Free Republic

The U.S. has already signaled that Iran's UN envoy pick is a no-go - and for VERY good reason. At the same time we are being entangled in these disputes; we do so and are to some degree continuing this because the UN is on U.S. grounds. The statement "get the U.S. out of the UN and the UN out of the U.S." has been oft-repeated...so here is a possible solution - with one caveat. The UN is moved to neutral territory (if at all possible), so we don't have to shell out a significant chunk for its operating expenses....

Our recent interview with Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel about his provocative prediction that most employers will abandon health coverage by 2025 struck a nerve with You’re The Boss readers. It came as no surprise that Dr. Emanuel’s claim, first made in his new book, “Reinventing American Health Care,” would be swept up in the broader political and ideological debate about the Affordable Care Act. But in their many comments, readers raised interesting questions, and we took some of them back to Dr. Emanuel in another conversation that appears, edited and condensed, below. It’s worth noting that among those readers who...

The state Health Department is failing to inspect many of New York’s abortion clinics — with some facilities escaping scrutiny for more than a decade, bombshell documents obtained by The Post reveal. Health inspectors regulate 25 diagnostic and treatment clinics and surgery centers that provide abortion services — though pro-choice advocates say there are 225 abortion service providers in New York state. Eight of the 25 clinics were never inspected over the 2000-12 span, five were inspected just once, and eight were inspected only twice or three times — meaning once every four or six years. A total of just...

The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division is very proud to announce the release of more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads. We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions.* To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. The maps can be viewed through the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections page, and downloaded (!), through the Map Warper. First, create an account, then click a map title and...

Wow. This was warped and offensive. New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman sited a debunked study to compare global warming deniers to Trotsky Marxists – then blames the Syrian revolution on global warming, not on Bashir Assad’s brutality. Let me put this in personal terms. Your son or daughter has a disease. And you go to 100 doctors. 97 out of a hundred say, “This is a cause and this is a cure,” and three percent say, “This is a cause and this is a cure.” It’s like 97% of experts say this. 3% say that. And, conservatives...

“New York Times” columnist Thomas Friedman took a nasty swipe at conservatives over the subject of climate change on Sunday April 6. Friedman appeared alongside Heidi Cullen of Climate Central on Sunday’s CBS This Morning and proceeded to mock conservatives who question human-caused climate change. Speaking to host Bob Schieffer, Friedman claimed that 97 percent of scientists believe in climate change and “conservatives are saying I’m going go to with the 3%. That’s not conservative, that’s Trotskyite radicalism.” [See video below.] (video at link) Friedman’s obnoxious comments came after Schieffer wondered, “In our politics now, everything breaks on these ideological...

The self-absorption of some on the left prevents them from even the most elementary shoe-on-the-other-foot perspective on the intolerance at Mozilla. Writing in a New York Times blog, Farhad Manjooo thinks it is fine to cater to the intolerance of those who see opposition to gay marriage as deserving loss of livelihood. This case is in his thinking different from, for example, the 1950s, when racism and sexism were rampant, and the Hollywood blacklisting of communists (long held up by the left as a national trauma that must never be forgotten).  Mozilla is not a normal company. It is an...

President Barack Obama is set to headline Al Sharpton's National Action Network (NAN) conference that is being held in New York April 9th through April 12th. The Sharpton conference ostensibly is to "honor" the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Organizers claim that the event is not just for honoring King but for "proactively engaging in dialogue that will spawn change." Al Sharpton founded NAN in 1991 when he was but a community agitator in New York, long before he became an MSNBC TV host. For his work with the organization, NAN paid Sharpton nearly $250,000 in 2011. But the...

New York City’s longest-serving congressman won’t pay his rent. State taxpayers were stiffed out of at least $87,000 when Rep. Charles Rangel stopped paying for the district office he rents in Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, records ­obtained by The Post show. His staffers’ excuse? They lost the lease, according to state Office of General Services correspondence. “I finally heard back from Congressman Rangel’s office and it seems we haven’t gotten the signed lease back because they lost it!” OGS real-estate specialist Sydney Allen wrote in a July 30, 2013, e-mail to a colleague that was ­obtained...

If President Obama means what he says about wanting an immigration system that reflects American values, helps the economy and taps the yearnings of millions of Americans-in-waiting, he is going to have to do something about it — soon and on his own. It has been frustrating to watch his yes-we-can promises on immigration reform fade to protestations of impotence and the blaming of others. All Mr. Obama has been saying lately is: No, in fact, we can’t, because Republicans and the law won’t let me. Mr. Obama is correct when he complains that long-term immigration repairs have been throttled...

NY Times: Mozilla CEO's 'Anti-Gay' Stance 'By Definition Disqualifying,' He Needed 'Rehabilitation' By Tim Graham Created 04/05/2014 - 6:59pm Our web guru Steve Edwards passed along a tweet from Moe Lane that said "New York Times confirms: Open Source advocacy is for liberals/progressives only. " Lane linked to an obnoxious blog post by Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times titled “Why Mozilla’s Chief Had to Resign.” You see, “Mozilla is not a normal company. It is an activist organization.” And activists apparently find it very distasteful to be less than “militantly tolerant,” as Manjoo put it: Is this an...

Here's some terrible news to end the week: After a customer at Dominique Ansel Bakery posted a YouTube video yesterday featuring a mouse scurrying across the floor, guess who showed up this morning? According to a rep for the bakery, the Department of Health arrived this morning with four inspectors and promptly shuttered the business. So, what are cronut-seekers to do? The rep says the bakery must now exterminate and re-cement the bakery's basement, then they have to await re-inspection. The goal is to be open by mid-day Monday but, as always, it's largely dependent on when the DOH will...

It took some effort, but I was able to find Sex on a shelf in a storage facility on Tuesday morning. Actually, I didn't find sex -- I found Sex, the 1992 literary and photographic masterpiece from Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. I wrote about the book when it was released, and then I filed it away with hundreds of books, files, notes, tapes, etc. I hope one day to donate all these research materials to the University of Phoenix, perhaps the finest education facility on all the Internet. You might recall that the book was hugely controversial when it was...

Back before the big gun blogs existed, back before President Obama was elected, the AP ran a news article that showed how much the culture has been conditioned to fear firearms: "I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms," said Scalia, noting that as a youth in New York City he was part of a rifle team at the military school he attended. "I used to travel on the subway from Queens to Manhattan with a rifle," he said. "Could you imagine doing that today in New York City?" I have heard...

Madonna has detailed how she was raped not long after she moved to New York City at the age of 19, in a revealing account of her life to date. In an article for Harper's Bazaar magazine, the singer said she was forced on to the roof of a building at knifepoint and attacked. The first-person account, which accompanied a fashion shoot, spans Madonna's life from growing up in the US midwest and moving away from home, to her marriages and children. "New York wasn't everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms. The...

<p>To avoid dangerous climate change and limit global warming to below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the level of preindustrial times – a target endorsed by the international community and the United States – global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 80 to 90 percent by the second half of this century. But even eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and transportation sectors may not be enough to reach that target because greenhouse gases from food and agriculture, mainly nitrous oxide from agricultural soils and methane from livestock, will be too large.</p>

<p>No, they weren’t happy to see him. And they couldn’t have made it any clearer or yelled it any louder.</p> <p>New York Mayor de Blasio was booed at Citi Field on Monday, even before he had a chance to throw out the first pitch.</p>

What a shock- a Russian-Ukrainian billionaire who made his initial fortune from dubious stock shares eminating from the breakup of the Soviet Union has been sending big, fat checks this year to establishment Republicans and Democrats who aren't too uppity re. foreign policy.Of course, most billionaire Russians who are part owners of huge Russian mining/energy companies over there are KGB/FSB and/or mafia-connected... just like Putin And London resident Leonard Blavatnik is a typical pro-Putin oligarch, getting rich off looting the Russian state then utilizing that ill-gotten fortune to spread Russian influence around the globe. In this case, Blavatnik made almost 20 BILLION from the Russian oil/mining industries...

Donning a pinstripe home white jersey and blue Mets cap over dress pants, de Blasio was loudly booed twice by Flushing faithful — once as he was announced and then again as he left the Citi Field diamond.... De Blasio wore No. 6 in honor of late-1960s Boston Red Sox great Rico Petrocelli, the mayor’s aides said. The infielder, who slugged 210 home runs in his 13-season career, grew up in Brooklyn. So the Boston-loving mayor managed to pay homage to his beloved Red Sox, his adopted home borough and to Italian Americans by donning that shirt. But that still...

Boston Red Sox diehard Bill de Blasio, as the new mayor of New York City, was all but required to throw the opening first-day pitch at Citi Field as the New York Mets take on the Washington Nationals. Tradition also dictates that he get booed heartily, which he did. The New York Times runs down the recent history: “Koch hated baseball, never stayed more than a few innings at most,” Mr. Roberts told us. “Dinkins, of course, liked tennis most.” “Giuliani was a die-hard Yankees fan.” (Yet he, too, threw out ceremonial pitches at Mets games.) “Bloomberg was pretty indifferent.”...