal icon, Mario Cuomo. He is/is not conservative enough. The big money boys like him. I worked with him and against him for 12 years. He’s got genuine human qualities that are admirable. He’s...

RYE BROOK - New York Republicans have officially nominated Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino (R) as their candidate in the race for governor. Republicans wrapped up their state party convention Thursday at the Hilton Hotel in Rye Brook after nominating Astorino. Other candidates nominated include Onondaga County Comptroller Bob Antonacci for comptroller and chief of staff to former Gov. George Pataki John Cahill as attorney general. Astorino says his success in Westchester shows he can appeal to all kinds of voters in heavily Democratic New York. In his acceptance speech, Astorino called for hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and the...

The federal government will not pay $250 million toward the Oneida Indian land claim, a move that essentially kills a highly publicized settlement agreement announced last year. In a one-page letter sent to the land claim mediator, federal negotiators said they have no plans to put up the money. The secret letter, written in August by a lawyer for the Department of the Interior, came to The Post-Standard attention's last week. That money was the foundation of the agreement announced in February 2002 by state and New York Oneida leaders. Gov. George Pataki said then the three Oneida tribes would...

Editor’s Note: On Sundays we usually try to focus on spiritual matters, but this column deals with such a direct and serious threat that we thought it urgent to bring it to you today. – Robert Royal    I was born in New York State and have lived here for more than 61 years. During that time I have paid plenty in state and local taxes and have served the public in a number of capacities including two terms as Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.I am also a Catholic and a member of...

ALBANY—With the federal government paralyzed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to show how much differently things work when he's running things. Speaking at an event in Westchester County, the Democratic governor announced a new tax commission that will be co-chaired by two of his former political rivals: former comptroller Carl McCall and former governor George Pataki. In 1994, Pataki ousted the current governor's father from the Executive Mansion, and was re-elected in 2002, when the younger Cuomo mounted an abortive bid for the Democratic nomination against McCall. In that Democratic primary, McCall spent months fending off Cuomo in a heated, racially...

(The following is the second of three excerpts from The Right Frequency: The Story of the Talk Radio Giants Who Shook Up the Political and Media Establishment , by Fred Lucas; History Publishing Company. The adapted excerpts look at the impact of talk radio on election results.) Before what would turn out to be an historic election, a New York Times article said, “If Larry King’s CNN program functioned as a nominating process for Ross Perot; Rush Limbaugh may be a kind of national precinct captain for the Republican insurgency of 1994.” An election night poll by Fabrizio-McLaughlin of 1,000...

<p>Former New York Gov. George Pataki is taking a harder look at running for president, saying Democratic President Obama is faltering and the Republican field is thinning.</p> <p>Spokesman David Catalfamo said Monday that several factors are in play as the 66-year-old Pataki again considers a White House run.</p>

A Prominent Republican is joining a prominent Democrat in predicting that Gov. Cuomo will become President Obama's running mate for vice president next year. Former New York GOP boss William Powers, credited with playing a key role in electing Rudy Giuliani mayor and George Pataki governor, was effusive in his praise of Cuomo's successes in the just-ended legislative session, and in his prediction of the freshman governor's political future. "Andrew had a fabulous session. It was fabulous. A property-tax cap, ethics reform and, for Democrats, gay marriage," said Powers.

Ex-Senator D’Amato under fire for tilting election to Gillibrand at Republicans’ expense Published on May 27, 2010 by Official Wire (OfficialWire) WASHINGTON, DC While the media continues to call the New York Senate race a done deal in favor of Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, shady subplots involving her rise to prominence remain unexamined. America Outraged Political Action Committee has been seeking to expose what it calls “an egregious case of political cronyism” involving former Republican senator and political power broker Al D’Amato and Gillibrand, the daughter of a prominent lobbyist. Among the connections: Gillibrand's father, Doug Rutnik, a contributor mostly...

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile) Thursday, October 29th at 8:53PM EDT 4 Comments I am told reliably, but have not yet confirmed, that Governor George Pataki endorsed Doug Hoffman tonight at a Conservative Party event. As Matt Drudge would say: Developing . . . If this is so, this is huge. Pataki routinely won NY-23 by huge margins. He remains quite popular up there.

Eliot Spitzer, the Governor of my state, has achieved a thing I would have though impossible: He has made me yearn for the days of George Pataki. Spitzer's latest wheeze, to give state driver licenses to illegal aliens, was actually state policy for most of Pataki's term as Governor, until Curious George changed the rules in 2003 (causing 150,000 illegals to lose their licenses). Oddly, under the pre-2003 Pataki rules, illegals could get licenses without showing a Social Security number provided they supplied documentary proof that they were ineligible for Social Security. Under Spitzer's proposed change, an illegal no longer...

ALBANY, N.Y.--The recent midterm election was bad news for Republicans, but it was even worse for New York Republicans. The GOP lost all three statewide offices by wide margins; its gubernatorial candidate did not even break 30%. Its sacrificial lamb for Senate did only slightly better, and representation in the state's 29-seat congressional delegation fell from nine to six seats. The most prominent state Republican is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat who, shall we say, wears his party affiliation lightly. What a contrast with 1994, when George Pataki, a little-known Republican legislator, defeated three-term incumbent Gov. Mario...

Gov. George Pataki has nine weeks remaining in his final term, and a sizable number of Western New Yorkers are ready to say goodbye. Thirty-one percent of local adults consider Pataki to be New York's worst governor since 1959, according to a new Business First-Goldhaber Research Associates Poll. That's the highest negative rating for any governor since Nelson Rockefeller. The runner-up in the survey, Mario Cuomo, received about half as many unfavorable votes as Pataki did. "At the end of the day, if people are unhappy, they're going to blame someone. Many Western New Yorkers are unhappy today, and they're...

As pre-ordained, Mayor Bloomberg was voted in as chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation yesterday. While waiting for the inevitable, my mind wandered back to late last year and this. Following the 9/11 money (from a New York Daily News editorial, originally published on December 10, 2005) No one knew how much money the city was going to need and for what purposes. Sen. Chuck Schumer presented the best guess to Bush in the Oval Office, and the President said, "You got it." So programs were created, and grants, loans and tax incentives began arriving to meet immediate...

Instead of someone who actually cares about 9/11—its dead and living victims and heroes—and remembrance of the day America was attacked, someone with less interest, without the time, and with an obvious conflict of interest is about to be left in charge of the memorial and museum at Ground Zero. Mayor Bloomberg’s choosing culture over remembrance, arrogant indifference for human remains, sabotaging all prior fundraising for the memorial, and callous disregard for thousands of living victims of 9/11 renders him unfit to serve as the chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. More than five years after 9/11, a...

Reader Scot Silverstein alerts us to the rally for Israel outside the United Nations earlier this week: Some 35,000 people rallied across from the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the world body. The crowd also wanted to show solidarity for Israel and implore the United Nations to enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war this summer with Hezbollah and calls for the release of three Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, referred to Ahmadinejad’s Tuesday night speech to the General Assembly, in which he portrayed...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — State worker unions could get "significant leverage" in contract negotiations with Albany under a bill passed by the Legislature with little notice, a government watchdog group said Wednesday. The bill was one of many agreed to in the waning days of the legislative session that is scheduled to end Thursday. The labor bill passed last week says that if the state is proven to stall or otherwise fail to bargain "in good faith," the state — and its taxpayers — must automatically award a 1-percent raise to union members. If the state continues to stall, an...

TVC ASKS PATAKI TO STOP HARASSMENT June 21, 2006 - Washington, DC – The Traditional Values Coalition asked New York Governor George Pataki to rein in a state agency which is threatening legal action against an Accord, New York skating rink because it plays Christian music during a “Christian Music Skate” party. The New York Division of Human Rights threatened Len and Terry Bernardo, owners of the Skate Time 209 rink in Accord, with an investigation because the rink plays Christian music during certain hours. The agency also threatened to charge a local newspaper which advertised the event for “aiding...