Free Republic

I haven't seen official snowfall totals yet, but judging from a glance out the window, it looks as if New York City might have gotten about 6 inches Monday night. Meanwhile, the entire city is shut down. Schools, government, public transportation, private transportation, and — by virtue of the lack of transportation — most offices and businesses. It's just absurd. I've lived in New York for almost my whole life — 48 years and counting. I have seen the city weather many actually large snowstorms, including a 26-incher just a few years go. The city stayed open through all of...

The New York Times launched some weapons grade stupidity on Sunday with an article by Rod Nordland and Eric Schmitt citing “experts” claiming that the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in Yemen that have swept though critical parts of the country, including the capital Sanaa, are not just moderates, but possible U.S. counter-terrorism partners.Because of the ongoing Houthi offensive, Yemen’s Information Minister admitted last week that the government had lost effective control of the country. JUST IN: Yemeni Info Minister @NadiaSakkaf tells me government control in Yemen is "almost non-existent". Intv airs 8pm CET // 2pm ET— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) January...

A man protesting Fox News shot himself in the chest and was critically injured Monday outside of the News Corp. building in midtown, authorities and sources said. The man, who was not identified, was found just before 9 a.m. sitting slumped outside of the building on Sixth Avenue and West 47th Street, cops and witnesses said. Police at the scene said that the man apparently shot himself with a small-caliber pistol, which was found on the ground next to him. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition, cops said. Prior to the shooting, the man was heard protesting...

Sheldon Silver will become a virtual figure head on Monday, as he cedes iron control over legislative matters to five Democrats. Despite corruption charges, arrest, and arraignment, Silver is scheduled to vote on handing out nearly $95 million tax dollars in state grants and loans — despite allegations he funneled taxpayer money to a Columbia U cancer doctor as part of a long-running kickback scheme. Silver is one of three voting members of the Public Authorities Control Board---the upcoming Board's agenda includes a residential real-estate project in Silver's district. The 168-unit apartment building got $78.5 million worth of public financing...

New York Times op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow says he’s “fuming” after his son was allegedly stopped by a Yale University police officer at gunpoint Saturday night because he apparently fit the description of a possible burglary suspect. “So, my son, a 3rd year chem major at Yale was just accosted — at GUN POINT — by a Yale policeman bc he ‘fit the description’ of a suspect,’” Blow tweeted on Saturday. “He was let go when they realized he was a college student and not a criminal.”

Get angry, New York. ...“We simply want people in high office to stop violating the law. People elected to make laws should not be breaking them.” ...“Money often seems to be at the core of the problem.” ...“We had a case against City Councilman Dan Halloran, which you may remember,” Bharara said, referring to the Queens Republican convicted last July in a $200,000 bribery scheme. “After allegedly receiving a $7,500 cash bribe, he says to the cooperating witness on tape, ‘Money is what greases the wheels. Good, bad or indifferent. That’s politics. That’s politics. It’s all about how much, and...

Your show  is at the bottom of a cable network with lousy ratings. So what to do? Take the show that few watch out of the studio, put it on the road, and cross your fingers hoping that the format change will miraculously improve the ratings. That is what is happening with the failed Ronan Farrow Daily (Dully) show on MSNBC. A show with such horrible ratings that TVNewser announced it was watched one Monday last December by only 13,000 people in the 25 to 54 demo during its time slot or less than a sixth of a typical football...

According to the most recent information available, Steve Rattner's net worth is at least $188 million. So perhaps it's not surprising that the hedge fund partner and former Obama car czar, who flies his own private jet, doesn't deem $100G+ per year to be a "full-time" salary. On today's Morning Joe, commenting on the arrest of Dem NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on bribery charges, Rattner claimed that "they don't pay these guys full-time salaries. They pay them, I think, $112,000 a year." In fact, as Speaker, Silver was pulling down $121,000. The median annual income in the US during...

De Blasio: Sheldon Silver is a ‘man of integrity’ By Michael Gartland Mayor de Blasio said Thursday that he knows Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to be a “man of integrity” and rejected calls for him to step down from his leadership post while facing corruption charges. “Although the charges announced today certainly are very serious I want to note that I’ve always known Shelly Silver to be a man of integrity and he certainly has due process rights and I think it’s important that we let the judicial process play out,” the mayor said at City Hall.

The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on federal corruption charges on Thursday and accused of using the power of his office for more than a decade to secure millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks and then covering up his schemes, according to court documents. Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, is accused of a range of corrupt dealings that capitalized on his official position. They include using his position to obtain corrupt payments misrepresented as referral fees from...

For those who can’t get enough of Bill and Hillary Clinton – or want to see them lampooned in the tawdriest way possible – the stage satire “Clinton the Musical” is getting an open-ended commercial run at Off Broadway’s New World Stages complex, the producers announced on Tuesday. The show, which had a brief outing last summer in the New York Musical Theater Festival, focuses mostly on scandals in the Clinton administration (Monica Lewinsky features prominently) and splits the president into two characters – the diligent WJ and the roguish Billy – while portraying Mrs. Clinton’s character as politically ambitious....

Gov. Cuomo is assuming a key role in resolving cases where unarmed civilians are killed by police, announcing Wednesday that he will name an “independent monitor” to review grand-jury decisions when cops are not indicted.

Federal authorities are expected to arrest Sheldon Silver, the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, on corruption charges on Thursday, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a case that is likely to throw Albany into disarray. The investigation that led to the expected charges against Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, began after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in March abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he had created in 2013. Details of the specific charges to be brought against Mr. Silver...

I will apologize in advance to our readers if this looks like coverage of a “local story” but it actually may be a harbinger for the kind of state and local level change which is required for real progress in America. The New York Times is reporting that today an arrest will be made in Albany, the state’s capital. The suspect is question is none other than the Speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver. Federal authorities are expected to arrest Sheldon Silver, the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, on corruption charges on Thursday, people with...

Feds subpoenaed Manhattan Democrat Silver's records in a probe of undocumented payments he received from a law firm. He is reportedly to be charged via an investigation sparked when Gov. Cuomo abruptly shut down his 2013 anticorruption commission.....Silver's arrest was related to money he received from a small real-estate tax law firm that Silver failed to list on his official financial-disclosure form. The FBI and Manhattan US Atty's office are looking into exactly what Silver did to earn the money. Silver is a personal-injury lawyer associated with the high-profile law firm Weitz and Luxenberg. Goldberg & Iryami, w/ only two...

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was taken into custody Thursday in Manhattan on corruption charges, The Daily News has learned. The impending arrest of Silver, who has been one of the most powerful men in Albany for more than two decades, was first reported overnight by The New York Times. While it’s unclear exactly what charges Silver could be facing, The Times reported the rap is linked to payments the powerful Manhattan Democrat received from New York City lawfrim Goldberg & Iryami that he did not disclose publicly, as required by law.

I’ve never been a fan of global conferences to solve problems, but when I read that the Obama administration is organizing a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism for Feb. 18, in response to the Paris killings, I had a visceral reaction: Is there a box on my tax returns that I can check so my tax dollars won’t go to pay for this? When you don’t call things by their real name, you always get in trouble. And this administration, so fearful of being accused of Islamophobia, is refusing to make any link to radical Islam from the recent explosions...

Progressive New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall wrote on Tuesday that Democrats' embrace of Obamacare's redistribution scheme has angered and alienated working-class and middle-class Americans. "Even though midterm elections favor Republicans, the 2014 results show middle and working-class dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party rising to dangerous levels, which threatens the party's growing demographic advantages," wrote Edsall. As Breitbart News reported last Wednesday, the latest Gallup poll finds that President Barack Obama's approval rating with working-class white voters has hit an all-time low 27%. Moreover, the Gallup poll's findings were taken from opinion data collected prior to racially-charged riots in...

As many Democrats attack companies that take advantage of corporate tax inversions, former President Bill Clinton expressed sympathy for them. “Like it or not, this inversion, this is their money,” Mr. Clinton said in an interview during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. When asked whether inversions — the practice of American companies acquiring a small overseas rival and reincorporating abroad to lower their tax bills — are unpatriotic, as many critics say, Mr. Clinton said that publicly traded companies, in particular, “feel duty bound to pay the lowest taxes they can pay.” “I should make full disclosure here,”...

When it comes to mocking president Obama, there is no easier or more effective way than focusing on his vacation/golfing schedule. The conservative Washington Examiner did just that last week, before the latest Malaysian Airlines disaster, when it reported that "It's going to be hot tubs, basketball, tennis and golf for the first family this summer, having set plans for a 16-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., on a $12 million, 10-acre forested estate on the southwestern corner of the island. Reports from the Bay State indicate that President Obama and his family will vacation August 9-24 at the 8,100-square...