Free Republic

Today the Empire Center for New York State Policy reported New York state residents are leaving the state in large numbers. Between 2000 and 2008 there was a net loss of 1.5 million NY residents (8.1% of the 2000 population) moving out of NY State, the largest migration of any state. California came in second with a net loss of 1.3 million residents in the same time period. About 33% of the residents moved to Florida. An estimated 30% of the residents moved to NJ, PA and CT. According to the IRS the majority of the migration originated from the...

One of the penalties I pay for living on the North Shore is having underemployed investment bankers as neighbors. Smart enough guys, only a few years ago capable of buying large houses with cash, now left to rake leaves and shuttle kids around. A neighboring bond trader wandered over to our house earlier this week with a family carload for a noisy dinner (beef, noodles, and beer if you must know). I mentioned that he has been around home a lot assuming a lack of work in his trading area. Somewhat surprisingly I was wrong. A lack of pay has...

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver isn’t commenting on a Republican who said the orthodox Jewish lawmaker might be an anti-Christ. Erie County Executive Chris Collins, who’s considering a run for governor, says he made the “poor joke” at a Republican dinner in Buffalo. He soon after issued an apology to Silver, the powerful Democrat from Manhattan, and called him directly. Collins was reportedly joking about the astrologer Nostradamus’ prediction the world would be visited by three anti-Christs. Collins said many believe the first were Napoleon and Adolf Hitler, and he was pretty sure the third is Silver.

The Brooklyn-born rapper will sing his ode to the city, "Empire State of Mind," at the World Series kickoff game Wednesday night. Fellow New Yorker, Alicia Keys will join him at the new Yankee Stadium to sing the New York-centric hook, "These streets will make you feel brand new,/The lights will inspire you,/Let's hear it for New York." Jay-Z -- who raps on the same song "I made the Yankee hat more famous than the Yankees can" -- says the chance to perform during the World Series is "a once in a lifetime experience." "First of all, the new [Yankee]...

Washington - A poll released today by the Club for Growth shows Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman surging into the lead in the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district to replace John McHugh, the former congressman who recently became Secretary of the Army.

I do not live in New York’s 23rd congressional district, and I’ve never hiked the Adirondacks, which run through it. I’ve never met Doug Hoffman, who is running for Congress there, and hadn’t heard his name until fairly recently. But he’s my guy this November. Since I’m not a constituent, my support for a candidate is about integrity, as it is in a few other races I’m following closely. Doug Hoffman is the Conservative-party candidate running for the seat vacated by John McHugh, a Republican who’s now secretary of the Army in the Obama administration. Hoffman, a CPA and newbie...

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has joined leading national Republican figures in rejecting the party's nomination for this year's congressional election in a northern New York state in favour of a fiercely conservative third-party candidate. Republican voters nominated Dede Scozzafava, a moderate, pro-choice candidate who backs same-sex marriage, to stand for the seat. But Palin and other high-profile Republicans are backing a businessman, Doug Hoffman, running on the ticket of the Conservative party, leading many to question whether the party's leaders have lost touch with rank-and-file voters. Scozzafava's positions on social issues and support for some Democratic causes have won...

The New York Times: The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said. VIDEO AT LINK

Sarah Palin's endorsement of Conservative, Doug Hoffman, in the upstate New York Senate Race over Republican Dede Scozzafava who is backed by Newt Gingrich, is a clear example of the present problem facing the Republican Party. Scozzafava is a Republican in name only. She votes like a liberal, stands for big government, abortion rights, and even supports laws to make it easier for unions to organize private business. So why would Newt Gingrich support her? According to Newt, if you want to take back Congress from the Democrats, then you need to accept Republican candidates who may not fully conform...

She went out with a bang, and it's left her Bronx family fuming. Glatha Byrd's final send-off was "apocalyptic" -- as the hearse carrying her body exploded and caught fire on the Major Deegan Expressway, says family lawyer James Franzetti. The family has filed suit in Bronx Supreme Court over the May 13, 2008, incident, accusing the Griffin Peters Funeral Home of causing some of Byrd's relatives "severe and serious" injuries. Valerie Davis, wife of the Harlem funeral home's owner, Keith Davis, called the suit "ridiculous." She said she had heard the relatives, who are also related to her...

Leaders of the Tea Party Express have announced their endorsement of Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 Special Election for Congress. In addition, the chief sponsor of the Tea Party Express, the Our Country Deserves Better political action committee, has announced it will be making a financial contribution to Hoffman's campaign. "The Republican candidate in this race is emblematic of all that's wrong in Washington right now. The Democrat candidate is even worse. In contrast, Doug Hoffman has been a stalwart advocate for the conservative values of lower taxes, limited government and less government spending. We enthusiastically endorse him,"...

Ed Morrissey, of Hotair.com, has just reported Doug Hoffman’s campaign is having a huge influx of donations all within hours of Gov Palin's Facebook posting. Governor Palin made the post at 8:35 pm and in less then 10 hours his campaign contributions have nearly doubled. Funny how the left keeps screaming she is irrelevant. Just how effective has Sarah Palin’s intervention in the NY23 special election been? Douglas Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate that got Palin’s endorsement, raised $116,000 in a single day, according to a source within the campaign. The source told me to refer back to Chris Cillizza’s...

MIDI - NEW YORK NEW YORK Start spreading the news...Doug Hoffman can win Conservatives, this is the place where we begin You RINOs begone...we've had quite enough We want some real conservatives with the right stuff Doug Hoffman knows we have been on a big spending spree It must stop now or we're through, you're gonna see So give Doug support as Sarah has done The move to take the country back has just begun Yes, we can win it there...we can win anywhere Doug Hoffman for upstate New York

We are thrilled to welcome back to NC@FR Will Breazeale (yes, think Zeal!) Republican candidate for the House from the great state of North Carolina, Doug Hoffman Conservative Party candidate from NY for the House and Peg Luksik Conservative Republican candidate for the nomination for Senate from PA.

NY finally gets the picture that the idea of shoving a vaccine on nurses and doctors is a violation of their liberties! First two body paragraphs: ALBANY, N.Y. New York state health officials have suspended a ruling that would have forced health care workers across the state to get vaccinated against the swine flu by the end of November or risk losing their jobs, saying in a decision issued Thursday that they did so because the vaccine is in short supply. New York will be getting only about 23 percent of its anticipated supply of the vaccine for the swine...

ACORN’s New York operations are looking forward to a potential new flow of federal dollars, thanks to the New York State Senate and New York Governor Paterson. Together they applied the Van Jones’ Apollo doctrine to tap into federal stimulus money allocated to New York. Governor Paterson recently signed into law something called the “Green Jobs – Green New York Act of 2009″. The new law provides for the creation of a massive slush fund of federal stimulus dollars to be set aside for “green jobs”. Those green jobs include but will not be limited to “Energy Auditors”, certified green...

Hundreds of people have been arrested in Texas and around the country what officials say is the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel in the U.S WASHINGTON (October 22, 2009)—U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls the arrests of more than 300 people in a series of drug raids in Texas and across the country the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating here. Holder said at a news conference Thursday that the arrests over the past two days were aimed at the U.S. operations of the La Familia cartel. Click here to find out more! Holder...

In July liberal Republican DeDe Scozzafava was tapped by the 11 Republican county chairmen of New York's 23rd Congressional District to run for the seat being vacated by John McHugh, who resigned to take Obama's offer to become Secretary of the Army. The NY GOP made a huge mistake with this smoke-filled-room choice. Scozzafava has made a hash of this campaign and should withdraw her candidacy immediately and allow Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to take her place. Her lousy campaign aside, the prime reason we want to Dump Dede is because she doesn't seem to be much of a...

Once upon a time, ‘Republican’ Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was the front-runner in the special election to replace actual Republican Rep. John McHugh. That was then, the video below is now:

Senator Monserrate, the Democratic State Senator in New York who was convicted of dragging his girlfriend through her apartment last week, but did not receive a conviction on intentionally stabbing her (when he did), has received a backlash from the public, as they want him out of office. Well there is a movement amongst fellow New York State Senators to rightly expel Monserrate from the Senate, and I have at least one confirmed Republican Senator who supports expulsion.

[poll of NY-23 candidates]

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _______________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 20, 2009 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE STAFF MEMBERS Joint Terrorism Task Force Headquarters New York, New York 4:24 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you so much. It is great to be here today and I am honored to spend some time with the men and women who are working so hard, around the clock, to keep not only this city but also this country...

Note: Photo and video included. SNIPPET: "Ahmad Wais Afzali, 53, is charged with tipping off Najibullah Zazi that New York City police detectives were after him. Afzali is also accused of lying about it to federal agents. The Imam remains free on bail." His lawyer says the indictment is "merely a tired rehash of the same discredited allegations."

SNIPPET: “DENVER — A Colorado man whose son is accused of plotting a terror attack in New York City is scheduled to go to trial in December on a charge of lying to investigators. A federal judge on Tuesday scheduled a 10-day trial for Mohammed Wali Zazi starting Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in Denver.”

The supposed Republican candidate for Congress in New York's 23rd congressional district, Assemblywoman "Dede" Scozzafava, is in the midst of a campaign spiraling out of control. Her campaign is just as liberal as the Democrat's campaign, she had a spy asking Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman questions the other week, disguised as a reporter, she is a sinking ship who is dragging down Republican hopes to keep the district in their hands, and she is even calling the police on Conservative bloggers.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.) is the head of the House Conservatives Fund (HCF), a non-connected federal PAC supported by more than 100 fiscally and socially conservative members of Congress. Here’s how the group describes its mission: Our mission is two-fold: 1. To regain the Republican majority in Congress. 2. To assure that principled conservatives are elected (and re-elected). When evaluating candidates, the House Conservatives Fund considers economic and social issues. We are focused on finding candidates who support fiscal responsibility, lower and simpler taxes, fewer obstacles to job creation, a smaller and more efficient federal government, a strong national...

Exclusive: DumpDede.com Posted By Dana Loesch On October 19, 2009 @ 4:57 pm In ACORN, Big Labor, Congress, Politics | 32 Comments The GOP candidate is the most liberal in the race. As Big Government readers know, there is a philosophical battle brewing in upstate New York. A special election to replace departing Congressman John McHugh features a GOP candidate, Dede Scozzafave, backed by national GOP ‘leaders’, DailyKos and the state teachers’ union, a Democrat, Bill Owens and a Conservative Party Candidate, Doug Hoffman.National GOP figures claim Dede Scozzafava is the best candidate hold the seat for the GOP. If that is...

Officials haven't seen sea cow since FridayThe South Florida manatee who made news for his 1,200 mile trip from the Keys to NYC is missing in the waters off New Jersey, and officials are worried he may be in trouble. Ilya the manatee was spotted in New York harbor late last week after a month-long trip that began in Key West with stops in Maryland and Massachusetts. Ilya, who was first tagged by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 10 years ago, had found a warm place to stay near a refinery in Linden, N.J., and officials were hoping he'd...

Morton Sloan feels besieged. Over the last several years, the Bronx-based entrepreneur has watched the property taxes on the ten Morton Williams supermarkets he runs in the city swell by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Increasingly aggressive city inspectors now linger in those stores for hours, writing costly citations for items that clerks accidentally mislabel. Some of Sloan’s suppliers say they’ll no longer deliver to New York City because of the Department of Transportation’s frequent parking-ticket blitzes. It gets worse: a new Bloomberg-administration program that encourages fruit and vegetable vendors to set up on street corners has left him scrambling...

On the one hand, the Democrats are trying their best to suffer a devastating blow at the ballot box come November of 2010. After all, the deficits are at obscene levels. Unemployment will be at 10% and go higher. They can't figure out health care, climate change, and they are desperate to lose in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Republicans are trying just as hard not to take this opening and run with it. When a Congressional race becomes the flashpoint for a political civil war within the party, you know there are problems.

WASHINGTON -- The stimulus isn't doing a thing to help the unemployment rate in the New York metro area, according to shocking new White House data released yesterday. The feds have spent a half-billion dollars on 10 of the largest government stimulus contracts in New York City and Long Island -- but created or retained only 54 jobs. That's an astounding $9 million per job. The largest contract, at Brookhaven labs on Long Island for $261 million, has put only 26 people on the payroll, while two contracts for $23 million apiece to rehab the Thurgood Marshall Courthouse in Manhattan...

NEW YORK – A mortgage fraud crackdown announced Thursday resulted in the arrests of dozens of people, including six lawyers, seven loan officers and three mortgage brokers in four states. Thirty-one people were arrested in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina. They were among 41 people charged with engaging in mortgage fraud scams that defrauded lenders out of more than $64 million in home mortgage loans. Of the 10 other defendants, one was expected to surrender later Thursday, four were previously charged and five remained at large. Authorities gathering for an afternoon news conference in Manhattan said the crackdown,...

As Wall Street shrinks, public-sector unions have become the dominant force in New York politics. New Yorkers take pride in their city's ability to reinvent itself, as witnessed most recently in the bubble-aided recovery from the 9/11 attacks. "While any city may have one period of magnificence," journalist A.J. Libeling wrote of New York in 1938, "it takes a real one to keep renewing itself until the past is perennially forgotten." But as next month's mayoral election approaches, the city faces an economic downturn and a political reordering that augur badly for the future. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a two-term incumbent...

It has been almost two Months since the vicious attack on Brian Milligan, and still no arrests have been made. If He were black and the perpetrators were white, it's my guess that the FBI would be involved to find the perpetrators of the hate Crime.Am I the only one who thinks that Obama should tell his FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate the crime? After all, we are reminded often how it was the federal government and the FBI who had to go into the South and investigate crimes against the black community by the KKK because the...

Anthony Lawrence and Shamel King are charged with dealing drugs - but the city doled out $157,500 to them in legal settlements. Mayor Bloomberg Sunday defended city bureaucrats who handed out half a million bucks to members of a violent Brooklyn drug gang who sued the Police Department. "The city gets sued 200 times a week," Bloomberg told the Daily News. "We take as many cases to trial as we possibly can, but we would [go] bankrupt if we tried to defend every one of them." The mayor was reacting to a front-page News exclusive that exposed a city practice...

The following news brief is a quote: Syracuse, NY -- Syracuse fire investigators have not yet determined the cause of an explosion Thursday at the Ihsan School of Excellence, a private Islamic school on West Onondaga Street. More meetings with investigators are planned before a determination is made, Lt. Joe Galloway, a Syracuse fire investigator, said today. A cause for the explosion in the school's basement will possibly be released on Monday, Galloway said.

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava is not your typical Republican candidate. Running in a special election in upstate New York for the seat of departing Congressman John McHugh, she has, naturally, picked up the support of state and national Republican party officials. She has secured the full support of the National Republican Congressional Committee and that of its chairman, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions. But, she has also picked up the support of the DailyKos, not a traditionally deep well of support for Republicans. Oh, and ACORN’s Working Families Party. Below is a memo Big Government obtained circulating among leaders of the conservative...

The NYPD is amassing a database of cell phone users, instructing cops to log serial numbers from suspects' phones in hopes of connecting them to past or future crimes. In the era of disposable, anonymous cell phones, the file could be a treasure-trove for detectives investigating drug rings and other criminal enterprises, police sources say. "It's used to help build cases," one source said of the new initiative. "It doesn't replace the human element, like debriefing prisoners, but it's another tool to use that we didn't have in the past." A recent internal memo says that when cops make an...

New York - On the heels of breaking up an alleged bomb terror plot, New York is planning to place high-tech security cameras, license plate readers, and "weapons sensors" in midtown Manhattan. Office workers and tourists – and possible terrorists – will have cameras watching their every move as they visit Macy's, shop for diamonds at Tiffany & Co., or gawk in Times Square. The apparatus, paid for by some $24 million in Department of Homeland Security funding, will expand a similar effort already underway in lower Manhattan where cameras focus on the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange,...

WASHINGTON — The House Ethics Committee announced on Thursday that it had expanded its investigation into a series of questionable financial dealings made by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York. The move comes a day after House Democrats defeated a Republican attempt to force the removal of Mr. Rangel, a Democrat, from the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee pending the outcome of the investigation. The move seemed intended to show that the ethics committee was conducting a serious and wide-ranging investigation, listing the number of witnesses the committee had interviewed (34) and the number of...

The state's [Louisiana's] Department of Vital Statistics cannot be forced to provide a birth certificate listing two men as the parents of of a Louisiana-born boy adopted by a gay couple in New York, a lawyer with the state's attorney general argued Wednesday morning to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kyle Duncan, head of the attorney general's appellate division, argued before a three-judge panel that because Louisiana law does not allow an unmarried couple to jointly adopt a child, the state registrar cannot be forced to recognize an out-of-state adoption of that sort in a new birth certificate....

Two Arrested at New York City Demonstration Marking 8th Anniversary of Afghan War By Alex Kane Two members of the New York City War Resisters League (WRL) were arrested this evening as part of an anti-Afghanistan War demonstration in Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan. 64-year-old Ed Hedemann and Eric Laursen were taken away in handcuffs by the New York Police Department during a protest marking the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan.Hedemann was arrested and then picked up and brought downstairs by four officers after attempting to drop an anti-war banner in Grand Central, while Laursen was apprehended for...

Hard to go wrong ripping New York in Virginia.

Gov. David A. Paterson took a step on Tuesday toward plugging an expected $3 billion budget deficit and ordered state agencies to cut $500 million from their expenses. The move will represent a decrease of approximately 11 percent in the agencies’ nonlabor costs like travel, vehicles, equipment and postage, the governor’s office said. The new cuts come on top of $1 billion in spending reductions the governor ordered for the last budget cycle. Taken together, the two rounds of cuts will result in combined, recurring savings of $1.5 billion, the governor’s office said. The action by the governor’s office probably...

Note: Video included. SNIPPET: "UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Twelve local people are under federal indictment for allegedly defrauding the government out of more than $2 million in a food stamp scheme." SNIPPET: "The following, all of Utica, have been indicted: *Muteea Alfahdd, 41 *Najeeb Abdullah, 44 *Hamoud Yafal, 60 *Ali Hamoud Yafal, 21 *Yaser Saet, 27 *Bakri Ali Samet, 33 *Setha Samnang, 42 *Rina Samnang, 36 The following four have been indicted, but are still being sought by police. *Nageeb Alghaheim, 24 *Mohamed Alshuja, 30 *Hassan Mohamed Nagi Alshegaa, 23 *Ali Mulhi Abdullah, 36"

On Page 118 of Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, he tells of his arrival in New York to attend Columbia University and of the events that took place during that summer...the summer of 1981. But wait a minute. How can this be? Although Obama fails to mention it in either of his memoirs...not in Dreams from My Father and not in The Audacity of Hope...he traveled to Indonesia and Pakistan during the summer of 1981.

New York State is quickly becoming the next California, as tax revenues drop 36% from 2008 levels, and a dejected governor expressing his frustration with policy measures that continue to not bear fruit. As a reminder the state most reliant on the financial sector, is struggling with a $2.1 billion budget deficit that is still looming despite tax increases, federal aid and spending cuts. New York State’s income tax revenue has dropped 36 percent from the same period in 2008, Governor David Paterson said, “frustrating” his attempt to close a projected $2.1 billion budget deficit. “We added personal income tax,...

New York (CBS) -- The first doses of the H1N1 vaccine are expected to be released this week. While that is bringing relief to some Americans, it's also helping to ignite a controversy for one group, as CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports. Outside New York 's capitol building, health care workers - shouting "Give me liberty!" - vowed to fight an unprecedented order from state health officials: a requirement for every health care worker to get seasonal and H1N1 flu shots or face the possibility of being fired.

Every now and then, you stumble upon a town that's gotten everything right—great coffee, food with character, shop owners with purpose. These 10 spots have it all, in perfectly small doses.

Saying They Should Be Given A Choice, Employees Rally In Albany, Around State, Chant "No Forced Shots!" Protesters Hold Signs That Read: "The State Doesn't Own My Body'" They're upset over an ultimatum from the health department. Workers are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs. New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be available beginning next week. Much of it is reserved for state health care workers, but there is growing opposition to required...