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GOP White House hopefuls are declaring their independence from Donald Trump. Former New York governor George Pataki urged people Friday to sign his online petition condemning Trump’s anti-immigrant comments. ... The feds had issued a detention order asking to be notified if he was sprung from prison. It was not honored by the “sanctuary city.” Trump tweeted, “Where are the other candidates now that this tragic murder has taken place b/c of our unsafe border.’’

Republican U.S. presidential candidate George Pataki has joined the chorus calling for action against fellow candidate Donald Trump in the wake of his controversial comments about Mexican immigrants. Pataki posted on his website Friday a petition targeting the real-estate mogul -- titled "Stand Up to Trump" -- labeling the candidate's comments "unacceptable." At Trump's announcement speech at the Trump Tower in New York last month, the businessman said: "When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us." He later added: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime....

A top GOP strategist and pollster for newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that New York Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, "will pay a heavy price" at the polls next year if they don't break with President Obama's policies on Israel and reject any deal he makes with Iran. "Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Chuck Schumer, [Reps.] Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel and others are about to get a whole new wave of pressure from Republicans on whether they agree or not with Obama on Israel," New York-based national GOP pollster and strategist John McLaughlin told The Post....

Former New York Gov. George Pataki has launched a broadside against Donald Trump over his controversial remarks on Mexican immigrants, sending an open letter this week to every other Republican presidential candidate urging them to "denounce his comments today." The letter has, in turn, triggered a bitter Twitter feud between the two 2016 candidates, as Trump also spars with everyone from NBC to Macy's to the New York City government. After Pataki tweeted a link to the letter (in which he cc'd Trump), Trump thundered back on Twitter:

City now looking at Trump’s golf deal in the Bronx as fallout continues from inflammatory comments against Mexicans. Hours after Macy’s abruptly ended its business relationship with Donald Trump, PIX11 News has learned that Trump’s golf course deal with the City of New York involving the much revered Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point is being examined in the fallout of Trump’s controversial remarks regarding Mexicans. Mayor Bill de Blasio telling PIX11 News the following in a statement, “We are reviewing Trump contracts with the City. Donald Trump’s remarks were disgusting and offensive, and this hateful language has no place...

Real-estate magnate Donald Trump fired off angry tweets at one of his GOP rivals in the presidential race Wednesday, accusing him of being a has-been who couldn't get elected to office again. The rival, former New York Gov. George Pataki (R), has recently been criticizing Trump's controversial comments about illegal immigration. Pataki told Business Insider on Tuesday that Trump was "disrespectful" and subsequently wrote a letter to the Republican field urging them to join him in denouncing Trump. Trump, as is his wont, responded by trashing Pataki on Twitter:

Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) on Tuesday slammed fellow Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who he said has been "disrespectful" toward Latinos with recent disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants. "Yes, clearly, they're disrespectful," Pataki told Business Insider of Trump's comments in a brief interview before the annual New York Republican Party's gala. Trump characterized Mexican immigrants in his campaign launch speech as "rapists" and drug runners when talking about how he'd focus as president on reducing illegal immigration. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best; they're not sending you," Trump said in his announcement speech....

On Tuesday, after the entire Republican primary field - including Donald Trump and George Pataki - had taken a position on the Confederate flag, and after the Republican governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, had asked for its removal from the state capitol grounds, Chris Christie seemed to calculate that it was politically safe to do the same. The New Jersey governor said in a statement that Haley had "demonstrated what it means to be a leader" and that he commended her decision. ... Every Republican presidential candidate, including the not-yet announced ones, had said something, even if it was,...

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama's healthcare law by the end of the month.</p>

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., won 25.3 percent of the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference straw poll, which was emailed to those who attended this year's conference in Philadelphia. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in second place with 11.6 percent of the vote, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 11 percent. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tied at 9.6 percent. These results show a strong preference for regional candidates as well as governors, and differ greatly from the latest RealClearPolitics totals. Candidates Walker, Christie and former New York Gov. George Pataki were all...

The Republican field is crowded, which implies that primary voters have little information about where some of the candidates stand. That is particularly the case this season, with a few relatively unknown contenders who lack legislative experience or a long history of campaign contributions that would allow researchers to precisely identify where they stand on the liberal-to-conservative political dimension.However, one characteristic all candidates share is that they have active and popular Twitter accounts. And as I showed in an article published earlier this year in the journal Political Analysis — now freely available online as an Editors’ Choice article —...

Nine graffiti artists who spray painted creations across the world-renowned 5Pointz building filed a lawsuit Friday in Brooklyn federal court, seeking unspecified damages from the owner who whitewashed away their artwork. [Snip] The aerosol artists say they are owed substantial cash damages because Wolkoff painted over their al fresco works. [Snip] The iconic buildings had more than 350 works of visual art on the walls — inside and out — when Wolkoff destroyed them, the lawsuit said. The colorful, eye-catching creations were torn down for good last summer.

Former Gov. George Pataki of New York has canceled campaign events in New Hampshire to deal with a family health emergency. Mr. Pataki, a Republican, said in a statement that he was pausing his White House bid because his son-in-law, David Levy, had a stroke and was at the intensive care unit at a Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Mr. Pataki’s campaign said that his daughter Allison and her husband were traveling on Tuesday on a flight to Seattle from Chicago for a vacation ahead of the birth of their first child when Mr. Levy suffered a life-threatening stroke....

Barbara Tasch June 10, 2015 New York police commissioner William Bratton said he'd like to hire more non-white officers but most of them have criminal records and therefore, he can't, The Guardian reported. “We have a significant population gap among African American males because so many of them have spent time in jail and, as such, we can’t hire them," Bratton said in an interview with the publication. For this high number, Bratton blamed the "unfortunate consequences" of stop-and-frisk policing carried out on young non-white men over the last few years in New York. A felony conviction, domestic violence charges,...

WASHINGTON -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Sunday that he supports a constitutional amendment that would bar the Supreme Court from granting marriage equality rights nationwide. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this month that could grant, for once and for all, same-sex couples the right to wed across the country. But Walker said on ABC's "This Week" that he would support amending the constitution to protect states that still want to ban same-sex marriage. "I personally believe that marriage is between one man and one woman," Walker, a prospective GOP presidential candidate, said. "If the...

On the 50th anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous report on the breakdown of the black family in urban ghettos, Baltimore has descended into the tragic violence and chaos he predicted. In a report titled, “The Negro Family: The Case for Action,” Assistant Secretary of Labor Moynihan, warned that the deterioration of the black family, would result in soaring crime rates if it continued unchecked. In the most famous passage of the 1965 report, Moynihan, who would later become a Democratic U.S. senator, wrote, “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los...

Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president, but the billionaire isn't budging. At the Yale CEO Summit this week, the talk was of "drafting Bloomberg" however possible. The former New York City mayor seems like the perfect solution for Wall Street's problems with the current field of presidential candidates. The Street sees him as a centrist technocrat who adeptly managed one of the most complex cities in the world. They think he understands the global business community. Rumblings about a Bloomberg run are especially strong at several bulge bracket banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Merrill once...

I keep thinking we're done with George Pataki -- but like an order of bad clams, he keeps coming back up on me. The three-term Republican governor of a famously blue state seems like a serious 2016 presidential contender on paper -- until you read the fine print. Pataki had a promising start. He beat Democratic icon Mario Cuomo in 1994. He cut income taxes 25 percent and trimmed other taxes as well. In his first two years in office, spending went down 2.5 percent. If you had stopped the Pataki show there, he'd be the next Reagan. Similarly,...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Rev. Al Sharpton took aim at Cleveland's 2016 Republican National Convention in front of a packed house at Cleveland's Olivet Institutional Baptist Church on Friday night, speaking for nearly an hour. "Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and them think they are going to come in here and have four or five days of convention," Sharpton said. "We are going to have another convention outside."